Metropolis, p.30
Metropolis, page 30
They review the kitchen problems as Hillary double-thumbs notes into her phone and promises to get everything taken care of within the week. “This is the end of my punch list,” Hillary says. “So if there’s nothing else, I’d like to close down the job as soon as we’ve knocked off these last items. Sound good to you?”
Liddy agrees that it does and walks Hillary to the door, relieved to have the renovation behind her. In addition to Garrett’s bathroom, the entire apartment had to be retrofitted: kitchen gutted, walls taken down and doorways widened, carpeted floors removed and replaced with hardwood, light switches and thermostats lowered to wheelchair level. Garrett was in the hospital, and Liddy stayed at a hotel down the street for three months while the work was being done.
Garrett goes into the office every day, runs Haines Companies as he always did, gets to Fenway Park to take in as many Red Sox games as he can. He even started playing golf again with the help of an accessibility golf pro, but this doesn’t seem to be going as well as he hoped.
It’s August, ten months since she moved into Metropolis, over five months since she last saw Marta. The many whiplashes of the past year have deeply shaken her. The pain of losing Marta relentlessly claws at her, and she still can’t believe Garrett played her so successfully or that she’s back living with him at The Tower. He won, and as he promised, he’s making her pay. The agreement she signed allows him access to all of her devices, her car’s GPS, credit cards, and bank accounts. It also stipulates that Robin and Scott remain at the boarding school in Zurich and go to overnight camp every summer, which is where they are now.
Dawn counseled her not to sign the agreement, but Liddy did anyway, and she hasn’t talked to the attorney since. Not even to discover the witness’s identity. She made her choice, and the details don’t matter anymore. She hid her cash before the renovation, but she’s afraid Garrett has secretly installed hidden cameras, so she hasn’t gone near it. It’s consoling to know it’s there, her mythical life raft, even if she doesn’t know if she’ll ever be able to sail.
When she snorted her last gram of coke a couple of weeks ago, her heart started racing as if she’d just run a marathon, and she realized how horrible it would be for Robin and Scott to have a paraplegic father and a mother who died of a drug overdose. It’s been easier to quit than she would have thought. Three-day hangovers and no cash are a strong deterrent, as is the fear of her children’s heartbreak.
Sometimes Liddy thinks she’d rather be an actual prisoner, to serve her time for an assault conviction and then walk out with the rest of her life to herself. Probably five years, maybe only three, as she has a clean record and no proof has turned up that the elevator was tampered with—or that she had anything to do with it. She’d be forty-eight, forty-nine, even fifty, none of which are too old to start over. Except for the reality of being locked up in a real prison, of confessing. A mother who tried to kill her children’s father would be even worse than a mother who ODed on cocaine.
She and Garrett are having dinner at Mistral, an elegant restaurant in the South End. An aide sits discreetly at a small table to their left. Garrett likes to be in bed by eight, so it’s early and the restaurant is quiet, the waitstaff attentive to the point of obsequiousness. Garrett is a big tipper, and, as always in public, an extremely charming man. Every so often, she finds herself almost forgetting what he’s done to her. Although she rarely forgets what she’s done to him.
“So how did the writing go today?” he asks after they’ve had a few sips of their drinks: his, ice water; hers, vodka on the rocks. “Did you manage to get Clementine out of Vermont?”
Liddy savors the cold viscosity warming her esophagus. It was a good writing day, five new pages, but stubborn Clementine hasn’t gone anywhere. “She’s still there,” she says ruefully.
“Not going to leave anytime soon?”
Liddy has to smile at the thought of her rascally protagonist. “Can’t say for sure, but sometimes I think I’m having trouble getting her out of Vermont because I’m always a little homesick for it. When I write about Vermont, I get to pretend I’m there.”
Garrett places his hand over hers. “We can go up this weekend. Stay in a nice inn. What do you think?”
She pulls her hand away, but not too quickly, as there’s a game to be played here. “I’m on a bit of a roll with the book, and I think I’m better off spending the time working.”
He stares deeply into her eyes. “If you change your mind, we can do it at the last minute. Just say the word.”
This from a man who believes she tried to kill him, who takes her acquiescence to his blackmail as proof of her guilt. Which makes no sense. If he just wanted arm candy, he could easily find a much fresher bonbon than her forty-four-year-old self. There has to be something else he’s after, a bigger and bolder plan to extract even further revenge. She must remain vigilant. He is not to be trusted.
Liddy grabs the large menu and stands it upright in front of her face. According to their agreement, she is to accompany him at least twice a week to a public place, to portray themselves as a happily married couple. She despises every minute of this forced congeniality, of this production they’re staging, but he’s made it clear that if she fails to perform, he will be more than willing to show the witness statement to the police. Checkmate.
So far, her performance appears to be acceptable, as their friends and acquaintances, even the media and Garrett’s aides who are with them every day, believe the Haineses are a happy, if tragic, couple. As do Robin and Scott.
“What are you going to order, hon?” she asks when the waiter is within hearing range. “I think I’m going for the Dover sole.”
For the rest of the evening, Garrett appears so interested in her book that Liddy wonders if at some point he might begin to loosen her reins. It’s her fault he’s in a wheelchair, and although his demands are outrageous, there’s no denying he has reason to be furious. Perhaps she should try to be more sympathetic, both for his sake and, ultimately, for her own.
This attempt lasts until the next afternoon, when Liddy returns from a meeting at the Burke and goes into her bedroom to change her clothes. As she reaches for the shorts and T-shirt she hung on the hook in the bathroom, she hesitates. Something is off. She scans the countertop, takes in the placement of her creams and cosmetics. She’s an admittedly compulsive person, who likes her things in a certain order, and she’s positive she left her daytime moisturizer to the left of her eye cream, as she always does. Now it’s on the right. Blanca didn’t come in today, but even if she had, Blanca is well aware of Liddy’s preferences and is careful to return everything to its rightful place.
Liddy carefully inspects the drawers and the cabinets, the shampoos and conditioners lined up in the shower. She walks into her closet, which appears the same as always; nothing stands out as being altered. But something has been.
She whirls around and yanks out the top drawer of her bureau. She flips it over, and nightgowns spill over her feet. She stares numbly at the smooth bottom of the drawer. The envelopes she’d pasted there are gone. As are the envelopes she’d pasted on the next one and the next one and the next one. Her clothes litter the floor in colorful piles, but she barely notices. All the cash she brought with her from Metropolis is gone.
Liddy drops onto the bench at the foot of the bed. Her guess is that Garrett will never mention the money or the fact that he had his detective search her room while she was out. Once again, she had underestimated Garrett’s ruthlessness, as well as his level of distrust. To her peril. She won’t make this mistake again, her determination to be on high alert now magnified. But her error was costly. Her life raft is gone, and now she has absolutely nothing of her own, only what he chooses to give. And not to give.
That night, Liddy dreams she and Jason are frantically searching for Marta in the Public Garden. They run around the duck pond, rush over the footbridge, race along the pathways edging the water, but Marta isn’t there. Liddy knows this is her last chance to see her. She dives under the weeping willows. Nothing. Then Jason disappears. Pop, and he’s gone. Liddy turns in a circle and all the other people pop out of sight too. Like a series of lights being extinguished one by one. Pop. Pop. Pop. And she’s alone.
When she wakes, the strong summer sun edges the curtains, and it’s almost eight thirty, which means Garrett is long gone. The nightmare was boringly predictable but, nonetheless, pummels her. She never did get to say goodbye to Marta in person. They’d managed a few tearful conversations over Jason’s phone, but when he left for California there was no longer a way for them to directly communicate.
Jason is in touch with Marta and texts Liddy coded updates, so she knows that Marta, now officially Mercedes again, is in Spain. Liddy is thrilled for her, free from ICE and reunited with her family, but she wishes they could share this happiness together. Enraged at the truss in which Garrett has bound her, she flings off the covers and stomps into the bathroom to take a shower.
As the water pours down on her head, she tries to tamp down her fury. She lives in a beautiful apartment, in a city she loves, unencumbered by financial concerns. A place where she can write. A place just about anyone in the world could only dream of being. But she’s not big enough to get past her own self. Golden chains are still chains.
When she steps out of the bathroom, her phone is ringing. It’s Jason, which is unusual. “Everything okay?” she asks.
“And hello to you too.”
“Sorry, but is everything okay?”
“It probably is. I’m going to be quick so the call doesn’t register as long and spook Garrett.” Jason pauses. “Rose told me the building owner might have evidence that the elevator was tampered with.”
Liddy’s stomach clutches. “The elevator?”
“He wanted to know if she’d hired anyone to fix it in the months before, uh, before the accident. Which she hadn’t.”
“And this means . . . ?”
“Apparently, Davidson found photographs of a workman standing on a ladder and messing with the top of the elevator door. He thinks the pictures might clear him on the negligence suit if he can prove it was rigged, so he’s trying to get more evidence.”
Liddy’s heart is pounding so hard she’s having trouble hearing Jason. “And you, you think this could be bad for me?”
“It shouldn’t be, because you didn’t do it. I just figured you’d want to know what’s going on. The ultimate outcome depends on what Davidson finds and how Garrett decides to interpret it.”
61
Zach
The first thing Zach does after talking to Naomi is call Rose. The conversation is awkward, to say the least, but she gives him what he needs: she didn’t hire anyone to work on the elevator in the months preceding the accident. When he hangs up, he pulls the strip that contains Serge’s photos of Rose out of its celluloid sleeve. He holds it up to the light, takes in her purpose and despair, her resolution to do what she must. Resentment stirs, but mostly what he feels is sadness.
Now that he has Rose’s confirmation, Zach is determined to develop every roll Serge ever shot. He’s going to find more condemning photos of, as Naomi calls him, Red Sox Guy. And when he has proof that the elevator was tampered with, he’s going to Humpty-Dumpty his life back together. Maybe another bad analogy, but he’s hopeful he’ll have a much better ending than poor Humpty did.
He’s already submitted two 2018 estimated tax payments from cash in his money market account, and he has enough left to cover the September installment. But his funds are running low, and the fourth is due next January. Not to mention what he’s going to owe in April.
The next morning, he talks to an engineer at Otis Elevator, who explains that if the safety retainers and gibs—which are what hold the door in place—are improperly hinged, the bottom door can move inward, which is exactly what happened to Garrett Haines and also to the girl at Fenway Park. It seems backward to Zach—but the engineer insists that, in a case like this, if someone hits the door with even a small amount of force, the bottom will open into the shaft, creating a “fall hazard.”
The engineer adds that this kind of unhinging would most likely be caused by either improper installation or a lack of maintenance, which gives Zach pause. But when he presses, the man acknowledges that it could also be the result of someone purposely manipulating the retainers and gibs.
Zach settles himself for the long haul. A bin with roughly a hundred canisters of undeveloped film sits next to him on the floor, and a half dozen negative strips he developed yesterday wave on the line as a fan stirs the acrid air.
62
Liddy
After Jason tells her about Zach Davidson’s search, Liddy hangs up and stares at the home screen on her phone. It’s a photo of Robin and Scott at about eight in bright ski outfits against the cobalt-blue sky of Vail. She remembers that family trip well. The twins had gone to ski school every day, and by the end of the vacation they were bombing down the green runs with such glee that she and Garrett could only watch and laugh. Garrett was in a good mood that week, mostly because the kids were occupied all day and he had her to himself. And, truth be told, she also had a great time. They took the high-speed lift to the top of the mountain and did the black diamonds all the way to the bottom, skied back to the hotel room for some sweaty sex, then snapped on their boots and went back up again. Another lifetime ago.
And now there’s the elevator. Liddy understands why Davidson is doing this, but it’s yet another sword over her head. If the man finds evidence the elevator was tampered with, Garrett will conclude he has confirmation not only that she pushed him but that it was premeditated. It would be difficult to prove she was behind this, but the mere fact of it would add to Garrett’s arsenal against her, making his threat to turn her in to the police at the smallest infraction even more ominous.
She turns the phone facedown on the table, not able to look at her children’s shining faces. How will they survive this? How will she survive this? Because now the charge wouldn’t be assault; it would be attempted murder. Not three to five years. Twenty or thirty. Maybe more.
For the first few weeks after Jason’s call, Liddy was a wreck, losing weight, barely sleeping, on high alert for a phone call or a text or a visitor announcement from the concierge. More frightened of Garrett than ever, she flinched every time he came home or wheeled himself to where she sat, afraid to look at him, for fear of seeing that knowing sneer on his face. But six weeks have now passed without any evidence emerging, and Liddy is starting to relax her vigilance.
It’s her birthday, and Garrett’s driver brings him home early to make her a special dinner with the assistance of his favorite aide, Penelope. He’s being very secretive and wants Liddy to leave the condo for the rest of the afternoon. She resists, arguing that it’s her birthday and she should be able to do what she wants, which is to write. He grudgingly agrees but with the condition that she stay in her room until he calls for her.
Who cares what he makes for her special dinner? The gesture is as infantilizing as he has made her life. Even more annoying, he’s sure to present her with a lavish gift, as if he were a returning conqueror offering up riches from vanquished lands. Penelope will be helping him serve, so Liddy will be forced to gush over it, thank him, even kiss him, which makes her want to vomit.
Although Garrett has done things far worse than having her room searched and taking her hidden cash, that event pushed her over the edge, and weeks later she still isn’t able to control her fury. There’s the reprehensible invasion of her privacy, but the loss of the money eats at her even more. Although she had no idea how she would have used it, its existence was a metaphor for a potential escape. And now, no more metaphor. No more escape.
Liddy has started drinking earlier, taking more Ambien, and going to sleep earlier too, wandering around fuzzy-headed and unmotivated during the day, bailing on Clementine to watch old movies. She’s discovered a fondness for Humphrey Bogart and queues up Sahara, which Bogie made right after Casablanca, and settles in.
An hour into the movie, there’s a soft knock on her door. “Ms. Haines?” Penelope calls. “I’m sorry to disturb you, but Theo from downstairs says there are two men who want to speak to both you and Mr. Haines. Mr. Haines is taking a nap. What should I say?”
Liddy smirks. And here she thought Garrett was busy preparing her special birthday dinner. Must have delegated this loving effort to Penelope. Liddy pauses the movie so she can return to it, although she’s pretty confident Bogie and his Brits are going to beat back the Germans.
“Did he say who they are?”
“I didn’t think it was my business to ask.”
Liddy goes into the spotless kitchen, notes a pot simmering on the stove and a pan covered with aluminum foil ready to be popped in the oven. From the spicy tang in the air, it’s Indian. Although Indian is one her favorites, the thought of eating it with Garrett makes her stomach clench shut. She picks up the receiver. “Hey, Theo, who’s down there?”
“They’re detectives, Ms. Haines.” Theo’s voice is low and uncertain. “Cambridge Police.”
“Send them up, please,” she says with a composure she doesn’t feel.
She paces across the broad entryway. Calm. Calm. Stay calm. She had assumed Davidson had given up. That it had come to nothing. But it’s come to something. To assume, as the twins say, makes an ass of you and me.
63
Zach
After three more weeks of feverish work, Zach still hasn’t found any more Red Sox Guy pictures. It’s mostly his fault, as negatives that might be good for Nathaniel’s gallery show, especially the ghost photos, keep snagging his attention from his primary search. Zach is itching to print them but manages to stay away from the enlarger. Again and again, he shakes and fills and rinses. No printing allowed unless it’s Red Sox Guy or until every roll is developed. This has the unfortunate effect of forcing him to reschedule the meeting with Nathaniel again, as he still only has three new prints to show.
