Whom Gods Destroy (10 page)

“I know just the one.”

He was already heading for the door when I caught him and gave him five dollars. “This is to help make a bad memory worse,” I said.

“Yes,
sir!”
He was on his way.

I stood in the middle of the room for a few minutes, trying to decide what I should do next. Then I went over to the closet and began prying one of the panels off the door. After I got that done, I put the panel back in place and pressed in two small moulding nails to hold it there. Then I sat on the bed and unwrapped the camera I had bought.

I had the whole works, two dozen flash bulbs, a flash attachment, and one of those cameras that takes a picture and develops it and gives you the positive print all in sixty seconds. I'd never snapped a picture in my life, and now that I was finally going to snap one, it had to be perfect. I needed practice and I needed it in a hurry.

The instructions seemed simple enough. I put the flash attachment on, then put in one of the bulbs, and fiddled with the lens until I guessed it was about right. The panel in the closet door came out again. I got inside the closet, aimed the camera through the hole in the door and pressed the shutter lever.

The whole room lit up for an instant as though lightning had struck it. When I pulled the film out, sixty seconds later all I had was a black piece of glossy printing paper. Without a thing on it.

I read the instructions more carefully this time, and went back into the closet to try again. It still wasn't good, but when I took the film out I could make out the ghostly image of the bed. Too much exposure, I decided, so I made more corrections and shot again. I used up a dozen flash bulbs, with a chair placed in the middle as a target, and every picture got a little better.

Then the knock came.

She didn't wait for an invitation. She tried the knob of the door and saw that it wasn't locked so she came in. If she was surprised at seeing me standing in the closet looking through the hole I had made, she didn't show it. She sat on the bed, staring vacantly around the room, until I came out. Then she smiled. The smile was vacant, too.

“The boy said you wanted some fun, honey.”

She was perfect for what I wanted, a broad-rumped, heavy-breasted, Jersey-cow-like girl.

“Stand up,” I said. “Let's see what you look like on your feet.”

She got up, stretching lazily. “This all right, honey?”

“That's fine. Right there by the chair.” I went back into the closet and took aim at her. She was a long way from being ugly—her hair was rich brown and long, but uncared-for. She was about twenty, and it took only a brief glance to know that her young, overripe body was her stock and trade. Her dress was a sleazy off-the-rack print pulling almost to the bursting point across her bulging hips and breasts.

“All right,” I said. When I pushed the shutter lever, setting off the flash bulb, she jumped.

“What is this?”

“Just a minute and I'll show you.” I came out and she looked on curiously as I began pulling the film out of the camera.

I handed it to her and she said, “Well!” in a tone that didn't mean anything. “It makes me look a little fat, don't you think? But it isn't bad.”

“It could be sharper,” I said. I changed the shutter speed the least bit, snapped off the ceiling lights and turned on a floor lamp. “Let's try it again, this time without clothes.”

“Look, honey,” she said patiently. “I've seen plenty of strange ones, so if you want to take pictures it's all right with me. Clothes or no clothes. But I have to have my money in advance.”

I gave her a ten and a five and she smiled in a vague sort of way, then put the two bills in a leatherette bag. “Honey, I can be real nice. Are you sure you want it this way?”

“I'm crazy about it this way. I just like to take pictures all the time.”

She shrugged the smallest shrug in the world, and began stripping.

She was perfect. That overripe body, those swollen breasts—she looked like the great grandmother of all the whores in Babylon. For a moment she stood alone, pale, deadly white, in the midst of the flash bulbs' silent explosion. I came out of the closet, snapped the ceiling lights on, and after a minute we looked at the picture. It was perfect.

I said, “All right, you can put your clothes on and we'll talk business.”

I went over to the window and looked down on Big Prairie until she was dressed.

When I turned around she was sitting there, fully dressed, waiting for me say something. I got out my wallet, took out five twenties, and laid the crisp green bills on the bed. She looked at them hungrily, not moving.

“Do you want to make a hundred?”

“What kind of a question is that, honey?”

“All right,” I said, “we're going to make one more picture and the hundred's yours. But you're going to have a partner in the next one. This is the way it's going to be. First, you've got to have a robe of some kind, something good and long that you can wrap yourself in and look dressed, even when you've got nothing on under it. The next thing you do is make a telephone call to the county courthouse and tell them you want to talk to the county attorney. His name's Paul Keating. When you get Keating on the phone you tell him you've got some information that his grand jury will be interested in. Tell him it's about Barney Seaward. Tell him it's so bad you're afraid to talk about it over the phone, and when he asks where he can talk to you, you give him this room number in the Travelers Hotel.”

She looked up then, beginning to get it. “So when this Paul Keating comes around, I get him in the room, shuck my robe, and you snap a picture of us.”

“That's it.”

She got up slowly, reaching for the bills, but I grabbed them first.

“After,” I said. “Now get going. Get that robe somewhere and make the telephone call—and don't put it through the hotel switchboard.”

She picked up her bag and walked toward the door, switching her rump at me. She opened the door, then paused. “Honey, will you take care of the bellhop? After all, this isn't like a regular trick.”

“All right,” I said impatiently. “Now get out of here.” She left.

The whole thing seemed pretty damn crude. Still, I couldn't see any reason why it wouldn't work. I felt sure that Paul Keating would jump fast if he thought Seaward was in trouble. After all, Barney was the man Keating was depending on to put him in the governor's mansion.

The whole thing depended on Keating himself—how much guts he had and how much of a bluff he would swallow. If it didn't work—I couldn't allow myself to think about that. And if it
did
work....

I liked to think about that.

In about thirty minutes the girl came back.

“Tell me about it.” I said. “What did Keating say?”

“I've got a name,” she said. “It's Rose—that's the reason I got this robe with the roses on it.” She held the robe in front of her and admired herself in the dresser mirror. “Well, he was interested all right,” she said, looking over her shoulder at me. “He wanted me to come to his office, but I told him what you said, that the information was too bad and I was afraid Seaward was having me followed. He didn't like it much, coming to the hotel, but he finally gave in.”

“When?”

“Four-thirty,” she said.

I looked at my watch and it was a little after four. “All right. Let's see how the robe fits.”

She could have gone into the bathroom to change, but I guess it never occurred to Rose. She stripped right in the middle of the room.

Then she posed for me, turning clumsily, imitating the fashion models she'd probably seen in newsreels.

“That'll do, I guess. Can you shuck the thing fast when the time comes?”

“In less than a second, I'll bet. All I have to do is pull the tie and shrug my shoulders. You want to see me do it?”

“Never mind, I'll take your word for it.”

We had almost a half hour to kill, and it was a long half hour. But Keating was right on time. At four-thirty sharp there was a light rap at the door and I grabbed my camera, making elaborate gestures for Rose to get her robe on right. Keating was knocking the second time when I closed the closet door on myself. I didn't see him come in, but I heard the door open and Rose saying, “Mr. Keating—?”

She was a pretty good actress, at that. She did it just right, not too eager but kind of nervous. Keating said something and I began easing the loose panel up, making a crack to look through.

Keating didn't look very comfortable and he didn't like the setup at all. He looked around sharply as Rose slipped behind him and snapped the latch on the door. He took out an immaculate handkerchief and daubed at his forehead. “Well— Very well, Miss Carson. Now what is this information you mentioned over the phone?”

By now she had maneuvered him into the center of the room, the way we had planned it. “Do you promise,” she asked anxiously, “not to tell where you got the information?”

“Of course, Miss Carson. It will be confidential, I assure you.” Keating was beginning to get interested now. She had him in profile to the closet, which was just right. I saw her working with her belt then, and that was my cue to go to work. Keating started to say something, but no sound came out. His mouth merely came open and stayed open. She brought it off as calmly as she would light a cigarette. One smooth motion broke the bow in the belt and the robe came open. She shrugged her shoulders; the robe fell away completely.

I almost laughed at the look on Keating's face. He was completely frozen, shocked beyond speech, beyond movement. He stood there like a stone statue as Rose wriggled against him and slipped her arms around his neck, and by that time I had the panel down and the camera aimed. She flattened her bare belly against him and hung onto his neck, leaning back from the waist up. For just an instant they stood that way. The camera clicked and the silent crash of light lit up the room.

Keating reacted to that. He whirled, knocking the girl against the bed. When I stepped out of the closet I thought he was going to faint. His face went white as he began to realize what had happened. Then he sprang at me, growling deep in his throat and grabbing frantically at the camera.

As a lawyer, Paul Keating may have been pretty good, but as a fighter he was less than nothing. With the camera in my left hand, I stepped to one side and hit him full in the face with my right fist. I could feel the ache all the way to my shoulder. I shifted the camera and slammed my left in his belly, low. He went to his knees.

I made sure that Keating was in no hurry to get up; then I gave Rose the five twenties and waited for her to get dressed. It could have been a minute or an hour—but after a while she finally eased out.

Keating kneeled on all fours, gasping, sick from that low punch. I realized then that I still had the camera in my hand. The realization almost sent me into panic. Maybe I had left the exposed film in too long and it was ruined! But the picture was all right. I pulled it out of the camera and tore it off.

“How do you like it, Keating?” I held it in front of him and jerked it back before he could grab it.

His mouth worked. “It—It was a trick,” he said painfully. He shook his head, blood from his split mouth dripping to the carpet. “It was a trick—she was in on it all the time.” He looked up then, at me. “This is extortion, Foley. Do you know what they do to extortionists in this state?”

“It isn't extortion unless I try to get something out of you. Now get up.”

He got up slowly, wiping his mouth on his handkerchief. “It was a trick,” he said again. “I can prove it in any court in Oklahoma. If I have to, I can get experts to swear that it's a composite picture you had made up for the purpose of blackmail.” His legal brain was beginning to work now, and he was gaining confidence. “Give the picture to me,” he said, holding out his hand. “If you refuse, I'll see you behind bars.”

I laughed. “The last thing you would do,” I said, “is bring this up in court. Sure, you could prove that it was a trick. You could even send me to prison, maybe—but you're not going to. Do you know why? It would be the end of your political career, that's why. No matter how many experts you brought in and how completely you proved it. Look,” I said, holding the picture in front of him again, “do you know what I'll do if you ever mention this? I'll get a hundred thousand copies of this picture printed and I'll send a copy to every voter in Big Prairie County. Do you think your good church members would believe what an expert told them or what they saw with their own eyes? Look at the picture, Keating. Does it look faked?”

His brief moment of fight was over. He looked as if someone were turning a knife in him.

“Why—?” he said hoarsely. It was almost a sob. “What have I done to you? What do you want from me?”

“First, I want you to call Sid and tell him not to pay any attention to anything your wife might have told him earlier today. Tell him she was upset or something and it was all a mistake and there's no reason to take me off the payroll.”

He stared blankly. “What is this? I don't even know what you're talking about.”

“You'll find out later. Just do as I say.”

Now he looked more puzzled than hurt. He just stood there for a moment, studying me; then he picked up the room phone and gave the hotel operator the number of Sid's office.