It occurred to me — I know you believe I am mentally incompetent, but surely my reasoning back then in September was rational and cool and certainly intelligent — it occurred to me, kind sirs, dear physicians, that there had to be papers, documents, records, something! In his desk, in the library, something! A clue to her identity and her whereabouts, for certainly she should not be allowed to run free in a society that frowns, to say the least, on telephone callers who kill a person, I mean kill for Christ’s sake, by making lewd, obscene, and pornographic suggestions to a man his age, so strong for his age, so handsome, oh my Black Knight, you lying, cheating, loveless bastard!
And there, in a drawer, secret and secure, in a drawer in a desk in the library, French doors open to the pool in the Spanish courtyard, goldfish splashing gold in golden sunlight, green awnings shading shady doings as Secret Snow White rapes and pillages her father’s desk, her destitute widow mother out to a meeting of the garden club, no roses in the garden, such a pity. And finds it. Finds the clue. Shades of Sam Spade shadily scratching black paint from a Maltese Falcon, Black Knight unmasked, plaster feet of clay, plastic goldfish in the pool, all plaster and plastic and fake, no gold save the gold in the clue, the clue! You are doomed, Tracy, for here is your name and your address, Snow White has uncovered your name and your address in the secret, shaded debris of the Black Knight’s desk.
Tracy.
Well, no, not quite.
On the note, a memo to himself perhaps, he has written the familiar diminutive “Trace.” In his own hand. In the Black Knight’s hand. In the Black Knight’s hand he holds a black, well, never mind. And beneath that, beneath the “Trace,” how adorable but until now untraceable, scrawled in pencil are the words “Seascape ready July 5.”
The twenty-seventh day of September in the year of Our Lord, bless me, Father, for I have sinned.
The gun is my father’s own.
The knife comes later.
Oh, must I repeat all this? I have said all this a hundred times before, in other forms, to be sure, the lady speaks in tongues. Tongue it, baby, give me your tongue. Why am I here? When will he come to get me out of here? When will he come? I grow weary of repetition. I grows weary and sick o’ tryin’. Try takin’ more of it, darlin’.
Snow White knows what Seascape is, she reads the papers, Snow White does, it is a condominium on Whisper Key, she is no fool, Snow White.
I took the gun from where he kept it in the bottom drawer of his desk, big black gun.
There was no listing in the lobby directory for anyone named Tracy. Not a Tracy anything. The gun was in my shoulder bag. I was wearing a yellow dress, the gun was heavy in the shoulder bag, tote that barge, lift that bale. Where is she? Have I made a terrible mistake? In the office of the managing director there is a black girl. Snow White addresses her shyly. I am looking for a girl named Tracy, Snow White says. Gorgeous black girl, does she do with black men what Snow White once was forced to do on her knees before the Black Knight, stallion passionately pawing the earth as she engorges him? But did not swallow, remember. Swallows her fear now, lest the black girl realize there is a big black gun in the shoulder bag. But, ah no, she scarcely looks up from her deskwork. Tracy Kilbourne, she says, apartment one-oh-six. And seals her death warrant.
I ring, Snow White rings, we ring the doorbell. Chimes inside. She is wearing a red wrapper, the Harlot Witch, sashed at the waist. She is barefoot, Rose Red in her bright red wrapper, and her hair is wet, she is fresh from her toilette, my father’s whore, his Rose Red whore in her scarlet dress and golden tresses, hair like mine, blonde like mine, he has chosen well, the Black Knight. I show her the gun. She does not scream, the slut. Perhaps she has seen guns before, you know these types, they hang about with all sorts of desperate people. I tell her my car is parked downstairs, and I want her to come with me. Before we leave the apartment, I take a knife from the rack in the kitchen. I know exactly what I plan to do with the knife. I also know where I am going to take her. Because the bird sanctuary, don’t you agree, is an appropriate place for the plucking of this chicken, the slaughtering of this bird, my father’s little bird, the bird sanctuary is ideal, for it is there that they attack blondes in attics, the birds do, I am terrified of birds, I will never forgive him, that horrible Alfred Hitchcock, hitching up his pants afterward, thank you, darlin’, that was nice.
She is docile, the brazen bitch.
I have the gun, she knows I will use it.
She tries to talk to me, reason with me.
She is driving, I am allowing her to drive to her own execution, the gun in my lap pointed at her, the knife in my shoulder bag.
Where are we going? she asks.
I give her directions.
The voices are echoing in my head.
We passed through the gate that day and paid the entrance fee, and she didn’t try to say anything to the man collecting it because she knew I would shoot her on the spot, I had warned her about that, and I suppose she still felt there was a chance that she might talk me out of this, though she didn’t know who I was, didn’t know I was here to avenge my father’s death, caused by what she had said to him on the phone. Those voices. The park was crowded that afternoon, this was, oh who can remember minor details, time, place, circumstance, who gives a damn, and does it really matter to you gentlemen? Sometime in the afternoon. Early afternoon? Late afternoon? But in any event too crowded, had I made a mistake taking her there? We all make mistakes, Lord knows, bless me, Father, for I have sinned. And yet, in such a vastness, there had to be a place, didn’t there? A place to do it?
There were people on bicycles.
There were people canoeing.
There were people boarding an excursion boat.
I told her to keep driving.
Drive, she said.
Snow White said drive.
And Rose Red drove.
And soon — because there is a God, you know, and he answers the prayers of maidens on virtuous missions — there was a road. A ranger station, and beside it a dirt road, follow the yellow brick road. And no people. The park empty here, we had come, oh who cares, fifteen, twenty miles past the entrance gate now, I could hear birds, I was frightened. But I knew what had to be done. I had heard the voices. I told her to turn the car onto the road. She obeyed me.
We got out of the car at the river’s edge.
The river was running deep after all the rain that month.
She said Listen...
Voices.
I tilted the gun up.
Heavy black gun.
She said Wait a minute...
Voices.
My finger was on the trigger.
She said Who are you?
Snow White, I said, and shot her in the throat.
I cut out her tongue before I threw her in the river.
So much blood.
Cut out her tongue because of what she’d said to my father on the telephone.
I want you to come here, and get down on your hands and knees, and lick my pussy till I come all over your face.
There remained only Mrs. Whittaker.