A Killer's Kiss (23 page)

“Where is my money, Victor?” said Gregor Trocek.

The question was rhetorical, I supposed, what with me flopped on my back and the point of Sandro’s switchblade digging into the soft flesh beneath the point of my jaw. If I had tried to answer, my flapping jaw would have been impaled like a speared fish. So I kept quiet as Gregor wandered around my apartment, raising his hands in mock exasperation.

“Where could it be? Where, where, where? What?” he said, turning to stare right down at my face. “No answer for me?”

I guess the question wasn’t so rhetorical after all.

“I don’t have it,” I tried saying through gritted teeth, my words sounding less like English than a Neanderthaloid grunt.

“But, Victor, how can I believe anything you say?”

“I’m telling the truth,” I tried again.

“Speak more clearly, please,” said Gregor. “I can barely understand a word.”

“There’s a knife.”

“Yes, I’ve had enough, enough of your lies, your thievery, the baubles in your apartment.” He walked up to the flat-screen television bolted onto my wall. “Nice. High def?”

“Yes,” I said.

“It is quite gratifying to know my money paid for such quality merchandise. I would have hated for it to be wasted on junk.”

“I didn’t buy it with your money.”

“What? I still can’t understand you. Maybe a little more persuasion will clarify your words. Sandro, cut off his nipple.”

This wasn’t going well. This wasn’t going well at all.

When I realized that it was Gregor and Sandro coming through my door instead of two cops, I figured I was in trouble, and I became ever more certain when Sandro, instead of hesitating tastefully once inside, charged right at me while Gregor locked the door behind them both.

I grappled to my feet. Sandro socked me in the eye with a forearm shiver. I reeled from the blow and slammed into the floor.

Swish-click.

And just like that, Sandro was on top of me, the point of his switchblade pricking my flesh.

That was bad enough, that was enough to swell my eye and roil my stomach and leave me clenching my teeth to stop from being impaled. But now, with a simple imperative from Gregor Trocek, it was getting far, far worse.

Sandro began undressing me with his knife.

“Such an ugly tie,” he said as he looped the blade between the knot of my loose red tie and my shirt. With a jerk of his wrist, the tie was sliced in two.

I tried to scuttle backward, but Sandro grabbed my shirt.

“And now these annoying buttons,” he said.

A flick of the knife and a button flew off. Flick went another.

I let out an involuntary wail of fear.

Flick, flick, flick. The front of my shirt drifted open.

I tried again to get away, but he grabbed my T-shirt, pulled me forward, and in a quick move plunged the knife into the fabric, ripping upward with the blade until the metal edge snapped by my cheek and nicked my ear. As he jerked the shirt once more, it ripped in two, leaving my chest bared.

I stared up at Sandro’s face as he grabbed my hair with one hand and pointed his knife at my chest with the other. His eyes were bright, his lips twisted somewhere between anger and delirium. He was enjoying this entirely too much. Yet another lesson that I was not made for prison.

“Oh, look,” said Sandro. “A tattoo. Is that your lover’s name? Maybe I deal with her after I deal with you.”

“She’s already dead,” I said.

“Too bad.”

On the coffee table, my cell phone rang. Sandro stopped and turned his face toward it. It rang, rang again, and then went to voice mail.

“Enough of your games, Sandro,” said Gregor, standing to the side of us, his hands behind his back as if examining nothing more alarming than a mediocre piece of art. “Make your mark.”

“Can I take the tattoo?”

“As you please,” said Gregor.

“Gracias,”
said Sandro as he used the point of the knife to painfully scrape a wide circle around my left nipple, which included the tattoo. I tried to pull away, but Sandro held me tight as he worked. Blood began rising through the slices, welling and dripping down my chest, across the shallows of my abdomen.

“What is he doing?” I yelled.

“Marking where he will slice when he cuts off nipple. He needs be sure there is enough flesh, so after shrinking in smoke, it will still look like something.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Sandro saves pieces he cuts off. He has quite lively collection. Fingers. Ears. The nipples dry nicely with smoke and turn same brown as tobacco.”

I fought to catch my breath. “Sick” was the only word I could grunt out.

“Agreed, but I don’t value Sandro for his sanity. We could end this right now, Victor. You could emerge with your measly chest intact, right now. If you are ready to tell me what I need to know.”

“We made a deal,” I whined as I stared at the blood. “We had an arrangement. Twelve point five percent.”

“That was before I learned that you have it all. All is better than an eighth in everything but shrapnel.”

“I don’t…No…I don’t have…your money.”

“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.”

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.