Good to the Last Kiss (31 page)

‘What are you talking about? Has something happened?’

‘I will never forget that scent.’

Maldeaux took the handkerchief, brought it up to his nose. He didn’t answer.

‘Well, you failed.’

Maldeaux shrugged. He had a little boy’s sadness on his face. ‘I’ve failed what?’

‘I’m alive. You killed no one.’ She wondered what was wrong with her. Every man . . . What did it matter now?

‘You think . . .’

‘I know. And I don’t even have to ask why. The sad thing is you’ll never be convicted of it. Your money, your power, your charm. Not to mention the fact that you were a pretty clever rapist. Left nothing behind but your scent. So lingering I could never, ever forget it. Yet so insubstantial no one would give it a thought.’

‘Julia . . .’

‘Shut up. And you sent a boy to finish your job. Did you make him an expendable member of your staff?’

‘Listen.’

‘Are you going to pick someone else out? So you won’t be deprived of the experience of killing during sex? Or will you finish me off?’

‘Julia!’

‘Or have you done it to someone else already? You strike me as someone who usually realizes his goals. A true achiever.’

Maldeaux’s face turned cold. His stare was ice. Slowly he put the handkerchief back down on the table.

Both were startled at the movement up the steps.

‘I was fertilizing the bulbs down by the steps,’ said Mrs Maldeaux. ‘I didn’t want to interfere.’ Her graceless form slowly climbed the stone steps to the balcony. She carried a white bag and a small silver trowel. Her face was ashen. From the look she gave her son, it was clear she had heard more than she had wanted. Her hand shook as she set the bag and trowel on the table.

‘The lilies, the iris, narcissus and the tulips need some bone meal through the winter to flower well in the spring.’ She touched Julia Bateman’s wrist with a shy tentativeness. ‘I’m terribly sorry.’

Mrs Maldeaux went into the house.

Thaddeus Maldeaux seemed frozen for a moment.

‘I’m not having much luck with women lately,’ he said, shaking his head in disgust or frustration. He looked at Julia Bateman. Shrugged. Nothing else to do, the shrug said. Nothing could be done or said.

Her life changed. Before the attack, Julia had lived in the future. Now she was tugged back to the past. Unfinished business. It would never be finished unless . . . Unless what? Until he finished the job? She wasn’t frightened. But she was alert. And she was angry. All this thievery – of her time, of her mind, of her body, of her soul. Taken. He could never give it back. And he was never going to pay.

She was so close to falling in love with him. Perhaps she had. Boy, could she pick them. In the mirror, a sterner, tougher Julia Bateman looked back. She wondered, at times, if she could kill him. She’d played it out more than once.

But for the most part, she had settled in – back into her friends and activities. Movies with Paul on Monday nights. Aerobics with Sammie Cassidy on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturday mornings. That was as much physical therapy as fitness. She had gone with Gratelli to two operas. He had been appropriately fatherly, undemanding, informative and even funny. Dry, very dry humor. She had also reconnected to David. Just by phone, though. They had talked probably a dozen times. He’d lightened considerably. Said he was dating someone now. Someone he could get serious about. The old David was returning a lot faster than the old Julia.

Even so, she was surprised to see him. He had been waiting for her, in the landing, near the door to the exercise studio on Pine Street just off Fillmore. The light from the studio window flattened on the street in a small patch and a man stood at the edge of it.

‘David?’

‘Hi,’ he said. His hair was mussed. He had a couple of day’s growth of beard. Very unlike him. He looked forlorn. Maybe even a little down on his luck, judging by the clothes.

‘What are you doing here?’

‘I’m in need of a friend tonight,’ he said.

‘What’s wrong?’

‘I need advice about women,’ he said, grinned. Shook his head.

‘Women or a woman?’

‘A woman. Yes,’ he said. ‘Can we go for a drive and talk?’

‘Well . . .’ She didn’t have an excuse. Sammie hadn’t shown up. Not totally unlike her. It was cold and dark and late. She had planned to walk back to her apartment. Still, she wasn’t sure she wanted to be trapped into an evening with David. Buy some time, she thought. ‘How did you know I was here?’

‘Paul told me.’

‘He did? Hmmmn. OK, for a little while. Maybe we could catch a drink or something. There are some places down on Hayes Street. I’d be nearly home.’

‘I want to go somewhere quiet. Where we can talk. A little drive?’

‘This isn’t your car, is it?’ Julia asked, as David opened the passenger door.

‘Rental. Mine’s in the shop.’

‘You look different,’ Julia said. ‘You don’t normally dress this way.’ It started to seem odd to Julia. His happening there on the night Sammie didn’t show up. A strange car. The slightly frayed outdoor look in clothing.

David Seidman laughed. ‘I’m trying to relax a little. Enjoy life a little more. I’m trying not to be such an uptight asshole. And seeing what I look like in a beard. What do you think?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘A little early yet. But I will probably shave it all off tomorrow morning.’

‘So this girl is putting you through some changes?’

‘Yes, you could say that.’

The car picked up the fog about the time they hit the Sunset district.

‘Where are we going?’

‘Ocean Beach. That OK? Just a few more miles. Quiet out there. Just the sound of the waves.’ He patted her knee. ‘And they don’t make much noise anyway.’

‘David, I’m just a little nervous. Could we go back.’

‘Give me five minutes, OK. I really do need help.’

‘OK,’ she said hesitantly. ‘Ummm . . . well, let’s start. What’s she like?’

‘When we get there.’

‘How’s work?’

‘Really good, Julia. The party’s talked to me. There’s no promises, but it could be prosecutor in two. Governor in six with some high visibility stuff in between.’

‘Wonderful.’ She tried to be enthusiastic, but fear made it increasingly difficult. She could talk with him. She’d get whatever weirdness was going on out in the open. By morning, she’d laugh about it. She was just being paranoid. That would be normal for someone who had gone through what she had gone through. Like the guy across Ivy Street. A moment of panic. She wasn’t thinking rationally.

Visibility was nil. David had turned off the headlights, using only the parking lights. The windshield wipers kept a constant rhythm, brushing aside not drops, but a fine coat of mist.

‘I don’t like this,’ Julia said.

‘I’m not sure I do either,’ David said. ‘I was angry before. Even so, I didn’t want you to see my face.’ He could make out her face in the reflection of the dash lights. ‘You’re not surprised.’

‘Too many already.’

He pulled a knife from his coat pocket, put it to her throat. ‘Quiet now.’ He reached down in the console and pulled out a telephone. He laid it on the dash and punched in the numbers.

There was a moment of quiet. Julia stared out into the gray nothingness that surrounded the car.

‘Hello, Teddy?’ There was a momentary pause. ‘I need you out here. Ocean Beach, at the end of Balboa. To the right side. Be careful, it’s foggy.’ Another pause. ‘It’s the most important thing in my life. I need you. You’ll see the tail lights.’ He didn’t wait for any more conversation. He disconnected.

‘They will trace the call.’

‘Not my phone. Not my call.’

‘The scent. It’s not yours.’

‘No,’ he said. He laughed. ‘As many times as I screwed up on this one – you know, not killing you, getting the kid to try to finish you off. So fucking smart and so well planned and it didn’t work either. And the thing that makes all of this work is that cologne. And that was an accident. Teddy had it in his locker that day. I tried it. I didn’t pay any attention to it. That’s what’s so funny,’ David said. ‘I’m ten times smarter than Teddy. True. And he always gets it right. And I do all the right things. And it never turns out.’ He laughs.

‘David, you’re destroying . . .’

‘Oh shit, Julia. If I don’t finish this and get it right, I will be destroyed.’

‘So, you do me in and probably kill Ted . . .’

‘Ted? Oh, that’s nice. I didn’t know you called him “Ted.” Doesn’t matter, Julia. Never mind. Yeah, I do you with the knife and shoot Teddy with your gun.’

‘I don’t have a gun.’

‘Oh yes you do.’ He pulled a gun from the pocket of the coat.

‘It’s not mine.’

David smiled. ‘Of course it is. You ordered it. From Iowa. Came to you in Iowa.’

‘What?’

‘That’s the part you don’t know about. I had a gun sent to you – to a Post Office Box in Iowa – J. Bateman. I came there and picked it up.’

‘You were in Iowa.’

‘Oh yeah, Julia.’

‘You were stalking me?’

‘Doesn’t seem all that serious compared to what’s going to happen, does it? You know, you were going to kill yourself. Commit suicide in the cemetery. That fucking dog. Scared the shit out of me. Something weird going on there. So I was going to give it up. Just in case, though, I shipped the gun back to me here. Then you came back to San Francisco. I thought: What if you remember? What if Teddy, or Ted as you call him, remembers my using his cologne that day. It’s fixed now. I’ve talked with Gratelli. He wanted to know the possibility of indicting Teddy with what little evidence you have. He believes Thaddeus is the murderer. He wants him. He came to me for help. This is going to be so easy.’

‘David, you know this is deranged. Even you can understand how you’re acting. Why don’t we work on getting you well?’

‘Oh Christ, Julia. You can do better than that. You kept me hanging for years. With you dead and with Teddy dead, I win. I win in so many ways.’

‘David?’

‘Be quiet.’ He spoke softly, almost gently.

‘You wouldn’t let me go. Friendship, you kept saying. Right. You said that. You could handle it. We could be friends. Aside from Paul, I was the only close friend you had. I couldn’t abandon you.’

‘You know, Earl – the guy you killed – you know I probably was closer to him than anyone. Isn’t that crazy?’

‘It is. It is crazy,’ Julia said. She was resigned.

‘Yeah, well. I read his file. I read the police reports. His own parents wouldn’t bail him out of jail. He had no friends. He lived in a little cave. Alone. You have no idea what world he could create for himself.’

‘That wasn’t your life, David. How could you compare yourself to him?’

‘We’re all just people. Some of us were just all by ourselves. I kept thinking . . .’ He stopped and was quiet. ‘You’d be surprised what worlds we can create for ourselves.’

‘You sent him to his death,’ Julia said.

‘I gave him a fighting chance. I thought he’d do it. I would have put money on him.’

‘You got him killed.’

‘Yeah, I did that. After all, he wasn’t innocent. I’ve done far worse.’

‘What?’

‘Court. Every day. The rich kids get off. Guilty or not. The poor ones, they do time. Guilty or not. And even if the system lets them slide out – and they do, they really do – they slide right back in a week or two later. They’re dead men. They just don’t know they’re dead yet. Most of them. Ground up one way by their families or by the system. I sent one kid in, you know. Tried him as an adult. Raped, slaughtered. We were pretty sure he was dealin’ drugs. Pretty sure, Julia. Enough to convict him. Didn’t take much, of course. Who was going to defend him? We got him killed.’

‘And you? Do you think you’ll get off?’

‘You’ve got a point, Julia.’ He smiled. ‘All these perfect plans. Every one of them got fucked up. They were good. Everybody thinks Teddy is so smart. Shit, he could never have come up with all of this. C’mon, let’s get out. I don’t want to be in the car when Teddy gets here.’

He left the car running, the lights on. Twenty feet on to the soggy sand, the wet, chilled air and the light was faint, dispersed. Just enough light for them to see each other. He had a knife in one hand, her forearm in the other.

‘Limbo,’ David said, looking around.

‘David, maybe we can do something if you stop now. You’ve not killed anyone.’

‘Yeah, is that right?’

‘I’m not talking about what you’ve done as a prosecutor. You can’t be held to that.’

‘You’re right about that. All perfectly legal.’ In the silence, the waves seemed stronger. The air was wet and smelled of fish. ‘You’re so calm Julia. Around me, you’re so calm. Teddy makes you nervous, doesn’t he? He excites you.’

‘David, listen before you take a step you cannot take back . . .’

‘Your friend Sammie is dead. I killed her tonight. There’s no going back. They’ll think Thaddeus did it.’ He shrugged. ‘I’m surprisingly tidy. I’ve gotten better. I even left something of Teddy’s there.’

‘What?’ Julia’s mind was still on Sammie.

‘She’s dead.’

She tried to pull away. David pulled her back, the blade now at her throat, pulling in.

‘Well, finally. I’ve upset you haven’t I?’

She wasn’t sure she’d ever feel that frightened again. The horror of that first night at the cabin. The horror of the second. Now, again. But fear gave way to numbness. Numbness gave way to an incredible, bottomless sadness. For herself. For her friend. For everyone. Even David Seidman, mad man.

She could see only a shadowed face. She barely recognized it. He was a stranger after all.

In between the black ocean out there lapping out the time of her existence and Ted’s and the predators of the fog blind city in the other direction, she was right here, right now. Third time’s a charm. A mad man determined to snuff out her life.