Part 22 (2/2)

O'Conner looked at him. ”I doubt that.”

”He believes that one of us may be the killer, without being aware of it. That the homicidal side of his nature is as unknown to him as it is to the rest of us.”

O'Conner snorted lightly. ”Von Hesse is good at believing in things he can't see.”

The meat loaf arrived then, and turned out to be a thick slab of parched, overcooked ground meat studded throughout with limp fragments of unidentifiable vegetable and glazed with an oily tomato sauce. Beside it on the plate rose a lumpy mound of mashed potatoes. The waiter also set on the table an empty whiskey gla.s.s.

O'Conner looked at Oscar's plate, frowned, and said, ”I wouldn't eat that on an empty stomach, if I were you.” He poured bourbon into Oscar's gla.s.s.

Tentatively, Oscar tasted the meat. Execrable was the first word that sprang to mind. It was followed closely by vile.

O'Conner grinned. ”That's a pretty hefty portion you've got there. The cook must like you.”

”Fortunately,” said Oscar, ”I've never met the man.”

”It's a woman,” O'Conner said. ”The wife of one of the brothers who owns the hotel. Maybe she's after you. The quickest way to a man's heart is through his stomach.” He frowned. ”Who was it who said that?”

”Lucretia Borgia.”

O'Conner snorted.

Oscar took a sip of whiskey. ”How are your articles coming along?”

”Fine,” O'Conner said, and swallowed some whiskey of his own.

”When will we get a opportunity to read them?”

The reporter shrugged dismissively. ”I asked Horner, the editor, to send copies to Chicago. They should be waiting for me there.”

Oscar tasted the mashed potatoes. Or rather, attempted to, for they had no taste at all. ”And so you're really not going to write about these killings?”

O'Conner scowled. ”Jesus, Wilde, I already said so, didn't I?” Abruptly he pushed back his chair and stood up. ”I've got to get some work done. I'll see you at the train station tomorrow.” And lifting his bottle and tucking it under his arm, he had stalked from the room.

Leaving a puzzled Oscar to finish what he could of his meal by himself.

After dinner, he had climbed up the stairs to his room and, dispirited, dejected, climbed out of his clothes and into his pajamas, then flopped with his cigarette case and his notebook onto the bed.

Tomorrow, he told himself. Tomorrow he would present himself at Tabor's mansion, using the excuse that he wished to say goodbye. He must see her. Even if disguised as merely a polite visitor, even if only for a few moments, he must see her.

As for this murder business, the more one thought about that, the less probable the whole thing seemed. It had been the novelty of von Hesse's theory, rather than its plausibility, that had attracted; and the novelty now had worn off. And having used the theory to fill up the emptiness within him, Oscar now felt, without it, doubly empty.

And yet those poor women had been killed in towns where the tour had stopped. How to explain that?

An itinerant madman. This was the only possible explanation.

Still, it would do no harm to keep an eye opened. All the men were innocent, certainly; but a.s.suming, simply for the sake of argument, that one of them could be guilty, then it might be wise to remain alert.

O'Conner had acted oddly tonight. Brusque and moody. Quite unlike himself. And how could a reporter ignore the journalistic possibilities of these murders?

And what of that queer voice emerging from Vail's mouth?

But perhaps once you set out to discover secrets, you discovered that there was no end of them. Each of us had his own; each of us had another face hidden behind the mask.

Who would've thought that Vail had once been an actor? That once he had, good Lord, wanted to play Hamlet?

To be or not to be, that's the question, am I right?

But Vail a madman, a murderer? Or O'Conner? Or any of them? Absurd.

One should keep alert, however. If any of them were a madman (which was of course impossible), then surely he must finally reveal himself to the alert mind. To the alert, penetrating mind of a poet.

Oscar lit a cigarette.

Where was she? Just now, just at this moment, what was she doing?

Her white b.r.e.a.s.t.s are perfectly rounded at the bottom, and they slope down along their upper surface in a graceful arc to broad, pale pink, puckered aureoles and stiff fragrant nipples the thickness of fingertips; and, kneeling upright and naked on the bed, she offers them to him ...

Oscar's hand drifted down his stomach.

Ah, Freddy. Tonight we have only each other.

Tonight, naked, once again he was dancing.

Twirling, spinning, silently wheeling, feet darting, arms loose and free.

It had been better last night, yes, it had been oh so wonderful last night when the red came flying off those streamers of flesh at his fingertips and sailed through the air and pattered bright s.h.i.+ning patterns along the wall. It had been glorious then, afloat in the brilliant tumbling spate of divine light ...

... he was on the bed now-another of those disconcerting s.h.i.+fts, those inexplicable folds in the fabric of Time, but never mind, never mind, he was beyond Time now. He held the pillow to his face (a whisper of camphor uncoiling from the cotton, and the sour musty shadows left behind by each of the countless heads that over the years had rested there) and he giggled as he remembered oh yes red fingertips capering down the slickness of bone There will be another.

and prying open oh yes the wet red secrets of flesh Another. Soon.

... up again, dancing again, reeling, swaying. On the cast-iron wood stove before him sat the porcelain washbasin, filled nearly to the brim with brownish water. He pranced forward, dipped his fingers into the warm water, fished out the limp slippery lump of flesh, and slumped to his knees, not in supplication, oh no, but in bliss and grat.i.tude, and he There will be another soon.

sank his teeth into the meat and tore away a chunk of it and chewed, his body shuddering with pleasure Soon.

while the silence trembled like the wings of angels behind him in the room.

Grigsby walks into the room and closes the door behind him. The air is heavy with a dank, slaughterhouse stench.

The thing on the bed, its upper half propped against the wall, was once Molly Woods. The thing wears a petticoat, pushed back to its waist, and its legs are drawn up. There is no skin or flesh on the legs: glistening white s.h.i.+nbones, a pair of round white kneecaps, white thighbones. Only the feet, splayed out against the bed, are intact. Each toenail is painted red.

The flesh has been stripped, too, from the ribs, and between white arches of bone he can see a dull film of pink tissue.

The arms are peeled as well, from shoulder to wrist. The curled fingers of both hands have been placed at the black savage rent in the belly, as though to make it appear, obscenely, that they are drawing back the wide lips of the awful wound.

The face is gone. The thick red hair, falling to the exposed shoulder bones, frames a leering skull from which empty sockets gape.

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