On the plane Carlin felt safe for the first time. It must have been the first time he had felt at peace for years. He had not realized the way that circumstances were impinging upon him, factors were squeezing in, until he had exploded. It wasn’t the murders that had given him that hounded, pressured feeling. On the contrary, the murders were the first step on the path of release. He had gone sane. He had started to make the long road back toward sanity by killing them. Now he was getting more sane all the time, and soon he would be entirely sane. Who was to say what manner of man he might be then? No one would be able to touch him once he got all his brains together. That was happening. That was happening right now.
Unbuckling his seat belt on the empty flight to Mexico City, Carlin considered his only mistake; he probably should have killed all three. Should have waited until Dick, the other houseman, came in for duty the next day and murdered him in a clean and decisive way, one shot through the temple with a gloved hand, then put the gun into Dick’s palm and make it look with the two dirty murders and the one very clean one like a classic murder-and-suicide of the sort that would have kept the cops at bay for weeks, possibly permanently. But then again, calculating everything in the intricate and brilliant arena of his mind where the lights played and dazzled now and all was almost music, then there would have been a search for him even more intensified than it would have been otherwise. They would have feared that he was the fourth victim. His every move would have been watched.
Whereas this way, with Joe and Janice dead, with Dick discovering the bodies, there was a very good likelihood that it would all be pinned on Dick … and they would not believe his denials, would not believe either that he simply hadn’t stashed Carlin’s body somewhere, really deep-sixed it because his would have been the important corpse, the one they would really have hung him for. Oh, that was brilliant thinking, Carlin thought, and wrung his hands, gave a little bubbling giggle. He did not know how truly shrewd he had been. Trust the subconscious, that was all. Always rely upon, go back to the subconscious in times of stress and if you had taken care of it, it would take care of you. He had taken care of his subconscious, all right, feeding on Janice’s enormous tits for all these years, boobs that were so big it was ridiculous for a grown man to be sucking around on them … but his subconscious had been pleased and alerted by his efforts; his subconscious had been well sated. Had returned the favor. Carlin giggled again.
And now Montez would take care of him. Montez would offer him sanctuary, a peace so complete that it would become his life. In a villa on a mountaintop high off Mexico City he could live a life of ease with a man who owed him many favors until such time as he chose, on his own terms, to emerge. Montez would be happy, would in that curiously formal way of his be honored, he would say. And who knew? You left it up to the subconscious as always and the subconscious took good care of you … who knew but that he might not deal with Montez too at an auspicious moment? He had the weaponry, he had the respect, he would have the opportunity. A lot of servants, but timing was everything in these things. He could add Mexico City to his own Southwest. Damn the middleman. Why pay Montez money for shuttling when he could shuttle—and pay—himself?
He wrung his hands in ecstasy, his eyes blinking, and the stewardess came over, looked at him as if he were in pain. She was very young and unsure of herself. All these Mexican stewardesses seemed to be. “Can I get you something, sir?” she said.
Carlin put on his best smile and looked up at her. He knew he was a handsome man. That assurance had always been deep in him; hadn’t Janice often said that he was as good a fuck as he was good-looking? Not that he wanted to get involved with the stewardess, have her remember him on this flight, that would be stupid … but still, it was irresistible. “I would like to put my head on your chest,” he said.
She backpedalled, not too easy in a jet at speed, her eyes round. “Can I get you a drink?” she said. “What kind of drink did you say you would like?”
“I do not want a drink,” Carlin said formally. “I did not ask for a drink; I asked for the privilege of putting my head on your chest.” Montez would have phrased it this way and with a little bow. “Of course if you find that so impossible—”
The stewardess was still moving away from him. The five or six other passengers, half-hidden behind enormous seats had turned, he could see the edges of profiles showing like flowers peering through crevices in a wall. “I will get you a drink,” the stewardess said, “but if you make difficulties for me in flight I must warn you that I will be forced to notify the pilot and the copilot and a full report will be made on landing.”
Shit. All of it was shit; Carlin felt his mood beginning to turn rancid on him, turn inside out like a shirt collar. There was no fun or satisfaction anywhere. “I don’t want a drink,” he said to her loudly. “If I wanted a drink I would have asked for it. You would have known that I wanted a drink; I can make my needs known perfectly well.”
“Sir,” the little stewardess said, “I will get you a pillow and you can rest your head. I—”
“I don’t want to rest my head,” Carlin said. “I feel perfectly all right. Do you think there’s anything wrong with my head? I mean, is that your implication?”
This is foolish, he thought. It was important that he make this flight as inconspicuously as possible; he did not even want Montez to know that he was coming until he came out of the plane and phoned him … and yet there he was carrying on a scene with a stewardess who was barely old enough to be his daughter. She could not treat him this way. No one could treat him like this; they did not have the right. If she knew what kind of man he was, what he had accomplished, what he had done, and why he was on this plane, she would treat him in a different manner, all right.
That was for sure. “Come here,” he said and reached forward, got a corner of her skirt in his hand, tugged. She backed away, the skirt coming from between his fingers. The passengers were looking more intently now; their faces, still flowerlike, had popped all the way from behind their seats. He felt fixated, locked in this gaze. The stewardess backed away. Suddenly Carlin was filled with hopelessness and a kind of revulsion. He had no business carrying on this way. It wasn’t doing him any good at all. The stewardess was moving toward the flight cabin. “Look,” Carlin said to her, “look, please. I’m sorry.”
She turned. “You can’t do this,” she said, “you can’t do this kind of thing to me.”
“I know that,” he said, “I shouldn’t have done it. I’m not feeling well. It must be the altitude.”
“Stewardesses are not your servants. We are professional employees and entitled to be treated as professionals.”
“Oh yes,” Carlin said, “oh yes.” He swung in his seat. “I’m not used to flying,” he said, “it must be that I’m very scared, I’d never act this way any other time.”
Her face buckled into something more accessible, even pitying. He had found the right line to take. Stewardesses, pilots, all airline employees liked that. Experienced travelers liked nothing better than seeing someone getting sick in a cabin, as long as it was panic and there was no cause for it. “It happens to the best of us, sir,” she said.
“I think I will take that pillow, now.”
“Good,” she said, “good. I’ll get you that.” She went back up the aisle, turning from him quite gracefully, right at the pilot’s cabin and into some alcove where the pillows were undoubtedly kept. The passengers had sunk beneath the seat-line again. But that was too close, Carlin thought. That was much closer than I really want to play this.
He gripped himself in his seat and sat there for a while, the plane bouncing a little in flight, wondering if he had misunderstood this situation … and if he had really lost control of himself.