“Christopher, it’s as if we got into a sports car together a couple of weeks ago and we turned the speed up to two hundred miles an hour and we never stopped. I have to think. I haven’t been able to think.”
“All right.”
“All right.”
“I could be there, at my house, by the second of March. If you were there on the third, I could pick you up at the airport. I wouldn’t have to invite Donna Moradanyan or Hannah or anyone at all.”
“All right.”
“I’m making you angry,” Lida said. “I knew I was going to make you angry. I don’t understand these things, Christopher. I don’t know what I’m doing.”
“You’re doing fine,” Christopher said.
Then he walked over to the window where she was standing and put his arms around her. For a moment it made Lida feel as if this whole scene had been a mistake. Christopher would not walk out the front door. The two of them would go straight upstairs again. Everything would be back at the beginning. But instead of kissing her on the lips he kissed the side of her neck and rocked her back and forth a little.
“You can pick me up at the airport,” he said, “but I want you to understand one thing right up front.”
“What’s that?”
“Women are enough to make any sane man nuts.”
4
A FEW HOURS LATER, when Christopher was back at Bennis’s apartment and Gregor Demarkian was doing his best not to read the story about himself in the Philadelphia Inquirer, Donna Moradanyan came down from the roof and let herself through the window to the fourth-floor landing. She was just snaking her head into the warm when a tall figure came up the stairs. He looked startled to see her and Donna felt embarrassed to be seen. She pulled herself all the way inside and shut the window behind her.
“Hello,” she said. “Excuse me. I was up on the roof.”
“Was that safe?” Russell Donahue looked doubtful.
“It’s safe enough, I guess,” Donna said. “I do it all the time. Do you want to come in for a minute? Were you looking for me?”
“Well,” Russell Donahue said. “Yes. I mean, yes. I was looking for you.”
“That’s nice.”
Donna had not bothered to lock her apartment door. She never bothered to lock her door except at night, when she went to sleep, and she did it then because of all the scare stories Gregor Demarkian told about sneak thieves and serial killers. She let Russell in to her foyer and then went around to lead him into the living room. Her kitchen was full of scraps and glue and masking tape and she didn’t want him to see the mess in there. Russell walked across the living room and looked out the window. He put his hands behind his back and seemed embarrassed.
“Well,” he said. “The thing is, I wanted to ask you something.”
“Of course. Do you mean about the case? Is there something about the case that hasn’t been cleared up?”
“No, no. The case is finished. That’s the point. Now that the case is over, there’s no conflict of interest.”
“I don’t understand.”
“There’s no conflict of interest if I come and visit you,” Russell Donahue said desperately, “and if, you know, if I take you out or something, and of course Tommy too, I didn’t mean to leave Tommy out of it, I really like Tommy, and I don’t have a whole load of free time what with work and I’m going to law school but—the thing is—I mean—would you mind if I came to visit?”
Donna Moradanyan was finding it very hard to breathe. “No,” she said softly. “No, I wouldn’t mind.”
“You wouldn’t? Oh. Good. Good. That’s wonderful.”
“It is?”
“I’m very impressed by you,” Russell Donahue said earnestly. He was still looking out onto the street. Donna was looking at her shoes.
“I don’t see what there is to be impressed with,” she said. “My life always feels to me like complete chaos.”
“It’s Tommy,” Russell Donahue said. “He’s a really great kid. And all that drawing you were showing me the other day.”
“Oh,” Donna Moradanyan said.
“So maybe this coming Wednesday we could take Tommy out to see the machine museum. You know the one I mean? They’ve got all these machines and buttons the kid can push to make them work and they whir around and make a lot of noise. I thought Tommy would really like that.”
“He would,” Donna said. “He’d love it.”
“Great,” Russell Donahue said. Finally, he turned around. “Well, I’ve got to go into work. I’ll see you on Wednesday. Around two o’clock?”