The Twenty-Year Death (64 page)

“It wasn’t the same with Quinn. We hated each other as much as we loved each other.”

“Like Joe and you.”

That hit me in the gut.

“I’m sorry,” she said, realizing what she’d said. “I didn’t mean that.”

“No, it’s okay. It’s true. Like me and Joe. Not like what you had at all.”

“So you think it won’t go away?” she said.

I wondered that myself. Would Joe’s death ever go away for me, the clunk of his head, the weight of his body as I carried
him up the steps? And soon I planned to add Vee to that. And Browne, flashed into my mind. If I wanted to be certain that enough of Quinn’s money went to setting Clotilde up for a very long time, Browne would have to die too. After all, Vee must have told him about the murder when she’d told him about the money. If they both were to die, then no one else would know, and I could walk away from the whole thing free. But not otherwise.

“Mr. Rosenkrantz?” Mary said.

“It’ll go away,” I said, needing that to be true. “You’ll meet someone else. You’ll move on. And every now and then you’ll wonder, what if?, maybe around the anniversary of his death, but as you get older, things seem less important.” Was that true? I sure as hell didn’t know.

“I don’t think it’ll ever get better,” she said, resolute.

“I hope you’re wrong,” I said.

“But we can still write, can’t we? You wouldn’t be mad if I sent you letters. It would be kind of like—” She broke off.

“Kind of like writing to him.”

“Yeah.”

And if that didn’t make me feel like a heel, then what would. It had been a mistake calling her. It was a mistake to expect anybody to be of help then. That’s what this was all about, carrying it on my own.

I realized she was waiting for me to answer. “Sure,” I said. “You can write any time.”

“Thank you,” she said, and expelled a sigh.

“I better be going now,” I said, needing this call to be over.

“I’m so glad you called. I’m glad that Joe and you had made it up before he died. At least there was that.”

“I’ll wait for your letters,” I said. I put the receiver down but
left my hand on it. I felt better about the money, but about a thousand times worse about everything else, and that was exactly what I didn’t need.

My mind ran back to my flash of insight while I was talking to Mary, that Browne had to die as well. Whether he knew about the murder or not, he didn’t need to have something on me to blackmail me. He’d kill me if I didn’t pay him, and that was all the motivation he needed to rely on. Part of me knew somewhere the second he sat down at lunch with us this afternoon that it would come down to me killing him or him killing me. That’s where all of the fear, the paranoia, was coming from, because for this to work, for me to set up Clotilde and myself, they both had to die...

I took my hand from the receiver. Nothing would be gained by calling Clotilde now. I had to do this alone. I sat down on the bed beside my duffel bag, and let it all sink in. I knew that killing two people, one of whom was bigger than me and much more accustomed to violence, was not going to be at all the same as a lucky push. But what choice did I have? And what did I have to lose? If I waited it out it would come to the same thing in the end, because I wasn’t stupid enough to think Browne’d leave it at five hundred thousand dollars when he found out just how much I got. In the end, it would still be them or me.

And I couldn’t feel bad for either of them. Browne was a criminal, after all. He knew the risk when he chose his way of life. He probably expected to get killed someday. And Vee? Vee was little better than a whore, and she knew it. If she was going to live by spongeing off of gangsters who beat her, she was playing Russian roulette already anyway.

And then it all fell into place. Browne could come home and beat Vee. Hell, he probably would. Maybe even strangle her.
But this time, during the struggle, Vee could manage to get her gun—the gun she kept in her bag, the one he made her carry—she’d get it and shoot him with it. She’d still die, but she’d get him first. Yeah, killing two people could actually make the whole thing much easier, because I could make it look like
they’d
killed each other. And the cops would have an open-and-shut case with one of the biggest criminals in Calvert dead, so no one would be eager to check too closely. They could even pin Joe’s death on them if Montgomery’s article stirred up any noise about that. It was like a present to the police. And I’d be home free. I just needed to let myself into the suite with my key before Browne got back, beat Vee to death, and then wait for Browne with Vee’s gun.

I tried to think of holes in the plan, and it seemed sound any way I looked at it. I didn’t think about the fact that I had never hit anyone in my life, let alone a woman. But would I have done anything differently if I had considered it? When you feel the noose tightening around your neck, you don’t stop kicking because the movement’s pulling the knot tighter. You kick right to the end. Yeah, I would have still done it, kicking all the way.

I had to pass a few hours before I could go back to the hotel. I needed to kill them both within as short a time as possible or it wouldn’t look right. You can tell how long a body’s been dead, and even if the police wanted the same outcome I did, it might be hard to sell it to the press if there were glaring inconsistencies. At lunch, Browne had said he was going out to take care of business, so that meant he was probably coming back in the evening, which meant that
I
had to wait until early evening. At least that made the most sense, and I just had to stick to my plan and hope.

I tried to pass the time with a book, but instead of being able to concentrate on the pages in front of me, my mind picked over little things, like whether I should take my duffel bag with me in case I needed to run, and what I’d do if Browne had gotten there before me. I decided the duffel bag would be unwieldy, and that I’d just call to make sure Browne was still out. There were dozens of other ways I started to second-guess myself, but then I’d think of the money and Clotilde and I’d be able to focus on the book I was reading for another half a page.

It was just before six when I left Great Aunt Alice’s house. I didn’t let them know I was leaving. They would have to miss me at dinner. I walked the twenty minutes downtown to the Somerset. The humidity hadn’t let up, so it was hot even though the sun had sunk below the tall buildings. The streets were still crowded with the tail end of rush hour, and the people jostling
me on either side made me feel as though I were taking a natural evening walk, as though it had nothing to do with murder. I was sweating, but it might just as well have been because of the heat.

A block from the hotel, I went into a phone booth and called up to Suite 12-2. I wiped my forehead and the back of my neck with my handkerchief as I waited for the phone to be answered. At last Vee picked up.

“Hello.”

“Hey,” I said, talking into my hand to disguise my voice. “Mr. Browne there? It’s important.”

“Nah, there’s no one here but me.”

“Know when he’ll be back? It’s really important.”

“Does he tell me anything? I’m just supposed to sit here, like always. Put the dame on ice.”

“Okay,” I said, and hung up.

I leaned against the wall of the phone booth. I could feel the blood throb in my neck, and I was sweating like crazy, my whole undershirt soaked, large dark patches under my arms, the back of the shirt sticking to me. And it wasn’t just because it was hot.

I took a deep breath and pulled open the phone booth door, and with that I shut my mind right off. I was only concerned with the physical.

I went by way of the back alley, just like Vee had taught me, and I walked the twelve flights of stairs too, which was just about enough to kill me, but somehow I made it, and the next thing I was standing outside Suite 12-2, lightheaded and with sweat running down my face. I slid the key into the lock, turned it, and opened the door.

There was no sound coming from within. I stepped inside, and closed the door silently behind me, easing it into its frame
with the door handle still turned, so that there was no click when the door closed all the way. I released the handle. There was no one in the living room or dining space. A bottle of champagne sat at the head of the dining room table closest to the door. I picked it up by instinct, thinking it would make a good weapon, and continued on, the weight of the bottle a comforting heft in my hand.

The brief hall to the bedrooms—there were two—was dark, and there didn’t seem to be any light coming from either of the rooms. In the first, I could just make out two twin-sized beds fit tightly to either side of a nightstand, a setup that filled the whole room. That made the other bedroom Browne’s, which was where Vee had to be.

I made a little sound, brushing against the wall, to give some indication that I was coming. That way she might come to greet me. It wouldn’t do to have her in the bed, if that’s where she was waiting.

I stepped into the room. A blade of light came from the bathroom through the slightly cracked-open door. The bedroom it illuminated was almost indentical to the one we had had downstairs—bed, nightstand, armoire, vanity—except this room was twice the size, which left space for some reclining chairs, a couch, and a coffee table. Vee was in the bathroom, the water in the sink running.

I hurried along to the other side of the bathroom door, where I pressed myself against the wall. I held the champagne bottle upside down by the neck, as though it were a club.

The bathroom door opened. Vee strode out for the bed where I could see she’d left her purse—almost too perfect.

I took one step towards her.

She heard me and turned, and I slammed the bottle into the
side of her face, right where the bruise from Browne’s attack was fading. She staggered, and gave almost a skip hop, reaching out to steady herself on the bed, which she missed, but managed to continue standing. The sound the bottle had made was almost the same as the thud of Joe’s head hitting the cabinet, but with a metallic ring to it as well. Before I could get my head around the idea that this was Vee, the woman I had slept with for more nights than not in the past year and a half—but I was a pimp; and she was a whore—I brought the bottle back up into her face, breaking her nose, and she tripped backwards now, falling against the bed, but sliding down to the floor.

The sound of bubbles escaped her with each breath, like sipping up the final bit of soda through a straw. “Whh... Shhh... Wh...” They were noises, but it was unclear if it was a voluntary attempt at speech. I was heaving, and I dropped the bottle to the floor. Then Vee started to move, to try to get up. She shot one foot out and dragged it along as though trying to catch at something. I knew I needed to finish her before she could get her senses in order, and it had to be with my hands.

There was blood on her face. I took a moment to roll up my sleeves. Then I gripped her around the neck. It was so small, so easy to get my hands around, so soft, pliable, and I made myself squeeze, leaning my whole weight into her, forcing her head back against the bed, which gave me a support to push her against. Her legs jerked again, and her hands reached up trying to get at me, but in that position, she couldn’t even reach as far as my shoulders. The sound coming from her faded into a staccato cough. I felt something hard give way in her throat. She stopped moving, but I kept leaning on her throat, unable to raise myself. I was certain already that I’d made a mistake. That Joe had been bad enough. That I didn’t need anything more than
Joe on me. And this was worse, much worse. There was all that time, and the sounds she was making, and her neck giving way. This was more than I could bear.

I was able to get myself to let go eventually, and I leaned against the bed, trying to bring my breathing back to a normal rate, ignoring as best I could the throbbing pain in my head. Still leaning over, I grabbed Vee’s handbag. It was heavy, like it should be. That was good. I unzipped it and pulled out the gun. I’d never fired a live round, but I’d been taught to shoot blanks by an effects man out in Hollywood, so I knew the basics of how the thing worked. I dropped the bag, trying to approximate where Vee would have dropped it if she’d grabbed it while being strangled.

I stepped aside so the light from the bathroom could show me the scene. She was in almost the same position that Joe had been in. I smudged the champagne bottle as much as I could in case of fingerprints. There really wasn’t much blood on my hands or wrists. The fact that I was considering that almost made me retch. I couldn’t stand anymore, which was good, because I needed to shoot Browne as though I were in Vee’s position. This was going to be much trickier than Vee had been, because he’d no doubt see me before I could shoot him. I was counting on him coming after me.

I sank to the floor beside Vee, rested my head against the bed, and waited. After five minutes, the air conditioning dried the sweat on my body, making me feel sticky and cold. I shivered, and found I couldn’t stop. So I sat there, gun in hand, shivering.

I waited for ten thousand hours, although really it was less than an hour. I stopped crying after about ten minutes, and even the muscle memory of the jolt the bottle gave when it connected with Vee’s head began to fade, so that I couldn’t tell if I was still feeling it or if I was just imagining I was feeling it. The gun heated up in my hand where it rested on my lap.

You may think I’m crazy when I tell you that I started to talk to Vee then, out loud. I know it seems crazy, but just wait until you’re in my position and see how crazy it is. So I started talking on any old thing, about how Quinn and I had fallen in love, about how we had fallen in hate, and all of the violence of that nonviolent confrontation. I talked about Clotilde. Talking about Clotilde, I almost cried again, but I didn’t. I’d promised her so much and I had failed at everything every step of the way. I still loved her more than anything, which is maybe why I stayed away from her as much as possible. That’s what I told Vee, at least, although I don’t know if it was true. I reminded myself that all of Quinn’s money was going to provide for Clotilde, that that was what really mattered. (You see, I wasn’t crazy. I knew exactly what I was doing.)