“I do now.”
The simple words chill him. “What have you done, Irving? Where is she?”
He shakes his head, his face serious but without malice. The graveness of his expression worries Adam even more. He would feel better if he sneered or laughed mirthlessly, like some cartoon villain.
“I hold no brief for her. But I never tried to kill her. What, you think I’m some criminal mastermind, orchestrating things from city jail? I’m a grandfather, near retirement. The case against me is based on Pauline’s say-so and a collection of, let’s say, inconveniently coincidental policies I helped to broker, years ago. Yes, if she doesn’t testify, I have a better chance at acquittal. But I’ve never arranged a hit on anyone.” He seems to lose himself in a memory before he repeats, more firmly: “I never tried to kill anyone.”
“And yet people ended up dead because of you. How many? And what would one more mean?”
“I know you’re here as a contractual hire of my lawyer,” Lowenstein says. “But I’m not going to presume confidentiality. I put my trust in you once. I won’t make that mistake again.”
“You put your trust in me? You lied to me, again and again. Claiming she had money, that she had ripped you off, that she had stolen from one kid and she would do it again. You were biding your time, waiting for the perfect moment to try to kill her.”
“I knew where she was before I hired you, sonny. The point was to figure out if she had money, if she was spending it. Now it’s six months later, you’re just a poor schmendrick who fell in love with her. Is it possible you know even less about her than you did when you started? Oh, you know the names, the sad history, her crime. You know she had a daughter with Ditmars. Do you know what happened to her?”
“I assume some relative took her in.”
“No one wanted that kid. Joy Ditmars has a severe form of cerebral palsy—can’t walk, can’t speak—and is institutionalized at Mount Washington Pediatric Hospital. It’s on Rogers Avenue. Sound familiar?”
Two taxis on a hot summer day. One turns on Rogers Avenue. Adam made the decision not to follow, reasoning that she would spot him on that suburban road. But he told Irving what he saw, where they went. Turns out Irving knew all along what was on Rogers Avenue.
“And here’s how canny she is. The life insurance from her first husband, the policy that almost ruined me, got me investigated—that was in her daughter’s name, in a trust administered by Pauline. Insurance company wouldn’t have to pay if it were for Pauline, but they couldn’t keep the money from the daughter. It pays for her care there. Pauline then surrendered her parental rights—voluntarily, she couldn’t get rid of that kid fast enough. But Pauline wasn’t done, oh no. She likes to play the innocent, but she picked up some tricks from that husband of hers. Last year, she settled out of court with the hospital where the kid was born, blaming them for her condition. Deprivation of oxygen at birth, probably. I’m not sure why the hospital didn’t do due diligence about custody—they were probably so excited to settle that they didn’t get very far into the investigation—but if the state has the kid, she’s not entitled to the damages. I figured she could cut me in for a share, or I’d tell the hospital they’d been taken. But I needed to figure out why she was keeping it a secret. Now I realize it’s an asset she’s hiding from her next ex-husband. She’s a shark, that one, always moving forward.”
She’s the opposite, Adam wants to say. She’s been swimming lazy circles in Belleville all these months.
“I’m telling you, she doesn’t have any money. She can barely make rent some months.”
“And you help her with that, don’t you?” Irving does smile now, but it is an infuriatingly kind one, almost pitying. “She has her charms. I know, believe me. There’s something about her—a stillness, a capacity for quiet. Maybe she always had that quality, but sometimes, I think it was from living with Ditmars. She learned to freeze, like a deer, or a child playing that game. Freeze tag? And she gave a man a sense that he was a hero, that he could save her. If she made me feel that way, I can’t imagine what it’s been like for you.”
“You had associates, other people who were involved in the things you did—” Adam is grasping and he knows it. But there has to be an explanation for Polly’s disappearance. Would he really rather her be dead than duplicitous, playing him for a sucker all these months?
Yes, yes, he would.
“Adam, here’s one thing you can take to the bank, one thing you already know, if you would just let yourself: I’ve never killed anyone, not directly. Do I know of deaths? Sure. But I was caught between two vultures, nothing more than a paper pusher. I’ve never shoved a knife in a man’s heart. She has. And she probably killed that girl, too, the one who died in the explosion. You should know these things.”
“So you’ve been calling me out of concern with my welfare these past few weeks?”
“No, but there is something I think you should know. Something that will change everything you think you know about your relationship with this woman.”
It’s a mind fuck, Adam tells himself. He’s a bitter old man and Adam did do him dirty in a sense. If he hadn’t fallen in love with Polly, probably none of this would have happened. Cath’s death, Irving’s arrest. It’s not his fault that Irving sent someone inept to kill Polly.
Someone inept—that’s the real threat. Irving doesn’t have to ask the guy who killed Cath to kill Polly. He’ll know to do it on his own. If she’s dead, the charges against Irving go away and no one has to flip on anyone.
“I can’t believe anything you have to say.”
“Be that way. I’m still going to give you a little stocking stuffer, something small to occupy your thoughts.” But instead of leaning forward as most men do when sharing a confidence, he leans back and presses his arm on the table in front of him, almost like someone bracing for an accident. “She knows about you. Has for months.”
“Knows what?”
“Knows that you’re a private detective and that I hired you. She was pretty slick, I have to admit. Called up, pretending to be a housewife with a cheating husband, checking your references. But you know and I know that I wouldn’t have been giving you a very good reference as of August, right? I told my mystery caller that, per the law on confidential personnel information, I would confirm only the dates of your employment with me. And I did. Can you think of anyone else who would have been thinking of hiring you last summer?”
Adam hasn’t lost his ability to think on his feet. “That’s not news to me,” he tells Irving. “Polly and I came clean with each other a long time ago. About everything.”
“Oh, so you knew what I told you today. About the daughter. And the money.”
“Right. All that money is for the daughter, she’s never touched it and she’s never going to.” He lies for himself, not Irving, and finds the lie credible. That explains everything. There is no money, she is not dishonorable. She found out he had a secret and kept her own, tit for tat. He’ll tell her everything and she’ll tell him everything. If he finds her, when he finds her, assuming she can be found.
“Well then, Merry Christmas,” Irving says. “And a Happy New Year. I don’t know about you, but I feel cautiously optimistic for 1996.”
45
Polly waits.