He wanted to call her, but she had said she would be busy for a day or so. Meanwhile, every time he thought of the tape recorder, he grew embarrassed and apprehensive. He promised himself that he would remove it the first chance he had. Andrea was no less proud than Donna, and if she were to discover that he was spying on her, it would wreck any chances of his ever being with her again.
Osten stared hard at the enlargements of the White House nude, trying to decide whether anything in the shape and texture of that body matched his fresh image of Andre,—nude, inspiring, relentless in her lovemaking—an image he was reluctant to let fade.
He felt eager to be with her again. There was something so reassuring in her easy acceptance of him. She hadn’t pried into his past, questioned his social and aesthetic values, or found fault with his family background—all of which Donna had done. And unlike Donna, who focused her talent and creative energy on the piano to the exclusion of virtually everything else, Andrea had many other interests and an abundance of charms and accomplishments. She had shown Osten her poetry, and he had found it as profound as her sexual limericks were funny; her caricatures, drawings, sketches, and designs were all well thought out and faultlessly executed; and her attempts at writing plays and screenplays, she had told him, were considered promising at Juilliard. Even though he was just getting to know Andrea, he had already discovered striking differences between her and Donna. Donna’s disposition was somber, obsessive; Andrea was easygoing, carefree. Donna was all seriousness; she had no time for jokes or games, and would never indulge in such learned superstitions as astrology or palmistry. Andrea, playful by nature, loved such things and did not need to hide her interest in parascientific fields, for she obviously had numerous serious interests as well. Osten smiled on remembering her utter conviction that she could gain valuable insight into his subconscious mind by minutely studying his handwriting. For Donna, sexual passion was a force so excessive and intense that she could not control it or share it properly; it conquered her from within long before her lover could claim her for himself. But Andrea, beautiful and passionate as well, brought to sex both reserve and assurance; she was happy letting her lover bring about her surrender to physical pleasure.
In a flash, Osten foresaw a time a few months, or possibly weeks off, when he would take Andrea on a trip through California. He would show her the splendor of the Anza Borrego Desert, with its oases of fan palms and rugged canyons and steep ravines, and he would identify for her the strange, far-off cry of a coyote. Then he would take her through Julian to the ranch on the nearby hill. Slowly, pretending he was not sure of the way, he would maneuver the car up the driveway and through the gate. He would stop at the main house, and they would get out, and as if he had never been there before, he would open the door for her—to the New Atlantis and to his entire past.
The phone woke Osten. It was Andrea.
“Please, help me,” she said, her voice shaky. “I’m in trouble’”
“Where are you?” asked Osten. He felt groggy and disoriented, and a glance at the clock told him it was late evening. He had slept all day.
“At the Old Glory. You know, Domostroy’s place—where you went the other day …”
That threw him. Only yesterday she had told him she didn’t know Domostroy.
“What are you doing there?” he asked.
“I’ll explain when I see you. Please, Jimmy, you must come right away—do you remember your way? Take the—”
There was authentic urgency in her voice.
“I know the way,” he interrupted. “Don’t worry. I’m leaving right now.”
In the car, his mind was racing. If Andrea knew Domostroy, she might actually be the one who had written him, Goddard, all those astounding letters. He hoped she was, for then at last he would have someone lovely, intelligent, well educated, and refined to love. And hadn’t she already admitted to her love for him? With her fascination for drama and music, she was the perfect partner to share his creative secret. Then his thoughts strayed to Domostroy. What was his role? Was he only her photographer—or had he played another part in what might be a plot to unmask Goddard? But whose plot was it?
The gate to the Old Glory was open, and two cars were parked at its entrance, the door of which also was open. Osten parked next to Domostroy’s vintage convertible, and ran inside. All the lights were on in the ballroom, and the grand piano gleamed on the stage. The musicians’ stands and most of the furniture were covered with dust sheets, making the place look like an abandoned stage set. As Osten entered he heard rapid movements behind him, and when he turned he saw Patrick Domostroy, pale and disheveled. Standing behind Domostroy, wearing tight rubber gloves and holding a gun against his back, was a dark-haired man in an open shirt and baggy pants. The man’s face, in spite of the large dark glasses, looked faintly familiar to Osten. Next to them, in a sweater and jeans, stood Andrea, also wearing rubber gloves and holding a gun, which was unmistakenly pointed at Osten.
“How are you, Jimmy?” said Domostroy, his lips white.
“Shut up,” said Andrea. “Take your jacket off—slowly,” she told Osten, “and drop it on the floor.”
“What is all this?” Osten asked, still uncertain as to whether or not they were joking.
“Do what she says,” said the stranger, his gun still at Domostroy’s back. When Osten hesitated, the man screamed, “Do it! Now!” and his voice echoed through the ballroom. As he screamed, Osten recognized him, for he had seen that same face only recently on one of Andrea’s record album covers.
“You’re Chick Mercurio, aren’t you?” said Osten, taking off his jacket and throwing it at Andrea’s feet. “What is it you want?” he asked Andrea. His chest was frozen with the dread of losing her.
Still training her gun on him, she bent down and with her left hand felt the pockets of his jacket. Then she reached into an open attaché case on the floor and pulled out the tape recorder he had left in her apartment. “Surprise, surprise!” she said, holding it up. “We won’t need this anymore, will we?” She smashed the recorder against a table, and reaching into the attache case again, she pulled out a writing pad.
She threw it to Osten, and he caught it. “There’s a pen inside the cover,” she said, and when he had found it, she continued. “Sit down and write the following.”
Puzzled by the scorn he heard in her voice, Osten became resentful.
“What if I won’t?” he asked her. “Will you kill me?”
“Don’t tempt her” said Mercurio. “Just do what she says.”
When Osten still did not move, Andrea gripped her gun with both hands, spread her feet wide, and aimed at his groin.
“Write!” Mercurio screamed.
“Write, Jimmy,” Andrea seconded in a quiet voice, “or I’ll shoot you right in the gut.”
“What do you want me to write?” asked Osten, picking up the pen and sitting at the nearest table, searching his mind for some reason that could bring Andrea and Mercurio together.
“‘Dear Andrea’” she dictated as Osten began to write. “‘I was here around four o’clock, but you weren’t home, so I’m leaving this under the door. Patrick Domostroy has asked me to see him tonight. He says that if I don t come’ “—she waited for Osten to catch up with her—“‘he will tell others who I really am, and I can’t let that happen.’ “She paused once more, then continued.
“‘Ever since he smoked me out with those clever White House letters he wrote to me care of Nokturn, he has been blackmailing me for money, which I have always paid him. Now he wants more, and if I don’t deliver, he threatens me with exposure. I can’t refuse to talk to him, but the man is insane and I would feel safer with someone at my side when I see him.’ “Andrea stopped again, and in the silence of the ballroom, Osten could hear only the sound of his pen.
“‘For that reason’”—she resumed dictation—“‘I hope that you and Chick can come to the Old Glory in the South Bronx, where Domostroy lives. I’ll be there around
eleven o’clock tonight. It’s urgent. Love, Goddard.’ “When Osten finished writing and started to put down the pen, she said, “That’s not all!” She reflected for a moment, then went on. “‘P.S. Please keep the papers I gave you well hidden. I don’t trust Domostroy!’ “
Osten finished and looked up at her. “Is that all?” he asked.
“No!” Andrea snapped back. “Toss me the notebook.”
He threw it on the floor next to her, and she picked it up and put it in the attache case, from which she took some legal-size sheets covered with dense typing. Pointing her gun directly at his head, she walked over and lined up the folded-over pages in front of him, then quickly backed away. He smelled her perfume. It reminded him of the last time he had smelled it on her body; that seemed long ago now.
“Sign them—the original and each copy—as both James Norbert Osten and as Goddard,” she commanded. “Every place there’s a cross. And no tricks with the signatures!”
Osten signed the documents, dropped them on the floor, and kicked them over to Andrea, who picked them up, examined the signatures, and replaced them in the attache case, a jubilant smile on her lips.
“May I ask what I’ve just signed?” Osten asked Andrea angrily.
“Your last will and testament, that’s what, dated three months ago,” said Chick Mercurio. “All drawn up by a legit lawyer and stamped by a notary public.”
“Thank you, Jimmy,” Andrea said. “I see you signed them properly and in good faith.”
Osten stared at her blankly, stunned. “Meaning?” he asked with contempt.
“You idiot! Don’t you remember signing your name for me at my place when I told you all that stuff about automatic writing?”
“I was stoned,” said Osten.
“I should hope so,” Mercurio snorted. “That pot was a lot stronger than any regular grass. You had to have been a zombie!”
“He was,” said Andrea, laughing disdainfully. “He was like a sleepwalker. He didn’t even know where he was! Twice he called me ‘Leila’ and did everything I told him to do, including singing ‘Volver, Volver, Volver’ for me in Goddard’s voice!”
Osten noticed Domostroy staring at him.
“I’m amazed, Jimmy,” Domostroy interjected, “at how you can change your voice. I would never have guessed you were Goddard.”
“I use a modified microphone for singing and my gruff voice for talking” said Osten, changing to his normal voice, and in answer to Domostroy’s puzzled frown, he said, “though, honestly, I doubt that anyone listening to even my normal tone would think of Goddard!”
“Fascinating,” said Domostroy. “And I even suggested to Andrea once that Jimmy Osten was nothing but a ‘cuckoo … a wandering voice … an invisible thing … a mystery!’ Now I feel like a fool!” He laughed.
“You shouldn’t,” said Osten. “Here I was ready to call my next record ‘Andrea’!”
“Enough of this,” said Chick Mercurio, prodding Domostroy with the gun. “Andrea, you watch this one here while our Iron Mask music man and I retire to the kitchen for a talk.”
As Andrea trained her gun on Domostroy, Mercurio stepped over to Osten. “Come on,” he said with a sweep of his gun. “To the left and through that door over there! Move!” he screamed, jabbing Osten roughly with the gun.
“Chick, do you have to?” asked Andrea.
“Yes, I do!” Mercurio called back as he pushed Osten into the kitchen.
“What is your friend going to do?” Domostroy asked Andrea in a falsely genial tone. “Eat Jimmy alive? Or cook him first?”
“Since when have you been so concerned about Jimmy? You were never afraid that Donna would eat him, were you?” she asked. “How is our Sepia Snatch by the way?”
“You know she’s in Warsaw.” Domostroy was suddenly concerned about Donna’s safety. “And she knows nothing about us, believe me, Andrea,” he pleaded.
She nudged him with her gun. “I hope not—for her sake!”
He suppressed his anger. “Tell me, how did you find out that Osten was Goddard?”
“I suspected him the minute he showed up with Donna at the piano literature class where we’d been studying Chopin’s letters. You and I quoted one in the last letter to Goddard, remember? That tipped me off, especially when he looked over everyone in the class and began to zero in on me. He obviously suspected I might be the girl in the pictures. That’s when Chick and I went to work making up a will for Jimmy to sign, just in case. And then Jimmy told me that he first noticed me three months ago. He lied: when Donna introduced us, she said he’d been in town only for a month or so. The night he came to my apartment I felt something in his pocket—and when he was asleep I checked his jacket again and it wasn’t there anymore—so I knew he had hidden something in the room. Then I found the tape recorder. Now why would Jimmy Osten want to spy on poor little me? And during the night, high as the sky on my special brand of pot, he wondered aloud if my tits would get bigger and their nipples larger if he were to make me pregnant, and made a big thing out of my shaved cunt. And finally, humming that Mexican song in his real voice! That was the giveaway! I knew it was time to check his signature and handwriting in preparation for this event!” She paused, then added as an afterthought, “That’s all I ever wanted in the first place!”
“And thanks to me, your ‘Godot finally come and well be saved,’ “he quoted, hoping to soften her.
“Not ‘all’. Just I and Chick.”
“Tell me,’ Domostroy went on, “do you and your friend intend to kill Jimmy and me—and arrange it to look as if we killed each other? Or—in keeping with my supposedly uncurbed snake-charming nature—will I kill myself after I’ve killed him?”
“You’ll see,” said Andrea. “After all, I’m the drama student here!”
“And now you have graduated to crime. That’s a cruel Endgame!”
“‘Cruelty is an idea put in practice.’ That’s from Artaud,” she laughed. “In practice, then, as you and Jimmy leave the stage, by Goddard’s last will and testament I become the sole legal heir to his entire current estate—including, of course, all future royalties from his music. How many millions did you say our invisible boy was worth? Fifteen? Seventeen?”
“I didn’t say,” said Domostroy. “You must have gotten that information from one of your other sources. Tell me something—why did you pick me in the first place?” he asked her, not certain whether he wanted to know her answer.
She looked at him with an expression of disdain and pity.
“You probably think I picked you because you’ve seen a lot and been to a lot of places and met a lot of people. But you’re wrong,” she said. “You weren’t even the first. Before you, I hired, one after another, three other men in the music business, each one better informed and more accomplished than you, and a better fuck too. But they all failed to find Goddard. So I zeroed in on you, Domostroy, because—for all of your music and experience—you were always a loser, and I knew I could get you cheap. Furthermore, you’re such a selfish, calculating, obscene son of a bitch that I somehow sensed you’d be mean enough to flush Goddard out!’”
Just then a piercing cry of pain echoed in the ballroom, and Domostroy shuddered. Without a word Andrea jammed her gun into his back and prodded him to walk toward the kitchen. Without a word he obeyed.
There they found Jimmy Osten standing with his head partially inside the walk-in freezer, his mouth open and his tongue, extended to its full length, stuck to the frozen metal wall. A frightful moan came from his chest. Behind him stood Chick Mercurio, dangling his gun and laughing at Andrea’s look of astonishment.
“Chick! What are you doing?” she yelled.
“All I have to do is give one hard pull, Andrea,” he said, “and we can get a good look at the most hidden tongue in America!” He reached for Osten and was about to pull him away from the freezer when the door behind Andrea burst open and two of the Born Free gang ran in, pistols in hand, training them from close range on An
drea and Mercurio.
“Drop the gun!” one of them shouted, and in that instant Mercurio turned to the voice that had called out and fired point-blank. As the Born Free tough collapsed on the floor, blood gushing from his belly, he returned Mercurio’s fire with deadly accuracy, striking him in the throat.
Almost simultaneously, Andrea fired at the other Born Free and blew his chin off. A second before he sank to the floor his finger squeezed the trigger of his gun and sent a bullet ripping through her chest. In a moment Mercurio was in a spasm, with blood pouring out of his mouth; Andrea lay motionless on her back, her eyes dimming and a widening circle of blood seeping out from under her sweater. Then, all became still and quiet.
Too shaken to move, Domostroy stood there numbly, watching the blood from the bodies begin to form a pool: they were all dead. The collapse of his and Andrea’s plot came so suddenly, so fast, and so furiously, that it left him blurred, cheated and betrayed, an overly irrational or naively contrived ending in an otherwise niftily designed adventure story. But then a fear stirred him: if Andrea had lived, he could have been tried as her accomplice in the Goddard extortion scheme. He wondered if any jury on earth could possibly have found him innocent. He imagined day after day of sensational headlines and neverending press and television accounts of all the lurid aspects of the deal he had struck with Andrea to unmask Goddard. The past brouhaha of his alleged secret musical collaborators was comical by comparison with what the media could do with this hideously bloody drama. He thought, too, of Donna, an innocent bystander, dragged into all this simply because she had responded to his love. A judge could well have sent him to jail for years, ending his life as he had lived it till now.
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