Lawrence Block - Enough Rope

“And I told you they didn’t cost me a cent.”

“And neither will dinner,” Richard Parmalee said. “The hell, I’ll bill it to a client.”

“Oh, right,” Kevin Parmalee said. “That’s just what you’ll do.”

Lying there, itseemed to him that he could hear his own cries echoing off the room’s blank walls. His heart was pounding, his skin glossy with sweat. Should he be afraid of this? Could a person actually die at climax?

When he spoke, he did so as if resuming a conversation. “I wonder how often it happens,” he said.

“How often what happens?”

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’d been thinking, and I guess I assumed you could read my mind. And sometimes I think you can.”

For answer, she laid a hand on his thigh. Sweet little hand, he thought.

“My heart’s back to normal now,” he said, “or close enough to it. But I was wondering how often men die like that. If a fellow had a weak heart...”

“My husband’s heart is strong.”

“I wasn’t thinking of your husband.”

“I was,” she said. “From the moment we got in bed. Longer than that, actually. Since we got here. Since I got up this morning, knowing I was going to be with you this afternoon.”

“You’ve been thinking of him.”

“And of what you’re going to do.”

He didn’t say anything.

“His heart is strong,” she said. “In a physical sense, that is. In another sense, he has no heart.”

“Do we have to talk about him?”

She rolled onto her side, let her hand find the middle of his chest, more or less over his heart. “Yes,” she said. “Yes, we have to talk about him. Do you know what it does to me? Knowing what you’re going to do to him?”

“Tell me.”

“It thrills me,” she said. “God, Jimmy, it gets me so hot I’m melting. I couldn’t wait to see you, and then I couldn’t wait to be in bed with you. We’ve always been hot for each other and it’s always been good between us, but all of a sudden it’s at a whole new level. You felt it, didn’t you? Just now?”

“You get me so hot, Rita.”

Her bunched fingers stroked his chest, moving in a little circle. “If I could get him hot,” she said, “so hot his heart would burst, I’d do it.”

“You hate him that much.”

“He’s ruining my life, Jimmy. He’s draining me, he’s sucking the life out of me. You know what he’s done.”

“And you can’t just leave him.”

“He told me what I’d get if I ever tried. Didn’t I tell you?”

“You really think...”

“ ‘Acid in your face, Rita. Not in the eyes, because I’ll want you to be able to see what you look like. Acid all over your tits, too, and between your legs, so nobody will ever want you, not even with a bag over your head.’ ”

“What a bastard.”

“George is worse than that. He’s a monster.”

“I mean, to say a thing like that.”

“And it’s not just talk, either. He’d do it. He’d enjoy doing it.”

He was silent for a moment. Then he said, “He deserves to die.”

“Tonight, Jimmy.”

“Tonight?”

“Baby, I can’t wait for it to be over. And we have to do it before he finds out about you and me. I think he’s starting to suspect something, and if he ever finds out for sure...”

“That wouldn’t be good.”

“It would be the end of everything. Acid for me, and God knows what for you. We can’t afford to wait.”

“I know.”

“He’ll be home tonight. I’ll make sure he drinks a lot of wine with dinner. There’s a baseball game on television and he’ll want to watch it. He always watches, and he never stays awake past the third inning. He settles into his La-Z-Boy and puts his feet up, and he’s out in no time at all.”

Her hand moved idly as she went over the plan, working its way down his chest, down over his stomach, stroking, petting, eliciting a response.

“He’ll be in the den,” she was saying. “You remember where that is. On the first floor, the second window on the right-hand side. He’ll have the alarm set, but I’ll fix it so it’s limited to the doors. There’s a way to do that, in case you want to have a window open for ventilation. And I’ll have the window in the den open a couple of inches. Even if there’s a draft and he gets up and closes it, it won’t be locked. You’ll be able to open it without setting off the alarm. Jimmy? Is something the matter?”

He took hold of her wrist. “Just that you’re setting off my alarm,” he said.

“Don’t you like what I’m doing?”

“I love it, but—”

“You’ll come in through the window,” she went on. “He’ll be asleep in his chair. There’s all this crap on the walls, swords and daggers, a ceremonial war club from some South Sea Island tribe. Stab him with a dagger or beat his head in with the club.”

“It’ll look spur-of-the-moment,” he said. “Burglar breaks in, panics when the guy wakes up, then grabs whatever’s closest and — Christ!”

“I just grabbed whatever was closest,” she said innocently. “Jimmy, I can’t help it. It gets me all excited thinking about it.” Her lips brushed him. “We may have to stay away from each other for a while,” she said, “while I do the Grieving Widow number.” Her breath was warm on his flesh. “So I’ve got an idea, Jimmy. Suppose we have our victory celebration now?”

“A splendid dinner,”George said, pushing back from the table. He was a large and physically imposing man, twenty years her senior. “But you didn’t eat much, my dear.”

“No appetite,” she said.

“For food.”

“Well...”

“I guess it’s almost time,” he said, “for me to adjourn to the library for brandy and cigars. Except it’s a den, not a library, and brandy gives me heartburn, and I don’t smoke cigars. But you know what I mean.”

“Time for you to watch the ballgame. Who’s playing?”

“The Cubs and the Astros.”

“And is it an important game?”

“There’s no such thing as an important game,” he said. “Grown men trying to hit a ball with a stick. How important could that possibly be?”

“But you’ll watch it.”

“Wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

“Another cup of coffee first?”

“Another cup? Hmmm. Well, it is exceptionally good coffee. And I guess there’s time.”

This is crazy,he thought.

There was her house, and there, in the second window on the right-hand side, was the flickering glow of a television screen. The garage door was closed, and there were no cars parked in the driveway, or at the curb. Nobody walking around on the street.

Crazy...

He drove halfway around the block, found a parking place out of the reach of the streetlights. He left the car unlocked and circled the block on foot, his heartbeat quickening as he neared her house.

Anyone who saw him would see a man of medium height and build dressed in dark clothes. And he’d burn the clothes when this was over. He’d assume there were bloodstains, or some other sort of physical evidence, and he’d leave nothing to chance.

Impossible to believe he was actually going to do this. Going to kill a man, a man he’d never met. And would never meet, because with any luck at all he’d strike the fatal blow while the man slept.

Not a man, not really. A monster. Acid on that beautiful face, those perfect breasts...

A monster.

Was it murder when Beowulf slew Grendel? When St. George struck down the dragon? That was heroism, not homicide. It was what you had to do if you wanted to win the heart of the fair maiden.