I saw the knife sticking out of her back. It was a carving knife, and the blade was in to the hilt. She kept struggling to reach it with her hands. The back of her white sweater was a sheet of dark blood. She stopped, swayed, and fell to the floor.
She said, “No,” sharply.
I went over to her. I was conscious of Victor Spondell standing in the doorway.
“Jack,” Shirley said. “Is she all right?”
Somehow, from the way Shirley spoke, I knew Mayda hadn’t told her about what we’d done. Mayda Lamphier was dying. For only a moment, she was dying. Her eyes looked up at me with awe and confusion from the cramped position of neck and head. Then she was dead.
I would never know why she hadn’t told.
That didn’t matter now. What mattered was that she was dead and the ball was rolling.
“I was just trying to stop her,” Shirley said. “I couldn’t let her go.”
“That’s right,” I said. “You couldn’t.”
I looked up at Victor Spondell.
I was shriveled up like a weed inside, now.
Spondell turned dazedly and stumbled toward the living room, his white pajamas ballooning.
“Stop him,” Shirley said.
I stood up, and looked at her. I heard myself speak.
“It’s all right,” I said. “You couldn’t do anything else. There was nothing else to do.”
She nodded numbly. I heard the telephone dial.
“Victor,” I said.
I turned fast and went in there. He was in the living room, dialing on the phone. He saw me and went all to pieces. I yanked the phone out of his hand and slapped it on the cradle. He fell back against the wall, trying to get his breath.
I guess maybe it was right about here that the whole thing began to turn into a nightmare.
I stood there looking at Victor Spondell. He had to die. It was either him, or Shirley and me.
You go into a confused state. You do things you know have to be done. It’s all very crazy. You know you’re doing hellishly wrong things. You know you can’t stop doing them, because the minute you stop you’ll wash away with the sands. You’re a swimmer in a riptide, fighting toward a receding shore.
So details were like that. Swarming in my brain. Victor Spondell had to die. Something had to be done about Mayda Lamphier’s body. Miraglia had to be called. The intercom unit had to be checked. I had to post Shirley on what to say. I had to figure what to do with Mayda’s body. The money had to be collected.... I would have to get my story straight for Miraglia, and maybe even the Law. Grace was out there someplace, God only knew where, maybe looking in a window now. I had to get rid of the truck before somebody saw it out front. A hundred things were suddenly riding me.
Her whisper came from behind me.
“What will we do, Jack?”
Victor Spondell was sliding down the wall, slowly. He watched me, trying to speak, unable to. He slid down the wall and sprawled on the floor, eyebrows bristling.
“He heard you,” I said. “Over the intercom. He heard everything. Why in Christ didn’t we think of the telephone? A party line. An obvious, tired old business like that?”
I looked at her. She raised one hand. It smeared on her chin. Then she saw the hand and reacted violently. It was a sight I would never forget.
“Wash your hand—hurry up!”
“What’ll we do, Jack?”
“Wash the hand.”
I turned and looked at Victor Spondell. She gave a little gasp and started for the kitchen. She stopped in the dinette, then turned and went into her room. I heard the water running in her bathroom.
Victor was crawling along the rug, toward the front of the house. He was saying things. I couldn’t make out what the words were. I went over and stood in front of him. His hands clawed at my shoes. He stopped and lay there, panting. He looked up at me, craning his neck. His mouth was a black panting hole, the eyes all gone to hell with fear. He collapsed on the floor. You could see the back of his pajamas, up between his shoulder blades, moving in and out like a bellows, with the way he tried to breathe.
“Mask,” he gasped. “Get—air. Oxygen—mask.”
I didn’t move. I looked down at him, hearing him, but I couldn’t move.
Shirley came back. She stood off across the room staring at Victor with a curious expression on her face. It was as if she couldn’t bear what she saw—but you could tell she was going to bear it, anyway.
“We’ve got to get him in the bedroom,” I said.
She didn’t speak. I looked at her again. She had both hands clenched in front of her, holding her thumbs like a little girl. She looked like a little girl, standing there.
Anxious and confused.
I leaned down, grabbed Victor under the shoulders, and started dragging him toward the bedroom. “Shirley,” I said. “Find something that won’t be missed around the house. An extra blanket would be best. Go in the kitchen and mop up every last speck of blood, and get Mayda wrapped in the blanket.”
I kept on dragging Victor. Shirley didn’t move.
“Get going!” I said.
“I can’t go in there.”
“You’ve got to. We’ll have to move fast.”
She clutched at her face with one hand. “I can’t.”
“All right. Help me with him.”
She moved slowly after me as I hauled Victor into the bedroom. He was moaning and gasping. I caught him by the arms, and slung him half up on the bed, then flung his legs up. He lay there writhing and twisting, his hands like claws, the tendons sticking out. His eyes glared toward the rack where the oxygen tanks stood. I went over to Shirley. “Stay with him,” I told her. “Don’t leave him for a second.”
“What are you going to do?”
“Get rid of her.”
“How?”
“I’m not sure yet.”
She kind of leaped in against me, her arms around me. I could feel how tense she was. “Say you love me.”
I kissed her.
“Say you love me, Jack!”
“I love you. You know I love you. Would I be doing any of this if I didn’t love you?”
She looked up at me. Her eyes were very wide.
“Shirley,” I said. “We’ve got to move fast. I think I’ll get her car—take her someplace, and fake a wreck. I don’t know yet.”
“If they find her—they’ll see the knife wound.”
“Yeah. I’ve got to fix that.”
“Jack, I didn’t want anything like this to happen.”
I pushed her away. “Get in there with him.”
“What should I do?”
“Keep him there till I get back. If the phone rings, answer it. You’ll know what to say to whoever calls.”
She stood there staring at Victor’s bedroom doorway. You could hear him in there. Dying.
Nine
Somehow, I did what I had to do.
I carried a casting rod and a couple of plugs in the truck. Sometimes, driving around town on calls, I stopped by different lakes, and had a few tries for bass. It would have to be my alibi now. I drove the truck six blocks from the Spondell house. There was a lake I knew of. I parked the truck, shielding it as best I could in a copse of cedar. It was one of the chances I’d have to take. My explanation, if it ever came to that, would be that Miss Angela had called for TV service. After I left her place, I drove to the lake and made a few casts for fish along the shore. Because the truck might be spotted. It could easily have been seen at Shirley’s. Grace had seen it. It was weak business, but maybe it was weak enough to be believable.
I dogged it back to Shirley’s. She was in the bedroom with Victor. She got me a blanket. I cleaned the kitchen floor, and the carving knife. I scrubbed the knife with a brush and kitchen cleanser, and did the same with the floor after I had wrapped the body in the blanket.