Dressed to Kill

by Campbell Black

  She put the palm of her hand flat against her forehead. “I have made an appointment to see Burbage—”

  “Burbage? Why?”

  “He is the family lawyer, after all.”

  Elliott shook his head. “I don’t have to ask, do I?”

  “No dear, asking would be utterly superfluous in the circumstances—the answer is obvious.”

  “I don’t even have to ask you to reconsider, do I?”

  She laughed again. “If we’re honest, perfectly and splendidly honest with each other, we would realize that our marriage is dead tissue . . . A skin graft is quite out of the question.”

  For a moment he didn’t know quite what he felt. Maybe there was an iota of relief somewhere inside, but there was also an awareness of failure, disappointment; he hadn’t been able to make the marriage work.

  “Papers will be served at the appropriate time,” she said. She looked at him coldly. “If grounds were needed, I have grounds in bounteous supply.”

  He stared down at the floor, touching the fringe of a rug with his foot.

  “Do you realize the last time we had . . .” She paused, laughing again. “Do you realize the last time we had conjugal relations, my love?”

  “I haven’t kept a calendar,” he answered.

  “Ah. Inside my head there’s this tiny abacus, and I do keep track . . . We are talking about a period of almost nine months, dear. By any standards, it’s a long time. By the most chaste of standards, it’s preposterous. You leave me without alternatives, darling.”

  Darling. How cold she could make the word sound. He watched her face which, in the morning light, was pale and swollen, excess flesh hanging from the cheeks, purple pouches beneath the eyes.

  “Whatever,” she said. “I thought I’d stop by and tell you my decision, so that the papers, when they are served, will not cause you undue trauma.”

  She picked up the photograph of herself again and, with a sudden violent flick of her wrist, smashed it against the side of the desk so that sparks of glass, shattering and spraying the air, fell to the rug.

  “I don’t imagine you’ll be needing it, not now,” she said.

  He stared at the flecks of glass, gleaming in the light as if they were stones once thought to be precious but found, under a jeweler’s eyepiece, to be quite worthless.

  Anne walked to the door.

  There, she turned around, raised her hand in a limp wave, and said, “I can find my own way out. Don’t trouble yourself.”

  He watched the door close. After a moment, he went down on his hands and knees and began to pick up the shards of glass.

  As he was doing so his telephone rang. The sound startled him, causing him to move his hand sharply so that a tiny splinter of glass entered the tip of a finger, embedding itself just beneath the skin. With his other hand he picked up the receiver, half-expecting it to be Bobbi, half-expecting to hear that strange wild voice, but it wasn’t.

  “Dr. Elliott?”

  He recognized the voice as that of a female patient, a certain Evelyn Hunt who lived permanently at the Waldorf Towers and whose main problem in life seemed to concern her relationship with her immense wealth and the guilt involved. She collected photographs of atrocities cut from newspapers and magazines, most of them depicting Cambodian or Vietnamese refugees or corpses napalmed in the hinterlands of Abyssinia. Lately, she’d become concerned about events in Angola.

  “I wonder if you might squeeze me in today at some point,” she was saying.

  “I can try,” Elliott said. He opened his appointments book. “I have thirty minutes between eleven-fifteen and eleven forty-five, Mrs. Hunt.”

  The woman was quiet a moment. “Frankly,” she said. “I’m rather upset. My dog, Patrick, died in the night.”

  “Oh dear—”

  “And only this morning I received word in the mail that the child I was sponsoring in Brazil—Roseanna, you remember?—is suffering from malaria.”

  Elliott sucked at the sliver of glass in his fingertip.

  “I’m sure we can put these things in some perspective,” he said, trying to sound cheerful, trying not to think of Anne’s visit. He reached for a pen and made a note to write a prescription for Tranxene, the glue of Evelyn Hunt’s life.

  “Thank you, Dr. Elliott,” the woman said.

  “No problem, I assure you. See you at eleven-fifteen, Mrs. Hunt.”

  Elliott put the receiver down.

  For a time he didn’t move, thinking again of Anne. Maybe she was right, maybe it was for the best; you shouldn’t waste energy trying to resuscitate a corpse. He closed his eyes. What it came down to was the fact that he had more pressing matters on his mind.

  Still, there was a certain lingering sadness lying like some bloated raincloud at the back of his mind. He sighed, opened his eyes, searched for the piece of paper on which he’d written the address and telephone number of Bobbi’s Dr. Levy. He looked at his watch, realized it was still too early to call the number, then folded the paper neatly and placed it under an onyx paperweight—a gift, he remembered, from Anne, a gift belonging to that time when the pretences of marriage masked the hollowness of content.

  3

  Norma had already gone when Liz woke: She felt puffy from sleep, from the effects of the sleeping pill, her limbs heavy, her mind sluggish. There was a note on the kitchen table, written in Norma’s copperplate handwriting. It read:

  Your couch is uncomfortable & I slept real bad but no bogeyladies came anyways. A man from Cleveland is expecting you at seven thirty on the dot at room 234 of the Parkway Hotel. Your friendly escort person, Norma.

  Shit, Liz thought, wishing she could crumple the paper and stuff it into the garbage disposal. Seven thirty. How could she get herself into the right frame of mind by that time, for Christ’s sake? She set the note up against a milk carton and gazed at it, wondering if she could call Norma for a reprieve . . . What the hell, do you or don’t you need the money? Moving in a somnambulistic manner, she went to the telephone and dialled Max’s number. The secretary put her through almost at once.

  “I was expecting you to call,” Max said.

  “Would you believe I was involved in other things?” Liz said.

  “Where you’re concerned, I’d believe anything,” Max said. There was a click and Max asked, “Can you hold? I got somebody on the other line.”

  “Oh, fuck, Max—why do I have to hold? I mean, I’m first in line, right?”

  Max made a hollow sighing sound. “Yeah. Okay. Listen, you were supposed to bring me approximately a grand, honey.”

  “Like I said, I was detained, Max. Since when did I ever let you down about delivering cash?”

  “True—there’s always a first time.”

  “Not with me, sweetheart.”

  “Well, your AutoTron rose to fifteen sixty eight. So whoever the horse is you’re listening to, he must have to be feeding from the correct bag, kid.”

  Liz opened a drawer and found her small calculator. She tapped the keys a moment. “Can you get me some more, Max?”

  “More?”

  “Yeah, more.”

  Rustle of paper, a telephone ringing, Max sighing again. “How much this time?”

  “Another five yards,” Liz said.

  “You want to be careful of that street talk, you know? I assume five yards means five hundred?”

  “Yeah.” Liz switched her calculator off. “Listen, I’ll get the bread to you today.”

  “Before closing.”

  “Before closing,” she said.

  “Bubbles have this habit of bursting, Liz.”

  “Yeah, but I got a feeling this one is going to float some ways longer. Talk at you later.”

  “Hold on. What happened to you anyhow? I expected you before this.”

  “If I told you, Maxie dear, you wouldn’t believe me anyhow.”

  “Listen, I’m gung ho on fairy tales, hard luck stories, and fables in general—”

  “What I could t
ell you wouldn’t fit any of those categories.”

  “If you say so.”

  “Later, Max.” And she hung up.

  A man from Cleveland at seven thirty. That would just about cover the money she’d need for Max. She thought for a moment, wondering if and when her run of market luck would collapse, then she dialled her bank. She gave her account number and name and asked for her balance. She had more than seven thousand in her checking account and slightly less than fifteen and a half in her savings; she also had ten thousand stashed away in a certificate of deposit at an annual interest rate of 11.7%. She picked up her calculator and tapped at the keys again. Barring accidents—like Marino arresting her for homicide—she could quit the game with about $60,000 in realizable assets, which was sufficient for whatever purpose she would decide upon later.

  She brewed some coffee, checked the time—it was just after midday—and then she sat at the kitchen table, sipping the coffee, smoking a cigarette. Then there was the sound, so abrupt that it startled her, of a knock on the door. She tightened the cord of her robe and went to the front door and put her eye to the peephole. When she saw who it was she opened the door. Marino, wearing a lightweight raincoat, stepped inside.

  “Talk of the devil,” she said.

  “Meaning me?”

  “Meaning you, right. I was just thinking about you—”

  “Nasty thoughts, I hope.”

  “They weren’t the most kind, Lieutenant.” She walked towards the kitchen, the cop following her.

  “I smell fresh coffee,” Marino said.

  “Help yourself.” Liz sat down at the table, stubbed her cigarette, while Marino poured some coffee and then leaned against the refrigerator door, watching her.

  “You must be in a pretty nice racket, Liz,” he said.

  She glanced at him.

  He said, “I mean the rent on this place alone . . .” He whistled. He ran a hand, in a weary way, across his jaw.

  “I work hard,” Liz said.

  “Top dollar, huh?”

  Liz lit another cigarette. She wished she didn’t let this cop get to her the way he did. “Is there some reason for this visit? Social call maybe? Or have you brought your handcuffs?”

  The cop smiled. He touched his moustache, as though it were an irritant. “I told you I’d be keeping tabs, didn’t I?”

  “Yeah. You don’t want to lose your prime suspect, do you?”

  Marino sipped his coffee and made a face, then he sat down at the other end of the table and yawned. “You’re still pretty damn high on my list, lady.”

  “And all you need is a motive, right?”

  “A motive I could dream up in my sleep,” the cop said. “This coffee tastes like crude oil.”

  “Pardon me. I’ll brew some to your liking, sir, if you have the time.”

  “Sarcasm I don’t need.” Marino put his cup down.

  “How many times, for God’s sake, do I need to tell you I didn’t kill the woman? You want it in blood?”

  “Hey,” Marino said. “I came here in friendship. And what do I get? Abuse. Sarcasm. A policeman’s lot is not a happy one, they say.”

  “Friendship?” Liz asked. “Your kind of friendship I don’t go out of my way for. It would make it a helluva lot easier if you’d believe me, you know that?”

  The cop smiled and reached for something on the table. Norma’s note. Liz put out her hand to grab it away, but Marino had a firm grip on it and was leaning back in his chair, reading it, shaking his head.

  “I could interpret this as being highly unlawful, Liz.”

  Liz said nothing.

  “Seven thirty at the Parkway Hotel. A gentleman from Cleveland. I assume you’re not going there for a game of poker . . .”

  “That happens to be private correspondence, Lieutenant.”

  Marino put the piece of paper down against the milk carton. He was still shaking his head. “It has—how would you say?—a dubious ring to it?”

  “Call it what you like. If you want to go on talking to me, Lieutenant, I think I’d like my lawyer present.”

  Marino smiled. “Lawyer? I told you, this is a social call.”

  “By your definition—”

  “Only doing my duty, Liz. Making sure you’re still around. Some people have this weird habit of skipping town when they’ve been asked specifically to remain available, you know that? It’s highly unreasonable, but some folks just vanish.” He paused, stuck his hands in the pockets of his coat, and added, “Anyhow, like I said, you’re still numero uno on my little black list. And unless something positive turns up to the contrary, kid, I might even have to book you.”

  Liz watched him. What the fuck kind of game was he playing anyhow? She had the unsettling feeling that his bluff was something you just didn’t call, and she wanted more than anything else to say, So book me and get it over with. She sipped her coffee and remained silent. Marino drummed his fingers on the table for a moment. Then he said, “I’ve got to tell you, Liz. If something doesn’t break real soon, I’ll have to make a decision concerning your future, which right at this moment doesn’t exactly look too bright. It would be a pity. I like you, in a funny kinda way.”

  It crossed her mind that he might be looking for a freebie, but she dismissed that. He had “family man” stamped all over him, like it was a suit of armor he wore. She watched him yawn again. Then he said, “Anyhow, glad to see you haven’t skipped. Keep your nose clean.”

  “I will.”

  “You better,” he said, rising. He went to the door where he turned around and smiled. “You either use too much coffee or you’re buying a real cheap brand. Try some French Roast next time. Or espresso. You’ll get great results.”

  “Thanks for the hint.”

  “Just one of Marino’s Many Household Tips, Liz. Be good. And beware.”

  She didn’t move. She heard the outer door close.

  Beware.

  What the hell was that supposed to mean?

  She listened to the hollow silence of the apartment for a time, wishing the telephone would ring or the refrigerator motor kick on or a faucet suddenly start to drip—anything to whip the profound quiet that had settled like a web throughout the rooms. She got up and went to the window and looked out. She saw Marino, diminutive from this height, cross the street and get inside a parked car. The car pulled away from the sidewalk.

  In another car, parked some distance away from the one Marino had just entered, a blonde woman sat with her head tilted back against the seat. She watched the street, yawning now and again, covering her mouth with her hands. Once, she glanced at the apartment building entrance; then she looked at herself in the mirror, tilting it towards her for a good view, noticing how glazed her eyes were and how dark the circles under the lower lashes.

  4

  The patient was a young man who had recently attempted to kill himself; he had done so by slashing his underarms with a butcher’s knife—an attempt, Elliott realized, that was some form of revenge against his mother. In strictly Freudian terms, it was classically simple. He had been coming to Elliott now for several weeks, each session producing more and more vehement statements about his mother. Elliott, sitting back in his chair with the tips of his fingers pressed together beneath his chin, had developed the habit of hearing only key phrases, which was what he did now, occasionally nodding his head, making a small gesture, or leaning forward to touch the onyx paperweight. He had moments sometimes when he wanted to say: You think you have problems; would you like to hear some of mine? But he understood that unless he were perceived as being somehow infallible, his worth to his patients was drastically diminished. Now, half-closing his eyes, he heard the young man’s drone. “Wanted a daughter, not a son . . .” My wife just told me she’s divorcing me, Elliott thought. Would you care to hear that? Elliott nodded. “One time, I remember, she put a ribbon in my hair . . . You got to understand, like, I was about six at the time, yeah, six, maybe seven, and she’d let my hair grow in thes
e long fucking curls. I didn’t know if I was a girl or a boy or what . . .” Elliott smiled sympathetically. “The big trauma was like when I went off to school . . . I mean, you can dig what they called me there, huh?” Divorce, Elliott thought. How empty the word sounded. How dreadfully final. He stared at the young man, who was straightening out a paper clip, twisting it this way and that, then trying to roll it flat between his palms. Finally, he gave up and dropped the twisted metal in an ashtray. “They said I was a goddamn sissy, couldn’t do this right, couldn’t do that, and because of this fucking woman who wouldn’t let me be what I wanted to be, which was male, which was the goddamn sex I was born with . . .”

  “When did your father die?” Elliott asked.

  “Before I was born,” the young man said. He was sweating heavily his forehead glistening.

  “What did your mother tell you about your father?”

  “You want it verbatim?”

  Elliott nodded.

  “She said he was a prick. Couldn’t keep from screwing anything that moved. Said she had to make sure I didn’t grow up like him.”

  “But you feel certain about your sex now, don’t you?” Elliott asked.

  The young man shrugged. “Sometimes, I don’t know. I get this horrible thought, though. I’m not going to feel right until she’s dead.”

  “Do you want to kill her?”

  “It’s crossed my mind. But I wouldn’t.”

  Elliott leaned forward. “In trying to kill yourself, would you say you were really trying to kill your mother?”

  “Uh—it’s possible.”

  “You didn’t really want to destroy yourself, did you?”

  The young man looked blank.

  Elliott said, “You wanted to kill her. In the emotional sense anyhow. If you’d succeeded, she’d have been filled with remorse, am I right?” He thought of Anne, wondered if Anne had such a suicidal tendency, wondered if she were capable of killing herself so that he would feel like the murderer.

  “Yeah, maybe. I wanted to hurt her, real bad.”

  Elliott was silent. He stared past the young man at the framed pictures on the walls. In the direct sunlight of the early afternoon one could only see the glass shining, not the prints beneath.