A Perfect Crime

by Peter Abrahams

  “I don’t like to lose. You know that.”

  “But I’ve never seen you look like that about it,” Nora said. “I’ve never seen you look like that about anything.”

  The words marshaled themselves in Francie’s mind: I’ve got something to tell you, Nora. But she didn’t voice them, couldn’t, not without making Nora her accomplice, or risking the loss of Nora’s friendship, or damaging Anne. Those were the three possibilities, none acceptable, the worst being damaging Anne, and therefore Em as well. Francie hadn’t done any damage yet, had to keep things that way for only a matter of hours more, had to put everything, resolved and unresolved, in a box and close it forever. So instead of I’ve got some thing to tell you, Nora, she replied, “There’s always a first time.”

  “And you do what you have to do, what goes around comes around, you get what you pay for. Are we going to talk in cliches from now on?”

  “You and I?” Francie said. But she saw it was possible, a possibility her mind squirmed from.

  “You and I. Something’s wrong, very wrong, and you’re not telling me.”

  “Nothing’s wrong.”

  “Bullshit,” Nora said. “Bullshit, bullshit, bullshit. Not only is something wrong, but it’s something you can’t handle by yourself.”

  Francie didn’t dare speak, knowing that nothing she said could be right.

  “Tell you what,” said Nora, sounding a little more gentle, as gentle as Francie had ever heard her, in fact, although most people would have called her tone crisp, “I’ll meet you somewhere after work. How’s five-thirty?”

  “I can’t.”

  “Why? It’s not Thursday.”

  “What do you mean, not Thursday?”

  “For months now you haven’t been available on Thursdays. I’m clumsy and slow, Francie, but I get there.”

  Francie almost spilled everything on the spot. What was left to spill? But she thought, No damage yet, and found a way out. “Now who’s the bullshitter, Nora? There’s nothing slow and clumsy about you, as you know. And this Thursday’s fine. I’ll meet you then.”

  A long pause, followed by: “You’re too smart for me. See you then, babycakes.”

  “Bye.”

  “B-oh my God, I’ve got it. Anne’s sick, isn’t she?”

  Francie held on to the phone.

  “Or-or you are.” Francie heard a strange new note in Nora’s voice, almost frantic. “Is that what those Thursdays are about, Francie, some kind of treatment?”

  “I’m not sick,” Francie said, but thought, Is there some thing wrong with me, after all?

  “It’s Anne, then.”

  “No.”

  “You don’t have cancer?”

  “No.”

  “Neither does she?”

  “No.”

  Nora laughed with relief. “So it can’t be that bad, can it? Whatever it is.”

  Francie was silent.

  “See you on Thursday, then,” Nora said. “How about Huitres?”

  “Somewhere else,” Francie said. “I’ll call you.”

  Francie left the lights off in her office. The world outside the windows grew darker. She did no work, just thought about what was to come. She would get to the cottage first, of course, as she always did, but would leave the woodstove unlit, wait for him in the kitchen with her coat on. Then, when he came in, she would stand and say, It’s over, Ned. Because of Anne it’s over. After that, whatever he said or tried to do, she would stick to that point: because of Anne. That was what couldn’t be rationalized, argued away, compromised. Just stick to it, Francie told herself, and stay out of the square little bedroom upstairs, whatever happens.

  But the thought of that little bedroom… her mind returned to it over and over-the brass bed, the comforter, what happened beneath. By three-thirty Francie had had enough: enough waiting, thinking, sitting still. She left the office, got her car from the parking garage, headed for New Hampshire.

  The first snowflakes fell as Francie crossed the state line, tiny ones, laceless and hard. She barely noticed them, was too busy trying to cap all the memories her mind boiled with-black kayaks, those dark eyes, his skin; too busy clinging to her mantra: It’s over, because of Anne it’s over. She was going to be early, earlier than she had ever been. Perhaps she would light the woodstove after all, wait for him beside it. Nothing wrong with lighting the woodstove, was there? It wasn’t necessary to sit in the cold, to fabricate symbolic expressions of her coming internal state. Everything could be normal tonight and she could still do her duty, as long as she didn’t go up to the little bedroom. Then, out of nowhere, her mind offered up an image that would keep her out of that bedroom. The image: Anne’s face, but the giant face of a two-stories-tall Anne, like a character in a children’s book, watching through the bedroom window from the outside. There was nothing scary about Anne’s face, but this image scared Francie just the same. She tried to blot it out and found it wouldn’t go away.

  Snow fell harder as Francie drove north, isolating her in a twilit cocoon, a strange cocoon that felt not the least protective. She was too preoccupied to notice the snow much, but she was very aware of the unprotected part.

  24

  At six-fifteen, precisely. Roger had been clear about the timing, clear about everything, going over and over the details until Whitey tuned out completely. He already had it all down pat in his mind anyway: the taxi, the receipts, the call from Rome, the hidden painting, the necessity for a cutting tool, a sharp one. Piece of cake. The only problem was Roger. Two things. First, it was now evident to Whitey that he was smarter than Roger. Second, after that toe-stepping bullshit, Roger couldn’t be trusted, not completely. Whitey kept juggling those two things in his mind. Not too bright, not too reliable. Not too bright, so maybe his plan could be improved. Not too reliable, so Whitey would have to make any improvements on his own. He didn’t grasp all that at once, but by the time his eyes opened Monday morning-Whitey waking slumped in the cab of his pickup in the parking lot of some suburban mall where he’d spent the night, running the engine for five or ten minutes every hour or so to keep warm-he had most of it.

  Whitey checked his watch: not even six, still dark, just over twelve hours to go. He climbed down out of the pickup, pissed against somebody’s tire, considered Roger’s plan. For one thing, he didn’t like the taxi part. He’d ridden taxis three or four times in his life and hadn’t been comfortable, not with that meter ticking away. And, despite Roger’s reassurance, why drag a witness into the picture, especially when he had the pickup? Funny, too, the pickup with REDEEMER now written on the side. Didn’t people redeem things from pawnshops, things like paintings? Whitey tried to tie it together into some sort of joke, and almost did. All that thinking before he even finished his piss! His mind was sharp today, speeding as fast as it ever had, maybe faster. He had barely zipped up and returned to the cab before he had another thought, connected to the pawnshop idea-and Christ! to get this picture of how his own mind was working, making connections, redeemer and pawnshop-how amazing was that?

  The pawnshop connection was this: How much was the garden painting worth? My garden, or oh my garden, or whatever the hell it was. Roger had never said anything about its value, just that it was part of a divorce dispute. But would anyone fight over something worthless? No. So the question was: How much? Whitey turned the key and goosed the engine a couple times, vroom- vroom. How much? A word almost came to mind, a word they used in war movies when some guy, usually the toughest, was sent ahead to check things out. The toughest guy, who just nodded and did whatever it took. Whitey put the pickup in gear and drove out of the mall parking lot.

  He made a few stops along the way. First, a pizza place for breakfast: deep dish with everything and an extralarge Pepsi. Second, and by now he was almost in New Hampshire, a hardware store for his supplies: a flashlight, batteries, and something sharp. He was still searching for the right sort of sharp something when a clerk approached.

  “What are you
lookin’to cut?” asked the clerk.

  Canvas. Painting canvas. But what was painting canvas, exactly? Whitey wasn’t sure. “Like cardboard,” he said. “Heavy-duty cardboard.”

  “Heavy-duty cardboard,” said the clerk, moving toward a bin. “This here should do you.”

  “What is it?”

  “Box cutter.”

  “Does it come any bigger?”

  “There’s this one.”

  “I’ll take it. And I need the receipt.”

  Third, a stripper’s bar for lunch. Whitey sat by himself at the back, had a beer, a Polish sausage, another beer. That Polish sausage was something, squirting in his mouth with all those spices. They didn’t serve food like that inside. The reminder of what he’d missed out on pissed him off a little and he ordered another beer-just the one, since he was on the job-plus a shot of bar whiskey, even though he could now afford better.

  The place was packed: smoke, noise, suits and ties, hairy hands stuffing money into garter belts. Red garter belts, because it was Christmas, and some of the girls wore Santa Claus hats as well, but that was all. He watched them jiggle around, rub themselves against brass poles, bend over. He got a hard-on, all right, but it didn’t last. The problem-and he could figure it out easily the way his mind was working today-was he could see right through everything. It was all a fake: those huge, hard tits, the way their hands went down and almost started going to work on themselves, but not quite, how they opened those lipstick mouths as though feeling pleasure while their eyes flickered here and there. They were pros and what he wanted were amateurs-amateur housewives, like the women in Rey’s video. He wanted to show one of those amateur housewives what he could do, to make her make those sounds for real. Women, amateur women, were helpless when they were making those sounds, and the dick was the tool that did it. Sue Savard should have given him the chance. There was a body, a real amateur body. Whitey got hard again recalling it, ordered another beer-and a shot. This really was the last; when the glasses were empty and the hard-on was gone, he paid his bill and went outside.

  Snow falling, just as he’d told Roger it would, falling hard, cleaning everything up, whitening the world. He’d always liked snow, now wondered for the first time-what a day he was having, mentally, and it had barely begun! — whether it had anything to do with his name. They’d called him Whitey because of his hair, of course, not because he liked snow, but maybe he liked the snow so much because of the name; identified with it, he thought, remembering a word the prison shrink used all the time. And right after remembering that word, he remembered another: reconnoiter, what the toughest guy did in the war movies. He wiped his windshield clear with the sleeve of his leather jacket, got in the pickup, drove on. Time to reconnoiter.

  Whitey came in sight of the Merrimack a couple hours ahead of schedule. That was one variation from the plan. No taxi was a second. And now came a third: Whitey didn’t cross the river, over to the side with the gate, the lane through the sloping meadow, the jetty, those frozen-in dinghies. He had his reasons. What sense did that sixfifteen precisely shit make when it would be dark long before then-soon, in fact? And what had Roger said about a Brinks truck? Wouldn’t be too smooth to run into that on the way in, would it? But the biggest reason was that Roger had stepped on his toe. No excuse for that, no forgiveness. He was a free man now, and much more, an administrative assistant, a professional. He had rights. And what he had in mind wouldn’t be difficult. He knew his way around these woods. Whitey recalled that Roger had asked him about that at the gator farm, almost in those same words: Know your way around the woods up there? Probably figured Whitey for this job at that very moment; maybe Roger was a little smarter than he’d thought. But not in Whitey’s league, especially not on a day like today. Following back roads on the east side of the river, Whitey sped north, fish-tailing around the curves. He knew the woods, and he was one hell of a driver.

  Snow fell harder. The plows gave up on the back roads and the traffic dwindled to nothing, except for Whitey in his pickup. When the time came, he didn’t even pull to the side to put on the chains, just stopped in the middle of the road and got them out of the truck bed. So quiet with the snow all around like cotton, he could hear his own pulse. He climbed back in the cab, switched on the radio, but couldn’t find the metal station they’d picked up in Roger’s car. The station had been playing Metallica, but not “Master of Puppets,” his all-time favorite Metallica song. He felt like hearing it now: Master of puppets I’m pulling your strings, twisting your mind and smashing your dreams. Pure poetry, but Whitey couldn’t find the station and kept going in silence.

  He spotted the island from the top of a rise. It looked different from this side of the river, wilder because the cottage was almost hidden from sight by those big trees and everything whiter even than yesterday, snow coating not just the branches and the roof but the trunks themselves, and the sides of the cottage. Whitey found a lookout two or three hundred yards farther on, drove to the end of it, his chains crunching on the unpacked snow. From this angle, on the edge of a steep incline leading down to the river, he had a view of the upstream end of the island, and beyond it the long sloping meadow on the other side. He saw no sign of a Brinks truck, or anything else; nothing moved except the snow, angling down now as the wind began to rise. Whitey turned up the heat.

  He watched the island, the unlit windows of the cottage, the smokeless air above the chimney. What were the details of the garden painting? Nothing to do with hockey, he recalled, but something about a girl in a miniskirt. Eating grapes, was that it? Sounded kind of interesting, just on its own, but the question, the big question, as Whitey saw it now, remained: How much?

  Snow. Supposing, Whitey thought, you were a Brinks truck driver, and you knew snow was on the way. Wouldn’t you try to beat the weather, make your delivery earlier, in the morning, say? Sure as shit you would. Meaning the painting was already there, and any tracks left on the lane through the meadow were wiped out, as was the lane itself. Whitey checked his watch: 4: 15, precisely. Precisely, you fucker. Roger would be waiting for him at the gate in a little more than two hours. Meanwhile snow was falling harder and harder, and now darkness was falling, too. Someone planning to cross the river would be smart to do it soon, while he could still see where he was going. There was no one around to see him in this storm, so the argument about waiting for darkness didn’t stand up anymore. Brinks truck, cover of darkness-no longer factors. Was there another reason for him not to go now? Whitey couldn’t think of one; at the same time, he could feel the key Roger had given him, an ordinary brass key, inside his pocket, waiting there against his thigh, pressing on his skin. Paintings could be worth millions. Millions: wouldn’t that be something? A garage full of cars-Benz, Porsche, the biggest goddamn pickup on the market-plus any woman he wanted. He could advertise for them, for Christ’s sake, and they’d come running with their tongues hanging out.

  Whitey clipped the flashlight to his belt and opened the door. All these reasons, all this back-and-forth, all this thinking, but it came down to one thing: he couldn’t wait to get inside. Back in action. Yes! He climbed out of the pickup, locked the door-no one around, but you never knew-and looked around for the easiest route down to the river, the easiest route down, but more important, the easiest route back up. Roger could sit by the gate on the other side all night if he wanted. Meanwhile, he’d be on his way to-to somewhere-with a milliondollar painting in his truck. The idea of it made Whitey laugh to himself a couple of times. He stopped laughing when he realized he’d almost forgotten the box cutter. Whitey unlocked the door and took it off the seat.

  Whitey started down, slipping and sliding on the snowy bank in his cowboy boots, grabbing at branches for support with one hand, holding the box cutter in the other, but never in danger of falling. He did know his way around the woods, and he’d always had great balance, had been up on skates at the age of two. As he walked across the river, plodded, really, sinking to the knees with every step,
snow getting inside his boots but not bothering him at all, he felt for the first time the full force of his freedom. He was a giant, could do anything-reach the island in a single bound, rip one of those trees right out of the earth, smash the cottage to bits with it. The song came to him again and he sang it as he went, the wind driving thick snowflakes right into his mouth. Master of puppets I’m pulling your strings, twisting your mind and smashing your dreams.

  Whitey walked onto the island. Moving under the shelter of those big trees, he heard a sharp hooting high above, glanced up, saw an owl making shivering motions, shaking the snow off its feathers. It stopped shivering as he watched, stared down at him with yellow eyes.

  Whitey stepped up to the porch through smooth, untrodden snow. He brushed more of it off the little round window set in the front door, put his face to the glass: a shadowy kitchen, everything gray except the half-full bottle of red wine on the table. No sound, no movement, no armed guards. Whitey took out the brass key, tried to put it into the lock. It wouldn’t go. He had a horrible moment, even began to hear that panicky buzz. Had Roger lied to him? But why? And worse, was it some kind of setup? He glanced around, saw no one, just snow swirling through the trees. Then, probably because his mind was working so well today, he solved the problem just like that, solved the problem by sticking the key in his mouth. Whitey gave it a good lick, tried again. The warm wet key slid right in. He turned it, opened the door, went inside. A little avalanche tumbled in after him; he closed the door as well as he could, without actually bothering to bend down and get rid of all the snow now packed in against the riser.

  Whitey looked around: a pine-smelling cottage, all polished and clean, the kind that belonged to rich people from the city. He picked up the bottle of wine. Chateau something: French. What had he had a shot of at Sue Savard’s? Gin. He pulled the cork with his teeth, took a hit. He’d only drunk wine once or twice, so long ago he didn’t remember the taste, just that he hadn’t liked it. He didn’t like it now. Maybe he’d get used to it. Rich people, the kind who owned million-dollar paintings, drank wine. He moved through the dining room, more quiet and careful than in the old days, around the corner to the living room, found the stairs. They rose up into darkness. Don’t turn on any lights. You’ll need a flash. Whitey unclipped his flashlight, switched it on, started up. Outside the owl hooted. The sound sent a jolt through Whitey, but not a sharp one, not sharp enough to set off the panicky buzz, although he did tighten his grip on the box cutter.