“Of you? Off dreaming somewhere?”
“See what I mean?” I said. “You’re scared.” Dawn light peeked in at the window like a giant eye. It was a giant eye. I winked back at it. “You’re scared the acid’ll hit you more than it’s hitting me. It’s a question of will power. I’ve got more will power than you have. Why don’t you admit it?”
“Don’t make me laugh,” Erica said. “I can take it or leave it.”
“Sure you can. That’s not what I mean,” I said. What the hell did I mean? The room got bigger. Erica was crouching way off in the far corner. No she wasn’t. The room got smaller. She was calmly lighting a cigarette.
“Then what did you mean?”
“I guess I clean forgot,” I admitted sheepishly.
“That, if I took some, the acid would hit me harder than it’s hit you?”
“That’s it exactly,” I said, proud of her. “It’s a way to find out who’s boss after I go to work for you. Allegedly to go to work for you.” I got the word allegedly out in one piece. I was proud of myself too. “Because if you can’t push me around the way you can push Jeremy around, and if you can’t hold your LSD—”
“He likes it,” she said.
“What?”
“Jeremy. He likes it when I push him around. Didn’t you see his face?”
The question conjured up an image of Jeremy’s face. It floated in through the window and popped like a burst balloon.
“His face?” I said.
“Never mind,” she said.
“You couldn’t do it,” I told her. “Speaking of faces. All you had to do was put the pillow over his—”
“Shut up.”
“—face, and you couldn’t do it.”
“I told you to shut up.”
“If I got up,” I said, getting up, “and if I opened the door and took off, you wouldn’t do a thing to stop me.” I opened the door. She didn’t do a thing to stop me. I went out and came back in. It was one of those damn revolving doors you get trapped in.
“Where would you go?” she asked contemptuously.
“Out.”
“What would you do?”
“Nothing.”
It was almost the title of a book. I couldn’t quite remember the title.
I leered at her.
“Tough guy,” she said. She was taking something out of the pocket of the anorak that was draped over the back of the chair. “You really want to play?” She popped the sugar cube in her mouth and chewed. “I’ll play with you. But don’t say you weren’t warned.”
21
WE SAT cross-legged on the floor, facing each other. A couple of minutes or three hours had passed.
Erica stared at me only a little owlishly. “Jeremy likes it,” she said.”
“Jeremy who?” I said.
“When I push him around. Does he ever like it.”
That seemed to be preying on her mind. I remembered that night in Amsterdam, when she’d made me burrow deep into my secret fears, courtesy of LSD. She’d said something about getting the crawlies herself. I wished I could find them for her.
“The trouble with Jeremy,” she said. “There’s a psychological term for it. Are you erudite, my friend?”
I assured her I was the last of the eclectic geniuses, whatever that meant. I felt brilliant and perceptive. The whole world seemed to expand before my inward gaze. Passages from unwritten philosophic tracts swam before my eyes. The trouble with Bertrand Russell, I decided, was that he no longer had poor old Whitehead for a collaborator.
But who the hell was old Whitehead? The only collaborator I could think of was Quisling.
“He’s a masochist,” Erica said.
“Who? Quisling?”
“Jeremy.”
“Jeremy Budd?”
“That’s who. He likes it when I punish him. I mean really, physically punish him.”
“Sounds like you like it too,” I observed with my newfound wisdom.
“It excites him.”
“Makes two of you.”
She ignored that. “Lots of men do. They just don’t admit it. Once a girl realizes it, the rest is easy.”
“What rest?”
“Control. I never found a man I couldn’t control in one way or another. If I ever did—” She shook her head.
“What would happen?”
“Nothing. Go away.” She waved a hand in front of my face. I waved a hand in front of her face. Neither one of us went away. It surprised both of us a little.
Tick-tock goes the clock, said my watch, very loud.
“How much time we have?” I asked.
“Time for what?”
“Did Jeremy just take him out and shoot him? Or what?”
“That Jeremy,” she said, smiling fondly. “Some Jeremy. As subtle as a pipe wrench. What happened on the mountain?”
“He took a couple of shots at me. Thought I was Shiraz. He missed both times.”
“Anybody else aware of it?”
I thought a moment, trying to remember. “They were all reasonably soused up. Shiraz knew, and his ex. To the rest of them it was just a couple of loud noises.”
“As subtle as a pipe wrench. I’m glad he missed. That’s no way to kill anybody,” Erica said. “The way to do it is so it doesn’t look like murder. You put a pillow over somebody’s head and he just—expires.” She laughed nervously, remembering that she hadn’t been able to put a pillow over somebody’s head so that he just expired.
“What’s the modus operandi now?” I said.
“An accident. It will look like an accident. Who wants a murder investigation?”
“What kind of accident?”
She giggled. “Wouldn’t you like to know?”
I thought about that. I decided I would like to know. The room got smaller. That was clever of me. I wanted to keep Erica nearby where I could watch her think.
She had her own ideas though. “What are you just sitting there for?” she said. “I thought you wanted to play. Remember? There’s something deep inside that terrifies you. You found it once, didn’t you, baby? You found it in Amsterdam. Made you turn a sick green color, didn’t it? Must have been awful. Poor baby. You’re going there again. Right now you’re going there.”
The old man who had my face the way my face might or might not be in fifty years or so tried to beckon me. He was sitting in his chair, just waiting. He couldn’t die. He couldn’t quite live. I tried to push him far, far back. I was a kid in Baltimore, walking along the B&O tracks, marching down the right of way toward Washington or Mexico or somewhere, with the whole world spread out gloriously before me down the endless years. The old man went away. He came back. The kid began to walk faster. He was singing a tuneless song at the top of his voice, seeing things with the unjaded eye of a five-year-old, the way I could see them only with the help of LSD now. The harmless old duffer who might have been me in fifty years went away, just a harmless old duffer.
Then he came back, no longer harmless.
The kid began to run, laughing up a storm. He was chasing after a dog, a big mongrel with a brown coat. A train came hooting by. Boy and dog looked up at the faces in the windows. They’re going to Delaware or Europe or somewhere, the boy told the dog. We’ll go all those places someday, honest. The boy had never been farther than Washington. We’ll go, he said. You’ll see.
“What’s the hardest time you ever gave Jeremy?” I asked Erica.
“Oh, I can take care of Jeremy. Don’t you worry. Jeremy doesn’t worry me at all.”
The question didn’t reach her deep inside where LSD could lock her if I found the key. Then the acid gave me an inspiration.
“What if you couldn’t? How about if you couldn’t keep Jeremy in line?”
“Jeremy? Don’t be silly.” Her eyes had narrowed. She brushed a strand of hair away from her face. “Jeremy, that’s a laugh.”
“Okay, it doesn’t have to be Jeremy. Maybe it’s somebody else.”
She look
ed at me, anxiously.
“Go on down there,” I suggested. “Who do you see?”
Her eyes narrowed still further. They shut.
“Jeremy,” she said, but doubtfully. “I can wrap Jeremy around my little finger. He knows it. I know it. I told you.”
“Poor Erica,” I said, softly, sadly. “Because there’s a man in there somewhere, isn’t there?”
“What man?” she asked, afraid.
“A little smarter than you.”
I waited. I felt inspired. I let the LSD grab me as it was grabbing her.
“A—lot smarter,” she said, her eyes still shut.
“And stronger emotionally,” I said. “A little stronger.”
I waited again. Her lips began to tremble. “No,” she said. “A lot stronger. Confident and—” She was trembling all over.
I didn’t say anything else right away.
“Yes,” she said, her lips dry and drawn in a thin line that took some of the beauty from her face. “Smart and confident and so strong he can lift me up with one hand and play with me the way you play with a kitten. I can almost see him. I almost can!”
“Go down in there,” I said. “Play with him.”
“No. I don’t want to.”
“Sure you do. Go down in there and play your game with him.”
“I don’t want to play any more games,” she said childishly in a singsong voice. Tears swelled out from under her eyelids and rolled down her cheeks.
“There he is,” I said, feeling sure of myself. “You can see him now.”
“No I can’t.”
“Smarter and more confident and—”
“And, and I’ll be putty in his hands I don’t want it I’ve spent too long without it I don’t need it he can destroy everything that is me just with a smile because he can dominate me I don’t want it I’d be his slave it’s the last thing I want why are you doing this to me a woman can make her own way without being dominated I’ve proved it all my life just the one man only who can do it I’ve never seen his face before I never wanted to I can almost—”
“Take a look,” I said. “It’s there. You can see it now. Right there, Erica. There he is.”
The tears were flowing down her cheeks. “Now he’s reaching out and—he’s touching me. I’m melting. I’m melting all over. He’s—I can see him! I can see him now, his face, his hateful handsome face.”
Her lips looked bruised. Her whole body moved in a voluptuous shudder. Slowly she raised the automatic and, pointed it at me. “I’ve got to kill him,” she said. “I’ve got to kill him before it’s too late.”
I thought about that in my own LSD haze. I decided I didn’t want to die.
“You tried murder before,” I said. “You can’t do it.”
“This time I’ve got to.”
“You’re wrong. Give me the gun.”
“I’ve got to.”
I reached a hand out. “Give me the gun.”
“I can see his face. I can see it! I’ve got to kill him. It’s your face. You! It’s you.”
I sat there watching her pull back on the slide of the automatic. It was a big gun, a Colt .45. Any other dame would have had trouble managing it, but not Erica. She handled it like a cap pistol.
“You don’t want to do that,” I croaked.
“No?”
“You really don’t mind being bossed around,” I said quickly. “Secretly you like it, same as Jeremy. He probably thought he hated it till you came along. Give me the gun, Erica.”
She bared her teeth at me.
Let’s start with something easy, I thought, more than a little desperately. “Stand up,” I said.
She looked at me searchingly. She jerked her head back as if avoiding a blow. The automatic didn’t quite go off. She sprang to her feet lithely with the .45 pointing down at me. If she fired, now, it would drill a neat hole in my forehead and blow the back of my head off.
“I’m going to stand up too,” I said.
“Don’t move. I’ll shoot.”
I reached a casual hand up toward her.
Nothing for about three seconds. The muzzle of the automatic still held unwaveringly on me. That voluptuous shudder passed over her body again. Suddenly she reached down for my hand and yanked. I climbed to my feet. We stood facing each other.
“Now you’re ready,” I said. “Now you’re ready to give me the gun, aren’t you?”
Time opened like an abyss at my feet. Probably only a few seconds passed. It seemed like an hour.
Docilely, she placed the automatic in my hand.
“Get dressed,” I said.
Unselfconsciously, she stripped off the pajamas. She stood there a moment, letting me see all of her. She had a wonderful body. She turned slowly, flaunting it. There was that much fight left in her.
It took some doing, but I managed a reasonable facsimile of a snarl. “I said put your clothes on.”
On went bra, panties, blouse, ski pants, sweater and anorak. She climbed into her aprés-ski boots.
“Where are they?” I said.
She smiled a child’s smile which said: I did something wrong, but what’s the sense of punishing me if I’ve already done it?
“You’re too late,” she said contritely, meaning it now. “I’m sorry, but you’re too late.”
“Where are they?” I said again.
“The pass. Over the mountains in the Vaud. It’s called the Col du Pillon. Jeremy took Shiraz there in the Mercedes. He hits Shiraz and leaves him there in the car, behind the wheel. The car goes over a cliff just past the top of the Col. I pick Jeremy up in the Citroën.”
“An accident,” I said. “Shiraz has a reputation of being a nut behind the wheel of a car. Even a final dawn ride in a snowstorm wouldn’t faze anybody.” I looked at my watch. It was almost six-thirty. “When did they leave?”
“Twenty-two minutes to six,” Erica said promptly, obediently.
“How far’s the pass?”
“Half an hour—when the roads are clear.”
I felt my stomach plummet. We were too late. We had to be too late. If I drove like a maniac it would still take us forty-five minutes to get there. Maybe an hour. It had been snowing since midnight.
“How do you get there?”
“You drive down the valley to Gsteig, then you follow—”
“Never mind. Show me. Let’s have the key to the Cit.”
She gave me the keys. We went downstairs and outside together into the snow. We climbed into the car. I took one look at the windshield and cursed and got out and brushed snow off the glass. I got back in. Erica had started the engine. It was purring smoothly in the cold. I fumbled for a moment with the unfamiliar dashboard shift-lever and backed out of the driveway.
“I hope to hell you’ve got snow tires,” I said.
Erica nodded, almost happily, glad to please me with the knowledge that the car came equipped with snow tires. She sat next to me on the front seat, half sideways, her legs tucked under her, and looked at me adoringly. Thanks to the LSD I’d made an utter conquest. It didn’t look like it would do me much good now. It didn’t look like it would do Ahmed Shiraz any good at all.
22
PUT A man behind the wheel of a Citroën DS, any European will tell you, and he becomes the world’s worst driver.
There is something about the nature of the car that does it. It’s a big car by European standards, and powerful. It has front wheel drive and no springs. Instead, it depends on a hydraulic fluid system for suspension. This gives it the smoothest ride of any car on the road, and even a Milquetoast of a driver will have it up to eighty by the time he works his way through the gear system. It is the best road-hugger there is, and it does something to people.
Ordinarily I am no Milquetoast of a driver, and now I was in a hurry and still hopped on LSD. I grinned. Shiraz should see me now, I thought, gunning the engine as we went down the hill and turned left on the still-deserted main street of Gstaad. We skidded only a small
bit. Front wheel drive and snow tires, what was there to worry about? I watched the wipers go thump-thump, clearing fresh snow off the windshield. The falling snow seemed to be coming from a point directly in front of the car and spreading out into a wide swirling fan. I felt relaxed and confident Visibility must have been all of fifty feet.
“Better put your lights on, darling,” Erica said calmly. She was feeling calm too, but practical, in keeping with her new station in life. “It isn’t exactly broad daylight yet.”
I switched the headlights on. We purred over the soft, fresh snow on the road. There were no other tire tracks. The tracks of the Mercedes had already been covered over.
“And the heater?” Erica suggested, still calmly.
I found the heater switch and turned it on. I wished I had a drink.
“Got any cigarettes?” I asked.
She lit two obediently and placed one between my lips. We drove flat out across the valley floor, fishtailing gracefully once or twice.
I tooled along for a while, whistling. I patted Erica’s hand. She squeezed mine. We skidded again.
“Both hands on the wheel, darling,” she cautioned gently.
Darling put both hands on the wheel.
The steadily falling snow reminded me of that night in New York, when Harry Kretschmer took two blasts of a shotgun and fell, dead, into Shiraz’s arms.
“Was that you?” I asked.
“Was what me?” Erica asked.
I told her about the snowy night in New York, when Harry Kretschmer took two blasts of a shotgun and fell, dead, into Shiraz’s arms.
“Do you really think I’d have done it that way?” Erica asked me reproachfully.
“I was just wondering,” I said. I felt drunk.
“It was Jeremy’s fault. It’s just a question of time before I replace him. You can see why I have to.
“We’d flown to New York to case the situation. Littlejohn didn’t know that, of course. Jeremy wanted to get it over with in a hurry. I wanted to make it look like an accident.”
“Like friend Claeys on the boat.”
“Exactly. But Jeremy’s as subtle as a—”
Drumbeat Erica Page 14