Dead on Your Feet

by Grant Michaels

  Gosh, I thought. That’s exactly what I thought my relationship with Rafik was founded on. And at that instant I promised myself that if I survived this nightmare, I would take each moment with Rafik the way it came, without questions, without analysis, without conditions. I wanted no more of passion and sacrifice if this was where they led. And if I survived tonight I would also lock away the kitchen knives.

  Suddenly the door buzzer sounded. It was my deus ex machina, the concierge. I was saved!

  Marshall however was now keen and alert as a wild animal. “What’s that?” he said. “They know never to bother me.”

  He got up to go to the door and on the way he turned off all the room lights. Then he warned me, “Don’t do anything stupid. I have nothing to lose.”

  It was the concierge at the door. I heard him asking Marshall Zander in his fawning manner if there was any trouble, since his telephone had been left off the hook.

  My jailer assured the concierge that everything was fine.

  “I’m having some personal therapy,” he said. “It’s been difficult for me since I lost my friend.” He was holding the stiletto behind his back. “So please leave us alone.”

  “Very good, sir,” said the concierge.

  Obsequious bastard, I thought. He was listening to us over the phone. Didn’t he hear anything we said? I was about to yell out, “He’s got a goddamn knife behind his back!”

  But the concierge had departed without further question.

  Marshall Zander relocked the doors and came back in. The only light still on now was under the bar. He stopped there and poured himself another drink. Then he calmly replaced the telephone receiver in its cradle, and then, in one violent twisting sweep of his big body grabbed the telephone and ripped the connecting cord from the wall. A small table was upset, and the lamp on top of it crashed to the floor. Marshall Zander then noticed my cocktail on top of the bar where I’d left it.

  “Aren’t you drinking?” he said. “Don’t you want to celebrate my special night?”

  “What so special about it?”

  Marshall Zander grinned at me, but it was same demented grin that King Kong used on Fay Wray.

  “Tonight is the night I get what I want. I’m so tired of rejection,” he said. “Everyone says no. Rico refused me, too.”

  “Is that why you rigged the brakes on his scooter?”

  “He was meddling, just like you. He already knew too much about me, and he was bound to figure out what had happened. So if I’m going to pay for two murders, I have nothing to lose by getting what I want from you, whatever it takes.”

  In a flash I saw myself unconscious like Max Harkey, with Marshall Zander rooting around my crotch. Unconsciousness was the only state in which I’d be able to tolerate his mouth anywhere on my body.

  “But you don’t even like me,” I protested.

  “That doesn’t matter anymore,” said Marshall Zander. “I just want to know that I can get what I want. And all I want right now is to hold you. Just to hold you. Just for a little while.”

  The city lights outside cast a dim light on us. Marshall twirled the stiletto in his hand, and the blade flashed like a surgeon’s scalpel.

  I said, “And after you hold me a little bit, then what? Will you want to kiss me a little bit too? And then stick your tongue in my mouth a little bit? And rip my clothes off and cut me up and fuck a little bit?”

  “No,” he said. “That’s not what I want.”

  “Then what do you want?”

  “I want Max. I want my Max back.”

  “Too late, pal. You killed him.”

  Suddenly he lunged for me and pressed his big soft face against mine. He tried to thrust his tongue into my mouth. It was like a warm slug burrowing into me. The smell of his body nauseated me. I pushed him away. He was already breathing hard.

  He said, “That was for the trip to London. Now I want payment for your lover’s ballet.”

  Again he thrust his heavy body onto mine, and this time pressed me deep into the cushions of the leather sofa. He pinned both my hands behind me, and I felt the blade of the stiletto brush against my wrist. Not the hands, I thought. Not the hands.

  “Why don’t you cooperate?” he said. “Just pretend you like me. Is that so much to ask?”

  “In your case,” I said, “yes!”

  Bondage was no fun when the act was for real. I was being forced into dirty fighting—but then our match was hardly within a gentleman’s code of honor. Those yoga stretches would finally come in handy. All that flexibility and range of motion in my strong legs let me coil the muscles up and then release the energy and ram my knee directly into Marshall’s groin. He screamed and doubled up. His body sank heavily onto me. I wrestled around underneath him, trying to free myself. At the split second I’d squirmed free of him, I felt something brush against my left butt cheek. I pushed myself off and away from the sofa, but my usual spring wasn’t there. Something was wrong.

  “I’ll get you,” he said.

  “You’ll have to catch me first.”

  That’s when I felt a warm wet sensation on my fanny. I put my hand there and it came back sticky. I smelled my fingers. The metallic odor proved I was bleeding. Just as I’d slipped away from him, Marshall Zander had knifed me in the butt. I felt the pain rising fast, almost as though my awareness of the wound was causing it to hurt.

  Marshall Zander was crouched on the sofa, groaning softly. I got down on the floor and crept away from him. The city lights outside glowed softly through the long walls of plate glass windows. That’s when I figured out where I might be safer from him. In the darkness I crawled on all fours toward the big grand piano, which sat directly in the way of the sliding doors that opened onto the outside balcony.

  I got under the piano and pulled against one of the doors, but it wouldn’t budge. In the darkness my fingers fluttered frantically around the door frame to locate the locking device. It was probably some high-tech electronic gizmo controlled from an office buried somewhere in the belly of the hotel. But no, I found it—one of those simple screw mechanisms. That’s exactly when the room lights came up bright and blazing.

  “I see you,” said Marshall Zander.

  From under the piano I saw his big feet lumbering toward me. I untwisted the locking screw on the door as quickly as I could, all the while feeling the seat of my pants getting wetter and warmer with my blood. I knew I was losing it fast. Just as I finally disengaged the lock, Marshall grabbed my feet.

  Reflexively I kicked at him and he backed off, no match for my high-action feet. I heaved at the sliding door until it slid open enough for me to squeeze through. The outside air blew onto my face. I would be saved!

  But just then I sensed the grand piano above me being moved. Marshall heaved at the massive instrument until he had rolled it aside and completely exposed me. Desperately I pushed myself through the half-open door, but not fast enough. Marshall was on top of me again. He was swinging wildly, and the dagger hissed through the air in front of my face. I grabbed his wrist to keep the knife away from me, but I lost my grip for just one instant and felt the blade slice into my shoulder. I grabbed onto his wrist again. There was no pain, not yet. The blade was so sharp it had performed its job mercifully, without tearing the flesh. I heard myself think with absurd calmness, “He is killing me.”

  But I wasn’t about to go down without calling once more on my Slavic legacy, my super-strong legs. From my crouch I focused everything that was still alive in me down into my thighs and knees. I coiled my whole body up even tighter, compressed every cell that had the potential for movement, and then released it all in one atomic push against the floor. I sprang up like a killer whale breaching high out of the water. Marshall Zander was thrown back onto the piano, which gave me enough time to stumble out onto the balcony.

  The rush of cool night air felt good on my body. Except for the sparkle of city lights far below, it was dark out there, but in that darkness was my safety. I prayed that th
e renovations on the balcony hadn’t progressed far enough to have the lights connected yet. I hobbled my way cautiously toward a large potted tree silhouetted amidst the rubble of marble slabs and brass railings scattered about the balcony surface. I had at least a slim hope of surviving out here, for I had recalled Marshall Zander’s fear of heights. Chances were he wouldn’t follow me outside, especially in the darkness. Trouble was, how would I summon help? Semaphore signals? I could stay out on the balcony and bleed to death, or I could go back inside and get my throat slashed. Some choice. Unfortunately I wasn’t going to have the choice, for Marshall was now standing in the doorway that opened onto the balcony.

  “I know you’re out there,” he said. “I can smell your blood.”

  Like any good predator, he knew he had wounded me, and he recognized his clear advantage despite his phobia.

  “All I have to do is follow your trail.”

  The pull of blood was strong, yet his voice sounded a bit uncertain. Was his fear beginning to paralyze him? Or was I hoping for a miracle?

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t want it to turn out this way. I just wanted to feel your body. I’m not a killer. Everything just went wrong. It wasn’t supposed to be like this.”

  He made his way slowly toward where I was hiding behind the large concrete urn. He kept his body crouched down close to the floor of the balcony as though that would protect him from falling to the ground forty-five stories below. He crept like a crab, with one hand always holding onto something to steady his shaky footing.

  I saw another potted tree farther away from him and next to the railing right at the balcony’s edge. It would take a measure of courage that I prayed he didn’t have for him to follow me that close to the edge of the building. I set off toward that tree, but my fanny failed me. That big push I’d given to my legs to get Marshall Zander off my back had sent more blood into those muscles, and now that same blood had dripped and splattered onto the polished marble slabs scattered about the balcony. My attempted scurry to safety became a kind of limp-and-drag movement, a signal of easy prey.

  Marshall saw me making for the edge of the balcony. “Get back from there,” he said. “It’s dangerous.”

  “For who?” I said, forgetting in the urgency of the moment the only rule of grammar I ever knew.

  He changed his direction and headed toward me. I dragged myself toward the big urn near the edge, but I wasn’t going to make it. I saw him stand up and come at me, still brandishing the knife. I pulled myself up and staggered toward the balcony railing. I felt the blood almost streaming off me now. He lunged at me, and I swooned and fell to the side. And then I heard the sounds—three of them, one right after the other, all within a half second. The first was a sliding, slippery sound, like the whoosh of a leather sole without traction on a wet marble slab. And the second sound was the high musical clang of English forged steel falling against polished marble. And the third was the heavy fluttering of some huge desperate object not meant to be airborne.

  With my one usable arm, I hauled myself up and looked over the railing. Marshall Zander was falling through space, and I was Fay Wray watching her ardent pursuer plummet from the Empire State Building. The blundering ape shrank to a pathetic monkey, a fitting end for the man who was afraid of heights, yet dared to live in the highest, most spacious penthouse in Boston.

  Had it been an accident? Or was it an intentional leap?

  Had it really happened?

  It took me a long time to drag myself back inside. I was still conscious enough to be worried about losing so much blood. That would be the last irony, to die now. I called 911, and they told me that the accident had already been reported and the police were on their way.

  “I need an ambulance,” I said, but they’d already hung up.

  I set out for the elevator, but stumbled and fell just before I got there. It seemed as if hours passed. Why wasn’t anyone coming to save me? Then I realized I should have called the desk for help. What would that arrogant concierge have to say to me now?

  Finally I got into the elevator and back down to the main lobby. I was dripping blood everywhere as I staggered my way through crowds of screaming hotel guests on my way outside. I had to get out to the sidewalk to see what had happened.

  The police were already out there with their usual chaos of light and sound. One plainclothes cop stood out from all the others in uniform. It was Lieutenant Branco, crouched over Marshall Zander’s smashed-up body on the sidewalk. He turned to see me standing there like a battle-bloodied soldier.

  “I should have guessed,” he said. “You told me you’d get him.”

  “I didn’t kill him, Lieutenant.”

  “Then who did?”

  It took all my remaining strength to deliver the line with a straight face.

  “Beauty, Lieutenant. It was Beauty killed the beast.”

  And then I blacked out.

  20

  Coda

  THREE DAYS LATER I WAS BACK at work, the hero of Snips Salon. Fanny and shoulder stitched closed, and my arm in a sling, I was regaling our clients with my feats of bravery, including the unit of blood I’d received from none other than Lieutenant Branco himself. He’d ridden with me in the ambulance to the emergency room, and when it was evident that I needed blood, he offered his. Who would have thought that the beefy cop and I would have exactly the same blood type, right down to the rare Rh0 variant (Du)? In all my fantasies about Lieutenant Branco, I’d never imagined that kinship with him.

  In the days that followed, I was notified by an attorney that Rico had drawn up a will and had named me the recipient of all the kitchen equipment and appliances that he’d inherited from Max Harkey. I don’t think he even got a chance to use the stuff before he died. But it sure caused a big change in my life. I agreed to look for a place with Rafik, if only to house Max Harkey’s Bösendorfer Imperial and Rico’s household legacy.

  At Snips I was chatting with one of Ramon’s clients when Nicole handed me a large international air express envelope.

  “This just came for you, darling,” she said. “I thought I’d help by opening it.”

  “Sure, doll,” I said. “No more secrets between us.”

  “Says who?” she replied.

  From the envelope fell an American Express cashier’s check for five hundred dollars and two full-fare round-trip first-class tickets to Italy.

  Inside the envelope was a letter from La Duchessa, aka Sharleen McChannel. It read: “Thank you for trusting me and performing magic with my hair. You are a rare gentleman. The check, though small, is for your fine work, and the tickets are for your vacation. You must come and visit me in Firenze. My villa is your home.”

  Nicole raised one eyebrow. “A villa, no less,” she said.

  I said, “Maybe those affirmations really work.”

  After closing time Nikki and I went back to my office. We’d both brought a change of clothes for our big night out, the opening night of the spring ballet season. We donned our glamour togs—Nicole lined my sling with an Hermés scarf—then we sat down for a cocktail while we awaited our driver.

  Nicole said, “Are you sure you don’t want to go to the theater early?”

  “No, doll. Rafik told me honestly that he didn’t want me backstage tonight. He insisted that I see his new work from out front the first time. And I’ll do whatever he wants.”

  “I wonder how long that’s going to last.”

  “As long as you and Vito do,” I said.

  “That is completely different.”

  “It’s exactly the same,” I retorted.

  A robust knock on the alley door signaled the arrival of our driver, Lieutenant Branco himself. There’s nothing like a police escort for opening night at the ballet—provided you don’t have to ride in a squad car.

  Branco entered the shop with a great rush of energy, looking fine in a double-breasted suit of midnight-blue wool with a faint gray chalk stripe. He and Nicole exchanged polite greetin
gs.

  I said, “It’s okay, you two. Go ahead. I won’t faint.”

  Nicole countered, “Whatever do you mean, Stanley?”

  “You can kiss in front of me. It’s all right.”

  “But why would we do that?” she said.

  Branco looked at me then said to Nicole, “Is he still on those painkillers?”

  Nicole answered him, “He insists that we are Romeo and Juliet.”

  Branco grinned and showed his big white teeth.

  “Wishful thinking,” he said.

  “On whose part?” I asked.

  Nicole replied, “You’re not ready for the truth.”

  Abruptly changing tack, Branco said to me, “You want to guess what arrived on my desk today by special courier from British Air?”

  “Max Harkey’s diary,” I said.

  Branco grunted. “How did you know?”

  “Where could it have been except lost, Lieutenant?”

  “Well, you’re right,” said Branco. “Turns out Max Harkey left it on the airplane the day he returned to Boston. When British Air couldn’t reach him, they finally sent it to us.”

  “Can I see it?” I said.

  “Until this case is officially closed, Stan, the answer is no.”

  Nicole said, “I still don’t understand why Max Harkey never identified his killer in any of those phone calls.”

  “He never made a phone call, Nikki. He went from unconscious to dead without knowing who killed him.”

  Branco nodded in accord.

  Nicole said, “Who phoned, then?”

  “Who else, doll? Marshall Zander knew the police could trace any calls made to them, so he made the first 911 call from Max Harkey’s penthouse pretending to be Max, right after he killed him. Then he called again as himself from his car phone right after he left Max’s place, claiming that’s where he received Max’s urgent call for help.” Branco said, “I should have seen through Zander’s alibi for his whereabouts. Cruising around town at the exact time that Max Harkey was killed looked suspect, but we had no hard evidence on Zander. From where we stood, Max Harkey had made that call to us himself.”