She did. I switched off the lights and on the projector, waited to be sure the focus and frame were right, and then sat down next to her. Gaslight began.
The first time Ingrid Bergman became frightened, Patricia clutched my hand. She held it tight, while all the time gazing at the screen, and the second time Ingrid Bergman became frightened Patricia drew my hand into her lap and held it there with both of hers.
What a warm lap. The backs of my knuckles were being pressed downward into the cleft, and heat radiated up like rose petals from that crotch. On-screen, Joseph Cotten suspected something was wrong, but smooth Charles Boyer had command of the situation. And the third time Ingrid Bergman became frightened Patricia did some complex rubbing movement involving hands and body and knuckles, and at that point enough was enough. So I reached across with my free hand, and drew her face to mine, and drank deeply the nectar of her lips.
She did not struggle. Nor, on the other hand, did she particularly enter into the proceedings, though both her hands did continue to press my hand deeply into her lap. Generally I would say that she took this kiss the way she had taken the conversation that had preceded it; with mild polite interest.
All kisses must end, and at the finish of this one Patricia drew back her face just far enough so we could see one another’s eyes in the flickering reflected light from the screen. Solemnly we looked at one another. Solemnly she said, “We shouldn’t.”
Okay, kid, I know all about that line. “Right,” I said, and rolled her off onto the floor.
“I love your pubic hair,” I said.
She gazed down at herself. “It is nice, isn’t it? All furry and soft. But boy, in the summertime I just have to shave and shave and shave. Because of the bathing suits.”
“You must look fantastic in a bikini.”
She smiled at me. I was learning that she loved compliments above all other things. “You’ll have to see me sometime.”
“I intend to.”
We were in the bedroom now. The first reel of Gaslight had been running itself out as we’d finished our first encounter, so I’d quickly shut down the projector and hustled this incredible woman in here onto the bed, where we could vary our approaches without danger of skinning our elbows or knees.
It was the first time I’d ever made love to a woman in a bedroom with a murder victim hanging in the closet, particularly a victim of my own, and I must say it made absolutely no difference at all. I was neither turned off nor were my responses heightened. Possibly I’m abnormal.
My reaction, however, was completely normal when Patricia got off the bed and crossed the room to open the closet door. “Ummm,” I said. “Ummm, unnn, ungg.”
“Do you have a robe? Oh, here it is. Terrycloth, I love terrycloth, it feels so nice against my skin.”
Beyond her the pole sagged from the weight of the Valpack. She closed the door, slipped into my robe, gave me a smile and a bye-bye finger waggle, and went off to the bathroom.
Christ. Since the Valium supply was temporarily cut off, I padded barefoot out to the living room, switched on the smallest dimmest light, found my glass, and made myself a fresh bourbon on the rocks. When I carried it back to the bedroom Patricia was there, getting dressed. “It’s terribly late,” she told me.
“Don’t worry about it. Want a drink?”
“No, I’d better go on home. Fred worries.”
Fred was entitled, though I didn’t say so. “Listen,” I said. “You just saw Gaslight, remember?”
“Of course,” she said, and gave me a surprisingly lewd smile.
“I mean you have to be able to talk about the movie,” I pointed out, and while she dressed and did her face and fussed with her hair and generally cared for herself like a conscientious gardener I gave her the plot and principal incidents of Gaslight. By then she was ready to leave, so still naked I walked her to the door. “Now, remember,” I said, helping her to bundle into her coats and hats and gloves and scarves, “Charles Boyer was doing it, and the jewels were the decoration in the dress.”
She nodded. “The jewels were in the dress.”
“See you soon,” I said.
“Oh, yes,” she said, sparkly-eyed, and kissed my nose, and left. I watched her down the first flight of stairs, then shut the door, turned, and stepped smack on a thumbtack.
“Ow!” I said, naturally, and hopped around on one foot till I got the thumbtack out. Then I limped around on one and a half feet, cursing, until it occurred to me to wonder where that damn thumbtack had come from. Surely not from my desk, way over at the other end of the room.
I turned on more lights, bewildered, and at first I found nothing at all. Then, also on the floor, I came across a smallish rubber band. Where had these things come from?
Edgarson. The chainlock.
Yes. When I closely studied the chainlock, there was a tiny puncture in the wood of the door just past the metal plate with the slot. Now I saw what Edgarson had done. He had looped the rubber band around the chain, then with the thumbtack had fastened both ends of the rubber band to the door. With the door open, the rubber band was stretched out across the metal plate with the slot in it. When Edgarson closed the door, the rubber band naturally contracted, pulling the chain with it sliding the ball through the slot to the wide opening. When he thumped the door, the ball fell out.
Another illusion shattered.
Seven
The Riddle of the Other Woman
The phone had rung three times while Patricia was here, so I listened to my messages while going through the drawerful of Edgarson’s possessions, the things formerly in his pockets.
Only two messages; one caller had hung up without saying anything. The first of the verbal callers was Jack Freelander, umming and stuttering his way through another request to pick my brains for his damn porno article that Esquire would never publish anyway, and the other was Kit: “Hi, baby. I’m feeling a lot better all at once. I was mean yesterday, wasn’t I? Drove you out into the storm. Come on back, and I’ll make it up to you?”
Any other time, honey, but just at the moment I am (a) rather drained of my vital fluids, and (b) occupied with an unexpected guest who just keeps hanging around.
Edgarson’s effects: One wallet, containing thirty-seven dollars, four credit cards, a Tobin-Global laminated ID card with his photograph on it, a New York driver’s license, about twenty assorted business cards, a few crumpled old newspaper clippings that made no sense to me, and several pieces of paper scribbled over with notes to himself; phone numbers and the like. Three key rings, loaded with keys. A claim check for a parking garage over on First Avenue. A Boy Scout knife, with enough doohickeys and thingamabobs to dismantle a tank. A plastic pouch with a little pocket screwdriver set. A circuit tester. Various envelopes containing official-looking documents concerning bail-bond jumpers and repossessable automobiles. A small address book — I wasn’t in it. A half-used checkbook, with all the stubs blank. A little metal box containing thumbtacks, paper clips, rubber bands, washers and so on. A small roll of black electric tape. A tattered paperback copy of One Of Our Agents Is Missing, by E. Howard Hunt. A dollar and thirty-seven cents in change.
I pocketed the wallet and claim check and change, stuffed the key rings and knife and screwdriver set and circuit tester and little metal box and roll of electric tape back into the drawer, and shredded the envelopes, checkbook and address book into the wastebasket, on top of the paperback. Then I bundled into my overcoat and left the apartment.