EQMM, March-April 2010

by Dell Magazine Authors

  The man . . . It must be the last of the hormones from last night that make me go into a dressing room, tear off all my clothes, and slip naked into the coat, wrap my clothes in my old jacket.

  While I'm standing in line waiting my turn at the cash register, I'm imagining what tonight will be like, hesitating just a little as I wonder whether we even made a date. And then I think: Is he even the kind of guy you go to meet wearing nothing under your coat?

  You ready? asks the saleswoman with the shiny eye makeup, and that's when I notice it's my turn.

  I'll wear it home, I say.

  * * * *

  3:26 p.m.

  The saleswoman's cash drawer closes with a final click and she turns to the next customer.

  The two remaining banknotes are burning in my hand and I want to get rid of them but first I have to take off the coat, so I run to the dressing room and pull it off, so fast that it nearly catches on the buckle of one of my boots. Careful, I think to myself, if I damage it I can't return it and then I won't get the banknote back and then I can't return that, and that's unthinkable, I'd have to return a different banknote, one from the cash machine or one I'd borrow—Sonja would lend me money, she does that a lot—but no, it's got to be the same banknote, it's really important for it to be exactly the same one; if it were a different one his gray eyes would see right away that I had used the money just like he used me. Vivian, his eyes would say, even if you return the money, you used it in the meantime, so we're even, it was the interest rate for one day, that's how little you cost, Viv, was three hundred too much for last night, for all the dirty stuff?

  I wouldn't be free if it weren't the same banknote. Can you ever be free again when you've been a whore without knowing it, or does something like that enslave a person forever?

  Calm down, take a deep breath. I'll get that banknote back. By force, if I have to. I can make that bitch give it back to me, maybe I'll just strike her dead.

  Take another deep breath. Maybe it's just a misunderstanding. I should call him right away. Luckily, I have his business card in my wallet, and when I pull it out, I can even remember how I got it: When he went to pee, I searched his jacket pockets, I wanted to see whether anything in them would give him away, a hot tip that this dream man was already taken or an asshole, or maybe both. I don't know what I thought I'd find, I felt like I was in a movie, so I behaved like I was; I wouldn't have been surprised to find a gun or secret documents, but all I found was a stack of business cards that confirmed everything he'd said, with a logo of a tiny house on it, I put one in my wallet and then he came back and we went on cuddling and drinking.

  * * * *

  4:22 p.m.

  I got my old clothes out of the bag and put them on again.

  By the time I get home, I'm exhausted. I got the banknote back. And after I returned the coat, I went back in the shop and just took it. The alarm applauded me as I ran out of there, my hair flying. I'll never ever take it off, it's pretty much priceless, it cost a third of last night.

  It's weird calling him at work. I'm nervous and start to stutter when the cool voice on the other end of the line asks who I want to talk to.

  I'm sorry, says the voice, he's in a meeting.

  Tell him it's important, I say, it's Vivian from last night. I hear her walking in high heels, why doesn't she put me on hold so I can listen to rinky-dink Mozart or whatever elevator music they've got, does she want me to hear her high heels? Click clack, click clack, I can imagine the rest, she'll be the secretary I had in my mind when I was thinking about the kind of men who screw their secretaries, a Hitchcock blond; in the twenty-first century, women like that wear glasses with pink or turquoise frames, glasses that say: Guess what, I'm the secretary here, I've got a good job, not like you. I hate her through the telephone, hate her with a passion that makes me forget I'm on the phone until I hear Hello? Hello? and realize she's talking to me. He says to look in your handbag, she says, what you find there ought to take care of everything.

  That was it, then.

  I hang up and go into the bathroom, turn on the water, and sink down onto the rim of the bathtub. My legs are trembling.

  My underwear from yesterday is lying crumpled in the corner, damp and with a faint aroma of love nights and alcohol; words float up out of the pile and echo in my ear, the words that came out effortlessly last night, as if someone else were speaking, the memory makes heat flare up in me and I think of the three banknotes I have to get rid of, for the words if for nothing else, under no circumstances should those words have been paid for, words like that should only be spoken freely, they have to be a gift, just like the kisses, otherwise they make a whore of you.

  I go into the kitchen, take the Wasabi knife out of the drawer, and stick it in the pocket of my coat. There's a horrible noise as the sharp blade slices through the wool from the sheer weight of the metal. I wrap a kitchen towel around the knife.

  Then I put it in my pocket and leave.

  * * * *

  6:13 p.m.

  He's sitting at a big glass desk, the telephone in his hand. Behind his back, all the lights in the city are illuminating the dark, and as if the wall of windows wasn't ostentatious enough, he's got a big vase with white calla lilies next to his computer screen, probably the work of that very committed secretary of his. When I see you I'm going to kiss you, he says into the receiver of the phone, and then laughs. Then he sees me and stands up, and surprise spreads across his face like the blood across the grey stone of the floor, one minute later.

  * * * *

  This is great, he says, and tries to hug me, but I turn my face away, although—a quickie here in the office, why not? Here, in front of this huge window, everyone would be able to see us, the whole city could watch, but do even you have the money for that, big guy, a tycoon like you? Do you have that kind of money? Because it'll cost you 300 euros per voyeur, and that's at least 300,000 people, oh, nobody'll want to miss it, I say, let's go for thirty million.

  I pull my arm way back and take a practice swing, knocking the vase off the desk; water and shards of glass spray all over us.

  His eyes open wide in surprise and he shouts my name, his hands shoot out and clamp down hard on my upper arms, so I pull my head way back and then head-butt him in the face as hard as I can, the pain takes my breath away for a minute, but I can still hear the crack as the bridge of his nose breaks. It sounds good.

  Before he can say anything or I can change my mind, I pull the Wasabi knife from my coat pocket and cut his throat. Normally I use that knife for fish, I got it from an ex-boyfriend, I used to make sushi with him, I would have made sushi for you, too, if you'd wanted me to, but now I'm making sushi of you, ha ha ha. No, for sushi you're not good enough, you probably taste disgusting, let me think, how did you taste last night? I don't know anymore; it must not have been that great.

  I sit down on the floor, catch the body as it drops downward, and pull it onto my lap, I stroke his face and watch as he dies.

  The gray eyes roll back in his head and his mouth opens to say something, but the only noise is a gurgling sound like a stopped-up drain and a little blood sprays at me.

  When the broad, blood-soaked shirtfront stops rising and falling, the eyes are still turned toward me. There's a mute question in them, a question that makes me wild with fury, why does he look so confused, he didn't understand anything, he has no idea what the three hundred euros mean to me. Those last words he couldn't say, what were they, was he trying to say that he never meant to treat me like a whore, or was he about to offer me more, maybe the sales tax?

  I pull his clothes off. It's harder than I thought it would be, I have to push the little buttons of his shirt through their tiny buttonholes and my hands are trembling so much, we're both covered in blood, but finally he's lying naked and exposed on the stone floor, the three banknotes between his slack lips.

  What would I have paid for a night with this body, I ask myself as I walk slowly around him; he was better-lo
oking in my memory.

  I'm still standing there looking at him when the police arrive, that's what you get with a glass-fronted office: Every peeping tom can see what you're up to.

  It'd be great if the games master up there, you know, the one who keeps track and makes sure everything adds up right, if he'd give me some good advice. Maybe: Go to jail.

  Go directly to jail.

  Do not pass “Go."

  Do not collect 4,000 euros.

  Above all, do not go home and listen to your answering machine.

  Because what if you find two messages on it:

  Sonja. Hi Viv, Happy Birthday! Hey, I wished you a happy birthday last night, in case you remember, as drunk as you were. You're probably already on the road with that new guy of yours. I hope your weekend's a lot of fun. And you don't need to pay me back until the end of next month. See you! Oh, and the next time you want to borrow money from me, do me a favor and don't wake me up in the middle of the night, okay?

  His voice. Hi, I couldn't wake you up this morning, you were still dead to the world. My assistant said you called. I put my cell phone number in your purse, didn't you find it? (rustle, pause) Anyway, I'm done here now, so I hope you turn up soon, just like we planned (ringing noise in the background and the beep of an intercom). Bye. When I see you I'm going to kiss you.

  And supposing I reach into my handbag and find a slip of paper: Hi Vivian. Here's my cell phone number, the private one. I've got meetings all day, but every time I take a break I'll look for a text message from you.

  That would really be bad.

  Copyright © 2010 Judith Merchant; translation © 2010 by Mary W. Tannert

  [Back to Table of Contents]

  Poetry: FEMME FATALE by E.Shaun Russell

  * * * *

  * * * *

  Her footfalls glide against the hardwood floor—

  Such tenderness amidst each graceful stride;

  With sensual simplicity her guide,

  She makes her way towards the open door

  And delicately pauses to explore

  The threshold of the lonely world outside.

  She takes a breath and looks from side to side

  Before she disappears forevermore.

  Her mission was the customary case:

  To introduce herself, then infiltrate—

  Seduce him, gain his trust and boost morale,

  Then murder and depart without a trace,

  A surreptitious instrument of fate:

  The savage duty of a femme fatale.

  —E.Shaun Russell

  Copyright © 2010 E.Shaun Russell

  [Back to Table of Contents]

  Fiction: THE GIRL IN THE GOLDEN GOWN by Robert S. Levinson

  Before turning to mystery writing Robert S. Levinson was first a news-paperman and then in the PR bus-iness. He pioneered independent PR support services in the music industry, and he often turns to the music bus-iness for material for his fiction. His 2008 novel In the Key of Death was said by Kirkus to be “stuffed with action, violence, sex, music-business savvy...” His latest novel (2010) is entitled The Traitor in Us All.

  "I'm told you find missing persons."

  I shrug and say, “I'm in-volved, they're not missing, only temporarily misplaced."

  He sends a confused look across the clean surface of his Texas-sized mahogany desk, then realizes what I said was a gag and laughs politely.

  "I get you,” he says.

  "You will if the price is right."

  He gets the gag faster this time and asks how much.

  I quote my usual high five figures.

  Without hesitation, he pushes back in his executive chair, opens the pencil drawer, and pulls out a leather-bound checkbook, followed by a Mont Blanc pen from the billfold pocket of his Armani jacket. “My personal check okay?"

  "Half will do it for now, Mr. Cutler."

  "To show you how much confidence I have in you and your reputation, I'm giving it all to you up front."

  "You understand there'll be out-of-pocket on the back end. I'm in for a lot of travel anytime I'm talking missing persons, plus gas costing what people once paid for diamonds. Motels thinking they're the Taj Mahal. At the greasiest of the greasy spoons, it's a sawbuck minimum before the tip. My reports include receipts and—"

  He stops me with a hand signal.

  "Not necessary,” he says. “You come highly recommended; by a mutual friend who swears that, of all the private investigators he's ever used, you're the only one who always finds the needle in the haystack."

  He shares the name, a high-powered Beverly Hills attorney.

  I uncork a smile. “One of my friends without much originality."

  "What's that mean?"

  "You get that opinion from a lot of my friends,” I tell him. It's not exactly the truth and nothing but, but the truth might turn him nervous, wondering if I come with a money-back guarantee. Fat chance. Not with my gambling jones and the deadline I've been facing on a marker held by a professional knee-breaker, born when my aces over nines fell to his four ladies. “So, Mr. Cutler—Tell me who—what—this is about."

  "I'll show you,” Cutler says, using the desk to push up from his chair. He's a good six-six, with maybe three hundred pounds buried inside his three-thousand-dollar suit. A wreath of silver-gray hair surrounds a bald dome and runs down past his collar in erratic strands, giving him the appearance of a poet in disguise while adding a good ten years to what I'm guessing his age to be, somewhere around fifty.

  Unsteady on his feet, he pads cautiously across the oak-paneled office, past neatly arranged rows of diplomas, certificates, and photos to an oil painting on solitary display on the wall opposite his desk. The painting is relatively small in size, maybe thirty by thirty inches, encased in a simple wooden frame and bathed by an overhead spotlight that makes it the center of attention.

  It's the portrait of a beautiful girl, eighteen or twenty years of age, standing regally erect, wearing an exquisite ball gown the same shade of spun gold as the shoulder-length tresses framing a porcelain doll face the color of freshly drawn cream; her hypnotic ocean blue-green eyes and marshmallow lips forming an expression that hints at secrets she has no intention of ever sharing.

  It reminds me of pictures I saw at the county museum by this painter Degas, who spread the bright colors around on ballet dancers looking like they could tippytoe off the canvas. Not as true-to-life as Norman Rockwell did his paintings, but close enough to win my nod of approval.

  Cutler winces when I tell him this, like he's been stung by a bee, or maybe because I follow up by asking, “Your daughter here, she the one's missing?"

  "Missing, but not my daughter."

  "Who then?” I say, joining him. Up close the girl is even more beautiful. She makes the oil paint smell like sweet perfume.

  "I don't know her name. We never met."

  "She's not your kid, you never met, you don't know her name, but you're shelling out all this bread for me to find her. . . . What don't I know that I should know, Mr. Cutler?"

  "I love her,” he says, staring at the portrait, his hand three or four inches away from the canvas, tracing the outline of the girl's face. “And that already is more than you have to know."

  "I go for older women myself,” I say, concerned about what this geezer might have in mind for the kid after I find her and deliver her to him.

  He catches my drift.

  He whips around and leans into my face, fists clenched, blue veins growing at his temples, spittle raining on me, demanding, “Don't you dare insult me with your innuendo.” He throws a finger at the lower right corner of the painting, where the artist has signed and dated the work.

  I can do the math without counting on my fingers.

  The painting was made twenty-five years ago, meaning the girl in the golden gown was now almost the same age as Cutler.

  He says, “You find her, I mean to marry her if she'll have me."

  "And if she can't or she wo
n't?"

  Tears well in his eyes; the only answer he has for me.

  "In that case—” I offer him back his check and begin wondering how much longer I'll have healthy kneecaps.

  He waves off the gesture, asking, “Have you ever been in love? Really in love?"

  "More than both of my ex-wives, and that's saying a lot, Mr. Cutler."

  "Then you might understand me when I say love is a word for an emotion beyond definition and often beyond redemption. Falling in love, who's to say when it will happen? When it happens, it happens. Who it happens with? Another conundrum, wouldn't you agree?"

  The way he's chewing his words, it takes a second for me to realize he had not said condom. “For me it happened both times working cases, Mr. Cutler. I'm a Grade-A sucker for damsels in distress. You?"

  His mind retreats to the past. “A month ago, I'm in New York on business and take a few hours off to check out what's happened to SoHo. You know SoHo?"

  "Not personally."

  "Down between Houston and Canal and Sixth Avenue and Broadway. Used to be the center of the art gallery scene before it moved to Chelsea, between Sixth and Tenth Avenue, from Fourteenth to Thirty-Fourth."

  "Of course,” I agree, like I know the layout of the city beyond the Statue of Liberty, the Empire State Building, Times Square, and One Police Plaza.

  "I'm exploring the changes since my last trip East a year ago and wander over to an antiques store tucked between a God-awful trendy clothing store and an overpriced bistro. The painting is hanging in the window for all the world to admire. One look and my heart crashes through the plate-glass window to embrace the girl. I am mesmerized by the sight of her. When I see the date on the painting and understand she is my age, I know that fate has intervened. I must possess this painting, just as I must possess her. I must find her and make her my bride."