His heart leapt as he walked down to the beach. She had come home! Just for him! She had finally convinced them to let her go after all this time. Let her go and meet her destiny.
Earlier that evening, keeping watch on the hotel, he had been mystified at what was happening. First he saw the detective pull up in his tan convertible and a wave of hatred surged through his blood. He knew he should have killed him when he had a chance, lit a bigger, better fire. This was the man most responsible for keeping Sally prisoner, for trying to turn her against him. Maybe he should still kill him? But no. Concentrate on the here and now. Remember the True Purpose.
Next he had seen a black-and-white pull up and watched Sally come out with the detective and get into it.
She was going home! To him.
She had finally told them she didn’t want to be a prisoner any more; she wanted to be free to come to the one who loved her. They wouldn’t like it, he knew that, but they had to respect her wishes. This was America, after all, land of the free.
And she had come to the place where she knew he would find her. Their first real home together. He thought of it like that even though he hadn’t even been inside the beach house.
And now, as he walked along the quiet shore toward that same house, the fine sand shifting under him, he felt a little sadness mingled with his joy. After all, he knew it was too late. Too much had happened.
Maybe the police had let her go, but they would probably start watching her; they certainly wouldn’t stop looking for him. He wasn’t a fool. He knew he’d broken some of their petty rules and they would punish him if they could.
If only he could make them understand about love, how it must be bought with blood, how it could only end in blood. But they would never understand the glory and the holiness of his vision. Dull, plodding, pedestrian minds.
The waves broke at the shoreline and smashed into a million pieces, each one shouting her name.
No. It was too late for earthly happiness. Could there ever be such a thing, anyway? Through his love for Sally, he had discovered that to find true happiness one had to push further and further beyond the petty human boundaries. It was the only way. Through his love for her, he had learned not to fear the unknown but to embrace it openly.
They would go beyond the mirrors of sea and everyone would remember them like the other great tragic, doomed lovers of history and myth. Like Romeo and Juliet, Anthony and Cleopatra, Abelard and Heloise, Othello and Desdemona, Tristan and Isolde. For what was love without courage and sacrifice? Without blood?
He hurried along the beach. Close ahead, she was waiting for him.
46
THE PATROLMAN WHO ESCORTED SARAH HOME checked out the house and grounds, then got back in his black-and-white and drove away. Alone and safe in her own home at last, Sarah first phoned Cedars-Sinai again and found out that Stuart was doing fine.
Inside the house, nothing had changed. Except the half-full coffee cup she’d forgotten to wash before going to stay at Stuart’s had started growing mold. The place smelled musty, too, but then it had been shut up for a few days. Sarah opened the sliding glass doors and walked out onto the deck. The gate to the beach was still closed.
Mitch Cameron, her tormentor, was in police custody, Arvo had said, and she was finally free. So why did she feel so edgy?
She was also hungry. She checked the fridge. Nothing but curdled milk, a few eggs, probably stale. Maybe she’d order in. There was the Thai place that had delivered to her before. Maybe some pad thai noodles, garlic squid and yellow chicken. That sounded good. Or burn her taste buds with chicken in red sauce.
First, though, she went into the front room, turned on the dim reading lamps and adjusted the lighting the way she liked it. She put some Chopin Nocturnes on the CD player. She wanted to create the right sort of mood for relaxation.
Then she walked around the place, looking at her paintings, adjusting them a little, running her hands over the soapstone Inuit sculptures and the smooth planes of wood. She took some of her favorite books from the shelves, opened them, sniffed the pages, then put them back.
With the sliding glass doors open, she could smell seaweed and hear the rumbling of the waves below. It was a beautiful, clear evening, with just enough of a cool sea breeze to make her wrap a shawl around her shoulders.
She made some hot chocolate and curled her legs under her on the sofa. Glancing around the room, she thought vaguely about redecorating, now the nightmare was over, or at least buying a new painting for the wall. A Hockney would be great, but not at the prices he was fetching these days. And to think he was just a working-class lad from Bradford, not so far from Barnsley.
Sarah thought she would like to go and visit Hockney. She wondered if he would receive her. Didn’t he live quite near her, in the Hollywood Hills? She had heard that he was a bit of a recluse. But surely they could talk about the old days, about growing up in Yorkshire. Maybe he’d even sell her a painting cheap. Or if he liked her, he might even give her one. But why stop at that: maybe he would even want to paint her. In the nude, beside a swimming pool, perhaps? Enough foolish fantasies, she told herself.
Her reverie drifted. She also wanted to phone Paula and persuade her to come over with the family as soon as possible, take the kids out of school for a couple of weeks, if she had to. Perhaps she was being selfish, but since her Christmas visit, circumstances aside, she realized how much she had missed her family since the rift, how much a part of her they were, squabbles, irritations and all. And she also knew just from looking at him that her father didn’t have long to live.
To keep her occupied, she started making a list of things to do tomorrow:
1. Visit Stuart in hospital and talk to Karen
2. Go to studio, see what’s happening
3. Call Nat in New York re Broadway deal
4. Get studio to write to David Hockney to try to arrange a meeting (maybe that will impress him!!!!)
5. Until it does, check out a few galleries
6. Pick up and answer all mail
7. See about taking those art classes in Santa Monica
9. Go shopping. Buy healthy stuff like yog—
Sarah thought she heard a sound outside on the deck. When she looked up, she saw only her own reflection in the dark glass and chastised herself for jumping at shadows. Still . . .
She walked over and pulled the doors fully open. It took her only a split-second to realize that it was no longer her reflection she was staring at.
It was him, the one she had seen at Stuart’s house, the one Arvo said had been caught.
Sarah screamed and staggered backwards. He came in and put his hand over her mouth. His skin smelled of Pears soap. She struggled briefly but he was too strong. He pushed her gently down into the armchair and he stood over her, hands on the chair arms, closing her in.
He reached forward gently and touched her hair. She flinched. He looked at her with sadness in his eyes, and she knew that whatever it was he was seeing, it wasn’t what she saw when she looked in the mirror.
She remembered him now. The silent one, always in the shadows: Mitch’s brother.
“What do you want?” she asked. “Why have you been hurting my friends? Why don’t you leave me alone?”
He said nothing, just kept looking at her in that twisted, adoring way.
“Look, this is crazy,” she rushed on, trying to keep the hysterical edge from her voice. “I don’t love you. I’ve never loved you. I’ve never even given you cause to think I loved you. Why are you doing this to me?”
But whatever he was hearing, it wasn’t what she was saying. She wished to God he would speak. His silence and his fixed, loving eyes were making her even more scared than she had been to begin with.
Then he took her hand. She tried to resist, but he grasped her wrist tightly and pulled her up from the chair. She screamed and struggled, knocking over a small table and one of the Inuit sculptures, but he held on to her and dragged her across the floor
, through the doors and over the wooden deck. She managed to make him slow down enough for her to stand up. He seemed to want her to go with him down to the beach. He had obviously climbed up the rocks beside the gate, and he wanted her to go back down with him that way.
Sarah didn’t want to get dragged and bumped over the rocks, and she also realized that if she could play for time, then the police might find out they had made a mistake and come looking for her.
“Wait a minute. There’s a key,” she said. “For the gate. Let me get it.”
He thought for a moment, then nodded and held on to her as she went back inside slowly and took the key from the hook by the doors. Then they walked back out, hand in hand, down the rough-hewn stone steps.
The sky was clear and the moon bright. Sarah opened the iron gate. When they walked out onto the sand, she thought she might be able to make a break for it and run for help, maybe dash toward the first place that would give her access to the road. She didn’t know what she would do when she got there. Run out and flag down a car if she could, if anyone would stop. There were lights on in some of her neighbors’ houses, she noticed, and she tried shouting for help, but the combination of the sea and whatever TV programs they were watching drowned her cries.
He didn’t seem to notice her screaming, or care; he was completely intent on taking her toward the sea. She felt as if his powerful fingers were crushing her wrist. She screamed again, louder this time, hoping someone in one of the nearby houses would hear between commercials or the canned laughter and come to help her, but still nothing happened, no one came.
She tried to kick him in the shins and fell on the sand. He dragged her behind him, the same relentless pace. The more she struggled, the tighter his grip became, until she could hardly feel her hand.
God, how she wished he would speak, wished he could explain what he was doing and why, what he wanted. Never before had she felt so much in the dark, felt such a desire to understand.
When they reached the shoreline, he stopped, turned and faced her, now gripping both her hands in his.
“Please,” she begged above the crashing of the waves around their feet. “Please let me go. I’ll do what you want. Whatever you want. Don’t hurt me.”
She could make out his expression in the moonlight, and she could see from his eyes that he was trying to tell her he didn’t want to hurt her. But she also knew he was going to kill her. It might seem like something else to him, something grandiose and romantic and transcendental, but he was going to kill her. She remembered his letter: “But you must not think I enjoy causing pain. No, that is not it at all, that is not my purpose, surely you can see? . . . My Knives were sharp. I spent hours sharpening them. I was gentle when I bent over him. He didn’t feel a thing. Please believe me.” She believed him now.
“Please,” she said, “talk to me. Tell me what you want me to do.”
Then he put his hand over his mouth and shook his head. My God, she realized, he couldn’t speak. But at least he could hear her.
Pleading would do no good. Sarah tried to invoke something of Anita O’Rourke’s coolness and competence. Think, she told herself. You’re an actress, goddammit, so act. She couldn’t tackle him herself; he was far too strong. Her best bet was still to play for time. Just stay alive.
He relaxed his grip on her right hand. Not completely at first, but enough to get the circulation flowing again. Then, when he saw she wasn’t going to run away, he let go of both hands completely. He didn’t seem to have a gun or anything, at least no weapon that was immediately visible.
Sarah stood before him and massaged her wrists, the water lapping around her bare feet. What could she do? Run? No, he was powerful and would soon catch her. He wanted to kill her, but how? Walking out into the sea together, or some such sentimental love-sacrifice? He wouldn’t see that as hurting her. People said drowning in salt water was like going to sleep. But how did they know? Sarah had always wondered.
Again, she remembered the letter. He didn’t like to cause pain. But he had killed Jack. Knocked him out with a hammer and stabbed him. And he had stabbed Stuart. Even so, she could already sense that he was sorry he had grasped her wrists so tightly. Could she play on his sympathy?
Between waves, she could hear loud rock music from one of the houses and cars roaring by on the Coast Highway. So near.
His eyes locked with hers and he seemed to be drinking in her presence, inhaling her nearness. She realized in that moment that no amount of pleading or playing on sympathy could delay the consummation for much longer. He had one purpose and one purpose only: their eternal union through death.
Sarah thought she could hear sirens in the distance. Were they for her? Was she hearing things?
Then he reached in his pocket and took something out. His arm moved quickly by the side of his head. Sarah thought she saw something flash in the moonlight. Was that whirring sound coming closer really a helicopter? Was it coming to save her?
He handed her something. It felt like a mixture of hard calamari and soft tomato. She held her palm open in the moonlight and looked. It was an ear. His ear, cartilage and lobe. She dropped it on the wet sand, screamed and stumbled backward. Then she saw him pointing the knife toward her.
He reached out and grabbed her wrist again, the blade in his other hand coming closer. But instead of stabbing her or cutting her, he handed the knife to her, wrapped her fingers around it and stood before her.
My God, she knew what he wanted now. He wanted her to do the same, to cement their love by parting with a limb. A token.
The sirens were getting closer. She could hear cars screech to a halt by the nearest access point. And the helicopter was flying low, shining a cone of light over the beach about a mile to the south.
Still he just stood there, hands out, waiting for her to prove her love with a token of her flesh. She felt violated by his thoughts and desires; somehow, they seemed to have insinuated themselves into her consciousness.
Again she tried to think what Anita would do, then something snapped inside her, the way it had in the trailer that day. Dammit, he wasn’t Van Gogh and she wasn’t Anita O’Rourke. She was Sally Bolton, fighting for her life. And she would bloody well win. After all, he had given her the means. Holding the knife out in front of her with both hands, she pushed it forward with all her strength into his stomach.
For a moment, he didn’t move, then shock spread across his features and he fell to his knees, the blade sticking out of his flesh. It hadn’t gone very far in, Sarah noticed, but it was far enough. She felt sick. She had never hurt anyone before, let alone stabbed them, and as soon as she had done it she felt an awful guilt start to grow inside her. She had hurt another human being, however bad, however twisted he had been. He looked so pathetic now, on his knees in the foam. Not the monster who had written those letters, stalked her, murdered John Heimar and Jack Marillo, stabbed Stuart. He couldn’t be the man who had made her life hell for the past few weeks; he was just a lonely and pathetic figure, hurting, dying.
She looked around. There were cops with flashlights swarming all over the beach now, and the helicopter had landed about a hundred yards away. It was like a scene from a war, she thought, or the invasion of a small island. Men in military fatigues jumped out onto the beach, sand whipping up in the downwind from the helicopter blades, and hurried forward, rifles in their hands. Behind her, she could hear voices barking loud orders.
She was safe now. But when she looked back at the man on his knees in the sea, she still felt that she was caught in some sort of perverse mummers’ play that hadn’t reached its final act yet.
He got to his feet and stood in front of her, swaying a little. He had pulled out the knife and was holding it loosely by his side, but she wasn’t afraid any more. He wasn’t going to try to kill her now. His great vision, his intricate web of delusions, had collapsed, shattered. She had smashed it. They weren’t going anywhere together.
What did he see now, she wondered? Her be
trayal or his triumph? His expression was almost unreadable—the religious ecstacy of a St. Sebastian pierced by arrows, crossed with all-too-human shock and surprise. Had he really expected her to cut off an ear and hand it to him? She knew that he had.
His eyes brimmed with pain, sadness and loss. He stretched his hand out to her again and she became so mesmerized by his eyes that she found her own hand reaching out to take it. She could see blood from where he had clutched at the stomach wound, blood shining in the moonlight.
She almost put her hand in his, almost got his blood on her. Christ, now she felt that she wanted to hold him, rock him in her arms, say she was sorry she stabbed him, tell him everything was going to be all right, sing him a lullaby.
What the hell was wrong with her? This man had terrorized her, killed people in her name. And all she wanted to do was hold him and ease his pain, maybe let him take his illusions to the grave. Then she snapped out of the spell and snatched back her hand before it touched his.
“No!” she yelled. But she didn’t know if he heard her or not. Arvo and Maria had come up behind and grabbed her by her arms. They were leading her back toward the police line. He was backing the other way, toward the ocean.
So many men, and they all had their guns out, pointing past Arvo, Maria and Sarah at the man. “Jesus Christ,” Sarah heard one of the uniformed policemen say as she neared him. “What the fuck do we do, shoot him to stop him from killing himself?”
Like Lot’s wife, Sarah looked back.
She saw the knife blade flash in the moonlight before he plunged it into his abdomen, just below the stomach wound, with all his remaining strength. Then, with both hands, he dragged it slowly up as far as his breastbone.
She was only about twenty feet away from him, and the moonlight and flashlights gave his eyes an eerie glow, like an animal’s eyes caught in the headlights.
All the time he was pulling the knife through his flesh, he was looking at Sarah, and at the last moment, as something dark and glistening slid out of his stomach into the moonlit water like a grotesque parody of birth, he opened his mouth and emitted a long, high-pitched wail and fell to his knees. It was the only sound she had ever heard him utter and it sounded like “Sally.” Then the light in his eyes went out like a spent candle, a strong wave knocked him over, and the water covered him.
No Cure for Love Page 33