The Lure by Felice Picano Read Free Book Online

surfboard); or ravishing in a cocktail sheath, strand of pearls and pearl earrings, which he (in white jacket and black tie with tartan cumberbund) had given her for her twentieth birthday; or fresh and cheerful in her short white cheerleader’s skirt with the tight-fitting bodice, her hair long and sun-streaked (Noel half in shadow, wearing basketball shorts and a shirt with the major letter he had gotten that year); Monica smiling, in every conceivable pose and outfit, and always next to her, Noel.
    That was how it ought to appear, if photography conveyed truth. It was always Monica for Noel. If not from the day she stepped into his driveway where he was patching a flat tire on his Schwinn and introduced herself as the new neighbor, then from only a month or two after that. She was always first, through high school and college, work and marriage, right up to that afternoon on the lake.
    He didn’t have to look at those last snapshots taken the day she died. He recalled that day well enough, even after three years: how much of the margaritas he’d drunk from the Thermos. How she’d awakened him after he declared himself drunk and sleepy. How they’d made love in the little skiff, sloshing around in a half inch of water, their limbs slithery with it. The soft undulation, the sun shimmering on the lake. Her splash afterward as she dove into the water. Her taunts for him to join her. How she had left him alone to nap. Then the vague cries, his slow awakening, and the sudden clear sight of her arm and hand straight out of the water, gripping at air. His frozen terror the instant before he snapped fully awake and dove in. How he had grabbed her crumpled form, slowly sinking downward. How he had dragged her up and into the boat, thrown her over on her stomach, pumped her lungs. How he thought he had succeeded, and got the engine going, shooting back to the dock, praying, cold-faced, with her inert body. How he had listened to the doctor later, watched the old locals shrug, heard that of course cramps were common after intercourse, it happened all the time. And how that night he’d sat in the tiny, freezing cabin with Monica’s corpse and slowly realized that after eighteen years of knowing her, being with her, living for her, everything had changed.
    As the years passed, that day alone stood out clearly for Noel—the others became vague, even with the photo albums—the day he had failed to save her life. This recalled, he always felt a catharsis. The ritual finished, the records and the photo albums would be replaced in a back corner of the closet, the ghost relaid.
    As it was this early evening. Relieved, he threw himself into two dozen impromptu sit-ups, his stockinged toes wedged under the crossbar of the kitchen table. He followed that with more exercises, showered, had dinner, studied, watched a few hours of TV, and went to sleep early.
    Lying in bed, he felt exhausted. Somehow Monica seemed further away than ever before. Now school, his career, Boyle’s ultimatum, clouded her image. Just before he fell asleep, Noel briefly saw that bloody man with no face.

4

    “Someone’s waiting for you,” the old man Gerdes, the doorman, said.
    Noel lifted the Atala over the threshold and rolled it into the storage closet next to the mailroom.
    “Well,” he asked, when he had locked the bike away, “where is he?”
    “I let him in.”
    “Into my apartment?”
    “He said he was your uncle.”
    “My uncle? What uncle?” Noel demanded, jabbing the elevator button.
    “Don’t know. He said he was tired. Not all old men are like me, you know, on my feet all day.”
    The floor arrow above the elevator pointed to five.
    “Why couldn’t he sit down here?”
    “He said he was your uncle.”
    It was coming down slowly. At three, now, stopped. Probably Mrs. Davies, holding the door open to get her menagerie in.
    “When did you ever meet any uncle of mine? Imagine letting a stranger into my apartment! If anything’s