by Devon, Gary;
She smelled of the rain; he was conscious of drops glistening in her white-gold hair. “Have you been outside?”
“Just for a breath of air,” she said, a secret, delicious smile lurked at the corners of her mouth.
He held her, feeling the urgent pressure of wanting her. She was close after weeks of waiting, but he knew the ritual, knew he would have to let her go. He could feel the heat emanating from her skin, her breath upon his face, her faint perfume. She had kept him perched on the keen edge of desire too long. She drew back and looked into his eyes. Her lips were close; he could smell the rose petal fragrance of her lipstick. The dim light stole down her cheek and along the line of her chin. She swayed gently against him.
He wanted her. She was fully a woman now, vibrant and sexy. He bent his head and whispered it in her ear; she put her head on his shoulder. In the very air they breathed, there was a feeling of exaltation. Slater loved her body—it was so vulnerable, so open to him. He loved her willful sexuality. He wanted desperately to clutch her to him and kiss her lovely red mouth—but he couldn’t risk it. He drew back. Undoubtedly someone would see and he knew he would regret it afterward. Their love had never seemed so frail or so terribly important. They were close to freedom now, closer than they had ever been before. “Meet me,” he said.
“I don’t know,” she whispered. “I shouldn’t.”
“Meet me, Sheila,” he said again. “You’ve got to.”
He could feel her give over to his embrace for a long, dangerous moment. “Henry,” she whispered urgently, her eyes seeking his, “do you still think you love me?”
“Yes.”
“Then, say it,” she murmured. “Say you love me. Tell me, tell me.”
And he did as she asked. “Meet me,” he pleaded.
“I don’t know. When?”
“Monday. Monday evening.”
“Where?” she said. “What time?” And he told her.
She didn’t stay any longer than she had to; with a smile she made her promise and broke from his arms swiftly and shyly. I can’t lose you, he thought.
He and Faith left the party at eleven-fifteen and Sheila stayed behind with several of her friends. This time, driving back, it wasn’t just adrenaline that burned through his veins but a slow, seething anger at himself. How could he have grown so slack, how could he not have known? He who had always planned for everything with such fastidious attention. He looked at his wife. Silence hung between them like a strange truce.
The house was lit by a single living room lamp. The door latch made a little click as it closed. Here at last, here alone at last, he did not try to touch her. Faith yawned and plucked off her earrings.
“Aren’t you coming, Henry?” she said, going to the bedroom.
He turned off the light, as he did every evening, and went down the hall behind her. Sitting on the edge of the bed, he began to get undressed.
When Faith came from her dressing room, her leg slipped through the overlap of her nightgown and he saw her white thigh, her skin starved for the sun. The thought of lying down beside her utterly repelled him.
At midnight, Slater was in his den, wide awake. Sheila still hadn’t come home. But even if she had, he didn’t dare talk to her. That would have to wait until next week. He was drinking straight from the bottle now, savoring his rage, his mind going back to Faith, again and again.
He watched the drizzling beads of rain trickle down the window-panes. Like the drops of rain caught in Sheila’s hair when they danced. I can’t turn back now, he thought. I’ve come too far. He couldn’t afford to take even the slightest risk of Faith telling what she knew.
But it would have to happen in such a way that she had no fear, no warning.
36
“Morning, Mr. Slater. Fill it with premium?”
“Fine,” Slater said. He got out of the Cadillac, took off his suit jacket and rolled up his sleeves. “Tiny, how long would it take to get an oil change and a lube?”
The mechanic squinted at him from the gas pump. “I could squeeze you in—probably in fifteen minutes or so.”
“Sounds good. Got anything I can drive?”
“How long would you be, Mr. Slater?”
“Maybe half an hour, forty-five minutes.”
“You can always use the shop van—if you don’t care what you’re seen drivin’.”
“That’s all right,” Slater said, “I’ll try to be back by ten.”
“Take your time.”
Half a block from the St. Pius Catholic Church, he pulled up to the curb in the borrowed van and waited. It was 9:18 on Monday. Hardly five minutes had elapsed when Faith drove past him in the red Mazda. He watched her get out of the car and enter the chancery.
When she came back outside, Slater noted the time: 9:22. Faith was accompanied, not by Father Vasquez, but by a younger priest, one Slater didn’t recognize. Impatiently, drumming his fingers on the steering wheel, he watched while the two of them spoke on the church steps; then, all at once, Faith was getting into her car and driving away. It was precisely 9:25.
He let her go through the next intersection, waited for a car to pass and then, shifting gears, he followed her in the borrowed van, staying back, giving her plenty of room. With the rear of her car in sight, he determined the exact route she took. Every Friday and Monday morning. Then he let her go.
The next day, at noon, while Faith was attending a luncheon, Slater followed the route she had taken again, this time with a stopwatch. Starting at the Catholic church, going past the high school and out toward the beaches, he moved through the city, matching her previous day’s movements turn for turn, up into the higher altitudes of the old coastal highway. When he reached the parking lot of Mama Emilia’s restaurant and souvenir shop, he pulled in and hit the plunger on the stopwatch. 10.4 minutes. And that was allowing for traffic and stoplights. This would be the perfect place. He would have to allow another thirty seconds or so for her to drive beyond the restaurant, and then, that would be that. Altogether she would have twelve, twelve and a half minutes to live after leaving the church.
The white Karmann Ghia convertible sat half-hidden off one of the trails to Blue Mountain Lodge. Slater pulled up behind it and stopped. He remembered riding in the car with her; he remembered giving it to her and the long night that had followed. Sheila had been out walking; he saw her coming toward him through the trees.
She was wearing blue jeans and a man’s white shirt. “I’d begun to think you really didn’t want to see me … and this weekend I’ve got to go back to live with Mrs. Sanders,” she said. “I wanted so much to talk to you again after that night at the picnic, but …” Sheila hesitated, then cleared her throat. “I guess I might as well tell you—I dream about being with you,” she admitted, “almost every night.” She looked away from him, as if her revelation had made her self-conscious.
“I dream about you, too,” he said, never for a moment taking his eyes from her face. Here was his Sheila, restored to him at last. “What would you say if I asked you to go away with me somewhere? To come live with me and leave all this behind?”
She smiled. “Oh, you asked me that before,” she said. “I never know when you’re kidding—especially after that night at the picnic. Would you still want me to?”
“I want you to forget about that night. Of course, I want you to.”
“But where would we go?”
Her presence made him reckless, heady. “I was thinking about Mexico. Or Rio.”
“I don’t know. I’ve never been to any place like that before. What am I going to be—your mistress? I can’t do that.”
“No, no … I …”
“What, then?”
“Let me finish … that’s not what I’m asking you to do, Sheila … nothing like that. I was thinking we should get married; God, I swear I’ll marry you.”
“You don’t mean it.”
He was mesmerized by the pulse in the hollow of her throat. “Yes,” he said, “I mea
n it.” Now there could be no possibility of turning back.
“But how could we? I’m not old enough. And besides, Henry, you’re already married.”
“We’ll get married there … in Rio. No one will give a damn down there.”
“But what about Faith?” she asked, flushing. “I love you, Henry, but how could I do that to Faith? She’s my friend.” Her slender shoulders were braced. The blood rushed into her face. “Oh, I want you to marry me. I want it. But I can’t stand to think about it.”
“I do nothing but think about it,” he said.
“But what about Faith?”
“I just thought if I were ever free,” he said. “Would you go away with me? Would you? Or not? I’ve got to know right now.”
“Well—yes, yes, I would.” She looked at him and tried to smile. “If you were free. But you’re not free. It’s impossible.”
“I just wanted to hear you say it. You would go away with me then?”
Sheila smiled. “Henry, I love you more than anyone. You know that.”
“I know,” he said. “I know these things are dangerous. I know they’re only thoughts and nothing can come of them. But I am so selfish … I want to spoil you as if you were the only girl in the world.”
Slater touched her shoulder and the touch was electric. He wanted to devour her but instead his lips found hers in gentle kiss, and yet when he tried to draw away, it was Sheila who held on. Her mouth was pressed to his, hard and full, her lips parted—he could taste their succulence. She was hot and damp from the heat, her body under the white shirt firm and yielding to his touch. “Oh, Henry …” she gasped between kisses. It came upon her, overriding everything else, how much she loved him, how she could never feel his kisses without responding helplessly, that her passion for him was still very much alive.
“Don’t leave me,” he said simply. “Stay here with me tonight at the lodge. I want you to.”
“I can’t,” she said, finally.
“Why?”
“I told you, Henry. You know why. Things are different now. There’s Faith.”
Then she was gone.
Saturday passed.
It was Sunday night, in the middle of the night, and Faith was sound asleep when Slater left the master bedroom. In the garage, he opened the trunk of the Cadillac and removed from the hollow in the spare tire, a parcel containing two sticks of dynamite and a remote-control device. Using the 150-watt shop light, he slid under Faith’s red Mazda and attached the explosives to the floor of the car with soft malleable wire.
37
“Luisa, when you’re through picking up here,” Faith said, “you can have the day to yourself, if you’d like. I won’t be back for lunch and we’ll be going out to dinner this evening. The only thing I ask is that you stop by and see if Mrs. Reeves needs anything.”
“Yes, Mrs. Slater.”
Gathering up her bag and notebook, Faith left the house. Seconds later, she backed the red Mazda out of the garage and sped down the brick driveway. It was 9:20 on Monday.
On the sixth floor of City Hall, the small square window stood open, rotated to its full axis, and through it, the lenses of Slater’s binoculars scanned the city. Slowly, he tilted the glasses upward, sweeping over the roofs of houses until, in the deep distance, he fastened upon the sleek red blur of the Mazda making its way into town. Right on time, he thought.
Faith came to a stop and proceeded across the intersection. At 9:26, he watched the small red car idle in front of the St. Pius chancery while a large basket of what appeared to be clean laundry was loaded into the trunk. Scarcely a minute later, the car pulled away and vanished from sight in the dense foliage that lined the streets.
Slater started the stopwatch. Now, he would have a twelve-minute wait before the car reached the high, curving altitudes of the old coastal highway. The door to his private washroom was locked; the water in the sink was running to mask any incidental noise. He dampened the end of a towel in the cold water, wrung it out and wiped his face, all the time listening for even the slightest movement outside his door. But there was nothing. He glanced at the stopwatch. Nine and a half minutes remained. Putting the towel on the rack, he waited. When there were three minutes remaining, he took up the transmitter with its small black button and leveled it out the opened window. And waited. The red Mazda, shooting toward incandescence, was nowhere in sight, as planned.
Faith didn’t know if she saved any time by taking the shortcut through Marengo Park, but it always seemed like it and she was trying to be prompt with her errands this morning. When she came to the intersection of Park and Logan Avenue and turned the corner, she thought all was lost. A backhoe was digging out one entire section of the street. “Oh, no,” she groaned, slapping the steering wheel and casting about for some means of escape. Faith might have been delayed indefinitely if the policeman on duty hadn’t recognized her and motioned her around the yellow barricades.
She was zipping past the high school when, to her surprise, she saw Sheila walking across the lawn with half a dozen of her friends, and she braked behind the white Karmann Ghia. “Sheila!” she called, “Sheila, over here!”
“Oh, hi, Faith!” Sheila shouted, waving good-bye to the other girls. She jogged to the side of the car. “We just got out of cheerleading practice. You know, we’ve got our first game in a couple weeks.”
“You must’ve gotten out early. I thought you said you’d be tied up until noon.”
“Yeah, but I’ve got to come back this evening,” Sheila said. “So what’re you doing here?”
“Just running some things out to the resettlement camp. Want to come along?” Faith scooped up an armful of things from the passenger seat and dumped them into the rear.
“But—what about my car?”
“Oh, leave it. We’ll pick it up later.”
As soon as Sheila had closed the gleaming red door behind her, the Mazda whipped onto the street. Faith looked around at her and smiled. “I’m glad you decided to come,” she said. They drove past the sign that read TO ELLINGTON BEACH and then made a right-hand turn onto the coastal highway, heading north. “I always take the old highway,” Faith told her. “There’s a place you’ve got to see.”
Slater tried to ignore the slow passage of time. He waited, poised at the small window of his private bathroom. She’s got to be up there by now, he thought. The minutes continued to fall away on the stopwatch. There were two minutes left. One—
I can’t do this. I can’t do it again. He lost his nerve. He let the needle sweep past its mark, his hands sweating and unsteady. It still wasn’t too late, not yet. He put the transmitter down and wiped his hands on the towel and took it up again. He was thirty-five seconds past the time he’d set for himself. Forty-five seconds. It was getting away from him.
Now. It had to be now.
Slater hit the button.
Far in the hills to the north, he saw the blinding splinter of light. It was followed immediately by a small, white puff of smoke that marked the sky and then, like vapor, disappeared.
It was done. In seconds, it was over.
The red Mazda and his wife were no more.
Thirty-five minutes had passed and still he heard nothing.
The conference room grew more crowded. The opening and closing of briefcases, the shuffling of papers, the incessant salutations and clearing of throats—it had subsided to an even, low-level hum. Slater couldn’t look at his watch, for fear of someone noticing. He found it almost unbearable to sit quietly and wait—to wait for the news to arrive. No matter how absurd it was or how careful he had been, he always half-expected the police to appear at any second to place him under arrest. This morning would be yet another test of will, of poise. Just get through it, he kept thinking, then everything will take care of itself. He studied the edge of the notebook opened before him and slowly went over in his mind every move he would have to make.
The meeting got under way. Childers, the county commissioner, launched in
to his report. His words, his obvious concern for the problems of the city, were irrelevant to Slater. It was as if, now that he had done what had to be done, everything else had been reduced to triviality. But he couldn’t let down his guard. He knew that his performance had only begun; that his life depended on how persuasive he could be.
Several minutes had gone by when he heard the door open and Abigail’s rapid, secretive footsteps cross the room. Okay. Slater leaned his head toward her confidentially, as he always did in the presence of others. She put her hand on his shoulder and bent close, whispering, her lips nearly grazing his ear. “There’s been an accident,” she said. “Mr. Slater, it’s your wife; it’s her car.” He drew back, searching her face only a few inches above his own. Frowning, he muttered, “But she’s all right … isn’t she?” He felt strangely distanced from his secretary, as if he were soaring above the room.
“Oh … I don’t think they know for sure. You see—her car—it was another bomb.”
He opened his mouth to speak, but to anyone who saw him, he seemed unable to make a sound. Do this right, he thought. His face reflected waves of disbelief like a man drowning in deep water.
“A bomb?”
Overhearing him, two of the men at the table pushed back hesitantly, got up and left the room. Slater knew what they were doing. They would make calls and return with up-to-the-minute details.
Abigail’s hand still rested on his shoulder; her voice was beginning to break. “Oh, Mr. Slater,” she said, “oh, Mr. Slater.” He stood, fighting for balance, as if overwhelmed by the ominous news she was giving him about his wife.
Done. It was done! After a few seconds, he pretended to recover his voice. “But where did it happen?”
“She was on the old coastal highway. Very near the place called Mama Emilia’s.” Abigail gripped his shoulder in support. “Are you going to be all right?” she asked.
He nodded. Dizziness, he thought—he did, in fact, feel dizzy. “Yes,” he said, his voice rising, feigning outrage and grief, “but have we all gone out of our minds?” Even to him, his voice sounded like someone else’s, someone who was losing control. “But what … happened? How the hell could this happen?”