Bernhardt's Edge (6 page)

“What is it?” Dancer was asking.

“It's her,” Bernhardt answered, instinctively drawing back from the window as he watched the man lock the door to number twelve and follow Betty Giles along a brick walk toward the motel's coffee shop. “It's her,” he repeated. “And they're going to the coffee shop, not even leaving in the car. So everything's cool.” As he said it, he was aware of the small, secret rush he'd always felt, on first sighting. It was a primitive pleasure, he realized: an elemental huntsman's thrill, catching his first clear glimpse of an elusive prey.

“Good,” Dancer was saying. “
Good
.”

N
AKED EXCEPT FOR A
pair of mulberry-colored bikini briefs, Willis Dodge lifted his chin, sucked in his stomach, arched his back, clasped his hands together, and tensed his torso, the muscleman's trick, posing for beefcake. Critically eyeing the head-to-toe effect in the bathroom's mirrored wall, his attention centered on the waist. Yes, there was a thickening, especially on each side, just above the hip bones. Holding the pose, he turned a quarter to the left, checking the stomach.

“
A quarter turn to the left, guys
,” the loudspeaker had blared. “
Give us a profile, how about it
?”

In the voice—the sergeant's voice, amplified—he'd heard it all: the boredom, the hate, the total indifference, the cheerful, impersonal cruelty, and, always, the casual contempt. Because at that time, in that place, they were two different kinds of people, the officer and the inmates. Nine to five, the sergeant knew he was going home that night. Whoever waited for him, whatever waited, the sergeant would be going home to something—anything.

But in his cell that same night, Willis Dodge had felt the loneliness close in on him, a vise, clamped across his chest, a fist, squeezing him dry.

He'd cried, that night. He'd been seventeen, as tough as they come, he'd thought. But he'd cried. He'd thought about his mother, and he'd cried. And his father, too—the father he'd never seen—he'd thought about him, too, the man without a face.

He let his muscles relax, took a white terry-cloth robe from an ornate golden hook, slipped into the robe, cinched in the belt at the waist, lifted the collar snug around his neck. The robe smelled laundry-fresh. It was a smell he needed, one more proof that, yes, he'd gotten it all. In eleven years, dating from that same night in his cell, that first time he'd ever been arrested, beginning probably with those hot, desperate tears of loneliness, of utter terror, he'd never looked back. He was twenty-eight now, with money in the bank, clothes in the closet, a BMW in the garage—and a white woman in his bed, whenever he felt like making the call.

Willis Dodge…

Black, beautiful Willis Dodge…

Black, beautiful, rich Willis Dodge.

Once a month, at least, he visited the old neighborhood, never at night, because of the BMW, always in the daytime, so he could see the car through his mother's front window. He always—

From the living room, he heard the telephone warbling. As he walked down the hallway, he checked the time: a little after eight. In a half hour, Diane would be there.

Leaving the living room in darkness so he could see the city's sparkling skyscape, he lifted the phone from its cradle.

“Is this Mr. Fisher?”

Fisher.
Meaning that “Mr. Carter” was calling.

“Yes, this is Mr. Fisher.”

“Well, we've—” A small, nervous pause. Good. Nervousness meant more money, more profit. Always.

“We've found him for you,” the voice said. “He's in—ah—California. Northern California, a town called Santa Rosa. That's about fifty miles north of San Francisco.”

“Good. That's good. I can take care of it right away. How d'you want to arrange it?”

“You want—ah—half now, up front. Is that right? Cash?”

Willis Dodge nodded. “Yes. Just right.”

“Well, what about if we—ah—if I send someone up to San Francisco—the San Francisco airport. I'll give him the money, and all the information, in a sealed envelope. You could meet there, at the airport. Then you could rent a car, drive up to Santa Rosa.”

“That's fine,” Dodge said. “The airport, that's fine. But I want you to come, Mr. Carter. Just you.” He spoke softly, distinctly. “I don't deal with flunkies. I already told you that, the last time we talked.”

“Oh. Well—” A cough. “Well, yes. I—ah—yes, that'll be—” Another cough. “That'll be fine.”

“Are you calling from a pay phone?”

“Yes, I am.”

“Okay. I'll make a reservation, and call you back in a few minutes. I think I can get out tonight. It's only six o'clock, your time. If I can get there by midnight, one o'clock, can you have the money?”

“Yes—”

“Okay. I'll see what I can do. Maybe you'd better stay in the phone booth, pretend you're talking. If I can work it out, get a reservation, it won't take long. Then I'll call you. One way or the other, I'll call you.”

“Yes—”

“All right. What's the number?” As he spoke, Dodge switched on the antique brass desk lamp, the lamp he'd just bought, for five hundred dollars. He copied down the phone number, repeated it, broke the connection, slid open the center desk drawer, and took out an airline schedule. He spread the schedule on the desk and tapped-out the number for American, his favorite airline. As he waited for the connection, he ran his fingers lightly over the intricately tooled leather top of the antique desk. Price: eight thousand dollars, at auction.

L
YING FULL LENGTH ON
the king-size bed, pillows propped behind her head, she watched the TV screen, seeing figures that meant nothing, hearing sounds that didn't register. Through the thin door, she was aware of Nick's bathroom sounds: his urine splashing in the toilet, his flatulence, finally the sound of the toilet flushing, followed by water running as he washed his hands.

After a big dinner, Nick frequently relieved himself. And in the mornings, too. Always, in the mornings. For Nick, regularity was a major preoccupation.

Now he would be standing before the bathroom mirror, carefully combing his hair, wetting the comb under the tap, critically examining the effect, arranging and rearranging, fitfully frowning. At age thirty-six, Nick was beginning to lose his hair. In the year they'd been together, the hair loss had been obvious. And, yes, the rate of loss was accelerating.

And, yes, it bothered him. A lot.

Because, yes, Nick was a vain man, therefore secretly a vulnerable man. In Porterville, a valley town just north of Bakersfield, he'd been a star high-school athlete. He'd been co-captain of the football team in his junior year—the same year he'd scored his first piece of ass. Of course, according to Nick, the girl had been a cheerleader, a blonde sophomore with the biggest boobs on the squad.

The biggest, the best. Whatever it was, Nick had to have it—have it, or believe he'd had it.

It was, she realized, a braggart's giveaway, a telltale admission of insecurity that would always dog him. When she was a young girl, still in grade school, she'd felt the same need to brag, to make up the stories of classroom triumphs that she would take home to her mother. Even in high school, still searching for an identity, desperately trying to impress others, she had invented petty triumphs. Some of the stories she told to her mother, but most she told to other girls.

God, how she'd envied them, the other girls who seemed so incredibly secure, so supremely self-confident, therefore so blasé. She could still remember the names: Angie Hill, so smart, so vivacious; Helen Patterson, so friendly, so sunny, so popular; Maxine Leamy, so beautiful, so incredibly assured. Once, when she was a junior, Helen Patterson had invited her to a pajama party. She'd been ecstatic, hardly able to believe it would really happen. But then, lying in bed that night, three nights before the party, the terrible truth had struck: If she went to Helen's, and to Maxine's, and Angle's, then she must reciprocate, must invite them to her mother's small, dark, third-floor apartment, must introduce them to her mother, of whom she was ashamed.

At the thought, the shameful memory, she closed her eyes, bit her lip, fought back a sudden sob. Because it was now, only now, at age thirty-three, that she finally realized how much her mother loved her. Only now, during these last terrible days, these deadly dangerous nights, did she realize, fully realize, that in all the world only her mother really cared for her. That fat woman, living alone with her two cats and her enormous TV and her grotesquely ruffled furniture—someone named Nora, who had briefly loved someone named Charlie Giles—that woman named Nora was all she had. And she was all her mother had. They'd started together, and might end together. Because the clocks were ticking: the temporal clocks and the biological clocks.

And, somewhere, a murderer's clock was ticking, too.

Because if the wages of sin were death, then the wages of stupidity were—

The bathroom door opened. Wearing only his Calvin Klein jeans, Nick stood motionless for a moment in the doorway. He was a solidly built man, slightly bandy-legged, with bulging shoulders, a short, muscular neck, and strong, short-fingered hands that he carried away from his body, as if he were ready to defend himself. His face was self-indulgent, heavily handsome, with dark, thick eyebrows, a wide, muscle-bunched jaw. The mouth was thick-lipped, the nose was short and broad. But if the face was heavy, often combative, the eyes were a clear, vivid, celestial blue. And the voice was quiet—tight, often, but seldom harsh, almost never loud.

“What's that?” He gestured to the TV. “I think I saw it.” He frowned, looked at the screen. Charlton Heston was driving alone through dark, deserted city streets. A submachine gun lay on the seat beside him. “I
did
see it. What's the name of it?”

She shook her head, shrugged. “I don't know. I haven't been paying attention.”

“I know I saw it.” Still watching the screen, he stepped to the closet, took a plaid sports shirt from a hanger, took a clean undershirt from a drawer. She watched the play of his muscles as he slipped into the undershirt.

The feel of his muscles straining against her naked body was part of her permanent consciousness, she realized, her secret obsession. Constantly, she—

“
Soylent Green
,” he said, snapping his fingers. “It's one of those after-the-atomic-war things. Ten, twelve years old, something like that.” As he spoke, he unbuckled his tooled leather belt, unbuttoned his jeans, began tucking in his sports shirt. On the TV screen, Charlton Heston was striding purposefully across piles of rubble, his machine gun cradled in the crook of his arm. She looked away from the screen, away from Nick, who now sat in the room's single easy chair.

“Why don't you turn it off?” she said.

Eyes still on the screen, he let a long, deliberate beat pass before he looked at her. “Where's
TV Guide
?” he asked. “Maybe there's something else on.”

“I want to talk, Nick. We've got to talk.”

He sighed petulantly, got up, switched off the TV, returned to the easy chair, which he swiveled to face her. As if the dead TV screen had snapped some essential connection with the make-believe world beyond, she saw his face sag, saw his eyes go suddenly hollow. This, she knew, was the face of fear.

And in her face, certainly, he could see the same sag of fear, the same emptiness behind the eyes.

She sat straighter in the bed, drew up her legs. She was wearing a T-shirt, and she saw his eyes drop appreciatively to her breasts. Sometimes she thought her breasts were all that drew them together. Sometimes it seemed that, since her teenage years, the swell of her breasts was her sole definition. Did her identity depend on the stares she could attract? Did any woman's? Was anything else a self-deceiving illusion? A scholar had once written that, when man began walking upright, the relationship between the sexes began to equalize, because intercourse was then accomplished face-to-face. It was, the scholar had continued, the essential difference between men and the apes. Then he'd gone on to equate the buttocks of apes with the breasts of women, both contrived to invite the male, quicken his sexual appetite, the buttocks inviting intercourse from the rear, the breasts inviting “frontal entry,” as the scholar had put it.

“We've got to go back,” she said. “This isn't any good. We can't live like this.”

His eyes darkened. “You can go back if you want to. I'm not going back. Christ, they tried to
kill
me. Can't you get that through your head?”

“It could've been robbery, Nick. Attempted robbery.”

Emphatically, he shook his head. “No. He was going to kill me. That's all he wanted to do. I was lucky, just plain goddam lucky. But I'm not going to give them another chance. It's easy for you to say we should go back. You're not the one they're after.”

“I can square it, though, make it right. I know I can make it right, if we go back.”

“You're kidding yourself, Betty. For all you know, you could be next. Me, then you. It makes sense. Perfect sense. Think about it.”

“I'm willing to take the chance. It's all we can do. It's either that, or keep running.”

“You might be willing to take the chance. But I'm not.”

“I want to call him. I want to tell him you're sorry—
we're
sorry.”

“Sorry.” Contemptuously, he shook his head. “Christ, you make it sound like a—a kid's prank, what we did. A game.”

“It's what you did, Nick. You. Not ‘us.'”

“
Christ
!” He jumped to his feet, paced furiously to the door, turned to face her. “Is this what it's going to be like—blaming me, putting everything on me? I thought—Christ, I thought we—” He gritted his teeth, chopped the air with a flattened hand.