“He began looking at me in another strange way and said that we were now associated in this affair. He said he knew from Minda what I was, but that it would please him to come into my bed and use me as a woman, just to verify our trust and friendship. I told him there would be no pleasure in it for me, and he said that it did not particularly matter whether there was or not. At such times one must be very careful. And so I pretended fear and begged him not to, then seemed to accept the inevitable, and asked him if he minded if I had some brandy before all this would take place. He said, as I expected, that he would enjoy some also, and that we could drink a toast and seal the bargain. I got a special bottle kept in a special place, and silver glasses so that he could not tell that I would let it run out of my mouth back into the glass. In a little while he smiled foolishly and his words blurred and soon his head toppled forward and he began to snore. I took the money from him and replaced it in the wall safe in the back of my bedroom closet. I felt as if I were moving through a dream. I had quite a lot of the meperedine left, which we had sometimes given Bix when she became unmanageable. Ten little ampules. I had been taught how to administer hypodermics when my first husband was dying, and of course I had given Bix injections. I prepared him properly, with an alcohol swab, and knelt by his chair. But I could not. One wonders if it is possible to kill a human being. I had a dozen reasons to do this thing. But I could not. I could touch the point to the vein on the inside of his arm, but I could not shove it through the skin, no matter what I told myself.”
So in the end she had tied him securely, binding his wrists and ankles to the heavy chair. She had paced the floor until dawn, wondering what to do. When he began stirring, she had sedated him heavily. On Monday morning, early, Wally McLeen had arrived, having at last tracked his missing daughter to her house. She had taken him to the garden house and had given him some of the vivid highlights of Minda’s Mexican vacation, throwing in incidents that had happened to Bix as though they had happened to Minda, including how Rockland had taken her into the cornfield to service the men who had showed up out of the night at the campsite. From his reactions she was afraid he was having a massive coronary. When he was at last more normal, she had said that it was possible that Minda was dead and that Rockland was responsible. She did not say more than that. She said that if he would get hold of some vehicle and if he would come to the vehicle gate at ten that night, there was a possibility she might be able to deliver Rockland over to him, so that he could take Rockland to the police. She showed him where the vehicle gate was. She would not answer his questions.
She had then decided, later on in the day, hearing that the body could not be identified, that if she made an appearance and made the identification and then said that the last she had seen of the girl was when she had driven off with Rockland on Saturday, it would help insulate her against any further accusation.
“But when I saw how… the terrible condition of the body, I knew that one could identify it as almost anyone. There was the chain, of course, that Minda wore about her ankle. But who could say that Bix did not wear one and it was not that one? Or could say those were not Bix’s red shoes? I had the personal papers and personal things of both of them. My mind raced. I stood holding the perfumed handkerchief against my nose. I saw how it could be. If it was Bix who died, she would be mine without question. So I identified her and the police came to my house and I gave them Bix’s things. I brought Minda’s papers here, and I arranged to have the permit renewed under Minda’s name without Bix having to appear. I sent all the servants out that night. I opened the gate for Mr. McLeen. I helped him get Rockland down and into the trunk of an American sedan Mr. McLeen had rented. Mr. McLeen was very strange. He whistled and he walked on his toes, and he said that everything was splendid, that Minda was going to come back to Oaxaca and he would wait around for her until she returned. Rockland was very groggy. When he was curled up in the trunk compartment on his side, Mr. McLeen gave him little pats on the back and called him son and said everything would be arranged properly. I thought I was all right. I thought I was not feeling much of anything. But when I had shut the gate again, all of a sudden without warning, I vomited. Afterward, I felt so faint it took me a long time to finish packing the last few things. I flew from Oaxaca Tuesday on the early schedule. Bix was happy to see me, happy as a Christmas child.”
She was watching my face carefully.
Bix came out of the bathroom again. “Please?”
“All right, dear girl. Sit over there on the couch and be quiet. Mr. McGee, does she look abused? Surely you must have the right to make choices in your work. I am fond of her. I cherish her. I will take her to lovely secluded places. Look how splendid that color is for her. It makes those deep blue eyes look almost deep violet. I will dress her in indigo, and in the good blues and greens and grays. Cool tones suit her kind of beauty. I can control her… need for escape into drugs. She will not be sick, or lonely, or institutionalized. Can anyone else in the world promise that? Can her own people promise that? What do you return to them if you do your nasty little job, Mr. McGee? A young girl with a drug retarded mind. A committed and incurable addictive personality. A committed and incurable lesbian. A person the police of your country will be watching closely, as they promised. You will be taking back heartbreak. Isn’t it kinder, by far, to let her stay dead?”
“Dead?” asked Bix.
“The kid asks a good question, French lady. So do you.”
“Think about it carefully, please.”
So I sat and thought about it. It was nice and easy, her way. Let the dead stay dead. Tell a happy story to good old Harlan Bowie. Feed Meyer the story Eva had fed me through the chained door. Go back and romp away the final few days of Elena’s vacation. Mission accomplished. But should the father have the chance to undo the damage that he had started and others had finished? He had a lot of money, enough to buy penance, good clinics, sleep therapy.
“I have a wall safe here,” she said. “In that closet. I think there is the equivalent of about forty thousand American dollars. I can give you that now, and I can have an additional hundred and sixty thousand here by the day after tomorrow.”
“You buy the girl for two hundred thou?”
“That is a clumsy way to put it. I buy her happiness, and mine. I can afford it.”
“I know. You earned it. The hard way.”
I walked over toward her. She stood up and looked up at me, and I saw the hard mocking confidence in the back of her eyes. She was wearing the small smile of the winner. So I smiled too, and I sighed, and I wondered if it was getting to be too attractive a habit as I steadied her with one hand, chopped the side of that long muscular throat with the other, caught her as she dropped, and slung her onto the bed.
Bix had stood up. “Now what are you doing?”
“I am going to take you for a nice little ride in a nice murderous taxi, sweetie.”
“To the movies?”
“Maybe. Why don’t you go put some clothes on? Where are they?”
“In there. In that other room in the closet and all over.”
“Go get dressed.”
“Sure.”
She went into the next room. I wanted to fix French lady so she would stay put for a nice long time, but not too long, in case nobody dared unlock the suite unless asked. I yanked the sheets out from under her and took them in and dropped them in the tub and got them sopping wet. I took them out and spread them out on the rug, took her out of her gray robe, put her down at one end of the soaked sheets, and rolled her up in them like a window shade. I put her back on the bed with the last wet end tucked neatly under her. As long as they stayed wet, she stayed still. When they dried out, she would wiggle loose.