“Your red hair.”
“And what else?”
“Your telephone call to Tony’s sister.”
“What about it?”
“It was a fake. You were still on the phone with her when I came back from checking for Tony’s car. Remember?”
“Yeah.”
“And you told her that Tony’s car was gone?”
I nodded.
“Well, I could hear the busy signal.”
“No, you couldn’t.”
“Yes, I could. I was standing right next to you. I heard it coming out of the earpiece. It was very quiet, but…”
“There wasn’t any busy signal. I was talking to Tony’s sister.”
“The question is, why?”
“She was worried about him.”
“You weren’t talking to her. You were talking to a busy signal. But that’s all right. Okay? I just want to know what’s going on. I’m curious. Maybe it is something I can write about. And maybe I can help you.”
“Who says I need any help?”
“You’ve gotta be awfully desperate to put on a disguise and come over here the way you did—make up a story about being stood up for breakfast.”
I shook my head and tried to look stupid.
“And Morning Dehydration Syndrome? You’ve got to be kidding.”
“Just because you’ve never heard of it…”
He smiled and shook his head. “And the second Tribune? You must’ve called in the request for it. My guess is, you needed to get into Tony’s apartment for some reason, but you didn’t know which one it was. So you called for a replacement paper. You wanted to see where it got delivered.”
“You oughta be a writer,” I told him, smiling and shaking my head. “With an imagination like that…”
“Am I wrong?”
“Dead wrong.”
“Oooh. Don’t say things like that, okay? To a writer, that sounds like some sort of ironic foreshadowing. I’m not at all interested in getting myself killed. I’m fascinated by your situation, that’s all.”
“You don’t even know my situation.”
“Tell me about it.”
“What do you think is going on?” I asked him.
“Tony had something in his apartment, and you wanted it. You had to get it. Maybe you figured you just couldn’t wait for the Tribune guy, so you thought up the breakfast story and came to my door, hoping you could trick me into letting you into his place. While I was searching for him, you tried to take care of your problem, whatever it was. And you made the fake call to his sister to add a touch of verisimilitude to your story.”
Laughing, I said, “What a crock.”
“Was he blackmailing you? What?”
“He stood me up for breakfast.”
Murphy raised his right hand and said, “No matter what, I’ll never tell a soul.”
“Nothing to tell.”
“I’ll give you a thousand dollars for your story.”
“Haw!”
“And if it’s something usable, we can work out a deal so you get a percentage of everything.”
“You really are curious.”
“Nothing like this has ever happened to me before,” he said.
“Nothing like what?”
“I’m minding my own business when a gorgeous mystery woman comes to my door and drags me into her intrigue.”
Gorgeous?
“It’s a first,” he said. “This sort of thing just doesn’t happen in real life. Not to me, anyway. At least it never did until this morning.”
“Maybe I’d better leave.”
“No, don’t. Please. You’ve got no idea how great this is. For me. Do you want another beer? Something else? Just name it, I have to know what’s going on. Was Tony blackmailing you? Did he have pictures of you, or…?”
I shook my head.
“What’ll it take for you to tell?” he asked.
“I guess I’ll take another beer,” I told him.
Nodding, he stood up. “You won’t run off, will you?”
“Not a chance.”
He raised his eyebrows as if he wanted to know why.
“I can’t run off,” I explained. “I might have to kill you.”
Which was a joke. I didn’t intend to kill him. There’d be no need for it. Like I already mentioned, I planned to ensure his silence by getting him to screw me.
32
LEVERAGE
Entering from the kitchen with two fresh bottles of beer, Murphy looked eager and excited and not at all worried. He sat down on the couch and filled our mugs with beer.
I took a drink, then said, “Before you get too comfortable, you’d better shut the front door. And get your checkbook.”
“Sure. Okay.”
He got up again, closed the main door, disappeared into another room and came back with it.
I held out my hand.
“You want to see it?”
“You’re curious about my story, I’m curious about yours.”
“Well…” He shrugged, then handed the checkbook to me.
I flipped through his check stubs. He hadn’t been very diligent about keeping track of his balance, but I performed some simple math along the way. By the time I came to the final stub, he seemed to have about twelve thousand dollars, give or take a few hundred. I looked up at him and said, “Not bad.”
“Well, I just got an advance.”
I felt a little giddy. When you don’t have a job and your bank balance is less than two hundred bucks, twelve thousand looks like a fortune.
I gave Murphy a frown. “You could’ve offered me a little more than a thousand.”
“Well…How much do you want?”
“How about ten?”
“Ten thousand? I wouldn’t have anything left to live on. Whatever I’ve got now, it’ll have to last me for months.”
“How many months?”
“I don’t know. It all depends. Six or eight, maybe. And I have an estimated income tax payment coming up in September. That’ll clean me out if I don’t get something else by then. And I probably won’t. The taxes always clean me out.”
“Suppose you give me five thousand?” I suggested.
He grimaced.
“Five thousand in cash, up front, and you can have my story. I’ll sign a paper, giving you all the rights to it. You won’t have to cut me in for a percentage or anything, even if it’s a bestseller or blockbuster movie. How does that sound?”
“I don’t know,” he said.
“If you get low, just don’t pay your estimated tax on time.”
“Easy for you to say.”
“My story could make you a lot of money.”
“I don’t even know if I can use your story. I don’t know, what it is.”
“And you never will unless you cough up the five grand.”
He scowled at me, but with a glint in his eye. He almost seemed to be smiling as he sat down on the couch and reached for his beer. He drank some. Then he said, “Just give me a hint.”
“A hint?”
“Something to whet my appetite. Enough to make me take the risk. I mean, five thousand dollars…That’s a load of money.”
“Suppose I tell you that I killed two people last night—in self-defense—and one of them was probably a serial killer?”
He gaped at me.
“What do you say to that?” I asked.
“If it’s true…”
“It’s true.”
“Do the police know about it?”
“I don’t think so. I sure didn’t tell them. But they’ll find out eventually. Today, probably. But maybe not till tomorrow or the next day. It all depends on when certain things turn up.”
“Bodies?”
“Basically.”
“You should tell the cops. Especially if…you said you killed them in self-defense, right?”
“That’s what I said.”
“Is it true?”
“Pretty much.”
/>
“Pretty much? You mean it wasn’t self-defense?”
“No, it was. Yeah. It’s just…all sort of complicated.”
“You’ve gotta tell the cops.”
“Bullshit. Don’t give me that.”
“Is Tony one of the people you killed?”
“I’m not saying. I’m not telling you anything else. Not till I’ve got the money.”
Scowling, he took off his glasses. He rubbed his eyes as if he were suddenly feeling very tired. Then he muttered, “Man, oh man.”
“How about it?”
He shook his head. “This is a real mess. I had no idea you’d killed anyone.”
“Wouldn’t be much of a story for you if I hadn’t.”
“But how can I write it?”
“You’re a fiction writer. Turn it into fiction. Change all the names—not that you know my real name, anyway.”
“I guess I could do that. But if anyone finds out…”
“I’ll never tell, you can bet on that.”
“What if they catch you?”
“They won’t. I’ve covered my tracks. There’s absolutely no evidence connecting me to anything.”
“There’s me,” he said.
“I know.”
He gave me a weary smile.
“Don’t worry,” I said. “You don’t know enough to do me any harm. What could you tell the cops?”
He shrugged slightly. “Not much.”
“At this point, you don’t know who I killed, or how, or where. For all you know, I’ve been lying about everything. Also, you don’t know who I am. You don’t even really know what I look like.”
With a smile, he said, “So, you don’t think you’ll have to kill me?”
I smiled back. “Only if you don’t pay up.”
“I don’t suppose you’ll take a check?”
“Cash only.”
“I’ll have to pay a visit to the bank.”
“I’ll have to go with you.”
“Sounds good to me,” he said. “But you might want to think twice about going in. They have those security cameras.”
I grimaced. He was right about the cameras. Even with the wig on, I didn’t like the idea of being caught on video tape. But if I didn’t go inside with him…
“How do I know you won’t snitch on me?” I asked.
“I won’t. But I don’t expect you to believe it.” He shook his head. He drank some beer. “There must be a way.”
I drank some beer and frowned and tried to think of something, too.
After a while, he said, “I don’t know.”
“Come on. You’re the writer. Think of something.”
“Well, I’ve got no intention of turning you in. You might just try a flying leap of faith.”
“Yeah, right. You seem like a good guy, Murphy, but I’m not ready to trust you with my life.”
“Suppose you had something on me? If I turn you in, you turn me in.”
That seemed like a pretty good idea. I should’ve thought of it myself. But I saw a big problem with it. “What are you going to do,” I asked. “Kill somebody?”
“Maybe nothing quite that drastic.”
“It’d have to be drastic. Something you’d at least go to prison for. And something that nobody could know about except me, so you’d be completely in my hands.”
He shrugged.
I felt a sudden rush of heat that must’ve turned my face bright red.
Murphy saw.
“What?” he asked.
Feeling all squirmy inside, I said, “Nothing.”
“Come on. Have you got an idea?”
“Well…yeah, but it’s pretty far out.”
“That’s not always a bad thing. Sometimes, far out’s the only way to go. Let’s hear your idea.”
“How would you like to rape me?”
It was his turn to get red. His mouth drooped open. He said, “Uh. What?”
“Told you it was far out.”
“Rape you?”
“Right. Well, more like pretend to rape me.” I tried to smile, but didn’t do a very good job of it. I felt awfully embarrassed and excited. I was trembling like mad. Streams of sweat were dribbling down my sides.
“Geez,” Murphy said. “I don’t know.”
“You’d have to really go through with it, though. We can’t just say you did it. I’d need the physical evidence to prove my case against you.”
Looking flushed and disoriented and a little amused, he said, “And this would be so you’d have leverage to keep me from tipping off the bank teller, or someone, that I’ve got a killer in my car?”
“Basically.”
“Which I have no intention of doing, anyway.”
“So you say.”
“It’s the truth.”
“This’ll be my insurance. I won’t even go with you to the bank. I’ll stay here and wait. If the cops come to arrest me, they’ll find a rape victim in your bed.”
“You’re nuts,” he said, looking terribly nervous but amused.
“Think so?”
“Definitely.”
“How about it?”
“It’s not rape if you consent, so it wouldn’t really be a crime.”
“Nobody’ll ever know I consented. And we’ll make sure it looks like a rape. I’m already pretty banged up from last night, so…”
“I suppose you’d need to bang me up, just to make it look good.”
“Some. Yeah. Good idea.”
“You’re very big on tricky stuff,” he said.
“It seems like a great solution to me. I mean…I’m willing to go through with it if you are. What about you?”
“I’ve got a suggestion.”
“Yeah?”
“Why don’t we hold off on the so-called ‘rape’ till after I get back from the bank? You’ll already have your money, then. There won’t be anything hanging over our heads, so we’ll be able to relax and take our time and…”
“And I won’t have anything to hang over your head when you go into the bank.”
“You’ve gotta have that leverage, huh?”
“Yep.”
“But if we wait till afterwards…”
“I’m starting to think maybe you don’t want to do it at all.”
When I said that, he smirked and set down his beer mug and moved the bag of pretzels out of the way. I put down my mug, too.
He reached over and clutched the front of my blouse with both hands.
“Do you want me to rip it off you?” he asked.
“Gotta make it look good.”
“What’ll you wear later?”
“We’ll think of something.”
“Do you want me to do it right here?”
“We were sitting here having a couple of beers. You invited me in after we came back from Tony’s apartment.”
“And what were we doing there?” Murphy asked, still clutching my blouse.
“He’d stood me up for breakfast.”
“You’re going to stick with that story?”
“Sure. After we’d looked for Tony, I wanted to wait for him in his apartment. But you wouldn’t let me.”
“But you’d killed him.”
“Who, me? For all you know, he isn’t even dead. Anyway, you wouldn’t let me stay in Tony’s place, but you said I could come over here to wait for him. You said we could have a couple of beers and wait for him together.”
“Very good. Maybe you should be the writer.”
“Maybe so,” I said. “Anyway, so I just innocently sat here and had a couple of beers with you while I was waiting for my boyfriend to get home, and all of a sudden you grabbed the front of my blouse and ripped it open.”
As I said, “ripped,” he did it.
33
GETTING DOWN TO BUSINESS
Tore my blouse wide open.
My buttons went pup-pup-pup. The tail came jerking up out of my skirt’s waistband.
Murphy shoved the blouse off my shoulder
s, then stopped and held it there. “How’s that so far?” he asked. His voice sounded pretty shaky.
“Not bad at all,” I said.
“Thanks.”
“Now, hit me in the face.”
“I can’t hit you.”
“Go ahead.”
“No way.”
So I slapped him, knocking his head sideways and putting a handprint on his face. He looked startled. “Like that,” I told him.
“Maybe this isn’t such a good idea,” he said.
“You don’t think so?”
“Why don’t I just go to the bank and…”
Hooking a finger under the right cup of my bra, I stretched aside the flimsy red fabric, freeing my breast.
Murphy stared at my naked breast and moaned.
“Go ahead and feel,” I said.
“I don’t think…”
“Don’t think, just do,” I said. With that, I took hold of his wrist, pulled his hand away from my blouse and pressed it against my breast.
His hand felt smooth and cool.
He had a look on his face like a teenage kid who’d never done anything like this before. Embarrassed, confused, astonished, thrilled, grateful.
I was giving the guy a real treat.
Maybe giving myself a treat, too.
“Now what’re you gonna do?” I asked. I had a little tremble in my voice that wasn’t supposed to be there.
Staring into my eyes, he squeezed my breast gently and then let go and put his arms around me. He pulled me toward him and touched his lips softly against mine. With one hand, he took off his glasses. He set them on the back of the couch, then kissed me again, this time pushing firmly against my open lips, his mouth open slightly, his breath going into me.
I started feeling soft and lazy inside. As if the kiss was sapping my strength away. And my worries. And my plans. I felt all vague and peaceful. I almost could’ve drifted down into sleep, but I felt a curious eagerness about what Murphy was doing to me and what he might do next.
His phone rang.
We both flinched.
It rang again.
He took his mouth away from me and whispered, “I’d better get it.”
I nodded.
Murphy grabbed his glasses, then got up from the couch.
I untwisted myself and leaned back against the cushion. I felt as if I’d been dragged roughly from a wonderful place and abandoned.
I felt a little better, though, when he sidestepped past my knees and I saw the front of his shorts.