Chapter 10

So, the days after the session with Dr. Applebottom went by like the pages that fluttered by on the calendar in an old movie. The b-K tried to pass off the lie in our abbreviated session. She said that the weekend thing was the “one and only” thing that she was talking about – it wasn’t an attempt to hide the 5-months thing. She and Dr. A talked about it privately.

On Saturday we watched an old movie together. We randomly selected “Hooked.” We thought it would be about drugs and the problems with those who over-indulged in them. Instead, it was about an art gallery owner who got herself involved with an older artist and the problems her affair made in her marriage. That turned out to be a buzz kill for Kathy, and she left part way through the teariest portion, and went to bed.

So I gave up and went to my home office, before the denouement, where she eventually returns to her husband (of course! It’s a movie after all. Happy endings abound.) Once in the office, my fingers semi-automatically fell to the best of Beethoven: the Appassionata sonata, No. 23, Opus 57. The one he wrote as he was going deaf, just after a love affair came to a sudden conclusion. I could only play the opening section with its emotional crashing chords and dramatic arpeggios. Remember? I mentioned that I was a near expert at arpeggios – big hands, right?

I used to play the Appassionata, badly – but I did play it. I stopped and browsed to the sheet music on the internet. A few minutes later, I had the music for all three movements, and a few minutes after that I was playing it all the way through. By the time I was finished, it was 2:00 a.m. And I was exhausted – a real professional performance would take about 25 minutes; it took me an hour and a half.

I changed into my (new) nighttime attire – gym shorts and a white T – and crawled into bed. It was cold in there; no cuddling. I had to remember that tomorrow, the bitch-(former)-goddess was going to fly to NYC, there to meet Mr. ‘C’ around her meetings with the upper echelon of the bank she worked for. Or maybe she was boning Mr. Carbunkle, or whatever his name was, the ancient big money man at the bank. No telling what the slut was going to be doing.

I slept in on Sunday, barely awake as the b-K was packing. She headed off shortly after I woke up, and we had brunch in the kitchen area. “Bye-bye, hon. Have a good meeting,” I said to her back.

“Yeah, see you Friday. I DO love you.” Was her reply as she let the door ~snick~ behind her.

I had a relatively peaceful Monday and Tuesday at work, and turmoil free sessions of Beethoven. In the third movement I couldn’t feel if he was frustrated by the end of his love affair, or the loss of his hearing. For me it was the loss of my goddess and the 14 ½ years. I pounded out the anger in the music, which did nothing for the overall artistic content it deserved, but I felt better afterward.

On Wednesday, I caught the Delta flight to the Newark, NJ, airport. A short, but expensive, taxi ride delivered me to the hotel. A change into my ‘disguise’ – jeans, a flannel shirt, and a Yankees ball cap, and a copy of the NY Daily News – let me into the lobby of the Four Seasons Downtown where I parked myself in the padded chair in the ‘smoking allowed’ section, where I had a view of the comings and goings.

I saw her purposeful stride in through the door to the street, at about 4:37 – but I wasn’t trying to be a clock-watcher. I called the florist in the hotel and ordered a ‘I love you’ bouquet – signed by ‘Your Husband’ to be delivered to her room and then followed the bellman up to her floor. He politely knocked on the door to 523 while I took the stairs down to the fourth floor.

If she followed what I’d seen on her appointment app, she’d be at ‘C’s place this evening. I folded my newspaper and went to get a dinner at a street vendor. That was all I could afford in my ‘do it on the cheap’ private eye schedule. After that, I retired to my own hotel, two blocks away. I caught the Mets game on the TV, interrupted only by a phone call to room 523 at 10:00 p.m. No answer, so ‘C’ didn’t make house calls.

I strolled through an art gallery Thursday afternoon – no jeans and flannel shirt this time – but I changed afterward and was in the lobby of the Four Seasons in full ‘disguise’ at 3:00 again. At 3:30 a man strode purposefully to stand in front of me. I bent the newspaper down and looked up at him.

“Excuse me, sir,” said the man. “Can I help you?”

“No, I don’t think so,” I replied.

“You were here yesterday. You’re here again today. I’m with hotel security,” he went on. “Are you waiting for someone?”

I thought for a moment. “I see the staff is very attentive. That’s good.” I had to decide what to say. “I’m ... watching for my wife. She’s a guest here. And ... uhm ... well, I think she’s having an affair with someone. So I’m just watching.”

He sat in a nearby chair. “Do you have some ID?” he asked.

I thought about it for a full minute. “I hope we can keep this confidential.” I pulled out my DOJ identification. He wrote down my name in a little notebook he carried.

“Are you armed?”

“No, it’s unofficial. As I said,” I answered.

“I trust that there won’t be any confrontation here, then,” he said.

“No, no. Just gathering information.”

“Well ... we don’t want to have any disturbance.” He stood and walked over to the front desk. After a brief conversation he went back to the hotel security office, where ever that was.

I flipped up my Daily News, and looked at the Scramble again. At 5:20 she strode in and walked to the elevators. I left and had a snack at the hot dog vendor on my way back to my room. The Mets were playing the Phillies again, so my evening’s entertainment was set for tonight. A call to room 523 at 11:15 told me that she was making a house call tonight, too.

I took a blank greeting card from my luggage, wrote ‘Hope you had a nice evening’ inside, stuck the card I’d made with my name, in the envelope. I scribbled a ‘K’ on the outside of the envelope. Then I put on a suit (for the ever watchful Four Seasons staff – a different disguise), and strode through the lobby, over to the elevator and rode it to 5. Then I remembered that she checked out on Thursdays. So I went back to the lobby.

“I believe Katherine Ellis has checked out. Has she left her luggage with you?” I asked the attendant.

“I’m sorry, but I couldn’t comment on any guest’s comings or goings,” the young man replied.

“That’s all right. I just wanted to leave a note. Could you keep this note for her?” I handed over the note marked ‘K.’ And I left.