Just as he banged down the phone, there was a chime at the door of his suite. He shouted, ‘Hold on a goddamned minute!’ and stalked across to the glass-fronted liquor cabinet. He took out a whisky tumbler, slammed it angrily on to the table, and then unscrewed a bottle of Wild Turkey and splashed out four fingers of straight bourbon.
He sipped the drink back, swallowed it, coughed, and pulled a face. He closed his eyes, and let the burning sensation of it sink down inside him like a blazing funeral ship sinking in a dark ocean.
The door chimed again. Steadied, calmer, he went to answer it, and admitted Dan Harris, his press aide, carrying a briefcase and an aluminium movie can. Harris was a young, pale-faced man with a neatly-clipped moustache and an expression of irrepressible self-confidence, as if he had just thought of a great idea and couldn’t wait to repeat it. The only trouble was, he never did repeat it, because he never did have any great ideas.
‘Here it all is,’ he said, tipping out a spool of videotape, a spool of magnetic tape, and two reels of movie film.
Carl didn’t even look at it.
‘I think we did a pretty neat operation there,’ said Dan Harris. ‘All three of them wiped out, all the stuff recovered.’
Carl looked at him with tired eyes. ‘Do you like the idea of killing, Harris? Do you really like the idea of gunning people down?’
Dan Harris went slightly pink. ‘When I said we wiped them out, sir, I didn’t mean—’
Carl sat down in a big velour armchair and stared at his empty whisky glass. ‘I know what you meant. I wish I damned well didn’t.’
Five
Adele was sitting on the edge of the pool, idly stirring the surface with her legs. It was a few minutes past midnight early into Friday morning, and the sky above her was warm and black and prickly with stars. The only illumination came from a floodlight at the bottom of the pool, which turned the water into glowing liquid glass. The light suffused Adele’s face in a strange and magical way, as if she were a water-nymph, possessed of unusual powers.
She wore a small white bikini by the French designer Quéran, which turned completely transparent when it was wet. She was sipping a mint julep, and smoking a menthol cigarette. All around her, the night was silent and windless.
The door from the house opened and Ken Irwin stood there, in jeans and a plaid shirt. Although it was the middle of the night, he was wearing dark glasses. He stayed in the doorway without moving and without speaking.
Adele let him stand there for a while, and then she lifted her head and said, ‘You’re back late.’
‘I’ve been back for a while,’ he told her. ‘I’ve been looking for something.’
‘Did you find it?’
He took a step or two out on to the pool patio. ‘No, I didn’t.’
Adele drew at her cigarette. ‘It’s a beautiful night, isn’t it? Why don’t you take off your clothes and come for a swim?’
‘I’m not in the mood,’ he said in a low voice.
‘I thought you adored swimming. You haven’t been out of the pool since you came here.’
‘I’m not in the mood,’ he repeated.
She splashed the water, and fluorescent ripples circled across the pool. ‘I suppose you’re sulking,’ she said.
He came closer, and stood over her with his thumbs in his belt loops, looking down at her. ‘No,’ he said. ‘I’m not sulking. I’m just looking for something.’
‘I suppose you think I know where it is.’
‘I’m damned sure you know where it is.’
She smiled. ‘Do you want a drink? If so, you’ll have to fix it yourself. The servants have all gone to bed.’ Ken hunkered down beside her, and unhooked his sunglasses. His eyes were tired and serious, and not in the mood for games.
‘Adele, you don’t know what you’re getting yourself mixed up in.’
She challenged his eyes with her own, and smiled at him patronizingly. ‘My dear young man,’ she told him. ‘In my lifetime I’ve been mixed up in more than you could even guess. Whom did you plan to kill?’
‘Nobody. The gun was just for protection.’
‘Protection? A high-powered rifle with telescopic sights? And in any case, protection against what? Against whom? You don’t need protection against me, do you?’
‘How did you find it?’
Adele reached out and touched his cheek with her fingertips, stroking it gently. ‘Nothing goes on in this house that I don’t get to know about, Ken. I think, right from the start, that you’ve misjudged me. Just because I’m a self-indulgent lady with a taste for too many mint juleps and too many horny young men, that doesn’t make me dumb. I wouldn’t have survived all these years if I’d been dumb.’
‘I have to have the gun back, Adele,’ Ken said quietly.
‘Can you tell me why?’
‘It’s not mine. I’m looking after it for a friend.’
‘Well, why does your friend want it back?’
‘Adele, I want that gun.’
‘I want to know what you’re planning to do with it first.’
‘Listen, I just want that gun.’
Adele cocked her head to one side. Her eyes were sparkling in the reflected light from the pool. ‘Do you want me to call the police?’ she asked him. ‘I’m sure they’d be interested to ask you what you’re planning to do with it.’
He was silent for a moment, crouched and tense in the darkness. Then, suddenly, he made a grab for her. But Adele ducked out of his way, and jumped into the pool, sending up a splash of illuminated spray.
She backed away from the edge of the pool, treading water. Her fizzled-out cigarette floated a few feet away from her. Ken stood looking at her.
‘Well,’ she taunted, ‘aren’t you going to come in and get me? Aren’t you going to force me to give you your gun back?’
He didn’t move. Adele kept on treading water, for a while, and then swam in a wide, lazy circle. ‘You’re really very ineffectual for a killer,’ she told him.
Deliberately, slowly, Ken tugged his shirt out of his belt. He stripped it off, baring his muscular chest, and tossed it aside. Then he kicked off his sandals, and unbuckled his jeans. He stepped out of his jeans, and stood naked on the edge of the pool, his chest rising and falling with controlled anger. On either side of him, the mock-Roman statues gazed at him incuriously, and above him the stars sparkled in the deep dark sky.
‘You look gorgeous,’ called Adele, as she swam. ‘You look like Ulysses about to face Circe.’
Ken dived, plunging right down to the floor of the pool, and swam underwater towards her with long, powerful strokes. Adele immediately struck out for the shallow end of the pool, her legs kicking up spray and her arms thrashing. Beneath her, in the depths of the water, she could see the dark outline of Ken’s bare body rising towards her like a killer shark. She gasped for breath, and thrashed the water harder.
He caught her just as her feet touched bottom. She tried to wade for the semi-circular steps at the end of the pool, but his hands seized her legs and brought her down into the water with a splash. She shrieked and gargled as he momentarily pulled her under.
She pushed him, and managed to scramble to her feet again, and fight three or four steps through the water, to where it was only a few inches deep. But then he brought her down again, and they wrestled and panted across the width of the pool, kicking and splashing and rolling over.
He pinned her down against the steps, and slapped her wet face hard, first with the palm of his hand and then with the back. She jerked her head away, but he gripped her chin and forced her to look up at him. His hair was wet and plastered to his head, and dribbles of water ran down his face.
‘You think this is all a big joke, don’t you?’ he gasped. ‘You think that the whole damned world exists for your personal amusement. Well, this time you’re way off beam.’
‘You grade-school bully,’ she spat back.
He let go of her chin. ‘You spoiled bitch.’
He pushed her head back against the marble step. Her face was clear of the surface, but the rest of her body was half under water. Through the tight transparent material of her wet swimsuit, her nipples rose wide and red and rigid.
‘You dirty, vicious, unprincipled whore,’ he said.
‘You bastard,’ she breathed.
He reached around and gripped the elastic at the back of her bikini pants, and wrenched them downwards. She arched her back, and kicked and splashed water, but he pressed his weight down on her again, and she couldn’t get free.
‘You filthy pig,’ she cursed him. ‘You disgusting depraved swine.’
He pulled her pants down as far as her knees, then raised his leg and pushed them right off her with his foot. She managed to twist one of her arms free and clutch at his wet hair, but he slapped her again, and she let go.
‘You deserved this, you slut,’ he panted. ‘You asked for everything you’re going to get.’
‘You shit,’ she sneered. ‘You moronic shit.’
He forced open her thighs by twisting his knee between her knees. She felt the water seethe and splash between her legs, and it gave her an oddly intense shivery sensation, as if a cold tongue had suddenly licked her. ‘Oh God,’ she said, ‘you loathsome animal.’
‘Shut up,’ he said, and then he mounted her.
He was impossibly hard and big. When he thrust himself up inside her, she felt a harsh, searing pain, because the water had washed away all her juices. She clutched at him and winced, but he wouldn’t stop. He thrust again, deep and relentless, and this time she cried out. Her fingers dug into the muscles of his back and buttocks, but he thrust again and again and again, with the water churning up all around them, a sparkling illuminated wash of bubbles and foam.
He went on and on, but somehow he couldn’t reach a climax, and after almost five minutes his thrusting stopped. He drew himself out of her, and stood up.
She lay back in the water, her legs apart, looking up at him. Her cheeks were crimson from his slapping, and her body was marked and bruised where they had clawed and fought.
‘What’s the matter?’ she said quietly. ‘Don’t I turn you on any more?’
He gave a brief shake of his head.
‘Then what is it? Are you worried about something?’
‘I have to have the gun.’
She sat up in the water and dabbed at her swollen cheeks with her fingertips.
‘I have to have it,’ he insisted. ‘If I don’t get it, they’ll kill me.’
She said, softly, ‘Is it really for protection? I mean, you’re not a murderer, are you?’
‘Do I look like a murderer?’
‘Did Lee Harvey Oswald? Does anyone?’
He held out his hands to help her up. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I didn’t mean to hurt you. I guess I kind of panicked.’
She hesitated for a moment, but then she grasped his hands and got to her feet. She put her arms around him, and squeezed him for a moment, and kissed his chest.
‘You’re very tasty,’ she said, ‘and there are times when I think you really do love me, in spite of yourself.’
He wiped water away from his face. ‘The gun?’ he asked her.
She nodded. ‘Sure, you can have it back. As long as you promise me two things.’
His right eye twitched slightly. ‘What are they?’
‘That you don’t use the gun for anything except self-defence, and that you take me to bed right now and show me what you can do when you don’t have your mind on other things.’
He almost managed to smile. ‘You drive a hard bargain, Ms. Corliss. A real hard bargain.’
Six
The phone was ringing as he unlocked the door of his low-rent apartment over the Catholic Mission on Merchant Street. He hurried into the musty-smelling living room, and picked it up. The room was dark except for a blue neon sign across the street, which flickered because of faulty wiring. He stood there unbuttoning his coat and said, ‘Yes?’
‘Leonard,’ she said softly, ‘it’s me.’
Terri? Do you know what time it is?’
‘One o’clock. I’ve been trying to call you since ten.’
‘Just let me go switch on a light, and close the door. I only just got back from the hospital. Mrs Pokowski gave birth to triplets, and one was dead.’
He put down the phone, and went across to lock the door and switch on the table lamp. Then he sat down in his frayed brown armchair, and picked up the phone again.
‘What’s wrong?’ he asked her.
She sounded hesitant and tearful. ‘Leonard, the most dreadful thing. I’m going to have to withdraw my motion tomorrow. I’m going to have to say that I’ve reconsidered, and that I’m pulling out.’
He could hardly believe what she was saying. ‘You’re going to do what?’
‘I’m going to quit. Say that I’ve changed my mind.’
‘But why? You’ve got so much support! Give it a couple of years and we could have Hilary Nestor Hunter out of the league altogether.’
‘It doesn’t matter. I’m quitting.’
‘I don’t understand,’ he said. ‘I don’t understand at all.’
‘Well,’ she told him, in a shaky voice, ‘have you ever heard of a little thing called blackmail?’
‘Blackmail? Somebody’s blackmailing you? But what in heaven’s name for?’
She told him, slowly and haltingly, about Star. He listened with an intent frown on his face, his eyes on the gentle picture of the Virgin Mary that hung on the wall opposite his chair. Once or twice he made a couple of notes on the cover of his telephone directory. Meanwhile, the blue light across the street flickered and dimmed, and then brightened again.
At last, he said, ‘If only I’d known. I feel that I’ve failed you.’
‘Leonard, you haven’t failed me. Not once.’
‘I should have been strong, Perri, instead of weak. Every time we sin, there’s a terrible and inescapable consequence. I’ve brought the consequences of this particular sin on both of us.’
‘Leonard, you mustn’t talk that way.’
‘Why not? I believe it. But I believe something else, too. I believe that Hilary Nestor Hunter is ambitious and very ruthless, and that she’s quite prepared to do anything to get the power she wants. I believe that it would be wrong of us to give in to her. I believe that we ought to fight her.’
‘Leonard,’ she said, ‘it’s you that I’m worried about. This could ruin everything you’ve worked for.’
‘That’s beside the point,’ he put in. ‘What I want to know is – are you prepared to fight?’
She took a breath, and then she said, ‘It’s no use, Leonard. There just isn’t time. The vote’s tomorrow morning, and if I don’t quit now, Hilary’s going to drag me down into the gutter, and you, too. She’s going to bring me down, and Ann Margolies down, and all of those women who support us. What sort of chance do you think we’re going to have if she says we’re all lesbians?’
Father Leonard rubbed his eyes tiredly. Then he said, ‘Perri, I’m going to make a call to my TV friends. I’m going to get them out of bed if I have to. I’m going to see what I can get done between now and the start of the conference tomorrow.’
‘Leonard—’
‘I’m going to fight this, Perri, because it’s evil. It isn’t just a bit of internal politics in the women’s lib movement any more. It’s to do with everything I believe in – the fundamental issue of people’s rights and how they’re recognised. Give me ten minutes. Then I’ll call you back and tell you what’s happened.’
‘Please don’t do anything that’s going to hurt your work,’ she begged him. ‘Please, just promise me that much.’
Father Leonard smiled. ‘My work is upholding the rights which God gave to every man and every woman,’ he said. ‘Anything I can do to further that work can never hurt me.’
‘I love you,’ she said softly. ‘I don’t deserve you.’
He held on to the ph
one for a while, saying nothing. The Virgin Mary was shadowed in flickering blue. ‘I love you too, Perri. More titan I could have dreamed,’ he whispered.
Seven
Friday was a spectral morning of hazy smog. Along the Santa Monica Freeway between Palms and Highland Avenue, the traffic snailed along bumper-to-bumper through the dim polluted air. The early sun had barely risen above the horizon, and Los Angeles was an end-of-the-world landscape of orange and grey.
In a borrowed Plymouth Fury with dented fenders and a wire coat-hanger for a radio aerial, T.F. crept along in the traffic with everyone else. His mirror sunglasses lay on the dashboard in front of him, and he was listening to the morning news. He had a slight sinus irritation caused by the smog, and from time to time he gave a short, dry sniff. He was looking forward to going to Palm Springs.
Two cars in front of him was a white Thunderbird with Arizona plates. He had picked it up outside a house in Otsego Street in North Hollywood while it was still dark, and patiently tailed it as far as here. The driver was a twenty-seven-year-old auto salesman named Peter Hughes. He lived in North Hollywood with his wife Clare and his two-year-old daughter Sally. Clare Hughes was pregnant with their second child.
Peter Hughes organized outings for old folks in the district where he lived, and that was his worst mistake. He was known by most people in the streets around Laurelgrove Avenue and Magnolia Boulevard, and he was popular. Last Tuesday, his name had come up on the Sweetman Curve.
T.F. kept a laconic eye on the tail of Peter’s car. The traffic was beginning to thin out a little, and in a while he would be able to close up on him. His .45 Colt automatic was lying on the seat beside him, loosely covered by yesterday’s Los Angeles Times.
Last night had been a celibate night for T.F. He had been down to San Diego during the day for a shooting that didn’t come off, because the target unexpectedly went out of town. T.F. didn’t like unexpected situations. They jangled his nerves. He had spent a sleepless night playing records and leafing through pornographic magazines, and at four o’clock he had gone down to an all-night diner and eaten a greasy plateful of bacon and eggs.
The Sweetman Curve Page 24