Yes, Saturday was the day to kill Mr. Monti. I was going for it.
• • •
On Saturday morning, I left my house at twenty minutes to ten, explaining to Jake and Wally that I was planning to shop for clothes the entire day. I drove my Ford to the underground parking lot of the Georgetown Park mall, took a taxicab to Sixteenth and L, rented a car, and drove back to die mall. There, unobserved, I removed the various items stowed in my Ford and placed them with shaking hands—they were shaking so hard I dropped the clothes, wig, and folding table—in the spacious trunk of my rented Buick. After which, in the Buick, I left Georgetown Park, drove up M Street, turned onto Key Bridge, and headed for Mr. Monti’s house in McLean.
How does a nice Jewish woman feel on her way to committing murder? I can tell you just exactly how. I felt as if I was breathing that nitrous oxide I get when my dentist fills my cavities—there but not there, aware but not aware, knowing that something truly unpleasant is going on somewhere but not especially fearful or concerned about it. I floated above my life with an almost Zenlike philosophical detachment, though every once in a while (as I do when the gas starts wearing off) I’d come into painful contact with reality. My God, I’m going to kill a man! I’d think, breaking into a sweat and barely able to hang an to the steering, wheel. But then I’d take another whiff of that soul-soothing nitrous oxide, and float off again.
On the way to McLean I found a deserted stretch where I could pull off the road and change into the white uniform, the sensible shoes and stockings, the pageboy wig, and the very large dark glasses. Pitching my voice an octave lower than my usual tones, and laying on a deeply Swedish accent, I practiced—as I’d been practicing all yesterday afternoon—“I am Ingrid Svedenborg, certified masseuse. Our Institute is offering, this day only, a free home massage to a few selected residents in this area. Ve offer it free because ve believe that, vonce you have experienced it, you are going to vant to sign up for the entire otrolig—that’s Svedish for fabulous—series.”
(Now that you get the idea, I’m going to stop with the ve’s and the vonce’s and the vant’s. But think of me as sounding like Ingrid Bergman and Liv Ullmann with just a little Greta Garbo thrown in.)
I’d sketched out some fairly plausible story to lay on Mr. Monti if, God forbid, my cover failed to work. I figured I’d know immediately, one way or another. I did.
When Mr. Monti answered the doorbell, he showed not the slightest hint of recognition. Nor did he grow suspicious when I launched into my “I am Ingrid . . .” spiel and handed him one of my quite sincere-looking flyers.
THE INSTITUTE OF BODY CARE
SWEDEN-GENEVA-WASHINGTON-NEW YORK INTRODUCES
THE TERRA-AQUA MASSAGE
DEEP THERAPEUTIC BODY MASSAGE ON TABLE AND IN TUB INGRID SWEDENBORG, CERTIFIED MASSEUSE
“Sounds good,” said Mr. Monti. “But I’m kind of tied up right now.”
“Oh, you have company maybe?” I raised my eyebrows and widened my eyes in benevolent concern, although nothing, I knew, could be seen behind my huge glasses.
“Nobody here but me, but I’m doing some work I’ve got to get finished over the weekend.”
“You are working so much you cannot spare just one hour and thirty minutes to recharge your body and clear the spindelnät—that’s Swedish for cobwebs—from your brain?”
(In case you’ve been wondering whether these are really the Swedish words for cobwebs and fabulous, the answer is certainly.)
“How about next weekend?” he suggested. “Could you come back then?”
“Then is a hundred dollars.” I smiled winningly. “Now is free.”
“A hundred next week, but free today,” Mr. Monti said musingly. “Okay. Come in. You’ve got yourself a deal.”
I excused myself to go back to the car and remove what I called “my equipment” from the trunk. Then we went upstairs, where I unfolded my folding table in his bedroom, assembled my lotions and oils on a nearby shelf, and started the hot water running—with a double dose of bubble bath—in his tub.
“So you want me to take off my clothes?” Mr. Marti suggestively inquired, eager to plumb the full meaning of “massage.”
Mobilizing my thickest accent and sternest, most no nonsense voice, I let Mr. Joseph Monti know what was what “Before I leave the bedroom,” I said, “you will give to me your glasses”—I put out my hand to receive them, feeling much safer as soon as his, eyesight was impaired. “Then, when I go, you will take off your clothes and place yourself on this table”—I patted the table—“and cover yourself with this”—I gave him a fresh unopened sheet—“up to the armpits. We have here very strict rules: No eye contact, ever, with private parts. No touching between the top of the thighs and the belly button. And, to guarantee the very highest, most strict standards of physical health”—as well as no fingerprints—“the masseuse is at all times required to wear latex gloves.”
Without quite clicking my heels, I turned and left.
When I reentered the bedroom, Mr. Monti lay on his back upon my table, his body dutifully covered up to the armpits. I switched on the radio, drew the drapes, gently placed the eye pads on his lids, and, after pouring apricot body lotion into my hands, I went to work on Mr. Monti’s body.
His body was almost rigid. “Please to try to relax,” I said. “Banish all unhappy thoughts from your mind.”
Mr. Monti groaned. “You want me to banish unhappy thoughts? When my life has been destroyed, when those people—I’ll crush them! I’ll smash them! I’ll pulverize them! I’ll chew them in little pieces and spit them up!—have stripped me of my children and my wife?”
“Later you’ll crush, smash, and pulverize. Now you’ll relax,” I said, my voice (despite the terror I felt) authoritative, my fingers (despite the terror I felt) adroit Joseph Monti delivered himself of a few more alarming pronouncements and then he yielded to my ministrations.
You may be surprised to learn that if I weren’t an extremely successful columnist I could probably make good money as a masseuse. After years of massaging Jake (which I do because it blisses him out, which makes him tell and promise me things that he’d otherwise never tell or ever promise) Mad learned to relax the facial muscles, release all those knots in the neck, banish stress from the shoulders, eliminate islands of tension from the arms and legs, and introduce the palms of the hand and the bottoms of the feet to sensations that might well be called ecstatic.
The object of this exercise was to make Mr. Monti putty in my hands. From the long, soft sigh that issued from his lips, I knew he was exactly where I wanted him.
As I was gazing triumphantly at this sighing, supine blob, my hands freeze-framed—I all of a sudden was paralyzed. All of a sudden I could barely breathe. All of a sudden I found myself distressingly aware that this creature beneath my fingers was a naked, vulnerable, flesh-and-blood human being. Are you really, I asked myself, really going to kill him? And then I saw the van crashing through the hedge and the pachysandra, heading for Wally. And then I heard that sinister voice on the phone. And then I heard the words “I’ll chew them into little pieces and spit them up.” And then I said, You bet!—and resumed the massage.
A few minutes later I checked the tub, now filled to the proper depth with steaming, hot water, I adjusted the water to cool it off enough for Mr. Monti to endure it, then asked him to climb into the tub (his naked body discreetly concealed by the bubbles) for the aqua part of the terra-aqua massage. After he’d settled into his bath, I draped a steamy washcloth over his face and then I began massaging his scalp with the oil, rubbing and kneading and rubbing and kneading until—soothed, smoothed, and stewed—he sank into a semicomatose state.
After which I set the radio on the edge of the tub and plugged it in.
“Let the music fill your soul,” I whispered in his ear, and then I quietly slipped into the bedroom, where I folded my table and stowed my gear, preparing to make a clean and rapid getaway. Then I returned to the bathroom and gave h
is bead one final soporific rub before—averting my gaze to spare myself the sight of his death throes—I decisively shoved the radio into the bathtub.
And, still averting my gaze, rushed from the room.
Death by electrocution. A household accident. The most serious accidents happen at home, in our bathtubs. A man drifts off to sleep in the hot steamy water and moves his elbow just the wrong way and the next thing you know he is . . .
Well, I didn’t feel it was necessary to visualize the hideous details. Nor, though I knew I would have my moral torments and my dark nights of the soul, was now the time to work myself up some heavy duty Raskolnikov-type guilt. I had murdered Mr. Monti but I would think about it tomorrow. At the moment I needed to leave the scene of the crime.
Which I was about when I heart my name.
“Ingrid,” said this drowsy voice.
I dropped my gear and screamed, but the only sound that emerged from my throat was a harsh hiss of air.
“Ingrid.” That drowsy voice again! From the bathroom!
I crossed my arms against my chest and huddled into myself, groaning oh-God-oh-God-oh-God-oh-God-oh God-oh-God in a state of near-panic. On the one hand I knew Mr. Monti was dead. On the other hand I knew that he couldn’t be calling across the Great Divide. One of these statements was wrong, but I would have to return to the bathroom to find out which.
In fear and trembling I edged my way back to the bathroom.
Mr. Monti, the steamy washcloth still draped over his face, lay in the tub in the same semistupefied state. Joining him in his bath, though he appeared to be unaware of it, was the instrument of his destruction—the fatal radio I had knocked into the water. Except that it wasn’t fatal, because in the process of briskly knocking it into the water I seemed to have jerked the plug right out of the socket.
Unmechanical I may be, but even I understood that electrocution won’t work without electricity.
As I stood there aghast and appalled, Mr. Monti spoke my name again. “Ingrid, please,” he murmured, barely audible, “please just do me once more with the hair.” He was sinking back into his trance but roused himself long enough to add, “And turn the radio up. I can’t hear the music.”
What could I do? I did him once more with the hair.
Kneading his head with my oiled left hand, I fished the radio out of the tub with my right, humming a little melody that I hoped he would in his stupor mistake for the radio. I continued with both my hands, working his head and then his neck and then his shoulders, by which time Mr. Monti was babbling with pleasure.
I considered trying to kill him again but the radio was so wet that I feared that I’d kill myself if I plugged it back in. Instead I said, preparing to scram, “I have to leave you now. But you will stay in the tub and relax ten more minutes.”
Mr. Monti jolted awake, sat up, and pulled the washcloth from his face. “No, wait,” he said. “This was wonderful. I want to sign up for the whole otrolig series. You certainly cleared the spindelnät from my brain.”
He started to stand up but I placed my hand on his shoulder and pressed him back into the tub. “You forget—no eye contact, ever, with private parts.”
“No, of course not, excuse me,” said Mr. Monti, looking abashed at my reproof. “Hand me a contract. I’m ready to sign right now.”
I assured him that the contract would be in the mail on Monday morning. A hundred dollars a session, not counting tip. Worth every penny, he told me. Never felt so relaxed in his life. Couldn’t wait to have me back again. He closed his eyes and sighed, and I sidled softly out of the bathroom, then made my way downstairs and out the front door.
No nitrous oxide floated me off as I headed back to the District. Reality pressed upon me sharp and clear. I had attempted murder. I had tried to kill a fellow human being. Reality was more than I could bear. The contents of toy stomach, defying gravity, rose up swiftly into my throat. I swerved to the side of the road and was very sick in somebody’s very expensive bushes.
But then—and this is a testament not merely to the value of throwing up but also to the resilience of the human spirit—I started feeling better, and better, and better.
Granted, I had tried to kill a fellow human being. Granted, I was capable of murder. Granted, I had—once again—stared into my private heart of darkness and found bad news. But was it really bad news to learn that a loving, protective mother was ready to kill in order to save her young? Or was it something that, if it weren’t so terribly illegal, one could unabashedly be proud of?
I chose option two.
I also chose, while fully admitting that my mission had failed, not to be too hard on myself for my failure. I certainly wasn’t denying that my reach had exceeded my grasp—but what a reach! I’d devised the perfect crime, and though the execution left something to be desired, I had to give myself credit for possessing a quite remarkable talent for murder.
Or as Geena Davis, having embarked on a life of crime, so gleefully put it in Thelma and Louise, “I just feel like I got a knack for this shit.”
8
•
THIS IS A HOSTAGE SITUATION
After returning the Buick and grabbing a cab back to Georgetown Park to retrieve my car, I made a quick stop at the market to pick up some swordfish, which—topped with fresh salsa and teamed with pasta dressed with garlic and olive oil—would serve to show my husband that no matter how insensitively he behaved, I’d always meet my culinary commitments.
When I got home, however, two brief notes were waiting on the kitchen table—a “Mom, I’m with Jo. I’ll see you Sunday” from Wally, and a “Brenda, I need a time-out. I won’t be back until tomorrow night” from Jake. Wally’s note had a “love” in front of the signature. Jake’s did not.
In all of our married life, Jake had never before gone off for the night without advance warning. He had never gone off for a night without providing a telephone number where he could be reached. Nor had he ever gone off because he needed—what was that nasty phrase?—“a time out.”
My Thelma and Louise euphoria vanished.
Big bad bleak black thoughts clouded my mind.
I shoved the food into fee fridge and removed a chilled, unopened bottle of Chardonnay, deftly yanked out the cork, and filled up a glass. No, in case you are wondering, I am not a secret drinker, but sometimes a woman has to have a drink, A Saturday that includes attempting murder and being abandoned by your husband is—in my view—certainly one of those times.
My big bad bleak black thoughts grew bleaker and blacker.
Had I, in trying to kill Mr. Monti, lost my moral moorings? Had I maybe lost my husband too? Had I, in addition, lost my looks? A glimpse of my haggard self, as I carried my drink past the front-hall mirror into the living room, suggested that this might indeed be the case. I seemed to be a dead ringer for that woman in Lost Horizon who aged a hundred years when she left Shangri-La. No one would mistake me for Goldie Hawn’s first cousin.
For a few shaken moments I almost—along with my moorings and husband and looks—lost my self confidence. I felt myself surrendering to despair. But then my can do attitude—enhanced with several swigs of the Chardonnay—came, as it so often has done, to my rescue, allowing me to review and reconceptualize the current situation.
So I said to myself, If Anne Archer, in defense of herself and her family, is entitled to kill Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction, surely you are entitled to kill Mr. Monti.
Ergo I have not lost my moral moorings.
And I said to myself, If Angelica Huston, in spite of many obstacles, can get Jack Nicholson back in Prizzi’s Honor, surely you will be able to get back Jake.
Ergo I have not lost the man I love.
And I said to myself, Tomorrow morning, after a good night’s sleep, your skin will be brighter, your eyes will be wider, those brackets between your nostrils and mouth will vanish, and you’ll stop resembling that lady in Lost Horizon and start resembling Goldie Hawn’s first cousin. Furthermore, I re
minded myself (although I still didn’t want him) that, just a few days earlier, in my kitchen, Philip Eastlake had found me wildly attractive.
Ergo I have also not—not in such a short time!—lost my looks.
By the time I had finished ergo-ing, I had finished my third glass of wine, which—since I’d skipped eating lunch—winged straight to my head, from which all thoughts had fled except for the oddly comforting thought that Philip Eastlake found me wildly attractive. A naked woman quoting James Joyce while on her elbows and knees in the moistly receptive Jumping White Tiger position is Philip Eastlake’s notion of wildly attractive. My mind traveled back to March 18, half a year ago, when I’d been that woman.
• • •
Arriving at noon that March day at the John Hay suite of the irreproachable Hay-Adams, I had found Philip eagerly poised at the open door, elegantly but improbably clad in a flowing silken black-and-gold kimono. He helped me off with my coat, continentally kissed me on each cheek, and told me he was delighted that I had come. Then he gestured grandly to a table set for two, next to a window that offered one of the most theatrical views to be found in the city: the White House, with its amicable majesty. And behind it, solemn and pure, the Washington Monument. (And in front of it, in Lafayette Square, a homeless fellow napping on a park bench, though Philip, when I pointed this out, insisted that some of the homeless in Lafayette Square are really the Secret Service working incognito.)
I was on an adrenaline high, having spent from 6:48 until 11:10 in Joseph Monti’s vigorous embrace, after which I had scooted home to shower and dress and perfume myself for my second bout of adulterous activity. Which, in sharp contrast to my morning encounter, Philip eased us into with great tact.
Murdering Mr. Monti Page 15