Dressed to Kill (25 page)

She pushed the door softly shut behind her, gripping him harder as he tried to struggle.

Liz found the page, looked down the list of names. There were only a half dozen or so: and one of them was the killer. All she had to do was tear the page from the book, get it to Marino, and he could do the rest. She began to rip it quietly from the binding. As she did so, the door of the inner office opened.

She pulled her hand away from the book, thinking of something to say, thinking of how she could pass her curiosity off as a joke.

Just nosey, ha ha. Never could resist prying. Some people are like that, Doc, and I guess I’m one of them, ha ha
—

She turned, trying not to look guilty.

She turned, expecting to see Elliott come out of the inner office.

Expecting to see . . .

The razor rose in the air, gleaming, seeming to hang there like time had ceased, like all the clocks of the world had stopped. She watched it, saw the brilliant mirror of the metal blade as it was suspended in the air, saw the blonde hair curiously askew on the skull, saw the dress, the hairless legs under the dress, the bare feet, the strange misshapen slash of lipstick across the mouth.

Oh dear Christ
—

She swung her head to the side as the razor came down. She struck her spine against the corner of the desk, moaned in pain, and then tried to crawl away from the descent of the razor. It swung so close to the side of her neck that she could hear its dreadful whisper. She rolled over, still moaning, seeing the bare feet come forward; and then, looking up, seeing the light of hatred and madness in the eyes, and the razor came swinging down again, catching the strap of her bra and slicing it, paring the surface of her flesh.

You have to die. Bobbi has to kill you. You saw too much.

She tried to rise up, hauling herself against the edge of the desk. She heard the feet brushing the rug behind her. Scream, scream, scream—goddamnit, why can’t you fucking scream? She felt a hand grab the elastic of her pants, tugging at it, and she pulled herself free as the flimsy material ripped. She moved around the side of the desk, watching the razor again, watching as it created a blinding arc on its downswing, as it whistled just past her wrist and slashed the wooden edge of the desk, creating a flying splinter. Fight, fight, find something to fight with, anything, any weapon you can grab, anything. She stared at the face as it came closer to her and the razor rose again—that deranged face, the wild blonde hair, the lipstick that looked like a bloodstain. The razor rose and fell, slashing close to her arm, so close she could feel a wave of air parting. She twisted away, reaching for a potted fern that stood on a table beside the desk, lifting the plant up and throwing it haphazardly at the blonde, seeing it strike the woman’s shoulder in an explosion of dirt and leaf. The blonde moaned, rubbed her shoulder, momentarily let the hand that held the razor fall to her side. Liz rushed round the side of the desk, heading for the door—but too slow, too goddamn slow, because the blonde stuck a leg out and tripped her and she fell forward, rolling on her back, staring up as the razor came swinging downward again. It missed the side of her neck, striking the rug beneath her, slicing the pile of the rug viciously. Liz tried to rise but the blonde pressed her knee directly into her stomach, pinning her to the rug, raising the blade again. Something.
Anything.
She twisted to the side, raising her face, sinking her teeth into the blonde’s thigh, hearing the sound of the woman’s pain. The face—the face of pain and hatred, she had to get away from that face as much as the razor, but even as she turned over and began to crawl closer to the door she could hear the woman’s heavy breathing, the breathing of labor; she could feel the heat of it upon her bare spine and she knew, she knew without looking, that the razor was going up in the air again, rising, rising only to fall, and this time when it fell it would slip through the back of her neck, through thin veins, flimsy muscles, through the surfaces of bone and deep into the hollow of the nape. She opened her mouth to scream, conscious of herself clawing at the tuft of the rug, aware of that terrible blade flashing through the air, aware even before it happened of her own blood rushing through the opening in her neck, her life bleeding out of her, red turning to darkness, and darkness a place beyond pain.

No!

She twisted again, tried to turn away, but the blonde was straddling her; she was too strong, too hard to fight, holding her against the rug with one hand while the other raised the blade for its final descent.

You die like this—bleeding—your last sight that of the lipsticked mouth twisted and open, the hair unruly and strange, the eyes bright with insanity, you die like this, dear Christ, watching the falling blade seek an artery—

You don’t look.

Close your eyes.

There was a sudden noise, something she couldn’t comprehend at first. There was no pain, no piercing of her throat, no blood, no sense of dying. She heard Peter’s voice, but it was like a dream voice floating out of an unlit place. She felt dizzy, rolling her head backwards, seeing Peter standing over her, seeing a woman crossing the room with a pistol in her hand, seeing the woman—her blonde hair made shapeless by rain—stand over Elliott, who was clutching his shoulder and groaning in pain.

Liz closed her eyes.

The scream died somewhere in her lungs and all she was conscious of was Elliott’s moaning, of his blonde wig lying some feet from where he lay—an absurd thing now, shapeless, useless, reminiscent of some extinct grotesque bird.

Peter was bending over her.

“You okay?”

She nodded.

“Just take it easy.” He covered her with his wet jacket and she shivered. All she could think to do was laugh, but the laughter, like the scream before it, wouldn’t come.

“It’s okay,” Peter was saying. “It’s over.”

It’s okay, she thought. It’s over.

Over.

FOUR

1

“I
apologize for the coffee,” Marino was saying. “I know it’s pretty foul. Department funds don’t run to a decent brand.”

Liz stared at him across the desk. “I think you want to apologize for more than the goddamn coffee, Marino.”

He waved a hand in an indeterminate gesture. “Okay. So I’m sorry. I said it.”

“Sorry? Jesus Christ, Marino, I almost got myself killed!”

He looked at her as if he wanted to say,
These things happen.

Liz raised her coffee, sipped, made a face. “I need a cigarette. Anybody got one?”

Marino pushed a pack across his desk.

“You don’t have anything with a filter?” Liz asked.

“Once a Camel smoker, always a Camel smoker.”

Liz lit the cigarette and coughed. She stared at the black window, startled a little when a broken flash of lightning slashed the sky over the city. She closed her eyes a moment. When she opened them again she saw Marino was smiling. How can that sonofabitch just sit there and
smile,
for God’s sake?

She took another drag of the cigarette, trying to still the shaking of her hand, conscious of Marino staring at it. She looked away from the cop a moment, gazing at the face of the tall blonde woman who had shot Elliott. Seated at the other end of the desk was a short plump man who had been introduced as Dr. Levy. She had the odd feeling that they were gathered together for a seance, that at any moment a Ouija board would be dragged out of Marino’s desk and an attempt made to contact the spirit world. She wanted to laugh.

Marino indicated the blonde woman. “This is Betty Luce. She’s one of our best young policewomen.”

Liz looked at the woman for a moment. “I ought to thank you,” she said. “The funny thing is, I don’t feel very much like thanking anybody right now.”

“I had Betty Luce follow you, Liz,” Marino said. He yawned, but didn’t bother to cover it with his hand. Liz could see his upper metal fillings shining in a moist way. “She informed me that she lost you in the vicinity of Columbus Circle.”

Liz shook her head. “So when I told you I was damn near killed in the subway you thought I wasn’t playing with a full deck, is that it?”

“Something like that,” Marino said. “How the hell was I supposed to know there was another blonde following you?”

“So you thought—well, here’s a chick with a hyperactive imagination, is that it?”

Marino shrugged, sipped some more coffee. He was smiling again. Christ, she thought:
He’s all smiles tonight.
The bastard, the ruthless bastard. His telephone rang, he picked it up, addressed a few terse words to somebody called Mary, then he hung up. “The wife,” he explained. “She thinks I keep stinking hours. Maybe she’s right.”

Liz put down her cardboard container of coffee, then stubbed her cigarette out. Marino sighed, doodled something on his desk blotter, then wearily dropped his ballpoint pen.

“What the hell is wrong with that guy Elliott anyway?” Liz asked.

Dr. Levy, thumbs tucked inside the pockets of his vest, became suddenly animated. “It’s both simple and complicated,” he said.

“Just give me the simple,” she said.

“In a proverbial nutshell, he was a transsexual about to make the final step. But his male side wouldn’t allow it.”

Marino looked bored. He began to pick his teeth.

“Explain a little more,” Liz said.

Levy took an unlit pipe from his pocket and tapped it on the desk, scattering ashes that Marino regarded with disapproval.

“See if this makes sense to you,” he said.

He had a patronizing manner that Liz found irritating.

“I’ll try to get my little brain to work it over,” she said.

The doctor either didn’t catch her sarcasm or chose instead to ignore it. “Two distinct personalities. Bobbi on the one hand, Elliott on the other. Bobbi came to me for my approval for a sex change operation. I thought she—he—was unstable. A schizophrenic with a male personality within her. Make sense so far?”

Liz nodded. She felt a sudden wave of fatigue. Her eyelids were becoming heavy.

“Elliott came to see me. That was the first time I’d seen Bobbi’s male self. And it was perfectly clear to me that he had no idea Bobbi existed inside him. Both selves, if you like, were unaware of each other. When Elliott told me he thought Bobbi had killed Kate Myers, he was confessing, so to speak, that he himself had killed her. It was then that I tried to get in touch with Detective Marino.”

Liz stared at Marino angrily. “You
knew?
You knew this? And you let me go to that office anyhow? You really take the goddamn cake, Marino, you know that?”

“Hold, hold,” Marino said. “I happened to be at a ball game with my kids. By the time Dr. Levy finally got in touch with me, you’d already gone to the office. So I dispatched Betty Luce. You can thank whatever good fortune smiles on you that I did send her—”

Liz slumped back in her chair. “Yeah. I’ll pray tonight.”

There was silence in the room for a moment.

“Why was Kate Myers killed anyhow?” Liz asked.

Levy opened an old-fashioned watch, clicking the lid back, checking the time. “Primarily because Bobbi wanted to hurt Elliott for what she perceived as his refusal to allow the sex change. A secondary reason, of course, is that Elliott found himself aroused by the poor woman—and the erection of his penis reminded Bobbi of the existence of a male self, of an unwanted organ.”

Liz stared at Marino, who was sitting back with his eyes closed, looking bored. The toothpick dangled from his lower lip.

“Which leaves me with one last question, Marino. If you’re still awake, that is.”

The cop lazily opened his eyes. “Shoot.”

“How did Bobbi, Elliott, whoever the hell he is, get my address? I mean, how come she was waiting for me outside my apartment building?”

Marino didn’t move for a moment. Then he opened a drawer in his desk and took out a folder, which he passed to Liz. “Your history, Liz. Your record sheet.”

“I don’t get it,” she said.

“The night of the killing I interviewed him here in this office. Somewhat carelessly, I left your folder on my desk. I guess he looked. I guess he saw your name and address there.”

“Simple, huh? And there I was imagining he was clairvoyant.”

Liz sat back in silence. “You know, Marino, you could have had me killed. Twice over.”

“Yeah, but I didn’t.”

Liz got to her feet. A weakness now, a failure of bone and muscle, a yielding of volition. She placed her hands on the surface of Marino’s desk and leaned forward towards him.

“Tell me something, Marino.”

“Anything you like.”

“Did you really ever think I killed Kate Myers?”

A mysterious expression crossed his face. “I like to keep that kind of speculation to myself, Liz. Call it a trade secret.”

She sighed and walked to the door.

“Is it safe for me to go back to my apartment now?”

“Elliott is locked away. We can only hope somebody lost the key,” Marino said. “But the least I can do for you, Liz, is have a car take you home.”

“That would be small thanks, Lieutenant. Very small thanks.”

“It’s better than nothing.”

2

She slept a dead sleep, bottomless, dreamless, the kind of sleep in which you surrender yourself to darkness, in which the darkness is a magnificent comfort. When she woke, sun slicing through the parted drapes, she felt refreshed. She made some coffee, smoked a cigarette, then looked up Peter’s telephone number in the directory. He answered almost at once, as if he’d been waiting for her call.

She explained, in an abbreviated way, what she’d learned about Elliott, hoping the kid wouldn’t ask the kind of questions she couldn’t answer. But he did anyhow. That restless curious mind, she thought. It moved around like a gnat in a bottle. Like a firefly.

“I don’t get it—I mean, why would a guy want to be a woman?”

“Listen,” she said. “Being a woman isn’t such a bad deal.”

“Well, I wouldn’t want to be one.”

“Elliott did. Or a part of him anyhow.”

“So how does somebody like that go about it?”