By Reason of Insanity (25 page)

Now of course it was too late. The palatial home would eventually be sold, no doubt, but the funeral cortege had ended any future negotiations, at least for her. And for the owner as well. He had apparently waited around too long.

Margot Rule looked at her watch. She would be just a few minutes late at the apartment she hoped to rent. It was on Gass Avenue and was the first of three appointments she had that day. With any kind of luck she would have at least one rented by nightfall.

She thought of the long night ahead of her. There was little evening work in July and August as people left town or sought air-conditioned relaxation. Since she no longer drank or gambled the city’s neon life held no attraction for her, nor did the Strip’s lavish shows and restaurants beyond an occasional meal or a rare evening with clients. She would be forced to return to her well-furnished but lonely rooms. Perhaps she would sit on her green velveteen sofa and stare at her Picasso prints. Or she might turn on the TV and watch a movie or the Phil Silvers show. He was always good for laughs. Or maybe she would just lie on her bed and dream of the young man she loved in high school or all the other young men she thought she loved in her early twenties, always from a distance. Perhaps eventually she might try to give herself some physical relief, talking softly as though they were in the bedroom making love to her. “Come to me. Come to me,” she would whisper. “I am wet with your love, my love, come to me.” And they would always answer her. “Take me, take me. Love of my life.” Their bodies would press on her, strong arms encircling her smooth breasts as they pleaded their final command. “Now,” they breathed into silence, and she always cried out in joyful acceptance.

A half mile away in his hotel room Bishop no longer remembered the funeral procession or the woman to whom he had spoken. His immediate concern was as yet unresolved and he was worried. He had only $700 left.

On August 15 he attended a local meeting of AA. He had seen a television movie at Willows about three lonely young men who always sought women until they found true love at an AA gathering. Except that true love for each was the same woman, a blond divorcée, which led quickly to kidnapping, murder, bondage, suicide, sadistic sex, cannibalism, necrophilia and assorted forms of violence. But that was TV and this was real life and he was running out of options in a town where the men sold money and the women sold smiles. He was ready to try anything, and what he tried most was to remember other movies he had seen for still more ideas.

The meeting was in a chapel hall right off Fremont. She recognized him immediately. He looked so much like someone she had once known from afar, the same easy smile, the same quiet manner. After the speakers she went over to him and introduced herself, laughingly reminding him of his wonderment at the passing funeral. He set his face and flashed his smile, he was all charm and friendly grace. At the meeting’s end he asked if he might be allowed to walk along with her. It was a lovely night and she kindly consented.

On the way they spoke of this and that. He was in the import business and had a shop in Florida, mostly stocked with items from Central America. He had been a heavy drinker for a few years, finally deciding that was not for him. AA had saved his life. He had taken two months off to see the country but liked Las Vegas so much he didn’t want to leave. For her part, she had come from Los Angeles as a child. Her husband and children were dead. She had turned to alcohol but it was two years now and not a drop. AA had also saved her life. She lived alone and had no close relatives, spending all her time at her work. She was in real estate.

At her fashionable apartment house he asked if he could see her again. He was a stranger in town and knew no one, and of course he didn’t want to get too near the night life, where liquor flowed freely. At least not alone. It hadn’t been that long since— He let the thought hang.

She smiled demurely, or so she hoped. To him she looked like a giant bat ready to fly, her eyelids flapping like wings. But he held his innocent expression, his hopeful air of expectancy. She looked directly at him, saw his boyish face, his clear manly eyes, his incorruptible honesty. He was so much the image of someone she once might have known if only she had been born pretty. Yes, she nodded shyly. Yes. Perhaps dinner tomorrow evening? he asked breathlessly. Again she told him yes.

Bishop walked home believing his problem had been solved. She lived well and was in real estate. That meant she had money. She lived alone and had no attachments. That meant she was safe. His final thought before falling asleep was that she had come from Los Angeles. In California.

The next evening they dined at the Sahara on the Strip. He was good company and she enjoyed herself, especially whenever she looked at him sitting across from her. She felt like a young girl again. They had dinner together every night after that. He never pushed and she never resisted. On the fourth night she invited him up for coffee. Afterward he kissed her on the cheek and left. On the fifth night she put on soft music before the coffee. Then she sat next to him on the sofa. They talked a bit, she held his hand. Soon he kissed her on the mouth, a long, loving kiss. She almost swooned in ecstasy. When he got up to leave she was disappointed but she did not want him to feel she was seducing him.

The following evening she showed him the view from her windows. The bedroom faced the Strip. Neon lighted the sky, holding the desert blackness at bay. He said it looked very pretty, almost as pretty as she. Standing by him, she quietly drew her arm around his waist. He turned to her, kissed her again and again. When he placed his palm over her slight breast she murmured yes, and as he gently led her toward the bed her eyes, her body, her lips were saying yes, yes. Yes.

In the morning she called her office to report she was taking the day off. She packed a lunch for them to eat in the desert. They showered and left in her car.

Margot Rule was thirty-eight years old and had never known love, not real love, not the real love she had just experienced. Now she saw that she had been virginal all her life, now she understood what sex was meant to be, what it should always have been. She could not believe the depth of her emotions or how the young man sitting next to her had made her feel. She stole a glance at him. She loved him, more than she had ever loved her husband, God forgive her, more even than the faraway boys of her girlhood. In her woman’s heart she knew this was the love she was meant to have, this was the way she was meant to feel. If there was a god in heaven she would have this love, no matter what the cost, no matter whom it would hurt. Without it she knew she would not want to live, and with it she would live forever.

Bishop sat quietly in the car knowing that he had played his part well, She was starved for love and hungry for the sex that goes with love, passionate and prolonged, the kind of sex that gave all and demanded nothing, that was receptive to her every unspoken wish, that made her feel like the most desirable woman who had ever lived. For this kind of love-making, tenderly physical yet tied to the female’s emotional need for constant reassurance and eternal allegiance, a woman would do anything, go anywhere. His judgment had been correct, his timing superb. He had not gone to a prostitute or even masturbated in a week. He had given her a night of verbal and sexual love that she would remember forever. He smiled at the word. Forever was often not so very long, and he intended that for her forever would not be long at all.

During the next week they saw each other as much as her work would permit. He no longer went to her apartment, wanting, so he told her, to protect her reputation. Nor did he allow her to go to his hotel, which he changed every week so no one would recognize him, for the same reason. She thought this very loving and considerate of him. Instead they ended each evening at out-of-the-way motels where there was little chance of being seen. She would sit in the car while he registered, feeling like a wicked schoolgirl and enjoying every moment of it.

The nights were absolute heaven for her, beyond anything she had ever imagined in her masturbatory fantasies. On their third such night together he asked her to put his penis in her mouth. She had never done this before, not for her husband, not for anybody, but she did it gladly for him, without thought, without reservation. He kneeled over her and gently showed her what to do. When the sperm spurted into her mouth she took it greedily, savoring it on her tongue, swallowing it slowly, lovingly, as coming from him. She liked the sensation and quickly came to believe that she was even closer to him at such moments. Every night thereafter she would take his penis in her mouth, working her taut lips over the crown, waiting, wanting the sweet swallow and declaration of his love, hearing his whispers in the last moments, needing to hear his whispered words, waiting with widened eyes watching waiting for final feeling flowing into welcome mouthful melting into loving leaving all ahhhh …

By the end of that week he had learned that she possessed $26,000, which she kept in the Nevada State Bank. He decided he could survive on that for years.

On the last day of August Bishop told his beloved that he wanted to marry her and to live with her for the rest of his life. He had never loved before, not really, and he would never love again. But he could not marry her because he was a hunted man. Killers were after him. He owed $22,000 to the wrong people in Florida, which was why he was traveling and why he changed his hotel and his name every week. His real name was David Rogers. He was telling her only because he loved her so very much. If she loved him, if she wanted to be with him forever, she could save his life by lending him the money to pay off his gambling debt. She knew what those people were like; one day soon they would find him and he would then be dead. They already had his store in Florida, now they wanted his life. He asked her to go with him to Florida. They would pay the money and get married and honeymoon there or anywhere she desired. They would be free to return to Las Vegas and to love and make love forever more. If not—he shrugged in fatalistic acceptance—he would soon be dead.

Margot did not want him dead. She loved him beyond all reasoning, needed him inside of her, in every part of her. Life without him would be meaningless, would not be worth living, and suddenly she wanted very much to live. She thought of the money. She had lost three times that much in drinking and gambling and now had nothing to show for it. At least by paying off David’s debt she would have him. And she could easily make back the money now that her work was going well.

The very next day she withdrew $22,000 from her business account and $2,000 from her personal savings account for their expenses. The money, 240 one-hundred-dollar bills, was placed in a bank-deposit bag for her. Being a meticulous woman, she put a note in her safedeposit box stating that she had taken $24,000 for expenses and was going to marry David Rogers of Florida.

The plan, at her insistence, was to marry in Las Vegas and then fly to Miami, stay there a few days, and return. She needed no long honeymoon since they would always be together. The time of departure was three days hence, September 4.

Bishop readily agreed to everything, asking only that she wait until the last day for flight reservations so no one would know. He realized it was just paranoia, he said sheepishly, but why take chances?

Margot knew David loved her. He was thirty, though he looked much younger. The eight-year age difference didn’t worry her. She would always keep him as happy and contented as he was right now.

On September 3, 1973, the loving couple went into the desert they liked so much for a final outing before their marriage the following day. Again pleading paranoia, he told her the money should not be left in the house, where it could be stolen while they were gone. Blind with love, she did as he suggested and took the money with her. It was now in a small black zippered case,

In his rented car they rode up US 95 to Lathrop Wells, then turned left onto Nevada 29 toward Death Valley Junction. A few miles inside the California border he pulled the car off the road and drove on packed ground until they could not be seen.

She had never been in this part of the desert before. It was bleak and impossibly lonely. They had not passed a car or any sign of life since the cutoff about twelve miles back. She was happy to be with him but a bit frightened by the utter desolation. He reassured her and got out a blanket, which he spread on the ground some distance from the car. She brought the food over and they ate lunch and talked about their coming life together and the joys they would share. Then he got the idea.

They would take off all their clothes and make love right there under the sky. Unfettered and free, they would feel deliciously sinful. She laughed at the thought. Suppose somebody should come? But nobody was within miles of them. No, it was too ridiculous—she was a grown woman, wasn’t she? Then they’d be kids again for a little while. What about the sun? Didn’t he realize they would burn terribly?

He went to the car and soon returned with a tarpaulin and two wood stakes. In minutes he had constructed a lean-to, with welcome shade underneath. She chided him for having such things in his car and asked him how many other young women he had lured into the desert. Both laughed merrily at the very idea, it was so preposterous.

She was pleased with his suggestion. She had never done anything like that, and the sheer impropriety of it all made the whole thing seem delicious to her. Why not? she asked herself. She was once again a young girl and she had the love of the handsomest, kindest and most wonderful young man in the world. At that moment she felt like the fairy princess in all the fantasies of her life. She could do anything she wanted.

They undressed in front of each other, unashamed, no longer embarrassed, her eyes on his body, the body she had come to know so well in so short a time. Naked, they lay down together on the blanket. The air felt good on her skin, the shade soothing. He moved over her with the deft motion now so familiar to her. Slowly, capably, he began her on her rhythmic journey, and as her dance grew ever more frenzied she sensed this time was somehow different, different even from the other times with him. The open air, the sky, the sensation that they were alone in the universe, all heightened her awareness. She soon felt her senses rushing together, she couldn’t believe what was happening as every nerve in her body fused with every other nerve, sending shock after shock shooting through her until finally she exploded into orgasmic spasms.