The Best American Mystery Stories 2006

by Edited By Scott Turow

  “Mind if I make myself comfortable?” she asked, and went into the bathroom.

  Jessica waggled her eyebrows.

  Will went into the kitchen, opened the refrigerator, and emptied two of the ice cube trays into a bowl he found in the overhead cabinets. He also found three juice glasses he sup­posed would have to serve. Jessica sat on the sofa watching him while he started opening the champagne. A loud pop exploded just as another blonde stepped out of the bathroom.

  ~ * ~

  It took him a moment to realize this was Susan.

  “Makeup and costume go a long way toward realizing a character,” she said.

  She was now a slender young woman with short straight blonde hair, a nice set of jugs showing in the swooping neck­line of a red blouse, a short tight black skirt, good legs in very high-heeled black pumps. She held dangling from her right hand the mousy brown wig she’d been wearing in the bar, and when she opened her left hand and held it out to him, palm flat, he saw the dental prosthesis that had given her the over-bite. Through the open bathroom door, he could see her frowzy brown suit hanging on the shower rod. Her spectacles were resting on the bathroom sink.

  “Little padding around the waist thickened me out,” she said. “We have all these useful props in class.”

  No Southern accent anymore, he noticed. No brown eyes, either.

  “But your eyes…” he said.

  “Contact lenses,” Susan said.

  Her real eyes were as blue as… well, Jessica’s.

  In fact, they could pass for sisters.

  He said this out loud.

  “You could pass for sisters,” he said.

  “Maybe ‘cause we are,” Jessica said. “Sure had you going, though, didn’t we?”

  “I’ll be damned,” he said.

  “Let’s try that champagne,” Susan said, and swiveled into the kitchen where the bottle was now resting in the bowl of ice. She lifted it, poured into the juice glasses, and carried back into the other room the three glasses in a cradle of fingers and thumbs. Jessica plucked one of the glasses free. Susan handed one to Will.

  “Here’s to the three of us,” Jessica toasted.

  “And improvisation,” Susan added.

  They all drank.

  Will figured this was going to turn into one hell of a night.

  ~ * ~

  “We’re in the same acting class,” Jessica told him.

  She was still sitting on the sofa, legs crossed. Splendid legs. Will was in one of the easy chairs. Susan was in the easy chair opposite him, her legs also crossed, also splendid.

  “We both want to be actors,” Jessica explained.

  “I thought you were a nurse,” Will said.

  “Oh, sure. Same way Sue is a waitress. But our ambition is to act.”

  “We’re gonna be stars one day.”

  “Our names up in lights on Broadway.”

  “The Carter Sisters,” Jessica said.

  “Susan and Jessica!” her sister said.

  “I’ll drink to that,” Will said.

  They all drank again.

  “We’re not really from Montgomery, you know,” Jessica said.

  “Well, I realize that now. But that certainly was a good ac­cent, Susan.”

  “Regional dialect,” she corrected.

  “We’re from Seattle.”

  “Where it rains all the time,” Will said.

  “Oh, that’s not true at all,” Susan said. “Actually it rains less in Seattle than it does in New York, that’s a fact.”

  “A statistically proven fact,” Jessica said, nodding in agree­ment, and draining her glass. “Is there any more bubbly out there?”

  “Oh, lots,” Susan said, and shoved herself out of the easy chair, exposing a fair amount of thigh as she got to her feet.

  Will handed her his empty glass, too. He sure hoped the ladies wouldn’t be drinking too much here. There was some serious business to take care of here tonight, some serious improvisation to do.

  “So how long have you been living here in New York?” he asked. “Was it true what you said in the bar? Is it really only six months?”

  “That’s right,” Jessica said. “Since the end of June.”

  “We’ve been taking acting classes since then.”

  “Were you really in The Glass Menagerie? The Paper Players? Is there such a thing as the Paper Players?”

  “Oh yes,” Susan said, coming back with their replenished glasses. “But in Seattle.”

  “We’ve never been to Montgomery.”

  “That was part of my character,” Susan said. “The charac­ter I was assuming in the bar. Little Suzie Sad Ass.”

  Both girls laughed.

  Will laughed along with them.

  “I played Amanda Wingate,” Jessica said.

  “In The Glass Menagerie” Susan explained. “When we did it in Seattle. Laura’s mother. Amanda Wingate.”

  “Actually I am the older one,” Jessica said. “In real life.”

  “She’s thirty,” Susan said. “I’m twenty-eight.”

  “Here all alone in the big bad city,” Will said.

  “Yep, here all alone,” Jessica said.

  “Is that where you girls sleep?” Will asked. “The bed across the room there? The two of you all alone in that big bad bed?”

  “Uh-oh,” Jessica said. “He wants to know where we sleep, Sue.”

  “Better be careful,” Susan said.

  Will figured he ought to back off a little, play it a bit more slowly here.

  “So where’s this acting school you go to?” he asked.

  “Right on Eighth Avenue.”

  “Near the Biltmore,” Susan said. “Do you know the Bilt­more Theater?”

  “No, I don’t,” Will said. “I’m sorry.”

  “Well, near there,” Jessica said. “Madame D’Arbousse, do you know her work?”

  “No, I’m sorry, I don’t.”

  “Well, she’s only famous,” Susan said.

  “I’m sorry, I’m just not familiar with…”

  “The D’Arbousse School? You’ve never heard of the D’Ar­bousse School of Acting?”

  “I’m sorry, no.”

  “It’s only world-famous,” Susan said.

  She seemed to be pouting now, almost petulant. Will fig­ured he was losing ground here. Fast.

  “So… uh… what was the idea of putting on the costume tonight?” he asked. “Going to that bar as a… well… I hope you’ll forgive me… a frumpy little file clerk, was what I thought you were.”

  “It was that good, huh?” Susan said, smiling. Her smile, without the fake overbite, was actually quite lovely. Her mouth didn’t look as thin-lipped anymore, either. Amazing what a lit­tle lipstick could do to plump up a girl’s lips. He imagined those lips on his own lips, in the bed across the room there. He imagined her sister’s lips on his, too. Imagined all their lips en­tangled, intertwined…

  “That was part of the exercise,” Susan said.

  “The exercise?”

  “Finding the place,” Jessica said.

  “The character’s place,” Susan said. “For a private moment,” Jessica explained.

  “Finding the place for a character’s private moment.”

  “We thought it might be the bar.”

  “But now we think it might be here.”

  “Well, it will be here,” Jessica said. “Once we create it.”

  They were losing Will. More important, he felt he was losing them. That bed, maybe fifteen feet away across the room, seemed to be receding into an unreachable distance. He had to get this thing back on track. But he didn’t know how quite yet. Not while they were rattling on about… what were they saying, anyway?

  “I’m sorry,” he said, “but what exactly is it you’re trying to create?”

  “A character’s private moment,” Jessica said.

  “Is this the place we’re going to use?” Susan asked.

  “I think so, yes. Don’t yo
u think so? Our own apartment. A real place. It feels very real to me. Doesn’t it feel real to you, Sue?”

  “Oh, yes. Yes, it does. It feels very real. But I don’t feel pri­vate yet. Do you feel private?”

  “No, not yet.”

  “Excuse me, ladies…” Will said.

  “Ladies, ooo hoo,” Susan said, and rolled her eyes.

  “… but we can get a lot more private here, if that’s what you ladies are looking for here.”

  “We’re talking about a private moment? Jessica explained. “The way we behave when no one’s watching.”

  “No one’s watching us right now,” Will said encouragingly. “We can do whatever we wish to do here, and no one will ever…”

  “I don’t think you understand,” Susan said. “A character’s private feelings and emotions are what we’re trying to create here tonight.”

  “So let’s start creating all these feelings and emotions,” Will suggested.

  “These feelings have to be real” Jessica said.

  “They have to be absolutely real,” Susan said.

  “So that we can apply them to the scene we’re doing.”

  “Ah-ha!” Will said.

  “I think he’s got it,” Jessica said.

  “By George, he’s got it.”

  “You’re rehearsing a scene together.”

  “Bravo!”

  “What scene?” Will asked.

  “A scene in Macbeth,” Susan said.

  “Where she tells him to screw his courage to the sticking point,” Jessica said.

  “Lady Macbeth.”

  “Tells Macbeth. When he’s beginning to waver about killing Duncan.”

  “Screw your courage to the sticking point,” Jessica said again, with conviction this time. “And we shall not fail.”

  She looked at her sister.

  “That was very good,” Susan said.

  Will figured maybe they were back on track again.

  “Screw your courage, huh?” he said, and smiled knowingly, and took another sip of champagne.

  “She’s telling him not to be such a wuss,” Susan said.

  “The thing is they’re plotting to kill the king, you see,” Jes­sica said.

  “This is a private moment for both of them.”

  “Where they’re both examining what they’re about to do.”

  “They’re planning a murder, you see.”

  “What does that feel like?” Susan asked.

  “What is that like inside your head?” Jessica said.

  “That private moment inside your head?

  “When you’re actually contemplating someone’s death.”

  The room went silent for an instant.

  The sisters looked at each other.

  “Would anyone like some more champagne?” Susan asked.

  “I’d love some,” Jessica said.

  “I’ll get it,” Will said, and started to rise.

  “No, no, let me,” Susan said, and took his glass and carried all three empty glasses into the kitchen. Jessica crossed her legs. Behind him, in the kitchen, Will could hear Susan refilling their glasses. He watched Jessica’s jiggling foot, her pump half-on, half-off, held only by her toes.

  “So that stuff in the bar was all part of the exercise, right?” Will said. “Your suggesting we kill somebody? And then choos­ing your sister as the victim?”

  “Well, sort of,” Jessica said.

  Her pump fell off. She bent over to retrieve it, spreading her legs, the black dress high on her thighs. She crossed one leg over the other, put the pump back on, smiled at Will. Susan was back with the full glasses.

  “Still some more out there,” she said, and passed the glasses around. Jessica held hers up in a toast.

  “From this time such,” she said, “I account thy love.”

  “Cheers,” Susan said, and drank.

  “Meaning?” Will said, but he drank, too.

  “That’s in the scene,” Jessica said. “Actually, it’s at the start of the scene. Where he’s beginning to waver. By the end of the scene, she’s convinced him the king must die.”

  “False face must hide what the false heart doth show,” Susan said, and nodded.

  “That’s Macbeth’s exit line. At the end of the scene.”

  “Is that why you were dressed as a file clerk? False face must hide… whatever it was you just said?”

  “What the false heart doth show,” Susan repeated. “But no, that’s not why I was in costume.”

  “Then why?”

  “It was my way of trying to create a character.”

  “Maybe he hasn’t got it, after all,” Jessica said.

  “A character who could kill,” Susan said.

  “You had to become a frump?”

  “Well, I had to become someone else, yes. Someone not like myself at all. But it turned out that wasn’t enough. I had to find the right place, too.”

  “The place is here” Jessica said.

  “And now” Will said. “So, ladies, if no one minds…”

  “Ooo hoo, ladies again,” Susan said, and again rolled her eyes.

  “… can we get off all this acting stuff for a moment… ?”

  “How about your private moment?” Susan said.

  “I don’t have any private moments.”

  “Don’t you ever fart alone in the dark?” Jessica asked.

  “Don’t you ever jack off alone in the dark?” Susan asked.

  Will’s mouth fell open.

  “Those are private moments,” Jessica said.

  For some reason, he could not close his mouth again.

  ~ * ~

  “I think it’s beginning to work,” Susan said.

  “Take the glass from his hand before he drops it,” Jessica said.

  Will watched them with his eyes and his mouth wide open.

  “I’ll bet he thinks it’s curare,” Jessica said.

  “Where on earth would we get curare?”

  “The jungles of Brazil?”

  “Venezuela?”

  Both girls laughed.

  Will didn’t know if it was curare or not. All he knew was he couldn’t speak and he couldn’t move.

  “Well, he knows we didn’t go all the way down to the Ama­zon for any poison,” Jessica said.

  “That’s right, he knows you’re a nurse,” Susan said.

  “Beth Israel, you bet,” Jessica said.

  “Access to lots of drugs there.”

  “Even synthetic curare drugs.”

  “Plenty of those around.”

  “List them for him, Jess.”

  “Don’t want to bore him, Sue.”

  “You have to inject curare, Will, did you know that?”

  “The natives dip their darts in it.”

  “Shoot the darts from blowpipes.”

  “The victims are paralyzed.”

  “Helpless.”

  “Death comes from asphyxia.”

  “That means you can’t breathe.”

  “Because the respiratory nerve muscles get paralyzed.”

  “Are you having trouble breathing yet, Will?”

  He did not think he was having trouble breathing. But what were they saying? Were they saying they’d poisoned him?

  “The synthetics come in tablet form,” Susan told him.