Music for Chameleons by Truman Capote

Author:Truman Capote [Capote, Truman]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Politics, Classics, Writing
ISBN: 9780345803085
Publisher: Vintage
Published: 1980-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

TC: From what she told me, it seems the only explanation.

JAKE: She doesn’t know what happened. She wasn’t there. She was sitting on her butt reading magazines.

TC: Well, if it was Quinn—

JAKE: I’m listening.

TC: Then he must be a magician.

JAKE: Not necessarily. But I can’t discuss it just now. Soon, maybe. A little something happened that might hasten matters. Santa Claus came early this year.

TC: Are we talking about Jaeger?

JAKE: Yessir, the postmaster got his package.

TC: When?

JAKE: Yesterday. (He laughed, not with pleasure but excitement, released energy) Bad news for Jaeger but good news for me. My plan was to stay up here till after Thanksgiving. But boy, I was going nuts. All I could hear was slamming doors. All I could think was: Suppose he doesn’t go after Jaeger? Suppose he doesn’t give me that one last chance? Well, you can call me at the Prairie Motel tomorrow night. Because that’s where I’ll be.

TC: Jake, wait a minute. It has to have been an accident. Addie, I mean.

JAKE (unctuously patient, as though instructing a retarded aborigine): Now I’ll leave you with something to sleep on.

Sandy Cove, where this “accident” occurred, is the property of a man named A. J. Miller. There are two ways to reach it. The shortest way is to take a back road that cuts across Quinn’s place and leads straight to Miller’s ranch. Which is what the ladies did.

Adios, amigo.

NATURALLY, THE SOMETHING HE HAD left me to sleep on kept me sleepless until daybreak. Images formed, faded; it was as though I were mentally editing a motion picture.

Addie and her sister are in their car driving along the highway. They turn off the highway and onto a dirt road that is part of the B.Q. Ranch. Quinn is standing on the veranda of his house; or perhaps watching from a window: whenever, however, at some point he spies the trespassing car, recognizes its occupants, and guesses that they are headed for a swim at Sandy Cove. He decides to follow them. By car? or horseback? afoot? Anyway, he approaches the area where the women are bathing by a roundabout route. Once there, he conceals himself among the shady trees above Sandy Cove. Marylee is resting on a towel reading magazines. Addie is in the water. He hears Addie tell her sister: “I’m going to swim around the bend and sit on the waterfall.” Ideal; now Addie will be unprotected, alone, out of her sister’s view. Quinn waits until he is certain she is playfully absorbed at the waterfall. Presently, he slides down the embankment (the same embankment the searching Marylee later used). Addie doesn’t hear him; the splashing waterfall covers the sound of his movements. But how can he avoid her eyes? For surely, the instant she sees him, she will acknowledge her danger, protest, scream. No, he obtains her silence with a gun. Addie hears something, looks up, sees Quinn swiftly striding across the ridge, revolver aimed—he shoves her off the waterfall, plunges after her, pulls her under, holds her there: a final baptism.

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