“See the swans?”
We were on the height above the lake and we were walking to the macadam road. The tram stopped running at four-thirty, I was certain. A sole motorcar chugged along, too far away for use.
“In England swans are property of the Crown,” I said. “It must be the same here, with the same King. That’s a royal prerogative, to know what swan tastes like.”
Laura remained mute.
“Beautiful colour of the leaves this autumn. At this time of year out west you hear firecrackers and fireworks, for Hallowe’en. Love the smell of the smoke from a Roman candle. Of course you set them off around here for Victoria Day.
I continued in this vein as we went to the road and came upon the open gates of the cemetery, talking to her of St. Jean Baptiste and Dollard des Ormeaux. We waited in the cold for some minutes to flag down another motorcar.
“Don’t see anything,” I said.
Laura started at my voice. I kept a healthy measure of humour and good cheer in my tone and tried not to seem possessed of a jealous, delicate madness. Perhaps she sensed a disquietude and had a small idea of what she’d walked into.
“I think that I should go,” she said.
“All alone? I won’t hear of it. Who knows what’s lurking in these trees. Tell you what, there’s a better chance of finding someone out on Park. We can take this shortcut here and the path out to the avenue. There’s bound to be lots of taxis there or you can snag the tram.”
Laura shivered and looked away. The gates were open. I sauntered away from her down the path. It’s what you do with ponies: they become curious and follow, an ingrained instinct. Laura seemed weaker than I remembered. How had she twisted me around her finger? I almost laughed aloud to think on it. Of course, in the meanwhile much had changed. I’d killed. I slowed my pace, hands in pockets, whistling Jack’s tune, “The Man Who Broke the Bank at Monte Carlo.” I turned. Laura was coming. I let her fall in beside me.
“It was you who sent me the letter,” she said.
“Who, me?”
“Yes.”
“All I can tell you is that he asked me to meet you,” I said.
“I don’t believe you.”
“You should.”
“No. You’re lying. I should have known.”
“That I’m a liar? Pot and kettle, my dear.”
“I should have known that you’d stoop to this baseness.”
“Baseness is it?”
I stopped.
“What was that you were doing with that joker then? Who did you really want to see you two on that bed?”
“Certainly not you.”
“As I thought.”
Laura walked away downhill between upright markers.
“You play your pretty games and torture me,” I cried.
“I want nothing to do with you!” she screamed.
It was a pleasing landscape with nary a soul: no old widows tending graves, no mustachioed gents perambulating past fallen comrades. Laura was increasing her pace, slipping away. I came up quickly after her.
“You didn’t want me at all, did you? You wanted him. All this time you wanted him. Do you realize that we’re going to kill your pretty boy Bob? What do you think of that?”
Laura stopped. She put her hand on a tombstone. I saw where we were. Now I was hot.
“You didn’t know that, did you sweetheart? That fucker’s going to get it, with this.”
I showed Laura my gun. She stumbled backward, eyes widening. I moved forward and felt her shrink before me.
“Oh, but you’ve got nothing to worry about,” I said. “Not from this toy. Bob tried to kill us, not that you’d care if he had. He tried to blow my brains out.”
“Please, Michael. Stop.”
“We kill now, didn’t you know? Your three musketeers. And who made me do it? You did, Laura. What did I ever do to you? I loved you and you let me believe you felt the same way. Then I saw you rutting like a sow with that son-of-a-bitch. What can I do? Tell me! No, wait, I’ll tell you. I’m going to kill that Yankee bastard Bob. And then I’m going to shoot the love of your life. I’m going to kill Jack.”
“Michael, no.”
I closed with her and grabbed her shoulders. We were next to the empty graves I’d seen the day before. She reached up with her gloved hands and tried to break my hold. I crushed the velvet of her coat and pulled her closer. She struggled. I drank in her powder and scent: lemon and sugar. Her cloche hat fell off and she kicked at me with her booted feet so I pushed her onto a nearby cairn. Laura stumbled and her skirt rode above her knee. I went at her now in a blind rage, choking, unable to breathe. I put my hands through the white silk of her blouse and gripped the pearls around her porcelain doll’s throat. By God she was beautiful. She gasped and fought as I tightened my grip and started squeezing. My hands tangled in the pearls and thumbs dug into her trachea. I felt her weaken and a bloody mist clouded my vision. Her arms came up and I pushed and pulled her roughly about. Coming in close I saw the green in her eyes and wide staring pupils. Laura gazed at me and her pink tongue came out. Her light sparrow’s body clenched, spasmed, and pulsed and her head rolled back as I strangled her. My teeth were bared, penis erect, heart dynamiting in my ears, a torrid heat raged though my blood. I tasted her warmth and her last gasp. She stopped moving and went still. I let her fall to the grass by the heaped mound of earth, then dropped down beside her and cradled her in my arms, eyes pouring tears. Poor Laura. Poor all of us.
For a long, lost time I lay watching the stars come out, taking in clean cool air, feeling my pulse return to normal. At last I set to work. I picked up her hat. Digging in her purse I took the note with Jack’s name on it and burned it with a vesta. Her money I kept, twenty-odd dollars. Now was the moment for a ceremony. I was not in my body, but became an actor performing a dark rite. I lifted Laura and placed her in the hole. I arranged her hair as she’d always liked it, considered her face, her eyes, but there was nothing there. So I closed them forever and placed a coin in her mouth, for Charon. I climbed out of the grave and started to push dirt in, faster and faster, kicking and scraping, filling the empty space, consigning her to the earth’s indifferent care.
I rubbed my hands, chucked soil out of my trouser cuffs, and leaned back against a stone, then lit a cigaret and with the lucifer’s glow surveyed the scene of my crime. I started laughing, quietly at first, then louder and wilder. Strange thoughts filled my head, demonical notions. Grateful spirits whispered, congratulating me on my ascent. I walked away from the boneyard a king among the damned. The world belonged to me.
THURSDAY
ON WAKING I resolved to quit the filthy habit of smoking, substituting cinnamon chewing gum in tobacco’s stead. There was, however, no alternative to sweet morphine. Putting away every notion of restraint I prepared the drug again and relaxed. I’d bought the bulldog edition of Wednesday night’s
It was time to raise Cain and find Jack. I wanted to get even with Bob and take another scalp, add to the three thus far. I had the taste for it now, and I liked it. Time to count coup over a fallen enemy and take back what he’d stolen from us, a satchel full of money.
For luncheon I knocked back a schooner in a tavern on Stanley and began to lose my sense of the in-
