Betty gets the card in at last and hears the lock open. The waiter follows her in, starts unloading the cart’s contents while she heads into the bedroom. It is quiet for a second. Then Betty screams. A completely genuine blood-curdling cry. “Oh my god. Please help me! Get a doctor! My husband! He’s been stabbed! Help!”
The scene inside the room will haunt the waiter for years: the bed is soaked in blood. The naked corpse is bright red with it. The blade is buried five inches deep in his back.
The waiter reaches for the hotel phone. He can barely speak. “Bungalow 412. Help! A man. Stabbed. Get a doctor. Fast. Yes! Bungalow 412! Mr. Brock. Yes. Mr. Barton Brock.”
Time collapses like a telescope, and the waiter is unsure how long it takes before there is a clamor of footfalls outside the door. He takes his leave, sick to his stomach, pushing the room service cart as the manager and someone who must be a doctor rush into the room.
Squeak squeak. The cart wheel is noisy but the waiter hears the manager say to that nice woman outside the room, “I’m so sorry, Mrs. Brock. So, so sorry.”
CHAPTER 57
Dear Dottie:
I didn’t think you’d do it.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad you did. I’m grateful that you did. But it’s left me in limbo and I need your help. Not help—no more help like that! Just advice. The sort of help you usually give.
Barton’s death (now that he’s gone I can use his real name, Barton B. Brock—
Elizabeth’s eyes widen. Her breath stops. She looks again.
…..Barton B. Brock…..
She does a double-take. Barton B. Brock— yes, that’s definitely what it says! A blast of surprise and great satisfaction rises in her chest as she reads on.
…(now that he’s gone I can use his real name, Barton B. Brock) was a big, horrible shock—so much blood, the knife, the doctor who took him out. But that wasn’t the worst part.
Afterwards, I was alone in the hotel room, before they moved me. That was so awful. I could see the blood everywhere. So I closed my eyes. And thought about what had happened in our lives together—the baby I’d wanted, the life Barton promised and dangled in front of me, the cruel sport he made of me, gullible me, foolish stupid me.
Why did I think he would end things with that girl and come home, to me and our life, the one we made together? I fell for every one of his cheap lies. I’d been had. Cheated. What a reptile. Why did I think I needed Barton to get on?
Will I ever get that sight out of my mind: the wet wall and the bloody sheets, Barton’s body a big splatter of red wet goo?
But that isn’t the worst part either. The worst part—the part that chills my blood—is that, oh gosh, it’s horrible to say, Dottie, the worst part is—this can’t be right; it must be wrong—the most horrible scary thing is that I feel, well, just fine. Kind of pretty. Better than I have in years.
Even that newly widowed man, the pastor’s shy brother, remarked on how well I have been holding up. “You’re just a remarkable creature,” he said.
With my frilly new underthings (a pick-me-up treat I bought for myself) I was even thinking maybe I would have “tea” with the pastor’s brother. Yep. He came straight out and invited me for tea after church on Sunday, and some mischief, I think he said.
But, you know, Dottie, I’m feeling so good about things. Why wreck it? Maybe I won’t have “tea” with him after all. He’s handsome and shy and all but what the devil does he think he’s doing with his poor wife so recently gone—her body’s practically still warm.
What do you think? Should I talk to someone, a psychiatrist or something? It doesn’t seem right to be feeling so…good. And where, at my age, do I get off rebuffing advances from decent churchgoing fellows?
What do you think? Please help.
Feeling Groovy
Elizabeth nearly whoops with glee. It will take a while for her to fully register the strange good fortune fate delivered to her: to make two wrongs right with just one knife (and several strong blows).
Feeling Groovy indeed!
Elizabeth bites her lip, stifling all but one peal of jubilant laughter, and gets to the business at hand, the astounding, unanswered letter.
Dear Feeling Groovy,
So happy to hear you are enjoying yourself. Put those frilly underthings back on, prance about, let it rip.
As for your pastor’s brother, you tell me: Is the sky green? Is the pope Jewish? What do you think, Betty, are snakes necessary?
Don’t Let the Mystery End Here.
Try More Great Books From
HARD CASE CRIME!
Hard Case Crime brings you gripping, award-winning crime fiction by best-selling authors and the hottest new writers in the field. Find out what you've been missing:
BRAINQUAKE
by SAMUEL FULLER
For more than ten years, Paul Page was the perfect bagman. But that ended the day he saw a beautiful Mob wife become a Mob widow. Now Paul is going to break every rule he’s lived by to protect the woman he loves—even if it means he might be left holding the bag…
In a career that spanned half a century, Samuel Fuller wrote and directed classic movies that inspired filmmakers as varied as Steven Spielberg, Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola, Jean-Luc Godard, Jim Jarmusch, Wim Wenders, and Quentin Tarantino. He also wrote unforgettable novels such as the noir classic The Dark Page—and this book, his last, which was never previously published in the English language.
RAVES FOR SAMUEL FULLER:
“A great, great, great storyteller.”
— Martin Scorsese
“Personal, hard-hitting, idiosyncratic… Everything was about storytelling, the great yarn.”
— Quentin Tarantino
Available now at your favorite bookstore.
For more information, visit
www.HardCaseCrime.com
Are Snakes Necessary? Page 17