"Mrs. Z was in the building when I burned it. There wasn't any way to get her out." And then, when I didn't react: "Don't you hear me, Geof? She got burned up."
She spoke in a monotone, tired and subdued, as if recounting some ordinary little fact.
"Poor Mrs. Z-she's just cinders now," she added wistfully.
"Sounds like a very bad dream," I said, all my denial mechanisms running flat out.
"Prettier to think so, isn't it?" She settled back, stared at the ceiling.
"She double-crossed me. I had to see her. I had to protect myself. Then … things got out of hand." She paused again.
"Starting that fire-I thought it would be difficult. But it wasn't. It wasn't hard at all."
I couldn't think of anything to say to that, so I stayed silent. Then, to make the time pass, I looked around the room. It had the sorrowful quality of most motel roomsschmaltzy framed prints on the walls, ruffled lampshades and other mawkish touches meant to make it seem like home, but which, because they spoke of the anonymity of the person who had chosen them, made me long for my Manhattan loft.
She turned to me.
"Don't you want to know why, eoffrey?"
"Sure. Tell me why," I said quietly.
She started to speak, then caught her breath; perhaps she feared the effect of what she was about to say. When she finally spoke it was in a rapid stream, as if blurting it out, like removing a bandage fast, would somehow hurt me less.
"I lied to you in Key West. Rakoubian told the truth. The blackmail was my idea. Except it wasn't. He just thought it was. I brought it to him-that much was true. But the original idea came from Mrs. Z."
The room started to feel cold.
"She came to me after Sonya was killed, said we could backmail Darling and make a fortune. That all we needed were some photographs and for that we could use Rakoubian. She told me to propose the idea to him without telling him she was part of it. I did. I even helped him set up his camera in the changing room. Mrs. Z gave me the keys. Now the poor creep's dead and he never knew she was behind it all."
"And the 'cover photographer-who was behind that?" I asked, suddenly on a knife's edge between fury and helplessness.
"Oh, Geof, believe me: Rakoubian thought that up on his own. I swear to you, Geoffrey, I didn't know. I . had absolutely nothing to do with that."
I got out of bed, went to the bathroom, knelt on the tiles in front of the toilet and began to heave. I wanted to throw up. When nothing came, I moved to the sink and splashed cold water on my face.
Later I stood against the bathroom door and studied her. Our sheet covered her to her waist; she was bare above. Her hands were linked behind her head, her hair splayed on the pillow. The spaces beneath her arms were dark. I couldn't see her eyes.
"You do believe me, don't you, Geoffrey?"
I shook my head.
"I swear!"
"You swore to me before."
She looked up at the ceiling.
"That was in Key West."
For a moment I didn't know what she was talking about. Then I thought I did.
"Oh, I get it. Everything you said down there was false. But that doesn't matter because Key West is-what? A liar's paradise? Is that what you want to say?"
She didn't answer, just continued staring at the ceiling. I watched her awhile longer, waiting for her to speak. When she didn't, I broke the silence.
"I take pictures of you. We talk, sleep together, make love. But for all of that, after all these weeks, I have no idea who you are."
She shrugged.
"I'm just a girl you met who got you shooting people again."
"Yeah. An ordinary girl."
"Go ahead, mock me. But I want you to know-"
"What?"
"Know me, Geoffrey."
Ilaughed.
"What's the matter?"
"Everything," I said.
We'd left New York the day she burned down the building, traveling under assumed names. I'd flown to Dallas on one airline, she to St. Louis on another. We'd each spent the night in our respective city of transit, then continued to Albuquerque, where we'd met that morning at the airport. We'd rented a car, eaten lunch at the Sanitary Tortilla Factory, then had driven up to Santa Fe.
Frank had been adamant: the three of us must not be seen together. So Kim and I had cruised Cerrillos Road looking for a suitable motel. We chose the Seek And Ye Shall Find because of its pink-and-white facade, and because the name appealed to Kim-it was, she said, pretty much the story of her life.
What was that life? What had she been seeking? And what had she managed to find? What was she seeking now from me? That's what I wanted to know.
She'd told me so many different stories I couldn't keep them straight. At least one of them, I figured, had to be true. But then, I thought, that might not necessarily be the case. Perhaps all of them were lies,
I was thinking about that, and what I was going to do about her, when finally she began to speak, in a strange emphatic way I'd never heard her use before.
"She thought up the whole thing, brought me into it. Then, when the crunch came, she chickened out. Maybe she thought Darling would find out she was the blackmailer. Maybe he accused her, so she had to give him proof that he was wrong. Whatever the reason, she switched sides. Didn't say anything, just switched. One day I was her dear accomplice, next I was good as dead. She sold me out to save her ass. Only reason she let me get away was she knew I'd tell Darling the whole rotten scheme was hers."
"Yeah, Kim. But the bottom line is she didn't kill you, did she?"
She shook her head furiously.
"She would have! She lured Shadow to be killed. That was the night I ran to you. And you were there for me, Geoffrey! You were the only one I could trust. Now, isn't it funny? You don't trust me at all. Even now, now, while I'm telling you the real truth, you don't believe a word I say. Not a solitary word."
"Is there a difference?" I asked. She stared at me confused. "Between the truth and the 'real truth'-is that a distinction I should know about?"
"All you do is mock me, Geoffrey."
"Want me to feel sorry for you?"
"That's not what I want!"
"What do you want?" "I want you to believe me! I want you to love me!" I retreated back into the bathroom, sat down on the edge of the tub. Oh, Christ, I thought. Jesus Christ!
Later, sitting in the motel-room easy chair, feet stretched out on the matching ottoman, I tried to get her story straight. Kim faced me, attentive, straight-backed and cross-legged on the bed, her perfect bared breasts thrust forward, harbingers that she would speak the naked truth.
"Now, let's see if I've got this right," I said.
"First, Mrs. Z doublecrossed Darling." She nodded. ,,Then the two of you set up Rakoubian."
She nodded again.
"Then he got the idea on his own to make me look like the blackmail photographer."
"So far you've got it right."
"Then Mrs. Z got scared and double-crossed you. She lured in Shadow and turned her over to Darling. Under torture, Shadow inadvertently pinpointed me. So they came after me, thinking I'd taken the photographs."
"Couldn't tell it better myself."
"Meantime, after you and I got back together, you decided to take revenge. But before you got around to it Rakoubian was killed, because you told Mrs. Z he was the real blackmail photographer."
She shook her head.
"She already knew that. It was Darling who didn't know. You told him when you ambushed him on the street."
"So I signed Rakoubian's death warrant-is that what you think?"
She thought about it for a moment.
"I suppose you did . . . in a sense."
Yeah. In a sense.
"Which brings us," I said, "to the night before last, when you slipped out after I fell asleep. was it your idea you were going to send Mrs. Z a message?"
"Not send her a message, Geoffrey. She was going to be,the message."
'You went there to burn her?"
She looked appalled.
"Absolutely not! All I wanted to do was turn her around, make her see things our way. Also I wanted my extortion confession back. It was a loose end. I didn't feel comfortable with it floating around. "
"And then?"
"Like I told you-things got out of hand."
"Out of hand! You're incredible! You burn an old lady to death, and you talk about it like it was just some freak accident or something, like you were at a dinner party and by mistake you spilled some wine on the damask!" Her eyes closed down to slits.
"Old lady! That's what you think she was? She was evil, Geoffrey-totally evil. She was a witch. You've got to burn a witch!"
She told me what happened. When she called Mrs. Z,
after she discovered Rakoubian had been killed, her old acting coach begged to see her. That morning the cops had come around asking about Sonya, and a little while later Darling had called her in a rage. My ambush had gotten to him; he wasn't used to being on the receiving end. Then the Duquaynes called, and they were the final straw. Everything was falling apart.
So Kim told her, sure, they could probably work something out, she'd stop by to see her later on. She didn't say when, just suggested Mrs. Z leave the key to her back door beneath a garbage can in the alley, and sometime in the night she'd drop in.
"I woke up around three o'clock. You were snoring away." She smiled.
"Guess all our lovemaking wore you out. You looked adorable in your sleep. Adorable. . . ." She giggled.
"Anyway, I got up, dressed, taxied downtown, found the key, crept in and took the elevator up. She was waiting for me in her bedroom. I sat down on the bed and we talked.
'You double-crossed me,' I told her calmly. 'The whole thing was your idea, then you sold me out." 'But I had to, my dear,' she said. 'You don't know Arnold. He's ruthless when he's angry. It was me or you. I chose myself. You would have done the same."
"She wasn't humble or scared the way she'd been on the phone. No, she was haughty and arrogant. She said the time had come for the two of us to make peace, and that we could still do a deal if I was interested. She said Darling was furious because of what you'd done to him that morning. All his fury was now focused on you, Geoffrey. You! There was only one way I could set things right, and that was to betray you. If I did that the slate would be clean. Darling would relent. I'd be off the hook." She glanced at me.
"You look skeptical."
"I guess I am," I said.
"Don't you want to hear what she wanted me to do?"
"Sure. Tell me," I said.
"You speak so casually, Geoffrey. It's as if you don't believe anything I say." I didn't know what to believe, but I was curious.
"Why don't you tell me," I said.
"Then I'll let you know if I believe you or not."
She nodded.
"I was to bring you around in the morning to a certain address. Darling's people would be waiting for you there. I wouldn't have to come in. I only had to deliver you to the door. They'd snatch you right inside." She turned and stared at me, directly into my eyes.
"they were going to blind you, Geoffrey. Hold 'you down, then slowly drop acid into your eyes. Drop by drop, and Darling was going to watch them do it. He was going to stand over you with a camera and take photographs of the whole thing. Pictures of your pain, your fright. That's what he was going to do, Geoffrey. That would be his revenge!"
I started to shudder. My pulse began to race. All the terror came back to me from the night the boy had come and thrown the lye. I didn't think then about whether she was telling the truth. All I could think about was blindness. A little bottle of acid in someone's hand. The liquid moving slowly to the bottle's lip. The first drop trembling slightly, reluctant to depart the glass. Then falling, falling slowly toward me. Darling leering. The flash of his strobe. I shut my eyes to make the vision disappear. And Kimberly talked on.
"The moment she said that I went into a fury. I picked up this coffee thermos she kept beside her bed, and brought it right down on her head. When she went limp, I turned her on her belly and looked around for something to tie her with. There was a coil of rope we used for our bondage scenes. I knew just where it was. I ran and fetched it, and then I tied her up."
She paused as if to catch her breath.
"That was the weird part, Geoffrey. I'd never touched her before. In class she always had us touching each other, but she always kept aloof. So there I was, handling her, tying knots around her limbs, and doing that got me excited, like finally I had this power over her-I was in control.
"When I had her hog-tied, I went to the kitchen and found the varnish remover. She woke up while I was pouring it around. 'Going to burn me, Kimberly?" 'Yeah, you got it, Mrs. Z!" I said."
Kim rolled her head across the pillow, as if she were suffering some sort of delirium.
"She started blubbering, begging me to spare her. But I felt no pity, none at all. I couldn't forget how she'd played solitaire while Sonya's bones were being broken. And the way she'd smiled when she'd showed me the video of Shadow being tortured.
,, 'No deals,' I said, 'it's your turn now." I smacked her again, untied her, and started all these fires around the room. I stayed until the flames caught the bedding, then waited across the street until the fire engines came. I left when I heard a fireman say the smoke was so thick he couldn't check if anyone was trapped."
She stopped rolling her head.
"I hurried back to our hotel. I remember I sang to myself in the shower there, just an old song to help me forget. But I was glad I'd done it. And I haven't regretted it since. I figured that since killing Rakoubian had been their message to us, killing Mrs. Z would make a good message back. And it turns out I was right too. Darling heard us loud and clear."
I must have looked at her strangely then, because she smiled back.
"Yeah, I've talked to him, Geoffrey. I phoned him from St. Louis last night. Told him to get his ass out here, and don't forget the cash. Told him if he didn't show day after tomorrow, the same thing was going to happen to him."
"Jesus! You called him! Where did you get his number?"
"Out of Mrs. Z's book before I lit the fires. I'm glad you weren't with me, Geoffrey. It wasn't pretty. Not at all. But like I said, maybe you have to burn a witch. Maybe that's the only way to get rid of one………
Her eyes closed not long afterwards, as if her act of confession had made it possible for her to sleep with impunity. But I lay awake beside her, more frightened than I'd been since the night of the lye attack. She was a killer. I'd seen joy in her eyes even as she'd admitted that. Now I was entangled with her. We were lovers and partners in a blackmail scheme. For all I knew, I might also be accessory to a murder. And more frightening than any of that was my conviction she had still not told me the entire truth.
A little before dawn I stole out of our room, took the car, and drove down to Galisteo. The house was quiet when I drove up, so I sat in one of the deck chairs in front and waited for the sun.
It rose out of the mountains, triumphant light, burnishing Mai's sculptures turning them into images of broken dinosaurs. By the time Frank sat down beside me I was starting to wonder if things were as bad as I'd thought.
He surprised me: he already knew Mrs. Z was dead.
"Kim phoned from St. Louis, told me everything. f told her to call Darling and what to say. After she spoke with him, she called me back and we talked for quite a while. "
"About what?"
"You, mostly, Geof. I told her she had to tell you the truth. Told her if she didn't, I probably would. She said she'd think about it. Thanked me for my advice."
I looked at him. His eyes were spectral, fracturing the rising sun. "I'm frightened of her, Frank."
"She's crazy about you."
"Is that what she says?" He didn't answer.
"What the hell am I going to do?"
"Wait till this is over, then
decide."
"Let's get the money first-right?"
"We're close now. You don't want to mess up the deal. "
"Two more people are dead, Frank."
"Two very bad people." He shook his head.
"Look, Geof, you didn't 'kill' Rakoubian. He was always going to get killed. As for Kim's little bonfire, if you look at it a certain way, it was a pure act, a justifiable act of revenge.
"Does that make it okay?"
"Maybe not 'okay." But human. Very human."
"You don't think she's a monster?"
"What's a monster? I don't think you have to be afraid of her, if that's what you mean."
I turned to him.
"Why wouldn't you see us yesterday? You didn't want to meet Kim. Why?"
"I'll meet her eventually."
"But not now. This idea the three of us can't be seen together-that's bullshit." He shrugged.
"Why?" He didn't answer.
"Don't you trust me, Frank?"
"Course I trust you. And now I want you to trust me. Sometimes, in this kind of an operation, it's better to keep a few things compartmentalized."
I didn't quarrel with him, but I was upset, which is why, when he urged me to stay for breakfast, I turned him down. Also, I wasn't in the mood to face Mai and the kids. Our parting was cool when I left to drive back to Santa Fe.
In our room at the Seek And Ye Shall Find, I found Kim breathing heavily, evidently asleep. When I got into bed she reached out for me, then molded herself against my flank.
I don't know how long I slept or what I dreamt about; I remember only that I was awakened by a harshly ringing phone. Groping for it, my eyes still closed, I could feel she was no longer in the bed.
"It's Frank. I'm at the studio."
I opened my eyes. Kim was gone. The room was filled with blinding light. I looked at my watch-it was almost one in the afternoon. Kim probably woke up, saw I was sleeping, then walked down to the Plaza to shop, I thought.
"What's up?" I asked Frank. "Developments. I think you should come over here."
"Developments?"
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