The Kissing Game

by Marie Turner

  “Collin was my best friend, and now he’s in jail because of you.” At that statement, Todd lunges, and I don’t know why I’m surprised. For a moment, I hoped he didn’t have it in him. Ducking out of his clutch, I slide along the wall and scamper toward the massive vase. Grasping the neck with both hands, I heave it. It must weigh thirty pounds and my wounds pinch like string pulled tight. Grunting, I watch the vase fly at him. With one hand, he gracefully stops it, and it hits the tile floor, pieces flying. While I flee toward the atrium, my left hand smacks the lights on the wall, lighting up the whole atrium in a gaudy gold. Undaunted, Todd dashes behind me. My stitches now shriek, the wounds feeling hot and wet. I don’t look behind me, I just move, but then feel Todd’s hand outstretching like that of an itinerant magician. He fists the back of my shirt. With momentum pulling me forward, he yanks me back, and I stumble on the stairs, falling face forward and hitting my head on the metal step.

  Together, we become rolling beasts on the stairs. Todd’s energy feels inextinguishable, wholly primal, devoid of order. I can’t see the knife, but I hear my shirt fabric tear as the blade slices a hole in my blouse. Like a mad creature provoked out of a tomb, Todd lifts the gleaming metal while I drive my knees and hands into his chest trying to push him away. I think this is it. It’s happening now. And I deserve it. Don’t I? Like indefatigable karma, the bad that I’ve done persists in the shape of a knife blade. I feel the pressure of sharpness pierce the bulletproof vest and puncture my skin below, like a heavy needle. The vest bows inward, and the pressure concaves against my chest. So I’m not knife-proof after all. With blood rushing to my exerting face, I remind myself that muscles exist throughout the entire human body, none of which seem to be effective at pushing Todd away. Cords of his black bangs hit my face. With one thumb, I jab at his eye, hoping to push it into his brain.

  “Mother fucker!” he yells, just as his knife hits some obstruction in my vest. Todd palms his eye as he raises the weapon again, some destiny prefigured in his aghast face, ready to give it another go. I waste no time in propelling myself out from under him.

  “Help!” I scream while scuttling up the stairs on both hands and feet like a dog before I’m upright, dashing two steps at a time to the next floor of the grand house, not stopping to glance towards the window where Agent Larsen and Silver must see me out in the darkness somewhere. They must, right?

  “Must you be such a freak?” Todd asks, now straightened and gliding up the stairs.

  As soon as my shoe hits the landing of the next story, I hear Todd gaining speed and mumbling expletives as if multiplied efforts anger him. I run for the first door I see, but when my hand grabs the knob, it won’t budge. Locked. I look down the hall, but all I see are closed doors and utter night in the hallway. I run for the next door and the next. All locked. With no other option, I decide to turn face him, my hands going up again as I turn around. He stops several paces away from me gripping the knife and panting wildly. He walks slowly, like a man who knows I have no way out on this floor. His right eye is blood red. I want to concentrate on punching him or kicking him or gouging his eyes out, but all I can concentrate on is the knife in his hand. The gruesome metal, a dab of red on the end. Around us, the massive house would otherwise look beautiful and grand with the long garish twinkling lights of the cascading chandelier that hangs from the high ceiling and dangles eye-level in a golden tumble over the koi pond below. I contemplate leaping for it and making a grand exit by falling into the koi pond, but I think I’ll break my neck if I do.

  My mind working like a tattered felon, I consider self defense and recollect the class I took in college before dropping out and taking health class instead. My instructor discussed defending against an attacker. The first principle was to run. The second principle was to have a well-targeted strike, but with that knife in Todd’s hand, I seriously doubt this idea. The third principle was something about redirecting the energy of the opponent, but I wasn’t really paying attention because I was contemplating dropping out. The last was something utterly ridiculous, like having a positive mental attitude. I reconsider the strike and feel like an imbecile as I step toward Todd, readying myself to hit him with the only move I learned. The sidekick. Even as I prepare, I know it’s useless, but what else have I got?

  My ears ring like bells. My eyes begin to tear by themselves, and Todd shimmers, a strange life form roughly ready. While he lunges at me, I lean back on my left leg and arch my kick toward his side, feeling those unused tendons stretch beyond capacity. He grabs my leg before it hits him, and I lose my balance and fall. Then he gracefully kneels over me, smelling of expensive lotion and hair gel while a drop of sweat falls off his nose and onto my chin.

  “Usually I kill people much smaller than you. They’re faster and noisier, but you’ve been sitting at a desk too long. You’ve lost all your muscle mass,” he states. I suddenly remember all those times Todd couldn’t go to lunch with us because he had to go to the gym. He raises his arm high and then pummels the knife at me. Pulling my knees out from under him, I roll to the left until I come to a rest at the balcony railing. The knife plows into the hardwood floor, twanging by my ear. Wildly he scrambles over and clutches my neck with one hand, instantly cutting off my air supply. As I kick and punch at him, I feel the blood rushing to my cheeks in a hot mass. Shit. I can’t quite believe the reality pounding in my head. By itself, death is a terrible shame, but death by Todd is like death at the hands of a changeling in a Shakespeare play. I reach down to his crotch. Thank god he wears expensive pants, a thin silky material. With all my strength, I squeeze as hard as I can. He yelps and rolls into a crumple, but before I can stand, he’s already seizing my foot. The dude is one indestructible fairy. I yank it away, losing my shoe in the process, I hear it land in the koi pond below.

  With the railing behind me, Todd lunges. Knowing I can’t get past him and back down the stairs, I glance back over my shoulder and reach for the chandelier, clutching a hunk of no-doubt expensive crystal. With all my energy I hurl myself over the railing, my right arm hugging balls of crystal just as a piece falls from my left hand, splashing into the water below. Like a tree climber I wrap my legs around it, feeling the hooks jab into my jeans. Better to die at my own hands than at his.

  He laughs, bent over slightly. “Fuck’n freak,” he says.

  Another piece of crystal falls, and I hear the chandelier creak. I realize that if I inch myself downward, maybe I can fall into the water and get out the door. With great effort, I ease myself down to the next layer of crystal, smaller and thinner than the first. Another piece drops into the water, and the koi pond splashes below me, the fish scampering. My heart bludgeons my ribcage and the hooks pierce my jeans. I have to lift my leg to unhook them before I can ease down further. Meanwhile, Todd saunters toward the stairs, his eyes vacant terrors. He then glides down slowly, one step at a time, laughing as he goes, as if he’s enjoying the spectacle of my dangling on a chandelier. The knife does little twirls in his hand, and I’ve almost forgotten about the FBI outside. Perhaps they aren’t there anymore. Perhaps they got bored and hit the sushi joint down the road. I’m going to die a violent death while they stuff themselves with vegetable tempura.

  “You’re going to die anyway, Caroline,” he says as though he reads my thoughts. “Sooner or later. Could be a car crash, a heart attack, cancer … me. The only difference is time.”

  A hook tears my jeans, the weight of my body ripping a long hole in the fabric and descending me down to the lower notch on the chandelier. I realize my mistake, of course: the chandelier may not have been the best option. At least I’m still alive. Several crystals splash into the water below, where the fish have found cover under foliage. Beneath me, the water looks black, and I wonder how deep it is. Two feet? It must be two stories below, but feels like four, only with no cushy grass to break my fall. Out the grand window, the city in the distance glows like white glaze. Feeling cat-clawed, my limbs start to ache.

  Havin
g descended the stairs, Todd now stands as if waiting for the sun to rise. Perhaps I’ll just hold on, settle in, and wait for the feds, I think. They’ll have to come sometime. How long does it take to eat vegetable tempura?

  The ceiling creaks and shards of plaster fall on my head in a white rain.

  “It won’t hold you. You’re small, but not that small.” Todd chuckles. “That chandelier came from Murano, Italy, shipped in four separate pieces. He designed it himself. It took three men a week using scaffolding to put all the delicate parts in place and hang each crystal. It was made to be beautiful, not strong. That’s why Collin put it in the Koi pond below. If the chandelier failed, as it no doubt would, the pieces would fall into the Koi pond.”

  Without warning, several chandelier tentacles give way and the lowest rung drops into the shallow water below, only one sharp piece of metal sticks straight up like a dagger waiting for me. I almost want to laugh myself at the sight of it. How ironic it would be to kill myself? The screeching sound stops my heart as my jeans tear a little further and my leg grip on the chandelier weakens. Another crosspiece falls, disappearing into the water and leaving my left leg dangling with nothing to hug.

  Todd laughs loudly now. The idea of my falling on the chandelier piece and slaughtering myself is too comical for him to handle. He sees the irony too.

  Just then, large chunks of the chandelier start falling, like the crystal beast is a self-peeling fruit. I have to scramble to find hold, until all but the upper rungs have catapulted into the water. Now my legs dangle, one pant leg of my jeans floating in the water below. Only my hands clutch the chandelier now, so my entire bodyweight rests in the strength of my arms. Not good.

  Telling myself I can do it, I hold tightly, but the sweat of my palms makes me slide slowly until I grasp the last part of metal with two hands. Todd leans on the railing below, waiting for the certainty of my fall.

  And then I lose grip and plummet. Just as I do I hear the racing crash of the front door bursting open, the massive tumult of men and women in boots and swat gear. The water is ice cold and deeper than it looks. I’m under water for a second before my backside hits the slimy bottom. Around me fish scurry in the chilly water like clammy angels. When I come up for air, four men tackle Todd and slam his face against the stairs, no doubt fearing Todd might slip away somehow. The knife flies out of Todd’s hand and lands in the Koi pond, almost slicing my leg and nearly decapitating a white-orange fish. The room is all grunting and yelling, but it all happens so ordinarily. Another day at work for federal officers.

  With koi pond in my lungs, I watch as the agents handcuff Todd. He doesn’t fight. As he rises with his hands cuffed behind him, he smiles like a man with expensive lawyers to bail him out. Pushing myself up, I’m soon standing knee-deep in koi and watching breathless as the agents cart one of my best friends away. I had sat next to Todd at the firm for two years. We were workmates, friends, and never would I have imagined he was this person.

  Agent Larsen strides up to me, a smile on his face as I pluck a large slimy leaf from my hair.

  “What the hell? Where were you guys?” I demand, shivering.

  “We equipped you with the latest technology, an acoustic device designed to focus, channel, and amplify speech. Once you stepped out of the vehicle and your body began moving, the transmission was briefly interrupted. Then we had good signal for nearly two hours before we got ‘unable to receive’ messages. After that, when we did hear you, we only caught unusable sounds and muffled movement. Were you shaking? Because we shouldn’t have had so much interruption.”

  “Hell yes, I was shaking.”

  “Hmm. Clearly, the bugs still need to be worked out, but I wasn’t worried since we had surveillance all around and knew the house was vacant. It was only when we saw you hanging from the chandelier that we realized. Sorry about that,” he says. Maybe people under his care nearly die every day. Routine.

  “You might want to check your gear before you send some civilian off to die,” I suggest.

  “Will note that for the future. Where’d he come from? Nobody saw anyone enter.”

  “He’s my coworker Todd. He came in from next door. You probably want to look there.” I point and feel as if my shuddering might shatter my teeth.

  Agent Larsen nods. “Thanks for your help. It was brave of you to come here. You’ve done a good thing.”

  “That’s great,” I say thinking suddenly of the irony of the name Children’s Refuge Project.

  “You okay?” he asks, noticing my missing pant leg floating beside me.

  “Yeah.”

  “So you’ll get probation, as promised. Just don’t go breaking into anymore homes. I can’t thank you enough, Ms. Stone. I’ve been focused solely on finding Collin’s contact for years. Now we’ll get a search warrant for next door, and we’ll make a strong case against them. You’ll likely need to testify.”

  I nod, wondering if I can leave. I’m half-frozen. “Can I go now?” I step out of the pond with Agent Larsen’s help.

  “Sure, Agent Silver will drive you home.” He waives over Agent Silver, who’s still chewing gum. Silver has to walk through a throng of busy agents to get to me. After Agent Larsen gives him various orders I don’t bother to listen to, Agent Silver leads me past swat-geared officers who are now readying themselves to step knee-deep into the koi pond to fish out the knife. Silver and I trod outside, where the world looks ghastly normal. With wobbly limbs and one bare foot, I follow him to the car around the corner. As I’m about to sit in the back seat of the sedan, he waves me up front. Apparently I’ve redeemed myself and earned a better seat in the car.

  “Where to?” he asks.

  For a minute, I consider the road heading south and going back to my apartment, but my toothbrush, my cell phone, all my important belongings are at Robert’s house.

  “Just take me back to the same place?”

  Agent Silver gives me a knowing look and slides the car out of its spot on the curb and then drives through neighborhood. Soon he turns onto dense streets where the bright lights of a movie theater display bloody heroes dressed in black, the name of the movie a jumble of light. A line of patrons, young and old couples, stand out front. In the distance, I see the Transamerica Building all aglow, as if the air is full of brighter days. Of course, I am suspicious of destructive hopefulness, but feel it nonetheless. Odd, considering my current jobless state and the fact that I’m wearing torn clothes and only one shoe, and I’ve accomplished nothing in the way of getting Robert’s job back.

  When we finally arrive at Robert’s house, Agent Silver tells me, “I’m sure you realize I’m gonna need the wire and bullet-proof vest back.”

  “I’ll mail them to you,” I offer, stepping out of the vehicle. Advancing down the somewhat familiar path towards Robert’s front door, I can hardly walk. My hair still drips and the foggy coastal air jitters in my bones. Lights remain on inside his house although it has to be past midnight. I knock on the front door and hear Robert pad across the floor. It opens with a welcome gust of warm air hitting my whole body.

  Standing there with whited eyes, his cell phone to his ear, he looks like a man who has been fasting. His teeth suddenly glisten in the dark, until he notices my disheveled state.

  “Oh god, what happened to you?”

  Chapter 17

  “Dime con quien andas y te diré quién eres.”.

  Tell me who you’re with, and I will tell you who you are.

  Standing at his front door, Robert puts his cell phone in his pocket. I expect a hug or some similar gesture, but I’m grateful because Robert gazes out at the unmarked car instead, where Agent Silver waves in his white sedan before it glints under the streetlights and silently vanishes around the corner. In Robert’s house, the dining table is cleared of food. On the end table near the black couch, a lamp emits golden warmth.

  “Come in,” Robert says, pulling me inside, his hand gripping the elbow of my wet sweater. “I’ve been on the phone tr
ying to figure out which jail they took you to so I could arrange bail, but you weren’t anywhere. What happened? Why are you all … wet?” He notices my missing pant leg and absent shoe, and his eyes look pregnant with worry.

  “It’s a long story. I’ll tell you later,” I say, dripping slightly on his floor. I can smell the fish on my clothes, but I’m too spent to explain. “Would you mind if I used your shower again?” I say. It seems that all I do is use his shower.

  “Of course.”

  I trudge toward the bathroom, one bare and one shoed foot, not bothering to worry about dripping across his floor. I can feel his eyes on my back as I go and hear him lock the front door. I’m sure he’ll wait until I get inside the shower to clean up the water mess. He’s that kind of guy, the kind who would never dream of leaving drips of fish-smelling water trailing like breadcrumbs down his hallway, not even for a minute. When I reach the bathroom, I can’t wait to extract myself from my clothes and be ventilated from koi scent. I tear off my drippy sweater and torn shirt. Next, I turn on the shower and un-Velcro the front of my bulletproof vest.

  While attempting to pull it over my head, I realize the thing won’t budge. It seems to have contracted with moisture and now has transformed into a body-hugging wetsuit. With the effort of a half-dead person, I reach back to unclasp whatever fetters me, but the straps won’t move. Then, like a feral woman, I commence yanking wildly to free myself, but it’s glue on my skin. Before I got out of the car, I should’ve asked Agent Silver how to get the damned thing off. Realizing I have only one option, I open the bathroom door.

  “Robert?” I say, peeking out. He’s using a large terrycloth towel on the floor. What did I tell you?