Duplicate Keys

by Jane Smiley

  “Susan—”

  “Let me finish. I used to think that if I could get Denny away from Craig then Denny and I could go on and do something else, and have a grown-up life with kids and jobs. When Craig was out on the Coast those eight months, it almost happened. Denny was ready to do something else, and was thinking hard about what he wanted to do. He even called Craig and told him what he was thinking about, and Craig said he thought it was a good idea and maybe things weren’t going to work out after all. That was what I should have been suspicious of, that permission, because sure enough, about three weeks later, this woman in L.A. calls and says that Craig is in really rough shape with heroin and that he nearly died and was in the hospital. Denny was the only person he had in the world, and could Denny come out and get him when they let him out of the hospital? Well, we left that day. How could we not? They were like brothers. I didn’t even dare start a fight over it. The trip out was terrific, but as soon as we got Craig, everything changed. The first day, Denny talked a little about what he was thinking of doing, and then the second day he didn’t talk about it at all, but they talked about what Noah was doing and Ray, and how much fun the band had been, and the third day, they talked about what they would do differently if they had it to do over again, and by the time we were back to New York, they were figuring out how to get a few gigs here and there. I screamed at Denny over that, and he said he was just humoring Craig till he felt better and got back on his feet, because they were brothers, you know, just like brothers, they’d slept in the same bed as kids, and before we knew it we were back in the same old shit. I realized that I didn’t have a chance. As long as I was with Denny, Craig would be there, too, robbing him of every bit of will power, every bit of real ambition, always supplying him with wishes. He could talk you into a tizzy, Craig could. After that, it got so that every time I even disagreed with something they wanted to do, Denny would say, ‘Why do you hate Shellady so much? You’d cut off your own arm rather than give him anything with it.’”

  “So why didn’t you just leave him?” exclaimed Alice.

  “I was going to, as I said.” Susan’s voice had taken on a slight hollowness. “I really had made up my mind that morning, and even though I was angry by the time I left for the Adirondacks, that was still my intention. But you’ve got to understand what it’s like hearing the same conversations over and over for years. Musicians are home all day. They never have to be anywhere. This apartment was never quiet. It was always the scene of endless chatter, and all they talked about was themselves and their careers and their ambitions and what they would do with the money when they got it. It hurt me. It literally made my skin prickle and my heart pound. I dreaded for them to get up in the morning, I dreaded coming home from work, I dreaded for them to come back from the store or wherever, I dared not be awake when they got back from a gig. The knowledge that they were going to talk about this made me want to jump out of my skin. When I went away, I expected there would be relief, silence and relief, but there wasn’t. Everything they were doing was engraved on my brain. I dreamt about it, I thought about it during the day, I thought I heard their voices. At one point I was sure I could hear them coming through the woods, that they had found me. I was so sure that I just sat down on the front step and waited. I could hear the crashing of their boots and the eternal conversation about ‘those fuckers.’ I must have sat there for an hour. And it didn’t subside until I started thinking about silencing them, and I couldn’t think of any other way. Each time I did one little thing, like finding the plastic bag for my shoes, or learning how to load the gun, it seemed like the noise was just a little closer to being silenced, that I was just a little closer to finally communicating the truth to them. And I thought I was doing them a favor. Even if I left them and my life went on, their lives would never go on. Their lives would be like listening to a scratched record play the same three notes over and over forever. I thought that even if I left them, it could take years before I stopped hearing it all. I couldn’t stand that. I really couldn’t. Anyway, I didn’t think I would really do it until the moment I pulled the trigger. And I have to say that when they saw me in the doorway, there was dead silence, and they weren’t thinking for one second about their careers.” She put her chin in her hand and gazed toward the kitchen.

  “So it went like he said, the night of the, uh, murder?”

  Susan glanced at Honey. “Pretty much. The stuff about the dope was rather annoying to overhear, since Denny had promised and promised and sworn up and down that they had a buyer and they were going to be rid of it and paid off the very weekend I left. The first thing the guy did when they brought it out was weigh it on his own scales. It weighed three point two ounces, and they had had five. Even when I left, they’d had almost five, so I knew that they’d been into it the whole time I was gone, that only my presence and irritation had kept them out of it before. And then he did some kind of purity test, and he said that he guessed that the stuff they had was only about seventy percent pure, so he would only pay them for a little over two ounces, and that was doing them a favor. After he left, the first thing Craig asked Denny was whether I had any money, and how much Denny could get from me. Denny said that I had some shares of stock, he didn’t know how much. Then Craig said that Rya’s old man was rich, but Noah said that Rya hadn’t talked to her folks since before Thanksgiving, and that had been a fight about money. So they were stuck, and the next thing I heard was Denny saying that I would be home tomorrow and I would have a shit fit if this stuff was still around, and Craig dismissed him, and then he apologized for me, as if I were crazy or something. Noah was still pissed and said he wouldn’t take the stuff, even though they promised to have it out of his place by Monday. I always did wonder what happened to it. I was furious, I was just furious, and then they settled down to drink some more beer and plan how they were going to spend their first million when this guy at A and M they’d just met played their tape for someone, and that’s when I came out of the bedroom.”

  It was a seductive story, and Alice, as always, was seduced. She could imagine everything perfectly, and she hardly blamed Susan at all. She half thought Honey would get up and leave, giving Susan an hour to leave the country or at least change her name and disappear into Brooklyn, but Honey said, “I’m not clear, Miss Gabriel, about your motive for attacking Mrs. Ellis.” There was that. Alice had nearly forgotten.

  “Oh,” said Susan.

  Looking at her, Alice’s spirits began to sink.

  In a more subdued voice, Susan said, “I couldn’t figure out where you were last night. I knew you were there. I had a strong feeling of your being there, especially when I saw that the bed of the second bedroom was mussed, but it was like magic. You were invisible. That spooked me.”

  “Actually,” said Alice, “I was out on the ledge, crawling around the building.”

  “Mrs. Ellis did a very amazing thing—” put in Honey.

  “I did go out on the fire escape.”

  “I saw you. I was one floor up. I saw you come out. I saw the gun, too.”

  “I remember looking up, but I didn’t see you. All I saw was plants.”

  “I was wedged behind a pot, next to the wall. It was so dark.” Alice thrust her hands between her knees. “Were you going to shoot me?” She was as afraid to hear the answer as she had been to round the corner of the building, except that no adrenaline buoyed her up now.

  Susan wrinkled her brow. “I really don’t know. I had the gun, and I was looking for you, but I didn’t know until I shot Denny that I was going to shoot them, either. I felt very separated from everything the whole time it was going on. I suppose the evidence is that I would have shot you like I shot them, but as I told you yesterday, I can’t really tell.”

  “But why did you want to kill me? I love you! I wasn’t going to hurt you! Why me?”

  Susan tried to smile. “Don’t you always have to kill anyone who knows? I mean, you are a faithful voter, you lick stamps for the Democr
atic Party, you worry about the state of the union. Wasn’t this scene inevitable?”

  “I didn’t feel in danger! I didn’t even blame you! If you hadn’t scared me half to death last night—” Alice’s voice trailed off. There was no telling, after all, what Honey would overlook and what he would not. Finally, she said, “And they’ve got Noah. The least practical thing would have been to kill me.” She turned to the detective. “I mean, you told me yourself that you were waiting for something like that.”

  Susan tried to attain a light tone. “None of this has been exactly practical, has it?”

  “But—”

  “Don’t ask! Can’t we just talk about it some other time?”

  Alice looked down at the scratches on her arms and knees. They no longer stung very much, but the skin felt tight and grated. She said, “Well, I think you should tell me.” Even as she said it, she was amazed at how determined she sounded.

  Susan looked out the window rather than at Alice. After a long pause, she said, “I don’t think I was really afraid of your turning me in, even though I was sure that once you knew you would turn me in. Maybe I was afraid of your not turning me in. I was afraid of your knowing! I was afraid of the closeness you would feel to me once you knew, of the unspoken kinship. And I was right! Over the weekend it was like being married. It felt like you were practically in my clothes with me, and there would never be any end to it. You would wear me down about living together, and then we’d eat and sleep and breathe this intimacy for the rest of our lives! How could I get away from that? I wanted to be alone! I wanted there to be silence! For thirteen years I worried about all the permutations of three people’s feelings about each other. And for a while after they—after that night, I was sad and horrified but I was also relieved! It was over! Really over! And then you started preying on me!”

  Alice must have looked shocked, because Susan exclaimed, “I know you don’t see it like that, but I did! You were like an animal circling closer and closer, and when you got to me, you weren’t going to devour me, you were going to sit on me, all over me, affectionately, forever. Your intentions were great. I realize that. But that was what was wrong. People with good intentions never give up! Denny had good intentions. Denny was a kind man. He was superhumanly kind. He never gave up on anything, not Craig, not me, not the music business. Good intentions are wicked! As far as I can see, all they lead to are lies and delusions. Oh, God!”

  It was Alice’s turn to sit as still as possible, hoping that her face didn’t give away the turmoil and pain of her feelings. It was all too easy to see herself from Susan’s point of view, hovering, enfolding, suffocating, smiling. She closed her eyes. Susan went on. “You were going to act normal forever, pretending that I hadn’t done anything, pretending that nothing bound us except simple friendship. Denny was like that. Most of the time he pretended that Craig and I really liked each other, but we hated each other! And Noah, and Rya, and Ray! Everybody was always pretending something!”

  “But we did like each other. We made compromises, that’s all. That’s life! You can’t get to be thirty without disapproving of your friends sometimes, or being hurt or offended by their bad taste and bad judgment. We all knew pretty much where we stood with each other. That was the pleasure in it!”

  “Was it?”

  Honey looked at his watch. Susan sat up, and Honey said, “Mrs. Ellis will get you some clothes from the bedroom. I would rather you sat here with me.”

  Alice stood up and Susan leaned forward, reaching under the couch. In a second the gun was in her hand and she was pointing it at Honey. Alice inhaled sharply. Susan said, “Were you afraid I would get this?”

  Honey smiled, but Alice could tell he was nonplussed. After a moment, he said, “You may not be aware that there is a mandatory death sentence in this state for shooting an officer of the law.”

  Alice gripped the cushion of her chair as Susan squeezed the trigger. There was a click. “Not loaded;” said Susan with a smile. “The bullets are in the bedroom.” She turned the gun in her hand and gave it to the detective. Honey said, “You are a remarkably calm woman, Miss Gabriel.”

  “Only on the surface, Detective Honey.”

  “Mrs. Ellis,” said Honey, “would you get Miss Gabriel some clothing, please.” Alice stood up, her knees knocking, and went into the bedroom. When she came out, the clothes she was carrying were her own, lent to Susan at various times over the past months. Susan smiled as she put them on. As they were leaving the apartment, Alice said, trying to make her voice as casual as possible, “Say, can I have your keys to my place? I’m locked out.”

  “Take them all,” said Susan, thumping the heavy bunch into her hand. Honey fitted her wrists with handcuffs, although Alice didn’t see that this was necessary. Susan watched for a moment, then looked at Alice. Finally, she said, “You thought too well of me. It was galling.”

  RYA, who had shown up close to midnight Wednesday night and gone to bed at once in Alice’s spare room, was not inclined to rise, even though Alice had told her that Noah was to be set free that day, and that it was she, Rya, who ought to go out and get him. “Come on!” exclaimed Alice. “Honey said he might be out by ten, and it’s going to take you a while to get there!” Rya rolled over so that her face was to the wall, and groaned. Alice, who hadn’t yet put on her shoes, kicked the other woman on the derriere with her stockinged foot and went on, “Get up! I have to go to work today, and it’s nearly time for me to leave.”

  Rya sat up. “I thought you were going with me! Shit, I’m beat.”

  “I can’t go with you. I missed all those days, and yesterday I was way behind. But you’ve got to go!”

  Even dishevelled from inadequate sleep on a hot night, Rya was pretty, almost elegant. Her twenty-six-year-old face was rosy and smooth, and the fluid hair was too heavy to have tangled in the night. “But he doesn’t even expect me! He probably doesn’t even want me to come! Oh, shit!” She lifted her legs and rolled backward onto the bed.

  “What is the matter with you? Don’t you want to see him?” A picture of Noah making his solitary and unwelcomed way back from Riker’s Island seemed not to have even occurred to Rya, or at least not to have affected her. “Don’t go back to sleep!”

  “Please go with me! Can’t you take another day off? They won’t mind.”

  “I can’t and I won’t. I have too much to do. I’m going to bring you a cup of coffee. Don’t go back to sleep.”

  She was enraged when she returned and found Rya prone with her nose in the pillow. She put down the hot cup she was holding, grabbed the other woman’s shoulders, and yanked her up. “Ow!” cried Rya.

  “Sit up! You’ve got to get up! Don’t you want to see him? I want to see him, and he’s your husband!”

  Rya reached for the coffee. “So your relationship isn’t as complicated as mine is. No, I don’t know that I want to see him. I don’t know anything! Don’t you understand that? Three nights ago, you told me that he had killed Craig and Denny because of me. Last night, when I was falling asleep on my feet, you told me that no, it was Susan who killed them for some reason that I still don’t understand, and that we had to go out and get him this morning.”

  “You had to.”

  “That’s worse, anyway. What if I’m not ready to see him? What if the whole prospect of starting up our marriage again scares me to death? Don’t you realize that we haven’t spoken to each other, or at least he hasn’t spoken to me, in six months? You’ve got this good wife trip that you’re laying on me, and I can’t stand it.”

  Alice walked out of the room.

  A minute later she walked back in. “Look,” she said. “I don’t care what happens between you and Noah. In my opinion, you don’t deserve for anything good to happen because you’ve made such a terrible mess of everything. In my opinion, you’ve both been so stupid that it boggles the mind. But I also think that what is happening to Noah today has nothing to do with your relationship. A man who has been accused of a
crime, and who is pretty confused himself, is getting out of jail. He deserves to have his wife, and not just some girl he knows, meet him, and take him home. You can pick up where you left off or you can get a divorce after you get home, but this event of leaving jail is a public thing, like getting married or buried. You have to meet him because it’s the human thing to do.”