Magician's Wife (13 page)

“Friendly?
Friendly?
”

She slapped the side of the tub, to indicate how she regarded it, and then after some moments said: “So, that's why this is good-by, Clay.”

“... Good-by?” he whispered, stunned.

“That's it, much as I hate it.”

“But why?”

“Well, Clay, you made yourself clear, and I accept what you said: I come with you now, or don't come. So I can't come with you now, so—good-by.”

“But why can't you come with me now?”

“There's something I have to do.”

“Yes, but what?”

“Nothing that—concerns you.”

“If it concerns you it has to concern me.”

After popping herself back and forth, first by pressing a toe to the spigot, then by bumping with her head, she said: “I shouldn't be like this—but it's how I am, and I can't help myself. Clay, when someone does something to me, I can't let it pass, that's all. I have to do something back. And I'm going to. But it may take some little time, and so—I can't come with you now.”

She said it with brisk decision, suddenly standing up, tweaking the drain, and starting to towel off. Then, stepping out on the mat and slipping the cloth from her head, she led the way to the living room, still without a stitch on, and curled up in the chair by the window. He followed, tramping around uneasily, trying to readjust to this new development—or old development, now almost in the open. Presently, in a somewhat different tone, she went on: “And there's something I mustn't forget. Clay, in justice to those cops, hands and slobber and all, they didn't really believe him—they did their stuff, of course, but when they didn't find anything, they tried to get through his head I was not the girl he thought. And of course, he had to shut up. But he thought what he thought, and he's not going to unthink it, regardless of what they said, and regardless of time passing by. Twenty years can go by and he'll still think that's what I did—and where do I go from there? Suppose I did come with you. My life would never be safe. And yours wouldn't, darling! I can't forget you for one minute. He could be crazy enough to move against you too—as being in on it, maybe, and helping to raise his boy. He might even move against Elly. I tell you, in some ways he's not all there in the head.”

“Who mentioned something like that?”

“You did, Clay. You warned me.”

She whispered it reverently, and he went over and kissed her. She pressed his hand and then in a moment went on: “And there's still another angle. Clay, I know you hate it whenever I talk about money, and I glory in you for it. But money figures in this and can't be disregarded. He's a millionaire now—the picture has changed overnight. And from where he sits, to get rid of me he'll have to pay me, plenty. Well? Wouldn't burying me be cheaper? Especially when all it takes is magic.”

“Magic? Hey, there are limits to everything!”

“Clay, what do you know about magic?”

“Not much. Just the same—?”

“It's based on illusion, isn't it?”

“I—suppose so.
And?
”

“If he can make hundreds of people think they saw me floating through the air when it's really just a dummy, he can make a dozen think they saw me around the house, after he drove off to work, and before my body was found, curled up in my car, a rubber hose running in from the exhaust. By magic is how it
can
be done!”

“If you mean what I think you mean, they burn you for it in Maryland—and I don't like it one bit.”

“Nobody's asking you to.”

He had hoped, perhaps, that she didn't mean what he thought, and her answer unsettled him badly, so he didn't speak for some minutes. At last he asked: “
Do you mean to do it by magic?
”

“I'm not a magician, Clay.”

“But you must have something in mind.”

“Yes—you sit on the porch of a beachhouse, watching divers at work, looking for stuff to bum you, you think of all kinds of things.”

“Then you
do
have something in mind?”

“It's my lookout; it doesn't concern you.”

“If I love you, it has to.”

“That touches me, but if this is good-by, why do we louse it with stuff that has no meaning? Why can't we have our evening, kiss, and part? I've already told you too much.”

“But why
must
this be good-by?”

“You said so! You said it had to be!”

“Sally,
when
did I say such a thing?”

“You said come with you now or—don't come.”

“But that was before! We've been all over that!”

“We have, but I can't come with you till—!”

“... Yes? Till?”

“I started to say, ‘till it's done'—but of course that's out of the question. You're not with it, you don't like it—
Clay, will you leave me alone!
”

She was suddenly emotional, and seemed to be verging on crack-up. He calmed her, then said: “I'm not trying to plague you, Sally—I know the hell you've been through. But I've been through hell, too—and I love you. And I'm entitled to know more than you're telling me.”

“Such as what?”

“Such as what you're fixing to do!”

“I've told you it's none of your damned business.”

“O.K., we skip that part—just forget it. But I am entitled to know, and it's plenty of my damned business, why this must be the end. Will you kindly explain that to me? If you can?”

“All right, then, I'll try.”

She stared out at the stars, breathed deeply a few times, and presently had control. Then: “First of all,” she began, “what I have to do, I have to.” But “have to” came out
hafta,
sounding much more intense that way. Pausing to let it sink in, she went on: “So, let's suppose it's been done. It was an accident, say the reports, but you have a different idea. O.K., then what?”

“... Well, I don't quite know.”

“That's why it's good-by.”

“Hey, Sally! Not so fast, not so fast!”

“Take your time, Clay. Think it over.
Then what?
”

“... You don't
hafta
do this thing!”

“I'm sorry, I do. And I'm
gonna.
”

“God, but you make things tough!”

“I'm trying not to. I'm saying good-by.”

He walked around in agony, rubbing his hands on his T shirt to dry his damp palms. Then, in a weary, moaning tone, he wailed: “Sally, I may as well tell the truth—we're up tight, why fiddle and foodle and faddle? I could tell myself I couldn't stand for it—I could swear up and down before God I'd never see you again—but two weeks after it happened I'd be calling you up. We've been all over that—I love you! Does that answer you, Sally? I'd break!”

“The question is, would I?”

“Now, what do you mean by
that?
”

“All right, Clay, so it's done. But it won't do itself—I
did it.
Walked into the Valley of the Shadow and then walked out again—as we hope. But then lo and behold, who's there, galumphing up real fast? Why, it's you, chortling in your joy! ‘And has thou slain the Jabberwock? Come to my arms, my beamish girl! Oh, frabjous day, calloo, callay'—and whatever the rest of it is! Well, my handsome young friend, when Jabberwocks get slew, someone who just took a walk, who did not even hold the horses, watch for the Bandersnatch, or do
anything
at all for his beamish girl, may not please her as much as she thought he did before. If she's still going to love him, I really couldn't say—all girls are dumb, especially beamish ones, and she could eat her heart out. I wouldn't say she had more sense. But if she hasta, she hasta—and will.”

“You're saying I have to help.”

“Can't you understand English? I'm saying good-by.”

“It's not all you're saying, Sally.”

“I know what I'm saying, I think.”

“Maybe—but I know the insinuendo.”

“Which is, Clay?”

“That I've mock-orange juice in my veins.”

“Oh,
that.
I'm glad you brought it up.” She reflected, or appeared to, then told him: “I shouldn't have said it, and I apologize. For the rest of what happened that night, perhaps I ought to apologize too, but I don't. When I'm put upon, I have to do something back—I can't help it, it's how I am. I was grievously hurt that night, horribly disappointed—and so I wrecked your place, and ought to regret it, but don't. I'm even
glad,
if you have to know. I might be glad of what I said except that I can't be, and for a very good, simple reason: it wasn't true. You don't have mock-orange juice in your veins or anything like it. You're a fine, upstanding guy, and brave, according to your way of doing. Unfortunately my way of doing is different, and that's what it comes down to. So, I not only apologize for all that I said, but take it back. It was mean and did me no credit. And—I might as well say it all. I don't like saying good-by—I mortally hate it. And my heart will start getting eaten the second I go out that door. So now you know, but what has to be, hasta.”

He tramped around some moments, then went to the arch, leaning his elbows on it, and dropping his face in his arms. Then he faced her and said: “I'm in.”

“You're— What did you say, Clay?”

“You heard me.”

“... This room is spinning around.”

“You're mistaken. It's standing on its head.”

“And things are happening inside of me. Thrills and—”

“Sally, you do have a scheme?”

“I have—and it's going to work!”

“O.K. What is it?”

“Do we
have
to go into it now?”

She got up and turned on the floor lamp back of her chair, standing before him naked. “Can't we just have our beautiful hour?” she asked softly. But her eyes did not correspond with her voice or, for that matter, with her white, childish loveliness. They were cold, hard, and crafty.

He went over and gathered her into his arms.

“What in the hell has she got you into? Why did you let her do it? Lockwood, she didn't—you did it yourself, single-handed. You're a noble volunteer. And with your eyes open yet—you've known all along what she meant. On top of that, however she fooled the cops, you know she killed that old man. You know everything, and yet you dealt yourself in. So cut out the whats and whys—you are in and that's all that matters. You know you have to have her, and this is the way you get her—and the only way. So get going. So do it. And see that you do it right.”

That vanity was his trouble, inflamed by obsessive desire; that his great source of strength, the element in his nature that drove him ahead in business, riding all obstacles down, could also be his weakness; that this giddy twin sister of pride could have a soft underbelly, loving praise above everything else, especially this girl's praise, and dreading her phony scorn—none of this could he have thought of or believed if he had thought of it. To him, it centered on love and a Jabberwock to be slain—a quarry as unreal, as queer, as insubstantial as something in a dream, but a Jabberwock, just the same, to be slain.

B
UT HAVING REACHED HIS
dreadful decision, he entered a new phase, with qualms pushed aside, and no thought in his mind but the deed he intended to do—and, in fact, was as detached about it as he might have been about a campaign to sell meat. By day he talked with Hal, Miss Helm, and Pat, in long phone conversations. By night he drove with Sally, listening as she prattled, as devoid of guilt as he was, of the enormous estate the Gorsuch will had disclosed when filed for probate after the funeral, and of the adventure they had embarked on. Her scheme, as she explained it the next evening they had, was a car crash they would contrive, which would take Mr. Alexis' life but at the same time “look perfectly natural.” They could take advantage, she thought, of a quirk in his driving taste, which led him to use an old road, a black-top long since condemned, one of the old original routes from the time of Governor Crothers, which he preferred “for its peace and quiet, as there's no traffic on it, especially in early morning, when he comes home from work.” So together they had a look, entering the stretch in question a few miles south of Baltimore, ‘at their own risk,' as a big sign informed them. For some distance it ran through meadows that showed green on both sides, being almost on a level with them. But then it began to rise, over a considerable fill, as it passed over a marsh, with water backed up on each side. Then it popped on a bridge, an iron thing over a slough, that rattled and clanked and shook from the weight of the car. Then more marsh, more meadow, and the outskirts of Channel City.

Her idea was a roadblock “that we make by parking the car, at the top of the fill near the bridge, but not a full roadblock, just kind of half-and-half, so instead of stopping dead, he pulls out enough to pass. But the condition that shoulder is in, it could give way under him and spill him down in the water. And so—that would be it.” He considered this, parking up near the bridge, examining the fill with a flashlight, and in all ways being thorough. At last he said: “No—it's too risky and has too little chance of succeeding. In the first place, he could stop dead, recognize us, and be warned from then on, so there'd be no way to get him. Or he could pull out and the fill not give way—it doesn't have to, and we can't be sure it will. Or it might give way and he might go down with it, but not till he banged this car, and then we would be in it. Sally, what's basically wrong is it doesn't have
audacity.
It lacks that one thing that could let us win, the means of achieving
surprise,
which is what a thing of this kind
has
to have.” She drank all this in, doting, for she detected not a case of cold feet but hardening resolution. But, winding up their evening's work, he observed: “This stretch of road, though, could win for us. Let's work on it, think—see what use we can make of it.”