Serpent's Kiss

by Ed Gorman

  She recalled the same smell on her brother.

  His eyes had looked like Dobyns's, too. So sad; so sad.

  "Come on," she said softly, taking the handcuffs from him.

  She led him into the bedroom.

  He sat on the soft double sized mattress, the springs squeaking beneath his weight.

  She'd never held handcuffs before. Not real ones; only play ones that Rob and she used to use when they were cowboys and Indians. These cuffs were heavy and rough.

  She snapped one cuff on his wrist and one cuff to the brass bedpost.

  "Too tight?" she said.

  "No. Fine."

  "I'll be back here after I see Chris Holland."

  He reached out and touched her hand. "I can't tell you what this means to me. I don't want to get-overwhelmed again and-kill anybody. You know?"

  She touched his forehead gently. "I know." She smiled and touched his cheek now. "I'll be back as soon as I can."

  "Would you call my wife when you come back?"

  "Really?"

  "Yes. It'll all sound less-insane-coming from you. Then maybe afterward I could talk to my daughter. For just a few minutes. Before we go to the police, I mean."

  He was a decent and honourable man, she thought. And now she wanted to cry, too.

  Her brother had also been a decent and honourable man.

  She left him there, handcuffed to the bed.

  ***

  Chris Holland had once been picked up by a Prudential insurance salesman in a dark, chilly bar very much like this one. This was not an achievement she talked about much-especially considering the fact that afterward the insurance salesman had confessed that he didn't find the Ku Klux Klan "all bad, I mean they're just doing what they believe in." He then said that he'd kind of lied to her and that he was, in fact, ahem, married and was now feeling kind of shitty about going to bed with her, nothing personal you understand. And that he'd be shoving off (what was he, a goddamn sailor?). And getting home to that wife and kids. All of which left Chris feeling just great, of course, and wondering if she shouldn't give up her career, find a nice fat bald guy, and retreat to suburbia and raise some kids.

  She sat in the bar now, waiting for the woman who'd called her about the murders, and realised that in the eight years since the Prudential guy her love life had not improved a whole hell of a lot. She just had lousy instincts where men were concerned. She could not seem to understand on any gut level the truth all her friends understood-that damaged men, of the type Chris liked to help put back together, inevitably dragged you down with them. Hell, even the Pru guy had had that air about him-vulnerable, hurt, lonely.

  The waitress in the cute little handmaiden's costume (though Chris doubted that handmaidens had worn hot pants) brought the day's second beer, picked up her tip, and started away.

  And that was when she saw the tall, very Nordic woman in the tailored grey suit standing just inside the entrance door staring at her.

  The woman was sombre and beautiful and regal and, now that she was walking, quite graceful, too.

  Chris had been secretly dreading that her informant would turn out to be some obviously crazed attention starved lunatic who was going to help 'solve' a murder that took place in 1903 or something. TV reporters were always getting calls from such folks.

  But if this one was a lunatic, she was a lunatic with great breeding.

  The woman came over to Chris's table and put out a long, strong dry hand. "I'm Emily Lindstrom."

  "Nice to meet you, Emily. Why don't you sit down?"

  So Emily Lindstrom sat down.

  The first thing she did was glance around the place. The walls were all got up like the interior of a pirate's sailing vessel. On each table tiny red encased candles burned fervently. In the darkness, Frank Sinatra sang Laura, from the era when he still had a voice. In one corner two salesmen types, all grins and gimme-gimme eyes, were huddled over their table talking about Chris and the Lindstrom woman, obviously trying to figure out how to make their moves. Hell, Chris thought sourly, maybe they work for Prudential.

  The waitress came. Emily Lindstrom ordered a small glass of dry white wine. The two salesmen were both grinning at them openly now.

  "I'll get right to it if you don't mind," Emily said.

  In the flickering shadows, the Lindstrom woman was even more impressive looking. There was the clarity of a young girl about her beauty, yet there was pain in her blue eyes, a pain that suggested dignity and perhaps even wisdom. If she was a crackpot, Chris thought, she sure wasn't your garden variety crackpot.

  "Fine," Chris said.

  "Several years ago my brother, Rob, was accused of murdering three women. When the police moved in to capture him, he was killed."

  "I'm sorry."

  "He didn't kill those women. Some-force had taken him over."

  "I see." Chris couldn't keep the scepticism from her tone.

  Emily smiled. "I'm sure you've heard stories like this many times. An innocent relative and all that."

  Chris was just about to respond when she saw Emily Lindstrom's upward glance.

  There, right next to their table, stood the two salesmen.

  "Hi, gals," the taller of the two said. "I'm Arnie."

  "And I'm Cliff."

  "You're the TV reporter if I'm not mistaken," Arnie said.

  They both wore three-piece suits. They both wore Aqua Velva. And they both wore lounge lizard smiles.

  "That would be me, yes," Chris said.

  "I'd consider it an honour to buy you a drink," Amie said. He nodded to the two unoccupied chairs gathered at the table. "You know?"

  "I know, Arnie, I know. But believe it or not, this is a business meeting for me."

  "Really?"

  "True facts, Arnie," she said. She always had to remember that she had a public image to worry about. Even while spuming hit artists like these two bozos, she had to maintain a certain decorum. "I'm sorry but I really am busy."

  Across the table, Emily Lindstrom kept her head down, her eyes almost closed, as if she were trying to will these two out of existence.

  "You may not have noticed," Cliff said, "But they've got a dance floor in the back"

  Emily Lindstrom's head shot up suddenly. She glared regally at Cliff. "Then why don't you and Arnie go show us how nice you look dancing together?"

  Arnie lost it. "Hey, just because you're sitting here with some TV reporter doesn't give you the right to get shitty."

  But Cliff, obviously the more sensible of the two, had his hand on Arnie's elbow and was gently tugging him away. "Come on, Arnie. Screw 'em."

  Arnie, still angry, and a little drunker than Chris had realised, said, "Screw 'em? Hey, I wouldn't touch 'em. Either one of 'em. I don't think they're the type who go for guys-if you know what I mean."

  Now Cliff's hand was more insistent on Arnie's elbow.

  "You think you're some goddamn queen just because you're on the tube," Arnie said. "Well, you're no queen in my book"

  Well, Chris thought uncharitably, in my book you’re a queen.

  But then the bartender was there and when he took Arnie's elbow, it was in a manner far rougher than Cliff had done.

  The half filled bar was alive now with curiosity about the scene in the corner involving the TV lady and the drunk. This was a lot more interesting than most of the conversations running, as they did, to politics and baseball and routine sexual propositions.

  Watching some clown making a fool of himself over a TV lady. That was pretty good.

  "Sorry," the bartender said, after getting Arnie and Cliff out the front door. "I'd like you to spend the entire evening drinking on the house."

  "That's nice of you," Chris said, "but not necessary. You didn't make him a jerk."

  The bartender obviously appreciated her kindness. Then he took a small white pad from his back pocket. He handed her a yellow Bic along with it. "Would you mind? For my daughter, I mean. She'd get a kick out of it."

  Chris had nev
er been sure exactly why people wanted the autograph of a local TV reporter, but she was modest enough to be flattered and so she was always most agreeable about putting pen to paper.

  "What's her name?"

  "Eve."

  "Pretty name."

  So she wrote a nice little inscription to Eve, signed it, and handed the pad back. "Here you go."

  "Thanks. And I wasn't kidding about the drinks being on the house. They are."

  When they were alone once again, Chris said to the Lindstrom woman, "I'm really sorry."

  "Actually, it's sort of fascinating. Do you go through all this very often?"

  Chris smiled. "Just enough to keep me off balance."

  "I'd be off balance, too."

  Chris said, "But we're here to talk about you, not me."

  The Lindstrom woman leaned forward. "There's a man I want you to meet."

  "Oh!"

  "Yes. He's waiting for us at an apartment house."

  "Will we leave right away?"

  "No," Emily Lindstrom said. "He's going to be there for a while."

  "Oh?"

  "Yes. He's handcuffed to the bedpost."

  And right then, Chris Holland thought: Maybe she isn't a garden variety lunatic.

  But she sure is a lunatic of some kind.

  So Chris sat there and sipped her drink and learned all about the man handcuffed to the bedpost with the giant serpent iri his belly.

  ***

  He wasn't sure when it happened. It just happened, too subtie to quantify in any way, some process utterly mysterious.

  Handcuffed to the bed, head dangling in an almost sleepy way, an image of his daughter filling his mind (a rowboat on a scummy but not unpretty pond; lily pads the colour of frog bellies parting as the stem of the rowboat gently parted them; and Cindy's laugh; God, Cindy's laugh).

  And then his head came up abruptly and he thought no more of his daughter.

  He started yanking on the handcuffs.

  He thought of freedom and of what he would do with that freedom.

  The girl: Marie Fane.

  The snake shifted in his innards now, and he felt that crazy upside down nausea again.

  Marie Fane.

  He was so singular of purpose now.

  He had an erection but he scarcely noticed.

  He thought only of working himself free.

  He searched frantically for any tool or implement that would help him escape.

  The only thing that looked marginally useful was a pink plastic hairbrush on the edge of the bureau.

  But what was he going to do with the hairbrush? Pry the cuffs free with it?

  He was being silly.

  And then he began to growl, no melodramatic transformation to hairy wolf or silken vampire, just a low vibration in his chest and larynx, like a dog at the exact moment it senses danger.

  And then he began to tear more ferociously at his metal bonds, up on his feet now, and jerking at them with single-minded viciousness.

  In no time at all, he was lifting the bed from the floor. It made a clattering sound as it rose, then fell; rose, then fell.

  He tore himself so savagely from the bedpost that the cuff ripped deep into his wrist, hot metallic smelling blood spreading through the matted black hair on his arm.

  But he hadn't snapped the cuff. That would take even more strength and he wondered if he'd ever have it.

  He bit his lip so he wouldn't cry out.

  The bed was already making too much noise. He couldn't afford to attract any attention. Not if he wanted to get out of here.

  He knew that he had, at most, one or two chances left. Somebody was bound to call the police if he kept banging away at the bed.

  He crouched down, trying to get better leverage on the bedpost.

  He closed his eyes, trying to focus all his energy on the handcuffs.

  Just the right amount of pressure and-

  And then he felt the snake inside him shift again.

  Oddly, this time there was no sense of nausea.

  Indeed, if anything, he felt stronger, tougher than ever.

  He bent forward a few inches, prepared himself mentally for the struggle with the bed, and then started counting backward from ten.

  Ten… Nine… Eight… Seven… Six… Five…

  (I've got to fucking do it this time.)

  Four… Three… Two… One…

  He jerked the handcuffs so hard that he not only lifted the entire bed off the floor but smashed it directly into the wall as well.

  From upstairs, the floor erupted with pounding and a Mexican voice shouted something about fuckin' stop it man or I'm callin' the police.

  He fell to the floor in terrible pain.

  He had put so much pressure on the wrist that it now felt broken.

  He got up on his haunches, holding his wrist tenderly, tears rolling down his cheeks, just rocking back and forth.

  Twenty minutes went by.

  He stopped crying, but his wrist didn't feel any better.

  And then he was ready again.

  He had to get out of here before Emily Lindstrom got back.

  So he prepared himself once more.

  This time, almost as if for luck, he lay the palm of his free hand flat against his belly and felt the snake coil and uncoil inside.

  Once again, he felt younger, stronger, tougher.

  He stood up.

  This time, he put his foot against the brace that ran across the bottom of the front post.

  His weight would hold the bed down while he pulled. He should have thought of this before.

  And then he heard her voice: Emily.

  In the hallway.

  Goddamn. He hadn't expected her so soon.

  He turned his attention fully to the bed now. Concentrated. Foot against the brace. Painful wrist ready to be tugged on again.

  Five… Four… Three…

  (Emily closer now. "It's right down here.")

  Two… One…

  The pain was blinding.

  He could scarcely stop himself from screaming.

  He heard and felt rather than saw-the pain kept him blind- the cuff snap away from the bedpost.

  And then he was free.

  If you could call it that.

  Marie Fane.

  She was all he could think of.

  He ran to the window.

  (Emily with her key in the door now, saying to somebody: "Something's wrong in there.")

  And then opening the window and diving through it to the chill but grassy ground below. Free, goddammit, free.

  He took off running.

  ***

  He put his face down near the sink and spent the next two minutes splashing himself with cold water.

  He needed to be revived, brought out of his stupor. He was having the thoughts he hated to have and he needed to do something about them.

  Then somebody was there: "Walter?"

  "Yeah."

  "Phone. It's Holland."

  "Okay. Thanks."

  Before going out, O'Sullivan picked up the can of Lysol air freshener (pine scent this time around) and sprayed the one-stall john that was just off the news studio. He'd got very uptight about the aroma of his stools since management (ever the trendy ones) had turned the news studio johns unisex. He didn't mind if men knew he'd had Mexican food for lunch, but women were a different matter entirely.

  The newsroom had virtually shut down. The early evening news over with, most reporters had scurried away to meet spouses and lovers. Ordinarily, unless there was a critical breaking news story, everybody took an hour and a half for dinner and then came back to grind out the ten o'clock edition.

  A lone light flickered on the phone buttons. O'Sullivan picked up.

  And spent the next fifteen minutes listening.

  He knew that the Lindstrom woman who Holland described was sitting right next to her so he didn't say anything sarcastic. He just said, "I'd be real leery of this story, Holland."

 
"We don't know where Dobyns went."

  "Why don't you call the police?"

  "We have."

  "Have you looked for a Marie Fane in the phone book?"

  "Of course."

  "And nothing?"

  "Nothing. There are seven Fanes. None of the six who answered were or knew of a Marie Fane."

  "I wish I could help you." O'Sullivan had visions of the small Italian joint around the corner. A little table in the rear with the cliche red-and-white-checkered tablecloth in the back and a green wine bottle with candle drippings running down the neck and a small steady candle glow lighting the really sweet face of Chris Holland across from him. That's how he wanted to spend his break. Not chasing down some stupid story that more properly belonged to the National Enquirer.

  "You can help me, Walter."

  "Oh, shit. Here we go."

  "There's a janitor."

  "A janitor." He couldn't help being sarcastic. At least this one time.

  "Yes, Walter. A janitor."

  "What about him?"

  "Emily talked to him on several occasions. He worked at Hastings House for forty years before he retired. He knows what's going on there. Dobyns may have contacted him. He may know something about this Marie Fane. Could you go talk to him?"

  "I thought we were going to have dinner."

  ''We'll have dinner afterward."

  "Afterward. Right."

  "You want his address?"

  "Whose address?"

  "The janitor's address. God, Walter, you're supposed to be a news director."

  "Yeah. A hungry one."

  "Here's his name and address." So she gave it to him.

  Reluctantly, he wrote it down.

  "We're going to keep trying to find Marie Fane," Chris said.

  "I can't believe you're buying all this."

  "I'm not. Not entirely, anyway. But it's a lot more interesting than On the Town."

  He sighed. "Yeah, I suppose that's true." He paused. "Holland, I was going to put the moves on you again tonight."

  "Really?"

  "Really."

  "I thought we'd kind of given up on that."

  "Well, no harm in trying again."

  "I'd like that, Walter."

  "I thought I'd buy you some pasta and a nice salad-"