She didn’t know. She couldn’t take any chances, not until she absolutely had to, not until there was no choice anymore.
Stella said: “The painting.”
For a moment she didn’t realize what the woman was talking about. Then it came to her and she waited for Stella to go on.
“The painting. He painted a picture of you.”
“Yes,” she said desperately. “That’s right, Stella. Ralph painted a picture of me.”
“He painted one of me once.”
“I know. He told me.”
“The one of me was very beautiful.”
“I’m sure it was.”
“Very beautiful.”
“You’re a very beautiful woman,” Susan said.
Stella smiled.
“I want to see the picture,” Stella said.
“Oh — it isn’t finished yet.”
“Show it to me.”
Susan took a deep breath. “It’s over there,” she said, nodding her head in the direction of the easel. When Stella turned to look toward the easel, the girl lifted the knife easily from the drawer and held it at her side. It seemed so easy, so simple.
When Stella turned back to Susan again she was looking directly at the knife.
She smiled. And Susan felt her stomach turning over. The woman was mad, raving, hysterically mad.
“You’re a bad girl,” Stella said. “You shouldn’t play with knives.”
“Get out of here or I’ll kill you.”
“You’d better give me the knife,” Stella suggested. “You’d better give me the knife and stop being such a bad little girl.”
“Stella!”
The woman took a step closer. Susan could reach her now with the knife. All she would have to do was stab out blindly, stab the knife into Stella’s stomach and it would all be over. Then she would be safe.
“I’ll kill you,” she warned. “Do you hear me, Stella?”
Stella smiled again. She took another little step, her right hand reaching out for the knife.
Susan tried. With all her strength she tried to lift the knife and drive it home into Stella’s belly. But something just went wrong somewhere and she couldn’t quite manage it. She couldn’t seem to move at all.
Lazily, easily, Stella’s hand moved and took the knife from the girl’s numb fingers.
It was all over now, all over for her. She knew that, and she stood very still with her eyes on the knife that was now in Stella’s hand, the tip of the blade pointing toward her heart. In another second or so it would be all over forever, and she would never see Ralph again, never feel safe and secure in his arms again, never love him and be loved by him again.
She wanted to cry but she couldn’t cry any more than she could scream or stab. She was numb and frightened, and her heart was beating so fast and her breath coming so quickly that she thought she was going to pass out cold. Well, she might as well faint. She would be just as dead in a moment anyway.
Stella smiled again, the sick smile, the twisted smile, the maniacal smile.
“The picture,” she said. “I want to see the picture.”
She walked all alone to the easel, the knife still in her hand, the insane smile still fixed on her face. She ripped the cloth covering off and stared down at the canvas while Susan cowered against the wall in the kitchenette, too petrified to move.
“The picture is very beautiful,” Stella said.
Susan barely heard her.
“Very beautiful,” Stella repeated. “Too beautiful to live. Too beautiful to go on living.”
Susan was shaking uncontrollably.
“I’m going to kill you,” Stella said.
Susan wanted to shout at her to go ahead and get it all over with. But something made her stop. And suddenly she realized that the woman was no longer paying any attention to her. Stella’s mind was on the picture, and all her interest was focused upon it.
“I’m going to kill you,” she repeated. “Kill you because you’re too beautiful to live.”
But she wasn’t talking to Susan any longer. She was talking to the picture.
She raised the knife. Savagely she slashed away at the canvas. The first stroke of the knife went through Susan’s portrait diagonally, slicing through the left breast and the right side of the stomach.
The next stroke was a stab wound where the heart would have been in the painting. Then another slash across the groin.
Stella kept on wielding the knife, making ribbons out of the canvas. Finally she was through and the knife dropped to the floor with a clatter. She turned from the portrait and walked back to where Susan was huddled against the wall in the kitchenette.
“You’re dead,” she said calmly. “I killed you.”
Susan thought hysterically, Ralph’s going to be upset when he sees what she did to the picture.
“You’re dead,” Stella repeated. “Why don’t you fall down if you’re dead?”
Susan crumpled up, exhausted, and dropped to the floor.
Chapter eleven
Stella hurried downstairs. As she passed the second floor landing she shouted Maria’s name. Somehow it seemed very important for her to see Maria just now. She wasn’t sure exactly why, but she wanted very much to see Maria.
She didn’t wait for the girl. She continued on downstairs the same smile still on her lips, the same insane light in her eyes.
She felt wonderful.
The strange thing was that she wasn’t quite sure what had happened upstairs. She knew that she had killed somebody but it was difficult to determine just who it was that she killed. A girl, certainly. Yes, she remembered quite clearly that she killed a girl.
But who was the girl?
A knife. Yes, she could remember a knife. She took a knife and cut the girl in the breasts and the stomach and the groin and the legs and the throat. She cut the girl all over.
But who was the girl?
Susan Rivers. Yes, that was it of course. That was who it was. She remembered quite clearly now that she killed Susan Rivers. But which Susan Rivers?
Were there two Susan Rivers — one that moved and one that sat in a chair? That was possible, but how could that be? Maybe they were twins. But if they were twins, how come they both had the same first name? Twins were supposed to have different first names, weren’t they?
Oh, it was all too much for her to try to figure it out. The hell with it. All that she knew for sure was that she had killed a girl and now she felt much better.
And Maria was coming, and that was good also. For some reason she wanted very much to see Maria.
She walked into her own bedroom and sat down on the edge of the bed with her back to the door. She reached around behind her and undid her halter, letting it fall to the floor. There — that was much better. It gave her breasts room to breathe, and it was very important for her breasts to have room to breathe.
Then she kicked off her sandals. Then finally she slipped out of her shorts and dropped them on the floor with the halter and the sandals.
To hell with it. Let everything stay on the floor. She wanted her little girl. Her Maria.
There were footsteps in the hallway, then footsteps in the front room. That was probably Maria, she thought. That was Maria, her little daughter, and Maria was coming to take care of her.
She didn’t turn around.
The footstep came closer. Yes, that was Maria. She could recognize Maria’s footsteps, and now Maria was coming into the bedroom.
“Hello,” she said. “Hello, Maria.”
But Maria didn’t answer. That wasn’t very good of Maria, and now she would have to punish the girl. It was all very tiresome but there was nothing else to be done. Maria was being bad and now she would have to be punished. She would have to learn to behave, and it was up to her Mummy to teach her what was right and what was wrong. Why, if her Mummy didn’t teach her, how in the world would the bad little girl ever learn to be good?