Extreme Denial Read online

  “I think it’s time for a shower,” Beth said. “You can use the one off the guest room, or ...”

  “Yes?”

  “We can share mine.”

  The gleaming white shower was spacious, doubling as a steam area. It had a built-in tiled bench and jets on each side. After lathering and sponging each other as the spray of hot water streamed over them, after kissing and touching, stroking, caressing, and exploring as steam billowed around them, their slippery bodies sliding against each other, they sank to the bench and made trembling, heart-pounding love again.

  7

  The evening was the most special of Decker’s life. He had never felt such emotional commitment to physical passion, such regard—and indeed awe—for the person with whom he was sharing that passion. After he and Beth had made love for the second time, after they had finished showering and dressing, he became aware of other unfamiliar feelings, his sense of completeness, of belonging. It was as if their two physical unions had produced another kind of union, intangible, mystical. As long as he was near Beth, he felt that she was within him and he within her. He didn’t have to be close enough to touch her. It was enough merely to see her. He felt whole.

  As he sipped a glass of red wine while he barbecued the T-bones Beth had requested, he glanced toward stars beginning to appear in the sky, its evening color remarkably like that of Beth’s eyes. He gazed down the wooded slope behind Beth’s house toward the lights of Santa Fe spread out below him. Feeling a contentment he had never before known, he peered through the screen door into the glow of the kitchen and watched Beth preparing a salad. She was humming to herself.

  She noticed him. “What are you looking at?”

  “You.”

  She smiled with pleasure.

  “I love you,” Decker said again.

  Beth came toward him, opened the door, leaned out, and kissed him. A spark seemed to jump from her to him. “You’re the most important person in the world to me.”

  At that moment, it occurred to Decker that the hollowness he had suffered for many years had finally been filled. He thought back a year and a quarter to Rome and his fortieth birthday, the ennui he had endured, the personal vacuum. He had wanted a wife, a family, a home, and now he would have all of them.

  8

  “I’m afraid I’m going to have to leave town for a couple of days,” Beth said.

  “Oh?” Driving along the narrow piñon-rimmed curves of Tano Road, north of town, Decker looked over at her, confused. It was Friday, September 9, the end of the tourist season, the first evening of Fiesta. He and Beth had been lovers for eight days. “Is it something sudden? You didn’t mention it before.”

  “Sudden? Yes and no,” Beth said, gazing over sunset-bathed low hills toward the Jemez Mountains to the west. “Finding out that I had to take the trip the day after tomorrow is sudden. But I knew I’d have to do it eventually. I need to go back to Westchester County. Meetings with lawyers—that sort of thing. It’s about my late husband’s estate.”

  The reference to Beth’s late husband made Decker uncomfortable. Whenever possible, he had avoided the subject, concerned that Beth’s memories of the man would make her ambivalent about her relationship with him. Are you jealous of a dead man? he wondered.

  “A couple of days? When do you expect to be back?” Decker asked.

  “Actually, maybe longer. Possibly a week. It’s crass and petty, but it is important. My husband had partners, and they’re being difficult about how much his share of the business is worth.”

  “I see,” Decker said, wanting to ask all sorts of questions but trying not to pry. If Beth wanted to share her past with him, she would. He was determined not to make her feel crowded. Besides, this was supposed to be a joyous evening. They were on their way to a Fiesta party at the home of a film producer for whom Decker had acted as Realtor. Beth obviously didn’t want to talk about her legal problems, so why make her do it? “I’ll miss you.”

  “Same here,” Beth said. “It’ll be a long week.”

  9

  “... died young.”

  Decker heard the fragment of conversation from a group of women behind him as he sipped a margarita and listened to a jazz trio positioned in a corner of the spacious living room. The tuxedoed pianist was doing a nice job on a Henry Mancini medley, emphasizing “Moon River.”

  “From tuberculosis,” Decker heard behind him. “Only twenty-five. Didn’t start writing until he was twenty-one. It’s amazing how much he accomplished in so little time.”

  Decker turned from listening to the piano player and studied the two hundred guests that his client, the film producer, had invited to the Fiesta party. While uniformed caterers brought cocktails and hors d’oeuvres, the partygoers went from room to room, admiring the luxurious home. Famous local residents mixed freely. But the only person in the room who occupied Decker’s attention was Beth.

  When Decker had first met her, she had worn only East Coast clothing. But gradually that had changed. Tonight, she wore a festive Hispanic-influenced southwestern outfit. Her skirt and top were velvet, their midnight blue complementing her blue-gray eyes and auburn hair. She had tucked back her hair in a ponytail, securing it with a silver barrette whose glint matched that of her silver squash-blossom necklace. She was sitting with a group of women around a coffee table made from blacksmithed iron that supported a two-hundred-year-old door. She looked comfortable, at ease, as if she had been living in Santa Fe for twenty years.

  “I haven’t read him since I was at UCLA,” one of the women was saying.

  “Whatever made you get interested in poetry?” another woman asked, as if the thought appalled her.

  “And why Keats?” a third woman asked.

  Decker mentally came to attention. Until that moment, he hadn’t known which writer the group was discussing. The reference, through a complex chain of association, sparked his memory, taking him back to Rome. He repressed a frown as he vividly recalled following Brian McKittrick down the Spanish Steps and past the house where Keats had died. “For fun, I’m taking a course at St. John’s College,” a fourth woman said. “It’s called ‘The Great Romantic Poets.’ ”

  “Ah,” the second woman said. “I can guess which word in the title appealed to you.”

  “It’s not what you’re thinking,” the fourth woman said. “It’s not like those romances you like to read, and I confess I do, too. This is different. Keats did write about men and women and passion, but that’s not what he’s about.”

  The repetition of Keats’s name made Decker think not only of McKittrick but of twenty-three dead Americans. It troubled him that a poet synonymous with truth and beauty could be irrevocably associated in his mind with a restaurant full of charred corpses.

  “He wrote about emotion,” the fourth woman said. “About beauty that feels like passion. About... It’s hard to explain.”

  “Darkling I listen; and, for many a time / I have been half in love with easeful Death.” Keats’s dirgelike lines occurred spontaneously to Decker. Before he realized what he was doing, he joined the conversation.

  “About beautiful things that seem even more heartachingly beautiful when seen through the eyes of someone very young and about to die.”

  The group looked up at him in surprise, except for Beth, who had been watching him with covert affection throughout the conversation.

  “Steve, I didn’t realize you knew anything about poetry,” the fourth woman said. “Don’t tell me that when you’re not helping people find beautiful houses like this, you take courses at St. John’s, also.”

  “No. Keats is just a memory from college,” Decker lied. “Now you’ve got me interested,” one of the women said. “Was Keats really in his early twenties and dying from TB when he wrote those great poems?”

  Decker nodded, thinking of shots being fired in the dark in a rainy courtyard.

  “When he was twenty-five,” the fourth woman repeated. “He’s buried in Venice.”

  �
��No, in Rome,” Decker said.

  “Are you sure?”

  “The house where he died is near Bernini’s Boat Fountain, to the right as you go down the Spanish Steps.”

  “You sound as if you’ve been there.”

  Decker shrugged.

  “Sometimes I think you’ve been everywhere,” an attractive woman said. “One of these days, I’m going to get you to tell me the fascinating story of your life before you came to Santa Fe.”

  “I sold real estate other places. It wasn’t very interesting, I’m afraid.”

  As if sensing that Decker wanted to move on, Beth mercifully stood and took his arm. “If anybody’s going to hear the story of Steve’s life, it’s going to be me.”

  Grateful to be relieved from talking about his mood, Decker strolled with Beth onto an extensive brick patio. In the cool night air, they peered toward the star-filled sky.

  Beth put an arm around his waist. Smelling her perfume, Decker kissed her cheek. His throat felt pleasantly tight.

  Leading her off the patio, away from the lights and the crowd, concealed by shadowy piñon trees, Decker kissed her with passion. When Beth reached up, linking her fingers around his neck, returning the kiss, he felt as if the ground rippled. Her lips were soft yet firm, exciting. Through her blouse, her nipples pressed against him. He was breathless. “So go ahead—tell me the fascinating story of your life.”

  “Sometime.” Decker kissed her neck, inhaling her fragrance. “Right now, there are better things to do.”

  But he couldn’t stop thinking of Rome, of McKittrick, of what had happened in the courtyard. The dark nightmare haunted him. He had hoped to put everything that McKittrick represented behind him. Now, as he had two months ago, he couldn’t help wondering why in God’s name McKittrick had shown up in Santa Fe to watch him.

  10

  “It arrived?”

  “This afternoon,” Decker said. “I didn’t have a chance to show you.” After the party, they were driving back along shadowy Camino Lindo.

  “Show me now.”

  “You’re sure you’re not tired?”

  “Hey, if I get tired, I can always stay at your place and use it,” Beth said.

  The “it” they referred to was a bed that Decker had commissioned from a local artist, John Massey, whose specialty was working with metal. Using a forge, a hammer, and an anvil, Massey had shaped the iron bedposts into intricate designs that resembled carved wood.

  “It’s wonderful,” Beth said after Decker parked the Cherokee in the carport and they went inside. “Even more striking than you described.” She touched the metal’s smooth black finish. “And those figures cut out of the headboard—or head metal—or whatever you call it when it’s made out of iron. These figures look like they’re based on a Navajo design, but they also look like Egyptian hieroglyphs, their feet out one way, their hands out another. Actually, they look like they’re drunk.”

  “John has a sense of humor. They’re not based on anything. He makes them up.”

  “Well, I sure like them,” Beth said. “They make me smile.”

  Decker and Beth admired it from various angles. “Certainly looks solid,” Decker said.

  Beth pressed a hand on the mattress. She raised her eye-brows, mischievous. “Want to try it out?”

  “You bet,” Decker said. “If we break it, I’ll make John give me my money back.”

  He turned off the light. Slowly, amid lingering kisses, they undressed each other. The bedroom door was open. Moonlight streamed through the high, wide solar-gain windows in the corridor outside the bedroom. The glow on her breasts made Decker think of ivory. Kneeling, worshiping, he brought his lips down.

  11

  They must have come over the back wall. That was at seven minutes after three in the morning. Decker was able to be specific about the time because he had an old-fashioned alarm clock with hands, and when he checked it later, he discovered that was when the hands had stopped moving.

  Unable to sleep, he lay on his side, admiring Beth’s face in the moonlight, imagining that she had already returned from her business trip, that their separation was over. In the distance, he heard the muted pop-pop-pop of firecrackers being set off at private parties that continued the Fiesta celebrations. There are going to be a lot of hangovers tomorrow morning, he thought. And sleepy neighbors kept up by parties next to them. The police will be busy, responding to complaints. How late is it? he wondered, and turned toward the clock.

  He couldn’t see its illumination. Suspecting that he had put some of Beth’s clothing in front of it, he reached to remove the obstacle, but instead, he touched the clock itself. Puzzlement made him frown. Why would the clock’s light be off? The pop-pop-pop of distant firecrackers persisted. But the noise wasn’t intrusive enough to prevent him from hearing something else—the faint scrape of metal against metal.

  Troubled, Decker sat up. The noise came from beyond the foot of his bed, from the solar-gain corridor outside his bedroom, from the door on the right at the end of the corridor. That door led outside to a small flower garden and patio. Faintly, metal continued to scrape against metal.

  In a rush, he put a hand over Beth’s mouth. The moonlight revealed the shock with which her eyes opened. As she struggled against his hand on her mouth, he pressed his head against her left ear, his voice a tense whisper. “Don’t try to say anything. Listen to me. Someone’s trying to break into the house.”

  The metal scraped.

  “Get out of bed. Into the closet. Hurry.”

  Naked, Beth scrambled out of bed and dashed into the closet on the right side of the room. The closet was large, a walk-in, ten by twelve feet. It had no windows. Its darkness was greater than that of the bedroom.

  Decker yanked open the bottom drawer of his bedside table and removed the Sig-Sauer 928 pistol that he had bought when he first arrived in Santa Fe. He crouched next to the bed, using it for cover while he grabbed the bedside telephone, but as he put the phone to his ear, he knew that there wasn’t any point in pressing 911—he didn’t hear a dial tone.

  Abrupt silence aggravated Decker’s tension. The sound of metal scraping against metal had stopped. Decker lunged into the walk-in closet, couldn’t see Beth, and took cover next to a small dresser. As he aimed toward the corridor beyond his open bedroom door, he shivered from stress, his nude body feeling cold, although he was sweating. The back door on the right, which he had been intending to oil, squeaked open.

  Who the hell would be breaking in? he asked himself. A burglar? Possibly. But suspicions from his former life took possession of him. He couldn’t put away the icy thought that unfinished business had caught up to him.

  Immediately the intrusion detector made a rhythmic beeping sound: the brief alert the system provided before the full ear-torturing blare of the alarm. Not that the alarm would do any good—because the telephone line had been cut, the alarm’s signal couldn’t be transmitted to the security company. If the intrusion detector hadn’t been rigged to a battery in case of a power failure, the warning beep wouldn’t even be sounding now.

  At once the beeps became a constant wail. Shadows rushed into the bedroom. Rapid flashes pierced the darkness, the staccato roar of automatic weapons assaulting Decker’s eardrums. The flashes illuminated the impact of countless bullets against the bedsheets, pillow feathers flying, mattress stuffing erupting.

  Before the gunmen had a chance to realize their mistake, Decker fired, squeezing the trigger repeatedly. Two of the gunmen lurched and fell. A third man scrambled from the bedroom. Decker shot at him and missed, the bullet shattering a solar-gain window as the man disappeared into the corridor.

  Decker’s palms were moist, making him grateful that his pistol had a checkered nonslick grip. His bare skin exuded more sweat. Traumatized by the roar of the shots, his eardrums rang painfully. He could barely hear the security system’s wail. He wouldn’t be able to detect any sound the gunman made. For that matter, Decker didn’t know if the three
gunmen were the only intruders in the house, and he couldn’t tell how seriously he had injured the two men he had shot. Would they still be capable of firing at him if he tried to leave the closet?

  He waited anxiously for his night vision to return after the glare of the muzzle flashes. It worried him that he didn’t know where Beth was. Somewhere in the spacious closet, yes. But had she found cover, perhaps behind the cedar chest? He couldn’t risk glancing behind him in hopes of detecting her murky shadow in the darkness. He had to keep his attention directed toward the bedroom, prepared to react if someone attacked across it. At the same time, he felt a cold spot on his spine, terribly aware that the closet had another entrance, a door behind him that led into the laundry room. If the gunman snuck around and attacked from that direction ...

  I can’t guard two directions at once, Decker thought. Maybe whoever else is out there ran away.

  Would you have run away?

  Maybe.

  Like hell.

  Apprehension made him rigid. The middle of the night, the phone and the electricity cut off, no way to call for help, no way for the alarm to be transmitted to the police—all the gunman had to worry about was a neighbor being wakened by the shots or by the alarm. But could those noises be heard from outside the thick adobe house? The nearest house was several hundred yards away. The noise would be muted by the distance. The gunshots might sound like the distant firecrackers Decker had heard. The intruder might think he had a little more time.

  The attack didn’t come from the laundry room. Instead, an automatic weapon roared from the entrance to the bedroom, the muzzle flashes brilliant, bullets tearing up each side of the closet’s doorjamb, strafing the open space between them, hitting the wall beyond, shredding clothes on hangers, bursting shoe boxes and garment bags, sending chunks of fabric, wood, and cardboard flying, fragments striking Decker’s bare back. The acrid stench of cordite filled the area.