The Delilah Complex

by MJ Rose

  “The only thing Morgan hasn’t mentioned,” Nina said in a tone that was harsher than normal, “is that we already talked about this and I advised her not to talk to the police again.”

  “You did. But I just don’t think that’s the right decision.”

  “It’s the only decision that you can make under the circumstances,” she countered.

  Around us, Simon and the rest of the staff must have been aware of the subtext of the conversation. Everyone knew of Nina’s overdeveloped and irrational anger at the NYPD.

  “Please, Morgan, can’t you just trust me on this?”

  I looked at Simon, my closest friend at the institute, imploring him with my eyes to step in. He did. Of course he did. I could always count on him, and I gave him a half smile before the fact to thank him.

  “Nina, what’s your objection? If the women in the group haven’t given Morgan this information, if it’s something she saw on her own, there’s no reason she can’t go to the police.”

  There were murmurs and assents from two other therapists.

  “I don’t think you can, Morgan,” Helen Grant said. She was one of the older members of the staff and had been handpicked by Sam, even before he married Nina, to work at Butterfield. She was elderly then. Now she was approaching ancient, but she still came in five days a week and saw patients. “No. Morgan can’t go to the police. She has a commitment to her group. There is nothing she can offer up that will help, if the society is as secret as she says it is.” Her white curls bobbed with the intensity of her next words. “It is not our job to solve crimes. Haven’t we gone through enough of that around here?”

  Nina was looking at me sternly, differently from how she looked at any other member of her staff. She was frowning the way I’d frown at Dulcie when she pushed me to the point of exasperation.

  “I am not a child,” I said more stridently than I’d wanted to. “I am not unaware of the boundaries. I don’t have any reason not to tell detectives Jordain and Perez what I saw in those photographs.”

  “Well. We’re done for tonight,” Nina said as she put her mug down on the table.

  The crack was not as loud as it was unexpected, and everyone stared at the shards of white china and the tea that pooled on the table. No one moved except for Nina, who leaned over and started to pick up the broken mug.

  “Don’t do that—” I started to say, about to warn her of exactly what happened. She cut her forefinger on one of the slivers of porcelain. A droplet of bright blood appeared. She stared at it as if it were an intruder. With the blood starting to drip off her finger, she looked up and over at me.

  “You understand that I believe you are about to make a serious mistake.”

  I turned and picked up a paper napkin from the sideboard where the coffee, tea, cups and a plate of cookies were. “Here,” I said as I reached her side. “Your finger is bleeding.”

  She took it from me without thanking me. Suddenly, I became aware that the room was too quiet. I looked around. We were alone. The other members of the institute had slipped out.

  “Why are you so dead set on doing exactly what I don’t think you should do? Why would you bring that up here? It was between us.”

  “No, Nina, it wasn’t.”

  “I told you the other day that—”

  “This isn’t a decision about me personally that I talked over with my godmother. This is about a therapist, a group of patients and two murders. I brought it up in front of the members of the Butterfield Institute because the institute needs to make a decision about it.”

  She looked stricken. As if I’d pushed her off a narrow parapet and she was afraid that she was falling.

  “It isn’t about the institute. It’s not about your patients. You know it isn’t.” She then walked out, slamming the door behind her and leaving me by myself in the conference room.

  Thirty-Four

  I pulled on my black suede coat and left the building. Downstairs, I wasn’t sure what direction to take.

  Nina and I had never fought like that. She’d never walked out on me. She was the only woman I’d known for my whole life. I looked back at the building and could see that her office light was still on.

  Should I go back? If I did, what would I say? That I didn’t want her to be upset? That I hated fighting with her? I could tell her how anxious her suddenly impersonal tone of voice made me feel. But none of those things would matter if I couldn’t also tell her that she was right and that I was not going to tell the police anything.

  And I wasn’t ready to tell her that.

  I thought about calling Simon on his cell phone, but even continuing to discuss what Nina had done and how she had reacted seemed to be a transgression. This wasn’t purely professional. It was personal. I had friends outside of the institute, but it would be a breach of professional conduct to talk to them, because to explain it I would have had to explain too much about the Scarlet Society and the photographs.

  I was still standing on the corner, waiting for the light to change, still trying to figure out what to do. Running down my options. Leaving out the most obvious one.

  Well, I could go home. But to an empty house where I’d just sit and brood. Dulcie was with Mitch. Joint custody might be the best thing for my daughter, but I missed her when she wasn’t home. My ex-husband’s connection to the New York City independent film community was, at this point in my daughter’s life, a constant attraction. And in the last few months the custody leaned in Mitch’s favor.

  I could go to a movie. No, I probably wouldn’t even notice what I was watching.

  The light changed and I crossed the street. The sky above was gray and crowded with storm clouds. There was a nor’easter blowing in and the leaves on the street swirled in fast circles. The shorter days and the cooler air had not crept up on us but rushed in. It had just been summer, hadn’t it? Without making any conscious decision as to why, I turned left and started walking downtown. I’d gotten to Sixty-second when it started raining. I didn’t have an umbrella and I didn’t want to ruin my coat.

  Looking at the street sign, I tried to figure out what to do. Barney’s department store was only half a block away. At least I could buy an umbrella there.

  I ran there and rushed in, brushing the water off my coat. The store was open until eight. I could look around and then buy the umbrella if it was still raining. Strolling past the glass cases, I stared down at glittering baubles. Oneof-a-kind pieces rested on velvet, price tags hidden, waiting for someone to try them on.

  I headed to the escalator. The umbrella could wait.

  I knew just where I was going. The fourth floor. Shoes. That was something that would keep my mind from obsessing about Nina.

  * * *

  They were chocolate-brown suede pumps. High heels. I reached out and touched them. So soft and smooth, my finger left a slight impression. I knew that they were impractical. That I’d wind up buying clothes to go with the shoes since my wardrobe was made up of entirely too much black, but I’d like to get a brown suit. Something that was snug around my waist. That opened a little bit lower at the neck than I would wear to work.

  A saleswoman interrupted my daydream to ask if she could help, and I gave her my shoe size, sat down, slipped off my flats and waited, watching the other women who were doing the same thing I was.

  What were they shopping away? Fights with husbands, problems at work? Sons who weren’t doing well at school? Daughters who were on diets that left their hair lank and stringy?

  How many of us here really needed these shoes? Or the chocolate-brown suit I had in my mind. We dress ourselves and redress ourselves, obsess over how we can make ourselves look better, fool ourselves that there is nothing wrong with spending money as a reward for the things that are wrong in our lives.

  The saleswoman arrived with the open shoebox, and despite myself, I felt a little jolt of adrenaline as she held the right shoe out for me to slip my foot into.

  I stood up and walked the few
feet to the mirror. My legs weren’t bad and the shoes made them look better. I hadn’t worn heels for years, until one of my clients recently inspired me to start again. What I had discovered when buying high heels and lingerie again was that I enjoyed shopping for lovely things. I wanted to look better. Oh, come on—I wanted to look sexier. To pass by a window on the street and see in its reflection a man taking a second look at me.

  I handed the woman my charge card and waited for her to ring up the purchase.

  The women in the Scarlet Society had not given up what I’d given up. They pursued sexual thrills despite a society that didn’t offer an easy way for them to do that. They got what they wanted in business and they wanted to get it sexually, too. Was there anything wrong with that?

  Shopping bag in hand, I walked away from the shoes and began looking at the clothes on the rest of the floor. I wanted to see if there were any chocolate-brown suits.

  Nope. Nothing on four.

  I went up another escalator and started browsing through the racks on five.

  When I saw the brown velvet dress, I knew exactly why I wanted it and where I was going to wear it. To Dulcie’s Broadway opening. With the shoes.

  It had stopped raining by the time I left the store. The doorman glanced at my two shopping bags and asked me if I wanted a taxi. I nodded, waiting while he stepped out into the street, held up his hand and hailed one for me.

  I fished a dollar out of my bag and handed it to him as he opened the door. Then, making sure I was settled in, he closed it.

  I knew what the odor was in the first ten seconds. The driver had been smoking a cigar in the cab before picking me up.

  “Sorry,” I said. “Can you pull over? I’m sorry but I can’t stand the cigar smell.”

  Cursing, he did. I let myself out of the cab. We’d only gone ten feet.

  “Whatsa matter, lady, you crazy?” he called after me.

  As I stepped up on the curb I thought about it. Whatsa matter, lady, you crazy? Such a throwaway phrase. So simple to say. No, I wasn’t crazy. I knew what the word really meant. I had seen crazy people. I had seen people go crazy. My mother. My patients. In June, I’d seen a man go crazy and murder a series of prostitutes because he thought he could save them. Five women had died.

  And there was someone else out there who was crazy. Kidnapping men, killing them and taking their photographs.

  I always wondered how the courts could declare that anyone who had taken someone else’s life was legally sane. It had to be an insane act to take a life that was not yours.

  Thirty-Five

  I walked the twenty blocks to the police station, hoping that I could convince myself to turn around and go home before I reached the front door. In my head, I ran through every one of Nina’s arguments and some she hadn’t thought of, but none was convincing. By the time I reached the precinct house I had worked out exactly what I could say and what I couldn’t say in order to stick to the rules of my profession.

  Noah was smart and he wouldn’t need much. I would not have to betray anything the members of the Scarlet Society had told me. I’d just show Noah what I’d seen and he’d follow it through.

  If, of course, he hadn’t figured it out already. And if he had, so much the better. I’d pick up my bags, take myself home, get into bed and be able to sleep, because although I’d done the wrong thing according to Nina, I would have done it for the right reason. To save someone’s life.

  And no one but Noah would ever have to know.

  My heart was beating loudly in my chest and my skin felt clammy as I walked up to the front desk, gave my name and asked for Detective Jordain. “I’d appreciate it if you’d tell him that it’s important and that it will only take a few minutes.”

  The young officer dialed the phone, spoke into it, listened and then hung up.

  “He asked if you would please wait for him in his office. He’ll be with you shortly. I’ll have someone take you there.”

  The corridor was busy—it was always busy here—and no one paid any attention to my escort or me. We turned the corner. Up ahead, coming from the opposite direction, were Detectives Jordain and Perez, and a woman who looked familiar.

  You aren’t aware of how quickly the synapses work: your eyes send the message to the brain, which supplies you with conscious information before you even have time to realize you are working on figuring it out.

  Of course, the combination of pressed blue jeans, soft brown suede blazer and the ever-present worn leather briefcase were familiar. It had been the dark brown hair that had thrown me.

  In my office, as Liz, a long-time member of the Scarlet Society, she was a blonde. But her eyes were the same and they were staring at me, as shocked as I was, asking me exactly the same silent question I was asking her.

  What are you doing here?

  What trust are you breaking?

  I didn’t wait to talk to Jordain. I had been completely wrong to go there. My escort was gone but I knew where to go. Turning, I rushed back the same way I’d come, as fast as I could without running, the shopping bags hitting my legs.

  Out in the street it was raining again. I cursed myself that I’d forgotten to buy the umbrella at Barney’s, pulled up my collar, tucked my head down and just kept walking, figuring I’d find a cab soon enough. After three blocks, I did.

  I gave the driver my address, sat back, opened my bag, pulled out a roll of peppermints, popped two in my mouth and bit down, knowing that the instant intense scent of mint would obliterate the stale body odor that permeated the air in the enclosed space.

  Inhaling the sharp, clean scent, I concentrated on the sensation of speeding through the nighttime streets and the sound of rain hitting the car’s roof.

  Thirty-Six

  It was just eight-thirty but it had been a long day and I was exhausted. I’d only been home fifteen minutes. The shopping bags were still in the front hall where I’d dropped them when I got in. I’d taken off my work clothes and had changed into leggings, a cashmere cardigan, and a pair of black suede ballet slippers. I’d even had time to stick some frozen thing in the oven and pour myself a glass of vodka with a splash of Rose’s lime juice when the buzzer rang.

  It wasn’t really a surprise. I had gotten to know Jordain better than I’d thought in the short time we’d known each other. That he wanted to know why I had turned and left the police station when I’d obviously come to tell him something was not unexpected. But the reality of him filling the door frame shocked me.

  I stared at the drops of rain on the broad shoulders of his leather jacket and in his silver-streaked hair. How long was he going to want to stay? How could I get him to leave?

  “Can I come in?” he asked.

  His eyes were too blue. “What will happen if I say no?”

  “I’ll come in, anyway.”

  “I guessed as much.” I opened the door wider and he walked into my apartment.

  “Is Dulcie here?”

  I shook my head. “She’s with her father.”

  He nodded and looked around. He’d been here before and he seemed to be remembering it, reacquainting himself with the space and my things in it.

  “Did you eat yet?” he asked.

  “No, I was just having a drink.”

  “That sounds great. I’ll have whatever you’re having.”

  Wasn’t he going to ask me what I had come to tell him? Why couldn’t he just get it over with? As I moved toward the bar, my mind tried to deal with a half-dozen different emotions at once. Had Nina been right? Should I stay out of the police investigation and let them find out who these men were and why they were being killed on their own? Or was I just thinking that because Noah was here?

  I took a glass off the shelf above the bar. My hand was shaking. Did he see it? I poured the vodka, splashed in the Rose’s. There was no ice. I left him, walked into the kitchen, put three ice cubes into the glass and went back to him. He was looking out the window and turned as he heard my footsteps. He walked
toward me, took the drink, sipped at it, smiled, and then without putting it down or saying a word, pulled me toward him with his free hand and kissed me.

  His lips were cold from the drink. He tasted of lime. He smelled of rosemary and mint. He pressed his whole body against mine and reminded me how it felt to be alive with every cell of your body, not just with your brain. The room fell away. The reason I’d gone to see him and the rain and the impropriety and the rules I was bending were all gone.

  That the coming together of bodies could be such a delight, such a powerful force, that it could be so pleasurable was both a gift from the gods and a mercurial force of science. That I was still wary of it shamed me. That I was thinking of giving this gift back made me feel ungrateful.

  Noah did not stop kissing me.

  I lost my balance.

  His arm held me up.

  He knew even that.

  I pressed into him.

  He responded, reciprocated.

  He did not stop kissing me.

  I could not remember ever being kissed like that. I did not remember when a kiss was as good as fucking. When a kiss was as intimate as having a man inside me. No. More. More intimate. Noah breathed into me. I inhaled his breath. The rest of our bodies disappeared. The point of contact between us burned. I knew my lips would be bruised when we stopped. I only hoped his would be bruised just as badly. Months of long nights were in my mouth, spewing from me into him. My teeth gnashed into his, letting him know that he had waited too long to come back. I bit down on his lips, trying to punish him for taking me at my word. He had known better. I had counted on it. He had tricked me.

  He bit back. He pushed back. He used his tongue like some kind of weapon, berating me for what I had prevented, castigating me for having kept us from being together before this. He inflicted the kiss on me. I accepted it as my sentence. I argued with my mouth. It had not been all my fault. He had not fought back. But he was fighting back now.