Audrey Rose

1

He was there again, standing among the glut of waiting mothers who arrived each day at ten to three and milled about in their separate worlds, waiting for their children to be released from school.

Until today he was merely a presence to Janice Templeton, just another parent standing in the cold, outside the Ethical Culture School, waiting for his sprite to emerge. Today, however, Janice found herself noticing him—a lone male in a sea of females—and wondering why it was always he who showed up, and not his wife.

He was standing now with his back half turned to her, gazing expectantly up at the big doors of the school building. Somewhere in his early forties, Janice guessed, and not at all bad-looking. He wore a thick mustache and carefully trimmed sideburns and had the lean, hard body of an athlete.

She wondered who his child might be and made a mental note to find out.

The school bell rang.

The parade of children tumbling through the doors was, each day, a bittersweet experience for Janice. It made her realize how quickly time sped by, how swiftly the child of yesterday was becoming the adolescent of tomorrow.

Tall, lithe, strikingly beautiful, ten-year-old Ivy Templeton possessed a feminine elegance that seemed out of place for her young age. A sweep of blond hair—pure to the roots—fell back past the line of her shoulders, framing a face of exquisite features. The delicate pallor of her skin formed the perfect background for the large deep-gray eyes. The shape of her mouth was clearcut, a sensual mouth until she smiled, restoring childhood and innocence. Janice never ceased to marvel over the beauty of her daughter and never ceased to wonder about the genetic miracle that had formed her.

“Can I get a Coke?”

“I’ve got Cokes in the refrigerator,” Janice said, kissing Ivy’s hair.

Hand in hand, they started their walk up Central Park West when Janice stopped, remembering the man. Glancing over her shoulder to see which child’s hand might be linked to his, she froze. The man was standing immediately behind them, close enough to touch, close enough to feel the plumes of his breath, and in his eyes a manic glint of desperate need—of inexpressible longing—directed exclusively at Ivy. At Ivy!

“Excuse me,” Janice gasped inanely and in shock, her heart pounding as she clutched Ivy’s arm and hurried up Central Park West toward Des Artistes, five blocks away, without once looking back to see if the man was following them.

“Who was he, Mom?”

“I don’t know,” Janice panted.

The thought of what might have happened had she not been there to meet Ivy brought Janice to a sudden stop at the corner of their street. What if she had given in to Ivy’s persistent demands and had allowed her to walk home alone like Bettina Carew and some of the others in her class?

“Why have we stopped, Mom?”

Janice took a deep breath to regain control of herself, smiled wanly, and together, they crossed the street and entered the old building, Des Artistes.

The Fortress, Bill called it.

Built at the turn of the century at the whim of a group of painters and sculptors who purchased the land, hired an architectural firm, approved of the plans, and arranged for the mortgage, each level of the twenty-story building contained six master apartments of various sizes, featuring huge, high-ceilinged studios with galleries facing large floor-to-ceiling windows that offered a diversified selection of city views. A number of these windows admitted the northern light, a must for the painters. The decor of the apartments was lavish, imaginative, and fulfilled the esthetic and emotional needs of their owners. Some studios took on a baroque character, displaying vaulted ceilings replete with inset pediments and slavering gargoyles. Others went a more frivolous rococo route, featuring painted ceilings with rich, gilded moldings. A few apartments followed a somber Tudor pattern and were intricately paneled in darkly stained veneers.

A magnificent restaurant in the lobby of the building amply satisfied the artists’ appetites and even delivered exquisitely prepared dinners to each apartment via a network of dumbwaiters scattered throughout the building.

During the Depression, Des Artistes was sold to a cooperative association, and the new people who purchased apartments began to remodel them. The space in midair was valuable to them and was quickly subdivided, providing a large living room downstairs and enough room for two or three bedrooms upstairs.

With all the changes and departures from the artists’ original concepts, the one thing no tenant could ever alter was the inherent charm and grandeur of the building. Like the superb restaurant off the main lobby, the original atmosphere remained intact.

Janice’s first act upon entering the apartment was to double lock and bolt the door. After pouring Ivy’s Coke and sending her upstairs to do her homework, she poured herself a straight scotch. The man at the school had really rattled her. This was a new sensation for Janice. She realized that life was filled with pockets of danger, but thus far she had been spared.

She carried her scotch into the living room and sat in her favorite chair—an overstuffed antique rocker that had belonged to her grandmother. As she sipped the drink, her mind reformed the face, the expression in the man’s eyes as he stood looking down at Ivy. There was nothing sexual in his look, or depraved; it was more a look that spoke of great loss—sad, hopeless, desperate. That was it, desperate.

Janice shivered visibly and took a large swallow of scotch. She could feel the spreading, soothing, warming sensation of the alcohol throughout her body as she rose and walked to the window. Her eyes ferreted among the antlike figures scurrying about on the sidewalks far below. Might he be down there? Watching? Waiting? She would tell Bill about it as soon as he came home.

Sipping the last of her scotch, Janice turned from the window and gazed at the long length of the living room in the soft, waning light of the autumn afternoon. The thirty-eight-foot expanse of dark-stained pegged floor led the eye to a huge stuccoed walk-in fireplace, a practical, wood-burning, marshmallow-toasting fireplace that warmed their souls on cold winter evenings. Next to the fireplace was a narrow flight of carpeted stairs leading up to two bedrooms and a small study. The banister and rail posts harkened back to the days of the artists and were fancifully carved; the newel post featured the bulbous head of a Viking chieftain.

Janice’s eyes lovingly moved across the treasured corners of her world and, as always, finally came to rest on the pièce de résistance—the one item that had plunged them recklessly ahead on the perilous course of buying the apartment; the ceiling.

Deeply paneled in a variety of rare woods, varnished to a high luster, the ceiling was a magnificent work of art. Two large paintings, wrought by the brush of a true master, had been set into the woodwork, dividing the ceiling into two parts. Janice discovered, after much research, that the paintings were in the tradition of Fragonard, featuring woodland nymphs cavorting licentiously in cool, shaded glades. It was a stunning, breathtaking sight that literally startled new guests, and Bill and Janice loved playing it down, pretending to accept the ceiling as a matter of course, sometimes even expressing slight irritation at its gaudy vulgarity.

But alone, they would lie together on the hearth rug, holding hands and gazing spellbound at their ceiling museum, themselves stunned at the fantastic luck of having found and acquired such a treasure so soon after their marriage. They had rushed into buying the apartment just as they had rushed into marriage, impatient to get started on their lives together.

Devoted opera fans, Janice and Bill first met at a matinee of La Traviata in San Francisco. Both were in school at the time, Janice completing her senior year at Berkeley and Bill doing graduate work at San Francisco State. Each was potlucking for a single that blustery Saturday afternoon, hovering about in a throng of waiting enthusiasts for a cancellation. A second before curtain, a pair of the best seats became available. More expensive than Janice could afford, she quickly grabbed one ticket. Bill took the other.

Strangers, they sat together during the first act in perfect silence, drinking in the dolorous Verdi strains like two parched souls at a desert oasis. During the first intermission Bill offered Janice a cigarette. They smoked and talked opera. During the second intermission Bill bought Janice a drink at the Opera Bar. That night they had dinner on Fisherman’s Wharf.

Seven days later they spent the weekend together in a motel in Sausalito and made love. They were married upon Janice’s graduation and immediately went to live in New York.

Eleven years of perfection, Janice thought, in a setting unmatched.

Janice was feeling beautifully relaxed as she walked to the liquor cart and poured herself another scotch. She’d let Bill have his martini before telling him about the man.

She was dicing a carrot in the tiny kitchen when she heard the sound of a key fiddling with the lower lock. It was a tentative, groping sound. It wouldn’t be Bill at this hour; it was much too early.

Janice stood rooted, clutching the small paring knife, hardly breathing as she heard the soft, scratching noises of metal against metal. She knew she was safe, really; there were two locks plus a chain bolt to protect her. Still, she felt vulnerable and in terrible danger. If the man had the nerve to sneak past Mario and the elevator men and find his way to their door, then he was capable of doing anything.

Suddenly, the tumblers turned with a noisy click. Janice froze. She heard the key move up to the second lock and find its way home with much less trouble. The tumblers turned. Janice took a step back toward the kitchen wall. The skin of her hand clutching the knife was white. The chain tightened across the narrow opening with a sharp clatter.

“Oh, c’mon, open up.”

Bill’s voice.

With a cry of relief, Janice sprang to the door, undid the chain, and flung herself into his arms as he crossed the threshold.

“What is it, hon?” Bill asked gently.

“Nothing,” she whispered. “I’m just surprised to see you.” Then, pulling herself together, she smiled and added, “I’ve got a glass chilling for your martini.”

Bill gently disengaged himself from her and in a voice that seemed to trip delicately over eggshells, quietly said, “Do … not … mention … that … word … please.”

He and his assistant, Don Goetz, had entertained a new client at 21, and their lunch had been mainly liquid. The client, president of a thriving health food chain, obviously didn’t practice what he preached and kept Bill and Don chugalugging doubles until they both could hardly stand on their feet.

Walking gingerly and with care, Bill started up the stairs to conk out for a while before dinner.

“You’ve got about an hour,” Janice called after him with forced cheeriness. “And don’t forget the Federicos tonight for bridge.”

Bill’s response was a groan of agony.

Janice returned to the front door and locked it again, including the chain bolt. She saw her empty glass on the butcher’s block in the kitchen, picked it up, and carried it back into the living room. As she poured her third drink, soft, unintelligible voices penetrated from the floor above. Bill’s gentle-gruff baritone. Ivy’s light laughter. Loving, comfortable sounds.

“One club.”

“Pass.”

“Two spades.”

“Pass.”

Carole Federico studied her hand, biting her lips.

“Pass.”

Bill laughed aloud, seeing her blunder. Russ Federico glared at his wife angrily.

“Are you out of your mind, didn’t you see my jump bid?”

“But we’ve got a partial, and that gives us game,” protested Carole.

“Damn it, I gave you a jump shift. I indicated we’ve got enough points for slam!” Russ threw his cards on the table. “Of all the goddamn stupid things to do!”

The Federicos took their bridge seriously, and the Thursday night sessions generally wound up in a fight. The game would get going at eight sharp but would never continue beyond ten. By that time, after a series of minor faux pas, Carole would always pull the granddaddy of them all, sending Russ into a towering rage and cuing Janice to put on the coffee.

The Federicos were slightly younger than the Templetons. Bill and Russ had come to know each other on the elevator, going down each morning. Occasional smiles and good-mornings had gradually ripened into conversation and then friendship. They would often walk to work together.

Russ and Carole had moved into Des Artistes in ’70, having purchased one of the smaller apartments. They were married five and a half years and were childless. Russ owned a small sound recording studio on Fifty-seventh Street. Like Bill and Janice, they couldn’t abide TV, loved bridge, and, best of all, were passionate about opera and owned a fabulous library of records, many of which were collectors’ items.

Their first evening together was at the Templetons’. Janice had spent the entire day preparing a cold veal tonnato, celery aspic, and a creamy chocolate mousse spiked with Grand Marnier. The Federicos were impressed and adulatory, proposing toast after toast from the jeroboam of Mouton Cadet they had contributed to the meal. Afterward the relationship was firmed with one of Russ’ rarest discs, a 1912 Victor recording of Alma Gluck singing selections from Faust, Aida, and Manon Lescaut.

The forceful combat of the lieder singers worked the opera toward its tragic conclusion. Janice sat in the rocker watching the others as they intensely savored the concluding strains. No one spoke, ever, during these musical sessions. Russ’ eyes were half closed in an expression of deep appreciation. Carole stared at the floor. Bill lounged sideways in the big club chair, his hand covering his eyes in a keenly listening attitude; however, Janice suspected he was dozing.

As the clash of cymbals punctuated the final orchestral crescendo, Janice glanced up and saw Russ gazing intently toward the opposite end of the room, a glint of mischief in his eyes. She turned her head and saw Ivy coming down the steps, rubbing the sleep from her eyes. The effect she had on Russ was anything but subtle. Twice in one day, men had noticed her. Pained and puzzled, Janice wondered where the childhood had gone and why so fast.

“I don’t feel well, Mom,” Ivy yawned tiredly and walked across the room toward her mother. A floor lamp in the corner backlit her progress, turning the gauzy nightgown into a transparent veil.

Russ stood up and greeted her with a sultry smile.

“Hey, you’re really getting there, kid,” he said, his eyes shifting fleetingly to her breasts, peeking impudently through the sheer material.

Ivy smiled wanly at Russ and put her arm around her mother’s waist. Carole joined them, having caught the byplay.

“Okay, buster.” Her tone was mock serious and a touch too casual. “Take me home before you get into trouble.”

Bill had been sleeping after all, for he remained in the same position, draped across the club chair, his hand shielding his eyes.

After the Federicos gathered their records and left, Janice gently shook Bill awake, then sent Ivy upstairs. Janice followed her with a cup of warm milk and took her temperature. It was normal.

By the time Janice undressed, creamed her face, and slipped into her nightgown Bill was sleeping soundly. His soft, rhythmic breathing, not quite a snore, enveloped the room. It was a safe, comfortable sound and often lulled Janice to sleep.

She turned off the lamp and crawled into bed beside him. Raising her nightgown to her waist, she gently snuggled up to him, fitting her body into the curvature of his warm nakedness.

Like everything else in their marriage, their sex life was perfect. Nothing between them was taken for granted. Both were experimenters, and every session brought with it something new and liberating. Bill bought books on the subject to widen their knowledge. “Bioloop,” “biocurve,” “mutual concentration,” “intimacy spiral” were expressions they knew and used.

Janice smiled as she remembered the Orissan posture book that Bill had brought home one evening. It contained drawings of more than one hundred intimate positions practiced by sixteenth-century Arabians. Over the course of several weeks they tried a number of them, the more possible ones, which were mainly unrewarding. They were forced to give this up when Bill hurt his back trying the number seventeen, or cartwheel, position.

Her smile deepened with the memory of the joy, the fun, the perfect sweetness of their life together, high in the center of Manhattan, in the dreamy duplex they owned.

How perfect their life had been. How safe and protected. No frights, no miseries, no sudden shocks. Except for that spate of crazy nightmares that had come to plague Ivy when she was a toddler and that lasted almost a year, not sickness, or want, or fear, or desire for others had come to challenge the perfect order of their lives.

Until today, Janice thought, with an aching stab of regret. Until today—in front of the school.

Janice was certain, and had been certain since three ten that afternoon, that life as they knew it was coming to an end. That even now, as she lay beside the warm, breathing form of the man she loved, forces were gathering to shatter their dream. She didn’t know how it would come about, or why. Only that it would happen.

That afternoon, in a flash of instant prescience, Janice had seen their doom reflected in the eyes of a perfect stranger.

2

Ivy awoke with a slight fever. It was just above normal, yet Janice thought it best to keep her home from school. With the weekend upon them, it would afford her three days’ rest. She would call Dr. Kaplan only if the fever got worse. Janice rationalized the decision to her full satisfaction and felt a sense of relief at having made it. Or was it a sense of reprieve?

Whatever, three days had been granted her before the next confrontation with the man.

The morning was cold and sunny as Bill stepped through the big glass doors of the old building and started walking to the corner of Sixty-seventh Street and Central Park West. The weather was perfect for walking, and Bill would make it to the office in good time since he didn’t have to take Ivy to school this morning.

He might even forgo the fast route down Central Park West and cut through the park directly at the Tavern on the Green. It took seven minutes longer; but the park was beautiful this time of the year, and Bill always enjoyed plodding across the soft golden carpet of crisp autumn leaves.

By the time the traffic signal had changed his decision was made. Bill crossed over to the Sixty-seventh Street park entrance and headed toward the famous old green and white clapboard restaurant.

As he entered the park gate, he casually glanced toward Ivy’s school, six blocks down the traffic-clogged boulevard. He wondered what Sideburns would think when he and Ivy didn’t show up this morning.

Bill plowed through a thick crunch of dried leaves which the wind had gathered together at the curb and proceeded on a southeasterly course through the park. The lanes at this point were wide and festooned with overhanging trees. The morning was still, and leaves drifted down gently around him under their own weight.

Bill had first become aware of the man on September 12, just four weeks and four days before. He hadn’t really spotted him until the fourteenth, two days later, but the moment he realized he was being followed, his mind did some fast backtracking and eventually placed the first encounter at a specific moment in time.

It was on the Sixty-fifth Street cross-transverse bus. Bill had just finished an all-afternoon conference with a media representative from the Doggie-Dog TidBits account. They had conducted their business in the client’s suite in the Hotel Pierre. As Bill left for home, it started to drizzle. He managed to make the four blocks up Fifth Avenue before the deluge began and happily found a bus parked there and taking on passengers.

As the loaded bus took off with its damp, surly cargo, Bill found himself wedged tightly in a mass of strangers, their breaths commingling intimately, their bodies swaying and jerking together in rhythm to the bus’ staccato progress through the transverse.

The face closest to his was a woman’s—middle-aged, care-worn, drained of joy or hope, with a pair of eyes that gazed vacuously into his, registering nothing. He couldn’t see the person behind him, but knew it was another woman, as he could feel the soft, pliable form of her breasts snuggling into his back every time the bus came to a short stop.

The third face, only partially seen in profile, belonged to a man about Bill’s age. What fascinated Bill here was the single perfect sideburn on the right side of his face. It was fascinating because of its perfection. Each hair was separate and distinct and seemed to have been trimmed by a draftsman. The thick crop of the man’s sideburn was matched by his mustache, which was equally perfect. Still, there was something very wrong about them both. Bill puzzled over this halfway across the park before finally coming up with the answer. They were phonies. The guy’s cheeks were nearly hairless; he could never have grown bushes like those on his own. Bill smiled with satisfaction at having solved the mystery when suddenly he realized that the man was looking at him. Bill quickly looked away and began studying an ad over the bus driver’s seat.

By the time Bill got off the bus at the corner of Sixty-sixth and Central Park West, the rain was falling heavily. Tiny glistening explosions of water battered the wide street as Bill jogged the short block to Des Artistes. The man with the sideburns was totally forgotten.

Two days later Bill met him again. In the elevator of the building where Bill worked. He was standing in the rear of the car behind a group of people as Bill entered. He didn’t look at Bill, and Bill pretended not to notice him. It could have been a coincidence, but Bill didn’t think so.

Later in the day, to confirm his suspicions, Bill ran a tape in the big computer that Simmons Advertising used for its demographic breakdowns. He fed the machine all the data he could think of: population density, area of encounters, time elapsed, distance between two encounters, and even fed it their sexes, probable ages, and an estimate of their physical fitness. The machine came back with a probability of one in ten million that two such encounters could occur within two days.

Still, Bill was willing to grant the outside possibility that it might have been a coincidence.

Twice, yes. Three times, no.

One of Bill’s accounts was a mutual fund with offices down on Wall Street. He and Don Goetz had spent an entire Monday morning presenting their spring ad campaign to the board of directors. The wrangling by the board would continue through the day, so Don and Bill escaped to a nearby restaurant for an early lunch.

They had finished their sandwiches and were sipping their second cups of coffee when Bill’s eyes caught the familiar sight of Sideburns floating in the rear of a mob of waiting customers near the doorway. The man was barely visible since people’s bodies were blocking all but a fragment of his head. Yet Bill was certain he was the same person.

After they paid their checks, Bill pushed through the waiting mob clotting the doorway, keeping his eyes peeled for the man with the sideburns. But in the time it had taken him to pay his check and put on his coat, the man had vanished. Bill glanced back into the restaurant to see if he had been seated. He was nowhere in sight.

Bill was worried. He was obviously being followed. By whom? A cop? The FBI? And for what reason?

That evening, balmy with Indian summer, Bill strolled slowly up the path that flanked the small lake in Central Park. Swans and geese swam in gentle, patient circles in search of stray crumbs of popcorn or peanuts. Bill walked to an empty bench and sat down.

His was a logical, orderly mind. If he was being followed and if it was the FBI, then there had to be a reason. Sitting in the shadow of the Plaza Hotel which loomed impressively above the lake, Bill probed his memory for anything he might have done in college, any organization or club he might have joined, any donations he might have made, any lectures he might have attended that could possibly give the FBI a reason for being interested in him. He reviewed each episode of his youth, each small area of his school years, minutely scoured each miserable day of his one-year hitch in the Army, and still, he could come up with nothing. He was clean. Of that he was sure.

The man was obviously wearing a disguise. The mustache, the sideburns, the whole thing was amateurish. Maybe he wasn’t a professional at all? Maybe he was just some nut. God knows, the city was filled with them. You met them on buses, in subways, in broad daylight, walking down Fifth Avenue, screaming, yelling, cursing, no cops around, and nobody daring to stop them. Yes, the city was infested with psychotics. And if you were smart, you never let them catch your eye.

Bill remembered what happened to Mark Stern. A promising career was cut short because of a nut. Mark and his wife had parked their car on a side street near Lincoln Center. They were members of the Metropolitan Opera Association and had lifetime seats in the Founders’ Circle. After the opera they’d gone to where their car was parked and found this person pissing against the fender. Mark got angry and pushed him away from the car, so the man started pissing on Mark and his wife. Mark hit him in front of witnesses and knocked him down. The man suffered a small concussion but was out of Bellevue in two weeks. He got a lawyer and swore out an assault and battery complaint against Mark. The trial was by jury. Mark was found guilty. He did sixteen months in jail, lost his job, a vice-presidency with Gelding & Hannary, and the last that Bill heard, his wife was divorcing him.

Bill couldn’t figure out why he was smiling. What happened to Mark was tragic, and yet he couldn’t help wondering who wound up with the lifetime subscription to the Met.

He sighed and rose from the bench. Sideburns just had to be some nut.

The next day Bill was forced to reassess that opinion.

He and Don had spent the morning trying to land another agency’s client—a client they had once represented but who had been snatched away from the Simmons agency some years before. Don felt encouraged by the reception they got, but Bill, a trifle older and wiser in the ways of the street, got a different message.

“They let us leave,” Bill explained to Don as they rode back to the office in a cab.

“Well, they want to think about it,” protested Don. “What’s wrong with that?”

“If they have to think about it, we’ve lost them,” Bill said with a note of finality.

Bill liked Don Goetz; he was bright, aggressive, loyal, and eager to learn. Bill had taken him as an assistant right out of Princeton three years before. He never regretted the decision.

Approaching his desk, the first thing Bill saw was the interoffice envelope. He glanced briefly at his phone messages before opening it. The envelope contained an eight-by-ten glossy photo of himself—an updated portrait he’d sat for last year at Bachrach’s. It accompanied his bio, which was kept in a file case in Personnel. A handwritten note from Ted Nathan, personnel director of Simmons, was attached: “Forgot to include this with your bio. Sorry. Ted.”

Bill shook his head foggily and tossed it aside.

He took care of several of the more important calls on his message sheet before dialing Ted’s interoffice number.

“What’s the mug shot for, Ted?” Bill asked when Ted came on the other end.

“What do you mean?” Ted said. “We always send them along with the bios.”

“What bio?”

“The one you asked for.”

“Hold on, old friend. Let’s start at the beginning. You say I asked you for a bio on myself?”

“Yes, that’s right.” Ted Nathan’s voice showed a slight nervous strain as he enunciated his words with care.

“All right, Ted,” Bill said gently. “When did I ask for it?”

“This morning. A little after nine. I had just gotten in when you called. You wanted it on the double, for your presentation. Don’t you remember, Bill?”

“Sure, Ted, sure. Slipped my mind for a sec. Thanks, pal.” And then: “Oh, say—by the, way—you didn’t tote it up yourself, did you?”

“Course I did. Nobody else is here at that time.”

Cleared of any wrongdoing. Ted Nathan’s tone became pointedly self-righteous. “I put it on your secretary’s desk like you told me to.”

“Yeah, that’s right,” Bill said genially. “Thanks, Ted.”

Bill hung up the phone lightly. He sat back in his Eames tubular recliner and focused his eyes on the big Motherwell print that dominated the wall opposite him. His eyes burrowed into the soothing brown and black juxtapositions, drawn into the hypnotic spell of the artist’s vision.

Sitting silently, immobile, Bill Templeton had real things to think about.

Somebody wanted to know all about him. Obviously. Somebody who had done his homework. Who knew that Bill’s secretary didn’t arrive at the office till nine thirty. Who knew that Ted Nathan always arrived shortly after nine. Who knew that on this particular morning Bill would go directly to his appointment and not come into the office at all. Who knew how to imitate Bill’s voice well enough to fool a man whom Bill had known for more than nine years. Somebody with the training and resourcefulness to plan a break-in and accomplish his mission without getting caught. A person of talent and dedication—and daring.

One week later Sideburns showed up at school.

It was on the first Monday in October. There was a real threat of snow in the air. Bill, as usual, was taking Ivy to school on his way to work.

Their gloved hands clasped tightly together, they would jog down the length of a block, then, coming to a corner, swing suddenly about so that their backs would receive the frigid impact of the crosstown winds, whipping up the narrow side streets. It was a game they played and loved playing together each year at this time.

When they finally reached the school building, they both were out of breath and laughing in total delight at each other. Bill’s eyes watered with the cold, and he could hardly see Ivy as she stood on her toes, kissed his cheek, then turned and scampered up the steps and through the big doors. As Bill turned to leave, he almost collided with a group of mothers, stationed at the base of the steps waving good-bye to their children.

Grunting an apology, he started to move past them when, suddenly, he stopped. Sideburns was standing directly in his path, staring at him. The look in the man’s eyes gripped Bill tightly and seemed to push for a confrontation.

“My name is Bill Templeton,” Bill said, and took a step forward. “I think you want to know me.”

The man remained transfixed, gravely looking at Bill for a long moment, before quietly speaking.

“I don’t know,” he said. “I’m not certain. I’ll let you know soon.”

And without another word, he turned abruptly and hurried off down the windswept boulevard toward Columbus Circle.

Bill could only watch after him, staggered, replaying the words over and over in his baffled brain.

“I don’t know. I’m not certain. I’ll let you know soon.”

A week went by.

Each morning Sideburns faithfully kept his rendezvous in front of the school. Bill would find him standing in his customary spot next to the steps, watching them approach from the distance. He’d watch them kiss good-bye, then turn and hurry off toward Columbus Circle the moment Ivy entered the building.

When, for two weeks, the pattern didn’t change, Bill decided to go to the police.

The desk sergeant was paunchy, dyspeptic, and pushing retirement age. He listened to Bill’s story in a bored, detached manner, then sent him upstairs to “Detectives” to see Detective Fallon.

Bill sat opposite a young, ruggedly handsome man in plain clothes and repeated his story to him. The room was large, painted a dreary green, and filled with an odd assortment of tables and chairs. The table where Bill and Detective Fallon were seated was deeply scored by years of use and mischief.

Detective Fallon listened attentively but without surprise or emotion. He made a few notes, flashed a quick look at Bill when he mentioned the man’s disguise, but allowed him to finish before asking, “Did this person in any way batter you?”

“Batter me?”

“Did he come into purposeful bodily contact with you? Did he push you? Or hit you?”

“No, nothing like that.”

Fallon’s face softened somewhat. “Unless there’s evidence of a battery, there’s very little the police can do in a case like this.”

“Isn’t it enough he’s been following me, spying on me?”

“What evidence do you have that he’s spying on you?”

“I told you, he got into my office. He secured my biodata sheet by impersonating me.” Bill’s voice steadily rose in indignation. “Isn’t that enough evidence?”

“How can you prove that he did it? I mean, do you have real concrete evidence that he was the person who entered your office and did this?”

“Well, no, but.…” The energy in Bill’s voice gradually flattened.

Fallon watched him a moment, almost regretfully.

“Officially, there’s nothing I can do for you, Mr. Templeton, but tell me again, what time do you take your daughter to school?”

“The schoolbell rings at eight thirty.”

“Okay. I’m on the nine-to-five this week. I’ll stop by on my way in tomorrow and have a look at this guy for myself.” And with a small, tight smile, he added, “Unofficially, of course.”

The next morning Sideburns didn’t show up.

After Ivy had entered the building, Bill walked over to Detective Fallon, who had been hovering behind a mailbox trying to appear inconspicuous. When Bill informed him that the man had failed to show, Fallon grinned lightly, shrugged, and said they’d try again. The next morning the same thing happened: Fallon came; Sideburns didn’t. The third morning Sideburns waited for them in his usual spot, but Fallon had given up.

The leaves crunched satisfyingly under Bill’s feet as he approached the pedestrians’ exit at Fifty-ninth Street and Fifth Avenue. Long lines of horse-drawn carriages were parked across from the Plaza Hotel, waiting for tourists to finish their breakfasts and start their day.

Bill waited in a small group for the light to change. In a way, he was glad that Ivy hadn’t gone to school today. He’d have a three-day respite before having to face Monday morning.

Bill thought of the weekend ahead of him. It would be fun staying at home the entire weekend. Bill could do what little food shopping was needed. Maybe they’d have the Federicos up to dinner and some bridge Saturday night.

As he crossed Fifty-seventh Street and veered eastward to Madison Avenue, Bill sensed a light, jaunty bounce to his step. He was almost feeling good for a change. “Que sera, sera,” he thought. “Whatever will be, will be.” The next move is up to Sideburns. Screw him!

While the pressure on Bill had been tremendous over the past weeks, he prided himself that he had never once brought his worries home to Janice. She had been spared any knowledge of his little pas de deux with the man in disguise.

He had kept their fortress inviolate—secure.

3

The word was M-A-T-E-R-I-A-L.

Ivy giggled excitedly and pushed the letter I into place at the end of the L. Janice considered this deeply, then added a Z to the I. Ivy quickly completed the word with an E.

“There.” She laughed triumphantly.

The time was only ten minutes past ten. The morning seemed endless.

Ivy had just placed an X beneath the E, starting a new word in the vertical line, when the telephone rang. Janice added a C beneath the X, pushed herself up from the floor with a funny little grunt, and quickly walked across the long, elegant room to answer it. It was probably Bill; he often called upon arriving at the office.

The telephone sat on a low table which formed the corner of a right angle connecting two black-covered sofas spiced by small bright pillows of green and lemon peel. A large stubby vase filled with autumn leaves spread a canopy of earth colors over the corner.

Janice picked up the phone on the fourth ring.

“Hello?” she said.

There was no answer.

“Hello?” she said again, in a softer tone, feeling a prickle of apprehension.

Janice was about to hang up when the voice finally came. Male. Quiet. Hesitant.

“Is she all right?” it said.

Janice hung up abruptly.

She stood there, eyes shut, steeling herself against the wave of utter panic about to overwhelm her. It was the man. She knew it was he. It could be no one else. He had found their unlisted number. Somehow. She felt herself trembling. Control! Control! She must not let Ivy see her like this!

A small, static smile affixed to her face, Janice gracefully squatted down to resume the game.

Ivy pushed an E under the C.

“Who was it?” she asked offhandedly.

“Secret Service,” Janice replied with a light, controlled laugh.

Ivy giggled, knowing full well to what her mother alluded. Phone calls with no voice at the other end were a frequent occurrence in the lives of most city dwellers. Whether the calls were simply mistakes, the deviltry of children, or the pastime of seriously disturbed persons, there was no accounting for them and certainly no stopping them. One learned to live with the nuisance; it went with the territory. “Secret Service” became their euphemistic way of laughing off these unidentified calls.

As Janice moved an L under the E, the telephone rang again. Janice watched Ivy slide another L beneath hers. The telephone continued to ring. The word on the board had built itself to E-X-C-E-L-L-E-N before Ivy quietly asked, “Aren’t you going to answer it?”

“Nah,” Janice replied, forcing a cheery note into her voice. “I’d rather play this game than that one.”

Ivy dropped the Y onto the end of E-X-C-E-L-L-E-N-C-Y with a cackle of merriment.

The telephone continued to ring.

“I really think we should answer it, Mom,” Ivy said with concern. “It may be Daddy.”

The same thought had occurred to Janice. She could visualize Bill sitting at his desk, worriedly listening to the phone ring and ring, wondering why no one answered it.

Janice rose quickly and started for the telephone when the ringing stopped.

“Aw!” said Ivy dejectedly. “Missed.”

“If it was Daddy, he’ll call again.”

Janice reached down and felt Ivy’s forehead. “How about some milk and cookies?”

“Sounds great.”

The ringing started again, and Janice dropped the half-filled milk bottle, spilling the milk on herself and the kitchen floor. But this time the rings came in short, staccato sounds telling Janice that the house phone, which was situated in the hallway, near the door, was summoning her. If it was the man, she would refuse the call since all incoming calls were announced by the desk man in the lobby, Dominick. Still, she let it ring four times before she picked it up.

“Miz Templeton?” Dominick’s rough, familiar accent was pleasantly reassuring. “It’s your husband.”

“Thank you, Dominick.”

“Hey, what gives?” were Bill’s first words. “I called you twice. The first time you were busy. The second time, no answer.”

“I don’t know,” she lied. “I didn’t hear the phone ring. Maybe you got the wrong number.”

Bill made a small, thoughtful sound. Then: “How’s my little princess?”

“Okay. She doesn’t have a fever. It’s probably just one of those one-day things.”

“Well, keep her in anyway. I mean, don’t go out—it was really freezing this morning.”

“I wouldn’t think of it,” Janice said with a light dramatic flourish.

“I may be home early.”

“Swell. Call me later and let me know,” Janice said, trying to end the conversation.

“How about calling Carole to see if they’re available tomorrow night for dinner?”

“All right.”

A pause. Then: “Anything else doing there?”

“No.” Why didn’t he hang up?

The telephone in the living room rang again. Its distant, strident sounds caused every nerve in Janice’s body to scream in protest.

“I’ve got to go, Bill,” she heard herself sputter in almost a gasp. “The other phone is ringing.”

“Answer it, I’ll wait,” Bill said.

Janice put down the phone, too brusquely, and hurried up the hallway to the living room.

By the time she got there Ivy had already answered it and was tailing off the conversation.

“Fine, thank you,” she said with a small smile. “Goodbye.” And softly returned the phone to its cradle.

Janice’s heart pounded as she took several steps into the living room. Her voice was surprisingly casual as she asked Ivy who had called.

“A man,” Ivy replied. “He wanted to know if I was all right.”

“Did he mention his name?”

“No.”

“Most likely a wrong number.”

“Unh-unh. He called me Ivy.”

Janice was amazed at her own control as she idly commented, “Maybe a teacher at school. They worry about you kids, you know.”

“Hey, I’ll bet it was Mr. Soames.” Ivy broke into laughter. “He’s always asking the girls how they are. He asked Bettina the other day, and she wasn’t even sick.”

Janice suddenly remembered Bill waiting on the other line.

“Why don’t you go upstairs and lie down, dear? I’ve got your father hanging on the other phone.”

“What about my milk and cookies?”

“I’ll bring them up to you. Go now, run.”

Ivy moved toward the staircase with some reluctance.

“Who was it?” Bill asked.

“One of the teachers wanting to know how Ivy is feeling,” Janice replied without even pausing to think.

“Oh? Which one?”

“Mr. Soames.”

Later, while Ivy was napping and Janice had a moment to collect her thoughts and calmly review each step of the ghastly situation, she wondered why she hadn’t just simply told Bill the truth. She could think of no answer beyond a vague, foolish wish to preserve the peace and tranquillity of their coming weekend. Yes, that was it—she was seeking to protect their weekend, to permit them once more, perhaps for the last time, to savor the loving motions of togetherness before the ax descended, as she knew it inevitably must.

She was buying time.

The cab deposited Bill on the park side of Sixty-second Street, across from Gristede’s Market. After a quick, instinctive sweep of the terrain, he jogged across the wide boulevard and entered the store.

Bill walked down the narrow aisles, filling the shiny aluminum shopping cart with cans and boxes and packets of beans, soups, kraut, bacon, hot dogs, milk, various kinds of breads and rolls, peanuts, chips, spreads, packaged cakes, ice cream, a veritable storehouse of provisions.

At the greens counter he selected three heads of iceberg lettuce and six bright-red hothouse tomatoes which he was shocked to find selling for a dollar five a pound.

Rounding the aisle of the meat counter, Bill thought he saw the fleeting image of a man disappearing around the far end in a big hurry. His suspicions roused, he trundled the cart at a fast gallop up the aisle and, panting heavily, turned the corner, fully expecting to see Sideburns fleeing down the aisle toward the exit. But all he saw were two elderly ladies eyeing him covertly in alarm. Bill grinned at them sheepishly and quickly steered his cart to the meat counter, where he ordered three strip steaks, a six-pound sirloin roast, and a dozen wafer-thin pork chops.

At the cashier’s table, Bill wrote out a check for eighty-one dollars and fifty-six cents while the boxboy compactly packaged his order in three large paper bags. He had intended to walk home the five blocks, but the bags were too numerous and bulky to permit it. He suggested his borrowing the cart and returning it later and was politely refused. He would have to find a cab somehow.

Leaving the groceries behind in the store, which they graciously allowed him to do, Bill hurried to the Mayflower Hotel, a short distance up the street. He waited ten minutes before a cab arrived and discharged a passenger.

By the time Bill stepped into the elevator of the regal old building, along with Mario, the doorman, who carried two of the heavier bags of groceries, the time was four fifteen.

The weekend had begun.

4

From the moment Bill entered the apartment, the atmosphere seemed charged with a kind of hidden electricity. Each was overly aware of the other, each move, look, and gesture intensified and heightened beyond its worth. Janice’s laughter was too full, overstated; Bill’s humor, his display of ardor, too overdrawn. Each sensed the false note in the other but was unwilling to diffuse it. Each was determined that nothing was going to spoil their weekend.

Bill dashed upstairs to say hello to Ivy while Janice unpacked the food.

Ivy had spent the afternoon composing a poem for Bill. They sat together on the bed while Ivy recited it, wringing every drop of pathos from each cherished word:

Bill’s eyes were moist as he leaned over and kissed Ivy’s proud and smiling face.

“That’s terrific, Princess.” Bill’s voice was husky with emotion. “I’ll try to live up to it.”

As Bill changed into his red velvet smoking jacket—last year’s Christmas present from Janice—it occurred to him that he should have brought something home for Ivy: a small present or flowers. He was angry at himself for being so thoughtless. He’d make up for it tomorrow. Somehow.

Bill descended the last step into the living room and headed for the liquor cart, where he knew the ice would be waiting, when Janice suddenly appeared at the dining-room doorway, wearing a small, wondrous smile.

“Hey, come here.” Her voice was soft, sensuous.

Bill went to her, and they kissed warmly. Then Bill felt the tears on her face.

“What gives, honey?” he asked her gently.

“I dig you, that’s what gives,” Janice replied, her face radiant with love.

Until this moment, Bill hadn’t noticed the box in Janice’s hand. It was a gift box, beautifully wrapped and ribboned, with a small card peeking out of the flap.

“Where did that come from?” Bill asked, puzzled.

Janice’s free arm still clung to his shoulder. Her smile deepened as her eyes probed the tender, patient, mysterious face of the man she loved.

“Where you put it, darling.” Janice smiled, continuing the game. “On top of the pork chops.”

Bill was about to protest when Janice interrupted.

“Please sign the card, Bill. She’ll be so happy.”

The card was delicately designed, featuring an array of tiny flowers surrounding the etched legend: “Hope you’re feeling better.”

“What’s in it?” Janice asked, fingering the box.

“What?”

“What did you buy her?”

“It’s a surprise,” Bill said.

Ivy and Janice’s eagerness to undo the ribbon and find out what the box contained was matched by Bill’s; however, with Bill, eagerness was tempered by doubt, worry and deep-seated fear. Someone had put the present in one of the food bags when he’d left the market to find a cab. Of that he was certain. Who that someone was also presented no great challenge to his deductive powers. It had to be Sideburns. But why?

“Oh, Daddy!” Ivy cried, producing a beautiful hand-painted purse from a nest of tissue. “Oh, Daddy, I love you, love you!”

She flung her arms around Bill’s neck and squeezed him until he shouted with laughter, “Okay, okay, help, please, somebody!”

“But really, Daddy, it’s perfect.”

Ivy kissed Bill once again, then turned to study her gift. Similar in style to the Fragonards inset in their living room ceiling, the illustration on the pale-blue satin purse featured a lovely French courtesan sitting on a flower-garlanded swing being pushed by a dashing swain. It was lush, excessive, and utterly romantic. Ivy hugged it to her breast.

“How did you know I always wanted it, Daddy?”

“I guessed,” Bill said, the smile slowly fading from his face.

Now it was the demon’s head—blunt snout, sunken eyes, stubby horns, lascivious serpent’s tongue, a disgusting baroque horror leering down at Bill from the complex plasterwork of the ceiling plaque in the center of their bedroom. Small, circular, ancient, the plaque had once served as center base for a light fixture. A small chandelier, perhaps. Probably gas, from the age of the building, Bill thought, lying in bed, watching the constantly changing patterns appear, then recede, then alter into new forms all at the whim of his imagination. Forcing his eyes to shift focus slightly, Bill made the demon dissolve into shapeless fragments and, with a bit of concentration, brought back the soft, flowing, graceful lines of the woman running. She, too, was an old friend like the demon, and the man playing cards, and the ship’s prow slicing through a sea of turmoil. All old friends, companions of the nights when Bill couldn’t sleep.

It was after three, according to the luminous dial on the clock-radio. Janice’s soft, rhythmic breathing beside him and the gentle whir of something electrical downstairs were the only sounds to be heard at this early hour.

At least she can sleep, Bill thought, feeling the warmth of her leg against his. The sleep of innocence. Of trust and faith and belief in the perfect order and certainty of their lives. He had not told Janice about Sideburns because he didn’t want to shatter that belief. As long as Bill thought himself the target, the focal point of Sideburns’ interest, why on earth drag Janice into it, especially since he hadn’t the foggiest idea what the whole thing was about?

But now—with the coming of the gift—Bill knew that all his wishful thinking, his carefully organized conjectures and rationalizations would have to be drastically revised since it was obvious now that he was not Sideburns’ exclusive target. The gift had thrust its way beyond Bill’s life into the very center of his family’s lives. Into the very heart of his home.

Sideburns knew a great deal about them. Knew of Ivy’s illness. Knew just the thing that would please her. Knew more than Bill did, in fact.

“What the hell’s going on here anyway?” he uttered aloud.

Janice stirred in her sleep, then turned over and snuggled into his side. Bill shut his eyes. Remained perfectly still.

What was it? Ivy had asked. “How did you know I always wanted it, Daddy?” The question now on Bill’s mind was: “How did he know?”

Bill drifted into sleep gradually, fearfully, pausing on the edge of a deep jungle, reluctantly being drawn into its cloying fastness, its myriad color grades, its menacing refuge for fang and claw. Great coco palms reared toward the sky, blotting out the sun, surrounded by cascading liana vines, choking the trees and pathways. It was a sinister cathedral with the mold of a hundred years scattered along the ground, musky with decay. Bill looked around, not sure where he was or what direction he should take to get out. He finally selected an opening between two great trees and stepped through it carefully. One pace, two paces, three.… Suddenly, the bottom dropped out from beneath his world, and he began to fall. And fall. And fall.…

“Finish your breakfast before it gets cold.”

Ivy smiled at Bill and nodded, glad to please him in every way she could this morning.

They were sitting opposite each other, across the narrow, shiny, polyurethaned dining table. The last to fall asleep, Bill had been the first to awaken and now sat bleary-eyed in robe, sipping coffee, smoking cigarettes, and observing his daughter slurping spoonfuls of some grayish substance he thought to be oatmeal, but couldn’t be sure.

Ivy had awakened brimming with health and bursting with energy. What plans had they for the weekend, was her first exuberant query. Bill was thankful that Janice fielded that one, explaining to Ivy that she’d have to stay in for the weekend because of her recent illness.

“But I feel fine now, Mom!” Ivy protested.

“I know,” Janice instructed. “But you don’t press your luck after an illness. The rule is to stay indoors at least two days after a temperature returns to normal.”

“Great.” Ivy pouted. “I’ll be just in time for school.”

Bill watched Ivy tip the plate of cereal to gain the last mouthful. The satin hand-painted purse rested alongside her plate, where she could glance at it and lovingly contemplate its beauty between each spoonful. She obviously couldn’t let it out of her sight.

“Is it really what you always wanted?” Bill asked, launching on a little fishing expedition.

“Oh, yes,” Ivy said with a sincere smile.

“Or are you just saying that to please me?”

“Oh, no, Daddy. I’ve always wanted it, really.”

Bill paused, mentally phrasing his next question with care.

“To want it so badly, you must have seen it someplace.”

Ivy looked at Bill quizzically but made no reply.

“Did you see it in a store someplace?”

“No,” Ivy said. “I never saw it in a store.” Clearly, she was puzzled by this line of questioning and was seeking a clue to what answers Bill expected of her.

“Well, if you never saw it before, how did you know it was really what you wanted?” Bill demanded, his voice rising.

“I don’t know, Daddy. I just knew.”

“But to want something very badly has to mean that you know what it is you want. Which means that you have to have seen it someplace.” Bill’s voice had become strident.

Confused, Ivy observed him nervously.

“Well?” Bill shouted.

“Leave her alone, Bill.” Janice said quietly.

Bill looked up and saw Janice standing at the kitchen doorway. He didn’t know how long she had been standing there but long enough, obviously, to have taken in the gist of the interrogation.

“I didn’t see it anyplace, Daddy!” Ivy cried, tears spilling from her eyes. “I guess I just wanted it because … because—” she picked up the purse and fingered the painting with a delicate caress—“because it’s just like a part of our lives. It’s like we are, in this apartment … like the paintings in the ceiling.… It’s perfect, and I love it … and when I first saw it yesterday, I knew right away that I loved it … you know? Like you see something and it’s so perfect that you know you’ve always wanted it, even though you’ve never seen it before.…” Having noted the long, silent exchange between her mother and father, Ivy realized that somehow she was the cause of what was happening and that even if she didn’t understand it, there were fences to mend and she was expected to do it. “I loved it without knowing about it. Like you knew I would when you bought it for me.” She opened the purse and took out a dainty handkerchief. As she wiped the tears from her cheeks, she looked across at Bill with eyes that begged understanding and offered love. “I’m sorry, Daddy, if I’ve made you angry.”

Bill knocked the sugar bowl over in his eagerness to reach across the table to clasp her hand in his and assure his overwrought daughter that he was not angry at all, that he simply had a superanalytical mind that liked to dig and delve into the whys and wherefores of things.

His apologies humbly proffered, plus kisses, hugs, and a hundred tiny endearments, Bill excused himself and went upstairs to shower, shave, and dress, leaving a happy, fully restored Ivy to tussle over the morning’s program in TV Guide and a frightened, totally confused Janice to clean up the spilled sugar and clear the breakfast dishes.

Janice sat in her rocker, immobile. She had the fixed, intensely vacuous look of a person caught in a witch’s spell. Her eyes, unblinking, seemingly focused on a pinpoint of dust halfway across the room, were in reality turned inward, into the churning depths of her own stunned brain.

Bill had not bought the gift.

This single stunning thought was the sole subject of her entire concentration.

The sounds from above of smothered laughter and subdued girl talk between Ivy and Bettina Carew could not penetrate the tough shield of privacy she had built around herself. Not even Bill’s softly querulous admonition to the children to “keep it down a bit” so that he could grab a couple of hours before dinner, managed to pierce the vacuum of her seclusion.

Bill had not bought the gift.

Janice could have known immediately if she had allowed herself. The air had been humming with signs and hints—a thousand little giveaways. Bill’s odd, puzzled look when she showed him the gift. His eagerness to see what it contained as Ivy undid the wrappings. His strange, sullen behavior at dinner, hardly touching his steak. And pretending to be asleep when she crawled into bed beside him. He was in no mood for her, obviously. His mind was fully taken by other matters. Which kept him awake until almost dawn. And then the weird inquisition at breakfast, those paranoid questions, cruelly scaring the wits out of Ivy.

What she had considered abnormal behavior, totally alien to Bill’s nature, was in actuality completely normal when put in its proper context. He was simply reflecting the concerns of a sane and reasonable parent, seeking the source of an unsigned gift his daughter had received, worried about who the sender was and how it had got into his food parcel.

Janice hated herself for not having told Bill about the man. She could have spared him all this anguish. For as certain as she was that Bill hadn’t bought Ivy’s gift, she knew who had.

She must tell Bill about the man.

Now. As soon as he awakened. Before the Federicos arrived.

Russ Federico did the honors at the liquor cart, measuring out exact amounts of gin and vermouth in a twelve-to-one ratio, while Bill still slept upstairs.

Janice, camouflaging her mood in a gay and festive ruffly-sleeved peasant blouse and evening skirt with flower appliqué, was in the kitchen. She finished basting the huge sirloin roast, then carefully peeled back the foil from chicken segments of Ivy’s TV dinner to allow it to crisp. Ivy preferred dining in her room whenever the Federicos came, and Janice didn’t mind. Opera talk bored Ivy almost as much as the music did.

Bill awoke to a crisp, ice-cold dry martini, lovingly placed in his hand by Janice.

“A Federico special,” Janice said, kissing the tip of his nose.

Bill yawned deeply and took a sip of the drink.

“I’ll be right down.”

“Don’t bother getting dressed,” Janice advised as she left the room. “He’s wearing a jump suit.”

She would tell Bill about the man after the Federicos went home.

The dinner followed its usual familiar pattern. Like one of Russ’ records, the conversation held no surprises as they tracked across the same wearisome grounds of opera, bridge, the charm of the old Met, and its graceless replacement.

After dinner, they decided to forgo bridge for Rossini’s II Barbiere di Siviglia, a recent RCA recording featuring Robert Merrill as Figaro, in excellent voice. Janice sensed it would be an early evening and was happy about it. Russ and Carole left soon after ten.

Usually, Bill helped Janice collect the dishes while she arranged them in the dishwasher, but tonight he excused himself. It would have been a good time for them to have talked. By the time Janice loaded the dishes, looked in on Ivy, and entered their bedroom Bill was already asleep. Or pretended to be.

Janice sat on the edge of the bed beside him and softly touched his face.

“Bill,” she whispered, “I’ve got to talk to you. It’s important.”

His eyes remained closed.

“Dear,” she said, a bit louder.

The rhythm of his breathing remained even, uninterrupted.

He really was asleep.

Janice’s face was flushed and perspiring.

Eyes open, lips parted.

The dark silhouette of Bill’s head and shoulders moved rhythmically above her. Playing peekaboo with the painting on the ceiling. Lush, heady, fulsome nudes cavorting merrily in the sparkling woodland stream. Ripe breasts. Rosy nipples. Wet, sensuous lips forming an O of ecstasy. Appearing and disappearing in staccato motion. Gaining in rapidity as the crisis nears.

Janice felt herself coming. Quickly veered her thoughts to neutral matters. Bridge. Rigoletto. It was too soon. Too soon. They mustn’t let it end. Bill moaned softly and decreased his stroke. He was holding back, too. Good, Bill. Think, Bill, think! Consider. The essence here is not mere sexual gratification. It has a dimension over and above this. It is catharsis. An act of desperate necessity. The antidote to fear. Yes, fear. Think fear, Janice. Think the man. The man.…

She hadn’t told Bill. There hadn’t been the chance. He had come down late. Ivy plagued him with her math. All the morning. There had been no chance.

A pause. A shift of position. The pillow scratches the buttocks. Needlepoint pillow. Tiger-head pillow. Her artwork. Twenty-six dollars the entire set, including silkscreen canvas, varicolored yarns, and directions. It scratches during lovemaking. A statement of pure fact. There had been no time to improve matters. Bill had taken her on the floor at once, beneath the painting, the moment that Ivy left to play with Bettina. It was essential they sate their hungers at once. Both knew it. As birds know. There was no time. No time. Bill in robe, she in smock. No loveplay. No touching. In at once! An emergency operation. By royal decree. A command performance. The will of God!

He was coming. Damn, Damn! His moans were escalating with each deep, penetrating thrust. Yes, he was coming. It would soon be over. The end of sanity. The end.

The telephone rang.

Reprieved! They would stop. He would answer it. But no. Too late. He was past the point of no return. Panting, whistling, urging, pounding … Too late for Bill. Too late for Janice. Too late.

The telephone rang.

Her fingers clutched his skin. Her tongue sought his. Their breaths exploded into each other’s mouths.

The telephone rang.

Shrill, piercing, strident, jangling, jarring, merging, and mingling with their own percussive love sounds, tagging along with them on their swift, sweet leap into heavenly space, keeping them company each pulsating moment of their feather-soft fall back to earth. A cavatina decrescenda with bells.…

The telephone stopped ringing.

The sounds of their breathing dominated the room again. They clung to each other, on the floor, unwilling to concede an inch to the enemy. Bill played with her body. She followed in kind. Each strove to restimulate the other. Afterplay. Recommended by Allen & Martin. But somehow the nerve endings wouldn’t cooperate. They kissed without passion and separated. Bill put on his robe. Janice went upstairs to shower.

He was standing in the far corner of the room, next to the ample autumnal spray. The telephone was at his ear, but he wasn’t speaking. A slant of sunlight heightened the stricken expression on his face.

“What is it?” Janice murmured in a small, quavering voice as she took the last step down into the living room and came to a dead stop.

“There’s no answer at Bettina’s.” Bill spoke the sentence almost dully—a stark statement of simple fact.

“What?” Janice could not quite take in the meaning of what he had said.

“I thought it might have been Ivy calling before. But there’s no answer.”

“That’s impossible. They’ve got to be there.” Janice felt her scalp tightening—the prelude to panic.

“Twelve rings, no answer.”

“Dial again.”

“I did. Get your coat.”

Bill hung up the phone and propelled himself into action, while Janice remained rooted, dazedly watching Bill in rumpled Levi’s and a black turtleneck pullover thread his tennis sneakers onto his feet. She was unable to move or think.

Bill glanced at her and crisply commanded, “Move, Janice!”

The words seemed to work. Somehow Janice found herself going through sensible motions in spite of her pounding heart and the floating watery sensation in her limbs. She was even surprised to find her purse in her hand as they charged down the dimly lit hallway to the elevators.

A sad, retiring widow, Mrs. Carew had resisted all offers of friendship, preferring a life of quiet isolation for herself and her daughter. Standing in the hallway, enveloped by the sound of a slowly ascending elevator, Janice recalled the image of Mrs. Carew’s sweet, gentle face. Now there was a distinct malevolence behind the patient, kindly smile.

“Did you take Ivy down, Dominick?” asked Bill while the door was still in motion.

“Yes, sir,” Dominick replied in his halting English. “Half hour ago. She went out with Mrs. Carew and her daughter.”

Bill gripped Janice’s arm and ushered her into the car.

A bright, warm sun had drawn the autumn chill from the air, bestowing a clear, springlike day on the city. Leaving the building, Bill and Janice hurried toward Central Park West, having agreed on a specific course of action while descending in the elevator. They reasoned that Mrs. Carew would have taken the children to either the park or perhaps the supermarket on Amsterdam Avenue, the only market in the neighborhood open on Sunday. Since the day was so perfect and the park the closest, they decided to look there first.

Waiting for the light to change, Bill began to feel a vague, fluttering vibration emanating from Janice’s arm which he was lightly holding. She was trembling. Guardedly, he glanced at her face in a casual manner. Her eyes were pinpricks of intensity; a light film of sweat accented the pallor of her skin. She was truly terrified. Why? he wondered.

Crossing into the park, they all but ran up the narrow dirt path that led to the children’s playground. The awkward surrealist play forms which had, in a spurt of unthinking generosity from the Estée Lauder company, replaced the swings, seesaws and jungle gyms, were literally dripping with children of all ages and races, gamely attempting to wrest a modicum of fun out of the odd, demented shapes.

Janice and Bill separated at the gate, striking off in different directions in order to increase efficiency. Janice covered the eastern perimeter of the playground while Bill took on the western side. They would eventually join forces somewhere on the northern end unless one lucked in on the objective, at which point he or she would communicate to the other by shouting.

Janice moved through a maze of children-ridden monoliths, her eyes darting swiftly about, focusing, refocusing on, past, around galaxies of screaming, laughing, upright, sideways, upside-down faces, seeking, searching, probing the nightmare world for a telltale sign, an essential clue: vanilla boots, faded jeans, golden hair.… Walking, stumbling, sidling, Janice felt herself drowning as she pushed through wee mad clusters along the western shore of Jabberwocky, hysteria rising, building, surging until screaming became the only possible antidote.…

“Janice!”

“What?”

“Janice! Here!”

It was Bill’s voice, beautiful, powerful, strong, cutting through the mad, cacophonous wall, signaling success, coming to the rescue in the nick o’ time, standing tall, waving to her from the other side of no-man’s-land, and beside him, the smiling head of Mrs. Carew, floating, disembodied like a Dumbo balloon.

Janice collided with a gaggle of running children halfway across the playground and almost fell. Bill bravely ventured forth and collected her.

“Ivy and Bettina went for a walk up the bridle path,” Bill whispered urgently to Janice while maintaining a façade of calm for Mrs. Carew’s benefit. “I’ll go find her.”

Janice found herself shaking uncontrollably as Bill walked quickly away from her, leaving her standing beside Mrs. Carew, who smiled amiably up at her.

“You shouldn’t have taken her out,” Janice admonished in a taut, quavering voice.

“I am sorry, dear,” replied Mrs. Carew. “I had no idea you’d be worried.”

“You shouldn’t have done it,” Janice importuned. “She’s been ill—”

“Yes, Mr. Templeton told me.” Mrs. Carew smiled. “I had no idea. But it’s such a warm, pleasant day. And we did call you. Apparently, you were out.”

“Yes,” Janice said.

They spoke no more.

In less than five minutes, Janice saw Bill’s head bobbing distantly through a tangle of autumn growths, looming toward them. In the next moment, the bright, heart-clutching flash of Ivy’s yellow hair beside him assured her that all was right.

Ivy was safe.

The rest of Sunday was given to Monopoly.

Bettina came back to the apartment, and they played until suppertime, all four of them, seated across from one another at the dining-room table.

Bill played a ruthless, impassioned game and won nearly everything worthwhile—Marvin Gardens, Boardwalk, a green monopoly consisting of Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Pacific avenues—collecting outlandish rentals on three houses and two hotels and winding up with something over twenty-seven thousand dollars.

They dined on pork chops with a tomato salad after Bettina left, watched television until nine thirty, saw Ivy to bed, and retired for the night to their own bedroom.

At ten twenty-six, Bill turned off the light. Lying on their backs, awake, under the green electric blanket, gazing up into the shadowy labyrinths of the plasterwork ceiling, their bodies separated by the width of their clinging hands, Bill and Janice finally talked.

Janice spoke first.

“Bill,” she whispered, “there’s a man out there.”

“I know,” Bill said, accepting the fact of her knowledge with no surprise and no emotion. “With sideburns and a mustache.”

Janice’s hand tightened in Bill’s.

“How long have you known about him?”

“Tomorrow will be five weeks.”

“He comes to the school each day.”

“Yes. In the mornings, too.”

“What does he want?”

“I don’t know.”

“He’s going to harm us.”

“Probably.”

“It’s Ivy he’s after, Bill.”

“Why do you say that?”

“The way he looks at her. And he called the other morning.”

“Your Mr. Soames call, huh?”

“Yes. I lied. I’m sorry.”

“That’s all right.”

Janice felt his hand relax slightly in hers.

“What does he want, Bill?”

“I don’t know.”

“We must call the police.”

“I went to them. They can’t help—until he makes some kind of move.”

Silence, then softly: “Oh, God. What does he want?”

Bill sighed. “We’ll know soon enough.”

Like Hansel and Gretel, they held hands throughout the moonless, haunted night, sleeping in fits and starts, awakening and pushing onward, falsely guided by the pebbles which glittered like newly coined money, wandering, lost, deeper and deeper into the wood toward the terrors of an uncertain daybreak.

5

Monday.

October 21.

Temperature: 37 degrees.

Humidity: 98 percent.

Barometric pressure: 29.92 and falling.

A storm system that provided snow for the upper Mississippi Valley and western Great Lakes had moved during the night into New England and parts of New York, including Manhattan. A light film of refreshing white blanketed the dun-gray streets and buildings visible from the Templeton apartment. The weather would turn colder by afternoon. More snow was forecast.

The first assault came with the morning mail, delivered by Mario, the doorman, at nine twenty, thirty minutes after Bill had left the apartment with a warmly bundled, book-burdened Ivy in tow.

The letter was included among a pack of bills, advertising circulars, an invitation to a Four-A’s dinner-dance, and two magazines. The envelope was the standard white pre-stamped kind sold in the post office. It was addressed to Mr. and Mrs. William Pierce Templeton in a firm, bold hand, with no sender’s name or return address. The “Pierce” was the giveaway. Whoever sent the letter had an intimate knowledge of Bill’s private life, for Bill never used the middle name—his mother’s maiden name—in any of his correspondence except his most personal legal documents.

Janice hefted the envelope in her hand, feeling its thinness with her fingers, to ascertain its contents. It felt so light that for a moment Janice thought it might be empty, but holding it up to the window for light, she saw a small grayish square contrasting with the white of the envelope. Denied sufficient liquid, the poorly sealed flap opened at her touch without scarring or tearing the paper.

Janice glanced sideways into the envelope—as a child watches a horror movie, through finger cracks—and saw a neatly clipped piece of paper covered with minute printing. She considered using tweezers to extract the paper from the envelope to preserve the fingerprints for later use as evidence, but settled finally on her long fingernails, which clutched the tissue-thin sheet by its edge. She read its contents with a self-control that amazed her before going to the telephone to call Bill.

“What’s the matter?” Bill panted lightly, having been pulled from a meeting to answer the “emergency” call.

“He sent us his calling card,” Janice replied dully.

“What! Say again,” Bill stammered, trying to catch his breath.

“His name is Elliot Suggins Hoover.”

“Yeah? How do you know?” Then, sudden concern: “Was he there? Are you all right, Janice?”

“A letter arrived!” Janice blurted, abandoning control. “With a printed slip of paper in it from Who’s Who or the Social Register or something, telling about his wife and background.…”

“Anything else come with it, a note, or—”

“No, just that!”

There was a long pause on the other end while Bill considered the situation.

“Listen to me, Janice.” Bill came back briskly, resolutely. “Get the boys downstairs to find you a cab. Come down to the office and wait for me. This meeting should be over by twelve thirty. I’ll have my secretary reserve a table at Rattazzi’s. We’ll have lunch and talk. Okay?”

He was doing what he did best—he was handling matters, Janice thought bitterly.

“If you want, I’ll meet you for lunch, but I can’t come down to the office.”

“Fine,” agreed Bill. “Twelve thirty, Rattazzis, okay?”

“Okay,” she said, then quickly added: “Bill?”

“Yes?”

“Was he waiting at the school this morning?”

“No. At least I didn’t see him.”

“Bill?”

“Yes, dear?” Bill was carefully maintaining the calm, conciliatory tone in his voice.

“I’m scared.”

Janice checked the chain bolt on the door before going upstairs to shower and wash her hair.

It was ten fifteen, and she was fixing the damp conditioned locks around the heated rollers when the telephone rang. She let it ring. It rang fourteen times before stopping.

At eleven forty she stood before the door mirror in their bedroom surveying the finished product and was gratified by what she saw. Although the handsome blue and burgundy plaid pants suit was last year’s purchase, it not only fitted her well, but did superb things for her figure. Her soft brown hair and lightly cosmeticized skin completed the portrait of a bold and, she had to admit, quite beautiful woman.

The sidewalk in front of Des Artistes had been swept clean of snow and was practically dry as Mario ushered Janice to the waiting cab and told the driver the address of Rattazzi’s Restaurant.

At twelve twenty Janice paid the cabdriver and entered the narrow, dimly lit restaurant

At twelve forty she ordered her second drink, still studiously avoiding the pernicious sesame sticks and butter plate that was set before her. By the time Bill arrived at one ten Janice was working on her fourth J & B with water and was feeling lightheaded and giddy. She saw Bill zoom toward her in a haze of apologies and heard him order their lunch immediately, since Janice needed to get to school by three in order to meet Ivy.

Only after Bill took a healthy sip of his frosty martini did he ask to see the letter.

Janice fumbled around in her purse, finally found it, and passed it across to him with a shaking hand. Obviously, Bill didn’t have her concern about fingerprints, for he extracted the small printed sheet with a total disregard for the possible evidence it might contain.

Bill’s eyes narrowed to slits as he strained to read the tiny print on the tissue-thin paper. His lips slowly mouthed the words but were submerged by the wall of chatter surrounding them:

Hoover, Elliot Suggins (hoo’ver), corp. exec; b. Pitts., Jan. 26, 1928; s. John Roberts and Ella Marie (Villatte); student Case Institute Technology, 1945–49, Dr. Engring (honorary), 1955; married Sylvia Flora, May 5, 1957; children, Audrey Rose. Asst. to v.p. in charge raw materials Susquehana Steel Corp., Jan.–Sept. 1959; v.p. in charge raw materials Great Lakes Steel Co. of Penna. 1960–62. Writer, lecturer on personnel administrn. and human relations. Trustee, mem. exec. com. Pitts. Community Chest. Health Fund Greater Pitts. Silver Beaver, Silver Antelope, Silver Buffalo Awards Boy Scouts Am. Member N.A.M. Clubs: HooHoo, Rotary, Harrison Country and Golf. Mem. Am. Iron and Steel Inst. Zeta Psi. Mason (33, Shriner, Jester) Home: 1035 Wellington Dr., Pitts. 29. Office: 1 William Penn Pl., Pitts. 30.

Janice was astonished to see Bill’s smile grow as he slowly read through the short biography. She had found nothing funny in any of it.

“Well”—Bill chuckled—“you gotta admit he’s an all-American boy.”

“Why did he send that to us?” Janice asked measuredly, trying not to slur her words. “What does it mean?”

“Damned if I know.” Bill shrugged. “He’s dealing, Janice.”

“Take it to the police. Show it to them.”

“Is it enough? I mean, after all, what does it tell us? A couple of facts about his life, his work, his affiliations.… It says nothing about his motives, his intentions.” Bill picked up the thin slip of paper and studied it intently. “It may not even be him. Maybe he just clipped any old bio out of Who’s Who to test us. See what our reaction would be.”

“Then you propose to do nothing?” Janice was conscious of a shrill note in her voice.

“What can we do?” Bill argued. “Right now the moves are all his. Until he does something that’s overt or threatening, we have nothing to go to the police with. They wouldn’t even consider this an act of mischief,” Bill concluded, placing the slip of paper back into the envelope and pocketing it.

“I only hope,” Janice stated in a soft, quavering voice, “that when he does decide to make his move, you don’t live to regret it.”

Her words scored. The firm, confident cut of Bill’s rugged features slowly collapsed, fragmenting into small, vulnerable shapes of helplessness and despair. His eyes beheld her through a veil of hurt. Janice despised herself for having spoken.

Their meal arrived, and they ate in silence through the entrée, a veal marsala accompanied by a Bibb lettuce and arugula salad. Both finished all the food on their plates and even sponged up the delicious sauce with pieces of crusty bread, their anxieties failing to disturb their appetites.

“I’m sorry, Bill,” Janice said after the waiter had cleared the table. “You’re probably right. At this point, the police wouldn’t know what to make of all this, no more than we do.”

Bill reached across the table and took her hand in his. Their eyes embraced with compassion and understanding, reaffirming mutual trust and togetherness.

“Let me think on it,” Bill said. “There may be a way to force the issue.”

It was two thirty-one when Bill finally found a cab and deposited Janice into it. Even in the slush and misery of the traffic-clogged hour, there was still plenty of time to make the eight blocks to the Ethical Culture School before the three o’clock bell sounded.

Bill’s storm boots sucked noisily into wet, grimy deposits, as he trudged the several blocks back to his office, his mind fully concentrated on devising formulas and elaborating plans of action to force Sideburns’ hand.

Janice was right, he decided. Who could predict what his first real move might be? If he turned out to be a lunatic, and if Janice or Ivy were to fall into his clutches—Bill quickly maneuvered his thoughts away from such a horrible prospect and shifted back to ways and means of provoking a confrontation. By the time he reached his office building Bill was resolved that the very next encounter with Hoover would be the moment of truth for them both. He was finished pussyfooting around. Game time was over.

Ted Nathan was standing in the elevator when Bill entered. As the car whizzed up to the thirty-eighth floor, Bill turned to him and asked, “Do we keep editions of Who’s Who, Ted?”

“Certainly,” Ted replied. “We got ’em going back to sixty-nine.”

Bill accompanied Ted back to his office and went through all three editions of the big red books. He found no Hoover, Elliot Suggins in any of them. This puzzled Bill. He had been certain that the clipping was pulled from a Who’s Who. He compared the typeface and printing format of the clipping with those in the book and found them identical. Jotting down the publisher’s name and address—The A. N. Marquis Company, 210 East Ohio Street, Chicago, Illinois 60611—Bill returned to his own office and asked Darlene, his secretary, to put in a call to them.

“Yes.” Mrs. Ammons’ voice returned on the other end of the line after a hold of nearly ten minutes. “Hoover, Elliot Suggins is listed in our 1960-61, 1962-63, and 1964-65 editions. He was dropped after the 1966-67 edition.”

“Can you tell me why, Mrs. Ammons?”

“Well, I suppose because he was deceased.”

Bill thought about this a moment, then asked, “How do you generally learn about a person’s death, Mrs. Ammons?”

“We either read about it or we’re informed by the family.”

“I see.”

“Sometimes we know when our mailings to biographees are returned to us unopened and with no forwarding address indicated.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Ammons. You’ve been very helpful.”

Bill slowly cradled the phone and began to probe the hypnotic patterns of the Motherwell across his desk.

Accepting the premise that Elliot Suggins Hoover was alive and that he and Sideburns were one and the same person, why then had he chosen to return the correspondence from Who’s Who unopened and with no forwarding address?

Bill made two more long-distance calls.

One to the main office of the National Chapter of the Shriners, in Cleveland; the other to the Iron & Steel Institute, in Pittsburgh. Both corroborated the information he had got from Mrs. Ammons. The Shriners still had him listed in their inactive roster, although they presumed him dead since they had not heard from him in seven years. The Iron & Steel Institute had revoked his membership in 1968 after a one-year lapse in his dues payments.

Well, Bill thought, at least one thing was becoming clear.

Sometime around 1967, something happened to cause Elliot Suggins Hoover to wish to disappear from the face of the earth.

The noise was appalling. A bedlam of car horns and obscenities battered through Janice’s wavering consciousness, pulling, tugging, wrenching her back to wakefulness. Against her will. She would have preferred the silent, restful nothingness to the tough, blasting cadences pressing in on her from all directions.

She was sitting on the curb in a puddle of wet slush, where the policeman had placed her after the accident, leaning against a litter bin with the legend “Use Me Please” hovering slightly above and to the right of her line of vision. A bevy of faces drifted in and out of focus around her, sympathetic, solicitous, rapt with interest and excitement. Beyond them, the indistinct figures of two men hurling foulnesses at each other strained to penetrate the barrier of blue-coated policemen separating them.

A voice suddenly descended to her ear, gently advising, “The ambulance’ll be here soon, ma’am.” Why these words filled her with dread, she couldn’t define. She would have to think about it, in a methodical, orderly way, organizing each piece of information as Bill would, step by step.

She began with: The ambulance must not come. Which led to: Why must it not come? Because.…

And here she faltered.

Backtrack!

She had been … where?

With whom?

Bypass it!

She had been in an accident. Of that she was sure.

She had been sitting in a cab, going … somewhere.… A wire screen separating the driver from the passenger had impeded her vision somewhat. Even so, she could see what was going to happen fully a minute before it did. The corridor between the traffic on the left and the Number 5 bus on the right was much too narrow to slip through. Certainly, the cabdriver must have realized it. If he attempted it, the cab would be sandwiched between them and crushed. It was inevitable. Janice reenacted the scene in her mind, reprising the same shock of terror she had previously felt as the cab lunged madly forward at full speed, plowing ahead in total disregard of the consequences. She recalled the metal scraping against metal sounds as the cab skidded bouncingly off traffic from left to right, the crunching collision against immovable forces, and the sudden, jarring halt that sent her hurtling forward into the wire screen … into blackness.

There was a fraction of a second, just before she fell into the soft cushion of darkness, when Janice experienced a fear, no, it was more a terror, so overwhelming that she thought her heart would stop beating.

Sitting on the curb, sorting about the hazy corridors of her memory, Janice had the distinct feeling that the terror she had felt in the minuscule moment of time related to something quite apart from the accident. Some other issue, not the accident, was involved. Some issue or duty that the accident was preventing her from completing. Duty. Yes, it was a duty.

“Keep it movin’,” a policeman was saying. “Give her some air.”

A gauzy parade of faces milled sluggishly past her in double images, a grotesque montage of mixed genders; painted eyes; scarlet lips, pursed, smiling; the head of a man, bristling with red facial hair; a child, a girl, gawking wide-eyed down at her—The girl! Janice’s eyes widened in alarm. The girl!

“Oh, my God!” Janice stammered aloud and struggled to her feet, clinging to the litter bin for support. Ivy! She’d be out of school! She’d be waiting! Alone! With the man! What was his name? Oh, God!

“Take it easy, ma’am,” the policeman was saying to her. “The ambulance’ll be here soon.…”

Janice clutched her shaking hand to still it as she strove to focus her vision on the small, numberless Lucite wristwatch, trying to decide whether the hands were pointing at the two fifteen nubs or the three fifteen.

“Please, what time is it?” Janice sobbed, grasping the policeman’s jacket and spinning him around.

“Easy, ma’am,” the officer urged. “Its just a little past three o’clock.”

“Oh, my God! I’ve got to go!”

“Now, now, you just take it easy—”

“But I must go, Officer!” Janice was shouting into the young Irish face. “It’s an emergency!”

“Oh? What kind of emergency?”

“It’s my daughter. Ivy. She’s been let out of school. She’s alone, waiting for me!”

“She’ll be all right, ma’am,” the policeman soothed. “They’ll keep her in the office till you get there.”

“No!” Janice shook her head at him in a crazy, wild way. “I must go now! Please!”

Her tears and hysteria were beginning to score points with the policeman. After a moment’s thoughtful consideration, he asked, “Don’t you think you should have a doctor look you over, ma’am?”

“No.” Janice wept. “I’m all right, really. Absolutely all right. Please, help me find a cab! Please!”

“Well—If you think you’ll be all right—”

“I’ll be fine. Thank you.”

Janice swayed only slightly as the policeman led her through the circle of faces, clearing their path with shouts and threats. He halted a cab with his whistle and opened the rear door. A man was seated in the back.

“Please leave this cab, sir,” the policeman ordered, using the proper Delahanty-approved words. “I am a police officer, and under Section One Hundred and Fifty of the Penal Code of New York, it is necessary for me to use this vehicle.”

The flabbergasted occupant of the cab quickly emerged, and Janice climbed in.

“Remember the name Donovan, Twenty-eighth Precinct, in case you need me,” the policeman shouted as the cab pulled away. Janice heard him, but her mind did not record the information.

A strange and invigorating feeling of buoyancy was working itself through the various levels of Janice’s body as the cab skittered and swerved through the maze of slippery streets, selecting the least encumbered route to their destination. She found her dizziness a distinct comfort as it mitigated orientation and reduced awareness of the terrors that lay in wait at the end of their journey.

The time was three thirty when Janice, maintaining a frail hold on consciousness, counted out four dollar bills, which included the ejected passenger’s fare as well, and shakily turned them over to the cabdriver. He had plotted his course so that Janice would be discharged directly in front of the school building, which, she noted with a sinking heart as they approached it, was totally deserted.

A few flakes of new snow were falling on the cleanly swept sidewalk as Janice left the cab. She started toward the school entrance, but the moment she did, she saw the sidewalk slide away from her and felt as if consciousness might depart at any moment. A nearby fire hydrant became her support, and she stood, stooping over it, clinging hard for several minutes, commanding her vision to cease whirling and her heart to stop pounding.

A sharp, rapping voice emanating from somewhere within the precincts of the school building guided Janice’s eyes back to the red stone façade and up to a tall window, behind which a woman, wearing horn-rimmed glasses, stood watching her with concern. Janice recognized the face but could not think of her name.

“Are you all right, Mrs. Templeton?” The woman had opened the window slightly and was shouting down at her. “Do you need help?”

“Yes, I’m afraid I do.” Janice laughed helplessly.

The woman vanished instantly and in the very next moment was clambering down the icy steps, her hands extended toward Janice in a helping gesture.

“I suddenly felt faint,” Janice explained, allowing the woman to take her arm and cautiously walk her across the pavement and up the concrete steps.

“I came to pick up Ivy; a bit late, I’m afraid.” Janice dreaded asking the next question. “I hope she waited for me in the office?”

“No,” the woman said. “There’s no child in the office.”

She sat Janice down on a hard oaken bench just inside the registrar’s office and went to fetch aspirin and water.

The room was deserted. The copper nameplate on the desk said Mrs. Elsie Stanton. The wall clock read three forty-one. Janice saw a telephone on a nearby table and lunged at it, swaying slightly as she dialed her home number. There was no answer. She let it ring ten times, then hung up and dialed the desk number in the lobby of Des Artistes. Dominick answered.

“This is Mrs. Templeton, Dominick. Is Ivy in the lobby by any chance?” Janice made the words sound light and casual.

“Just a minute, Miz Templeton.”

Janice felt the cold sweats and the feelings of dread encroaching subtly as the seconds swept by on the Western Union clock above her.

“No, Miz Templeton,” Dominick said regretfully upon his return. “She ain’t in the lobby or outside on the street.”

“Thank you, Dominick. If you should see her, please keep an eye on her until I arrive.”

“Sure thing, Miz Templeton.”

Janice stood there, shakily readjusting the belt on her raincoat, which had become twisted somehow, concentrating on straightening it out, in a futile effort to forestall the consideration of topics of greater importance. But her mind would not cooperate, kept fielding the darts of anxiety battering through the frivolous defense. Ivy was not at school! Ivy was not at home! What alternative was left? None! She had been met by the man! He had taken her! It was that simple, really. Simple? Oh, my God! Janice felt a scream begin to well up from somewhere deep within the core of her despair, felt herself yielding to a blinding impulse to run screaming from the building.

“Take them with the full glass of water,” Mrs. Stanton prescribed, placing the aspirin and glass in Janice’s trembling hands. “They’ll work faster that way.”

As Janice swallowed the pills, refreshed by the cool liquid which eased her parched throat, she knew what her very next step must be.

Without asking permission, Janice picked up the receiver and dialed Bill’s office number. She was put through to his secretary, who told her that Bill was at an important outside meeting and would not be returning to the office.

It was while she was listening to the secretary’s full-bodied, authoritative voice that Janice remembered something that sent a sudden surge of renewed hope coursing through her. Once before, less than a year ago, Janice had been delayed and Ivy had waited for her across the street in the park. Of course, it had been a beautiful spring day then, but still, perhaps the snow had worked its own kind of spell on Ivy and she was there right now, waiting for her, just beyond the wall, building a snowman.

Mrs. Stanton’s cautionary recommendations scarcely registered as Janice desperately propelled herself toward the exit doors and out into the cold afternoon. The concrete steps were covered by a layer of slippery snow, forcing Janice to descend slowly and cling to the frigid metallic railing for support. The snow was falling densely now, in large quarter-sized flakes. At the curb Janice strained hard to see across the sluggish traffic, seeking a glimpse of Ivy on the park side of Central Park West. But the thick wall of white made it impossible to see beyond the center of the street. With singleminded objectivity and total disregard for personal danger, Janice plunged ahead into the heavy traffic and crossed the wide boulevard in the center of the block. Squealing brakes and blasting car horns followed her fool’s march across to the other side.

In the brief time it took to reach the edge of the low rock wall which separated the promenade from the park, the snow had turned to frozen sleet. Tiny pellets of ice were stinging at Janice’s face; still, she found herself perspiring as she daintily picked her way through drifts of crusting snow which had gathered along the wall’s edge. With the aid of her hands, cupped tightly around her eyes, Janice scoured the immediate area of the park, squinting hard to penetrate the opaque shield of wind-whipped ice falling madly about her. Once, when the wind shifted slightly, she thought she saw the figure of a girl gamboling amid the falling snow on a hillock a short distance away. But she couldn’t be sure and decided to climb over the wall in order to gain a closer vantage point. She felt a number of things ripping as she straddled the wall and gradually lowered herself down on the other side, her hands clinging to the slippery ledge. Hanging there, her feet seeking purchase and finding none, Janice had the sinking feeling that her body was dangling over a gaping hole and would be swallowed into the earth if she ever let go. She would have remained fixed in this position had not her fingers lost their hold on the frozen concrete. Her feet met the ground a few inches below her, but the slant and slickness of the terrain upset her balance and sent her plunging sideways down a gentle embankment, rolling uncontrollably down the crusted snow to the edge of a pathway. Janice sustained the ordeal in total silence, accepting it as the next logical step in the day’s insanity.

The sleet was descending in hard, twisting sheets all around her as she rose unsteadily to her feet and gently flexed the muscles of her body, briefly checking for possible injuries. She felt stupid and foolish and was thankful that the impenetrable curtain of sleet had obscured her mad antics from the prying eyes of any passersby. It was then she realized that her purse was missing, but she couldn’t take the time to look for it now.

Turning toward the hillock where she thought she had seen the child romping, she cupped her hands around her mouth and shouted, “Ivy! Ivy! Can you hear me, Ivy?”

But the wind-driven sleet threw the words back into her face, forcing her to trudge on ahead through wet clumps of ice-blistered snow.

“Ivy!” she shouted, hurling the word forth at the top of her failing voice. “Ivy! It’s Mother!”

“Ivy is at home,” said a man’s quiet, courteous voice beside her. “She waited for you until three twenty-five, then left.”

The voice spoke at Janice’s left side, close enough for her to see plumes of steam accompany each word. She must not look at him, Janice commanded herself, her bruised body shivering. Above all, she must not look at him or acknowledge him in any way.

“She’s quite all right,” the voice continued softly, factually, and with no sign of aggression. “She’s waiting for you in the lobby.”

Janice stood rooted, feeling the flush of terror rise within her, hearing her respiration coming faster and faster. She would not look at him, nor would she enter into conversation with him.

“Here,” he said. “You dropped it when you fell.”

Janice’s purse entered her frame of vision, slightly below and to the left, hovering there, disembodied among crumbs of whirling ice. If she took it, she would acknowledge his presence, motivate an encounter, lay the groundwork for discussion. Yet how could she not take it? It was her purse. He had trapped her.

Janice accepted the purse without a word.

“We must talk,” the man said. “I’m certain now, and we must talk. Tell your husband.”

Janice’s eyes remained steadfast on a small patch of brown earth which had somehow resisted the encroachments of snow and sleet. She tried to concentrate on the ultimate cause of this phenomenon in an effort to obliterate the sound of the man’s voice, but his words persisted in coming through.

“I mean you no harm, understand. But we must talk.”

Janice’s eyes shifted to her purse and saw it shaking in her hand. She was trembling all over, visibly, violently, clearly betraying her fear to the man, admitting his power over her. She tried to will the trembling to stop, but it refused to obey. She must move, she thought. She must find the energy to walk away from the man before he noticed the shaking and took advantage of her weakness.

The sleet stung her eyes as she found herself in motion, taking mincing steps down the slick pathway. She walked on her toes, as Bill had taught her to do on icy pavements, for to slip and fall now would be disastrous, encouraging a further relationship with the man, who would naturally rush to her assistance.

“Tell your husband that I’ll call him tonight.”

The man’s words were fading behind her, which meant, she was thankful, that he was not following her.

Janice thought how proud Bill would be to learn that she never once looked at the man, or said a word to him, or acknowledged his presence in any way.

“Come.” Janice spoke the word with all the heat and force of a rebuke.

Ivy quietly gathered up her books and outer garments and followed Janice into the waiting elevator. Ernie, the relief elevator operator, gave Janice’s soaked, mud-spattered garments a fleeting once-over as they rode up in silence. Ivy cast nervous, surreptitious glances up at her mother, knowing full well the cause of her anger and dreading the moment of confrontation which was only three floors away.

“I waited till three twenty-five, Mom,” Ivy said the moment they were alone in the ninth-floor corridor, keeping her voice at a soft, ingenuous level, striving to crack the armor of her mother’s hostility. “I didn’t know what time you’d be there, so I walked home. A man helped me cross the streets,” she added proudly, innocently.

Janice opened the door of the apartment and, grasping Ivy’s arm, ushered her across the threshold with a sharp tug. After slamming the door shut, Janice spun the frightened child around to her own lowered face and shouted, “You do not leave without me! You do not go with a strange man! You sit in the office and wait! And wait! And wait! And wait!. Do you understand me?” Janice was screaming and shaking the sobbing child with all the force she could muster.

“Yes, yes!” shrieked Ivy. “Mom, you’re hurting me!”

Janice quickly let go of Ivy’s arms and took a step back, appalled by her own cruelty, as she saw red welts begin to form on the delicate white of her beautiful daughter’s skin. Oh, dear God, she thought in utter anguish. I am truly going mad.

“Go upstairs, please,” she told Ivy in a small, stunned voice.

Choking, racking, tormented sobs assaulted Janice’s ears as the child dashed down the narrow hallway and rounded the bend of the living room, the sobs gradually fading as they followed the route of her escape up the staircase and into her bedroom, where they lingered distantly.

“Oh, God. Oh, God,” Janice mumbled again and again as she staggered into the living room and fell crying across the sofa, vaguely aware of the soggy, muddy garments staining the black silk upholstery, and not giving a damn, letting it all pour out over the expensive Schumacher fabric, all the pent-up feelings, the hidden fears, panics, hurts, horrors of the past three days—Dear God, has it only been three days?

The telephone rang.

Janice’s first reaction was to let it ring. But then the knowledge that their bedroom extension was susceptible to Ivy’s curiosity forced her to pull herself, sobbing across the sofa, to pick up the receiver.

“Janice?” It was Bill’s voice. “Darlene says you called before. What’s up?”

Bill’s steady, assured voice finally broke the dam.

“Oh, God, Bill!” Janice cried, unleashing the full torrent of hysteria. “Oh, God, come home!”

“Leaving now,” Bill said crisply and hung up.

Somehow Bill made all the right connections and arrived home in less than ten minutes. After quickly surveying the wreckage and spot-checking its seriousness, he immediately commenced to put his house back into order. He drew two steaming bubble baths and put both his women into them to soak. He divided himself between the two bathrooms, allowing each equal time to sob out her story to him.

From Janice, he learned the incredible details of each grisly experience that had befallen her upon leaving him outside Rattazzi’s, with special emphasis on her encounter with the man, recalling every word he said to her, including intonation, inflection, and possible intent behind each sentence.

“What time did he say he’d call?” Bill asked.

“He didn’t give a time; he simply said tonight.”

“He told you he took Ivy home?”

“No, she told me that. He said that she was in the lobby, waiting for me, and that she was all right.”

Bill hesitated, then asked, “You’re sure it was the man? I mean, mustache, sideburns?”

“For God’s sake, Bill,” Janice shouted.

“Okay, okay,” Bill placated. “I suppose it had to be him.”

“Well, I didn’t see him. I didn’t look at him or acknowledge him in any way. I thought you’d be pleased by the way I handled it.”

Bill placed a comforting hand on her soapy shoulder and grinned. “You did great, Janice, just great.” Then, soberly, “I want you to know that I’ve had it with him. I’m through playing games.”

Bill found Ivy even more overwrought than Janice. She had never seen her mother behave like that; she was absolutely freaky, shaking her and shaking her till she almost vomited. And for what? All the girls her age walk home from school alone. “Bettina’s been doing it since she was nine! What’s so special about me?”

“You’re our beautiful child,” soothed Bill, holding her wet hand. “That’s what’s so special about you. We love you and want to protect you.”

“Protect me against what?”

“Against lots of things that happen each day in this city, Ivy. So far we’ve been lucky; they’ve happened to other people. People who are willing to take risks, take chances with their children. We’re not willing to do that.”

The warm bath, Bill’s tender touch and mollifying tone gradually eased Ivy’s tensions and gently guided her back toward understanding and forgiveness.

“Well, it’s really the first time I ever did a thing like that. And I wouldn’t have if that man hadn’t offered to help me cross the streets.”

“Tell me about the man, Ivy,” Bill asked in a disarming voice. “Did you ever see him before?”

“Sure. He waits in front of the school every afternoon.” Ivy looked up at Bill suddenly. “You must have seen him; he’s there in the mornings, too.”

“Oh, yes—mustache, sideburns?”

Ivy nodded. “He was really very nice. He walked me to Sixty-seventh Street and waited till I crossed.”

“Did he say anything? I mean, did you talk at all?”

“Nothing special. It was starting to snow again, and he said he liked winters better than summers. I said I like them better, too. Then he said that his daughter liked winters better, too. Things like that.”

“Did he ask any questions about me or Mother?”

“No.” Ivy studied Bill with a look of suspicion. “Do you know him, Dad?”

“No, dear, we don’t know him.”

“That’s funny—”

“What is?”

“I felt as if he knew us. Or at least he knew me.”

After their baths, relaxed and warm in the king-sized bed, with the electric blanket turned to “Hi,” mother and daughter were left to repair their shattered relationship while Bill went down to the kitchen to fix dinner.

When he returned, carrying a huge tray filled with thinly sliced roast beef sandwiches with the crusts removed, a pot of steaming beans, two kinds of pie, and milk, he found Janice and Ivy bundled together in a warm embrace, playing Actors and Actresses.

Bill spread a tablecloth across the coverlet, and they ate their picnic dinner on the bed. By seven thirty, when the call came, love and togetherness were firmly reestablished.

Ivy snatched up the phone from the bedside table on the first ring.

“Yes?” A short pause, then: “It’s for you, Dad.”

Bill signaled Janice to take the receiver, then hurried out of the room to take the call on the downstairs extension. Janice kept the phone at her ear, but covered the mouthpiece with her hand. In a moment Bill’s voice came on the other end.

“Hello?”

“Mr. Templeton?”

“Yes.”

“My name is Elliot Hoover.”

“Yes.”

“I think we should talk.”

“All right.”

“May I come to your home?”

“No. How about my office tomorrow morning?”

“I think we should talk right away. I’d also like Mrs. Templeton to be present. How about meeting me downstairs in the restaurant bar?”

“Impossible. We can’t leave our child alone.”

“Carole Federico might be willing to sit with Ivy for an hour or so.”

Janice could well understand the long pause that followed this remarkable statement. She could sense Bill’s shock at the scope and depth of Hoover’s knowledge of the most intimate corners of their lives.

“I’ll see,” she heard Bill stammer at last.

“Say, eight thirty?”

“I’ll see.”

The phone clicked twice before Janice placed hers back on its cradle.

Ivy broke into a giggle. She had picked up a Snoopy book and was browsing through it while they talked on the phone. Inwardly, Janice reacted harshly to the laughter, felt it was all wrong, inappropriate, totally out of place—like someone laughing at a funeral.