Bitter Business

here!” commanded Elliott, bending to grip his shoulders.
    I grabbed his legs and staggered backward under the impact of their disjointed kicking. Together we dragged him out into the hall. Lydia and Philip stood by like terrified children. Elliott ordered them to phone for an ambulance, but we both knew that it would never come in time. We had both seen the container of white powder on the sink in the bathroom—the odorless, tasteless powder that looked as harmless as laundry detergent.
    I’m sure that Elliott had seen worse in Vietnam. He bent to the task without hesitation. Unflinching, he stuck his fingers down Eugene’s throat to make him vomit. That done, he cleared his airway, stuck a washcloth in his mouth to keep him from biting through his own tongue while he seized. Together we tried to hold him down to keep him from hurting himself as he lay thrashing on the floor.
    Philip came back to report that the ambulance was on its way from Bainbridge, nearly thirty miles away. From the other room we could hear the ragged sound of Lydia’s hysterical sobbing.
    It was all over in a few minutes.
    Wordless, Elliott helped me to my feet. I don’t remember what I felt; a lot of things I suppose; anger, pity, grief.... But mostly what I remember is the overpowering relief that the killing would be over.
     
    * * *
     
    We stayed only long enough to make our statements to the police. I’d had a bellyful of the Cavanaughs. All I wanted was to get as far away from them as I could. I practically threw myself into Elliott’s rental car, shivering despite the heat, desperate to get away.
    We made the drive to Bainbridge in silence; neither of us felt much like talking. After all, what was there to say? Eugene had sent perfume laced with poison to his father’s wife. He meant to wound him with her loss the way he’d been wounded by Jimmy’s. An eye for an eye. I had no idea how he’d managed to live with himself once he realized he’d poisoned Dagny instead. Perhaps, seeing his father in his grief, he figured he’d come close enough. I really didn’t care. I had no interest in analyzing the finer points of tragedy.
    When we got back to Elliott’s hotel we went back to his room so that he could call Joe Blades. I stood mutely by the door and listened as he explained what Eugene had done. That finished, he came to where I stood.
    Without a word, he took me into his arms. I feared that I was lost. My own need completely overwhelmed me. In a world that had recently seemed so scrambled, tainted by tragedy and loss, Elliott’s mouth, his strong hands against my skin, seemed to feed a deep and insistent hunger.
    I forced myself to be free of him, to put my hand against his cheek and tell him I must go. In his embrace I knew I’d stepped up to a line that, once crossed, could only lead down a tangled path. Looking back, I realize that I ran from him the same way I’d wanted to run from the Cavanaughs.
    From the pay phone in the lobby, I telephoned Stephen to tell him that I loved the apartment and couldn’t wait to move in.