So…
We decided to do it.
And…
Well…
He went over there and did it.
Stabbed her.
Went over there with a knife under his jacket, and threw the knife down a sewer afterward. Nowhere near her building. She lived up in Diamondback, can you believe it? I’d be scared to death going home up there at night after rehearsal. I don’t know where the knife is now. Where do sewers go? I know they don’t empty into the river because that would be polluting the water, wouldn’t it? But where do they go? Wherever they go, that’s where the knife is. It was a knife from my kitchen. A bread knife. He wrapped it in a towel and carried it under his jacket, this brown leather jacket he has. Stabbed her when she opened the door.
P.S., I didn’t get the part.
They gave the part to Josie instead.
Listen, she’s a very capable actress, I’m the first to admit that. But that’s like comparing apples and oranges, isn’t it? Josie hasn’t had the training I had, she doesn’t have the experience I have, she simply isn’t in my league.
How the hell can you figure something like that?
Chuck said maybe she was sleeping with Morgenstern.
Otherwise, why would they have passed me over…
And remember, they were considering giving the part to me in the first place, when they decided on Michelle instead…
Pass me over and give the part to her fucking understudy?
This was a B movie, am I right?
Giving the part to someone as inexperienced as Josie?
I still can’t believe it.
Well…
I started worrying about a few things. And I started thinking about a few things, too. I probably wouldn’t have done anything further… I mean, what the hell, a part is a part, you lose out on one part, there’s always another part. So, honestly, I don’t think I’d have done anything further, in spite of worrying about Chuck maybe cracking, maybe feeling remorse for what he’d done, maybe going to the police and confessing, who the hell knew what he might do? I mean, he kept telling me he loved me, would he have killed Michelle if he didn’t love me? But romance is one thing and guilt is another, and I could tell this was beginning to eat at him, especially since it hadn’t had the desired effect, we’d killed one bitch only to have another one take her place. So I was worried about him, yes, worried about whether he’d have the strength to see this thing through. Men can be so weak sometimes, even the strongest of them, physically strong, I mean, he was so big.
And I started thinking maybe we should go after Josie next, do to her what we’d done to Michelle because then they’d have to give me the part, wouldn’t they? If Josie was out of the way? Wouldn’t they have to give it to me? Who else could they give it to? The fucking cleaning lady at the theater?
And then I found the earring.
Josie’s earring.
Do you believe in fate?
I absolutely believe in fate.
I found it on the sink counter in the ladies’ room. At the theater. I almost gave it back to her. I knew it was hers, of course, I’d seen her wearing them before. Almost gave it back. Almost missed the clear signal that earring was sending me. That earring was telling me what I had to do next, you see. It was telling me how to get the part I should have had to begin with, and it was also telling me how I could quit worrying about Chuck maybe cracking and involving me in a murder that was his idea, after all, he was the one who first suggested it, you can believe that or not, I don’t care.
I figured if I could…
If I could make it look like someone had committed suicide, you see…
Well, make it look as if Chuck had committed suicide, actually…
Leave a suicide note and all.
Type up a suicide note.
Make it seem as if he was remorseful for having killed Michelle, but then…
And this was the good part.
Make it look as if the suicide had been faked, the suicide was really a murder, do you see? Someone had killed him and tried to make it look like a suicide, I’m sure you see a lot of that, I’ve been in a dozen plays where that happened. In fact, I was counting on your looking for something like that, a fake suicide. I was counting on you finding the earring I left under the bed, Josie’s earring. I was counting on you figuring she was the one who’d been there, she was the one who’d made love to him.
We made such good love that night.
I surprised him there.
Knocked on the door. Hi, Chuck.
He looked so handsome.
We made such good love.
I’d like a drink, I told him afterwards. No, don’t get up, I’ll make them. I mixed them in the kitchen, dropped two Dalmanes into his. Here’s to us, darling, here’s to our future. He was out like a light ten minutes later. I rolled him off the bed and dragged him to the bedroom window, but the damn thing was sealed shut around the air conditioner, so I had to drag him all the way into the living room, he was so big, so heavy. I left him on the floor under the window while I did what I had to do. I was still naked. I left the glasses where they were. A woman there, right? Put away the bottle of Scotch. Typed up the note. Still naked. Tried not to make it too specific because I wanted you to figure out some things for yourself. If it looked too phony, you’d begin to think it was supposed to look phony, that someone was trying to make it look phony. I wiped off everything I’d touched, even the earring. I was going to leave the earring in plain sight, but then I thought that might seem too obvious, too, so I put it under the bed. Not too far under it. I wanted it to be found. I wanted you to think she’d dropped it on the floor, Josie, and it had just rolled under the bed, and there it was. While I was getting dressed, I couldn’t find my panties, he’d tossed them across the room someplace. I almost panicked. I found them hanging on one of the dresser knobs. I’d been searching all over the floor, and there they were hanging on this knob. Can you imagine the hundred to-one shot that was? Chuck throwing them across the room and them landing on a knob? The things that happen.
Getting him out the window was the hard part.
He was so heavy. Such a big man.
I propped him up and sort of draped his arms over the sill, and then I tried hoisting him up over it. I was already dressed and beginning to sweat, struggling to lift him. I wanted to leave the apartment the minute I got him out the window, run down the back stairs, get away from the building in what I hoped would be a lot of confusion outside. But I was beginning to panic again because I wasn’t sure I could manage it, it was taking all my strength just to get his chest up onto the sill. And then all at once I… I don’t know what it was… I suddenly seemed so much stronger, maybe it was an adrenaline rush or something, I don’t know, but all at once I was lifting him and… and he was suddenly weightless… falling away from my hands… out and… and gone. Just gone.
All the way home, I kept praying you’d find the earring and think Josie was the one who’d killed him.
Because then you’d go get her.