House of Skin (32 page)

“No you don’t.”

“Tell me.”

“Nothing happened.”

“You’re lying,” he said.

“I got scared. I was alone in house with a bad history. My imagination got the best of me.” She couldn’t even look him in the eye.

“And that’s all?”

“What else could have happened?”

“I thought maybe you’d tell me.” He was moving in close now, his concern genuine, as was his lust. She could smell it all over him.

“There’s nothing to tell.”

His arm was around her, his lips at her ear. He whispered things that she didn’t hear, had no interest in hearing. His hand casually fell to her breast.

“Don’t,” she said.

“Why not?” He kissed her neck and ran fingers along her thigh.

“Stop it.” She pushed away. “I don’t want that.”

“What’s wrong? What did I do for chrissake?”

“You didn’t do anything,” she told him, hugging herself. “Nothing at all. It’s just me.”

“Tell me what’s wrong.”

“Would you stop interrogating me like one of your criminals? I don’t need it right now.”

His eyes narrowed. “Oh, is that what I was doing? I thought I was showing concern for the woman I love.”

She shivered. Why did he have to say things like that? He didn’t even know her. He was in love with her face, her body, the sex they’d shared. That and some pristine image of her he’d developed. There was no truth in it. He didn’t even know the person he pretended to love and if he did, his love would wither like an October rose.

“C’mon, Lisa,” he pleaded. “Stop this and tell me.”

But she couldn’t. She just couldn’t tell him the truth. The fear that he’d abandon her then and there was terrifying. She couldn’t stand being alone, with no friends in this awful city. She’d lie first. She’d swindle, cheat, deceive, but she wouldn’t be left alone. Not now. If there was no love for him, she’d invent it.

“Tell me what you’re thinking,” he said.

“Nothing. Just daydreaming.”

“I bet.”

She ignored that. “Anything going on with the case?”

“One little item. Maybe unconnected.”

“Which is?”

“Remember Soames? Your P.I.? He’s dead. He asphyxiated. But as to the how or why, we don’t know yet.”

“My God.”

“Interesting, I’d say. But not as interesting as what’s on your mind.”

“There’s nothing on my mind.”

“Christ.” He left her and went to make himself a whiskey sour and drank it down. Then another. He brought this one back. The phone shrilled almost immediately and Lisa went in the bedroom to answer it.

“Who the fuck can that be?” she heard Fenn say. “If it’s Gaines, you don’t know where the hell I am.”

“Of course not,” she said.

She sat on the bed and sighed, picking up the cordless. “Hello?”

Breathing. Heavy, insistent.

“Who is this?” she asked, a tickle of fear at the back of her neck.

Fenn was at the door. “For me?”

She shook her head and he stalked off.

“Who’s there?”

There was a peal of laughter and she knew all too well who it was. She wondered briefly why he’d waited so long to begin his campaign of terror. “Who is this?” she asked again, trying to show no fear. It was important that the bastard not suspect that she indeed knew, that he was burned on her memory.

“You know who this is,” the voice taunted. “You’ve never forgotten me. You never could.”

“Eddy …”

“Now you’re using that analytical brain of yours, Doc,” he said happily. “I’m the reason you’re in town, aren’t I?”

“Eddy, please—” she began and realized that she wasn’t alone. Fenn was in the doorway again. He had a sour look on his face and his drink was almost gone. He looked suspicious, jealous even. She knew he hadn’t heard her speak Eddy’s name. If he had, he’d have snatched the phone from her grip. No, he was worrying that some lover, old or new, was on the line, whispering of seduction, alluding to some private rendezvous.

She held the phone against her bosom. “It’s a colleague,” she lied. “From the hospital.”

Fenn said nothing, he just stared at her a moment and then left. She heard him make another drink and sit on the sofa.

“What do you want?” She was polite, painfully so. Good sense told her not to be, to slam the phone down and tell Fenn. At the very least, call him in and let him know what was happening here. But she did neither. She asked her question as if she didn’t really know the answer and displayed no fear. After her encounter with the elder Zero, Eddy seemed almost harmless. She’d almost forgotten she’d come to stop him.

“Have we company?” Eddy asked.

“Yes.” Why lie to him?

“Your cop friend, I’ll bet.”

She bit down on her lip, wondering why she didn’t terminate this conversation. She told herself that if she could find out where he was or arrange what he thought was a secret meeting, Fenn could do the rest. But was that the real reason? “Why are you calling?”

“I heard you were looking for me.”

“Yes and you know why.”

“I know why,” Eddy said covertly. “But do you? Do you know the real reason yourself? Is it law and order or something more personal?”

Lisa felt as if the breath had been sucked from her lungs. He was so like his father, so cunning, so confident. Perceptive to the point of sixth sense.

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“Don’t you?”

She was the psychiatrist here, the trained therapist, and here was Eddy pummeling her with suggestive questions and she couldn’t seem to stop him. He’d gotten into her mind more than once when she’d left her guard down. And he was doing it again. So effortlessly, knowing exactly how to orchestrate his attack. Alfred Adler would’ve called Eddy Zero a classic high dominance male personality, Lisa thought. And a very rare one at that. He had a great deal of skill in mastering people, particularly those who thought they were mastering him. She likened him to Franz Walter, a German confidence man who’d also been of high dominance. A fiend who’d turned a woman into a prostitute and made her attempt to murder her husband merely through hypnotic suggestion. Eddy seemed to possess those same skills. Very few had them, but it ran in his family.

“I don’t have time for your games, Eddy. Why don’t you tell me where you are and we can help you.”

“I’m near,” he said, “and far.”

“Please, Eddy.”

“Yes, do beg, dear Doctor. When the time comes, I’ll have you begging and you won’t be able to help yourself.”

He hung up and the phone slid from her grip. What did he mean by that?

What do you think he meant by that?

“Trouble?” Fenn was in the doorway.

“No,” she said in a shaky voice.

It was a clever lie and Fenn seem to buy it. He was showing the signs of drink and looked unkept and worn. He sat on the edge of the bed and sipped his whiskey, not bothering with sour this time.

There was a sound from the living room, almost like the door knob was being jiggled.

“What the fuck?” Fenn said.

He pulled himself slowly to his feet and went out there. Lisa couldn’t follow. There was no strength in her legs. She waited, listening for the sound of a knife arcing through the air and plunging into Fenn’s chest. The door was opened and then closed.

He returned. “Nothing. Must’ve been my imagination.”

Mine, too?
she wondered in a panic.

“I’d better be going,” he said in a defeated tone.

“You’re too drunk to drive.”

“Not as drunk as I’m going to get,” he promised.

Like a little boy, she thought, a pouty little boy. “Stay here,” she told him.

“Do you want me to?”

“Yes.” And she did. The idea of being alone with Eddy lurking so near … or far for that matter … was unnerving. Let Fenn stay. Even if she didn’t love him, she could pretend for one night that she did. It was something. The desire he’d displayed to her before sounded intriguing now. Sex would be the perfect prescription for taking her mind off the terror of the night.

“Stay with me,” she entreated him. Her fingers loosened his tie and unbuttoned his shirt. He closed his eyes and teetered drunkenly in rapture as she undressed him and took his cock in her mouth. It was engorged and ready within seconds, and seemed to need little prompting from her lips. She took his length completely, feeling him push against the back of her throat, and she held him there, sucking, biting tenderly. He gasped and nearly fell.

“I love you,” he managed as she pushed him onto the bed and slipped out of her blouse. “I do love you.”

He said it almost as if he were trying to convince himself of the fact. But she understood. He respected her and liked her as a human being, but he didn’t love her. Not really. He loved her cunt, her mouth, any of the secret places he could push into and spill his seed. It had never been any different for her. Men never got close enough to love her because her looks got in the way. They were ensnared in the web of her physical charms, transfixed by her eyes, her face. They worshipped her body and all the things she could do with it. But the real Lisa was hid away in a back room of her mind where no one ever went. And this person, the one that needed love, never got anything but infatuation and that was a constant. Her looks were a curse.

She worked his cock as these thoughts tumbled through her mind and she wondered if any of it—from her teen-age affair with a psychopath to her inability to crave anything but rough sex—was really her fault. The thoughts faded as she released his cock and let him push it in the valley between her breasts.

As he dropped her down onto the bed and stripped her, she knew he didn’t love her. She’d wondered before, but the truth had come now. He, like the others, saw only her face and body and nothing more. He could never be made to realize that it was nothing more. But in the years to come, when his head wasn’t dizzy with heat, he’d come to know the truth.

He pushed himself roughly into her and she managed a moan. It was the best to hope for under the circumstances. Fenn seemed to enjoy himself and if nothing else, this did her heart some good. It seemed to take a long time, but finally it was over and Fenn fell away and passed out, satisfied with both himself and the weak passion he’d spurred from her.

Some time later, she put on a robe and went into the living room, staring at the TV. When the phone rang, the sound of it went through her like a knife. She ran in the bedroom and snatched it from the cradle.

It was Eddy again.

“You call that fucking?” he asked bluntly.

She couldn’t speak. How had he known? Had he guessed? Or had he been in the suite, watching them?

“You work wonders with your mouth,” he said.

“Fuck you,” she said. “How did you get in?”

He laughed. “I have my ways.”

“What do you want?”

“You know what I want. The same thing you do.”

“Fuck you,” she said again. There was nothing else to say.

“I could’ve killed him while he mounted you, but I didn’t.”

“Why?”

“I have my reasons,” he said. “See you soon, Doc.”

He hung up and she had a drink. The door was unlocked and she fastened it again for all the good it would do.

The phone rang again about three, but this time it was for Fenn. There’d been another murder. Eddy had been busy again.

* * *

About an hour after Fenn left, Lisa sat on the sofa and waited for Eddy Zero. He was coming; she had no doubt of this. It was only a matter of when. She sipped cognac from a tumbler until her nerves stopped jangling, keeping her right hand underneath a pillow and in it was the .38.

About 4:30 the doorknob rattled and opened. Eddy walked in, knowing he was expected: confident, cool, in control. He knew he wasn’t being set-up and this was just an additional comment on his arrogance.

He wore a black leather jacket, a bulky, greased and glimmering thing that hung down to his knees. His hair was long and dark and he wore mirrored sunglasses over his eyes. She understood now how Gulliver hadn’t recognized his photos, he looked completely different.

“It’s been a long time, Doc,” he said. “I suppose we should’ve got together before this. But there wasn’t time.”

Lisa said nothing. She didn’t feel afraid really, just a little tense. She had the gun and all she had to do was pull the trigger.

Eddy took off his coat and laid it across a chair. “Very clever of me, wasn’t it?” he said.

“What?”

“Killing that whore so I could get your boyfriend out of here.”

She was shocked, but she didn’t show it. “You took a life just to get me alone?”

“Yes.”

“I would have met with you any time. It wasn’t necessary to do that.” Her professional demeanor was intact. It slid into place like an oiled mechanism. “Murder isn’t an answer to anything.”

“Oh, I’m not a cold-blooded maniac,” he assured her, sitting down. “I had to kill another one for the Sisters. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have bothered. It’s terribly strenuous and fatiguing stuff taking apart a body like that. And messy.”

“How many do you have to kill before they’ll let you cross?”

“A few more. It’s all getting very boring by now, you know. I wish they’d take me already and we could dispense with this slaughter.” He reclined and locked his fingers behind his head. “Oh well, they’re bound by traditions, I suppose, as we all are.”

“And what are yours?” Her voice was even, clinical.

“You know what mine are. I’m following in the footsteps of a great man, my father.” He smiled as if some enchanting memory had struck him. Then: “Why don’t you bring your gun out into the open? Aim it at me directly, if you like. Hell, I’m not here to hurt you, Doc. I don’t kill for kicks, just out of necessity. Besides, we’ve got some unfinished business.”

She shook her head. “We don’t have any business.”

“You’re wrong. I slipped from your hands and now you want me back, right? Back in a little cell where you can get into my head.”

Lisa avoided his eyes. “You know this can’t go on. You’ll be caught before long.”

“It’s a chance I take. But you’re avoiding the subject, aren’t you?”

“I don’t know what you mean.” Her hand was beginning to sweat on the butt of the gun. It felt greasy, ready to slide from her fingers.