unload it since he’d cleaned it last.
She dropped the magazine and went to the top shelf of the built-ins. The gun was there.
*
It didn’t take her long to drive downtown. There were no other cars on the streets, and the current to the traffic lights had been cut three years before. She passed only a prowling squad car, and the two police stared at her curiously.
She parked a block from Antola’s. Leaving the car, she slung her purse, heavy with the gun, over her arm. Briskly she walked down the deserted street.
Antola, standing behind the bar, was tall, thin and red-headed. He stared at her incredulously, wiping his hands repeatedly on his long white apron.
She went past the bar to a small table.
Antola continued to wipe his hands, as if they would not quite come dry. "You want something?"
"Yes, bring me a bacon and tomato sandwich and milk."
"Don’t have bacon and tomato. Kippie, she likes tuna. Bass hamburg. Lester and Alice, they both take grilled cheese. Which do you want?"
"Bring me tuna and milk."
"Kippie, she says milk don’t go with tuna. Makes a big blob inside."
"I said tuna and milk."
"Okay, if you want a blob inside. Kippie don’t." He ambled away.
Not knowing how long she might have to wait, she nibbled at her sandwich.
Soon she heard voices approaching the restaurant. She snaked her hand toward the purse, opened it and clutched the gun.
Alice entered first, her hair a disciplined halo of red-gold, her eyes vivid green. She was quarreling with Bass, who cheerfully ignored her, his penetrating eyes staring greedily at the bottles behind the bar.
Small, precocious-seeming Kippie followed, her dark hair ruffled by the wind. She stared lovingly up into Lester’s eyes.
When the door had closed behind them, Amanda stood and raised the gun. They hadn’t noticed her, they’d been too anxious to mount the bar stools. Ducks in a shooting gallery, she thought.
Alice was sitting nearer her, combing her hair with her fingers. Holding the gun out before her with both hands, Amanda aimed it at Alice’s hair. She pulled the trigger.
At the sound, they all tried to duck, except Alice, who folded quietly to the floor. Amanda aimed again, and this time Lester crumpled.
Ducks in a shooting gallery, she thought. See if you can make that big drake, Bass, fall off his stool.
Bass fell. Kippie screamed, banishing her dimples, and fell beside him.
Antola had disappeared. It didn’t matter. She returned the gun to her purse. She hadn’t decided what to do next. Suddenly feeling hungry, she sat down to finish her sandwich.
*
When she was through, she rose, slung her purse over her arm again and stepped past the four bodies. They hardly seemed real, lying in their separate pools of crimson.
The two policemen came in, staring at her again.
"Catch her!" Antola cried from beneath the bar. "She done it! She killed them all! Poor little Kippie!"
The florid policeman locked his hand about her wrist, while the other cried for Antola to come out.
Her wrists were quickly handcuffed, and the florid policeman escorted her to the police car. He shoved her into the back seat.
She didn’t move, didn’t think. The world seemed frozen.
It didn’t begin to thaw again until the second squad car and the ambulances arrived. They came slowly, without sirens or flashing lights. She wondered why they came so casually.
The florid policeman returned to the car. "All dead," he said. "Even poor little Kippie."
Silently they drove the deserted streets. She looked out at the buildings, knowing the people inside them soon would be shocked by the news of the stars’ deaths.
When they reached police headquarters, she had to run to keep up with the florid policeman as he pulled her up the stone steps. They walked endless corridors, gray and gloomy, until they emerged into a small, dim room.
A man in a tweed coat, who smoked a pipe and spoke suavely, stepped from the group of men in street clothes.
"Did you kill them?" he asked. "Don’t be afraid to tell me. I only want to know if you killed them."
She nodded. "Certainly I did it."
He took her purse from the uniformed policeman and removed the gun. "But why, tell me. Were you jealous of Alice, perhaps?" His pipe jumped as he smiled confidentially.
"Certainly not!" she said. "I did it to save the human race from suicide."
The men smiled, amused.
"Lock her up until we decide," the man in tweed instructed the florid policeman. He gave her the purse, minus the gun.
*
A bony, disapproving matron led her to a cell and locked her into it. Amanda requested pencil and paper.
The matron frowned but brought them. Placing the paper against her purse, she began composing a statement to the press, making clear her motives.
The filmed sequence still played on the small Wall opposite her cell. She glanced up occasionally at the faces and smiled.
She had almost completed the statement when the filmed sequence ended. The small, oily emcee appeared upon the Wall. "Ladies and gentlemen," he said.
She waited expectantly for the death announcement.
"Our stars!" He flung out his arms dramatically.
And the four stars pranced, smiling, across the Wall. Kippie, Bass, Alice and Lester.
Amanda jumped to the bars. It was not a film.
"Matron!" she screamed. "Matron!" Frantically she stared at the four actors whom she had murdered and who were alive and smiling.
"Matron!"
The bony matron unlocked the cell. "Come with me."
"Matron, I killed them. I shot them!"
"Come with me."
The matron led her into a small, dim room.
The tweedy man smiled confidentially around his pipe. "Are you ready to go home, Mrs. Davis?"
"But I murdered them. You have to keep me here!" She tried to catch the lapels of his suit.
He smiled again. "Who did you murder, Mrs. Davis?"
"All
