Eunice took one more look in the mirror before opening the door with a huge smile.
“Hi!” she said, thinking he looked very hot, sweaty, and tired. But also thinking there was something very sexy about that. She had an image of herself helping him out of his T-shirt and drying his chest and shoulders with a towel. She imagined that his skin would be hairless. She knew his body would be firm and smooth. She said, “You look like you could use a cold drink, Clark.”
“Is Mr. Graham here?” Malcolm asked.
“Mr. Graham is definitely not here,” she said. “And won’t be coming back.”
“He won’t?” Malcolm said. “Where is he?”
“Like old Hollywood, he’s gone with the wind,” Eunice said.
“I don’t get it,” Malcolm said. “I’m supposed to work for him. He promised!”
“You can work for me,” Eunice said, finishing the martini in a gulp. “At least for today. We gotta get these boxes and luggage down to your car. I need you to take me to the airport.” As he looked at the suitcases waiting by the door, she said, “I hope we can fit all my bags in your Mustang. Is the trunk very big?”
“I gotta see Mr. Graham!” Clark said. “He made a lotta promises to me. Is he at the office?”
“The office?” she said. “Oh, yeah, the apartment where he meets with the runners. He might be there, but he can’t help you.”
“He’s gotta help me!” Malcolm said. “I better drive over there and talk to him.”
“Look, Clark,” Eunice said. “Lemme get you a cold drink. How about a martini? Bet you never tasted a real Bombay martini.”
“I gotta go find Mr. Graham,” Malcolm said and started for the door.
“Sit down, Clark,” Eunice said. “I’ve got something to tell you.”
Malcolm hesitated while she pushed a computer chair on wheels toward him and lit a cigarette. The smoke in the apartment was making him nauseated and she looked like she’d had too many martinis, but she had urgency to her voice, so he sat.
“Okay,” he said. “I’m sitting.”
“Clark,” Eunice said, “Mr. Graham isn’t in charge of our business. Mr. Graham is just a glorified runner. I’m the boss of our operation, and I’m shutting things down for a while. I’m leaving town and won’t be back for a few months.” Then she added, “I’m going to New York.”
“How about Mr. Graham?” Malcolm said.
“Fuck Mr. Graham!” Eunice said. “Pardon my French. He tried to cheat me, so I fired him. He’s out.” Malcolm looked so distressed that she felt sorry for him and said, “I’m gonna come back here and start a new business in a few months, and I could use a smart boy like you. I’ll stay in touch and tell you when and where to meet me. But for now, I want you to help me get rid of everything in those boxes. We’ll have to find Dumpsters for them and then return here to get my bags. I can see now that we’ll never be able to squeeze the boxes and the luggage into your car.”
Malcolm’s disappointment was palpable even to Eunice in her deliriously happy, three-martini state.
“You called me here to be your taxi?” Malcolm said, hardly moving his lips when he spoke.
“Not my taxi, my loyal employee,” Eunice said. “It’s important that we get rid of all the stuff in those boxes. I’m gonna pay you two hundred dollars, Clark. With maybe a bonus if we can dispose of everything and get me to the airport in two hours.”
“This is not right,” Malcolm Rojas said. “I gotta go to the office and talk to Mr. Graham about this. This is not fair.”
When he stood abruptly, Eunice said, “Clark, Clark, cool down. I’ll pay you three hundred. And after I get settled, I might just send you a plane ticket to come visit me. How would you like that?”
She stood and reached up slowly and buried her left hand in the beautiful curls over his ear. His dark eyes were so fiery and intense she felt her own heat rising.
“You can make plenty of money with me, sweetheart,” she said with a long sigh, tugging at his curls, thinking his nose was cute and pert and his dimples were divine.
When she pushed closer to him he could smell the gin, and it disgusted him, and her touch disgusted him, and when she called him sweetheart, it enraged him. “I’m not your sweetheart,” he said.
“What… what’s wrong?” she said, looking at his face flush. “I’ll bet you never had a mature woman treat you right, have you, Clark? I’ll treat you right and pay you good money to boot. All for a little help this evening.”
Malcolm felt her left hand scratching and tugging, and then her right hand moved down his body to the front of his jeans, and he felt her touching his crotch, rubbing it, feeling gently with her fingers, her recent manicure badly damaged by the chains that had bound her. “Just sit back down, Clark,” Eunice said. “And let Momma teach you a few tricks.”
With that, Malcolm Rojas shoved her so hard in the chest that she staggered back and fell onto the kitchen floor. “You bitch!” he said. “Don’t you ever put your hands on me! You fat old filthy bitch!”
Eunice was livid. She pulled herself up by grabbing the kitchen counter, unsteady from the martinis, and yelled, “Who the fuck do you think you are, you Mexican dimwit? Get the fuck outta my apartment! Get out, you pathetic little greaser!”
She started for the door to jerk it open when she felt the strike to her throat-an instant of burn, and then she couldn’t breathe. She threw her hands up and blood washed over them, running down her arms. She instinctively started to run, trying to breathe, but she could not breathe. Nor could she scream. She ran to her bedroom, slammed into the doorjamb, and fell to her knees. There was no air! She tried harder to breathe but nothing entered her lungs except blood.
Malcolm stood with the box knife down by his leg, looking at her. The tiger lily top was now a burgundy that matched her lipstick. She toppled onto her side, hands clutching at the air, as though she were trying to paddle up and away from there, blood streaming and finally bubbling from the widening gap in her throat. In less than a minute she stopped thrashing. Her body jerked twice and then was still except for little twitches. Malcolm couldn’t take his eyes off her, utterly amazed. It was the most astonishing thing he’d ever seen. And then he turned and ran for the door, hurtling down the steps, running to his Mustang.
While driving aimlessly east on Franklin Avenue, he was startled by the dried spatter on his right hand. He started to wipe it onto his jeans but then paused and looked at it. The blood was arousing conflicting emotions in him. He knew that later tonight in bed he would have to relive this event as best he could. Right now he was too rattled to remember the instant that he’d slashed her. He hoped he could remember it while lying alone in the dark. He did not feel remorse. She had left him no choice, the way she’d screamed at him and handled him like he was nothing. Like he was a helpless child that she could fondle as she wished. He was only sorry there wasn’t some way he could tell his mother what he had done-not to grieve but to gloat.
But then fear began to overwhelm him. He didn’t know what the police could find at crime scenes. On TV it was like magic. The scientist-cop could almost trap your shadow and use it to catch you somehow. He hadn’t worried about things like fingerprints when he’d attacked those other bitches. He never really touched anything but their fat bodies. And since he’d never been arrested, they couldn’t find him, even if he left a bit of fingerprint somewhere. But this was different, what he’d done today. He was trying to think of what he’d touched in that apartment. Nothing. Only the door handle. It was a lever and he’d opened it with his palm wrapped around it. Could they get a print from his palm?
Then he remembered! He’d braced himself against the wall when she was trying to swim away from him through the air. His entire left hand with all five fingers might be imprinted on the wall beside her body! Did they take a thumbprint when he got his driver’s license? He couldn’t remember. If they did, was it the left thumb or the right thumb? Or was it his index finger? Would they have that to compare with the handprint he’d left in the apartment?