SHE’D READ THE BOOKS, seen the movies, knew that, in a minute or two, it was possible to trace a phone call. So when the connection was made, after she pulled the door of the phone booth closed, she checked her watch: twenty minutes to nine, plus thirty seconds.
“This is Betty Giles,” she said. “I want to speak to Mr. DuBois. Now. Right now. Otherwise, I’ll hang up. In thirty seconds, I’ll hang up.” As she spoke, she watched the wristwatch’s digital numerals change, one digit a second. In twenty seconds, she heard the husk-dry voice: “Yes, Betty?”
She didn’t really know what she intended to say, hadn’t rehearsed it. She knew only that she wanted to hear a tremor of fear in his voice, the same fear she’d seen him inflict so effortlessly, so dispassionately, on others—so many others, over so many years.
“I’ve told you that I’d make you pay for having him killed. And now I’ve decided how. Just now, just this minute, I’ve decided how.”
“Betty—” She heard him sigh: a deep, condescending, exhausted exhalation. Had she ever heard him speak quite like this? Had she ever heard him sound so fragile?
“Betty, it’s a cliché, but you were like a daughter to me. You know that, don’t you?”
She made no response.
“It’s not too late to make this right,” he was saying. “Is it money? Is that what you want?”
“I want you to be afraid. I want you to beg.”
“You can’t make me afraid, Betty. And you can’t make me beg, either. You should know that.” His parched, cracked voice was mildly reproachful. He’d always talked to her like this—like she was a child. A talented, tolerated child.
“Then I’ll tell the newspapers. I’ve given you your chance. But now I’m going to call the newspapers.”
“They won’t believe you, Betty. They wouldn’t dare to print what you tell them.”
“You had him murdered. You’re not above the law. I’ll tell them you had him murdered. And I’ll tell them why you had him murdered. I’ll tell the police, too—the newspapers and the police, both of them.”
A silence followed. Suddenly she remembered the time, looked at her watch. How many minutes had—?
“If you do that, Betty—if you tell the police this story—then I can’t help you. If you’ll think about it, you’ll see that I can’t—”
Her finger on the receiver hook cut off the rest. She stood for a moment slumped against the glass side of the phone booth, staring at her finger on the hook. The booth was stifling. She replaced the receiver and pushed open the bi-fold door. Immediately, the cool night air rushed in. She was perspiring—sweating, really. Her face, her neck, her body, were wet, and the cool air was a mild, welcome shock: evaporation, a physical law, working to stabilize her body temperature, keep her healthy—keep her alive.
But scientific fact was one thing; her mother’s axioms were something else. And her mother believed that drafts caused colds. If you were inside a house—or a phone booth—and you were in a draft, then you’d certainly catch cold. Especially if your hair was wet, or you were sweating. Wind, though—natural, undirected, open-air wind—was less dangerous, her mother believed, less likely to produce a cold.
So she was leaving the phone booth. She was standing aimlessly a few feet from the blue neon motel sign. A dutiful daughter, she was minding her mother. From the south, out of the desert darkness, a car was coming, traveling fast. She turned, watched the headlights grow larger. It was a pickup truck, with rock music blaring louder than the sound of the engine. As it swept past, she saw two dirt bikes secured in the bed.
Nick had ridden dirt bikes, he’d once told her, in competition. A motocross accident had broken his leg, given him his slight limp. His body was a map of scars, a visual history of his life on the racetracks. When he’d first detailed his scars for her as they lay naked in bed, sated, she’d reacted as a properly educated young woman might be expected to react, with a certain prim fastidiousness, hesitant to look fully, frankly, at his naked body, hesitant to touch the scars with timid fingertips. Yet she’d also been aware of something more elemental: the tribal woman lying with her mate, her defender, the man who bore on his body the scars of the warrior, his badges of ancient honor.
Where was he lying now, her warrior, the man who challenged the titan? Tonight was Monday. He’d died—been murdered—on Thursday night, four days ago. How long did they keep bodies in the morgue—in cold storage? A week, they’d told her, possibly more. Because, in a murder investigation, the body was evidence. Like a bloodied length of pipe, or fingerprints found at the scene of the crime.
Would he have left her, if she’d been the target? Would he have run away, terrified, as she’d run away, leaving her dead on a stainless steel table, refrigerated in a stainless steel drawer?
At the thought, she heard herself moan: a long, wordless keening, an inarticulate protest at this self-inflicted pain. Yet it was necessary that she think about him, lying dead in the morgue. Because, yes, she must punish herself, must atone for the sin of leaving him alone, abandoning his body.
His only living relative, she knew, was his father, a ruined hulk of a man, a drinker, still a fast-buck salesman—except that the bucks were fewer now. His father had visited them once in Los Angeles. When he left, he’d asked Nick for money.
In the airport at San Francisco, she’d spent an hour on the phone until she’d finally located his father. He’d cried when she’d told him Nick was dead. They’d always been pals, he said. Always.
Now a car was coming from the north, from town. This one was a large car, a Cadillac, sedately driven. So, standing beside the road, she’d seen the two phases of Borrego Springs: dirt bikers returning from riding through the desert, and the tourists, so-called, comfortable in their Cadillacs, doubtless returning from dinner at the elegant French restaurant north of town, a millionaire’s retreat that rigidly enforced a starchy dress code, even off-season.
She watched the Cadillac’s taillights grow smaller in the darkness, heard the sound of its engine grow fainter, until finally both were lost in the desert to the south. Then, irresolutely, she turned to face the motel. It’s twenty-odd cabins, some single, some double, were scattered among low-growing desert trees and high-growing cacti, all of it artfully planned, doubtless, for its studied naturalism. Her cabin was located roughly in the center of the motel’s sizable tract, probably several acres, just beyond the southern edge of town. At nine o’clock there were only three other cabins lit, besides hers. In the off-season, on a weekday, the Ram’s Head was certainly operating at a loss.
Earlier, she’d seen something in the TV Guide that interested her, an old movie. So she should return to her room, switch on the TV, try to lose herself.
Or else she should return to town, go to the bar adjacent to the restaurant, have a few drinks.
Unless, instead, she went to the liquor store, across from the restaurant. She could buy a bottle of brandy. She could take the bottle of brandy back here, to the motel. She could double lock the door, and switch on the TV, and drink the brandy while she watched the movie.
But first, before she decided, she would surrender herself to the telephone, for one more call. Because the television and the telephone were all that were left to her, now—one offering the balm of forgetfulness, one offering human contact once removed, her only real hope, her last illusion.