She just watched him. A tic pulsed at the corner of one bulging eye like something monstrous stirring beneath a thin veneer of flesh.
Absurd on the face of it. I’m a reputable businessman; no one has ever questioned my professional ethics. My work is exemplary, a matter of pride to me, and you are treading on dangerous legal ground if you intend to accuse me of misconduct.
Misconduct, she said. Her mouth twisted with the taste of the word. She had leant forward, elbows on knees. She smiled slightly. From the street the faint sound of a car door closing, an engine starting up. The bluehaired lady drove away. Breece was staring past the girl’s shoulder through the window to the street.
Dangerous ground indeed, he murmured. A matter to be taken up with my counsel. But for the sake of discussion, just speaking hypothetically, suppose that such things were true. How would you come to know of it?
We dug him up, she said.
You what?
We dug him up. We had reason to suspect something was wrong about his burial, and we were proved right. Then just to be sure we dug up several more. I forget how many. I don’t even want to think about the things we found. No one wouldexpect to find the things we did, not in a thousand years.
Graverobbers. Vandals digging up graves and committing atrocities. Desecrating the corpses. I’ve often heard of such things but I never expected to find it in the town I live in.
I’ve heard of them myself. But none where these vandals took pictures of you and a bunch of naked dead women and then hid them in the trunk of your car. Why do you reckon they did that?
His eyes darted away. They were a hard glassy blue, slick as wet marbles. The open-shut eyes of a doll. The hands were pale, fleshy spiders, the fingers meshing endlessly. One hand trembled violently, and he stayed it with the other. She thought he might weep.
My car was vandalized. So it was you that did that.
I bet you ran straight to the law, too. I bet there’s an all-points bulletin out about those pictures.
What do you want?
You’re finished. You don’t begin to suspect how finished you are. When all these people hear about what you’ve done to their folks, they’re just going to mob you. They’d hang you, but you won’t last that long. They’ll tear you apart like a pack of dogs.
What do you want?
I want the things you done to my daddy made right. I want him buried with the decency you expect your folks to be put away with. I want that waterproof vault we paid for around his casket.
Breece was nodding. Head bobbing metronomically. Of course, he said. If you aren’t satisfied, I’ll do anything I can to satisfy you.
I’m a hell of a way from satisfied. Of course, I’ll refund your money. No question about that. I could even give you a liberal sum for what they call, ah, punitive damages.
And what would you expect in return for that?
He was silent for a long moment. The pictures, of course, he finally said. I’d have to have them back. They’re subject to misunderstanding, a delicate subject, part of an experiment you wouldn’t understand.
I expect you’re right about that. I was wondering about the panties. Are they part of the experiment, too?
He flushed a deep crimson. I’d want your agreement to remain silent. I’d have to have that in writing; I trust you have been circumspect so far. Again, I’m trying to avoid misunderstanding. I have a position in the community, a reputation to maintain.
I want fifteen thousand dollars. That’s nothing to you, pocket change. I could ask for a lot more, and you’d have to pay it, but I’m not going to be greedy. All I want is the money you cheated us out of and a fair amount for the grief you’ve caused us.
Whatever you call it, it’s extortion. Blackmail. Both of them are against the law.
She shrugged. All right. We both go before the grand jury and tell our stories. We’ll see how it all comes out when they dig up a grave or two.
I don’t keep that kind of cash around. I’d have to make a withdrawal.
Then make it. You’re getting a bargain and you know it.
I can have it for you in a day or two. I may have to convert some bonds into cash.
Then you’d best be converting. You don’t get the picturesor the panties, until I’ve got the money in my hand. We’ll be waiting on you.
She rose. She was halfway to the door when he made some curious strangled noise. She turned. He was watching her. He shrugged helplessly. You must think me terrible, he said.
She didn’t have an answer for that. She went out and pulled the door to behind her. She went down the hall and through the office and so into the street. She stood for a moment letting the rain wash over her. A cold wind smelling of trees, the wet streets, woodsmoke. She looked up and let the rain course down her cheeks. The rain felt cold. Clean.
He sat unmoving while the day drew on, and still he sat with dusk gathering at the windows, and ultimate dark fell unnoticed with the rain fading to just a persistent murmur at the glass, and he didn’t turn on a light. The dark suited him very well and soothed the seething turmoil of his mind.
What to do. Options presented themselves only to be discarded and alternates sought. Nothing seemed feasible. The dread thought of the retribution she’d spoken of left him weak and clammy with cold sweat. He closed his eyes. Tried to clear his mind, to force order onto the chaos of his thoughts. He imagined his mind a slate, an eraser moving methodically across it. Then what had been at the bottom of his mind all along surfaced, like a rotten log in a swamp brought up by its own putrescent gases. A headline from last summer’s newspaper: local man indicted for murder. A measure of peace returned to him. A feeling of self-confidence, of being in good hands.
Granville Sutter, he thought.
Early in June of that year Lorene Conkle came out of the drugstore and Sutter was there the way she had known he would be. He was leant against a brick wall with a toothpick cocked up out of the corner of his mouth. When she walked past him, he unleant himself, elaborately casual, and followed her as if he’d been going that way all along and was just waiting for the notion to strike him.
The drygoods store then. She’d look up from whatever garment she was fingering and glance covertly through the glass and there he’d be, this time leant against the column that supported the striped awning. A tall, gangling man with the false appearance of sleepy indolence. Warped and twisted by the bad glass as if this glass had the property of character analysis and showed the world what you were like inside your skin. He caught her looking and just looked levelly back, and she dropped her eyes.
Was it something I could help you with? the clerk asked. He had approached silently behind her and startled her. A prissy little man with an oldmaidish air about him.
She seemed to make up her mind about something. She laid the gown carefully atop the pile. I reckon not right now, she said. I may be back later.
Sutter wasn’t watching her now. When she stopped in front of him he was looking off toward the railroad track where the train was uncoupling boxcars. He seemed finally to notice her and turned toward her. High cheekbones with the leathery brown skin pulled taut over them. A blade of a nose broken once and healed slightly askew so that the face looked different from side angles, a face with two different profiles. The eyes were brown and flecked in their depths with gold so they looked almost amber.
I want you to stop watchin me.
Then don’t stand in front of me. Folks don’t always get what they want. It’s people in Hell cryin pitiful for Eskimo Pies, but they ain’t handin none out. It’s a free country and I can watch who I want to.
You been followin me, too. And this is not the first time you done it. I seen you parked across the street from my house a few days ago.
I was just visitin a feller lives down there. Besides, you don’t even know I’m followin you. You in a drygoods store. That’s a public place. I might have had in mind to buy me a set of drawers or a pair of socks or somethin.
I want you to let me be. And my husband Clyde, too. I hadn’t said anything to Clyde, and I don’t want to go to the law. It’s been too much about trials and lawyers already. I don’t want no part of it. If I ever mention it to
