Earth Angel, page 32
JERRY
You make a convincing case.
GEORGE
It’s one of Action Comics’ biggest shames.
JERRY
(POINTING) I think we go that way.
GEORGE
I think we go left at the water fountain. That’s what I’d do.
JERRY
You know the problem with college campuses is that there’s no point of reference. No principal’s office. At least with a principal’s office you had a point of reference. Everybody knows to stay clear of that part of the school because, whether you’re aware of it or not, you’re probably doing something wrong. Something only a trained principal would notice. It’s like working in a nuclear reactor plant: you know where the core is. You get too close to that core and all your body parts start shrinking. (GIVES GEORGE’S BODY A LOOK) Well, you were sent to the principal a lot.
THEY START WALKING. COEDS PASS BY, GEORGE LOOKS WITH LONGING.
JERRY
You know what else I like about college. No one here can threaten to call your mother. No matter what you do, they can’t call your mother on you. (TO PEOPLE PASSING BY) Go ahead, call my mother. She’s home right now. Her number’s 555-6593. Catch her up on what I’ve been doing. I stayed up late every night this week. Almost put my eye out twice last week.
GEORGE STARES LUSTFULLY AS ANOTHER PRETTY WOMAN WALKS BY.
GEORGE
Jerry, I Just had a flash of insight. An epiphany. It hit me like lightning. I swear, I have goosebumps. Here, feel.
JERRY
I’d rather not. Goosebumps are a private experience. Between a man and his goose.
GEORGE
I’m serious, Jerry. I suddenly know what’s wrong with my life.
JERRY
Really? Just like that?
GEORGE
(STARES AT JERRY WITH SERIOUS LOOK) I’m not getting my share.
JERRY
Your what?
GEORGE
My share! I’m not getting my share. I finally have to accept it. Learn to live with it and move on.
JERRY
What are you talking about here? Your share of what? Did you hold up a liquor store and your partners are keeping the loot? What share?
GEORGE
Women, Jerry. My share of women. Every man has a certain share of women he’s allotted to sleep with during his lifetime. That’s his share.
JERRY
Ohhhh. So you’re not getting your share of women.
GEORGE
Exactly! What can I do? Some people get their share early in life, others spread it over their entire lifetime.
JERRY
Like Warren Beatty.
GEORGE
Forget Warren Beatty. He’s had more than his share.
JERRY
Well, if you’re not getting your share, somebody’s got to be getting more than his share. That’s the culprit right there. Warren Beatty. He stole your share.
GEORGE
Go ahead, make fun. You can afford to. You’re getting your share.
JERRY
Well, I’d give you some of my share if I could. I mean, I’d gladly share my share, but then I wouldn’t be getting my share then and the whole ugly cycle would start again. Whose share would I get?
KRAMER RUNS UP, DISHEVELED. HE’S CARRYING A WOMAN’S HAT BOX.
I closed the script and returned them all to the drawer. This was too weird. I had actually smiled, even laughed, while reading his script. It couldn’t have been written by the same man who had molested and tortured those children, who planned to murder me. Maybe he was some kind of frustrated writer who’d been rejected too many times. He felt helpless, so he had to make others helpless, exert some power. Nothing else made sense. He was intelligent, witty, good-looking, with obvious charm. Not unlike Tim. If I’d met Carson Ford at a cocktail party, would I have gone on a date with him? Slept with him?
The other drawers offered only more writings—plays, movie scripts, operas, symphonies. Nothing I could practically use to survive. One book was a sketchpad filled with drawings, magnificent works of the barest number of lines, but suggesting flesh tones, bone structure, even the pulsing organs within. I recognized the faces in each sketch: the girls he had kidnapped in Santa Barbara. Lt. Trump had shown me photos of each. The seven-year-old, smiling as she took a bottle of Pepsi with a straw in it from a hand reaching into the frame. The ten-year-old sitting on that hardwood chair in rapt attention, holding a Beast doll from Beauty and the Beast, while we see a hand holding a Dr. Seuss book, apparently the hand’s owner reading to her. Each drawing had that disembodied hand offering something, giving something. And in each drawing the girl was happy, smiling, giddy. There were no drawings of them naked or in distress.
I closed the drawers and hunted through the rest of the room again. I tried to dismantle the metal shelving, hoping I might get a metal rod to use as a club. But they wouldn’t budge. The only thing I found was a small red can of ant poison that had been hidden in the corner under the bottom shelf. I pulled it out. Little holes were poked into the sides so the ants could walk in and eat the poison, which was arsenic.
I looked over at the glass of iced tea on the desk.
One gram of arsenic would be enough. It was odorless and tasteless, though that might not be the case in the ant paste inside the can. But if Carson Ford took it, within four hours he would be writhing on the floor, deathly ill with stomach cramps and diarrhea, vomiting his heart out. It would take one to three days for death from circulatory collapse. And a horrible, agonizing death it would be.
I ran back to the desk, removed one of the three gold roundhead fasteners that were inserted through the holes in the script to clasp them together, flattened it, and used the end to scoop out little bits of ant paste. I stirred it into the iced tea, trying not to rattle the ice cubes too loudly. I replaced the ant can, the fastener to the script, the script to the drawer, and myself to the hardwood chair in the middle of the room.
After a few minutes I began to have second thoughts. I had never killed anyone. I’d had patients die on me, but I’d never tried to harm anyone. That just came naturally lately. Now, after all that inadvertent injury I’d caused, I was actually trying to kill a man. I’d left my home to make lives better, people happier, now I had become an executioner. I tried not to think about his music or his scripts or his looks. In my college ethics class, the professor had asked us to answer this question: A man who had cold-bloodedly murdered and mutilated a dozen people is on death row waiting to die. What if this man discovers a cure for cancer and demands to be released and given a million dollars and safe passage to anywhere he chooses in exchange for the formula. Do you agree?
I couldn’t remember what I’d said then. I couldn’t decide what I’d say now. I rapped the back of my wounded hand against the side of the chair and let the pain sizzle into my brain and burn away any doubts.
The door opened, and Carson Ford entered with a TV tray full of food. He set the tray down, locked the door, and carried the tray over to me. He handed me a white linen napkin. “What, you didn’t fashion a weapon out of the lamp or something? Use the electrical cord to electrify the door handle?”
“You sound disappointed.”
“I like a challenge, and you did so well with my notes.”
“Those notes weren’t exactly New York Times crosswords. Apparently several people cracked them.”
“Only after you led the way. Don’t be so modest, Season. You did a hell of a job, the first to figure me out. Those clues were so general, I could have been referring to a dozen places. It takes a certain mind to be so devious. By Jove, you’ve got it.”
“How did you know where to find me?” It seems I was asking everybody that question lately. Every time I think I’m safely hidden, someone finds me. “Were you following me?”
“Why would I do that? I knew you’d come to me. I gave you the clues, I figured you’d come up with a list of locations and check them out. I just had to wait at one of them for you to show up. I picked that one because I got to kill time watching the softball game while waiting. I hope I didn’t make it too easy for you.” He gestured at the food on the TV tray. “You like swordfish? I charbroiled this one to flaky perfection, enhancing the flavor by placing it in the salamander for exactly sixty-three seconds and then glazing it with sweet lemon-parsley butter. Plus, fresh asparagus and sourdough bread. Not bad for the crappy kitchen in this place. Of course, you’ll have to get by with a plastic spoon—don’t want to tempt you with a fork—but the swordfish will fall apart like butter.”
“So you’re a gourmet cook as well?”
“As well as what?”
“I took a look through your work.” I nodded toward the desk.
He ignored my question. “Eat, Season. Every second it cools diminishes the taste.”
“Aren’t you eating?” I wanted to subtly remind him of his iced tea.
“Nope. I ate while I was preparing yours. I microwaved a couple of corn dogs and one of those frozen twice-baked potatoes. You know, with the chives and garlic? I love that stuff.” He frowned at my tray. “Oh, shit, I forgot the wine. You should have fumé blanc with this. I must have left it on the counter.” He looked over at the door. “You still thirsty?”
I wanted him to leave, give me more time to think. “Yes, I could use a drink.”
He started toward the door, then abruptly stopped, looked at his watch. “Hmmm. We really should be getting on with this. I’ve got kind of a timetable.” He walked over to the desk, grabbed the iced tea and held it out to me. “I only had a sip. It’s still cold.”
“Doesn’t the condemned prisoner get a glass of wine?”
“So you think I’m going to kill you, huh?”
“Aren’t you?”
“Of course. In due time.” He pushed the iced tea closer to my face. “Last chance. It’s going to be a dry night for you otherwise.”
I shook my head. “Iced tea gives me gas.”
He laughed. “Okay then.” He drank half the glass, smacked his lips. He set the glass back on the desk. “I’m surprised you haven’t given me The Lecture yet.”
“Which lecture?”
“The one about my wicked, wicked ways.”
“My Wicked, Wicked Ways. The title of Errol Flynn’s autobiography.”
He applauded. “Very good. Have you read it?”
“Yes.”
“I haven’t. But it was made into a shitty little TV movie written by his own goddaughter.”
“Doris Keating.”
He smiled. “Yup. You are good. I bet you really wow them in Trivial Pursuit.”
“No one plays that anymore, it’s such an eighties thing. Besides, I don’t like games.”
“Sure you do. You just don’t like that you like them.”
I didn’t respond. Apparently every man I met lately thought he knew me better than I knew myself.
“You’re not eating,” he said. “Don’t worry, it’s not poisoned. That’s too creepy, even for me.” He laughed. When he laughed it wasn’t a demented cackle as I’d expected, but a friendly jovial laugh that made you want to laugh along. I had a feeling he was the hit at every dinner party he was invited to. He probably had a hundred amusing anecdotes to keep the guests amused.
I ate the swordfish and it was delicious as promised. I found myself wolfing it down.
“Good, huh?” he said without arrogance or pride. He grabbed the chair from the desk and rolled it over and sat about five feet away from me.
I gobbled down a few more bites. “So, what lecture were you expecting from me?”
“The one where you tell me about all the pain I’ve caused those poor girls. How I’ve got the whole town too frightened to go out. How I need help, psychiatric specialists.”
“Oh,” I said, chewing vigorously, “that lecture.”
“I figure you’ll end up summarizing my symptoms and diagnose me as someone born without a conscience—a sociopath.”
I stuffed an asparagus in my mouth. “Actually, sociopath is outdated. It’s now called ‘antisocial personality disorder’ and it includes a broader spectrum of activity. For example, to qualify, the onset of your antisocial behavior must have started before you were fifteen and it can’t be the result of mental illness. Does that apply?”
“Afraid not. I was a perfect angel until, oh, well past twenty-five, I think. That’s when I became an artist.” He grimaced, rubbed his stomach. “Hmmm, those corn dogs didn’t quite agree with me.”
The arsenic was working. Yet, I didn’t feel hopeful as I thought I would. I felt kind of sneaky and sleazy. I knew it was stupid, I knew he deserved whatever he got, but there was something magnificently compelling about him. Nevertheless, I picked up the iced tea and jiggled it so the ice cubes knocked enticingly against the glass. “Here. Maybe this will help.”
He stood up, clutched his stomach with a wince, and took the glass from me. “Thank you. I guess you could say this is just what the doctor ordered.” He smiled, gulped down the rest of the tea.
I wanted to keep him talking, give the poison time to take hold. Make him too sick to do to me whatever he had in mind. “So, you’re an artist. A professional?”
“A professional,” he said sarcastically. He looked angry. “You mean do I get paid? Are you wondering if I’m some kind of frustrated writer or painter, some melancholy artiste angry at the world for rejecting my works of genius? You think that’s why I’m doing all this?”
“I don’t think anything, Carson. You got any dessert?”
“Indeed. Just desserts.”
“Is that wit or irony? You writers are so clever.”
He held up his hands in surrender. “Okay, you got me on that one. Truth is, Season, I never send my work out. Never have, never will. I learn a form—be it sitcom, movie, play, opera, short story, poem, symphony, whatever—and I write a few pieces to amuse myself. For example…” And suddenly he was singing opera in Italian. His voice started deep and powerful as he boomed and bellowed like horses galloping through a canyon—and in an instant he shifted to a soaring pitch that seemed to swirl around my head and tug me straighter in the chair. I found myself leaning toward him to catch the notes sooner.
Abruptly, he stopped.
“Well, that was shit,” he said with a sour face, “but you get the idea. It’s from an opera I’ve written. My Italian sucks but it’s the only language that fits with the music.” He shrugged as if suddenly embarrassed. “I hope I didn’t come off dopey like Tom Hanks in Philadelphia, twirling around the room like he’s just bitten into a hot chili pepper and can’t find the water. They really blew that scene, I think. What do you think?”
“Okay,” I said, “so you’re not a frustrated artist. What are you then? Other than kidnapper, child molester, and rapist.”
“I’m rich, that’s mostly what I am. I’m talking filthy rich. Rich enough to produce my own movie if I wanted, publish my own books, mount my own plays and pay the finest actors to act in them. And after that, if each project failed, I have enough money to start all over again.”
“Congratulations. You’re a rich kidnapper, child molester, and rapist.”
“I hate to take credit. After all, I inherited most of it. I come from a long line of overachievers.”
“Ford. The car people?”
He laughed. “No, no. Our name used to be unpronounceable, something very Slavic. Granddad thought it would be better for business if we sounded more American, so he named himself after his car. His English was so bad he probably didn’t even know there was a real Ford family already. Guess it was a good thing he didn’t own an Oldsmobile.”
“Well, you’ve certainly done the name proud. Does the family know about your little hobby as a rapist?”
He grabbed his stomach. “Jesus!” He took several deep breaths. Thick tears dripped from his eyes like candle wax. “Man, that smarts. Like something’s crawled into my stomach and just won’t die.”
“Could be food poisoning. Corn dogs aren’t created in the most hygienic of circumstances. You might want to go to a hospital.”
He shook his head. “Can’t. Got a timetable. I told you.” He looked at his watch, studied it as if having trouble focusing. “I’m already behind. We’d better move on to the next phase. I’m afraid it won’t be as pleasant as this one has been.” He stood up, took a step toward me. He faltered, stumbled, grabbed his stomach again, and pitched forward to the floor. “Damn,” he moaned, “I think I shit my pants.” Then his eyes closed and he didn’t move.
I ran over to him, dug one hand into his pants for the keys. With the other hand I felt at his throat for a pulse. He shouldn’t be dead yet, he probably just passed out. As my fingers closed around his keys, a hand jumped up and grabbed my wrist hard, twisting it sharply until I was on the ground. He snatched the keys from my hand and stood up, brushing off his pants. Then he took a deep bow and blew a kiss to the imaginary audience. “Add acting to my artistic achievements. I do a pretty good Jack Nicholson. Want to hear?” He contorted his mouth into a Nicholson grin: “I have given a name to my pain, and it is Batman.” He sounded just like Nicholson.
I stood up, holding my wounded hand, which had scraped the ground when I went down. I sat back on the chair. “What was it?”
“In the ant can? Mostly sugar.” He stuck out his tongue and made a bitter face. “I can’t believe how much of that stuff you put in my iced tea. My best acting was not reacting when I drank it, it was so damn sweet. You must really want me dead.”
I didn’t say anything. I was too tired, too defeated, too hopeless. I couldn’t decide which of us I wanted dead more.
He sat back in his chair, facing me like an interviewer on PBS. “You asked me before about my art. I think of myself as a performance artist. You know what that is?”
“Yeah. Guys who lock themselves in lockers for two days or shoot themselves in the arm while on stage or women who stand in front of the Veterans Administration building and shave their pubic hair into the silhouette of Cuba.”
He frowned. “Well, yes, in its primitive form. I’m talking about something a little more sophisticated. An art form that involves real people, but they don’t know they’re involved. See what I mean?”
