on with it.” He held up the bottle.
“How long will it take?”
“It’ll be quick.” Horace didn’t know what the pills were. But Striker had said she’d be out of it fast.
She stared at the bottle. For a second he thought she was going to resist. “Don’t scream.”
“I wasn’t going to.” She held out her hand, took the bottle, opened it. She swallowed the pills.
“If it means anything, I don’t feel good about this,” he said.
“How could you?” She backed up, sat on a wing chair that was covered with a quilt. Kind of like something Ma might have made.
Horace took a seat on a sofa that looked like it had been around forever, curly wooden legs, some kind of Frenchy design, he didn’t know about that kind of stuff. He looked around the room. It was a grandma’s house, no denying that.
“What’s your name?” she said.
“Why you want to know?”
“In case someone asks.”
“Who would?”
“God.”
“No such thing.” Horace shook his head. She was as nuts as Ma, trying to lay a guilt trip on him like that.
“Then tell me your name.” She was starting to nod off. Those pills were fast.
“No.”
“It doesn’t matter. He’ll know you when it’s your time.” She closed her eyes. Her head slumped to the side.
In a hurry now, Horace found the bathroom, put the plug in the bath, ran the tap. He adjusted the water to warm. It had to be done right, it was the details that would keep it a suicide and not murder. No one about to kill herself would climb into a cold bath.
Back in the living room, the woman was breathing like she was in a deep sleep. He glanced around the room. The old lady was a neat freak. He walked around the house, checking it out. Everything had a place, even the shoes were lined up in a row in the closet. In the hallway he found a hamper. Now he knew how to do it.
“Gonna handle you with care,” he said, and he meant it. She deserved that much. He undid the buttons on the woman’s blouse and pulled it off. She was wearing a camisole under it and he pulled it over her head. Her bra was next. Old lady tits, Horace tried not to look. Then he pulled off her shoes, jeans and panties.
“Gotta make it look real,” he muttered. He put the shoes in the closet, lining them up like the others there. Then he dropped the clothes in the hamper before he picked her up and carried her into the bath.
He laid her out in the tub. She looked so peaceful. He ran his eyes over her old lady body, tits all but gone now, waist he could wrap his hands around, legs no more than sticks. But she was made up nice, hair cut short, styled neat, professional. A lady with money, class.
He fished the blades out of his shirt pocket, took the cellophane off. He picked up a wet hand, used her thumb to slide out a blade. Squeezing the blade between the thumb and forefinger of her right hand, he drew the blade down the inside of her right arm, from wrist to elbow. Then he repeated the procedure with the other hand, letting the blade fall into the tub when he was finished.
She was breathing peacefully as she bled out.
It looked real.
He opened the medicine cabinet above the sink and put the blade dispenser on the top shelf, next to a bottle of aspirin. A neat lady like this wouldn’t leave them lying around for the kids to get hurt with.
An hour later, he took off. The sky had cleared and he could see Long Beach Harbor from over Catalina. He popped Mozart back into the player. The French horn he loved so much filled the cockpit, but it brought him no peace. He took it out, shoved in the Springsteen.
“Born in the USA!” He’d be hearing that damned song for the rest of his life.
Chapter Eleven
“Wake up!”
Maggie opened her eyes, met Gaylen Geer’s stare. “What time is it?”
“I didn’t think you knew who I was.” Gaylen put her hands to her hips. “How come you never said anything?”
Maggie rubbed sleep out of her eyes. From her position on the couch, Gaylen looked formidable. She pushed herself up. “How long have I been asleep?”
“Three or four hours. We kept checking on you. You must have had a hard night, because thunder wouldn’t have wakened you.”
“You wanna sit?” Maggie said.
“Sure.” Gaylen took one of the chairs opposite the sofa. Maggie had admired Gaylen Geer since high school and now she was sitting right across from her. And Gaylen thought Maggie was Margo Kenyon. What further proof did she need? Margo had been her twin, no matter what that driver’s license said.
“Are you going to keep staring at me?” Gaylen said.
Maggie didn’t know what to say. She was still in kind of a sleep fog. Should she tell her? Could she not? Just a short time ago, she’d been thinking about stepping into her dead twin’s life. Was her own life so bad she’d leap at the chance to get out of it? No, but it was a chance to keep her baby. She’d been weak, about to get rid of it. As Margo she could keep it, would be able to support it. But she couldn’t do it alone. If Gaylen could help.
“Come on, say something.”
“Margo’s dead.”
“What?” Gaylen threw her hands to her breasts as if she’d been struck with a mallet.
“I’m her sister. Her twin.” Maggie clasped her hands in her lap and her thumbs went to war with themselves. She was powerless to do anything about it.
“I didn’t know she had a twin sister.” Gaylen barely got the words out.
“She didn’t either.”
“How?”
Maggie told her everything, starting from when she saw Virgil and Horace in the Safeway and finishing with her seeing the story about her own murder on television.
“So, you were going to take over her life, like a pod person from the Body Snatchers?” Gaylen said after Maggie had finished.
“No, not initially. I didn’t know she was dead till after I got here. Not till I saw on television that I’d been murdered.” She paused. “I thought about how Jasmine was afraid of her father and the idea sort of came to me as I was dialing 911.”
“So, why tell me?”
“I used to worship you. I wanted to be like you. You’ve got that strength most of us are missing, so I guess I thought if you helped me, maybe I could pull it off.”
“I think you might have taken me a little too seriously. I know I did.”
“You helped change history. Things are better because of you.”
“What you’re asking is wrong.”
“How well did you know Margo? Can you tell me about her?”
“Didn’t you just hear me say it’s wrong?”
“If you don’t help me, that horrible man’s going to take away that frightened child. She’s my family now. I can’t allow that, so I’m asking for your help.” She paused again, met Gaylen’s eyes straight on.
“I can’t do it,” Gaylen said.
“Maybe I’m asking the wrong person. The Gaylen Geer I used to see on television all those years ago, the one who said there was supposed to be a brass ring for everybody, regardless of color or sex, that Gaylen Geer would help me.”
