by Lotta Smith
“Well, speaking of love.” The doctor continued, leaning in. “Did you encounter any…you know, romantic situations with any of Dragon members?”
Hell no. I thought. Also, I’m thinking of suing your ass off for sexual harassment. But I managed to flash an enigmatic smile. “You know Doctor, since I have signed the confidentiality clause, I really cannot talk about that topic. I’m sorry about it.”
Also, I didn’t have a heart to tell him about the intimate six-hours that Nick Valentine the bassist and I had spent together. Both of us were fully clothed and we talked about gardening, his passion de jour back in the time over Assam tea and cucumber sandwiches. In addition, he had once been chosen as one of the sexiest musicians alive. With his good looks, musical talent, and attitude, he had it all. Throw in the fact that as the lead composer, he’s got rights for most of Iron Dragon’s hit songs. Royalty from karaoke alone was presumed to be large enough to run a small nation, such as Belgium.
“Oh, I understand.” A conspiratorial smile was pasted on his face. Like he knew it all, and keeping this as a dirty little secret between the two of us.
“You know, they’re rockers after all.” I shrugged nonchalantly to Dr. Arlington, who was nodding like a broken bobble-head.
It was my attempt to avoid a scandal.
In the world of rock n’ roll, being quoted as a good guy who’s stoic for his music and his life is generally frowned upon. They prefer to be called womanizing, bat-eating, Satan-worshipping kind of bastards. I couldn’t possibly tell Dr. Arlington the truth.
After feeding the psychiatrist with enough entertainment for the day, I asked. “So, about Warren’s new marriage, can you tell me a bit about it?” Partly I wanted to change the subject.
“Are you sure you want to know?” He stopped nodding like a bobble-head and furrowed his thick, sort of bushy eyebrows.
“I recall that you mentioned that she’s a lawyer.”
“Yes, Warren married his new lawyer.” Then he added sympathetically. “Sorry if that hurts you.”
“I’m okay. Thank you for the information.” I said. “Surely that was a shocker, but it’s good to know it than not. It makes a good closure.”
“I’m glad you’re taking it with a positive attitude.” Finally, he was sounding like a psychiatrist. “And it looks like you’re living a good life. Like, you finally found someone who truly understands and cares for you.”
“You think so?” I decided he wasn’t such a good psychiatrist anyway. “One thing I don’t really understand is why a lawyer marries him. He’s a pathological liar, he has no money, and even if he has money that has to be used to pay off to his former clients.”
“I’ve no concrete evidence.” He shrugged. “My guess is that the old fart is a bloody good talker. I sometimes get envious, imagining like: Hey, what if I can smooth-talk like him? I might be able to convince Taylor Swift into marrying me.”
I wanted to start singing “Ooh, like never, never, never…”
Instead, I suggested. “So, in short, his mental status is pretty good, albeit crooked?” I pretended that I didn’t catch his comment about Taylor.
“That’s correct. As you say crooked, he lies like breathing, which makes his words saying that his memory’s ailing is a downright lie. Even we, supposedly psychiatric professionals, get often conned by him, only to find it later and it’s kind of like Clusterfuck! Pardon my French.”
“Your French’s nothing compared to colorful expletives I’m thinking about right now.” But I couldn’t help chuckling.
“Besides that about his supposedly ailing memory, what else did he tell you?” He took up a pen, clutching a yellow legal pad.
I told him about the foot-fetish murderer Warren had told me about. The doctor compulsively wrote every word I said on his note pad, saying that he was working on a book about personality disorders and compulsive lying.
“Get out!” He gave a hearty laugh. “It’s impossible for Warren to speak to that foot collecting murderer. First off, it’s been almost fifteen years since the killer had died of cancer. So maybe he has heard about this man from other inmates, but I’m skeptical. Anyway, he’s doing quite fine if you interpret lying happily in a jail as fine. And probably, now you understand what I wanted to tell you about his lying problem.”
“I suppose so.” I managed to smile, suppressing my urge to pull out my hair and shriek like a hysterical toddler.
Lovely. Just lovely. Things keep on going lovelier and lovelier as the more lies of Warren’s get spotted on. “Do you think it’s possible for him to feel guilt or remorse, if any at all?”
“Depends on which answer you want, the sweet little fairytale one, or the bitter reality.”
“I’d prefer the latter.”
“Reality often hurts.”
“I know, but maybe not as much as jumping onto a bicycle with the seat missing.”
“Hmm…I liked Naked Gun movies. Okay then, the answer is no.”
I closed my eyes and I was silent for 10 seconds. “I knew.”
“I’m sorry. But that guy is a typical case of a sociopath with a trait of compulsive lying. Or a psychopath, those terms are often regarded to be interchangeable.”
Neither term had warm feelings.
“Can I ask you something?”
“Yep, go ahead.” He nodded.
“When you say someone is a compulsive liar, are they really free of feelings such as guilt and remorse, or are they just excellent at hiding their feelings?”
“That’s a good question.” He stopping scribbling. “And I agree it’s debatable if one can actually learn what other people are truly feeling, or thinking in the deep inside. My guess is that so-called psychopaths/sociopaths are free of remorse, also they’re exceptionally good at hiding their feelings.”
“I see.” I gave out a sigh. I felt numb.
“Anyway, it’s hard for anyone to change the behavioral pattern. By the way, when you lived with him, has he ever physically hurt you?”
“No, he never even raised a hand.” I shook my head. Warren was a lying, cheating, jilting, and womanizing bastard, however, he seemed to have had a standard. “He was always a gentleman and I believe he still is, if you don’t count his compulsive lying as an abuse.”
“Okay. Now I must say you’re damn lucky. People lacking emotions such as remorse often get physically violent as to abusing their spouses and significant others, sometimes to death. If that makes a difference.”
“It does. Dr. Arlington, one more thing, when a serial killer takes eyeballs from the victims, what do you think is his purpose, or motive?”
My motto: It doesn’t hurt to ask.
“It’s easy to list a series of possible motives for the behavior, but it’s very embarrassing when nothing hits the reality, even marginally.” He shrugged. “In short, I have no idea and the best measure is meeting the murderer face to face, however, even if you do so, there’s no guarantee that this murderer tells you the truth.”
The longer I talked to him, the more he started to look like Cheshire Cat from Alice in Wonderland rather than Harry Styles lookalike.
“How about the late foot-fetish inmate? What was his motive?”
“Oh, he cut off women’s right feet, stored them in freezers. According to the record, he chewed it occasionally. But he never really opened up when asked about why he cut only the right foot.”
He started rubbing his jaw, as if it was the first time he had seriously thought about the late serial murderer. “I’m not sure, but maybe even the guy himself didn’t know his purpose?”
I thanked him and got the hell out of the prison.
Chapter 19
I walked toward northeast past the train station, past rows of little old apartments and shops. I headed down the cramped street that lead to the riverside of the Thames, as if I was channeling a waterbug allured to not-so-clean water. The thick clouds that were earlier covering the sky had cleared away, and the sun was shining.
> I glanced at the muddy, murky, brownish water. The river was notorious for cholera outbreak in mid-19th century, and its water was not at all alluring. But I liked the interpretation that even filthy water gets to flow into the ocean, evaporate, and later return to the river as raindrops. Clean, clear, and full of innocence. For me, this perspective suggested a happy scenario that any sins can be cleansed somehow, someday.
I leaned on the fence by the river and recalled my encounter with Warren. I went to the prison to quit being the dump-ee and become the dump-er, but after the visit, I was still the dump-ee. It didn’t bode very well with me. No, disturbing was more like the word. In fact, disturbing was an understatement.
Even more outrageous was that after all those years, Warren still managed to remain being as a lying, cheating, jilting bastard. His lying style hadn’t changed a bit, and I was positive that he was still absolutely guilt-free.
I looked down at the Thames. Today, the river was flat and glassy even though the water was muddy brown as usual. I started to smile. I didn’t know the reason why I was smiling and I didn’t even care. My head was too messed up to think. Anyway, my smile got wider and wider and finally, I broke into a fit of a giggle.
Not that I was happy to find him still trying to get what he wanted by using me.
It was the nerve of the weasel that made me laugh. His lying, cheating, and no apologizing policy was outrageous, but somehow, I wasn’t shocked, infuriated, or saddened. On the contrary, I felt somehow contented to see him so unchanged. During our marriage, he used to lie like breathing and I didn’t catch his lies until after divorce. For me, seeing him still lying through the teeth was something like watching Jerry and George plotting a little scheme about nothing in Seinfeld reruns. Besides that, he even had the audacity to pick up a new wife. Poor thing, I totally sympathized for the new wife. I hate to sound sour grape, but she must be dense for a lawyer.
As I giggled, I found that my feelings towards my ex was neutral. Deep in my heart, I knew he had already moved on, leaving me behind. And I had no hard feelings about it. I had so moved on
—Okay, that’s so not true.
Actually, my feelings towards Warren the bastard wasn’t neutral. I had hard feelings towards him. I was still taking it personal. No, I was taking everything personal.
I still remembered that night so vividly. It was one night after finalizing the divorce. I called Warren out of post-divorce blue. At that point, he was still a financial tycoon without a care in the world. The phone ringed eight times until he took my call. I didn’t have specific topics to discuss, but when I heard his voice, I lost it. I ended up bursting out crying. He told me not to cry and before I knew, I was brawling like an idiot. He whispered consoling words that meant nothing and everything. At the end of conversation, I clumsily said take-care. Then he said those words: ‘By the way, Kelly, can we make it our last private conversation? It was nice talking to you still, it’s not like we’re married anymore. And we’ve chosen to go separate ways, you know—.’
I caught a female voice in the background. I demanded to know who she was, after feeding me with the reason for the divorce as having to deal with a personal issue on his own, and denying the presence of other women. But it was too late. The next thing, he hung up. I learned about Maria-Diana the Brazilian dancer in the tabloid.
It was a dark, humiliating memory I’d buried in the deep bottom of my memory landfill.
As I recollected that dark memory, it was pretty clear that taking time to visit him was a huge mistake. I wanted to see him serving 300-plus years as a prisoner, not as a happy, laid back, and remarried man who had moved to a Spartan-themed minimalist condo with maximum security wasn’t what I hoped to see.
I started to feel a gigantic wave of self-pity coming on my way. I tried to convince myself that I just wanted a closure. And I wished I was proud enough to keep my chin up so that I could save myself from drowning in a deep, dark hole of self-pity.
Speaking of self-pity, it was hard to indulge yourself in one of them when someone in the apartment was a-blasting “Friggin’ in the riggin’” by Sex Pistols at full volume. Somehow, the words of the song about ship called Venus with the whore-in-bed shaped figurehead and a rampant-penis shaped mast seriously interfering with my self-pity process.
That was something that let me know the universe has a twisted sense of humor.
Okay, so I still had grudge on him but at least I wasn’t jealous of his new wife. Hell no, not at all.
After all those years that I hoped to be still with him, and after pathetically waiting for him to call my old cell phone, I was glad that I didn’t have anything to do with him anymore.
On top of all that, now I was not even sure if I ever really, really loved him.
Gosh, what was I thinking? Who was I kidding?
My giggle had escalated to a full-brown howling. I was laughing uncontrollably. Had it been a posh residential area, someone would be phoning the police already, notifying they are having “this crazy woman probably on drug, laughing her head off.”
“For your information.”
I sensed a familiar deep voice coming from the sideway, and a subtle scent of Aqua di Gio.
“Today’s temperature is 12 degrees in Celsius, which is only 54 in Fahrenheit and if I were you, I wouldn’t jump into the water.”
“Is that so? What a shame. Jumping into the river was exactly what I was intending to do.” I was still laughing so hard that I was almost choking. “I was so looking forward to swimming in the Thames. Though the water looks a tad bit muddy, it sure would be lovely. Believe me, I swim like a dolphin, I was once invited to join the national swim team to train for the Olympics.”
“Pants on fire. You’re not a much of a swimmer.”
“Is it a coincidence that we met here, or…?” I turned and looked up at Michael Archangel, who was standing by my side.
“It looked like you’re having a good time. And I thought like, why not crash and boost the fun?”
“Boosting the fun?” I said incredulously. That was a reply which I was not expecting. In fact, it would have been less surprising if he had admitted to coming there to make fun of me.
“Yeah. Don’t tell me you didn’t know I’m a born entertainer.” He cocked his head.
“A born entertainer who happens to look good in a men’s suit. Very interesting.” I said. Today, he was wearing a light gray Hugo Boss suit, light blue shirt, a tie in indigo and a pair of black leather boots from Alexander McQueen. The funny thing was that he looked positively good in men’s attire.
“Sometimes you’ve got to play dress up, I guess.” He shrugged nonchalantly as if the drastic change in the choice of attire was unimportant for him.
He didn’t look uncomfortable in men’s attire, so it was true that he used to wear men’s clothes in the past. I was tempted to ask him why he bothered to wear women’s attire when he looked great in men’s garments, but I backed out of it. I didn’t want to ask him personal questions on an account that doing that would give him the right to ask me personal questions.
“How was the case?” I said.
“It was a piece of cake. At a university hospital, the professor of cardiology had dropped dead while performing a coronary artery bypass surgery. Initially, his death was presumed to be a heart attack but one of the fellow professors, an associate of Mickelson, called him, just in case. The killer was one of the nurses assisting the operation. It turned out her target wasn’t just the male professor but the female patient on the operation table as well. This female patient was the head nurse of the surgical unit. Both the professor and the head nurse were allergic to peanuts, and the weapon used in was a small portion of peanut oil. Basically, it was the byproduct of a messy love triangle. According to the killer, the patient on the operation table was her former lover, and the professor had just butted in and stole her lover. The last straw was that the two of them had announced an engagement. She was pretty much insulted, so she decided t
o kill them both by poisoning them with peanut oil.”
“That sounds complicated.” I widened my eyes.
“I know.” Archangel rolled his eyes.
Sex Pistols track ended and Ozzy Osbourne’s ‘Crazy Train’ started playing. We snorted out laughing in unison.
“So, how did the killer poison the victim with peanut oil?”
“She manipulated the top of overshoe foot covers with the known allergen. In hospital surgical area, they have doors operated by kicking and it’s mandatory for everyone entering the area, save for the patients, to put on a pair of overshoe foot covers. So, the victim puts on peanut-contaminated foot covers and it touched the skin around the ankles; in addition to that, he’s inhaled peanut-oil fumes. That resulted in the victim dropping dead in the middle of surgery. The vaporized fume of peanut oil had almost killed the patient as well, not to mention having your surgeon dying when your chest’s being cut open isn’t a favorable factor. Fortunately, she survived.”
“The more I learn, the crazier it sounds.”
“I know. How’s your ex doing?” Archangel said casually.
I thought about pointing out just because I’m in this neighborhood didn’t mean I came here to see Warren, but I knew that would make me look more pathetic. After all, this here wasn’t a neighborhood you’d come by just to enjoy walking.
So I said. “He’s very well. Still lying like breathing. And, oh, he’s married a new wife. She’s a lawyer.”
“A lawyer marries an imprisoned swindler?” His hands went up in the air. “He’s getting better and better.”
“At what?”
“At lying and manipulating people. I saw it coming. Now he’s targeting every living person.”
“By the way, how did you figure out I was here?”
“Are you sure you want to hear that?” He tilted his head to one side, answering my question with another question.
“Well, I guess I’ll pass that at this moment.” I shrugged. “Did you miss me?”