Part 19 (2/2)

A few mornings later, at dawn, I made love to Toba. Before the event began I closed my eyes and fantasized that there was another woman in the bed with us. She was Sue Ann, and she nestled behind my wife's pale b.u.t.tocks, stroking the suntanned muscles that flanked her spine. A milky light-dawn gliding across the curve of the Atlantic to awaken the southeastern sh.o.r.e of the United States-crept into the bedroom. Motes of dust danced in the air. Sue Ann's hazel eyes smiled at me through the skein of Toba's black hair. Toba twisted her body around so that I could take Sue Ann's place and enter her from behind and grip her b.r.e.a.s.t.s. ”Squeeze them,” she said. This happened in fact. In fantasy I imagined that my c.o.c.k slid between the oiled copper globes of our guest, who became Connie. A form of adultery, I thought, but with consent. Therefore without pain or risk. Without guilt too? On the edges of old maps were legends that read: Beyond here are dragons. I now believed that I had journeyed in my life to the edge of the map. Not in fantasy. In reality.

Toba's lips were flushed. ”f.u.c.k her, darling. I won't be angry.”

Hearing those words in my imagination, I soared to o.r.g.a.s.m in a sequence of turbulent spasms. The force of it startled Toba, and her body arched to join me. The veins of her neck swelled with blood. She cried, ”Ted!” and we clutched each other as if we were on a jet plane plunging toward jagged peaks.

Connie telephoned and told me that Solly had gone to Hong Kong on business. He would be away a week. ”Please come over.”

”That would be unwise,” I said. I couldn't believe those words had formed in my mind and left my lips.

”Ted, for Christ's sake, haven't we gone beyond that?”

I didn't want to go beyond that. But I suddenly sensed that if I didn't agree, I would be postponing the inevitable. And the inevitable had to be faced. If not, the dragons would eat me alive.

At five-thirty, when I had cleared my desk at the office and told Toba that I'd be in conference at the federal courthouse until late that evening, I drove south and then east past the Mayo Clinic of Jacksonville until I arrived at the iron gates of the Zide estate. I had been there only once before. The gray-uniformed security guards were just changing s.h.i.+fts. The older of the two men-his bra.s.s nameplate said Terence O'Rourke-leaned out from the guardhouse. I realized he was a former cop; they had that special way of looking through your eyes and beyond, making you feel they glimpsed every mistake you'd made and had a sense for ones you were capable of making in your corrupt future.

He looked up from his clipboard. ”May I please see some ID, sir?”

Stupid of me. If I'd thought about it, I could have instructed Connie in advance, as I'd done the last time: ”I don't want him to know my name, so just tell him it'll be a man driving a gray '75 Honda.”

From my pigskin wallet I extracted my driver's license, cupping my hand over the wallet s.h.i.+eld that identified me as an a.s.sistant state attorney. Terence scanned the license.

”Thank you, Mr. Jaffe.”

The electronic gate rolled open.

I parked near the front door, with its etched-gla.s.s panes and flanking stone lions. Two Lhasa apso puppies were playing on the gravel. Connie was waiting for me by a hedge of scarlet hibiscus. She wore white from neck to toe. With the puppies following, she led me on a paved walk and under some awnings to the swimming pool. ”Let's jump in and make love,” she said, running a hand up and down the front of my suit trousers.

”Connie ...” I indicated a large black workman half hidden by a grove of banana trees. He headed toward the lawn, pus.h.i.+ng a wheelbarrow.

”I pay their salaries,” Connie said.

”Which means they won't gossip?”

”Ted, you worry so much.”

”Yes, lately I do.”

There was something portentous in my tone, and it quieted her. Infidelity was a cruel sport.

We began to stroll around the pool.

Hollow-hearted, stomach fluttering, the words tasting sour even before they left my mouth, I told Connie it was over. I was no longer at ease in the affair. I feared for my marriage. I told Connie that I would always cherish her as someone who had given me something of inestimable value. I suppose men the world over have made that speech for centuries, and plenty of women too. It has that hollow ring of truth. My voice seemed to come from an inner distance.

Connie, even in white, looked a little pale under the buffeting.

”There's an alternative,” she said. ”You could leave your wife.”

”I've been trying to tell you, that was never in the cards.”

”You've always told me your wife was a sensible woman-”

”That's how I see her.”

”-and of course your wife has your best interests at heart.”

”I'm sure she does.”

”Then if there was someone else in your life, why would your wife want to hang on to you? Isn't that demeaning to your wife?”

The repet.i.tions of the words ”your wife” were like darts inserted to pierce the skin. Make the beast feel. Make it stand its ground and fight rather than run away.

It's a cruel sport.

”Connie, this is demeaning. Let's cut it out.”

Shadows slanted across the pool from the banana grove and the royal palms. In her broad garden hat and sundress with its scooped neck and flaring skirt, Connie looked like a haughty and angry princess. I must have looked like a tired man in a wrinkled business suit who'd been sitting in crowded courtrooms since eight o'clock that morning.

”I have to go,” I said.

”Your wife is expecting you?”

I had seen Connie as a beautiful older woman having an exciting affair, and not her first. I had seen myself as a man in thrall. Then, from what seemed one moment to the next, the net had lifted. The roles had reversed.

I couldn't tell her that. She wanted to hear words of love and regret deeper than the earth. But I didn't have such feelings. I felt sad -and I felt on the edge of an extraordinary freedom. I will soar. Then maybe crash. But survive.

”Goodbye, Connie.”

She clutched at me, and a harsh sound rose from her throat. She let go of me, turned, and toppled into the pool.

A white parachute floated on the disturbed surface of the water. There were bubbles, circles of foam. The parachute slowly sank. A woman's body was attached to it. I heard sucking sounds, like soapy water swirling down an emptying bathtub drain. The bottoms of my trousers were drenched.

Rescue was definitely required, and I jumped in after her, the soles of my shoes striking soundlessly on the bottom of the pool. I was in about four feet of chlorinated water. I heard many dogs barking in excitement.

Connie was heaved out of the pool by her erstwhile hero-waterlogged, breathing like a half-drowned cat, but alive. A uniformed brown-skinned Latino maid about four and a half feet tall emerged from the house and waddled over, smiling cautiously. The expression on her face said: the Seora sure is a fun-lovin' lady.

I explained that Mrs. Zide had fainted and fallen in the pool. The maid looked disbelieving, but she stayed calm.

”What is your name?” I asked.

”Martina.” Later, during the murder investigation, I learned that she was from the city of Len on the high central plateau of Mexico.

Martina and I hauled Connie through the French doors into the living room and onto a twelve-foot-long sofa next to a marble backgammon table. The white Berber carpet and the sofa were quickly soaked.

Looking up, Connie said quietly, ”I'm all right.”

Martina asked me if she should call a doctor.

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