“A man could die in heat like this,” he said.
“Die?” Her voice had a soft, crooning quality. “Not you, Peter. Not you and not me. Not for a long, long time. Not until we’ve done all the things I want us to do.”
He looked down at her, and her eyes were wide open and staring up into the sky with shining intensity, as if, by sheer mental effort, she were projecting herself into the hard, blue brilliance. A trickle of perspiration moved slowly downward from the hollow of her throat. He leaned over her, blocking her vision of the sky, and the strangely provocative scent of oil and sweat came up from her into his nostrils.
“I’ve been wondering about something,” she said.
“About what?”
“I’ve been wondering how many men have died because they carried too much insurance.”
“You’d better quit wondering. Lots of women had wished they had—after it was too late. It’s usually pretty obvious, you know. They hardly ever get away with it.”
“I know. So I’ve been wondering about something else, too. I’ve been wondering how many men have died because their wives carried too much insurance.”
“Is that supposed to make sense?”
“It could. Would you like to hear how? It’s just a hypothetical case, of course. A kind of game.”
“I like games.”
“Well, suppose, for instance, that I had a policy for fifty thousand, double indemnity. Suppose I were to die in an automobile accident. The Senator’s the beneficiary, so he gets paid off. One hundred grand.”
“Very sacrificial of you. Rather wasted, though, I’d say. The Senator doesn’t really need it.”
“Wrong, Peter. He needs it, all right. His affairs aren’t in as good shape as you think they are. That’s why the policy is essential. For you, Peter. Because I’d be dead, naturally, and you’d be sole heir again.”
“Just wait for the old man to die?”
“That might be a long time. By that time, he might have spent the hundred grand or found another heir. On the other hand, a man loses a beautiful young wife that way, it might crack him up. He might commit suicide.”
“And I’d be sole heir. I’d be something else, too. I’d be a natural for the rap. Remember what I said about wives hardly ever getting away with it? That goes for sons, too.”
“You have no imagination, darling. You’re a charmer, and I love you, but you have absolutely no imagination. When the Senator died, you’d be somewhere else, of course. Somewhere with people. There’s nothing like an alibi to keep you clear.”
“Sure. I can see that. So I do it by sticking pins in his image. I do it by black magic.”
“Wrong. You do nothing at all. You know, there’s a certain advantage to being dead, Peter. No one suspects you of anything but being dead.”
Her eyes were slightly averted, staring past him into the brilliant sky. They were lash-shadowed and sleepy and filled with the soft stuff of dreams.
“That’s quite a hypothetical case,” he said. “You must have spent a lot of time on it.”
She smiled faintly at the sky. “I like to dream. It amuses me.”
“Has it amused you to locate a body to leave for yours when you die in this accident?”
“That should be no problem. In the right kind of accident, almost any body would do. I’d only need a dentist.”
“A dentist?”
“Yes. Because of teeth, you see. That’s the way they identify bodies that can’t be recognized.”
“He’d have to be an accessory. How do you go about picking up a dentist to act as accessory to murder? Just canvass the prospects? Insert an ad in the help-wanted column, maybe?”
“He’d have to be picked carefully. It would take time, because he’d have to be developed. Persuaded.”
“I can imagine the persuasion, and I don’t like it.”
“Don’t be childish, darling.”
“What about afterward? Just send him about his business? Just say thanks and good-by?”
“Something like that. With reasonable compensation for his services, of course. An accessory to murder doesn’t make trouble, darling. He can’t afford to.”
He leaned back and stared off down the slope of earth beyond the tennis court to where it dropped away above the river. The drop was almost perpendicular, and the river was hidden at the foot of the bluff, but he could see on the other side the wide fields of the bottoms stretching eastward to a chain of low hills. The fields and the foliage on the hills looked parched and faded in the hot, white light.
He was thinking of the suburban road that ran in front of the house. He was remembering that the road and the bluff converged downstream. The road came downgrade to the bluff and turned sharply to parallel it for a short distance. An inadequate rail fence had been erected along the bluff, but a car coming down the grade and failing to make the sharp turn would surely crash right through.
It was a good place for a bad accident, he thought.
CHAPTER 3.
The street door of the bar closed behind him with a whisper. He stood in beige pile, his pupils adjusting to shadows, and listened to the sounds of brittle glass in contact, the rise and fall of small talk over cocktails, a subdued blue voice against a background of strings. Then he saw Etta looking at him from a booth across the room. She lifted her glass by its slender stem in a brief salute, and he went over and sat down in the booth across from her.
“You’re late, darling,” she said.
“Sorry. I’ve been having my teeth cleaned.”
She had lifted her glass to drink again, but the action was suspended suddenly with the edge of crystal just touching her lips. Her breath stirred slightly the gin and vermouth, and her eyes, wide and still and black in the contrived dusk, stared at him across the golden surface. After a moment, with an odd little sigh, she tipped
