Understudy for Death

by Charles Willeford

  “What kind of a background did she have? I know very little about her.”

  “She was second generation Italian, and very religious, like many Roman Catholic women. Her husband never attended church. Her father owned an expensive men’s shop in Philadelphia; not rich, but he was far from being poor. So she had an excellent education, if Catholic schools give good educations. I’ve never attended a Catholic school—my parents were Christian Scientists, when they happened to think about it.”

  “What type of mutual interests did you and Mrs. Huneker have then?”

  “Nothing specifically. We both talked to each other, and we were interested in what each other said, but I can’t think of any burning interest we shared together. This sounds silly, now, as I talk about it. We both subscribed to the Book-of-the-Month Club. I would buy the book of the month and she would buy one of the alternates, and then we traded copies after we read the books. We had them both ways, you see, and we checked with each other to be sure we both didn’t order the same bonus books.”

  “Is that the only reading she did? Book-of-the-Month books?”

  “Of course not. We often borrowed books from the library. We have a good public library in Lake Springs, as you know. I was merely trying to think of some specific interest we shared. There must’ve been others. We swam in the pool at the Beach-comber’s, and sometimes we played bridge at the club, or met downtown for lunch and shopping.”

  “How did Mrs. Huneker treat her children?”

  “Like children, I suppose. I don’t have any myself, but her children were well-behaved, and I liked them well enough. Not being around them very often, it was easy to be fond of them. Sometimes she told me things they said that were funny and so on, but she wasn’t one of those doting mothers who only lives for her children. That sounds idiotic in view of what has happened doesn’t it? I mean—”

  “So far you haven’t told me a damned thing, Mrs. Chatham.”

  “You’re supposed to be asking the questions,” she said sharply. “I told you I couldn’t help you, in the beginning.” She quickly drained her glass, picked up my empty, and fixed two more drinks. When I sipped from mine I found that this time she had given me scotch and water instead of bourbon. A damned poor memory, in my opinion, but perhaps she was rattled…

  “Let’s take another tack, then,” I smiled and she brightened somewhat. “Doctor Goldman was the Huneker’s family physician, I believe, and yet he had no comment to make about her death. Do you know if Mrs. Huneker had a serious illness of any kind?”

  “Doctor Goldman’s an obstetrician, not a G.P. When little Kathy was still a baby, Marion took her to his well-baby clinic a few times, and I suppose she saw him occasionally for personal check-ups, but she wasn’t suffering from any diseases or anything.”

  “She may have been pregnant. I don’t think they’re planning an autopsy, but—”

  “I know she wasn’t pregnant!” Mrs. Chatham said firmly. “Her religion settled that matter. Marion wanted more children and her husband didn’t. Jack felt that a boy and a girl were more than enough children. So they compromised by not sleeping together anymore.”

  “That’s a foolish compromise.”

  “That’s what I told Marion when she confided all this to me. But Catholics aren’t allowed to protect themselves technically in the clinches…so?” Mrs. Chatham shrugged, and raised her glass in a cynical salute.

  “What kind of guy is Jack Huneker?”

  “An uncultured slob, but a nice guy. My husband says he’s one of the best businessmen in southern Florida. Evidently there’s no limit to his capacity for work and drive. He’s an ex-construction worker who managed to save a few thousand dollars on jobs around the country. He came down here, borrowed an equal amount from a bank, and built up his business from scratch. He’s earning at least thirty thousand a year now, and expanding all the time.”

  “I don’t know why, Mrs. Chatham, but I just can’t get a clear picture of Marion Huneker. What did she want out of life, anyway?”

  “She already had what most women want, Mr. Hudson. Security. But she was also an idealist in many ways. When she was fourteen, she told me, she wanted to become a nun. And then she studied ballet, and dancing knocked that idea out of her head in a hurry!”

  “I fail to see the connection.”

  “Listen, Mr. Hudson,” Mrs. Chatham leaned forward and wet her full lips. “If all of the young girls in the United States studied ballet there wouldn’t be any nuns. Ballet makes a woman conscious of her body, and reminds her that it’s useful.”

  “That’s an interesting theory.”

  “Not a theory; plain fact. I studied ballet myself as a girl and I know what I’m talking about.”

  “So you’d say Marion Huneker was sensual then, and wasn’t sleeping with her husband? That’s a better motive than a dislike of television. Or did she, by any chance, have a lover?”

  “Of course not! And she wasn’t sensual either, as you put it. Marion wasn’t particularly happy, but she wasn’t unhappy as women go these days. She had too many things to do, I believe, to brood about herself very much. Maybe she sat down finally, took enough time off to think things over, and decided that her life didn’t add up to what she wanted it to be. Everybody thinks that way occasionally, but Marion might’ve carried her conclusions out to the justified extreme.”

  “You don’t really believe that, do you?”

  “I’m guessing,” she replied absently, “I don’t know what to believe. I’m talking about my own life more than Marion’s. Without any children to worry about, I have more time on my hands than Marion ever did. I think more than she did, maybe, but I take positive actions to keep from brooding.”

  “Like for instance?”

  Mrs. Chatham shrugged. “Like a drink when I want a drink,” she said flippantly. “Like an affair when one is needed.” She winked the eye that held the sleepy, stared at me boldly, and drained her glass.

  “I can see you aren’t overly religious,” I laughed, taking her empty glass. I mixed another round of highballs at the bar. When I handed her a fresh drink I sat beside her on the couch. “I’m not getting very far with you, Mrs. Chatham.”

  “Oh, I wouldn’t say that.” The expression on her face didn’t change, but I detected the challenge in her voice. A thin trickle of sweat ran down my sides from my armpits. I picked up the tiny, inadequate cocktail napkin from the coffee table and brushed it across my damp forehead. In nine years of marriage, I had never been unfaithful, not once, although there had been several close calls. Why? Not from any lack of physical attractions, surely; no man is immune to the unknown, untried charms of beautiful women—or even unlovely women for that matter, when he sees a flash of forbidden thigh, or the invitation in a feminine eye. No, it had always been the fear of becoming involved, coupled with the foreknowledge that if Beryl had ever found out about any outside dalliance on my part she would have been hurt.

  But here was an opportunity that was a challenge to my manhood only—no extra effort, no involvements, no pretense that this was “pure love,” or any of that type of nonsense; but sex, impure and complicated. My throat was dry, and my voice was unnaturally hoarse.

  “Does your husband come home for lunch, Mrs. Chatham?” The question seemed an innocent one, almost casual, but she knew why I had asked it.

  “Never,” she replied, matter-of-factly.

  The invitation, and I recognized it as such, was like a line drawn in the dirt between two boys who really don’t want to fight, but have delayed the inevitable by challenging each other to step over the line. It was as if she had said, “We have the time, the place; and the rest is up to you.” But it was not a point of no return. She was too calm, too collected, too relaxed, almost indifferent to the matter, one way or the other. And it was this attitude she assumed which brought out the male aggressiveness in me. Indifferent? To me? I’d show her what it meant to act that way with me; before I got through with her she’d be calling, “
Uncle!”

  I set my glass down. Gladys set her glass down. I turned toward her, examining her impassive face for a hint of any inner excitement she might have, but I couldn’t detect anything at all, no clues to her true feelings. I moved closer, and as I put my arm around her she raised herself forward to give my arm the space it needed, and closed her eyes. Our open mouths met, and the hard, muscular thrust of her tongue pried my teeth apart; the kiss continued, on and on, and I seemed to feel some underlying pride in the woman that told me that she would never, under any circumstances, be the first to break a kiss, once it had begun. Fighting for breath, I had to break away.

  “Let’s go into the bedroom,” I suggested huskily.

  “All right.” She got to her feet, picked up her glass, and grabbed the open bottle of scotch off the bar. I took my glass and the bottle of bourbon, and trailed her down the hallway to the bedroom.

  After the prolonged kiss, adrenalin was pumping overtime, and I dried the palms of my hand on my trousers after putting the bourbon down on the bedside table. I sipped my drink and watched her as she stripped off the embroidered bedspread with housewifely efficiency and tightened the bottom yellow nylon sheet. It had happened so quickly, the preliminaries had been so short—no verbal sparring and coaxing whatever—I didn’t know what to do first. But as I stood there, feeling like a burglar in a strange bedroom, Gladys finished fluffing up the pillows to her satisfaction, and immediately began to peel down her ridiculous golden toreador pants.

  “A mosquito!” she exclaimed with dismay, and she slapped the inside of her creamy white thigh sharply.

  I grinned as she scratched furiously away at the reddening welt, but as she looked in my direction I hurriedly affected an expression of concern.

  “Before we do anything,” she wailed femininely, “you’re going to have to find and kill that damned mosquito!”

  I took her at her word, but as I searched the room I gradually removed my clothes, including my shoes and socks. A mighty hunter, I finally tracked down the bold mosquito—or perhaps a different one—and squashed it to an ingnominious death on the aluminum window screen.

  “Got him.” I said.

  “Thank you,” she said, and without sarcasm.

  She lay flat on her back, her hands clasped behind her head, without any false modesty. She had a beautiful body and she knew it. Her heavy breasts were still formidable, but they were not so large, now that she was lying down; they were twin melons, perfectly matched, with blunt pink nipples. Unperturbed by my appraisal she stretched luxuriously, spreading her long legs, and the small dark-red welt on the inside of her thigh was the only discernible blemish on her body, and somehow, it inflamed my desire instead of detracting from it.

  But as I moved toward the bed, feeling the cool terrazo floor on my bare feet, I was astonished by the expression in her eyes. Her mouth was smiling, but her eyes were filled with a pure, smouldering hatred—for me, and perhaps for every man she had ever known. Intuitively, I saw behind the hatred to the cause, and there could only have been one cause for such uncontrollable hatred: She knew in advance that once again she was going to be disappointed, that no matter how many times she tried with how many different men, she wasn’t going to make it; and that it would be the man’s fault, not her own.

  I could see everything a little clearer now, the reason for her apparent indifference as to whether I made a pass or not. She was careful, discreet, because she had to be. With a lovely home, a hard-working and money-making husband, the material loss would have been too great a sacrifice to be caught in an indiscretion. And so, realizing full well the power of her beauty and her full-blown sensuality, she could pick and choose, always hoping that the next man would be the one, but prepared for yet another disappointment. I didn’t know her husband, but I imagined that he had given up years before. How many had there been, I wondered—a husky, young door-to-door vacuum cleaner salesman, a lusty gas station or garage attendant called out to her house to fix a flat tire, or on a trip, perhaps a college boy hitchhiker for a one-night stand in a motel room. This was a small town, and perhaps her opportunities for affairs were not so many as I had so quickly assumed. Certainly she would have to stay clear of the clutching hands of the husbands of her women friends at the Beachcomber’s Club, and the opportunity to get away from town on a trip by herself would be more rare than common.

  But what did she expect? Did she expect some door-to-door salesman, whose main interest was in the making of a sale, to turn into the long-awaited skillful lover she so badly needed? Dazzled by his unexpected good fortune, a cat of this stripe would be willing enough, but he would also be certain to disappoint her. And with each new frustration and disappointment, she knew it would be even harder the next time, that the disappointment would be greater than before—but she had to keep trying, and it was getting more difficult to try each new failure.

  These were all things that I saw behind those smouldering eyes, and I felt sorry for her, a fatal mistake to make with any woman. But my conquest had been too easy, too simple—there were very few men in Lake Springs as safe as me—and she had probably chosen me as her next partner when I had been introduced to her at the Beachcomber’s Club bar.

  I sat down on the edge of the bed, leaned over, and touched the tip of my finger to the mosquito bite. “Does that stop it from itching?” I said softly.

  “Oh, yes,” her fingers gently touched my hair.

  “And does this itch, too?” I stroked her leg.

  “Yes, yes.”

  “And here, too?” I kissed a nipple.

  “Oh, yes, yes! God, yes!” Her fingers clutched convulsively in my hair, and I grabbed her wrists, disengaging her hands. I sat up abruptly.

  “Let’s have another drink and a cigarette,” I suggested.

  “Damn you!”

  She turned her head away from me on the pillow so I couldn’t see her eyes, and I laughed. I poured two short drinks, took two cigarettes out of the silver box on the table, and lighted them both. I had no intention of making it easy for her; I was the phallic type, and I knew that a compromise solution would not be the answer, anyway, for either one of us. She was aroused now, and her indifference had disappeared, but she needed a jolting, jarring shock of some kind—and so long as I had been elected, I would run the show for the full term of office.

  “Here,” I said, passing her the drink and lighted cigarette.

  She had recovered her control and she sat up, propping a pillow behind her against the quilted headboard of the bed. I put the ashtray between us.

  “Want a little water in that?” I asked.

  She shook her head, saying nothing, but concealing her puzzlement at the unexpected turn of events. I watched her eyes, admiring her cool complacency.

  “You’ve never made it, have you?” I said suddenly.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about—!” she began angrily, her lips twisting contemptuously, but when she noticed that I was serious behind my half-grin, she tossed her head and favored me with a rueful smile.

  “Once,” she said, “when I was fourteen. But that was accidental, and they don’t count, do they?”

  “No, and that includes the kind that rides on bicycles.”

  “But I should!” she said fiercely. “There’s nothing wrong with me—!”

  “Of course not. Why should you blame yourself for the inadequacy of the male animal?”

  “I didn’t say that,” she said defensively.

  “You didn’t have to, but after today you’ll need a new excuse.”

  “I’ve heard that before, too.” She tossed off her drink, took a long drag on the cigarette and crushed it out in the ashtray. I started to down mine as quickly, but the moment I smelled the fumes I changed my mind. I could feel the effects from the other drinks already, and if I were to last for the indefinite length of time it was going to take to make good my promise, I needed all the power and control I could muster, because suddenly it was important to me. No
longer an independent, extramarital canter through strange, dark woods; I was a fair knight with a chivalric mission, Sir Lancelot cuckolding King Arthur with Guinevere while he was downtown in the law offices fighting the wars of corporate law.

  I put aside my untouched glass, butted my cigarette, and set the ashtray on the table. “What do you know?” I asked, bending over her, weaving back and forth, just close enough to let the nipples of her breasts feel the coarseness of the hair on my chest.

  “This,” she said angrily, and she had an iron grip on me before I knew what had happened. She pinched my nipples enough to make me flinch. “Like any other man, you wear your manhood on the outside, but you haven’t got a damned thing inside!” She let go, rolled to one side, away from me, and then rolled back bringing a doubled fist back with her in a wide hay-maker that caught me square in the solar plexus—and hard enough to make me say, “Oof!”

  I didn’t mind; I was rather pleased by her anger. At least anger was an emotion, which was something much better to work against than a passionless complacence. I caught a double handful of her hair, and twisted her head toward me, but at the same time I crossed my legs to guard the vulnerable area. I kissed her hard, insistently. Her teeth caught my upper lip, but she didn’t bite, she merely pinched my lip painfully, and then returned my kiss.

  It was a duel now. She was determined not to be the first to break the kiss, and so was I. I forced her back to the pillow, released her hair, and worked a hand down her body; she became now as moist and warm as a southern sea. Our tongues were still entwined, and her lips were now rubbery against mine; her pressure against my mouth was so insistent my lips were all but numb. Our bodies were both damp with the strain, and there was an acrid smell of heated perspiration poisoning the air.

  Under the relentless probing, I felt the change in her; she had stopped fighting me, not physically, but it was a mental change that I could sense and even smell, because her very odor changed, turning sweet in my nostrils. The hard pressure of her lips receded, subtly, and the time had come for me to show her there was some manhood inside of me. She made no move to assist me, but it wasn’t any problem. Her breath was quickening. Her body now was alive and quivering with joy.