Color Him Dead

by Charles Runyon

  He pulled on his shorts and shirt and shoved the gun in his pocket. Aware that it could be a trap, he approached the house through the screening grass, half-expecting to see Doxie. But there was only the household staff—Lena, Meline, Charles and Ti-cock—forming a tense knot at the foot of the stairs. His stomach turned over: Something’s happened to Edith….

  Charles ran forward as Drew approached. “The madame has a man in her room.”

  Feeling a cold, inexplicable rage, Drew hurried up the stairs and hammered on her door. “Edith. Who’s in there?”

  Edith gave a soft laugh. A male voice said: “Vayase. Somos ocupados.”

  Drew rammed his shoulder against the door but it was barred. He looked down at the wide-eyed group at the foot of the stairs.

  “Who’s got a key?”

  Lena answered: “I had one ‘sieur, but yesterday she taking it from me.”

  Yesterday. So she had planned in advance. How long in advance? Maybe she had been using Drew, playing him along so they’d watch Drew instead of this other man….

  How does it feel, Simmons, to wear the horns yourself?

  He walked down the stairs, feeling a dry ache in his throat. “Anybody know who he is?”

  It was Charles who explained. The cook had awakened early to prepare breakfast for the servants, and had heard a man’s voice from upstairs. She had awakened Charles, who had listened at the door and realized the voice was neither Ian’s nor Drew’s. He had then discovered the dinghy tied up at the jetty. It’s name, La Sirena, matched that of the Venezuelan yacht anchored in the channel.

  The news that a casual passerby shared Edith’s bedroom did nothing to help Drew’s peace of mind. He tried to ignore the bitterness; had he expected Edith to stop being Edith?

  “Can’t Ti-cock break in and throw him out?”

  “The man is white, ‘Sieur.”

  So … it was Drew’s job. The faces before him were relaxed now, even pleasurably excited at the prospect of a show.

  Drew raised his eyes to the twelve-foot-high balcony. “Charles, tell Ti-cock to boost me up.”

  A moment later Drew felt his knees caught in an excruciating grip. He soared upward, gripped the railing and kicked as a signal to free his legs. When the pressure was gone, he swung his good leg up and caught his heel on the railing, pulling himself over. He’d left his crutch behind, and every move was complicated by his bad leg. He made a circuit of the balcony and found all doors locked, all drapes closed. He heard occasional laughter and low-voiced conversation in Spanish. He wondered if Edith remembered that she’d learned the language in Spain, the year after the murder. Probably not.

  He chose the west door because it was nearest the bed. Wrapping his shirt around his fist, he drew back to smash out a pane. Then he stopped. No, take them by surprise….

  He backed to the railing, caught a deep breath, and lunged. His shoulder struck the juncture of the two doors; glass shattered, wood splintered, and Drew was rolling on the floor, tangled in the heavy drape. He ripped it away and got to his knees; the bed was empty. On the couch a single shadow divided and became two.

  “Qué quiéres?” asked the man, jumping to his feet. He wore white clamdiggers and a red knit shirt. He was big and barrelchested, with black sideburns spearing into the hollows of his cheeks.

  Behind him, Edith rose slowly, her hand over her mouth. Her Chinese trousers gaped white along her hip, and the embroidered jacket was half-way open. There was nothing beneath it but Edith.

  Drew saw a sheet of red fire with the Venezuelan’s bull-necked features in the center. He leaped forward, but a stone-hard fist smashed into his chest and knocked him backward on the bed. He came up again, and hardly felt the glancing blow on his cheekbone. For now he was inside those heavy arms; his left hand gripped the red shirt to hold himself erect while his right fist jabbed the other’s face. He heard a low, sustained snarl, and realized it came from his own throat. His fist rose and fell without conscious direction, and Drew watched the man’s features change with a part of himself that seemed detached and disinterested. The long nose acquired a hump in the center and became a red gushing fountain. An eye puffed out and closed; a gap appeared in the right cheek, revealing a red-flecked bone. Drew became aware that they were on the floor and his fist was striking with a greasy smacking sound; hands were pulling at his shoulders, and Edith’s voice was saying:

  “Seright, please! Don’t kill him!”

  He rose to his knees and looked at the man. The face was a red mask, and bubbles of blood flecked his lips. He turned to Edith who knelt beside him, her lipstick forming a red smear around her mouth.

  “You slut.”

  She gasped. “You don’t really think I—”

  He slapped her without warning; he wasn’t aware of his act until he saw Edith sprawl backward onto the floor. She stared at him, holding her hand to her cheek.

  “Won’t you listen to me?”

  A knock sounded at the door and Charles called: “ ‘Sieur?”

  Drew turned to Edith. “Get in the bathroom.”

  She got to her feet, her face heavy and sullen. The glass in the bathroom door rattled as she slammed it. Drew hopped to the door and admitted Charles, with Ti-cock behind him. He pointed to the groaning Venezuelan.

  “Dunk him in the sea and put him in his dinghy. He can make it back to his yacht.”

  Charles bent his head. “Yes, ‘sieur.”

  Ti-cock gathered the man in his arms and carried him out like a baby. As Charles started past, Drew tapped him on the shoulder. “When you report this to Barrington, tell him it happened because you were watching the wrong man. Got it?”

  Charles bent nearly double. “I tell him, ‘sieur.”

  Drew heard the shower running in Edith’s bathroom. He went downstairs and used the tap behind the bar to wash the man’s blood off his face and chest. There was a puffed soreness beneath his left eye and an ache in his sternum, but nothing serious. He retrieved his crutch, went back upstairs and tapped on the bathroom door.

  “Edith?”

  The shower stopped, but there was no answer. Drew took a deep breath.

  “Edith, I shouldn’t have hit you. You’ve got a right to sleep with anyone—”

  “Seright, you idiot!“ Her voice was choked and muffled behind the door. “Couldn’t you tell nothing happened? Both of us dressed—”

  “You had time to dress after I knocked.”

  “Oh, be logical. Why was Sergio so reluctant to leave? A man doesn’t fight for what he’s already had. He’d been here for two hours, and he figured he was almost over the goal line. If you’d taken a good look you’d have seen the snaps were torn off my jacket. I didn’t do it. My God, my arms were so tired you almost walked in on a different scene.”

  Drew leaned back against the wall, frowning. “Why didn’t you let me in when I knocked?”

  “I had to make it look real. I did it for us.”

  “Could you say that last part again, slowly?”

  “I did it to divert suspicion from you. Why did Charles watch us? Because Ian didn’t trust you. So I thought I’d show him that I … I wasn’t being kept happy on the island. Logical?”

  “Well …” Drew wished he could see her face. Her voice sounded sincere, and felt an aching urge to believe her.

  He heard the sputter of an outboard. He went to the balcony and watched the Venezuelan leave the jetty, hunched in the rear of his dinghy. Then came the deep-throated roar of the launch. It left the dinghy wallowing in its wake and headed for the passage leading to the capital. Ti-cock was at the wheel, and Charles looked like a child in the seat beside him.

  He returned to the bathroom. “Ti-cock and Charles have gone to tell de massa.”

  Edith gave a delighted squeal. “Seright, it worked!”

  Drew smiled at her shadow through the opaque glass of the door. Let her believe it if she wanted to. “Yes,” he said. “Thanks to poor Sergio.”

  “Poor Sergio indeed! You
want to see my bruises?”

  “All right.”

  He turned the knob and pushed open the door. The air was still warm and misty from the shower, but he was aware only of Edith, standing on a furry, ankle-deep mat beside the tub. The red light of the rising sun splintered on a frosted window above her head, reflected off the pink-tiled walls, and enveloped her nude body in a rosy glow.

  “Are you going to close the door?”

  And in his mind the sentence continued: “… Or do we make it public?“ He felt a weakness in his legs; he swayed and gripped the doorknob for support.

  “Seright, what’s wrong?” She came toward him. “Did he hurt you?”

  “No, listen—” His voice was a tight rasp. “You’ve still got two servants to worry about. We’ll go out to the rock.”

  “Yes.”

  “Take the dinghy, sunbathing stuff. I’ll swim out.”

  “Can you?”

  “It’s only a half-mile.”

  She put her hand on his shoulder and pressed her lips softly against his. His nose filled with the aroma of perfumed soap. A damp, curling softness brushed his thigh; a breast touched his chest in a feathery caress which burned like fire. He felt the weakness returning and pushed her gently away. She looked up at him, her lips curving in a smile.

  “Don’t wear yourself out in the water, darling. I’ll be waiting."

  He crawled from the sea, his breath ragged in his throat. Edith lay on the mounded black beach wearing her white shorts and red halter. Her eyes were hidden by a pair of harlequin sunglasses. She didn’t move as he took off his face-mask and snorkel. He’d worn both fins today, and although he’d swum better, his bad leg now felt as though a red-hot railroad spike were imbedded in the ankle. He untied the canvas bag from his belt and carried it behind a jutting boulder. Taking the gun from the bag, he scooped a shallow hole in the sand, checked the gun’s waterproof covering, and dropped it into the hole. He covered it, then returned to Edith.

  She didn’t move as he knelt beside her. There was a smear of white cream on her nose and forehead; her legs, stomach and arms glowed faintly with suntan lotion. Her breasts flowed outward, weighting the halter on either side of her chest. He watched her stomach rise and fall with her breathing, noticing the line of soft, downy hair which started just below her navel and disappeared beneath the band of her shorts. He caught it between his thumb and forefinger and tugged gently.

  “Oh—!” She clapped her hand to her stomach and raised her head. “Oh, it’s you.”

  “It could have been a wandering fisherman. Then what?”

  She sank back with a half-smile. “Lucky fisherman. Or don’t you think so?”

  “I do. But I doubt if Sergio would agree.”

  “Don’t worry about Sergio. He got his kicks.”

  His palm cracked on her thigh.

  “Ouch!” She sat up, rubbing the spot. “I only meant he’s the kind of guy who gets more fun out of talking than … the thing itself. He’ll milk the story for years, about how he had me on my knees begging him, when suddenly three men rushed in and pulled him off.”

  “That’s not much fishier than the rest of your story. I don’t see how you got him up to your room.”

  “Oh, that was easy.” She lit a cigarette and spoke through the smoke. “In the afternoon I sometimes sunbathe nude on the balcony. I was getting settled on my mat when I saw the yacht. This athletic character was up in the rigging with a spyglass big enough to count my freckles. I figured he deserved whatever he got, so I invited him up.”

  “That’s what stops me, the method of communication. What did you do, just wave your panties?”

  She laughed. “Never occured to me. I used a mirror. Flashed out the message in International Morse Code which I learned from a skipper we had on our yacht. This was in the afternoon. I told him I’d signal with a flashlight when it was safe to come in. I wanted to tell you about it first, but you didn’t show up. So … around midnight he starts signaling, getting more and more impatient. Finally I had to let him come or lose the chance.” She stretched luxuriously and wet her lips with her tongue. “Did you by chance deposit something in liquid form behind that rock?”

  He gave a start. “I didn’t think you heard me.”

  She laughed. “You couldn’t sneak up on a deaf mute, Seright. I heard you whooshing through that tube, like a jet taking off.”

  He rose and got the plastic bag from behind the rock. He sat down beside her and lifted out the rum bottle. “Rum, syrup, nutmeg and lime juice. A rum punch, already fixed. Also a tin of bully beef and some crackers.”

  “Great minds. I brought some roast beef and rolls. I told Meline not to expect me back for lunch.”

  “And I told Leta I’d be diving until late afternoon.”

  “Leta?” She gave him a sidelong look. “That’s the name of your black girl?”

  “She isn’t black.”

  “Sorry,” she said stiffly. She reached for the bottle and started unscrewing the cap. “I suppose you didn’t bring any cups?”

  “We’re roughing it. Take it from the jug.”

  She shrugged and tipped the bottle high. He counted the bubbles: One … two … three…. At the count of ten she lowered the bottle and held it out. Her eyes glistened with tears and her voice was hoarse: “Here, my lips are pure.”

  With an inner shock he realized that she had used almost the same words the first day they had met. He studied her a moment, wondering if she might be teasing him. But her face showed only the beginning flush of the rum. He tried to remember what else had been said so long ago, but recalled only that a kiss had followed. He set the bottle aside and pulled gently on her hand. She came into his arms with a boneless resilience, her eyes half-closed. Her lips tasted of rum and nutmeg. Only the brand of liquor had changed, he thought. A strange fatigue seemed to settle on his shoulders; he would find no surprises, no great lift of joy, no revelation, no addition to experience. All was repetition….

  Her tongue darted between his lips and made a fleeting circuit around the inside of his mouth. His interest reawakened, he stretched back his hand and ran it up the inside of her leg. He touched the stiff fabric of her shorts and, with a brutal roughness which surprised him, dug his fingers beneath it. He half-expected her to stop him as before, but she didn’t. Instead she shifted her position in some mysterious manner and the portal opened, giving his hand all the world to move in. He knew at the first touch that her passion was not counterfeit, only a little too schooled and artful. She was afire.

  Her lips moved against his. “Seright, I just remembered the tower.”

  Groaning, he rose on stiff legs and crawled up the rock. The low sun drove spears of light through rose-fringed clouds, giving the tower a color of weathered brick. It was empty; the only person he saw was Leta, fishing with a hand-line from the rocks below the shack. Guiltily, he realized she was trying to catch his supper.

  When he returned, Edith was sitting with her knees drawn up inside the circle of her arms. There was a remoteness in her eyes which set off an alarm in his mind.

  “All clear,” he said, dropping down beside her. When she said nothing he reached out and pinched her bicep. “Psst. I’m back.”

  She turned suddenly, her face perplexed. “What’s the matter with me, Seright? I feel very strange … scared or something. Look.”

  He looked at her arms; they were covered with goose pimples.

  “What are you afraid of?”

  “I don’t know. It makes me angry at myself. I know … this isn’t the first time I’ve kept this sort of date, but I have this terrible premonition. It’s … like ice in my blood.” She shivered. “Be patient with me. Undress me and … do it. Don’t pay any attention to what I say or do. Just … go ahead and love me. I feel like I’m going to crack up.”

  He reached behind her, untied the halter, and pulled it toward him, off her arms. She looked lovely with the gaudy morning draped behind her. The tips of her breasts caught and
intensified the pale pink of the clouds. He felt the blood hammer against his temples; he bent forward and cupped a breast in his hand; touched his lips to it and felt the tiny kernel grow beneath his tongue. Gently he pushed her back on the black sand; she lay with her eyes closed, looking shy and virginal. He unzipped her shorts, hooked his fingers beneath the band, and waited until she raised her hips. He didn’t look at her as he lifted her legs one after the other and pulled the shorts off her feet. Then he kicked off his own shorts and turned back to her. He was surprised to see that she’d squeezed her legs tightly together. There was a small triangle where they met, like black sand in an hourglass when the hour is almost gone.

  A kiss now, he thought. She isn’t ready….

  But then he remembered that their first time had been a harsh and violent affair verging on combat. He put his knee between her knees and moved above her. Hesitantly the portal opened. He felt the touch of intimate flesh, felt the almost fiery heat envelop him. It was too hot; it was almost painful. Then the inside of her thighs turned hard and rigid, resisting him. He stopped, and her thighs relaxed. He moved, and the resistance came again. He tried twice more, and each time his movement triggered her resistance reaction. It was no good, no good at all, his control was slipping away.

  “Edith, relax!”

  “No, please … no.”

  “What’s wrong, Edith?”

  Her eyes flew wide and staring. “Who are you?”

  “Don’t you know?”

  Her resistance ceased to be passive. She twisted beneath him and arched her back, trying to close him out. But it was too late for that; he had neither strength to stop, nor strength to wait. He reached back with both hands, seized her legs beneath the knees, and lifted them, forcing the tight gate open, thrusting forward until some wall at the end of the passage blocked him from further progress. Then he let go of his control, feeling no joy, but only a great relief as the spasm shook him like a fever chill and left him—

  —Emptied, he tried to withdraw.