Read A Kiss Before Dying Online
Authors: Ira Levin
A Kiss Before Dying (25 page)
The scream, which had knifed through the sudden stillness of the smelter, ended in a viscous splash. From the other side of the vat a sheet of green leaped up. Arcing, it sheared down to the floor where it splattered into a million pools and droplets. They hissed softly on the cement and slowly dawned from green to copper.
Kingship remained at the smelter. Gant accompanied Marion back to New York. In the plane they sat silent and immobile with the aisle between them.
After a while Marion took out a handkerchief and pressed it to her eyes. Gant turned to her, his face pale. ‘We only wanted him to confess,’ he said defensively. ‘We weren’t going to
do
it. And he
did
confess. What did he have to turn away like that for?’
The words took a long time to reach her. Almost inaudibly she said, ‘Don’t—’
He looked at her downcast face. ‘You’re crying,’ he told her gently.
She gazed at the handkerchief in her hands, saw the damp places in it. She folded it and turned to the window at her side. Quietly she said, ‘Not for him.’
They went to the Kingship apartment. When the butler took Marion’s coat – Gant kept his – he said, ‘Mrs Corliss is in the living room.’
‘Oh God,’ Marion said.
They went into the living room. In the late afternoon sunlight, Mrs Corliss was standing by a curio cabinet looking at the underside of a porcelain figurine. She put it down and turned to them. ‘So soon?’ she smiled. ‘Did you enjoy—’ She squinted through the light at Gant. ‘Oh, I thought you were—’ She came across the room, peering beyond them into the empty hallway.
Her eyes returned to Marion. Her eyebrows lifted and she smiled.
‘Where’s Bud?’ she asked.
Ira Levin
is the author of
The Boys from Brazil
,
Sliver
,
The Stepford Wives
and other bestsellers, as well as Broadway’s longest-running thriller,
Deathtrap
. He has won two Edgar Awards from the Mystery Writers of America and the Bram Stoker Award for Lifetime Achievement from the Horror Writers Association. In 1978
The Boys from Brazil
was made into an acclaimed film starring Gregory Peck and Laurence Olivier. Levin died in 2007, aged seventy-eight.
Chelsea Cain
is the author of the
New York Times
bestselling thrillers
Evil at Heart
,
Sweetheart
and
Heartsick
. Her books have been translated into over twenty languages, named among Steven King’s top ten picks of the year and appeared on HBO’s
True Blood
. Her first thriller,
Heartsick
, was recently named one of the best thrillers ever written by National Public Radio.
Novels
Rosemary’s Baby
This Perfect Day
The Stepford Wives
The Boys from Brazil
Sliver
Son of Rosemary
Plays
No Time for Sergeants
Interlock
Critic’s Choice
General Seeger
Drat! The Cat! (
musical
)
Dr Cook’s Garden
Veronica’s Room
Deathtrap
Break a Leg: A Comedy in Two Acts
Cantorial
Constable & Robinson Ltd
3 The Lanchesters
162 Fulham Palace Road
London W6 9ER
www.constablerobinson.com
This edition published by Corsair, an imprint of Constable & Robinson Ltd, 2011
Copyright Ira Levin, 1954
Introduction copyright Chelsea Cain, 2011
The right of Ira Levin to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or to actual events or locales is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved. This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
A copy of the British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data is available from the British Library
ISBN: 978–1–84901–748–0