Little Deaths(43)

Two weeks later the body of Cindy’s brother, Frank Jr., age 5, was found in a clump of bushes on an embankment above the Van Wyck Expressway, near to the World’s Fair.

Mrs. Malone, neat in a white jacket over a pale knit dress, her hair teased into a bouffant to give her five-foot-four-inch frame the impression of extra height, was seen entering the apartment of Paul Beckman, a senior executive at advertising firm Schiller and Klein, just before midnight.

A source stated that Mrs. Malone has several close male friends. The police have learned that she is a “swinger” who frequents a number of popular nightspots in Flushing and Corona.

The Malone children were taken from a bedroom that was later found to be locked while their mother remained in her own bedroom next door. There were no sightings of strangers near the apartment building and Mrs. Malone’s neighbors reported no unusual disturbances that night.

No arrest has yet been made in the case.





The next morning, he turned in the article and headed out to Long Island City. The waitress started to lead him to his usual table, but he stopped her, chose a different seat. He wanted to see them together now.

It was only when they arrived that Pete realized they might notice him, recognize him.

But in the event, they only had eyes for each other. Beckman seemed softer, somehow. A little shy. He saw Ruth basking in Beckman’s gratitude, like a cat stretching in a pool of sunlight. Her skin and hair were sleek as satin.

“You’re so lovely. Beautiful. You could have your pick of men. A guy would be a fool not to want you.”

After they’d gone back to the office, Pete sat in his car a while, looking out at the East River, watching the light on the water. He pictured Beckman resting his head on her breasts and Ruth holding him until he fell asleep. Pete saw her lying there, listening to his gentle snores and feeling the weight of his body on hers, the solidness of him in her arms, his need for her like a balm.

Writing the article had released something in him. The anger was gone and for the first time, he was seeing Ruth not as a suspect, not as Frank’s estranged wife or as Frankie and Cindy’s mother, but as someone’s lover.

Pete had seen her frustrated, furious, bored, flirtatious: this was Ruth satisfied. This was Ruth desired and desiring.

He laid his head back against the seat and closed his eyes and thought about her. About what made her different. He’d met other girls in New York: the sisters and cousins of guys he knew, or their friends and roommates. Compared to his hometown, it sometimes seemed like there were pretty girls everywhere: in every store and on every sidewalk, in every diner and movie theater.

The girls at home were mostly married now, frowsy and chapped by motherhood. A few were sliding with desperate resignation into spinsterous routines. City girls were different. They’d come to New York to get away from the narrowness of those options. They’d made a decision to be different. To take a chance on life.

And yet, for all that Pete thrilled to the brittle glamour of the office girls in Manhattan or the studied nonchalance of the black-clad beatniks in the East Village, he’d always felt, when he thought about it at all, that he’d end up marrying someone like him. Someone from a small town with the polish of a decent college, but someone with values and ambitions he could understand. Someone rosy and fresh who maybe wore her skirts a little shorter than they wore them back home, but who could otherwise have gone to high school with him. That was the kind of girl he understood.

And here was Ruth Malone, who wasn’t like that at all. Who wasn’t like any woman he’d ever met before.

He couldn’t stop thinking about her. It wasn’t just about the case: she was stuck in his head like a toothache, and that scared and excited him.

His mind drifted over her slow smile, the sound of her laugh.

He said her name out loud and it tasted like chocolate on his lips. Chocolate with something sharp and hot beneath, like a dessert with a good slug of brandy.

He imagined his own name on her lips. He saw her neat white teeth flash as she formed the long-ee sound, and then heard the noise of her tongue tuck in against the roof of her mouth. Like the smallest, softest kiss.


Friedmann called Pete into his office again. The piece about Ruth and Paul Beckman was lying on his desk. Friedmann poked it with a stubby finger.

“What the fuck is this?”

“Uh. It’s . . .”

“I know what it is, it’s a goddamn Cholly Knickerbocker item. Since when do we publish a gossip column, Wonicke?”

“I don’t . . .”

“Damn right you don’t. What the fuck were you thinking?”

“Mr. Friedmann, she’s still news. Mrs. Malone. She’s . . .”

“Sure she is. And if the cops had arrested her or this . . . Paul Beckman for murder, or if you had a confession on tape, I’d be the first to shake your hand. But this . . . This ain’t news. This is like Eugenia Sheppard and the goddamned National Enquirer rolled into one!”

He looked disgusted.

“You even got any proof she’s screwing this guy?”

“I saw them together.”

“Doing what?”

“I saw them having dinner, I saw her going back to his apartment.”

“That’s what I pay you for now, to watch Mrs. Malone eating dinner?”

“I did it on my own time.”