Lawrence Block - Enough Rope

“Keisha!”

She sat down the rolled-up newspaper, fetched the roll of duct tape, taped his mouth shut. “Don’t want to listen to you,” she said. “Not right now.” And, with Marty silent, she was silent herself, and the only sound in the room was the impact of the length of newspaper on his head. She fell into an easy rhythm, matching the blows with her own breathing, raising the newspaper as she inhaled, bringing it down as she breathed out.

She beat him until her arm ached.

When she tookthe tape from his mouth he winced but didn’t cry out. He looked at her and she looked at him and neither of them said anything.

Then he said, “How long are you going to do this?”

“Long as it takes.”

“Long as it takes to do what? To kill me?”

She shook her head.

“Then what?”

She didn’t answer.

“Keisha, I didn’t hit him. And I didn’t try to make him do anything he didn’t want to do. Keisha, there was no damage showed up in the MRI, nothing in the brain scan.”

“I said for you to let an expert examine him. Study his speech and all. But you wouldn’t do it.”

“And I told you why. You want me to tell you again?”

“No.”

“Keisha, he had an aneurysm. A blood vessel in the brain, it just blew out. Maybe it was from the punches he took, but maybe it wasn’t. He could have been a hundred miles away from Rubén Molina, lying in a Jacuzzi and eating a ham sandwich, and the blood vessel coulda popped anyway, right on schedule.”

“You don’t know that.”

“And you don’t know any different. Keisha, you want to let me up? I gotta go to the bathroom.”

She shook her head.

“It’s your chair. You want me to make a mess on it?”

“If you want.”

“Keisha—”

“Some of them,” she said, “the ones who took too many punches, they get so they can’t control their bladders. But that’s a long ways down the line. Slurred speech comes first, and you aren’t even slurring your words yet.”

He started to say something, but she was pressing the tape in place. He didn’t resist, and this time when she picked up the rolled newspaper he didn’t even attempt to dodge the blows.

When the telephonerang she was sitting on the couch in a flannel robe struggling with a double-acrostic. The television set was on but she wasn’t paying any attention to it. She turned the volume down before she picked up the phone.

“Shari? This is Howard Messinger.”

“And so it is,” she said.

“Shari?”

“What a stroke of luck,” she said. “You’re probably the only person I know who can tell me who commanded the Austrian forces at the battle of Blenheim.”

“Prince Eugene.”

“I somehow knew you would know that.”

“Did you? The reason I called...”

“Only it doesn’t fit.”

“It has to.”

‘Three words.”

“Eugene of Savoy.”

“Just a minute.”

“Shari...”

“Just a minute. Ha! It fits.”

“Shari?”

“Yes. The reason you called.”

“I’d like to see you.”

She took a breath. “I don’t think so,” she said.

“I know what you’re thinking. But it’s important. I have to talk to you.”

“What about?”

“I don’t want to go into it over the phone. Christ, I’m in a booth, it’s noisy here...”

“You sound a little shaky, Howard.”

“I am a little shaky. Please?”

“I suppose so.”

“I can be at your apartment in ten minutes.”

“Well, don’t. Give me at least a half hour. Have a drink or something. Or is that a bad idea?”

“Huh? Oh, am I drunk? My dear, I am so sober that it hurts.”

“Well, have a drink and give me a half hour. Oh, if you want something to drink here you’d better pick up a bottle. I only have things like crème de banana.”

He gave her forty minutes, and she used almost all of them to dress and straighten the apartment. She put on a little makeup, decided against perfume.

This is Howard Messinger. Always the announcement, always his full name. As if she could fail to remember the voice.

He called her every now and then. The calls always surprised her, although by now she felt she ought not to be surprised. He was likely to call every three or four months, usually late at night, usually after he’d had a great deal to drink. He would talk with her for a few minutes and then hang up and it might be months before she heard from him again. This pattern had established itself over the past five years and she supposed that she should have grown used to it by now.

But he had never before asked to come up. And she had never before heard this urgency in his voice.

He buzzed from the vestibule. She buzzed back to unlatch the downstairs door. He climbed the stairs, knocked on her door. She opened it, stepped back and motioned him inside. He took off his coat and looked around for a place to put it. She took it from him and hung it in the closet.

He said, “Stand still a minute. Let me look at you. You look the same.”

“The hell I do.”

“You do. When did you cut your hair?”

“God! Years ago.”

“I liked it better long.”

“I don’t even remember what made me cut it. You’re looking very good yourself, incidentally.”

And indeed he was. His face was drawn, but he had the sort of dark good looks that were enhanced by stress. He had lost a bit of hair in front and his face had a few new lines in it but there was no denying that she still found him attractive. She was both pleased and distressed to discover this.

“I picked up a bottle of scotch,” he said. “I don’t know what you’re drinking these days.”

“Scotch’ll do. How do you want it? Rocks?”

“Fine.”

She made drinks. He took his and sat down in an armchair. She seated herself on the couch. She thought of several cute things to say and left them unsaid.

He said, “Thanks, incidentally.”

“For letting you come over? You didn’t give me much choice.”

“Thanks all the same. Well. The only way to say it is to say it. My marriage is over.”

“Just like that?”

“Just like that.”

“Well, that wasn’t what I expected. I don’t know what I did expect but certainly not that.”

“You’re not the only one.”

“I don’t suppose I am. Well, it took you long enough, Howard.”

“Took me — oh. No, that’s not the way it was, I’m afraid. I didn’t do anything. It got done.”

“Lynn left you?”

He smiled. “I suppose I should be flattered that it surprises you. Yeah, she went and walked. For better than a dozen years I did not quite leave her. I kept wanting to and kept not doing it, until I reached the point where I even stopped leaving the woman in fantasy. And now she has flown de coop.”

“She’ll be back.”

“No.”

“Of course she will.”

He was shaking his head. “No. No way. Damn, this turns out to be hard to say. The old macho pride.”

“Oh.”

“Uh-uh. She didn’t just leave me, she left me for another guy.”

“Somebody you know?”

“No, thank God.”

“Is he married?”

“Divorced. She met him through the fucking PTA, if you can believe that. I think I need another drink.”

“I’ll get it for you.”

She stayed an extra moment in the kitchen after replenishing his drink. She scrutinized the palm of her left hand. A couple of years ago someone had taken her to a pricy restaurant on First Avenue where a palmist had given her a reading. “Your head rules your heart,” the palmist had told her, among other things. She studied her hand and hoped the old woman had spoken the truth. Just now would be a very bad time to let her heart get the upper hand.