Лоуренс Блок - Ariel

If he were going to kill himself, how would he set about doing it? He held the gun first to his temple, then with the barrel in his mouth, tilting it so that it pointed up through the roof of his mouth.

You would have to take careful aim, he thought. The gun fired a small-caliber steel-jacketed slug that would not expand upon impact. To do the job properly, you would have to put a bullet directly into the brain.

When he withdrew the gun from his mouth he felt as though he had passed through some sort of ordeal. The taste of metal lingered on his tongue. He breathed deeply, in and out, in and out.

He looked at the Wold house. He thought of Grace Molineaux, and he thought of Bobbie and Elaine, and finally his thoughts centered on Ariel. It was difficult for him to think about Ariel because his thoughts were never very clear on the subject. There was something hypnotic about the child, something that clouded his thoughts.

He extended a hand, adjusted the rear-view mirror so that he could see his face in it. He kept glancing at his reflection and immediately looking away, not liking what he saw. Each time he met his own eyes in the mirror, a pulse worked in his temple and he felt something throb at the base of his skull.

But he couldn’t avoid looking into the mirror.

An answer presented itself. He took the little gun from his pocket, braced himself against the seatback, leveled the pistol at the mirror. His eyes closed involuntarily as he tightened his finger on the trigger, but he willed them open and was staring wide-eyed at his reflection as he fired.

The gunshot was deafening in the enclosed car. The mirror shattered and the slug ricocheted, starring the window on the passenger side, rebounding into the back seat. Jeff sat motionless for a moment, then touched his left forefinger to the barrel of the gun. It was quite warm. He reached up to remove a few stray shards of glass from the mirror frame and let them fall to the floor of the car.

No one seemed to have heard the shot. He inhaled deeply, breathing in the smell of cordite, listening to the ringing in his ears. He felt calm now, and pleased with himself. It seemed to him that he had confronted a problem head-on and solved it.

Erskine’s new tape recorder was larger than his old one, with a more powerful speaker. They sat listening to a cassette Ariel had made. She had played her flute while one of her tapes ran on the original recorder, and now she was hearing the result, a flute duet in which her two voices sang one against the other, blending yet remaining distinct.

At first she had trouble concentrating on the music. She couldn’t get her mind off Channing, and twice she went to the window and checked to see if his car was there. But then she managed to slip into the music and get lost in it.

They were sitting side by side on Erskine’s bed. Just as she was fully caught up in the music he slipped an arm around her and she felt his fingers take a tentative purchase inches from her breast. She could feel the urgent pressure of his hand through her sweater. She tensed the muscles in her legs, trying not to lose the flow of the music, trying to will his hand from her. The hand stayed where it was. She twisted her upper body away from him to dislodge the hand but it held on and began to crawl like an insect toward her breast.

“Stop it,” she said. The hand at least stopped moving. “I said stop it.”

“Aw, Ariel...”

She stood up, crossed to the recorder and pushed the stop button. “I don’t want to hear any more now.”

“It sounds good.”

“Maybe. I wish you would cut that out.”

“I wasn’t doing anything.”

“It’s hard to concentrate on the music when I’ve got hands all over me. I don’t like it.”

“Sorry.”

“How would you like it if someone was grabbing you all the time?”

“I’d love it.”

“You probably would.”

Want to grab me, Ariel? Grab me here.”

“You’re disgusting,” she told him. She went to the window again, eyes searching for Channing’s Buick. “That was creepy before,” she said.

“I touched your sweater, for God’s sake. What’s so creepy about that?”

“I mean the way he was following us. He never did that before.”

“Maybe he thinks we’re agents of a foreign power.”

“Be serious.”

“Want to put the music back on? I’ll sit on my hands if you want.”

She shook her head. “I don’t feel like listening to it. I don’t know if it’s any good.”

“It sounded good to me.”

She shrugged.

“You can’t even tell which part you recorded first,” he said. “It’s even tough to tell where one part begins and the other leaves off.”

“Not for me it isn’t.”

“Well, you’re the one who played it, Ariel. That makes a difference.”

“I suppose.”

“You’re in a terrific mood, Jardell. You’re a lot of fun to be with.”

“I’m sorry.”

“What’s the matter? That creep Channing?”

She shook her head.

“What?”

She thought of the argument the night before. Channing was Roberta’s lover and the knowledge confused her, but it was not something she was prepared to share with Erskine, not just yet.

Anyway, that wasn’t the only thing that was bothering her.

She sat down beside him. “We’re moving,” she said.

“What?”

“I heard them talking the other day. He went to a real estate agent and put the house on the market. Pretty soon I guess somebody’ll buy it and we’ll have to look for a new place to live.”

“You’re kidding.”

“I wish.”

“Where are you going to move?”

“I don’t know.”

“Maybe she’s got her eye on one of those mansions on the Battery.”

“I don’t think so.”

“You think she wants to move out of the neighborhood?”

“I said I don’t know.” She looked at her lap. Her little hands had hardened into fists and she studied them, then opened them and placed them palms-down on her knees. “He said they wouldn’t even look at houses until they found a buyer for ours. And he told her it would take time before they found a buyer who would pay a fair price. But the house is up for sale and anybody who wants it can just come along with a suitcase full of money and I’ll have to move.”

She looked at him and then had to look away because she could tell his face was a mask composed to keep back tears. If she went on looking at him she was likely to start crying herself and she didn’t want to cry.

“I’m not moving,” she said.

“Maybe they’ll stay in the neighborhood, Ariel. There’s plenty of places for sale. The Moeloth house right across the street’s for sale. Move in there and we could run a phone wire across the street between the two houses. I bet we could even work out a pulley system to send things back and forth.”

“I’m not moving anywhere,” she said. “Not across the street, not anywhere.”

“What are you going to do?”

She didn’t answer immediately, and when she did her voice was softer and carried less conviction. “I don’t know,” she said. “I’ll think of something.”

“Get a lawyer to block the sale. Maybe your friend Channing can make himself useful.”

“Sure.”

“You know what you could do? You could live here.”

“What do you mean?”

“Here,” he said, gesturing. “This house. You could have my old room. My parents suck but I don’t suppose they’re any worse than David and Roberta.”

“They couldn’t be.”

“So?”

She looked at him. “You’re serious.”

“Sure.”

“They’d never let me do it, Erskine.”

“Sure they would. They never let up about how glad they are that I finally found a friend.”