by Alex Dolan
But Leland turned and walked through the bathroom door.
A few seconds later, the shower ran.
“I hope you don’t mind,” he called through the open door. “I have to get clean. You have no idea what it takes to stink like you’re dying.” His voice sounded like it came through a soup can. “I figured you’d have been around death enough to smell it on people. That means I haven’t showered for a week. I’ll be honest, that was tough. You ever been that long without a shower?”
Now that he was out of the room, I fished around the sheets, in case I could find a stray object under the covers narrow enough to stand in for a paper clip. Nothing. The entire house had been staged, and since no one really lived there, no one would have carelessly discarded items during day-to-day routines. Leland had only packed in enough props to make the place believable. I’d knocked a pill bottle off the nightstand. It was close enough that I could snare it with a boot, but when I twisted off the lid, the bottle spilled out breath mints.
He repeated himself. “Kali, have you ever been that long without a shower?” Presumably, he was checking to make sure I hadn’t popped out of my cuffs.
“Yes,” I spat. I felt between the mattresses for a trace of something, maybe a safety pin. Nothing.
“You know what the secret is to smelling like death?” He paused for effect. “FlyNap! You ever heard of it?”
This time I didn’t wait for him to ask again. Maybe if I kept our banter going, we’d keep things congenial. “Fuck no.” Maybe not that congenial.
He rinsed out his mouth in the shower cascade and coughed the backwash into the tub. Revolting. When someone is repulsed by the sound of body noises like eating, there’s a name for that. Misophonia. Mine flared up listening to the swish of his saliva while he hawked up the shower water.
Soon enough the pipes whined and the water stopped. The curtain ripped back. Leland appeared in the doorway, dripping with a terrycloth towel wrapped around his waist. “FlyNap!” He sounded like a kid excited by something he learned in class. “It’s an anesthetic they use to put drosophila to sleep—fruit flies.”
I positioned myself back on the bed so I could kick easily. “I know what drosophilas are.”
“Of course you do,” he said dismissively. “I guess geneticists use the stuff to put flies to sleep, so they can count out which ones have red eyes, or some nonsense like that. It has the same compounds you find in rotting meat. So after a week of not showering, the added element you’re smelling is a few drops of…”
“FlyNap. I get it.”
“You know what you get? A perfect death cologne. I was worried you couldn’t be fooled, but I’m very happy you were.” He disappeared from the doorway. “You have no idea how bad it was. I mean, you only had to be around that smell for a couple hours tops. I had to live with it for weeks. A few days ago, I had to run a menthol stick under my nose just to get some relief.”
The master of the quick change came out in charcoal slacks and a T-shirt. Over the tee he buttoned up a blue Oxford, like he was getting ready for a business meeting. “You ever heard of Richard Angelo?”
“Is that the inventor of FlyNap?”
He scoured my face for signs of sarcasm. “He was a nurse. I’m sorry, let me restate that. He was a murderer. He killed ten patients using pancuronium bromide, a muscle relaxant.”
“Never heard of him.”
“How about Efren Saldivar? Called him ‘The Angel of Death.’ Respiratory therapist, probably killed more than a hundred patients. Drug of choice? Pancuronium.”
“I don’t know who those people are. And I’m not one of them.”
“Pancuronium’s a funny drug. They use it in executions. You probably know that.”
I did. It was one of three drugs. Sodium thiopental to induce coma. Pancuronium bromide to shut down respiratory systems. An optional third would be potassium chloride to stop the heart. But what he didn’t say was that they used the same cocktail without the potassium chloride in the Netherlands, where they had done the greatest work around euthanasia to date.
“Nine other people in Northern California dead with ‘DNR’ cards on them. Pancuronium in the blood.” He snatched the syringe from the floor and flicked the barrel. “And I bet you I’d find it in here too.” He studied me, maybe waiting for a change in my mood, an “I gotta come clean” moment.
My mood did change. I grew more afraid of him because the danger he represented was turning from a physical threat to something much worse. My diaphragm trembled as I forgot how to breathe.
“That’s why this is happening to you.”
He grabbed my satchel off the floor. Seated in the chair by the bed—now dragged outside my kicking radius—Leland dumped out its contents. “Let’s see what we have.”
A different kind of panic crept into me. This guy might really be a policeman. If he was telling the truth, he was going to arrest me. We’d mentioned Miranda—maybe he had already arrested me. I thought about having all my dark secrets exposed for my shame and others’ judgment. All the infinite possibilities of my life whittled down to captivity. Beyond butterflies now, I really thought I might puke. This man had tricked me; and above everything else, I felt indignant that all of this had come about because I’d been the rube in an elaborate prank.
I talked so I wouldn’t hurl. “You’re not even sick, are you?”
Leland picked through my purse litter without looking up. “’Fraid not.”
“You look sick.”
“Just skinny. Always was.”
“You should get yourself checked. I’ve seen a lot of sick people, and you look sick.”
“In the pink. Just had my annual physical. I have a quick metabolism.” He found my backup syringe and squinted into the empty barrel.
“You had medical records. X-rays.”
“Borrowed from a hospital.”
I remembered the phantom phone physician. “Dr. Thibeault. Who’s she?”
“My partner.” He unscrewed my eyeliner and sniffed the brush.
“Where is she now?”
Maybe he would have answered, but he jubilated in something he snatched off the floor. “Yahtzee!” He held up my driver’s license, eyeballing the photo and comparing it to the purple-wigged gal on the bed. Crap. I felt my wig. In the scuffle it had been pulled off kilter, and some of my own plain caramel-colored hair showed through.
Leland’s joy didn’t linger. Not when he read the name on the license. “Martha Stewart.”
This should go without saying, but the license was phony. I sassed, “I have to explain it a lot, but it’s what my parents wanted.”
Sunlight glinted off the lamination as he scanned for the golden seal of California. “You actually get by with this?”
“I rented a car with it.”
“People are morons.” Now he rolled my lipstick between his fingers, uncapped it and twisted the charcoal tip out of the tube. “You’re smart, I’ll give you that. Fake license. Rental car.”
On this point, I felt victorious. Anything with my real name on it was back in my apartment. “Sorry to disappoint.”
Examining my ID again, he mused at my photo. “You have a great smile. When you do smile, that is.”
I didn’t want this man judging my appearance, for better or worse. Plus, he was patronizing me. I looked goofy and toothy in that photo, surprised at my own happiness as if the prom king had just asked me onto the dance floor. I have pale and pinkish skin, but I’d been out in some sun back then. The sun brought out my nose freckles, and my teeth stood out like marshmallows in cocoa.
He found cash in my purse, and not just what he tried to give me as a donation. “You just carry cash? No credit cards? What happens if you run out of gas?”
“I plan ahead.” More than he knew. In addition to the purse money, I toted a hundred-dollar fold in my underwear.
“Kali, Kali, Kali.” He said my name like it was a dessert he was about to gorge. “Why don’t you tell me who you are?
”
I tried to confirm for myself that he was a police detective. “Where is your partner?”
“Somewhere busting some other jackass,” he said halfheartedly. “You’re not going to give me your name?”
“What do you think?”
“Worth asking, though.” He rustled a packet of travel tissues decorated with illustrations of She-Hulk. To himself, he noted, “Cartoon superheroes. Interesting.” Then to me: “We’re going to be at this a while, huh?”
“Looks like it.”
Leland poked through the items on the floor with a pen and found my car keys. He dangled them in front of his nose as if trying to spy a wasp in amber. “Now we’re getting somewhere. Don’t go anywhere.”
He bounded off the chair and walked out the front door, leaving me alone. The door gaped.
As soon as he was out of sight, I was back at my handcuffs like I was buried alive and tunneling my way out. I rolled out of bed as far as the chain would allow and fished under the pillows and sheets to find something that could pick a lock. Nothing bigger than a sandy breadcrumb ran between my fingers.
A moment later, my rental car honked as he tested the locks. Hopefully he’d comb through it a while. Nothing of mine was in there.
I thought about screaming for help, but the first person on the scene would be Leland Mumm. If I made enough noise, maybe a distant neighbor would phone in a disturbance. That just meant more cops would show up. I remembered that Leland never showed me a badge. If he wasn’t a detective, then I’d be inviting law enforcement into a situation, putting myself in serious legal jeopardy. Then again, if Leland wasn’t with the police, he might do much worse if no one came. I told myself that if he wanted to rape or kill me, he might have gotten started by now—but I wasn’t sure.
My fingers poked something sharp and thin by a leg of the bed frame. A toothpick? A paper clip? Whatever it was, it was a prize. I snatched it. It was the green plastic book clip he’d used for The Peaceful End. I pinched it delicately, and then snapped off the delicate loop around the outside. The fragment gave me a piece of curved plastic that fit into the keyhole. I worked the green plastic shard around the hole, but popping the lock was harder than when I’d practiced. My hands quivered. Leland would return any moment. Every few seconds, I snapped my head over my shoulder to check the front door.
While my right hand maneuvered the plastic, my left hand shivered in the manacle, raw and slowly swelling. The lock shivered with it. Time after time, the plastic slipped around the keyway.
“Now we’re getting somewhere.” Leland spoke two seconds before he came back through the door, allowing me to palm the plastic and pounce back on the mattress, as if I’d lounged the whole time he was raccooning through my car. “I saw the remnants of that tarantula on the walk. You really don’t like spiders, do you?” I said nothing. There were plenty of those crawlies around there, and just to fuck with me he might pluck another from his lawn and let it scrabble around under the sheets. “I get it. They’re creepy. Good to know, though.” He tapped his temple. “I’ll file that little factoid away in the safe deposit.”
Leland slid a waiter’s mini spiral notebook out of his pocket and scribbled. “You removed the plates. Very smart.” I rented the most generic car I could; in this case, a silver hatchback. Replaced the plates with a generic dealership placard, so it looked like I’d just bought the thing. “Not as smart as you could be, though. Know what you missed? The VIN.” The triumphant bastard sang to me: “The…fucking…VIN.”
I didn’t own a car. Hence, I didn’t know what a vin was. The Vincent? Leland noticed. “VIN. Vehicle identification number. Right in your glove compartment.” The VIN. The fucking VIN. “You know who they tracked down using the VIN?” No guesses from me. “Timothy McVeigh.”
The way my left hand stretched over my forehead, I might have been swooning on a fainting sofa. This provided just enough of a blind spot for me to work the lock with my right hand. Clumsy so far, I kept missing the keyhole. My fingers started cramping.
Leland opened a cabinet and produced a laptop. When he sauntered back to the chair, he ignored me while he unfolded it and clacked at the keyboard. I fidgeted with my lock. We could have been miserably married for all the attention we paid one another.
“Eureka,” he said dryly to himself. “Got the rental agency.” Detective or not, he had access to some kind of restricted information.
The plastic pin snapped. Leland lifted his head and combed over me with his eyes, trying to identify the source of the sound. Blood flushed my face, and my chest rose and fell. After the scan, Leland looked back down at his screen, and I felt between my fingers. Half my plastic needle had dropped behind my pillow, and I choked up on the remaining splinter and found the keyhole again.
Leland typed a number on his cell phone and raised a polite “one sec” index finger. To someone on the other end, he said, “Got something.” He read the name and address of the rental agency. “Used a fake name. Draw a five-mile radius around the rental place and check for gyms. She has muscles.” He studied my shoulders and legs from across the room. Coming from my captor, the comments about my body again made me uneasy. “Trains with weights. She looks broke, so start with cheapo gyms and mom-and-pop joints. I’ll send you a headshot.” He hung up, and then angled his camera phone over me. “Cheese.” Flash. My scowl shot out into the ether.
As he messaged my photo, I felt something magical at my fingertips.
The point of my plastic pick found its pressure point. The cuff unclasped from around my wrist.
Open a rabbit cage and the bunny won’t rocket out. Similarly, I stalled to consider my options. Leland still had my car keys. Sprinting to my car wouldn’t get me anywhere. If I ran for it, I’d tumble down the grade in clunky heels. The neighbors, if I reached them, might not be home. If they were, they might believe him over the raggedy tower in the white and purple cocktail dress. They might even call the police, and I’d be back to square one.
Another option would be to physically subdue Leland Mumm and take my keys back. He was strong, but I hadn’t gotten the chance to properly fight him.
Right after Christmas last year, the firehouse got a call on Jerrold Avenue in Hunter’s Point. Gunshot through the thigh. A massive 300-pounder had just got out of prison and didn’t want to go back. Wrestling him down to the stretcher was Herculean, even with a partner. He thrashed around, and between the latex gloves and the blood, our hands were slippery. That guy was like a wet bar of soap, and strong. But when he bashed me in the forehead, I caved in his nose with an elbow and he went limp. If I could immobilize that monster, I could handle the bean pole.
Leland passed on instructions through the phone with his back to me in the bathroom doorway. When I stood, my legs creaked from lying down for so long. I stretched out my fingers to test their strength and rotated my swollen wrist. Stalking toward him, I stayed quiet as a ghost, even in the boots. I snatched a syringe off the floor. Not the winged infusion set I was going to use, but the backup hypodermic, dart-shaped with a two-inch cannula. Extending the plunger with a thumb, I siphoned air into the barrel. I had no idea if an air bubble would actually kill him. The air bubble heart attack was a kind of urban legend, and I’d never tested it. I didn’t like the idea of having to stab someone, much less kill him, but I would today. Kali might have come there to dispatch Leland Mumm, but I shouldn’t have to explain that this kind of death was a different breed of chinchilla.
I skulked toward the bathroom door, lifting my feet lightly and rolling my soles on the ground. My ribs shook from my heart throbbing. I should have just run for it, but I needed to destroy this man if I wanted to escape. He wasn’t ready for me, lollygagging in that doorway on his cell. And as I approached him, I fumed with anger. My face felt hot. I wanted to hurt him.
Leland thanked the person on the other end and disconnected. After a few seconds of heavy silence, he spun, noticing the silence in the room. We stood face-to-face.
“Son of a bitch!”
I lunged with the syringe, but not fast enough. That wiry prick had some fast-twitch muscles, and he dodged me. Maybe I was too hesitant and didn’t thrust deep enough to be lethal. Still, I got him the second time. The tip punctured his stomach, but only far enough to break skin, just to the side of the scar he’d told me came from his Arctic knife wound. Someone had taught Leland what to do during a knife attack. Moving with a fluidity that came from trained repetition, he clawed my forearm and twisted me counterclockwise. The hypodermic rattled on the floor. Twist an arm the right way, and the attacker can be on his knees in seconds. A potential game ender. But someone had taught me this move and how to defend against it. I jabbed my free thumb into his neck, and we broke apart, stumbling farther into the bathroom. He tried to say something, but only gargled.
Elbows are a girl’s best friend, because the whole body goes into every blow. When Leland covered his throat, his face opened up as a target, and my elbow caught him on the cheek. He reeled back into the shower, cracked the tiles and smeared a little blood on the ceramic. I landed a couple more heavy elbows to his head. When he tried to prop himself up on the tiles, he lost his footing. Backing into the shower stall, his leather sole slipped on the porcelain and Leland collapsed, knees over the tub rim, feet in the air.
I dropped to my knees and used my fists. When Leland threw up his forearms to protect his ears, I got inside and belted his solar plexus. He wheezed, but I didn’t debilitate him. An hour ago this guy’s body seemed like it could snap like a biscuit, but now his arms rigidly braced over his face. I always knew I was winning in a scrap when my opponent’s arms started to get lazy. This guy was a rock. I pounded harder because I could feel how his muscles coiled. Like Ali against the ropes when Foreman was laying into him, he took the punishment and waited for his chance to spring back when I stopped. A disorienting high surged through me, and I stopped thinking about where to place my punches and started whaling on him. Trying to get to his face, most of my punches landed on his arms.
