Northern Exposure

by Michael Kilian

  The guards led them west through Confederation Hall, remarking on the walls and ceilings, drawing them around him in an orderly circle once they reached the foyer of the House of Commons. Now he began a practiced recitation concerning the cornices. Showers watched the people coming in and out of the Commons, both fearing and hoping for the sight of someone he knew. There was no one.

  Done, the guard drew them on now, through the doors to the Commons vestibule, then right along the windows that gave a view of the huge, green-carpeted chamber itself, its benches crowded with members, agitatedly following some debate. They were not allowed to linger long enough for Showers to comprehend what the debate was about, but he hung back sufficiently from the others to be able to take in the whole of the tableau, the raised throne of the Speaker on the other end, above him the stone railing of the public gallery that rose from behind Gothic arches to a dark, shadowy recess. Showers had attended a speech by Porique in just such a debate once, and had been so impressed by the commanding performance of the small man he had half convinced himself that his friend might someday be prime minister. It had been at this time that he had first begun to think about himself becoming an ambassador. Head of government and chief American envoy, yet old and good friends.

  A happy prospect then, now rendered ridiculous. Here he was, a gaping tourist, and Porique a fugitive, lurking somewhere.

  Showers hurried to catch up with the others, turning the corner that led to the Speaker’s Corridor. To his right was a doorway to a remembered staircase. It would be an easy matter to slip through it unseen and make his way to the second floor, where he could move about less hindered, perhaps unquestioned. But to what end? Whom would he dare see? And if he were stopped by one of the guards up there, he could inadvertently bring this adventure to a premature and unhappy conclusion. He had stupidly brought along the pistol, and its discovered presence would be greeted rudely. He continued down the corridor, reaching the others just as they turned the corner toward the library. For the rest of the guided perambulation, Showers ignored the guard’s ritual commentary and concentrated on what Laidlaw had told him about Porique’s plans. Something to do with the Parliament. Something to do with explosives. Even if Porique were capable of that, which was impossible, it would be difficult to achieve. His accidentally smuggled pistol was one thing, but explosives were quite something else. You don’t blow up buildings with a single hand grenade.

  At the tour’s end, Showers paused out by the steps to look up at the full three-hundred-foot height of the Peace Tower and then glance about the great space of the park and parade in front of him. The strange man was gone. If he had colleagues, none of those around looked to be them. Showers’ gaze finally settled on a white building with a classical façade at the other end of the park just across Wellington Street, a large American flag flying from it, the chancery of the American embassy. It was his rightful place. Not so long ago it was just a few days distant; now it was forbidden, and might possibly be denied him forever.

  He walked toward it, telling himself he was going that way just to catch a cab, that he would cross the street further down and avoid the white building, that he would not allow himself to be recognized. But compulsion drew him close. For a long moment, he stood by the front steps, temptation prodding him to run up them, swing through the doors, and announce: “I’m Showers, the new DCM. What’s all this about a constitutional crisis?”

  Abruptly, he fled the fantasy, and the door. As he reached the corner of the building, he heard someone shout out: “Dennis? Dennis Showers? Is that you?”

  He turned the corner and ran the short block to the Sparks Street Mall, mingling with the crowd. When he was several blocks distant, he stopped to buy some newspapers, and slipped into a nearby bar, lingering for two long drinks. Then, trying to look as inconspicuous as possible, he walked slowly back to Hull, crossing the Ottawa River by means of the Alexander Bridge. It took a long time, but Alixe needed the sleep, and he needed to think, about Guy Porique, and what might be in that man’s mind.

  Frank Trench supposed he had blown three pretty good shots at Showers that day, though there had been the nigger and the white-haired man to contend with the first two times, and a cab driver and half the cops in Canada the last time, when Showers had for some strange reason gone to the Parliament and joined a guided tour.

  He was going to be sure, very sure, with this last final try. Sure of killing Showers, and sure of getting away. He’d have to do it quick. The white-haired old man had been an unwelcome surprise. The longer he waited, the more surprises there might be. He needed to do it that night, at a place of his own choosing, at a place where he could wait for Showers unnoticed and unmolested, and a place from which Showers would have no escape. There was such a place: Showers’ own apartment in Hull. Trench had gotten the number. He’d cased the locks and recognized them as a type a crippled kid could open. If the nigger was there, he’d just waste him. If the girl was there alone, everything would be easy. Better than easy.

  Leaving Showers to his Parliament tour, Trench had hurried back to his car and driven back to Melisande Street, going around the block once to look for the gray Ford. Finding no sign of it, Trench parked. The piece of wood he had left holding the rear service door ajar was still there. He took the elevator to the eighth floor, then descended the concrete service stairs, walking softly, to the seventh. No one was in the hall. Affixing the silencer to his Magnum revolver, he set it on the carpet as he knelt to work the lock. It took five seconds. Taking up the pistol again, he slowly pushed open the door.

  The entrance hallway opened onto an empty living room. Stepping inside and closing the door gently behind him, Trench moved quickly through the living room to a dining room, also empty. There was no one in the kitchen beyond. Retracing his quiet steps, he moved slowly down the parquet-floored hallway, checking out a bathroom and finding it empty, checking another door that proved to be a closet, checking out another room, a small bedroom, and finding that empty also. Only one other room remained, its door open only a narrow crack. He pushed it very, very slowly. It was a large bedroom with a large bed. The girl was asleep on it, her robe loosened to expose most of a large breast and a length of tanned thigh. Trench stood a moment, listening to the faint sounds of the apartment and to her gentle breathing, careful with his own, which was coming very fast.

  Coming to the bed, he moved the pistol so that the deadly end of the silencer rested an inch from her temple, then he reached and clasped his hand over her mouth. Her eyes flew open.

  “Not a word, baby,” he said, in his thin, metallic whisper. “You just be quiet, sweet baby. Don’t make a sound. I’m here to wait for your boyfriend, and I don’t want any trouble. No trouble, baby. This is a great big gun I have here. It has a big silencer. That means it won’t make any noise, like I don’t want you to make any noise, baby, but it’ll blow a great big hole in your head, baby. It’ll splatter your brains all over this pillow like spaghetti sauce. You understand, baby?”

  She nodded her head behind his hand. He relaxed it, and then pulled it away. He let her sit up, and sat beside her. The Magnum with the silencer extension was too long and clumsy, requiring too great a distance between them, unwieldy. There was insufficient fear in her eyes. They studied him. He got the idea she was a tough broad, a goddamn good-looking one, but tough. Trouble. But so what.

  “When does the boyfriend come back, baby?”

  “I don’t know. Soon.”

  “Why did he go to the Parliament?”

  “You killed Lila. You’re the one who put the bomb in Tobias’ car.”

  He hit her across the mouth with the back of his left hand. She sobbed once, but fought it, catching herself. Her lip was bloodied, but there was still more anger than fear in her eyes.

  “How soon, sweet baby? How soon did he say he would be back?”

  “I don’t know. Just soon. Very soon.”

  He reached to the sheath sewn into the inside of his boot and pulled
forth the long-bladed knife. Holding the blade up before her face, he reached to put the pistol on the bedside table. The knife did it. There was terror now in those large brown eyes and she moved away from him on the bed.

  “Stand up, baby. Just stand up, nothing else. Do anything else, and I’ll kill you bad, baby.”

  She stood, her hands trembling.

  “Now take off that robe, baby.”

  “No, not that. I won’t do that.”

  There was time. Even if there wasn’t, if Showers came back soon, he had the advantage. He had her. He would have surprise. He could take out anyone who came into the apartment.

  “Take off your robe, sweet baby. I’ll kill you quick if you don’t.”

  She stared at him, her hands trembling badly.

  “Right now! Take off the robe!”

  Taking a deep breath, she slipped it from her shoulders and let it fall to the floor.

  “Oh nice, baby. Oh, very, very nice,” he said, unbuckling his belt. “Now, come here, sweet, sweet baby. I have another big gun for you, baby. See, it’s waiting for you.”

  “You’re disgusting.”

  “Easy. Don’t make me mad. Don’t keep me waiting. This won’t take long. Do it, baby, or I’ll kill you.”

  Crying, she knelt before him. He put the knife blade to her neck.

  “What do you want me to do?”

  “You know what I want, sweet baby. I’ll bet you know how to do it real good. Do it, baby, do it now. Or I’ll kill you, baby.”

  She leaned forward. Her lips and tongue touched flesh and she pulled away slightly, gagging. He held the knife blade more sharply to her throat. “Now, baby. Do it now. Get it over with.”

  He closed his eyes, holding her bare shoulder firmly with one hand, keeping the knife in place with the other. She was very tentative at first, timid, gagging and crying. Then at once she took a deep breath, and began to work at her task with vigor, reaching to hold him with both her hands, her head bobbing, her warm tongue moving rapidly. He remained perfectly in control, dominating her completely, rich girl, beautiful girl, slobbering over him like some Panama City whore, working him just right, just as he liked, oh so nice, completely in control, until that explosive moment when he was in control of nothing, when he arched his back and clenched his eyes shut all the more tightly.

  It was at that instant that she snatched the knife from his hand, pulled back, and slashed at him savagely. He jerked forward, clutching his groin, screaming with rage and pain. She slashed at his right arm. When he groped at her with his left, she cut it as well, then jabbed him, plunging the blade into his shoulder. She stood, frantically looking about, then clutched at the pistol on the table, knocking it to the floor, kicking it under the bed. As he staggered to his feet, she ran.

  He went for the now all-important gun, painfully dragging it forth. He could only hope she was stupid, that she would remain in the apartment a few seconds more, to put on clothing, to telephone for help.

  Stansfield Joyce caught the movement in the corner of his eye as he stepped from the elevator, at first doubting his senses, then responding to them. He had indeed seen a naked girl disappear into the stairwell and she was indeed Alixe Reston. The door to the apartment was open, and now it opened still further. A man with bloody arms and his shirt pulled out came limping into the corridor, holding his groin with one hand and a long pistol with the other. He had a bad face, the kind of face that would assure him a death picture on the front page, not with the obituaries. He raised the pistol and fired reflexively at his first glimpse of Joyce, but his aim was bad and the singing bullet struck the ceiling with a loud thwack. Joyce dropped to the floor, rolling to his side just as the bloody man shot again, this bullet digging a furrow in the carpet. By the time Joyce had his own pistol out, the man was gone, into the stairwell. Joyce ran to the door beneath the red Exit sign and then, crouching, slammed it back against the concrete wall.

  There was no one to shoot at. The landing was empty. Yet there was a spattering of blood on the descending stairs. Joyce went to the rail and saw more, a trail of such droplets, leading down. He could hear the man grunting and swearing in his painful progress, no more than two flights below. It would be an easy go to get him, a surefire addition to the body count.

  Joyce let the man go, hearing now the sobbing from the landing above. He found Alixe huddled in the corner, sitting on the cold floor, her arms around her knees, the knife still in her hand. Joyce put his suit jacket around her and helped her to her feet.

  “Did that son of a bitch hurt you?”

  “In a way.”

  “Was he alone? Or are there more of the bastards?”

  “He was alone. I think he came to kill Dennis.”

  “And all of us. Did you do that to him?”

  “Yes,” she said, and began crying again.

  “Good.”

  Showers noticed the bullets’ mark in the carpet, but did not know what to make of it and passed it by. The dark stains leading from the service stairs to the apartment door were more troubling. Entering the apartment, he saw that they were blood.

  “Alixe is all right, man,” said Joyce, rising from a chair. “She’s in the shower, taking a good, long shower. You got some mouthwash? She wants some mouthwash.”

  “What happened?”

  “She had a caller. Remember that blue car that stuck with us down in Westchester? It was the same dude. I never forget a bad face.”

  “You’re sure.”

  “He was here to waste you, my man. If it had been you here instead of Alixe, you’d be dead now.”

  “What did he do to her?”

  “He gave her a hard time, man, but she’s all right. Just spooked. She got his knife away from him and cut him up real good. If she hadn’t, she’d be dead now.”

  Showers listened to the drumming of the shower.

  “Look man, I could have gone after him but I didn’t want to leave her alone. Now you’re here, I’d better go take a look around. He’s bleeding enough that he might not have made it to his car. She really slowed him down some.”

  “Be careful.”

  Showers looked in the bedroom, frowning at the drippings of blood on the floor and the bed. He pulled the remembered bottle of Listerine from his suitcase and took it to the steam-filled bathroom, setting it next to the marble washbasin.

  “Alixe.”

  “Please go away now, Dennis,” she said over the shower noise. “I just want to be by myself for a little while.”

  “Alixe, I …”

  “Dennis, please! I’ll be out in a little while. Just leave me alone now.”

  He went back to the bedroom and gathered up the bloodied bedclothing in a wad, using it in a futile effort to wipe up the stains on the carpet, then throwing the wad into a corner of one of the closets. He heard the shower cease and, after a moment, the sound of her gargling. She gagged, then began the gargling again, for a very long time. He heard her spit out the mouthwash and then quietly begin to cry. Fighting the impulse to go to her, Showers returned to the living room and poured himself a large whiskey.

  When she at last came out to him, she was fully dressed in a neat navy blue suit with matching shoes. Her hair was newly combed, but still damp. Without looking at him, she sat down on the end of the couch.

  “I’d like you to fix me a very stiff drink and then sit here and hold my hand. Very tightly, because I keep shaking.”

  He went to the kitchen and quickly made her a gin and tonic that was largely gin, spilling some in his haste. She took it, taking several large swallows of it, then gave him her hand.

  “I want to go back to Washington, Dennis. Back to my parents. Now. This time I mean it.”

  “I understand.”

  “He was vile, Dennis. He was vile and disgusting and what he made me do was vile and disgusting. It was the most awful, disgusting, horrible thing that’s ever happened to me, that I ever dreamed could happen to me. I feel like some filthy piece of garbage. I feel a
shamed, but there’s no reason I should feel ashamed.”

  He squeezed her hand. “There’s no reason for you to be ashamed,” he said. “This is all my fault, my stupid bloody fault. I should never have let you come with me.”

  “I came because I love you, Dennis. And for that one reason, I’m glad I did. But now, God, I stabbed that man. I could have killed him. Maybe I did. Me, the little girl who just a few days ago was thinking how happy I might be spending the rest of my life running a little shop on Cape Cod.”

  “We’ll kill that man. Whatever else happens here, Joyce and I will find that man and kill him.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous, Dennis. You’re a civilized man. You’re not going to go lunging about this city trying to gun someone down. You’re someone incapable of taking another life, any kind of life. It’s one of the reasons I love you so much.”

  Her voice caught. He sipped his whiskey with his free hand and kept his gaze out the window at the silhouettes of the towers on Parliament Hill.

  “You know what I thought I would do?” she said. “I thought that, like Lady Macbeth, I would just clean myself, all over. Scrub and rinse until there was no trace of anything. And then, when you came back, I thought we could make love. We’d send Joyce away and I would do for you what I did for that horrible man because it would be loving and good and I’d have a better memory of it. I thought we could lie in each other’s arms and then make love again. And then we’d sleep and in the morning the whole horrible thing would be gone from my mind.”

  He stroked the back of her hand with his thumb, until, gently, she took her hand away. She drank again, with more large sips.

  “In the shower, I realized it wouldn’t work. I don’t know when I’ll be able to make love again. I feel so drained, so disgusted with myself. I feel so damned helpless. I just can’t hack this anymore, Dennis. These murders, the bombing, all this talk of dark plots. I never realized that horrible people like this even existed before, and now they’re all around me.”