“Why? Because I like you, Jeff, and because—”
“Cut the crap.”
“That’s part of it,” she said, her eyes level. “I’d rather live with you than anybody else, I guess. But running away with you made it safe for me.”
I was baffled and it must have shown on my face because my expression got a tiny laugh out of her.
“If you didn’t come away with me,” she said, “they might not have proved you killed her. You could have taken one of those lie detector tests or something and wormed your way out. But you’re not safe now, Jeff. You ran off and nobody outside of you and me is ever going to believe you didn’t kill Caroline. Nobody in the world.”
“But you ran off with me—”
“I know. That makes me an accessory after the fact. And I stole all the money and jewels and that makes me a thief. But it doesn’t make me a murderer, Jeff, and that’s what it makes you. They may send me to prison for a while, but they’ll send you to the electric chair.”
I couldn’t say a word.
“Now do you see what I mean? You found out about me killing Caroline, but that doesn’t change a damn thing. You still have to get out of the country and I’m still going with you. We can live good in Mexico, Jeff. We can have each other just the same, and we couldn’t have done that if I hadn’t killed Caroline. We can have each other and we can be happy and—”
I couldn’t believe it. I looked at her there, all naked and all unashamed, confessing a murder and trying to make it appear both rational and blameless, confessing a frame-up and propositioning the guy she’d just framed in the same breath.
It made no sense. No—it made sense if you could believe in Candy. Candy was the part of the equation that made no sense at all. Candy’s reasoning fit neatly with Candy, but Candy herself did not fit in with anything in the entire world. She was a species all her own.
“Look,” she said. “I know you’re mad at me right now but you might as well be practical. If you want to see me punished for murdering Caroline you’re crazy. I couldn’t possibly be convicted. There’s not a chance in the world.”
She was right.
“The only way you can save yourself is by leaving the country. And if you do—Give me a cigarette, will you?”
I gave her a cigarette and held a match for her. She drew on the cigarette and blew out smoke. Her hands were steady and she seemed calm.
“If you leave the country,” she went on, “you might as well take me with you. We’re registered as Mr. and Mrs. David Trevor and we’ve left a wide trail under those names. It’d look funny if we split up now. You might have trouble getting across the border.”
“I suppose you’re right.”
“Besides, I’ve got the money.”
I shrugged. “I could take it away from you.”
“Probably, but not without a fight. And a fight could attract attention and I don’t think you can afford attention. If worst came to worst I could always tell the police on you and turn state’s evidence. The most that could happen to me is that I’d get a year or two in jail. Probably not even that.”
“Go on.”
She stretched lazily. She was entirely in command of the situation by now and she knew it and the knowledge pleased her no end. I looked at her and I let my eyes take in all of her from her head to her feet. Her body was just a body now and I found it hard to believe that I had ever been a slave to it. It was just flesh, just a chemical mess worth maybe 79c on the open market.
I shook my head sadly and she raised her eyebrows, wondering what I was shaking my head sadly about. I didn’t say anything and she breezed idly on.
“If we go to Mexico together,” she continued, “nothing will be changed. You’re the best man I ever had, Jeff. That’s the truth. I love having you. I always have and I know for a fact I always will.”
Perhaps she was telling the truth; perhaps she was lying in her teeth. At one time it would have been very important to know whether the words she spoke were true or not. Now it seemed inconceivable that I could care one way or the other.
“And you want me. I know you do, Jeff. You won’t get tired of me. I’ll be good.”
Very good. Like a machine. Put in a nickel and the hips start rolling.
“It’ll be the same as if you never found out, Jeff. I could have turned you in to the cops but I didn’t because I want to be with you. So we’ll do just what we planned on doing before you read that article in the newspaper. We’ll go to Mexico and settle down and live on Caroline’s money and make love all the time and—”
I’d been shaking my head from side to side all through the tail end of that little speech but it took her a while to run out of words. Then she looked at me blankly as if she wondered very genuinely what was the matter with my hitherto logical mind.
I just went on shaking my head. Then I dropped the cigarette on the floor and ground it out.
“Jeff?”
I looked at her.
“What’s the matter?”
Somewhere in Galveston a bell was tolling the hour and I counted the chimes without thinking. It was ten o’clock, ten o’clock and all’s well, except for the pertinent fact that all was not well. I fished out another cigarette and set it on fire. I didn’t say anything.
“Jeff?”
“
“So what?”
I shrugged.
“Look,” she said, “be reasonable. Jeff, look at it sensibly. There’s nothing you can do about it.”
I opened my mouth, then closed it.
She sat up on the bed and smiled. She was almost-but-not-quite sure of herself now and that’s what the smile was saying, a shy, almost girlish smile that curled her mouth prettily but left her eyes serious.
When she sat up like that her breasts were just a few inches from me. They looked like ripe fruit and they were obviously there for the plucking.
I remembered her words:
That had been long ago. Not so long ago by the calendar perhaps, but ages ago, a lifetime ago by the clock that ticked in my head.
That was in another country. And besides the wench was dead.
I have read that when a man drowns, his entire life passes before his eyes. The exactness of this time-worn myth has never seemed apparent to me—if the man drowns, how does anybody know what was on his poor mind before he gobbled down enough water to kill him? I was not drowning, needless to say, so I am still unable to report on the dilemma of the drowning dolt.
But I do know that my whole life passed through my mind as I contemplated the succulent breasts of Candace Cain. All the rather inane things I had done, all the stupidities of my life unreeled before me in one unholy panorama of Cinemascope and Technicolor and Stereophonic Sound and, God save us, Aromarama.
It was an unpleasant spectacle. The Aromarama came into play quite prominently.
The whole thing stank out loud.
The murderess cupped a breast in each of her bloody hands and offered them to me. Perhaps the sick aspect of the scene actually aroused her; perhaps she was enough of a fake to simulate tangible signs of excitement. Whatever the reason, her proud little nipples stood up and beckoned to me.
“Take me,” she pleaded.
If I could have laughed out loud that is precisely what I would have done. The whole tableaux was hysterical. But I was beyond laughter.
I didn’t even turn away. I just looked at her and drew a complete blank. No, thanks, I wasn’t having any.
