False Conception Read online

  “Okay,” I said. “I’ll check her out. I should have something for you next week.”

  “That’s great, Marsh. And that should take care of it. Seven months from now, the Colberts will have a bouncing baby boy.”

  “I take it Stuart didn’t think Mrs. Hammond’s deceased child was a problem. Or the other things I mentioned.”

  “I guess not. He told me to go ahead, so I called Ms. Hammond in to execute the documents and the medical people went ahead with the implant.”

  “Well, I hope it works out for all concerned.”

  “I’m sure it will,” he said. “Why wouldn’t it?” The question was more precatory than rhetorical.

  “No reason at all,” I assured him.

  And that was it. For yet another time, Russell invited me to go out on his boat with him and again I said I’d like to. We parted the way we always did, vowing to spend more time together.

  That same evening, at precisely eight o’clock, I rang Greta Hammond’s bell.

  “It’s Marsh Tanner,” I said to the crackling intercom. “Remember me? I was looking for an apartment several weeks back. I’ve got a boy named Jason; you were kind enough to tell me about the school situation in this area.”

  “I remember,” her voice said coolly. “Did you find a place?”

  “No. That is, the job I thought I had lined up fell through at the last minute, so I had to go back to Redding till I got a line on something else. But I lucked out—started work last week. The job’s down near the Hall of Justice, so Jason and I are living on Potrero Hill.”

  “It’s nice down there—best weather in the city.”

  “That’s what they say, although I was looking forward to living in your area, actually. Anyway, I was out this way on business, and I was wondering if you’d let me buy you that drink. I apologize for not calling first, but I didn’t know how long my meeting would be and, well, I’m sort of phone phobic for some reason. Anyway, here I am, if you’re interested.”

  She waited so long to respond, I was sure she was going to refuse me. But instead, she said, “I can be at Yancy’s in twenty minutes. Why don’t you get us a table and I’ll meet you there?”

  The words were agreeable but her tone was far from it—reserved, almost calculating. Still, given the circumstance, it was a better opportunity than I expected.

  A part of me didn’t think she’d show up, and I wasn’t sure what I was going to do if she did, but it was better than pawing through her garbage. Despite my doubts, at twenty minutes after eight Greta Hammond walked into Yancy’s Saloon, squinted into the gloom to make sense of the shapes scattered throughout the bar-dark that engulfed her, then waved and walked awkwardly to my table, embarrassed that far more eyes than mine were on her.

  She was wearing Levi’s and sandals and a sleeveless white blouse that dipped low toward her breasts and billowed saucily around her torso. Her smile was tentative but stalwart. She looked both sexier than before and more troubled. I wondered if she’d learned what I was up to, and had come to the bar to scold me, but it was more likely that she was simply plagued by her pregnancy.

  I stood up. “Hi.”

  “Hi.”

  “Have a seat.”

  “Thanks.”

  She eased into the chair across from mine and arranged herself primly, placing her purse on the chair at her side and clasping her hands on the table in front of her, as though she were awaiting communion. “I can only stay a minute,” she began, looking everywhere but at me. “I’ve got some clothes that have to be mended. But it occurred to me that I hadn’t been out of the house in the evening in ages, so …” Her shrug established an itinerant attitude. “Here I am.”

  “I’m glad. What would you like to drink?”

  “Sprite would be fine.”

  “I can spring for something more complicated—the bartender looks pretty clever.”

  Antennae fully extended, she sensed she was being shoved. “Sprite will be clever enough.”

  I gave myself a mental kick, then gestured for the waitress and ordered a soft drink for Greta and started to order a Dewar’s for me, then thought better of it and settled for a beer. Hard liquor is suspect in certain circles these days, and I didn’t want to foster misconceptions.

  After the waitress went off to do our bidding, Greta looked at me and smiled, though not overwhelmingly. For the first time since I’d laid eyes on her, she seemed as down in the dumps as I often get. I decided she was having second thoughts about the surrogate thing, and maybe even third ones.

  “Did you find a nice apartment on Potrero Hill?” she asked, without an ounce of interest in the answer.

  “It’s adequate. It’s only five and a half, so the extra money will help. It’s got lots of windows; fir floors; dishwasher.”

  “How’s the new job working out?”

  “Okay, so far.”

  “What type of work are you doing?”

  “I’m inventory manager in a warehouse. Wholesale hardware. Not much of a job, but it pays decent money.”

  “Well, good luck with it.”

  “Thanks. I’m hoping to find something better, but these days you never know.”

  “That’s for sure. These days you never know about anything.” She unclasped her hands and toyed with her hair, as if uncertain of the image she wanted to project. The sag in her cheeks and the slump in her shoulders were so pronounced they made her a different woman from the one who had strolled down the block so jauntily two months ago. I wondered if something had happened to her in the interim, besides being implanted with the makings of another couple’s child. I hoped it was only an early start on morning sickness.

  The waitress returned with the drinks and we gave each other a silent toast, then sank into that slippery pit where small talk inevitably drops you. “Tell me about yourself,” I began inanely.

  She shrugged wearily. “There’s not much to tell.”

  “What do you do for fun? Are you a runner? Biker? Rock climber? Fisherwoman?”

  She smiled. “None of the above, although I do have a set of Supremes albums I dance to rather energetically.”

  I took a deeper plunge. “Do you have a significant other?”

  She shook her head. “I did a while back, but we broke up. It’s difficult to keep a relationship going at this stage in life, I’ve found, what with work, and hustling to save money every chance I get. Poverty is so exhausting—whenever he came by I was too tired to do anything fun.”

  “Maybe that had more to do with him than with you.”

  “He brought me down, you mean?” She shrugged. “It’s possible. He was rather dour. I think it had to do with the way he was raised—his parents thought he was perfect and as a consequence they gave him the idea that nothing or no one was good enough for their pride and joy. For some reason, he began to believe it.”

  “Sounds like a no-win situation for the woman in his life.”

  She cocked her head in deference to my insight. “That’s exactly what it was. I finally realized I had to get out of the situation.”

  “How did he take it?”

  “The way men always take it—he made it seem like it was his decision.”

  I laughed. “So how about now? I mean, you must meet a lot of men at work.”

  “How do you know where I work?”

  I scrambled to cover my gaffe and resolved to proceed with more caution. “After you left the restaurant that first day, I asked Leo about you. He told me you worked at the hospital.”

  Her brow furled. “What else did he tell you?”

  “Not much. Leo likes you too much to gossip.”

  “Good. Though there’s nothing to gossip about.” She wrinkled her lips. “Unfortunately.”

  “There’s always something to gossip about,” I said. “Even having nothing to gossip about is something to gossip about.”

  She laughed but it was contrary to her brittle mood. “I see what you mean. And yes. I meet quite a few men in my work, b
ut only superficially. And in my section, most of them are gay as it happens. How about you?” Her look turned impish. “Have you fallen in love since I saw you last?”

  I shook my head and looked forlorn. “It’s hard to meet people if you don’t have a context—job, church, social club, whatever. If you don’t have a context, you tend to end up looking for company in places like this.”

  Greta glanced around the bar with what looked like affection. “Not that this is so awful.”

  “It’s not the place, it’s the process. It’s pretty ignoble to be out on the prowl.”

  She looked at me soberly. “You know what I think?”

  “What?”

  “I think you’re still in love with your wife. I think until you work through that, no woman is going to look good to you no matter what she’s like.”

  “You could be right,” I admitted, and gave myself an invisible Oscar for my role as a jilted husband. “I take it that’s not a problem in your case.”

  “Loving my husband? I told you, Luke and I went our separate ways twenty years ago. It was a marriage of convenience, anyway. We never would have been married in the first place if I hadn’t needed …”

  “What?”

  “Never mind.” Her look turned misty and wistful. “I just have to accept the fact that nothing in my life is going to work out and that they’re going to keep after me until they do to me what they did to my father.”

  “Whoa,” I said quickly. “You sound like you’re mixed up in some sort of international conspiracy.” We were close to something new, a corner of her life that had been hidden from me, but it had been a mistake to follow up. She came out of her nostalgic trance and looked at me with equanimity. “Don’t mind me; I’m just prattling.”

  “It sounded sort of ominous.”

  “Well, it isn’t. I get melodramatic when I reminisce; always have. Too much time watching the soaps in my youth.”

  I had a feeling she was lying and that sinister was exactly the word for whatever she had been thinking of. But I also had a feeling that Greta Hammond was the victim, not the victimizer, in the remembered drama that was spinning inside her head, and so it was not necessarily relevant to the judgment I had to make. Still, I began to wonder if I could possibly be an unwitting arm of the forces she was convinced were pursuing her.

  I watched her face assume new contours as she gazed into whatever shaded realm her thoughts had taken her. “What are you thinking?” I asked after a minute.

  “Nothing.”

  “Come on.”

  “It’s not important.”

  “It is to you.”

  She smiled wearily. “Even if I told you my tale of woe, why would you believe it?”

  “Why shouldn’t I?”

  “Because in my experience, women almost never tell men what they’re really thinking.”

  “Why not?”

  “They’re afraid the men will get angry. And maybe hurt them. You’d be surprised how many decisions women make that are governed by the likelihood of violence their choice will provoke—what they say, what they wear, where they go, who they talk to. It’s an enormous burden and most men aren’t even aware of it.”

  “You’re probably right,” I said. “On the other hand, not all men are afraid of the truth. Not all men are an inch away from mayhem.”

  She looked at me for a long moment. “Why do you think I’m here?”

  And just that quickly there was something new between us, a primitive, needful thing whose steamy vapors were rising as thickly off her as off me.

  I bowed my head in mock appreciation. “Thanks for the compliment.”

  She touched my forearm. “You’re welcome. Now let’s change the subject.”

  I was happy to oblige, but less happy to return to the job I’d been hired for. “Do you ever do anything wild and crazy?” I asked with an appropriate leer.

  I’d misread her again, and she frowned uneasily. “Like what?”

  “Oh, opium dens, bowling alleys, pool halls, roller rinks.”

  She sniffed. “None of the above, not even remotely. Although it would be handy to have some sort of antidote once in a while.”

  “For the down times, you mean?”

  She nodded.

  “So what are they for you? The tough times.”

  She blinked at the switch in theme. “Let’s see. I get so lonely on Saturday nights I could scream. Or cry, which is the more usual reaction. Then there’s the little terrors that pop up now and then when you’re walking down a dark street or waiting for the bus, those little brushes with psychopathy that make city life so charming. I have the most awful nightmares, sometimes.”

  “Me, too,” I said truthfully.

  “I wouldn’t think Redding would furnish quite as much fuel for them as San Francisco.”

  “You’d be surprised,” I said. So would I, I imagine—I haven’t been in Redding in years.

  “But I suppose my biggest fear is that I have less than a thousand dollars in the bank, which means if I get fired, I’m a month away from a homeless shelter.” She paused and looked at the 49er pennant hanging above my head. “I thought that particular situation was about to improve, but now I’m not so sure.”

  I perked up. “New job?”

  She shook her head. “Just a special project I’m involved with.”

  “What kind of project? Not that it’s any of my business.”

  “If I talk about it, I’ll jinx it. But if it works out, it will help my finances immensely.” She made it sound more like a curse than a blessing.

  “Well, good luck. I hope it comes through for you.”

  “Thanks,” she said with sudden bitterness. “I just need to figure a way to make it happen. Right?”

  “Right.”

  “A deal’s a deal.”

  “Absolutely.”

  “At this age, you do what you have to do.”

  This time I passed on my turn. After a long look inward, Greta Hammond forced herself to brighten. “Anyway, I hope you find a better job, too, if that’s what you want. Who knows, maybe we’ll both end up rich.” She looked at the clock above the bar. “I have to be going.” She retrieved her purse and stood up.

  “I’ll walk you back,” I said.

  “It’s not necessary.”

  “Well, I’m glad you came over.” I stood and stuck out my hand.

  She gave it a brisk shake. “Me, too. And thanks for the Sprite.”

  “My pleasure. Maybe we can do it again, sometime.”

  “That would be nice.”

  “And thanks for the dope on schools and stuff.”

  “Happy to oblige. Well …”

  “Well …”

  She waved good-bye, walked four steps toward the door, stopped, made some sort of decision, then returned to my side and leaned toward whisper distance. “Mrs. Hapwood keeps tabs on me pretty closely, and she’s such a dear, I don’t want her to worry. But she falls asleep rather early—if you come by in, oh, an hour or so, I could give you a nightcap.”

  “That would be great.”

  “Just tap the buzzer, don’t press it down.”

  “Right.”

  She turned away again, then pivoted and leaned even closer. “There’s an all-night drugstore on Judah. Just in case you need anything.”

  CHAPTER 10

  Two hours after I’d pressed her buzzer, Greta Hammond and I were making love on her lumpy sofa sleeper, smack in the center of the living room and smack on top of the slumbering Mrs. Hapwood and her furry golden sphinx. That we had come so far so fast was one of those miracles of men and women that are only explainable in the instant they occur.

  Sex wasn’t something I’d planned, needless to say. It wasn’t something that was ethical, either, since Greta was the subject of an active inquiry, which means it wasn’t something that was smart. And, given my relationship with Betty Fontaine, it was also distinctly inappropriate, in terms of morality or etiquette or even common decency, what
ever the precise dimensions of that relationship might be. Which raised the usual quantum of guilt that comes with the exercise to an even more potent dosage.

  But I played the hand out anyway, without qualm or resistance, with my eyes wide open and the contra-indications dispatched to the cellar of my mind, for reasons that had nothing to do with ethics or intelligence or the job I’d been hired to do, but a lot to do with the electric arc that illuminated the dusky nucleus of Greta Hammond’s eyes when she laughed at something I said. Most of all, what it had to do with, I like to think, was her obvious need of me.

  What the motivation was on Greta’s part I could only guess at, although I suspect its genesis was her state of being pregnant artificially, without benefit of emotional congress or even sticky sex, and that I was in some sense a standin for Stuart Colbert or Robert Redford or whomever she imagined the ghostly father to be, so that we were belatedly accomplishing the act of procreation even though the cart had come clearly before the horse. For my part, it seems that I need to be needed, enough to make me do things that will haunt me ever after.

  Whatever the psychological underpinnings of our decision, in the beginning it was an engineering exercise. For some reason, Greta didn’t want us to use the bedroom, so we removed and stacked the sofa cushions, then pulled the sleeper partway out, then shoved the coffee table aside so there would be room to extend the sofa fully, and finally completed the process of providing ourselves a surface. Then came the peeling of the blankets and the smoothing of the linens, Greta’s apology for the clutch of blood spots on the bottom sheet the only words she offered during the entire exercise.

  At this point the lights were switched off and the curtains drawn shut; then we debated music. Surprisingly, we settled rather easily on Sam Cooke and the Supremes as our opening acts, with Sinatra as the headliner. All in all, I’d made love in far less salubrious surroundings, amid far more rudimentary accessories.

  The mechanics out of the way, we were left with our clothing and our laggard apprehensions. “Did you go to the drugstore?” she asked me softly, looking at something beyond the walls of the suddenly tiny room, something that doubtlessly had roots in other times with other men for other purposes.