The Zero

“So, there, I’ve answered your question. Now I’d like an answer to mine. How did you find me?”

Remy thought about the Scotch that was coming. He wanted to extend the interview at least long enough to drink it. “You don’t know?”

Eller cocked his head. “I don’t think any of her friends knew. I don’t even think she told her sister. She was embarrassed about seeing a married man… Maybe someone at her office? Someone in her building?”

“You’re getting warmer,” Remy said, treading water. A few seconds later, his Scotch arrived and Remy reached out and accepted the caramel-colored glass. “This is really good,” he said to the waiter. “What is it?”

“Oban. Twenty-two years old.”

“God. It’s really good.”

“The lease on the apartment,” Eller said, slapping his head. He looked from the waiter to Remy’s glass and back. “Carlos. Do you think you could get Mr. Remy a bottle? Put it on my account.”

“Of course, Mr. Eller.” Carlos backed away from the table.

Remy held the drink in his mouth, savoring it.

“You’ll excuse my earlier outburst, Mr. Remy. It occurs to me that it was actually thoughtful of you to contact me here at the club, rather than at my office or my home, where this might have been… misconstrued. Clearly, you’re a reasonable man.”

“Thank you,” Remy said, draining the glass.

“I’ll help in any way that I can…” Eller tapped the photo of March in the spaghetti-strap dress. “You’re right – this is the Olympic Four Seasons in Seattle. How did you know that?”

Remy shrugged.

“I understand.” Eller nodded in a kind of admiration. “Well… I was at a conference there, last spring. I took March. I wanted to talk to her, outside the city. She was sensitive about my being married. She told me that’s all she’d met since she got to the city, married men. Except this one boyfriend she had briefly… Basil, I think his name was, something like that. An Arab student, real womanizer. They’d just broken up. She was bitter – looking for something different, I guess.

“Anyway, I guess I may have… uh… led her to believe that I was separated. It was on that trip, when I took this picture, that I explained that I actually wasn’t exactly separated, technically.” He cleared his throat. “That my wife and I were still together.”

Eller waited for a response, but Remy couldn’t muster one. “Technically,” he repeated.

“Yes.” Eller bit his lip. “Anyway, March ran out. And I didn’t see her for several hours. She was walking around Seattle. When she came back, I could see that she had been crying. But her face was set. Very determined. March could be that way. She was one of those people who lashed out when she was hurt. And, oh boy, was she hurt.” Remy thought Eller seemed almost proud of this fact, and he had to look away. “She started by saying that she was tired of feeling like a victim in every relationship and then she just laid out everything she wanted from me: bang, bang, bang. An apartment. A cell phone. A car. Stipend. Clothes allowance. She said that if she was going to be a mistress, by God she wanted to be compensated like one.” Eller stared at a spot over Remy’s shoulder. “Honestly, Mr. Remy. That outburst was the best thing that could’ve happened. For both of us. This might sound… cold. But I’m a businessman. This is what I do. It’s what I understand. Negotiations. Arrangements. I tend to gravitate toward those things I can control. And in that way, shoot, the arrangement was…” His eyes drifted down and for the first time, he looked like a man who’d lost someone. “Perfect.”

Something stuck in Remy’s mind, amid all these pointless details, one word: “Car? Did you say you bought her a car?”

“I gave her a car.”

“But she took the train to work.”

“I needed to be somewhat discreet about the car.” Eller squirmed. “My firm… provided it, a company car. I tied it to the work she was doing for us. March parked it in the garage below her office. We used it on the weekends to go to Co

Just then the waiter returned with a tall, narrow box and set it on the table between them. The scotch. Eller stared at him, waiting for a question, but Remy just looked back at his scotch. Eller cleared his throat and filled the space. “About three weeks before…” he rubbed his mouth “…before she died, March suddenly said that it was over. I wasn’t happy, as you might guess. I asked if there was someone else… and when she hesitated, I knew. I asked if it was her old boyfriend, but she just said it wasn’t anyone. It was just… time, she said.”

Remy nodded.

“I know what you’re thinking.” Eller picked up the photograph and stared at it again. “Was I in some way… relieved that March died that day? Because I didn’t have to hold my breath every time the phone rang at home? Or look over my shoulder when I went to her apartment? I was bitter about the breakup; I won’t lie. But I cared deeply for her, Mr. Remy. I did. There were days when I thought I loved her.”

Remy didn’t say anything.

“I’m sure you don’t believe me.”

“Why wouldn’t I believe you?”

Eller straightened his neck. “I don’t care, Mr. Remy. Go ahead and mock me. March knew how I felt about her. I sleep at night. I-”

He coughed and seemed about to break down, but quickly composed himself. “That day… I watched TV and I was sick. I tried her cell phone but I couldn’t get through. I called the apartment and the hospitals… That night I went to the apartment. I still had my key. I just sat there thinking about her, and-” He trailed off and rubbed his jaw, looking down at the ground as if the magnitude of his actions was just making its way to him. “I gathered everything that might get back to me.” He looked up. “A magazine with my name on it. A razor and deodorant I kept in the bathroom. A bottle of wine from our cellar. I got those things… and I left.” Eller stared at the spot over Remy’s shoulder again, as if reading cue cards. Finally he looked back and met Remy’s eyes, composed and icy. “You said you were going to see her family in Kansas City?”

“Did I?”

“I doubt she told them anything about me, but if she did… can you tell them how genuinely sorry I am – for everything?”

“Sure.”

“Does any of this help?” Eller asked.

Remy looked at the scotch. “Yes.”

They both stood. Eller straightened his coat and looked at a spot on the ground. “The last time I talked to her… was two weeks before. A Sunday. She asked how I was doing. Miles… my son… had a soccer game. I told her about it, and she said, ‘I hope he has a great game.’ With no irony, either. March would’ve been a wonderful mother, if she’d ever gotten the chance.” He sighed. “Mr. Remy, if you knew that a conversation would be the last one you were going to have with someone, what would you say?”

Remy reached for the bottle of-

“I JUST keep thinking we forgot something,” Guterak was saying on the other end of the phone. He sounded drunk.

“What do you mean?” Remy adjusted the phone in his own ear. He sounded drunk, too. “What did we forget?”

“Not just us. Everyone. We just kept going on and… it’s like we all forgot to do something important. Like when you leave the stove on and go on a big trip.”

Remy didn’t know what to say. He looked at his watch. It was three in the morning. He was alone, fully dressed, lying on the bed in a hotel room that he didn’t recognize. He was wearing the suit he wore to funerals. He reached in the pocket and pulled out a funeral a