“I just wondered if you’d heard the news,” I said.
Nothing showed in her face. You couldn’t read it.
She shook her head. “What was it?”
“That deputy sheriff finally came around.” I struck
a match with my thumbnail and lit the cigarette in
my mouth. “And they found Diana James.”
“Oh? Well, naturally they would, sooner or later.”
“Yeah,” I said. “And it was funny. At first they
thought it was you
“They did?” she asked curiously. “But we didn’t
look anything alike. She—” She stopped and did
another take on it. “I see what you mean. The fire.”
I had to admire it. If she was acting, she was
magnificent.
“That’s right,” I said. “You see, that deputy
recognized you. And somebody heard the shots. So
when they found the body there, they naturally
thought it was you. But then they found her name
engraved inside her wristwatch.”
“Oh,” she said. You could write your own
interpretation. It could mean she believed it, or it
could mean she’d already heard the actual news on
the radio and was laughing herself sick inside. That
was what made it terrible. You might never know for
sure until you woke up with a kitchen knife in your
throat.
A Touch of Death — 166
“Well, save the paper,” she said carelessly. “I’ll
read it when I’m through here.”
“Oh, damn,” I said. “I forgot it. I went off and left
it in the lunchroom. But that’s all there was.”
She shrugged and went back into the bathroom.
She’d be busy there for a few minutes, at least.
This was the chance I needed. I went into the
kitchen and got a butcher knife out of the drawer.
While I was at it, I counted them. There were two of
the long ones, one short paring knife, and an ice
pick. And the scissors, I thought. Any time I didn’t
know where all those things were, I’d better start
watching behind me.
I shot a glance back into the living room. She was
still in the bathroom. I slipped in and picked up the
radio off the table. I pulled the cord from the
receptacle in the wall. Hurriedly loosening the two
screws in back on the underside, I pried up the rear
of the chassis enough to get the blade of the knife in
under it I shoved and sliced, feeling wires and parts
give way. Then I retightened the screws and plugged
it back in. I set it right where it had been before, and
took the knife back to the kitchen.
It was about ten minutes before she came out of
the bathroom. She had a towel wrapped around her
head. She lit a cigarette and stood watching me.
“I don’t think my hair will look nearly so ragged as
soon as it sets,” she said. “And the color came out
nicely. Did you notice?”
“Yes,” I said.
“It’s odd what a change of exterior will do. I feel
like an entirely different person. As if I were
somebody else, and Madelon Butler were dead.”
There was no way to tell how she meant it. It
might be perfectly innocent, or she might be very
subtly tightening the screws on me. The only thing I
knew for sure was that mind of hers was dangerous.
I’d seen enough of its work by now.
“Well, that was the general idea,” I said.
A Touch of Death — 167
She sat down, switched on the radio, and leaned
back. “Let’s see if there’s any news.”
The radio started to warm up. Then smoke began
to pour out of the cabinet.
“Hey,” I said, “turn it off! The damn things burning
up”
She switched it off and looked innocently across at
me. “Isn’t that odd?” she said. “It was all right a
little while ago.”
“Must have a short in it,” I said. “I’ll take it to a
shop in the morning and have it fixed.”
“Do you think it’ll take long?”
“No,” I said. “Probably get it back in two or three
days.”
“That long? Perhaps you could rent one while it’s
being repaired. Or buy a new one.”
“Why?” I asked. “You afraid you’ll miss the soap
operas?”
“No. I just feel so isolated without it.” She smiled.
“Cut off from the world, you know, as if I didn’t
know what was going on.”
“I’ll tell you what’s going on. And you can read the
papers.”
She’d like hell read the papers.
Again I tried to guess how much she knew. There
was just no way to tell. I began to hate that lovely,
imperturbable face. Everywhere I looked it was
mocking me. It showed nothing. Absolutely nothing.
Inside she could be laughing, just waiting for a
chance to kill me.
If she knew, all she had to do was wait for me to
go to sleep and let me have it. She would have
committed the perfect crime. In my pocket were the
three keys to all that money, and I was the only
remaining person on earth who knew she was still
alive. She could walk out, take the money from the
boxes, and leisurely board a plane to anywhere she
wanted to go.
It could drive you crazy just thinking about it.
A Touch of Death — 168
I was wanted by the police for killing her, but she
could kill me and walk off with $120,000, and
nobody would even look for her.
Not for Madelon Butler, because she was dead.
Not for Susie Mumble, because she had been born
here in this room and nobody else knew she existed.
It was insane. But there it was.
But did she know?
She had probably planned the whole thing the
exact instant Diana James had dropped her flashlight
there in the basement and we had seen her face as
she reached to pick it up. She’d put it all together in
that short fraction of a second—the deputy’s
recognizing her, what would happen if the house
burned, all of it.
But, still, could she be sure it had worked? Diana
James might have been wearing a watch with her
name inside it, as I had said. How could she tell? But
I knew by now what kind of mind I was dealing with.
For one thing, she could be carefully adding up all
these little things: my forgetting to bring in the
paper, the strange way the radio had conked out so
conveniently.
And, of course, there was always the chance that
she had heard the whole thing on the radio during
the afternoon. If she had, she was laughing.
I started around the circle again. If she did know, I
didn’t dare go to sleep. If she didn’t know, I had to
keep her from learning. That meant she had to stay
in here where she couldn’t see a paper until she was
out of the news, two or three days, or maybe longer.
That, in turn, meant waiting to get at the money,
not being able to run. And how much waiting did I
think I could take, never knowing from one hour to
the next when Charisse Finley might remember who
I was?
I could feel the skin along my spine contract with
chill at the thought. I couldn’t take it. I’d go raving
mad sitting here hour after hour just waiting for
them to knock on the door. I was even in the phone
A Touch of Death — 169
book. All they’d have to do was drive out here and
walk in.
And all the time they’d be hammering at Charisse
Finley. Where did you see him? Or his picture? Try
to remember. Think. Maybe he was in the papers.
About how long ago? Try to guess. A big guy who
looked like he’d slept in his face? Maybe he was a
pug. Try some pictures of fighters, Joe. How about
football players?
We couldn’t wait. I had to get out of here. I’d take
her down to the banks as soon as they opened in the
morning. I’d wear dark glasses and stay in the car,
parking as close to each one as possible, making her
go right in and out again. She wouldn’t have a
chance to get at a paper. Not until after we’d got the
money, anyway; and afterward it wouldn’t matter.
Just let her try to hold out any of it or get it back.
I couldn’t sit still any longer. I could feel pressure
building up inside me as if I were going to explode. I
went into the kitchen and mixed two drinks. I’d tell
her the plans were changed. But I had to make it
sound reasonable, not let her know what I was afraid
of.
I brought the drinks in and gave her one.
Then, before I could think of how to start, she
glanced thoughtfully at me, frowning a little, and
said, “Do you remember asking me about the names
those boxes were rented under?”
I had started to taste the drink. Something about
the way she said it made me stop. “Yes,” I said.
“Why?”
She hesitated just slightly. “Well, I. . . I mean,
something has been bothering me, and the more I
puzzle about it, the more confused I become. You
see, I had it all written down.”
“Confused about what?” I demanded.
“The names. I—”
“Look,” I snapped at her, “don’t try to tell me
you’ve forgotten ‘em. You knew ‘em this afternoon.”
A Touch of Death — 170
She shook her head. “No. It’s not that. I remember
them perfectly. But, you see, there are three banks
and three names, and now I’m not certain which
goes with which.”
It was just as if she had read my mind. I held the
glass in my hand and stared at her.
A Touch of Death — 171
Eighteen
What was she trying to do?
That was what made it awful. You didn’t know.
There was no way you could know.
Maybe she had heard the news and was trying to
break my nerve and make me run. But why? If I ran,
and took the keys with me, she’d never get the
money. That couldn’t be it.
Maybe she was stalling so we’d be here long
enough for me to break down from sheer exhaustion
and finally go to sleep, so she could kill me. But in
that case, didn’t she know that if we waited too long
and the police did get here they’d find her too?
Waiting was just as dangerous for her as it was for
me. No, it was more so, because if they found her
here alive I’d no longer be charged with murder, but
she would.
Maybe she did know it but was still cold-nerved
enough to play out a bluff like that until everybody
else had quit. Maybe she was going to let it work on
me, the fear and the suspense and the waiting, until
I was actually afraid to go out on the street where
the cops were looking for me. Maybe I’d crack wide
open, give the keys to her, and ask her to get the
stuff out of the boxes and be stupid enough to expect
her to come back here with it.
A Touch of Death — 172
Or maybe she was just sweating me a little before
reviewing our contract. Perhaps she wanted to
renegotiate the terms, using a little pressure here
and there.
There were just two things I was sure of. One was
that she wasn’t mixed up about those names. Not
with a mind like hers. And the other was that I
couldn’t let her know she had me worried.
I took a sip of the drink. “Well, I’ll tell you,” I said.
“That looks like something that comes under the
heading of your problem. You remember what I told
you? If there was any monkey business about that
money, hell wouldn’t hold you. So what are you
doing about it?”
“What do you think I’m doing?” she asked coldly.
“I’m trying to remember. I’ve been racking my
brains all afternoon.”
“And just how long do you think you’ll have to rack
‘em before you come up with the answer?”
“How do I know?”
I lit a cigarette. “Well, there are two very simple
solutions to it,” I said. “The first one is known as the
Blue Method. I just take your throat between my
hands and squeeze it until your face turns the color
of a ripe grape. When you’re able to breathe again,
everything comes back to you. It’s a great memory
aid. Something scientific about fresh oxygen in the
brain.
“The second one is even simpler. As soon as the
banks open in the morning you just pick up the
phone and ask ‘em. It’s easier on the neck too.”
“That would be nice, wouldn’t it?” she said icily.
“Just give the bank a list of names, and ask if any of
those people had a safe-deposit box there? You know
they don’t give out information like that.”
I shook my head. “You don’t ask that way. You
know how to do it as well as I do, but just to give you
an out so we don’t have to use the hard way, I’ll tell
you. Call the Third National. You’re Mrs. Henry L.
Carstairs. You can’t remember whether or not you
A Touch of Death — 173
received a notice that your box rent was due. Would
they please look it up? Either they’ll say it’s paid up
until next July, or they’ll say they can’t find any
record of your having a box there. In which case you
say you’re so sorry, you keep forgetting your
husband transferred it to another bank.
“Then you call the Merchant’s Trust, and try
again.”
She nodded coolly. “Precisely. And if Mrs.
Carstairs is lucky, she finds it there. Then one more
call to the third bank, using either Mrs. Hatch’s
name or Mrs. Manning’s, will have established all
three of them with one call to each bank, no matter
which way the last one answers. I know all that. It’s
elementary.
“But suppose I’m not lucky, and they still say no to
Mrs. Carstairs at the Merchant’s Trust? We know, of
course, by the process of elimination, that she has to
be at the Seaboard Bank and Trust. But that still
leaves the first two blank, with two names, which
means starting around again. One more call, to
either of them, will do it, but that may be just one
call too many.
“Don’t forget that all those boxes are rented under
fictitious names, I have no identification at all, my
appearance has changed, and I am a fugitive from
justice with my picture on the front pages. Anything
that makes them take a second look at me when I go
in there is dangerous.”
She had the answers, all right. She always had the
answers. And she knew I wouldn’t tell her she was
no longer a fugitive.
“That’s right,” I said. “But look at it this way. The
chances are exactly two to one that you’ll find Mrs.
Carstairs on the first two calls. Isn’t that better than
telling me you can’t get that money? That way, you
haven’t got any chance at all.”
“You will persist in trying to frighten me, won’t
you?”
I got up from the sofa and walked across to her.
She sat looking up. Our eyes met.
A Touch of Death — 174
“I’ve come a long way after that money,” I said.
“I’ve taken a lot of chances. I want it. So don’t get in
my way. I’m not playing any more.”
I reached down and caught her by the throat. She
didn’t fight. She knew the futility of that. The eyes
stared at me with their cool disdain.
I intended only to frighten her. But it began to get
out of control. I tightened the hands. She’d try to
cheat me out of it, would she, the mocking, arrogant,
double-crossing little witch?
The room swam around me. She was beating at my
arms, trying to reach my face. Make a fool of me,
would she? I hated her. I wanted to kill her. My arms
trembled; I could hear the roaring of wind in my
throat.
Something snapped me out of it just in time. Some
glimmer of sanity far back in my mind screamed at
me to stop and made me let go of her throat before it
was too late. I stood up, trying to control the wild
trembling of my hands.
Good God, what had happened? I’d started to go
crazy. I’d nearly killed her. And the only thing on
earth that could save me if the police did catch me
was the fact that she was still alive. And if I killed
her I’d never get that money.
But I couldn’t let her know how it had scared me. I
turned away and lit another cigarette. When I looked
around again she was sitting up, struggling to get
her breath.
I was all right now. “That give you an idea?” I
asked.
She said nothing until she had recovered and
completely regained her composure. She
straightened her clothing.
“That’s the only language you speak, isn’t it?” she
said at last.
“It’s one we both understand,” I said. “Think it
over. Maybe you can remember how those names
go.”
A Touch of Death — 175
“I’ll probably get them straight, in time. But what’s
the hurry? We have a whole month, don’t we?”
“I’ve changed my mind. This is too close to all
those damned cops looking for you. I want to get
farther away.”
“So you want me to go out on the street while my
picture is still on the front pages? Considerate,
aren’t you?”
“I tell you, we’ve got to get out of here!”
“And,” she went on calmly, “might I remind you of
the terms of our agreement, Mr. Scarborough? You
were to keep me hidden here for at least a month
before I had to go out.”
“Listen,” I said, my voice beginning to grow loud.
“I tell you—” Tell her what? That I was the one the
police were looking for?
Maybe she was deliberately trying to drive me
crazy.
Suddenly, from nowhere at all, I remembered what
that blonde had said. “You’ll never get that money.
You don’t know who you’re dealing with. Before it’s
all over, one of you will kill the other.”
I wanted to jump up and run out in the street to
get away from her before I went out of my mind and
killed her.
Go out in the street? Where every cop in the state
was looking for me and had my description?
Sit here, then, with those cool, inscrutable eyes
watching me squirm, mocking me? Sit here, waiting
hour after hour for the knock on the door that would
be the first warning I’d ever have that Charisse
Finley had remembered who I was at last?
Sit here and go slowly mad thinking of three safedeposit
boxes stuffed with fat bundles of money
being held just out of my reach by this maddening
witch?
How long before you broke?
* * *
A Touch of Death — 176
After a while she went to bed.
I made a pot of coffee and watched the hours
crawl around the face of the electric clock on the
bookshelf. I began to imagine I could hear it. It made
a tiny snoring sound. The ashtray filled up with
butts. The room was blue with drifting layers of
smoke.
I would sit still until my nerves were screaming;
then I would walk the floor. Three or four times I
heard sirens crying somewhere in the city and each
time the breath would stop in my throat in spite of
the fact that I knew if they came they wouldn’t be
using sirens. On a thing like this they came quietly,
covered the front and rear exits, and two of them
came up and knocked on the door.
It was the elevator that was terrible. The
apartment was only two doors away from it and I
could hear it, very faintly, if it stopped on this floor
and the doors opened. I began to catch myself
listening for it. I held my breath listening for it. I
imagined I heard it.
Then I would hear it, really hear it, the doors
opening softly as it stopped. I waited for the
footsteps.
There were never any footsteps because the hall
was deeply carpeted. The elevator doors opened and
then there was only silence, silence that went up and
up, increasing, like a scream.
Which way had they gone?
I waited, counting.
Was it twelve steps? Fifteen? I waited, not even
able to breathe now with the pressure building up in
my chest, my nerves pulling tighter and tighter,
waiting for the knock on the door.
Ten. . .eleven. . .fourteen. . .seventeen. .
.twenty. . .
They had gone the other way. Or gone on by.
I would be weak and drenched with sweat, a
cigarette burning my fingers.
I would relax a little.
A Touch of Death — 177
Then I would begin listening for the elevator to
stop again.
* * *
It was morning.
It was Friday morning. This was our last chance
until Monday. The banks here were closed all day
Saturday in summer.
She came down the hall from the bedroom. She
was wearing the blouse and skirt again, and her hair
was out of the curlers. It was red, all right, a rich
shade of red, in tight, burnished ringlets close to her
head, as if the whole thing had been sculptured from
one ingot of pure copper.
She smiled. “Pretty, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” I said, “very pretty. How about those
names?”
“My face is a little tanned already, too. Did you
notice?”
I stood facing her, blocking her way. “The hell with
your face.”
Her eyebrows rose coolly. “You appear to be in
your usual bad mood. Didn’t you sleep well?”
“I slept fine,” I said. “I asked you a question. Have
you got those names straightened out yet?”
“Would it inconvenience you too much if I had a
cup of coffee before you started hounding me about
it?”
She had a cup of coffee in the kitchen, black coffee
with a slug of whisky in it. I sat down across from
her.
“Are you going to call those banks?” I asked.
“Only as a last resort. I’ll think about it some more
first.”
“Don’t you know that the more you think about it,
the more mixed up you’ll get?”
She shook her head. “No. You see, when I wrote
them down, with the names of the banks, I
remembered the last names came in alphabetical
A Touch of Death — 178
order— Carstairs, Hatch, and Manning—and what
I’m trying to remember now is whether the banks
actually came in the order in which I went into them.
I can almost see the list. It’s so tantalizing—at times
I’m positive I visualize it exactly as it was.”
“Where is the list?” I demanded.
She shrugged. “It was in the house. I forgot to pick
it up.”
“You forgot!”
“Nobody is perfect.” She smiled. “Even the great
Mr. Scarborough forgot to bring in the paper he
bought.”
There it was again, that subtle needling. She
knew, all right. She was laughing at me.
I leaned across the table. “Don’t stall me,” I said.
“I can’t take much more of you. Are you trying to
beat me out of that money?”
“Why should I?” she asked, wide-eyed. “If you
carry out your end of the bargain, I can assure you
I’ll carry out mine.”
“All right,” I said. “All right. Quit stalling.”
“I’m not,” she said. “I’m positive that before the
end of the month I will have remembered how they
go.”
I stared at her through a red mist of rage. I
wanted to smash that hateful face with my hands.
“Before it’s all over one of you will kill the other.”
I pushed back from the table, choking.
“By the way,” she said calmly, “I thought you were
going to take the radio out and have it repaired.”
I grabbed up the radio and fled.
It was like one of those dreams where you discover
yourself walking out onto a stage naked before a
thousand people. The minute I stepped onto the
sidewalk I began to cringe. I was not only naked, I
was skinless.
I forced myself to walk slowly to the car. When I
was inside it wasn’t quite so bad. I drove as if the
car were held together with paper clips.
A Touch of Death — 179
A man was selling papers on a corner. I stopped,
hit the horn, and passed him a nickel without
looking at him as he handed the paper in. I couldn’t
look at it now. I drove on, out the beach. The city
began to drop away behind me. It was a bright,
sunlit day with a soft breeze blowing in off the Gulf.
There were few cars now. I pulled out of the tracks
and stopped among the dunes. Opening the paper
was like digging up an unexploded bomb.
I looked at it.
She hadn’t remembered yet. There was no picture.
But there wouldn’t be, I thought. I’d be in jail
before they gave the story to the papers.
“MYSTERY SLAYER SOUGHT,” the headline said.
There was nothing new. They had just put the
story together, with the evidence they had and what
Charisse Finley had told them. Mrs. Butler and I had
gone back to the house to pick up the money, and as
soon as I got it I killed her and set fire to the house
in an attempt to cover it up.
It was airtight. How else could they figure it?
I looked around. There were no cars in sight. I got
out, carrying the radio, and walked through the
dunes toward the line of brush and scrubby salt
cedars back from the beach. I threw the radio into it.
“Hey, mister,” a boy’s voice said, “why’d you throw
away your radio?”
I whirled. A boy of ten or twelve had come out of
the bushes carrying a .22 rifle. He walked over to
the radio and picked it up.
I looked at him, stupefied. Where had he come
from? Then another boy walked out of the tangle of
cedar ten yards away. He was carrying a rifle too.
“Hey, Eddie,” the first one called. “Lookit the
radio. This man just threw it away. Can we have it,
mister?”
I tried to think of something. My mouth felt dry. It
was ridiculous. The whole thing was insane.
“It’s no good,” I said at last. “It won’t play”
A Touch of Death — 180
They stared at each other. “Why didn’t you have it
fixed?”
“I tell you, it’s no good!” I suddenly realized I was
shouting angrily. I turned and ran back to the car.
I drove carefully and very slowly through the city,
fighting every yard of the way against the almost
unbearable longing to slam the accelerator to the
floor and get back inside the apartment quicker, to
pull the walls in around me and hide.
And when I got inside and closed the door I was in
a trap. I could feel it tightening. This was where they
would come to get me.
And she was there.
She was deliberately trying to drive me mad. Or
kill me.
A Touch of Death — 181
Nineteen
Friday. . .
Through the endless hot afternoon I watched her,
listening always for the sound of the elevator in the
corridor. She lay on the rug in the sun with the
sleeves of her pajamas rolled up, and rubbed suntan
lotion on her face. After she had tanned for a while
she put on the high-heeled shoes and practiced the
hip-crawling walk of Susie Mumble. She went up and
down the living room before me for hours, working
for just the exact amount of slow and tantalizing
swing.
She stopped to light a cigarette. “How’m I doin’?”
She asked.
“All right, all right. You catch on fast.”
“That was a brilliant idea you had,” she said. “How
do you feel, having created Susie Mumble? Like
some great director? Or perhaps as Pygmalion must
have felt?” Then she stopped and said thoughtfully,
as if to herself, “No, I guess not. Hardly as
Pygmalion. He fell in love with Galatea, didn’t he?”
“I wouldn’t know. They haven’t made a comic book
of it yet.”
“Don’t reproach me with that, please. I was nasty.
I’m sorry.”
A Touch of Death — 182
So we were having a sweet phase? What was she
up to now?
“I’m beginning to feel the part,” she said. “And the
way to feel it is to live it, as Stanislavski says. I’m
not acting Susie Mumble. I am Susie Mumble.”
“All right, all right, all right, for God’s sake, you’re
Susie Mumble. But while you’re swinging it, will you
please, for the love of God, try to remember how
those names go?”
“Oh, that,” she said airily. “I’m sure it’ll come back
to me in time. Or if it doesn’t, in another week or
two I’ll call the banks, as you suggested.”
Another week or two! When she had the steel in
you she knew just how to turn it.
She practiced the walk some more. She didn’t
need to. I tried not to look at how she didn’t need to.
She could drive you crazy with that alone.
The hours passed as the hours must pass in hell.
It was night again.
I drank coffee and smoked until there was no
longer any feeling in my mouth. I turned on all the
lights and stood for long periods under the cold
shower, slapping myself awake. I listened for the
elevator in terror.
How much longer could I go on? Any hour the
police might come. There was no way to tell when
they might find out who I was. How much longer
could I keep from going to sleep? If I dropped off
she’d kill me. I could lock myself in the bathroom
and go to sleep on the floor, but that would be
telling her.
Why didn’t I quit? Why didn’t I just pick up the
phone and tell the police to come and get her? I
could run. Maybe they wouldn’t even look for me if
they had her.
Then I would think of that money again and know I
couldn’t ever quit. She couldn’t whip me. I would
stay here and play her war of nerves with her until
hell froze over and you could skate across on the ice.
No woman ever born was going to cheat me out of
A Touch of Death — 183
that money now, or any part of that money. It was
mine. I was going to have it. I’d get it.
I suddenly realized I was saying it aloud, to an
empty room.
I dozed, sitting up. At the slightest sound I jerked
erect, my heart hammering wildly. I would be
drenched with sweat.
* * *
Saturday. . .
I sneaked out to the car once and drove around
until I could buy a paper without getting out.
They had found Finley’s car at the airport.
“MYSTERY SLAYER SOUGHT HERE.”
Charisse Finley still hadn’t remembered my name.
They had nothing but a description.
But they were closing in, narrowing the field. They
were driving me forever toward a smaller and
smaller corner.
I began to wonder if I was near the breaking point.
No! I would beat her. I could still beat her.
Though none of it showed anywhere on the
surface, I knew it had to be working on her just the
same as it was on me. She knew the police were
looking for me, and if they found me they found her.
God knows what went on inside that chromiumplated
soul of hers, but no human being ever born
could go on taking that kind of pressure forever
without breaking. All I had to do was wait her out.
All I had to do was keep her from getting a chance to
kill me, and keep myself from going berserk and
killing her. If I could sweat it out I could make her
break and admit she had remembered how those
names went. After all, she must want to run, too.
I watched her for signs of cracking. There were
none. There were none at all. She lay with her face
and arms in the sunlight and hummed softly to
herself. She worked on Susie’s speech and
mannerisms like an actress getting ready for
A Touch of Death — 184
opening night. She was sweet. And she wasn’t
worried about anything at all.
The rent on those safe-deposit boxes was paid up
for nearly a full year, she said.
* * *
Sometime after she had gone to bed I fell asleep. I
didn’t know when, or how long I slept. The last thing
I remembered was sitting straight upright straining
my ears for the elevator, and then, somehow, I was
lying stretched out on the sofa with that awful
feeling of having been awakened by some tiny
sound. I jerked my head up and looked groggily
around the room, not seeing her at first.
Then I did.
She was slipping silently out into the hallway from
the bedroom. She had on that nylon robe, with
nothing under it, and she was carrying the scissors
in her hand. She was barefoot. She took another soft
step and then she saw me looking at her.
She smiled. “Oh. I’m sorry I awakened you.”
I couldn’t say anything, or move.
She saw me staring at the scissors. She put up a
hand and patted the curls that gleamed softly in the
light from the single lamp. “I was doing a little
repair work on my hair. And I thought I’d slip out to
the kitchen and get a drink.”
I sat up. I still couldn’t find my voice. Or take my
eyes from the long, slender blades of those scissors.
She came on into the room and sat down on the
floor with her back against the big chair across from
me. “Now that I have awakened you with my
blundering around,” she said sweetly, “why don’t we
have a cigarette and just talk?”
I watched her with horror. She calmly lit a
cigarette and leaned back against the chair,
doubling her legs under her. She paid no attention
to the fact that she had on nothing beneath that
flimsy robe.
“It’s nice here, isn’t it?” she said quietly.
A Touch of Death — 185
So I thought I could make her crack? Somewhere
deep inside me I could feel myself beginning to come
unstuck. I sat still and clenched my jaws together to
keep my teeth from chattering. I was shaking as if
with a chill.
She opened the scissors, playing with them in her
hands. She balanced one slender, shining blade on
her fingertip, like a child enchanted with some new
toy, and looked from it to me and smiled.
“It’s so peaceful. It makes you want to stay
forever. Do you remember ‘The Lotos-Eaters’?”
Light flickered and gleamed along the blades.
“There is sweet music here that softer falls
Than petals from blown roses on the grass,
Or night-dews on still waters between walls
Of shadowy granite, in a gleaming pass.”
She paused. “How does it go? Something about
sleep, isn’t it? Oh, yes.”
She let her head tilt back and watched me
dreamily. Smoke from the cigarette in her hand
curled upward around the wicked and tapering steel.
“Music that gentler on the spirit lies
Than tir’d eyelids upon tir’d eyes;
Music that brings sweet sleep down
from the blissful skies.”
She smiled. “Beautiful, isn’t it?”
I could feel myself beginning to slip over the edge.
I fought it.
It wasn’t that I was afraid of a 125-pound woman
with a pair of drugstore scissors in her hand. It was
that she wasn’t human. She was invulnerable. She
was unbeatable. Nothing could touch her.
There was a wild, crazy blackness foaming up
inside me, urging me to leap up and run, or to lunge
for her and tear the scissors away and take her
throat in my hands and see if she could be killed.
A Touch of Death — 186
I hung poised over empty nothing. I slipped a little.
She stood up. “I won’t bother you any longer, if
you’re sleepy,” she said. “I think I’ll go back to bed.”
She knew just how much to turn the screw each
time.
* * *
Sunday…
Sunday was the slow thickening of horror.
It wasn’t a day, beginning at one point and ending
at another. There were no days now. Time had
melted and run together into one endless and
unmarked second of waiting for an explosion when
the fuse was always burning and forever a quarter of
an inch long.
Midnight came, and I knew I could no longer stay
awake. I had to get out. I walked downstairs and
around to the car and drove it slowly out of the city
and along the beach. When I was far out I pulled off
into the dunes and stopped.
I got out. It was black, and the breeze was cool
coming in off the sea. I walked five steps away from
the car and fell forward onto the sloping edge of a
dune. Even as I was falling I was losing
consciousness, and the last thing before I blacked
out I was running alongside the spinning outer edge
of a giant carousel loaded with fat bundles of money
and red-haired girls with cool, mocking eyes.
* * *
I awoke all at once, like a jungle animal. I turned my
head. A car had stopped nearby in the darkness.
A spotlight burst from it. The hot beam swung just
above my head and spattered against the side and
the open door of the Pontiac. I lay still, afraid even
to breathe.
It shifted, searching the ground. He had seen
there was no one in the car. The light moved again,
just above my head. Then it went off abruptly. I
heard a car door open and shut. I held rigid. There
A Touch of Death — 187
was no chance to run. But he might miss me in the
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