Chapter 12
Fred Markell had been tor a walk.
He had walked the eight blocks down to the station, getting there just in time to see the 1:06 for New York depart, moments before. The next train was at 1:32, but he had no intention whatever of waiting for it. He circled the station and headed back toward his house.
But not the way he came. He took Laurel Crescent, the undeveloped road that ran up the rear way From Laurel Crescent he could enter his own property from the back, crossing the rear yard and getting unnoticed to the garage.
From the garage, he could watch the house.
Warily, Markell moved through the quiet afternoon, through the deserted, snow-covered area. No one lived back here yet. The property had been sold recently, and the developers would be around with their bulldozers in the spring to put up a row of their flimsy little frame boxes, but as of now the tract was empty.
Ideal territory for skulking through. He could see his house, now, imposing in the center of its plot, its gables white with snow. The house was just another couple of hundred yards ahead.
He stepped through the closely planted, snow-congested hedges onto his grounds, and made his way through the rear yard toward the garage. He glanced at his watch. He had been gone a little more than half an hour, now. Plenty of time for mischief to get started, it it ever was going to get started.
The garage had two entrances; the main one for cars, and a small door in the side. He unlocked the side door and went in.
It was a detached garage, set back about seventy feet from the house. The garage was on the biggish side, a two-story garage, with room for two big cars on the ground floor and a couple of rooms as a storage area and a rumpus room if they ever had children. The single window in the front of the garage apartment gave a good view of the back of the Markell house.
And the bedrooms were in the back of the house. Looking out, he could see the bedroom windows.
Markell pulled up an empty box and settled down to watch.
The one thing he was afraid of was a mistake in timing. He didn't want to make his entry too early or too late. Give them time, lots of time, he thought All the time in the world. He hoped they wouldn't do it on the living room couch or down in the cellar or someplace like that, someplace that would be invisible from his vantage-point.
He waited.
Half an hour crawled by. He caught sight of Janet, once, fully dressed, going into the kitchen for something, probably getting ice-cubes. She didn't look toward the kitchen windows, but even Markell ducked down out of sight, watching her with one eye. A moment later she was gone from sight.
Fifteen minutes later, Donovan was briefly visible in one of the other rear windows. He was fully dressed, too.
It would be a whopping anticlimax, Markell thought, if nothing at all happened. Of course, he could go through with his plans anyway. But that idea left him chilled. He doubted that he could carry out such a cold-blooded act. But somehow he clung to his original confidence that everything would happen as he predicted.
He continued to wait.
It was three o'clock, now.
It was fiercely cold in the unheated garage, and he was shivering, his lips going blue in the cold. He hugged himself for warmth and wondered what the hell was taking Donovan so long. Surely two hours ought to be enough time to get things started.
And then he saw what he was waiting to see.
Janet was looking out one of the back windows of the bedrooms. And she was nude.
Markell ducked down out of sight again, lifting his head warily. He looked again. She hadn't bothered to draw the blinds, of course-there was nobody back here to see, she would have reasoned. And there she was. He could see her small breasts, her swelling hips. All of her, on full display.
And there was Donovan, dimly visible behind her. Naked also.
This was it, Markell thought. He wouldn't have to stage anything. They had done exactly what he had wanted them to do.
He studied his watch. Give them five minutes, he though. No more.
He let five minutes tick past. Five eternities.
He left the garage and quietly moved toward the house. The safety was off his gun. He had bought the gun several years ago, when he and Janet had first moved this far out of the city. He had argued then that out here, in a wealthy suburban town, they were a natural prey for burglars, especially when the nearest house was a few hundred feet away. Some kind of protection was necessary.
He had never used the gun. But he hadn't forgotten how. Even though his Army days were in the pretty distant past, he hadn't forgotten. It wasn't something you forgot easily. He still remembered which end of a gun you were supposed to point at the target.
He entered the house silently. He tiptoed up the stairs.
He hesitated for a moment outside the bedroom door. He could hear the sounds from within, the passionate gasps, the whooping cries of pleasure, the eager encouragement, the erotic moans and sobs. Blood flooded to his brain, and he felt dizzy as he stood there with the bedsprings creaking maddeningly through his mind.
My wife, he thought. And my friend.
Jack. Janet.
Jealousy rolled like a sweeping tide through him, and he was nearly swept away by it Nearly.
He realized that his frame of mind was all wrong, that he had no business feeling jealousy, that he shouldn't give a damn about Janet, about Jack. They were just obstacles in his path. They had ceased to have any relevance to him as human beings. They were roadblocks, standing between him and Anita, and they had to be overturned.
He listened to the sounds from within.
He listened to his wife's ecstatic voice crying in a harlot's wall, "Go ahead, my darling I Go onl Don't hold back!"
He listened to the grunting and the moaning and the pounding of flesh against flesh.
He pushed open the bedroom door.
There they were, on the bed. The marital bed, Markell thought with a pang. They were both nude. Their bodies were intertwined passionately.
Bestially.
He hadn't been prepared for the way they would be. He had expected to find them in a sexual embrace, but not like this. Not with Janet lying face down, and Donovan pressing against her.
Somehow, the sight of the two of them in their unnatural position gave Markell a great sensation of relief. It seemed to provide him with a justification for the thing he was about to do.
They hadn't noticed him yet.
Markell lifted the gun.
It was dangerous to hesitate now. Dangerous to stop and think.
They saw him. Janet first.
"Oh, no!" she cried, looking over her shoulder at the man in the doorway. "No!"
A moment later Donovan was climbing off her, leaving the bed, getting to his feet. The man looked dazed and bewildered. Janet lay where she was, her outraged buttocks pointing insolently at Markell.
Donovan shook his head, gestured foolishly with his hand as though to ward off the shot.
"For God's sake, Fred!" Donovan yelled hoarsely. "Fred, are you crazy? Don't!"
Markell squeezed the trigger, taking a kind of pleasure in doing it.
There was a monstrous explosion. The bullet smashed into Donovan's throat, and he stood huddled together in the middle of the floor for a moment, scratching at the irritation in his throat. Then he dropped over onto the floor, gurgling and spouting blood.
Janet screamed.
Then she oame rushing toward him, her naked breasts jouncing and jiggling, a wild, suicidal rush, an insane charge. Perhaps she was hoping to confuse him, to daze him long enough to save her own life.
She ran up to him. Markell put his hand between her breasts and shoved her violently away from him. She went staggering back, arms pinwheeling.
"Fred! No!" Janet screamed. "No!"
He fired.
It was so easy to pull the trigger. The slug drilled a hole between the round little swells of her breasts, and the impact of the shot slammed her back against the bed. She fell over onto it, her legs dangling to the floor, her head back.
He lifted the gun again, targeted it on the taut whiteness of her belly. But he did not fire. The shot would rip her open, would scatter blood all over the room. He couldn't do that. He didn't want gore everywhere.
Besides, it was unnecessary. She was dead already. He walked over to her, and saw the hole between her breasts, and touched his hand to her. Her eyes were wide open, glassy, staring.
He turned her over. He looked for a long moment at her buttocks. He could see the signs of the bestial love-making that had been taking place. He flipped her over again, and she slumped down limply, like a discarded doll.
He looked at Donovan. Was he alive? No, impossible. The shot had sliced right through his throat, had smashed his spinal cord. He had died within seconds. He looked beefy ridiculous as he lay there, the dead Don Juan, nothing more than useless meat now.
Markell was quivering violently. He wanted to rush into the bathroom and retch. But he held the impulse back, swallowing furiously.
He put the gun down. On numb legs he walked down the hallway, picked up the extension phone.
He dialed the operator. "Hello," he said, "Give me the police."
He waited. A bored-sounding voice said, "Police headquarters."
"Hello," Markell said strangely calm now. "My name is Fred Markell. I live up by the end of Harcourt Crescent. I just came home and found my wife in bed with my best friend. I shot them both. I think they're dead."
Anita was asleep. It was Sunday morning, so far as she was concerned, but for the rest of New York City k was Sunday afternoon. She and Joyce had been up almost till dawn, first at a party attended only by call-girls, then at Anita's apartment, together and alone, for some riotous lovemaking.
Now it was three in the afternoon. Anita had been asleep since eight that morning. She stirred, now. Without opening her eyes, she groped in the bed for Joyce, but found no one there.
She was alone.
There was not even any warmth in the bed where Joyce had been sleeping.
Anita opened her eyes. There was a note pinned to the pillow. It was dated two p.m.
"Went out for groceries and the paper," Joyce had scrawled. "I'll be back soon. Don't go away."
Anita smiled and let herself relax. She had been worried, for a moment. But Joyce would be back. Good. They had a whole long wonderful Sunday to spend together, hour after blissful hour.
Yawning, Anita got out of bed, stretched, stood by the window to touch her toes. Five, ten, fifteen toe-touches, her breasts swaying and bouncing gaily every time she swooped floorward. Her lithe body easily went through the maneuvers of the calisthenics.
It was a great life, she thought.
Great to be young, great to be healthy. Great to be good-looking and making good money.
Great to be in love.
Smiling, Anita walked into the bathroom, got under the shower, began to scrub herself. She enjoyed taking showers. She loved the hard bristles of the scrubbing-brush against the tenderness of her buttocks and thighs, she loved the feel of the needle spray against her breasts and nipples, she relished the cascades of cool water hitting her eyelids and lips.
As she showered, she thought about last night's party. It had been wild, all right. Really wild.
There had been a dozen girls there, altogether. Six couples. The party took place at the sprawling, posh Beekman Place pad of a former call girl who now, at forty, still had all her old beauty and vigor, but who had retired, and who, thanks to some smart investments managed for her by a couple of her Johns, was a millionaire.
Anita had never seen a place like it. Seven rooms, with woodburning fireplaces in master bedroom and living room, not one but two terraces, a river view, the finest in furnishings and draperies-
And the bed.
That round bed, fifteen feet in diameter, that enormous bed in the middle of that even more enormous bedroom, that bed big enough to hold a regiment-
The bed had been busy all during the party. It had taken a while for everyone to unbend enough to put their inhibitions away, but once that point had been reached, the bed had been in constant action as couple after Lesbian couple crawled in to use it. The party had started with all of the girls wearing their most elegant clothes, with every hair smoothly in place. But then the hostess, Maria, had started serving her special punch-champagne spiked with tequila-and before long inhibitions had gone with the wind. By midnight, nearly everyone was half-nude and disheveled, with breasts practically bare and hair rumpled.
And the fun, and the games!
They had played spin-the-bottle, the twelve of them, only the way Maria played it, the rules were a bit different. You spun the bottle, and whoever it pointed at was yours to kiss, as always. But you could choose the part of the body you wanted to administer the kiss to, and the recipient had no choice but to uncover it and let it be kissed. The first few spinners went for relatively conventional places-right nipple, left buttock-but then things got wilder, and more intimate places were called for, until it became a matter of kissing the intimate place only, and every girl in the place had her skirts up and her panties down, and the game degenerated into a sex spree forthwith.
And there were other games, too.
Maria had invited a couple of other friends, besides the original twelve, to stop up and visit the party. And these friends came in, around half past two in the morning. Unlike the other guests, these two weren't call girls. They weren't even girls.
They were men-at least by definition.
One of them was a tall, blond-haired young man with pale blue eyes and an angelic, Botticellian face. He looked like he was about twenty, but the word was that he was a good ten years older than that.
The other man was as short and dark as his companion was tall and fair. He was a little, stocky, balding man with hard, piercing eyes and a powerful jaw, whose aggressive masculine appearance was marred totally by his weak, simpering mouth.
The two of them came in, hand in hand. They stared about them at the dozen girls in the room. Some of the girls were completely nude, by this time. Others wore only panties, or only a bra, or only garter-belt and stockings. There wasn't one girl in the room who would not have been arrested on any public beach in the United States if she appeared in her present costume.
The two men stared at this array. Shock registered on their sensitive faces.
The blond said, "You didn't tell us this was going to be an all-girl party, Maria!"
"Well, it is," the hostess drawled. "But you boys ought to be right at home here. Nobdy's going to make any passes at you tonight. Nobody of either sex."
The short balding fairy simpered. The tall blond one still looked uncomfortable.
But they joined the fun and frolics, and sampled the tequila punch, and managed to hide any revulsion they might be feeling at the sight of so many female breasts in such casual array. Before lone they were as relaxed and cheerful as any of the Lesbians.
"Give us a show!" Maria suggested some time later.
"Yes," the others echoed. "A show! A show!"
The boys were reluctant. The boys were horrified. But a little while later the boys were very drunk, and the boys were taking off their clothes, and then the boys were caressing each other and making love to each other while the girls sat in a circle around them and watched in fascination.
Nor did the festivities end there. Because an hour later, one of the girls, a plump, sexy brunette named Liz, came up to the blond fag, whose name was Thom, and said to him, "How'd you like to have me right now?"
Thom reeled drunkenly and said, "Are you out of your ever-lovin' mind?"
"Nope. I'm offering myself."
"I haven't had a woman since I was fifteen, and I don't plan to try it again," Thom declared loudly.
The plump girl laughed. "Oh, I don't mean the regular way, silly! That's so dull! I mean, do it to me the way you just did it to your friend there-"
She turned around, showing him the pink rounded swells of her posterior.
The idea was wildly applauded. Thorn was hesitant, but just druak enough to go through with it. After all, as Maria pointed out to him, one backside was pretty much like another backside, regardless of sex. And if Thorn's friend didn't mind-
Thorn's friend didn't mind. Thorn's friend was delighted, as a matter-of-fact, to be a witness.
So Liz presented her lush buttocks and Thom had her, to his apparent delight, in front of everyone. Anita clapped her hands in pleasure at the sight, and when it was over she and Joyce hotfooted it for the big bedroom and the big round bed to work off some of the tensions and desires they had built up while watching the provocative display.
Oh, it was a wild party, all right. One of the wildest Anita had ever been at. And now it was the morning after, or, rather, the afternoon after.
She came out of the shower and dried herself off, and flopped down on the couch to wait for Joyce. A moment later, Joyce's key turned in the door, and there she was, arms laden with bundles. A newspaper stuck out of the top of one grocery bag.
"Hi," Joyce called. "When'd you get up?"
"A little while ago. I just took a shower."
"Hangover?"
"Not much."
"Me neither. It's beautiful out," Joyce said. "Cold, but not windy."
"Did it snow again?"
"No," Joyce said. "Not this time," She put her packages down and shrugged out of her coat. Anita, nude, crossed the room toward her, kissed her lightly. Joyce put one cold hand delicately over Anita's bare breasts, for a quick, gentle squeeze.
Anita said, "I wonder how those two faggot boys are feeling this morning?"
Joyce giggled. "They really had themselves a workout last night!"
"Have you ever had a man have you that way?" Anita asked.
Joyce nodded. "Three or four times. I hate it. I charge $50 for it. What about you?"
Anita shrugged. "Only once. It was interesting, but I'm not sure I'd like to do it again. It-hey, what the hell is this?"
"What?"
"Here. In the paper."
She had opened the tabloid, and had been leafing idly through it as she spoke. Now she pointed to a headline on the third page.
KILLS WIFE AND BEST FRIEND; 'FOUND THEM IN BED' HE SAYS
"What about it?" Joyce asked.
Anita shook her head. "This guy who killed his wife, Fred Markell. You see his picture here? He's one of my regulars. Every Tuesday and Friday. I'll be damned. I'll be goddamned!"
"Did he seem like a murderer to you?"
"No," Anita said. "He was a pretty nice guy, I thought. He said he didn't like his wife, that she was a frigid witch, but he didn't act like he was crazy."
Anita stared. "He cancelled his Friday session with me. Said he was having a house-guest for the weekend. Must have been the guest that he knocked off. I'll be damned," Anita said again. She chuckled. "Such a quiet guy, too. You never can tell about any of them. You just never can tell, can you?"