“I don’t know what you’re talking about. My suspicion is that you gave her a lethal combination of products, which can be purchased at any drugstore. No doctor, even one who believed in the morality of assisted suicide—which I do not—would prescribe such a crude and painful method to end a life.”
“It wasn’t painful.” Tears were streaming down my face.
“You effectively disengaged her means to express pain. That doesn’t mean she could not feel it.”
“That’s a lie. They were fucking painkillers.”
He held his arms out to me, and despite myself, I crumbled into his chest, sobbing. “It’s OK,” he said. “It’s OK.” He gently stroked my head and rubbed my back.
I had an idea.
I slid my arms inside his jacket and held him, my fingers almost imperceptibly caressing the small of his back. I felt his hands spread a little wider, moving slowly. I could smell his pheromones. I pulled away, wiped my eyes and straightened myself out.
“I misjudged you,” I told him. “Don’t think I am going to do this out of willingness. Don’t imagine for one moment that you convinced me or that I was gullible enough to fall for your lies. I will cooperate with you for the simple reason that you have access to incriminating information on me.”
“I’m glad you understand.”
“I’m not going to sign all I have directly over to you, though, Doctor. I’m going to try and negotiate. I’d like to make you the kind of offer that will assure you never feel the need to take this further. But I want something for myself.”
“Butterfly, there really is nothing to negotiate.”
“You may be right, but I’m a clever girl. This apartment is worth more than its market value to my father. Much more. I may be able to convince him to buy it from me and then, although I will hate you for the rest of my life and I will find a way to destroy you, you will get your donation in full without any trouble, and I will get to keep the change and not be destitute.”
“I’m not sure that your father has the means to buy this apartment again, Butterfly. He’s already bought it once.”
“Neither am I. Let me contact him. Meet me tomorrow for dinner and we will settle this. I swear on Komori’s memory.”
“Dinner?”
“Don’t get excited. I never want you to set foot in this apartment again, that’s all.”
The trouble with information blackmail is that it can just go on and on. The doctor was a clever man and he would always be able to find ways to take money from me for the rest of my life. There would be no end to my donations, of that I was certain.
The next day I got dressed up and spent some time putting on makeup. “You were right about my father,” I told him. “He’d have to sell his own house and probably then some as well. The apartment is worth a lot to him, but it’s money he hasn’t got.”
“OK,” said Bastide. “So we need to organize you signing the apartment over to me. I can get that sorted.”
“Look, Doctor, we’re both involved in this. We can sell the apartment and share the money.”
“I’m sorry, Butterfly, but that can’t happen.”
“But you don’t understand. I’ll have nothing.”
“Don’t be so ridiculous. You have parents who are not in poverty, you have a job. Frankly, your poor-little-spoiled-middle-class-girl idea of ‘nothing’ is an insult to the millions who have neither food nor shelter.”
“Fuck you, Doctor. That apartment was left to me. I looked after Komori all my life. And at her end it was me who took all the risk. Please, let me keep something.”
“No.”
“Oh God . . . I can’t believe I’m going to say this: I’ll let you have sex with me. Please.”
“No.”
“Please, Doctor. I mean it.”
“Butterfly, I’m not going to turn into some sort of abuser in pushing you to humiliation and prostitution.”
“Doctor, you’re already an abuser. I’m twenty-six. I live in New York. I have boyfriends, I have sex with people. What’s one more fuck? You’re not the most unattractive person in the world. It wouldn’t be torture, Doctor. Just let me keep something.”
“What?”
“Half.”
“With all due respect, Butterfly, your sexual favors are not worth half the value of Keiko’s apartment. I like you, Butterfly. And, you know, I would actually very much like to make love to you. I’ll give you ten thousand.”
“Don’t ever imagine that it would be making love. It would be a fuck, that’s all. But I need more than that.”
“How much?”
“Fifty.”
“No.”
“OK, Doctor. I’m tired. I don’t know what to suggest. I’ll have sex with you for a month. I’ll fuck you as though I love you. You can call me Mommy while I suck your cock if you like. I’ll belong to you for thirty days. You get the apartment and I get fifty thousand dollars and I will hate you until I die. But it’ll be over and we’ll never talk about this again.”
He looked at me. I met his stare hopefully, with none of the venom of my words. “You got a deal,” he said.
I grinned like it was the best news in the world.
“I’ll get the check,” he said. “Then I could drop you off at my new apartment.”
“That sounds like a good idea,” I said.
One thing I definitely didn’t want was Guy Bastide anywhere near my apartment again. I stupidly hadn’t expected to have to come up with a sexual down payment right away. I wasn’t ready. I thought I would have more time to get organized.
Bastide had a shiny black Mercedes that fortunately he had parked on the street and not in some high-security parking lot. We drove off and my brain was racing. After two or three blocks I said, “I don’t feel like going home yet. What if we went for a drive?”
He looked at me and I smiled back, trying to look shy but fuckable.
“Where do you want to drive to?” he said.
“I don’t know. The ocean. Let’s go someplace where there’s nothing but ocean.”
“OK,” said Bastide, and patted my leg. I stroked his hand, trying to hide my disgust.
We drove out through Queens toward Long Beach and then beyond, heading along the coast for what seemed like an eternity. My heart was pounding double time, desperate for a plan. Somewhere around Jones Beach we crossed a bridge and pulled off the road onto sandy scrub. I wondered who was in more danger. I looked around for ideas. Nothing in front of me but a stainless steel ballpoint pen in the opening below the radio. I pushed my feet forward and looked at my shoes: highish broad-heeled sandals. He reached for my knee and ran his hand up my skirt, gently massaging my thigh as we rolled slowly over the scrub until we were facing the angry waves of the Atlantic and he stopped the engine. I unstrapped myself and let him watch as I went into my bag and took out a condom. I leaned over and kissed his chest, and as I did so picked up the pen from beneath the radio. I ran my hand down to his belt and undid it. He held his hand to the back of my neck, trying to encourage my head down toward his crotch. I ignored him and started unbuttoning his shirt, running my hands over his chest. I hitched up my skirt and straddled him, squashed up against the steering wheel. He let go of me for a second and moved the seat back. His hands were all over my body. I took my top off and moved my left hand, the pen still concealed, up his chest and pushed him backward, fumbling for the electric buttons to recline the chair still further. I leaned forward and kissed his neck and moved around his head and kissed his brow so my breasts were in his face. He reached his hands up for them, but I gently pushed him back and raised myself so I was sitting with my left hand over his chest. With my right I removed a sandal. I pointed the pen at his heart and he looked at it confused as I circled for a second, finding the space between the ribs to the side of the sternum. I brought the heel of my shoe down on the end of the pen with all my strength. He would have screamed but it was muffled as he tried to force his body to function. He pushed me back, but t
he steering wheel held me firmly in place. I hammered down again and again. His arms flailed, trying to strangle me, trying to grab my hands. He punched my face, but I felt nothing and hammered away, pummeling my fingers, but hitting the pen as well and it sank in, clicking on and off with each blow. In a last throe of violence he nearly managed to lift me off him, but I held on tight, pulling at the pen to try to get it back. It suddenly came free, unplugging the hole in his heart, and blood burst out as he collapsed backward, twitching a little.
And then there was Jesus. Jesus? “Come and sit, Guy Bastide,” said the Christ. “Who—me?” Jesus looked around the room. “Can you see anyone else called Guy Bastide?” “No, my Lord.” “Come and sit.” Jesus handed him a cup and poured wine from an earthenware jug, then lifted his own cup and they both drank the exquisite liquid. “It’s good,” said the doctor. “It’s my blood,” said Jesus. “It’s taken you a long time to understand, but everything can be good if you choose it to be,” he said. And Guy Bastide had to agree.
I moved back to my seat and closed my eyes, my body throbbing. I was covered in blood. Tears and snot began to trickle down my stinging face, but I felt strong like a goddess. I put my shoe back on and opened the glove box. There was a handgun, which surprised me. I left it there and looked around. On the back parcel shelf was a box of tissues. I reached over and grabbed them, cleaning my face and wiping as much of the blood from me as I could. I got out of the car and checked myself over for any blood I had missed, then put my top back on. I leaned in, turned the key in the ignition and then walked around to his side of the car with the tissues in my hand. I opened his door and lowered all the windows. Next I went around the car, wiping any surface I thought I might have touched. I gathered all the used tissues around his body. It took me a couple of minutes to find the lever that opened the fuel cap, then stuffed some tissues into the gas tank. I found a cigarette lighter in my bag, then put the car in drive and released the brake. The car rolled forward and I walked along easily next to it and lit the tissues around Bastide, then the tissues sticking out of the gas tank. The car bumped along in the direction of West Africa and down onto the loose sand, where it stopped with one of the back wheels spinning freely. I wanted it to roll into the sea or at least far enough down the beach for the sea to cover it when the tide came up. Then I remembered it was on fire and ran back. Seconds later, it burst into flames.
I walked back over the bridge we had come by and turned back to see the tips of flames through the dark. The car was burning well. I turned into the back streets as soon as I could and scurried left and right. I wondered how long it would take me to walk to anywhere there was public transport. It took five and a half hours to get home, unnoticed and elated. I scrubbed myself in the shower. My left hand was grazed and bruised where I had battered it trying to get the pen through his heart, my cheek was swollen and blue and there was a cut under my eye, but nothing serious, it would be normal in a week or so. The uncomfortable feeling wherever he had touched me lasted for months.
Bastide made the morning edition of the paper, which was faster than I’d expected, but that didn’t shake me. The story did, though. It said he was found by the police in a burning car. He had been stabbed but was still alive. He died shortly afterward in the ambulance. Another surprise was that he was survived by a wife and three children. I’d never heard about his family. I wondered whether he had been able to talk. I’d find out soon enough. I spent the next two weeks waiting fatefully for the police to come and arrest me, but they never did.
20
McCarthy Square
‘Want to get a beer?’ I texted.
‘We meet in café @ 11th & 4th?’
‘Already there with beer and Cat.’
‘Wow, that’s weird. Always coincidences. Me there in 20.’
* * *
Beatrice arrived, kissed my cheeks, ordered a beer, then sat down opposite me.
‘So, what have you been up to apart from drinking with your cat?’
‘I went to Jefferson Market Library and there was a book that was hollowed out, and in it there was another murder.’
‘Are you joking?’
‘No. Streetny sent me there to find it.’
‘I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised about death in a library. Et in Arcadia ego.’
‘I’ve heard that before, but I don’t know what it means.’
‘Even in Arcadia am I. “I” being death that goes, not only everywhere else, but to Arcadia as well.’
‘Is that something to do with covered shopping streets?’
‘No, Arcadia in Greece, stupid. The word “arcade” for covered shopping streets comes from the Latin word for arch.’
‘Do you know everything?’
‘I’m not sure. Maybe.’
‘Anyway, the story’s pretty distressing and I wonder if I’m just being instructed to go round collecting all Butterfly’s imprudently abandoned writing because she can’t. Did you read the notebook I gave you about the teacher?’
‘Oh, yes. Here. I brought it back for you.’ She dug it out of her bag.
‘So what did you think?’
‘It wasn’t about me.’ She wasn’t saying much.
‘That’s the only thing you think?’
‘I don’t think it’s a true story.’
‘But what kind of an idiot would write themselves into a piece of fiction, saying that they murdered people?’ I asked.
‘I don’t know the answer to that,’ she said.
‘No, neither do I.’
We both thought about it for a second as if there might be more to say, but nothing came out. Perhaps it’s best not to talk about it.
‘Can I read what you found?’ she asked.
‘Sure.’ I passed the latest notebook over to her and she read while I looked out the window.
‘Sorry, this is rude,’ she said. ‘I shouldn’t read it now.’
‘I don’t mind,’ I said truthfully. ‘I’d like your opinion.’
So she read the story of Guy Bastide and made uncomfortable facial expressions every now and then.
‘What do you think?’ I asked.
‘It’s very crazy.’
‘I don’t believe it anymore,’ I said. ‘Something’s changed. Like you said, they’re not true stories.’
‘I think you’re right. You shouldn’t be thinking of this as a trail of murders. It’s a trail of writing.’ Beatrice was thoughtful.
‘Like some violent fantasy,’ I said.
I showed her the email leading to Jefferson Market Library.
‘She really does like you a lot,’ she said.
‘I guess so.’
‘Maybe she’s obsessed with you.’
‘I find it unnerving that you talk about her in the present tense.’
‘Well, you know my opinion on that,’ she said. ‘Anyway, where’s your cat?’
I looked under the table and about the place. ‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘He might have gone.’
‘This morning I had to spend ten minutes getting cat hair off my clothes and I thought of you.’
‘Oh God, yes. Cat’s kind of longish-haired. It gets everywhere.’
‘Is he called Cat?’
‘Yes.’
‘How unimaginative,’ she said casually, and I felt slightly injured.
‘He’s not my cat; he’s just a cat. It wasn’t my job to give him a name,’ I said defensively, ‘but I had to call him something.’
‘Has anyone else ever seen him?’
‘I hope not. That would make them mind-readers and nothing would be private. It would be like walking around the streets naked. Very natural, a little cold and uncomfortably exposed.’
After two beers we wandered out into the street without thinking where to go.
I suddenly felt tired and hungry. ‘Do you want to get something to eat?’
‘Yeah, we could do.’
‘Do you know somewhere we can get sushi?’
Beatrice s
miled. ‘Yeah, come with me.’
After a few minutes we came to a tiny Japanese restaurant and ordered maki, sushi and sashimi and drank bottled beers.
‘Maki always reminds me of small trees and the French Resistance,’ I said.
‘Why?’
‘Because traditionally French deserters and the Resistance ran off into this kind of low forest called the maquis, because it was very thick and no one could find them and so running off into the maquis became a euphemism or a metonym for joining the Resistance.’
‘What do you mean low? Low like broccoli? Low like bonsai?’
‘No, about three metres tall. Maybe four. I don’t know; I’ve never been into the maquis. It’s very dangerous because you can get lost and it’s probably full of wild boars. It’s like a jungle with short trees.’
‘Short trees, but taller than broccoli.’
‘Yes.’
‘Good. I was having trouble imagining people running off and getting lost among the broccoli. Where do you find these forests?’
‘In the south of France. Perhaps near Avignon. I saw them from the train once. They were like an ocean.’
Beatrice considered this for a second.
‘I want to go back to 15 Charles Street,’ I said.
Beatrice’s expression didn’t change. ‘Pardon?’
‘I want to go back to 15 Charles Street, New York. I want to talk to that man.’
‘What man?’
‘The doorman. Do you want to come with me? I think you exert good influence and a kind of positive preposterousness on any conversation you participate in. It makes it somehow less strange than if I’m by myself.’
‘I can’t, I’m afraid. I have to go home.’
‘You never stay out very long.’
‘It’s a New York thing. No appointment lasts more than two hours. You’re lucky, sometimes we’ve hung out for as much as four because I lost track of time.’
‘People only do things in two-hour blocks?’
‘Well, not officially, but it’s my impression. It would be very easy to hang out with you for longer, but I can’t.’
Three Lives of Tomomi Ishikawa Page 18