Poisonous Kiss

by Andras Totisz

  The woman explains her story slowly and elaborately, as if she was narrating one of the old Arabian Nights tales. She has a room to rent, that's the main point, but for some reason she has to elaborate. Her husband had died. But she has more to say on that subject. You can't dismiss the death of a husband just like that. Especially of a good man, who didn't drink and took home all of his salary. And then his health began to get worse.

  She becomes visibly petrified when the prosecutor interrupts her. Her lips are compressed together in a narrow line. Arany knows this look. He's met hundreds of witnesses like this. He figures no one will get any more information from this woman. But Arany guesses wrong. He underestimates the persistence of the prosecutor and the prestige of the court. Though she shows reluctance, the good woman is willing to answer. Yes, her room was rented by this gentleman. He paid a month in advance. And he was a quiet man, a good tenant. He didn't leave the room all day. What did he do? How should I know? You tell me.

  Arany doesn't recognize the next witness. He's lean, wears glasses, and is around fifty. The kind of man who sports a knitted vest under his suit coat. The kind of man who looks through the peephole every time he hears the slightest noise. He says he watched Arany break into Steven Beidecker's apartment. He saw him leaving after a few minutes. And yes, it seems to him, Arany picked the lock. Why didn't he called the police? The man blinks innocently and shrugs his narrow shoulder. He was afraid to get involved.

  Arany looks off in the distance and barely sees him. They will never prove that he bugged the pimp's room. His friend, who lent him the equipment, can be trusted.

  "So, you saw this police officer, who was sworn to uphold the law, committing illegal entry?"

  Arany's lawyer objects that the prosecutor is leading the witness and the judge tells the prosecutor to stop it.

  None of this penetrates Arany's consciousness. In his mind he sees the picture on the wall of the little room he rented. It's a bad landscape painting, with a few figures wearing biblical clothes in the foreground, and animals around them. Probably goats. Maybe goats looked like that in biblical times. The TV in the next apartment is blaring out some game. The sports announcer is shouting praise for some athlete Arany has never heard of…

  His lawyer leans toward him and asks something. Arany slowly comes back to reality. He looks around. His glance rests on Celia for a moment. She isn't watching him. She's listening to what the prosecutor says and taking notes. Celia's fighting. Arany isn't. He feels he's already done everything he could. He has taken the blame. Celia is in no danger. But she takes notes, holds war councils with his lawyer. She grows more thin and pale—and more beautiful.

  "Should I expect any more little surprise like this?" his lawyer asks. "I'd like to know how often you broke into other people's homes, installed bugs without the permission of a court, intimidated witnesses. How often did you take justice into your own hands?"

  Arany doesn't answer. He's warm. It would be nice to take off his coat at least. What would the jurors think? To the hell with the jurors! He drinks a glass of water.

  "Did you?"

  Arany slowly puts the glass down. A smile crosses his face and a few women decide that he can't be such a hardened criminal after all. He leans close to the lawyer's ear, and is hit by the smell of the man's strong, bitter after-shave.

  "I think that's all I ever did."

  He straightens up. One of the jurors is watching him. Maybe it's a mistake to smile. He's being disrespectful. To hell with it. He takes one more sip and adjusts his tie. He goes back to his daydream.

  CHAPTER 43

  Flowered wallpaper. Huge flowers, so gaudy that they're frightening and disgusting. Arany lies on his back in the bed that's too soft and too narrow, looking at the paper with his half-open right eye. The left eye is closed, and he holds his head still so the ice bag he put over it won't fall. On the wall opposite is the biblical landscape with the goats that look like dogs. In the next room the TV is now blaring baseball. Arany sighs. He could use some quiet. He could use some rest.

  The house where he found this room is right across from the home of the pimp whose knee he broke. Getting the room was lucky enough. He couldn't expect to enjoy silence and a comfortable bed as well. And it seems an ideal solution. Arany's own apartment is of no use for a while anyway. And he needs rest. To lie still, and avoid unnecessary movement or excitement. These were the orders of the doctor who examined him after the fire. It had been at daybreak. Arany had been sitting, shivering with a cold in Ericsson's office. The captain had sat there, unshaven, his eyes puffed. Arany didn't know who had informed Ericsson and he didn't ask. Everyone has the right to their little secrets.

  They had a coffee, Ericsson brought it from the machine in the hallway while Arany dialed an old pal of his. A sleepy voice answered after too much ringing.

  "What's going on? Are you crazy?"

  I am, Arany thought. Ericsson had entered, put the cup in front of Arany then dropped into the other armchair. He had listened in silence as Arany persuaded his friend to bring them an electronic bug to the precinct right then.

  "To the precinct?" A suspicious, unbelieving voice.

  "Yes." A quick glance toward Ericsson. The captain stirs the brownish liquid with his plastic spoon. He doesn't look up until Arany puts down the phone.

  "The guy will be in the hospital at least until morning," he mumbles.

  Arany takes a sip. The hot drink burns his mouth.

  "What about the woman?" he asks.

  The captain takes out the spoon and meticulously licks it clean.

  "She won't be there. I'll have her brought in at 7 a.m. for questioning.

  At 7 a.m. Arany watches from his car as two detectives enter the brownstone. He knows them, they're old hands. It feels strange to watch them like this. What would he think of these two big, heavy footed, tired men if he didn't know them, he wonders. Cops, his mind answers immediately, I'd think they were cops. His smile is bitter. Will I be like them? A worn, tired man? Strong but overweight, a cynic because of all of the things I've seen and experienced? Celia ought to have some shots against this, too.

  They're fast and efficient. In less then a minute, they appear again. They escort the dancer discreetly, one of them politely opens the car door, wile the other helps the woman get in. Real gentlemen. Arany is conscious of their caution: The way the first man looks around before opening the car door, while the other hovers over the woman, covering her with his big frame. What did Ericsson tell them to expect?

  Arany sinks down in the seat of his car, and watches them drive away. The brake light flashes, then the blinker. He needs no one to tell him to be cautious. The street is waking up. Sleepy faced people, going to a morning shift, get into their cars or stand numbly at the bus stop. No one cares about him. And he cares about no one.

  The downstairs door is closed, but that's no problem. He uses the old trick, so simple and always effective. He pushes several buzzers. Sleepy, angry voices crackle through the intercom, then he hears the lock open. Someone in one of the apartments buzzes him in without bothering to ask who it is.

  He enters and is greeted by silence. In a few apartments people curse and go back to their beds. How could he know that one of these tenants, a man with glasses and narrow shoulders, stands at his door listening and looking through the peephole? How can Arany know that this man will be a witness against him at his own trial. A trial for a murder he still hasn't even dreamed about committing.

  The eighth floor. He walks up. Another damn staircase. He can't get away from them. But Celia's shots are potent. There are no nightmarish pictures this time, only the weakness. He has to stop at every landing. He tries to summon his second wind as he leans against the wall.

  Of course the door to the apartment is locked, too. Some years ago Arany finished a special course on the techniques used by burglars. He even knows what tools to bring. But he wouldn't make a very good burglar. Picking the lock takes longer than he had hoped, es
pecially because he feels uncomfortable standing in the hallway. His hands shake, his eyes blur. But after about three minutes, he has the lock picked and the door open. Arany slowly enters and shuts the door behind him. He walks in with his "disposable" gun in his hand. But no one is there, only disorder and dirt. He doesn't spend much time thinking about where to put the bugs. One goes on the bottom of a cup that she won twelve years ago at an amateur dance competition. Another under the bed, one on the phone and one inside the TV remote control. He figures most people like to have it nearby. One goes on the door, to show if someone enters. Arany slips out and locks the door. It's all gone smoothly.

  In thirty minutes he has rented a room from the woman with the old-fashioned hair cut. And from that time on he's been resting here. Baseball is sometimes replaced by boxing, and Arany tries to picture the fight based on what the announcer is saying.

  From time to time the phone rings in the apartment across the way. People call the pimp with more malice than pity in their voice. There are threats: I'll catch that sonofabitch. And advice: Let somebody else to do it. Arany sighs. He thinks of the car that he saw speeding away from his house. Had he seen correctly? Or was it a mistake?

  The door opens sometimes, and Arany turns on the other little devices, too. A young girl's voice. She brought some money, the pimp counts it peevishly. He says it's not enough.

  "Does it hurt?" the girl asks. She's the first, with some compassion in her voice. A nasal, masculine voice comes to the door. Beidecker kicks the girl out of the room. They drink, Arany in the house opposite hears the clink of ice cubes. They talk about a job. It would be big money but Beidecker is out of business right now. He curses the cop who broke his knee and threatens him in absentia. Arany begins to get bored with the threats. When he hears for the thirtieth time how Beidecker will kill him, he's almost tempted to go over there and face the pimp. A battle of the invalids!

  Arany doesn't learn what the big job would be. The nasal voice leaves, and after a few minutes Arany turns off the listening device. He doesn't want the miniature batteries to run out, but his also fed up with the pimp's voice.

  At noon he orders pizza and soda. He eats it sitting by the window looking bored at the sunshine outside. Though he has a telescope, he can't see pimp's window, because his room is on the fifth floor. Time passes slowly. He lies, almost unmoving, except when he changes the ice bags on his eye. He listens to the inane conversations. And every five minutes or so he glances at his watch, waiting for 3 p.m. That's the best time to call Celia, before she leaves her office to go home or the institute. The time when her last patient has left and she gives herself five minutes of rest, kicking off her shoes, swinging her slim legs up on to the table, bending her head back on to the armchair's headrest.

  But he can't stand waiting any more. Before half past two he grabs the phone and begins pushing the buttons with shaking fingers. It's an old, cheap hand-held phone, the kind that was fashionable in the eighties. People installed them in every room, including the toilet. The buttons are too small. He dials wrong several times and has to start again. He can't decide if his landlady is eavesdropping or not, but his bet is that she is. That's nice, listening to the listener. He doesn't smile, but hears the phone ringing unanswered in Celia's office.

  He waits a few minutes and tries again. The same result and this time he can't fool himself with the weak explanation that he accidentally dialed a wrong number. No mistake. He looks at the watch with his good eye, following the second hand running.

  The phone rings up at Steven Beidecker's. Arany's muscles tighten involuntary, his glance jumps from the watch to the recorder. He can't see the tape running, but the little red light is on.

  "What's up brother, you got jammed this time, huh?"

  The voice sounds familiar. There is a tremor in Arany's stomach. He doesn't move, just listens in an eager attention.

  "Yeah." A short, gruff answer without the usual bragging about how he had decorated the bloody cop's face and without the threats of what he'll do when he catches Arany.

  A short, throaty laugh.

  "You're getting old, my friend. Not like you used to be"

  Arany is almost sure it's him. An entire stadium full of people began to shout in the next room. Arany sits up, cursing, and puts in the earpiece. He leans forward as he listens, looking at the blank windows of the house opposite.

  "I'll get him."

  But he says this without conviction. Arany senses that other things are on the pimp's mind.

  "When will that be, man? When you're healed? How long you have the cast for, anyway?"

  "I don't know. Maybe a week…"

  "Maybe six months, man. Don't think I am crazy. By then the bitch is gonna disappear and we'll never find her—not in this life."

  "Hey, Frost, listen to me, I…"

  The wire of his earpiece tightens as Arany jumps up, he almost pulls it out of the recorder. He clenches his fists. Where are you, you sonofabitch? Just tell me!

  "You listen to me, friend. The bitch is out there somewhere with fifty million. Maybe she doesn't even know that Vic bought it. She's faithfully waiting for him with her little suitcase, packed with a goddamn fortune. How long do you think it'll be before she gets nervous? She might think Vic made a fool of her. She could make some calls and find out what happened. If she wants to, she could rat us out and go live like a queen with that money somewhere. I know she's not too bright, but she can't be that stupid. Or maybe she'll do something really stupid, and the cops will come pick her up. How would you like that?"

  Beidecker doesn't answer. Arany bites his lip as he stands by the window with the earpiece on his head. The recorder's little red light sparkles palely behind him.

  "Where is the bitch?"

  "Ask me another. She could be anywhere…"

  "You expect me to buy that Steve? Don't try to make a fool out of me, because I'll fool with you. You know where that bitch is, just the same as I know where you are."

  The voice is full of danger. Arany pictures the pimp like he was yesterday, when they were fighting. He sees again his hard, roughly cut face, his fast, exact punches. He's not one to wet his pants, even with his knee broken.

  "Don't you try to make a fool out of me, Frost! You think I can trust you out of my sight for a second? You think I expect you to take care of me? Am I supposed to believe that my good friend Frost will take care of me?"

  "Look, if I got to go after the bitch, you don't get half, but I can give you ten million."

  "Get lost!"

  "What the hell do you want, man? You're going to go after the bitch with that big cast on? That'll look pretty funny at the airport. Or, I mean bus station, you kept her close by, right?"

  The pimp laughs. Arany shakes his head.

  "You're a funny guy, Frost."

  "All right, all right. But you can't go after her. You're going to have to trust me some way. You need my help. Look, I ain't gonna screw you over."

  "No, you aren't, Frost, I'm sure of that."

  There is a click as the pimp hangs up across the street, but Arany still stands there, stunned. He's coming over here, Arany thinks. He has to come here! He took the headphones off, nervously. Soon, you'll get what you want. You can look into his eyes. He'll stand there, with his muscles and scars and his merciless eyes. Will you be paralyzed by him again? Or will you be stronger this time? Is Celia's serum, or your simmering hatred for the man, going to help? Since that night, it seems you haven't done anything but fight and kill. You'll be like him: A wild beast.

  He looks out of the window. He can't open it, but he can still see the door of the building across the street. Two kids are standing there. One of them is spitting at regular intervals. Arany withdraws into the room.

  He has to come here! For fifty million dollars he'd kill his own mother. He's going to come here soon, maybe in a matter of hours.

  The phone starts ringing. This time it isn't ringing at Beidecker's, but in the room next door. Shufflin
g steps approach, an open palm bangs on his door.

  Arany quickly puts on his shirt, but doesn't tuck it in, he puts the pistol in his waistband underneath. He opens the door a crack.

  The landlady blinks at him through the slit.

  "It's for you."

  It's Celia. Arany is shocked at her voice. A soft, painful, sad voice. "What happened to you?"

  He presses the receiver to his ear, and covers his other ear with his palm. The old man stares at the television with his mouth half-opened. The woman disappears towards the kitchen. Something is sizzling loudly in the frying pan, dishes are rattling.

  "My apartment was set on fire, so I rented a room." He glances towards the door behind which the borrowed equipment is waiting for him. Why doesn't he tell her what made him move exactly here and what he's doing? He can't make himself say it.