Phil grinned and waved meekly.
“Oh jeez,” Jerry said. “I only came home because I forgot my wallet. Oh jeez. Bunny, what have you done?”
The shock had worn off, and she found she could now aim straight and true, so she squeezed the trigger and put the third bullet in his chest. Jerry bounced off the edge of the bed before hitting the floor like a sack of potatoes, just like in the movies.
After the noise from the gunshots, the shouting voice, the bodies in motion, after the chaos subsided, they stood quite still, afraid of what might happen next. The droning fan swept back and forth, but the rest of the world went mute for a few seconds, allowing them to catch their hearts from beating through their ribs, to slow the pulse, to steady the heavy breathing. A weak moan floated from the floor.
“Shit,” Bunny said. From her side of the bed, she marched round, past the stunned boyfriend, and stopped directly above the victim. She waved the gun at Phil. “See if he’s dead.”
“Do I have to? I don’t want to touch him.”
“For cripes’ sake, Phil, do I have to do everything myself?”
Since he had only managed to find one shoe, he limped over to the body, which was arranged awkwardly, facedown and partially under the bed. Phil tugged the corpse and rolled him over. A bright red stain seeped through his shirt, and a trickle of blood ran from his mouth. His eyes were open, staring accusingly, but no breath passed his lips and there was no pulse at the carotid artery. He was quite deceased.
“Blood is a dead giveaway,” the old man said. “Reminds me of a certain someone.”
I reached back to the site of the hole in my head, but there was no blood. From the living room, the cat let loose a plaintive meow. It was only a matter of time before he would come seek me out. I checked my watch, but the hands had not moved.
They wrapped him up like a mummy in a blanket, got dressed, and went to the kitchen to strategize. Phil’s hands shook like a dope fiend’s when he tried to light a pair of cigarettes. Bunny put on the percolator and grabbed some eggs from the icebox. “Hungry?”
“I couldn’t eat a thing,” he said.
“Scrambled okay? I’m famished.”
“Bunny, what are we going to do with the body?”
Whipping the eggs with a fork, she gathered her thoughts, and as the froth sizzled in the skillet, Bunny cooked up a plan. In the storage locker in the building’s basement, she had a trunk big enough, she thought, to hold the body, though they’d have to fold Jerry in half. Phil would have to borrow a car, and they could take the trunk to the river or better yet some deeper water, and weighed down with stones, sink it to the bottom. Jerry had run off, she would say. Probably found another woman. They’d take a few changes of his clothes, empty out a bank account, make it look like he wanted to disappear. Husbands do that all the time.
“But wouldn’t it be easier,” Phil argued, “to tell the police that you were asleep and you thought he was an intruder who broke into the house, and you shot him by mistake?”
“Shot him three times by mistake? My own husband, I wouldn’t recognize?”
In the end, she beat him down, if not by superior logic, then by the sheer absurdity of the situation and her willingness to make decisions.
“I can drag that trunk up from the basement,” he said. “But how can I carry the body down?”
“Eat your eggs.” She dropped the plate before him. “I’ll ask that boy Woody to help you.”
Phil started shoveling food into his mouth, wondering the while how well she knew Woody Pfahl.
By the time that question could be answered properly, Phil was exhausted. Carrying the trunk upstairs, packing the body along with some personal effects, borrowing his brother-in-law’s Nash station wagon, cashing a forged check while pretending to be Jerry at a midtown branch, and hustling back to Bunny’s had taken all day, and it was a few minutes before five that afternoon when they knocked on the door to apartment 2A. High-pitched barking began at once, and then the sound of a woman’s voice admonishing the dog to oh, just shut up. A young blonde in a black leotard and dance skirt opened the door with a tiny, trembling dog in her arms.
“Hello,” Bunny said. “We’re the neighbors from upstairs, and we need some help. I was wondering if Woody was home. We need another man.”
“I bet you do,” the blonde said. “C’mon in. Woody should be getting out of bed anyhow.”
“What kind of dog is that?” Phil asked.
The dog barked fiercely as Bunny stepped inside, but when the blonde girl turned, it wagged its tail at Phil and laid down its pointy ears.
“Pepito? A Mexican chihuahua. He’s nervous around strangers. But he likes you.” The dog craned his neck to sniff at Phil. “You carrying meat on you?”
Phil held out his fingers and the dog began to lick him with gusto.