“Am I pretty?”
“Beautiful.”
“I want to be, for you... Know what you looked like? From my angle? Out there just now?”
“I’ll bite. What?”
“God.”
She said it low and solemn. I didn’t gag it off or make any answer. After some time, she said: “Well? You always heard that hell’s hot, but you find out that cold can be worse, especially wet cold, with a rotten guy holding a gun to your head and a crazy, screwball woman egging him on to shoot. Then a voice behind you speaks. Then a rifle goes off. And from being down in hell, you’re in heaven all at one swoop. How would he look to you, the guy that flew you up there?”
“Like he needed a shave, I bet.”
She touched my chin and said: “God wears a beard, too. I’m sure he does. It shows in all the pictures.”
“OK, but I couldn’t tell you what would show in a picture of you. It would be against the law.”
She slapped water over the things I was talking about and asked, very innocently: “You like them?”
“I love them.”
They were round, with the nipples all spread out in the hot water, and beautiful. She slapped along, then said: “They’re floating up — to you.” At last I dipped my hand in the water and cuddled one, and she whispered: “It took you long enough.”
“I didn’t have the nerve.”
“God’s not supposed to have sex appeal, but let Him learn how to shoot and He can look awful pretty. I should have said, I was praying. All the time out there I was praying. Then when you spoke from the boat—”
“I’m not God, I’m Dave Howell, and I know you’re getting to me.”
“Then it’s mutual.”
“Hold still, I want to look at your feet.”
They were small and cute and pretty, but when I felt them she started to squeal. “Stop!” she yelped. “That tickles.”
“They’re not cut, that I can see.”
“They hurt outside.”
“That underbrush would hurt... They may be bruised a bit, but they’re not cut.”
“OK.”
She sat up, cut the water, soaped under her arms, sloshed herself, then came back to the subject of Mom: “Dave, why would she? Egg him on to fire that gun? She didn’t even know me. Why would she want me killed?”
“You must have misunderstood her. She’s mountain. We’re a peculiar bunch. We always say it opposite.”
“Listen, maybe I could misunderstand her, but not my belly. My belly knows what she meant. But why?”
I didn’t have any answer to that. The way Mom had acted had also baffled me. I said “Let’s forget it” or something like that and tried to get back to us.
She said: “OK, but you better be going down. She could come any time, and better you not be up here.”
“OK. Kiss me.”
She kissed me very solemnly put pulled back all of a sudden. “Why hasn’t she come?” she asked. “What’s she doing out there?”
“What’s it to us what she’s doing?”
But Jill kept staring at me. Then at last she whispered: “I know what she’s doing: she’s swiping that money, that’s what. She said she was going to look for it, and that’s what’s keeping her there. And that’s why she wanted me killed. Once he killed me and you killed him, you could roll us both in the river and who would know where we died, or when, or who shot us? You could stash that money and keep it. You—”
“Hey! Quit talking like that’s what I wanted—”
“Dave, I didn’t say you wanted me killed. I don’t believe you did. Just the same, if I had been killed out there, if I was dead, you’d have had to go along. You’d have had to play it the way she wanted, because after all, she’s your mother — roll me in the river, roll him in, and keep the hundred thousand.”
“You do have it figured out, don’t you?”
That’s what I said, but I have to own up — she shook me. The way Mom had acted out there by the water’s edge had a mighty peculiar look.
Jill kept staring at me and then went on, pretty cold: “Well, all I’ve got to say is, if that’s the mountain way, I’m glad I was born lower down. Is that all they know, just go around killing people?”
“Sometimes it has to be done.”
She kept staring at me, then all of a sudden closed her eyes as though hit with a whip. Then she reached out and touched me, gripping my hand in hers. “I’m sorry, Dave, I forgot who’s God, that’s all. I won’t again, ever... Yes, sometimes killing a guy can be the most glorious thing in the world.” Then: “You have to go down.”
She pushed her wet face to mine but once more pulled back and asked: “What’s she doing out there? Why hasn’t she come? She also has that gun. If she gets here before you call, my life’s not worth a plugged dime. Dave, you’re calling, you’re calling that sheriff now! Now, do you hear? Now!”
I didn’t believe her life was in danger, but with a beautiful, naked girl beside you, dripping water and banging you over the head, you do what she says, if for no other reason than to make her shut up. I went down-stairs, looked up the sheriff’s number, and called. The officer who answered sounded sleepy. I didn’t get much reaction even when I mentioned I’d killed a guy “to save the life of a girl.” But when I mentioned Shaw, the hijacker of that plane, the officer came to life fast. He told me to wait till he got his pen, then told me to “start over,” and “say it slow while I write it down.” When he had the name, time, and place all straightened out, he checked over what he’d send out: an ambulance for Jill, a “dead wagon,” as he called it, for the body, and “anything else?” he asked, very friendly. I couldn’t think of anything, and he said: “The officers’ll be right out, soon as they can get dressed. Hold everything till they get there.” I said I would.
As I hung up, Jill came limping into the room, the blanket wrapped around her. She asked to borrow the phone, which was next to the arch out in the hall, and I got up to let her sit down. By the number of spins on the dial, I knew she was calling long distance. When the answer came, she said: “Jack? It’s me, Jill.” Apparently the guy all but dropped dead, because she cupped the phone and whispered: “It’s Jack Mullen, our chief dispatcher. He thought I was dead, and it’s kind of knocked him over.” Then she was on the phone again, telling him what happened over and over: “Be sure you call Mr. Morgan right away now, quick. Tell him I’m all right. Thank him for sending the money, and give my best to Mrs. M. She’s a doll, and she was worried sick about me. I would call them myself, but I don’t have their number with me because it got dunked with everything else I had. And give them my love; be sure you don’t forget that.” Mr. Morgan seemed to be president of the airline.
She hung up and said: “Well? Now I feel better!” That was when Mom came in, carrying the rifle. Jill said: “Mrs. Howell, I’m sorry to tell you, Dave has called the sheriff. So if you figured to shoot me, it’ll cost you twenty years in Marysville, so maybe you better not.”
“No one’s planning to shoot you,” I told her, kind of short. I was getting fed up about something she had no proof of and that I didn’t at all believe. Mom paid no attention to her, but said to me: “I can’t find no trace of that money. What he done with it I don’t know, but could be he slipped it off, slipped off the straps of that poke, when he unsnapped the parachute. I found that all right. It’s out there in the river, on the other side of the island.”
“It don’t concern us, Mom.”
“You sure you didn’t find that money and hide it?” Jill asked her sarcastically. “You’ve been out there long enough.”