A Killer's Kiss

by William Lashner

  “Ah, Victor, you are making Sandro very happy.”

  The knife dipped down, the edge pressed into the bloody circle.

  “But I know who does,” I said hastily as I tried again to pull away. “I know who has it.”

  Gregor tapped Sandro on the shoulder. Sandro dug the knife in deeper and then, with a sigh, lifted it from my chest. He wiped it on my pant leg, one side, then the other, before snapping it closed and rising to his feet.

  I shut my eyes, opened them again. The pain was still there, along with the blood. I touched the wound, the red smeared sickly.

  “Get up now,” said Gregor. “No need to wallow.”

  I pushed myself to a sitting position and then stood, un-steadily. My chest burned, my stomach shifted, a line of vomit climbed up my throat and burned its way down again. I staggered a bit before collapsing onto the pleather sofa. I put the remnants of my T-shirt against the bleeding wound and then modestly clutched my buttonless shirt closed. I might have sobbed.

  My cell phone rang again. Derek, I assumed, calling to tell me where Julia had gone, calling to read to me my future.

  “You want to pick that up?” said Gregor.

  “No,” I said, and the truth was that I really didn’t. In the midst of the blood and the torture, I didn’t need another blow.

  “Okay, Victor. Now tell me what you know.”

  My breathing was crazed with fear, like a raccoon on the run. I took a moment to try to get it under control.

  “Come, come,” said Gregor. “Don’t leave me hanging.”

  “Remember how we were on the track of Miles Cave?” I managed to say. “Well, he doesn’t exist.”

  “Really,” said Gregor. “No Miles Cave. Interesting. He’s ghost, but ghost who writes letters.” He reached into his jacket, pulled out a folded piece of paper, and began to read in his dark Russian voice. “‘Dear Wren, As our recent conversations have not gone well, and you have lately been refusing to take my calls, I am having this letter hand-delivered in hopes—’”

  “It’s a fake,” I said.

  “But of course you would say that. It has your address. And it looks like your signature. And I have it on good authority that you wrote it.”

  “Whose authority?”

  “Someone I trust.”

  “He’s lying.”

  “It’s not a he.”

  “Who? Julia?”

  “Victor. Let us start again. Where is my money?”

  “I don’t have it. And I didn’t write that letter. I am being framed. By the very person who does have the money.”

  “So talk.”

  “Wren Denniston was broke. He saw a way of getting out of the Inner Circle disaster with some money in his pocket by playing his old business associate for a sucker. So he concocted a way for you to invest with an imaginary partner. He took your cash and credited the investment in the books, but he never put the cash in the bank. Instead he gave it to someone to hide, in case you or the feds came looking for it. Then, later, he credited the withdrawal and, wallah, one point seven million in cash ready to soften his fall. His golden parachute.”

  “So Wren has my money.”

  “He did, but he was murdered, murdered for reasons that had nothing to do with the money. By an addict named Terrence Tipton, whom Julia has been in love with since high school. But the murder left the cash with the person Wren had hidden it with. The person who had been involved with Wren in the plan, the person who had drafted up the partnership agreement between you and the fictional Miles Cave. When you showed me the agreement, I thought I recognized the author.”

  “And you didn’t tell me? I am hurt.”

  “I wanted to be sure.”

  “And are you?”

  “Yes.”

  “So, Victor, who is this man who conspired with Wren, who took advantage of his murder to steal my money, and then who framed you? Who is this mastermind of crime?”

  “You’re not going to believe this.”

  “You better hope that I do.”

  And just as I was about to tell him, there was a scrape of feet at my door.

  Knock, knock.

  Gregor’s head whipped around. Sandro bolted to standing as he straightened his arm. Swish-click.

  I clutched my shirt tighter.

  “Victor Carl,” came a voice I recognized from the other side. “This is the police. Open the door. We have a warrant.”

  Click-swish. Sandro put his hand in his pocket.

  Gregor turned his face from the door, grabbed hold of my head with both hands, pulled me close enough so I could smell the cumin on his breath. “Who?” he said, quietly but urgently.

  I thought it through as quickly as I could, thought of Sandro and his dancing knife, thought of what fun he would have. I thought of it all, and then I let the lesser angels of my nature have their way. Sure, why not, and didn’t he deserve to be the quarry that got Gregor off my back? But if it was going to work, if a single name was going to send Gregor off to do his part on this brutal night, I needed him to trust me. How could I get Gregor to trust me with two cops banging down the door? How indeed?

  “Twenty-five percent,” I said.

  “You’re being greedy,” said Gregor. “We had deal.”

  “That was before you sliced up my chest like a London broil.”

  “Fifteen.”

  “Twenty.”

  Another knock.

  “Yes, fine,” said Gregor. “Agreed. Who?”

  “Clarence,” I said as I jerked my head out of his grip and stood up, clutched my now-bloody shirt tight. “Clarence Swift.”

  “No. Can’t be.”

  “Yes it can,” I said. “That little eel has it stashed away, mark my word. Now, if you boys don’t mind, I need to talk to my friends in the constabulary.”

  39

  Sims and Hanratty, back again to where it all began.

  “Are we interrupting something, Victor?” said Sims, looking through the crack of the door and past my shoulder to the two nefarious characters in my living room.

  “Nothing worth talking about.”

  He eyed my shirt, still clutched, a rough circle of blood beginning to appear on the cloth, took in the burgeoning bruise on my face, my bleeding ear. Then he peered into my eyes as if to figure out what the hell was going on.

  “You mind if we come in?” he said.

  “Does it matter if I say yes?”

  “No.”

  “Then by all means,” I said as I opened the door wide, letting them through. Once in the apartment, the two cops stood side by side—Sims dark and furtive, Hanratty solid as granite with a Mount Rushmore jaw—and stared at the two other men in my apartment like a pair of fighting dogs sizing up the competition.

  “Aren’t you going to introduce us to your guests?” said Sims. “We so much would like to meet them, wouldn’t we, Hanratty?”

  Hanratty glowered and said nothing.

  “Hanratty is always looking for new friends,” said Sims, “since he tends to break the old ones.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “How rude of me. Detective Sims, Detective Hanratty, this is Gregor Trocek and his boy toy Sandro.”

  Sandro hissed at me with his Andalusian lisp.

  “Gregor Trocek,” said Sims. “Gregor Trocek. Where have I heard that name before?”

  “It is quite common,” said Gregor. “Pleasure meeting you both, but we must be going. We have business meeting to attend.”

  “At this time of night?” said Sims. “It must be some business. Gregor Trocek. Gregor Trocek.” He tapped his chin twice, and then his eyes lit up. “Of course. Gregor Trocek. What a coincidence. I was just this evening reading the Interpol file of a Gregor Trocek. A rather nasty villain.”

  “Must be different Gregor Trocek,” said Gregor Trocek.

  “Oh, I don’t think so,” said Sims. “The Gregor Trocek I was reading about was approximately your height, approximately your weight, had the same beady eyes and unkempt beard,
the same air of perverse dissoluteness. He is wanted for questioning in Belgium about a notorious sex crime. A young girl violently assaulted. Shockingly young, actually. The community is still in an uproar. He is under investigation in Albania. Something about trafficking in young women. What was the term in the file? Oh, yes, the white slave trade. Quite evocative, no? And he is barred from entering Thailand and Cambodia. I can’t imagine what bestiality one must commit to be banned from entering Thailand and Cambodia. Care to comment?”

  “I am innocent of everything,” said Gregor.

  “Yes,” said Sims, eyeing him up and down. “You look like an innocent. What should we do with this piece of trash, Hanratty?”

  “Take him in,” said Hanratty, “put him in the box, ship him FedEx to Brussels.”

  “You have no jurisdiction,” said Gregor.

  “Maybe not, but Immigration does. When I talked to them this evening, they seemed quite interested in your case. They were already looking for you. Apparently, you didn’t inform them of any criminal problems on your visa application. They are making a recommendation to the FBI tomorrow.”

  “Let’s hold him until then,” said Hanratty.

  “If only we could,” said Sims. “If only we could.”

  “But I assume from your tone of regret that you can’t,” said Gregor. “So that is it, then. Off we go. It was an experience being introduced to you both. I will be in touch, Victor.”

  “Enjoy your meeting,” I said.

  “I intend to. Come, Sandro.”

  Gregor, with a hurry-up hitch in his stride, headed for the door, Sandro right behind.

  “Oh, Mr. Trocek,” said Sims. “One more thing.”

  Gregor stopped, turned around. His hands trembled, as if he were straining to keep them from wringing Sims’s neck.

  “If I see you again,” said Sims, “I’ll shoot you in the face.”

  Trocek stood there for a moment, staring back at Sims, before the slightest smile broke beneath the thatch of his beard. Something burst to life between them just then, some spark, containing in its charge a combustible mixture of greed and violence. I sensed that someday soon Sims and Trocek would meet again, and two of my problems might disappear all at once.

  When Gregor left, Sims turned to me. “Quite a disreputable crowd you’re hanging out with,” he said.

  “Not by choice,” I said. “Very little that has happened to me as of late has been by choice. Take you two guys always popping in uninvited. Before we chat, do you mind if I go into my bedroom and get a new shirt? This one is a little worse for wear.”

  “Yes, we do mind,” said Hanratty as he reached into his jacket pocket, took out a pair of blue rubber gloves, slipped them onto his huge hands.

  “What are you doing? My prostate is fine.”

  Sims pulled a document from his overcoat and waved it once before putting it away. “We have a warrant. Hanratty’s going to search your bedroom. Relax, Victor. This won’t take long.”

  “That’s what they say when they check your prostate.”

  While Hanratty disappeared into my bedroom, I sat down on the edge of the couch, leaning forward, one hand still clutching the shirt to my chest. Sims sat with a certain ease in my easy chair, leaning back comfortably, one leg crossed over the other.

  “I’d ask about your shirt and the blood,” said Sims, “but I try not to get into people’s sexual practices unless absolutely necessary.”

  “This has nothing to do with—”

  “Not yet, Victor. We’ll talk, we’ll have quite the conversation, but not just yet.”

  “What kind of—”

  “Shhhh,” said Sims. “Save it all for later. For now let Hanratty do his work.”

  From my bedroom came the sound of clothes rustling, of furniture being moved, of objects being tossed carelessly about. Something shattered against a wall. Sims didn’t so much as flinch.

  “Can I see the warrant at least?” I said.

  “No.”

  “But the law says—”

  “I know what the law says,” said Sims. “Just be patient. Everything will come clear, one way or the other, soon enough.”

  And soon enough it did. From the doorway to my bedroom appeared Hanratty, a crooked smile on his stalwart face. And in one hand, still sheathed in blue rubber, he held out, like a magician displaying a startled rabbit pulled from his hat, a plastic bag.

  And inside the plastic bag was a gun, big and shiny, and though I had never seen it before, I knew right away which gun, of all the guns in the world, was this gun and whom it had killed.

  It’s hard to parse the swirling swill of emotions I felt at that very moment. There was the inevitable shock, though how I could have been shocked was a mystery. And there was anger, a generalized anger at the bastards who had set up the frame and the two cops who were walking right through it. And there was fear, yes, fear that after all the crimes and misdemeanors in my life, I was being caught at something I hadn’t done. The UPS guy always rings twice, I suppose. And let’s not forget the sadness, too, yes, of course, I admit it, sadness at the past that was obliterated and the future altered by the sheen of the gun’s silvery barrel.

  But most of all, and this may be the truest revelation of this whole sordid tale, even as I felt the frame of guilt close in on me, what I felt surging through me at the sight of that gun, planted in my bedroom by my old lost love, was a great heaving sense of relief.

  40

  “What are you going to do now?” I said, my jaw tight with dread. Whatever relief I felt at the vision of Julia disappearing from my future was suddenly overwhelmed by visions of prison bars taking her place.

  “We’re going to book you for illegal possession of a firearm,” said Sims as he calmly straightened out the fabric on his pant leg. “And when the tests show conclusively that your gun killed Dr. Denniston, we’re going to book you and hold you without bail until a grand jury indicts you for murder.”

  “I didn’t do it,” I said.

  “Save it,” said Hanratty. “The judge might care, we don’t.”

  “Hanratty,” said Sims, “why don’t you go down to the car and call in what we found. Maybe see if anything else has popped up that we should know about.”

  “I could call from here,” said Hanratty.

  “I know, but do it from the car. Leave me a few minutes alone with Victor.”

  Hanratty stared at the back of Sims’s head for a moment, his stone features hardening, then put the gun in his pocket and stalked out the door. Sims and I sat there for a while in silence. Sims had something to say, but he wanted me to wait and stew a bit first. Except I had done enough stewing and waiting that night.

  “The gun was planted,” I said.

  “Probably,” said Sims.

  “I know who killed him,” I said. “I can prove it.”

  “You can prove it? Really? That’s so encouraging for you.”

  “Don’t you want to know who killed the doctor?”

  “Not really. I have you here, now, and that’s all I need. The young and pretty wife naked in your bed. You, as always, hoping for a big payday. The fingerprint. The letter you wrote as Miles Cave. The gun in your apartment. Open and shut, Victor. Open and shut. We’ll check Dr. Denniston off the board and move on. When the grand jury rubber-stamps the indictment, we’ll hold you for a year or two, depending on delays, until your trial. By then, with the help of a few cooperating witnesses from the prison, we’ll have more than enough evidence to throw at a jury. And won’t the prosecutor have fun waving the gun in his closing?”

  I closed my eyes, imagined it all, felt the quease rise in me. “But I have a witness.”

  “Good for you. And you can present him at the trial, if he doesn’t disappear before then. Like Mrs. Denniston’s alibi witness disappeared.”

  I snapped my eyes open. “You chased him away on purpose.”

  “Now, why would I do something like that?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. �
�But I suspect I’m about to find out.”

  “I wanted to help you from the first, Victor, remember? But you were all about attitude and nothing about gratitude. I felt only a smart-alecky disdain from you. Quite insulting. But the worm turns, doesn’t it? And now all I see is your soft underbelly. And so here we are. You with the murder weapon in your bedroom, me with a prime suspect. See how neatly it works? But I’m still willing to help.”

  “What do you want?”

  “To see justice done,” he said.

  He stared at me briefly, and then he started laughing, and I couldn’t help but laugh, too. His laughter was full of merriment and mirth, mine was full of bitterness and dread, but there we were, laughing together at the idea that justice had any place in the discussion we then were having. And in that laughter I caught my first glimpse of a route out of the cage of guilt that had been hammered into place around me.

  “Let me tell you what I’m willing to do for you first,” said Sims. “I can make this all go away. The gun was planted, of course it was. You are innocent, of course you are. You know who did it, of course you do. I’ll follow your lead, I’ll find the culprit, I’ll make him pay. You tell me who. Clarence Swift? Fine. Someone else? Great. Your mother? My mother? My wife? Please. I’m flexible, really. It will all take some doing, and I’ll suffer the heat from my superiors, but nothing I can’t handle in the end. And for you, life goes on. Your fine legal practice, your new flat-screen television, your pleather couch. And finally, Victor, you can consummate your renewed relationship with Mrs. Denniston. How sweet would that fruit taste? I grow weak myself, merely thinking about it.”

  “I can tell by the slobber on your lip.”

  “I’m just so excited for you, Victor.”

  “And in exchange for all this happiness?”

  “A little bit of truth. Do you think you can handle that? One honest word out of you. Do you think that can be arranged?”

  “It depends.”

  “Yes, I know it will be hard. But try. Try as if your life depends on it, which it does.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “Okay, here it is. I need the answer to one simple question: Where is the money?”