Dressed to Kill

by Campbell Black

  It was the thought of that open razor, the blade of cutting steel, in the hands of somebody like Bobbi. And that terrible echo, which came again and again through his mind like an icy tide: I’m not finished with you yet.

  He had to do something.

  Something.

  5

  The museum was an oasis, a floating island of quiet, as if it weren’t a part of Manhattan but some other dimension you entered just by stepping through the doorway and paying the price of admission. Two dollars worth of magic, Kate thought. Magic and silence, a sense of serenity. And if you tried hard enough you could forget the noise of traffic and the blare of the streets. Even in the garden, which was empty save for two Japanese tourists snapping Caro’s orange steel sculpture on the upper terrace, you could contrive to forget that you were enclosed in the city, that it hung in the sky all around you like the bars of some monstrous prison. She watched the tourists a moment, watched how they went around Caro’s “Midday,” as if intent on photographing it from every possible angle. Click, click, click. How many more could they take? She realized she’d never liked that sculpture much anyhow. Too cold. Too mechanical. It wasn’t like midday at all. She always thought of noon as being warm somehow, even the word itself suggested hard sunlight, but the sculpture was cold despite the orange paint.

  She paused beside Moore’s “Large Torso.” She touched the arched figure with the tips of her fingers, then looked upwards at the window of her favorite room, the one she always saved for last. “The Water Lilies.” She moved away from the Moore, staring at the fecundity of Lachaise’s “Standing Woman.” Sexual. Huge hips. Large breasts. The earth mother, she thought. You wanted to put your arms around the woman because you knew you would feel safe. Silly, she thought. A sculpture. She went close to it but didn’t touch it. She imagined it would be cold to touch and what she wanted to retain was its impression of warmth. Overhead, churning the air, a helicopter crossed the sky. The whir of the blades slashing irritated her, that and the clicking of the tourists’ camera. God, I’m edgy, she thought. Why am I always edgy when I come from Elliott’s office? Then there was the prospect of lunch. How are you today, Katherine? Never Kate. Mike tells me you’re still seeing an analyst. My goodness. What is he trying to cure you of? Hell. I could ram a breadstick down her throat. There, mother-in-law, choke on that baby.

  She went back inside the building, moving towards the stairs. It was then she realized somebody was following her, somebody was moving behind her; the same person must have been in the garden just beyond her view. No, she thought. That’s so stupid. Nobody is following me. She glanced behind her. A man. A man apparently studying a catalogue in his hand as he climbed the stairs. He isn’t interested in me, she thought. He isn’t following me. She saw his eyes move from the catalogue to her face, then she turned away. Hadn’t Elliott just told you you’re an attractive woman? Why wouldn’t the guy be interested . . .?

  Interested in what?

  Picking you up?

  Then maybe he’s only pretending to be interested in that catalogue.

  She paused in front of Rousseau’s “The Dream.” A jungle. She thought she could lose herself in that greenery, that lushness, because it didn’t seem remotely menacing to her, more welcoming, as if it were saying: It’s okay, you can step inside, nothing in this dream will harm you, Kate.

  What would you do if he tried to pick you up? Something tremendously Victorian, like slapping his face with a glove? Or would you go along just for the sheer hell of it? She turned slowly and looked around the room. He was still there, several yards away, looking at the catalogue absently, in such a way that suggested he wasn’t really reading it, that he was actually watching her from the corner of his eye. She moved on, pausing in front of Ensor’s “Masks Confronting Death.” This one always frightened her—those blurred faces staring out at you, like they were about to enter hell, like they were inviting you to come along and yet warning you at the same time. She stared at it for a time, then she heard a movement behind her. She turned, looked quickly, saw the guy glance at her. The lock of eyes lasted a moment then he looked away, he looked away as if he hadn’t noticed her at all.

  It’s a game, she thought suddenly. It’s the game of the pickup. She felt suddenly warm, attractive, drawn towards the secret nature of the game. For a moment she had the urge to cross the floor and speak with him directly and say something like: Admit it, admit how attractive you find me, go on . . . But now he was flicking the pages of his catalogue again. She stared at him, waiting for him to look at her again, realizing all at once that the catalogue he held in his hands was upside down, that it was nothing more than a meaningless item of apparatus in the game. Upside down, for Christ’s sake! She looked at his face, a square face with a jaw that seemed strong and firm, a skull covered with dark curly hair, and for a moment she imagined holding that face against her breasts, feeling his breath upon her skin. What the hell am I doing? Hoping he picks me up? The tragic cliché. FLASH: NEUROTIC HOUSEWIFE FUCKS STRANGER, MUSEUM PICKUP INDICATED. She caught her breath, which was tight in her throat, and tried to relax. A perfect stranger—is that what you really want, Kate? The dream lover who comes alive in the museum in the afternoon, as if he’d managed to pass from one dimension to the next, from the other world of sleep into reality?

  “Three Women,” by Leger.

  She stared at it, trying to figure it out, trying to make connections of a rational kind between the disjointed shapes. She looked at her watch. 11:30. There was still plenty of time to spend in the museum. Plenty of time before the lunch.

  “They don’t look like any women I ever met.”

  He was standing right beside her now. She didn’t look at him. She smiled quickly, nodded in agreement, glanced down at the catalogue he held in his hands—upside down still. His fingers were long, square at the tips, hair grew along the back of his hands.

  “I mean, I wouldn’t want to date one of them,” he said. He had a deep voice, the kind you could imagine reading the news on a radio. “Go into a restaurant with one of them, people would stare.”

  She nodded her head again, trying despairingly to think of something to say. Caught between wanting to talk with him and wanting to avoid him, she felt a pulse flutter at the back of her throat. Show him the wedding ring, she told herself. Make it conspicuous. Make it obvious that you’re off limits to all but privileged personnel. Namely, Mike. Namely, your dream rapist . . . She couldn’t think of a goddamn thing to do except go on shaking her head, as if no matter what he said she would agree.

  She moved away, half-smiling, passing into the room that contained Chagall’s “Calvary,” a painting she liked because it suggested a suffering beyond words, a supreme suffering. She stared at it for a time, then realized she wasn’t really seeing it; she was waiting for the man to reappear, waiting for him to tear himself away from the three disjointed figures, waiting for him to make a direct approach, wondering what it would be like . . . Pssst, want to fuck? Got twenty minutes to kill? Or something crazy in its irony: I have these etchings, of all things . . . Etchings, itchings. But he didn’t appear in the gallery and she felt suddenly low, disappointed, as if some tacit agreement had been broken, violated. Then she thought: You’re out of your tree, Kate, entertaining some wicked fantasy, killing time with sexual fluff. But then why the hell did she feel disappointed?

  She moved on, entering the room she saved for the last. Monet’s “Water Lilies.” The enormous canvasses that suggested an idyll. A room of silence, peace, tranquility. She sat down, lost herself in the colors of the paintings for a time, then turned to the window overlooking the garden. The Japanese tourists were still taking pictures, having moved from the Caro to Maillol’s “The River,” with its upended female figure. They were pointing, snapping, gesticulating wildly. She watched them for a time, then she closed her eyes.

  It was the peacefulness that brought her here time and again—the silence, which was a tangible thing enclosed by these enormo
us painting. She could float through it, wallow in it, pretend she wasn’t in the city, in any city, that she existed for a moment outside the limitations of space and time, outside the boundaries of herself.

  She opened her eyes. She stared across the room at the empty doorway. He isn’t coming, she thought. Why isn’t he coming? Why do you want him to come anyhow? Just an empty doorway, an empty gallery. She looked down at her hands, seeing how they were made into tight fists. I want him to try again, she thought. That’s what I want . . .

  A stranger, for God’s sake.

  You didn’t pick up a stranger, not if you were in your right mind.

  Then she noticed something that shocked her, the sight of a vast stain covering the rug around her seat: discoloration, as if rain had leaked through the roof during a storm. How could such a thing have happened in this wonderful room? She raised her eyes to the ceiling. There were brown watermarks, the color of old rust, on the tiles. How could it have happened in this room, her room? And then she noticed that the vast window was cracked, that the spidery crack had been covered over with transparent tape. Not in this room. A defilement, her own private space vandalized by nature. Cracked glass. Stains. She got up from the seat quickly just as the man stepped into the gallery.

  He was looking at her across the room.

  She turned her face to the side, gazing at the Monets.

  You want him, you don’t want him . . .

  Blow on the fine filaments of a dandelion. Watch them drift away like unfulfilled wishes.

  “This is my favorite room also . . .”

  She stared at him. Why had he said that? How could he have known that this was her favorite room too? He moved slowly towards her. She wondered: What would it be like to fuck here in this room of water lilies, to give yourself up to this stranger, to stretch back on the sofa and let him enter you and feel the soft impression of the paintings fade beneath your closed eyelids?

  The stain. The cracked window. They spoiled the place for her.

  She moved towards the door, passing him, trying to avoid his outstretched hand, the feeling of his fingertips brush against her wrist. Leave me alone, she thought. Leave me in peace. I don’t want you . . .

  She heard him calling to her. But she didn’t stop. She went quickly through the various galleries, reaching the stairs, still hearing him call after her. Hey, lady, lady . . . She went down the stairs. At the bottom she paused. She looked across the foyer. She saw traffic passing in the street outside. She saw an art student check his briefcase into the cloakroom, a security guard, arms folded, standing alongside the admissions desk. Go up to the guard, she thought. Tell him there’s a guy bothering you. Tell him. Just go straight up to him . . .

  Why don’t you?

  She shut her eyes a second and she thought: Because you don’t want to, that’s why.

  She stepped back into the garden again, flustered, stopping beside the “Standing Woman”—all that ripeness, that readiness, that wild suggestion of willingness. You want him to pick you up. You want him. She looked down at her hands. One glove, only one glove held in the palm. She must have dropped the other someplace, maybe on the stairs, in one of the galleries. What the hell, it didn’t matter now. She looked up at the sky, conscious of the enormity of it. It made her feel momentarily dizzy. Then she went back inside the building. You’re not looking for the lost glove, she thought. You’re looking for him.

  No, Kate.

  It’s stupid, absurd, you don’t even know him.

  She gazed across the foyer.

  He wasn’t there. Only the security guard, the girl at the admissions desk, a woman staring out absently from the cloakroom. But no sign of him . . .

  Why didn’t she feel relief?

  Why was there only a sense of letdown, of sinking?

  And then she saw him, she saw him moving towards the front door, saw the glass flash in sunlight as the door swung open then shut. She moved after him. Outside, the sun was hot on her face, more like some enraged tropical sun than any you might find in the city. It seemed swollen and bruised, distended, as if some refraction of light, some weird atmospheric condition, had distorted it. Stop, she thought. Don’t go any further. There’s a lunch, people are expecting you, there are rules of behavior you’re supposed to obey, there are limitations on what you can do and what you can’t— He was hailing a cab on the other side of the street. She saw one pull next to the sidewalk. She watched him open the door and get inside—and then, through the open window of the back compartment, he was staring at her and smiling. He lifted one hand in the air, holding something. The glove. The glove. Was that all? Was that it? He just wants to return the goddamn glove? She felt empty again. She watched him. The cab hadn’t moved. He was waiting for her.

  You don’t have to cross this street. You don’t need the goddamn glove. All you have to do now is turn and walk the other way and pretend nothing ever happened, pretend you never met the guy, never hoped he’d pick you up, pretend it was nothing more than some escapist fantasy you used to pass away the time. The lunch. Oh, Christ, the lunch. Mike looks like he’s lost some weight, Katherine. Aren’t you feeding him properly? Mike nodding, smiling, solicitous. The old bat’s face, the breadsticks peppered with sesame seeds, the ritual of calling a waiter. And she always complained about something. She looked for complaints.

  To hell with the lunch, she thought.

  To hell with all of it.

  She crossed the street to the waiting cab. The door was opened for her. She wanted to say something, but the only thing that came into her mind was ridiculous. I think you have my glove. See? It matches this one, so it must be mine, so maybe I can have it back. But the man, saying nothing, reached for her wrist and drew her down against him, laughing quietly to himself. Something in her wanted to resist, wanted to struggle against him, but she realized she had no control over events, no power to resist. He didn’t kiss her, he just held her against him so that her face was pressed to the side of his, and she was aware of the smell of fading after-shave, a musk. The cab was moving away from the sidewalk. And then his mouth was against hers, a strange sensation, the deep kiss of somebody you didn’t know, somebody you wanted nevertheless, the touch of teeth, tongue against tongue, and—as in the dream—she yielded, she gave herself, looking for that dark delicious place, silent as the floor of some mythic ocean, where nothing made any sense but the surge of your own desire.

  He drew his face away. She felt his hand under her skirt, pressed to the inside of her thigh.

  “What kept you?” he said.

  She didn’t answer. She opened her mouth, raised her hand to the side of his face, and kissed him again, losing herself in the depth of the kiss.

  I spy with my little eye . . .

  The tall blonde woman with the outsized dark glasses and the shoulder purse watched the cab slide away from the curb. At the end of the street it stopped at a red light. Dear Doctor Elliott, she thought. Dear, sweet, mother-fucking shrink, you’ll pay. God, how you’ll pay. In flesh and blood, bastard: in all the flesh and blood it takes.

  TWO

  1

  It was the relentless sound of the telephone that, like some demented bird, woke Liz from a dreamless sleep. When she opened her eyes, seeing a slit of cruel sunlight through the drapes, she remembered coming home at dawn, dropping a Placidyl, crawling exhausted into bed, then the relief of sleep, the comfort of that solid dark wall. She closed her eyes against the sunlight and reached out for the telephone on the bedside table, her hand colliding with a half-empty glass of water. Shit. The water slopped across the table, around a box of Kleenex, then dripped on to the rug. She sat upright and wondered why she still felt so god-awful tired, like the weariness was in the marrow of her bones—not something you could exorcise with simple chemical wizardry. Her legs ached, the calves especially. The base of her spine felt sore too. Coming apart at the seams, she thought. Like a bargain basement bra. What could you expect after last night? She held the telephone i
n one hand while with the other she lightly massaged the muscle of her right calf.

  “This is a recorded message from the morgue,” she said. “Liz is presently in a condition approximating death. When you hear the beep—”

  “Crap.”

  “Norma?”

  “Norma,” the voice said.

  “Why don’t you call me back, huh?” The shitting sunlight. It struck the lids of her eyes with the intensity of lit matches.

  “No can do, baby,” the voice said.

  “I’m beat. B-e-a-t Beat.”

  “Spelling I’m good at, Liz. You got a pencil handy?”

  Liz opened her eyes and looked at the puddle of water on the slick surface of the table. Sodden Kleenexes, a wet Bic pen, some crumpled scraps of paper, cigarette butts. Make something out of that little collection, she thought. The pen wouldn’t write and the paper was sticking to the water. A cop could come in, someone with a sharp eye for these details, and survey her body and say: Tell you one thing, she wasn’t big on keeping her bedroom tidy.

  “You ready?” Norma said.

  “No, but shoot anyhow.”

  Norma read out an address in the West Seventies, an apartment number, a name. “You want me to repeat that?”

  Liz looked at the indentations she’d made with the useless Bic on the soaking paper. “I think I got it.”

  “Read it back to me, love.”

  Liz did so, squinting at the piercing sunlight. Why was everything so goddamn bright? You’d think whoever arranged these things—the weather, the hours, the changing of seasons—would have some consideraton for the condition of homo sapiens. You feel awful so you get a blinding shot of sunshine. You feel really good and you get a million gallons of rain.