“Company. Same reason you let me stay.”
“Well, I wouldn’t of if I’d known you were going to talk all night in your sleep. Maybe you’re going crazy.”
Stevie flicked ashes on the rug. “Maybe.”
“Raking up all that old stuff about Geraldine. A lot of other people die all the time.”
“Too true,” Stevie said.
“I got nothing on my conscience, about taking her place, I mean. I sent her a wreath, didn’t I? And it wasn’t anything anybody could help, like a murder. It was just an accident.”
“Sure, and now there’s going to be another.”
“What?”
“He called for Geraldine and took her out and she died. He came tonight for Marcie...”
“Oh, you’re nuts, Stevie!”
“I went and looked at his house tonight, before I came here. It was the middle of the night and the lights were on and the old man was out walking.”
“Well, who cares?” Mamie flung herself across the bed. “Who in hell cares?”
“At first I thought it was him — Johnny — Johnny Heath. Listen, Mamie. You say that name to yourself, say it, go on.”
“Johnny Heath,” Mamie said in a bored voice. “So what?”
“Doesn’t it give you a funny feeling? Because it sounds like he is. It sounds like the name of a guy who’s got everything, money and looks and everything, including two of my girls. Say it again.”
“Oh, for Christ’s sake!”
“Johnny Heath. There, you get it? It sounds like he’s got plate glass around him to separate him off as something special. He can do anything and nobody can touch him. He can get away with murder. Tonight when I saw his, father I thought it was Johnny and that he’d just come from killing Marcie and the strain had aged him... Mamie.”
“Yeah.”
“Is there a phone around?”
“What for?”
“I thought I’d phone Marcie, see if she’s all right.”
“For the love of the Lord who made little green apples,” Mamie said.
“I’ve got to phone.”
“Haven’t you done enough to get me kicked out of this place? You can’t phone from here this time of morning. There’s an all-night drugstore a couple of blocks up.”
Stevie got off the couch and began brushing off his clothes.
“Leave me the cigarettes,” Mamie said. “And buy a bottle of rye if you can.”
“Sure, sure,” Stevie said, but he hadn’t heard her.
She waited up for the bottle of rye but Stevie didn’t come back.
“She wasn’t meant to come back,” Ida said. “That’s what I told you.”
Alice walked toward her slowly. “What are you saying, Ida?”
“I’m saying she’s dead,” Ida said. She stood in the open door of Kelsey’s room and the light streamed around her. She posed in it like a blowsy sibyl in a spotlight, her breasts jiggling. In the dark hall Alice was only a gray blur.
“Dead,” Ida said. “Soaking in her own blood.” She did not move aside to let Alice go into the room. Even when other doors opened and other gray blurs came into the hall Ida did not move. It was her moment, her corpse, her friend who had died, she had predicted it, she had found it, she was guarding it.
“Someone screamed?” Letty said uncertainly. “Alice, what is it?”
“What in hell?” Johnny said, and Ida’s moment was over. He thrust her aside and strode into the room. When he came out he closed the door behind him and they were left in utter darkness. For a time no one spoke or moved.
“She killed herself,” Johnny said into the darkness. “With a knife.”
“The lights,” Alice said. “Maurice.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
The lights sprang up and caught them stupid with sleep and shock.
“Dead?” Philip said as if he didn’t know the word. He took a step toward the door.
“Don’t go in,” Johnny said sharply. “Don’t any of you go in!” He caught Philip’s arm and swung him around. “I’m telling you.”
“That’s right,” Ida said softly. “She looks real bad. So much blood. All over the carpet.”
Letty whirled savagely toward her. “Get back to your room and stay there!”
“I don’t take no orders from you!”
“John.” Alice’s voice seemed to come from a distance. “Will you make everyone go away, John?”
She did not hear or see them go. She felt a hand on her shoulder and turned slowly.
“I thought I’d better stay,” Letty said quietly. “Don’t go in.”
“Let me go in, Letty.”
“No. She wanted to die. She had no peace in this world. Leave her alone, Alice.”
“Like I told you,” Ida said from the back of the hall, “she wasn’t meant to come back.”
“Get upstairs, you slut,” Letty said.
Ida retreated slowly, lingering on each step, lolling against the banister. “Think you can shut me up... Another think coming...” Her voice faded into a mumble.
“I’d better phone,” Letty said.
Alice repeated, “Phone?”
“We... I have to phone... somebody.”
“The police.”
“A doctor,” Letty said, “A doctor first, anyway.”
“Yes. What time is it?”
“Early. Not seven.”
“Early,” Alice said. “She wouldn’t wake up and kill herself so early.”
Letty looked down at her gaunt hands. “She wouldn’t have known what time it was.”
“No.”
“And she always felt bad when she woke up. You remember how bad she felt, waking up and opening her eyes and not seeing anything. She said it was like waking up in a coffin with the lid nailed down. That’s what she used to dream before she woke up, and I’d go in and find her beating her hands in the air to get the lid off...”
“Don’t, Letty.”
“No.”
“I have to see her, Letty.”
“Yes, I guess you do,” Letty said. She walked away, clutching her bathrobe together at the front. The belt was half off and trailed behind her along the rug. Alice watched the belt and when it had disappeared she went into Kelsey’s room and closed the door.
Kelsey stared at the ceiling in eternal surprise. The ivory hilt of the knife lay between her breasts like a lover’s finger and her mouth was open for a kiss. The blood had bubbled out like a fountain and splashed the bed and the rug and grown cold and dark and sluggish. Alice touched it with her finger.
Chapter 8
Though it was not yet eight o’clock and Sands had been up most of the night he caught the phone on its third ring. He lifted the receiver and said softly, “Sands?” as if he wasn’t quite sure whether he was Sands or not, or whether it mattered if he was or not.
He had no strong sense of identity. He lived alone with no wife or child or friend to call attention to himself or to look up or down at him. Because he lived in a vacuum he was able to understand and tolerate and sometimes to like the strange people he hunted. As insidiously as a worm burrows into an apple he burrowed into the lives of criminals and lay at the core, almost a part of it, yet remaining secretly and subtly himself.
“Sands?” he said.
“Sergeant D’Arcy speaking, sir. Sorry to bother you, sir.”
“Go on.” The apartment was cold and D’Arcy’s zealous stupidity irritated him.
“A Dr. Loring just called in. He said he was at 1020 St. Clair. A girl committed suicide with a knife.”
“Send McPhail up.”
“Yes, sir, but I thought I’d better tell you first. The doctor doesn’t think it was suicide. There’s no blood on the girl’s hands and the blow seemed too violent for a suicide. I thought you’d like to know.”
“I like it very much,” Sands said dryly. “I’ll get there as soon as I can. Round up Joe and the rest of them and tell them to come up. Got that?”