A Perfect Crime

25

The box cutter lay on the rim of the sink. In the spreading cone of light from the flash, Whitey could see the blade glinting there in easy reach, but could he pick the thing up cleanly, without first knocking it into the basin or on the floor, or making some other noise? He wrapped the towel around himself, extended his right hand toward the sink, saw how it shook; that had to be the booze, couldn’t be fear-he was as tough as they come. Whitey took a few deep, silent breaths to sober up. He heard the wind outside-it had risen to a howl while he was in the shower-but he didn’t hear another footstep. Maybe he’d imagined it, maybe it was nothing but the old roof beams creaking in the storm. Yeah, the beams for sure, or possibly He heard another footstep, a footstep beyond any doubt, and snatched up the box cutter without making a sound, quick as a snake. The next moment, not even aware of having done it, Whitey had the flash in his other hand, switched off. Total darkness, black as black could be, his friend. He waited, motionless, listening for more footsteps, hearing none. An idea came to him: maybe the Brinks truck had turned up after all, not early, but late, because of the snow. Made more sense. If so, they would be coming up the stairs any second to hide the painting in one of the bedrooms. All he had to do was stay where he was, silent and still-and hope that the Brinks men just did their job and hit the road, hope that none of them had to take a piss. Then, with any luck, he could still grab the painting and get out before Roger arrived. This was going to work!

It was all in the timing. What time was it? Where was his watch? He’d just seen it. He remembered: on the rim of the sink-a digital watch he’d stolen on the cell block, but a cheap one without a glow button. That meant he would have to switch on the flash to read it. Too risky. Thank Christ his mind was working so well today. Whitey stepped back into the shower. He set the flashlight carefully down, freeing his hand to silently draw the curtain, one of those curtains that was not quite transparent, not quite opaque. The air in the shower stall quickly lost its warmth, but Whitey didn’t care-he’d never minded the cold, was sweating anyway.

The sound of the storm rose higher. Listening only for footsteps, Whitey was slow to hear the change in tone, a low rumble that mixed in like a bass line. Then the wind slackened for a moment, and he heard the new component clearly, felt it through the icy tiles of the shower: something motorized down below, electrical-a generator. Of course there’d be a generator out here on an island in the middle of the A thin strip of light shone through the crack under the bathroom door. Fucking Jesus. They’d turned on the lights, and darkness was his friend. Brinks guards carried guns, didn’t they? How many could he take out, how fast? Some, for sure: he could do things when that buzz was buzzing in his brain, and it was buzzing. Everything depended on how many there were-if they opened the door at all. He almost wanted them to now, to pay for making him sweat like this.

Footsteps on the stairs, slow, very slow, but coming up. Whitey heard some good news in those footsteps: First, there was only one set of them, only one person, although that didn’t mean there weren’t others waiting downstairs. And second, that one person had a light tread, so probably wasn’t very big, certainly not as big as Whitey. He kept his eyes on the glowing crack under the door.

The footsteps, light, almost soundless, as though the guard was wearing tennis shoes, reached the landing and paused. Whitey could almost feel the guard going over his instructions. The footsteps receded into the bedroom that wasn’t made up, and Whitey remembered the way he’d left it, mattress stuffing all over the floor. Before he had time to figure out what could come of that, there was a faint click-light switch going on-and another pause, longer than the first. Whitey waited for a call downstairs for help, a voice talking into a cell phone, a police whistle, something, but nothing happened. No movement at all, meaning the guard wasn’t hiding the painting. Then the footsteps returned to the landing, paused again, continued into the other bedroom, where Whitey had had the powder accident.

Another click, another pause. Whitey heard a sniffing sound. Then came a few of those light footsteps, followed by another pause, and then a soft grunt, almost too soft to hear. A grunt: the kind you make when you’re reaching for something, or-or bending down, like maybe to slide something under a bed! Whitey had astonished himself. His mind had never been like this, not even close. All right, he thought, job done, split. Then my job: scoop up the painting, out the door, across the river, into a future full of money. Whitey pictured his getaway clearly, at fastforward speed.

But having hidden the painting, the guard didn’t seem in a hurry to leave. Whitey heard the metallic clicking of wire hangers on the closet rail. Then came another one of those sniffing sounds. More footsteps. After that, a faint creaking, the kind bedsprings make. For fuck sake, Whitey thought, don’t take a goddamn nap. But he knew he might do the same thing if he had a job like that. He was toying with the idea of silently slipping into the bedroom while the guard slept and whipping the painting right out from under him, when the bedsprings creaked again; another sniff, like the guy was smelling something-oh, Christ, that goddamn powder-and then more footsteps. Footsteps getting louder, coming closer. Don’t you start with me, Whitey thought. Buzz buzz. Get out of my fucking life.

But that didn’t happen. There was another pause. Whitey saw two black breaks in the lit crack under the bathroom door, breaks that would be made by two feet standing just outside. An armed guard on the other side of the door, and all Whitey had was a stupid little warehouse tool. His hand tightened around it.

Whitey heard another metallic sound: the doorknob turning. He retreated to the back of the shower; from there he couldn’t see the crack under the door, hoped that meant the guard couldn’t see him either. He heard the door open, heard the click of the switch, and the bathroom filled with light, blinding him. Even as it did, even as he blinked furiously and shaded his eyes, he remembered his clothes, all over the floor.

Sniff, sniff. Whitey, his eyes adjusting to the light, heard that sniffing, didn’t move. A footstep, another, and another. Whitey clung to the box cutter: he wasn’t going back to prison, no matter what. One more footstep, and then the guard was right in front of him, but turned toward the sink, his image blurred by the shower curtain. Not a big guard at all, holding something in his hand. A gun? No. More like-dead flowers, the dead flowers from the vase in the made-up bedroom.

No gun at all, as far as Whitey could see. In fact, the guard didn’t seem to be wearing a uniform, but a long coat instead. The guard’s other hand moved, picked up something from the sink-Whitey’s watch. Slowly the guard’s head came up, from the watch to the mirror over the sink. And in that mirror, through the translucent shower curtain but clear enough, Whitey got his first look at the face of the guard: not a guard, certainly not a Whitey-thing, not even a man. A woman. The relief was indescribable. He flung the curtain aside.

The woman spun around, dropping the watch, dropping the flowers, putting her hands to her mouth, making a lovely frightened little noise in her throat.

Whitey smiled. “Nothing to apologize about,” he said, holding up his hand, the empty one. Totally in control, master of the situation. Master reminded him of masturbate-was there a connection between the two words? — and of what he’d been about to do before the water turned cold. No longer necessary. “Nothing at all,” he said. “I know you’ve got a job to do.”

She backed up as far as she could before the sink stopped her. “Job?” she said. Whitey liked her voice, an educated voice, classy. He saw that the woman was just that: classy. This was no pocket-change whore like that pockmarked hag in Florida. This woman had snow melting in her hair, soft skin, innocent eyes. She was pure, amateur, perfect. She was the one. The buzzing rose and rose inside him.

“The painting, and whatnot,” Whitey explained, not sure his voice was at the right volume, with the buzzing so loud.

Painting — the word got her attention; he could see that in her eyes, and what eyes, unlike any female eyes that had ever looked at him. And she was looking at him, no doubt about it.

Looking right at him, so why pussyfoot? Why beat around the bush? Whitey almost laughed aloud at his own wit. Almost, but he had to be cool. Cool as he could be, he hit her with his best shot: “How about us two we go back into that bedroom and see what we can see?”

The woman’s eyes, still on him, shifted a little, gazed down, came to the glass cutter in his hand. He had forgotten to hide it behind his back, and anyway it was a box cutter. Glass cutter was the last time, not that it And then she was gone, just like that. Whitey had never seen a woman move so fast. He moved, too, out of the shower, out of the bathroom, onto the landing in time to see something he hardly believed, the woman leaping right from the top, taking the entire staircase in the air, hitting the ground floor with a loud squeak of her tennis shoes, her body contracting into a ball to absorb the force of the fall, staying on her feet. By that time, Whitey was halfway down himself, saw her darting off toward the living room, following the L to the dining room, kitchen, the door. He chased her, making storm-like howls of his own as he remembered his mother chasing him around the yard, her belt buckle whistling past his ear, beside himself with the tremendous charge of it all. But the woman-what a body she must have under that coat! — was fast, really fast, almost as fast as he was. He didn’t catch her until she reached the door, forced to slow down to jerk it open. She actually had it halfway open, was on the point of disappearing into the storm on those quick feet, when Whitey sprang right over the kitchen table, flew across the room, and caught her a good one with his shoulder.

A real good one. The woman bounced off the door-jamb, back into the room, sprawled facedown on the floor. Whitey caught his breath, picked himself up, walked over to her. She was already up on her hands and knees. He bent over, got one hand in her hair-beautiful hair, so soft and clean, he’d never felt anything like it-raised her head, held the box cutter to her throat.

“This is going to be something else,” he told her.

But then somehow she was rolling out of his grasp, leaving him with a handful of hair and a sharp pain, high up the inside of his leg: the bitch had tried to kick him in the balls. He tripped her up; she fell again, knocking the table over; he leaped on top of her-leaped right into the path of the wine bottle, already in her hand, arcing at his head. The bottle caught him right in the face, smashing against his nose, broken glass digging deep long tracks down his cheeks. He saw nothing but red, but at least she was under him; he could feel her wriggling. Whitey got hold of her somewhere, he didn’t even know where, but it didn’t last: wriggle, wriggle and she was out from under, rolling again, getting away. He slashed out blindly with the cutter, a last, desperate try, and felt the blade slice home, dig deep in flesh. At the same moment, he heard a loud pop-her Achilles, you lucky bastard-and a cry of pain. Lucky, lucky bastard, because she was down again, crawling toward the door, yes, but her running days were over. Whitey crawled after her, through a red haze, jabbing with the cutter. The woman swung round, still had a piece of the bottle, got him again, got him in the face again! He was fighting a fucking woman for his life. Whitey went crazy. Slash slash slash with the cutter. And some more.

Silence.

Not quite silence, Whitey realized after a while. There was a dripping sound, drip drip. He got to his knees, found the towel he’d been wearing, wiped blood from his eyes, picked shards of glass from his face, wiped more blood. The woman lay still, what was left of her. He wanted to kill her even though she was dead.

Time passed. Drip drip. Whitey gripped some piece of overturned furniture, pulled himself to his feet. He gazed around, reeled a little, made his slow way back around the L, through the dining room, living room, then even more slowly up the stairs. He went into the bathroom, sat on the toilet, put on clothes, took a breather, put on the rest of them. His watch was frozen at 5:33. He dropped it in the wastebasket.

Whitey went into the made-up bedroom, lowered himself to the floor, hands on the bed to support his weight. He checked under the bed: no painting. Garden, or whatever it was. No painting at all. He knelt there breathing for a while, then got up, went downstairs, back along the L, past the woman, out the door.

Still snowing. Whitey felt cold at once, much colder than he’d ever been. He walked as far as he could, two hundred feet or so, and sat down to rest with his back against one of those big trees.

While he rested, Whitey noticed that he’d left the lights on in the cottage. Was that smart? He tried to think-painting, divorce, Brinks truck, six-fifteen precisely- and got nowhere. Nothing added up. Didn’t matter anyway: maybe he had the strength to get back across the river; he didn’t have the strength to go back inside and close things down first. Where was that box cutter, by the way?

And other things. Whitey was trying so hard to think of other things he might have left behind that he almost didn’t notice a flash of headlights on the east side of the river, where the pickup was. A flash in a snow-filled sky, and then gone: his imagination again? What was this imagination all of a sudden? Then the pain started: no imagining that.

Whitey thought about getting up, almost did once or twice. That woman: he didn’t understand her at all, had never dreamed there could be a woman like that. She’d ruined him. Master of puppets I’m pulling your strings, twisting your mind and smashing your dreams. Whitey didn’t sing the words aloud, just mouthed them. That was a good thing because sometime later a figure came out of the shadows behind the house.

A tall figure, certainly a man this time, almost as tall as Whitey. He carried something in his hand and bent low as he went by the dining-room windows so he wouldn’t be seen from inside. A cunning kind of guy-Whitey could tell right away. The cunning guy crept around to the door. The porch light gleamed on what he had in his hand: an ax. The cunning guy slowly straightened, peeped quickly in through the round window. The next moment he whirled around and scanned the darkness. The porch light shone clear on his face: Roger. He was looking in Whitey’s direction but would never see him, not through all that falling snow, not in that darkness. Darkness was Whitey’s friend.

Raising the ax, Roger pushed the door open and went inside. Whitey forgot about his weakness and pain, stood up at once. He headed for home. High above, the owl hooted, or it might have been something new in the storm.