Poisonous Kiss

by Andras Totisz

  And now this boy …I could tell he'd pull through fine. Just a few weeks in bed, and then the only thing that would make him remember the hospital would be a slight ache in the wound when the weather changes. His face looked irregular, the eyes dark blue. He wasn't especially attractive, but he was also not ugly enough to have "unique charm."

  I smiled at him.

  "My name is Dr. Alessandro. I'm a psychologist and I work part-time for the police department."

  Most people smile back. Even though they plan to refuse the psychological assistance that they badly need, they usually at least smile.

  Arany glanced at me. He had an appraising look as his eyes ran across my face and stopped first at my breasts and then at my legs. I suddenly remembered that I was wearing a thin white blouse, which might let light through, and that my skirt was just above my knees. He was almost staring, and it seemed rude, but it didn't bother me. It comes with the job. He was measuring up the person who wanted to explore all his secrets. He frowned, and I felt he was disappointed that I was a woman—and relatively young at that.

  "What do you want?" His voice sounded crackly and parched.

  I poured a glass of ice tea from the pitcher near his bed and offered it to him.

  "To help."

  He sat up slowly, looked hesitantly at the glass then took it out of my hand. A few drops ran down his cheek as he drank, but he ignored them. He put the glass back on the bedside table with shaky hands, then looked into my eyes and smiled at me. It was a sad smile, childish but also weary.

  "You just did. Thanks."

  His head sank back on the pillow. He stared at the ceiling again, but I was sure it was neither the light colored wallpaper nor the fluorescent lights he saw. I stood there a minute waiting, then quietly left.

  I roasted a lamb leg that evening. At dinner I was aware of that astonished look on Martin's face and I knew he was feverishly thinking. What had he forgotten? An anniversary? A birthday? Poor old, confused, brilliant Martin Baruch.

  After dinner he worked for another hour. I wasn't hurt. I knew those formulas and experiments were like a drug to him. His vaccine! I sat at the table with Arany's file and began to read, leaving pencil marks I would later erase.

  Then I suddenly felt his stare. I smiled at him.

  "Sorry, dear! I didn't realize you had stopped working."

  He stood up, walked behind me and put his hands on my shoulders. I knew I could be certain that he wasn't reading the file.

  "Anything interesting?"

  I shrugged.

  "A cop. His partner had been killed and now he wants to quit."

  "Why?"

  He astonished me. Martin's brain was sharp as a razor. How could he ask something so stupid?

  "I think he doesn't want to be next. He's fed up."

  "And you'll convince him to stay …" he began slowly caressing my shoulders.

  I let him massage away my stress. He had gentle hands—a little soft and chubby, and as clever and experienced as he, himself was. He knew what he was doing. I closed my eyes.

  "Will you convince him to stay?" Martin repeated.

  "Maybe. Maybe not. He doesn't even talk to me." I stood up, tearing myself from the warm touch of his palms. "My job is to help him make a decision, not to decide for him."

  "Of course, of course …but …" he stopped and I waited for him to resume. It wasn't unusual for him to go quiet like this and continue talking a minute later, when all the pieces were together. But he didn't this time. He let it drop.

  Later we made love. Maybe it was the lamb leg, the feast, that inspired him. Poor old Martin, my experienced, brilliant, tired lover. Sometimes I felt sex was a burden to him, that he did it out of a sense of responsibility and the fear of losing me to another lover. His attraction was clearly more than physical. This realization wounded my sexual self esteem while giving a boost to my professional ego. But when we were intimate he was always a wonderful lover.

  Now he was stroking me, kissing me into ecstasy. He was an expert in anatomy, especially mine. He can find my most sensitive places with his eyes closed and play me like a virtuoso on his instrument. "A strad," he answered once when I told him how I felt. He caressed, his tongue explored. This was the point where I lost self-control, my whole body was supple with obedience. A slight move of his fingers and I lifted my knees, arched my back, my hips writhed, my nipples were hard, my body was on fire.

  He was everywhere. Inside me and beside me, over and under me. And I lay prone, moaning quietly with my knees bent and my toes pointing at the ceiling, then I was on my back, as if I could spin weightlessly. My eyes opened up for a minute and I saw …not my husband's face but the canopy (yes, we have a four poster bed), then the Baroque ornaments I knew by heart. The familiar curves of these ornaments—which fill my mind during long discourses, sleepless nights, and gloomy dawns—suddenly disappeared. I saw the light colored hospital wallpaper, the flat neon lights. I saw a young man with dark blue eyes.

  Martin did something different to me and I reached climax while looking at Arany's naked, muscular, lanky torso. "You just did. Thanks."

  "It was good, wasn't it," asked Martin, contented.

  A tear smarted in my eye as I wearily caressed his face. Had he ever really enjoyed this?

  The next day I was there at the same time. My clothes were one degree more modest: a dark sweater and a skirt reaching just below my knees. I felt a little uneasiness as I knocked on the door, waited several seconds then entered.

  The infusion bottle was not beside the bed, and he had another bandage, a smaller one. He sat cross-legged on the bed and leaned against the piled up pillows, smoking. Why did the nurses let him get away with this? I felt a strange, fleeting jealousy—a feeling I can't tolerate. Why doesn't the fire alarm work?

  This time he turned his head toward me, his lips curved into a mocking smile.

  I stood beside his bed and glanced at the uncomfortable little chair.

  "May I sit down?"

  He gestured and I sat, unnecessarily pulling down the hem of my skirt. I wondered if he knew why I chose a dress like this. No way. He was almost ten years younger than me.

  "May I help you?" he asked suddenly.

  They resist in the beginning, it's something I'm accustomed to. A lot of people don't understand the difference between a psychologist and a witch doctor. "Hey, I'm not crazy!" But this man knew better. Last night I learned a few things about him. A master's degree in criminology—very ambitious. A bright cop with a bright future. Until now. The file is going to be closed with a short, typewritten note: "Quit service. Psychologist suggests resignation was motivated by unprocessed mental trauma."

  "Yes, you may," I said. "By talking to me."

  He had an odd look on his face. His eyes dropped down to my chest and I could feel his gaze touch me. I had an uncomfortable, self-conscious sensation that reminded me of my teenage years, when my breasts had first begun to grow.

  "Tell me about yourself."

  I did my best to keep from sighing. I smiled instead. Smiles come easy in my profession—and they mean nothing.

  "What do you want to know? I'm thirty-eight. No children. I work part-time as a psychologist for the police department. But most of the time I help my husband." I hesitated only a second, he probably didn't even notice it, but I felt a certain embarrassment speaking about Martin to this man. "He is a researcher, you know."

  "What does he research?"

  I paused, hunting for an answer, then I made the worst decision. "It would be hard to explain it with a few words."

  He just nodded. He wore cotton pajama pants that were a little short on him, and his torso was naked, only the bandage covered one of his shoulders and his chest. He was drumming nervously on his shin with his long fingers. The bed sheet was crumpled, it was untucked from under the mattress. A soda and a book lay on the bedside table. A lively romance. What kind of woman had brought it, I wondered. And it occurred to me again that I felt jealous.


  "Do you love him?" He asked.

  "I do. And you? How did you feel about your partner?"

  Sometimes you have to be cruel. But maybe that was too much. I didn't expect this pained—hateful—look. So much hate I thought for a second he was going to hit me.

  "He trusted me," he answered. He dropped his head and I ached to hold him close to me.

  "I suppose it hurts." Stupid remark. Unprofessional. A question you would expect from a bewildered, middle-aged woman.

  "I killed him!" he moaned. He looked up, looked into my eyes and suddenly he seemed like a child. It was disappointing. All the mystery disappeared, replaced by the banal pain that I've seen before. Every cop whose partner was killed feels this way. They all blame themselves.

  I didn't tell him that. I figured he wasn't interested in other people's pain.

  "Nonsense. You did everything you could."

  Once again hate filled his face. He lunged and I expected him to hit me, but he just grabbed my shoulders.

  "I didn't shoot!" he said looking into my eyes. "Did you know that? If I had fired, Carl would still be alive. But I didn't shoot."

  He slowly released me. I reached toward him, gently touching his hand. "I read the report, Arany. You did fire. You emptied your gun."

  He bowed his head again. He looked at my hand. I knew I ought to pull it back, and I nearly moved it, but as he began to speak I somehow left my hand on his arm. I felt a muscle quivering.

  "I fired too late. By the time I shot, Carl had been killed and I had been wounded. I saved myself."

  A painful half-smile flashed across his face for a second.

  "The gun was in my hand." He looked down at his hand now, as if he expected to see the weapon still there. "I'm a good shot, I was one of the best at the Academy. The son of a bitch was close to me, three feet at the most. It was dark, but I saw him, I felt him. I should have fired just once."

  I felt all my muscles tighten. Martin, I thought, my old genius. Maybe this is what you have been waiting for. I watched him, neither of us talking. He suddenly dropped facedown on the bed. I saw him wince as the abrupt movement pulled at his stitches, but he didn't make any sound. Then he spoke quietly:

  "I couldn't pull the trigger. Do you understand? I simply wasn't capable of pulling that goddamn trigger."

  I do, I thought. I understand more than you imagine.

  CHAPTER 4

  Arany walks to the end of the short corridor and around a glass partition into a small anteroom. He slips past the two desks there and knocks on the door behind them. He still feels weak. From time to time he's overcome by dizziness, but the attacks are brief, and pass quickly. He hasn't received today's shot from Dr. Allesandro.

  "Come in." The voice is sharp, almost unfriendly.

  Arany turns the knob, enters and stands in the doorway. It's a worn little office, built into the end of the corridor. Its only window faces a back alley. On the captain's desk, between official forms and files, an inch-long plastic figure swings from a tiny toy gallows. Aside from the desk, the office contains two uncomfortable chairs, a cheap coffee table in a style that was considered dated fifteen years ago and a few pitiful signs of a decorative intent: A faux-Navajo table cloth, the postcards on the wall beside the city map, an old Colt under them and a wanted poster from the last century—the original item, not some cheap reprint. A few framed certificates of merit hang on the other wall. One mentions honorable service in the Korean War, another is a memento of the 1964 police boxing championship (fifth place) and the most recent notes twenty years of service with the Police Department. Then there are a couple of black-andwhite photos. A print of Capt. Ericsson shaking hands with some city politician, forgotten long ago. Another, a yellowed newspaper clipping behind a plate of glass, shows him as he takes a handcuffed prisoner into the police station. It's a plain, slightly drab space, but it clearly belonged to a man who had always understood what was right and always did it. It would be hard to tell such a man that you are a coward.

  The captain glances up, blinking short-sightedly through his reading glasses.

  "That you, Arany? Come on in!"

  Arany stops awkwardly in front of the desk. He gets the feeling that the captain expected a salute, or some other, more military greeting. Instead he studies the mass of papers on the desk, absent-mindedly reading the upside-down words.

  Ericsson stands up and goes around his desk. He is close to sixty, and his body is no longer in boxing shape. Arany knows the captain is not well, and has to live on a strict diet. Ericsson faces Arany and pats him on the shoulder.

  "I'm glad you thought it over, son."

  He embraces Arany with the short, shy moves of an old man. "It'd have been a shame if the force lost two good officers."

  "Yes sir." Arany nods.

  "I heard you had the typical reaction—blamed yourself." Ericsson trudges back to his chair, and drops himself on it. A tiny curl of his thinning white hair falls on his brow and he sweeps it away with an angry move, as if it's a fly. "Bullshit," he mumbles at last. "You did everything possible. You had no reason to suspect that this guy sleeping on the stairs was Frost's partner. And how could you know Frost is some kind of damned amateur contortionist. He had to be double jointed or something to get the handcuffs round in front of him."

  Arany takes a deep breath.

  "We should have searched his pants more carefully before we let him get dressed."

  Ericsson hits the table with his enormous fist and curses. He belongs to the old school, and believes that well-placed anger helps more than any heart-to-heart talk.

  "Your partner should have found the knife! Carl—" the captain catches himself and then continues in a calmer voice. "Carl made a mistake, a bad one. I'm as sorry about the whole mess as you are. He was one of us. I feel responsible for all my men. But I don't let it shadow my judgment."

  "Yes sir." Arany nods again. Even though the captain seems a bit theatrical, he knows the older man means what he's saying.

  "I'm glad you had a talk with the psychologist," says Ericsson. "You pay attention to what she says. You can't just give up. I'm not giving up. We're going to catch that son-of-a-bitch and I'm going to wring his neck with my own hands if I have to. Understood?"

  "Yes sir." Arany feels dizzy again. Suddenly he sees Ericsson's broad, flat nose, the face dotted with liver spots, through a trembling mist, but he continues speaking anyway. "Unfortunately, that won't bring Carl back."

  He loses his balance for a moment and leans on the desk. Beads of perspiration appear on his forehead. What the hell is this? Is it from loss of blood? The doctors warned him he would feel weak for a while. Or can it be the shots he got from Dr. Allesandro? She said there could be possible side effects. A medicine to assist psychological recuperation—he never would have suspected that something like that existed.

  The attack passes; his sight clears. Arany slowly turns and walks out.

  He is assigned to a desk job, "till you're back in top shape." He feels waves of heat and nervous tension while he works. At lunchtime he grabs a sandwich and coffee at the corner deli and eats at his desk. Then he hesitantly reaches for the phone.

  CHAPTER 5

  I drove past the house. A week ago I couldn't imagine myself going to this place ever again. But now I was parking in front of a fire hydrant on the other side of the street, about thirty yards away from that dark doorway—the one I've been seeing in my nightmares.

  I had nothing to do here. A dozen detectives searched the whole building that night. They had found Carl's body on the landing between the second and third floor. And they had found me too, lying in a puddle of my own blood and looking like I wouldn't last very long. I was lucky. Nobody knows who dialed 911 and said there was a gunfight in the staircase. The first cops on the scene hadn't recognized us. Then they found the badges in our pockets and got half the force down here. They'd checked the whole building. Every door they tried was the residence of hard-working people who'd slept t
hrough the whole thing. No one knew Frost or the fat man on the stairwell. Aside from the holes they made in me and Carl, the only trace that either of them left behind were a few drops of blood, probably from a wound I'd inflicted. I was lying half-dead in the hospital, when the captain came to visit. He said he'd put me in for a special commendation.

  God! if it wasn't for this psychologist, I might have killed myself.

  The apartment where we'd arrested Frost had been found deserted. The woman, the ageing whore with dangling breasts, bad teeth and tired eyes, had disappeared. According to her driver's license, her name was Gladys Ferrow. Funny, I only glanced at her license while I was searching her purse, but the name was seared into my mind. I couldn't explain why I remembered the name, or why I didn't mention my memory to Captain Ericsson. I should talk it over with Dr. Allesandro. That woman could read my soul, and I didn't mind. In fact I liked it. It felt like she was touching my thoughts, climbing inside and caressing my heart.