Ikon Read Free

The family dog, Natasha. Major and Mrs Schneider at a barbecue at Myrtle Beach. Henry picked up a photograph of Major Schneider standing confident and clean-profiled beside the nose-needle of an F-16, and marvelled at the care and attention which had gone into creating Mrs Schneider’s new life.
    ‘Your husband was a good-looking man. When did you say you met him?’
    ‘I didn’t. But, December, 1950.’
    December, 1950. That was when they were shooting As Young As You Feel.’
    She was unwrapping her purple silk scarf. She stopped suddenly, and said, -What?’
    I told you,’ Henry grinned. ‘I was always a movie fan. Movies, and soap operas. Did you ever see River Of No Return?
    She squinted at him, her eyes deep in her fat-pillowed cheeks. ‘No,she said. ‘I can’t say that I ever did. Was it on Midnight Movie?’
    Tv maybe. Yes, maybe it was.’
    There was another pause. In the far distance, they could hear the warbling of a siren. Then Margot Schneider said, aid you care for a drink? I don’t have any beer.’
    ‘Anything will do. Whiskey, wine, you name it.’
    I have some Stag’s Leap riesling, from Napa Valley.’
    ‘Okay. Stag’s Leap riesling would be fine.’
    They sat on the terrace overlooking the Phoenix Mountains and drank wine which, for Henry, was too cold and too sweet. It was very late afternoon now, and as the sun sank over Yuma County, to the west, the mountains were filled with crumpled shadows. Their faces, like Margot Schneider’s face, were revealed by the light to be suddenly old.
    intestines in the next room. How the victim had screamed and sobbed. And the client’s eyes would never rise to meet his. The money would be passed across the desk without a single look being exchanged. Henry had concluded that hardly anyone has a stomach for killing, not even by proxy, and he had put up his prices, twenty years ago, to $5,000 a job. The next week he had killed a man in Pittsburgh with a Bosch electric drill, boring five holes into his skull before he finally died. He had never heard anybody scream so much, not before, nor since. But he never had nightmares about it.
    He wiped his wine-glass clean with his soft white linen handkerchief. He also polished the arms of the chair, and every other surface he might have touched. There was no point in washing his glass up completely, no point in trying to make it look as if Margot had died accidentally, or as if she had committed suicide. Nobody could do by accident what Henry was about to do to Margot; and nobody could ever do it to themselves.
    He got up, and crossed to the patio doors, still flexing the saw, and stood listening for a moment. Then he stepped inside.
    She had taken a quick shower, and now she was sitting in her bedroom brushing her hair and warbling happily to herself. Henry didn’t find it more difficult to kill happy people than he did to kill angry or frightened or miserable people. In fact, it was more satisfying if they died happy. He had an old-fashioned sense of what was right.
    He walked into the bedroom without knocking. The off-white carpet was soft and quiet, and so she didn’t hear him. The television was showing a news report of angry parents who were picketing a newly-destreamed public school in Flagstaff. There was a queen-size bed with a white quilted satin bedspread, and white drapes; a white bedside telephone; a bottle of Nembutal. The door to the bathroom was still ajar, and inside, Henry could see Mar-got’s clothes strewn on the floor, her purple tent-dress, her slip, and one discarded sandal. Margot herself was
    sitting in front of her white rococo dressing-table, wearing a white satin bathrobe with a large silver satin star sewn on to the back of it. She was pouting at herself as she lined her lips with Vivid Pink.
    He thought: that’s a hangover from a long, long time ago. A pink like that, only a blonde would wear.
    He came right up behind her, only a few inches away, and it was only then that she