“But it’s better if you don’t, I think, because none of this would be known to you. The key point, if he should come back to talk to you, is that you know nothing.”
She seems affronted. “I know everything.”
“Of course you do. It’s like playing a part, in a play. You have to remember—you never met Margot. Never saw her, never heard me speak about her. Victoria met her, drove her to the train station the first time, overheard our argument. But you know absolutely nothing about her.” He pauses, decides to air his worst fear. “Unless you and Victoria gossip.”
“How could we gossip? We never see each other.”
Fair point. Gerry’s being paranoid.
“Meanwhile, I’ve figured something out. How she came back, how she got in.”
“Huh.” Is it “Huh” or “How”？ At any rate, he decides to tell her.
“Did you find my keys or the pass in her purse? You and Victoria always come and go through the lower level—”
“The service entrance,” Aileen says. Service or servants’？ She really has the most terrible diction. A stray memory darts around his mind. Speak up, don’t mumble so. He sees a pen-and-ink drawing of a monstrous child. Augustus Gloop. Willy Wonka. Willy Wonka would accuse the children of mumbling when he didn’t like what they said. But, no, it was Mike Teavee that Wonka pretended he couldn’t hear.
“Anyway, that’s how she got back in. And that means if anyone ever pulls the security footage from that night, they will see her returning in the middle of the night, but there will be no footage of her leaving a second time.”
Aileen’s eyes widen. “Then we have to do something about that security footage.”
“No. NO. That’s a fatal error. There are hours of footage and, as of now, there’s no one saying she came back at all, so no one’s looking at the tape. We do nothing.”
“I don’t know, maybe there’s a way to erase the footage. I saw this TV show recently where someone used a magnet—”
“We do nothing,” he says sternly. “Every action carries a risk. Inaction has far less. If it were to be discovered, we would both say, plausibly, that we have no memory of her returning to the apartment, that we heard nothing and saw nothing. It’s not on us to explain why she’s on the footage, coming back later that night. Real life is filled with things that don’t make sense.”
“Right,” she says. Yet she still seems angry and affronted. “I was only trying to help. I’m in this up to my neck, you know.”
Not an appealing image, Aileen in something up to her neck.
“I don’t mean to sound bossy,” he says, even as he thinks: I am your boss. “But I was interviewed first; my version has to be the official one. I was here, the detective visited, I’ve started the story. Certain things are set in stone and cannot be revised. It’s like a serial novel. We can’t pull anything back. Now, what was it that you wanted to tell me?”
“Oh, not tell,” she says. “Ask.”
He waits, but she is suddenly tongue-tied, shy.
“Yes?” he prods.
“You know, I really hate parking on the street when I come here. If you were to get a parking place in the building, I could use it.”
“I have a space, the one that is deeded to the apartment. But my mother’s car is in it and I can’t do anything with it until her estate clears probate.” His mother’s car is a 2010 Mercedes-Benz that needs body work and repairs to the engine. He had it towed to the garage to get it out of the elements up in North Baltimore.
“Can’t you get a second space?”
“I could, but it’s expensive.”
“How much?”
“I don’t recall the exact figure. I know only that each unit here comes with one deeded spot, but the second one is dear—they were trying to discourage two-vehicle households, which is funny, given how unwalkable this neighborhood is.”
“Hmmmm. I just thought—I’m so scared at night, when I walk those three or four blocks. Scared and cold.”
“Spring is coming. And it’s staying light later.”
“Gerry.”
She has never used his first name before. Now that she has, he realizes what is happening—the bill has come due. She cleaned up his mess, and she expects to be compensated. No such thing as a free lunch. No such thing as a free accomplice. Everyone always has an agenda. He stares at the cats frolicking on Aileen’s tablet cover, which is peeking out of her knitting bag. One, a black one with round eyes, seems to be staring back at him, taunting him, stopping just short of sticking its tongue out at him. I know you, he thinks. I have seen you before.