John Lutz Bundle (128 page)

Jerry Dunn took a cab from the city to his suburban home in Teaneck, New Jersey. He and his wife Sami had lived in the house for twenty-two years and raised a couple of kids there. It had memories. He liked living there. The neighborhood was tree-shaded and quiet, and only a short commute to and from his job in the city.

Land near New York City being relatively expensive at the time the houses were built, in the fifties, they were close together, but each had a single-car attached garage. Jerry and Sami’s car was a white ten-year-old Toyota Camry, but neither liked to drive in the city, so it was used mainly for errands and trips to restaurants or to a nearby shopping mall.

After paying off the cab, Jerry entered the front door and picked up the scent of onions being fried. Sami was expecting him. They’d made a deal: he’d take a cab to and from LaGuardia so she didn’t have to fight the airport traffic, and she’d have a hot meal waiting for him when he returned.

Of course, this time the cab hadn’t come from the airport, but a deal was a deal.

He set his suitcase in the front entry hall, then followed the scent of onions to the kitchen.

There was Sami at the stove, barefoot and wearing jeans and a loose-fitting blue tunic. Her upswept dark hair was mussed in back in a way that made her neck look skinny. She was frying what looked like thinly cut steaks with some onions in sizzling oil. The table was already set for two.

Jerry knew she’d heard him come in, so he approached her from behind and kissed the nape of her neck, then pulled her to him so her back and generous rump were against him.

He realized he was getting an erection and felt like carrying her into the bedroom. Was it because of what had happened in the city? What he’d done?

My God, is it a turn-on?

“—was the convention?” she was asking, still concentrating on her cooking.

“Just what you’d expect. Information booths, panels, speeches, speeches, speeches…”

“Drinking,” she added, flipping a steak with the wood-handled spatula in her right hand.

He moved back so their bodies weren’t touching. “I went easy on that,” he said.

He was sure she believed him. Whatever his other vices, he was a light drinker. As for women…well, Sami never questioned him about that, thank the Lord. From time to time he thought it might be because she was afraid of the answers, but lately he’d assumed she simply didn’t know what a stud he was. Besides, his hotel quickie sex with almost-strangers meant nothing, really. Not that Sami wouldn’t strongly disapprove. But surely she understood that Jerry had needs she didn’t fill.

“Want iced tea with your steak?” she asked.

“Sounds perfect.”

She propped the spatula against a trivet on the stove and turned and kissed him on the lips, then smiled up at him. “I’d rather have you home than away,” she said.

He kissed her back, hard, and said, “That’s where I’d rather be.”

She turned back to the stove and sizzling canola oil.

“We gonna eat soon?” he asked.

“ ’Bout fifteen minutes.”

“I’ll do some unpacking.”

“You got time,” she said. She opened a drawer and got out a can opener to use on a tin of green beans sitting on the sink counter.

Jerry patted her rump and went back to the entry hall for his luggage, congratulating himself on how calm he was. On how smoothly everything had gone.

After dinner, maybe some wine. Then maybe the bedroom. Or the sofa. It was odd how much he felt like sex. Like he was back in his twenties.

Hell, don’t question it. Make the most of it.

Later that evening, he went out to the garage to put his suitcase up on the sheet of plywood over the rafters where the luggage was stored. His black nylon carry-on he took to his wooden workbench set up against the front wall of the garage.

He glanced at the closed door from the kitchen and stood still for a few seconds. He’d left Sami in bed, snoring lightly. He smiled, remembering. He’d exhausted her.

After dinner they’d watched part of a Yankees game on TV, then gone to bed early. They’d had sex every which way, and then read for a while in bed. Pleased and surprised, Sami had remarked that she’d never seen Jerry so passionate and so relaxed.

It was true, he realized. It was amazing how everything in the world seemed so much better, more vivid and
real,
once a man took control of his life.

He unzipped the carry-on and looked at the banded stacks of dull green bills inside. A hundred thousand dollars in small denominations. Another fifty thousand would soon be given to him. That money would be profit after paying back the bridge loan he’d taken out at the bank. He had a personal credit line there and had taken out such loans before, for stock purchases or business deals. They’d known him for years, so all that was needed was his signature.

The money had been left for him in a tightly wrapped and taped brown package at the hotel desk. After checking in, Jerry had taken it up to his room, made sure the door was locked, and started to count the money. But he’d soon gotten bored and impatient. It was all there, he was sure, so he threw away the brown wrapping paper and stuffed the banded bills into his carry-on.

The question now was where to hide the money.

Jerry looked around the garage, trying to settle on a safe place of concealment, somewhere Sami would have no reason to look.

Finally he decided to take his suitcase back down and put the carry-on, still with the money in it, inside, then lock his suitcase before replacing it in storage. Sami had her own luggage and would probably never touch his large suitcase anyway. That was where he’d always hidden her Christmas gifts before wrapping them, and she’d never found them.

When he’d switched off the garage light and returned to the house and gone to bed, he lay beside his sleeping wife and calmly stared into the darkness.

He’d reached a new maturity. It was great the way he could set aside selective parts of the past so they didn’t get in the way of the present. Compartmentalize.

When he thought back on what he’d so recently done in the city…

Sweet Jesus!

He held up his right hand and tried to see if it was trembling, but the darkness in the bedroom was so dense he couldn’t tell. It sure
felt
steady.

He decided maybe there’d be a delayed reaction. But if that were true, it didn’t seem it would hit him tonight. Jerry laced his fingers behind his head and sighed. He had no remorse, no regrets. He was sure he never would have.

But it took him forever to get to sleep.

He would dream without remembering.

“Dan Martin,” he said, and Hettie knew the name of her lover.

She repeated the name, as if testing for taste.

“You never asked my name after the first time,” he said.

They were in her bed, and had just had sex. Hettie was spent and sore, but if he wanted to go around again…

“You could wear me out,” he said.

She grinned and moved her nude body against his on the perspiration-damp sheet. In the warm room their flesh seemed almost hot to the touch. “Did I hear a complaint?” she asked.

He smiled. His dark hair was damp and mussed, a lock dangling over his forehead and almost in his eyes. “You did not.”

“Well, I’m complaining now,” she said. “I’m thirsty.”

She started to get up, but he gripped her shoulder gently and pulled her back down. “I’ll get us something.” He sat up and swiveled on the mattress so he was facing away from her. Twisting his muscular body, he looked over his shoulder at her. “What would you like? I’m having a beer.”

“There’s an open bottle of Pellegrino in the fridge. That’d suit me fine.”

He turned some more so he could lean down and kiss her lightly on the lips. “Gonna miss me?”

She laughed deep in her throat. “I already do.”

He kissed the top of her head, then stood up. She watched him as he walked from the bedroom. He’d have to cross the living room to get to the kitchen. She wondered if the blinds were closed.

He returned a few minutes later with the green glass Pellegrino bottle and an opened can of Busch Lite. She sat up on the bed and scooted back so her shoulders were against the cool headboard. When he handed her the bottle she immediately took several long swallows, aware of him watching her. Some of the cold water dribbled onto her warm breasts, sending a chill through her as it mixed with her perspiration.

Dan (as she was training herself to think of him) sat back down on the mattress, exactly where he’d been before, facing away from her. She watched a drop of perspiration drip from his damp hair as he tilted back his head to take a long pull on his beer.

Hot work, she thought. It called for cold drinks afterward.

Neither talked for a while, getting comfortable with each other’s silence. The air conditioner had cycled off and was quiet. Hettie listened to the constant rush of traffic from the street below. A faraway car alarm warbled briefly, barely audible in the summer night. Closer, but still far away, a police or fire department siren called like a lonely banshee.

Loneliness. Hettie hated it. Maybe now, for her, it had ended.

She reached over and traced the fingers of her left hand down Dan’s sweaty, muscular back.

He turned and grinned at her. “You trying to seduce me again?”

She smiled. “I could’ve sworn it was you who seduced me.”

“A woman’s convenient lie,” he said, leaning back and kissing her softly, using his tongue, showing her that if she were willing…

She let out a long breath and pushed him away.

He moved his mouth to her ear. “What should we do now?” he whispered.

“It’s almost three a.m.,” she said. “Maybe we should try sleeping for a change.”

He threw back his head and finished his beer in a series of long gulps, then swiveled on the mattress and let his upper body flop back so he was lying beside her. Hettie worked herself down so she was eye to eye with him in the damp bed, lying on her side.

“You finish your water?” he asked.

“Most of it. Why, you want some?”

“No. Want some of my beer?”

“Nope. I’m fine.” She smiled. “Your beer’s empty anyway.”

“Tired?” he asked, looking over at her.

“Getting there,” she said, just before she dozed off.

Hettie dreamed, saw the dark, muscular form of Dan Martin moving about the bedroom, heard a soft, metallic clinking sound. She couldn’t imagine what was making that noise. Dim light then, shadows gliding like the wings of soaring birds.

Dan’s voice: “Tired?”

Concerned about me. So sweet.

“Are you sleeping, Hettie? Hettie?”

She decided not to answer. Why should she? It was her dream.

When Hettie awoke she realized immediately what she was smelling. Perfumed soap. Her brand.

Her brain had barely registered that when pain erupted in her ankles.

What…?

She was dumbfounded. Disoriented.

Full consciousness made its way through the thick layers of confusion, and with it came panic.

She fought the panic by concentrating on the pain, then by trying to accept the pain, to somehow push it aside.

Reason! Think!

How did I get here? Where?

It was almost completely dark.

Can’t see! Can’t move arms or legs!

She tried to call out. Call Dan’s name. Her lips and the tip of her tongue worked helplessly on a rough, sticky surface she recognized as the adhesive side of tape.

Can’t scream!

A headache she’d barely been aware of now struck her skull like an ax, and she realized she was dangling upside down. Her feet were tied together, bound to something, and her wrists were tied or taped to her thighs. She could move only her head, and that brought excruciating pain to her neck.

Her eyes were getting used to the dimness, and she made out folds of what looked like white plastic near her.
The shower curtain!
Nearby vertical tubular steel glinted dully to her left, and to her right. She recognized it and knew where she was—hanging upside down from her chinning bar that, along with its collapsible and portable supporting structure, had been moved from the exercise corner of her bedroom into the shower stall.

Dan! He did this! Must have planned it all along. Put something in my water bottle, something that made me sleep so he could do this. Oh, Jesus, I can pick them!

The pain in her head increased with the pressure of blood-swollen veins and began to pulse. She made another attempt to scream but could barely hear the muted hum that found its way through the tape.

Dear God, If I ever—

A scuffing, building rhythm came to her, moving closer.

Footsteps in the hall, near the open bathroom door.

The lights blinked on, blinding her.