Transgressions

by Ed McBain

  With his other hand he dug out his cell phone, dialed without looking, identified himself.

  “Do you want police, fire, or medical emergency?”

  “Cops. Paramedics. I’ve got a dying man here.”

  He began his sweep of the apartment while he was still on the phone.

  “Please stay on the line, Detective,” the dispatcher said. “Help is on the way.”

  “I may need both hands,” Peter said, and dropped the cell phone back into his pocket.

  He kicked open a door to what appeared to be the architect’s study and workroom. Enough light coming in here to show him at a glance the room was empty.

  “Silkie!”

  The master bed- and sitting room was at the end of the hall. Double doors, one standing open. As he approached along one wall, Glock held high in both hands, he made out the shapes of furnishings because of a bathroom light shining beyond a four-poster bed draped with a gauzelike material.

  Furniture was overturned in the sitting room. A fish tank had been shattered.

  Peter edged around the foot of the Victorian bedstead and had a partial view of a seminude body face down on the tiles. Black girl. There was broken glass from a mirror and a ribbon of blood.

  “Silkie, answer me, what happened here?”

  He was almost to the bathroom door when Silkie stirred, looked around blank-eyed, then tried to push herself up with both hands as she flooded with terror. Blood dripped from a long cut that started below her right eye and ran almost to the jawline.

  “Is she gone?” Silkie gasped.

  Peter read the shock in her widening eyes but was a split second late turning as Taja came off the bed, where she’d been lying amid a pile of pillows he hadn’t paid enough attention to, and slashed at him with her stiletto.

  He turned his wrist just enough so veins weren’t severed but lost his automatic. He backhanded her in the face with his other hand. Taja went down in a sprawl that she corrected almost instantly, cat-quick, and rushed him again with her knife ready to thrust, held close to her side. Her face looked as wooden as a ceremonial mask. She knew her business. He blocked an attempt she made to slash upward near his groin and across the femoral artery. She knew where he was most vulnerable and didn’t try for the chest, where her blade could get hung up on the zipper of his leather jacket, or his throat, which was partially protected by a scarf. And she was in no hurry, she was between him and his only way out. Acrobatic in her moves, she feinted him in the direction she wanted him to go—which was back against the bed and into the mass of sheer drapery hanging there.

  Peter heard Silkie scream but he was too busy to pay attention to her. The bed drapery clung to him like spiderweb as he struggled to free himself and avoid Taja. She slashed away methodically, the material beginning to glow red from his blood.

  His gun fired. Deafening.

  Taja flinched momentarily, then went into a crouch, turning away from Peter, finding Silkie. She was standing just inside the bathroom, Peter’s Glock 9 in both hands.

  “Bitch.” She fired again, range about eight feet. Taja jerked to one side; hesitated a second, glanced at Peter, who had fought his way out of the drapery. Then she sprang to the bedroom doors and vanished.

  Peter slipped a hand inside his jacket where his side stung from a long caress of Taja’s stiletto. A lot of blood on the hand when he looked at it. Holy Jesus. He looked at Silkie, who hadn’t budged from the threshold of the bathroom nor lowered his gun. When he moved toward her she gave him a deeply suspicious look. She was nude to well below her navel. Blood dripped from her chin. She had beautifully modeled features even Echo might have envied. Peter coughed, waited suspensefully, but no blood had come up. He saw that the cut on Silkie’s face could’ve been a lot worse, the flesh laid open. Part of it was just a scratch down across the cheekbone. A little deeper in the soft flesh near her mouth.

  He had to pry his gun from Silkie’s hands. His own hands were so bloody he nearly dropped the Glock. He no longer considered going after Taja. Shock had him by the back of the neck. He heard sirens before a rising teakettle hiss in his ears shut out the sound. His face dripped perspiration, but his skin was turning cold. He had to lean against the jamb, his face a few inches from the tall girl’s breasts. My God but they were something.

  “What’s your name?” he asked Silkie.

  She had the hiccups. “Ma-MacKENzie.”

  “I’m Peter. Peter O’Neill. We’re old friends, Silkie. We dated in New York. I came up here for a visit. Can you remember that?”

  “Y-yes. P-P-PETEr O’Neill. From New York.”

  “And you don’t know who attacked you. Never saw her before. Got that?”

  He looked her in the eye, wondering if they had a chance in hell of selling it. She looked back at him with a slight twitch of her head.

  “Why?”

  “Because Valerie Angelus is dead and you came close and that, that he does not get away with, don’t care how much money. I want John Ransome. Want his ass all to myself until I’m ready to hand him over.”

  “But Taja—”

  “Taja’s just been doing the devil’s work. That’s what I believe now. Help me, Silkie.”

  She touched a finger to her chin, wiped a drop of blood away. The wound had nearly stopped oozing.

  “All right,” she said, beginning to cry. “How bad am I?”

  “Cut’s not deep. You’ll always be beautiful. Listen. Hear that? Medics. On the way up. Now I need to—” He began to slide to the floor at her feet. Shuddering. His tongue getting a little thick in his mouth. “Sit down before I uh pass out. Silkie, put something on. Now listen to me. Way you talk to cops is, keep it simple. Say it the same way every time. ‘We met at a party. He’s only a friend.’ No details. It’s details that trip you up if you’re lying.”

  “You are—a friend,” she said, kneeling, putting an arm around him for a few moments. Then she stood and reached for a robe hanging up behind the bathroom door.

  “We’ll get him, Silkie. You’ll never be hurt again. Promise.” Finding it hard to breathe now. He made himself smile at her. “We’ll get the bastard.”

  ______

  When Echo woke up half the day was gone. So was John Ransome, from her bed.

  She looked for him first in his own room. He’d been there, changed his clothes. She found Ciera in Ransome’s study, straightening up after what appeared to have been a donnybrook. A lamp was broken. Dented metal shade; had Taja hit him with it? Ciera stared at Echo and shook her head worriedly.

  “Do you know where John is?”

  “No,” Ciera said, talkative as ever.

  The day had started clear but very cold; now thick clouds were moving in and the seas looked wild as Echo struggled to keep her balance on the long path to the lighthouse studio.

  The shutters inside the studio were closed. Looking up as she drew closer, Echo couldn’t tell if Ransome was up there.

  She skipped the circular stairs and took the cabinet-size birdcage elevator that rose through a shaft of opaque glass to the studio seventy-five feet above ground level.

  Inside some lights were on. John Ransome was leaning over his worktable, knotting twine on a wrapped canvas. Echo glanced at her portrait that remained unfinished on the large easel. How serene she looked. In contrast to the turmoil she was feeling now.

  He’d heard the elevator. Knew she was there.

  “John.”

  When he looked back he winced at the pain even that slow movement of his head caused him. The goose egg, what she could see of it, was a shocking violet color. She recognized raw anger in conjunction with his pain, although he didn’t seem to be angry at her.

  “Are you all right? Why didn’t you wake me up?”

  “You needed your sleep, Mary Catherine.”

  “What are you doing?” The teakettle on the hot plate had begun to wheeze. She took it off, looking at him, and prepared tea for both of them.

  “Tying up some loose ends,�
� he said. He cut twine with a pair of scissors. Then his hand lashed out as if the stifled anger had found a vent; a tall metal container of brushes was swept off his work table. She couldn’t be sure he’d done it on purpose. His movements were haphazard, they mimicked drunkenness although she saw no evidence in the studio that he’d been drinking.

  “John, why don’t you—I’ve made tea—”

  “No, I have to get this down to the dock, make sure it’s on the late boat.”

  “All right. But there’s time, and I could do that for you.”

  He backed into his stool, sat down uneasily. She put his tea within reach, then stooped to gather up the scattered brushes.

  “Don’t do that!” he said. “Don’t pick up after me.”

  She straightened, a few brushes in hand, and looked at him, lower lip folded between her teeth.

  “I’m afraid,” he said tautly, “that I’ve reached the point of diminished returns. I won’t be painting any more.”

  “We haven’t finished!”

  “And I want you to leave the island. Be on that boat too, Mary Catherine.”

  “Why? What have I—you can’t mean that, John!”

  He glanced at her with an intake hiss of breath that scared her. His eyes looked feverish. “Exactly that. Leave. For your safety.”

  “My—? What has Taja done? Why were you fighting with her last night? Why are you afraid of her?”

  “Done? Why, she’s spent the past few years hunting seven beautiful women after I had finished painting them.”

  “Hunting—?”

  “Then she slashed, burned, maimed—killed, for all I know! And always she returned to me after the hunt, silently gloating. Now she’s out there again, searching for Silkie MacKenzie.”

  “Dear God. Why?”

  “Don’t you understand? To make them pay, for all they’ve meant to me.”

  Echo had the odd feeling that she wasn’t fully awake after all, that she just wanted to sink to the floor, curl up and go back to sleep. She couldn’t look at his face another moment. She went hesitantly to a curved window, opened the shutters there and rested her cheek on insulated safety glass that could withstand hurricane winds. She stared at the brute pounding of the sea below, feeling the force of the waves in the shiver of glass, repeating the surge of her own heartbeats.

  “How long have you known?”

  “More than two years ago I became suspicious of what she might be doing during prolonged absences. I hired the Blackwelder Organization to investigate. What they came up with was horrifying, but still circumstantial.”

  “Did you really want proof?” Echo cried.

  “Of course I did! And last night I finally received it, an e-mail from Australia. Where one of my former models—”

  “Another victim?”

  “Yes,” Ransome said, his head down. “Her name is Aurora Leigh. She’d been in seclusion. But she was in adequate shape emotionally to identify Taja as her attacker from sketches I provided.”

  “Adequate shape emotionally,” Echo repeated numbly. “Why did Taja hit you last night?”

  “I confronted her with what I knew.”

  “Was she trying to kill you?”

  “No. I don’t think so. Just letting me know her business isn’t finished yet.”

  “Oh Jesus and Mary! The police—did you call—”

  “I called my lawyers this morning. They’ll handle it. Taja will be stopped.”

  “But what if Taja’s still here? You’ll need—”

  “Her boat’s gone. She’s not on the island.”

  “There are dozens of islands where she could be hiding!”

  “I can take care of myself.”

  “Oh, sure” Echo said, bouncing the heel of her hand off her forehead as she began to pace.

  “Don’t be frightened. Just go back to New York. If there’s even a remote possibility Taja will be free long enough to return to Kincairn—well then, Taja is, she’s always been, my responsibility.”

  Echo paused, stared, caught her breath, alarmed by something ominous hanging around behind his words. “Why do you say that? You didn’t make her what she is. That must have happened long before you met her, where—?”

  “In Budapest.”

  “Doing what, mugging tourists?”

  “When I first saw Taja,” he said, his voice laboring, “she was drawing with chalk on the paving stones near the Karoly Kert gate. For what little money passersby were willing to throw her way.” He raised his head slowly. “I don’t know how old she was then; I don’t know her age now. As I told you once, terrible things had been done to her. She was barefoot, her hair wild, her dress shabby.” He smiled faintly at Echo. His lips were nearly bloodless. “Yes, I should have walked on by. But I was astounded by her talent. She drew wonderful, suffering, religious faces. They burned with fevers, the hungers of martyrdom. All of the faces washing away each time it rained, or scuffed underfoot by the heedless. But every day she would draw them again. Her knees, her elbows were scabbed. For hours she barely paused to look up from her work. Yet she knew I was there. And after a while it was my face she sought, my approval. Then, late one afternoon when it didn’t rain, I—I followed her. Sensing that she was dangerous. But I’ve never wanted a tame affair. It’s immolation I always seem to be after.”

  His smile showed a slightly crooked eye tooth Echo was more or less enamored with, a sly imperfection.

  “Just how dangerous she was at that time became a matter of no great importance. You see, we may all be dangerous, Mary Catherine, depending on what is done to us.”

  “Oh, was the sex that good?” Echo said harshly, her face flaming.

  “Sometimes sex isn’t the necessary thing, depending on the nature of one’s obsession.”

  Echo began, furiously, to sob. She turned again to the horizon, the darkening sea.

  After a couple of minutes he said, “Mary Catherine—”

  “You know I’m not going! I won’t let you give up painting because of what Taja did! You’re not going to send me away, John, you need me!”

  “It’s not in your power to get me to paint again.”

  “Oh, isn’t it?” She wiped her leaky nose on the sleeve of her fisherman’s sweater; hadn’t done that in quite a few years. Then she pulled off the sweater, gave her head a shake, swirling her abundant hair. Ransome smiled cautiously when she looked at him again, began to stare him down. A look as old, as eternal as the sea below.

  “We have to complete what we’ve started,” Echo said reasonably. She moved closer to him, the better for him to see the fierceness of eye, the high flame of her own obsession. She swept a hand in the direction of her portrait on his easel. “Look, John. And look again! I’m not just a face on a sidewalk. I matter!”

  She seized and kissed him, knowing that the pain in his sore head made it not particularly enjoyable; but that wasn’t her reason just then for doing it.

  “Okay?” she said mildly and took a step back, clasping hands at her waist. The pupil. The teacher. Who was who awaited clarification, perhaps the tumult and desperation of an affair now investing the air they breathed with the power of a blood oath.

  “Oh, Mary Catherine—” he said despairingly.

  “I asked you, is it okay? Do we go on from here? Where? When? What do we do now, John?”

  He sighed, nodded slightly. That hurt too. He put a hand lightly to the bump on his head.

  “You’re a tough, wonderful kid. Your heart . . . is just so different than mine. That’s what makes you valuable to me, Mary Catherine.” He gravely touched her shoulder, tapping it twice, dropped his hand. “And now you’ve been warned.”

  She liked the touch, ignored his warning. “Shall I pick up the rest of those brushes that were spilled?”

  After a long silence Ransome said, “I’ve always found salvation in my work. As you must know. I wonder, could that be why your god sent you to me?”

  “We’ll find out,” Echo said.

 
Peter heard one of the detectives ask, “How close did she come to his liver?”

  A woman, probably the ER doc who had been stitching him up, replied, “Too close to measure.”

  The other detective on the team, who had the flattened Southie nasal tone, said, “Irish luck. Okay if we talk to him now?”

  “He’s awake. The Demerol has him groggy.”

  They came into Peter’s cubicle. The older detective, probably nudging retirement, had a paunch and an archaic crook of nose like an old Roman in marble. The young one, but not that young—close to forty, Peter guessed—had red hair in cheerful disarray and hardass good looks the women probably went for like a guilty pleasure. Cynicism was a fixture in his face, like the indentations from long-ago acne.

  He grinned at Peter. “How you doin’, you lucky baastud?”

  “Okay, I guess.”

  “Frank Tillery, Cambridge PD. This here is my Fathah Superior, Sal Tranca.”

  “Hiya.”

  “Hiya.”

  Peter wasn’t taken in by their show of camaraderie. They didn’t like what they had seen in the architect’s apartment and they didn’t like what they’d heard so far from Silkie. They didn’t like him, either.

  “Find the perp yet?” he said, taking the initiative.

  Sal said, “Hasn’t turned up. Found her blade in a can of paint. Seven inches, thin, what they call a stiletto in the old country.”

  Tillery leaned against a wall with folded arms and a lemon twist of a grin and said, “Pete, you mind tellin’ us why you was trackin’ a homicidal maniac in our town without so much as a courtesy call to us?”

  “I’m not on the job. I was—looking for Silkie MacKenzie. Walked right into the play.”

  “What did you want with MacKenzie? I mean, if I’m not bein’ too subtle here.”

  “Met her—in New York.” His ribs were taped, and it was hard for him to breathe. “Like I told you at the scene, had some time off so I thought I’d look her up.”

  “Apparently she was already shacked up with one guy, owns the apartment,” Sal said. “Airline ticket in your coat pocket tells us you flew in from Houston yesterday morning.”