by Marco Vassi
He turned and continued on toward the house. When he was almost there he saw Eleanor's car parked in front of the garage, but the doors were closed so he couldn't tell whether any other cars were inside. He walked to the front door, paused a moment, squared his shoulders, and tried the knob. It turned easily and the massive door sung open on oiled hinges, smoothly and silently.
Larry stepped into a foyer that was the size of his own living room, and through it into a living room that was bigger than the entire house he and Eleanor had been staying in. It looked like it had been furnished by an interior decorator. Carpet and drapes and paintings were all color coordinated, and every lamp and ashtray had been put into place according to some geometric design.
He walked through the room, moving now with almost exaggerated caution. At the far end was a door that led to a more normal sized room that looked like a study, with a desk, several chairs, a small sofa and bookshelves. On one wall hung a framed color photograph and when Larry saw it his stomach tightened. It was a picture of Eleanor. She was standing in front of a birch tree wearing a very brief bikini, one that Larry had never seen before.
"Bitch," he said out loud before he could catch himself. Then, all at once, he didn't care whether he made any noise of not, whether there was an armed thug in the house. He strode out of the study and back through the living room and out the other side into a dining room that opened onto an enormous kitchen space, where he found what he was looking for, the stairs that led to the second storey.
He took the steps two at a time and was panting slightly when he reached the corridor that curved out to the right and left from the top of the stairway. There he paused and listened, and his scalp crawled when he heard a sudden sound, the unmistakable scrape of a bureau drawer being slid into place.
He walked in the direction of the sound. It had come from an open doorway halfway down the hall. He kept going until he reached the space and, without hesitating, spun past the edge and into the room beyond.
Eleanor was there. She was standing next to the bed on which she'd piled two suitcases, now open. She wore an almost transparent white peignoir and was holding one hand to her lips, looking at her belongings, thinking about what to unpack next.
"Getting comfortable, I see," Larry said.
She spun around. "Larry!" she exclaimed, her eyes wide with fright. But even as she called his name and her face registered fear, he was again taken with the uncanny sense that she was acting, playing a role, and doing it badly. She glanced past him and he turned his head to see what she was looking at. But there was nothing there.
"Expecting someone?" he asked.
"You shouldn't be here," she said. "It's dangerous for you."
"Is one of Michael's henchmen in the house?"
"How do you know about that?" she asked, and then a flash of understanding shot through her eyes. "Alec told you."
Larry took several steps into the room and Eleanor edged away from him. "Alec told me a few things," he said, "But nothing I didn't already suspect. Except that the details and the time frame were a little juicier than I expected."
"Why did you come here then?"
"To get you out of this for a start."
"I've made my decision," she told him and moved back another foot toward the head of the bed.
"To make love to a killer? For what? Just to see your name up in lights?"
"That's right," she replied, her shock wearing off and a touch of anger in her voice. "I want my name up in lights. I'm tired of seeing people with half my talent become stars. And Michael's not a killer."
"I'm sure. He has people to do that for him."
Eleanor stepped back another foot and suddenly Larry saw where she was going. As she turned and reached for the drawer of the night table, he leaped forward and slammed against her just as her hand was reaching inside. She fell on the bed and he stuck his own hand inside and closed his fingers around the gun. He picked it up, stood for a moment feeling its weight and its implications. Then walked back to the door and closed it.
"Now if we have company I'll be prepared to greet him."
"There's no one else in the house,'' Eleanor said dully, sitting up on the edge of the bed.
"I'm supposed to believe that?" Larry asked sarcastically, checking the cylinder of the gun and finding that it was indeed loaded.
"Believe whatever you want. But I'm not leaving here."
"Yes you are. I'm taking you someplace where we can talk. And when I've had my say then you can do whatever you want."
"There's nothing to talk about."
"Then you'll listen," he said and found himself waving the gun as he talked. It was a gesture he'd seen in gangster movies and he was astonished at how natural it felt.
"Would you mind not pointing that thing in my direction."
"Why? You should be used to having guns around. And if you'd reached it first, you'd be pointing it at me, and probably calling for your bodyguard."
"I told you there's no one else here."
"Like you told me you'd be faithful to me? Tell me, how many others have there been before this one?"
Once again, Eleanor underwent one of her sudden changes. Her eyes grew dark and her chin trembled. All at once she seemed on the verge of tears. "I'm sorry, Larry," she said.
"Cut the act."
"It's not an act," she cried out and now the tears did start flowing, coursing down her cheeks. And for all that he was convinced that she was playing on his sympathy, trying to buy time to gain control of the situation, the sight of her crying slightly unnerved him. "I loved you," she went on. "Yes, I had a little fling with Michael last year. I slept with him twice.
And then I felt so bad about it I had to stop. I didn't tell you because I didn't want to hurt you and I knew I wouldn't be seeing him again."
"Until next time."
"I didn't plan on a next time. Until you starting having your own affair with your pillow."
"It's not the same thing."
She took a deep shuddering breath, and her breasts trembled under the gauzy fabric. For the first time since entering the room Larry realized how sexy she looked and his chest constricted at the thought that her beauty was now for another man. She caught the look in his eyes and wiped the tears from her face, and then stood up, the front of the peignoir swaying open briefly to show a flash of belly and thighs and the tangle of pubic hair.
"Get dressed," he said.
She stared at him boldly. "Most men would ask me to get undressed," she said.
"Don't fuck with me," he shouted.
"Why? What are you going to do, shoot me? Go ahead."
Larry felt his control slipping, and began to see how limited his options were. Short of using physical violence, he couldn't force Eleanor to go with him. And he still wasn't certain whether one of Michael's thugs was in the house. If he started twisting Eleanor's arm and the other man came into the room, Larry would not only be exposed but legally in the wrong for entering a private house, carrying a gun, and assaulting a woman. But the alternative was galling. To admit defeat and ride away with his tail between his legs was something that would haunt him for the rest of his life. He saw that there was no direction to go but forward, to up the ante.
"Maybe I will," he said. "I've certainly got just cause."
"You wouldn't enjoy jail, or what Michael would do to you when he caught you, which he would."
"No," Larry replied, his voice cold. "Because after you I'd blow my own brains out."
Eleanor's mouth twitched. "You're bluffing," she said, but her tone was uncertain.
"You want to push it to the edge?” he replied.
"You're really crazy," she whispered.
He smiled. "You know, I may very well be."
They gazed at one another for a long time, and then Eleanor shrugged her shoulders. "All right," she said. "Let's take it to the edge." And with that unbuttoned the top clasp to the peignoir, pulled it open, and let it slip to the floor. Then, with the ind
ex finger of her right hand, she pointed between her breasts. "Right there," she said, "If you're going to do it."
"What do I do now?" Larry wondered. The barrel of the gun was pointing toward Eleanor but not at her. In less than a second he could aim and pull the trigger and she would be dead. What terrified him was that the action had such a sense of rightness to it, even a theatrical gloss. Then he would have no choice but to kill himself.
"Maybe that would be my satori," he thought.
"What are you waiting for?" she asked. "You going to give me a blindfold and a cigarette?"
Larry smiled again. "Have a smoke if you like. I know about your stash."
"Just like yours," she countered.
"You knew about that?"
"Oh really," she exclaimed, "Did you think you were hiding it from me?"
"Obviously not as well as you hid some things from me."
"What did you do, go through my drawers?"
"I had cause."
She regarded him levelly. "Sure," she said, "If I'm going to be executed, I'd like to have a last cigarette." She attempted to inject some bravado into her voice, but it could not mask the undercurrent of fear that ran beneath it. She reached into one of the suitcases and pulled out a pack of Pall Mall and a book of matches. "Mind if I sit down?" she asked.
"Go ahead."
"You're supposed to say, 'But don't make any funny moves'," she added. Eleanor pushed both suitcases off the bed, sat down her back against the pillows piled against the wall, pulled out a cigarette and lit it. Larry moved to the outside wall and sat in a chair from which he could see Eleanor, look out the window, and keep the door covered. Then he shook a cigarette from his own pack and lit it.
"Just like old times, isn't it?" she said.
"Except that we're sitting in your lover's house."
"And you're holding a gun on me."
"That's in case we suddenly have company," he said, but even as he spoke he was taken by the certainty that the house was indeed empty. He had no grounds for the feeling, but it was as clear as the sun which was now a few degrees above the horizon. Something else also nagged at him, but he couldn't pin it down.
Eleanor took a puff of her cigarette, blew out smoke, crossed her legs at the ankles, and looked over at Larry. "I still can't figure why you came here. If I were you, I wouldn't ever want to see me again."
"You've got something of mine," he said.
"What?"
"I don't know. All I know is that I'm right on the brink of understanding something, something I've been trying to contact inside myself for as long as I can remember. And coming here has to do with that."
She raised one eyebrow, a hint of disdain in her expression. "I thought you were finding all your answers on your precious pillow."
"I destroyed the pillow."
Eleanor started, surprise on her face. "Destroyed it?"
"I thought that would please you. I chopped it to pieces with an axe."
"You can get another one," she said.
"I can get another wife too."
"What for?" she replied. "You didn't do so hot with the first one."
"There are women who aren't liars and cheats in the world," he shot back, anger in his voice.
"And there are men who don't go running into the woodshed to sit on their ass every time life gets a little confusing," she said, matching his anger.
"Maybe I wouldn't have needed that if you'd had a baby and been a real wife instead of showing your ass off on the stage," he yelled.
"Just like that?" she yelled back. "Have a baby? And what if you were the one who had to stop meditating because you were pregnant and couldn't go to your hotshot zendo because you had to take care of a kid all the time?" She ground the cigarette out in the ashtray next to the bed. "And as far as showing my ass off is concerned, you had enough chances to see it but you preferred looking at a wall."
Larry was about to shout back but remembered where he was. His intuition that the house was empty was strong, but not infallible, and his having an argument with Eleanor just then wasn't wise. He put his own cigarette out and shifted the revolver back to this right hand. The sun was now shining right into the room. Larry shut his eyes for a moment. His fatigue was catching up with him again and he wanted to be out of there, he wanted to sleep and forget.
"Larry," Eleanor said softly. He looked over at her. She had turned toward him and raised one leg, the knee high, her foot flat on the bed, her nudity transformed into nakedness. Under any other circumstances and to any other man, her desirability would have been overwhelming, and even in his condition Larry couldn't help but be moved.
"Larry," she repeated.
"What?"
"Look at me."
"I am looking at you."
"See me."
"I am seeing you."
"Are you?"
He stared at her. She leaned forward, one breast resting against the thigh of her raised leg, her eyes moist.
"Don't you know why you risked your life to come here? Really?" she went on, her voice even more gentle.
Tiny alarm bells went off in his mind. He could feel himself being drawn toward her, into her. Instinctively, his hand tightened on the gun, now pointed off to the side.
"Don't you understand?" she said.
"What are you talking about?" he replied, but even as he spoke he knew what her next words were going to be.
"You came here because you love me."
"I never denied that."
"You've been denying it for a long time. You've been afraid of it."
Once more he felt a tightening in his chest. He roused himself and stood up. "What difference does it make now?" he said, surprised at the depth of bitterness he heard in his voice.
"All the difference in the world."
"You've got someone else now."
She shook her head and smiled like a teacher fondly correcting a favorite pupil. "There's no one else," she said.
Larry blinked several times and then, incongruously, laughed. "And what is all this?" he exclaimed, waving the gun in a wide arc to indicate the room and the house. And when his hand had completed the circle, the gun was pointing at Eleanor again. "Are you telling me that I'm having a hallucination?" he went on, his voice now steady.
"No," she told him, her voice equally calm. "You're playing out a role, but you don't have the script yet."
"Look," he told her, his eyes narrowing. "If I pull this trigger we're both going to be sorry. Do us both a favor. Make it easy for me to get out of here. And then I'll leave you alone and you can do whatever you want."
"What I want is to be with you," she said. "That's all I've ever wanted."
"Stop the double-talk!"
"Larry, I love you."
"You're driving me crazier than I already am."
"Just like that great doubt you used to tell me about."
"What?"
She leaned back against the pillow again, but kept her leg raised, and the motion exposed her crotch. He glanced involuntarily to the spot between her thighs and saw the deep violet ridge of vaginal lips beneath the thatch of hair. To his astonishment, he felt a stirring in his groin.
"I told Alec about that," she went on. "And he suggested an acting exercise for me, a way I might create a little doubt of my own."
His eyes widened and it seemed that the floor was tilting under him.
"It started with the torn panties in the laundry basket," she said. "I assume you saw those."
His mouth fell open.
Eleanor licked her lips. "And then there was that bit with the locket. And after that the hickey." She smiled to herself. "That was the hardest one."
"It was all a trick?" he gasped.
"I like to think of it as my greatest role," she replied.
"I don't believe you."
"No? What about the night I came home with my clothes all torn and dirty. What did you believe then? And when you found the Polaroid in my drawer or the photograph downstairs? An
d when you found the diaphragm next to my purse?" She ticked off each event relentlessly.
For a few moments he was swayed by what seemed like evidence that all his suspicions had been consciously planted by Eleanor, and then he remembered one item she'd left out. "And when we were lying on the couch, were you pretending to be asleep when you whispered those things?"
Larry saw a flicker of uncertainty on her face, and he smiled grimly. "What's the matter, have you forgotten what your lines were?"
"I was asleep," she said, "I don't know what I said."
"Almost, Eleanor," he said. "You almost had me going again. I don't know why you're pulling this number now, except maybe you're really afraid I might shoot you and you're trying to throw me off the track. But it won't work."
"But it's true," she pleaded. "Why don't you believe me?"
"Because Alec suggested I bring a gun here, and as peculiar as he is, he wouldn't have risked that there'd be an accident. I don't think he'd take a chance like that for an acting exercise."
"The gun won't go off," she said.
He glanced down at the weapon but saw nothing odd about it. "Alec emptied the powder out of the bullets," Eleanor continued.
Larry looked back up at her. "You're lying," he said.
In response, Eleanor let her raised leg fall to one side, totally exposing herself. She raised her arms and spread them across the pillows on either side of her. She presented a picture of complete vulnerability and openness, and an unmistakable invitation to sex. Larry tried to fight it, but his arousal grew stronger, and he felt the beginnings of an erection.
"You're the only man in my life," she said. "I knew I was losing you and I fought back the only way I knew how. You were using zen as a defense so I used acting as a weapon."
"And what's this place, your armory?"
"This house belongs to a friend of Alec's, a producer. You can check on that later if you like, but now I want something from you."