A Killer’s Kiss

46

“You’re the worst kind of fool,” I said to Clarence Swift.

Clarence jerked his head up at my words and then shot to his feet. “How did you…?” he sputtered. “Where…?”

“Did you really think,” I said, “that they would ask you to join them in their fatal embrace?”

“I don’t… Victor… What are you doing here?”

“I came for Julia,” I said.

“What have you done?” His head swiveled back and forth. “The police might have followed you.”

“They didn’t follow me, I brought them. But you should be more concerned about the madman who’s trailing Julia. Or the killers following you, who will be here” – I checked my watch – “in a matter of minutes.”

“We have to go,” he said. He reached forward and put his hand on Julia’s shoulder, shaking her. “Everyone’s onto us. Carl betrayed you like I told you he would. We have to run.”

“Victor?” said Julia, pushing herself up off the lounge, her eyes half open. She was calm, languorous, she looked slow, wrong. So it wasn’t just love anymore that was creating for them their own separate world.

“I need you to come with me, Julia,” I said carefully. “I need to take you to safety.”

“Both of us?” she said.

Clarence’s head spun, like he had been slapped.

“I’ll take Terry, too,” I said. “I’ll even take Clarence.”

“What about Gwen?” said Julia.

“She’s gone already. She left with her boyfriend.”

“With Norman? She left without saying good-bye? Where to?”

“Home, to Georgia. But the rest of you I need to take across the street. Right now. To Detective Hanratty.”

“He’s across the street?” whined Clarence. He turned to Julia. “He’s across the street. We have to get out of here. We need to go.”

“You need to, all of you, turn yourselves in. Before the shooting starts.”

Clarence swiveled his head back toward me. “Shooting?”

“You didn’t think you’d get away with it, did you, Clarence? You didn’t think Gregor Trocek would just shrug resignedly and go on back to Portugal, leaving you with your million point seven, free and clear, did you? Really?”

“With the information I’ve been feeding the government, it’s only a matter of time before Immigration takes him out of the picture.”

“Trust me when I tell you it won’t be soon enough. Who else knows where you are?”

“No one.”

“Your mother?”

His eyes widened. “What does it matter?”

“Trocek reached her to find you. Now she’s in a coma and he’s on his way.”

“He’s coming? Here? That can’t be. Do you know all I’ve done to get that money?”

“Yes, actually.”

“We have to stop him.”

“We can’t,” I said. “He’s a more vicious snipe than even you. So let’s all get the hell out of here before he shows.”

“Shut up, you miserable crumb,” said Clarence. “You’ve been meddling from the start, but no more. You’ll learn like the others, cross me and pay the piper. Julia, we’re getting out of here. My car’s parked in front. Go to the car, I’ll get the money.”

“What about Terry?” she said. “I don’t know if he’s ready.”

“Then leave him. We have to go.”

He started running, stiffed-backed and awkward, toward the gate leading to the motel.

“Clarence, stop,” she said.

“Just get in the car,” he called out before he disappeared into the motel.

I watched him go and then turned back to see Julia kissing Terry full on the lips for an obscene amount of time. Terry remained immobile, his eyes remained closed. It was as if she were kissing a corpse. As if she were kissing a killer’s corpse good-bye. She said something, and he barely nodded before she rose from her chaise and walked slowly toward me.

“What have you done, Victor?” said Julia, now just across the fence from me. She was unsteady on her feet, her dark eyes were hooded, her hopelessly pretty mouth was smiling kindly, as if she were smiling at a puppy.

“I’m trying to save your life,” I said.

“Why?”

“If you want a pep talk about every life being precious, you’re not going to get it from me. What did you take?”

“Only a little. Just a taste.” She turned to look at Terrence. “Sometimes I follow him to be close.”

“You should have left him on the balcony,” I said.

“He left me on the balcony. But I’ve remained true to myself. Love, if it matters, if it’s real, is forever.”

“Maybe, but relationships end. That’s what they do. Some end quickly, some end badly, some end in death, but they all end. It’s the nature of the beast. At some point after they end you have to move on.”

“But then I’d be like everyone else.” She reached out and gently touched the bruise beneath my eye. “Do you ever wonder how we would have been?”

“Incessantly.”

“Do you think it would have worked?”

“Not with him around.”

She laughed lightly. “We didn’t need him to screw it up, Victor, we had each other. I thought I was ready to move on this time and leave him behind. I thought I was going to be free of it.” She turned her head to stare at Terry. “But I was wrong.”

“He’s a leech.”

“He’s my leech,” she said, and I noticed then there was something strange about her manner, something other than the drugs.

“Come with me,” I said. “Now. Let’s get away from here. Now. Give me your hand.”

“I can’t leave him.”

“Don’t let him drag you down anymore. Don’t let him kill all your hope.”

“Hope? You were always so sweet.”

“There’s nothing you can do for him anymore except turn him in.”

She placed the back of her hand lightly against my cheek. “Thank you for trying, Victor. But when Clarence comes back, we’re going to run, all of us, run as far as they let us and then face what comes together.”

“There isn’t going to be any running. There’s only going to be bullets and blood,” I said.

“That’s what Gwen said, too. Maybe you’re both right, and if so, I’m ready. I’ve begun to think that Romeo and Juliet was mislabeled as a tragedy. I don’t think the ending is sad, I think it’s just right.”

“They die in the end.”

“We all die in the end, but they do it on their own terms, with their love still untainted. I think dying with love’s sweet poisoned kiss still on your lips is about as perfect as we can hope for.”

It was then that I realized what was strange about her. She was happy. For the first time since I had known her, she was truly happy. Just as that realization dawned, Clarence stumbled out the rear door of the motel, clutching at his head as blood leaked down his scalp.

“He took it,” shouted Clarence, collapsing on the ground, arms still around his bleeding head. He tried to rise and failed. “He took all of it. He took my money. Stop him.”

Julia and I both stared at Clarence without moving to rush and help, as if we both were rendered paralyzed. There was something cold in the way we stood and stared at the bleeding, babbling man. She had been driven to indifference by the drugs; I had been driven to it by the sight of Margaret in the freezer.

“There’s the blood,” I said.

Two shots rang out from someplace distant, a scream, then one shot more.

“And there’s the bullets. It’s from the front of the motel.”

“My money,” wailed Clarence.

From over the fence, I grabbed hold of Julia’s arm and began to pull her toward the gate that faced the rear entrance. “Let’s go,” I said. “Let’s get out of here.”

She didn’t fight me, she was too high to fight me. But as I pulled her along, she looked back at Terry, who was now sitting up, dazedly, on his chaise.

“What’s going on, love?” said Terry, his voice dreamy and weak.

“Nothing, baby,” she said.

“What’s he doing here?”

“He’s just leaving.”

“Give him some money, that will shut him up.”

“Okay, baby.”

“Do you think we should get on our way?”

“In a minute,” she said.

As I listened to all this toddler talk, and tried to keep from puking, I held on to her arm and edged her toward the open gate. Just as I pulled her through, the motel’s rear door swung open and a small, angry man rushed out, a huge black briefcase in one hand, a snub-nosed automatic in the other.

Sims.

There was blood leaking from a dark crease on his neck, his hair was mussed, his expression was slow and dazed, like he had just come out of a midday porn film and was blinking at the afternoon light.

He stopped when he saw us and pointed his gun at me.

“What a surprise,” said Sims, putting down the bag and touching the neck wound with his hand. He moved with an exaggerated, even frightening, air of calm. He checked his hand, rubbed his thumb across the blood that was smeared thickly over his fingers. Still looking at the blood, his face betraying no evident concern, he said, “I thought you’d be rotting in jail by now.”

I wanted to say something smart and witty, but I was too busy clenching my bowels.

“Chasing her, I suppose,” he said, waving the gun now at Julia. She staggered just a bit to the left but otherwise didn’t seem affected by the sight of the barrel pointing at her heart. “Didn’t I warn you from the start? Didn’t I give you my best, heartfelt advice? But a foolish romantic, I suppose, will never learn. If I had time, I’d have some fun with both of you, but you’ll have to excuse me for a moment while I take care of a quick bit of business.”

Suddenly he pointed the gun down at the still-kneeling Clarence Swift, pointed the gun right at his head.

“All right, you sniveling little piece of crap,” shouted Sims with an uncharacteristic loss of control, spittle flying from his lips, his voice now a vitriolic shriek that sent birds into flight and insects burrowing. “Talk now or lose the top of your skull. Where the hell is it?”