Witch Rhymes With ... Page 2

  “The same here, Mr. Salem.”

  “The next time you come to my place, let me know you’re there. Perhaps we can have a few drinks together.”

  “I may take you up on that.”

  “Good night.”

  Eve and I said good night to him, watched him let himself out.

  “Pour me a drink,” Eve ordered.

  “Sure,” I said. “If you sweeten that a little.”

  “Does that mean you want me to say please?”

  “It might help.”

  “Then go to hell. I’ll pour my own drink.” She walked to the cocktail cabinet, poured a healthy measure of bourbon.

  “Whisky,” I said, “is supposed to make people happy.”

  “Go to hell.”

  “You already told me to go there.”

  “Then make another trip.” She drank half of the bourbon neat without making a face. “If you want a drink, get it yourself.”

  I lit a cigarette, watched her. She still had her figure, but if this was an example of how she drank she wouldn’t have it long. She was as attractive as ever, if you don’t mind a cruel mouth and calculating eyes. She wore a black dress. Black was always her favorite color. The dress had a mini-skirt and a mini-top. I knew that if I stood close to her and looked down I would see that she wasn’t wearing a bra. Eve was proud of her figure, especially of her upper statistic. Well, not the statistic exactly, for she wouldn’t take a tape past thirty-four inches. But her breasts were beautifully shaped—like pears, and firm.

  “It’s been a long time, Larry,” she said. She wasn’t angry now. Her mouth didn’t seem so cruel, and there was even a little warmth in her eyes. Well, that was like Eve. Mercurial. “Why don’t you have a drink?” she suggested.

  “I will, thanks.”

  “I’ll get it for you. Are you still a scotch man?”

  “Yes.”

  She took ice cubes from a bucket, held them over a glass. “On the rocks, right?”

  “Yes.”

  She dumped the cubes in the glass, poured Teacher’s slowly over the cubes, handed me the glass, added more bourbon to her glass.

  “What’ll we drink to?” she asked. Then, before I could answer: “I know! Old times.”

  “Here’s to old times,” I said.

  We drank and she laughed. “We did have a few wild times, didn’t we, Larry? But that was before I met Jack. I knew you wouldn’t tell him about that weekend we spent together. That wouldn’t have been cricket.” She laughed again. “After we got married, you didn’t like coming here, did you?”

  “I had no feelings about it one way or the other,” I said. “What had happened between us was finished when you married Jack.”

  “Didn’t you ever think about that weekend?”

  “No.”

  “I did.” She paused. “Wouldn’t you like to spend another weekend like that, Larry? This is only Wednesday. We could make it a long, long weekend.” Her voice went low, bitchy. “That would give you plenty of time to get some good photographs, wouldn’t it?”

  “Photographs? What are you—?”

  “Come off it, Larry Kent!” Her lips were thin again; her eyes narrow, flashing slits. “I’m sure you wouldn’t mind being the co-respondent in a divorce case if it’d help your dear buddy Jack!”

  I slammed down my drink. “If you got me to come all the way down here just to tell me that—”

  “What? I got you to come here? Who do you think you’re bull—”

  “You didn’t phone my office a little after five o’clock?”

  She leaned back and laughed. “Oh, this is the absolute limit! You’re slipping, Larry. Now you’re getting phantom phone calls.”

  “A woman phoned my office at ten after five. She gave her name as Eve Delmar.”

  “And I suppose her voice sounded exactly like mine?”

  “I didn’t take the call. I was out. I left the office at five. The message was taken by my answering service. The woman said it was imperative that I get down here. The girl at my answering service thought the woman sounded frightened, on the verge of hysteria.”

  “I don’t believe you.” She downed her drink. “You don’t really expect me to believe that, do you?”

  “Then you didn’t make the call?”

  “You know damn well I didn’t! Jack got you to come down here. He wants a divorce so he can marry that little chippy in his office. But he doesn’t like my terms. He sent you to work on me. You’re trying to scare me.”

  I crushed out my cigarette. “That’s not how I do business, Eve—and I think you know it. As for the divorce, that’s between Jack and you. To tell you the truth, he doesn’t even talk about it when I see him.”

  “Huh! I’ll bet!”

  I shrugged. “You can believe what you want to believe.”

  “I certainly don’t believe you came down here because you thought I was in trouble.” She looked into my eyes. Suddenly she didn’t seem so sure of herself. “Why should you help me?”

  “I asked myself the same question, Eve. Maybe it’s because I feel sorry for you.”

  This really got her. She just looked at me, her mouth open.

  I said, “You’re not a happy girl. You never were. When was the last time you relaxed without the help of drugs or whisky? Look at you now. You’re wound up tight.”

  She came to life, angry again. “You can stop working your little tricks on me, Larry. There’s nothing wrong with me. I’m fine. I know exactly what I want and where I’m going. I’m in perfect control of the situation.”

  She poured more bourbon into her glass.

  “I know where you’re going, too,” I said. “To the nearest mortuary parlor with a liver that looks like a wet piece of leather.”

  “I can stop drinking any time I feel like stopping!”

  “Sure, but you’ll never feel like stopping.”

  “Well, it’s none of your business if I drink myself to death.” She laughed. “But don’t count on it, darling. I’m going to be around for a long, long time. You can tell that to Jack when you get back to the city. And you can tell him something else, too—I won’t come down one penny in my demands. My price is the same as it was the last time he phoned and asked for a divorce. And if he thinks I’m going to give him grounds for divorce, he’s crazy. You be sure you tell him that, Larry. Now get out of here and—” The glass dropped from her hand, shattered on the floor. She looked down at the sharp slivers of glass for a moment, her eyes wide and bright. Then her hands began to shake. She turned to me, an appeal in her eyes. “Don’t go, Larry. Stay with me for a while. Please!”

  “After you called me a liar?”

  She studied my face. “Then ... there was a telephone call? Someone did use my name?”

  “If I was trying to fool you, Eve, I’d come up with something better than that.”

  She thought about this, nodded. “Yes. You would.” Then she came to me. “I’m scared, Larry, I’m scared!”

  I put my arms around her. She wasn’t acting. I could feel the chills that ran through her body. She pushed herself against me, breathing quickly, heavily. I held her tightly until the shivering stopped and her breathing was normal, then I grabbed her shoulders and stepped back to look into her face. Her eyes were cast down. Tears streaked her cheeks and her mascara was running.

  “What are you afraid of?” I asked.

  She wet her lips. “I feel so stupid, Larry. I never broke down like that. I must look a sight. Let me go and fix myself up, eh? Then we can have a talk.”

  I let go of her. She smiled, gratefully, rather shyly. This was an Eve I had never seen before.

  “I’ll be right back,” she said. “Finish your drink and have a cigarette.”

  She went into the bedroom. I lit a cigarette, drained the scotch from my glass, splashed more scotch on what was left of the ice cubes. She was back soon after I finished the cigarette. She had repaired her face and now she wore a towel robe.

  “I’m so
rry I fell apart,” she said.

  “Forget it. But now let’s talk about why you did.”

  “Why?” She looked puzzled. “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “You said you were afraid.”

  “Did I? I don’t remember what I said. It’s the drinking I’ve been doing. I think that’s what I’m afraid of—drinking myself to death.”

  “That’s not the impression I got. It seemed to me that you were afraid of something—or someone—in particular.”

  “Really?” She gave a short laugh. “How I must have carried on!” She glanced in the direction of the cocktail cabinet. “I’ll tell you something, Larry—I’m going to leave that stuff alone for a while.”

  “Will the real Eve Delmar please step forward?” I said.

  She batted her eyelashes at me. “What do you mean by that?”

  “I’ve seen four different women tonight. I don’t know which one to believe.”

  “The four faces of Eve, eh? Well, I have some good news for you, Larry. The three others have gone. Now there’s only me. This is the real Eve.”

  “Are you anything like the one who wants to bleed Jack dry?”

  “I thought you didn’t come down here on Jack’s behalf.”

  “I didn’t. But I’d like to know.”

  “Well, I don’t mind telling you. Maybe it’s a good idea to talk about it. Yes, I think it is ... If you like, Larry, you can get in touch with Jack tomorrow and tell him I’m willing to be more reasonable—a lot more reasonable. Will you do that?”

  “If you really want me to.”

  “I do. By the way, I’m sorry about ... my accusations. I’m sure now there was a phone call. I know you wouldn’t come down here to push me around. You’re too big a man for that sort of thing. I have no idea who made that phone call and used my name, but I’m glad she did ... It brought you here. You see, Larry, I meant it when I said I never forgot that weekend …”

  She opened the robe, let it slide free of her arms. It fell to a heap on the floor behind her. “The real Eve Delmar,” she whispered, “is now stepping forward.”

  There were three steps between her and me. She took two of them. I stayed where I was, struck by her beauty but not willing to take advantage of her offer.

  I said, “Aren’t you afraid I may have brought a photographer with me?”

  “I apologized for my accusations just a moment ago.” There was a kind of amused scorn in her eyes. “I come bearing gifts, and you try to discourage me. You always did have a streak of puritanical morality.”

  “You’re Jack’s wife,” I said. I felt like a damn fool, but there it was.

  “That, Larry darling, is a mere technicality. Jack’s head hasn’t dented my pillow for more than a year. A girl gets lonely.”

  “Not when there are guys like Earl Salem around.”

  “Earl? Surely you don’t think that Earl and I—Oh, Larry, how could you?” She was playing with me. This was Eve Romaine, the teasing wanton I had spent a weekend with almost three years ago. She twirled strands of her long red hair around an index finger. “You heard what Earl said, darling—he’s a happily married man. If you saw his wife, perhaps you’d believe that my friendship with Earl is entirely platonic. She’s a beautiful woman. Long, black hair. If I recall correctly, you were partial to brunettes, though that didn’t keep us from having a perfectly wonderful time ... You said you didn’t remember that weekend, darling, but I don’t believe you.”

  “So I remember,” I said. “But that doesn’t change how things are.”

  “You don’t think Jack would mind, do you?”

  “That’s got nothing to do with it.”

  “You poor thing,” she said, her tone mockingly sympathetic. “You’re trapped by that strange moral code of yours.” Low laughter came from deep in her throat. “It seems I’m not the only schizo in this room. When is the real Larry Kent going to step forward?” The scorn left her, and her voice became warm, urgent. “I got to know him in a motel outside Baltimore. I liked him a lot. But I didn’t like the other Larry Kent—the one you are now—the one who was polite and distant and formal and afraid.”

  “Afraid, Eve?”

  “Yes. You wanted me, even after I married Jack, but you were afraid to make a move.”

  “You’re mistaking decency for fear.”

  “There’s nothing decent about the way I feel about you, Larry. Oh, it’s nice, very nice, but it’s not the sort of thing they discuss in Sunday School. And you liked it, darling. You can’t deny that. You really liked it. And what’s more, you’re thinking about it right now, though you refuse to admit it even to yourself.”

  “It’s possible I am thinking about it,” I half-admitted. “You are a beautiful woman, Eve. But New York is less than an hour away—and the city is full of beautiful women.”

  “And you no doubt have a full address book. But ... answer this truthfully, Larry. When you’re making love to the one you select, will you be thinking about me?”

  “No.”

  “Prove it.”

  “How?”

  “Stop staring into my eyes and look at me ... really look at me ... all of me ...”

  She placed her hands at the base of her throat, moved them downward, slowly. My eyes followed the movement of her hands, watched them rise sharply, go inward, then down again and out, tracing the outline of her narrow waist, the gentle but definite flare of her hips. Then, quite suddenly, she reached out with both hands, placed them around my right wrist, guided my hand ...

  Her confidence in her beauty and in my weakness sent a wave of anger burning through me. But I realized almost immediately that my anger was directed at myself. That weekend I had spent with Eve in the motel near Baltimore had left more of a mark on me than I cared to acknowledge.

  It’s all right, I thought—a woman is a woman; I can wait. She needed a lesson. I would close my mind to her beauty. I would pretend that the touch of her meant no more to me than the touch of marble, or granite, or—

  “There,” she said, and she pressed both her hands against the back of mine—and I forgot what I had been telling myself. I forgot everything but the fact that she was standing near me, a step away. I took the step and pulled her to me. She gave a little cry that was a mixture of joy and triumph and need.

  To hell and gone with my puritanical morality!

  Chapter 2 ... the wicked witch is dead ...

  “You don’t have to go yet,” she whispered.

  “I must,” I said.

  “But it’s not ten o’clock yet. You’ve been here less than—”

  “I have an appointment in the city,” I lied.

  “At this time of night?”

  “Yes.”

  Eve walked with me to the door about ten minutes later.

  I was expected to kiss her, so I did. I even managed to smile, gently, like a departing lover. Well, I figured, it would be over soon. Once her door closed behind me that would be the end of it. As I had told her, there were plenty of women in New York City. The truth was, of course, that I was ashamed of myself. Eve was still Jack’s wife. I had broken one of my own rules. It didn’t matter that I could tell myself she and Jack had been living separate lives for more than a year, and were husband and wife only because the law of the land gave them the labels. Because I had made love to her, I was no better than she was—and she was strictly for the canaries.

  “Goodnight, Eve,” I said. But I should have said goodbye, because that was what I meant.

  She clung to me. “You will come back, darling, won’t you?”

  “Sure,” I said.

  She held on to me, but she moved her head back so she could look into my eyes. “I mean it. Larry. I want you to come back. You must promise me. Let me hear you promise.”

  “All right.” I said.

  “That’s not a promise. Say I promise.”

  “All right, I promise.” There. Another lie.

  “I may phone you,” she said. “Is your home
number listed?”

  “No.”

  “Will you give me the number?”

  I gave her a personal card from my wallet. She relaxed—visibly. She had been tight, tense; there had been pinch marks of worry on the outside corners of her eyes, two furrows in her forehead. Now her forehead was smooth, her eyes clear.

  She is definitely worried about something, I thought. Maybe she had made the phone call that was received by my answering service. But why didn’t she level with me? Why was she holding back? More important, what was it that she was holding back? I knew it would do no good to ask her. It was obvious that she was not going to tell me—not right at the moment, anyhow.

  “I feel much better,” she said. “You’re good for what ails me, darling.”

  On the face of it—her expression, her tone of voice—she was complimenting me on my prowess as a lover. But I felt something else, something deeper. She was leaning on me.

  “Goodnight, darling,” she breathed, gave me a final kiss, this time on the cheek, and then she opened the door for me.

  I went outside, turned. She smiled with her eyes and lips, closed the door. I started to walk towards the parking lot.

  “Mr. Kent ...” It was Stanley Peller again, materializing from a pool of darkness behind some fir trees. He walked over the grass to the flagstone path, hands deep in his overcoat pockets. It was a warm night, much too warm for an overcoat. It occurred to me that I had never seen Peller without the overcoat, night or day, summer or winter.

  “You were in there a long time,” Peller said. When I didn’t reply, he worked his shoulders, smirked. “It didn’t take you too long to get rid of Earl Salem, though.”

  I said, “If you have something to tell me, Peller, get it out.”

  He thrust his head forward, pitched his voice low. “Well now, Mr. Kent, I thought maybe you had something to say to me.”

  “About what?”

  “About your friend, Mr. Delmar. Now there’s a real gentleman. Still young, good-looking, successful. The way I see it, a man like that deserves a break. But the law’s a funny thing. The law always looks at things from the woman’s angle …”

  “Get to the point, Peller.”

  “I thought I made my point before you went in to see Mrs. Delmar.”