Degree of Guilt

by Unknown

  Mary’s back straightened.

  Slowly, she turned to him. Tears ran down her face.

  Paget struggled for self-control. It took all that he had; he felt no pity, but his voice was still soft. ‘Forgive me if I sound harsh,’ he said. ‘But I just found out that you arranged for me to raise Jack Woods’s son as mine. And you know how I hate surprises.’

  Mary tried to speak, could not. Her hands touched her chest in a posture of grieving and shock.

  ‘You’re a remarkable woman,’ Paget said. ‘You helped me send Carlo’s father to prison to save your own career, and used his son to make me help you. It’s hard to put a name to that.’

  ‘Don’t you know,’ Mary burst out, ‘why I went to Ransom’s suite?’

  ‘Of course. To kill him.’

  ‘No.’ Through her tears, Mary’s voice shook with pain and anger. ‘To do anything he wanted. So that you and Carlo would never hear that tape.’

  Paget was silent. ‘It’s touching,’ he said finally, ‘to consider the sacrifices you’ve made on my behalf. The guilt may be too much for me to live with.’

  Mary seemed to blanch. She half turned from him, face wet with tears, arms crossed as if to hold herself in. Her shoulders quivered; she looked desolate and alone.

  Paget did not move or speak. He simply watched her; his sole expression was one of distaste.

  All at once, Mary sat down on the rug.

  Her face bent to her hands; there was one convulsive sob, and then the sounds that followed were like keening. Whatever had happened with Ransom, the lies and torment that had come from it had pushed her to the edge. Now, at last, the second tape had shattered her: the Mary Carelli that Paget saw was the one woman he had never imagined.

  Paget waited until the keening stopped. Walking across the room, he stood over her, holding the tape in his hand.

  ‘Then tell me.’ The quiet in his voice was anger, barely controlled. ‘Everything. But not until you look me in the face.’

  For a long moment, Mary’s face stayed in her hands. Then her face rose to meet his gaze. ‘It wasn’t me,’ she said, ‘who did those things with Ransom.’

  ‘The things you say Ransom wanted? Or killing him?’

  Mary swallowed. ‘The things I did for him,’ she said at last. ‘Only killing him was me.’

  ‘Then tell me,’ he repeated.

  Slowly, Mary nodded. ‘All right,’ she answered quietly. ‘But I can’t talk about this with you standing over me.’

  Paget stifled a harsh response. He thought of pulling her up, then decided that he did not wish to touch her.

  After a moment, he sat cross-legged on the floor, several feet from her. ‘You can start,’ he said, ‘with Ransom’s first call.’

  Mary looked at her hands. ‘It was simple,’ she said at last.

  ‘Ransom described the tapes and said he’d give them to me.’ Her voice became muted. ‘One meeting at a time.’

  ‘Was he more specific?’

  ‘He said that I had a choice. He could undress me in public or in private.’ Her tone turned bitter. ‘He wanted to be fair with me, he said. I should understand that in private, I would do anything he asked me to do. So I shouldn’t assume that my “private exposure” would be any less humiliating than “public exposure.”’

  ‘And you agreed?’

  ‘No. I took his number and said that I’d call back. When I put down the telephone, my hand was shaking.’ Mary hesitated. ‘Then I went to the bathroom and threw up. Just as I said in court.’

  Mary paused for breath. When she began speaking again, her voice was weaker. ‘I couldn’t imagine it: how this man could have those tapes; why he needed to do this to me. I couldn’t sleep that night. I thought of everything – the Lasko case, Steinhardt, my career, Carlo. Even you. And then, after that, I imagined what Ransom must want.’ Her eyes shut. ‘In the morning, I called him back.’

  ‘What did you say?’

  ‘That I would meet him.’ Mary’s eyes remained closed. ‘If he gave me my choice of tapes.’

  For the first time, Paget hesitated. ‘You asked for the second?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Paget fell silent. After a time, he asked, ‘Why did you buy the gun?’

  Mary’s eyes opened. ‘Because I was afraid,’ she answered simply. ‘Once we were alone, I didn’t know what he would do.’

  Paget searched her face. ‘The night before, you came to see us. After eight years.’

  ‘I came to see Carlo.’ Her gaze was steadier now. ‘It was me who said that I’d meet Ransom in San Francisco. I was still torn about what to do. I thought, in a strange way, that seeing Carlo might help me.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘Enable me to go through with it.’ Abruptly, she looked down. ‘If you and Carlo found out the truth, then no good would have come of letting you believe he was your son. I wanted to believe that good had come of it.’

  ‘And did you?’

  ‘When I saw Carlo, I knew that he was happy. It made up my mind. Because I knew that good had come of it.’ Her voice fell. ‘Until now.’

  Paget looked past her, struggling for calm, felt his grip tighten on the tape. For this moment, he told himself, put your emotions aside. First you should know the truth.

  ‘What happened,’ he asked, ‘when you got to the room?’

  Mary still stared at the floor. ‘Ransom opened the door. He didn’t say anything. Just looked at me, with a strange smile on his face. His expression was almost gloating, and yet I felt the tension beneath it. It was like walking into a nightmare.

  ‘He still wouldn’t talk. I put my purse on the coffee table, where I could reach the gun.’ Hesitant, she tried to look at Paget again. ‘Then I asked him to play the tape for me. My tape.’

  ‘And did he?’

  Slowly, she nodded. ‘Listening to it – my voice, Steinhardt’s questions – brought back how I’d felt. When I couldn’t look at him anymore, he put his hand on my breast, like he did with Marcy Linton.’ Her gaze broke. ‘And when I didn’t take it away, Ransom knew we had a deal. He’d never had to say a word.’

  Paget’s stomach felt hollow; since Bass’s testimony, he had not eaten. He found that he could not ask questions.

  ‘The first thing he said,’ Mary told him softly, ‘was that we would share a bottle of Roederer Cristal. Because Laura Chase drank Cristal with her lovers. After she undressed for them.’ Mary touched her eyes. ‘Once the room service waiter left the suite, I knew that I would have to take off my clothes. That was why I asked him to hang the privacy sign.’

  Paget was silent. Mary had stopped crying; her shame seemed beyond tears. ‘Ransom put the tape between us,’ she murmured, ‘and watched me undress.

  ‘When I was naked, he motioned me to the couch, to sit facing him. He positioned me in a certain way.’ The sudden anger in her voice was like the memory of hate. ‘He wanted to see each part of me, he said, without having to tell me what to show him. Because the tape I was about to hear demanded my total attention.’

  ‘Laura Chase,’ Paget said softly.

  Mary nodded, still looking away. ‘I was to listen carefully, he said, while he inspected me. So that I could do for him what Laura had done for James Colt.’ Mary paused. ‘Then he made me drink a toast to Laura Chase.’

  Mary seemed to shiver again. Drained of defiance or calculation, she looked tired and too thin. But her narrative had taken on a relentless quality; Paget had wanted the truth, and now she would spare neither of them. ‘I sat there, listening to that tape: Laura Chase describing in a lost voice what she had done for those men, what they had made her do.

  ‘With each act she described, Ransom would smile at me and then slowly move his eyes across my body.’ Mary paused again; for a moment, her voice was thick. ‘By the time the tape was over, the champagne was almost welcome.

  ‘He still didn’t speak. I sat there in his silence, watching him look at each part of me, taking his time. There was an almost c
asual cruelty in it, as if he were making sure that degrading me still held interest for him.’ Mary raised her head. ‘Then he smiled,’ she finished quietly, ‘and started to rewind the tape.’

  Mary’s eyes stayed fixed on Paget. ‘He didn’t need to say anything. When the tape finished rewinding, I would be standing in front of him, doing what Laura Chase had done.

  ‘I asked him to close the blinds. “Do it yourself,” he told me. “That way I can see how you move.”’

  Her voice had become flat; to Paget, it made what had happened seem inexorable. ‘I went to the window,’ she said. ‘Below me was the city, people going about their normal lives. I stood looking out, wishing I was one of them, not wanting to turn and face Mark Ransom. That was when John Hassler saw me.’

  The mood had shifted again; the flat words held an understated horror and, beneath that, irony – Mary had lied about what Hassler saw, but the scene as Hassler witnessed it was more illusion than truth. Softly, Mary said, ‘Then I heard Laura’s voice again, and pulled down the blind.

  ‘When I turned, Ransom stopped the tape.

  ‘“You’re already naked,” he told me. “So when I turn on the tape, I want you to start dancing. Please listen to Laura carefully.” Then he smiled again, and said, “I want Laura Chase to be your teacher.”’

  Mary swallowed again. ‘He tried to sound casual, in command. But I’d started to feel something desperate beneath it – as though if I got it wrong I would break some spell. Before, I was disbelieving, angry, ashamed. Now I felt frightened.

  ‘When I began moving for him, he took his penis out.

  ‘I felt like a courtesan. Dancing to make him hard, as Laura told me how.’ Color came to her face. ‘I did whatever Laura Chase did, desperate to be as Ransom imagined her, until I felt more like Laura than me. It was like losing my soul.’

  Paget shook his head. ‘Why did you do all that?’

  Mary gave him a silent prideful look, the first semblance of her former self. ‘The tape he made me dance for would destroy Carlo,’ she said simply. ‘And the tape I didn’t ask for would destroy me. I wanted them both.’

  ‘But to keep on . . .’

  ‘I was alone with him.’ Mary looked at Paget steadily. ‘As Mark Ransom watched me dancing, standing with his penis in his hand, I knew he was insane. I was afraid of what would happen to me if I couldn’t make him hard.

  ‘I kept listening to Laura. When Laura touched herself, I touched myself. And when it was time to slide down the wall and masturbate for Mark Ransom, I did that too.’ Her voice became callous, almost brutal. ‘It’s not the first time a woman has pretended to come. Women my age were taught to be actresses for men, in all sorts of ways, first by our mothers. It was like a tribal skill, still there when I needed it. I was merely glad that Laura Chase had kept her eyes closed.

  ‘When I felt his penis enter my mouth, I knew that it had worked.’ She paused. ‘I began to suck him. Just like Laura on the tape.’

  All at once, Mary stopped talking.

  She pulled up her knees, hugging them close to her. Paget watched her force rhythmic breaths through her body, in and out and in again, until the quivering ceased. When she looked up, her face was naked once more: it was as if the long-repression of her feelings had exhausted her. The wetness in her eyes was fresh.

  ‘That was when it happened,’ she said quietly.

  Her voice had changed again. It was sadder and softer, one human speaking to another; for once, appearing vulnerable seemed less like a choice she had made than all she could do. It made Paget feel a kind of dread.

  ‘What happened?’ he asked.

  Her eyes opened wide, as though comprehending something for the first time. ‘As I sucked him,’ she said, ‘his penis started turning soft.

  ‘He began cursing me in a strangled voice, telling me to suck harder. Nothing worked.’ Stopping, Mary took another deep breath. ‘I looked up at him. The back of my head was against the wall, his penis still in my mouth. He was staring down at himself. His eyes were angry and frightened all at once.’ She paused again, voice lower. ‘When his gaze met mine, his penis slipped from my mouth.

  ‘He looked down again, watching himself shrivel.

  ‘I was afraid to look away. I stayed very still, trapped between Ransom and the wall, watching with him. Every second he grew smaller scared me more.

  ‘I was still watching when he slapped me.

  ‘I looked up, stunned, eyes blurring with tears. He slapped again, looked down at himself, slapped me again, looked at himself. Like slapping me would make him hard.

  ‘I spun away, the room turning black in front of me, began crawling toward the coffee table. In the background, Laura was still describing what they did to her. It made me crawl faster. When I looked back, he was still staring at himself.’ Her voice sounded shaken. ‘Tears were running down his face.

  ‘It stopped me. I just knelt there by the coffee table, naked, watching him as he cried.

  ‘Then he saw me.’

  Mary’s gaze was fixed; she seemed to be looking not at Paget but at Mark Ransom. ‘The rage and humiliation came to his eyes. He stared at me like an animal, face red with anger, pants around his ankles. It was like he felt too much hatred to speak.

  ‘He began walking toward me.

  ‘His pants were still down, and his movements were jerky, almost bestial, as if his failure had swept away whatever made him human. Then he raised his hand again.’ Her voice took on a visceral intensity. ‘There was something primal about it – an absence of limits. Before, he wanted to punish me, to help make himself hard. Now he wanted to destroy me.

  ‘Looking at each other, we both knew that.

  ‘I grabbed my purse.’ She stopped again: in her silence, Paget felt the combustible moment when Mark Ransom’s pathology triggered Mary’s will to survive. ‘My fingers were numb. I could barely get the gun out.

  ‘When I turned with it, still shaking, he was maybe six feet from me.

  ‘His eyes widened.’ She paused at the memory. ‘For an instant, he just stood there. Then he started toward me again. He seemed so enraged that he could imagine nothing else but reaching me.’

  Mary’s voice became staccato. ‘I was still on my knees. “Stop,” I called out. He didn’t.

  ‘Now he was four feet away. I still couldn’t shoot.’ Her eyes closed. ‘And then he called me a worthless cunt.

  ‘All at once, I hated him enough to shoot.

  ‘Maybe I could have stopped him – his pants kept him from moving fast. Maybe I could have shot him in the leg. It didn’t matter anymore.’ Pausing, Mary shook her head. ‘All that abuse and then, with a single word, he made me the same person he was.’ She stopped again, and spoke her next words slowly and distinctly. ‘The only thing I cared about was killing Mark Ransom.

  ‘My hands stopped shaking. He was four feet from me when I shot him in the heart.’

  The new calm in her voice gave Paget a chill. Her eyes opened again, staring past him. ‘He didn’t so much fall as stop. His eyes were blind with shock. It was as if he were no longer in the room, and I was no longer there.

  ‘He slumped a little. His face became sad, almost puzzled. Then he crumpled, sitting on the floor.

  ‘Tears came to his eyes again. The last thing he did was mumble a single word.’ Mary’s voice filled with wonder. ‘“Laura.” He whispered the name “Laura.”

  ‘The blood drained from his face. I knew he was dead before he had fallen backward.

  ‘Suddenly I was alone.

  ‘I tried to take it in. A moment before, Mark Ransom might have killed me. Now he was a corpse with his pants around his ankles.’ The tone of wonder returned. ‘I was sitting next to him, naked in a strange hotel suite, with a tape filled with secrets sitting on the coffee table.’

  Paget tried to imagine it. But there were too many layers – shock, horror, shame, and disbelief – for him to understand how Mary could have coped. As if by reflex, he looked at th
e tape in his hand.

  Her gaze followed his. ‘I had killed a man,’ she said slowly. ‘For a prosecutor, my tape would explain why. But without my tape, there was no explaining his naked genitals, exposed so I could please him. Or the tape of Laura Chase.

  ‘On some level, even through my shock, I understood all that. It was like being under anesthesia but still conscious.

  ‘I never really had a plan. It came to me in pieces – jumbled, out of order. The only thread was that I had come there to conceal the tape, and now I had to conceal why I’d come.’

  Her voice was thin, emotionless. It was as if she had been drugged and now was trying to reconstruct actions she dimly remembered and barely understood.

  ‘It all seemed too hard,’ she said. ‘For a moment, I thought of giving up, just telling the truth. Then I thought of Carlo.’ She paused. ‘And, of course, myself.’

  There would be no more tears, Paget thought. She was too spent for emotion or, it seemed, dissembling. There was nothing left to hide.

  ‘Finally,’ she went on, ‘I forced myself to look at Ransom. He was lying there, mouth open, sprawled on his back like someone who had died in the middle of dressing himself. And then the first thought came to me: there was no explaining anything with Ransom as he was.’ Her voice turned cold. ‘I couldn’t explain why he was half naked, or why I was naked with him. Let alone why he deserved to die.

  ‘I remember being angry. What he had done to me was not just a violation of my body, but of me. And yet I could tell no one.

  ‘He violated me, I kept thinking. He deserved to die, I told myself – what he did was worse than rape.’ Her voice filled with discovery, as if replicating the moment. ‘Rape,’ she said simply. ‘The first cousin of sexual blackmail. The only explanation I could give them.

  ‘But how had he gotten me there? I wondered. He could be a rapist, but not a blackmailer. And then I remembered: he was writing a book about Laura Chase.