'He's a little man,' Bonsentir intoned, 'a little man. We will simply swat him, the way flies are swatted.'
I felt a small catch in my throat. They were talking about me.
Simpson's high voice was a little shaky. He stared at Bonsentir, leaning a little toward him. Carmen ran her hand along his thigh and took a single grape from the platter and popped it in her mouth. She chewed it slowly while she rubbed her cheek against Simpson's left arm. The kitten meowed.
'He found the mine. He and that nosy old woman at the newspaper.'
'He found nothing that matters. You have the force, Randolph. You have the power and I know it and can bring it out of you.'
'And the plan,' Simpson squeaked. 'He's been up to Neville Valley and he's been to the Springs. He knows.'
Bonsentir took Simpson's right hand in both of his and squeezed them.
'I'll have him removed, Randolph. He annoys you. I'll have him removed.'
'What if he told?'
'Who would he tell? The police? We own the police, Randolph. We own the mayor and the governor and the legislature. This is ours, Randolph. California belongs to you.'
They were silent, Bonsentir holding Simpson's hand.
'Yes!' Simpson's voice lost its squeaky plaintive trill. Carmen rubbed her cheek against his arm and her hand along his thigh. The kitten meowed again. Simpson glanced at it with irritation.
'When you sent the men,' Simpson said, 'you told me they'd make him stop.' The voice began to slide back up to whiny again. 'And he didn't. And you sent the men to Vivian and she said he didn't even work for her and even when they were hurting her she said that. And he wouldn't stop. I don't like that!'
'What did they do to Vivian?' Carmen said and giggled again, the bubbling corrupt giggle that sometimes I still hear in my dreams. Neither Simpson nor Bonsentir paid her any attention.
'He'll not disturb you further,' Bonsentir said.
Carmen stopped running her hand along Simpson's thigh and put her peculiar little thumb in her mouth and began to suck it turning it a little, this way and that, as if to get all the flavor out of it.
'Is it that you are going to kill him?' she said, her head still pressed to Simpson's shoulder.
Simpson smiled at her like he was her grandpapa. 'Would you like to help us?'
Carmen's bubbly giggle erupted and sustained as she nodded her head, quite solemnly, her thumb still in her mouth, her big eyes as empty as a haunted house.
'Carmen likes that,' she said and opened her mouth and displayed her sharp little shiny teeth.
'I know,' Simpson said, his voice now low and calm. 'And I like Carmen.'
She got up then and kissed him on top of his head.
'Carmen has to go to the little girls' room for a minute,' she said and flitted gaily out of the stateroom, as carefree as a monarch butterfly. Simpson watched her go and then looked at Bonsentir. The kitten meowed and rubbed along Bonsentir's thigh. He stared at it for a moment with distaste. Then he stood suddenly and picked the kitten up by the neck. The kitten screeched. Simpson took one long-legged stride across the room and threw the kitten out the open porthole. Then he turned back and sat down.
'Soon,' he said, his tone dark and very guttural. 'I feel it coming on. Soon it will be Carmen's time.'
'She has lasted longer than many,' Bonsentir said.
'I like to think-' Simpson said, the words oozing out of him like some viscous effluent. 'I like to think of her face the first moment when she knows, when she realizes what will happen to her.'
Both men were silent, admiring the thought. Then the door opened and Carmen floated in again.
'All done,' she announced and plumped herself back down beside Simpson, and leaned her head against his fleshy shoulder. He tilted her chin up with one hand and kissed her hard on the mouth. She wriggled her little body, excitedly, like a fish on a hook.
I got down from my chair and moved to the door and opened it a crack. It was time to take her out of there. The corridor was empty. I opened the door wider and stepped through. I took the three steps down to the next door and put my hand inside my coat for my gun. Suddenly a steel cable, thicker than the ones on which they hung the Brooklyn Bridge, went around my neck, and a vise clamped on my gun hand. I could smell the owner, it was the Mexican. And it wasn't a steel cable, it was his forearm. I tried to stamp on his instep but the cable around my neck kept tightening. I jammed my left elbow back into his ribs. It had as much effect as if I'd slugged him with a marshmallow. I could feel the pressure build in my head. I couldn't see anything but a reddish haze. My gun and gun hand were still immobile under my coat. I tried to bend forward and throw him but it was like trying to bend an oak tree. I couldn't breathe. The reddish haze got darker and redder and finally enveloped me and I plunged into it and disappeared.
CHAPTER 32
I woke up sitting on the floor in a bright little room with no furniture. I closed my eyes for a moment and opened them again. There was a strong light shining in my face. My neck hurt, my head throbbed, I was aware that the reassuring weight of my gun was gone from under my left arm. I squinted past the light and could make out forms, not very clearly. One of them was surely the Mexican with his huge upper body and long arms. Others I couldn't make out. My mouth felt as if I'd eaten a blotter.
'He appears to have regained consciousness.' It was the voice of Dr. Bonsentir, descending from the clouds. 'How convenient of you, Mr. Marlowe, to have come to us, just when we had decided we must find you.'
I braced my feet and edged my back up the wall and got myself standing. The Mexican moved out from behind the light and stepped closer to me. I could see my gun stuck in his belt. At least he hadn't tied a knot in the barrel.
'Why don't we just kill him right now.' Simpson's voice came deep and thick from the darkness. 'Then we
