“Sure it is, you prick,” snapped Harry.
“Harry, get away from there,” Cassandra said. My God, it isn’t real, is it? I thought in sudden dread.
“Do it, Harry,” Max urged him. “Go ahead—to coin a phrase.”
“You miserable son of a bitch,” said Harry.
He reached for the lever.
“Harry, no!” Cassandra cried. No! my mind cried with her.
Too late. Harry was jerking down the wooden lever, the wide blade was hurtling downward, and Cassandra was screaming.
As Max’s head dropped heavily into the basket.
chapter 23
Oh, my good God,” muttered Plum.
Harry resembled a man who had just been kicked in the testes by a mule.
He turned to Cassandra, barely able to speak.
“It’s not a trick?” he murmured shakily.
“I told you to get away from there!” she cried.
Harry was staggered; petrified.
“I thought everything in this room was a trick,” he whimpered.
“Well, you were wrong!” she responded.
Jabber away, I thought in agony. Meantime, my son has been decapitated.
Harry turned and stumbled toward the bar, avoiding the sight—as they all did but me—of Max’s motionless body lying on the trestle of the guillotine.
Reaching the bar, he picked up the bottle of Scotch and unscrewed its cap.
He started to pour himself a glassful, then abruptly became conscious of what he was doing and lost his grip onthe bottle, which clattered into the sink but didn’t break; the noise made all of us twitch.
“Jesus, I was pouring Scotch,” he said. He stared at them, a broken man. “Jesus Christ Almighty. Scotch.”
Clouds were thickening now. The room was filled with long, dark shadows. Rumbling thunder continued. Periodic lightning flashes bleached the sky, making me blink. (I think … but then, I don’t really know if I twitched either.)
Harry had picked up a new bottle of brandy and was opening it.
As he did, the Sheriff began to edge toward the guillotine, features set, bracing himself for the sight of Max’s severed head (perhaps twitching, the awful image presented itself) in the basket. Oh, God, please let it be an effect, I begged. Not a real guillotine.
Harry poured himself a glass of brandy and lifted it toward his lips with a palsied hand.
As Cassandra cried out hoarsely, the glass jerked in his grip and he flung the brandy across his shirtfront.
The Sheriff had lurched back with a hiss of astonishment.
I felt rage and relief (and bowel stress) simultaneously.
Max had just stood up.
His head, need I add, intact.
“You were quite correct ‘old friend,’” he said to Harry, smiling thinly. “Everything in this room is a trick.”
His soft laugh was a chilling one. It faded as he looked at me.
“Mea culpa once again, Padre,” he said. “I simply couldn’t resist one more go at him. After all, remember what he did … not only to me, but to you.”
I didn’t know if that was adequate motivation for what he’d done to Harry, but I said nothing. (As per usual.)
Harry seemed beyond rage now, so traumatized by everything he’d experienced that he was unable to even address my son.
Instead, he turned to Cassandra.
“Get your things,” he said in a strained voice.
Cassandra started. “What?”
Harry grimaced, his teeth on edge.
“I presume you aren’t planning to stay here with this maniac,” he said.
Cassandra looked caught off guard (I wondered why.) “I’ll be all right,” she said.
“All right?” Harry gaped at her, incredulous. “The man is insane!”
Yes, I think he may have been.
Cassandra tried to answer Harry, but he cut her off, his voice agitated.
“You can’t possibly intend to stay here with him after what he’s done!” he cried.
“I agree with him,” the Sheriff broke in.
“I—” Cassandra looked confused. I didn’t understand it; then.
“Come on, get your things,” Harry interrupted. “You can’t stay here. That would be ridiculous.”
All of us were looking at Cassandra now. Was Max as perplexed by her reluctance? Was Plum?
“Come on, babe,” Harry insisted. “You know you have to leave.”
“I really think you’d better, Mrs. Delacorte,” the Sheriff told her. Sheriffly again.
“All right.” She turned toward the entry hall.
“Wait,” said Max.
She turned and looked back at him.
He sighed, surrendering.
“All right,” he said. “I give up. I’ll do the Vegas show exactly as you want.”
Somehow, all the shocks I’d been exposed to in the previous hour diminished before the shock of this.
After all that, he was actually selling out the act?
“We’ll talk about updating the set,” he was continuing, twisting this new knife in my heart. “We’ll simply—”
He broke off suddenly with a sound suspiciously like the birth of a sob.
Turning away, he walked to the picture window overlooking the lake, his movements infirm, those of a defeated old man. And that I hated to see.
Standing before the window, he shuddered with a deep breath.
“Just don’t leave me,” he said. “Try to understand.”
He rubbed his eyes slowly, tiredly.
“I know I can’t undo this afternoon,” he said. “But blame it on the weakness of a man who sees his life disintegrating.”
He turned back, his expression one of total pleading. “Please,” he said. “I need your help.”
Son, I thought, despairing. I would almost rather that you murder than lie down and die like this.
Cassandra was looking at him, no less confused than Harry or, I thought, the Sheriff. She couldn’t seem to deal with this new perplexity.
Neither could she walk away from it.
“All right,” she finally said, her voice extremely quiet.
Incredible, I thought. They’re going to be together again?
Harry stared at her with unbelieving eyes.
“You’re staying?” he asked.
“I’ll be fine,” she responded. (Madness! I thought.)
She looked at the Sheriff.
“You’ll be keeping an eye on him, won’t you?” she asked.
The Sheriff didn’t answer. (I could well believe it.) He looked at Max, then at her again, as though attempting (with obviously limited means) to penetrate this new enigma: Cassandra, prepared to remain with her clearly demented husband after everything he’d done to her and Harry—and to the Sheriff, for that matter—in the past hour or so.
“For God’s sake—” Harry started.
“Harry, I’ll be fine,” she cut him off.
“You believe him?” he asked. “You actually believe the son of a bitch?”
She didn’t answer that; she probably couldn’t.
Harry made a sound of total incredulity. “Jesus Christ,” he said.
He gestured with both hands, giving up.
“Okay,” he said, his mild tone obviously belying the sense of utter disgust he felt. “Fine. To hell with it. Stay with him!”
Seeing his attaché case still in Plum’s left hand, he took it from the Sheriff and looked around.
“Where’s my hat?” he asked.
Immediately, he made a sound of angry indifference. “Fuck it,” he said.
He turned to give Cassandra a good-bye kiss.
She turned away and walked to the picture window. “Good-bye, Harry,” she said.
And she’d been so upset by his disappearance and probable murder, I thought, dumbfounded. What in the merry Hell is going on?
Harry had stopped in his tracks to stare at her, no doubt equally dumbfounded by her contradictory behavior
.
He stared at her for several moments, then turned abruptly for the entry hall.
“Let me out of this frigging nuthouse,” he muttered.
Moving, he glanced at Cassandra.
“So long, babe.” He directed a cold farewell at her.
“I’ll mail you your hat,” Max told him.
“Don’t bother,” Harry responded.
The Sheriff spoke quickly.
“Are you going to press charges, Mr. Kendal?” he asked.
Harry stopped and looked around. He gazed at Max, and I could tell that he was sorely tempted.
Then he gestured with a scowl.
“No, let him have his stupid little victory,” he said. “It’s all he’ll have to live on for the rest of his loser life.”
He glared at Max.
“You’re nothing to me anymore,” he said. “Not a client. Not a friend. Not even a human being. We’re quits. Finished.”
Max’s smile was nearly imperceptible.
“We were finished years ago,” he said.
Harry directed a final, glacial look at him, then exited.
They stood motionless and silent as his footsteps moved across the entry hall. The front door opened, shut.
Harry Kendal was gone.
And then there were three.
Four, if you (compassionately) include Mr. Cauliflower.
Harry, we discovered later, walked to the highway, found a phone booth, and called for a taxi.
The Sheriff turned to Max.
“Before I go,” he said, “I want you to know that your wife is right—
“I am going to keep an eye on you from now on.
“If I wanted to, I could take you in now for what you’ve done.
“But I’d rather you were on the outside, knowing that I’m watching you, whatever you do.”
His expression altered to one of contempt.
“If you took pleasure in fooling me, you take your pleasures pretty cheaply,” he continued.
“I’m the Sheriff of a small New England county. You’re a professional magician.
“Do you really think it was some grand accomplishment to make your magic work on me?
“If you do, if that’s really how you earn your sense of pride, you have no real pride at all that I can see.”
He smiled at Max; a faint, derisive smile.
“Good-bye, Great Delacorte,” he said.
He changed his mind.
“No, not good-bye,” he said. The derision turned to animosity. “Until we meet again,” he finished.
Max could only lower his head, the criticism uncontested.
I was glad he had the decency to do that, anyway.
The Sheriff gave Cassandra one more extended, searching look.
Then he turned and walked toward the doorway.
His footsteps moved across the entry hall.
The front door opened, closed.
And then there were two.
chapter 24
I say there were two now. Of course, there were three, but you may just as well consider me invisible in this account. Except for an occasional apology from my son, I pretty much was invisible. Fortuitous, I suppose. If it hadn’t been for my ignored presence, none of this would have ever been recorded.
Where were we?
Max and Cassandra standing motionless, the Sheriff having just departed; me sitting motionless, as usual.
It was Cassandra who finally spoke.
“I’m sure they’re gone,” she said.
Not exactly what I might have expected to hear.
Max did not reply but moved to the bar with a look of undisguised hostility on his face.
Walking to one of the easy chairs, Cassandra sank down on it with a weary groan and slipped off her shoes.
Sighing, she began to wiggle her toes.
At the bar, Max had picked up the fallen bottle of Scotch and begun pouring the remainder of its contents into the sink flushing it down with water from the faucet. He dropped the empty bottle into the wastebasket.
I watched him, curious, as he opened a cabinet door above the bar, removed a bottle of private-stock brandy, unsealed and thumbed off its cork, then poured some into a snifter.
He downed it with a swallow; sighed.
Poured himself a second drink and sipped it slowly.
“Oh, yes,” he said, pleased.
What’s going on? I wondered.
I was not too long in finding out.
Cassandra chuckled.
“I thought I’d have a stroke when he decided to kiss me good-bye,” she said.
“You made precious little effort not to leave with him,” Max countered.
What was going on?
“He caught me off guard, what can I say?” said Cassandra.
She chuckled again.
“That would have been priceless, wouldn’t it?” she asked.
She threw back her head with a laugh.
“Especially at bedtime.”
Her amusement vanished abruptly, and she looked at Max with bleak distaste. My mind was churning, trying to understand what was happening.
“You prevented my departure most convincingly,” she said. “I almost believed you.”
Max finished his second drink of brandy, poured himself a third.
He walked over to the easy chair, looking at Cassandra with distaste.
“A wonderful performance,” he said scornfully. “Absolutely wonderful.”
Performance?
“What do you want from me?” Cassandra asked.
“Nothing I received, that’s certain,” Max responded.
He pointed across the room. “What in the bleeding hell was that performance over there supposed to mean?” he asked. “Who told you to show Adelaide’s shrine to that clod?”
His features stiffened with fury.
“And how the hell did you know it was there in the first place?” he demanded.
“I didn’t.” Her voice was tense. “I was only playing the game—as per instructions.”
What the hell are they talking about? My brain was totally muddled now.
“Almost ruining the game, you mean!” Max was ranting.
He pointed toward the fireplace.
“Bad enough that fool almost stumbled onto the truth by himself! You had to go over there and arouse his suspicion a second time! Were you insane?”
Her expression was now as hard as his. “Just angry,” she muttered.
“I see.” He regarded her, disgusted. “Well, it’s fortunate for you your little snit didn’t give it all away. Otherwise, you’d be in jail by nightfall.”
My mind howled: What is going on?!
Max sank down on the other easy chair; he looked exhausted. He took another sip of brandy.
“God, I needed this,” he said.
He sighed heavily, then managed a contemptuous smile.
“I can’t believe that idiot Sheriff finally found the attaché case I’d hidden so ineptly,” he said. “I thought we’d be here for a week before he did.”
He sighed again, rubbing his eyes.
“However, as he said,” he went on, “it was no grand accomplishment to fool him. I felt rather sorry for him, actually. He tried his futile best.”
By then, my mind had fallen back in submission. Was it the stroke’s aftereffects, or had I just gone stupid in my old age?
Max’s momentary good humor was terminated with a look of anger.
“I cannot believe,” he said, “that, after all the careful preparations we made, your performance could be so pathetically incompetent. Apparently, the minuscule talent I gave you credit for does not, in fact, exist.”
Oh, now wait a second, said my brain. A glimmer had appeared in the mist.
Verified as Cassandra stood abruptly, her expression one of resentment.
Reaching up, she peeled away a wig, revealing dark hair underneath, an unmistakably male haircut.
Pulling free her blouse, she reached up
underneath it, unfastened a front-hooking brassiere and yanked it down. The brassiere, I saw, was augmented by rubber pads.
She tossed it onto the chair.
But, of course, I can no longer say she.
For it was Brian Crane who stood before my son, his voice hoarse with anger as he snarled, “Up yours, Max.”
With that, he strode into the entry hall, slamming the door behind him.
Then there was one.
Multiple questions crowded my mind, pounding for attention.
All quickly reduced to one, however.
Why had it all been done?
What was behind it?
It was maddening to me that Max did not come over to me and explain. I was there because he wanted me present, that was clear. But for what reason? He didn’t explain the situation to me. What conceivable purpose could there have been in my being present throughout the entire mad charade?
Yet Max did not explain.
He didn’t even look at me.
Instead, he stared at the door to the entry hall, his face impassive.
Leaving me immersed in drowning questions, none of them answerable.
After a while, he pushed slowly to his feet and trudged to the fireplace, his movements those of a man who more than felt his age and despair. Despite the agitation of confusion in my mind, I couldn’t help but feel a pang of sorrow for his obvious distress.
He stood before the portrait of his long-dead wife.
The illumination in the room was so gloomy now that he switched on the light above the portrait.
The soft glow was cast down over Adelaide Delacorte’s exquisite face.
Max stared at it, his expression one of suffering.
“It isn’t true,” he said. “I always loved you, Adelaide. Always.”
He drew in a trembling breath.
“I didn’t know you were too ill to work that night,” he told her. “I should have, but you know how I always am before a show, aware of nothing but the performance I’m about to give.”
True, I could not help thinking.
Max twitched as a peal of thunder sounded. His face was whitened momentarily by a flash of lightning.
“Please,” he said, “believe me. You should have told me. I would never have asked you to work if I’d had any idea how ill you were. You know that’s true. Curse me for an oblivious fool, but it was an accident. An accident. I swear it.”