Silence

24

IT WAS GETTING DARK, and the cars all had their headlights on.

Sylvie leaned close to Paul and touched his cheek as he drove, then rested her hand on his thigh. “Are you okay?”

“Huh? Sure. Why?”

“When you kill somebody like that, there always seems to be a big rush of adrenaline—heart pounding, sweating, really happy you’re alive—but then afterward there’s always a kind of bad feeling, a letdown. I always get tired.”

“I’m not tired,” he said. “I’m just trying to do five things at once. We need to hear the radio, so we know if the police start looking for this car. I need to keep Till’s car in sight, but stay back far enough so he doesn’t notice us. I need to pay attention to the road ahead so we don’t hit somebody, and the road behind in case the police do come after us.”

She moved her hand up his thigh only an inch or two. “That’s only four. Want something else to think about, so you’re not short?”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

She withdrew to her side of the car.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m not annoyed. I’m trying to—” He stopped. “Look. Maybe you’re right. Maybe I do have a delayed reaction to the cop. I had no intention of doing that, no plan about doing it. He just came out of nowhere with his helpful Boy Scout face and gave me the choice of letting him run my license or killing him. Maybe he put me in a bad mood, but I don’t want to take it out on you. I’m just preoccupied, that’s all.”

She shrugged. “I was just trying to cheer you up. Let me find a better radio station.”

“Thanks. It’s almost the half-hour, and I want to be sure we pick it up if they’ve identified this car.”

Sylvie held the button down and let the radio find the next strong signal, then listened to a commercial about somebody’s “giant shopping mall of cars,” and then found a news report. There was no mention of their rental car, not even any mention that a cop had been killed. Here it was, hours later, and nobody seemed to have looked inside the parked cop car yet.

Sylvie was impressed with Paul’s timing. Killing the cop a minute earlier would have been foolish: There was still a chance he would go away. Killing him ten seconds later would have been too late.

She started to smile, but something stopped her lips, choked off the affection. Paul wasn’t behaving right with her. Earlier in the day she had provoked him a bit to explore the question, but she had not yet satisfied herself. She had accepted his explanation of his coldness and distance, but her acceptance had been only tentative. It was only talk, but here was that feeling again. Were his conciliatory words more real than her feeling? She loved him, had given herself to him all these years, and he was rejecting her, shutting her out.

She felt pained. She was over forty now. The first time she had noticed a change in the way she looked—a decline—had been when she was only twenty-five. Until then every change had been an improvement. But at twenty-five, there had been a slight change in the texture of her skin. There had not been any wrinkles yet, just a loss in the elasticity of the skin beside her eyes and on her forehead.

That had been a mild, tiny warning that things were happening. She had been married to Darren then, and she had not mentioned it to him. She had needed to think about it and see whether creams and lotions would restore her skin. She’d thought maybe it was because she was working out in the gym so much and taking hot showers afterward. The air in Los Angeles was so dry, and maybe her soap was too harsh.

Then she had blamed Cherie Will. Just before Sylvie had quit, there had been a series of movies that Cherie had decided to shoot outdoors. One, Sylvie remembered, had been about a picnic, and the other had been a thing about cowboys and cowgirls. Sylvie had gotten terribly sunburned, and sunburn was the worst thing for skin. Cherie had told everybody she was shooting so many movies way out on a ranch because the actors looked so much better in natural sunlight. The truth was that she had bought the ranch and was charging her own production company location-rental fees to help pay for it. All she had needed to dress the set was a checkered tablecloth for the picnic and two bales of hay for the cowboy stuff. Cherie had told her that her makeup would protect her face from sunburn.

That had been when Sylvie was twenty or twenty-one, and now she was over forty. How could she have gotten so old? She had always looked younger and prettier than her age, but now time was catching up to her. The dancing and the exercise had fought off the years for a long time, but now she was beginning to see a bit of extra fat on her bottom in spite of the work. Maybe even her tummy was beginning to soften.

She watched Paul without moving her head. He was resenting her. The resentment always was officially for being annoying or making a mistake or something, but it was really for letting herself go. Being a less-desirable woman was to be less respected, less wanted. For at least the past couple of weeks, he had been making the situation increasingly clear to her.

Sylvie could feel a suspicion slowly revealing itself to her. As she had been getting older and less desirable, Paul was becoming older and more desirable. He was still trim and hard. The extra years had given his skin a tan, sculpted look. The bulging muscles of his arms and legs had been giving way to a sinewy leanness. His thick dark hair had grayed a bit at the temples. He looked distinguished and seasoned. On her a gray hair was a blemish, a revelation that her youthful look was an imposture.

Paul had to be cheating on her. She tried to think of who and when. It could easily be that little dance instructor Mindy, the puppy dog. She had been flirting with Paul for at least a year, and lately she’d been overtly trying to get between them by using Paul as her partner, almost a second instructor. The woman could be any woman, or lots of women. There was no way to catch Paul after the fact, or know whether he had even started cheating yet. He was emotionally separating himself from her, and that was the big step.

How could Paul be so disloyal? She knew the answer to that, too. He would consider himself justified—all the work was done for him in advance. It wouldn’t matter that Sylvie had been completely faithful to him for fifteen years, and shared his difficulties and dangers—literally killed for him. He would believe that because of those two years in her life when she was very young and naïve, she had no rights. The fact that she had stopped doing films four years before she met him and already been a respectable married woman would be irrelevant. She simply had no right to be jealous.

Arguing with Paul’s justification was a meaningless activity. Justification was meaningless. What he wanted to do, he would do. Was doing. She was aging, and that was enough. When Paul had spent enough time searching and holding auditions for the next woman to assume her role, he would replace her.

Sylvie looked at Paul again, driving along the dark highway. He had such a strong, appealing profile. The slight upturn of his lips and the arched eyebrows gave him a special expression, the look of a perfect partner. The expression had always struck her as the look of a flamenco dancer, dangerous in a sexual way—jealous, aggressive, maybe just on the edge of violence.

Her breath caught in her chest and stayed there for a moment. She forced it out slowly through pursed lips and waited a moment before she took another, just as slowly, to calm herself. She looked at him again. Paul wasn’t some fat, soft-minded little business executive. Was he likely to file for divorce and then wait quietly for six months while Sylvie’s lawyers stripped the meat off his bones?

If Paul had made the decision that he was finished with Sylvie, then she would have a problem. “I love you, Paul.”

“What?

“I was just thinking about what a difference meeting you has made in my life. If it were all over now, I wouldn’t regret it.”

She studied him. He seemed genuinely puzzled, but not quite daring to be pleased, as though he were waiting anxiously for something unpleasant to follow. “What brought this on?”

“I don’t know. Just being here with you, I guess. I was just thinking that things in life—even ones that seem permanent—are temporary.”

He glanced at her with a look of amusement. “Are you trying to kiss me off?”

She laughed once, with no conviction. “Of course not. I just said I loved you. But since you brought up kissing people off, I guess it applies to that, too. If you did decide to leave me someday, I love you too much to make it hard for you.” She had been listening to her own voice to hear whether the lie sounded convincing, but she wasn’t sure how well she had done. He seemed merely confused.

“What do you mean?”

“You know. All of those women who get dumped think they have to get revenge in court and leave their husbands in poverty. I’ve heard them at lunch in restaurants laughing about how much they took, like harpies or something. They gossip about the ex-husband and the new woman, and try to sabotage them any way they can.” Her eyes stayed on him as she talked. “You know. They turn him in to the IRS for hiding income or something like that.” With some effort, she softened. “I just want you to know I’m not like them. If you want somebody younger and don’t find me attractive anymore, I won’t punish you for that.”

“Oh. So that’s it.” He sounded tired and annoyed. “I had no idea what you were talking about. I should have known, I guess, but I didn’t. I never said you weren’t attractive, or that I wanted somebody younger.”

“No. Please don’t be mad. I’m not trying to start a fight. It’s just the opposite. I’m trying to tell you that I’ve thought about you in all kinds of ways. And what I feel most is gratitude. I’ve had such an incredible time with you. I’ve learned so much—even that. You’re the one who taught me to make all the decisions I can in advance.”

“Okay.” His voice sounded tight, as though he were holding back anger. He was reacting as though she had said the opposite of what she had said. She took a breath to speak, then held it. She was getting herself in deeper. She let out the breath and sat in silence, staring ahead at the red taillights. The cars went around a long, slow curve and she could see the ones ahead of her better. The headlights of the car directly ahead shone on the side of the next, and she could make out the head of the driver. “There. That’s Jack Till.”

Sylvie turned in her seat and squinted through the rear window at the configuration of headlights behind their car. As their car began the long curve, the headlights of the cars behind aimed off to the left, and she could see them better. There seemed to her to be none in the pack that were troublesome. There were an overdecorated white SUV with gold trim, a Volvo station wagon, and two Japanese cars that were too small for cops to use. She looked ahead again. “I don’t think any of those cars can be searching for us, and I don’t see any of them that could be a backup for Till. That’s what I would have done if I were Till. I’d have a second car following me with a couple of cops in it, just in case.”

“This isn’t a presidential motorcade,” Paul said. “And Till isn’t even a cop anymore. He was just trying to sneak her into L.A., and he’s failed.”

She watched Paul’s expression of concentration, and his eyes moving from the rearview mirror to the highway ahead and back. It occurred to her that for the moment she was in no danger. Paul was an expert strategist, and he knew that his biggest advantage over his adversary right now was Sylvie. With her he had double the firepower, an extra set of eyes and hands and an extra brain.

Paul said, “Okay, here we go. He’s pulling off the freeway, taking the exit up there.”

“It’s about time. I was wondering if those people ever had to pee.” Sylvie took the silencer out of her purse and screwed it onto the barrel of her pistol.

“Get ready.”

She resisted the impulse to say, “What do you think I’m doing?” Instead, she said, “Hand me your gun.”

He pulled the gun out of the well in the door beside him and handed it to her. She took the second silencer out of her purse and screwed it on, then ejected the magazine and looked at it. “You didn’t reload after the cop.”

He looked mildly surprised, but he was busy trying to get off the freeway at the right speed and distance from Till’s car. Sylvie could see he was staying barely within sight, only close enough to see which way Till turned before he disappeared. Till’s car turned left and drove under the freeway overpass.

She wanted time, and the time was speeding up, slipping away. She rested both guns in her lap, one in each hand. She wondered for a moment whether in the long run she wouldn’t be wise simply to wait for Paul to pull the car off the exit and put it in neutral, and then fire his pistol into his right temple. She would be able to squeeze the gun into his right hand and walk away. Then she could get a flight home, clean up the house, and await the visit from the quiet, respectful police officers. The tears would be real. That was the problem with the idea.

No, she decided. She wouldn’t act now to prevent him from acting later. As long as this job was occupying him, he wouldn’t harm her. She checked to be sure the safety was on and handed him the gun. “There’s a round in the chamber.”

“Good. Thanks. You’re thinking better than I am.”

“A pretty good compliment.” She leaned over and gave him a soft, wet kiss on the cheek, then sat up in her seat, her eyes on the windshield again.

Paul followed Till’s car at a distance, the taillights so far ahead that they looked almost like one red spot instead of two. The car swerved into the driveway of a big hotel on the hillside. Instead of following Till into the parking lot, Paul stopped at a gas station down the street. He coasted up to a gas pump but stayed in the car watching the hotel parking lot. Paul said, “He’s parking in front of the hotel restaurant.”

Jack Till got out of his car and stood beside it to stretch his long body and twist his torso a couple of times. Sylvie could see that he was standing guard with his coat open and his gun in easy reach while Wendy Harper got out and walked toward the restaurant entrance.

When Jack Till and Wendy Harper had disappeared into the restaurant, Paul got out of the car, went into the gas station, and gave the teenaged boy inside some money. Then he returned, inserted the nozzle into the car, and began to fill the tank.

Sylvie pressed the button to lower her window. “Why are you doing that now?”

He shrugged. “After we get them, I’m not going to want to stop for gas.”

She shook her head in mock disapproval. “I hope you didn’t smile into the surveillance camera, because I intend to go in that restaurant and get her right there.”

“Oh? Don’t you want to eat dinner first?”

“Not in that place. If you hadn’t stopped for gas, I’ll bet I could have bagged her by now.”

“Don’t get too eager.” He wasn’t sure how much of her impatience was an interest in getting the job done, and how much was wanting to kill a woman who was younger and prettier than she was. The nozzle on the hose clicked and stopped, and he took it out and hung it on the pump. He looked at the total on the pump, touched the screen to indicate he didn’t want a receipt, and got back in beside her. “I want to do this right, so we need to be a little bit careful.” He started the engine, looked at the gas gauge to be sure it was full, then turned out into the road and down the street into the parking lot between the hotel and the restaurant. He found a space among the cars of hotel guests, far from the one where Jack Till had parked. “Are you sure you can do her by yourself?”

“If you can get me out of there afterward.”

“Okay. You get her when she’s in the ladies’ room. If Till moves when you come out, I’ll shoot him. Then we’ll just step outside with everybody else in the confusion.”

“All right. Let’s go in before I get nervous.” Sylvie took a couple of deep breaths to calm herself as she walked toward the restaurant. She could see people sitting at the window tables along the front, but none of them was Till or Wendy. She wasn’t surprised that they would want to avoid sitting in a lighted window. Wendy Harper had probably not lingered in front of a window in six years. Sylvie approached the front door and she could feel her excitement building.

She did not have time to hesitate in front of the door before she sensed the displacement of air to her right as Paul’s hand appeared and opened the door for her. The closeness reassured her. It was the old unspoken certainty that she felt while they were dancing, the knowledge of where his body was in relation to hers.

Sylvie moved into the entry, where a fake wood sign said “PLEASE SEAT YOURSELF.” She scanned the interior of the restaurant. Till and Wendy were to the left at the far end of the room, so she quickly turned right to find a table as far away from them as possible. Sylvie slid into a booth beside a large window overlooking the hotel and its parking lot. She could even see the gas station where she and Paul had stopped.

Paul sat down across the table from her. She could see his eyes focus on the part of the room where Till and Wendy sat. He let his eyes stay there too long, so she became more and more tense until he looked away. Then Sylvie tilted her head down and pretended to look at the menu while she surveyed the restaurant. She could see a counter along the back wall, and beyond that, the kitchen. There was about sixty feet of open floor between Sylvie and the far end of the counter where the hall began that led to the restrooms and telephones. Jack Till and Wendy Harper were on that side of the room, and she calculated that Wendy’s walk to the restroom would be no more than thirty feet.

Sylvie would have to see Wendy get up and move toward the ladies’ room, then get up herself and follow. She would reach the restroom after Wendy, put a bullet in Wendy’s head with the silenced pistol, turn, and walk back the sixty feet to the front door, where Paul would be waiting. It would all work fine if Wendy didn’t see the gun and scream.

Sylvie looked hard at the people sitting along the counter. When it was over, she was going to have to make it back here past all of them. Usually when bad things happened in public places, the people who were present stood with their mouths open, not able to move or even think. But sometimes there would be somebody who understood what he had seen and who acted instantly. She couldn’t shoot Wendy and then have one of those four big men at the counter reach out and grab her. She would have to keep her gun in her hand so if one of them tried, she could pop him. She would carry it in her right hand, because the seats along the counter would be on her left. The gun would need to be concealed. She supposed the only natural-looking way was to carry it with her jacket over her forearm to cover it.

Far across the restaurant, Wendy Harper pushed back her chair and rose. “She’s up,” Sylvie whispered. Wendy Harper pushed the chair in, turned toward the ladies’ room, and began to make her way past the tables. “Are you ready?”

Sylvie slid out of the booth, stood up, arranged her purse and jacket so her right hand was free, and took a step, but Paul’s hand shot out, clutched her arm and pulled her down onto the bench on his side of the table. He was smiling as though he were teasing her, but his face was close to hers, and he whispered, “Look. Outside in the parking lot. Careful.”

She kept her face close to his, but leaned to the right slightly so her right eye was clear of him and could see. There was a police car outside, stopped behind their rental car. The police officer inside had his radio microphone to his mouth.

“What are we going to do?”

“We’ve got to get out of here before more of them show up. They must have the license number.”

“How?”

“Who cares? Somebody saw what happened at the airport.”

“I mean how do we get out?”

“The hotel.”

She looked in the direction of Jack Till’s table, but Paul pushed against her with his hip. “Get up and go. Now.” She got up and walked toward the door. He opened it quickly and was out after her.

Paul guided Sylvie around the front of the restaurant away from the direction of the rental car, and they walked quickly toward the main hotel building.

Paul held the door at the hotel entrance for her, and she slipped in and turned while he caught up. All their motions were smooth and familiar. They weren’t nervous people fumbling to evade the cops. They were dancers again, a couple stepping gracefully into their hotel after a dinner date. She forced her anxiety to become excitement. She moved across the floor at Paul’s side, aware of the danger gathering behind her. Cars were on their way in answer to the lone policeman’s call.

Paul led her through an alcove and into a corridor lined with guest rooms. He moved along the hallway, turned twice until he reached a spot where the passage ended in a fire exit. He stepped to the door and looked out, then beckoned to Sylvie.

She could see the police cars arriving from the direction of the freeway. There were three of them already, all with lights on their roofs revolving and flashing. Paul put his hands on her shoulders. “Stay right here,” he whispered. “If the cops come in here, talk to them loud. If they come for me, open fire. I’m just waiting a second to give these people time to see the flashing lights outside.” He stood there, glanced at his watch, and gave her a pat. “Time.”

He stepped along the hall listening at doors. It was early evening, and the first few rooms seemed to be empty. Finally he knocked on one of them. There was a muffled voice that Sylvie couldn’t quite hear. Then Paul said, “Police. Open up.” He held his wallet in his hand, and passed it quickly in front of the peephole in the door.

The door opened and Paul pushed the door inward. “What the hell?” said a man’s voice, and then Sylvie heard the spitting sound of Paul’s suppressed pistol. The door closed.

There was a long wait, and then the door opened and Paul beckoned to Sylvie. She hurried to the door and slipped inside to join him. At first the room seemed empty, but on the far side of the bed she could see a man’s bare feet sticking out. She moved closer, and saw the body. It seemed to be the size of a walrus, a big, rounded torso beached on the floor. Paul said, “Help me find his car keys. Hurry.”

The flashing lights from the police cars blinked through a crack between the curtains, so she tugged them closed, then began to go through the pile of dirty clothes on the floor of the closet while Paul searched the drawers of the nightstands, the dressers, and the desk.

She looked up to begin searching the pockets of the clothes hanging above, and noticed that some of them didn’t belong to the dead man. “Paul,” she said. Someone in the hallway tried the doorknob.

“Shit!” Paul muttered under his breath.

Sylvie shook her head and pointed to the bathroom. Paul stepped into the bathroom and closed the door. Sylvie picked up her purse, slung it over her left shoulder and arranged her pistol in it so she could reach it quickly. Then she opened the door to the hallway.

Standing in front of her was a woman about fifty years old. She had a pizza box and a six-pack of beer in her hands, and dangling from her fingers was a set of keys. “Ray?” she said. “Oh, my God! Do I have the wrong room?”

“No, ma’am. Come in, please.” Sylvie watched the woman enter and closed the door gently behind her. She remained at the door so the woman would have to look at her instead of toward the bed. “I’m a police officer. Are you Ray’s wife?”

“Yes. I saw all your cars outside. What’s going on?”

“It’s a search for some fugitives. May I see your license, please?”

The woman set her pizza and beer on the dresser and opened her purse to take out a wallet. She slid a license out of a plastic sleeve and handed it to Sylvie with a shaking hand.

Sylvie held the license up to compare it with the woman’s face. She seemed satisfied, but held on to it. “Your car. Can you tell me the make and model, please?”

“It’s a green Toyota. It’s the one parked right near the door.”

“Are those the keys?”

The woman held the keys up where Sylvie could see them. Sylvie took them and the woman’s license and set them on the bed. “Thank you. Now, I’d like you to turn around and hold both arms out from your sides.”

The woman turned and lifted her arms like wings in an absurd flying posture. Sylvie pulled out her gun and fired once into the back of the woman’s head, and she toppled to the floor.

Paul opened the bathroom door. “Sylvie?”

She said clearly, “Yes, Paul,” then picked up the woman’s license and keys from the bed. “It’s a green Toyota, parked right outside the door.”

Paul looked down at the woman’s body, nodded to himself, then walked to the door, opened it to let Sylvie out first, hung the DO NOT DISTURB sign on the knob, and closed it, then wiped the fingerprints off the knob with his sleeve.

Paul and Sylvie stepped outside into the parking lot. They could see four police cars in the lot now, and several cops were gathering around the blue car they had rented in San Francisco. The cops looked at Paul and Sylvie as they walked toward the green Toyota. Then Sylvie saw another green Toyota one row farther off. She clicked the plastic switch attached to the key ring, and watched the dome light in the second Toyota come on and the lock buttons pop up. When they reached the car Paul opened Sylvie’s door for her, and as she stepped beside him to get in she saw the cops turn away and look at the blue rental car again.

Paul got in and she handed him the keys. He started the engine and drove slowly toward the nearest exit from the lot. As he pulled out onto the road, he laughed.

Sylvie laughed, too, then she realized that she was trembling. The release of the tension was making her giddy.

Paul turned the car into the lot of the restaurant they had just left. “What are you doing?”

“They’re still inside,” he said. “See? There’s Till’s car.”

“Don’t we have to get out of here?”

“Not until they do. Until checkout tomorrow, this car is clean and we’ve got nothing to be afraid of.”