Hit List - Lawrence Block [105]
“If you got away with it,” he said, “your thinking was clear enough.”
“I guess so. I left her there and went home. I thought, should I call it in? But the people at 911 have got Caller ID, they know where all the calls come from.”
“Besides, what’s your hurry?”
“That’s what I decided. The longer it takes before the body’s found, the less likely they are to smell a rat.”
“Bad choice of words.”
“Bad choice of . . . oh, right. Anyway, the stuff I gave her winds up looking like a heart attack. It actually gives you one, that’s how it works. Of course it would show up if they looked for it, but why would they look for it? She was a good fifty pounds overweight, she led a sedentary life, she was old enough to have a heart attack—“
“How old do you have to be? Never mind, I know what you mean.”
“I wore gloves all the time, like a nice little suburban lady, so there were no fingerprints to worry about. And I left and pulled the door shut, and it locked behind me, and I went home.”
“Steeped in the satisfaction of a job well done.”
“Well, I don’t know about that,” she said. “I got home and poured myself a stiff drink, and then I poured it down the sink, because what do I want with a drink?”
“You were never a drinker.”
“No, but this time I had the impulse anyway, which shows how I felt. I sat there and watched her die, Keller. I never did anything like that before.”
“It was different with the old man.”
“Apples and bananas. He didn’t kick his feet and throw his arms around and make noises. He was asleep, and I just made sure he wouldn’t wake up. And you know what he was like. It was an act of mercy.” She made a face. “With the star lady, it was no act of mercy. The picture in my mind, the expression on her face, mercy had nothing to do with it.”
“It’ll fade, Dot.”
“Huh?”
“The picture in your mind. It won’t go away, but it’ll fade, and that’s enough.”
“Keller, I’m a big girl. I can live with it.”
“I know, but you can live without it, too. It’ll fade, believe me, and you can make it fade faster. There’s an exercise you can do.”
“I just hope it’s not deep knee bends.”
“No, it’s all mental. Close your eyes. I’m serious, Dot. Close your eyes.”
“So?”
“Now let the picture come into your mind. Louise in her overstuffed chair—“
“Looking overstuffed herself.”
“No, don’t make jokes. Just let yourself picture the scene.”
“All right.”
“And you’re seeing it from up close, and in color.”
“I didn’t have much choice, Keller. I was there, I wasn’t watching it on a black-and-white TV set.”
“Let the color fade.”
“Huh?”
“Let the color drain out of the picture in your mind. Like you’re dialing down the color knob on a TV.”
“How do I—“
“Just do it.”
“Like the shoe ads.”
“Is the color gone?”
“Not completely. But it’s muted. Ooops—it came back.”
“Fade it again.”
“Okay.”
“Closer to gray this time, right?”
“A little bit.”
“Good,” he said. “Now back off.”
“Huh?”
“Like a zoom shot,” he said, “except it’s more of a reverse zoom shot, because the picture in your mind is getting smaller. Back off twenty yards or so.”
“There’s a wall behind me.”
“No there’s not. You’ve got all the room in the world, and the picture’s getting smaller and smaller, with less and less color in it.”
They were both silent for a moment, and then she opened her eyes. “That was weird,” she said.
“Whenever the picture comes into your mind,” he said, “just take a minute or two and do what you just did. You’ll reach a point where, when you try to picture that scene, it’ll be in black and white. You won’t be able to see it in color, or up close.”
“And that takes the sting out of it, huh?”
“Pretty much.”
“That what you do, Keller?”
“It’s what I used to do,” he said. “Early on.”
“What happened? It stopped working?”
He shook his head. “I got so I didn’t need to do it anymore.”
“You toughened up, huh?”
“I don’t know if that was it,” he said. “I think it’s more a matter of getting used to it, or maybe the exercise had long-term effects. Whatever it was, it got so the pictures didn’t bother me much. And they tended to fade all by themselves.