Джон Макдональд - The Last One Left

She stood up and walked swiftly to the bathroom. He was sitting on the toilet lid, his face in his hands. On the floor she saw the new single edge Gem blade and the waxy paper in which it had been wrapped, and the cardboard strip which had protected the sharp edge. She looked at Staniker. His chest rose and fell. The water was tinged slightly with rust, and that was all.

She knocked the boy’s hands away from his face, stooped and looked into his face. “You promised!” she said in a harsh whisper.

He looked at her — a big child on the verge of tears. “I tried. I tried and tried. I... I just can’t. Oh God, Crissy, I can’t.”

She bent and picked the blade up, picked up the wrappings and, as he stood up, she put the wrappings into his trouser pocket.

The boy said, “What are you...”

“Shut up. Just stay out of my way, you damn baby.”

She bent over the tub and picked his right hand up and, holding the blade by the reinforced edge, pressed his thumb against the oily side of the blade, and then pressed his fingertips against the reverse side, the tips of the index and middle fingers. Then she grasped his thick palm in her left hand and held his hand under the water, the underside of the wrist downward. Holding it, she reached under it with her right hand, put the blade edge against the underside of the wrist, and then, pushing down with her left hand, pulling upward with her right, she pulled the blade deeply through, through the resistances of flesh, gristle, tendon. Darkness pumped into the water, threading, lightening to pink at its furthest curling. Quickly, grunting with the effort, she cut through the other wrist as deeply and finally, dropped the blade between his thighs. It ticked audibly as it touched the bottom of the tub.

She spun away from the tub, unsteady, her ears humming, feeling chilled by the pre-fainting feeling blood gave her. Oliver stood there, gray and gagging. She ran at him, shoving at him with her wet hands to get him into the hall, to get him moving, cursing him in all the obscene words she knew. When she slapped him, he came out of it, and went off to get the car.

In the bedroom, with a despairing haste, she put the silk shirt on over her wet body, tied her hair into the kerchief, snatched up the small suitcase she had brought. She heard herself making a small whining sound with each breath. She made herself stop. She paused for a moment in the bathroom doorway, held her breath and heard Staniker’s deep, slow breathing.

She went through the dark living room and opened the front door. As she did so she heard Oliver’s car stop on the other side of the brush just short of the mouth of the driveway. The idling engine ran raggedly. She took a deep breath and made herself think of how she had arrived and how she was leaving, to be certain she had left nothing behind. Nothing, not even a fingerprint. With the coated fingertips she pulled the door shut and tried it. It was unlocked. She had not released the catch on the bolt inside, and it seemed pointless now to make it appear that the cottage had been locked. They would have enough to think about, the people who investigated it, and this would be just another significant clumsiness.

She hurried out, peered up and down the empty street, and scuttled into the dark car. He stalled it, and the starter motor ground for endless seconds before it caught again. After they had reached a street where there was more traffic, she saw one of the oncoming cars blinking its headlights off and on.

“Lights! Lights! God damn it, wake up!” she said.

He turned his headlights on. A few minutes later he missed a turn, and when he went around a block to get back on their route, he went through a stop sign. She made him pull over and get out and go around the car as she slid behind the wheel.

The night was misty. She drove within the speed limits, obeying all traffic signals.

“It isn’t like I thought,” Oliver said in a husky voice.

“What did you expect? Jokes? Violins? We agreed we had to do it. You said you’d do anything for me.”

“I’m sorry. I couldn’t. I just couldn’t. Crissy — it was wrong.”

“So preach me a sermon.”

“If — we made a phone call, maybe they could get there in time.”

“In time for what? He’s gone , baby. Long gone. I saw a girl once with a hemorrhage they couldn’t stop. One of those big rosy Irish types. She got knocked up and a girlfriend tried to do the job with a piece of tubing and a piece of wire. She dwindled way down, all gray and shrunk up, and she looked fifty years old when she died.”

“You’re different,” Oliver said wonderingly. “You’re not the same at all.”

She looked ahead through the mist, slowing for the last turn. “I’m Crissy,” she said. “Your dear Crissy. Look what your dear Crissy did, all for the sake of love. I’m the same. The world is the same world. You make it or you don’t make it, honey. Nobody picks you up and brushes you off and gives you another run at it. You do what you have to do before somebody does it to you .”

“But it wasn’t like I thought,” he said.

“When it’s for real, it never is, Olly.”

She saw the obscure shell road and made her turn. It was a mile and a half south of the turnoff to her house. She drove slowly until the headlights shone on the palm bole she’d had Oliver place across the road when they had driven out, hoping it would discourage any lovers or fishermen who sometimes used this road to drive down to the shoreline.

He got out and lifted the end of the log and walked it out of the way and got back into the car.

“Remember what comes next?” she asked.

“I sail you back and leave you off at your place and bring the boat back here and drive home. Tomorrow I hitch a ride over and walk in and sail the boat up to Dinner Key.”

She put the car in gear and drove ahead slowly. “And if they question you, you don’t know anything about anything.”

“Oh God, Crissy! I... I can’t even stop thinking of how — heavy he was...”

“You’ll be fine,” she said. “Believe me, darling, you won’t worry about it at all. Everything will come up roses.”

As she neared the end of the road she looked to see if the headlights picked up any gleam of metal from parked cars, but the area was empty. They had found the place while sailing. She slowed and parked near the foundations where an old frame house had burned down years ago. She parked on a slight down slope. Headlights shone on his sailboat tied to the small remaining section of an old rotten dock. She turned the lights off and got out. The wind from the west was still blowing gently, moving the mist that was coming off the water.

They went down to the sailboat. She said. “Oh, here’s the car keys. Wouldn’t that be great, to go off with them.”

He put them in his pocket. He leaned and put the case aboard. He said, “I... I’m sorry I couldn’t do...”

“It’s over, dear. It’s done. That’s all that matters. Darling, before we run the sail up, would you look at the main sheet there near the transom on the port. There seems to be a turn of the jib sheet around it and it could get jammed in that roller thing. The flashlight is in that little...”

“I know.” He stepped aboard. She followed him. He got the flashlight and knelt, peering at the lines.

“It looks all right to—”

At that instant she stabbed the muzzle of the single-shot 22 rifle into the socket of his right ear, pulling the trigger as she did so. It made a quick, hard snapping sound. He dropped and the light went out and he began a savage thrashing down there in the bottom of the boat. She backed quickly and sat on the dock planks and pulled her feet out of the way. Elbows and knees and heavy bones thudded against the bottom of the sailboat. He made the effortful grunts of combat. The boat rocked, swaying the tall naked mast back and forth. There was a quivering drumming sound of unseen arm or leg against some solid part of the boat, a muscular tremor faster than she would have believed possible. Then there was silence. The small rocking stopped, the mast motionless. The breeze from the west held the hull a few inches away from the dock, affixed by bow and stern lines. She slid aboard cautiously. He was face down, head toward the stern. She wrapped his right hand around the action of the rifle, pressing the fingers against the metal. She wrapped his left hand around the middle of the barrel, thumb toward the butt. Then she placed the weapon down, butt toward the stern, close beside him, pushed his thumb through the trigger guard, pressed it against the trigger.