Read Online Patricide by Joyce Carol Oates - Free Book Online Page B

‘Lou-Lou.’ ”
    â€œWell, my father isn’t here. He’s in London.”
    In fact, Dad was sailing with our hosts. He’d be
back within a few hours.
    â€œNo. He’s on the island. I asked in town. There are
no secrets here.”
    The bikini-girl was edging toward me in a way that
made me nervous. Her body was fleshy and full yet her face looked drawn and
there were distinct shadows beneath her eyes. She was glancing about,
suspiciously. “He’s—where? Down by the water? Upstairs in the house? And his
wife—‘Avril.’ Where’s she?”
    I thought She has something in that bag .
    It was a large Bloomingdale’s sort of bag made of
elegantly woven straw. The handles were tortoiseshell. The way the girl was
gripping it, I understood that she had a weapon inside.
    Calmly I said, with a forced smile, “I can leave a
message with my father. He can call you.”
    She laughed. “Call me! Are you joking? He will
never call me , he has said so.”
    â€œThen . . .”
    â€œThere was a time when that hypocritical son of a
bitch called me, but now, I can’t even call him; he never calls back. Your
father is a terrible man. You know this, I’m sure. You don’t look stupid—only
just moon-faced and fat. I don’t think that your father should be allowed to
live.”
    Barefoot, with garishly painted toenails, the
bikini-girl was edging toward the veranda of the main house, which was shingle
board purposely stained to appear weatherworn, with a steep-pitched roof. Inside
the house there were voices—I didn’t know whose. I’d begun to sweat. My fatty
upper arms stuck to my armpits. I was calculating that I would have to wrench
the bag away from the bikini-girl with no hesitation, within seconds; if she
stepped back from me, she could take out her weapon . . .
    With my strained mouth I continued to smile. I saw
that the girl had tiny rosebud or pursed-lips tattoos on her back. I saw that
her bikini was striped iridescent-purple and that her flushed-looking hips and
breasts were tightly constrained; she was breathing audibly.
    â€œWait, please.”
    â€œI’m just going to knock at the screen door.”
    â€œNo, please—wait.”
    â€œI’ll just call ‘hello’ inside. I won’t go fucking in .”
    As the girl edged past me I stumbled to my feet and
threw myself at her, and wrenched away the bag—it was heavy, as I’d
suspected.
    She began screaming. Cursing me. She clawed at me
but I didn’t surrender the bag. Our hosts’ adult daughter came out of the house,
astonished. A Portuguese water spaniel, that had been sleeping on the veranda
nearby, began barking hysterically. The girl ran stumbling to the little
Ferrari, where she’d left the key in the ignition; haphazardly she backed out of
the driveway, all the while cursing us.
    In the elegantly woven bag was a snub-nosed
revolver. In fact it was a Smith & Wesson .25-caliber “snubbie”—a
semi-automatic with a mother-of-pearl handle that carried six rounds. It would
turn out to be a stolen gun, sold to the bikini-girl in New York City; a femal e sort of gun, though close up it could be
fatal.
    Our hosts’ daughter called the Vineyard police and
the girl was arrested within a half hour as she tried to buy a ticket for the
ferry.
    It would be said that she was one of Roland Marks’s girls. One who hadn’t worked out.
    My father refused to discuss her. My father
professed not to know her—never to have heard of her. His wife Avril did not
believe him. The bikini girl was older than she’d seemed: thirty-two. She’d been
arrested for carrying an unlicensed and concealed gun. She lived in TriBeCa and
described herself as an actress associated with La Mama. Later, we would learn
that, the previous summer, she’d stalked Philip Roth in Cornwall Bridge,
Connecticut, though,