Bad Desire

by Devon, Gary;

  One of the men beside him said quietly, “Easy, Henry, take it easy. You’re only making things worse.”

  I’ve got to be careful, he thought. Play it safe—one part shock, one part grief. He nodded his head. This pretense was grim work; he was now a thoroughly pale and shaken man. “I’ve got to go there,” he muttered. “I’ve got to get out there.”

  “I’ve arranged for a police escort,” Abigail said. “They’ll be here any second.” Around him was deep silence; he was surrounded by a sea of horrified, uncomprehending faces. He could tell that the men had heard it all, which, of course, was exactly how he had imagined it happening. The word that Faith Slater had been killed by a bomb had spilled throughout the meeting room. Even more important, the men accepted the grave reality of yet another bombing without a trace of suspicion; if there was any sentiment in the air, it was one of hopeless pity for a man who bravely continued to cling to hope.

  The air of urgency and tension increased with the arrival of the police. Guards came in. Slater saw two uniformed policemen enter the room and take up places inside the door. Through the now-crowded doorway, he glimpsed men with cameras—the press had arrived. As expected.

  He was suddenly up on his feet. He wanted to seem as if he were dazed, a little lost. He continued to act as though he couldn’t absorb the news. His two colleagues, who’d left minutes before, returned with further information. “Henry, don’t try to go out there. Traffic’s backed up both ways, and they’re having a hell of a time getting emergency crews through. The coroner had to take a helicopter—and there’s a stiff head wind off those cliffs. The pilot says he won’t do it again.”

  Slater shook his head; all he said was, “I’ve got to.”

  “But there’s nothing you can do.”

  Abigail said, “I’d like to come with you, Mr. Slater, if you don’t mind. You shouldn’t be alone at a time like this.” With a nod he indicated his acceptance. He saw one of the policemen approaching to escort him out, and he took up his briefcase and moved forward through the hushed room.

  Quickly, they went out, Abigail at his side, patrolmen front and back, a sergeant in the lead. Slater could feel the tension in the patrolmen. Aware of the barrage of flashbulbs, Slater lowered his head and put his arm out as though to fend them off. “Clear the area,” the officer called. “Clear the area.” The five of them were riding down in the elevator and moving out through the lobby.

  The day was flowing like a mighty river, carrying him with it. The course he had set for himself could not be altered, and it seemed to him that it would go on forever. He told himself the worst of it was over. They were outside, getting into the second of the three waiting patrol cars. Slater climbed in the backseat, where the windows were covered with heavy-duty mesh wire. “Where’s my car,” he asked, as if in a daze.

  “Don’t concern yourself, Mayor. We’ll have one of the men bring it out to your house.”

  Church bells rang, a loud jubilation that horrified him. From the backseat, he handed his car key to the officer in charge. It was a beautiful day, still soft and warm, the sky so blue it seemed purple, a smell of orchids in the air.

  “You all right, Mr. Slater?” asked the patrolman behind the wheel.

  “Let’s go,” he said and the three cars moved forward, red lights twirling, sirens signaling their departure. Along the route, silent policemen waved them on. Slater looked back and saw two police cruisers now following along behind. Here and there, small crowds gathered—there were more people now, filling up the sidewalks as though they’d been expecting him. Among them he glimpsed a girl wearing shorts—long, beautiful legs. He thought for a moment it was Sheila, but he couldn’t see her face. Sheila.

  And Abigail was talking to him, telling him he shouldn’t be going out there. “Mr. Slater, the car’s in a ravine about seventy-five feet down the side of the cliff. They can’t get to—can’t do anything until they bring the car up. It could take all day. Besides I wonder if she would want you to see her this way.”

  He waited an appropriate amount of time before answering her. “All right,” he said weakly. “Then take me home. I’ll wait there. But will you go back to the office and take the calls?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  A small crowd of sightseers and a camera crew were waiting at the end of Slater’s driveway by the time the patrolman waved the motorcade through. He allowed Abigail to hug him before he stumbled from the patrol car. “Are you sure you don’t want me to stay with you?” she asked, handing him his briefcase.

  “No,” he said. “I just want to be by myself.”

  Slater could smell decay of leaves—a resiny, sweet rottenness—as he crossed the brick driveway, went up the walk. Head bowed, he stepped up to the veranda. Then he heard what he had been waiting for—the sound of the patrol car pulling away. He could hear the telephone ringing behind the front door as he unlocked it. Safe. I’m safe. Inside, he kicked the door shut and flipped the lock.

  The gloom at the front of the house was relieved by light pouring in from the back balconies. Seeing that a second patrol car was now parked at the far end of his drive to keep the crowd back, Slater pulled the drapes closed on the large front windows.

  How do I look? he wondered.

  He moved to the long pier glass and stared at his face. Okay, okay. Despite the pretense of grief, he hadn’t changed at all. His gray eyes were thoughtful, serious, his eyebrows brooded forbiddingly. He told himself that he’d been under a tremendous strain. Now all that would end.

  He took off his suit jacket and threw it over the back of a chair. He unbuttoned his cuffs, rolled his sleeves and cleared his throat, “Anybody here?” he called. No one answered. Sheila? But no: he knew she had gone out for the day. Still, Sheila and the evening to come lingered in his thoughts.

  All at once, the telephone rang again. The noise ran jarringly through the silent rooms. Christ, he said to himself and shuddered. It’s enough to give you heart failure. He didn’t want to deal with all the condolences, not yet, anyhow. Slater let it ring until it stopped, then he turned on the answering machine.

  His feeling of liberation was enormous. He felt at ease and unburdened, expansive, benign. The silence enveloped him. He pulled off his tie and threw it on the sofa. The peacefulness of the house, the fulfillment of a lifetime. It’s over, he thought, I’ve done it! This is my life now … the life I created. For you, Sheila. For you.

  He went to the recessed bookshelves at the end of the room and pushed the spine of David Copperfield. The hydraulics wheezed while the bar rose and arranged itself before him. On the third finger of his left hand, in place of a wedding band, he wore the expensive, square-cut diamond ring. It gave off brilliant splinters of light. With his right-hand fingers, he gave the ring a few twists for good luck.

  With his fingertips, he pushed the side panel and his secret cash drawer sprang open. From inside it, he removed two airline tickets to Rio. While pouring himself a stiff Scotch, he looked them over and put them back. He drank quickly, gulping it down as if it were water, and took a deep breath. “Damn that’s good,” he said and poured another, taking it with him to the master bedroom.

  Before he did anything else, he closed the blinds on the front-facing windows and opened the sliding glass doors to the back balcony, savoring the breezes that washed over him. Air the damned place out, he thought. He stepped outside and looked down for perhaps the last time, because as soon as this matter was cleared away, he would be getting the hell out of here. He saw the hills and trees and the city below, but the view paled next to what he was feeling. He started to laugh and couldn’t stop. Coming back inside, he placed his wallet on the dresser, his cigarettes and lighter and loose change, and sat down on the bed and laughed and laughed. It had been like nothing in this world. He knew he could do anything now, anything at all.

  Slater clicked on the remote of the giant TV set and ran through the local channels with their minicam reports from the scene of the bombing. A mi
lling crowd had gathered at the site—one of the cameras had zoomed in on two Mexican women with crucifixes, heads bowed in prayer. Slater leaned back on the bed and stretched out his legs. What a relief. He fished a cigarette from the pack and lit it. He laughed until there were tears in his eyes. Good, he thought. Good! Except for the formalities, it was behind him now.

  Smoking the cigarette and drinking his Scotch, he watched the telecast. Slightly out of focus in the background, behind the announcer, Slater could see the two wreckers with their steel cables, still trying to recover Faith’s Mazda from the side of the cliff. But it hadn’t been brought up yet. He switched channels and turned the volume up.

  “… interrupt our normally scheduled programing to bring you this special report,” said the announcer at the news desk. “It now appears that a car driven by Mrs. Henry Lee Slater, wife of the mayor of Rio Del Palmos, has been the latest target of a terrorist bombing. We are awaiting news of Mrs. Slater’s condition at this time. Mayor Slater has been taken home, devastated with grief …”

  Again Slater changed channels. “… it may be another twenty minutes before they’re able to bring the vehicle up. But we repeat, please stay tuned for further developments …”

  That’ll come next, he thought. The morgue. I’ll have to go to the damned morgue.

  Humming to himself, he took off his shirt, then his shoes and socks. He stepped out of his trousers and hung them up. Turning the volume up so the news could be heard from the bathroom, he shed his shorts and got into a hot shower. With clouds of steam coming up around him, Slater forgot his disappointments, his problems, his fears. He was happy—happier than he had ever imagined possible. How had he lived without her? he wondered. How had he possibly lived before this beautiful girl came to him, before her body keened so perfectly to his? He remembered how languid her eyes became after they made love, how she ran her hands up through her hair, its long champagne strands streaming through her fingers.

  As soon as Slater was out of the shower, he finished his drink and wrapped in a towel, went to the living room for another. He roamed barefoot through the house, his own territory, utterly free.

  When that was gone, he filled his glass with ice, broke open a new bottle of Johnnie Walker Black and took the bottle, the glass and the ice down the hall to the bedroom and the television.

  But what was this?

  The camera’s angle had revealed a sickening apparition—the road crew was bringing the battered red Mazda up over the ledge. Suddenly, he felt the chill of revulsion, of horror.

  “Jesus,” he gasped.

  He shouldn’t be seeing what he was seeing. No. With a shock of recognition he saw long blond hair dangling against the flame-red side of the Mazda. What’s this? he thought.

  What the hell is this?

  His heart was racing with such fright he felt it might explode in his chest.

  “Oh, Jesus!”

  The thing he saw was inconceivable: radiantly pale hair. But Faith has dark hair. It’s someone else, he thought. But who? No one had hair like that—no one but Sheila. Sheila? Something’s wrong with this, he told himself. There’s some kind of mistake.

  That part of his mind still in touch with the possibilities told him that the girl—whoever she was—was dead. Dead. He couldn’t believe it. Any of it. He grabbed up the remote control and began flicking through the stations two and three at a time.

  On the screen, Slater watched aghast as the battered rear end of the Mazda, dangling from the wrecker’s chain, shifted; the car jostled, the girl’s face lolled against the frame of the blasted window.

  “No—no, I didn’t, I couldn’t—” He felt a vast, delirious unreality. For an instant, he saw her lips rising to meet his, a memory of hallucinatory vividness, but ever-fading, an experience that melted before his eyes. He said it out loud, “Oh, Jesus God, it’s Sheila!”

  What was she doing? She shouldn’t be there. Bile flew to the back of his throat. It’s her! It’s Sheila! He said, “Oh, God! Oh, my God! I killed her! I killed her, too!”

  He didn’t know from one minute to the next where he was or what was happening. The announcer said, “The body has now been identified as that of Sheila M. Bonner, seventeen …”

  No.

  Slater grabbed the remote control and hit the buttons.

  “… the body of Sheila Bonner …”

  No!

  He changed the channels; he strained for one last glimpse of her.

  “… the victim is Sheila Bonner …”

  No! No! No!

  He hit the button faster and faster, always the chance that he might see her again lured him on, deeper and deeper. I killed her, too. Slater could feel the pain everywhere, even to the ends of his fingers. His will to happiness, his self-control, everything crumbled.

  All the voices were saying, “… the body of Sheila Bonner …”

  I killed her, too.

  He couldn’t get the sight of her lifeless face out of his mind.

  Suddenly he was sobbing. He heard the despairing cry that rose in his throat—the sound of devastation and of grief. He could no longer bear to watch; he reached out and hit the button and the large screen faded to black.

  Instantaneously, reflected on the black screen, a shape materialized before him.

  An insane terror ripped through his mind. He realized there had to be someone behind him, but he was too terrified to turn around. And the more he stared at its pale image, the less clear the outlines became—it was like staring into the sun. Summoning his strength, he slowly turned.

  Faith!

  Slater thought he might be going mad. It’s Faith! But how could it be?

  Framed against the shimmering sky, she stood there on the balcony straight and pale and slender, her cold fanatical eyes boring into him. Had she been here all along? Her hair had slipped free of its austere arrangement, it streamed over the whiteness of her face. Her slim arms hung at her sides—a statue carved of flesh.

  Faith.

  A deep, dead cold spread through him. There was no thought, only the massive shock in the gut. He leaned back against the wall, closed his eyes and tried to grip his nerves back into control. The room seemed too small for the both of them. He saw that she wore bracelets, and with her every step, the sound of them, like the clatter of bones, grated viciously on his nerves.

  He saw her coming for him, straight as a slab, bloodless, ghostly, she seemed. But Slater couldn’t move. She seemed furious, capable of anything, and at the same time, fearful of him, almost in tears. Her mouth was trembling so much she couldn’t speak. He stepped back in horror.

  Slater had never before lost consciousness in his life—not from drink, not from a blow—but he thought he might be going to now. His legs doubled up under him. Everything became a sickening whirl of ice-colored silver light.

  Her face looked hard and parched as bone. “You killed her,” she said. She sounded delirious with hatred. “But you didn’t mean it to be her, did you, god damn you! You meant it to be me.”

  He recoiled, trying to back away from her, but he was against the wall. The hand he held out to defend himself could not stop the force of the words. “You didn’t know I picked her up before I stopped at Mama Emilia’s, did you? I went to get empanadas for us. I was coming back to the car when it blew up.” He started to sob again, his hands covering his eyes. “No, Henry, I want you to listen to this.” She grabbed his hands away from his face. “You’ve got to hear what you did. I wish I could make you feel what it was like, Henry—to see her die!”

  And he knew what had happened to Sheila out there. “I left her in the car,” Faith said, “while I went inside. You did it! You did it! You killed her!”

  Every word was like a nail in him.

  “And you meant it to be me.”

  Slater wept. He heaved for breath; tears ran silently down his face.

  Faith got up and straightened her clothes. “Don’t stay down there, Henry,” she said, at last. “Come, I’ll hel
p you up.”

  He rose like someone in a trance, only realizing what he had done after he had taken her hand.

  She had him steady on his feet. “Don’t worry,” she said. “Everything’s under control. I won’t tell anyone.” She opened the bedroom door and led him through it, her voice calm. “I’ll take care of you.”

  Music was coming from somewhere. Faith was leading him down the hallway toward the dining room. He was coming around slowly.

  “You want romance,” she said, and Slater could smell something cooking.

  At the end of the hall, at the end of all he could see, the walls of the dining room shimmered with a fiery amber light, a light that gleamed from their china and silver and crystal.

  “I’ll give you romance,” she said.

  Then he saw the lighted candles. She had fixed lunch. Had she been expecting guests?

  “When you’re alone … the magic moonlight dies. At break of dawn … there is no sunrise … when your lover has gone.”

  Sinatra.

  He turned his head toward the closed study door, where the music was coming from. It was unimaginable that Faith was expecting guests, so why had she set out the silver?

  “… like faded flowers … life can’t mean anything …” Faith moved close and put her arm around his waist. And through his numbness and despair, he heard her say, “I loved you, Henry, God knows why.” Then in a flash of comprehension, he understood. She hadn’t been expecting anyone but him.

  He looked around at her and there were tears gathered in her eyes, tears that rolled down her cheeks. “Henry, Henry, did you hate me so much?”

  Suddenly the spell was broken. And here it was, his uncontrollable hatred, his threat. She could see it in his eyes.

  “No,” she told him. “No, my darling, never again. You won’t ever do those things again.”

  The fire went out of him. And he looked around, at the table set for two, at the shut door through which the music came, and from his depths, he said, “My God, Faith, what’ve you done to me?”