When she discovers that Jonathan is having an affair with the blatant homosexual who is Brechtmann’s purchasing agent, she decides to put an end to it at once. To protect Jonathan, you see. Because she knows what kind of a man Holden is, knows all about his unwholesome past, the hordes of younger men he’s used and abused. She would, in fact, have fired him long ago were it not for a company policy initiated by her own father that guaranteed tenure to employees who’d been there for fifteen years or longer. But tenure does not apply to thieves. She concocts the story that he’s been stealing from the company, goes so far as to falsify documents showing he’s been receiving kickbacks, and is startled out of her wits (another close shot of her face, green eyes opened wide, mouth agape) when Holden sues for libel and defamation.
She learns later that the suit was suggested to Holden by Guess Who?
(Close shot of Jonathan Parrish, grinning into camera, pointing a prankish finger at himself. He is holding in his other hand a cane that looks remarkably like a phallus.)
She settles out of court.
She is beginning to hate Jonathan Parrish.
But now, she must deal with him yet another time.
On this cold rainy morning at the end of January…
It is, in fact, the thirtieth day of the month, but there are no titles, she does not need titles to remember the morning she put him out of her life forever…
Jonathan…
Jonathan…
She walks up the beach toward his house, dressed in somber black, black in mourning for her lost innocence, her lost love, her lost child, black against the falling gray of the rain and the gray of the sky.
He is at the kitchen counter when she comes in.
He does not look as if he has slept much the night before.
He is cutting a grapefruit in two with a chefs knife.
He explains that he had a dreadful argument with his brother. He tells her he feels rotten. He asks her if she wants half of this thing. She shakes her head no. Some coffee? No. Thank you.
He makes a comment which to her sounds faggoty but which probably isn’t, something about it being a bit early for a social visit, isn’t it, one eyebrow arched toward the clock on the wall, dawn breaks grayly on the horizon.
“I came for the pictures,” she says.
“What pictures? What are you talking about?”
“The pictures you took of us. Me and the baby.”
“God, that was centuries ago.”
“Jonathan, I need them. Are they here?”
“Who remembers?”
“Do you have them?”
“Really, Elise…”
“Try to remember.”
A look comes over his face. She has seen this look before. She knows exactly what this look means. It is a look compounded of opportunity and greed.
“How much are they worth to you?” he asks.
“You son of a bitch!” she says.
“Oh my, such language.”
“You have them, don’t you?”
Her voice rising.
“If I do, how much will you pay for them?”
“You son of a bitch bastard!”
Louder now.
“How much, Elise?”
“You fucking cocksucker fag!”
Shrieking the words.
And reaching for the knife on the countertop.
“No!” he shouts.
And screams.
Like a woman.
And then he shouts, “Put that down!”
She comes at him with the knife.
“I don’t have them!” he shouts. “I don’t know where they are!”
She does not believe him, she no longer cares where the fucking pictures are, she is consumed by rage. She knows only that this is the man who has caused her so much pain over so many years, the man who could never be satisfied by girls, women, females, dig? the man who not moments before has betrayed her yet another time. As she lunges toward him, her green eyes slitted, her lips skinned back over clenched white teeth, the knife in her hand becomes for her what he has always wanted and what she has never been able to give him. With all her might, she sticks it into him, glittering and stiff.
He screams.
And then he is silent.
All is silent.
She lets go of the knife. He sinks to the floor.
At first she thinks she is wet with his blood below.
But it is not his blood.
She runs off into the rain.
Toots was watching when she came out of the house at a quarter to twelve.
Leona was wearing black leotards and tights. Black pumps with a French heel. A black shoulder bag slung over one shoulder. Black Reeboks laced together and slung over the other shoulder. She tossed the Reeboks and the bag onto the front seat of the Jag and then got in herself.
Toots stayed a block and a half behind her.
Followed her up 41, turned when she did onto Bayou Boulevard.
Still with her when she parked the car in front of the Bayou Professional Building, 837 West Bayou Boulevard. Two-story, white clapboard building dead ahead. Doctors’ shingles alongside doors in the wall. One of the shingles read WADE LIVINGSTON, M.D. Must be the place. Toots thought.
She waited.
In the Jag up ahead, Leona lighted a cigarette.
Toots’s dashboard clock read three minutes to twelve.
Short nervous puffs of smoke came from the window on the driver’s side of the Jag.
Hands on the clock straight up now.
One of the ground-level office doors opened. A nurse in white skirts, a little white cap, white pantyhose and flat white rubber-soled shoes came out and began walking toward a little red Toyota. She looked up at the sky, shrugged, got into the car, started it, and drove off.
Toots waited.
Leona tossed her cigarette out the window.
The door to the office opened again.
A tall dark-haired man wearing eyeglasses and a blue suit stepped out, checked the parking lot, spotted the green Jag, and walked toward it.
Dr. Livingston, Toots thought. I presume.
Livingston, if that’s who he was, checked the lot again as he approached the Jag. He opened the door on the passenger side, got in immediately, and closed the door behind him.
“Let’s get the hell away from here,” he said.
Toots smiled.
The bug was working fine.
It was easy when there were only two people. Monitor a bug with four or five people in a room, you could go crazy trying to figure which voice was which. This one was simple. Only two people, one male, one female. Vive la différence.
“All right, Lee, what’s the big urgency?”
Toots guessed he called her Lee. Term of endearment, she guessed. Lee.
“I hate it when you call me Lee.”
Ooops.
“Oh, I’m SOFIA, I didn’t realize…”
“My name is Leona.”
“Yes, Leona, I said I was sorry.”
Silence.
“So here we are. what’s the big urgency?”
“I wanted to say goodbye properly.”
“I thought that’s what last night was all about. Saying goodbye properly Leona, if you intend to…”
“No, I…”
“… drag this thing out forever…”
“No. I know you want to end it.”
“I’ve already ended it, Leona.”
“Yes, I know. But I haven’t. Not yet. Not properly.”
“Where are we going?”
She was making a left turn into the parking lot of the Haley Municipal Arena. The big billboard out front advertised an automobile show coming next week. Trucks, Cars, Tractors.