Let's All Kill Constance (Crumley Mysteries 3)

“‘What I’m planning is beyond you,’ I said.”

“Yes, but for God’s sake, Fritz. Name the film!”

Fritz ignored me, staring through that monocle into the starry sky, still talking to himself while we eavesdropped.

“‘You can’t do it,’ I said. She wept. ‘Please,’ she begged. ‘Try me.’ I said, ‘Constance, it’s something you can never be, something you never were.’” Fritz took another swig from his glass. “The Maid of Orleans.”

“Joan of Arc!”

“‘Oh, my God,’ she cried. ‘Joan! If it’s the only thing I ever do, I must do that!’”

Must do that! came the echo.

Joan!

A voice cried in my ears. Rain fell. Water ran.

A dozen lighters took fire and were thrust out toward the sad, weeping woman.

“Only for my voices, I would lose all heart! The bells came down from heaven and their echoes linger in the fields. Through the quiet of the countryside, my voices!”

The subterranean audience gasped with: Joan.

Joan of Arc.

“Ohmigod, Fritz,” I cried. “Say that again!”

“Saint Joan?”

I leaped back, my chair fell.

Fritz went on: “I said, ‘Constance, it’s too late.’ She said, ‘It’s never too late.’ And I said, ‘Listen, I’ll give you a test. If you pass, if you can do the scene from Shaw’s Saint Joan … impossible, but if you can, you get the job.’ She fell apart. She cried, ‘Wait! I’m dying! Wait, I’ll be back.’ And she ran away.”

I said, “Fritz, do you know what you’ve just said?”

“Gottdammit, yes! Saint Joan!”

“Oh, Christ, Fritz, don’t you see? We’ve been thrown off by what she said to Father Rattigan. ‘I’ve killed, I’ve murdered! Help me bury them,’ she cried. We thought she meant old Rattigan up on Mount Lowe, Queen Califia on Bunker Hill, but no, dammit, she didn’t murder them, she was out to get help to murder Constance!”

“How’s that again?” said Crumley.

“‘Help me kill Constance,’ said Constance. Why? For Joan of Arc! That’s the answer. She has to have that role. All this month she’s been preparing for it. Isn’t that it, Fritz?”

“Just a moment while I take my monocle out and put it back in.” Fritz stared at me.

“Fritz, look! She’s not right for the part. But there is one way she can be Saint Joan!”

“Dammit to hell, say it!”

“Dammit, Fritz, she had to get away from you, fall back, take a long, hard look at her life. She had to, one by one, kill all her selves, lay all the ghosts, so that when all those Constances were dead, she could come for her test, and maybe, just maybe, land the part. She hasn’t had a role like that ever in her life. This was her big chance. And the only way she could do it was to kill the past. Don’t you see, Fritz? That must be the answer to what’s been going on during the last week, with all these people, with Constance appearing, disappearing, and reappearing again.”

Fritz said, “No, no!”

I said, “Yes, yes. The answer’s been lying right in front of us, but it’s only when you said the name. Saint Joan is the motive for every woman who ever lived. Impossible dream. Can’t be attained.”

“I’ll be gottdammed.”

“Oh, no, Fritz!” I said. “Blessed! You’ve solved it! Now, if we find Constance and say to her, maybe, just maybe, she has a chance. Maybe, maybe—” I broke off. “Fritz,” I said. “Answer me.”