Warm and Willing - Lawrence Block [41]
On the way over, Bobbie had told her more about the two girls. “Peg has done this before,” she said. “It’s nothing new. Once she took too many sleeping pills and another time she was up on the window sill and threatening to jump. Not out on a ledge like in the movies but just on the sill. We talked her out of it that time. She doesn’t really want to kill herself. She just wants to come close.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Peg and Lu have been together for almost three years now. That’s a fairly long time. You met Lu. Do you remember Peg?”
“No.”
“She’s about five years older than Lu. And very scared of losing her. That won’t happen, because Lucia is the kind of girl who wants to have her cake and eat it. She wants the security Peg gives her and she also wants a little hit-and-run sex. So she cheats. Peg knows she cheats and she tries not to notice it. Sometimes people can manage to see what they want to see. But every once in a while Lu is too blatant about it and Peg can’t help finding out, and it hurts her.”
“And she tries to—”
“Sometimes. Three times now that I know of. Probably a few more than that.” Bobbie sighed. “One of these days she’ll probably manage it, and without trying to. By accident. Play with suicide long enough and it gets to you, I suppose. I hope we get there on time.”
And later, in the elevator, Bobbie said the same thing. “I hope we’re not too late. I hope she didn’t go off the deep end this time.”
Lucia Perry was waiting in the doorway of her apartment. Her face was fishbelly white and she was wringing her hands nervously. She said, “Bobbie, I had to call you. I didn’t know what to do.”
“Is she still—”
“Yes. She won’t come out. She won’t answer me. I don’t know if anything happened or not. I tied to kick the door in but nothing happens, I can’t move it. I—”
Bobbie hurried past her into the room. She seemed to know her way around the apartment and went straight to the bathroom door. “Peg,” she called. “Peggy, for Christ’s sake, Peggy, what are you doing in there?”
A voice, low, muffled. “Go away.”
“Open the door, Peg.” Bobbie’s voice was calmer now, commanding. “Open the door and let me in.”
“I can’t.”
“Yes, you can. Just turn the bolt and open the door. That’s all there is to it, Peg.”
“Do you know what she did?” The voice was firmer now.
“What?”
“She had a girl up here. I don’t even know her name, some two-bit tramp she picked up around Times Square. Here in my apartment. They were in our bed, the two of them, and I walked in on them, God help me, and I saw them—”
Rhoda looked at Lucia Perry. They girl’s eyes were filled with tears. She looked as though she was going to faint. “I’ll get you a drink,” she told the girl. “You need one.”
“I don’t—”
“Where’s the liquor?” She didn’t wait for an answer but went to the living room and found an opened bottle of blended whiskey. She poured a stiff shot into an orange juice glass and made Lucia drink it. The girl had trouble getting it down but it seemed to help.
And Bobbie was still talking to Peg, her voice steady, reasonable. “You don’t want to hurt yourself, Peg,” she said. “You don’t want to do anything bad. Jesus, just open the door, Peg.”
“I can’t.”
“Why not?”
“I’m going to kill myself, Bobbie. Oh, that little bitch! Why do I let her do this to me, Bobbie?”
“I don’t know.”
“Why do I love her?”
“Open the door, Peg.” There was silence. “Peg, open the door.”
In a whisper, Lucia said, “There are three of us. Maybe together we could break it down.”
“The building’s forty years old,” Bobbie whispered