College-Cut Kill

We swam out, side by side. A hundred yards out we floated on the imperceptible swell. “Ted and I used to swim a lot,” she said in a small voice. And then she was gone from me, her strong legs churning the water in a burst of speed. I swam slowly after her. When I caught up with her, she was all right again.

“It’s clear today,” she said, going under in a surface dive. I went down too, and with my eyes squinted against the water I could see the dance of the sunlight on the sandy bottom. I turned and saw her angling toward me, her hair streaming out in the water, half smiling, unutterably lovely. I caught her arm and, as we drifted up toward the surface, I kissed her.

We emerged into the air and stared at each other gravely. “I think we’d better forget that, Joe,” she said.

“That might be easier said that done, Tilly.”

“Don’t say things you don’t mean, Joe. Ever.”

Only three to go. I parked in the shade and was glad of it when I found he hadn’t come back yet. It was a tourist court and trailer park. The layout had been pasted together with spit and optimism. Neither ingredient had worked very well. Dirty pastel walls, a litter of papers and orange peels, a glare of sun off the few aluminum trailers, some harsh red flowers struggling up a broken trellice. I watched his doorway. The sign on it said Manager.

A half hour later a blonde unlocked the door and went in.

I walked over and knocked. She came to the door, barefoot. In another year the disintegration would have removed the last traces of what must have once been a very lush and astonishing beauty. That is a sad thing to happen to a woman under thirty.

“Maybe you can’t read where it says no vacancy,” she said.

“I want to see Bob Toberly,” I said.

“If it’s business, you can talk to me. I’m his wife.”

“It’s personal.”

She studied me for a few moments. “Okay, wait a sec. Then you can come in and wait. He’s late now.” Her voice had the thin fine edge that only a consistently evil disposition can create.

She disappeared. Soon she called, “Okay, come on in.”

Her dress was thrown on the unmade bed. She had changed to a blue linen two-piece play suit that was two sizes too small for her.

“I gotta climb into something comferrable the minute I get in the house,” she said defiantly. “This climate’ll kill you. It’s hell on a woman.” She motioned to a chair. I sat down. She glared at me. “Sure I can’t handle whatever it is you wanna see Bob about?”

“I’m positive.”

She padded over to the sink, took a half bottle of gin out of the cabinet and sloshed a good two inches into a water tumbler. “Wanna touch?”

“Not right now, thanks.”

She put an ice cube in it, swirled it a few times and then tilted it high. Her throat worked three times and it was gone. The room was full of a faint sour smell of sweat.

The room darkened as Bob Toberly cut off the sunlight. He came in, banging the screen door. He was half the size of a house, with hands like cinderblocks. He looked suspiciously at me and then at the bottle on the sink.

“Dammit, Clara, I told you to lay off that bottle.”

“Shaddup!” she snapped. “I drink what I please when I please with no instructions from you.”

He grabbed her arm and twisted it up behind her. He pushed her to the door, shoved her outside. “Wait out there until I tell you to come in.”

He turned to me, ignoring her as she screamed at him. “Now what do you want?”

“I’m making a survey of local students who were turned down by the local chapter of Gamma U. It’s for a magazine article condemning fraternities. I got my hands on the rush list for two years ago. Your name was on it.”

He rocked back and forth, his lips pursed, staring down at me. Suddenly he grinned. “What do you want to know?”

“What was your reaction when you weren’t pledged? How’d you take it?”

“I wanted to go bust those smart guys in the chops.”

“Did you know why they turned you down?”

“Sure. They were rushing me because they figured me for eventual All-American here. But the timing was bad. In early practise I got a bad shoulder separation. It happened during rush week. They got the spy system operating and found out I was out for the year, probably out for good. From then on I was just another guy with muscles.”

“Has it made any change in your life?”

He frowned. “I got stubborn. I decided I wanted to stay in school. But they dropped me off the athletic scholarship list. I married Clara, tier daddy had just died and left her this place. It brings in enough to swing the school bills.” He turned and stared at the door. Clara stood outside looking in through the screen. “I didn’t know at the time that she was no good.”

Clara screamed more curses at him. He went over casually and spit through the screen at her. A charming little family scene. I got out as quickly and quietly as I could. As I drove out onto the road I could still hear her.

Chapter Three

No Suicides Today