Carol lay in the bed as Harry had left her. The house was quiet. It had been quiet for six days. Phillip stayed carefully out of the room, letting his daughter digest the terrible pain of Harry's disappearance.
But Phillip knew where he was, and Carol knew it too. They were both afraid of the big thing Harry had to do, afraid that somehow his act of defiance was a final act, and he would be forever out of their lives.
Harry wanted a white elephant, and he wanted the Llewellyn jewels as a gesture. When a thief becomes an artist, he is finished. His art has to be tragic art, and he has to be his victim's victim. It was to Carol as if a genius, hardly more than an idea, had slipped through her fingers, had escaped her. But Harry didn't belong to himself. She couldn't have him because he couldn't have himself. He was too big for her, and too small for her, because he really wasn't there. But he had left her and she was depleted, her flesh crying. He had left her hot for a phantom, and emptied by what? By something in her own head. In hers and Phillip's head.
When Wilbur came to the door and knocked gently, she said, "Come in," firmly, wanting her voice to ring in the still room. He entered with a tray of coffee and thin buttered toast. She sat up in the bed, pale and weak.
"How are you feeling today, Miss Carol?" Wilbur said.
"Is Mr. Johns awake?" she asked.
"Oh yes." Wilbur was genuinely perturbed. "He's hardly slept at all since you've been ill."
"I'm much better now," she assured him. "Tell Mr. Johns I'm better."
"Are you sure you won't see a doctor?" His voice was pleading, the prerogative of the oldest slave on the plantation. "It might be that you have a vitamin deficiency."
So that's what the kitchen talk was about. Vitamins. They'd probably read an article about vitamins in one of the issues of Femme.
Get some Park Avenue doctor to talk about B complexes, and all kinds of complexes. The ladies liked to read about complexes.
A clear blue-grey light filled the room. Carol lay back on the pillows, much as Harry had left her, her eyes half open, staring toward the open window.
Phillip walked into the room. He was dressed in robe and pajamas.
He was clean shaven, but his eyes looked haggard, his skin sick and dull. It had been a difficult wait for Carol. Without looking at Phillip she said monotonously, "Where did he come from anyway?"
Phillip walked to the window and looked out at the dense garden.
The light outside was bleak.
"Where he comes from doesn't interest me now," he said softly, a strange softness. "I know where he's gone."
Carol looked directly at him, then looked away.
"Will he come back?"
"I don't know, baby." Phillip stood over the bed, serious and tired.
"Do you want him to come back?"
"I don't know." She was trying to reach out to Phillip. "Maybe I don't want him to come back. Maybe he's done everything to me that can be done. Maybe he's finished and there's no point in his coming back." She started crying. "Maybe that's why he left. Because he finished me, and there was nothing more to be done."
Phillip sat at the edge of the bed and took her delicate wrist between his thumb and forefinger. "He took my gun," he explained, "and the sedan."
She was silent. "Then if he makes it, he'll be back."
Phillip bent his head and kissed the crook of her arm. She trembled in subtle response. "If he makes it."
"I bet he makes it," she said half aloud and half defiantly, fighting for her life.
Phillip's head was down on the pillow, beside hers. It would all go on, wouldn't it, as if another man had never touched her. It would all go on, and nothing would go on.
"Let's hope he makes it," Phillip said in a hollow voice. Carol's body felt mummified. He reached under the covers and began to rub her body, like an exorcist fighting with the devil. He rubbed her belly and thighs, kneading the flesh between his strong fingers.
"You feel wonderful darling," he whispered. "Your flesh is very strong and firm."
She laughed, "Not terribly weak! I've lain sick in this bed for a week, wanting another man, and now you're going to command my cunt. Yes, you're going to fuck me and everything will be back to normal."
"No, baby," he patiently explained, his hand traveling to the naked vagina. "Baby, that's strong. We have to be resilient. We've got to be able to come back to ourselves, always. Harry isn't one of us," he continued. "Harry is possessed. Harry is a genius." His finger moved into the dry crevice. "And we can't fit geniuses into our lives. We'd have to change too much for that."
He ran his mouth over her hair and eyes and neck and soft breathing breasts. "We don't want to change completely. We love the familiar, the comfortable… We're normal people," he further intoned. "We have little time to give to geniuses."
"I want him," Carol said finally. "I want to change. If he comes back, Phillip, if he wants me, I'm his."
"You're mine, Carol," Phillip warned. "I haven't educated you for another man. You can want another man; that just gives you another dimension. But you're mine. You and the other man become mine.
Now I have two of you, Carol – you and your little fantasy that there's something in you separate and apart for Harry. Now I have the part of you I shall always have, and the part you reserve for Harry."
He covered her soft nipple with his mouth. She sank deep into the pillows.
"Harry will save me," she warned. "Harry will take me away from you." His teeth were shaping tiny bites on the tightening, stiffening tit.
His hand wandered to the other breast. He pinched the hungry flesh.
He brushed the hairless mound of her cunt, and then lifted his hot face to look at her. "No disguise," he murmured, tracing her belly and smooth pussy. "No disguise for me, Carol. I always see you. I always see my daughter, my sick little girl, behind all the disguises. You need that, don't you? You need to be seen occasionally.
"Harry doesn't see anything, because Harry doesn't care. He's a dedicated man. He's got a habit. He'd leave you in a second, without a thought, without an idea that there was an alternative act – just for a diamond that glittered on the horizon. He'd leave you again and again to get to the end of his rainbow. And you know where the end is, Carol. You're a smart girl. You know Harry's going to be all alone when he gets there."
She started to answer, to plead, to say anything. She couldn't say, "It isn't true, Phillip. He'll come back and take me with him." And that was the only thing worth saying, the only thing that had meaning for either of them. Phillip brushed the thin nightgown aside, and stuck his hot mouth to her cunt. He sucked deeply, until he had pulled the hidden, tamed clitoris erect into his mouth. Then, when her hips jerked mechanically and uncontrollably, he sank his tongue deep into her musty sex, and ate her.
***
Harry said, "A hamburger and a black coffee."
The short-order cook threw the raw meat on the grill. "Relish, sir?"
"No." He knew he wasn't going to eat it anyway. He hadn't been able to eat or sleep in the hot little Cuban town, waiting for the Llewellyn garden party. Somehow, Mrs. Llewellyn had overlooked extending an invitation to Harry, but he'd be there. No one had traveled further, or planned more carefully to mingle with the Llewellyn guests.
Then a brief swim in the dry pool, and he'd get back to Carol. But that was so far away. He could only think as far as having the magnificent jewels in his hands.
He took a few bites out of the decorated hamburger, and suddenly impatient, dropped a dollar bill on the counter and walked through the swinging doors. He marched swiftly down the narrow street of the crowded native section of the town. The Keys seemed completely Spanish today, puff-white in an azure sky. There were sounds of folk guitars and rapid sibilant Spanish voices, high and eager. Some shops were boarded up for the four-hour siesta. Harry kept moving till he reached the old piers on the far end of the village.
On the pier he looked at his watch, bent forward, and shouted to the pilot so that he could be heard over the roar of the racing engine. "I'll want the boat sometime before three o'clock."
"All right, Mr. Gregory," the pilot called back. He'd clung to the convenient anonymity Phillip had given him.
"The boat's in great shape. She'll be ready to run anytime this afternoon."
"Thanks," Phillip said, and started to walk away from the pier. The pilot jumped nimbly onto the wooden dock and came swiftly to Phillip, his espadrilles silent and soft on the sun dried boards.
"Sure you don't want me to take you out, Mr. Gregory? The price is the same, but you can see the islands better if I pilot. The boat takes a bit of work," he finished.
"No thanks," Harry said coolly. "I'll take it alone," and he kept walking toward the center of town.
He went back through the narrow streets and turned in at a small hotel. Over the door, in black on whitewash was the name 'Santa Rosa.'
He entered the small lobby and his heels clacked against the tiles. The guests, plump Spanish bourgeois, fanned themselves with the curious skill that is born only in Spanish women.
He picked up his key at the desk, and the pretty woman who always watched him from behind the desk said, "Buenos dias, Senor Gregory."
"Buenos dias," he answered politely, appreciating in a vague way her admiration and getting his party manners in form. He wouldn't want to insult any of the Llewellyn guests. He felt rather fond of them just thinking of them.
He turned away and started up the iron-grilled staircase, and the woman called after him, "There is no message for you, Senor Gregory."
Harry didn't look back. He continued up the stairs and thought, "Not even an invitation, and the party is today; just an oversight, they'll be happy to see me when I get there."
"Thank you," he said.
An hour later, Harry walked down the stairs. He was fastidiously, elegantly dressed in a beige linen suit. He looked casual and comfortable in his clothes, and when he put his key on the desk, the woman saw the brocade vest beneath his jacket.
"Going to a party, Mr. Gregory?" she asked coquettishly.
"You never can tell," he said, and walked smoothly, ignoring her
'buenos tardes', out into the street.
When he got to the dock, he moved methodically past the chain cruisers and other small boats. Nearing the edge, he looked down at the mahogany speed-boat, its engine idling. It was ready to go, humming.
He moved quickly down the wooden staircase to the landing platform.
The pilot was lovingly polishing the wood behind the cockpit. He looked at Harry and, shaking his cloth at the boat, said enthusiastically,
"She's all ready to go, Mr. Gregory."
"Good," Harry approved, and handed the pilot a neat roll of bills.
The man carefully scanned the money, counting it with eyes wide in his sunburned face. Harry pulled on his gloves and got quickly behind the wheel of the boat. He looked back at the luxurious upholstery, checked the chromed instrument panel, and pulled out of the dock with a purposeful roar. He raced the engines and listened as the pilot threw off the lines. Then he throttled down.
Harry thought of nothing but getting into the swimming pool.
Getting out would be nothing. It was unimportant. Just to feel those jewels in the palm of his hand, just to bathe himself in a sea of diamonds. Three years of planning this job; seven years since he had first heard of the Llewellyn collection.
In the curved wake of the boat he saw the receding coast line, and ahead of him the vague outline of the Goose Island. Its long stretched neck connected delicately with the mainland. Closer he could see the huge mansion, its landscaped grounds dotted with umbrellas and tables and people with martinis in their hands and banalities in their heads.
But they had very serious accessories stuck in their earlobes and draped round their necks. The house seemed almost naked, rising long and modern on a slope.
Most of the people were gathered around a rambling free-form swimming pool, the Cadillacs and Rolls parked in a cluster at the side of the mansion. Harry saw most clearly, as the boat neared the island, the white coast road from the house to the drawbridge, dotted with arriving cars. A chauffeured limousine that had just crossed the bridge stopped at a small gatehouse. The uniformed guard accepted the invitation the chauffeur handed him, checked it briefly against the guest list, and waved the car on to the park. No chance for Cinderella to get in without proper credentials. The limousine moved down the drive toward the private harbor. There were several yachts and a scattering of cabin cruisers riding at anchor.
A group of disembarking guests looked up at the approaching speedboat. Harry banked the curve, rounded the goose tail, and swung in toward the breakwater.
He carefully eased the boat into the harbor and nosed it up to a landing platform beside the dock. An attendant in uniform jumped down to assist. This was the moment. Harry took a folded bill out of his waistcoat pocket and handed it to the attendant. Nice and green and crackling, a universal invitation to have a ball. The attendant slipped the money into his pocket, and Harry walked familiarly to the mansion.
Everything was going to be all right. He could tell.
The eighteen-piece band blared a mambo and Harry walked coolly into the center of the guests. A middle-aged mamboer smiled at him lasciviously, and Harry, completely at ease, accepted the glass of champagne from the munificent butler.
***
Carol said, "Phillip, I want something to drink."
"Not now, darling," Phillip murmured.
"My mouth is dry," she whimpered.
He covered her mouth with his, and moved his cunt-coated tongue on hers. She sucked timidly at his tongue, unwilling to concede the growing heat in her pussy.
"Drink, baby, quench your thirst. Suck me, darling, I'll give you something to drink."
"Yes," she said, slowly coming back to life in Phillip's arms, wanting to touch and smell and taste. "Yes, Phillip." Carol lay flat on the bed and Phillip straddled her head with his knees. His forehead rested on the satin-covered backboard of the bed. Looking straight up, Carol could see the dense hairs that surrounded his hanging balls. His prick was rigidly pointing at her mouth. He lowered his buttocks to her chest, and his cock pressed against her closed lips.
"Open up, Carol," he commanded.
She parted her lips slightly, and his penis popped against the fleshy inner lining of her mouth. She nibbled, almost daintily, at the swollen head of his erection. It tasted good, familiar and filled with life. Her mouth clung hungrily to his prick, and her tongue was pointed at the pinpoint hole hidden in the crown of his cock.
She opened her throat wide and let the cock sink deep, deep inside her head. She wanted more, and she lifted her head to swallow the sacks that swung smotheringly over her face. She gagged and choked on the bone, but wouldn't give it up.
Phillip moved up and down, using her throat like a cunt, not caring that she was gasping beneath him, just feeling the come swelling inside his prick. "Faster, deeper," he ordered.
She sank into the pillows and opened her throat wider. She gave herself up completely to the blinding body sitting on her breasts. He pounded against her chest, mashing the creature beneath him, getting it out of his swollen rod. Her tongue and mouth were wet and nervous around the cock.
Then he shouted, "Drink, Carol, drink," and poured the hot white fluid into her mute throat.
***
Harry walked, glass in hand, past the admiring women, toward the rear terrace of the mansion. He crossed the terrace to the open French doors leading into the high, thick-beamed ceiling. He studied the room, the position of servants, the doors and windows. He walked past a group of people lunching quietly and talking, remembering the last Llewellyn festival.
Maybe something would happen. Mrs. Llewellyn hated tea parties.
Harry looked vague and abstract, and somebody named Freely walked over, bubbling words and offering a limp hand. Harry said, "A pleasure. Please excuse me," and crossed the room.
He went beyond a tremendous jutting fireplace that broke the room's contours, and finally was alone. The tension was mounting inside him.
He put down the drink, wiped the glass with his handkerchief, and slipped through the door into a long hall.
He moved swiftly up two short flights of steps which angled down from a broad and luxurious landing. He crossed silently to a door, pulling on his gloves. It was silent in this part of the house. Nothing, not even the distant guests could be heard. He hesitated, studying the doors on the landing and then sprinted quickly and noiselessly to a door diagonally across the hall. It cracked open imperceptibly and he looked in. Then he swung it open decisively, entered, and closed it behind him in a single motion.
The room, a spacious, fussily decorated bedroom, opening onto a terrace, was empty. There were two closed doors on the wall to the left. He swung open the first, to a large, windowless dressing room.
He crossed swiftly to the other and threw it open.
There it was. Mrs. Llewellyn's little black swimming pool. A huge, semi-sunken, roman, black-tiled bath. The bath was eight feet long and six feet wide, big enough for Mrs. Llewellyn to wash her pretty toes, or for Mr. Llewellyn to wash any of the guests' backs.
On three sides of the bath were leaded mirror-mosaic panels which cast Harry's image – broken and distorted as he searched desperately for the safe. He fingered the drain, the knobs and the mirrored squares of the wall.
Standing inside the black-tiled pool, he swept the towels from the rack. He pulled open the drawers that receded behind the rack. The first held a conglomerate of jars and lotions, the next a display of manicuring tools and powders. The first drawer wouldn't open. He closed the others and pulled tenaciously at the top rack. It felt cemented deep into the wall, impossible to move. Leaning forward, he studied the tiles behind it closely, searching for a crack or joint that would mean another drawer, another hiding place.
He caught his reflection in the mirrors, sweating and intense. There was something obscene about the room, black and shining, and too voluptuous for plump giggling Mrs. Llewellyn. What the hell did she do there, besides hide her jewels and come to admire them every Ascension Day.
He pulled frantically at the top rack. That had to be the place. The walls were flat and expressionless. They told him nothing. He fingered the tiles. That had to be the safe, and there had to be a lock release. None of the tiles moved against the pressure of his fingers.
His hand moved up into the recessed niche over the leveled squares of mirror that lined it.
Suddenly, miraculously, one tilted inward and the rack pulled out from the wall. Against a blue-black velvet lining rested the fabulous Llewellyn collection.
***
Carol said, "Phillip, fuck me, get into me. I feel empty. I'm scared.
Fuck me, fuck me."
Phillip paused for a second, stared at her cunt and then thrust his brand new shiny erection into the center of her terror.
***
Harry froze for a second, reverently staring at the sparkling display.
He reached in for them, eagerly and big-eyed, like a child in a penny-candy shop. He gathered up handfuls of the precious gems, stuffing them into an inner pocket of his jacket. He had them. The drawer was emptied in a few seconds. He adjusted the weight inside his coat and smoothed it flat.
Then he stared a long time into the mirror, a long, dangerous time.
He turned on one of the taps and wiped his face. He was exhausted. It was almost too much to for him to think of moving quickly to the boat.
The diamonds were heavy – heavy and comforting on his chest. He closed the bathroom door behind him and swiftly retraced his steps to the terrace.
Mrs. Llewellyn smiled curiously at him as he crossed the garden to the dock. Surely she had seen the exquisite man before? How nice that she'd invited him to her party. She moved to greet him, but Harry was already at the harbor.
It all began to break down, with his heart pressing against the diamonds, when he saw the cabin blocking the exit of his boat. Mrs.
Llewellyn was still looking after him. He stared hopelessly from the boats to the parked cars, from the harbor to the cars. He glanced back at Mrs. Llewellyn, feeling the diamonds like a dying child on his breast.
He peeled off his gloves, and in a few swift movements was over the terrace railing. He dropped to the ground below, landing quickly on his feet. He crouched there, half unconscious with his hysterical pulse.
The attendant, with a large muscled Doberman on a leash, rounded the corner. The dog was on him in a flash, making deep guttural sounds – much like those Mrs. Llewellyn would make when she found the bathroom cleaned out. Harry stared rigidly and wildly at the attendant.
"What are you doing here? What's wrong?" the attendant demanded.
Harry pointed desperately in the direction of the harbor and yelled,
"Get that dog out of here! Get him off me! I've lost my poodle," he shouted, his words surreal but effective for the confused attendant.
The guard tugged the dog away in the direction of the harbor and turned to question Harry. In that instant, Harry ran toward the cars parked in the area below. He passed a Lincoln Capri, hesitated and then climbed into the white Jaguar convertible sitting next to it. He roared the motor and took off.
The car shot down the palm-lined road. He handled it deftly.
Another curve and he came into view of the bridge.
It should have been perfect. What happened? What happened? It should have been perfect.
The car moved onto the straightway. A guard ran from the tollhouse near the bridge onto the roadside, waving frantically for Harry to stop.
His eyes followed the direction of the guard's gesture and he saw the large yacht approaching the draw-bridge. He looked steadily at the bridge span, as it almost imperceptibly started to rise. The bridge split in two and separated like a fantastic exotic flower. The two parts, like waving dancer's arms, split above the white boat.
It should have been perfect. He floored the throttle and the car shot ahead toward the bridge with a roar. The guard spun around and looked on stupefied as the Jag plummeted to the rising bridge.
Carol screamed, "I'm coming, Phillip, I'm coming. Let me come."
"Not yet," he said, "Not yet."
The speedometer touched 90 and then 105, dead ahead on the level straightway. He was up to 120 when he hit the tilted span.
The people on the yacht below heard the roar of the car. They looked up to see the white Jaguar sail gracefully off the raised bridge in a wide-climbing arc. It plunged like a shell into the sea.
"I must Phillip," she screamed. "Let me," and she moaned and ground out the orgasm. "Phillip, Phillip." Clinging to him, she screamed sharply, "Harry," and she fell, cunt throbbing, back on the pillows.
A geyser rose where the car hit the water and settled in a jewel-like spray. The white car sank like an elaborate coffin through the clear blue water. Harry's pockets emptied in the quiet descent. The diamonds floated coquettishly about him, covering the head and throat of his jammed body. A thin ribbon of blood snaked out from the corner of Harry's mouth and diffused in a small watery cloud. Above him, the surface returned to its glass-like calm.