Kiss Them Goodbye

by Joseph Eastburn

  She took a breath. “Did the police talk to you?”

  “Oh yeah.”

  “I heard you found the body.”

  “Let’s not talk about it.”

  She looked down at her purse, opened it, and pulled out several photographs. “Look, I have something to show you.”

  He heard the gravel under his shoes as he stepped next to her, looking down. “What is it?”

  “The bloodstains on the floor. Maybe you haven’t developed your pictures yet, but look. See this?” She pointed down. “I learned this step in the gym at school, when I was thirteen. It’s the She Go, He Go.”

  “The what?”

  “See how the victim is taken from an open break position, then looped into a half turn?” She shuffled a diagram of the dance she had photocopied to compare the steps. “It’s like a half a dance, but it’s there.”

  She shuffled the pictures again. “And this is called the Sugarfoot Walk because from promenade position the killer is going triple to the left, then make a quarter turn, then triple to the right, then it’s smudged but . . . you can . . .”

  “Never heard of these dances.”

  “It’s the Lindy.” She pulled another picture. “This is a variation called the Mooch, another hop favorite. See how the killer kicks his left foot forward, see the smear, replacing it, then the right, the same, always replacing the weight, see the heel print? . . . Then it all gets confused. They seem to switch.”

  Fowler looked down. “That’s because the victim is leading.”

  She stared at the pictures, shaking her head pathetically. They both seemed to go silent, their minds drifting away from the horror of it. “How can I make it all up to you, Nick?”

  Fowler looked touched. “You’ll have to do penance.”

  “What do you have in mind?”

  “Well.” He smiled. “I could make you teach me these dances.”

  She dropped the pictures on the pavement. She threw her purse behind her and bowed, arched into dance position, waiting. He stared at her for a prolonged moment, feeling an uncontrollable hunger for her. Simulating a regal air, he stepped closer, ready to dance . . .

  He clamped his arms all the way around her and kissed her hard on the mouth. She threw her arms around his neck, her soft lips wide open, her tongue searching his mouth. Their mouths were rubbing hard across each other’s faces, moaning, kissing, tasting each other. Maureen began moving her breasts up and down on his chest.

  Nick ran his rough hands over her body.

  Maureen was blushing, her cheekbones pierced with color even in the dark. “Stop that.”

  He pulled her closer, pressed his lips down along her neck and arms. She started moving her hips ever so slightly against his, pushing against him, smiling. He was grinding back into her now, his hands sliding down her green dress, onto her buttocks. Both smiling now, kissing, laughing, clutched to each other right there in the parking lot.

  They didn’t see Sergeant Orloff in the adjoining parking area. He was leaning against his car in back of the Thirsty Moose, smoking a cigarette. They didn’t see him turn down the volume on the police radio. How could they see his lips moving, silently, calling in information that might be of interest?

  In front of his room at the Grotto, Nick nudged Maureen so her back was against the door. He struggled with the key. “Maybe I should let you open it,” he said, winking at her.

  “I’m off work.”

  “Besides, this is your atonement.”

  “And rough justice it is.”

  The key finally turned. Nick nudged the door open, picked Maureen up in his arms. She screeched, then slapped a hand over her own mouth, giggling. Nick planted kisses up and down her neck, heaved her across the threshold of the darkened room, and kicked the door closed.

  He threw her down on the bed, a bead of light shot from the curtains across her aquiline body. He leaned down, bit her neck, kissing down her front, his mouth into green material between her breasts. Maureen emitted tiny moans. Nick kept kissing down her body, stroking her hips, her thighs. He felt her arms rubbing his shoulders, then pulling his hair. He lifted the green dress up. He noticed her eyes flaring in the darkness.

  “Is it okay?” he said.

  She shrugged. “I’m nervous.” She crossed her arms and pulled the dress up. Nick watched it slide up her body, over hips, belly, breasts, neck, face, her hair finally up in the air floating down over her shoulders. The green material sailing to the floor.

  He stared, suddenly unbuttoning his belt, struggling awkwardly out of his trousers, tripped once, laid the gun and holster on the floor. He tried a few buttons on his shirt, gave up, ripped it over his head and lunged on top of her long, soft body, kissing face, arms, breasts, hands. His mouth rushing down, searching hips, buttocks, and thighs, finally between her legs, his tongue inside her, a man dying of thirst, deep draughts from a well, her moans getting louder, hands cupping breasts, squeezing her hard, rubbing her all over.

  She slapped him, trying to break free—the game too delicious—she had to prolong it. He grabbed a handful of hair, tugged her back onto the bed; she squealed, a flail of punches on his chest and shoulders. He spanked her. She howled, flattened her bottom onto the sheets, giggling, kicking him away. He fastened a tight-waist on her, held her still, kneading her thighs, his mouth again between her legs. Her back beginning to arch like she was having a spasm, thighs taut, crying out, she shuddered, again, her arms thrashing, grasping his hair, grating her torso up and down against his face, something carnal and violent overtaking them, riding it out until it subsided. He crawled on top. Then he was inside her, pushing into her. Pushing slowly in, slowly out. They didn’t see the face waiting, watching, the strange inhuman gleam of the eyes between the crack of the door.

  THE SMELL MUST be flesh. Odors mounting through the room, can hardly stand it . . . almost pass out from the sound of skin sliding against skin, endless cries, kisses, grunts . . . NOW LOOK OUT THE BATHROOM DOOR, see the Day-Glo palette of color, bodies moving through the air, vibrating: my father beating my mother, making her jitterbug, pulling her into a turn—she twirls—he won’t let go, now choking her, lifting her dress, raping her, smiling, humping her from behind, his tongue shining like a snake, clinging to her mouth, my mother whimpering—a dog crying from her own mouth—inhuman sounds, voices, small screams smothered by his tongue, then sighs, terrible defeats, thrashing of arms, her face flogged, then tears.

  I want to kill him. He smiles at me through the darkness, laughs at my cries, still mounting her, driving hard, violating my room, fucking her on my desk, her fingers against my bulletin board, her back arching, relaxing, her voice crying out, shedding tears, begging, the cry of an animal. Hear them like machines, pumping, disgusting, fleshy, smelly forms spoiling the walls.

  Voices spring from inside my head. Drowning her out. Ascending higher, whispers, soaring into the walls of my skull, telling me—I should be there on that desk—not her. I should protect her. I should be raped and killed, not her. I should do something, why can’t I do something, stop him, kill him. Can’t. I’m afraid.

  I look out into the room—darkness—then Day-Glo—darkness—then Day-Glo. I used to follow you, Fowler, used to tell you things. Now you’re hurting her, just like my father. Her legs in the air, ecstatic cries . . . Day-Glo pigments applied at angles, sharp upward strokes. You thrusting, her crying, me dying inside, walls getting brighter, decorative coating, swatches of rouge, cosmetics, skin. Traces of flesh, paint, blood, all hitting the wall, splashing, roaring out of me. Yesssssssss.

  I have to protect her.

  NICK WAS DRIVING harder, slowly arching into her, inching her against the headboard. Her thighs trembling, wrapped around him. He started pushing faster, pulling her hair, high-geared now, with each thrust her eyes seemed to spark, her face flushed, her parted lips mouthing silent words.

  He rolled over so she was on top. She laughed, threw her head forward, a red curtain drawn back across his fac
e, then flinging her hair back, began to rock. Her face flinching between loose strands of hair. Nick gripping her, a tension there, she pulling, he pushing, slowly, like that for a long time.

  She fell forward on his chest and grasped his shoulders. She rolled the other way as if they had done this for years, he still inside her, still thrusting, she nudging against him, locked in for the ride. He pushed her toward the headboard. Now they were on the far side of the bed.

  There was a slight crackle under her back.

  “What is that?” she whined softly.

  He smiled, reached his hand under her shoulder, and pulled out what looked like an envelope. The bead of light picked up the purple color. They both smelled it at the same time.

  Maureen screamed, pulled the bedspread over her.

  Nick was scrambling across the floor. He found the gun. She saw his shape faintly rush through the room, heard him kick open the bathroom door. Through the back window she saw his silhouette, saw the gun lunge in first. She heard a loud thud, a shattering of glass. She screamed. A cloaked figure leapt out of the bathroom, grabbed the steel frame around the window, pulled himself up, and jumped out of sight.

  Nick was lying on the bathroom floor, bleeding. He had been sapped, the bathroom mirror thrown open in the dark—over his gun hand—into his forehead. Maureen switched on the light.

  “Jesus, Nick, oh my God.” She started dabbing the blood with tissues. Nick looked dazed, then was abruptly on his feet, switching the light back off. He ordered Maureen onto the floor. He peered out the window, blood dripping into his eyes. In the parking lot behind the motel, he could see a cloaked figure running away. He leaned out the window and fired at the shape, which immediately dropped. He kept firing, the gun sending a spray of sparks out the window, the sound deafening in the small room. He dropped below the window, crawled to the holster, reloaded, crawed back, then slowly raised his head up to see.

  The glass exploded.

  A round of bullets cut chunks out of doorjambs, snapped curtain rods. A clay lamp shattered as they dove down.

  Nick dragged Maureen between the two double beds, whispered, “stay here.” She was crying. He managed to pull on his trousers, had wrestled the shoulder holster on his bare back, and was out the door, running around the side of the motel, ducking between cars, his gun trained on the place where the figure had fallen. He saw nothing but the woods beyond.

  A police car hurtled into the parking lot, its floods whirling. The car pulled a one-eighty, spun around so the grille was facing Fowler, both doors opened and two policeman ducked down, firearms leveled through the windows. One was a shotgun. Fowler was wiping the blood from his forehead in confusion. He saw blue forms running out of the woods, coming from the direction where the killer had fled. They had their guns drawn. One of them was Orloff.

  Maureen was wrapped in the bedspread, running along the side of the motel in her bare feet. She had seen the police car. She stopped at the corner of the pink stucco building where she saw Nick—spread-eagle up against the wall—being frisked. Marty Orloff was running his hand down Nick’s leg, checking his pant leg. She saw Robby Cole pull Orloff out of the way, take the shotgun out of another man’s hands, and drive it up into Fowler’s gut. She started running. Nick was on his knees, coughing up blood and phlegm.

  Maureen ran up behind Cole and dug her fingernails into his face, trying to scratch his eyes. He yelled, jerked away from her, his hat falling, then easily shoved her down on the pavement. His eyes lit up when he saw her state of undress. He was still holding the shotgun. He stared at her, a sly smile, then pitched the butt of the shotgun against Fowler’s head. There was a dull thud—Nick flipped over on his back—unconscious.

  Maureen screamed, “You son of a bitch!”

  “Shut up!” he yelled back at her. “He’s under arrest for firing on a police officer.” He strode slowly toward her, still smiling. Cole reached down, pulled her brusquely up to her feet, pushed her against the wall, leaned in, a whisper. “It’s pay-back time.”

  “Take your lousy hands off me.”

  Another whisper. “Wouldn’t want to see his face messed up now, would you?”

  She stared over at Nick, out cold. Orloff was kneeling by him, watching Cole.

  Cole’s face was in closer. “I think you’d do almost anything not to see that happen, wouldn’t you, honey? Wouldn’t you?” He was resting the shotgun against her neck, the steel cold. A whisper in her ear. “Say a word and I’ll hurt him, trust me, I will.” He started feeling her breasts through the material, pressing her harder along the wall, acrid whiffs on her shoulder.

  He yelled over his shoulder, “I’ll have to search the suspect’s room—you men, hang loose.” He pushed her farther down the wall. She felt his hand probing the material between her legs, his fingers through the folds, up between her thighs now, sweaty palm rubbing her vulva. She couldn’t seem to make any sounds. Her lips were moving.

  Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the barrel of a pistol make an indentation in Cole’s cheek. She heard Sergeant Orloff’s voice.

  “You won’t enjoy this with a hole in your face, Cole. Now drop the shotgun and stand away from her or I’ll have to pull this trigger.”

  Cole turned his face and stared into the muzzle. “Orloff, you piece of shit.”

  “Drop it.”

  Maureen heard the shotgun fall against the foundation of the motel; she looked down and saw it lying in the dirt. Cole stood away from her, his arms out to the side with a swagger, glaring at Orloff. She took a long step forward and kicked him squarely in the balls. Cole bawled like a hyena, falling to the ground, both arms between his legs, rocking, crying out, his face red with agony, saliva pouring out of his open mouth into the dirt.

  Orloff was shaking his head. He looked over at Maureen. “I’m sorry about this.”

  Maureen was shaken. “I want an ambulance for that man,” pointing at Fowler.

  “Call emergency medical!” Marty yelled to one of the other men, who reached down to a dashboard, pulled a microphone up.

  “And the killer got away.” Maureen pointed toward the woods.

  Marty turned and looked beyond the parking lot. “The rest of you men, arm yourselves and search those woods.”

  Maureen crouched over Nick, stroking his hair, blotting his forehead with the bedspread.

  Cole was still rocking in the dirt, groaning. His head was straining, kept falling back. He rolled over, tried to sit up, his eyes full of fury. “Orloff, I’ll fix your ass!”

  Maureen suddenly stood up and walked over. “No you won’t,” she said quietly, leaning down toward Cole’s ear. “This man came to my aid. If you so much as harm a hair on his head, I’ll not only slap you with a lawsuit for police brutality and assault, I’ll write a firsthand account of what you did to me tonight, and there were witnesses.” She faced the other men who were still checking their guns, staring at her. They dropped their eyes. “I’ll see you ousted, Robby Cole. I’ll see you convicted.”

  There was a stillness at the corner of the building. Maureen stood up, looked at Marty. “You’ve all been gunning for Nick. Help me get him inside.” Marty looked at the beautiful woman with the red hair. He smiled and nodded at her.

  THE LIGHT BLAZED on in the motel room. Nick walked to the shattered windows, applying the ice the medics had given him to his jaw. They had also given him a shot to dull the pain, a dressing for his forehead, cold packs for the crack on the head. He was staring at the blue shirts moving back and forth in the woods behind the motel. He turned and looked down at the purple envelope on the edge of the bed. He looked up at Maureen. They didn’t say anything, just stared at each other.

  He walked across the room, a little shaky, found a handkerchief in his pants pocket, picked the letter up with a handkerchief, turned it over, sniffing it carefully. He switched on the desk lamp. It was addressed to him in the same scrawl. He slit the top of the envelope, spreading the purple stationery out under the light. Maureen
stood by him.

  Dear Mr. Fowler,

  I see you’ve returned. Something is happening to me. I’m changing, becoming, but I find it hard to explain. Surely you can guess. You know me so well.

  Save the last dance for me.

  My best to Maureen,

  Arthur Murray

  P.S. This next one is the cause of it all.

  Maureen pulled a chair away from the desk and sat down, her upper body giving slight, involuntary shivers. She looked at Fowler who was still naked from the waist up, staring at the letter, his shoulders tense, face sad, eyes shot through with red lines. He suddenly threw the ice pack against the wall. “I can’t believe he was in here.”

  “Or is it she?”

  “It’s definitely a man.” His eyes were roaming the top of the bed. “How did he know you were here?”

  “He watched us in the parking lot.”

  Fowler gave her a quick glance. “Had to be.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “I’m thinking.”

  He noticed that she was sitting on the edge of the chair, leaning toward him. His eyes climbed up from the rug, her bare legs pulling his attention across the bedspread she was clinging to. He noticed her expectant eyes.

  She arched her eyebrows and leaned her head forward. “I have an idea.”

  “I bet you do.”

  “A few short hours ago we were angry at each other, right? . . .”

  “Yes.”

  “People reveal themselves when they dance.”

  “Did we dance? I didn’t notice.”

  “Let’s throw him the prom he’s always wanted.”

  Fowler blinked. “What do you mean?”

  “Have a dance. Invite ballroom teachers, experts, enthusiasts. How could Arthur Murray resist?”

  “Why should he come?”

  “You’ll be there. I could run a promotional piece on it.”

  Fowler lifted his shirt off the floor and slipped it on. He parted the thick curtains, catching sight of a Ravenstown police car whizzing by. He looked back at Maureen. “What kind of promotional piece?”