“First of all you will take off all these clothes. Even the shoes now. Then we will know each other better. And perhaps we will love each other.” Alberto put both his big hands on her shoulders as though he were measuring her for something.
“Shouldn’t we get to know each other first?” Jemima spoke in the most reasonable tone she could muster. She must at all costs, she knew from studying such things, humor him: she must not arouse his violence, his hostility, give him that psychological impetus he needed to transform the situation from polite parleying to physical action. It was the feeling of helplessness that was so terrible, just as she had been told so many times.
And perhaps we will love each other. For God’s sake, it wasn’t the stripping that mattered! Jemima had a beautiful body, or at least had been assured of it enough times to lack self-consciousness on the subject. She had no particular feeling about nudity and privacy either, sunbathing topless or even naked when it seemed right without giving much thought to the subject. The exposure of her body, however disagreeable the demand in this secret claustrophobic context, was not the point. But to love each other!
How near, for example, was the hotel telephone? Looking round, she saw the telephone was on the far side of the bed. Her eye then fell on an ashtray with stubs in it. That gave her an inspiration. It was worth a try: even for a dedicated non-smoker like herself
“Could you let me have a cigarette first, please? Then I promise …”
Alberto hesitated. Finally he said: “I have no cigarettes.”
Jemima gazed again at the stubs. Half-smoked. In spite of herself, she found she was trembling. And her voice shook when she spoke. She had not realized before how much she had been counting-subconsciously-on Clemency’s arrival to interrupt them, somehow save her. Clemency Vane was after all the one person in the world who really did know where she was.
Jemima looked at the bathroom door. It was closed. She had not really thought about it, but now the blank door had a sinister look. “What’s happening here? Is she-wait a minute-is she still here? Is this a plot?”
Alberto smiled again. Jemima, her fear rising, decided that his smile was not after all a good sign.
“A plot? Yes, you could call it that,” he said. “A plot to get to know you. You thought it was your plot with your silly program about love and duty-even an intelligent woman like you, with your fine education, can be a little silly sometimes. But it was not your plot. It was our plot!”
“Clemency knows about this,” exclaimed Jemima. “Well, she must. How else did you know I was coming? Listen, Clemency’s here. That’s what you’re saying.”
“Don’t you understand? Clemency would do anything for me. She’s my woman. The drugs, everything, prison, that was all for me. And now she has brought you here for me. She set you up for me.
“Clemmie told me to come here,” he went on with that strange horrible exhilaration. “She laughed, yes, she laughed at you, for thinking that she would take part in your stupid program.”
He was becoming vehement again but apparently unaware of what he was doing as the grip on her arm tightened.
“I’m a strong man, you see, the kind of man women love; women love to support and help men like me. Clemency knew that. ‘Strong man,’ she said, ‘you get to know Jemima Shore then, if you want, get to know Jemima Shore if you like, because during all those years you never knew anything really about me. And now you never will. Poor Alberto, you will never know me.’”
Alberto’s hand loosened again, and his voice too had changed subtly as though he were imitating Clemency herself. Her abrupt rather scornful tones. There was a silence between them.
You will never know me. But it was Alberto who had said that, quoting Clemency, not Jemima. It was Alberto himself, imitating Clemency.
“She did do it all for me, didn’t she?” He was questioning Jemima now; there was something pathetic about him, despite his fierceness and the strong hands that still held her prisoner.
But then that temporary glimpse of something pathetic was quite gone. Alberto started to pull at Jemima’s clothes. The beige jersey dress came off quite easily, or would have done so, but the very violence of his actions hindered him, those scrubbed strong hands seemingly frustrated by his own haste.
I must not struggle, thought Jemima desperately, I must not even scream. I know what to do, I must be passive, I must endure, I must survive. Otherwise he’ll kill me. Now she was in her silk petticoat and the man was panting horribly, sweating much more. He began to talk, gabble: “Women, you like this, this is what you really want, bitches, traitors….” He talked on, and then half hissed, half shouted at her: “You I’m really going to possess-”
In spite of herself Jemima lost control. The careful passivity went. She began to struggle in Alberto’s grip, to shout at him.
“Even if you killed me”-having raped me was the unspoken phrase, for still she did not wish to pronounce the words, in spite of everything-“even if you killed me, and especially if you killed me, you would not get to know me. You would not possess me.”
Alberto stopped. He still held her. Now they were both sweating, panting.
“She said that, Clemency.” But before Alberto spoke the words, Jemima knew the truth, understood suddenly and clearly what had been implicit all the time. What had been done for love. Once long ago. And once only recently.
“Alberto-” She spoke more strongly now. “Release me. Then let me go into the bathroom.”
“No. It’s not right.” Some of the power was waning in him, the passion. Jemima felt it. Her own increased.
“She’s there. Clemmie,” he added in a low voice.
“I-I want to see her,” said Jemima.
“There’s nothing you can do.”
“You must let me go in there. There may be something I can do.”
Alberto shook his head. “It’s too late,” he said.
“Listen, for God’s sake-”
“It’s too late. It was already too late when you arrived here.” Now the force she had felt in him was totally extinguished. She was in command. In command as Clemency Vane had once been-had been until the very end.
“I followed her here,” he went on. “I knew she was stealing out to come and see you. I pleaded with her when I got here. I knew she was trying to leave me, that she was getting frightened of what I might do to her. She found me so violent, so demanding after she came out of prison. She said sex didn’t interest her. She never ever wanted to make love with me. She said I bored her.”
Alberto began to sob convulsively.
“Then when I pressed her more, she said she never loved me in the first place. She did it all for the cause. Yet I helped her, I protected her. She wouldn’t listen. The money was needed then, she said, so she did what she had to do. Now it was not. Santangela was safe. And she would tell the world why she did it all-not for me, but for the country, the cause.”
He sobbed more terribly.
For love. Clemency’s words came back to her. You could say indeed that I gave up everything for love. Dry, wry, defiant words. But for love of the cause, not the man.
Jemima jumped up and Alberto did not even try to stop her. She pulled on her dress and he made no move to stop that either. She went into the little clean white hotel bathroom, saw the shower, the bright pristine towels on the rail, not very big towels and an unremarkable beige color-it was that kind of hotel. All the towels were clean and untouched except one: that was the towel draped inadequately over the body of Clemency Vane lying in the bath.
The towel left her face exposed, or perhaps Alberto had not wished to cover it. Certainly he had not closed Clemency’s eyes: they stared at Jemima, sightless and bulging, above the purpled discoloration of her face, the mouth, and the tongue. There was no sign of what Alberto had used to strangle her-but the memory of his strong, black-haired, well-tended, well-scrubbed-afterward, muscular hands came back to her. The hands that had held her, Jemima. And tried to know her, as in
the end they had never known Clemency Vane.
“I told you it was too late,” Alberto said from the bedroom. He had not moved. “You can go away now,” he added, in a remote voice as though the subject no longer interested him. “I shan’t harm you. Go. It’s nothing to do with you anymore.”
Much later, back at the Megalith office about seven o’clock, Cherry said to Jemima with that cheerfulness she maintained even toward the end of the office day: “Where were you this morning? There were quite a few calls. You left a message saying you were out seeing that woman, what’s her name, the drug runner who did it all for love, the persistent one who kept ringing up about the new program. But you never left me a number. Did you see her?”
“I saw her,” said Jemima. Later she would tell Cherry, of course, as she told her everything, and later still everyone would probably know. But not just now.
“Was there anything in it for the program?” inquired Cherry. “She was so sure she could help us.”
“No, after all, nothing in it for the program.”
“Ah, well,” said Cherry comfortably. “You never really know about people, do you?”
Jemima Shore agreed.
Like Marcia Muller, JULIE SMITH is a California-based writer (Berkeley) and has given us three splendid series detectives-Rebecca Schwartz, a lawyer with clients in deep trouble; Skip Langdon, an officer with the New Orleans Police Department; and Paul McDonald, a mystery writer with considerable personal experience in things criminous. The fact that Ms. Smith is a former journalist may help account for the rugged realism of her writing.
A MATCH MADE IN HELL
Julie Smith
Cursing the inventors of pantyhose, June weddings, and Southern tradition, Skip took the arm of the freckle-faced young usher and walked down the damn aisle. Her pantyhose swished as her thighs touched. The skinny little usher made her feel like a freak. He was about five six; Skip was six feet and Junoesque. (Or that was one way to put it; other ways were less polite.)
“Aren’t you Skip Langdon? I remember you from Icebreakers.”
Icebreakers. Seventh-grade subscription dances. The kid’s face at twelve popped into focus: “Rhett Buchanan-not again!”
The usher giggled and dropped her off. They had been a terrible mismatch as junior high dancing partners and they still were. As far as Skip was concerned, she was mismatched with everyone and everything in New Orleans-maybe she’d come back to “work out” something. Who knew? It was a weird thing; she knew she didn’t fit in, had never fit in, probably never would fit in, but when she’d decided to become a cop, she also knew she had to do it in New Orleans. She didn’t know why, it was just that way.
The success of the exercise had yet to be determined. Uptown New Orleans, where Skip had grown up despite her daddy’s Mississippi beginnings, seemed to her as ingrown-and as stifling-as any town in West Virginia. But it looked as if once you’d graduated from McGehee’s and pledged Kappa, you were part of the equation even if you were a six-foot female cop from Mars-one of the gang whether you liked it or not. Frequently she hated it-at the moment, for instance.
The congregation stood for the wedding march. Clouds of clashing floral perfumes engulfed Skip, and she felt her left shoe begin to rub a blister on her heel. The soft gray pumps were new, to go with the lilac suit she’d probably never wear again.
The bride, darling Weezee Rounsaville, flashed thousands of dollars of wondrous white at her admirers. Skip knew for a fact from Alison Gaillard, who had made her come to this carnival of silliness in the first place, that Weezee’s daddy had practically gone into hock to pay for his little girl’s “cosmetic dentistry”; the standard straightening wasn’t good enough for a future queen of Comus.
But the investment had paid off handsomely. Mardi Gras queens were a dime a dozen; marrying Aubrey Delacroix was a stellar achievement. Aubrey had dark, Creole good looks and several million dollars.
As for the bride, darling Weezee looked like an anemic angel-the white wispy hair, milk-white skin, and pouty lips style of beauty. Absolutely ethereal in ivory satin. If that train were any longer, Skip thought, they’d have to call it the Chattanooga Choo-Choo.
The congregation sat The minister mentioned why they were there: “To join together,” etc., etc.
Damn! There was her egregious brother Conrad, king of the “suppies” (Southern Urban Pains in the butt). This was his sort of thing, not hers. What was she doing here? Pleasing Alison Gaillard, that was what-it had become almost a career with her.
“If any of you,” intoned the minister, “can show just cause why they may not lawfully be married, speak now; or else forever hold your peace.”
That part tended to wake Skip up. She always sat up straighter, half wishing for someone to accept the invitation and liven up the proceedings.
Something banged at the rear of the sanctuary. Before she had time to turn, something else banged at the front. A figure burst from a door to the left, a man dressed in black, watch cap on head, stocking over face. He was holding a metal object at his side-a handgun? Automatically, she reached for her purse, her .38. But … damn! She hadn’t brought it. It wouldn’t fit into the leather envelope Alison had talked her into. Never again! Never, never never! Shit!
She ground her teeth in agony, watching the man raise the gun.
“I can show just cause.” The voice came not from him, but from the rear of the church. “The groom’s dead.”
The man in black fired, fired again. Skip couldn’t tell if Aubrey was hit. The best man, standing next to him, lifted off his feet and fell against him, knocking him backward, blood gushing onto his white shirt.
Over Weezee’s screams, the bridesmaids’ screams, all the screams in Creole hell, the voice from the rear spoke again. “Everyone stay where you are. Anybody move and I waste the place.”
Skip turned. The man in the back also was dressed in black, also wore a stocking. He was pointing an Uzi. The shooter joined him, “Count to ten,” said the speaker, and they were out the door.
Skip was halfway down the aisle before a round of gunfire tore through the heavy air of the afternoon. A warning. Now the aisle was filling up. Should she try to get to the victims? No. A doctor would go, maybe half a dozen. That was the kind of crowd it was.
“Police! Let me through! Police!”
She might as well have been reciting “Hail Marys” for all the good it did her.
Alison Gaillard caught up with her, tugged at her elbow. She had on a peach-colored dress and straw hat with matching floaty band, like some caricature of a Southern belle in a rum ad-Try some of this in your Scorpion, Talk about deadly! Except the woman in the ad would be running barefoot on a beach instead of teetering on heels that were more like stilts. And she wouldn’t have tears welling in her china-blues. “Oh, Skippy, not Aubrey!”
Oh, Alison, not this crap!
Skip thought it. But she said, “Get me through this crowd, will you?”
Alison had the right shoes for it. Some might have kicked ass; Alison wasted insteps. Sailing past the injured, Skip finally made it outside. It was June 30, last chance for a June wedding, but the weather was more like August. Humid and still. Air you practically had to swim through. She felt her suit wilt as she ran to the curb, getting there just in time to watch a gray car turn the corner.
A maverick breeze caught Alison’s hatband; it fluttered artistically. “Nobody ever thought Buddy Carothers meant it. I mean, everybody says they’re gon’ kill their girl friend’s new flame.”
“Alison, hold it. Weezee dumped someone for Aubrey?”
“There was a big scene at the Twelfth Night Revelers-didn’t you hear about it?”
Skip shook her head. The revelers held their ball on the night in question, which meant the big scene would have been almost six months earlier. Plenty of time for tempers to cool.
“Buddy said he’d kill Aubrey on his wedding day. Who knew he meant it?”
Skip heard sirens. Good. Someone had th
ought to call the police. But for the moment she was the sole representative thereof. She went back inside, made her way to the front and found Aubrey well, standing outside a small crowd shaking their heads around the fallen best man. Three doctors had tried to help him. They told her, in that Southern way that simultaneously celebrates euphemism and false piety, that there was “nothing they could do for him.”
They also told her he was Aubrey’s father Noel, the Delacroix patriarch and head of the shipping company the family had founded.
She called homicide and returned quickly to help the uniformed officers who’d be the first to arrive. Since it was a Saturday, it was a while before the detectives came-when they did there was good news and bad news. The two who turned up were Joe Tarantino, a prince of a guy in Skip’s book, and Frank O’Rourke, who had personal problems and liked to make Skip his personal scapegoat.
“Hey, Skip,” said Joe. “You a witness?”
“Hello, Langdon,” said Frank. “Tried Weight Watchers yet?”
She gave them her Buddy Carothers gossip, made herself useful taking statements, and in the end succeeded in behaving in so puppylike a fashion that Joe asked if she wanted to take a ride over to Buddy’s.
O’Rourke was outraged: “She can’t investigate. She’s a witness!”
Joe only shrugged, “So maybe she can ID the guy,”
Buddy lived in half a double shotgun up near Carrollton, A small gray car parked outside could have been the one Skip had seen at the church. But Buddy didn’t answer the door. It opened when Frank tried it. The three looked at each other and shrugged, all knowing they shouldn’t enter, all agreeing they were going to.
It was clammy and dark inside. They built these old places to stay cool no matter how hot it got, and the AC was on as well. Skip shivered.
There was no one in the living room. All was quiet. But they found a heavy-breathing lump under a sour sheet on the bed. Beer bottles were everywhere, and a half-drunk bottle of bourbon on the floor hadn’t been reclosed. The bedroom reeked. A .38 lay on a nearby dresser. Skip sniffed the barrel. Recently fired.
A Woman’s Eye Page 18