Now You See It... Part 64

She snickered.

"And Brian swims for a while until I pick him up."

Another snicker.

"You didn't know that he can imitate you, too. Not as well as he can imitate me, but good enough to fool some strangers into testifying to Maximilian Delacorte's unhappy demise. Was it suicide? Perhaps."

She grinned. "The poor man was so depressed about his failing career," she said.

She chuckled.

206 Richard Matheson

"Then, of course, I might not pick up Brian after all/' she said. "Z might just let him drown."

She is a h.e.l.lhag, 1 thought. I understood exactly why my son had wanted to kill her.

I would have wanted the same.

"If I do pick him up," Ca.s.sandra was continuing/ "I'll d.a.m.n well keep him in his place, the same way you were doing it-with those forged checks, that murder contract."

She chuckled again; again, lewdly.

"Not that he'd ever turn on me," she said. "I've handled him all my life."

Her eyes hooded sensuously.

"In more ways than one," she said.

What is Max thinking about all this? I wondered,

Or was he still capable of thought? Had the poison de- prived him of all capacity by men?

Ca.s.sandra had taken another drink, and she sighed con- tentedly.

"Anyway, what matters is that I have your effects now,"

she said. "I can do what I please with them. Create a new act. A today act. One that will sell."

She giggled softly. Yes, dear reader, giggled.

"I may even let Harry be my booking agent," she said.

She bared her teeth.

"And screw him when I feel the urge," she added.

If only I could move, I thought.

Pathetically.

Max was looking at her, his expression one of (almost gentle!) condemnation.

"Don't look at me like that," she said.

"This didn't have to happen.

"We could have worked together. Or, at least, I thought we could have, until I saw mat shrine.

"I couldn't believe the anger it made me feel-the pain.

"Yes, pain! I thought you'd lost the power to hurt me

Now You SB h... 207

long ago. The power to make me care about anything mat had to do with us."

I felt my body tightening as Max replied.

"I would... hardly... think you cared... at all... when you were . . . poisoning me for ... thirteen months," he managed to get out.

"You're right," she agreed, trying to act as though the sound of his voice had not unnerved her.

"I never cared for you," she said, "only for your success.

"And now I've got it/'

She poured herself another gla.s.sful of champagne and held it up.

"To me/' she said. "The New Great Delacorte."

Never! I thought, absurdly.

Ca.s.sandra emptied me gla.s.s, men walked over to the desk, set the bottle and gla.s.s on top of it, and moving to the fieldstone wall, pushed in the stone. The apparatus began to close.

Ca.s.sandra looked at her dying husband.

"See you in h.e.l.l," she said- Max smiled. (How could he?)

"It's o date/' he responded.

With his remaining strength, he chuckled as the freezer folded m on itself until, once more, I saw only the picture window overlooking the gazebo by the lake.

The storm was decreasing now, moving off, die rain slackening, thunder and lightning almost negligible. A co- incidence?

Or had Nature taken notice and reduced its accompany- ing violence as the violence in the room subsided?

Ca.s.sandra looked at me.