Whatever.
Here he is in my chevron of a room in River House, already counting his coins, already imagining what he will say to the world’s press when they ask him how he knew it was me, how I looked, acted, what I said. He’s already visualizing his tape of my confessing to him appearing on YouTube, as well as on every news show, in every tabloid, on every chat show in the U.S., if not the world. After all, I killed the man who will probably win a second, albeit posthumous, Oscar for Cheat the Devil. I’m the woman who hid his head. They’ll ask him how he captured me. I can tell he’ll be humble. He’ll act his heart out. Come to think, I’ll bet he intends to parlay this whole thing into a Hollywood contract.
Damn. If I were still writing, I’d use all this. I honestly think it might make an interesting little movie. With a premise like this premise, with a great hook in the first killing, and then a second great hook in a second killing, I would probably be allowed to direct the thing. That is, if I could do it from Death Row.
If I wrote this as a movie, I’d leave out River House. River House doesn’t have a beginning or an end and it has one hellish mess of a second act. River House doesn’t make any kind of story sense. Can’t use it. Can only live it.
In any case, so far, I’ve said very little. To his question, “Did it begin as an accident?” I answered in almost a whisper, “I’ll show you.” And then I got up, retrieved my brown paper bag from under the table, and left the tearoom. Just as I thought he would, the fool followed me.
What do I care if the tea-maker with his nose still in his book of Rice saw us leave together? What do I care if anywhere along Main Street, or in the corridors of River House on our way up to the third floor, someone else took note of our passing? What was going to happen was so much more for Kate than for me. What was going to happen would happen whether I got caught or not. But I won’t get caught. Not by the living.
As I walked, as he walked beside me, I thought: there was a time I assumed suicide was my limit…that is, if I could ever work up the nerve. Now, after the carnage in my kitchen, after the fire, after the night in a Motel 6, after River House and whatever River House is, after this unhappy, but unavoidable, decision, I know I don’t know my limits. It’s possible I have no limits. It’s possible no one has limits save those imposed by fear: fear of God, fear of others, but stronger than these, fear of self.
The mood I’m in, I find that almost interesting.
~
Hollywood has ever been awash with gorgeous gays playing it straight. They have to—leading men are straight men, and that’s that. Seen on film, though some might suspect, most people never really know. Cary Grant got away with it; Rock Hudson did pretty well…and those he and I knew are still doing fine. (A real regret: that I won’t be seeing any of them, ever again. Gays are my favorite sex.) Pretty as he is, this one is straight, I’m sure of it. If he weren’t, I’d still be playing him along, but I’d play him differently.
Since he’s straight, I’ve decided to pretend I’ll fuck him. Or perhaps, being that much older than he is, I might have to pretend I’m anxious that he fuck me. Whichever…cleaned up and sober, I’m still attractive; the prospect of sex for whatever reason is the only surefire way to get him not only into my bathroom, but into my shower.
When the fire consumed our kitchen, when I cut him up into pieces to the sound of screaming and sizzling blood, it was all done on the spur of the moment, nothing planned, nothing premeditated. This time I’m premeditating like mad. I’m watching, though I don’t seem to, every movement my would-be betrayer makes, every movement I make. I’m calculating what to do if he doesn’t do what I want him to do. What to do if he does. Now that he’s here, it’s become obvious he thinks he’ll allow me, Mrs. Movie Star Murderer, to seduce him. He thinks I’ll be so weak and so bleak and so remorseful that later, after being thoroughly serviced by beauty, I’ll lie in bed, naked and sated and grateful and saddened, and let him film my confession.
Shit. He’s staring at my room. His room must be similar, but in mine there’s nothing but a bed which is a futon on the thinning brown carpet. There’s one small lamp. There’s one small traveling clock. There’s a laptop by the lamp. There’s the large brown paper bag that I’ve just carried in. There’s me. There’s him. That’s it. And on the futon only one sheet, not dirty but none too clean, one pillow, no pillowcase, no blanket. He’s looking for my blanket. He’s probably also looking for my pillowcase. Ah, there they are, pinned to the wall next to the window. He’s curious to know why I pinned my pillowcase and blanket to the wall. He’s more than curious. He’s a bit anxious about it. This is tricky. I can’t spook him, not yet anyway. If he sees what’s all over the wall under the blanket and pillowcase, I might lose him. He’ll bolt. If I were him, I’d bolt. I can’t let that happen. I really can’t allow him to leave this room.
He wants me. He urgently wants what he thinks I can give him: fame, money, open doors, so he certainly doesn’t want to leave, but exactly how big are his balls? He thinks he’s alone in a room with a killer. Being alone in a room with your ordinary everyday driven-to-do-it husband killer is one thing, but being alone with a possible completely freaked out psycho killer is another thing.
Time for a quick diversion. A woman stripping is always diverting. A woman stripping and talking dirty at the same time is even more diverting. I’ve used it in more than one screenplay.
It works of course, just as it does in the movies. Men. Such easy prey. Which is why so many men hate women…or at least fear them, which is much the same thing. They know, even if they don’t know they know, that a smart good-looking woman holds all the cards. They know, even if they don’t know they know, that males are the weaker sex. Why else would they repress females all over the world from the dawn of historical time?
I’m slowly peeling off my clothes, telling him what I want him to do to me, telling him how much I’m going to like it, how much he’s going to like it…and yes, there he goes, he’s losing it. Temporarily losing his need for fame and glory, losing his fear of whatever my blanket and pillowcase mean. Another, stronger, need is taking over. His breathing has changed. His face is getting red. His Newman blue eyes are glazing over. He’s already dropped his camcorder case on the floor by the foot of my futon. He’s slipped off his jacket. He’s working on his shirt buttons. By the time I’m stepping out of my panties, he’s unzipping his pants. He’s ready. He’s too ready. If I’m not careful, he’ll be on me like a dog on a bitch, and then I’ll have to think of a new game. I don’t want to think of a new game. This is my game. So I say, “You know what turns me on the most? It’s a man who’s clean…really clean.” And I point at my bathroom. In which there’s a shower. And a shower curtain.
Oh sweet. He’s shy. He shuts the bathroom door to take his shower. Which is perfectly fine by me. I’m naked now. Not a stitch on. I can hear him in there, water hitting his fine hard body, water hissing down the drain. I may have five minutes, I might only have two. No messing around. No longer completely unclothed, I’m now wearing the new tool-belt like a gunslinger wears his gunbelt. Open the closet door, find the hammer, drop it through a loop on my left hip. Find the chef’s knife. Slip that into a handy leather loop slung from my right hip. The other stuff I bought in the Little Sokoki hardware store can wait. Right now, I’ve got all I need. Except a grey wig, a shapeless housedress, a thick pair of baggy support hose, and some down-at-heel old lady shoes. But personally, this is my movie, not Hitchcock’s. I’m going in as myself.
Slowly, half-inch by half-inch, opening the bathroom door, seeing his shape busy lathering up behind my should-be white shower curtain, drawing my knife from its loop, I find I’m not nervous. I’m not nervous at all. Why is that, I wonder? Is it because I’ve done this before? Is it because I’m good at it? Is it because I like doing it? No time to worry about such things now. Work to do here.
His heart is not mine. I let him keep it.
~
Such a busy day. Not ev
en a cup of tea to sustain me.
I unpin my blanket from the wall, hardly notice the Lovecraftian slice and scrawl, crawl into bed for a nap. Leave the pillowcase. Don’t need a pillowcase. I’ve still so much to do, but first a nap. Killing is very tiring. I really need a little nap.
~
I awake in total darkness. Fumble around for the lamp switch. What time is it? How long have I slept? Clock says 9:45 P.M. The sounds of Little Sokoki at night drift up to my window. Shouting and laughter from the patrons of The Last Ditch. A slight rain still falls, causing passing cars to whisk whisk whisk by. Comes a distant truck horn out on the Interstate. The sound of my own breathing is heavy in my ears. The sound of my heart is heavier.
I crawl to the fridge, pull myself up by its handle.
There’s a knife in the sink; there’s a hammer on the drain board, both washed clean. There’s a tool-belt on the floor in front of the bathroom door. There’s a camcorder in its case on the floor near the closet. There’s two bottles in the fridge. One red wine and one white wine. I’ve had enough red for awhile. White wine is fine.
I crawl back to drink the white in bed.
I’m not crazy. I know there’s a dead man in my bathtub. But I’m not Norman Bates and this isn’t the Bates Motel. No car, no body bundled into the trunk, no driving to a deserted pond and sinking the victim’s car deep into the muck. No walking back to the motel and pretending my mother did it. My poor mother would kill herself before she’d kill someone else.
It occurs to me…all I did was reverse the process.
I’ve cleaned myself, but I’m not cleaning up the mess in the bathroom; I haven’t the time to waste. If I need to wash anything again, including me, I’ll wash in the kitchen sink. If I need to pee, I’ll pee in the kitchen sink. If I have a greater need, I’ll brave the bathroom. I seldom have greater needs on a diet of seeds and a little cheese.
Thinking of the body in the bathroom reminds me of Dennis Nielsen again. I could find acid. How many bodies have been gotten rid of by reducing them to tallow with acid? But I have no interest in getting rid of the body. Finally caught, Dennis told the revolted police, “No one ever wants to believe that I am just an ordinary man come to an extraordinary and overwhelming conclusion.”
What an interesting observation. I’d like to think the same of myself; just an ordinary woman driven by circumstance to extraordinary lengths. I’d like to, but I can’t. No killer is ordinary, not even Dennis with his exceptional insight and strange honesty. No artist is ordinary. No writer is ordinary. No mystic is ordinary. No one who’s haunted is ordinary. “Ordinary” doesn’t do anything or feel anything or think anything that lifts her or him or it above the teeming mass of humanity. Or sinks them below it. Simple as that.
When I say things like this to ordinary people, they’re forever getting furious, and almost always because they suspect they’re ordinary.
Too bad. Too sad. Too true. They are ordinary.
I really am sorry the poor thing had to wind up in my bathtub. I’m sorry he saw me as a great opportunity. I’m sorry he saw me at all. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. For all of us. All over the world, ordinary or not, we live lives of pain and waste—and will, each and every one of us, sooner or later become a feast for ordinary flies.
On the other hand, never waste a promising story. And what an unlikely arc my life has taken on; perfect for the movie business which cranks out unlikely stories like Michael Crichton used to crank out great hooks and bad writing. (I’d bet anything Crichton never had a single suicidal moment.) Laptop back in my lap, boot it up, open a blank Word file. Don’t bother to format. Write.
SYNOPSIS
Perhaps I can get at least an outline on the page before he starts to stink, or even more than an outline. Hasn’t King been known to produce a hundred thousand words in less than a week? Am I exaggerating? Does King? But after all, as William Faulkner said: “Everything goes by the board: honor, pride, decency…to get the book written. If a writer has to rob his mother, he will not hesitate; the Ode on a Grecian Urn is worth any number of old ladies.”
Or in this case, any number of young and ambitious males. Trouble is, I couldn’t write something like Ode on a Grecian Urn to save my life. Question is: would I want to? Save my life? Oh, no. But write like Keats? Oh, yes.
“…Beauty is truth, truth beauty—that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.”
I wake with a jump start at 12:24 A.M. Fell asleep again, right in the middle of a sentence. But I did it. I got the basic premise written. It’s all there, still on my screen. For some reason, whatever’s erased every single thing I’ve tried to write since coming to River House has left this final thing.
So there, I’ve managed a legacy, something to leave behind. And I have had my last “normal” day. I would laugh, but somehow laughter seems unseemly when there’s a fresh kill in your bathroom. Will he in his turn haunt River House? Or does it retain only the impressions of the artists who’ve passed through? Seems to me River House could do with a real ghost, one who violently died here, one who no doubt hoped to star in Hollywood. In River House he can play the lead in some first rate material. (Oh. Not nice. Not nice at all. I seem to be getting meaner the longer I allow myself to live. Not good to be so bad. Must stop.)
It’s time now to do as I’ve intended doing all along. Or been pointed towards all along—if not by me, then by some aspect of me. And if not by me or some aspect of me, then by someone in River House, or something in River House. Or perhaps, like Hill House, River House itself. It really doesn’t matter which of these urges me towards my fate. What matters is the implacable urge. By hook or by crook, by the stairs in the back of my closet or by breaking into the “sixth floor” house on the roof, I will get into the tower. I don’t know why I know what I know, but I am certain that the tower holds my answer. It’s the end of everything. Or the beginning of nothing. Either way is fine by me. When I first arrived in Little Sokoki I said I had nothing left to lose. Now I have even less. I have nothing left to gain. When it’s all over, my literary executor who is also my agent will eventually find this file on my laptop. She’ll hire a writer, a good writer, one who can actually make something of it, attach a star to play me and one to play him, and at that point someone briefly “important” in some production company or other is certain to give it a green light. In the credits there’ll be a card reading: “Based on a true story.” As for my posthumous writer’s credit, that will say: from an idea by…
Or maybe not.
~
In two hours it will be 3 A.M. Three in the morning is reality’s weakest moment, the time when other worlds and other beings have their best shot at entering our world. And vice versa. And I am in Vermont. Vermont—the place Lovecraft called bewitched, that Hitchcock filmed as a fantasy of easy death, where the washed-up silent movie icon Louise Brooks came to die just like me, but wound up writing books instead (not that it did her much good), the land in which Shirley Jackson chose to live out her strange and uneasy life. In The Windigo’s Daughter I wrote: “Tonight she will be somewhere else: upper New York State perhaps, or by the shores of what she’s heard is the fogblue water of a great salt sea. Wherever she is, there will be magic still, just as there is magic everywhere, but not like Vermont’s magic. Away from a place like Vermont, the heart grows fainter, the spells weaker, the call dimmer, the beat slower. Outside is less primordial, more obvious. It’s shabbier, trickier. It’s just what Faye is looking for.”
I am not my hungry heroine Faye; I have discovered strong magic is just what I have been looking for. It’s what I once found, and then lost, long ago when I was still a child. But I have to find it again by 3 A.M.
Oh hell. I must correct myself. I am not only hungry, I’m famished. I’m so hungry I double over with stomach pain. I haven’t eaten since, since…I have no idea when I last ate whatever it was I last ate. So painful: suicide by starvation must be almost as bad as suicide by lye. But ther
e’s nothing to eat, not in my ugly little pantry, not in my refrigerator, not in my room. Oh, silly me. But of course there’s something to eat. Something I brought with me, something that’s been here all along. It’s in my leather bag. Aren’t all condemned prisoners allowed a last meal?
Besides, all along, like Dante, it’s been my intention to “… eat that burning heart out of his hand.”
Or, in this case, my hand.
~
I’m all in black except for my leather tool-belt which is the color of very old oatmeal. I wish it too were black, but the hardware store doesn’t carry black tool-belts. In it I’ve found room for all sorts of things: hammer, chef’s knife, flashlight, nail sets (I know I’ll be opening things, but you never know what I might be closing), hand powered brace and bit with a phone man’s drill, a sheetrock handsaw, wire cutters, a picture framer’s glass cutter, a Stanley knife, the camcorder, a cheap watch because time will be important, my room key (I’ve checked and triple-checked, the door to my room is locked; imagine the scene if someone were to mistake my room for their own very similar room, walk on in, and need a shower), a bottle of red wine with corkscrew (I thought of bringing a wineglass, but why look silly?), a cunning little flexible laser pointer, and a sealed jar full of something I’ve carried all the way from California. I’m wearing a black woolen cap on my head and my black tennis shoes on my feet. A cat burglar couldn’t be better, or more oddly, dressed. I’m not using my stairs. For one thing, at the moment, they’re not there. Nothing is there but a messy ceiling-tile covered hole in the back wall of my closet.
For another, no matter if they were there: narrow or wide or circular, they’d only lead to ideas not mine, to brilliant work already done by someone else. So what I’m doing is avoiding the noise made by the elevator (and also avoiding, I admit, that she might be in it, with her dog: she younger, he smaller, darker and bloodier), and climbing instead a “real” staircase, the one that leads from the ground floor lobby all the way up to the fifth floor. Once on the fifth floor, I will avoid the room with the apple outside the door and find a way to the house on the roof. There must be a way and it must be obvious. It was, after all, the entrance to the home of Charles River Akeley & family.