Lawrence Block - Enough Rope

“Not a whole lot.”

“You better believe it. As it happens I make a good living. Even with what she and the government take I manage to live pretty decently. But do you know what it does to me, paying her all that money every month? I hate that woman’s guts and she lives like a queen at my expense.”

I took a long drink of beer. “I guess our problems aren’t all that different.”

“And a lot of men can say the same thing. Millions of them. A word of advice, friend. What you should do if you marry your girlfriend—”

“I can’t marry her.”

“But if you go ahead and marry her anyway. Just make sure you do what I did before I married my second wife. It goes against the grain to do it because when you’re about to marry someone you’re completely in love and you’re sure it’s going to last forever. But make a prenuptial agreement. Have it all signed and witnessed before the marriage ceremony, and have it specify that if there’s a divorce she does not get one dime, she gets zip. You follow me? Get yourself a decent lawyer so he’ll draw up something that will stand up, and get her to sign it, which she most likely will because she’ll be so starry-eyed about getting married. Then you’ll have nothing to worry about. If the marriage is peaches and cream forever, which I hope it is, then you’ve wasted a couple of hundred dollars on a lawyer and that’s no big deal. But if anything goes wrong with the marriage, you’re in the catbird seat.”

I looked at him for a long moment. “It makes sense,” I said.

“That’s what I did. Now my second wife and I, we get along pretty good. She’s young, she’s beautiful, she’s good company, I figure I got a pretty good deal. We have our bad times, but they’re nothing two people can’t live with. And the thing is, she’s not tempted by the idea of divorcing me, because she knows what she’ll come out with if she does. Zeeee-ro.”

“If I ever get married again,” I said, “I’ll take your advice.”

“I hope so.”

“But it’ll never happen,” I said. “Not with my ex-wife bleeding me to death. You know, I’m almost ashamed to say this, but what the hell, we’re strangers, we don’t really know each other, so I’ll admit it. I have fantasies of killing her. Stabbing her, shooting her, tying her to a railroad track and letting a train solve my problem for me.”

“Friend, you are not alone. The world is full of men who dream about killing their ex-wives.”

“Of course I’d never do it. Because if anything ever happened to that woman, the police would come straight to me.”

“Same here. If I ever put my ex in the ground, there’d be a cop knocking on my door before the body was cold. Of course that particular body was born cold, if you know what I mean.”

“I know what you mean,” I said. This time I signaled for more beer, and we fell silent until it was on the table in front of us. Then, in a confessional tone, I said, “I’ll tell you something. I would do it. If I weren’t afraid of getting caught, I would literally do it. I’d kill her.”

“I’d kill mine.”

“I mean it. There’s no other way out for me. I’m in love and I want to get married and I can’t. My back is to the proverbial wall. I’d do it.”

He didn’t even hesitate. “So would I.”

“Really?”

“Sure. You could say it’s just money, and that’s most of it, but there’s more to it than that. I hate that woman. I hate the fact that she’s made a complete fool out of me. If I could get away with it, they’d be breaking ground in her cemetery plot any day now.” He shook his head. “ Her cemetery plot,” he said bitterly. “It was originally our plot, but the judge gave her the whole thing. Not that I have any overwhelming urge to be buried next to her, but it’s the principle of the thing.”

“If only we could get away with it,” I said. And, while the sentence hung in the air like an off-speed curveball, I reached for my beer.

Of course alightbulb did not actually form above the man’s head — that only happens in comic strips — but the expression on his jowly face was so eloquent that I must admit I looked up expecting to see the lightbulb. This, clearly, was a man who had just Had An Idea.

He didn’t share it immediately. Instead he took a few minutes to work it out in his mind while I worked on my beer. When I saw that he was ready to speak I put my stein down.

“I don’t know you,” he said.

I allowed that this was true.

“And you don’t know me. I don’t know your name, even your first name.”

“It’s—”

He showed me a palm. “Don’t tell me. I don’t want to know. Don’t you see what we are? We’re strangers.”

“I guess we are.”

“We played handball for a couple of hours. But no one even knows we played handball together. We’re having a couple of beers together, but only the waiter knows that and he won’t remember it, and anyway no one would ever think to ask him. Don’t you see the position we’re in? We each have someone we want dead. Don’t you understand?”

“I’m not sure.”

“I saw a movie years ago. Two strangers meet on a train and — I wish I could remember the title.”

“Strangers on a Train ?”

“That sounds about right. Anyway, they get to talking, tell each other their problems, and decide to do each other’s murder. Do you get my drift?”

“I’m beginning to.”

“You’ve got an ex-wife, and I’ve got an ex-wife. You said you’d commit murder if you had a chance to get away with it, and I’d commit murder if I had a chance to get away with it. And all we have to do to get away with it is switch victims.” He leaned forward and dropped his voice to an urgent whisper. There was no one near us, but the occasion seemed to demand low voices. “Nothing could be simpler, friend. You kill my ex-wife. I kill your ex-wife. And we’re both home free.”

My eyes widened. “That’s brilliant,” I whispered back. “It’s absolutely brilliant.”

“You’d have thought of it yourself in another minute,” he said modestly. “The conversation was headed in that direction.”

“Just brilliant,” I said.

We sat that way for a moment, our elbows on the table, our heads separated by only a few inches, basking in the glow generated by his brilliant idea. Then he said, “One big hurdle. One of us has to go first.”

“I’ll go first,” I offered. “After all, it was your idea. It’s only fair that I go first.”

“But suppose you went first and I tried to weasel out after you’d done your part?”

“Oh, you wouldn’t do that.”

“Damn right I wouldn’t, friend. But you can’t be sure of it, not sure enough to take the short straw voluntarily.” He reached into his pocket and produced a shiny quarter. “Call it,” he said, tossing it into the air.

“Heads,” I said. I always call heads. Just about everyone always calls heads.

The coin landed on the table, spun for a dramatic length of time, then came to rest between Sigma Nu and Delta Kappa Epsilon.

Tails.

I managed tosee Vivian for a half hour that afternoon. After the usual complement of urgent kisses I said, “I’m hopeful. About us, I mean. About our future.”

“Really?”

“Really. I have the feeling things are going to work out.”

“Oh, darling,” she said.

The following Saturdaydawned bright and clear. By arrangement we met on the handball court, but this time we played only half a dozen games before calling it a day. And after we had toweled off and put on shirts, we went to a different bar and had but a single beer apiece.