Redemption Read Online Free PDF Page B

you don’t know why or where it will lead you—” At that point, I broke off the conversation. I had slept poorly the night before, and I decided that what I needed was a good night’s sleep. And as for staying in bed for half a day, that had happened only once, when I had the flu.
    I went to bed, took a small sleeping pill, and fell asleep almost immediately, sleeping until eight o’clock the following morning. Then I showered and shaved and set the dining-room table.
    I set out to plan a Sunday date. Not that I expected to be with her the entire day, but I felt a need to suppose it might happen that way. I was never much of a lady’s man, and aside from being invited to various faculty dinner parties to fill in a male seat, I had dated no woman since my wife died. Mine had been a comfortable marriage to a woman who taught mathematics at the New School and who was far more interested in cooking and being a housewife than in law.
    The truth was that I wanted to be with Elizabeth the whole day. If last night had been a catharsis for Elizabeth, it was for me the best evening spent in a long time. By ten o’clock I had decided that if she loved music, we would find a concert—there are always ample concerts on a Sunday afternoon in New York—and then possibly dinner and a movie, unless she was good and tired of me by then.
    I kept looking at the clock. I decided that it was not too early to telephone Charlie Brown.
    He growled that it was too early. “It’s Sunday,” he said. “Don’t you know it’s Sunday?”
    â€œOf course I know it’s Sunday. That’s how I knew I would find you at home in the bosom of your family,” I replied mollifyingly. “I want you to do something for me.”
    â€œWhat? Tell me so I can go back to sleep.”
    â€œNo, if you go back to sleep, you’ll forget.”
    â€œOK, what can I do for you?”
    â€œYou remember that chap you spoke to me about? Harvey Goldberg in Business Administration? You said he could give me the whole story about William Sedgwick Hopper.”
    â€œIke, what in hell have you gotten yourself into?”
    â€œI’m not sure,” I said slowly. “But if you could arrange a lunch with Goldberg tomorrow or the next day, I would be grateful.”
    â€œThe woman on the bridge?”
    â€œYes, the woman on the bridge.”
    â€œIke,” he said, fully awake now, “this could be a scam. You’ve never been down the garden path.”
    â€œThis is Hopper’s ex-wife. It’s no scam, and whatever it is, I’m involved.”
    â€œYou’re more than involved. Hopper is a first-class prick. You don’t need Goldberg to tell you that. Just read the business section of the Times . I don’t know whether you’re in love or being taken, but don’t go up against Hopper. He’s poison.”
    â€œCharlie, I’m not going up against Hopper. I have no intention of going up against Hopper. But I have to know about him and what he did and how he did it. I’m no Boy Scout. I did five years in World War II. I was in the Normandy landing right up to the end.”
    â€œThat was a long time ago, Ike. All right. I’ll round up Goldberg, and you pick up the check.”
    At eleven o’clock, precisely, that Sunday morning, the doorbell buzzed. She must have been walking around outside to arrive exactly when she did, not a moment later. She was dressed in blue jeans. Her ruddy complexion needed no makeup, and the wind outside had added a blush to her cheeks. She wore a long heavy sweater over a linen shirt, and she looked younger than her forty-seven years, just as I was certain I looked older than my seventy-eight. We shook hands; neither of us tried to kiss the other, and I don’t know which of the two of us was more awkward at the moment. I said something to the effect of, “Come inside and make yourself comfortable”;