Peter Abrahams - The Fan

“Co!”

But Boucicaut was already moving. There was a crash in the darkness, then a cry-a woman’s cry; and a grunt-Boucicaut’s. Gil trained the light on a dark, shifting mass on the floor, and in the unsteady beam saw a naked, dark-skinned woman struggling to get out from under Boucicaut. The maid. Gil thought of the panties on the shower-curtain rail, thought he should have been prepared for something like this. Why was he always one step behind?

“Well, well,” said Boucicaut, looking down at the woman. Her eyes were wide, her skin stretched so tight with tension across her face that it must have hurt.

“Please,” she said. A high, carrying sound that vibrated unpleasantly in Gil’s inner ear. Boucicaut didn’t like it either. He put a hand over her mouth, pushed himself up to a sitting position, straddling her.

“Well, well,” he said again. With his free hand, he reached down, took her nipple between thumb and forefinger, and gave it a twist, as though it were a dial on some machine.

The woman whimpered. “No more noise,” said Boucicaut, and did something to her breast that made furrows pop out on her smooth forehead. Then he reached down, underneath himself, toward her crotch.

“What the hell are you doing?” Gil said.

“Just having a little fun,” Boucicaut replied. He took his hand from her mouth, fumbled with the buckle of the tool belt, then with his pants.

“Stop,” Gil said.

“You just get busy on that drawer,” Boucicaut said, “and shut the fuck up.” He pulled his pants down to the knees, exposing his buttocks, pale and enormous.

Then the door banged open and the lights flashed on. Mr. Hale stood in the doorway, wearing a velvet robe, his hair sticking up in white spikes. He blinked once or twice.

“Esmeralda,” he said: “Have you got some explanation for this?”

“Oh, sir,” she said, and started to wail.

“Jesus Christ,” said Boucicaut, backhanding the side of her face.

“Now, just one minute,” said Mr. Hale, stepping forward.

That was a mistake. Without getting up, Boucicaut grabbed the tool belt and swung it at him. Something hard caught Mr. Hale on the point of the chin, carving a deep red notch. He went white, fell back against the doorjamb. The maid wailed again and Boucicaut hit her again, much harder this time. He rose, his pants falling around his ankles and over the maid’s hips, revealing Boucicaut’s sagging belly and an erection beneath it, surprisingly unimposing. He looked at Gil.

“We’re gonna need tape or something.”

Gil wanted to say, “What for?” but he knew he couldn’t let Mr. Hale hear his voice. He shrugged.

“Don’t go numb on me, old pal,” Boucicaut said. He gave the maid a little kick. “We need tape, wire, something like that.”

She stared up at him, trembling and silent. Boucicaut turned to Mr. Hale. “Did you hear me, you old asshole?”

Mr. Hale’s mouth moved, but no sound came out.

“C’mere,” Boucicaut said.

Mr. Hale walked toward him, blood dripping off his chin, onto his velvet robe. He now bore only a distant resemblance to the Mr. Hale Gil knew. This Mr. Hale could have been the other’s father, very old, fragile. When Mr. Hale got within punching distance, Boucicaut said, “Fuck the tape then, if no one’s going to cooperate,” and hit him in the face. Mr. Hale fell backward, his eyes rolling up, then lay still.

“For God’s sake,” Gil said, and was trying to think of a way to calm things down when a movement on the other side of the room caught his eye. A woman was rising stealthily from the couch that faced the window, wrapping her naked body in something filmy. Not a woman like Esmeralda: she was gray-haired and tiny. The context was all wrong, and a few moments passed before Gil realized it was Mrs. Hale. In those few moments, she had plucked the basket-hilt rapier off the wall and advanced on Boucicaut. Standing behind him, Gil said: “Co!”

Boucicaut wheeled around, saw Mrs. Hale coming, a tiny figure, mottled and half naked, one of her empty breasts exposed; but sword arm out straight, knees bent, legs apart, in perfect fencing form, like a stuntman in a Technicolor swashbuckler. Boucicaut laughed out loud, and was still laughing as he stooped to pull up his pants. But they were twisted now, and his posture-still straddling the maid-awkward. Boucicaut lost his balance, fell on his hands and knees. Mrs. Hale strode forward and drove the blade down through the top of his massive shoulder, down into his upper body, longitudinally; her lead foot stamping lightly with the thrust.

An instant later, Mrs. Hale lay face down on the floor with a red seepage in her gray hair and Gil close by, dented flashlight in his hand. Boucicaut, on his knees, the rapier sticking out of his body, looked up at him. “A fuckin’ dyke,” he said. “Whyn’t you tell me?”

“I didn’t know,” Gil said. And he still hadn’t understood until Boucicaut spoke. Boucicaut had brains, while he was always a step behind.

“Don’t just stand there,” Boucicaut said. “Pull it out.”

“I’m not sure that’s the right thing. We should go to the hospital.”

“You’re out-jokin’ me again, old pal. Not the time.”

Gil dropped the flashlight, slipped his hand into the basket handle. “Get ready for a gusher,” Boucicaut said, his eyes still bright.

Gil pulled. The blade slid free without resistance. There was no gusher, hardly any blood at all, no more than from a shaving cut.

“Well, well,” said Boucicaut. “She missed me.” He got his feet beneath him. Gil held out his hand. Boucicaut ignored it, gathered himself, rose. A little blood flowed out then, but not much.

“Need a hand with the pants though,” Boucicaut said. That’s when they realized that the maid was gone.

Gil ran from the library, into the front hall. “Kill her,” Boucicaut called behind him.

The front door was open. Gil ran out. The sensors had triggered the lights and he could see the maid running, not very fast, across the lawn. Gil tackled her before she reached the road. She went down hard, the breath knocked from her in a little grunt. Gil slung her over his shoulder and carried her up to the garage.

There were three cars inside-Volvo wagon, Mercedes sedan, Saab convertible-and a golf cart. Gil opened the door of the Mercedes, popped the trunk, dumped the woman inside, banged it shut. The keys to the golf cart were in the ignition. Gil drove it out of the garage, up the lawn to the front door. Boucicaut stepped out.

“Get her?” he said.

“Yeah.”

“Do what I said?”

Gil nodded.

Boucicaut handed him the backpack, about one-quarter full. “Emptied out that one drawer,” he said. “They valuable?”

“Should be.”

“Sure as fuck hope so,” Boucicaut said, and climbed onto the cart.

Gil drove across the lawn, onto the road, down the hill, past the other houses, past the golf course, stopped when he saw the blue light from the guardhouse.

“You up to walking?” he said.

“Why not?”

They walked, into the woods, beyond the guardhouse, back onto the road, all the way to the restaurant parking lot. Boucicaut had a little trouble climbing up to the passenger seat. Gil gave him a push, then took the wheel. “Got the keys?” he said.

“In my pocket.”

“Give them to me.”

Boucicaut tried, but for some reason couldn’t get his hand in his pocket. Gil reached in, couldn’t help feel the quivering in the huge thigh.

“Sure as fuck hope so,” Boucicaut said again.

They drove in silence, until Gil saw a blue road sign with a white H and flashed the directional signal. Boucicaut reached for the wheel, held it straight until they’d passed the turn. “For a successful guy, Gilly, you can be pretty dumb.”