“I don’t know what it is,” Claire said, “about that man. He puts me so on the defensive that I don’t know what I’m doing. Or saying. Now I’ve got myself in a fine mess. I haven’t got any load of money coming in. I only said that so they wouldn’t feel sorry for me. I can’t bear the way they all watch me with such pity. It’s disheartening.” She was tooling a broad figure eight in the carpet. “And I know they want what’s best for me. But him. He thinks he can dare to be familiar with me, and I just won’t have it. I won’t!” She picked an orange out of the bowl and began to peel it. The smell of it filled up the room. “It’s good to have some peace and quiet for a change. Someone who’s been alone for as long as I’ve been … let’s face it, you need time to yourself. You know, this jogging business seems the right thing to do, it just seems right for other people. Not for me. I won’t lose any weight jogging. I’m sure I won’t. I’ll just build up a healthier appetite and wind up gaining. And on top of that, my breasts will sag.” She sank to the floor and proceeded to do sit-ups. She did five. On the sixth she groaned and strained and made a terrible face. “After all,” she stopped and looked at him, “I am in love with him. At least I think I am. I know I’m in lust. I’ve so often confused the two and wound up sorry I had. In the beginning it’s always so hard to tell.” She stood up, covered with dog hair, and went searching for the telephone book. “What are you looking at?” she said. “This is the twentieth century. Women telephone men all the time. Anyway, I’m not calling him, am I? It can’t hurt to have his number in my book. There have been two murders, haven’t there? And I am involved somehow, whether I like it or not. Honestly, it’s like being caught up in a circle of evil.” She stood suddenly still. The Mayor sat up. She looked over her shoulder as though she expected someone to be there. Then she walked into the kitchen, to the table where the newspapers were still spread about. She pored through them, looking for she didn’t know what. The Post was all sensationalism. The Times was cut and dry. She flipped through the News. “… there were certain similarities in this murder that lead authorities to believe,” etcetera, etcetera. Ah, here it was: “… the body was found in a circle of pine not ten feet from the scene of last week’s crime where the victim, Miguel Velasquez …” A circle of pine. Again. She sat down. She could see old Iris out the window in her garden. What on earth was she doing? Digging? What was it Michael used to say about her? “Magic is her middle name.” Of course Iris couldn’t have killed little children. The idea was preposterous. But somebody had. And whoever that had been, she suspected, had some knowledge of the ceremonial occult.
She was duty bound to share her suspicions with Johnny, wasn’t she? Of course, she could be completely wrong. She hoped she was. It wasn’t just a cheap excuse to get in touch with him after she’d behaved so badly toward him? An honorable bridge across the childish moat she’d dug? Well, then, what if it was? The end, if she were right, would surely justify the means. She approached the hallway mirror and inspected her face. She didn’t really look old. What she needed was a bath. She returned to the kitchen and rifled through the cabinets. Vanilla. She pulled the bottle down from the shelf. What else? Olive oil? No, he would have enough of that. Almond oil. That was nice. Yes, she took that down, then spied the jasmine tea. Perfect. She carried her booty furtively up to the bathroom and brewed herself a bath. The Mayor watched, appalled. What women went through to cover up their natural provocative scents bewildered him. Claire lowered herself into the pale scented water. Ugh, thought the Mayor. He decided then and there to go out for a quick spin and take some fresh air. He left harriedly by way of the newly reinstated doggy door, a nice little hookup Stan had arranged through what used to be the back stairs. He’d be back before she even noticed he was gone.
Now that Claire had made the decision to call Johnny up she had to figure out, besides the business at hand, what she would say. It always started off with her losing her temper. This time she would be very cool. She would trick him. She would tell him the truth. Fine. What was the truth? That she couldn’t get him off her mind? That would go right to his head. There was no telling how arrogant that would make him. “Hello?” Claire stood up straight in the tub. “Hello?” Had someone come in? She could have sworn—no, that was absurd, the Mayor was here. He would eat anyone who tried to get in. Or at least bark them to smithereens. She sat back down, relieved, and turned on the hot water tap. Her nerves were good and shot, weren’t they. What she really needed was a big dose of bourbon with a ton of chipped ice. Or no ice. But the steam from the gentle water was lulling; she really didn’t want to budge. And she was getting just the smallest bit fed up with seeing herself as an alcoholic. Claire blew softly out of her mouth. She could hear the Mayor waddling about in the hallway. Or was that the pine against the house? The sunlight through the milk glass window was so beautiful. Just beautiful. There was a small clock radio plugged in up on the ledge; someone had left it on, but the volume was so low you could barely hear it. She felt the Mayor’s comforting presence. “You know,” she said to him, “even if my being straight with Johnny did go right to his head, I mean, what of it? Either I want him to know how I feel or I don’t. Now, I’m just putting off the inevitable, hoping he’ll do my job for me; come back once again so I can tell him no again.” It was pretty obvious that she was postponing commitment for the top-ten thrill of the chase. And she, who fancied herself the great seeker of truth, had better face the fact.
The telephone rang with such jarring suddenness that Claire bolted upright and sprang out of the tub before the first ring ended. At that exact moment the radio hit the water, went zzzip and made a dull, guttural crackle where her body had just been.
“Christ,” she answered the phone.
“Hello? Zinnie?”
“Hello? Oh Jesus, I just almost got killed. I’m sorry. Who is this? God!”
“Hello? This is Emil … you all right there?”
Zinnie’s enamored young doctor. “Yes. Yes, Emil, I’m fine. I just had a terrible close call. The radio fell into my tub and,” she shuddered with goosebumps, “and I think if you hadn’t called at that moment and wakened me out of my reverie, I’d be dead. Do people die from radios in bathtubs?”
“Certainly.”
“Well, then you just saved my life.”
“Fine,” he surprised her by saying. It always astonished her with what nonchalance the medical profession greeted life-and-death drama. “I was hoping to catch Zinnie in,” he continued.
“No. No, she’s on overtime, I think. I don’t know. I get so mixed up with her schedule.” She continued to look at the tub. “I think it blew the fuse. The overhead light is out as well.”
“That’s good. Just make sure it is blown before you take the radio out of the tub.”
Claire followed the wire with her eyes. It was plugged into another wire that went out into the hall.