The Good Life (59 page)

She sat on the edge of the bed and took a long drag from the cigarette. As she exhaled, she swung her legs up onto the bed and leaned back against the headboard. “This is as good a time as any to talk. Let's get it over with.” He stood where he was, holding the towel casually in front of himself, and nodded. “Okay. Tony has asked me to marry him. I've accepted. As soon as the divorce is final, we'll be married.”

“You'll do it here in New York?”

“No. It takes too long, and you have to build up such a case. Reno.”

“I see.” He didn't move. He couldn't move, and he couldn't make his mind work. Her businesslike manner made him realize that she was dead serious. “That means I'd have to consent to it.”

“Of course.”

“What if I don't?”

“I
can
do it here in New York if you insist on contesting it. Think of the headlines, though. I've already given you an idea of what they might be like.”

“You wouldn't insult the memory of your father by making that sort of accusation. You couldn't.”

“Oh, wouldn't I?” Her chin jutted with fierce determination.

“Or plaster your mother's name all over the papers? You surely wouldn't do—”

“If you care all that much, then you'll just have to give your consent for the Reno divorce. I, frankly, don't give a damn.”

“Bet, don't talk like that. You're not a heartless woman.” He tried to smile, but it didn't work very well. “You're sounding like those women in that Clare Boothe Luce play. All those hard-hearted bitches.”

“The Women.”
She took a theatrical drag on the cigarette. “That's us. That's the way we are.”

Now she was playacting. There was no way to deal with her reasonably. He threw down the towel and started looking around for his uniform. “Oh, shit, Bet, I give up.”

“I gave up long ago,” she snarled. “Trying to make a life with a fucking fairy is quite a fairy tale.” She made a disgusted sound in the back of her throat. “Knowing what I know about you, well, hell, I could probably have you put in jail.” Her voice was getting out of control. “And I've got proof. That paper you forced Daddy to sign. Pure extortion. Don't look so shocked. I've talked to my lawyers about it. It's easy to prove that you used physical force on him.”

“Be careful, Bet, you're getting out of your depth.”

“I am, am I?” She sat forward, eyes blazing, her words slurring again. The effects of the cold shower were wearing off. “Don't you think I know what you and Daddy did? How stupid do you think I am? Do you still think I'm just a silly schoolgirl insane about your cock?”

“You made a pretty good imitation of liking it.”

“As much as Daddy? At least you didn't use a whip on me. You beat me with your bare hands, you stinking shit.”

“Bet, lower your voice. Nanny will hear you.”

“She's deaf as a post.”

“Well, have some consideration for Billy then. Don't frighten him.”

“Frighten him?” Her feet were on the floor now. She was crouched toward him, screaming. “I'm doing this to save his life. Save him from you.” She jabbed the cigarette out in an ashtray. “Do you think I want him to be like you? You're filth, and you've ruined my life, and I won't let you ruin Billys. Before I'd let him grow up even knowing you're his father, I'd kill him first. You hear me? I'd kill him.”

She was hysterical, bouncing on the edge of the bed, tearing at the towel around her head, ripping it off, and flinging it toward Perry. Her hair fell across her distorted face. “I know how these things happen now. I've talked to people — to doctors and lawyers. It all happens when they're young. Something happened to Daddy that made him the way he was. He went through life
liking
to be punished. He got his kicks having whores like you beat him with a whip until—”

“Shut up, Bet. What are you talking about? Haven't you any respect for—”

“Sylvain told me, you stupid shit. I've known all along what you were doing.”

“Well, if you knew—”

“Sylvain told me!” she screamed at the top of her lungs. “But I didn't believe him. I didn't want to believe him.”

Her voice filled the room, the house, making his head echo with her words. “Okay, okay, just stop screaming, for Christ's sake.”

“You were fucking Sylvain too — both you and Daddy — and making me do it with him.”

“Making
you? Oh, Bet. Oh, my God. If you knew all that then, why did you marry…why did you
want
to marry me?”

She let out a long wail and crashed her fists onto her thighs and dropped her head. He could tell by her shaking body that she was crying. He wanted to go to her, to hold her, but he didn't dare. She threw her head back and screamed at the ceiling. “Because… because I was
stupid
. But I thought I was in love…in love with you.” She whipped her head down and to the side, her hair covering her face. “Yes! In love with you. In love with a
freak
, a
pervert
, a
whore
…” The words bounced off the walls.

“Listen, Bet. Please just listen…”

“You listen yourself.” Her voice soared above her sobs and had reached such a pitch that there was nothing else he could do. “I'm getting a divorce, and if you want me to make it ugly, it's going to be the goddamndest, ugliest divorce case in the history of New York. I'm going to see to it that you never get to see Billy again.”

Her words bit into his soul. She was going to try to take the one thing he had left in life.

“I'm doing it now while he's still young so that he'll never know you were his father.”

“But, Bet, if I agree—”

“I don't give a fuck what you do. I just know that I'd kill my own child before I'd allow you to have anything to do with him.”

She grabbed the ashtray and hurled it across the room at his portrait, cutting into the canvas. She was totally out of control, and Perry was frightened for them both. She'd worked herself up into a murderous rage.

“I know how it happens. Like I said in the shower…I know how it starts. It's the father that starts teaching the boys things. That's how it works. I've talked to lots of people, and that's what you want to do with Billy. Oh, I've watched you with him. You'd be having him now if you could. You'll wait, and then slowly as he gets about six, seven, along in there, you'll have him sucking your cock like you had Daddy and Mummy and—”

“Stop saying that! It isn't true — any of it. You've lost your mind.”

“Mummy
had
to tell me a bit because Sylvain tried to blackmail her. He wrote nasty things — about beatings, dope, and God knows what all — and said he'd turn the story over to the newspapers if—”

“Sylvain's a criminal, for God's sake—”

“So are you, you filthy prick. You fucking fairy. Dirty whore.”

She swung around and grabbed the heavy bronze lamp, wrenching the plug from its socket. She
was
crazed. She was a wild woman, violent, determined to commit violence.

She swung the lamp above her head. Perry ducked and jumped out of her way. She was thrown slightly off-balance, but she righted herself, and her face lit up with murderous determination.

“I'll do it now,” she screamed. “I'll kill Billy
now
. Before I'll ever let you lay a hand on him.” She whirled and dashed toward the door. “I'll bash his head in while he's still innocent. I don't want to live with this sort of filth anymore.”

Perry was frozen to the spot. She'd gone beyond hysteria. She was in an insane rage, demoniac, uncontrollable.

“You've ruined my life, but I won't let you ruin my son's.” She wrenched open the door and screamed at the top of her voice, “I'll kill him. I swear I'll kill my own child before I'll let you corrupt him and turn him into the same sort of filth you are. I'll—”

Perry lunged toward her. He had to shut her up. With the door open they were bound to hear. Deaf or not, Nanny would feel the walls trembling. Bet's screaming could be heard blocks away. Billy would be terrified.

He took a running leap at her from behind, bringing her down in a heap, half in the room, half in the hall. He grabbed her and dragged her back into the bedroom kicking and screaming and fighting him with amazing strength. He managed finally to kick the door shut.

“Shut up, goddamn it!” he shouted as he slapped her back and forth across the face. She was sprawled out on her back, and he was straddling her, bent over her, trying to shut her up.

“Swine!” she kept screaming, scratching at his face. “Filthy, dirty, buggering, cocksucking faggot whore!”

She lifted the lamp and tried to swing it at his head from a half-sitting position. He warded off the blow with his forearm, and the lamp bounced on the floor just out of her reach. She stretched to retrieve it. He lunged with his left foot and put it down hard on her wrist. He was practically in a split above her as he leaned down to take the lamp away from her.

In a flash she had him by the whole “shebang.” She wrenched her left arm from under his foot and took him with both hands, like hanging or swinging on a rope, tearing and pulling at his cock and balls. Her grip was a vise on him.

He grabbed a handful of her hair and dragged her toward the bed as she clung to and tore at his privates. He heard his own voice cry out in pain as hers went on filling the room with obscenities.

He had to shut her up. They'd hear downstairs and come running.
“Shut up
, I said!” He slapped her with his hand.

She let out a cry of pain and pulled herself up by his genitals and brought her face to them and bit hard into one of his balls. He let out a bloodcurdling scream. The agony was unbearable, and a searing pain went through his entire body.

Perry stretched both hands above his head and brought them, with something heavy in them, down on her head. There was a cracking thud, a gush of blood, and she slumped to the floor as he cupped his scrotum and swayed back and forth moaning with pain.

He'd never felt anything like it. It was all wet.
Has she bitten it off?
He took his hand away. It was covered with blood.
Jesus, she has bitten it off

He touched himself frantically, wiping at the flood of blood that seemed to come from some sort of fountain. His only thought was his pain, and he could hear himself whimpering and grunting as he grabbed a towel from the floor and wiped gingerly at himself. He crumpled with relief when he saw he was still intact — swollen but everything in place.

Perry put a hand out to steady himself, and it slipped in something slimy, causing him to lose his balance, and his face bumped against Bet's cheek.

He looked at her. What in the world has happened? Her head was smashed wide open. Blood covered her hair and face. How did this happen?

He was aware of silence. He'd stopped moaning, and Bet had stopped screaming. He pulled his hand out of the slippery stuff and slowly straightened above her. Where his feet straddled her was a pool of dark red. He slowly straightened his legs, righting himself painfully, still cupping his throbbing scrotum, and tried to take it all in.

The silence spoke to him. The blood-soaked room spoke to him. He understood. Bet was dead. He'd killed her.

As the realization took root, everything in him was killed too. He recoiled from the tangled body and the blood in a slow-motion ballet of horror. He held his hands out from his sides, dangling and dripping, afraid to touch anything.

By the time he'd got into the shower, he wondered how he'd got there. The water ran red, and he wondered why. He'd lost all sense of the physical world.

Back in the chaotic room, he looked at it with disbelief. It had nothing to do with him. The body on the floor was nobody he knew.

He picked up his clothes absently and went into the dressing room. Half dressed, he noticed that his uniform was covered with blood. He took it off and found an empty Bonwit Teller suit box and folded the clothes in it neatly and dressed in a smart suit with a tie that somehow matched. Straightening the tie, he noticed that there were scratches on his face and wondered how they got there. With the box under his arm, he went through the room again, looking neither to the left nor right. He was tiptoeing again, making no sound. This house wasn't his.

Echoes of Bet's screams filled his head as he glided noiselessly down the stairs. How could Nanny and Billy not have heard?

In front of Billy's door he stood, holding his breath and listening until he thought his lungs would burst. The silence was the silence of death. He opened the door cautiously. The giraffe sat grinning at him stupidly from Billy's bed. It hadn't been touched. Billy wasn't here. He stood rigid for several minutes and then leaned his head against the doorjamb, and his shoulders shook, and then his entire body shook. Whether with tears or laughter, he couldn't tell. All he knew was that Billy wasn't here. He'd been spared Bet's screams. He thanked God for that. Billy wasn't here.

A strange sound came from deep inside his gut, and he banged his head gently three times against the wood of the door. He understood now. Bet knew Billy wasn't here. She'd tricked him. She'd tricked him about Arlene. She'd tricked him about Billy. The trick had backfired. She'd tricked him into killing her.

After letting himself out and closing the door after him, he walked to the river and calmly threw the smart box into the river and went to Grand Central Station and took a train for Toronto. He had to get back to the base. That was his only thought. On the train, with the events running though his head, he was almost doubled over with a racking panic that left him sweating with terror. It lasted only a minute before an icy calm settled on him. Nothing about any of what had happened had or would acquire any objective sense or shape; it had all happened inside him.