Dressed to Kill

by Campbell Black

  “Did you read about the woman who was slashed to death in an elevator?”

  “The news was hard to miss—”

  “The dead woman was a patient of mine, Dr. Levy—”

  “And you think Bobbi killed her with your razor?”

  “The conclusion is hard to avoid.” Elliott cleared his throat, the roof of his mouth was dry. “And I have every reason to believe that she’ll kill again. She said as much.”

  “You haven’t informed the police?”

  Elliott shook his head. “Not yet. I wanted to talk with her. I wanted to be absolutely sure it was her. But I can’t locate her. So I came to you.”

  Levy was silent for a long time, knocking sparks from his pipe into an ashtray. “I’ll talk with her,” he said eventually. “If I concur with your prognosis, we’ll get in touch with the police.”

  Elliott began to rise. “Please let me know what happens.”

  “Of course,” Levy said. “Before you go, do you want to know why she came to see me in the first place?”

  “I assume it was because she imagined you would approve her operation, after I’d refused—”

  Levy got up from his chair, went to a cabinet, unlocked it. He took out a small casette and placed it inside a tape player.

  “I want you to listen to this, Dr. Elliott. Since we both know the same patient, and the specific problems, I don’t feel I’m breaking a confidence.”

  Elliott watched as Levy pushed the PLAY button.

  There was a hissing sound, then he heard Bobbi’s voice, interrupted only occasionally by a question from Levy.

  “I went to a boarding school for a time . . .”

  “Did something specific happen there? Something you remember?”

  “The games . . . I remember the games . . . I wasn’t very good at them . . . But that isn’t really what I remember most. Just this sense of being different. Being different from the other kids there. I felt alone. I felt miserably alone. I find it . . . hard to explain how bad I felt, how dark inside . . .”

  “What about the other kids?”

  “They knew. They noticed. I know they noticed I was different.”

  Elliott closed his eyes, listening. That familiar voice. How cold it sounded.

  “Tell me about the difference you felt?”

  “What can I tell you about unhappiness?”

  “Well, can you tell me about something that made you happy?”

  A pause. A crackling sound, like paper being ripped. “Once, when I went home during a vacation, I . . .” Another pause.

  “What did you do, Bobbi?”

  “I put on my sister’s clothes. I was found out.”

  “What happened then?”

  “I was scolded . . . But it didn’t matter, you see. It didn’t matter then. Because for the first time I understood who I was, I understood what I was, what I wanted to be . . . And there was this thing between my legs, this cock, and I remember thinking how much I had to get rid of it . . . I never stopped thinking about how badly I had to get rid of it.”

  “This idea persisted—”

  “Persisted! I never stopped thinking about it, not once, not during all the time I was growing up . . . and when I started to go out in female clothes, I knew then I had to get the operation . . . But Elliott, you see, Elliott wouldn’t sign. He wouldn’t let me do it . . .”

  Elliott leaned forward, his eyes still shut, listening intently.

  “So that’s when you tried it yourself?”

  “I took a razor, right. I took this really sharp razor and I tried . . .”

  Levy pushed the STOP button.

  “She tried to hack off her genitals,” he said.

  Elliott said nothing.

  “That’s when she was sent to me.”

  “When was this? When did this happen?”

  “About two months ago.”

  Elliott shook his said: “God. I didn’t know she’d gone that far. I just didn’t realize . . .”

  He looked at Levy. Levy was rubbing his chin, watching him as if he were blaming him for failing Bobbi.

  “If you like, I’ll try and talk with her this afternoon,” Levy said. “I’ll get back to you. Will you be in your office?”

  Elliott nodded. He said, “Thanks for your time, Dr. Levy.”

  “I’ll be in touch,” Levy said.

  4

  It was just after three and raining violently when Marino picked up his two kids from school. They had expressions of incredulity, as if after a series of broken engagements and disappointments they had come to expect the worst—a telephoned excuse, a last-minute change of plans. It gave Marino a warm feeling not to let them down for once; it gave him a sense of belonging once again to a family unit—a unit he had come to realize, over the years, that was fragile at best. They clambered into the back of the car, dripping rainwater over his seats. What the hell, he didn’t have the heart to point out this mess to them. He wasn’t especially fond of basketball even but he liked the idea of the kids having a good time. He liked even more the prospect of getting out of the office for a while, out of that world of violence and mayhem, and back to something that was basically innocent.

  As he drove through the heavy traffic, watching his windshield wipers whip back and forth across the glass, he glanced at the kids in his rearview mirror. “Cut the noise down, guys, huh? In this kind of crap weather, I really need to concentrate, you know?”

  They smiled at him with the expressions of tolerance reserved by kids for their parents.

  “Solved any crimes lately?” the younger one asked.

  “Yeah, solve them every day,” Marino said.

  They were nudging each other in the backseat, like some private joke was going on.

  “Hey, I’m good at my job, you guys. What do you think—I never catch a killer, huh?”

  “I bet you catch them all the time,” the younger one said.

  The older one smirked and covered his mouth with the palm of his hand.

  “What’s the big joke?” Marino said.

  They exchanged conspiratorial looks, then they started to laugh.

  “I’ll tell you something,” Marino said. “It ain’t the easiest thing in the world being a cop.”

  He looked again in the rearview mirror.

  “Colombo always gets his man,” the older kid said.

  “Fairy tales,” Marino said.

  “Maybe. But he always traps the killer.”

  “Me and Colombo,” Marino said. “All we’ve got in common is the raincoat.”

  “You brush your hair, though. Colombo doesn’t.”

  “Listen. In my precinct, that guy wouldn’t last a minute.”

  He pulled up at a stop sign. He was thinking all at once of Liz Blake. Put her out of your mind, he told himself. You owe yourself a couple of hours without pondering homicide. Don’t you?

  Liz stepped out of the phone booth. Peter was standing in the doorway of a store, watching her. She rushed across the sidewalk, the collar of her coat turned up, the wind blowing rain through her hair. When she reached the doorway she ran her fingers through her wet hair.

  Peter looked at her questioningly.

  “It’s set,” she said. “All systems go.”

  He shook his head; his expression was one of worry.

  “I don’t like the idea, really.”

  “Can you think of a better one?”

  “No,” he answered after a time.

  Liz stared bleakly through the rain. “Hey, let’s go get something to eat. We can pass some time that way.”

  “I’m not hungry,” Peter said.

  “Me neither.”

  They stood in silence, watching the rain, watching the city darken as night began to fall—the early dark dragged in its wake by the storm.

  George Levy had a bad attack of indigestion, a feeling he usually only managed to alleviate with music. It was presumably a psychosomatic thing, and Vivaldi’s Concerto Grosso in B Minor always seemed to
settle his stomach. There was a growling noise somewhere in the center of his belly as he took the tape of Bobbi out of the casette player and dropped in the Vivaldi. Then he sat down, hands clasped across his stomach.

  As he listened to the music, to the largo movement, he thought about Bobbi, then about Elliott. And it occurred to him that there was only thing to do, only one way to clarify matters. He picked up his telephone, hesitated a moment before punching out a number, then he dialled the police.

  5

  Liz pushed the door open, stepped inside the lobby. The reception room, which was to her right, was empty. She entered, looked around, stared at the dust-covered typewriter on the desk, the magazines neatly piled on a table, the sofas. Okay, she thought, you need to settle these nerves. You’re a troubled woman, don’t forget. You’ve got problems. Real problems. And they’re urgent ones . . .

  She sat down on one of the sofas, crossed her legs, lit a cigarette. From outside she could hear a roar of thunder, the wind sweeping the rain against the window. Her hand shook as she raised the cigarette to her mouth. The smoke tasted bitter against her tongue.

  She heard a noise from the inner office, and then Elliott was standing in the open doorway, smiling at her.

  She stood up.

  “Miss Blake?”

  She nodded. She followed him into the inner office, where he sat down behind his desk.

  “Why don’t you sit?” he said.

  She moved towards the sofa. On the surface of his desk there were a number of papers, books, copies of correspondence. The appointments book, she thought. How was she supposed to get a look at the appointments book, even if she could find the goddamn thing?

  “It was good of you to see me at such short notice,” she said.

  “I happened to have a cancellation,” he said. “Besides, when you told me about your experience on the telephone, how could I not see you?”

  She gazed at him. Behind him, flashing against the window, there was a splitting arch of lightning in the darkened sky.

  “It wasn’t so much being a witness to a killing . . .” She faltered now, wondering what to say next, wondering if he could see through her, see the playacting. “That was bad enough. But I’ve been having these nightmares since then . . .” Another sword of lightning. She blinked involuntarily.

  “Tell me about the nightmares,” he said.

  “They’re not pleasant . . .”

  “I’m used to hearing about dreams,” he said.

  She closed her eyes. Okay, she thought. Make it up. Make it up real quick. “I’m in this room someplace . . . Look, it’s hard for me to tell you.”

  “Pretend I’m not here,” he said.

  “Okay, I’ll try. I’m in this room, and there’s some kind of dinner party, only I don’t know any of the guests. They’re all strangers to me. I’m eating something, I don’t know what, maybe some kind of shellfish. Anyhow, I feel something touching my ankle . . . Somebody’s hand.”

  “Somebody under the table?”

  “Yeah, right. The hand starts to work up my leg. It’s weird. Sitting at this dinner party with somebody touching me . . . The hand goes up, it just keeps going up . . .” She paused. Where was the fucking appointments book?

  “Go on,” Elliott said. “What happens next?”

  “It’s really grotesque . . . The hand goes right up under my skirt, see. Then it isn’t a hand any longer, it’s somebody’s mouth. Somebody’s mouth sucking me off. The terrible part about it all is that although I want to scream or just get up and go away, I’m beginning to enjoy myself . . . The mouth keeps on eating me under the table and I start to have this terrific orgasm. And while I’m having it, I have to go on pretending that nothing’s happening . . .”

  Elliott was silent a moment. “Why do you call it a bad dream? What makes it a nightmare?”

  “It’s a nightmare because it’s out of the ordinary, everything’s so twisted, especially after it changes—”

  “How does it change?”

  “I’m all alone in the room, maybe it’s the same room, maybe it’s not, I don’t know— Anyhow, I’m all alone and these hands are lashing me to a table with rope, and the rope is really cutting into me, really painful, and then there’s a whole succession of men fucking me, and every time it happens the pain gets worse until it’s totally unbearable . . .”

  She paused. She stared at him. He was watching her with a strange intensity.

  “Believe me, it’s bad. And I’m an expert on bad.”

  “What makes you an expert on bad?”

  “I should tell you up front—I’m a hooker. You name it, I’ve done it.”

  He was silent for a moment. Then, “You enjoy what you do?”

  “Yeah. Sometimes. I like the idea that I can turn a guy on.”

  “Do you ever have sex where there’s no money involved?” he asked.

  “Do you ever give free consultations?”

  “It’s not exactly the same thing, is it?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t see much difference.”

  Elliott smiled, leaning forward, picking up a paperweight and stroking it lightly.

  Liz said, “It gives me a special pleasure, you know—I turn a guy on, I get a kind of a high that way.”

  She crossed her legs. She saw him glance at her thigh. She pretended not to notice. He let the paperweight fall from his fingers.

  “Let’s get back to the nightmares,” he said. “Why do you think they’re related to the fact you witnessed a killing?”

  “You’re the expert. You tell me—are they related?”

  “It’s hard to say. Sometimes the trauma . . .” He stopped, as if some thought had suddenly crossed his mind, a notion he didn’t like. She watched him a moment. It occurred to her that perhaps the appointments book wasn’t on his desk, that it was outside in the reception room, maybe stuck in the drawer of the desk out there. How the hell was she going to find out?

  Your only weapon, kid, is your body.

  There was a strangely distant look in his eye, like his mind was elsewhere now. She stretched her legs, showing more thigh, more pale flesh.

  “Do I turn you on?”

  She saw the question surprised him. He frowned, looking away from her. “Would it give you some pleasure to think you did?”

  “Like I told you—a slight high. Anyhow, I’m more interested in the mature fatherly type. But maybe you don’t find me interesting?”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “Then why don’t you do something about it?”

  “Look, I’m a married man—”

  “Most of my customers are,” she said. She tried to see his expression, but he had his face still turned to the side. “And some of them have been married doctors.”

  He faced her now. A flash of lightning, like a brilliant rocket sent up in some celebration, lit his features. But she wasn’t sure what she saw there—anger? concern? Maybe it was neither of these things, maybe it was interest. He stood up twisting his hands together, cracking the knuckles. She thought: The reception room. The desk. If she could only get a chance to look.

  But how?

  “Look, aren’t we straying somewhat from the point?” he said.

  “I like your accent. It’s cute,” she said. Cute, how she hated that particular word.

  “It’s very kind of you to say so, I’m sure—”

  “But I mean it.” She got up from the sofa and walked towards him. She placed her hands against his shoulders. Gently, he moved her away.

  “Look, you came here because of certain psychological problems . . .”

  “Yeah, but maybe something a little more basic than psychiatry could solve them, Doc—”

  “I hardly think so.”

  She stared at him. Something cold in the eyes, something of steel, as if he were struggling with desire, as if he were afraid of it rising up inside him.

  He became patient, smiling at her in a rather sad way. He said, “I have a certain code of con
duct in my profession. I don’t become involved sexually with my patients—”

  “Am I a patient?”

  “I’m beginning to wonder if I need you as a patient,” he said.

  She leaned closer to him. Another flare of lightning flooded the room, rampant unfettered electricity. His desk lamp flickered momentarily.

  “I could be more than just a patient . . .”

  He moved his face to the side. She saw then the glistening film of sweat that lay on the surface of his forehead and she thought: I’m reaching him. I’m getting to him.

  She put her hand up, turned his face around towards her, kissed him full on the mouth—a strange kiss, a kiss of ice, a lack of response. Once again, he pushed her gently away.

  “I told you—”

  “I think you’re full of shit. I think you’d like nothing better than to screw me. You know that? I think you’d love to fuck me right now, wouldn’t you? You’d love to take my clothes off real slow. Feel my tits. Or maybe you’d like me to strip and go down on you. I’m pretty good at that, Doc. I give terrific head.”

  “No,” he said. “I don’t want to discuss—”

  “I know a few exotic tricks as well,” she said. “Things your wife never dreamed about, I bet. I could drive you out of your fucking mind.”

  She laid the palm of her hand against his chest, undoing a button, wanting to press her fingers to his flesh, but he drew away, stepped back, his face now drenched in perspiration.

  “You’re hard, aren’t you? I can see. Your cock is hard. You’re ready for me, aren’t you?”

  “No!”

  “Don’t fuck around with me, Doc. Don’t play any smartass games.”

  She unbuttoned her blouse and let if fall to the floor.

  He watched her. He wants me, she thought. He wants me now.

  She stepped out of her skirt and stood in front of him in her bra and pants, smiling. With her hands on her hips she said, “Well? You approve?”

  “Please . . .”

  “Please what?”

  He went back behind his desk, as if there he might find some kind of safety.

  “For God’s sake, put your clothes on,” he said. “Please.”

  “I’m getting to you, is that it? You like what you see? Huh?”

  He closed his eyes, his hands pressed against the surface of the desk, and he swayed slightly. There was a moment, just a fraction of time, when she felt a strange sense of pity for him, an indefinable sorrow. Maybe he wants to be faithful to his wife. Maybe that’s it, and maybe what I’m doing is all wrong.