Poisonous Kiss (20 page)

     Don't worry, dear! Arany's look seems to say in the courtroom. If she says I was harassing her, I'll tell them that I was only with her to find out where Frost is hiding.

     But Simone isn't even thinking about making accusations against Arany. As a rather simple young woman, she enjoys making a powerful, learned man look foolish. And she feels sure of her success now. She can practically taste it. She'll find a new agent to replace that idiot who can only get her jobs with those cheap ad circulars and in nasty strip joints. Much worse looking women have become stars. And from tomorrow on, she will flooded with offers.

     With that mysterious smile on her face, she waits for the next question. She bends one leg slightly and raises her heel, to emphasize the curve of her calf. Her thighs are perfect, as if they never wanted to end.

     "Thank, you, ma'am," the prosecutor nods politely.

It was a strange afternoon. I was floating around half-asleep. I walked, I talked, I filled in forms. All this seemed to be happening to someone else. It was like I was watching it from far away on a big screen, lying in a huge comfortable bed.

     The whole scene with the well-dressed woman whose bag had been snatched was like a movie. I kept nodding understandingly. I made arrangements for a car to search the neighborhood. I typed the report and had it signed. But in the meantime I had been somewhere else: At Simone's, with Celia, at home in my armchair equipped with beer, chocolate and crackers, reading Baruch's thoughts.

     I had even walked the woman out, I promised her that we'll do our best, but at the same time I felt Simone's little breasts stroking my face.

     And then I went back to my desk, put piles of files and forms around myself, and took my notebook out of my bag. This notebook contains everything. Everything I learned from Simone, I took notes in the car after leaving her apartment so I wouldn't forget. Baruch's thoughts are also listed in here. Not word by word, but condensed—a distilled version of a mystery.

     That was where I opened the notebook.

     According to Baruch, the virus that he simply calls Q-virus appears in almost everyone in the world. Baruch talks about macro and micro levels, but in my notes there is simply an equation between the word
individual
and the word
race.
After this, there is a question mark indicating that I have my doubts about this idea.

     Q-virus becomes active in the life of the individual the same way it has followed us throughout the history of humanity, according to Baruch. In everyone's life, the periods of aggression and complacency alternate. He points out that aggression appears more blatant among adolescents, but old age aggression is just as well known.

     I tried to think back. I remembered that I was always picking fights when I was ten …shaking my head, I returned to the text.

     According to Baruch, this virus infects most of the world's population, and the exceptions to this rule are the people who become saints or martyrs. I doubted his reasoning. It bugged me to see him try that old ploy that scientists use: They come up with a theory they like, and then selectively re-write history to conform to their theory. If Baruch is to be believed, Jesus and Buddha were suffering from a lack of Q-virus. This virus doesn't have a great effect in normal periods, the virus is usually dormant. As Baruch explained it, society can control the disease. Even if the illness is not correctly diagnosed, each society has its own tools to fight back and keep the diseased people separate. They get locked up in jail, sent into exile or executed. These are rough, primitive methods, but they are relatively efficient. They cut the center of infection out of the healthy body—unless the virus starts spreading on a large scale. That's when fuming populist leaders and religious fanatics appear on the scene. Senseless wars break out, and aimless murders abound. The daily papers indicate how fast the disease is spreading. The society's self-defense system becomes weaker and weaker, since beyond a certain limit it is society itself that is infected.

     I shut my notebook and pondered these issues with my eyes closed. Of course, the phone started ringing like always when I have something important to think about or when I have to hurry somewhere.

     I picked it up, and said hello in a curt, formal voice. It was my brother Lewis. Now that he was calling from the hospital and not from home, he sounded fairly humane.

     "Is that you, little brother? I've got good news for you."

     I closed my eyes again. How can he be so annoying, even when he's telling me good news? And what does he mean by
little brother?
He should have given me a damned slice of bread when I drove a hundred miles to his house.

     "All the findings are negative," he sounded enthusiastic as if he was responsible for the test results. "In other words, you are as healthy as an ox."

     "That's strong, not healthy," I grumbled into the receiver. Lewis rarely wants to word things clearly, and even when he does, he fails. "And what does the neurologist say?"

     When I was there, they did a blood test, X-rayed me, examined my innards with ultrasound, poked around, pressed my stomach, shined a light in my eyes, ears and throat, leaving only my ass out. Then Lewis walked me over to the neurologist's clinic.

     I had to walk with my eyes closed and my arms held out ahead of me, I had to touch my nose still with closed eyes, and I had to perform other circus stunts. And then there were the psychological screenings. I remembered some of them from my studies, but I had no idea what the doctor was trying to get at with half of them. The neurologist was a short, slim man with bright eyes. He asked me about my childhood, what he was really interested in was my relationship with my brother. Of course, I lied. He asked me what was wrong with me and why I thought I had a split personality. I had to tell him about the things I had done, and how well I remembered them. He crossexamined me with questions about my answers. We wasted half a day on each other.

     "He says that if you're crazy, then so is he," Lewis laughed cheerfully.

     What can I say? It wasn't exactly reassuring. I wondered if there was someone else there, sitting with him in his luxurious study. Maybe his wife or a colleague was overhearing this conversation. Maybe Lewis was showing them that he's not only an outstanding doctor, an excellent husband and father, but he's also a good brother.

     "And what about the Q-virus?" I asked after some hesitation.

     "What?" He sounded alarmed, and I felt some kind of satisfaction.

     "The Q-virus," I repeated, with an important tone. "Discovered by Dr. Martin Baruch. An aggression virus or something like that."

     There was silence. I could picture him sitting in his revolving armchair, his eyes nervously scanning the bookshelves. He hates it when he doesn't know something.

     "First of all, he hasn't proven it yet, it's just a theory," his voice was calming down. For Lewis if something isn't proven, it doesn't exist. "Secondly, it sounds like a pretty far-out theory to me."

     Somehow, this statement reassured me. He's a fathead, but he's still my brother and an excellent doctor. I wanted to believe him instead of Baruch. Baruch's ideas were not at all reassuring.

     "What do you know about the theory?" I asked. I was looking at my notebook as if I wanted to confront my brother with my confused scribble. I trust him. It's incredible how much I trust him, I thought. "I can't believe you don't know anything about it," I added cynically.

     He wasn't going to be ruffled.

     "I'll look into it if you're interested," he said condescendingly. His voice seemed to suggest that he did not have too much time to waste on such nonsense.

     "Could you? And thanks. For everything."

     He hesitated for a second, as if he couldn't decide whether I was making fun of him or not.

     I said goodbye and hung up.

     I had had enough of Baruch, of the solid, but uncheckable thoughts. Maybe I'm just a simple ignorant cop and maybe it's better that way. I opened the notebook to the part about Simone. Using my own words I abbreviated what she said, but looking at my notes I could practically hear every word in her own voice. I heard her mocking tone. After sex, we lay on the wide bed, blowing smoke rings toward the ceiling. Her rings went higher. She smiled at me, her face was innocent.

     "There was a party at your place when you were still living with Pat. Do you remember?"

     She blew the smoke into my face.

     "What's this interrogation? You're going to get me to tell all my secrets after sex? That's a woman's trick."

     I should have kissed her, or caressed her face lovingly. I knew that's what she was expecting. Then we could wrestle in bed, laughing. It would have worked if I loved this woman. But I wasn't able to do any of this. I got up and went into the bathroom so I wouldn't have to answer. The bathroom was small and packed with jars, plastic bottles, shampoos, gels, hair- and nail-conditioners. Simone probably used a different brand every week, maybe she was testing them all. I tried one of the liquid soaps, standing under the hot shower for a long time. A little while later, her slim body slipped in next to me. I closed my eyes, enjoying the water and Simone's gentle fingers.

     "There were lots of parties there," I heard over the dull roar of the water.

     I didn't say anything. I only bent my head back and let the water slap my face. Simone's fingers were already touching my thighs. I felt desire, remorse because of Celia, astonishment that fate brought me together with two incredibly beautiful, sensual and insistent women one after the other.

     "OK, you bastard," she said and grabbed me so tightly that I wailed, "I know which party you mean. The one where Frost showed up with his friends …we got wasted."

     I looked at my notes. There was only a name on the paper. Victor Delacroix. The only one from the gang who hangs out at the Star who was there at that party. The fancy dresser with the great smile. Charming Simone even knew his address. As I sat by my desk reading my notebook, I felt a twinge of jealousy. I had no reason or right to feel jealous of Simone, but emotions don't need reasons.

     Just as I started daydreaming again, Captain Ericsson called. He wanted to see me in his office. I picked up my notebook and hurried down the dark corridor. Two people were standing by the coffee dispenser, they were stirring the dubious liquid in the brown paper cups with disgust on their faces. They didn't look familiar to me.

     "Sit down, son!" Ericsson said. He dropped into the old-looking armchair and sat facing me. He took his medicine with what looked like lukewarm water.

     "I am going to retire," he said suddenly. Then he put his glass down, looked into my eyes and started to look like his old self. "To hell with it, don't spread that around, that's not why I called you here!"

     I had an idea about what was coming next, I was fondling the notebook with sweaty hands.

     "I don't want to leave this place knowing that that piece of shit is still roaming the streets. Frost is one mess I want cleaned up before I go."

     I thought of the untraceable gun Ericsson had given me. My stomach began to tremble. The rest of me felt shaky too. I didn't want to kill, damn it. Even the idea frightens me, I thought. It makes me sick. Maybe I don't have enough of this Q-virus in me—if it exists at all outside of Baruch's imaginative mind.

     "Well?" Ericsson grumbled.

     It's hard to share my thoughts with other people, especially someone like Ericsson. Work is different. I give accounts, I write reports. But this investigation is more of a personal matter—if it is an investigation. I'm really just follow a thread, and I don't know yet where it will lead me. Will it lead me anywhere? I didn't promise Ericsson that I would shoot Frost. I don't think I even promised I would find him.

     And then I felt sorry for the captain, he seemed so old and weak. I told him about the gang at the Star, and that they are somehow connected to Frost and his crowd. It wasn't bad, as I was talking about it, the picture became clearer even for me. It wasn't like opening up in front of Celia. I was editing myself now.

     "What makes you think that it's not this gang from the Star that was there at the party?"

     I hadn't thought about this, I just knew it, period. But a couple seconds later I understood the explanation too. I know myself, and I know the tracks my thoughts follow.

     "Because the guard in Patricia's house wouldn't have been so scared of those clowns. He likes to think he's a tough guy, and he would probably talk back to them, but he's not an idiot. He knows when he shouldn't mess around."

     Captain Ericsson made a gesture of resignation with his liver-spotted hand.

     "Too much psychology," he grumbled. "All this soul searching is what destroys our profession. Nowadays everybody has a psyche and a soul that you have to understand. In the old days, when they robbed a bank, that was a bank robbery, period. And murder was murder, and not a series of psychological crises ending in a disaster." He hit the table, but the old swing was missing, his palm didn't slam the table as loud as it used to. "Maybe it's good I'm going. I can't handle all the soul-searching."

     I didn't know what to say to this. I did what I always do in these situations: I looked down, contemplating the tips of my fingers. Ericsson was waiting to see if I would object to what he said. There was heavy silence for a while. And then he reached into his pocket, took out another tablet and swallowed it without water.