Killing Cousins

Three

It was odd about Quincy.

He was very difficult to understand, Quincy was, why he was what he was instead of something else he could have been, but the oddest thing about him, so far as Willie was concerned, was how he managed to make her feel the way he did when, if you stopped to consider it, he shouldn’t have made her feel that way at all. He simply wasn’t the type of man who normally appealed to her, or had begun to appeal to her after she had established a satisfactory financial and social position by marrying Howard, who wasn’t the type either. The men who normally appealed to her were the ones who played golf and maybe tennis and swam afterward in the Club pool in those brief little trunks that made the most interesting break in their sun-browned bodies. And it didn’t make any difference that they really weren’t much good at any of these things, just so long as they carried themselves with the proper air of superiority, as when walking across the terrace with the cleats, or whatever you called the things on the soles of their golf shoes, making arrogant little clicking sounds on the concrete, or when talking loudly about birdies and par and things like that over highballs and gins-and-tonics and Moscow Mules in the bar. Quincy didn’t play golf or tennis or swim in the pool, and the only thing he had in common with most of the men who did was a remarkable capacity for the refreshments of the bar, particularly bourbon on the rocks, and in this respect, Willie had to admit, he was even superior to the others, for he commonly spent hours developing it in that air-conditioned haven while they were otherwise occupied in the hot sun outside.

What Quincy was, was a brain. As a child, Willie had been told, he worked difficult mathematics problems in his head and could remember a whole page of reading after one time over. What he also was, was poor. He’d gone off to the state university on a scholarship or something, and there he’d amazed the professors and graduated cum laude, whatever that meant, and then he’d come immediately home to Quivera and got a job as teller in the City National Bank, and that’s where he still was and what he still was, still a brain and still poor, and not caring a single damn, apparently, about being anywhere or anything else. Weekends, he was usually at the Club, dividing his time among the bar, where he drank and drank and got quietly drunk, and the slot-machine room, where he played for quarters and always won, and the terrace outside, where he lay in a sling chair and slept or read thick books about all sorts of peculiar things like science and history and philosophy and such. He wasn’t even good-looking by acceptable standards. He was short and slim, moving with a kind of indolent grace, but he had a nose twisted to one side and a mouth twisted to the other, and his skin was dark and very slightly pocked in the face by something he had had as a child. When he looked at you, if you were Willie, he took your clothes off.

He was certainly a brain, all right, but brains were not highly regarded by Willie unless they were applied to the accumulation of material advantages. Old Howard, for instance, didn’t have brain one, but he had this knack for making two dollars out of one, and that, in Willie’s opinion, was a hell of a lot more important. Anyhow, all things considered, it was simply incredible that Quincy made her feel the way he did, and the way he made her feel was kind of breathless and prickly and ready. She’d got acquainted with him early, of course, since he was Howard’s cousin, the son of the brother of Howard’s father. It was perfectly clear that he held Howard in contempt, perfectly clear to everyone but Howard, and this had made Willie hostile in the beginning, more because it was an incidental reflection on her than for Howard’s sake. She kept telling herself that Quincy was really rather ridiculous, all brains and no glands, and for a long time this was something she almost believed, in spite of the ready feeling, but then had come a particular night at the Club, which was shortly after the unfortunate episode with Evan Spooner, and after that it wasn’t possible to almost believe it any longer.

It was a Friday night, and there were some people outside swimming in the pool and sitting around on the terrace, and some more people dancing to the jukebox and sitting around at tables in the bar, and Howard was at one of the tables in a game of gin rummy. It happened that Willie had gone to the powder room, which was next to the slot-machine room, and she could hear a machine playing in there. Looking in to see who was playing it, she saw that it was Quincy who was. He was standing there with a bourbon in one hand and a cigarette hanging loosely from his lips, and he’d put in a quarter and pull the handle and reach into his jacket pocket for another quarter while the drum was still spinning, and as soon as the drum had stopped, he’d put in the other quarter and pull the handle again. He didn’t win anything while Willie was watching, and pretty soon she went in and stood beside him and slightly behind him, so close that they touched when he turned half around to see who she was.

“Hello, Quincy,” she said.

“Hello, Cousin,” he said, turning away again and putting another quarter into the machine.

“Any luck?”

“Only bad.”

“Maybe I could change it.”

“You think so? Pull the handle.”

She pulled the handle, and it was one of those breaks of pure luck that sometimes come. The drum spun and quit spinning, and there, sure enough, were three of a kind lined up as neatly as you could wish, and the machine gave a kind of metallic belch and spilled a jackpot of quarters into the coin receptacle below.

“Well, I’ll be damned,” Quincy said. “No wonder old Howard just keeps getting richer and richer.”

“It was nothing but luck,” Willie said.

“I know.” He looked at her over his shoulder, his nose twisting one way and his mouth the other, and he gave an added twist to the twist of his mouth that made a kind of smile of it. “What’s better than luck?”

He put another quarter into the machine and pulled the handle to take the jackpot off. Then he began to take the quarters out of the receptacle and drop them into his jacket pocket.

“Are you quitting?” she said.

“Why not? No use playing a machine that just dumped the jackpot.”

“Oh, yes. That’s true, isn’t it? Well, if you are going to quit, I may as well leave. I think I’ll go upstairs and outside for a while.”

“Wait a minute. The pot’s yours. I’ll get it changed into paper at the bar for you.”

“Don’t be absurd. I simply won’t hear of it. It was your quarter I played with.”

“We’ll split, then. Down the middle. Nine dollars apiece.”

“Not at all. You must keep it all for yourself.”

“I want you to have half. If you won’t have it, I’ll throw it all into the swimming pool.”

She thought that he was surely just the one who would do it, and she kept having all the while that peculiar prickly feeling that she shouldn’t have had. He was short for a man, a kind of runt, and they were practically the same height when she was wearing high heels, as she now was. He stared levelly into her eyes, nowhere else, but she had suddenly a new feeling, which was part of the larger prickliness, that the high heels were all she was wearing.

“All right,” she said. “If you want me to have half, I’ll have it.”

She turned and walked out and upstairs into a hall and from there onto a terrace, which was ground level on the front just as the terrace downstairs was ground level on the back, the Club being built on a slope that made things turn out that way. She had thought that he would follow her, which was what she wanted, but he wasn’t behind her and didn’t come, and after a minute or two of waiting she began to feel rejected and humiliated and slightly angry. But then he was there beside her, having come, after all.

“What are you doing up here?” she said.

“Following you. What are you doing?”

“Waiting for you.”

“So here we are, Cousin.”

“I was beginning to think you weren’t coming.”

“Well, hell, you didn’t expect me to walk around with five pounds of quarters in my pocket, did you?”

“Where shall we go?”

“Let’s go down and sit in old Howard’s new Buick.”

“What shall we do?”

“If it suits you, we can make love.”

So that’s where they went and what they did, and afterward, back in the Club, he gave her nine dollars, half of the pot. She didn’t think anything about it at the time, but later, remembering it, it seemed almost like she was being paid, and she wondered if he’d done it that way deliberately, the ugly little bastard.

Anyhow, it was certainly strange about Quincy. After that night, which was understandable as an experience that just sort of happened, you’d have thought she’d have forgotten about him in favor of the type of man that normally appealed to her, but that wasn’t what developed, and what developed was something Willie couldn’t seem to help. After that night, as a matter of fact, it was exclusively Quincy, except Howard now and then, and one time one other, and there had even been a couple of weekends in KC. Everything had gone along without any serious difficulties or problems, and Willie didn’t think there was actually much risk to it, for no one would reasonably suspect her of having an affair with Quincy, of all people, but then last night, quite the contrary, everything had gone suddenly all to pieces, and was still in pieces, and she couldn’t see any way, for the life of her, to put the pieces together again.

This was Saturday morning, and last night had been Friday, just like the first night with Quincy, and at the Club there had been another one of those little parties that just get started and grow. Willie had been there with Howard, and Quincy had been there alone, and a lot of others had been there too, mostly married couples, and there was a lot of dancing to the jukebox, with people passing partners around, as well as quite a lot of drinking as the night went on. Quite a lot of drinking was unavoidable, really, because someone always bought a round of drinks, and that made everyone else obligated to buy a round of drinks before the party was over, and so many rounds of drinks just naturally added up to quite a lot of drinking that was unavoidable as a matter of obligation. Willie danced and danced, and Howard was agreeable and didn’t seem to mind, and Quincy stood with his elbows on the bar and drank bourbon and didn’t dance with anyone, not even Willie, for he considered dancing, like golf and tennis, an unreasonable exertion.

After midnight, about half past, Quincy turned away from the bar and faced the room, his elbows still bracing him behind, and after a few minutes walked out and up the stairs without saying a word to anyone. Howard at the moment was talking and laughing with two men in a corner, maybe telling dirty stories, and Willie said Excuse me to the man she happened to be dancing with, and went into the powder room, next to the slot-machine room, in case someone happened to be watching. After a minute or so, she slipped out and upstairs after Quincy and found him standing on the terrace. They walked down along a row of parked cars and off at an angle across the golf course in the dark, and they must have walked back that way a hundred yards or more to a large sycamore tree, and so much time was spent there pleasantly under the tree after arriving that it was past one when they got back to the bar in the Club, and Howard was gone.

Well, Quincy had taken her home in his second-hand Plymouth, and she had been furious with Howard for being so unreasonable and mean. She had gone upstairs and directly into his room with the intention of telling him precisely what she thought of him for deserting her, and there he was with the lights burning and a large leather bag open on the bed, and he was plainly putting clothes into the bag with the purpose of going away somewhere.

“Hello,” he said pleasantly. “Did you and Quincy have a good lay?”

This was disconcerting, to say the least. Willie had carefully planned the very first thing she was going to say, for it was important to get off to a good start in matters of this kind, but now she was compelled to change her position in the last instant, and the new position was defensive, instead of offensive, which was bad.

“What in the world are you talking about?” she said.

“You know what I’m talking about,” he said, “and don’t bother to tell me any lies, because it won’t do you any good. I know damn well what’s been going on between you and Quincy.”

“Do you actually? In that case, perhaps you wouldn’t mind telling me what it is, for if anything at all has been going on between us, I don’t know it.”

“Never mind. You’re a natural-born liar, and would keep on denying it even if I had photographs. The truth is, I don’t care, and I don’t want to talk about it.”

In the meantime, while talking, he walked over to a chest and took some socks and underwear out of an open drawer and returned with them to the leather bag and put them in. He didn’t look at her any more, after the first time, and he had about him that lubberly kind of dignity that she had noticed before on certain occasions. The most disturbing thing about him was that he clearly wasn’t in the least angry, and there was even a special kind of lightheartedness in his attitude, as if he had made up his mind about something and was relieved as a consequence.

“What are you doing?” she said.

“As you can see, I’m packing.”

“Where are you going?”

“I’m going away.”

“ ‘Away’ is no answer. Where, exactly, away?”

“That’s none of your business. Wherever it is, though, I’m never coming back, and you can be certain of that.”

“Don’t be absurd.”

“You may think I’m absurd if you choose. You’ll see.”

“Well, if you are determined to accuse me falsely of having an affair with your own cousin, who is an ugly little devil besides, there’s nothing I care to say to you. And if you want to run away and leave me, there’s nothing I can do to stop you. You’ll be sorry after a while for treating me so unfairly. When you come back, I hope you’ll be prepared to be sensible.”

“I said I’m not coming back, and I’m not.”

“Excuse me, please. I’m tired, and I believe I’ll go to bed.”

She went through the bathroom into her own bedroom, where she took off all her clothes and put on a pale blue nightgown that practically wasn’t there. Then, after brushing her teeth and her hair and repairing her face, she went back through the bathroom into the other bedroom and stood between Howard and a light. He glanced at her once and quickly away.

“You needn’t try that either,” he said.

“Try what, may I ask?” she said.

“Coming in here naked to seduce me. It won’t work this time.”

“You’re talking very strangely, I must say. Are you sure you’re not drunk? Surely a wife has the right to wear her nightgown in the presence of her husband without being accused of all sorts of things.”

“Oh, hell! What’s the use? I’m going away, that’s all, and I’m not coming back. Nothing more is to be said or done.”

She was convinced then that he was telling the simple truth, that he was going and wouldn’t return, and she was instantly aware of the immensity of her possible loss. Possibly she could make arrangements for herself that would equal the house at 524 Ouichita Road and the Country Club and two cars and all the exciting associations with men who played golf and tennis and ordered rounds of drinks like nothing at all, but on the other hand possibly she couldn’t, and what, if she couldn’t, would ever become of her? She had a clear vision of a narrow bleak house in a bare yard before a bright board fence, and she felt a terrible loneliness and a cold, cold fear.

“You can’t go,” she said.

“I can,” he said, “and I will.”

“I won’t let you.”

“You can’t stop me.”

“We’ll see if I can’t.”

Her head was spinning round and round, which caused the room to spin as well, or seem to, and the truth was that she was still pretty tight from all the rounds of drinks at the Club. The one idea that got fixed in her mind clearly was that Howard kept a little revolver in the drawer of the night table beside his bed, and that she could surely use this revolver in some way, if she had it, to persuade Howard not to go away. She went over to the table and opened the drawer, and there, sure enough, was the revolver, and she picked it up and held it in her hand. Howard was watching her.

“What are you doing with that?” he said.

“Maybe I’ll kill myself.”

“Go ahead. It’s loaded.”

“You wish I would, don’t you?”

“Not particularly. It doesn’t matter one way or another.”

“Maybe I’ll kill you instead.”

“I’m not worried about it.”

“No? You think I won’t do it?”

“No.”

“What makes you so sure?”

“You haven’t got the nerve. You haven’t got the nerve to kill yourself or me or anyone at all.”

“Be careful. You may be wrong.”

“Go ahead, then. Kill me.”

“You’d like to see me in trouble, wouldn’t you?”

“If you get into trouble by killing me, I won’t be around to see it.”

“You don’t care what happens to me, do you?”

“Yes, I do, as a matter of fact. I wish you all the bad luck in the world. I hope you go right back to the poor trash I took you away from, and I don’t doubt you will.”

If he had been trying deliberately to say exactly the wrong thing, he couldn’t have done better. He was standing suddenly against a garish fence, bright blue at this time, and she shot him. He fell back against the fence and sat down with an expression of complete astonishment on his face. He sat there for a second or two and then lay down sidewise beside the fence and did not move thereafter.

It was such a little revolver, hardly more than a toy, and she was, moreover, such a bad shot, that it was a kind of miracle that she should have hit him at all, let alone in a vital place. It was purely by chance, in fact, that she did. It must have been his heart, the vital place, for there was a little hole in his shirt just over the place where his heart probably was. She walked over and looked down at him, but did not touch him, and she was certain that he was dead. It was incredible that Howard should simply be dead so suddenly, something she could not immediately adjust to. Her head kept on spinning, and she thought that she probably ought to do something, but she couldn’t think of anything specific that would do the least bit of good. It would be much better to consider the problem when she could think clearly, and in the meanwhile it would be necessary to arrive at a condition where clear thinking was possible.

She went back through the bathroom into her own bedroom, still carrying the little gun. She placed the gun on the table beside her bed and lay down to rest a few minutes, and she must have gone almost immediately to sleep, for the next she knew, it was morning, this morning, the morning of Saturday, and Howard was dead in his bedroom beside a blue fence.

Howard dead was Willie’s problem, and the crux of the problem was what to do with him.