Ten

“He’s dead, Jack.”

She was like a hunk of marble. The only thing that gave away what was going on inside her was her eyes. I didn’t say anything. I went into the bedroom and looked at him, there on the bed.

His knees were buckled, with those big feet sticking out, and he was on his side. His hands were shaped into large claws, the tendons in shadowed relief. The hands were stretched out at arm’s length, toward the oxygen tanks. But his face really got me.

From the neck up, he was choked with a kind of rich purple, blotched with blues and grays. The eyes were bugged right out of his head. It looked as if you would have to punch them back in order to close the lids. The mouth was stretched open as if he were screaming like an animal, with the purple lips drawn back away from the teeth as if they’d been stapled into his jaws.

All that eagle-like arrogance was gone now.

“He died a few minutes before you came, Jack.”

Her voice was flat and there was fear.

Well, I thought. This is what you wanted.

The bright white light glared down on the room. The oxygen mask was on the bed. The TV set was still turned on with the sound off. A guy on the screen was sneaking down an alley. It was raining in the alley.

I knew then that I hadn’t really wanted Victor to die. Only it was too late.

Maybe it was all wrong. Maybe we’d gone too far. But I knew this, too—it couldn’t be undone. So now was the time to make it pay.

I heard Shirley say something. She grabbed me with both arms. “Oh, Jack....”

All I thought of was the money. I didn’t want it that way. Here she was, scared stiff, like a little kid, wanting me to comfort her, needing me, wanting me to say something to her so she wouldn’t feel so bad. And all I could think of was the money.

It was strange. There were bright little moments of realization, knowing what was really happening. And with those brief interims came a hopeless trapped feeling I’d never had before.

I thrust her away, holding her shoulders. Her face didn’t look too good.

“We’ve got to have everything absolutely straight,” I said. “Are the volume controls turned up on the outside speakers?”

“Jack. He kept crying for air. He lasted and lasted. I stood there and watched him. I taunted him, Jack. I was crazy—I must have been crazy. I just stood there. I couldn’t move. I didn’t want to move—just to see him die.”

For a moment I thought she was going to crack.

“Easy, now, Shirley.”

I remembered something: I went back into Victor’s bedroom and checked the intercom unit. Sure enough, it was turned off. He must have turned it off after it stopped working. I turned it back on and up to full-volume. His was a master control. I flipped open all the remotes.

I went back to the living room. She hadn’t moved.

“Your story, Shirley—can you make it all right?”

She stood there with one hand clamped over her mouth, the round eyes staring at me.

“Shirley,” I said. My voice cracked a little. “I’ve got to get out of here. Remember. You were out back, sitting by the Gulf. You didn’t hear anything.” I pulled her hand away from her face and said slowly and harshly, “Will you get everything straight?”

“Yes. Jack. Mayda—?”

“Never mind Mayda. Don’t even think about her. Forget she was ever around here. The less you know, the...”

“I’ve got to know.”

“Okay.” I told her about Mayda, thinking again how if she’d ever found out about Mayda and me, things wouldn’t even be this good. “Now, forget her.” I wanted to forget her.

She said, “It’s all wrong, Jack.”

“Don’t think it for a second, Shirley. Now’s when we need strength. We’re in it. There’s no backing out now.” I glanced at the bedroom. “Listen,” I said. “Already we’re wasting time. You’ve got to call Miraglia now.”

“I called him, Jack.”

“You what?”

“I called him maybe five minutes ago, before you came.”

I didn’t speak.

She said, “I knew I had to. It wouldn’t look right unless I called. I had to do what was right. I didn’t know when you’d get back. I knew if you came back when he was here, you’d see his car out front. It’s all right, Jack—don’t look like that!”

I still said nothing.

She said, “It’s all right, Jack. It’s all over. Say you love me.”

I stared at her. “I’ve got to get out of here.”

“I told the doctor what had happened, how I didn’t hear him. And when I came in, he was having a bad attack. I told him the oxygen didn’t seem to do any good. I gave him a nitroglycerin pill, for his heart—but it didn’t seem to do any good, either. I said Victor fought the oxygen when I tried to help him. He said he’d known something like this would happen—that he’d be right over.”

“Listen,” I said. “Don’t call me. On your life. Don’t try to contact me. I’ll contact you.” I took her in my arms, then, because I needed somebody to hang onto, too. Only I let go of her right away, because it didn’t do any good. It was as if I were in a dream, and none of this had happened. Only it had happened. I knew I hadn’t meant it to happen. Isn’t that what they always say afterward? The whole business tumbled down over me like a big black wet tent.

Her eyes were glassy.

“Jack, don’t go and leave me all alone. I couldn’t stand it.”

“You’ll have to stand it. Right now is when we’ll both have to stand everything. Listen, the big thing now is getting that money. You hear? There’s no telling what’ll happen now. It won’t be easy. It’s going to be close, believe me. Start on that money as soon as you can. I’ll reach you, somehow.”

“But we’ll have to wait for the money. There’s always a waiting period.”

“Yeah.” I wasn’t even thinking about what she said. “We’ve got to be careful.” I ceased talking. Things were happening too fast. A car had pulled up out front, and I heard the low moan of a distant siren. Almost immediately a car door slammed.

“I’m all alone, Jack. You’re leaving me with this all alone. I can’t stand it. I don’t know whether I can do it.”

“You’ve got to do it!”

Her face took on that stunned expression. I thought she might start bawling. I shook her, listening, and knowing I had to run for it.

“I’ll get in touch with you,” I said.

I turned and ran for the kitchen.

“Jack—please!”

She was nuts. There was the sound of another car out front. Maybe an ambulance. Voices. I went on through the kitchen. It looked clean. The carving knife was on the kitchen table. She called softly again. As I went across the back porch, somebody pounded on the front door.

I ran across the back lawn with the hounds of hell after me, thinking how she might crack. She couldn’t crack. She had to do it right, damn her. If she made even one mistake, it would be all they’d need.

I was sick and scared. I wished to God I’d never met Shirley Angela....

There hadn’t been time to really know what had happened back there with her.

It began to get to me as I reached the truck. The whole thing really got to me, then. I slid under the wheel and sat there and shook. I cried. I cursed Shirley Angela, and myself, and Victor Spondell, and Doctor Miraglia, and Mayda Lamphier, and her goddamned husband for being away in Alaska.

And all the time I was like that, I knew I wanted the money. Behind all the fear and the knowing, was the thought of that money. It was a curse. It was inside, from way back in my childhood, and I knew nothing would ever tear it up out of me, either. It had been my chance, and I’d taken it. That was that. There wasn’t anything else, now—just get that money.

I had hardly started back toward town with the truck when the rest of it began gnawing. How had she made out? What had she said? Did Miraglia believe her? Had he any reason to doubt what she said? But he wouldn’t have. There was no reason. Victor was dead, and he’d said himself that he had expected something like this to happen.

Then I wondered if that was what Miraglia really meant. Or was I reading something into it that I wanted there?

I knew I’d have to go home. I would wait. How in all hell could I stand it? Not knowing what was going on? I’d told her not to contact me. That had been wrong. I should have told her to contact me as soon as she saw how things were shaping up.

What was it she’d said about having to “wait for the money?”

I turned the truck around and drove past the spot where I’d hidden it in the copse of cedar, by the lake. I knew I shouldn’t go anywhere near her place, but I couldn’t stop myself. I drove down the street before I reached her street, a block away, trying to look across the block, between the houses. I couldn’t see anything.

I had to know something. Anything. Just to look at the house, see it—know it was there. See if Miraglia was still there.

I drove around the block and came back up her street. There were no cars parked out front, no sign of anything. The house was dark.

She wasn’t there. I sensed the house’s emptiness.

Well, it made things worse. I turned at the end of the block and drove back past the house again. It looked black and cold. It looked dead.

Next door, in Mayda Lamphier’s living room, the lights still burned. And out there in the night, cold water flowed across her dead eyes and through her hair.

I drove back to the store, picked up my car, and headed for home.

The minute that apartment door closed behind me, I was a goner. I stood there in the darkness for about a half a second, then I jumped for the light switch. I got the lights on, and began pacing.

In the kitchen, I stood by the sink with the water turned on, a glass in my hand. I set the glass down. The next thing, I was in the bedroom, undressing. The water was still running. I went out there, turned it off, and came back and sat on the edge of the bed.

I tried to take a shower. I was under the water for maybe ten seconds, then outside the shower stall, listening. Had the phone rung?

Well, you just wait in the bright silence.

I began to pray the phone would ring.

In the kitchen again, I got out a fifth of gin, and poured a slug down, straight from the bottle. I set the bottle on the drainboard, turned, and just made it to the bathroom in time. That gin bounced like a tennis ball.

But I was persistent. I went back and poured some more down, and that stayed. Only it didn’t do any good.

I went to bed, turned off the light. Like a shot, I was sitting up in bed. They would find the bloody blanket. The body would come up, floating, the hair swirling in the water of the canal under bright noon sunlight.

I turned the light on and sat there, smoking.

Miraglia would be questioning her now.

I got out of bed and started walking. I stood over the telephone and stared at it. If it rang, I would die.

Back in bed with pad and pencil, I listed everything, and tried to find mistakes we’d made, tried to figure where we’d really gone wrong. Finally I stopped that.

Shirley would be the first person questioned when Mayda Lamphier’s disappearance came to light.

I had to stop. They’d come and find me babbling.

“Him?” they’d say. “Oh, that was Jack Ruxton. Yeah, too bad. Used to run a TV and radio store. Yeah. Flipped his wig over a screwy teenage broad.”

I’ll get mine, I thought. I’ll get mine.

The money. That’s all that counted, all that meant anything. Money was something you could depend on. It was substantial, if you had enough of it. I would have enough. That money was what could keep me sane. The money could perform miracles.

All I had to do was get my hands on it.

That’s all.

Then I could forget.

The phone rang. I leaped at it.

“Jack?” she said. “Everything’s all right. I knew you’d want to know.”

For a second I couldn’t speak with the relief.

I said, “Where you calling from?”

“A place, on the way home. It’s all right. It’s a public phone booth, and there’s nobody around.”

“Are you all right?”

“I think so.”

“What the hell do you mean by that? You think so? If something’s wrong, for God’s sake, tell me.”

“Jack?”

“What?”

“Do you love me?”

“Certainly, I love you. You know I love you.”

She hesitated. “Then everything’s all right.”

My hand was sweating on the phone. I changed hands, and bit my teeth together hard. A goddamned cryptic woman. There was nothing in the world like a cryptic woman. My voice was hoarse. “Shirley?”

“I told you, everything’s all right. What more can I say?”

“Tell me what happened.”

“Nothing happened, Jack.”

“Did it go over? Did you tell your story all right?”

“Of course.”

“Well, what happened?”

“You don’t have to shout, Jack. I can hear you.”

“I’m not shouting. I just want to know.”

“Well, Doctor Miraglia came in. He acted kind of put out—mad at himself, something like that. I mean, I think it was because he hated losing a patient. Victor in particular. He told me he’d been afraid something like this might happen.”

“How did he say that?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, did he act suspicious?”

“No. Not that I could tell. Why should he?”

“Forget it.”

She said, “He seemed terribly concerned over Victor dying, though. I mean, he acted really sorry. It seemed to hit him awfully hard—I mean, for a doctor. After all, doctors see a lot of that sort of thing.”

“Shirley. Exactly how do you mean? How did he act? What did he say? This is important, I think.”

“Well, I can’t say any more than I have. I told him the intercom system apparently wasn’t working. I said I was outside, and everything, just as we planned. So I must have missed hearing him call. I put on a—pretty good act. I think.”

“You didn’t overdo it.”

“No. I was careful. They took Victor away in the ambulance. Then Doctor Miraglia tried out the intercom, and agreed that was how it must have happened. He told me I mustn’t feel bad about it.”

“You’re trying to say something, Shirley. Goddamn it. Say it, whatever it is. Let it come out.”

“I’m scared.”

“Well, so am I. You don’t go around doing what we did every day in the week. You’ve got to stop being scared.”

“It’s not so much Victor. It’s Mayda.”

For a bright moment, in my mind’s eye, I saw Shirley ramming that carving knife into Mayda Lamphier’s back.

“Just don’t worry.” I said.

“You think I should report her missing, Jack? You think that might be the thing to do?”

“Will you forget her!”

“Yes. All right.”

“What else did Miraglia say?”

“To be honest, Jack—he acted as if it were his own father dying. That’s exactly how he acted.”

“Oh.”

“Somebody might come. I’d better go.”

“Yeah.”

Her voice was pleading. “Say you love me.”

I told her I loved her.

“I want to see you so badly,” she said.

“Me too,” I said. And at that moment I meant it. Alone, I faced the longest night of my life.