Look at me…
She looked at him, struggled to focus on his dark, cool face. Did you kill him?
Does the thought turn you on?
Oh, God…
SUSAN ODELL'S APARTMENT WAS A STUDY IN BLACK and white, glass and wood, and when she walked in, was utterly silent. She pulled off her jacket, let it fall to the floor, then her shirt and her turtlenecked underwear, and her bra. The striptease continued back through the apartment through her bedroom to the bathroom, where she went straight into the shower. She stood in the hot water for five minutes, letting it pour around her face. When shed cleaned off the day, she stepped out, got a bath towel froma towel rack, dried herself, dropped the towel on the floor, and walked back to the bedroom. Underpants and gray sweatsuit.
Dressed again, warm, she walked back to the study, stood on her tiptoes, and took a deck of cards off the top of the single bookshelf.
Sitting at her desk, she spread the cards, studied them.
Shed once had an affair, brief but intense, with an artist whod taught her what he called Tarot for Scientists. A truly strange tarot method: business management through chaos theory, and he really knew about chaos. An odd thing for an artist to know, shed thought at the time. Shed even become suspicious of him, and had done some checking. But he was a legitimate painter, all right. A gorgeous watercolor nude, which nobody but she knew was ODell herself, hung in her bedroom, a souvenir of their relationship.
After she realized the value of the artists tarot method, hed bought her a computer version so she could install it on her computer at workthe cards themselves were a little too strange, and a little too public, for a big bank. Theyd done the installation on a cold, rainy night, and afterwards had made love on the floor behind her desk. The artist had been comically inept with the computer. Hed nearly brought down the bank network, and would have, if she hadnt been there to save him. But she could now access electronic cards at any time, protected with her own private code word.
Still. When she could, she preferred the cards themselves: the cool, collected flap of pasteboard against walnut. Hippielike, she thought. McDonald referred to her as a hippie, but she was hardly that. She simply had little time for makeup, for indulgent fashion, or for the flattering of men all the things that Wilson McDonald expected from a woman. At the same time, she obviously enjoyed the company of men, and her relationship with the artist and a couple of other men-about-town had become known at the bank. And she was smart.
As McDonald had thumbed through his box of mentallabels, hed been forced to discardhousewifeandhelpmeet, lesboandbimbo. When word inevitably got around about the tarot, McDonald had relaxed and stuck thehippielabel on her. The label might not explain the hunting, or the manner in which shed cut her way to the top at the bank… but it was good enough for him.
Fuckin moron.
ODell laid out the Celtic Cross; and got a jolt when the result card came up: the Tower of Destruction.
She pursed her lips. Yes.
She stood up, cast a backward glance at the spread of cards, the lightning bolt striking the tower, the man falling to his death: rather like Kresge, she thought, coming out of the tree stand. In fact, exactly so…
She shivered, pulled a cased set of books out of the bookcase, removed a small plastic box, opened it. Inside were a dozen fatties. She took one out, with the lighter, went out to her balcony, closing the glass doors behind her. Cold. She lit the joint, let the grass wrap wreaths of ideas around her brain. Okay. Kresge was dead. Shed wanted him dead gone, at any rate, dead if necessary, and lately, as the merger deal crept closer, dead looked like the only way out.
So shed gotten what she wanted.
Now to capitalize.
TERRANCE ROBLES HOVERED OVER HIS COMPUTER, sweating. He typed:
Switch to crypto.
Youre so paranoid; and cryptos boring . Switching to crypto…
Once in the cryptography program, he typed:
What have you done?
Why?
Oh shit. Somebody shot Kresge today. Im a suspect…
My, my…
Even with the crypto delay, the response was fast. Toofast, and too cynically casual, he thought. More words trailed across the screen.
So, did you do it?
Robles pounded it out: Of course not.
But you thought I did?
He hesitated, then typed, No.
Dont lie to me, T. You thought I did it . No I didnt but I wanted you to say it.
I havent exactly said it, have I?
Come on…
Come on what? The worlds a better place with that fucking fascist out of it.
You didnt do it.
A long pause, so long that he thought she might have left him, then: Yes I did.
No you didnt…
No reply. Nothing but the earlier words, half scrolled up the screen.
Come on… A label popped up:
The room is empty.
Bitch, he groaned. He bit his thumbnail, chewing at it. What was he going to do? Looking up at the screen, he saw the words.
Yes I did .
MARCIA KRESGE OPENED HER APARTMENT DOOR AND found two uniformed cops standing in the hallway.
Yes?
Mrs. Kresge? The cops looked her over. Late thirties, early forties, they thought. Very nice looking in a rich-bitch way. She was wearing a black fluffy dress that showed some skin, and was holding a lipstick in a gold tube. She had a lazy look about her, as though shed just gotten out of bed, not alone.
Yes?
They kept it straightforward: her husband had been killed in a hunting accident.
Yeah, I heard, she said, leaning against the doorpost. Her eyes hadnt even flickered; and to the older cop they looked so blue he thought he might fall in. Should I do something?
The cops looked at each other. Well, hes at the county medical examiners office. We thought youd want to make, er, the funeral arrangements.
She sighed. Yeah, I suppose that would be the thing to do. Okay. Ill call them. The medical examiner.
The older of the two cops, his experience prodding him, tried to keep the conversation going. You dont seem too upset.
She thought about that for a moment. No, Id have to say that Im not. Upset. But Im surprised. She put one hand on her breast, in a parody of a woman taken aback. I thought the asshole was too mean to get killed. Anyway, I just dont… mmm, what thats colorful redneck phrase you policemen always use in the movies? I dont give a large shit.
The cops looked at each other again, and then the younger one said, Maybe we got this wrong. We understood…
Yeah, Im his wife. In two weeks we wouldve been divorced. We havent lived together for two years, and I havent seen him for a year. I dont like him. Didnt like him.
Uh, could you tell us where you were…?
She smiled at him sleepily. When?
Early this morning?
In bed. I was out late last night, with friends.
Could anybody vouch for you being here last night? The older cop was pressing; once you had somebody rolling, you never knew what might come out.
But she nodded: Sure. A friend brought me home.
Im talking about later, like early this morning.
So am I, she said. He stayed.
Oh, okay. Neither one of them was a bit embarrassed, and she was now looking at him with a little interest. Could we get his name?
I dont see why not. Come on in, she said. Ill write it down.
They followed her into the apartment, noted the polished wood floors, the Oriental carpets, the tastefully colorful paintings on eggshell-white walls.
You havent asked me how much Id get from him, if he died before the divorce, she said over her shoulder.
The older cop smiled, his best Gary Cooper grin. He liked her: How much?
I dont know, she lied. My attorney and I took him to the cleaners.