In her whole life, until yesterday, she’d hardly spoken to Frank. If she hadn’t happened to see him on TV a month or two ago, she would never have recognized him when they’d met at 450 Sutter. Yet, an hour later, she’d told him about her father.
Why?
Why had she kept the secret for so long, then told two men, one a doctor, one a detective, both of them relative strangers?
Carrying paper bags filled with pastries and coffee in Styrofoam cups, the two trendy young matrons were leaving the café, laughing as they walked. The lean, self-possessed gray-haired man had put on a pair of half-glasses and was reading the New York Times as he sipped his coffee. Behind the counter, the young Latin’s dark eyes had hardly left her.
The scene was a miniature of her life, one of those experimental one-act plays, people in pantomime on a surreal stage, each actor representing a part of her life: the hot-eyed stud with his tight pants, the two self-assured women who spoke a language that excluded her, the intriguing man of substance who politely ignored her.
But then the scene changes. Light fades into shadow, overcome by the night. Two figures emerge: evil figures, monsters of menace. One of them bulks in the backlit frame of her bedroom door. He advances on her as she desperately pretends sleep, her only defense. The small bed creaks with his huge weight. If the bed should break, everyone would know—her mother, and everyone else.
The other figure sits enthroned in a carved wooden chair. A console rests on an inlaid table beside the thronelike chair. His hand rests on the console. With the touch of a fingertip he controls the lights, the draperies, the camera. With a word he controls her.
One word: death.
1:15 P.M. He watched Charles stride to the huge plate-glass window that looked out on the Golden Gate. Today the bridge was obscured by the dark, leaden clouds. He watched Charles’s movements appreciatively: the rhythm of the long legs, the angle of the arms. Usually Charles moved deliberately, in constant self-constraint. But now agitation had introduced an appealing complexity. Had Charles ever dabbled in homosexuality?
With his back turned, Charles stood at the window. Was he brooding? Inwardly raving?
Inwardly quaking?
They’d been here for almost an hour, talking about it. Before Charles came, he’d taken mescaline, for perspective. Mescaline, and a single glass of white wine, a judiciously conceived prescription. It calmed him, gave him height, balance, detachment. As if he’d been a third party to the negotiations, not a partner in the planning, he’d seen himself from beyond himself. And yet, small miracle, he’d seemed to see Charles from within, privy to the other man’s innermost thoughts. Then other images had intruded: slab-sided monsters, gargoyles with centaur bodies. Sometimes their voices came from far away, delicate as wind chimes. Sometimes the blare was so blatant that words were lost, leaving only sounds: trapped beasts, enraged. They were—
Words from Charles:
“… want to know,” Charles was saying, “is whether you told her about the other thing. Did you tell her?” Charles was facing him now. As always, Charles wore a dark formal suit.
The other thing …
Originally it had been the thing. Singular. But now, with the decision made, the thing was the other thing. Meaning that the new thing would be called simply the thing.
Two things, after tonight. No longer one thing. Simple addition, one thing plus one thing. Two things now.
Could he have computed it without the mescaline? Could …?
Charles was speaking again. “I want to know whether you told her.”
His own voice was indistinct, hardly more than an echo, answering. But what had he answered? The words were blurred.
“So you did tell her.” Advancing on him, the slim, elegant figure took on bulk as it came closer. Was it time to mention money?
More words, mumbled. Bumble mumble, a childhood phrase.
Ah, the memories. Mumbling. Bumbling.
They were close now, close enough to touch. The other man’s figure was changing, now larger, now smaller. Only the eyes remained the same, those dark, dead eyes.
“I knew you told her. I knew it.”
More words, answering. His voice. His words. Deflecting. Protesting. Then: “Tonight. It’ll happen tonight. It’ll be the same. Just the same.”
Yes …
But had he actually said it, actually pronounced the word?
Or was it another echo from childhood?
Mumble bumble.
3:30 P.M. Meredith pulled the parka’s collar up, dug her chin into a woolen scarf, and lengthened her stride. The raw February wind blew in gusts up from the west slopes of Russian Hill, funneling between the apartment buildings and town houses. Even though the rain threatened to return, she felt better for having gotten out of the flat, free from the temptations of daytime TV. Except that if she was honest with herself, she would admit that the clock had freed her, not willpower. At three o’clock, the soaps were finished; children’s programming had begun.
She was approaching the corner of Hyde and Union. It was here that she made her decision. She could walk down the Union Street hill to Polk Street, where she could shop, then have coffee. No, have coffee and then shop, so that she wouldn’t have to juggle parcels and sacks in the coffeeshop.
Or she could walk straight ahead, passing by the small playground at Hyde and Broadway.
She decided to let the traffic light make the decision for her, and followed the green light across the intersection, south on Hyde Street.
The playground was just ahead. It was a small urban playground. No grass, no real trees. Only concrete and redwood chips, only swings and a slide and a teeter-totter and a complicated jungle gym and a round sandbox with a concrete rim. From the morning’s rain, the sand was dark and wet. Except for a man and a small child, the playground was deserted. In the cold, raw, sunless weather, the child, a boy, was bundled up so thoroughly that his arms extended out from his sides, like the Michelin tire man. A brightly tasseled stocking cap was pulled down low across the boy’s eyes. His nose and ears were pink. The father wore hiking boots, jeans, and a down jacket. He was a tall man, slightly stooped, about thirty-five. A recognizable San Francisco type: medium-long dark hair, a full mustache, rimmed glasses that made a statement: consciously not aviator-trendy, therefore emblems of intellectual independence. His face was seamed, probably beyond his years. The effect was Lincolnesque. Craggy. Heathcliff, on the moors. On closer examination his jacket, too, made a with-it statement: L. L. Bean, or Abercrombie’s, or Eddie Bauer. Playing the guess-what-he-does game, she picked a high school teacher, or perhaps a playwright, just breaking in. Or he could be an artist. Or else a house husband, yet another yuppie spin-off.
Or he could be a widower. Or divorced.
She entered the playground and sat on a bench at a right angle to the bench occupied by the man with the intriguing face. If she regarded his child with interest, the man would probably speak to her. It was built in, an absolute certainty. And if she encouraged him, mentioned that she often walked this way on weekday afternoons, anything could happen. They could fall in love, live together, even get married. The little boy would love her. She would be redeemed.
In another life—another time—it could all happen.
But in this life—her life—there were two choices. She could walk away—or she could die.
Even a flirtation, he’d told her, would be “serious.” An affair meant certain death.
He’d said it like that, in those exact words. But his manner, his voice, had been mild, merely a mocking monotone.
They’d been in bed when he said it. Sated, she’d been half asleep, dozing. He’d been rambling on. She’d learned to expect it, his habit of talking after sex: long, complicated monologues. Sometimes she listened, sometimes she didn’t. Sometimes, while he talked, she thought about her things. Different things. Expensive things.
In those first days, first weeks, those first months—they spent two days a week,
at least, shopping. Sometimes they shopped for household items—sometimes for a car. Or an apartment. Or jewelry. Or paintings. Or books. Or clothes. And when they weren’t shopping, they were making plans to shop.
Another child, a girl, came into the playground. The girl, too, was bundled up. She was blond and wore Mickey Mouse ears. Her mother sat on the same bench with the man, with perhaps five feet separating them.
In earlier years, in her teens, she used to lie in bed during the night and imagine what her life would be like. She would, of course, marry. It was inconceivable that she wouldn’t marry. Because she had no experience beyond San Francisco and the Sunset District, she’d always imagined that she would live there—in a house similar to her parents’ house but better. Her husband would work in an office. What kind of an office was unclear, but the distinction was important. Her father worked with his hands—his dirty, callused, brutal hands. So her husband would work in an office, with clean hands.
And, of course, they would have children. Two children, first a boy, for her husband, then a girl, for her.
For a moment she focused her attention on the two small children, both of them playing on the jungle gym, beginning to pay attention to each other. But, as if they were tethered, her thoughts turned back on themselves, remembering how it had started.
It began, really, with her clothes. He’d come to her old apartment one morning, unannounced. As if he were an appraiser, he’d gone from room to room, closet to closet. He’d hardly spoken, but his conclusions were clear. The next day they’d gone shopping for clothes. Because he was paying, she couldn’t object to his choices. He consulted with hairstylists and beauticians. When she moved to the condo, she left everything behind: her furniture, her old clothes, her prints, most of her books, even her cosmetics. He had the condo decorated. The Mercedes was a birthday present. The whole process—her transformation from herself to someone she hardly recognized, even in the mirror—took less than three months.
As the externals of her life changed, so did her erotic life. But it had been a slow, insidious change, almost as if the ideas were hers, not his. He never demanded, he merely suggested. She’d once read a long article on brainwashing. The expert practitioner, the article said, didn’t raise his voice, didn’t bully, didn’t harass. The expert worked slowly, subtly, all according to a meticulously calculated plan, one brick carefully placed on another brick until the wall was completed, and there was no escape.
And that’s how it happened to her. She hadn’t realized the wall was completed until she was trapped.
She’d met him at one of his parties. He’d hardly seemed to notice her, and she’d felt ill at ease, talking to him. But a week later he’d called. And a week after that they’d gone out to dinner. She’d felt uncomfortable, never quite sure she was saying the right thing.
So she’d been surprised when he’d called again, and again. Their first dates were always the same. He’d pick her up outside her apartment building and take her to an expensive restaurant. Then he’d take her home, drop her at the apartment house door. He didn’t suggest that she ask him up, and she hadn’t offered. Secretly she’d felt he was laughing at her.
Then he’d called to ask her to one of his parties—a fête, he’d called it. He’d told her to come by cab, and to bring a nightgown and toiletries and a change of clothing, since she’d be staying overnight.
She’d wished that she’d had someone she could confide in, someone to ask for advice. But there’d been no one, really. Until the last moment, with her finger poised to touch-tone the phone for a cab, she hadn’t been able to decide whether to go to the party. Except that, really, she’d known she would go.
During that party, her second at his house, he’d hardly paid her more attention than he had at the first party. He’d simply sat enthroned, watching his guests perform. Finally, in the wee hours, she went up to him, told him she was tired—and a little drunk—and she wanted to go home.
“But you’re staying,” he’d said. Adding condescendingly, “Don’t you remember?” Then he’d taken her to her room, and given her a key, and said good night. And then he’d kissed her, the first time he’d done it, the first time his flesh had touched her flesh.
She’d locked her door, and lain in the bed, and thought about the kiss. And in that moment, it had begun. In her head, it had begun.
From the first, she’d had her suspicions. The word was “misanthrope,” dimly remembered from high school, a man who hates everyone.
Then she’d learned the other word: “misogynist,” a man who hates women.
There were other words, too. Sadism. Sadomasochism.
It had begun subtly, sensuously. He’d been patient. Persistent, yes, but always patient. And perceptive, too. Diabolically perceptive. Sometimes it seemed that he could sense her moods and her wishes before she was aware of them.
“You’re my work of art,” he’d once whispered.
But Pygmalion’s Galatea had been created out of love.
She’d been created out of hate.
At first, he hardly touched her. Sometimes he would only look at her, as if she were a model and he was a painter, experimenting with poses. When he touched her, arranging the poses, it was only with his fingertips, so lightly that she began to crave more. When they finally made love, it was as if they were experimenting with one more pose.
And, yes, the first time they’d done it, she’d wanted more. Everything had been planned to make her want more. She knew that now. Too late, she’d learned.
At first it had been exciting: a world she’d only imagined, only read about. Money, she learned, made a difference. She’d been raised to worry about money; there was never quite enough. But for him, people like him, money was meant for self-gratification, for the acquisition of possessions.
Possessions like her.
Across the playground, the little boy and the little girl were at the swings. The woman and the man were pushing their children. Gentle, measured pushes calculated to excite but not to frighten.
Gary had once said he wanted children. Or, rather, a child. But by that time she’d realized that their marriage would never work. It had taken her years to get out of the marriage—long, agonizing, destructive years. Desolate years.
Yet those years—seven years with a cruel, self-centered, sadistic husband—had been merely preparation for the last two years. Merely a warmup.
It started about three months after they’d first made love: actual, physical, male-and-female love. It started with props. “Enhancements,” he called them. Just as he’d done in the beginning, he’d made the change slowly, subtly. He’d made it seem as if they both wanted something new, not just him. Slowly the props had become more elaborate, more important.
And finally there’d been the camera.
And the camera had done it. Completed the circle, closed off all escape. All along, it had been the camera. For him, the camera was what it was all about—the camera, the videotapes. He didn’t get off playing sex games. He got off watching himself.
It was then that she began to draw back. Immediately he’d sensed what she was thinking. It was eerie, how he could do it. They’d been lying in bed. They hadn’t spoken for some time. Then he said, “You can’t do it, you know. I won’t let you leave.”
And then, speaking quietly, with perfect self-control, he told her about Tina Betts. “My last duchess,” he’d said, ironically mocking. “She tried to leave me …”
He’d hesitated, for dramatic effect. Then, still speaking very softly: “And she died.”
Now the man in the down jacket and the woman were extricating their children from the swings. The children returned to the jungle gym and began climbing. The little girl was agile, adventurous. The boy was more cautious. The woman and the man were returning to their bench. They were walking together, smiling, quietly talking. As she watched them, the two young parents and the two little children, she felt raindrops on her face.
My last duchess …
It was, she knew, the title of a poem, one she might have read in high school.
And she died …
Tina Betts had died.
“I wanted to tell you,” he’d said, “so that we’d be bound together. You understand that, don’t you?” A pause. Then: “You can’t leave me now. Because I can’t let you leave. Do you see?”
4:15 P.M. Charles watched the clerk complete the rent-a-car form and present it to him. She was a young Chicano with a bad complexion and stubby, ugly hands. In another decade, some said, Chicanos would total a third of California’s population. People like her, this dull, inferior creature with the thick accent, could tip the electoral balance.
He initialed the agreement, signed it, retrieved his credit card and driver’s license.
It was a risk, to rent a car. But it was an acceptable risk. Actually, on balance, he was minimizing the risk, not magnifying it. This was planning, not execution.
As the clerk passed him the key, she smiled. “It’s a white Tempo,” she said, simpering. “Enjoy.”
She was flirting with him, incredible but true. An overweight, pimply-faced Chicano with grotesquely arranged hair, actually flirting with him.
5:15 P.M. Charles turned the Tempo right, then left. Through the rain-streaked windshield, the headlights revealed a rutted two-lane graveled road that paralleled John F. Kennedy Drive, Golden Gate Park’s main thoroughfare. It was a service road that ran along the southern perimeter of the park’s polo field and riding stables. Thick, head-high brush grew on either side of the road. Because of the rain and the low-lying clouds, the sky was almost completely dark.
As dark as it would be later, when he came this way again.
Slowing the car until it was hardly moving, he switched off the headlights—as he would do later. He’d already selected the place, just around the next turn in the road, easily identifiable by the angle of the stables, just ahead.
Next time he would traverse the entire length of the narrow gravel track without lights—just as he would later. And when he’d done that, he would be prepared. All the variables would have been anticipated.
A Death Before Dying (The Lt. Hastings Mysteries) Page 6