Эд Макбейн - Snow White and Rose Red

“Mary Jean Kenworthy.”

“Morris Nathan Bloom,” Bloom said. “Calusa Police Department. we’re investigating a homicide here—”

“Oh my,” Mary Jean said.

“Yes, Ma’am, and we’ve been looking over the victim’s bank records — Tracy Kilbourne — and I was wondering if you could give me some further information. What I need to know, Ma’am—”

“It’s ‘miss,’ ” Mary Jean said.

“Sorry, Ma’am... miss,” Bloom said. “We have listings here for three substantial deposits on July sixth, August sixth, and September fourth. I was wondering if you can tell me how those deposits were made?”

“How?”

“Check, cash, money order, whatever. If they were made by check, I’d like to know the name of the person or firm writing the checks.”

“The depositor’s name again, please?”

“Tracy Kilbourne. That’s K-I–L-B-O-U-R-N-E.”

“Can you hold just a moment, sir?”

“Yes, surely.”

Mary Jean Kenworthy came back on the line some five minutes later.

“Mr. Bloom?” she said.

“Yes, Miss Kenworthy, I’m here.”

“We have a July sixth deposit for ten thousand dollars—”

“That’s right.”

“An August sixth deposit for twenty-five thousand dollars—”

“Yes.”

“And a September fourth deposit for fifteen thousand dollars.”

“That jibes with what I have. How—”

“All those deposits were made in cash, Mr. Bloom.”

“Cash?” Bloom said.

“Yes, sir.”

“That’s a lot of cash,” Bloom said.

“Oh my, yes,” Mary Jean Kenworthy said. “You know, do you, that there hasn’t been any activity in the account since the twenty-fifth of September last year?”

“Yes, we do,” Bloom said.

“It’s just that... the account requires a minimum balance of a thousand dollars. If it falls below that, we begin deducting maintenance charges of three dollars a month. we’ve been doing that, and... well... there was something a bit over eight hundred dollars in the account last September, and it’s now down to seven hundred seventy-nine dollars and fourteen cents. If Miss Kilbourne left any survivors, it might be wise for the estate to close out the account.”

“We haven’t been able to locate her mother yet,” Bloom said.

“Well, if you should...”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Bloom said, and hesitated. “Cash, you said, huh?”

“Cash, yes,” she said.

I felt like a teenager that Saturday afternoon.

When I was growing up in Chicago, the car of my dreams was a red Pontiac convertible. I imagined myself driving all over Illinois and Indiana with the top down on my red Pontiac convertible. I imagined willowy blondes turning their heads to look at me as I breezed by in my red Pontiac convertible, my hair streaming in the wind, a wide grin on my acne-ridden face. Instead, I drove my father’s Oldsmobile whenever he let me, and my pubescent conquests — few and far between — were limited to the back seat of that steamy green monster.

Today I wanted to be driving a red Pontiac convertible.

I wanted to zip out over the roads to Knott’s Retreat and leap out of the car without opening any of the doors, and run across the sparkling green lawn to where Sarah Whittaker, willowy and blonde, waited for her windblown White Knight. My Karmann Ghia was not a convertible, but I drove with all the windows opened wide to a day as fresh and as bright as Sarah’s green eyes and golden hair and radiant smile.

I was going to tell her that everything would be all right again. The bad guys would be thwarted, my fair Snow White would be released from the tyranny of the Seven Dwarfs who kept her captive against her will. Dr. Cyclops, Dr. Schlockmeister, the Prime Minister of Justification, the Black Knight, the Harlot Witch, Brunhilde, Ilse — all of them — would be forced to release their grip upon her and watch helplessly as she marched out into the free, sane world again.

She was wearing white.

She came running across the lawn with her arms widespread, skirts billowing, white peasant blouse slipping off one delicately rounded shoulder, long legs flashing in the sunlight, white sandals seeming to fly airborne over the dewy grass. It seemed for a moment that we would fall into each other’s arms like lovers too long parted, embrace fiercely, rain kisses upon cheeks and eyes and lips — but Jake was not far off, watching.

She took my hand.

“Oh, Matthew,” she said, “you’ll never know what joy you bring!”

“You look lovely,” I said.

“I’ve been sitting in the sun,” she said.

She was still holding my hand.

“Come, let’s walk to the lake. Oh, I’m so damn happy to see you!” she said, and squeezed my hand, and together we walked in dazzling sunlight to where the lake lay placid and still. I half expected to witness an arm rising from the water, Excalibur extended to the knight bearing glad tidings, Sarah’s White Knight.

Jake took up a position some hundred yards from us, leaning against the parchment-paper bark of a punk tree.

“It’s so long between visits,” Sarah said. She was still holding my hand. She kept squeezing it, as though reassuring herself that I was real. “When you aren’t here, I dream that you’re walking beside me, I pretend that Brunhilde is really you wearing an attendant’s disguise. When she watches me showering, I make believe it’s you watching me. When I lie alone in bed at night... forgive me, I know I’m saying too much. How have you been, Matthew? I kept hoping you’d call, why didn’t you call? If only you knew how much I was longing for the sound of your voice. You look so nice today, all cool and clean in your seersucker suit. I love your cheerful tie, too, is it Ralph Lauren? Promise me you’ll never change the way you comb your hair. I’d die if you started parting it in the middle, like Gatsby. He did part his hair in the middle, didn’t he? If he didn’t, he certainly should have. Listen to me rattling on, you’d think I loved the sound of my own voice. Do you like the sound of my voice, Matthew? you’ll notice I didn’t use the word ‘love.’ ‘Do you like the way I sound?’ the maiden asked cautiously.”

“I love the way you sound,” I said.

“Rambling like one of the keeners... Ululalia, here I come,” she said, and grinned like a six-year-old. “So,” she said, “what treasure, Uncle? Do you know the scene in Henry the Fifth, where the French ambassador brings him a gift from the Dauphin, and... Exeter, I think it is... opens the casket, and Henry asks, ‘What treasure, Uncle?’ and Exeter gravely replies, ‘Tennis balls, my liege?’ Do you know that scene? I just adore that scene because Henry tells off the ambassador with a sort of controlled rage , do you know the lines?”

She stood suddenly, her back to the lake, sunlight streaming through the white cotton skirt and silhouetting her long legs. She raised one clenched fist to the sky, struck a kingly pose, and said in a deep voice quite unlike her own, “‘We are glad the Dauphin is so pleasant with us. His present and your pains we thank you for. When we have match’d our rackets to these balls, we will in France — by God’s grace — play a set shall strike his father’s crown into the hazard.’ And then he really gets sore, Matthew,” she said in her own voice. “Don’t you remember the scene? He tells the ambassador — wait a minute, let me get in character again.” She cleared her throat and struck her regal pose again. In the same deep voice as before, but edged with menace now, she said, “ ‘And tell the pleasant Prince this mock of his hath turned his balls to gunstones, and his soul shall stand sore charged for the wasteful vengeance that shall fly with them.’ ” Her voice became increasingly louder and fiercer, her green eyes seemed to grow a shade darker. “ ‘For many a thousand widows shall his mock mock out of their dear husbands, mock mothers from their sons, mock castles down.’ ” And now her voice lowered to a whisper more threatening than a shout would have been. “ ‘And some are yet ungotten and unborn that shall have cause to curse the Dauphin’s scorn.’ Oh God, I love it!” she said in her own voice. “Don’t you love it when people cut other people down for trying to make fools of them? ‘Shall have cause to curse the Dauphin’s scorn.’ Don’t you adore the way that rolls off the tongue? Try it, Matthew,” she said. “you’ll see what I mean.”