Sunburn: A Novel(73)

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.

She sits in the High-Ho Saturday evening, which closed early today and will not open again until Tuesday. She has left the car she’s using, a bright red Toyota with Maryland tags, in the lot. From where she’s sitting—behind the bar, but to the side, so she has a view through the window—she can see the light on in room 3 at the Valley View. She decided to leave the door unlocked, which is a little risky, but the manager knows where she is if anything happens, says he’ll keep an ear out.

But for the first time in almost a year, Polly can admit to herself that she has no idea what’s going to happen. Which is not to say that all her careful plans have proceeded as she hoped over the past year. Quite the opposite. She did not foresee how long things would take, that’s for sure. She was not prepared for Gregg’s reactions—the macho posturing of last summer, the sudden dedicated daddy game he’s playing now.

She did not plan for Adam, for love. No one plans for love, much less decides to love a man she cannot trust. But maybe that will be okay. She can work out the Adam problem later. First, she needs to get through the next few hours. She has left her trail of bread crumbs and all she can do is wait and see who comes through the door.

The door at which she is aiming Mr. C’s gun.

The crunch of gravel, the rattle of a doorknob. A man’s shape fills the door, backlit by the neon of the Valley View sign. Even in silhouette, she knows him instantly. The shoulders are broad, the posture perfect.

Adam.

Fuck, she’s wrong again.





46


“Polly?”

“Hi, Adam.”

“What are you doing?”

“Working a little overtime.”

She puts the gun down on the bar. Adam walks over to her. It is nine o’clock, the eve before Christmas Eve, Christmas Eve’s Eve. Was it really only forty-eight hours ago that he thought he would be down on one knee in this spot, asking a woman to marry him? This woman, standing vigil with a handgun she probably doesn’t even know how to use.

“Whose car is that out front?”

“Mine. Or used to be. But I would think you would know that. I assumed it was in your dossier on me.”

“My dossier?”

“Isn’t that what private detectives call their reports? Remember I didn’t go to Oberlin, only community college. But you knew that, too. You know where I went to high school and the dates of my marriages, all that stuff. It must have gotten confusing at times, trying to remember what you were supposed to know and what I hadn’t told you yet.”