Росс Макдональд - Black Money

I didn’t argue with her. It no longer mattered what she believed, or said that she believed.

“And it isn’t true,” she went on, “that we planned to kill him, or anybody. The original plan was for me to marry Peter. I was simply to divorce him and get a settlement, so that Taps and I could go away.” He shook his head at her in quick short arcs. His hair frizzed out like a woman’s.

“Go away and study in Europe?” I said.

“Yes. Taps thought if he could get back to France that he could write his book. He’d been trying to get it started for years. I was getting desperate, too. It got so shabby, making love in the backs of cars, or in his office, or in a public motel. Sometimes I felt as if everyone on the campus, everyone in town, must know about us. But nobody ever said a word.”

“You mustn’t tell him all this,” Tappinger said. “Don’t admit anything.”

She shrugged. “What difference does it make now?”

I said: “You originally planned to marry Peter and divorce him, is that right?”

“Yes, but I hated to do it to him. I only agreed because we were desperate for money. I’ve always liked Peter. When Francis came here and asked me to marry him, I switched the plan. I didn’t owe Francis anything.”

“You were attracted to him.”

The words seemed to come out of Tappinger’s mouth involuntarily, as if a ventriloquist was using him as a dummy.

“I said you were jealous of him, didn’t I?”

He sputtered. “Jealous? How could I be jealous? I never even saw the man, until–” He shut his mouth, biting back the words.

“Until you shot him,” she said.

“I tell you I didn’t shoot him. How would I know where to find him?”

“I gave you the address. I shouldn’t have. Francis told me after you shot him that it was you. He said it was the same man who killed Roy.”

“He said that because he hated me.”

“Why would that be?” I said.

“Because Ginny and I were lovers.”

“You admit it, do you?”

His mouth worked, trying to produce the words that would support him over the void. “We were lovers in the Platonic sense, I mean to say.”

She looked at him scornfully. “You’re not even a man. I’m sorry I ever let you touch me.”

He was trembling, as if her shivering chill had infected him. “You mustn’t talk like that, Ginny.”

“Because you’re so sensitif ? You’re about as sensitive as a mad dog. I doubt that you know any more about what you’re doing than a mad dog does.”

He cried out: “How dare you treat me with disrespect? You were an ignorant girl. I made a woman of you. I admitted you to the intimacy of my mind–”

“I know, the luminous city. Only it isn’t so luminous. The last dim little light went out Monday night, when you shot Marietta.”

His whole body leaned toward her suddenly, as if he was going to attack her. But the movement was inhibited. I was there.

“I can’t stand this.” He turned away abruptly and almost ran into the sitting room.

“Be careful of him,” Ginny said. “He has a gun in there. He was trying to talk me into a suicide pact.”

The gun coughed apologetically. We found Tappinger lying on the floor of the room where he had shot Marietta. The revolver he had used on her and Martel had left a dark hole in his own temple. The briefcase of money stood behind the door, as if he hadn’t dared to let it out of his sight.

I took the revolver, which still had three rounds in the chambers, and went next door to telephone the county police. Peter became very excited. He wanted to come back to the Fablon house and look after Ginny. He was the one who needed looking after. I ordered him to stay home.

I was just as well I did. She was lying on the sitting room floor face to face with Tappinger, their profiles interlocking like complementary shapes cut from a single piece of metal. She lay there with him, silent and unmoving, until the noise of the sirens was heard along the road. Then she got up and washed her face and composed herself.

The End