The Seduction - Art Bourgeau (35 page)

It worked . . . Missy came to her now in a rage,
slashing and stabbing air. Laura sidestepped, swung the hammer again,
claw-end forward.

But Missy still had her superior reflexes . . . Out
of her peripheral vision she saw, sensed, the blow coming, dropped
her head and rolled her shoulder. The hammer whistled over her head,
and the movement brought her inside Laura's guard. She brought the
knife up . . .

Laura saw the blade flash, could do nothing to defend
herself. lt seemed almost in slow motion as she watched the knife
snake between the folds of her coat as she instinctively sucked in
her stomach.

And then she felt the blade.

Missy, wanting to disfigure, slashed. Another clean
stab was too easy . . .

Laura felt the blade rip across her stomach. lt felt
like a gigantic paper cut followed by a stinging and wetness.

Missy stepped back now to admire her work, prolong
the pleasure. "When I'm finished with you the only way Felix is
going to see you is in a box. You'll both be lucky if they get the
pieces together right. Who's the loser . . . ?"

Laura's head was on her stomach. She could tell she
was bleeding but had no idea how much or what the damage was. That
last slash had, she hoped, been cushioned some by tummy fat, which up
to now she had always hated . . . She tested the heft of the hammer
in hand, tried to steady herself. "Come on, I'm waiting——"

Missy smiled. "But not for long. It's over—"

The sound of the elevator startled them. Laura,
grabbing the opportunity to stall, said, "That's Felix. I left
word for him to meet me here—"

"Good, because all he's going to find are body
parts." And she came forward on the balls of her feet, slashing,
driving Laura back.

Laura was more cautious now, giving ground, not
provoking. She could hear the steady whine of the elevator. A sweet
sound, but it stopped somewhere below . . .

Missy saw, sensed Laura's momentary diversion, she
stepped across Laura's path and slashed again.

Laura was just able to grab Missy's arm as she felt
the blade cut her a second time.

Missy pulled her arm free, scrambled to her feet as
the elevator doors were opening.

"I'll be back, you
can count on it, you bitch." And then as the light from the
elevator doors began to widen she turned and ran into Carl's loft.

* * *

Felix was the first out the elevator. He stopped
abruptly, seeing Laura bleeding on the floor and holding her arm. He
tried to take her in his arms, but she backed away. "Peter . . .
it was Missy dressed as a man . . . she tried to kill me . . . she's
in Carl's loft . . ."

Coleman Green and Justin, who had joined him now,
both told him to stay with Laura, that they'd go after Missy.

"Be careful . . . she has a knife . . ."
Laura said.

Felix slipped out of his jacket and covered her. "Lie
still, honey; you're bleeding. We'll get you to the hospital and
stitched up; you'll be fine, but meanwhile just rest."

Justin and Coleman had gone to Carl's door, but it
was bolted from the inside.

"Get something to break it down," Coleman
said. Justin got one of Klaus Knopfler's tools, a  sledgehammer,
and with the third blow the door gave way.

But the loft was empty, and the open window to the
fire escape told why.

Looking out they could see nothing and quickly
reported back to Felix.

"Never mind/' he said, "what's important
right now is Laura. We need to get her to the hospital fast."

After a call to emergency, he turned to Coleman. "The
police shouldn't have any trouble picking up Missy, should they?"

Coleman shook his head. "It's not going to be
that easy. There's still no substantive evidence to connect her with
the crimes. All we have is Laura's word. The police won't go for it.
After what happened between Laura and Missy they'll figure Laura was
the one trying to make a frame. No, I'm afraid she's going to get
away with it," he said, looking out the window at the fire
escape and into the night.

Inside the loft the Kurt Weill tape was still
playing, and Sting was now singing "Mac the Knife."
 
 

CHAPTER 30

THE DARKNESS of the alley covered Missy's escape as
she scampered down the fire escape from Carl's loft and headed for
Third Street. Move, she told herself, knowing that whoever was on the
elevator would be looking for her. She hoped she was far enough away
so that the darkness would keep them from seeing her.

As she came out of the alley the lights of the
Society Hill Hotel startled her after the thick darkness. Momentarily
she froze, like a jack-lighted deer. Coming so close to being caught
had shaken her. For a moment she felt disoriented, not quite sure who
she was or where she was—and then she saw the knife in her hand and
snapped back. "Get to the car," she muttered as she shoved
the knife under her jacket.

No one paid any attention to her, she heard no alarm,
but her heartbeat was tripled by the time she made it up Third Street
to her parked car.

The sight of it didn't comfort her as she realized
she didn't have her purse with her. Where had she left it? It had her
money, credit cards, drugs, keys—her identification. She felt
panicky. Did she leave it at Carl's? She tried the door, maybe she'd
left it unlocked. No luck. Get a cab. If she could make it home
before the police arrived it was still her word against Laura's and
then she saw her face reflected in the window of the car. Of course .
. . it wasn't Missy she saw, it was Peter. And Peter didn't carry a
purse. She put her hand in her . . . his . . . trouser pocket. The
keys were there.

She fumbled with the lock. "Steady now.
Control." Finally she got the key in and the door came open. She
got in, closed and locked the door.

"All right, you're fine. Settle down and get to
business, but don't waste a minute doing it."

Hand unsteady, she started the engine, and the tape
player came on with it—the sudden sound of Bob Seger's raspy voice
singing "Turn the Page" made her jump. She reached to turn
it down, heart pounding now, put the car in gear and out of habit
glanced at herself in the mirror. The hardness of Peter's face in the
dim light shocked her. Damn it, she didn't want to be Peter now. She
wanted to be Missy again, the old Missy before . . . the Missy who
dressed in her soft and pretty things, lounged in front of the fire
and welcomed proper gentlemen callers with champagne. Most of all she
wanted her father. With him she would be loved, safe . . .

She shook her head to clear away the fantasy. "Be
careful, take it slow and easy. You know how long it takes the police
to respond to a call around here. You have plenty of time to get
home. All you have to do is get rid of these clothes and appear
surprised when the police show up. There's nothing to connect you
with what happened at Carl's . . ."

She thought of Laura . . . the way she fought back.
She'd never known a woman so committed, so crazy. Women didn't act
that way. They died quietly and with dignity as long as you didn't
mess up their face, even young girls. Especially the young girls.
They were so good at accepting the inevitable. When the time came all
they asked was to be a pretty corpse, but not Laura . . . She crossed
Market Street and replaced the Seger tape with one of Miles Davis
playing the Cyndi Lauper hit, "Time After Time." The soft
sound of his trumpet helped settle her. By the time she turned onto
Race Street by the Black Banana her heart rate had begun to slow down
and she reached over and took out her flask from the glove
compartment. It was still half-full from when she had waited outside
Lagniappe for Felix and Cynthia on Halloween night. That time when
she and Felix were still together seemed long ago, far away. Felix,
he'd pay, oh yes . . . She paused a moment at the stop sign on
Delaware Avenue and took a drink. The bite, the burn, felt good, but
quickly faded. Replaced by a vision of Felix's face, so like a
younger version of her father. Her father . . . she'd done everything
for him, hadn't she? She'd loved him enough even to kill for him.
She'd given him the deep love her mother had denied him. Well, Felix
would miss her . . .

Her father, Felix . . . her nipples began to harden
under the elastic bandages flattening her breasts. She wanted the
bandages gone, her breasts free and swollen. She wanted to open her
blouse to him, sit back with a brandy while he suckled and nursed at
them . . .

She drove south on Delaware Avenue, the river
shimmering on her left. Traffic was heavy but she'd soon be home, be
Missy again. Get rid of Peter's things. Weigh them down with
something, throw them in the river.

She put on her turn signal and moved into the left
lane—and then she saw it, there in her driveway, a police cruiser.
They were waiting for her, somehow they'd responded quicker than
she'd imagined possible. Instinctively she pressed down on the
accelerator, but caught herself in time. "What the fuck do you
think you're doing? Take it easy. The last thing you want is to
attract attention . . ."

She stayed with the traffic moving south until she
came to Washington Avenue, took a right, driving slowly toward the
Italian Market at Ninth Street. The neighborhood that once held such
fulfillment for her with Terri and the other girls now made her
uneasy, heavily patrolled as it was by police. Get out before you're
seen . . . but to where? She couldn't go to her townhouse; she
couldn't go to Carl's; even as herself there were no friends she
could go to, not now.

The Italian Market with its streetside stalls was
closed and almost deserted except for garbage trucks. Down the block
she saw a police cruiser at the curb, but facing the opposite
direction. She shook her head. Where could she go? Where could she
find any safety? She had no money, no credit cards, no clothes, not
even a purse. She was trapped, trapped in her Peter role, when what
she wanted to be was Missy, to put all this behind her. And then the
answer came—the one place where they had to take her, the one place
where she was always welcome—home.

Her mother was still in Rio with Edgar, which meant
she could have time to herself in the house, collect her thoughts.
She knew she couldn't stay, the police would be there sooner than
later, but at least she could catch her breath, figure out where to
go and pick up some money. Her father had always kept ready cash in
his study safe.

She stayed on Washington
all the way to Twenty-second Street before she took a right and
headed north toward East River Drive. The pain began again during the
ride out, but she did her best to ignore it, push it away. Too many
other things to think about, like where was she going to live . . .
not what house, but what city? She couldn't stay in Philadelphia any
longer, needed a place where they wouldn't be looking for her, a
place far away, with life and style pleasing to her. By the time she
reached Chestnut Hill she had decided on it . . . the one place she
wanted to live, that she could lose herself in, was Los Angeles.

* * *

The stone house, nearly hidden from sight by trees
and bushes, was dark when she arrived. Good. She turned off her
lights as she pulled into the driveway, being doubly cautious, and
parked behind the house.

Looking about at the familiar grounds she already
felt herself begin to relax, and reached for the flask, wanting to
savor the feeling.

"Who was it said you can't go home again? Shows
what he knows," she said, raising the flask to the dark house in
a toast. "Old house, maybe when all this is over I'll even come
back for a visit. You'd like that, wouldn't you? Well, goddamn it,
wouldn't you? Come on, you old bastard, talk to me. It's Missy, your
golden darling daughter . . . And then she broke down, let loose, her
shoulders shaking, tears flowing down her cheeks, wetting the beard,
she was no longer aware of . . . "Daddy,
Daddy
,
where are you? I need you, I do . . . please, please, Daddy . . ."

Finally she quieted, trying to dry her eyes without
ruining her eye makeup, not realizing that she was Peter and wearing
none. Feeling shaky, she got out of the car and approached the house.
Only at the door did she realize she didn't have the keys. Seldom
used, they were back at her townhouse. And this house was wired with
a security system, so she couldn't even pry open a window.

She slumped down at the picnic table, feeling undone,
about to cry again . . . but in a moment stopped and heard the voice
. . .

"Stop that goddamn nonsense. Just break the
window." Peter's voice. She shook her head, no it wouldn't
work—"Yes, it will" Peter's voice. "It's the frame
that's wired, not the glass. You can break the glass and the alarm
won't go off. You just can't raise a window or open the door."
She thought a moment, knew he was right. Wasn't he always?

She looked at the window. What to break it with? How
to cover the noise? The latter was more serious . . . even though the
houses were far apart this was still a neighborhood, and the sound of
breaking glass could easily arouse someone to call the police. She
needed something to muffle the sound but what?