“Back to that again?” I tried unsuccessfully to sneer at her. “I don’t know, a buck and a quarter maybe.”
She punched me in the arm, less playfully this time.
“Ouch!” I rubbed it. “Okay, I’ll tell you how much more you’re worth. You’re worth the rest of my life. If I thought there was a chance you’d say yes, I’d ask you to marry me.”
Her face went utterly blank. She knew I wasn’t kidding.
“I’d like that,” she whispered, curling her arms and legs about me. “Ask me.”
“But I’m old enough—”
“—to make me happy.”
“What about school?”
“I suddenly don’t care much for Riversborough. Ask me, Dylan.”
“Will you marry me?”
“Yes.”
At that moment I wasn’t thinking of love and the future, children and white picket fences. I was thinking of a movie, The Day The Earth Stood Still. There’s this scene when Michael Rennie and Patricia Neal are trapped alone together in a darkened elevator as all the power in all the world is shut off for half an hour. And in that half hour, as the rest of the planet panics, Rennie and Neal, people literally from two different worlds, bond in a permanent, unspoken way. Even as a kid, before I understood anything about love and relationships, the power of their connection in that dark elevator got to me. I guess it’s funny what you think about.
“Where are you?” Kira caught me drifting.
“Trapped on an elevator.”
I never did get to explain that. Reaching back, she flicked off the lights. Taking a gulp of champagne, she kissed me, urging some of the wine into my mouth. I swallowed it. She kissed me again, softly, peeling back my denim shirt. She ran her tongue down along the hair of my chest. Kira cradled my left nipple between her lips, first sucking gently, then harder and harder still. I cupped the back of her head in my hand and pressed her lips against my chest. Sliding a petite hand along my abdomen, she undid my belt and button. With some persuasion, my pants and briefs fell to the floor.
Kira bit my nipple. She poured herself some more champagne, directly from the bottle this time, and dropped to her knees. She took me into her mouth. I got weak. The mixture of her hot breath and the cold wine against my skin was so overwhelming, my knees buckled. But I held back. I wanted to be inside her, holding her, not standing above her. My impending orgasm, however, would not afford me the leisure of taking it slow and easy. I pulled away and pulled her up, tearing at Kira’s black silk blouse. The buttons ricocheted off the walls and windows like so many BBs. There was no brassiere to tangle with.
Sucking on her breasts, I worked her pants loose. She kicked them free of her legs as I rolled her onto the bed. I kissed her mouth, her painted red lips were dry with the fever of the moment. Her tongue forced its way between my teeth. She reached below my waist and pulled me into her. Her vagina was incredibly wet with excitement, so wet that I felt I could slide my soul inside her. Kira’s back arched up. Her teeth took hold of my bottom lip and I tasted blood as I let go of forty years of aloneness in ten exquisite seconds.
I could see nothing there in the dark other than vague hints and outlines. But I imagined I could see the shadow of her smile. That I imagined it was of no consequence. I knew that I had pleased her and that was suddenly the most important thing to me.
As we lay there, sipping the rest of the champagne, giggling out of unsuspected joy, we heard several fire alarms sound in town and in the hills surrounding Riversborough. We didn’t pay them much mind, but when a small fleet of fire trucks rolled past the inn, we couldn’t help but pause to wonder what the fuss was all about.
“Do you think its the school?” Kira sounded worried.
“I don’t think so. The school’s in the opposite direction from where those sirens were headed. Do you live on or off campus?”
“That’s right,” she said, “you don’t know where my apartment is.”
“Or your phone number.”
“If you ask me to marry you again, I might be persuaded to tell you.”
“You’ve already said yes once, I’m not giving you a chance at second thoughts. I’ve got other means of persuasion.” And with those words, I moved quickly to coat my tongue with the taste of her and to fill my head with the scent of jasmine in the snow.
It was still quite dark out when I stirred. After finishing in the bathroom, I was restless with panic and nervous energy. I turned the TV away from the bed and hit the remote’s power button. I muted the sound and clicked merrily up and down the channels. On one of the local channels I spotted a graphic of a fire truck. I stopped surfing and turned up the sound ever so slightly:
“. . . fifteen volunteer fire companies, some as far away as Blue Sky Lake, joined Riversborough firefighters in their efforts to bring the blaze under control. As of yet, their efforts have met with little success. Now, for a live update, here’s Linda Di Corona at the scene.”
Linda Di Corona’s audio feed wasn’t up and running, but the caption beneath the live picture of her standing in front of a fire truck told me all I needed to know. The ski resort at Cyclone Ridge was burning down. Given the presence of the woman sleeping in my bed, I wasn’t about to question the power of coincidence, but a fire at Cyclone Ridge was just too damned convenient. I shut off the TV. I paced for a few minutes, tried reading, surrendered, at last, to fitful sleep.
I don’t remember what ring it was when I got to the phone, but I was glad to see Kira was undisturbed from the depths of her dreams.
“Klein?” It was MacClough.
“Who were you expecting, Chancellor Bismarck? Christ, MacClough, it’s 2:30 in the morning.”
“He can write books and tell time, too. I know what time it is. I just wanted to tell you that I’ll be back up there in a few hours and we’ve got to move fast.”
“Why’s that?” I was worried. “Did something go sour with Zak?”
“Calm down, Klein. It’s just that I’ve established a definite link between all the parties involved. It seems that Detective Caliparri used to do a little moonlighting as a private investigator for a certain lawyer we both know.”
“Jeffrey!”
“None other. I had a chat with Caliparri’s widow this afternoon. From what I can piece together, your brother didn’t blow off the Valencia Jones case at first blush like everybody seems to think. Back when Zak asked him to take the case, your brother hired Caliparri to have a look. But the case looked like a dog. I mean, she does look guilty as hell and her family tree doesn’t help. So Caliparri must’ve warned Jeffrey off. Then,” MacClough stopped to clear his throat, “a few days ago, Caliparri’s wife says her husband took another trip up to Riversborough. It was right after your nephew disappeared.”
“Shit!”
“We gotta get a look inside those buildings at Cy—”
“Forget it,” I cut him off. “They’re two steps ahead of us.” I began to sing to the tune of “London Bridge”: Cyclone Ridge is burning down, burning down, burning down. Cyclone Ridge is burning down, my dear detective.”
“Fuck!”
“My feelings exactly.”
“You know,” he said, “it means we’re close, real close. Did you say anything to the girl?”
“The girl’s not our problem. That’s the good news. I’ll tell you all about it when I see you. You want me to pick you up at the airport?”
“No, not worth the risk.”
“Listen, John, I know this sounds weird, but I think we should also stop meeting in our rooms. I’m not sure about this, but it could be the desk clerk is our mole.”
“Where then?”
I thought about that. It’s tough to think of a secure meeting place when you don’t know an area all that well.
“Mens room of the Manhattan Court Coffee House. Check there for me every few hours. Coffee’s good, poetry sucks, but you’ll live.”
“Every few hours?” he puzzled. “What are you doin’ tomorrow.”
“Getting a marriage license.” I hung up.
Now I was really wound up. I peered over at Kira. She sort of half smiled at me.
“Is everything all right, Dylan?”
“Sure is,” I lied. I kissed the corner of her eye and stroked her hair until she fell back asleep.
I got up and took a shower to occupy some time. A few minutes later, I heard Kira stirring about in the room. I cursed myself for making too much noise, but I figured there was great potential for fun in making it up to her. As I shaved around my beard, I could no longer hear her and figured she’d gone back to sleep. I laughed at my reflection and vowed to make it up to her anyway.
Stepping from the bathroom, I hesitated. There it was again, that feeling someone uninvited was there in the dark. And this time, I was certain. Exposed by the light spilling out of the bathroom, I caught the faint reflection of a man in the mirror hung above the bureau. He was trying to hide himself in the corner and his body was partially obscured by shadows and the drapery. But I recognized his face: the desk clerk. My eyes shifted to the bed. Empty!
I pushed the panic down as far as I could, trying to think of what I might be able to use as a weapon. I figured I could take the guy in the corner, but I got the sense that he didn’t have the balls to try a stunt like breaking into my room alone. I was right again. To my left, I could hear a muffled voice, Kira’s. I’ll always think she was trying to warn me, but I won’t ever know. She was gagged or there was a hand covering her mouth. The muffled cries ended abruptly.
Acting as if I’d forgotten something, I took a step back into the bathroom and began to close the door. I wasn’t quick enough. The door pushed in on me, knocking me off balance. A strong fist, aimed at my chin, caught me on the point of the shoulder and sent me sprawling on the tile floor. My temple banged into the claw foot of the cast-iron tub. Dazed, I tried standing, but the owner of the strong fist had other ideas.
I caught a glimpse of him just before his left hook introduced itself to my ribs. He was taller than me, about 6’2”, blond, and built like a linebacker. Dressed in a shiny lycra suit that highlighted the cut lines between his muscles, he moved effortlessly. I guessed he was the ski dude MacClough said had followed me from the airport. I remember him smiling at me as his knuckles tried their best to make a tunnel through my thorax. It’s always a pleasure to see a man who enjoys his work.
I dropped an elbow to block his punch, but I only deflected it to the worst possible spot. It hit right under the center of my rib cage in the solar plexus. My body gave up on the notion of standing. The air couldn’t rush out of my lungs fast enough and once out, I couldn’t get any back in. I rolled on the tiles trying to force myself to breathe. Somehow, I managed to do that, but I can’t tell you how.
Ski dude stopped me from writhing by grabbing me by the throat. That got my attention. At that point, I was pretty well prepared to die. I don’t know what made me do what I did next—maybe it was the Brooklyn in me—but I smiled back at him and tried spitting in his face. He didn’t like that too well.
Then, seeing I was not much of a threat, the desk clerk stepped into the bathroom. I recall him shaking his head at me and saying: “What an asshole. Okay, it’s time for Mr. Sandman.”
And it was, too. Lights went out all over the world, just like in The Day the Earth Stood Still.
You know you’re fucked when it’s hard to tell which part of your body you’d like to have amputated first. I voted for the guillotine; kill the head and the body dies. Why bother doing it piecemeal? When I lifted myself off the tile, the lifting didn’t last long. The earth was spinning again. I made it to the sink and buried my head in a basin full of cold water. I can’t say that it felt good. I’d say it made things feel less horrible. When I picked my head out of the sink, I saw that the water had turned pinkish. One peek in mirror showed me why. My face was covered in jagged scratches, most not very deep, but some had drawn blood.
Seeing those scratches got me very scared for myself, but mostly for Kira. I could feel the nausea rising in me as I tried lying to myself about what I would find in the bedroom. Kira would be fine, I told myself. They had just taken her as a warning to me to let things go, to give up my search for Zak. Or maybe they had just slapped her around a bit to show me they could get to me. I wasn’t a very good liar, especially to myself. I had read too many books using this scenario. Raymond Chandler had used it in a short story before he had even created Philip Marlowe. I had used it in They Don’t Play Stickball in Milwaukee.
I was rigid, my hands glued to the sink. I could not force myself to look at what I knew I would find in the bedroom. No matter what games I played, no matter the ploy, I could not move. And then, as if on cue, I heard sirens in the distance. Of course, they would play out the scenario all the way. Now, if I wanted to survive, I had no choice but to move.
There would be no wedding. There would be no bride. There would be no drunken party at the Rusty Scupper with MacClough crying in the middle of his toast to me and to my bride. There would be no one to lift us up on chairs as the klezmer band—one that knew some traditional Japanese folk songs—played a hora. There would be no confused in-laws trying to reconcile sushi with pickled herring. There would be no laughter over silly gifts. There would be no kiss at the altar nor broken glasses nor mazel tovs nor whatever they say in Japanese for luck. Kira was dead.
I didn’t dwell on her. She was gone to someplace better. It was only her body there hanging off the bed headfirst. I knew what the police would find. My skin and blood would be under her fingernails. My semen would be in her vagina. They would comb her pubis and find my hair. She would be bruised, cut maybe, to show there had been a fierce struggle. The cops would find the emptied champagne bottle and probably some planted drugs. I noticed I was crying when I said goodbye.
I ran up to MacClough’s room. As I ran, my grief turned to self-loathing. Not only had I managed to get Kira killed, but I had made myself the world’s most incredibly stupid and perfect suspect. When the cops began investigating the crime, they would find a pattern of behavior on my part that would suggest stalking. The waitress, Sandra, would claim I had spent the morning questioning her about Kira. She would claim, with a clear conscience, that she had told me about Kira because she was afraid of me and that I had been acting paranoid; something about men trying to follow me. She had taken my bribe only to humor me. The guy in the clothing store would say I had bought a disguise—”You wouldn’t recognize your own mother in that outfit with those glasses”—and would say I had acted irrationally about sending the old clothing back to Sound Hill. The woman at the register would say I had acted oddly about her simple request to drink coffee out of a coffee container. Students would come forward to say that they remembered me lingering outside all of Kira’s classes that day, some would recall me following her. And as the piece de resistance, Prof. Jane Courteau would recount my rather weird story about wanting to use Kira’s artwork on my next book. Obviously, I was irrational, obsessed, paranoid. The shrinks would the orize that I had been deeply affected by my recent failure in Hollywood, my father’s tragic death, and the disappearance of my beloved nephew:
“Discovering that his nephew had had a previous relationship with the girl, Mr. Klein, due to his precarious mental health, became fixated with Ms. Wantanabe, believing that she was in some way responsible for the disappearance of his nephew. As the fixation turned to obsession, Mr. Klein’s paranoid delusions grew in scope and intensity until he became convinced that Ms. Wantanabe was not only responsible for the nephew’s disappearance, but had ultimately to suffer the consequences for her actions.”
I was nude but for a bloody bath towel. I was unsure why I was running to MacClough’s room nor had I any idea of what I’d do when I got there. But MacClough’s sense of anticipation was legendary and, like his old buddies used to tell me, Johnny could see trouble coming around the corner before they could see the corner. I knew he wasn’t there, but I prayed he had
left a spare key tucked away somewhere. I was clutching at straws. Straws, however, seem like fine options when your only other choice is a blood-soaked bath towel.
And when the doorknob turned in my hand, I thought MacClough had proved his legend once again. Under other circumstances I might’ve entered more cautiously, but cautiously wasn’t on the menu this morning. I rushed in without hesitation. The place was a mess, ransacked like Zak’s rooms and Caliparri’s place. So much for MacClough’s anticipation. I threw on any clothes I could find and a pair of John’s too-small shoes.
I ran to the end of the hall and climbed down the back fire escape. It was snowing like a son of a bitch and the wind nearly blew me off the bottom ladder. I jumped into a snow-drift. Brushing myself off, I heard sirens blaring around the front of the inn. I thought about making a run for it in my rental, but I couldn’t have gotten very far very fast in this kind of storm. I took off on foot under the murky light of dawn. I needed to buy myself a few hours. There were debts that needed paying. I would hide behind the snowflakes if I had to.
Crimes of the Ancient Mariner
The late-season blizzard and the confusion caused by the fire at Cyclone Ridge had worked for me. I had stopped at a pay phone and called for a taxi to pick me up and take me to the airport. Because of the blowing snow, the driver didn’t get a good look at my scratched face until after I was in the backseat and we were well on our way. He was a bald man in his mid to late fifties who looked like the only exercise he got involved walking to and from the doughnut shop. He chewed on the unlit butt end of a cigar and kept a yellow pencil tucked behind his right ear. He kind of reminded me of my dad.
I watched his dull brown eyes get wide and shiny in the rearview mirror when he noticed my face. I read his name off his pictured license and pressed my knuckle as hard as I could into the back of his seat.
“You got a wife and kids, Milton?” I asked with icy cool curiosity.
“Two grown kids and three grand kids. Wife’s dead.”
They Don't Play Stickball in Milwaukee Page 11