Enough Rope

by Lawrence Block

  She was close, very close. Hovering there, not wanting to go any further, wanting to stay there, right on the brink—

  A shot rang out.

  God!

  She stayed there, stayed right there, right on the edge, right on the fucking edge, trembling, trembling, hot and wet and trembling, and waiting, God, waiting, Christ, waiting—

  Another shot. No louder than the first, how could it be louder than the first, but God, it seemed louder—

  She cried out with joy and fell back onto the bed.

  She was wearing a blue satin robe. Her feet were bare. She stepped carefully into the den and gasped at the sight of the man lying there. He was dressed all in black and lay sprawled on his back like a rag doll discarded by a spoiled child. One hand was at his side, the fingers splayed. The other still gripped the hilt of a foot-long dagger.

  She drew back involuntarily, then forced herself to take a closer look. “Yes,” she said, turning from the corpse. “Yes, that’s the man.”

  “James Beckwith,” the detective said.

  “Is that his name?”

  “According to the ID in his wallet.”

  “I never knew his name,” she said. “When I reported him to the police, I didn’t have a name to give them. Because I never knew it.”

  “You gave them a good description,” the detective said. “When I called in just now, they read it back to me, and it was all right on the money. Height, weight, age, hair color, everything down to the mole on his right cheek. That was what, four days ago that you reported him?”

  She nodded. “Can we go in the other room now? Seeing him there like that . . .”

  In the living room the detective said, “You did the right thing, filing the report. He was stalking you and you reported it. It’s a shame we couldn’t have done anything that might have prevented this, but—”

  “You didn’t have a name,” her husband said. “You couldn’t have him picked up, not if you didn’t know who he was.”

  “No, but we could have staked out your house, and we would have if we’d had reason to believe he was planning anything like this. But we get so many complaints of this nature it’s hard to know which ones to take seriously. So we wait and see if the guy takes it to a new level, and then we do something.”

  “It’s a shame it came to this,” her husband said. “Possibly, with professional help—”

  The detective was shaking his head. “My opinion,” he said, “a guy’s got this particular kind of a screw loose, there’s not a whole lot anybody can do for him. You can say it’s a shame he got hurt, but the thing to focus on is nobody else got hurt, not you and not your wife. That dagger he was holding, in fact he’s still holding it, well, I don’t think he was planning on using it for a toothpick. It’s a damn good thing you had the gun handy.”

  “It’s usually locked in a desk drawer. Ever since Rita told me about this fellow, about the remarks and the threats—”

  “And I believe he assaulted you physically, ma’am?”

  “My breasts,” she said, and lowered her eyes. “He ran up and took hold of my breasts. It was the most awful violation.”

  The detective shook his head. “You can call him a sick man,” he said, “and say he was emotionally disturbed, but another way of looking at it is he got pretty much what he deserved.”

  “He’s gone,” she said.

  “He’s gone, and the rest of them are gone, and the body’s gone.”

  “The body.”

  “And they took my gun, but your friend swears I’ll get it back.”

  “My friend?”

  “He’d certainly like to be your friend. He couldn’t keep his eyes off you. When he wasn’t trying for a glimpse of your tits he was looking at your little pink toes.”

  “I guess I should have put slippers on.”

  “And fastened the top button of your robe. But I think you were just fine the way you were. Quite fetching, and the detective thought so, too.”

  “And now he’s gone, and we’re alone. So tell me.”

  “Tell you what?”

  ‘Tell me everything, George. I was going crazy, sitting up there and not knowing what was going on down here.”

  “As if you didn’t know.”

  “How could I know? Maybe he’d chicken out. Maybe you actually would fall asleep—”

  “Small chance of that.”

  “Tell me what happened, will you?”

  “He opened the window and climbed over the sill. Clumsily, I’d have to say. I was afraid he’d make so much noise he’d frighten himself off and pop out again before I could do anything.”

  “But he didn’t.”

  “Obviously not. I opened one eye just wide enough to get a glimpse of him, and as soon as he had both feet on the floor I opened both eyes and pointed the gun at him.”

  “And he’d already grabbed the dagger off the wall?”

  “Of course not. That came later.”

  “He grabbed it later?”

  “Do you want to hear this or do you want to keep on interrupting?”

  “I’m sorry, George.”

  “He saw the gun, and his eyes widened, and he looked on the point of saying something. So I shot him.”

  “That was the first shot.”

  “Obviously. I shot him in the pit of the stomach, and—”

  “Where? I couldn’t really see anything. Where did the bullet enter? Around the navel?”

  “Below the navel. I’d say about halfway between his navel and the place where you left your lipstick.”

  “The place where I left—”

  “Just a joke, my dear. Halfway between his navel and his dick, that’s where I shot the son of a bitch. It put him down and shut him up and I guess it hurt. Abdominal wounds are supposed to be the most painful.”

  “And then it was ages before the second shot.”

  “I doubt it was more than thirty seconds. Say a minute at the outside.”

  “Was that all? It seemed longer.”

  “For him as well, I’m sure. But I wanted a moment or so to tell him.”

  “To tell him.”

  “I didn’t want him to die thinking something had gone horribly wrong. I wanted him to know everything was working out just the way it was supposed to, that he’d been set up and played for a sap. He didn’t want to believe it.”

  “But you convinced him.”

  “ ‘A few hours ago,’ I told him, ‘she had two fingers up your ass. I hope you enjoyed it.’ “

  “You told him that?”

  “It was a convincer.”

  “And then what? You shot him?”

  “In the heart. To put him out of his misery, although he didn’t look miserable so much as he looked embarrassed. You should have seen the look on his face.”

  “I wish I had. That was the one thing wrong.”

  “That you weren’t there for it.”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, you could have been waiting in the living room. You could have popped in when you heard the first shot. But I don’t suppose it was a total loss, was it? Being stuck upstairs?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You had your hands full, didn’t you?”

  “Well,” she said.

  “Excited, were you?”

  “You know I was.”

  “Yes, I know you were. My goodness, now that I think about it, those pretty little fingers have been a lot of places today, haven’t they? I hope you washed them before you shook hands with the detective.”

  “Did I shake hands with him? I don’t remember shaking hands with him.”

  “Maybe you didn’t. But if you did, I bet he remembers.”

  “You think he liked me?”

  “I’ll bet he calls you.”

  “You really think so?”

  “Oh, he’ll have a pretext. He’s not fool enough to call without a pretext. He’ll have something to report on the disposition of the case, or he’ll want to check on your stat
e of mind. And if he doesn’t get any encouragement from you he’ll have the sense to let it drop.”

  “But if he does?” She nibbled her lower lip. “He’s kind of cute,” she said.

  “I had a feeling you liked him.”

  “I just wanted him to go home. But he is kind of cute. You think?”

  “What?”

  “Well, we couldn’t do things the same way we did with Jimmy, could we?”

  “What, get him to crawl in the window and then blow him away? I don’t think so.”

  “When he calls,” she said, “if he calls—”

  “He’ll call.”

  “—I don’t think I’ll encourage him.”

  “Even if he is cute.”

  “There are lots of cute guys,” she said, “and there ought to be a way to surprise them the way we surprised Jimmy.”

  “We’ll think of something.”

  “And next time I’ll be in the room when it happens.”

  “Sure.”

  “I mean it, I want to be there.”

  “You could even do it,” he said.

  “Really?”

  “Look at you,” he said. “You’re something, aren’t you?”

  “Am I?”

  “I’ll say. But yes, you can be there, and maybe you can do it. We’ll see.”

  “You’re good to me, George. Good to me and good for me.”

  “I am, and don’t you forget it.”

  “I won’t. You know the one thing I regret?”

  “That you weren’t in the room to see it happen.”

  “Besides that.”

  “What?”

  “Oh, it’s silly,” she said. “But I wish we’d put it off a day or two longer.”

  “To stretch out the anticipation?”

  “That, but something else. Remember what I told him today? That next time I’d get my whole hand inside of him?”

  “You’re saying you would have liked to try.”

  “Well, yeah. It would have been interesting.”

  “Sweet little hands. Maybe you could do that to me.”

  “You’d let me?”

  “And maybe I could do it to you.”

  “God,” she said. “You’ve got such big hands.”

  “Yes, I do, don’t I?”

  “God,” she said. “Can we go upstairs now? Can we?”

  Terrible Tommy Terhune

  “As every high school chemistry student knows,” wrote sportswriter Garland Hewes, “the initials TNT stand for tri-nitro-toluene, and the compound so designated is an explosive one indeed. And, as every tennis fan is by now aware, the same initials stand as well for Thomas Norton Terhune, supremely gifted, immensely personable, and, as he showed us once again yesterday on the clay courts of Roland Garros, an unstable and violently explosive mixture if ever there was one, and a grave danger to himself and others.”

  The incident to which the venerable Hewes referred was one of many in Tommy Terhune’s career in world-class tennis. In the French Open’s early rounds, he dazzled players and spectators alike with the brilliance of his play. His serve was powerful and on-target, but it was his inspired all-around play that lifted him above the competition. He was quick as a cat, covering the whole court, making impossible returns look easy. His drop shots dropped, his lobs landed just out of his opponent’s reach but just inside the white line.

  But when the ball was out, or, more to the point, when the umpire declared it to be out, Tommy exploded.

  In his quarterfinal match at Roland Garros, a shot of Terhune’s, just eluding the outstretched racquet of his Montenegrin opponent, landed just inside the baseline.

  The umpire called it out.

  As the television replay would demonstrate, time and time again, the call was an error on the official’s part. The ball did in fact land inside the line, by two or three inches. Thus Tommy Terhune was correct in believing that the point should be his, and he was understandably dismayed at the call.

  His behavior was less understandable. He froze at the call, his racquet at shoulder height, his mouth open. While the crowd watched in anticipatory silence, he approached the umpire’s raised platform. “Are you out of your mind?” he shouted. “Are you blind as a bat? What the hell is the matter with you, you pop-eyed frog?”

  The umpire’s response was inaudible, but was evidently uttered in support of his decision. Tommy paced to and fro at the foot of the platform, ranting, raving, and drawing whistles of disapproval from the fans. Then, after a tense moment, he returned to the baseline and prepared to serve.

  Two games later in the same set, he let a desperate return of his opponent’s drop. It was long, landing a full six inches beyond the white line. The umpire declared it in, and Tommy went berserk. He screamed, he shouted, he commented critically on the umpire’s lineage and sexual predilections, and he underscored his remarks by gripping his racquet in both hands, then swinging it like an axe as if to chop down the wooden platform, perhaps as a first step to chopping down the official himself. He managed to land three ringing blows, the third of which shattered his graphite racquet, before another official stepped in to declare the match a forfeit, while security personnel took the American in hand and led him off the court.

  The French had never seen the like, and, characteristically, their reaction combined distaste for Terhune’s lack of savoir-faire with grudging respect for his spirit. Phrases like enfant terrible and monstre sacré turned up in their press coverage. Elsewhere in the world, fans and journalists said essentially the same thing. Terrible Tommy Terhune, the tennis world’s most gifted and most temperamentally challenged player, had proven to be his own worst enemy, and had succeeded in ousting himself from a tournament he’d been favored to win. He had done it again.

  The racquet Tommy shattered at the French Open was not the first one to go to pieces in his hands. His racquets had the life expectancy of a rock star’s guitar, and he consequently had learned to travel with not one but two spares. Even so, he’d been forced to withdraw from one tournament in the semifinal round, when, after a second double fault, he held his racquet high overhead, then brought it down full-force upon the hardened playing surface. He had already sacrificed his other two racquets in earlier rounds, one destroyed in similar fashion to protest an official’s decision, the other snapped over his knee in fury at himself for a missed opportunity at the net. He was now out of racquets, and unable to continue. His double fault had cost him a point; his ungovernable rage had cost him the tournament.

  Such episodes notwithstanding, Tommy won his share of tournaments. He did not always blow up, and not every episode led to disqualification. In England, one confrontation with an official provoked a clamor in the press that he be refused future entry, not merely to Wimbledon, but to the entire United Kingdom; in response, Tommy somehow held himself in check long enough to breeze through the semifinals, and, in the final round, treated the fans to an exhibition of play unlike anything they’d seen before.

  Playing against Roger MacReady, the rangy Australian who was the crowd’s clear favorite, Tommy played center court at Wimbledon as Joe Dimaggio had once played center field at Yankee Stadium. He anticipated every move MacReady made, moving in response not at the impact of ball and racquet but somehow before it, as if he knew where MacReady was going to send the ball before the Australian knew it himself. He won the first two sets, lost the third in a tiebreaker, and soared to an easy victory in the fourth set, winning 6–1, and winning over the crowd in the process. By the time his last impossible backhand return had landed where MacReady couldn’t get to it, the English fans were on their feet cheering for him.

  A month later, the laurels of Wimbledon still figuratively draped around his shoulders, Terrible Tommy Terhune diagnosed an official as suffering severely from myopia, astigmatism, and tunnel vision, and recommended an unorthodox course of ophthalmological treatment consisting of the performance of two sexual acts, one incestuous, the other physically impossible. He then threw h
is racquet on the ground, stepped on its face, and pulled up on its handle until the thing snapped. He picked up the two pieces, sailed them into the crowd, and stalked off the court.

  Morley Safer leaned forward. “If you were watching a tennis match,” he began, “and saw someone behave as you yourself have so often behaved—”

  “I’d be disgusted,” Tommy told him. “I get sick to my stomach when I see myself on videotape. I can’t watch. I have to turn off the set. Or leave the room.”

  “Or pick up a racquet and smash the set?”

  Tommy laughed along with the TV newsman, then assured him that his displays of temper were confined to the tennis court. “That’s the only place they happen,” he said. “As to why they happen, well, I know what provokes them. I get mad at myself when I play poorly, of course, and that’s led me to smash a racquet now and then. It’s stupid and self-destructive, sure, but it’s nothing compared to what happens when an official makes a bad call. That drives me out of my mind.”

  “And out of control?”

  “I’m afraid so.”

  “And yet there are skeptics who think you’re crazy like a fox,” Safer said. “Look at the publicity you get. After all, you’re the subject of this 60 Minutes profile, not Vasco Barxi, not Roger MacReady. All over the world, people know your name.”

  “They know me as a maniac who can’t control himself. That’s not how I want to be known.”

  “And there are others who say you gain by intimidating officials,” Safer went on. “You get them so they’re afraid to call a close point against you.”

  “They seem to be dealing with their fears,” Tommy said. “And wouldn’t that be brilliant strategy on my part? Get tossed out of a Grand Slam tournament in order to unnerve an official?”

  “So it’s not calculated? In fact it’s not something subject to your control?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Well, what are you going to do about it? Are you getting help?”

  “I’m working on it,” he said grimly. “It’s not that easy.”

  “It’s rage,” he told Diane Sawyer. “I don’t know where it comes from. I know what triggers it, but that’s not necessarily the same thing.”