The Black House by Patricia Highsmith

of condolence from him? This piece of information, Lee thought, affected him not at all. Morton Greeves’s life or death was simply nothing to Lee.
    Later that day, when Lee was tugging off rubber boots and feeling a bit tired—he had been paint-stripping with a water hose in his back alley—he had a vision of Mort dead and bleeding, having hit a tree in his car, and thought, “Good!” An eye for an eye . . . For a few seconds he relished a vengeance achieved. Morton was Win’s only son, only child. Worthless all his life, and now dead! Good! Now Lee had his money for the Arlington Hills house he had sold, and he could, if he wished, buy a property he had looked at in a suburb of Chicago, a pleasant house near the lake. He could have a little boat.
    An image of his mother came to Lee as he undressed for bed that night, his mother in her big wicker rocking chair in the living room, reading her Bible, peering up at him grim-mouthed (though with her teeth), and asking him why he didn’t read the Bible more often. The Bible! Had it made his mother any better, kinder to her fellow men? A lot of the Bible seemed to be anti-sex, too. His mother was, certainly. If sex was so bad, Lee thought, how had his mother ever conceived him, ever got married in the first place?
    â€œNo,” Lee said aloud, and shook himself as if he were shaking something off. No, he wasn’t going to entertain any thoughts of the Bible, or of vengeance, in regard to Win’s family, or in regard to the man at the Hearthside whose name by now Lee had forgotten, except for the first name Victor. What kind of Victor was he, for instance? Lee smiled at the absurdity of his name, the vainglorious ring of it.
    Lee had a few friends in the neighborhood, and one of them, Edward Newton, a man of Lee’s age and owner of a nearby bookshop, dropped in on Lee one afternoon as he often did, to have a coffee in the back of the shop. Lee had told Edward and others of his friends that his mother had been ill when he visited Arlington Hills, and that she had died a few days after his visit. Now Edward had found a small item in the newspaper.
    â€œDid you know him? I thought I’d show it to you, because I remember the name Hearthside, where your mother was.” Edward pointed to an item three inches long in the newspaper he had brought.
    SUICIDE OF NURSING HOME
SUPERINTENDENT, 61
    The report said that Victor C. Malloway, superintendent of the Hearthside retirement and nursing home in Arlington Hills, Indiana, had killed himself by closing his car and piping in the exhaust from a running engine in his own garage at home. He left no note of explanation. He was survived by a wife, Mary, a son Philip and daughter Marion, and three grandchildren.
    â€œNo,” Lee said. “No, I never met him, but I’ve heard his name, yes.”
    â€œI suppose it’s a depressing atmosphere—old people, you know. And they’re dying pretty frequently there, I’d suppose.”
    Lee agreed, and changed the subject.
    Win was next, Lee supposed. What would happen to him, or what would he do to himself? Maybe nothing, after all. His own son was dead, and how much of that death might be called suicide, Lee wondered. Surely Mort had known from Win that the game was up, that no more money would be coming from Lee Mandeville. Surely too Win and Victor Malloway would have had a couple of desperate conversations. Lee still remembered Win’s defeated and terrified face in that upstairs bedroom in Arlington Hills. Enough was enough, Lee thought. Win was a half-destroyed man now.
    With some of his money, Lee invested in ten Turkish carpets whose quality and colors especially pleased him. He was sure he could sell five or six at a profit, and he put a sign in his window to the effect that an exceptional opportunity to buy quality Turkish carpets was now offered, inquire within. The ones he did not sell would go well in the house in the