Poisonous Kiss (34 page)

     But I couldn't sleep. I kept thinking that I want to tap the punk's telephone. He was the next thread in my fine spider web of suspicions. He could lead me to Frost. Ericsson could surely get a permit. I smiled vaguely in the darkness. I knew I could get the equipment. Enough friends and colleagues of mine have turned into private detectives in the last few years.

     The other thread in the web is Delacroix. I wanted to read through his notebook. I knew a whole group of detectives were working on it. They'd check on each name, phone number and address. They're pros, they knew what they were doing, just like me, or maybe even better. What did I know that they didn't? But somehow, something connected me with Delacroix, perhaps it's that I killed him, and he nearly killed me. That's an intimate enough relationship.

     I needed to go see a real doctor. My calendar was on my desk. It was out of reach.

     I heard noises outside. I lay still, I didn't even turn my head to look at the door, but all my senses paid attention. Quiet rustling, the clicking of the lock. Had Celia come back? The thought made me very happy for a second. The door opened quietly. I couldn't hear it close. Steps approached. Celia? I wasn't sure. I felt I should move. The bedside table. The gun was next to my notebook. I had gotten used to putting it there before going to bed when I was a beginner. They burned it into our consciousness that it always had to be within easy reach.

     I can't move, I just lie there, numb. I was afraid. "Celia?" I wanted to say, but no sound came out of my throat. Someone was moving around in the other room, and I was scared in the dark, like when I was a just a boy, left alone in my room. Why didn't Celia's shot have an effect now? There was a narrow ray of light moving by the slit below the door. A flashlight. My heart beat fast, my blood throbbed in my veins. The gun was on the bedside table. I couldn't turn the lights on. The streetlights and the moon were bright enough anyway. I thought I should drop behind the bed and wait for the intruder there. Hide under the bed out of fear?

     I sat up slowly, without making a noise. Everything got quiet. Maybe I was noisier than I thought. You bastard, I said to myself. I'll kill you, you bastard. I felt rage, hatred. I didn't want to hide under the bed anymore. I reached out for the gun, and it softly fit into my hand. I stood up. What was this smell? God! I look at the puddle that appeared in the slit under the door. I couldn't shoot…

     And then it flared up in the other room, running steps, a slammed door. The gasoline was burning, the living room was on fire. Fear is the best painkiller. I jumped to the window. Instinct. I wasn't going to jump out of the fifth floor. I threw the window open, leaned out. A dark figure ran out of the house. The person disappeared into a car. The engine started, the car left. Its headlights weren't turned on, it sped towards the corner like a ghost car. I forgot about the fire. I stood there numb, my shaking. I knew this car. It turned at the corner. Could it have been an optical illusion! It was impossible!

     I couldn't think about it any longer. The survival instinct suppressed all else. I fired the gun into the night air. The shot sounded frighteningly loud in the silence of the night. But no lights turned on, no curious heads appear anywhere. I shot again, aiming at the cars parked in the street, hoping to make at least the owners act less indifferent. I shot until the gun was empty, then I tore off the drapes and ran into the bathroom with them. I was trying to stuff the heavy wet fabric around the door when I heard the sirens wailing. It approached quickly, but it was only a patrol car, with two scared young cops who were called to catch a shooting madman. How long would it take them to realize that there is a fire and they should call the fire department? I continued doing what I could. The drapes were followed by the blanket, the sheets. There was a wet pile by the door. I opened the bathroom faucet all the way, emptied out the little trash can in the bathroom and began to fill it with water. I splashed the door and then began to refill the bucket. The siren stopped. Hurry up, boys! For Christ's sake, hurry up!

The trial begins to drag. Most of the spectators leave. The family members stay, and so do some journalists and young lawyers. On the last day, the courtroom will fill up again. Photographers will invade the entrance and the papers will send in the sketch artists. But until then, it's a boring show for the layperson. A long process of producing evidence. An arms specialist, a pathologist, lines of witnesses. What for? The eccentric couple isn't denying anything. And they aren't trying to explain anything either. Only the prosecutor's attempts at discrediting the accused make the process less boring.

     A sour-looking woman, about sixty, sits in the witnesses stand. She wears slightly worn Sunday best, an old-fashioned hair-do, permed into snail-like curls. She squints suspiciously at the judge. The prosecutor asks her questions, but she just keeps looking at the judge. After all, he's the one sitting on the highest bench.

     "Do you know Mr. Arany, ma'am?"

     The woman watches the judge as if she was expecting the answer from him.

     "Excuse me, ma'am, could you turn towards the accused? Do you know this man?"

     The judge nods paternally. The woman turns her head, her glance sweeps over Arany.

     "Do you know this man?"

     "I do."

     Arany fights a yawn. The inaction and the tension wear him out. He has to behave the whole time. He can't even yawn. The jurors might think he isn't really interested. The trial has gotten so wearing that he's reached a point where he prefers the privacy of his cell. He's in solitary, not in population with all the killers. It looks like he has friends somewhere in the system.

     The woman explains her story slowly and elaborately, as if she was narrating one of the old Arabian Nights tales. She has a room to rent, that's the main point, but for some reason she has to elaborate. Her husband had died. But she has more to say on that subject. You can't dismiss the death of a husband just like that. Especially of a good man, who didn't drink and took home all of his salary. And then his health began to get worse.

     She becomes visibly petrified when the prosecutor interrupts her. Her lips are compressed together in a narrow line. Arany knows this look. He's met hundreds of witnesses like this. He figures no one will get any more information from this woman. But Arany guesses wrong. He underestimates the persistence of the prosecutor and the prestige of the court. Though she shows reluctance, the good woman is willing to answer. Yes, her room was rented by this gentleman. He paid a month in advance. And he was a quiet man, a good tenant. He didn't leave the room all day. What did he do? How should I know? You tell me.

     Arany doesn't recognize the next witness. He's lean, wears glasses, and is around fifty. The kind of man who sports a knitted vest under his suit coat. The kind of man who looks through the peephole every time he hears the slightest noise. He says he watched Arany break into Steven Beidecker's apartment. He saw him leaving after a few minutes. And yes, it seems to him, Arany picked the lock. Why didn't he called the police? The man blinks innocently and shrugs his narrow shoulder. He was afraid to get involved.

     Arany looks off in the distance and barely sees him. They will never prove that he bugged the pimp's room. His friend, who lent him the equipment, can be trusted.

     "So, you saw this police officer, who was sworn to uphold the law, committing illegal entry?"

     Arany's lawyer objects that the prosecutor is leading the witness and the judge tells the prosecutor to stop it.

     None of this penetrates Arany's consciousness. In his mind he sees the picture on the wall of the little room he rented. It's a bad landscape painting, with a few figures wearing biblical clothes in the foreground, and animals around them. Probably goats. Maybe goats looked like that in biblical times. The TV in the next apartment is blaring out some game. The sports announcer is shouting praise for some athlete Arany has never heard of…

     His lawyer leans toward him and asks something. Arany slowly comes back to reality. He looks around. His glance rests on Celia for a moment. She isn't watching him. She's listening to what the prosecutor says and taking notes. Celia's fighting. Arany isn't. He feels he's already done everything he could. He has taken the blame. Celia is in no danger. But she takes notes, holds war councils with his lawyer. She grows more thin and pale—and more beautiful.

     "Should I expect any more little surprise like this?" his lawyer asks. "I'd like to know how often you broke into other people's homes, installed bugs without the permission of a court, intimidated witnesses. How often did you take justice into your own hands?"

     Arany doesn't answer. He's warm. It would be nice to take off his coat at least. What would the jurors think? To the hell with the jurors! He drinks a glass of water.

     "Did you?"

     Arany slowly puts the glass down. A smile crosses his face and a few women decide that he can't be such a hardened criminal after all. He leans close to the lawyer's ear, and is hit by the smell of the man's strong, bitter after-shave.

     "I think that's all I ever did."

     He straightens up. One of the jurors is watching him. Maybe it's a mistake to smile. He's being disrespectful. To hell with it. He takes one more sip and adjusts his tie. He goes back to his daydream.

Flowered wallpaper. Huge flowers, so gaudy that they're frightening and disgusting. Arany lies on his back in the bed that's too soft and too narrow, looking at the paper with his half-open right eye. The left eye is closed, and he holds his head still so the ice bag he put over it won't fall. On the wall opposite is the biblical landscape with the goats that look like dogs. In the next room the TV is now blaring baseball. Arany sighs. He could use some quiet. He could use some rest.

     The house where he found this room is right across from the home of the pimp whose knee he broke. Getting the room was lucky enough. He couldn't expect to enjoy silence and a comfortable bed as well. And it seems an ideal solution. Arany's own apartment is of no use for a while anyway. And he needs rest. To lie still, and avoid unnecessary movement or excitement. These were the orders of the doctor who examined him after the fire. It had been at daybreak. Arany had been sitting, shivering with a cold in Ericsson's office. The captain had sat there, unshaven, his eyes puffed. Arany didn't know who had informed Ericsson and he didn't ask. Everyone has the right to their little secrets.

     They had a coffee, Ericsson brought it from the machine in the hallway while Arany dialed an old pal of his. A sleepy voice answered after too much ringing.

     "What's going on? Are you crazy?"

     I am, Arany thought. Ericsson had entered, put the cup in front of Arany then dropped into the other armchair. He had listened in silence as Arany persuaded his friend to bring them an electronic bug to the precinct right then.

     "To the precinct?" A suspicious, unbelieving voice.

     "Yes." A quick glance toward Ericsson. The captain stirs the brownish liquid with his plastic spoon. He doesn't look up until Arany puts down the phone.

     "The guy will be in the hospital at least until morning," he mumbles.

     Arany takes a sip. The hot drink burns his mouth.

     "What about the woman?" he asks.

     The captain takes out the spoon and meticulously licks it clean.

     "She won't be there. I'll have her brought in at 7 a.m. for questioning.

     At 7 a.m. Arany watches from his car as two detectives enter the brownstone. He knows them, they're old hands. It feels strange to watch them like this. What would he think of these two big, heavy footed, tired men if he didn't know them, he wonders. Cops, his mind answers immediately, I'd think they were cops. His smile is bitter. Will I be like them? A worn, tired man? Strong but overweight, a cynic because of all of the things I've seen and experienced? Celia ought to have some shots against this, too.

     They're fast and efficient. In less then a minute, they appear again. They escort the dancer discreetly, one of them politely opens the car door, wile the other helps the woman get in. Real gentlemen. Arany is conscious of their caution: The way the first man looks around before opening the car door, while the other hovers over the woman, covering her with his big frame. What did Ericsson tell them to expect?

     Arany sinks down in the seat of his car, and watches them drive away. The brake light flashes, then the blinker. He needs no one to tell him to be cautious. The street is waking up. Sleepy faced people, going to a morning shift, get into their cars or stand numbly at the bus stop. No one cares about him. And he cares about no one.

     The downstairs door is closed, but that's no problem. He uses the old trick, so simple and always effective. He pushes several buzzers. Sleepy, angry voices crackle through the intercom, then he hears the lock open. Someone in one of the apartments buzzes him in without bothering to ask who it is.

     He enters and is greeted by silence. In a few apartments people curse and go back to their beds. How could he know that one of these tenants, a man with glasses and narrow shoulders, stands at his door listening and looking through the peephole? How can Arany know that this man will be a witness against him at his own trial. A trial for a murder he still hasn't even dreamed about committing.

     The eighth floor. He walks up. Another damn staircase. He can't get away from them. But Celia's shots are potent. There are no nightmarish pictures this time, only the weakness. He has to stop at every landing. He tries to summon his second wind as he leans against the wall.