Джон Макдональд - The Last One Left

“Absolooly dead,” he said in a tone of heavy complaint. “Grayse broad’na worl’ could walk ina here bare ass, n’I couldn do a thing forrer, blieve me. Worryn bout it alla time, baby. Alla time.”

She came with her drink to sit on the side of the bed. “Crissy’ll fix, honey. You drink up and get just a little more stoned and Crissy’ll take care.”

“Sure, sure, sure. Suppose to make it worse.”

“Drinking? It works both ways, friend. It’ll stop a motor that’s running and start up one that’s dead.”

“Whadaya know about it anyway?”

She looked mildly at him. “All there is to know. Drink up, buddy boy. When I met the Senator I was a first class hooker. That’s how I met him. I got talent you need. Drink up.”

When he lowered the glass there was an inch left in it. He stared owlishly at her. “Figures. B’God, it figures.”

“Did I make the marys too spicy, Captain?”

“Just right, baby. Got a real stick in ’em. Hittin me pree good.”

Damn well told there’s a stick in them, lover, she thought. Four of the big bombs, the blue and yellow ones. Fer brought them when I was having trouble sleeping. Never take more than one, he said. After the first one, I wasn’t likely to. It scared me. It reached up and yanked me under, like a barracuda hitting a floating gull. That left two, and I flushed them down, just in case.

“Gedda work, kid,” he mumbled. “Get busy.”

She lifted the glass out of his slack hand and went back to the bureau. She had made a small sample first, taken a cautious sip. If there was a taste to the drug, the tomato juice, salt, pepper, lime juice, tabasco, worcestershire and vodka overwhelmed it.

“Better have a fresh one handy,” she said. “This is a celebration, Garry. Right?”

“Funny about at guy knowing about the money...” His voice trailed off. She ran back to the bed. His eyes were closed. She shook him.

“Hey! Garry. What guy?”

“Uh. Brother.” His eyes wavered, trying to focus.

“What brother, dammit?”

“Boy — Boys — Boylston. Nice fella.” His eyes closed and his jaw sagged. She shook him. She plucked a fold of belly flesh and twisted it. She thumbed his eyelid back. She straightened and took a long breath and let it out.

She took both glasses into the bathroom and rinsed them out. She took them back to the bedroom and packed the glasses, Thermos, the bottle of soda and bottle of bourbon back into the dark overnight bag she had brought. She took it into the dark living room and put it down by the front door. She remembered how she had worried about him not seeing her car out there. But when he had asked about it, and she had said with a practiced casualness, “I can’t get the damned thing into reverse gear, so I had to leave it down the street,” he had accepted it without question.

She found the living room light switch beside the door, clicked the lights on and off once, quickly. She looked out the window and saw Olly emerge from the shrubbery and come quickly to the front door. It stuck. She yanked it open and he brushed past her. “Is he...”

“Out cold. Yes. You don’t have to whisper, honey.”

“What took so long?”

“He’s a big man. He kept hanging on and hanging on. Come on.”

Following her down the short hallway he whispered, “Why have you got your shirt off?”

“Because it’s hot as the hinges of hell, friend.”

Oliver came to an abrupt stop just inside the bedroom doorway and stared at the big man asleep on the bed. He licked his lips. His adam’s apple slid up and down his throat as he swallowed.

She went to the bed and undid the snaps at the waist band of the underwear shorts.

“Why are you doing that?”

“Will you stop whispering? Please! I’m doing it because it would look damned funny if I didn’t. Will you please help me instead of standing there like a statue!”

He helped her work the shorts off the sleeping man and pull them down and off his limp feet.

“Take the head,” she said. “Come on. We’ve got to get him over to the edge of the bed first. Once more. Fine. No, you idiot! Not by the wrists. We don’t want to drag him. Sit him up and get your arms under his arms and lace your fingers across his chest. There!”

She turned around and backed and lifted his legs and locked a big ankle into each of her armpits, and held tightly to her left wrist with her right hand. “Now!” she said. She heard the boy’s gasp of effort as the big body came free of the bed and hung between them in the air. The weight of him pulled her back a half step and as she bent forward to compensate for the stress, she felt the sweat bursting and trickling all over her face and body. “Come on,” she said in a voice grating with effort, and walked under the burden, taking small steps. The bathroom was directly across the short hallway from the bedroom, and the tub was opposite the door, against the wall, under a window.

It was narrow and deep, standing on claw feet clutching white balls. The porcelain was chipped down to the metal at many places along the curve of the rim. Rust lines ran from the two faucets down to the drain. The faucets were on the ends of pieces of galvanized pipe which came up through the floor boards and through the yellow and white linoleum, high enough for the elongated nozzles, which retained a few flakes of the original chrome, to extend over the rim of the tub. A white rubber stopper was tied by a piece of string to the cold water pipe. She had left the light on, and the buff shade pulled down. She walked to the faucet end, turning slowly, bent under the weight, as he walked his end of the sleeper to the sloped end of the tub.

He pulled her backward and she said through clenched teeth, “What are you doing? ”

“Got to get — around the end — of the tub.”

There was a great tug as he let go, as he let Staniker slide down the slope of the head end of the tub. It yanked her back and the backs of her thighs hit the rim and as she released his feet, she toppled backward, twisted, braced herself by getting her right hand against the opposite rim. She was poised there, unable to push herself back to her feet. Oliver stepped quickly around, caught her left wrist, pulled her back to her feet, saying, “I should have said I was letting go...”

“Stop flapping! Let’s get it done! ”

He lay in the tub, canted toward his left, head leaning against the far rim. His right leg was hooked over the outside rim. She took hold of the heel and lifted it and dropped it in. It thudded, bonging the tub metal. He slid down a few more inches, feet resting against the faucet end, knees bent and spread, big brown hands laying slack against the contrasting whiteness of his inner thighs.

They were both breathing noisily from the exertion. She wiped her forehead with her forearm. Looking down at Staniker she said, “Now it’s up to you, Olly. Take over, dear.” There was no answer. She turned her head sharply. Oliver was standing looking fixedly at Staniker. He was breathing through his mouth, and his under lip sagged away from his teeth.

“Oliver!”

He started, looked at her with a puzzled expression. “He looks so... so—”

“Harmless? Dumb? Helpless? Take my word. He isn’t. Go ahead. Get started. Put the stopper in. Turn the water on.”

Moving slowly and clumsily, he did as she told him. The faucets coughed rusty water, then cleared into two solid streams drumming against the metal tub.

She touched the boy’s arm. “I’ll wait in the living room. As soon as there’s enough water, turn it off and do it and we can go.”

She went in and sat on the couch in the dark room. She had hoped to be able to send the boy to do it. But he had begun to come apart. When he came out, she would go in and make certain he had done it completely. But it had to be the boy, because if something went wrong, it would have to be her word against the boy’s. Nobody would be able to prove she’d even been there. And if he killed, it would give him a guilt that would break him completely if they were picked up. She sat wishing the boy had had just a little more iron, so she could have sent him, so she didn’t have to wait around, holding his hand. Besides, he’d sworn to do it. Fair is fair. She heard the faint thunder stop as he turned the water off. Time passed. He did not come out.