What did Susan know about John Bannon? And what did John Bannon know about Molly Palmer?
The bedroom door opened and Debbie came out, wearing an Arlington Club robe. She walked over and sat on the arm of the sofa next to Archie. “You going to come to bed?” she asked.
“Soon,” Archie said.
Archie saw Debbie notice his cell phone, sitting within immediate reach on the coffee table. Her face darkened.
“Expecting a call?” she asked.
The truth was that Archie had been glancing at the phone every few minutes, willing Gretchen to call again. “Maybe,” he said.
Debbie leaned forward and held down the phone’s off button until the light went out. “Let the bitch leave a message,” she said, tossing the phone on the cushion beside him. Then she turned to Archie and touched his face gently with her hand. It smelled like shea butter. “You need to get some rest,” she said.
Archie nodded. “Okay,” he said. He put his hand on the curve of her hip and kissed her lightly, but long, on the mouth. As he did he reached behind him, found the phone, and turned it back on. As she led him into the bedroom, he glanced back, finding reassurance in the phone’s green light blinking in the darkness.
Archie awoke to Debbie’s voice and her hand on his bare shoulder. They had slept together naked side by side in the same bed. It had felt good to fall asleep next to her, her breath a steady heartbeat in his ear. It had felt almost normal. Except that they hadn’t touched, both careful to keep their arms at their sides as they slept, lest they accidentally brush against the other.
“Buddy’s here,” she said.
Archie struggled to surface from his grogginess. The sun streamed through the wooden blinds and striped the baby-shit walls with light. “What time is it?” he asked.
“After nine.”
“Jesus.” Archie hadn’t slept in past eight since Ben was born. He tried to remember dreams, but recovered only darkness. Still, he did not feel rested. Debbie was dressed, wearing a pair of jeans and a long-sleeved white T-shirt that must have been in the suitcase Henry had packed. She looked fresh and awake, her freckles a fine dust on her unmade-up face.
“I’ll be out in a minute,” Archie said.
Debbie left the room and Archie sat up and put his feet on the floor. His right side throbbed with each breath and he held it as he stood up to walk to the bathroom. As he made his way gingerly across the carpeted floor he felt a numbing sensation in his hands. He lifted them to look and found the fingers swollen, his nail beds white. He unzipped the outside flap of the suitcase and pulled out a grocery bag full of prescription bottles and dug through them until he found Vicodin and a diuretic. The Vicodin would help the pain, the diuretic would eliminate the swelling. He took four Vicodin and two of the diuretics. He had cut back to two Vicodin first thing in the morning. But his restraint was seeming less necessary.
He took off his watch, noticing the red indentation it left on his swollen wrist, and stepped into the shower. He woke up a couple of times a week with an erection that betrayed his dreams about Gretchen, but not today. Today he was merely exhausted. After the shower he brushed his teeth and shaved and then got dressed in yesterday’s pants and a shirt from the suitcase Henry had packed. It was one of those Teflon dress shirts that didn’t wrinkle. Debbie had bought him five of them in varying earth tones. When he pulled it on, he looked almost put together. If you could get past the death-warmed-over thing.
“Anything?” Archie asked immediately, as he entered the suite’s living room. Buddy sat on the couch next to Debbie. Henry sat in an adjacent armchair. He could hear the sounds of cartoons coming from Ben and Sara’s room. A TV in the living room showed a silent split-screen image, Gretchen on one side, him on the other. Then his children’s school filled the screen, with the headline BEAUTY KILLER TERROR.
“Not yet,” Henry said.
Buddy sat forward a little on the couch. His brown suit jacket was folded immaculately and placed carefully over the couch back beside him. “The public is worried about you. They want to see that you’re okay.”
Archie had never gotten used to that, the idea that the public wanted anything from him. “You want me to issue a statement?” he asked.
“I want you to go on TV,” Buddy said.
Archie saw both Debbie and Henry tense. “TV,” Archie said.
“I’ve got Charlene Wood downstairs. She just needs ten minutes. I think it would buy us some comfort in the marketplace.” Buddy had always talked like a politician. Even when he’d been Archie’s boss on the task force. It was like he’d just glanced up from reading Plato’s Republic.