by Farris, John
"Turo, I'm very sorry about your father."
He nodded and got up from the chair, drank a little coffee, carried the cup to the tray and left it there.
"But the General isn't consciously evil. You won't settle anything by driving a stake through his heart. You'll just be throwing your life away."
"What is your conception of evil? He's still selling guns. And I have a debt of honor to satisfy."
"I see. A debt of honor. That's—very serious." She walked over to Turo and stood beside him. "I'm sure your father was a good man. But he's dead. The General's not a good man, but he's old and he'll die soon enough. Maybe he'll go to hell; I don't know, I'm not theological." Her voice rose a little as she became more aggressive, anxious to seize responsibility for his fate. "I don't care what happens to him, but I do care about you. Turo, why don't you get out of here? Leave this house and just keep going. Turn yourself in to the police or FBI. They'll know what to do."
"That would really be throwing my life away. Kidnapping. Conspiracy to commit murder. Accessory to—" He checked himself and glanced at Carol with a bewildered smile and said, half seriously, "You know something, you could get me in a lot of trouble with suggestions like that."
"Turo, what were you about to say?" He didn't reply. Carol seized his arm, her chain rattling. "Accessory to what?"
"Oh, chica," he mumbled.
"Murder?" She shook him. "Turo," she said wildly, "has anything happened to my family?"
''No."
"Don't tell me lies, I wouldn't lie to you!"
"They're all right! Nothing's happened. Your mother—guessed."
"About Lone, you mean?" Carol let him go and collapsed on the bed. "Oh, God, for a minute there you had me scared. How did she catch on, do you know?"
Turo looked paralyzed. His lips barely moved. "Lone—lost her self-control."
"Oh," Carol said, sighing. "So she couldn't carry it off after all. I didn't think it would work. A ridiculous idea."
Turo reached into an inside pocket for an index card and his pen. "Your mother's worried about you," he said. "Could you write her a note so she'll know you're OK?"
Carol pondered an appropriate message for several minutes, then wrote:
I wish I could tell you where I am, but I don't know myself. It's no fun, but they treat me OK and the food is good. I'm very homesick, and I…
She paused, about to weep, but controlled herself and concluded:
…miss you all very much. Please don't worry, I'm really fine. So you'll know this is me and not a fake–Felice, do you remember what I said to Miss Watkins at school when she told me I had to be a frog in the second grade play?
When she had finished Carol read it over critically. Trite, she thought, but since no masterpiece was called for she signed and handed the card over to Turo, who stuffed it away without a glance.
"Turo, don't go now," she begged. But he had what he'd come after and during the interval of note writing his morale had gradually improved. He studied her composedly, without reluctance, but there was a lack of recognition in his tribal eyes that inhibited her. He seemed possessed by an epic fatalism.
He hauled the ankle chain from beneath the bed. Carol jerked her foot away when he tried to attach the manacle. Turo looked up with an expression of forbearance until she submitted. She tried earnestly to hate him, and couldn't; the effort and misspent emotion made her cry instead. She spilled tears, her throat full of glue.
"Don't go." She stared brightly at him, cowed by misery, by his youth and his tragic, priestly gloom. "I'm afraid. I'm afraid. Huh. I'm so afraid!"
He touched her hair absently, as if the gesture was one he had become used to during the nights she had lain purple-eyed and semiconscious with fever in the white bed. He began to rearrange her hair to suit him, with a furtive reverence that dismayed but spookily calmed her. She hushed; he smiled for her.
"Soon you'll go home," Turo called. "Very soon. That I promise." Then he left as fast as he could, slipping once, unseen, on the stairs as he went down.
Babs went all out for dinner that night: interesting hors d'oeuvres, salade Babs with the freshest, tastiest lettuce Carol had eaten in months, foie de veau sauté aux raisins, a cheese platter that featured a delectable Brie. There were poire cardinal, served in a coffee cup. Babs apologized sincerely for this lapse in etiquette, but still it tasted pretty good.
Carol was reasonably sure that it was a farewell dinner. For all of a sultry afternoon she had been hearing distinctive sounds from below, sounds of packing and closing up that indicated leave-taking. Big Jim had made many trips from the back door to the shed where he kept his car, which he hadn't driven locally because of California plates. Babs, despite her habitual chatter, had a highly colored, distracted air of holiday, of imminent release. It greatly depressed Carol but she tried not to be sullen. Babs had washed and trimmed her hair. She was wearing eye makeup. She tended to become tearful whenever Carol offered a compliment.
So the murder of her grandfather had happened, or was going to happen very soon, Carol thought, desperately chewing her way through the gala meal and keeping an eye on restless Babs, calculating what it might take to pry this last and most important secret from her.
Before long she began to sense that Babs was not going to talk to her tonight. Babs would talk at her, talk circles around her, but she was trying hard to push something unpleasant to the back of her mind. The veau began to stick in Carol's throat and she couldn't wash it down with wine. She put her fork aside, looking at Babs with an edgy fascination. They had spent the long day packing, tidying up loose ends; it was eight-thirty in the evening now, the sky had begun to turn from a silvery apricot shade to a midnight blue agleam with constellations, and the only loose end remaining before their departure was Carol.
Despite all of Babs's protestations and the plaintive reassurance she had seen in Turo's eyes, were they simply going to kill her? For half a minute she lived with this belief. Babs was describing something she had winnowed from the newspapers or seen on television. She made neat gestures with her fat, hard hands. Carol couldn't make much sense of what she was saying, or even hear very well: something was happening deep in her ears, a ringing, a cold fibrillation. Babs wore tiny gold beads for earrings. Her long hair was tied at mid-length with a ribbon, exposing the tender, broad root of her ivoried neck. Her throat swelled and bobbed with incomprehensible speech. Odd that she couldn't hear anymore, Carol thought, when she was perfectly lucid on another level. But she couldn't feel anything, either; she existed in a state of numbness beyond panic. Babs flashed a smile. Unlike most fat girls, she had healthy, even teeth and healthy eyes, somewhat pinked by tears tonight. She kept her distance and wiped her tears surreptitiously, thinking Carol wouldn't notice. A very emotional girl, Babs, and considerate to the end: she would maintain the pretense of friendship until the last good night, see you in the morning! And later she would be sitting in the front seat of the car in her traveling togs listening to something well modulated and schmaltzy on the radio without a sniffle or a regret in her head while Big Jim came cat-footed up the stairs one last time to say his good night, a needle loaded with a dose of treats gleaming in his fist.
"Is that all you're going to eat, Carol?"
She had come closer to the bed and was peering dubiously at the dishes on the tray. She had dabbed perfume on her wrists tonight: Babs's physical presence affected Carol as the moon affects the tides and the scent of perfume roused her more completely. Her skin continued to feel iced and she was sweating alcohol in all the hollows of her body, but she smiled.
"Oh, I—Babs, it was delicious, but so filling, you know? I'm absolutely stuffed."
"Do you feel all right? You look sort of white."
"I'm fine, Babs," Carol protested, concentrating on a parody of cheerfulness. "A little tired—a backache kept me awake most of last night."
"Your period's late, isn't it?" Babs said, frowning, always the little doctor.
"We
ll, I could be skipping this month. You know, because of the fever."
"Oh, sure." Babs appropriated the wedge of Brie and nibbled at it like a vast bucolic mouse. "Scrumptious," she said, dribbling crumbs.
"Out of this world," Carol agreed, certain that she was going to vomit. "Babs, would you mind? The chain. I'd like to go to the bathroom."
Babs crammed the last of the cheese into her mouth and searched herself for the appropriate key while Carol stood haggardly by with her throat locked. She made herself walk to the bathroom and turn on the faucets. Then she was privately sick. She felt as if she were trying to throw up everything she had been fed during the term of her captivity. She expected to be quite frail after it was over, bleary and palpitating.
Instead, after splashing her face with cold water for a couple of minutes she felt revived, precariously calm and operative. Her hands trembled but they trembled almost continuously these days, and her grasp was adequate.
"Oh, Babs! This is going to take a while. Could you bring me a smoke?"
Babs, who was strictly rationed by Big Jim, handed a lighted king through the door space.
"Thanks so much," Carol said, closing the door.
"De nada, girl."
"Why don't you finish the poire cardinal for me?"
"Oh, God, I've already had three helpings! But, if you insist—"
Carol sat on the john seat while she smoked two-thirds of the long cigarette. Then she set it aside and took two squares of toilet paper, folded them into a loose pad which fitted the palm of her left hand. She lifted the lid and flicked the ash of the cigarette into the bowl. There was about an inch and a half of the cigarette left. She clamped the butt down between the third and fourth fingers of her right hand with the smoldering tip sheltered in the hollow of her palm.
She flushed the toilet and went out into the bedroom, chained hands held close together in front of her, palms in, so that Babs couldn't see she still had the cigarette. It had started to blister the wet skin of her cupped hand but she ignored the pain and worked up a convincing yawn.
"I think I'll turn in."
"So early?" she said. But it was clear that Babs approved. She swigged the last of the wine from the bottle, leaving a prim red crescent on her upper lip, put the bottle on the tray. She began to fold the covers back. While she was engaged, facing away from Carol, Carol squatted at the foot of the bed, placed the cigarette stub between folds of tissue, separated the mattresses quickly and unobtrusively and stuck the wrapped cigarette between them. She stood up and licked the burn on her palm and smiled guilelessly when Babs turned around, plumping the pillow.
"It's supposed to be not quite so humid tomorrow."
"There's good news."
"The last couple of days I was so damp all the time I thought I'd sprout mushrooms."
"Babs, you're droll."
"Well, time for the belt, I guess." She strapped Carol into it. Carol sat down on the bed and Babs ran the chain through the eye. She was more than a little damp now; a rivulet of sweat ran from one temple to her chins, and her dress was splotchy. Carol lay back. Babs secured the chain to the bed frame with the big brass lock.
Carol smiled up at her, but it was an artificial, ill-meant smile that caused Babs a certain amount of puzzlement. "I'd say I'm suitably restrained."
"Gosh, Carol, you know how I feel—"
"That bores me, Babs. That really bores me, to hear how you feel."
Babs wiped uneasily at trickling sweat. She licked her lips, trying to think of something pleasantly equivocal to say. Carol didn't alter her smile, but after a half dozen seconds she abruptly switched it off; then her face was stone. She lay there accusing Babs with her eyes, and on occasion her peculiarly lidded brown eyes could be reptilian, cold as a mongrel whore's.
"Well, I d-d-don't know what else—" Babs fumbled, overwhelmed.
"Oh, shit," Carol said, flicking the epithet at her with a deadly aim.
"—tell you!" Babs concluded, eyes squeezed shut. Her features had lost their customary wise and cheeky definition, and her face was a watery pudding. She found her normal voice but kept her eyes shut. "You have every reason to hate me," she said stuffily.
"Don't I, though?"
"But I hoped—"
"I'm trying to get some sleep here, Babs. Turn out the light."
Babs stood there a dismal minute longer, melting in the glare of Carol's displeasure, gradually bringing her eyes to bear on her tormentor: her eyes seemed smaller in the pudding face, reduced by a greeny haze. Somewhere inside her head something difficult and chancy was going on. Carol felt a swift return of fear. But Babs simply turned and stepped down from the bed platform and went to get the light.
In the dark, Carol heard her breathing. A little moonlight defined the windows. More light filtered upward through the curtain over the doorway below, a dull ocher shading on the wall above the staircase.
When she could see to find her way, Babs returned to the bed. Striving for balance, she kneeled and captured one of Carol's hands. She pressed a wet inflamed cheek, then her lips against it. Apologetically, with a birdlike grace, she kissed the hand. And still she was speechless.
Carol snatched her hand away and the chain caught, pulling Bab's face roughly awry. Babs gasped, and her eyes gleamed like pools in the insubstantial light from the sky.
"Get out of my bed, you sewer rat."
Babs, on her knees, sat back. She was quite motionless for a while. Carol felt Babs studying her. She couldn't quite will herself to turn her back.
"Babs," Big Jim called from below. Babs trembled. She put both hands on the bed to brace herself, raised up. She picked up the supper tray from the table, hesitated again, her great bulk blotting out the windows. Carol feigned sleep, or indifference, but her heartbeat seemed shockingly audible to her. At last Babs went away. Carol heard her descending, breathing anxiously, her back sliding against the wall, dishes jarring on the tray at each down-step.
The smoldering cigarette, feeding on the tiny amount of oxygen trapped between layers of the toilet tissue, quickly burned holes the size of horseshoes in the ticking of both mattresses. The fire spread quite slowly after that, and unpredictably, through the densely packed stuffing, flaring briefly in minute air spaces, settling down to a slow but inexorable charring. Twenty minutes passed and Carol, glumly certain that her scheme was a failure, dozed off.
She stirred and shifted position from time to time as the burning mattress became warm, then hot. The fire ate its way to the surface in an hour's time; it broke through at last at the foot of the bed, and a sheet, turning brown, suddenly burst into flame. She smelled the smoke in her sleep, awakened to the puff of flame. She screamed, forgetting momentarily what she had done. Forgetting the chains, she tried to leap off the bed.
"Help! Oh, God, it's burning!"
Screeching in panic, she kicked at the burning, tattered top sheet, trying to get it off the bed. Sparks and flecks of charred cloth sprinkled her bare legs.
The mattress had begun to burn through in other places: little puffs and jets of flame surrounded her.
The room was filling with noxious yellow smoke. Carol arched her back in an effort to get as much of her body as possible off the hot mattress. She smelled her hair as it began to singe and beat at it with her linked hands. She screamed.
Big Jim charged up the stairs and turned on the lights. For several seconds he stared in disbelief at the flame and the wildly writhing girl. Then he grabbed the pitcher of water from the little table beside the bed and doused Carol with it.
"Babs!" he roared. "Get up here!" He went to the bathroom and refilled the pitcher, came back and dumped the water on the hot spots in the mattress. Babs's head and shoulders heaved into view. Carol sobbed and strangled on a thick wad of smoke. Big Jim yanked Babs up the last two steps, a feat equivalent to squat-lifting an antique safe.
"Where's the key? The key, damn it!"
"I don't know!" Babs wailed, frantically searching. "It must be i
n my other—"
"Throw some more water on that mattress," he said, shoving the pitcher at her. "And douse the sparks on the floor." He slapped her, not hard, to be sure he had her attention. Then he ran down the steps.
"Babs, Babs!" Carol moaned. "I'm burning up!" Babs, a ghastly white except for Jim's finger marks on one cheek, hurried to the bathroom and stuck the pitcher under the flowing tap. She came back and stood too far from the still-smoldering bed and threw the water more or less blindly.
"Babs—the mattress—pull the mattress out from under me!"
Babs groped closer to the bed, holding her breath. She took a purchase on the mattress and tugged.
Nothing happened. "Harder!" Carol sobbed. Babs, bulging with determination this time, tried again. The top mattress slipped sideways several inches. It proved to be a mistake. Air fed the fire that had been eating through the mattress underneath and a picket of bright yellow flames penetrated the dense smoke, endangering Carol. Babs backed away from this new misfortune with a blood-curdling shriek. She was still retreating when Big Jim returned with a pair of long-handled cutters and freed Carol in two snips.
Carol tumbled to the floor and lay there gasping with her cheek pressed against the cool wood. Jim dropped the bolt cutters and began to stomp out burning remnants of linen. He retrieved the porcelain pitcher and dashed into the bathroom for more water. Carol got to her hands and knees and saw the bolt cutters handy. Jim appeared, murkily, and laid careful arcs of water along the sizzling mattresses, his eyes streaming tears from the heat and smoke.
