Killing Critics

by Carol O'Connell

  “We’ll see.” Charles picked up Riker’s cellular phone and punched in a number. “Henrietta? It’s Charles.... Fine, thank you. I’ve got a slight problem, an emergency really, with a bit of blood. Do you have your medical bag handy? ... Good. Could I drop by in a few minutes?”

  The doorman recognized Andrew Bliss immediately. He also recognized that Mr. Bliss was stark naked but for the telephone clutched in one hand. He wondered if he was expected to do something about that. He only had fifteen minutes to go before his shift was over, and so he elected to assume that Mr. Bliss was a mugging victim on his way to visit the friend who lived nearest to the scene of the crime, possibly seeking comfort and clothing.

  Yes, that was a reasonable assumption.

  And since Mr. Bliss had brought his own telephone, the doorman felt relieved of any necessity of making a police report. Now Mr. Bliss was entering the elevator, the doors sliding shut behind him. The doorman’s problem was out of sight, and therefore it did not exist.

  However, when his gaze fell on the bag lady, that was another story. He knew his duty now, and he quickly shot out one arm, palm to her face, to block her way without the necessity of actually touching her and possibly contracting the dreaded head lice which New Yorkers feared more than AIDS. He was quite sure the old hag would get the message via his angry scowl and the flat of his palm. These people were only lazy, not stupid.

  The motion was so quick. He saw the flash of light on metal, and then his white-gloved hand was a bloody rag of ripped cloth and flesh. The woman passed by him, entering the stairwell, as he sank to the floor with the shock of seeing the white bones of his hand exposed to the light.

  “Andrew, you smell.” This was Emma Sue Hollaran’s first observation when she opened the door to him. He walked past her and entered the apartment in the manner of a sleepwalker. She waved the air between them to chase the odor away. Then she walked over to the French windows. “Andrew, let’s go out on the terrace, all right?”

  He nodded, following docilely behind her as she opened the doors and preceded him into the night air. The deep cover of potted trees gave them privacy from the windows of the building across the way, but a scattering of small, bright eyes looked down on them from the sky.

  “There has to be a confession,” he said, “and an Act of Contrition.”

  “So you knew.”

  His head tilted to one side, and his face gave the impression that some part of his mind might have tumbled out of his head. “Of course I knew. How could I not—”

  “Have you discussed this with anyone?”

  “No. Emma Sue, you must listen. I don’t know how much time we have. The confession is very important. I don’t want you to die with a stain on your soul.” His face turned up to the sky, and he was suddenly preoccupied with the stars. The clouds were parting to clear a wider space in the heavens so more of them could watch.

  “Now don’t excite yourself, Andrew. If it will make you happy, I’ll confess, all right? But you know, I wouldn’t have killed Dean if he hadn’t been so greedy.”

  Andrew was moving his head from side to side, as though that would help. What was she saying? How could—

  “Dean was starting the old scam all over again with Koozeman.” She walked to the French windows and turned back to face him. “You know those tickets were Koozeman’s concept, not Dean’s. I think it was his idea of a joke. He couldn’t believe that people would buy them. Could you move back just a little, dear?”

  She pressed on his chest to gently push him farther into the cover of the trees. “I didn’t want any part of it. Too risky.”

  Emma Sue bent down to a large ceramic planter and began to root around in the dirt. “That little bastard Dean threatened me. He was still a junkie, you know. All junkies are dangerous. You can’t trust them. Then Koozeman figured it out. He read the article about the long pick.”

  She pulled an ice pick from the pot and shook the dirt off its gold handle. “It is unusually long, isn’t it? Do you remember this, dear?” She held it up to Andrew’s passive face. “No? Well, Koozeman did. He asked me if I was still chipping ice with the murder weapon.”

  Wiping the rest of the dirt off the pick with the hem of her dress, she polished the gold handle till it shone. “Then that pig Koozeman said I’d have to go along with the scam for a second showing of the tickets. He needed to make his profit fast.”

  She held the pick up to the light of the door, and nodded in satisfaction with her cleaning job. “I think he was planning on leaving the country. He was going to have problems unloading those stupid tickets, and he needed me to prime the pump with publicity and a list of new suckers. I told him he couldn’t blackmail me. He was part of the original crime, wasn’t he? He laughed at me. Said that line hadn’t worked when he tried it on Dean. But Dean was only threatening to expose Koozeman’s list of clients in the ghoul market. Koozeman said, in my case, he could supply the police with physical evidence. Then, at the gallery, he pointed out a cop, a blond cop in a black silk dress.”

  Emma Sue held the long ice pick out to Andrew. He only stared at it. She picked up one of his limp hands and closed his fingers over its handle. “Just hold on to that for a minute, Andrew. I’ll be right back.”

  She disappeared from the terrace and reappeared a moment later. He looked at the gun in her hand, and then dropped the ice pick to the stone tiles of the terrace. It rolled to a rest at Emma Sue’s feet.

  “Pick it up, dear.” She kicked it back to him. “Oh, do pick it up, Andrew. I really want to give you a sporting chance. Think you can beat a bullet? Want to give it a try?”

  “You killed Starr and Koozeman?” He said this slowly, as though trying to make sense of a foreign tongue.

  “Yes, dear. And it was just a matter of time before I got around to you. Ah, but now you’ve come to me.”

  “Why did you have to—? No, wait. Perhaps it wouldn’t be proper for me to hear any more of your confession. We’ll wait till she comes.”

  Emma Sue put up the barrel of the gun for a moment. “Who’s coming, Andrew?”

  “An angel. She’ll hear your confession. But while we’re waiting for her, we could pray together and ask for forgiveness.” He sank down to his knees.

  “No, Andrew. It’s really better if you stand. The police can be such sticklers for details. I don’t want to have to think up a scenario for shooting a man on his knees. Now take the ice pick and stand up.”

  Andrew only bowed his head and clasped his hands together in prayer.

  “Oh, well, a little improvisation.” She knelt down in front of him and leveled the gun at his chest. “The reporters have gotten bored with you, haven’t they? But you had enough time to make your voice heard. It was very considerate of you to demonstrate your insanity to the whole world. When they find your prints on the pick, I think I’ll have a credible case for self-defense.”

  “How can you do this?” There was no panic in his voice. He felt very calm. He was trusting in a higher power—Mallory.

  “You were always the weak sister, Andrew. Koozeman even mentioned that. And now you’re just not dependable anymore. You’re the last witness.”

  Mallory found the doorman slumped to the floor just inside the glass door and cradling his bloodied hand. A woman with a grocery bag was kneeling beside him, only staring at the wound, making no move to actually help the man.

  Mallory bent over the doorman. “Who did this to you?”

  There was no response. He seemed utterly fascinated by his own blood. She looked closely at the hand.

  A knife wound. Not a pick.

  She hovered over the woman, who only now noticed the large gun in Mallory’s hand. “Did you call for an ambulance?

  “No, I didn’t.” The woman’s eyes were panic-round and full of the gun. “I’m not good at emergencies.”

  “Call nine-one-one and tell them an officer needs backup and an ambulance. Do you understand?”

  The woman nodded, and Mallory tos
sed her the cellular phone. “Plan on being here awhile. The response time for the ambulance is the pits, even in this neighborhood.” Mallory stopped to consult the mailboxes, then passed up the elevator and took the stairs at a dead run.

  Andrew lifted his head to the sky. The field of stars was fading. He watched the slow creep of cloud cover blotting them out one by one. The gun barrel was rising. He stretched out his arms in the posture of supplication, and his head lolled back as he waited for death.

  He heard the first shot, his eyes closed tightly, but he never felt the bullet. Then a second shot. And still he remained alive. When he opened his eyes, Emma Sue Hollaran was lying at his feet, hands stretching up to ward off the dark creature. The knife point was glinting in the light, the handle clutched tight in the fist of a woman in rags.

  There were two bloody holes in this strange woman, this apparition from hell, and small rivers of blood pouring out of her. So she had taken Emma Sue’s bullets and Emma Sue had received this woman’s knife into her own body. Now the blood of the old hag merged into the blood of Emma Sue Hollaran, as the woman brought the blade down again and again. And all the while, someone was pounding on the door.

  Behind him he heard the explosion of another gunshot. He turned to see the splintered wood of the door just before it flew open. The Angel Mallory with her avenging revolver was coming toward him with long strides.

  His knees and his feet were wet with blood from the body of Emma Sue. He looked down at the eyes of a stunned animal, throat slashed. Her screams were gurgles as she strangled in her own blood. Just like Aubry.

  The angel called out, “Sabra, stop!”

  Sabra?

  Was it possible? Yes, it was she, a dark animalistic form, rags flapping like bloody wings, bending over the body, cutting up the meat. Emma Sue’s hair had blended from brassy blond waves to bloody ropes that curled like snakes with each thrust of the knife, until the eyes of the Medusa head rolled up to expose solid whites.

  Sabra bent low to look into Andrew’s eyes with all the hate in the world. Her knife raised up again. And the Angel Mallory raised her gun and yelled, “No!”

  The two women stared at one another above his kneeling body.

  “You don’t understand,” said Sabra, as she retreated a few steps.

  “Everyone tells me that, and I’m getting damned sick of it,” said Mallory. “I understand revenge—I understand obsession. I’ve understood these things for a long, long time.”

  Sabra looked down at Andrew’s sorry face, raising her knife, not heeding the gun Mallory leveled at her head, but only advancing on her next target—himself. He bowed his head. He was ready.

  Mallory lowered the gun barrel and moved her own body between Sabra and Andrew. One hand flashed out, and she was holding Sabra’s knife hand by the wrist. Something close to perfect understanding passed between them. Mallory released her grip on Sabra’s bloody wrist, and the woman backed away from her, nodding. Mallory inclined her head in homage to the pain and rage in the older woman’s eyes. She stared into Sabra’s face as though it were a looking glass, a view into the madness of long-unfinished business, obsession without end.

  “Andrew’s not a killer. Trust me to know my killers, Sabra. It’s my gift. Your brother told you about the letter that came to us with Andrew’s review?”

  She nodded, and Mallory went on. “Andrew wanted the truth to come out. That’s why he wrote that letter. He wanted everyone to know. And now you have to let him live so he can tell the story. The story is important. It’s the end of unfinished business. It’s what you’ve wanted all these years. Let Andrew tell it. How could you live without hearing it? I couldn’t.”

  Sabra sat down on the terrace flagstones.

  Mallory looked at the blood on her hands. It was Sabra’s blood, streaming from the holes in her body. The gun in Emma Sue’s frozen grip was a .22. Still, the shots were well placed. What kept this woman going she did not know, unless it was this, the end of the story.

  “I believe you, all right? I’m sure Dr. Ramsharan is a very decent person.”

  Quinn had always genuinely liked Charles Butler. But early on, he had realized that this charming man didn’t live on the same planet with the rest of them. On Charles’s homeworld, people were all good neighbors and exceedingly kind to strangers. The lions all lay down with the lambs, and discord was restricted to the screams of fresh-cut flowers. He wondered how Charles’s ideal world fared in tandem with this stroll down the hall in the company of a man who was dripping blood on the carpet.

  As they waited for the elevator, Quinn was saying, “We should agree on a story for the doctor. We’ll tell her I had an accident while I was showing you my gun collection.”

  “Do you have a gun collection?”

  “No, but it doesn’t—Oh, I see your point. Best not to clutter it up with unnecessary lies. We’ll say I slipped on a scatter rug while holding a gun. Now that’s reasonable. Most New Yorkers have at least one gun.”

  “Do you have one?”

  “Yes, everybody has one.”

  “I don’t. And you were showing it to me? Henrietta knows I don’t care for the sight of guns. So it’s hardly likely that—”

  “All right. I was removing the gun from my desk drawer to get at something beneath the gun.”

  They stepped into the elevator, and Quinn slumped against the back wall, leaving a bloodstain there. As Charles pushed the button for the third floor, the large man’s face gave away his deep concern.

  Quinn closed his eyes. So tired. His left hand was slick with the blood which leaked from the hole in his arm. His eyes opened again at the prompt of a gentle tug on the sleeve of his good arm.

  “Now about the scatter rug behind the desk,” said Charles. “Odd place for a rug, isn’t it? And wouldn’t the desk chair tend to keep the rug from slipping around?”

  “All right. I was removing the gun from the drawer of a table—which has a scatter rug in front of it.”

  “Bit clumsy slipping on the rug that way. And do you usually keep loaded guns about?”

  “So I’ll admit to being slightly drunk and inexperienced with firearms.” So tired. Not thinking straight, not straight at all. “Now you’ll swear you were there and witnessed the whole thing. That might persuade her not to file a report. But if she still insists on it, I can always buy her off. You can buy anyone in New York City. Remember, Mallory’s name shouldn’t enter the conversation.”

  He had the idea that Charles was not listening to his instructions. The soft-spoken giant seemed somewhat distracted as they emerged from the elevator and walked toward the door of apartment 3A.

  “Charles, perhaps you’d better let me handle it from here on. Somehow, I don’t think guile is your forte.”

  Charles smiled gently as he nodded and pressed the doorbell. When the door was opened by a dark-haired woman in a long white robe, he pointed to Quinn’s bloody arm, saying, “Mallory shot him, and we want to hush it up, all right?”

  “Yes, of course,” said the woman. “Come in.”

  Quinn lurched forward. His last thought before he fainted was that this woman must hail from Charles Butler’s planet, for she opened her arms wide to receive his falling body and to stain her robe with the blood of a stranger.

  “No one murdered Peter Ariel,” said Andrew, as he began his story in a monotone. “He was stoned on drugs and very clumsy. I was there when the artwork fell on top of him. He was killed instantly. Koozeman was furious. All that planning and promotion for nothing. He’d done such a brilliant job launching this career, despite the lack of talent. He had Emma Sue and myself as the critics to promote Peter in newspapers. Dean Starr doubled as a critic and a publicist. That’s all his art magazine ever was, you know, a public relations plug for artists who were willing to pay for their reviews. But then it was all for nothing. The artist was killed by his own work, a potential joke of the art world.

  “By the time Emma Sue arrived, Dean had come up with the idea to
make it look like murder, to sensationalize the death and try to salvage something from sales of the artwork. Well, what was the harm in that? Peter Ariel was already dead. We’d pooled a lot of money to grease a lot of hands—editors of art magazines, and a promised slot in a museum group show. It was a major investment for all of us.”

  He fell silent for a moment, losing the threads to this ramble. Mallory touched his shoulder and asked, “Was it Koozeman’s idea to butcher the body and work it into the sculpture‘?”

  “Yes, Koozeman’s idea.... Starr loved the concept and so did Emma Sue. All they had to work with was the fire axe from the box with the extinguisher. They underestimated the time it would take to cut up the body parts. All three of them took off their clothes and went to work. I stood by the door to keep watch. It was hard work, cutting up a body with that small axe, but once they got into the rhythm of it, it went much faster. My job was to call out if anything untoward happened—say if Quinn showed early. Had we left him a message then? I can’t remember. If anything happened, if anyone came, I was to call out and give them time to get through the door in the wall. I had no blood on me. I would say I’d just discovered the body. We’d thought of everything, almost everything.

  “I could hear what they were doing in the room behind me. There was no door I could close. The noise was as sickening as the stench. Once, I turned around. It was an incredible sight, the three of them, naked and bloody, working over the body.

  “It was then, while my back was turned, that Aubry came in. I swear I believed I had locked that door. But I was drunk that night—I’ve been drunk every night since. Aubry shouldn’t have been there. We’d left a message to send her to New Jersey. It was so incredible that she should show up at the gallery. It was the last thing we expected. We’d only meant to use her name to bait Quinn into coming. We needed him, his name linked to Peter Ariel in the press. Koozeman said Quinn would not be able to resist a comment on the artwork of the butchered body. You see, Koozeman had been a promising sculptor once, and now he was determined that this was to be the best piece of work he’d ever done. But now here was Aubry, and the whole thing was coming undone.