Play It as It Lays: A Novel (14 page)

"Nothing."

"I want to help you. Tell me what you feel."

She looked at the hand he held out to her. "Nothing," she said.

"You say that again and I swear to Christ—"

She shrugged. He left the motel.

They had three days left on the desert.

Except when they let Carter or Helene in, I never minded
Neuropsychiatric and I don't mind here. Nobody bothers
me. The only problem is Kate. I want Kate.

"WE SHOT THE LAST MASTER after you left this afternoon," Carter said when he came in with Helene. "Three set-ups in the morning and we're home. Fantastic."

“'Susannah was fabulous," Helene said. "Supergood."

BZ said nothing. Maria stared out the window.

"You should have seen Carter working with her."

"I bet he was fabulous," BZ said. "Fab."

The one time Ivan Costello got through the switchboard
to me here he told me that I had lost my sense of humor.

In spite of what Carter and Helene think, maybe my
sense of humor was all I did lose.

"YOU WERE FANTASTIC TODAY," Helene said when Susannah Wood came in.

"Super-good," BZ said. "Really key."

Susannah Wood lay down on Maria's bed. "Let's go into Vegas."

"It’s all planned." Helene did not look at BZ. "Sylvie Roth's over, and Cassie and Leona and—”

BZ stood up. "You go into Vegas."

"Don't you want to see Sylvie?"

"No."

"Don't you want to see Leona's last show?"

"No.”

The cords tightened on Helene's neck. "Exactly what do you want.”

Susannah Wood giggled. "I saw the charts today, Leona's single stopped at 85."

BZ looked at Helene. "Exactly nothing," he said pleasantly.

Maria dropped a tray of ice on the floor.

Carter and Helene still ask questions. I used to ask
questions, and I got the answer: nothing. The answer is

"nothing." Now that I have the answer, my plans for the
future are these: (1 ) get Kate, (2) live with Kate alone
(3) do some canning. Damson plums, apricot preserves.

Sweet India relish and pickled peaches. Apple chutney.

Summer squash succotash. There might even be a ready
market for such canning: you will note that after
everything I remain Harry and Francine Wyeth's
daughter and Benny Austin's godchild. For all I know
they knew the answer too, and pretended they didn't.

You call it as you see it, and stay in the action. BZ

thought otherwise. If Carter and Helene aren't careful
they'll get the answer too.

“I THOUGHT YOU'D BE in Vegas," BZ said when Maria opened the door. He was holding a bottle of vodka and in spite of the heat he was wearing a blazer and a tie. "With Carter and Helene and Susannah and Harrison and Sylvia and Cassie and Leona and

—"

"You knew I wasn't going." Maria lay down on the bed again.

“All right, I knew." He sat on the edge of the bed and loosened his tie. "Look at me all duded up. Why are you in bed at nine o'clock."

"Why not."

"Beautiful."

Maria looked at him. "Tell me why you're sad."

"You're a good girl." All the musculature seemed gone from BZ’s face. He put down the bottle of vodka and reached into his pocket.

"You know what these are?"

He poured twenty or thirty capsules onto the bed before she answered.

"Grain-and-a-half Seconal."

"You want some?"

She looked at him. "No."

"You're still playing." BZ did not take his eyes from hers. "Some day you'll wake up and you just won't feel like playing any more."

"That's a queen's way of doing it."

"I never expected you to fall back on style as an argument."

"I'm not arguing."

"I know that. You think I'd be here if I didn't know that?"

She took his hand and held it. "Why are you here."

"Because you and I, we
know
something. Because we've been out there where nothing is. Because I wanted—you know why."

"Lie down here," she said after a while. "Just go to sleep."

When he lay down beside her the Seconal capsules rolled on the sheet. In the bar across the road somebody punched
King of the
Road
on the jukebox again, and there was an argument outside, and the sound of a bottle breaking. Maria held onto BZ's hand.

"Listen to that," he said. "Try to think about having enough left to break a bottle over it.”

"It would be very pretty," Maria said. "Go to sleep."

She was almost asleep when she sensed that his weight had shifted.

"
Don't
." After she had said it she opened her eyes.

He was swallowing the capsules with a glass of water. There were not very many left on the bed.

"Don't start faking me now." BZ turned off the light and lay down again. "Take my hand. Go back to sleep."

"I'm sorry," she said after a while.

"Hold onto me," BZ said.

When Maria woke again the room was blazing with light and Carter was shaking her and Helene was screaming. Maria thought she had never heard anyone scream the way Helene screamed. She closed her eyes against the light and her ears against Helene and her mind against what was going to happen in the next few hours and tightened her hold on BZ's hand.

Carter called today, but I saw no point in talking to
him. On the whole I talk to no one. I concentrate on the
way light would strike filled Mason jars on a kitchen
windowsill. I lie here in the sunlight, watch the
hummingbird. This morning I threw the coins in the
swimming pool, and they gleamed and turned in the
water in such a way that I was almost moved to read
them. I refrained.

One thing in my defense, not that it matters: I know
something Carter never knew, or Helene, or maybe you.

I know what "nothing" means, and keep on playing.

Why, BZ would say.

Why not, I say.