A waiter came by with caviar on a piece of Melba toast.
“Sir?” he asked.
“Thanks,” I said, and forced myself to relax. I unclenched my fists and pretended to be looking at a large 1930s WPA mural of people dancing in various eras of history. I saw that the best route to Charles would be to avoid the dance floor and make my way clockwise through the crowd along the ballroom’s circumference.
Ok, no more dicking around, I told myself.
Now or never. I checked in my pocket for the gun and the smoke bombs from Pat’s apartment. I pulled down my pimp hat and walked completely into the room….
Time slows. The world blurs. Movement. People. The disco lights come on. Snatches of conversation:
“Oh, he did it, O. J. killed her first and then the waiter…. Winter Park is so over….” “Not Heston, not Sinatra, the worst wig in television is Jack Horkheimer, he’s this astrology dude….” “Clinton will win for certain….” “Norm McDonald plays a great Bob Dole….”
Couples dancing. Perfume on the women. The band onstage. The lights. The people. But I can see only one. Charles, talking to a man who is doing something to a microphone stand. There are to be speeches later.
Well, I can safely say the audience isn’t going to have to suffer through that.
I ease my way through the crowd.
No one pays me the slightest bit of attention.
Closer.
Closer.
I get bumped by a flapper.
“Sorry,” she says, gives me a winning smile.
“Not at all.”
Twenty feet from his table.
I feel for the gun again. Swallow. I feel sick.
Time slows further.
My legs begin to tremble. Can I do this? Can I kill another person? Didn’t I kill that guy in the cemetery? I had the hate. I had it. Victoria alone would have been sufficient. But John and possibly that girl Maggie too? So close.
Fifteen feet. No dancers between me and him. I can see his eyes, his confident sneer. A direct line, a clear shot. He’s standing next to Amber. He scratches his ear, takes a drink of champagne. His last. My veins are throbbing, I can count my heartbeats. One, two, three, four…
I blink. Loosen my fingers. Sweat in beads rolling down my palms. My knee hurts. I have stopped breathing.
Ten feet.
I touch the.38. I cock it in my pocket. I force my legs to stop shaking. The metal of the gun is warm, the grip drenched with sweat. Did I load it? Of course I did. I pull it out.
Time stops.
I grin.
I’m really here. This is really happening. This is it. It’s too late now. You can do what you like, Charles. Grab your rosary. Sing your songs. Your existence is hereby erased.
People are moving behind me, talking. The music plays. A drum solo. The room sways slightly.
My throat is dry. I try to swallow, but when you’re not breathing, you can’t swallow.
Charles leans forward to hear something, I begin to lift the gun.
Charles turns his head slightly.
I momentarily catch his eye.
My grin widens.
He looks away. There’s a lot of things going on in this room.
Charles says something to a man with enormous whiskers. The man looks puzzled. Charles has begun an anecdote or joke, but he has lost the plot, he looks confused, he begins to stutter, like his brother. I bring the.38 to full extension, Charles’s confused face in the middle of the sight.
Amber leans in. Charles relaxes. Amber, beautiful and clever and hard. She says something and the man laughs and Charles looks at his feet and perks up and finishes his joke. And suddenly I see the whole dynamic of their relationship. Everything depends upon her. She’s not just the one behind the scenes. She’s the one that gives him confidence. She’s the one that lifts him up. It’s her. The heroin concealed it from me.
And then the gun feels weak in my grip as suddenly I see it all.
It’s Amber. Of course. It’s her. Jesus.
Charles could never have killed anyone. Too effete, delicate, too sensitive, he wouldn’t have had the bottle. And Amber under the ketch already told me as much. She told me everything already. I just didn’t see it. That perfect skin, that razor smile, those quirks, that steely look.
It’s her.
Charles probably never killed anyone in his life. Not John, not Victoria. Probably not Maggie, either. If it was one of those lacrosse boys, it was more likely Houghton. Charles just doesn’t seem the type. Of course, the blackmail game would still be on. Charles meets Maggie, Houghton shows up. There’s an incident. Houghton’s word against his. But no, I don’t think he did it. Charles is no killer.
Not even bloody John. I had assumed a man had done it, but why? Look at her. Strong, fast, fit, lithe, a fucking martial artist. Why not her? Tough enough and lucky enough to get one blow right in the heart.
Amber stroking her hair in midflirt with the powerful man next to Charles, who I recognize as a famous senator. And then I laugh. I really laugh. She had outplayed me from the very beginning. She had seduced me, to enable me to unveil myself. She had been hot and cold, all to get me off my guard, to find me out, make me slip. She was the detective, trying to figure out who I was and what I was doing here. Maneuvering me into a situation so that I would slip, reveal that, yes, I did know Victoria, I was on her trail. Ha. Me thinking I was mining her for information and all the time it was the other way around.
Amber, her mother a thief, her father a player. School of hard knocks. A real piece of work. Her body was the weapon she had used on Victoria and me, but her mind was the really impressive instrument.
How long have I been standing here? With my arm outstretched and the big coat sleeve partially but not wholly concealing a gun held in my hand.
One second? Two?
But in that moment, that brief increment of time, I see everything. From its very beginnings. After years of paying off Alan Houghton, Charles confesses or lets slip to his wife about the blackmail. Amber knows Charles is her ticket from the shanty-Irish muck. An old-money WASP with political ambitions. There is only one thing to do. She decides to kill Houghton. The easy way would be to tell her da. But she’s burned that bridge. She will do this on her own. Her da is the past she’s escaping from. She will make her own future. She plans it all. She plans the murder. She’s learned well from her da’s success, her ma’s failures. Yes. Handle this on her own, keep Charles out of it, keep Dad out of it, she’ll do it by herself. Just as she worked hard to get into Harvard, reinvented herself, probably forced the coincidence whereby she and Charles would meet at Vail. This was one more obstacle to be overcome.
Yes.
Then Victoria Patawasti finds out about the slush fund. Victoria leaves a trail in the accounts. Charles notices that someone has been looking at the secret account file. He panics, tells his wife. Of course it could only be Victoria and silly, poor, doomed Victoria writes up her suspicions in her computer. Only Charles, Robert, and, what was that Klimmer said, yes, Mrs. Mulholland, only those three ever went into Victoria’s office. Amber has to know what Victoria knows. Seduces her, gets her to reveal her password and what she knows. And once the decision is made to kill Alan Houghton, Victoria has to die too. Victoria can’t be bought. Amber has to act quickly. Hector Martinez is working at the CAW offices. Maybe he drops his license, maybe she rifles through his wallet. It doesn’t matter, she gets the license and knows she can use it to set up an innocent man. She kills Houghton and Victoria on the same night, sets up Hector as a burglar. Brilliant.