Fever(3)

“You don’t look like detectives. Either of you.”

“You don’t look like what you are, either.”

I gave Tamara a warning look. She’s young and she can be less than tactful; she needs to work on her people skills. We’d decided that she should do most of the talking, woman to woman, but if necessary I’d have to take over. There was nothing to be gained in allowing the situation to turn adversarial.

Janice Krochek laughed—an empty, sardonic sound. She was not at ease sitting there. High-strung type, but it was more than that—a sense of nervous expectancy, not for what we had to say to her but for something else. As late as it was, she might have just gotten out of bed. She wore a loose man’s shirt over a pair of jeans, her feet were bare, and her short brown hair was uncombed. She was thirty-three, but in the dim light, and without makeup, she looked older; you could see the stress lines around her mouth and eyes. Addiction will do that to you, no matter what type of addiction it happens to be.

She said, “Why did Mitch hire you? He couldn’t possibly want me back after all this time.”

Tamara said, “He could and he does.”

“Well, then, he’s a damn fool.”

“Lots of damn fools running around these days.”

That didn’t bother her, either. “I suppose he told you all about me.”

“He told us enough.”

“All about my ‘sickness.’ That’s what he calls it.”

“What do you call it?”

“The sweetest high there is,” she said. It was not a natural or spontaneous response, but the kind of phrase a person hears somewhere and likes enough to appropriate and repeat as their own. “He wants it cured. I don’t.”

“Even though you keep losing, getting in deeper and deeper.”

“I don’t care about that. The money isn’t important, winning or losing. Either of you ever gamble for high stakes? Poker, craps, whatever?”

“No.”

“Then you can’t understand any more than Mitch does. The action, the excitement … there’s nothing else like it. I’d rather gamble than fuck.”

That last was intended to shock, but neither of us reacted. Tamara said, “One supports the other now, right?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“We know what you’ve been doing for money since you left home.”

I nudged Tamara this time, from where Janice Krochek couldn’t see me doing it. Krochek started to say something—and there was a sudden melodic jangling from across the room, the kind of programmed tune fragment that substitutes for ringing in modern cell phones. She came off the sofa and went after it blur-fast, like a cat uncoiling to chase a mouse. The brown eyes were avid—the first real animation she’d shown. Before the phone rang again she had it out of her handbag and flipped open. She said, “Yes?” and then listened with her body turned away from us.

The conversation didn’t last long. I heard her say, “That’s too bad, I was hoping … okay, if that’s the way it has to be. Later, then? Right.” She dropped the phone back into the bag, and when she turned, the avidity and animation were gone. She recrossed the room in the same jerky strides as when she’d let us in.

She didn’t sit down again. Bent for another Newport, blew a thick stream of smoke, and said through it, “Well? What happens now?”

“That’s up to you, Mrs. Krochek,” Tamara said.

“Stanley, Ms. Janice Stanley. I like that name better.”

“You’re still married to the man.”

“You can’t force me to go back to him.”

“That’s right, we can’t.”

“Already tell him where to find me?”

“No. You want us to?”

“Christ, no. It’s all over between us. I made that clear to him before I left.”

“Man’s willing to pay all your outstanding debts if you give the marriage one more try.”

“Sure he is, so I won’t divorce him. That’s the real reason he hired you. Lot cheaper for him to pay off my debts than give me half of everything he’s got.”

“Everything he’s got left,” Tamara said pointedly.

“It was mine as much as his, then and now. You think he’s some kind of saint?” Bitter and angry now. “Well, he’s not. Far from it. He’s looking out for number one, same as I am.”

“You don’t believe he wants what’s best for you?”

“I don’t care if he does or doesn’t. I like to gamble. And I like my freedom.”

“How about selling your body? You like that, too?”