“Pretty hard not to like.”
“I suppose not … so close to Manhattan,” he paused. “And such polite neighbors. So very polite.” He gazed into her eyes. Claire turned and watched the other guests. She liked cultivated, hard-drinking people. They were so active. Not like the drug enthusiasts she’d known in New York. Carmela, the prom queen, was hoofing across the dais with an Arabian. They were doing the fox trot. The Nigerian was hobbling now among the other guests. He was very proud of his wound, exhibiting it to anyone who would admire it. Claire looked around for Zinnie. There she was, still down at the chaise lounge, balancing a sandal from one naked toe, listening intently to something the young doctor was saying. Claire’s heart went out to her and she felt something catch in her throat. If anybody hurt Zinnie she’d come after him herself—with an ax, if need be.
“Tell me something, Claire?”
“What?”
“Anything. I do so like to hear the sound of your voice.”
“I was just thinking how easy it would be to murder someone … under the right circumstances.”
“Yes, indeed. It’s life that’s difficult. What about suicide? Do you ever think about that?” He liked the direction of this conversation. He was enjoying it. He reminded Claire of a fox, the way his little white teeth glittered and poised in the air. She wondered what he’d been up to with Carmela. They’d certainly had time to go the full nine rounds. “No, I’ve given up suicide as a preoccupation. Haven’t thought much about it since I was a teenager infatuated with self-pity. Suicide is always fun to think about until someone you love actually up and dies. You realize abruptly how inevitable your own end is. Shall we dance?”
Claire, Zinnie, and Carmela, arms linked, made their way down the hill. They were singing “Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow?” Carmela had lost one of Zinnie’s shoes but Zinnie didn’t mind. She was filled to the brim with glorious awe for a charming young unmarried doctor who hadn’t left her side even after he’d secured her telephone number … and that after she’d told him she had a son. Carmela, resigned as she’d been to Stefan’s unswerving interest in Claire, had somehow managed to secure more than five separate invitations to God-knows-who-all’s near future parties. She was also very drunk. Zinnie had a firecracker voice. “Tonight you’re mine, completely. You give your love, so sweetly. So tell me now … and I won’t ask again. Will you still love me tomorrow?” Zinnie walloped out her solo and then they jaunted through the last chorus. No kidding, they congratulated themselves as they turned the last corner, they really did sound just like the Shirelles. They stopped short. Parked right in front of their door were three blinking police cars.
“Michaelaen!” Zinnie screamed and the three of them flew down the hill. “Michaelaen!” Zinnie fell on the sidewalk and got up before Claire even saw her go down. She was up on the porch and into the house before any of the cops could stop her. When Claire got there she saw Zinnie, her arms around Michaelaen, choking out loud, violent sobs. Her knee and elbow were trailing blood, but she didn’t seem to notice that.
Several uniformed policemen were standing in the hallway and there were plainclothesmen all over the place.
“What’s going on?” Claire’s heart beat wildly, taking rapid account of both parents seemingly safe and sound on the steps. Her father had his arm around her mother. They both looked strange. Was her father’s hair that white? They looked like old people.
“We were robbed, Claire.”
“What?”
“Yes, robbed.”
“We don’t know what they got yet.”
“Oh my God … and I let the Mayor out.”
“Oh, I knew that was bright,” Carmela slurred from right behind her.
“It might have been,” Stan’s tone was dead-weight lead. “Whoever wanted in that much might have killed him.”
The Mayor heartened at his words. So Stan knew without measure the distance of his loyalty. To go down with the ship …
“I just wish we knew what they took!” Mary held her elbows and looked around creepily. “That’s the thing.” She wasn’t going to go checking around until those fine officers got through going through every room, including the closets. She was past the point of caring what they thought when they found somebody’s galoshes on a dust mop on somebody’s folded shirt. I’ve no reason not to be a nervous wreck she told herself, her face pink as roses.