Dressed to Kill (24 page)

She heard a noise from the inner office, and then Elliott was standing in the open doorway, smiling at her.

She stood up.

“Miss Blake?”

She nodded. She followed him into the inner office, where he sat down behind his desk.

“Why don’t you sit?” he said.

She moved towards the sofa. On the surface of his desk there were a number of papers, books, copies of correspondence. The appointments book, she thought. How was she supposed to get a look at the appointments book, even if she could find the goddamn thing?

“It was good of you to see me at such short notice,” she said.

“I happened to have a cancellation,” he said. “Besides, when you told me about your experience on the telephone, how could I
not
see you?”

She gazed at him. Behind him, flashing against the window, there was a splitting arch of lightning in the darkened sky.

“It wasn’t so much being a witness to a killing . . .” She faltered now, wondering what to say next, wondering if he could see through her, see the playacting. “That was bad enough. But I’ve been having these nightmares since then . . .” Another sword of lightning. She blinked involuntarily.

“Tell me about the nightmares,” he said.

“They’re not pleasant . . .”

“I’m used to hearing about dreams,” he said.

She closed her eyes. Okay, she thought. Make it up. Make it up real quick. “I’m in this room someplace . . . Look, it’s hard for me to tell you.”

“Pretend I’m not here,” he said.

“Okay, I’ll try. I’m in this room, and there’s some kind of dinner party, only I don’t know any of the guests. They’re all strangers to me. I’m eating something, I don’t know what, maybe some kind of shellfish. Anyhow, I feel something touching my ankle . . . Somebody’s hand.”

“Somebody under the table?”

“Yeah, right. The hand starts to work up my leg. It’s weird. Sitting at this dinner party with somebody touching me . . . The hand goes up, it just keeps going up . . .” She paused. Where was the fucking appointments book?

“Go on,” Elliott said. “What happens next?”

“It’s really grotesque . . . The hand goes right up under my skirt, see. Then it isn’t a hand any longer, it’s somebody’s mouth. Somebody’s mouth sucking me off. The terrible part about it all is that although I want to scream or just get up and go away, I’m beginning to enjoy myself . . . The mouth keeps on eating me under the table and I start to have this terrific orgasm. And while I’m having it, I have to go on pretending that nothing’s happening . . .”

Elliott was silent a moment. “Why do you call it a bad dream? What makes it a nightmare?”

“It’s a nightmare because it’s out of the ordinary, everything’s so twisted, especially after it changes—”

“How does it change?”

“I’m all alone in the room, maybe it’s the same room, maybe it’s not, I don’t know— Anyhow, I’m all alone and these hands are lashing me to a table with rope, and the rope is really cutting into me, really painful, and then there’s a whole succession of men fucking me, and every time it happens the pain gets worse until it’s totally unbearable . . .”

She paused. She stared at him. He was watching her with a strange intensity.

“Believe me, it’s bad. And I’m an expert on bad.”

“What makes you an expert on bad?”

“I should tell you up front—I’m a hooker. You name it, I’ve done it.”

He was silent for a moment. Then, “You enjoy what you do?”

“Yeah. Sometimes. I like the idea that I can turn a guy on.”

“Do you ever have sex where there’s no money involved?” he asked.

“Do you ever give free consultations?”

“It’s not exactly the same thing, is it?”

“I don’t know. I don’t see much difference.”

Elliott smiled, leaning forward, picking up a paperweight and stroking it lightly.

Liz said, “It gives me a special pleasure, you know—I turn a guy on, I get a kind of a high that way.”

She crossed her legs. She saw him glance at her thigh. She pretended not to notice. He let the paperweight fall from his fingers.

“Let’s get back to the nightmares,” he said. “Why do you think they’re related to the fact you witnessed a killing?”

“You’re the expert. You tell me—are they related?”

“It’s hard to say. Sometimes the trauma . . .” He stopped, as if some thought had suddenly crossed his mind, a notion he didn’t like. She watched him a moment. It occurred to her that perhaps the appointments book wasn’t on his desk, that it was outside in the reception room, maybe stuck in the drawer of the desk out there. How the hell was she going to find out?

Your only weapon, kid, is your body.

There was a strangely distant look in his eye, like his mind was elsewhere now. She stretched her legs, showing more thigh, more pale flesh.

“Do I turn
you
on?”

She saw the question surprised him. He frowned, looking away from her. “Would it give you some pleasure to think you did?”

“Like I told you—a slight high. Anyhow, I’m more interested in the mature fatherly type. But maybe you don’t find
me
interesting?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“Then why don’t you do something about it?”

“Look, I’m a married man—”

“Most of my customers are,” she said. She tried to see his expression, but he had his face still turned to the side. “And some of them have been married
doctors.”

He faced her now. A flash of lightning, like a brilliant rocket sent up in some celebration, lit his features. But she wasn’t sure what she saw there—anger? concern? Maybe it was neither of these things, maybe it was interest. He stood up twisting his hands together, cracking the knuckles. She thought: The reception room. The desk. If she could only get a chance to look.

But how?

“Look, aren’t we straying somewhat from the point?” he said.

“I like your accent. It’s cute,” she said.
Cute,
how she hated that particular word.

“It’s very kind of you to say so, I’m sure—”

“But I mean it.” She got up from the sofa and walked towards him. She placed her hands against his shoulders. Gently, he moved her away.

“Look, you came here because of certain psychological problems . . .”

“Yeah, but maybe something a little more basic than psychiatry could solve them, Doc—”

“I hardly think so.”

She stared at him. Something cold in the eyes, something of steel, as if he were struggling with desire, as if he were afraid of it rising up inside him.

He became patient, smiling at her in a rather sad way. He said, “I have a certain code of conduct in my profession. I don’t become involved sexually with my patients—”

“Am I a patient?”

“I’m beginning to wonder if I need you as a patient,” he said.

She leaned closer to him. Another flare of lightning flooded the room, rampant unfettered electricity. His desk lamp flickered momentarily.

“I could be
more
than just a patient . . .”

He moved his face to the side. She saw then the glistening film of sweat that lay on the surface of his forehead and she thought: I’m reaching him. I’m getting to him.

She put her hand up, turned his face around towards her, kissed him full on the mouth—a strange kiss, a kiss of ice, a lack of response. Once again, he pushed her gently away.

“I told you—”

“I think you’re full of shit. I think you’d like nothing better than to screw me. You know that? I think you’d love to fuck me right now, wouldn’t you? You’d love to take my clothes off real slow. Feel my tits. Or maybe you’d like me to strip and go down on you. I’m pretty good at that, Doc. I give terrific head.”

“No,” he said. “I don’t want to discuss—”

“I know a few exotic tricks as well,” she said. “Things your wife never dreamed about, I bet. I could drive you out of your fucking mind.”

She laid the palm of her hand against his chest, undoing a button, wanting to press her fingers to his flesh, but he drew away, stepped back, his face now drenched in perspiration.

“You’re hard, aren’t you? I can see. Your cock is hard. You’re ready for me, aren’t you?”

“No!”

“Don’t fuck around with me, Doc. Don’t play any smartass games.”

She unbuttoned her blouse and let if fall to the floor.

He watched her. He wants me, she thought. He wants me now.

She stepped out of her skirt and stood in front of him in her bra and pants, smiling. With her hands on her hips she said, “Well? You approve?”

“Please . . .”

“Please what?”

He went back behind his desk, as if there he might find some kind of safety.

“For God’s sake, put your clothes on,” he said.
“Please.”

“I’m getting to you, is that it? You like what you see? Huh?”

He closed his eyes, his hands pressed against the surface of the desk, and he swayed slightly. There was a moment, just a fraction of time, when she felt a strange sense of pity for him, an indefinable sorrow. Maybe he wants to be faithful to his wife. Maybe that’s it, and maybe what I’m doing is all wrong.

But then she remembered the dying woman in the elevator, she remembered the blonde with the hideous black glasses, and her sorrow disintegrated. He’s protecting a killer. I’m supposed to feel bad on his account?

“I got it,” she said. “You’re shy. Is that it?”

With his eyes shut, he nodded his head. He spoke and his voice was hoarse. “Yes. I’m shy.”

“You’re shy and I’m understanding. So I’ll give you a break.”

He opened his eyes and looked at her curiously.

“I’ll wait in the other room. I’ll come back in a few minutes and if your clothes aren’t lying beside mine on the floor, we’ll forget the whole deal. Okay?”

For a second she thought he was going to pick up her discarded clothing and throw it at her, because what flashed across his face was a confused look of anger and distaste. She turned, opened the door, stepped inside the reception room. She closed the door behind her.

She went to the desk.

She opened a drawer.

Papers, paper clips, a shrivelled apple. Typewriter cartridges, a box of Kleenex, a hair ribbon. Some windowed envelopes, invoices.

Where is the goddamn appointments book?

Where?

Peter couldn’t feel the numbing rain any more. His clothes were stuck to his body, but he was beyond feeling the chill. He didn’t like the idea of Liz being in there on her own, but it had been her idea.
I get the appointment book, the names, and I save my ass with our old pal Marino.

He had tried to think of a better way. But nothing came, no idea, no plan. And Liz had said,
You stay out of this, okay? I don’t want you involved in the rest of it.

How could he have done that, Christ?

He’d gone home, found his binoculars; sneaking in and out of the apartment, noticing the open door of his mother’s bedroom and the sight of Mike lying on top of the bed, fully dressed, asleep. A half-empty scotch bottle sat on the bedside table. Poor goddamn Mike; he has to drink his grief away.

Now, across the street from Elliott’s office, he saw Liz take her clothes off. He couldn’t figure it for a moment, thinking only that she had a real terrific body, like the kind he sometimes sneaked a look at it in
Playboy
or
Gallery.
But what the hell was she doing? He wiped smears of rain from the lenses of the binoculars. Liz had gone out of the room and now he couldn’t see her any more, but he could see Elliott, he could see Elliott standing in the middle of his office, motionless, not doing anything, just standing there like he was waiting for something to happen. Then he moved, opening a closet door.

Opening a closet door and—

But rain streamed in oleaginous streaks across the lenses and he had to wipe them dry again. Then he trained the glasses on the window once more, watching the figure of Elliott sliced by the open slats of the blinds.

What the hell is he doing?

What is he doing in that closet?

He screwed his eyes up, trying hard to see. Trying so hard he didn’t notice a dark car draw up a little way down the block and a blonde woman step out.

Liz found the appointments book in the bottom drawer of the desk. Yesterday, she thought. Peter took the photographs yesterday. Okay, find the names, find the names, and one of those names belongs to the killer. She flipped the pages hastily, suddenly cold in the room, trembling as she turned the pages over. Her mind went blank abruptly. What the hell was yesterday’s date? Jesus Christ. Can’t think. What day was it? Wednesday? Thursday? She kept flipping, expecting at any moment the door to the inner office to be opened from inside, expecting to turn and see Elliott standing there and watching her.

I have to kill her. I have no choice. She has to die. She should have died before.

Peter slung the binoculars over his shoulder, the strap dangling loosely. He felt a strange uneasiness. Liz had gone out of the room and she hadn’t returned. Why? Where was she? What was keeping her?
Maybe she’s hurt. Maybe she needs help.
He hesitated only a moment longer, then moved across the street.

Elliott had laid his clothes down beside Liz’s. He had folded them neatly. Then he’d opened the closet and stared at the hangers inside. He listened to her in the reception room. She was doing something, turning pages, maybe passing time by reading a magazine. He inclined his head, listening, then he reached inside the closet.

She’s in there. She has to die. Her death is necessary. This time I won’t fail. The pearl-handled razor will do it this time.

Peter reached the door.

Too late.

A fraction too late.

He felt a hand clamped around his mouth from behind and, trying to twist, to bite, saw a tall blonde woman from the corner of his eye. She swung him around, her palm still pressed against his lips; he felt a roar of blood in his head, a rush of his pulses, a sense of darkness falling over him. The blonde drew him towards the door and pushed it open quietly. He was aware of being in a lobby now. It was hard to breath, hard to draw air, so tight was her hand against his mouth. Please, he thought. Please. I don’t need to die.