Now You See It... Part 67

He didn't finish, but he didn't have to; I understood.

"When I was ten, my mother hanged herself," he went on. "Ca.s.sandra took her place in my life, the only person in

me world I could trust.

"She took me away from our father when she was sixteen and I was thirteen- By then, she'd made up her mind to fol- low no rules but to do anything she could to get ahead.

"I didn't blame her; I don't blame her now. We were two of a kind-angry, vengeful, pitted against a world which

had g?ven us nothing but pain.

"So we became what you saw and heard about from Max-a pair of icy opportunists. Not that he knew it at first.

Ca.s.sandra was too good at pretending to allow him to see what she-and I-really were."

214 Richard Mathnon

He stopped speaking and lowered his head again; I thought he was finished.

He wasn't. Rising, he retrieved the skirt he'd removed and lay it across Ca.s.sandra's still features.

Then he moved to the picture window and stared out at the lake, a faint smile on his lips. Js he thinking, I wondered, that the view he sees is only a reflection? I had no way of know- ing-

Finally, he turned and walked to the desk, sitting on its edge.

"We have a little wait, don't we?" he said.

"Where was I?"

He stared at me bleakly; then, after several moments, he spoke again.

"She had an affair with a stage magician when she was seventeen. She used him to leam his trade and she taught me what she'd learned.

"Then she dropped him, and it was the two of us again, together in ... every way," he murmured.

His smile was bitter.

"Several other 'status-enhancing'-as she called mem- relationships followed before she met Max and set her cap for him. Moving in after Adelaide's death. With me, as al- ways, trailing behind, her faithful lapdog ... slavish to her every demand."

He sighed heavily.

"Things changed after they were married," he said. "My closeness to her gradually deteriorated. She was-without my knowing it-scheming toward a future which did not include me.

"I tried not to notice it. I'd been trained to trust her to- tally, believe her every word. I loved her. Padre-" His voice broke, and he had to pause to regain himself.

"But in spite of that," he said, "I had to recognize, even-

Now You See It.. 215

tually, mat I was living-in her life, at least-on borrowed time."

"It all came to a head when Max demanded that I help him eliminate her because of what she was doing to him."

The bitter smile again.

"How clever she was," he said. "Until that moment, I'd had no idea that she was plotting either Max's dissolution as a performer or-if that didn't work-his death.

"Discovering that was a traumatic blow to me. Padre," he went on. "Putting aside everything we'd meant to one an- other, she was planning to betray me.

"I saw the cabal; Ca.s.sandra and Harry versus Max, with me completely out of the picture.

"It was then that the lapdog planned his revenge."

"I pretended to agree with Max. Even signed that stupid

murder contract with him; of course, I planned to destroy it

later.

"Then I told Ca.s.sandra what he was planning to do: drug

her with me blowgun dart and have me hang her in the

freezer to die slowly-as she planned to let him die slowly

from a.r.s.enic poisoning."

Once more, mat bitter smile, "She pretended, of course, that she'd always intended to

tell me what she'd been doing," he said.

He turned his head and looked at Ca.s.sandra's body, his

expression once again unreadable. He stared at her for more

man a minute- Then he murmured, "Right," and moved behind the

desk. Sitting, he took a sheet of paper from the drawer and

began to write on it.

216 Richard Mathexon

"They all misread me. Padre," he said. "Brian the pathetic gofer. Nothing but a p.a.w.n to be moved around their mur- derous chessboard."

His expression was hard now, his voice angry.

"They should have given me more credit," he said.

"I made fools of them both.

"Pretending to help each one separately, I played my game and stood by while they contrived to murder one an- other."