Gone Girl(68)

As I rolled into his neighborhood, I had to change my Desi vision from rich to extremely, sickly wealthy. The guy lived in a mansion in Ladue that probably cost at least $5 million. Whitewashed brick, black lacquer shutters, gaslight, and ivy. I’d dressed for the meeting, a decent suit and tie, but I realized as I rang his doorbell that a four-hundred-dollar suit in this neighborhood was more poignant than if I’d shown up in jeans. I could hear a clattering of dress shoes coming from the back of the house to the front, and the door opened with a desuctioning sound, like a refrigerator. Cold air rolled out toward me.

Desi looked the way I had always wanted to look: like a very handsome, very decent fellow. Something in the eyes, or the jaw. He had deep-set almond eyes, teddy-bear eyes, and dimples in both cheeks. If you saw the two of us together, you’d assume he was the good guy.

“Oh,” Desi said, studying my face. “You’re Nick. Nick Dunne. Good God, I’m so sorry about Amy. Come in, come in.”

He ushered me into a severe living room, manliness as envisioned by a decorator. Lots of dark, uncomfortable leather. He pointed me toward an armchair with a particularly rigid back; I tried to make myself comfortable, as urged, but found the only posture the chair allowed was that of a chastised student: Pay attention and sit up.

Desi didn’t ask me why I was in his living room. Or explain how he’d immediately recognized me. Although they were becoming more common, the double takes and cupped whispers.

“May I get you a drink?” Desi asked, pressing two hands together: business first.

“I’m fine.”

He sat down opposite me. He was dressed in impeccable shades of navy and cream; even his shoelaces looked pressed. He carried it all off, though. He wasn’t the dismissible fop I’d been hoping for. Desi seemed the definition of a gentleman: a guy who could quote a great poet, order a rare Scotch, and buy a woman the right piece of vintage jewelry. He seemed, in fact, a man who knew inherently what women wanted—across from him, I felt my suit wilt, my manner go clumsy. I had a swelling urge to discuss football and fart. These were the kinds of guys who always got to me.

“Amy. Any leads?” Desi asked.

He looked like someone familiar, an actor, maybe.

“No good ones.”

“She was taken … from the home. Is that correct?”

“From our home, yes.”

Then I knew who he was: He was the guy who’d shown up alone the first day of searches, the guy who kept sneaking looks at Amy’s photo.

“You were at the volunteer center, weren’t you? The first day.”

“I was,” Desi said, reasonable. “I was about to say that. I wish I’d been able to meet you that day, express my condolences.”

“Long way to come.”

“I could say the same to you.” He smiled. “Look, I’m really fond of Amy. Hearing what had happened, well, I had to do something. I just—It’s terrible to say this, Nick, but when I saw it on the news, I just thought, Of course.”

“Of course?”

“Of course someone would … want her,” he said. He had a deep voice, a fireside voice. “You know, she always had that way. Of making people want her. Always. You know that old cliché: Men want her, and women want to be her. With Amy, that was true.”

Desi folded large hands across his trousers. Not pants, trousers. I couldn’t decide if he was fucking with me. I told myself to tread lightly. It’s the rule of all potentially prickly interviews: Don’t go on the offense until you have to, first see if they’ll hang themselves all on their own.

“You had a very intense relationship with Amy, right?” I asked.

“It wasn’t only her looks,” Desi said. He leaned on a knee, his eyes distant. “I’ve thought about this a lot, of course. First love. I’ve definitely thought about it. The navel-gazer in me. Too much philosophy.” He cracked a self-effacing grin. The dimples popped. “See, when Amy likes you, when she’s interested in you, her attention is so warm and reassuring and entirely enveloping. Like a warm bath.”

I raised my eyebrows.

“Bear with me,” he said. “You feel good about yourself. Completely good, for maybe the first time. And then she sees your flaws, she realizes you’re just another regular person she has to deal with—you are, in actuality, Able Andy, and in real life, Able Andy would never make it with Amazing Amy. So her interest fades, and you stop feeling good, you can feel that old coldness again, like you’re naked on the bathroom floor, and all you want is to get back in the bath.”

I knew that feeling—I’d been on the bathroom floor for about three years—and I felt a rush of disgust for sharing this emotion with this other man.