Dressed to Kill (15 page)

She turned away, moving faster now.

The darkness around her was a chill thing. She turned up the collar of her coat. She listened to the flat echoes of her own steps as she hurried. The cold seemed to pierce the fabric of her clothing, getting down through the layers of her skin, through her nerve ends, to the surface of bone. When she reached the apartment building, she was looking for she went inside quickly, finding herself in an overheated entranceway, a floor of black and white tiles underfoot, like a vast chessboard stretching endlessly under the subdued lights.

Ahead she saw the doors of elevators.

She hesitated. She felt disoriented suddenly, lost in this place. She stopped, leaned against the wall, stared at the rows of locked mailboxes in front of her. A name, an apartment number. It doesn’t matter, does it? Why does it matter?

Sixty-three. Apartment sixty-three.

She walked towards the elevators. As she did so the doors of the building swung open behind her and she turned to see a young black woman come inside—sharply dressed in a long coat with a fur trim, long brown boots, her hair braided into thin strands through which you could see the purple of her skull. She was moving towards the elevators, the heels of the boots clicking on the tiles.

The black glasses. She wanted to put on the black glasses.

She fumbled inside her purse, couldn’t find them, couldn’t find her protection, her camouflage. You don’t need them now, she told herself. She watched the elevator doors open and she stepped inside, then she heard the black woman call out. “Hold that, will you?”

Before she could press the button for the sixth floor the black woman rushed inside the car, laughed, slumped against the wall out of breath.

“Thanks,” she was saying.

Bobbi looked down at the floor, averting her face, half-smiling from some habit of politeness.

“These are the
slowest
elevators,” the woman said.

Bobbi said nothing. She could feel the vibration of the car as it shuddered upwards, as if it were fighting an impossible battle with gravity. The black woman was looking inside her purse for something. She took out a Kleenex, wiped the tip of her nose, sniffed.

She hadn’t pressed a button, Bobbi thought.

She was going to the sixth floor too.

If she wasn’t, why hadn’t she pressed a button?

She glanced at the black woman, watching the strands of hair shine, the gloss of pink lipstick. Then she was conscious of being assessed in some way, the other woman’s eyes seemingly scrutinizing her. It was a quick thing, a brief look, but Bobbi caught it and wondered: Is something wrong with me? Do I look strange somehow? You imagine it, that’s all. There’s nothing out of place. Not a damn thing.

The car stopped and the doors slid open. She let the black woman get out in front of her. She hesitated next, watching the woman go quickly along the carpeted corridor—soundless, moving as if she weren’t touching the floor. Bobbi opened her purse, pretended to be searching for something. She was aware, without looking, of the other woman stopping along the corridor and turning her face round, like she was checking to see what Bobbi was doing. But that was stupid—why should she be checking? Bobbi walked forward. Pretty soon she’ll disappear, she thought. Pretty soon she’ll go inside her apartment and then I won’t have anything to fear . . .

There isn’t anything to fear anyway, is there?

She felt her muscles tighten, her hands stiffen around her purse. She wished she hadn’t dropped the razor. She wished she had it now. She could use it . . .

She saw the other woman pause along the corridor, ring a bell, wait. Bobbi stepped close to the wall. She saw a door open. She watched the woman go inside, then the door was closed.

The corridor was empty.

She experienced a strange falling sensation, something like panic, like the sinking of her blood, a weight dropping through her body.

No—

Quickly, she moved along the corridor.

No.

It was true. True. Bobbi put her hand up to the small wooden numbers nailed to the door of the apartment.

Sixty-three.

Why had the black woman gone inside that apartment?

She stepped back, staring at the two numbers as if they were accusing her of something. She closed her eyes tightly and bit her lip, tasting lipstick, not sure if it wasn’t the taste of her own blood, if she’d punctured the surface of the lip with her teeth.

Why? For Christ’s sake, why?

She turned away, filled with a sensation that was confusing, vague, as if disappointment and relief were present at one and the same time. She went back towards the elevator, pressed a button for the car, got inside when it came.

As it sank towards the lobby she wondered: How would I have killed her anyway? With what? My bare hands?

When she got out of the elevator, when she left the building and felt the cold of the night air rush through her, she realized her chance would come again. It would have to.

4

Norma had a joint in her purse which she lit as soon as she entered the apartment, taking a drag on it and offering it to Liz, who shook her head.

“Hey, it’ll help you relax,” Norma said.

“It’s okay,” Liz said. She looked at her friend for a moment. It was a godawful realization that although she had a number of acquaintances, only Norma could be counted as a real friend. “Listen, thanks for coming over.”

“No sweat,” Norma said. She took off her coat and sat down on the sofa. She smoked some more of the joint, then she stubbed it neatly in the ashtray. “So you really saw this killing?”

“Yeah, I really saw it.”

“That’s heavy.”

“It’s more than heavy,” Liz said. “I mean, when you expect an elevator you don’t expect a bloody assassination.”

Norma nodded. She tilted her head back against the sofa, crossing her long legs. “What did the killer look like?”

“It’s damn hard to say. Tall. Blonde. Black glasses—she had these shades that made it impossible to really
see
her face.”

Norma sat forward. The whites of her eyes were faintly bloodshot now. “You want to hear something funny?”

“I’m dying to—”

“I just rode up in the elevator with a tall blonde lady—”

Liz stared at her friend a moment.

“Hey, relax. She didn’t have no black glasses, though.”

“What floor did she get off at? Did you see?”

“You’re really uptight, honey. She got off at this floor.”

“This
floor?”

“Yeah.”

Liz walked around the room, her hands in the pockets of her dressing gown. “You’re kidding me,” she said.

“No way. You don’t think it’s the same lady, do you?”

Liz shrugged. “No, I don’t think it could be.”

“Damn right it couldn’t be. Like how could she find you? How could she know where you’re at?”

“She couldn’t,” Liz said. It sounded unconvincing, even to her. You happen on to an event in a random way—a terrible event, but random, accidental—and there was no way the killer could know her, know where she lived. Just the same, she felt uneasy. “Can you sleep here tonight?” she asked.

“I can sleep anywhere,” Norma said. “I’d like a drink. What can you offer?”

“Some wine. I think maybe there’s scotch. Help yourself.”

Norma went out into the kitchen. Alone, Liz stepped towards the window, reached for the drape to pull it back—but she didn’t want to look out into the street. She thought: I’ve never seen anybody getting off at this floor that looked anything like the woman Norma described. But that didn’t mean much, not in an anonymous apartment building, not in a place where tenants came and went with restless frequency. I’m safe, she thought. I’m perfectly safe.

Norma came back with a glass of red wine. She put her hand lightly on Liz’s shoulder as she went towards the sofa.

“Nothing’s gonna happen, Liz—”

“Then there’s the cops—”

“Listen to old Norma, huh? Them cops got nothing on you. They’re playing games. Like they always play games. You know that.”

“Yeah. I guess you’re right.”

“Sure I’m right.”

There was a silence between them for a time, then Norma said, “I can sleep right here. On this sofa.”

“You sure you don’t mind?”

Norma shook her head. “For you, I don’t mind.”

Liz sat down in an armchair facing the other woman. She had a sudden flash of the scene in the elevator. It came at her, in all its terrible detail, and she tried to force it out of her mind. A thing like that, she thought, it stays with you forever.

She went over to the sofa and she hugged Norma briefly.

“Thanks. I appreciate this,” she said.

“You’re trembling,” Norma said.

“I’m trying not to.”

“You got any sleeping pills or downers?”

“Yeah.”

“Take one.”

“Maybe you’re right.”

“Doctor’s orders,” Norma said.

Liz went into the bathroom and opened the medicine cabinet. She removed a bottle of Placidyl, swallowed one of the capsules with some water, and then she returned to the living room to wait for sleep.

She hoped it would be dense and black and dreamless when it came.

5

Peter rubbed his eyes. He looked up from his worktable and glanced at the clock beside the bed. Normally, he paid no attention to time but now he had a feeling or urgency, an awareness of minutes passing. 3:22. How could it be that late? He looked at the darkened window, half-expecting to see the first light of dawn in the sky, but it hadn’t happened yet. He stopped what he was doing, left his room, went inside the kitchen where he drank a glass of water—cold, tasting of moss. Through the kitchen doorway he could see Mike sitting in the living room, staring blankly at a test card on the TV. It was strange, soundless, just this spooky series of rainbow colors. Mike had been still and silent ever since they’d come back from the precinct house, and the depth of his quiet emphasized the emptiness of the apartment, the fact that
she
wasn’t there any more, that
she
would never be coming back . . .

Never was an odd word, Peter thought. When he’d come home he’d taken out an old scrapbook of pictures, looking at snapshots of his mother and father, his
real
father, thinking how dated their clothes were, how their smiles in all that sunlight seemed doomed, destined to death, and it struck him that never again, never in the history of the world, would his parents be together again. Unless there was something after death, a thought he balked at because in his heart he was a scientist, he understood the disciplines of science, the quantifications and the formulae and the experiments that sometimes gave you results. What experiment could ever prove there was something beyond the grave? There wasn’t one. If there was anything out there, it was shrouded and silent and locked in a dark privacy. When he’d closed the book, he’d gone inside the bathroom and shut the door and cried, realizing the uselessness of tears, the waste of energy involved, and time passing, time he could put to more practical use.

Now he looked at his stepfather for a moment, wanting to cross the floor, touch him, maybe put his arms around the man, as if that might ease their sense of loss.

He said, “Can I get you something? A glass of water maybe?”

Mike turned his head slowly. The test card flickered. When he spoke his voice was hoarse. “Nothing. But thanks.”

“I thought . . .” Peter faltered, not knowing what he meant to say.

Mike was staring at him.

“Thanks anyhow,” he said again.

Peter went back to his room and closed the door. Christ, it was hard not to feel sorry for Mike. He sat down at his worktable, staring at the assorted devices lying in front of him. Maybe it was a harebrained idea, this gadget; maybe it was going to prove nothing in the end but a waste of time. Sometimes an idea for a project came into his mind out of nowhere, like some magic thing conjured up out of the unconscious; at other times a project was imposed upon him by classroom demands. But this was the first time he’d ever felt such an urgent necessity to do something, even if as he worked at it he had recurring feelings that it wasn’t going to do any good. He couldn’t afford to believe that. He couldn’t afford to be pessimistic.

He owed that much to her.

Then he felt he wanted to cry again, but he held the feeling back. She wouldn’t have wanted that. He stared at the closed door; she’d never appear there again, scolding him for not getting enough sleep. Never . . . damn, he wasn’t going to think in terms of never; he wanted to pass through that stage. He concentrated on the objects on the table once more, picking up the camera, a Yashica, and the eyepiece of the telescope, testing the screw he had made to bolt the camera to the scope. He was pretty certain it would hold without loosening, provided it didn’t get accidentally knocked. But that was another chance he’d have to take. You couldn’t get round the possibility of an accident.

Suddenly restless, he got up from the table and walked round the room. She’d always joked about his room, about the mess, the chaos, but the fact was, he knew where to find anything. It might have looked haphazard to an outsider, but he’d arranged everything exactly where he wanted it. When he needed something—a textbook, a tool, anything—he could find it in a second. He stood at the window and looked out across the darkness for a time, wondering about his mother’s killer, wondering about the kind of mind that would produce an act like that. A deranged mind, obviously. The kind of personality that might seek help from a shrink. A shrink like Elliott.
I’m not protecting anybody.
Elliott had said that. What was there about the shrink he didn’t like? A certain aloofness, maybe. A coldness? He wasn’t sure. He just couldn’t imagine his mother going there as often as she had; he couldn’t even imagine what had made his mother go there anyhow, unless it was connnected with the death of his father . . .

He felt sad again, a biting sadness that seemed to claw at some place in his chest. You don’t need this, he told himself. You need to act, you need to find out if Elliott is really protecting a patient. So you use the only tools you know how to use: the tools of science, of technology. He picked up the camera, held it to the window, looked through the lens. It worked beautifully; he could see a perfect enlargement of the window on the other side of the street, down to the sight of an illuminated fishtank behind open drapes, he could see the flickering shapes of red swordtails as they moved between swaying plants. He felt pleased with the thing. All that was left now was to attach the electric motor. When he’d done that and enclosed the whole thing in the steel box, he’d be ready.