Hot Ticket Read Free Page B

wrenching finales. What could she be doing in Washington? Rang her doorbell, concocting my spiel.
Hi, remember me? We went to camp together.
After a minute I rang again. Through the peephole, lights burned. I unlocked her door.
    “Polly?” No, Ella Fitzgerald crooning from the speakers. I was looking at more art and carpet than Barnard could have afforded
     after working a century for Maxine. Maybe she still did a little brain surgery on the side. The decor favored beige and live,
     the colors of dollar bills. On a sideboard flared an enormous bouquet of purple orchids. Beyond the music, an ominous silence
     pressed the nerves. My heart began thumping erratically: I was not alone here. Drawing my knife, I entered the bedroom.
    Gloriously naked, Barnard sprawled facedown across the bed. A tattoo glowered on her left buttock. From the looks of the rumpled
     bedding, she had either fought—or fucked—very hard. But no blood. And no pulse in her still warm neck. The faintest scent
     of grilled pineapple lingered in the air. I was inspecting a puncture near the edge of Barnard’s hairline when the phone rang.
     The answering machine picked up.
    “The ice-cream man will see you at midnight.” Woman’s voice. Contemptuous, biting the
t
’s. “Don’t be late.”
    I pocketed the cassette and rolled Barnard’s lush, heavy corpse over. Blue eyes bulged from a blue face. Strangled? No welts
     on the throat. Pills? Drano? I pried open her jaws. Tough work, since they were beginning to mortise. Her mouth looked pink
     and healthy except for a dash of white down by the tonsils. Dug my finger in: eh? String? I pulled, felt the resistance, knew,
     didn’t believe but continued to tug, almost gagging when the thick, white head of a tampon loomed like a giant maggot at the
     base of her mouth. Slow suffocation: what a terrible way to die.
    I went to the bedroom, found a safety pin and another tampon. Sorry, friend: stabbed Barnard’s neck, near the original puncture.
     She bled heavily, warmly, still so alive. I was swabbing the last beads of blood when a key slipped into the front door. In
     a few seconds I’d be at a bad pajama party so I cut to Barnard’s plant-clogged balcony. No chance of winging the twenty-foot
     gap between here and the neighbor’s begonias. Nine stories below I saw only trees. Damn! Where were all the swimming pools
     when you needed them? Looped my scarf around a balcony post and somersaulted over the edge as a figure burst into Barnard’s
     bedroom. Whoever it was stomped onto the balcony, pausing in the moonlight as I swung by the wrists a few inches below. Breathless,
     we both listened to the wind, to the hum of traffic along the Potomac. Should the intruder look down, should a pedestrian
     look up, I was finished. But a terse whistle inside the apartment saved me. The footsteps retreated and I was left alone to
     calculate the number of seconds I could hold on before my grip melted or the scarf tore. Minutes crawled by. My wrists became
     numb, white hot, numb again as I dangled in the breeze. Diversion necessary so I ran the first movement of the Brahms concerto,
     note by note, through my head. Curtis had scheduled me to play it in Frankfurt next week. I was almost through when the lights
     snapped out in Barnard’s living room.
    Counted to ten, willing strength to my dead arms. Mind gradually won over matter and I began to swing back and forth, finally
     gaining enough momentum to curl knees to chest, then clamp the ankles around a balcony post. One last pull and I lay gasping,
     threatening as a squid, behind Barnard’s azaleas. Acrid fumes of hundred-fifty-proof sweat rose from every pore, evaporating
     along with my energy. Eventually I dragged an ear to the sliding door: Ella still sang the blues. I went back inside.
    Dim light played evenly over Barnard’s bed. Her body was gone. So was the answering machine. In the living room, paintings
     had been slashed, pillows disemboweled. Even