The Comedy is Finished (29 page)

“Yes.” But she’d been so self-involved till now that she’d barely registered her surroundings, and couldn’t remember in this strange house where the bathrooms were. She hesitated, looking back toward the living room, then ahead toward the kitchen.

Meantime, Mark continued on up the stairs toward the second floor, hurrying and yet trying not to shake Davis more than absolutely necessary. The second floor; that’s where the bathroom would be. Liz followed, while blood drops polka-dotted the gray staircase carpet.

At the head of the stairs Mark turned left, through the open doorway into the room where they’d been keeping Davis, while Liz half-instinctively went right, fumbling for a light-switch on the wall, clicking into existence a large bland bedroom with an open mirrored door off to the right. Through that she found the bathroom, a long elaborate double-sinked room with masses of storage space, most of it empty. But there were gauze bandages, there was adhesive tape, there were first-aid powders and ointments; she grabbed up a double armful and hurried to the other room, where Mark had laid Davis out on the bed, and now she saw his forearms, which didn’t look human anymore. “Jesus God,” she said, more awed than repelled.

Mark, his face grimly expressionless, slapped the supplies out of her arms onto the bed. “Cloth,” he said. “Clean cloth.”

“Yes.” Back to the bathroom she went, this time gathering up white towels and a handful of small white facecloths. In the bedroom again she found Mark tenderly folding down the flaps of flesh on the lacerated arms, sprinkling antiseptic powder on them, wrapping gauze to keep them in place. Dropping the cloth on the bed Liz said, “What happened?”

He didn’t seem to hear her. “Scissors,” he said.

Scissors. A third trip to the bathroom, and she brought back
other things as well, aspirin and witch hazel, not knowing what Mark might need. “Strips of tape,” he said, as she walked into the room, not looking up from what he was doing. One forearm was now completely wrapped in gauze, like a mummy, like a Red Cross volunteer; he was working on the second.

She cut strips of tape, but as he prepared to tape the gauze on the first arm they both saw the blood already seeping through. A strange sound came from Mark’s throat then, a kind of animal noise, half bark and half whine. And he stopped, he seemed directionless all at once, as though someone had pushed a button that disconnected him from his motivations. In the humming silence he hesitated, rocking slightly, looking down at the spreading stains of blood.

Liz said, “More gauze,” to prompt him into movement, but he shook his head: “Isn’t any more. Used it up.”

She looked around at the jumble of things on the round purple bed. “These,” she said, holding up the small facecloths.

“Yes.” The solution didn’t make him pleased, or excited, it merely reactivated him. He took facecloths, folded them around the bleeding arms, wound lengths of adhesive tape to hold them in place. Watching, Liz said, “Not too tight. The circulation.”

He ignored that. He ignored everything but what was already in his head. Finishing the arms, he went to work on the wound in Davis’ side. He said, “Blankets. We have to keep him warm.”

The mirrored walls were in fact doors; she searched, and behind one mirror was a linen closet with sheets and blankets, all in tones of red and purple and orange. She helped Mark move Davis closer to the middle of the bed and then they put blankets over him, so many that by the time Mark was satisfied it looked like a great fat man lying there on the round bed; Old King Cole, perhaps, exhausted from his revels. But a very pale reveler, with very shallow breaths.

Liz and Mark were on opposite sides of the bed, from spreading the blankets. They both stood a moment, gazing at the unconscious man, and Liz was about to ask again what had happened when Mark, his manner cold and dismissing, said, “That’s all.”

She looked at him, momentarily surprised, but then realized Mark had been essentially alone through all this. He had needed her temporarily, as he had needed the scissors or the facecloths, but
he
was the only one who actually existed in this room. He and Koo Davis. What is there between them? she wondered, and was surprised that the question had never occurred to her before. There
was
something between them, some extra element none of the others knew about. It was that unsuspected weight which had thrown them all off-balance from the very beginning, creating an environment that drove the others crazy without ever knowing why. Liz said, “Did
you
cut him?”

He was surprised at the question, but in a remote way. Shrugging, he said, “Of course not.”

“You came
out
of the ocean. To help him?”

Mark looked at her with his closed secret face. “Go away,” he said.

She shook her head. “It’s too late anyway,” she said, glanced with fading interest once more at Koo Davis, and turned away.

Downstairs, she found Peter and Ginger snarling together in the studio with all the electronic equipment. She had looked for them to find out the story, but the instant she walked in Ginger turned to her, half-whispering, “Did he see me?
You
were up there; did he see me?”

It hadn’t taken Ginger long to win Liz’s contempt. “No one can see you,” she said.

Peter said, “What’s going on up there?”

“Mark bandaged him. What happened before?”

“Joyce,” Peter said. “She went crazy.” Peter himself looked crazier than usual, his eyes staring, his cheeks gaunt. His jaw kept making chewing motions, as though he were gnawing on a rubber band.

Liz said, “Joyce? What did
Joyce
do?”

“She let him go. Davis.” Peter gestured wildly, to indicate that he understood nothing of motivation in all this. “Don’t ask me why. She let him out of the house and took him down to the beach and tried to kill him.”

“With a knife,” Ginger said, smirking in Peter’s direction. “The very knife we’d been looking for ourselves, to do our
own
slicing.”

“Mark stopped her,” Peter said. “He—he killed her. Larry’s out there now, he’s burying her in the sand.”

Liz looked from face to face. “So it’s all over,” she said.

Peter’s jaw clenched, his eyes glared. “It is not,” he said. “It isn’t over till
I
say it’s over.
My
way.”

“Whatever you want,” Liz said, not caring, and left the room, crossing the living room to go out onto the deck. The moon was lower now, the night darker. She could barely make out the hunched figure way out there across the sand.

Liz was back in the Eames chair when Larry came in. She was thinking about death, and didn’t hear him when he first spoke to her. Then he spoke again, and called her name, and she frowned at him in irritation, becoming doubly irritated when she saw he’d been crying. She said, “What is it?”

Larry gestured toward the stairs. “What are they arguing about?”

Now she became aware of it; intense voices, not extremely loud but nevertheless vibrating with rage. Mark and Peter, upstairs. “What does it matter?” she said.

Ginger was also in the room, standing over by the window, and now he turned with his nasty smile, saying, “The Koo Davis ear.”

Liz frowned, more irritable than interested. “His ear? What about it?”

Ginger said, “Peter wants it, to send to the FBI, and Mark won’t let him have it.”

At moments, it seemed to Liz she must still be tripping, that Ginger for instance could have no external reality at all but must be merely a floating atom inside her own brain. At other moments, it seemed her trip had merely served to remind her how unbelievable the real world is; it was Ginger and Peter and Mark who existed, while the white rats in the swimming pool had been imaginary.

Larry was blustering, saying, “Peter’s gone mad! What does he hope to—? I’m going up there!”

“Don’t,” Liz told him.

He undoubtedly didn’t really want to; that Larry was afraid of both Mark and Peter had been common knowledge for years. With a show of barely checked determination, he said, “Why shouldn’t I?”

“Mark won’t want you on his side.”

Ginger cackled, while Larry actually blushed. Liz deliberately twisted the knife: “And you wouldn’t do any good. Let them work it out for themselves.”

Larry dropped onto the sofa, fretfully rubbing his hands together. “I don’t know what to do, this is all getting so—” His expression turned tragic, he looked over at Liz and said, “Just tonight, I finally told Joyce I loved her.”

“Maybe that’s what drove her crazy.”

Ginger cackled again. Liz swiveled the Eames chair around to face him, but said nothing. She watched Ginger wordlessly till he stopped and looked away, with an angry shrug, saying, “It’s
my
house.” Then he said, “And I believe I’ll drink in it,” and walked briskly away, pretending Liz hadn’t driven him from the room.

The angry voices continued upstairs; Peter was doing most of the talking, but Mark’s short replies had not weakened. Larry said, nervously, “I wonder who’ll win.”

“Win?” Liz looked at him with a surprise she didn’t feel.

There are many different kinds of bribe in this world. Money, actual cash, is the bluntest and often the least effective bribe of all, since each of the participants finishes with a sense of contempt for the other. At the other extreme, mutual back-scratching is the noblest and cleanest form of bribery, because the participants—if all goes well—finish by being grateful to one another.

One of the policewomen manning the phones on the Koo Davis case was named Betty Austin, and her secret vice was songwriting; Dory Previn, with a touch of Bessie Smith. With no suggestion of return, Lynsey Rayne had offered to see to it that Marty Rubelman, musical director of Koo’s TV specials, was shown some of Policewoman Austin’s material. With no suggestion of return, Policewoman Austin had offered to let Lynsey know the instant there were any new development in the kidnapping case. Each was made happy by the offer of the other.

Phone. Telephone. Clanging again and again. Lynsey opened her eyes in the dark bedroom of her small house in Westwood, and for the longest time she couldn’t understand what that noise was or why it was going on for so long. There was no sleep-over man in her life right now—hadn’t been for nearly a year—so the phone would continue until either she answered it or the caller gave up; but she’d had so little sleep the last two nights that she just couldn’t seem to break through this grogginess. Damn!
Damn!

Tossing her head, trying to clear it, she saw the illuminated
numerals on the digital clock-radio, but without her glasses couldn’t read the numbers. The desire to know what time it was drove her up that extra little bit toward consciousness so that suddenly, on about the tenth ring, she cried out loud, “The phone!” and lunged to answer it.

The caller, a woman, spoke quietly, as though afraid of being overheard: “You ought to come over now.”

“What? What?”

“
You
know who this is.”

And then Lynsey did; it was Policewoman Austin. “What’s happened?”

“Just come over.” Click.

“Oh, my God,” Lynsey said. In the darkness she couldn’t hang up the phone, find her glasses, find the light-switch, read the clock—“Oh, my God, oh my God.” Glasses. Clock reading 4:07. “Oh, my God.”

The receptionist in the outer office at ten minutes to five in the morning was male and uniformed and initially unresponsive. “Something’s happened,” Lynsey insisted, “and I want to know what it is. Who’s here? Inspector Cayzer? Is the FBI man here, Mr. Wiskiel?”

“Ma’am, if there’s anything new, I’m sure they’ll get in touch with—”

“Go in and tell them I’m here. Just
tell
them.”

He didn’t want to, but finally he shrugged and said, “I’ll see if there’s anybody here.”

There
was
somebody here; Lynsey heard voices when the policeman opened the inner office door. He looked back at her, grudgingly, and closed the door behind himself.

What was happening? What was going on? It wasn’t that Koo had been rescued; there’d be no secrecy about
that
. Had they
found him dead? Terribly injured? Did they know where the kidnappers were keeping him? What was going
on
?

The policeman returned, followed by Mike Wiskiel, looking irritated and upset. The irritation was because of her presence, but why was he upset? He seemed troubled, disturbed, unhappy. Afraid of what that might mean, needing to know the worst right now, she stepped forward before he had a chance to speak, saying, “What’s happened? Something bad, I can see it in your face.”

He would try, of course, to deflect the conversation: “Ms. Rayne, how did you know to come here?”

“Mr. Wiskiel,
please
. What’s happened?”

He was closed away from her. “Davis isn’t dead, if that’s what you’re worried about,” he said, as though that crumb would satisfy her. “Believe me, I’d tell you.”

“There’s
some
thing,” she insisted. “If I were family, would you tell me?”

His laugh was surprisingly harsh: “You mean you’ll drag Mrs. Davis down here to ask the questions? You’re more family than she is.”

Lynsey was surprised that Wiskiel had had the wit to make that assessment, but she wouldn’t be distracted. “Then tell me,” she said.

He shook his head. “Ms. Rayne, you’re not accomplishing anything by coming here this way. When there’s something constructive, I’ll let you know.”

“It has to be very bad,” she said. “All right, he isn’t dead, I accept that, but it has to be very bad for you to fight me like this.”

He hesitated, indecision finally appearing in his eyes. Was he acting from the old macho idea that grimness should be kept as much as possible away from the sight of females? He was certainly capable of such an attitude. Should she reassure him, promise him she could deal with whatever he was keeping from her? No; it
was best to let him work it through for himself. Her part would be to make it absolutely clear she wasn’t going away.

And at last he sighed and shook his head and said, “Okay. I was sent out here to
not
tell you, but you’re right, if you were family I’d have no choice.”