Chapter 20
"I meant to kill him," Rickie said. "He deserved it and I meant to do it."
"I know you did," Judy said.
The two ladies sat together in the cavernous living room on Rickie's big red leather couch with their coffees, watching a recent arrival of dark clouds spit rain onto the brick courtyard, awaiting the news of Hirschfeld's fate. Hirschfeld was somewhere in the bowels of the mighty UCLA Medical Center, having been transported there via emergency ambulance only a few hours before. His sudden arrival in the ER had not been occasioned by reason of multiple gunshot wounds to the chest, but by reason of the heart attack he'd instantly suffered seconds after Rickie squeezed shut her eyes and emptied the five rounds from the clip of the tiny Accu-Tek in his direction. In the aftermath of the thunderous explosions, she'd opened her eyes to inspect her kill only to find Hirschfeld still standing, wreathed in an acrid cloud of gun smoke. She'd missed him entirely and instead peppered the ceiling directly above his hulking frame. A few seconds after the smoke began to clear, Hirschfeld responded to her assault, not with fists, but with a heart attack. She could still see his fingers clutching his chest, his body collapsing across the table, shattering the crystal pitcher of Bloody Mary's, in the red liquid of which he quickly became soaked as he blacked out from the pain in his chest before sliding from the table to the floor in an ignominious rag doll heap.
From somewhere inside herself, Rickie summoned the strength to contact Judy, who took charge, arranging for Hirschfeld's emergency helicopter medevac to UCLA where the wizards were presumably even now trying to beat the clock and keep him among the living.
Rickie, in a pair of old jeans, flip-flops and a paint-stained Dodger sweatshirt, sipped tentatively at her tumbler of orange juice. "Even though he won't be coming back for awhile, I can't stay here. Now that I know he's been with another woman in our bedroom. I'll never be able to sleep in that bed again, or enjoy my whirlpool tub, which no doubt the two of them enjoyed in my absence. It makes me sick to my stomach to even think about it."
"Well, that's progress, I guess," Judy replied. "At least you've quit fighting your fatal attraction to the man."
"I guess I have. When the gun was going off, I was in another world. A world of anti-gravity. Each bullet passing from the chamber took with it a piece of my rage until at the end, I had no anger left, only a feeling of weightlessness until I opened my eyes and he was still standing there. Boy, did I come back to earth quick. I've never been so scared of what he would do to me. When he collapsed, my terror was replaced, not by relief ... but by a horrendous guilt."
"Forgive yourself."
"That's impossible. I'll carry the guilt to my grave. I hate to say this, but not only did I feel guilty, I felt cheated I didn't finish him off. I completely surrendered to the act of murder, made a sort of weird peace with it. Now my window of opportunity is closed, and I don't think I'll ever have the strength to make another try at him."
"You need to take it easy. You weren't really trying to kill anybody. You were only trying to stop the pain he was putting you through. Rickie, listen to me. You've been through enough changes in the last 72 hours to kill a rhino. You're burned out. I think we should go back to my place and let you get some rest."
"The LAPD will probably charge me with attempted murder," Rickie said. "The paramedics were super suspicious of the bullet holes and ceiling plaster all over the place."
"What, are you kidding? First of all, for the police to make their case, Hirschfeld would have to press charges, and there's no way he's going to open himself up for a public airing of his sins, not if he values his big shot Hollywood image. That kind of publicity would be a real career breaker. No, he won't press charges. He'll simply pass this whole thing off to the world as a close encounter with triglycerides, and nothing more. If he even makes it off the operating table."
"He'll make it. Dr. Lerner's the best heart specialist in the country. Right now, she's having a field day with his ventricles and aortas and stuff. Besides, he's too evil to die. That's what terrifies me. When he gets better, he's going to come after me. I was weak. I should have grabbed an ice pick and shoved it in his ear while he was down. I'll never get another chance. My life is already over."
"Shut up, Rickie! We're not going to sit around waiting for the ax to fall."
"What other choice is there? The bad karma surrounding the murder attempt is going to pile up. I've crossed the line ... become a murderer ... if not in fact, at least in my heart. I wanted him dead and I did my best to put his lights out."
"That doesn't make you a murderer," Judy said. "If anything, it makes you a heroine in my book. You finally stood up to the beast. You fought back for the first time in your life."
"No, I'm a murderer. The only reason I'm not undergoing a police interrogation right this minute is because I flinched at the critical instant. I closed my eyes. I chickened out right before I squeezed the trigger. I think some part of me may even have aimed the gun high on purpose. That's why Hershey's going to ultimately destroy me. I'm still as gutless as I've always been."
"Your not gutless, you're very brave. You didn't kill him because you're better than he is. That's why I love you so. You're a beautiful person, Rickie. If he hadn't pushed you past the breaking point, you'd never have done what you did."
"Then why do I feel so guilty?"
"Because you're a woman. We feel guilty about everything, because we're taught we're responsible for making the world a better place."
Rickie stood up. "That's funny. In my own way, perhaps I was trying to make the world a better place. Without Hershey, it would have been. You know what else is making me feel guilty?"
"What?"
"Judy, it shames me to admit it, but when I was squeezing the trigger, it felt good. So good, in fact, it scares me. I'm afraid some day I'm going to want to feel it again. That's why I say I'm a murderer. When I crossed the line and pulled the trigger, it changed me forever ... something is now in my blood that wasn't there before. God help me, but it's true."
"When we get home, Rickie, I'm calling your shrink. You need to tell her what you're feeling. I am your friend, but I am out of my depth."
"Judy, what I'm feeling now is tired. I can't stay here waiting for the call to find out if Hershey lives or dies. This place is starting to close in on me. We need to get out of The Dell before I go bonkers."
"We'll go. Is there anything we need to pick up for you on the way to my place?"
"Just a tall fence," Rickie said. "A very tall fence."