Mr Peanut - Adam Ross [37]
He drank the Dom like soda, then smashed the empty bottle in the sink, and began a conversation with his wife.
Though it was at once with her and with himself, the kind of conversation you have if you’ve been driving alone for a very long time, a thinking aloud that strangely focused one’s thinking, the monologue half an act, really, verging on melodrama, and what Hastroll said could’ve made sense only to the two of them. It was almost as if Hastroll was speaking a different language, closer to tongues, one that worked strictly by allusion to their mutual history, that had no more context than an overheard telephone conversation—and a dark, ugly language it was. “But you don’t plunge, oh no, you say, ‘Just let it dissolve.’ Have you ever seen it dissolve?” And: “You say we need to this and you say we need to that, but we means me and me needs we!” And: “Swallow my pride? Did you say swallow? Say again? Oh. Swallow. Sorry, I don’t know what that is.”
Needing a drink, he went to the buffet and poured himself a tall one and sat down in his favorite chair, drinking his drink and thinking that he’d be good and hung over tomorrow, no avoiding that now. He could drink water, take Vitamin C and aspirin, add some Vitamin G, stuff himself with pizza, a burger, or wings and fries—it wouldn’t matter. There was no going back once you passed a certain point of drunkenness. Just like murder.
He picked up the phone, dialed the number they’d traced to Pepin’s cell and, completely spent, let the pager ring; and when it beeped he dialed in his number and waited for what seemed like an eternity. He put his head back and stared at the ceiling, for so long that he imagined the ceiling was the floor, a perfect floor that had never once been walked on; and he imagined himself moving around the apartment like this, looking down at Hannah sleeping on the ceiling, tapping the salt shaker and letting it sprinkle onto his plate below. Then, to Hastroll’s surprise, someone called him back, and he picked up before the second ring. “Who’s this?”
“Who’s this?” the man said. His voice was high register: evil.
They waited.
“You first,” the voice said.
“This is Detective Hastroll.”
“Never heard of you.”
“Your turn.”
“I don’t give my name to strangers.”
Hastroll heard a foghorn in the background, a siren wailing, a sound of distant thunder—but that was out his window. A storm was moving in. “Is there something you want?” the voice said.
“Yes.”
“What?”
“An admission.”
“I’m listening.”
“A confession.”
“Go on.”
“You killed her.”
“Who?”
“Alice Pepin. He hired you, didn’t he?”
The voice laughed wickedly. “She killed herself,” he said finally.
“I don’t believe you.”
“No blame! It was perfect!”
“Tell me to my face.”
“You’re a drunken fool.”
“I swear I’ll track you down!”
“A lonely, blubbery moron.”
“Meet me now! I want to see you!”
“Well, well, well,” Hannah said.
To Hastroll’s amazement, there was Hannah, standing across from him in her slip. The sight of her on her feet was so unbelievable that he heard his mouth drop open with a click. She leaned forward slightly, a little wobbly.
But before he could say anything, she laid into him. “Is that your girlfriend?” she said.
He gently cradled the phone.
“Someone to keep you occupied? Give you a little TLC in the meantime?”
“You’re being ridiculous.”
He got up and walked toward her as she walked backward, the arm’s-length space between them like an invisible object with which he forced her into their room. He had that same odd feeling he’d often had whenever they fought. It was partly shame, he guessed; the neighbors must’ve heard them. But he also had a nagging suspicion they were being watched.
“I knew you wouldn’t be able to hold out,” she said. “I knew you’d break down.”
“Hannah, you don’t know