Calmly, Levanter remarked that they must leave everything untouched and summon the police.
“I don’t want police,” Serena blurted out. Her mouth twitched; she was barely able to speak. “Let’s get rid of all this,” she said, pointing at the car. “Anything but the police.”
“But there’s nothing to worry about,” said Levanter. “You acted in self-defense. We were being abducted by an insane man. He might even have a previous record of instability.”
Serena grabbed his arm with surprising force. Her face was twisted with rage. “I told you: no police,” she whispered. Levanter gently attempted to free his arm. She let it go. “It’s not just for my sake,” she said. “It’s for yours too.”
“For mine?”
“You know nothing about me. The police will make a murder out of this.” She was shaking as she spoke.
Levanter put his arm around her. “But we were being abducted,” he said again. “There was no way we could have stopped him without violence.”
“Your fingerprints are now on the murder weapon,” she said, gesturing at her comb on the car floor. “The victim’s blood is all over you. And for a witness” — she stopped and pulled away from him — “you have me. A convicted prostitute. A streetwalker, arrested more times than she cares to remember.” She looked at him. “And how do you know, Mr. Investor” — her tone was mocking and defiant; he had never heard her speak like this before — “that this man,” she said, pointing at the body, “was not a pimp I worked for? Or that he wasn’t working for me?”
What she said slowly sank in, and Levanter didn’t know which affected him more: her admission and the contempt in her voice or the body of the dead man in the car. His impulse was to leave, to walk away from her and from the body. But he thought of his fingerprints all over the car and recalled the phrase that the Impton Police Chief had used: “that special clan of the fingerprinted.”
Serena waited for Levanter to say something, but he did not speak.
She went on. “Will any jury believe that you, my lover for three years, did not kill him in an argument over me? And why did you choose his unmarked car when there were so many regular cabs at the airport?” She spoke in the exaggerated tones of an accuser. “And the murder weapon — a steel comb with the longest possible rat-tail handle, sharpened to a fine point, like an ice pick? I was arrested when I cut a guy with a comb like this because he took my money after I did what he wanted. Would they believe it was just a coincidence that I had the same kind of comb in my purse tonight?”
Levanter looked away. She waited for a moment, to give him time to digest what she had said.
“You’ve introduced me to some of your friends,” she continued. “Would the police, or a jury, believe that you don’t even know my name, where I live and with whom, and how I make my living?” She seemed about to end her argument. “And you don’t know what I might say to them.”
She got into the car, slamming the door behind her. Levanter could not see her face in the dark.
He removed her luggage from the trunk, placed it on the rear seat beside her, and motioned for her to pick up the comb. He carefully pulled the body to the edge of the seat and, like a weightlifter, crouched beside it and tilted it until it rolled into his outstretched arms, the head cradled against his shoulder. Blood from the man’s wounds soaked into his clothes. He dumped the body into the trunk, its head bouncing on the spare tire. He closed the trunk, got in behind the wheel, turned on the engine, and slowly backed the car out onto the street again. He drove all the way down to Sunset Boulevard and then up again, to his house high atop another hill.
In a few minutes they were at his house, and he pressed the button on the remote-control gate opener he carried in his pocket. As the gate opened, a series of lights went on automatically, spotlights playing on the trees that sheltered the house on all sides and illuminating the lawn and swimming pool.
As he pulled into the driveway, the lighted house stood before them like a freshly unwrapped toy. He picked up Serena’s bags and she followed him inside.
In the living room, he told her to fix herself a drink. He was going to get rid of the car, he said, and hoped to be back with her in a short time.
He drove around to the side of his garage, away from the bright driveway, got out, and opened the trunk. He reached for the body. It felt heavy and warm. He carried it to the front seat and propped it against the door on the right, then took a large plastic canister of gasoline from the garage and placed it on the seat between the body and himself. He drove out, the gate opening once again at the command of his remote-control device, then closing behind. He steered the car to the top of the hill, only a few hundred yards away, and turned into a construction site. He pulled onto a large reinforced-concrete platform that rested on stilts planted into the side of the hill — a house had yet to be built on it. Below, the hill dropped at a steep angle all the way down to the ravine. He extinguished the headlights. In the distance, the lights of the city shone like a mammoth fairground.
Levanter sat for a moment listening to his heart over the hum of the idling engine. After the earlier excitement, he felt in control again. He was pleased that he still had the athlete’s ability to slow his heart down for the final sprint. He took out his handkerchief and wiped the fingerprints off the steering wheel, then stepped out of the car and wiped his prints from the trunk and the door handles. Reaching into the car, he pulled the dead man onto the floor, until his shoulder was resting on the accelerator. He removed the canister from the seat, opened it, and carefully poured gasoline over the entire length of the body and onto the rear seat, tossing the empty canister into the car.
Leaning through the window, he pressed in the car’s cigarette lighter, and when it was heated he pulled it out. In one quick motion he slipped the gearshift out of Park and into the Drive position, dropped the lighter onto the body, then jumped back.
The car lurched forward. The flames inside flickered timidly as the black mass dove from the platform. He heard it smash into the hill, thundering as it rolled down, loosening rocks, which tumbled in its wake. He could see an explosion of flames in the ravine, and within seconds all was quiet again.
He walked away from the site, trying to stay close to the hedges, in the shadows, out of the direct moonlight. He was calm; his heart settled to its normal rhythm.
He had no reason to doubt what Serena had told him about herself. He was willing to accept that she was a prostitute. He had had prostitutes before and he would have them again. A prostitute was a stranger pretending to be a lover; she turned sex into a single act. Serena was a lover pretending to be a stranger; keeping Levanter perpetually on trial, she turned her single act into sex for him. Since he never knew whether to expect her again, he could not grow apprehensive about her absence. And every time she left, he knew that nothing he had done or said could make a difference: either she would return or she would not. With all her unpredictability, Serena provided the only real break in his life’s routine.
In the time they had known each other, they had never been together more than three or four times a month, and there were many months when they hadn’t seen each other at all. He doubted that he would have felt differently if he had seen her every day for three or four months and was then separated from her for over three years only to run into her again today. It was her absence that hurt him, not the presence of other men in her life.
There were, however, practical considerations. He had not suspected what her profession was, but now he realized that she could have infected him at any time. It would never have occurred to him to have a special blood test, and, as he traveled in various climates, he was accustomed to disregarding temporary skin eruptions and mouth lesions; he might have overlooked the fast-healing sores that can be the early physical symptoms of a sexual disease.
Perhaps the disease was already in a more advanced but quiescent stage, invading his spinal fluid and the tissues of his brain and nervous system. Maybe
it was just about to manifest itself: headaches, slight lack of concentration, barely perceivable loss of memory, occasional vertigo. Going about the business of life unconcerned, he might soon start to go into an extreme depression, show hesitancy in speech, exhibit poorly coordinated movements. Then there would be euphoria; he would become reckless, impulsive, and aggressive. He would start to forget details of recent events while recalling the past with vivid detail.
One day, he imagines, he is in the bathroom, washing his face, his eyes shut. Suddenly his body starts swaying, even when he stands with his feet wide apart, and his hands seem to float about him. He opens his eyes and sees in the mirror that his pupils remain dilated, that they are not contracting in the light.
In the hospital, his disintegration follows quickly. Terrified by death, he sits for hours huddled in a corner of the psychiatric ward, making no attempt to change position, constantly recalling the inscription — EVERY HOUR WOUNDS, THE LAST KILLS — on the antique sundial at the swimming pool of his Beverly Hills house, but unable to concentrate long enough to know what the phrase means.
He was close to the brightly lit house and Serena. Now that the night had turned chilly, he was anxious to be indoors. His past was a matter of regret, his future was haunted by premonitions; only the present still gave value to time.
Serena was in the living room and had already started the fire. As he moved toward her, he saw himself in the large mirror. Covered with splotches of blood, pale and perspiring, he looked sinister.
She greeted him eagerly, saying she was relieved that he was back. Dried blood covered her right hand, and her blouse and skirt were smeared. She ran her fingers through his hair, then brought the bloody fingers to her lips, and, hesitating at first, tasted the blood on them. She began to nuzzle his hair, mussing it with her lips. Soon the blood covered her face, and when he kissed her he could feel it on his lips. His face became pasty with the dead man’s blood, and she kept licking it off as she kissed him.
Her excitement mounted, and he also felt aroused, giving himself over to her mood of freedom and abandon. She drew him down onto the floor, by the fireplace, hurriedly undressing herself and tugging at his clothes. Her bare skin glowed pale orange in the light of the fire. She stretched out on the carpet and began to roll over his bloody pants and blood-soaked shirt, pressing them into her breasts, squeezing them between her thighs; the blood smeared her skin, and her movements quickened. She pulled Levanter onto the pile of soiled clothes and, hunching over him, weighing him down, she put him inside her and threw her body over his. She grabbed his shoulders and started to shake him. Her tense limbs slowly loosened; she began to moan and cry, as if she were being ripped apart. Staring at him with glassy eyes, she moved up and down, opening and constricting, relentlessly groping for her release as if her flesh were pouring away. She inched deeper onto him. All at once, the tightly wound chain inside her seemed to snap. Suddenly still, she slid down beside him on the floor.
Like a child ready to be lulled to sleep, she curled up on the carpet. As she lay watching him, Levanter stood up, gathered their blood-soiled clothing, and threw it, piece by piece, into the fire. After his clothes had burned, he emptied Serena’s dress bag and suitcase, both of which were stained with blood. There were at least a dozen outfits, crumpled negligees, several pairs of shoes, evening bags, and a jewelry case. He was about to place the suitcase on the fire when Serena stopped him. From under the lining she pulled out a concealed bulky envelope bound with two thick rubber bands. Putting it into her handbag, she joked that she refused to burn her money, even if there was someone’s blood on it. Then she gave Levanter the comb; he threw it into the fire, and they watched it blacken in the flames.
In the morning, Levanter removed the remaining blood spots from the living-room carpet and mixed the fireplace ashes with the garden fertilizer. In order to be alone with Serena, he telephoned the part-time maid and gardener and gave them the day off.
The sun had reached the swimming pool. Levanter had just set up a breakfast table at the pool when Serena came out. Her satiny black tank suit contrasted with the whiteness of her skin. Standing in the shadow, lit by sunshine reflected off the water, she looked luminous. She sat down at the table across from Levanter. For a moment they just looked at each other.
“You were right last night,” said Levanter. “No jury would believe that I could have known you for any length of time without knowing anything about you. And anyone would wonder why you even called me that first time.” He stopped. “Come to think of it, Serena, why did you? And what made you keep coming back?”
“I liked your act: your stories and games.”
Levanter turned his face toward the sun. “On our second or third date,” he said, “when you were in the bathroom, I looked into your handbag, hoping to find something — a driver’s license, a credit card, a check — with your name or address. Instead, I found about eight hundred dollars in cash.” He paused. “And so I thought you were the spoiled daughter of well-to-do parents.” He turned back to her.
She laughed. “If it was only eight hundred, I must have cut my workday short for you,” she said.
Levanter returned to his sunbathing. “Who are your customers?” he asked.
“I go out with anyone in a decent business suit. As long as he’s not drunk or sick or too creepy.”
“How do you meet them?”
“Hotels. Bars. Conventions. Any city that planes fly to, I fly there too.”
“Do you keep all the money?”
“Why do you want to know? Thinking of investing it for me?”
“What do you do with it?” he asked, not allowing himself to be provoked by her remark.
“I keep most of it,” she said. “One day I might buy my way into a regular business.”
“How do you feel about getting arrested?”
The glare was making her squint; she put on her sunglasses. “It doesn’t happen too often. My only curse is that my brother is a cop. He and his buddies hate my guts and give me a hard time every chance they get.”
They both watched a self-propelling skimmer as it noiselessly scooped up leaves and dead insects from the surface of the pool.
“You may be infected,” said Levanter, breaking the silence.
“I take pretty good care of myself,” she said.
“Still, any customer you’ve had since your last blood test might have infected you.”
“So what?”
“So, by now, you might have infected me too.”
She fidgeted, apparently annoyed. “I might have. But so might anyone else you sleep with. Any customer of mine could be a lover of one of your women.”
She had finished her breakfast. Two police cars passed by on the other side of the hedges, their sirens blaring. Levanter thought of the burnt-out wreck down in the ravine. The police could not possibly connect it to him, a respectable tenant in this peaceful estate, lounging at poolside, accompanied by a delicate, charming, young woman. He was about to doze off when Serena took off her glasses, then removed her swimsuit. Naked, she dragged a mattress to the edge of the pool and lay down on her back. He was aroused and wanted her, but now he was reluctant to show it.
“There was once this lawyer,” she said, “a widower who put up the bail when I was arrested.” She spoke in a quiet, offhand manner. “To keep up his interest, I went out with him a few times. Then I had had enough. But he had gotten involved. He started to pester me to stay with him. He tried following me, and when I managed to lose myself, he bribed some detectives to trace me. Finally I’d had it.”
She appeared to be losing herself in her recollections. When she went on, she was talking more to herself than to Levanter.
“One evening, up at his place, he was all sex and so was I. When we finished, he started filling a bubble bath for himself, with his whirlpool ready to be plugged in. I got dressed, then said I had to go to the toilet, and he left the bathroom. I took out my rat-tail comb and split the thick electric
cord of the whirlpool machine, peeling back the rubber until all the wires were exposed in the water. The foam of the bubble bath covered the split. I came out and he kissed me good-by, letting me out of his apartment and locking the door.”
She paused. Her voice sounded almost weary when she spoke next.
“They say that when a prisoner gets the chair, all the lights in the building dim as the electric current flows through the body. I walked down the hall and pressed the elevator button. As I waited, the lights in the corridor flickered. Later in the week, I read his obituary.”
She turned sideways, and he could see her profile. She seemed fresher and more girlish than the first time he had seen her. As he listened to her, he was thinking that she could have been a coed griping about her exams and term papers.
“One of my regulars is an older man,” Serena said, her tone slightly sharper. “He’s been around for years and sees me often. As long as I’ve known him, he has always wanted the same stuff, but each time he gives it a different name or describes it in a new way or has another reason for wanting it. And each time I do it to him, his need for it gets deeper and deeper. He can’t live without it.”
Levanter expected her to tell him what it was the man wanted, but she went on with her story.
“One night, he was getting tired, but he couldn’t get enough. When he was right above me, I looked up at him and saw him straining. And then his eye — I guess from stress — his eye popped out and slid out of its socket! It rolled out, like a freshly laid egg, hanging by its slimy root. It stopped midway down his cheek, dangling like a yo-yo. His eyelid sank into the empty socket and, when he opened it, a black hole gaped at me. I jumped away, screaming. The old man bent over, the eye nestling in the palm of his hand beside the socket, and screamed for me to help him squeeze it back in. But I just stood there, afraid to touch him, afraid even to look at him.”