Cul-de-Sac (15 page)

“Stay away from me,” Paul told her. “You just don’t care who you sleep with … 
fuck
 … do you … all a guy’s got to do is ask, isn’t that right?”

“I’ve never been unfaithful to you.”

His ruined eyes opened wide. “Giving this guy a blow job, that doesn’t count?”

“I didn’t—”

“LIES!” He was shaking now, a real case of the shivers, a shattered man, and although cuckold horns weren’t sprouting from his head you could tell by looking at him that he felt those horny roots spreading out through his brain like hot, living cancer.

“Paul,” Annie said, “whatever’s happened to you out at Cul-De-Sac is affecting your thinking, you’re imagining—”

“Imagining I came in here and found you hugging and kissing him!” He turned toward Camel and spoke with funereal regret. “She gave you a
blow job
.”

“No,” Camel quietly replied, “that didn’t happen.”

“I
know
it did!”

“
How
do you know?” Annie asked. “Your friend with the horse teeth tell you?”

Paul started to explain about the golfer but instead he told Camel, “You know what my ambition was, before I met her, my ambition was to serve God … that’s right, go ahead and laugh.”

“I’m not going to laugh,” Camel said.

“You know what she called me once, she said I was hapless.”

Annie frowned, she didn’t remember it.

“
Hapless
,” Paul repeated … like a death sentence.

“Oh Paul—”

“Shut up!” His head shook so wildly the eyeglasses were dislodged and seemed about to fly from his face. “Too bad you didn’t come home tonight instead of giving out blow jobs, I could’ve made us rich … I sold my soul to make us rich.”

“What are you talking about?”

“The elephant.”

“The—”

“I found the elephant!”

“What
is
it?”

“It’s an
elephant
.”

She tossed her head, Annie was now more angry and frustrated than afraid. “Paul, what are you involved in?”

“I’m not involved in
adultery
.” When his glasses slipped again, he tried to push them up, then in a fit threw them to the floor. “I’ll kill everybody here!”

“You’re not going to kill anybody,” she told him.

“Why, because I’m
hapless
?”

“Oh Paul …”

He again aimed the muzzle at her face, again squeezed on the trigger … and each time Camel saw that hammer move it was like his heart stopped in anticipation. “I’m coming over there and getting my revolver back,” he said in an even voice, starting to do exactly that.

Sensing finally that Camel was serious, realizing a conclusion
was about to be reached, Paul looked at Annie. “I don’t think I ever really told you how very sorry I am for losing all your money.”

“Paul—”

“Remember what I asked you to remember.”

“What?”

“Remember what I asked you to remember,” he repeated before lowering the pistol and relaxing his shoulders. Paul even managed a sly grin that revealed a blood-ugly space where a tooth had been knocked out.

Days later Camel would recall thinking at the time that Paul was about to say he was sorry, he never intended to shoot anyone. But what he actually did, he suddenly raised the pistol and turned its muzzle up to his own mouth … Camel rushing those last few steps, getting a hand on the revolver’s cylinder but not in time to stop Paul from squeezing the trigger all the way this time, the bullet blowing out his remaining front teeth, exploding into his mouth, exiting the back of his neck in a showy spray of blood, tissue, and bone.

Elizabeth Rockwell lived in a modern one-story brick house of the type commonly seen abutting golf courses though this one didn’t. A garage was attached, shrubbery hugged all four sides of the house, and though it was only April the yard grass had already been forced by chemicals to be nice. Large sandstone rocks were placed in a manner thought to be artful here and there on the front lawn. Designed for easy living, insulated like a thermos, clean and efficient, Elizabeth Rockwell’s house was without charm or eccentricity.

Not so its owner, a tall big-boned woman of fifty-four … if you saw her astride a horse you’d consider her strapping. She was dressed this Monday evening in black silk slacks and a white silk blouse and open-toed sandals. She wore a lot of jewelry and her grayish blond hair was expensively coiffed … Elizabeth one of those distinguished women who didn’t leave the bedroom without looking her best.

She came from old money which her parents frittered away before she was of an age to appreciate it … forcing Elizabeth to live like a commoner on talents and scramble. She made money in real estate.

Many years ago she also carried on a liaison with a local squire,
J. L. Penner, and assumed he would eventually make her mistress of Cul-De-Sac. But when J.L.’s niece Hope showed up, Elizabeth was displaced by the teenage girl who possessed an almost super-natural ability to charm men … Hope also played chess brilliantly, the piano beautifully, and fucked like the proverbial. Elizabeth didn’t reconcile with J.L. until after the niece was murdered.

Hope’s death broke something in the old man who spent his remaining years selling land and accumulating money, never again sponsoring any of the political fundraisers or elaborate theme parties or late-night, closed-door, special invitation-only sessions for which Cul-De-Sac had once been alternately famous and infamous.

Elizabeth earned a percentage of the Cul-De-Sac estate when she served as executrix of J.L.’s will but the only thing she inherited from him directly was a minor chess set from the large collection he had amassed to please and impress his niece.

Hope and J.L. played chess together very nearly every day, she always said she played best on the most expensive sets … J.L. eventually spent millions of dollars buying sets from all over the world. After Hope was murdered, J. L. Penner never played another game of chess and, to Elizabeth’s knowledge, did not even look at his collection of sets, eventually bequeathed to the Humane Society.

Elizabeth Rockwell was thinking of none of this, hadn’t thought of it in years, when the kitchen doorbell rang the first few notes of “Some Enchanted Evening.” She got up from the table where she’d been drinking coffee. Wondering who was calling this late in the evening, seeing no one standing outside the door, Elizabeth opened that door … Growler stepping from the side where he’d been hiding to put one booted foot on her threshhold.

“Elizabeth … how kind the years have been to you.”

He had expected her to be as terrified as the others but after registering an initial surprise Elizabeth Rockwell smiled and spoke his name with complete composure, “Donald.”

“Shall I come in?” he asked, smiling but showing no teeth. Back at Cul-De-Sac he had primped for her and changed clothes … 
dark suit, white shirt, red tie … and now like a suitor he looked both hopeful and nervous. His black hair was greased back and although his eyes were bloodshot and weary he otherwise made an elegant presentation not counting those heavy steel-toed boots.

“Are you escaped?” she asked.

“Released.”

“Surely not.”

“Afraid so.”

“I’ll have to write the governor and express my dismay with our penal policies.”

“I have some penile policies that would dismay the shit out of you.”

“Donald you always were common, shall I call the police or will you leave?”

“I told you, I didn’t escape—”

“But now you’re trespassing so please leave.”

When she started to close the door Growler pushed his way in.

“Oh dear, you
are
going to force me to call the police.” Elizabeth’s voice was softly mocking.

He remembered that voice with a special poignancy. When Growler stayed at Cul-De-Sac and Elizabeth was the tall sexy lady squired by Uncle Penny, Growler lusted for her with the fervor of an adolescent. Instead of ignoring him or putting him off gently she would mock him exactly as she was doing now. She once followed him into a storage room at the back of Cul-De-Sac and, reaching past Donald as if he weren’t there, pressed her bosom to him as she stretched to get something from a shelf … the young Donald gripped by such hormonal frenzy that he impulsively grabbed a breast. Elizabeth didn’t deign to remove his hand, she just looked him in the eye and threatened to tell his uncle … as she was now threatening to call the police.

He glanced around the kitchen. “Nice digs.”

“You know how it is for the modern woman, we have to make our way in the world.”

“How would I know anything about modern women, I’ve been in prison.”

“Society does frown upon murder.”

He flashed those large black eyes. “Think about me a lot have you?”

“Never.”

“Come on.”

“Yours is an acquaintance I don’t dwell on, believe me.”

“Well fuck you very much.”

She appraised him cooly. “If you really have been released I assume you’re on probation. One phone call and I’ll have you back in prison before morning … if you don’t leave this house immediately.”

“Such a fucking dragon lady.”

“You’ve coarsened even beyond what you were as a boy.”

“Seven years in hell will do that.”

“What do you want Donald?”

“You ever see the Raineys, good old Judy and Lawrence?”

“No.”

“How about Kenny Norton, I got your address from his book, the two of you must’ve kept in contact.”

“No.”

“Well if you’re expecting to hear from them, the Raineys or Kenny, I wouldn’t hold my breath.”

“What do you mean?”

This time when he grinned, those big teeth were revealed.

“Good Lord, Donald, what have you done to yourself?”

He quickly brought his lips together and muttered something.

“Pardon me?”

Shaking his head he looked at her with an expression absent any playfulness. “I thought maybe you and the Raineys and Kenny got together occasionally to gloat.”

“No dear … I haven’t seen them since your trial.”

“How much did Uncle Penny pay you to frame me … is that how you financed this house, that Cadillac in the driveway?”

“Listen darling the hour is late and talking with you is proving tedious as always. I wasn’t compensated for testifying against you … I would’ve paid for the privilege.”

He was surprised she continued being so haughty considering what he had in store for her, couldn’t she guess his intentions?

“Hope might’ve been a little slut,” Elizabeth continued, “but no one deserves to die like that.”

“I didn’t kill her.”

Elizabeth laughed at him. “This was all covered at the trial.” “I was framed.”

“We wuz robbed,” she said mockingly.

He stepped close enough she could smell his breath when he spoke. “I’m going to kill you right here in this kitchen … make a joke out of that why don’t you.”

When she turned to leave, Growler corraled her against the big bronze refrigerator. “You know about the elephant don’t you?”

Elizabeth feigned a bewildered expression but Growler caught the truth in her eyes. “Where is it?” he asked.

“Where’s what?”

His turn to smile mockingly, pressing Elizabeth to the refrigerator’s double doors. “Tonight you’re going to treat me like you did Uncle Penny … I remember how you’d look at J.L. when the two of you were having dinner together, locking onto his face like every word out of his mouth was a gold coin … a snake watching a rat … Jesus I wanted you to look at me with that kind of fascination, just once. Maybe we can arrange it tonight.” He brought a hand down to cover her breast.

She didn’t remove his hand this time either. “I pity you.”

“You’re the one going to need pity,” he promised.

“Donald—”

“I want you to do to me whatever it was you did to Uncle Penny
after
the two of you finished dinner and went upstairs to the library, closed the door, locked it … I used to stand out in the hallway listening, what did you do for him Elizabeth, spank his bare butt with a hairbrush, there was a lot of whimpering coming from that room.”

“Is that what you want Donald, someone to spank you?”

“No I want you to get down on your knees and blow me, that’s what I want.”

“People in hell want ice water.”

He laughed, squeezed her breast.

“You’re hurting me.”

“Tell me about the elephant.”

“Donald—”

Tearing at the blouse until all the buttons popped, he pressed a forearm to her neck and held Elizabeth hard against the refrigerator.

“Donald please …”

He clicked his teeth together right in her face. “Where’s the elephant?”

“When we—” Growler’s forearm nearly crushing her throat, Elizabeth was unable to continue until he eased off. “When we inventoried J.L.’s collection, during the appraisals, that’s when we discovered it had been switched.”

“Where’s the real one?”

“We never found it.”

He looked at her and was surprised to see she was telling the truth.

“You stole it?” she asked.

“I would’ve thought Kenny and I would’ve been prime suspects.”

“The fake wasn’t discovered until after your uncle died last year, you’d been in prison for six years by that time … no one made the connection.”

“Maybe you didn’t
want
the connection made, ’cause you found the elephant, the real one and—”

“No.”

He continued looking at her intently, their faces only a few inches apart. “Will you kiss me?” He was totally, pathetically serious.

Elizabeth considered the request and then, like a bidder at an art auction, used a subtle expression to indicate consent.

He actually closed his eyes, which was when Elizabeth lunged forward and bit him hard on the right cheek.

He jumped back more from surprise than pain, covering his cheek with a hand as Elizabeth ran from the kitchen.

He caught up in a carpeted hallway, bringing her down then sitting on her stomach, pinning both hands to the floor … she could see her teethmarks like a set of parentheses high on his right cheek.

“It’s going to be a terrible night for you,” he promised. “Scared?”