The Comedy is Finished

do our own slicing.”

“Mark stopped her,” Peter said. “He—he killed her. Larry’s out there now, he’s burying her in the sand.”

Liz looked from face to face. “So it’s all over,” she said.

Peter’s jaw clenched, his eyes glared. “It is not,” he said. “It isn’t over till I say it’s over. My way.”

“Whatever you want,” Liz said, not caring, and left the room, crossing the living room to go out onto the deck. The moon was lower now, the night darker. She could barely make out the hunched figure way out there across the sand.

Liz was back in the Eames chair when Larry came in. She was thinking about death, and didn’t hear him when he first spoke to her. Then he spoke again, and called her name, and she frowned at him in irritation, becoming doubly irritated when she saw he’d been crying. She said, “What is it?”

Larry gestured toward the stairs. “What are they arguing about?”

Now she became aware of it; intense voices, not extremely loud but nevertheless vibrating with rage. Mark and Peter, upstairs. “What does it matter?” she said.

Ginger was also in the room, standing over by the window, and now he turned with his nasty smile, saying, “The Koo Davis ear.”

Liz frowned, more irritable than interested. “His ear? What about it?”

Ginger said, “Peter wants it, to send to the FBI, and Mark won’t let him have it.”

At moments, it seemed to Liz she must still be tripping, that Ginger for instance could have no external reality at all but must be merely a floating atom inside her own brain. At other moments, it seemed her trip had merely served to remind her how unbelievable the real world is; it was Ginger and Peter and Mark who existed, while the white rats in the swimming pool had been imaginary.

Larry was blustering, saying, “Peter’s gone mad! What does he hope to—? I’m going up there!”

“Don’t,” Liz told him.

He undoubtedly didn’t really want to; that Larry was afraid of both Mark and Peter had been common knowledge for years. With a show of barely checked determination, he said, “Why shouldn’t I?”

“Mark won’t want you on his side.”

Ginger cackled, while Larry actually blushed. Liz deliberately twisted the knife: “And you wouldn’t do any good. Let them work it out for themselves.”

Larry dropped onto the sofa, fretfully rubbing his hands together. “I don’t know what to do, this is all getting so—” His expression turned tragic, he looked over at Liz and said, “Just tonight, I finally told Joyce I loved her.”

“Maybe that’s what drove her crazy.”

Ginger cackled again. Liz swiveled the Eames chair around to face him, but said nothing. She watched Ginger wordlessly till he stopped and looked away, with an angry shrug, saying, “It’s my house.” Then he said, “And I believe I’ll drink in it,” and walked briskly away, pretending Liz hadn’t driven him from the room.

The angry voices continued upstairs; Peter was doing most of the talking, but Mark’s short replies had not weakened. Larry said, nervously, “I wonder who’ll win.”

“Win?” Liz looked at him with a surprise she didn’t feel.

28

There are many different kinds of bribe in this world. Money, actual cash, is the bluntest and often the least effective bribe of all, since each of the participants finishes with a sense of contempt for the other. At the other extreme, mutual back-scratching is the noblest and cleanest form of bribery, because the participants—if all goes well—finish by being grateful to one another.

One of the policewomen manning the phones on the Koo Davis case was named Betty Austin, and her secret vice was songwriting; Dory Previn, with a touch of Bessie Smith. With no suggestion of return, Lynsey Rayne had offered to see to it that Marty Rubelman, musical director of Koo’s TV specials, was shown some of Policewoman Austin’s material. With no suggestion of return, Policewoman Austin had offered to let Lynsey know the instant there were any new development in the kidnapping case. Each was made happy by the offer of the other.

Phone. Telephone. Clanging again and again. Lynsey opened her eyes in the dark bedroom of her small house in Westwood, and for the longest time she couldn’t understand what that noise was or why it was going on for so long. There was no sleep-over man in her life right now—hadn’t been for nearly a year—so the phone would continue until either she answered it or the caller gave up; but she’d had so little sleep the last two nights that she just couldn’t seem to break through this grogginess. Damn! Damn!

Tossing her head, trying to clear it, she saw the illuminated numerals on the digital clock-radio, but without her glasses couldn’t read the numbers. The desire to know what time it was drove her up that extra little bit toward consciousness so that suddenly, on about the tenth ring, she cried out loud, “The phone!” and lunged to answer it.

The caller, a woman, spoke quietly, as though afraid of being overheard: “You ought to come over now.”

“What? What?”

“You know who this is.”

And then Lynsey did; it was Policewoman Austin. “What’s happened?”

“Just come over.” Click.

“Oh, my God,” Lynsey said. In the darkness she couldn’t hang up the phone, find her glasses, find the light- switch, read the clock—“Oh, my God, oh my God.” Glasses. Clock reading 4:07. “Oh, my God.”

The receptionist in the outer office at ten minutes to five in the morning was male and uniformed and initially unresponsive. “Something’s happened,” Lynsey insisted, “and I want to know what it is. Who’s here? Inspector Cayzer? Is the FBI man here, Mr. Wiskiel?”

“Ma’am, if there’s anything new, I’m sure they’ll get in touch with—”

“Go in and tell them I’m here. Just tell them.”

He didn’t want to, but finally he shrugged and said, “I’ll see if there’s anybody here.”

There was somebody here; Lynsey heard voices when the policeman opened the inner office door. He looked back at her, grudgingly, and closed the door behind himself.

What was happening? What was going on? It wasn’t that Koo had been rescued; there’d be no secrecy about that. Had they found him dead? Terribly injured? Did they know where the kidnappers were keeping him? What was going on?

The policeman returned, followed by Mike Wiskiel, looking irritated and upset. The irritation was because of her presence, but why was he upset? He seemed troubled, disturbed, unhappy. Afraid of what that might mean, needing to know the worst right now, she stepped forward before he had a chance to speak, saying, “What’s happened? Something bad, I can see it in your face.”

He would try, of course, to deflect the conversation: “Ms. Rayne, how did you know to come here?”

“Mr. Wiskiel, please. What’s happened?”

He was closed away from her. “Davis isn’t dead, if that’s what you’re worried about,” he said, as though that crumb would satisfy her. “Believe me, I’d tell you.”

“There’s something,” she insisted. “If I were family, would you tell me?”

His laugh was surprisingly harsh: “You mean you’ll drag Mrs. Davis down here to ask the questions? You’re more family than she is.”

Lynsey was surprised that Wiskiel had had the wit to make that assessment, but she wouldn’t be distracted. “Then tell me,” she said.

He shook his head. “Ms. Rayne, you’re not accomplishing anything by coming here this way. When there’s something constructive, I’ll let you know.”

“It has to be very bad,” she said. “All right, he isn’t dead, I accept that, but it has to be very bad for you to fight me like this.”

He hesitated, indecision finally appearing in his eyes. Was he acting from the old macho idea that grimness should be kept as much as possible away from the sight of females? He was certainly capable of such an attitude. Should she reassure him, promise him she could deal with whatever he was keeping from her? No; it was best to let