Lawrence Block: Deadly Honeymoon

“What’s playing?”

“What’s the difference?”

They went to the Criterion on Broadway and saw a sexy comedy with Dean Martin and Shirley MacLaine. He bought loge tickets and they shared cigarettes and watched the movie. They got there about ten minutes after the picture started, left about fifteen minutes before it ended. On the way back to the hotel they stopped at a newsstand, and he tried to buy the morning papers. The early edition of the Daily News was the only one available. He bought the News and they went back to their room.

He divided the paper in half and they went through it. There was nothing about the murder in either section. He picked up both halves and threw them out. She asked what time it was.

“Nine-thirty.”

“This takes forever,” she said. “Do you want to try getting the Times again?”

“Not yet.”

She got up and walked to the window, turned, walked to the bed, turned again and faced him. “I think I’m going crazy,” she said.

He got up, walked to her. She turned from him. She said, “Like a lion in a cage.”

“Easy, baby.”

“Let’s get drunk, Dave. Can we do that?”

Her face was calm, unreally so. Her hands, at her sides, were knotted into tight little fists with her long fingernails digging into her palms. She saw him looking at her fists, and she opened her hands. There were red marks on the palms of her hands — she had very nearly broken the skin.

He picked up the phone and got the bell captain. He ordered a bottle of V.O., ice, club soda, and two glasses. When the lad brought their order he met him at the door, took the tray from him, signed the tab, and gave the kid a dollar.

“My husband is a big tipper,” she said. “How much money do we have left?”

“A couple of hundred. Enough.”

He started making the drinks. She said, “How much is the hotel room?”

“I don’t know. Why?”

“We could go to a cheaper hotel. We’ll be here a while and we don’t want to run out of money.”

“They’ll take a check.”

“They will?”

“Any hotel will,” he said. “Any halfway decent hotel.”

She took her drink and held it awkwardly while he finished making one for himself. He raised his glass toward her and she lowered her eyes and drank part of her drink. When their glasses were empty he took them over to the dresser and added more whiskey and a little more soda.

“I’m going to get drunk tonight,” she said. “I’ve never been really stoned in front of you, have I?”

“The hell you haven’t.”

“I don’t mean parties. Everybody gets drunk at parties. I mean plain drinking where you’re just trying to get stoned, like now. We used to at college. My roommate and I, my junior year. My roommate was a girl from Virginia named Mary Beth George. You never met her.”

“No.”

“We would get stoned together and tell each other all our little problems. She used to cry when she got drunk. I didn’t. We swore that we would be each other’s maid of honor. Or matron, whoever got married first. I didn’t even invite her to the wedding. I never even thought to. Isn’t that terrible?”

“Is she married?”

“I think so.”

“Did she invite you to her wedding?”

“No. We lost track of each other. Isn’t that the worst thing you ever heard of? We drank vodka and water. Did you ever have that?”

“Yes.”

“It didn’t have any taste at all. It tasted like water with too much chlorine in it, the way it gets in the winter sometimes. You know how I mean, don’t you?”

“Yes.”

“With a little provocation I think I could maybe become an alcoholic. Will you make me another of these, please?”

He fixed her another drink. He made it strong, and he added a little of the V.O. to his own glass. She took several small quick sips from her drink.

She said, “I didn’t even know you then. Both in Binghamton and we never even met. We went to two different schools together. That’s a stupid line, isn’t it? There was a comedian who used to say that, but I can’t remember who. Can you?”

“No.”

“There are some other lines like that. Would you rather go to New York or by train?’ Silly. ‘Do you walk to school or take your lunch?’ I think that’s my favorite. I didn’t fall in love with you the first time I saw you. I didn’t even like you. What dreadful things I’m telling you! But when you asked me out I felt very excited. I didn’t know why. I thought here I don’t like him, but I’m excited he asked me out. I can’t stop talking. I’m just babbling like an idiot, I can’t stop talking.”

She drank almost all of her drink in one swallow and took a step toward him, just one step, and then stopped. There was a moment when he thought she was going to fall down and he started for her to catch her but she stayed on her feet. She had a worried look on her face.

She said, “I might be sick.”

“Don’t worry about it.”

“I want you to make love to me, you know that, don’t you? You know I want that, don’t you?”

He held her and her face was pressed against his chest. She put her hands on his upper arms and pushed him away a little and looked up into his eyes. Her own eyes were a deeper green than ever, the color of fine jade.

She said, “I want to but I can’t. I love you, I love you more than I ever did, but I just can’t do anything. Do you understand?”

“Yes. Don’t talk about it.”

“This afternoon I thought I would wait for you and when you came back I would get you to make love to me, and everything would be all right. You haven’t tried to make love to me. I think if you’d tried, before, I would have gone crazy. I don’t know. But I sat here in this room and I planned it out, all of it, and just what I would do and just how I would feel, and I was all alone in the room, and all of a sudden I started to shake. I couldn’t do it. Oh, I’m afraid.”

“Don’t be.”

“Will I be all right?”

“Yes.”

“How can you tell?”

“I know.”

“I think you’re right. I think everything’s just stopped, just shut up in a box, until we do what we have to do. Those men. I can shut my eyes and see their faces perfectly. If I knew how to draw I could draw them, every detail. I’ll be all right afterward, I think.”

A few minutes later she said, “This is some honeymoon, isn’t it? I’m sorry, darling.” Then he took her into the bathroom and held her while she threw up. She was very sick and he held her and told her it was all right, everything was all right. He helped her wash up and he undressed her and put her to bed. She did not cry at all through any of this. He put her to bed and covered her with the sheet and the blanket and she looked up at him and said that she loved him, and he kissed her. She was asleep almost at once.

He had one more drink, no soda and no ice. He capped the bottle and put it in the dresser with his shirts. In the morning, he thought, he would have to take a bundle to the laundry, the two shirts he had worn and a pair of slacks. And he would have to buy some things if he got the chance. He had packed mostly sportswear for the stay at the lodge and he would need dress shirts in New York.

The liquor helped him sleep. He woke up very suddenly and looked at his watch and it was seven o’clock, he had slept eight hours. He got dressed and went downstairs and outside. Jill was still sleeping. He bought the morning newspapers and went back to the room, and one of them had the story.

Pennsylvania Shooting Victim Identified As Hicksville Builder

Scranton, Pa. — State police today identified the victim of a vicious gangland-style slaying as Joseph P. Corelli, a Long Island building contractor residing in Hicksville.