The City When It Rains

  “She graduated from Columbia in 1988,” Corman told him. “She was an English major. Her father is Samuel Rosen, and she evidently had an abor—”

  Julian’s eyes brightened. “Did you say Samuel Rosen? Dr. Samuel Rosen? The scholar?”

  “Yes.”

  Julian nodded thoughtfully. “Good. Very good. What happened? I mean, she certainly strayed a bit far from the old professor’s nest, didn’t she?”

  “Yes, she did.”

  “Any idea why?”

  Corman shook his head. “Not yet, but I …”

  “Maybe he laid the academic pressure on a little thick,” Julian suggested. He smiled excitedly. “That could be it, Corman, some kind of ‘Rappaccini’s Daughter’ scenario on the Upper East Side.” He seemed hardly able to keep from licking his lips. “Gothic. Very Gothic.”

  “Maybe,” Corman said. “I don’t know.”

  Julian looked slightly irritated. “Well, that’s what we have to find out, David.” He sounded as if he were talking to a small child, explaining the facts of life for the tenth time. “A story to go with the pictures.”

  Corman reached for an answer, something that would satisfy him briefly. “I talked to Willie Scarelli,” he said.

  “Good,” Julian said brightly, as if pleased that Corman was finally getting a handle on how things were really done. “Is he willing to work on the text?”

  “He’s thinking about it.”

  “He’s a good choice for this sort of thing,” Julian said. “He’s got a good, steady track record. Nothing made of gold, but steady. With a man like that, lightning could strike at any time.”

  Corman nodded.

  “The only thing,” Julian said. “It might complicate things financially.”

  Corman looked at him quizzically.

  “Well, now we’ve got two people involved,” Julian explained. “Maybe three.”

  “Three?”

  “Scarelli’s agent,” Julian said. “I’m sure he has one. Which means there’ll either be more money expected of us, or the three of you will have to split whatever we offer.” He smiled. “Agents these days take about fifteen percent.” He looked at Corman knowingly. “I don’t suppose you’d thought of that.”

  “Not really.”

  Julian returned the pictures to the envelope. “Well, that’s the sort of thing we’ll deal with when the time comes.” He handed the pictures back to Corman.

  “You don’t want to keep them?” Corman asked.

  Julian shook his head. “No, not now. I know enough to start the wheels turning.”

  Corman tucked the envelope into his camera bag, then drew the bag over his shoulder.

  “The Rosen connection,” Julian said. “That’s the real ore in this book. Check that out carefully.” His eyes squeezed together intently. “I have a feeling that if you got deep enough into that house-hold, you might really hit the jackpot.” He gathered up a stack of papers and thrust them under his arm. “That’s the real task, to get deep.”

  Corman looked at him, baffled. “How do I do that?”

  Julian stood up quickly and glanced at his watch. “Sorry to rush you, David, but I have a meeting.”

  “How do I do that?” Corman repeated.

  “Ask Scarelli,” Julian said hastily as he darted out the door. “He knows the game very well.”

  Scarelli rolled the coffee cup between his two open hands. “So he said to ask me, huh?”

  Corman nodded. “That’s right.”

  “And I could tell you how to get deep, that’s what he said?”

  “Yes.”

  “Get deep,” Scarelli said with a short laugh. “What bullshit.” He sat back and smiled knowingly. “He wants the smut, that’s what, the ground-in dirt. He’s changed the angle on you, Corman.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “He’s not after the girl anymore,” Scarelli said. “It’s the old man he wants turning on the spit. That’s where he smells the blood. Don’t you get it?”

  “Not exactly.”

  Scarelli stuck the cigar back into his mouth and chewed the tip, sending a swirl of gray ash over the table. “It’s an exposé, a hatchet job, on the old prof. Take it from me, that’s what your buddy has in mind, a freak-piece on the old man, Frankenstein with an Ivy League literary angle.”

  “So he’s not interested in Sarah?”

  “Maybe at first he was,” Scarelli said. “But not anymore.” He leaned forward, staring at Corman pointedly. “The woman’s just the bait now. It’s the old man they want to see dangling from the line. They need a villain for the piece. Some poor bastard they can wag their goddamn fingers at, say, ‘Hey, you. Fuckhead. You did it!’” He shrugged. “I’ve seen it a thousand times.” He laughed. “I’ve even pulled it off for them, you know, for a day’s wage.” He blew a column of smoke across the table. “Speaking of which, has money been brought up in all these heartfelt communications?”

  “You mean, how much?”

  “Well, I’m not talking about the denomination of the bills, Corman. Are we talking some little shit sum here? Fifty thousand, some little pissy thing like that?”

  To Corman it sounded like a fortune. “I have no idea,” he said.

  Scarelli sat back and stared at him. “That’s because you’re an amateur, Corman. But me, I’m a pro. Deadline Scarelli, just like they call me.” He balanced the tiparillo carefully on the glass edge of the ashtray. “Money talks, bullshit walks.”

  “Does that mean you’re walking?” Corman asked.

  “No, it means you are,” Scarelli said. “Because the way this is shaping up, I think I’ll pass, let you go it alone.” He shrugged. “You got nothing on the old man, precious little on the woman. it doesn’t add up to much, and that’s a problem. Especially when you start talking money.” His eyes drifted up. “Which, I take it, you don’t care much about.”

  “I care about it.”

  “But not enough,” Scarelli said. He smiled and rolled one shoulder. “Fucking rain, gives me an ache.” He massaged the side of his arm. “No offense, Corman. but I’ve saved myself a lot of time and money by being a good judge of character, and when I look at you, I see the type of guy that ought to have a board hanging over his chest, saying ‘No sale.’” He smiled. “Not ‘Loser.’ Not that. Just ‘No Sale.’”

  “That doesn’t sound so bad,” Corman told him.

  Scarelli laughed. “See what I mean?” he said as he stood up and headed for the door.

  For a while Corman remained at the table studying the well-heeled habitués of the Inside Track as he calculated his next move. With Scarelli out, it was up to him now. If there was a mystery, he alone would have to find it.

  Dr. Owen looked at him from behind his desk. “You’re a reporter, my secretary said.”

  “Photographer,” Corman told him.

  “But for one of the newspapers, is that right?”

  “Yes,” Corman said. “I’m working on a story.”

  “About obstetricians?” Owen said with a wry smile.

  Corman shook his head. “Sarah Rosen.”

  The name registered instantly in Owen’s mind. “I see.”

  “You remember her?”

  Owen nodded. “A bit, yes. She was my patient for a time.”

  “During her pregnancy.”

  “Brief as it was, yes,” Owen said. “She was about two months pregnant when I first saw her.”

  “And you did an abortion not long after that?”

  “Yes,” Owen said with sudden hesitation. “That was a long time ago.” He looked at Corman curiously. “There were no complications that I knew of. Why are you interested in Sarah?”

  “She killed herself last week.”

  “She was a friend of yours?”

  “I never knew her,” Corman said. “I’m just trying to find out a few things.”

  “Like the details of her abortion?”

  “That, and how you felt about her. What you saw. Anything.”

/>   “There’s such a thing as doctor-patient confidentiality,” Owen said.

  “I know,” Corman told him. “But I thought you might just answer a few questions. Sarah’s not alive anymore.”

  Owen watched him cautiously. “I can only tell you this much. The abortion itself was therapeutic.” He stopped. “Well, maybe one other thing. I didn’t recommend it.”

  “You didn’t?”

  “No. I didn’t think it was necessary. The risk was not great in her case.”

  “What kind of risk?”

  “I thought you only wanted a few details.”

  “Just what the problem was,” Corman said quietly. “I’d like to know that.”

  “She had a very slight heart problem,” Owen said offhandedly. “Nothing terribly serious at all. Millions of women have them and experience no difficulty in giving birth.” He shrugged slightly. “Still, it was my duty to make her aware of it. I didn’t advise the abortion, but Dr. Rosen insisted.”

  “Dr. Rosen?” Corman asked. “How about Sarah?”

  “She agreed to it,” Owen said. He thought a moment. “If we can talk, as they say, ‘off the record’?”

  “Okay.”

  “Well, the whole situation struck me as rather strange,” Owen said. “I called Sarah and asked her to drop by the office. I told her that there was something I wanted to talk to her about. I expected her to show up as most women do, either alone, or with the male party, husband, lover, whatever. But Sarah brought her father with her instead.”

  “Had you ever met him?”

  “No,” Owen said. “But he later said that he’d done some checking before directing Sarah to me. I don’t know what kind of checking that was. A few phone calls to the AMA, perhaps, something like that.”

  “So he selected you for Sarah?”

  “That’s what he told me, yes.”

  “What happened at the meeting?”

  “Well, I tried to tell them about the heart problem as casually as I could. It wasn’t something she needed to be alarmed about, really. Just notified, that’s all.”

  “But she was concerned anyway?”

  “Her father more than she. He was quite adamant. He didn’t want her to take the risk of having the baby, no matter how slight that risk might be.”

  “How did she react?”

  “She was very quiet. She seemed to have very little will of her own, if you know what I mean.”

  “He dominated her?”

  “I would say so, yes.”

  “And he wanted the abortion?”

  “Absolutely,” Owen said firmly. “There was never any question in his mind that that was the appropriate thing to do. Even though I told him several times that the birth would probably go just fine.”

  “What did he say?”

  “He was very sharp at that point,” Owen replied. “Even haughty. ‘Probably?’ he said in this very stiff way he has, ‘I don’t care for probablies, Doctor.’” He lifted his shoulders helplessly. “And that was the end of it. I scheduled the abortion for the following week, and when it was over, Sarah and Dr. Rosen walked out of my office. I never saw them again.”

  “She never came for a follow-up appointment?”

  “No,” Owen said. “I had my secretary call her several times. We left messages on her machine, but she never called back.” He stopped, and looked at Corman curiously. “You say she killed herself?”

  Corman nodded. “She jumped out a tenement window down in Hell’s Kitchen.”

  Owen did not look surprised. “Well,” he said dryly, “something in her was dead already.”

  Corman left Owen’s office a few minutes later, glanced at his watch and realized that it would soon be time to pick Lucy up at PS 51. He tried not to think of her, the school, Lexie’s righteous cause, and so let his mind drift toward less threatening worlds. For a time, he thought of Lazar, but found that his mind continually returned to Lucy, circled awhile, then went on past her, finally settling on Sarah Rosen, her body sprawled across the wet street, as if in some indecipherable way everything now came back to her, fell precipitously toward her body like the rain.

  CHAPTER

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  CORMAN WAS STANDING at the door, watching Lucy take off her raincoat, when the phone rang. It was Pike.

  “Hey, Corman,” he said. “I got a call from that little fag who writes the society column. What’d you do, buddy, blow his joint?”

  Corman didn’t answer.

  “Anyway,” Pike went on. “He likes your work. Says you’d be great for his beat when Groton leaves.”

  “I did my best,” Corman said.

  “Well, this call is just a friendly reminder that Groton has a shoot late tomorrow afternoon,” he added. “If you’re interested, meet him at his place.”

  “Okay. When?”

  “Six o’clock, sharp.”

  “I’ll be there,” Corman assured him. He hung up and turned to Lucy. “I may be getting a steady job,” he said and instantly thought of Julian, the faint hope he offered that there might still be some way out.

  Lucy shrugged. “That’s good, I guess.”

  “I’d be home nights.”

  Lucy glanced up at him and smiled. “It doesn’t matter,” she said. “Even when you’re gone, it’s like you’re here.” She darted into her room and did not come out again until Corman called her to dinner, scooping out a portion of something he called “Whatever,” a mixture of whatever vegetables and meat were still left in the refrigerator at any given time.

  “Are you going out tonight?” she asked, as she drew her fork tentatively to her mouth.

  Corman nodded and took his seat at the table. “An old professor of mine, if I can get in touch with him.”

  Lucy looked puzzled. “Are you going back to school?”

  Corman shook his head. “No. It’s about something else. Some pictures I’m working on.”

  “Mama’s thinking about going back to school,” Lucy said.

  “Really?” Corman said. It was the first he’d heard of it. “To study what?”

  Lucy shrugged. “I don’t know.” She began circling her fork in the food. “She said you were a great teacher.”

  “I’m glad she thought so,” Corman said. He glanced over at his answering machine. The red light was blinking madly, but he didn’t feel like listening to his messages yet.

  “I guess I’ll never have you, huh?” Lucy said.

  “I guess not,” Corman said. He nodded toward the listlessly circling fork. “It’s to eat, not to play with.”

  Lucy took a minuscule amount of food onto the fork then brought it slowly to her mouth. “I have lots of homework,” she said after she’d swallowed. “I guess I can’t watch TV or anything.”

  “Homework first,” Corman said. “You know that.” To set the right example, he took a large bite of Whatever and chewed it, faking enjoyment as best he could.

  Within a few minutes, dinner was over. Corman began clearing the table, while Lucy sat at the small desk in her room, groaning audibly about her homework, but continuing to do it anyway. He washed and dried the dishes, then picked up the few things that had remained scattered across the room long enough to attract his attention: pieces of newspaper, an old cigarette pack or two, junk mail.

  The red light of the answering machine finally annoyed him enough for him to listen to the messages. There was only one, from Joanna, telling him she’d be at one of their usual places at around midnight and hoped he’d drop by. Her voice seemed calm, and it was impossible for Corman to judge what she wanted or whether Leo had gotten bad or good news from the tests.

  Lucy peeped her head out the door of her room when the message ended. “I guess you’ll be seeing Joanna, too,” she said teasingly.

  Corman faked a smile. “Finish your homework.”

  When she’d gone back into her room, Corman clicked off the machine, then looked up Dr. Maitland’s number and dialed it.

  A man answered immediately,
and Corman recognized the deep, resonant voice that he remembered first from the lecture halls, then from the short, earnest conversations along Columbia Walk.

  “Dr. Maitland,” he said. “It’s David Corman.”

  “David?” Dr. Maitland said brightly. “My God, I thought you’d fallen off the edge of the world.”

  “Just to Forty-fifth Street,” Corman said.

  Maitland chuckled. “Well, that’s not too far,” he said. “But it’s been a long time since I’ve heard from you.”

  “Yes, it has,” Corman said. “As a matter of fact, I was wondering if I could meet you for a few minutes.”

  “Of course,” Dr. Maitland said.

  “Tonight?” Corman asked hesitantly.

  Dr. Maitland laughed. “You always were a fast starter, David,” his voice hinting subtly that it was the finish line that had always given him problems.

  “West End Cafe?” Corman said. “Around nine?”

  “I’ll be there,” Dr. Maitland said. “Just be sure you are.”

  He was, and as he waited for Dr. Maitland, sitting silently in his old haunt, the darkened booth in the rear corner of the cafe, he thought of all the leisurely times he’d spent there, all the high, purposeful talk he’d listened to, with Lexie across from him, boldly holding forth on whatever popped into her mind. It was the sort of memory that had a well-defined potential for bitterness, but quite unexpectedly, Corman found that he still felt a distant fondness for the Lexie of his youth, the one who’d been so brazen, so full of high mockery. She’d had the mimic’s gift for lampooning people, especially her professors. She closed her eyes with mock portentousness as Dr. Berger did. She rolled her eyes and sputtered like Dr. Wilkins. She delivered orotund pronouncements, then sank into obfuscation. She did all of this while Corman and the other students around her teared with laughter. No doubt about it, she’d reigned like a comic queen in those days. It was the years after college that had given her trouble. After graduation, she’d simply put her life on hold, drawn in close to the fire, while everyone else had finally gotten up, swallowed hard and ventured out into the jungle. He couldn’t imagine why this had happened or whether he’d been in any way responsible. He only knew that her edginess had slowly worn down and that a kind of decomposition had set in. There were even times, toward the end, when it seemed almost physical, as if while sitting across from her at dinner, he half-expected to see her face crack like dry ground or a handful of iron gray hair suddenly come loose from her scalp and float down to her shoulder.