“I want to take a shower.” I loved their walk-in shower, all blue tile.
But she said, “No, not tonight. Just get dressed and get out of here.”
Too bad. But with her mood so cruel and changeable, it was perhaps just as well to be leaving. I got out of bed and dressed myself.
Always she gave me a five-dollar bill for cabfare. Yes, and when we were out together she’d hand me a twenty-dollar bill to pay a twelve-doliar restaurant tab, and we would never speak of the change. Margo was hardly the first woman with whom I’d developed such a relationship, but she was by far the youngest and most attractive. At first I’d been amazed that she should require this son of arrangement, but later on I came to understand: her personality was too savage to put up with unless one softened it with cash.
Tonight, however, the five-dollar bill did not put in its usual appearance. Instead she said, “After four months of you, Roderick, I am sorry to have to tell you your services will no longer be required.”
“I beg your pardon?”
She smiled. “You’re being laid off,” she said.
“Margo...”
“Now, dear.” She put her hand on my arm. “Don’t say anything, it will only be stupid.”
“But—”
“Before you go,” she said, “I have something to show you. Come along.”
I followed her, baffled and more than a little worried, to her office, a small quaint room off the kitchen, containing a desk at which she sat while paying bills and a long sofa on which — because I am who I am — I had always craved to make love to Margo and on which — because she is who she is my craving had never been satisfied. Motioning at this sofa now, she said, “Sit down while I find it.”
I sat down. To my left was the view of the river and, beyond it, Long Island City and all the decaying borough of Queens. Far below us, out of sight because so close to the building, was FDR Drive, a race course for taxicabs. A gentle breeze came through the window, redolent of the smells of Queens and the sounds of Manhattan.
Margo was rummaging through her desk. “I wonder,” she said, as though distracted, hardly thinking what she was saying, “what will ever become of you, Roderick.”
I knew her by now. She was never distracted, never less than totally aware of what she was saying. It had been, in fact, a sad blow to what might be called my professional pride that I never could manage to offer her total distraction. Now, therefore, I understood that she was rummaging through the desk merely for effect, and that what she was saying was both calculated and important. I listened, searching for the hook, and said nothing.
“You’re getting older,” she went on. “In a few years your value on the open market will begin to dip. As it is, you’ll never again find anyone as” — she smiled at me — “interesting to work for as me.”
This was all true, bitterly true, and it was a mark of her cruelty that she would drag it into the open at the same time she was firing me. I kept my face blank and my mouth shut.
Now at last she came up with an envelope, legal-size, which she handed me with a flourish, saying, “Read that. I think you’ll find it interesting.”
Within the envelope was a single sheet of paper, written on in Margo’s small, thin, economical hand, and addressed To Whom It May Concern. The body of the letter was as follows:
I, Margo Ewing, freely and honestly admit that I murdered my husband, Charles.
I killed him because I could no longer stand to live with him, but he would never give me grounds to divorce him and I could less stand to live without his money.
No one else, and particularly no other man, was involved.
I am writing this confession because, I am surprised to learn, I have a conscience. I never thought I would feel remorse at having murdered Charles, but that is exactly what I feel. I cannot go on carrying this burden alone.
I shot Charles three times with a small automatic he bought me once as a Christmas present, a .25 caliber of Star make. After I killed him I wiped off the fingerprints and threw the gun into the Central Park lake, from about the middle of the footbridge and to the downtown side.
Immediately afterward, I began to regret what I had done.
I looked up from this amazing document and stared at Margo, who was watching me as a scientist might watch a rabbit he has just injected full of germs. I said, I whispered, “You’ve murdered Charles?”
“What?” She gave a scornful laugh. “What a fool! Of course not!”
“But this... this...”
She opened a drawer of the desk, pulled something from it, and tossed it into my lap. I started, and it fell to the floor: her little .25 caliber automatic. She said, “There. It isn’t in Central Park lake, is it?”
“I don’t... I don’t...”
“You don’t understand. They’ll engrave that on your tombstone, Roderick.” She smiled, and shook her head at me like an indulgent teacher, and got to her feet. “I’m going out,” she said. “Charles will be here in half an hour.”
“What do you want from me, Margo? For God’s sake, say it out plain.”
“Do I really have to?” She studied me a moment, and then sighed, and nodded. “Yes, I sec I do.”
“My mind?” I said, somewhat waspishly, “is not as devious as yours.”
“God knows. Roderick, I have given you my confession of murder, and the murder weapon. If Charles were to die, Roderick, in the appropriate manner, do you know what you could do?”
I shook my head.
“You could blackmail me!”
“I could what?”
“Roderick, you would have the evidence that could hang me. You could blackmail me, you could live comfortably the rest of your life.” She smiled, frostily. “I confess I’d rather have you as a blackmailer the rest of my life than Charles as a husband. Because, dear Roderick, I know you would keep your demands within reason.” The smile got colder and colder, colder and colder. “Wouldn’t you?”
Her meaning had become staggeringly clear. “You, you want me to...”
“I don’t want you to do anything,” she said quickly. And then added, “Do you know, no man has ever refused me anything I wanted, not ever. Most of the time I don’t even have to ask, it’s just done for me. I wonder what I would do if a man ever did refuse.”
I said, “You’ve planned this, haven’t you? For months. That’s why you took me on, isn’t it?”
“You silly fool,” she said, “did you really think I had to pay anyone? I suffered the humiliation of your moronic misunderstanding because it was necessary, but I can tell you now that I detested paying you for your services very nearly as much as I detested accepting the services I was paying for.”
Now, that stung. I said, “I never got any complaints.”
“Really? Roderick, I must be off. Charles will be home any minute—”
“Wait,” I said.
“Wait? Wait for what?”
“I want to think—”
She laughed. “This is hardly the time to break new ground,” she said.
I had no time to listen to her, nor to respond. I had to decide what to do.
Kill the husband? Follow it through, follow it through, what if I actually did kill Charles Ewing, even though I’d never killed anyone before and am among the most squeamish of men? Having killed him, I am now supposed to blackmail Margo for the rest of my life.
Oh? Blackmail Margo? Me? Vie with her in the evil duel of wits which is what blackmail is? She’d have the confession in her hands and me in my grave in six months.
Then what? Refuse? Should I be the first man in Margo’s career to refuse her something she wanted?
Margo looked at me. “Well?” she said.