She kissed me again, then rolled her tongue across my lips. Then she burrowed her mouth into my shoulder and nibbled on my skin. I could feel the bite of her teeth, smell the lemon-and-musk scent of her hair. ere's something I have to tell you,' she said, speaking softly against my chest.
'Frank's dead. Grace killed him, walked into his studio an hour ago and shot him in the face. It was fast. Frank never even knew. But she's crazy, you see. That's why we have to get rid of her.'
I felt something go weak within me then-my best friend dead, Mai a widow, four kids orphaned on account of me. This was worse than Guatemala, worse than anything. Now the whole enterprise was meaningless.
'Where's Grace now?'
'Back at our motel.'
Grace was waiting back in our motel, because she knew Kim was coming back alone. I took a step, backwards. I knew then what I was going to do.
'What's the matter?'
'I want to take your picture,' I said.
'You always want to do that when you're afraid. Think I'm going to kill you, Geoffrey? That I'm a black widow spider or something? Are you really still afraid of me?'
I raised my camera.
'Sure. Maybe a little bit.'
She brushed my camera aside.
'Later.'
'Now, Kim. While there's light. Before we make love. A shot of your … eagerness.' She smiled. She liked that. She stepped back from me. We stood six feet apart.
'Afterwards we'll make love in the dirt. Promise?' I promised.
She stood looking at me.
'How do you want me to pose?'
'You're fine the way you are.'
'Isn't there some special thing you want me to do?' She placed a hand on her hip, stuck out the other and assumed a self-mocking sultry pose.
She should do something.
'Tell me you're evil, Kim. Whisper it just the way you did.'
I raised Frank's gun-camera to my eye, cocked it by pulling the depth-of-field lever.
'How did I say it?'
'Softly. You smiled at me in a way I'd never seen you smile before.'
She smiled then, that same special way, and, when she did, I plugged her. There was a little pop, nothing loud at all, and simultaneously a neat little hole appeared in her throat. She raised her hand instinctively to protect herself, but she was a good two seconds too late. She looked at me surprised, then fell to her knees, then rolled onto the ground. The setting sun painted her red. I watched as the blood spurted from her wound.
'I'm going to die,' she said.
I stood and watched her. She was pressing her fingers against her throat.
'I'm afraid, Geoffrey. Help me. Help me. Please. I looked down at her. She was still pressing the wound, trying to stop the flow.
'Find a phone. Call an ambulance.'
I shook my head.
'Please,' she begged. She was trembling and her eyes were clouding up with pain.
'Going to watch me die, that what you want to do?' She looked over at Darling's attache case, then smiled knowingly.
'The money. You did it for the money. Sure.'
'I never gave a shit about the money, Kim.'
She tried to laugh at that, but she was too weak and could only smile.
'You really were going to kill me after we made love,' I said.
She nodded.
'You got me first. Didn't think you had the balls for a move like that.' She swallowed hard. I could hear the blood gurgling in her throat.
'I always underestimated you.'
She looked at me curiously then, as if she were seeing me for the first time. Then another wave of pain swept across her face.
'Finish me off. Please, Geoffrey.'
'No more bullets,' I lied.
'My gun. In my purse in the car.' I didn't move, just watched her.
'Please, Geof. Please. It hurts so bad.'
I knew it hurt, but I wasn't going to shoot her again. Instead I let my gun-camera drop, picked up my working Leica and focused in on her eyes.
She didn't turn away, stared straight at my lens. She looked truly evil then, like a dying reptile. Maybe this time, I thought, I'll get her right. I took her picture. Afterwards I picked up Darling's attached case.
'Please,' she whimpered, 'stay with me. Don't leave me alone.'
I didn't stay with her. When I left she was still alive. the sun was sinking, and there wasn't anything I could do for her, no purpose I could serve. Walking to the car, I saw a pair of vultures, black forms circling slowly against the darkening sky. When I reached the car, I turned for a final look. The sun was gone. I couldn't see Kim; she was lost in the shadows cast by the set.
I looked up. Four more vultures were perched on the roof line of the movie-set facade. That old rattlesnake will finish her off, I thought.
And then those ugly birds will have their dinner. She and Darling will be white bones in a couple of weeks.
You find bleached-out bones and skulls all around New Mexico.
5
It took me a while to clean things up.
The night I killed Kim, I drove down to Mai's house in Galisteo, then phoned my room at the motel. Grace picked up. I told her I'd executed Kim, was going to give the money to Mai, and that if she ever bothered me or Frank's family again, I'd kill her too. Then I ordered her out of Santa Fe. There was a pause after I said all that, as if she was thinking out a reply. But she didn't say anything, just breathed into the phone for a while. Then she hung up. Which was just as well, I thought.
The following morning Frank's body was found. The police speculated he'd been shot by a robber. There were no fingerprints or clues of any kind. Anyone with information was urged to contact the authorities.
Two days later there was an article in the Santa Fe Register, a small item near the bottom of the second page. The well-known New York architect Arnold Darling had checked into the Rancho Encantado several days before. His luggage and clothes were still in his casita, but he had disappeared. Again: anyone with knowledge, etc.
Darling's disappearance was worth a mention, but things like that had happened before. It seemed that people often choose New Mexico as a jumping-off point when they decide to disappear or change their lives.
After Frank's burial, I stayed on with Mai for several weeks. She was a strong woman even in her mourning. Every day she went out to her studio behind the house, put on her welder's mask and worked on her sculpture.
Jude and the girls took Frank's death hard, so I spent a t of time with them.
Two weeks after the killings I bought a sturdy shovel and a pair of rubber gloves. Then I drove back out to that rotting movie set.
Kim's and Darling's faces had been pretty much pecked away, but the bodies lay just where I had left them. I
