Poisonous Kiss (22 page)

     Before he reaches the third floor, he stops to catch his breath and wipe his palms on his pants, then he reaches under his jacket. He sticks his head out. Silence, calmness. Three doors, the one in the middle belongs to the Maritime Navigation Company. This is where Delacroix went. The possibilities dance around in Arany's mind: A rich father that Delacroix hits up for money from time to time. Or did he misjudge the guy? He was actually working, but cleverly kept it a secret …and the windows of this company's office look right at the bank. The damned bank won't leave him alone!

     He steps closer to the door, listening. He senses the fine noises of the building. Noises that would be immediately obvious elsewhere are hardly audible here. They're enigmatic, muffled by wood and carpet. There's music somewhere. It's hard to say where it comes from, maybe oozing up inside the walls. Female voices, a child crying …but complete silence behind this door. No rushing steps, no typing, no phone ringing. Arany is suddenly overcome by a horrible feeling that a huge, angry businessman is going to appear in the door in a second.

     He looks around and has the same weird feeling of being watched by the dark brown doors, like he felt on the first floor. Enough of this! He slowly heads down. He stops by the plants on the landing. An ashtray on the handrails. An empty ashtray scrubbed clean. He suddenly feels like sitting down on the windowsill for a cigarette.

     He opens the window and looks out. There's a glassed-in corridor above him, a sort of a bridge connecting this building to the one next door. This little bridge can't be seen from the street, or maybe he just didn't notice it when he was walking behind Delacroix. It's a short corridor, no more than three yards long. The building it connects to is L-shaped, and the shorter end of the L is pointing towards this building.

     Arany puts the cigarette out in the ashtray. He twists the butt around with a nearly sensual sensation.

     There's sunshine outside, and people. Pretty young students walking, filling the sidewalk, almost the whole street. The young girls are twittering, keeping an eye on males between six and sixty, ready to burst out laughing at every appreciative look. They'll purse their lips and make faces to let the guys know that they're too old, too young, too tall or too short for them. Arany watches the girls absent-mindedly. He watches the bank, the two figures approaching the entrance. He could swear he's seen them before. There's a phone booth at the corner. But what can he say? That there was going to be a bank robbery because three guys he had seen at the dance club were here now, and that Maritime Navigation Company was suspicious, and anyway…

     The girls burst out in laughter, suddenly frightened, Arany looks up. A pair of provoking brown eyes, the desire to seduce. Then they walk on, beautiful, healthy, careless. What shall I do? Arany wonders.

     On the other side of the street one of the familiar figures steps into the bank. He turns back to poke fun at his buddy who's waiting outside the entrance. The security guard watches with a bored expression on his face. Watch out, you idiot! Arany wants to scream to himself. Watch out for what? Why?

     He runs across the street, but he has to stop in the middle. He didn't use the crosswalk and the drivers seem so annoyed at him that they appear almost eager to run him over.

     By the time he crosses the street the first guy is all the way inside the bank and the second man has stepped into the outer door. The door is closed, the little light next to the door handle is red. Arany has to wait for it to turn green.

     "I'm just imagining things," Arany mumbles to himself, but he's sure it isn't his imagination. The guys are wearing loose colorful jackets with shoulder pads. He can't be sure the jackets conceal anything but …the second man gets in, the inside door is opening. Arany's hand is on the doorknob. The light is still red; it will only turn green when the inside door closes. There's no use tugging at it.

     The inside door isn't closing. The guy steps into the bank, his buddy turns toward him, a typical, innocent scene. The guard glances at Arany who is obviously impatient. It's these nervous types who always attract the attention of security guards. The man who had just entered the bank isn't nervous. He calmly and comfortably reaches under his jacket.

     And the calmness is over. So is the slow, nerve-wracking wait. Things start happening, a script is unfolding and it cannot be stopped. The man's hand moves toward the guard. His body turns as he swings the blackjack in a perfect arc toward the guard's forehead. The guard collapses. It looks from where Arany is standing that the man might have taken the guard's gun out of its holster. The other man reaches into his jacket. He isn't pulling out a gun, but a ski hat with holes cut in it. He pulls it over his head. A mask is already covering the first man's face. Arany knows the cameras have recorded their faces, but that might also be part of the script. And Delacroix waiting across the street, that's got to be in the script too.

     Arany tries to yank at the door. The man nearest the door looks back. He seems to be smiling under the black knit hat that covers his face.

     There must be another guard, Arany thinks. A bank this secure must have at least two guards.

     A shot is fired. The other guard had been at the far end of the bank. Now a kid in a mask stands near the wall, pointing his gun toward the man. Arany can't get a clear view through the two glass doors. He can't be sure what's happening.

     He lets go of the door handle. He kicks angrily at the bulletproof glass, but it doesn't even shake. Arany runs toward the corner phone booth, cursing. At least the phone is on this side of the street, so he doesn't have to dodge cars again. But the phone booth is occupied.

     "Police!" he gasps. He pulls out his badge and grabs at the receiver.

     A tall, chubby guy with a droopy mustache frowns at Arany. A big fleshy palm on Arany's chest.

     "Calm down, pal! It can wait."

     No it can't! Arany hates it when someone tries to jerk him around and tell him what's important. He hates being helpless while grinning punks rob a bank and hold hostages nearby. How can he suspect that a couple months later this man will testify against him at a trial where Arany will be the accused? Arany has a violent character, he is inclined to opt for violent solutions, the prosecutor will say to prove his point. Perhaps even if he suspected this now, Arany wouldn't care. He presses both his palms on the back of the man's hand, steps back, halfway squatting on his leg behind him. There is a scream of pain, and the man with the mustache comes out of the phone booth. He isn't confident anymore, he kneels on the sidewalk, rubbing his wrist and groaning.

     Arany dials. It takes too long for someone to pick up. The emergency operator sounds so bored. Don't they know he needs help?

     "Try to be calm," the operator says. "Who did you say you were?"

     Arany hangs up. He calls Ericsson. The man outside the phone booth is standing, but he isn't coming any closer. In fact he starts to back up when Arany opens the door of the phone booth. Ericsson's voice can hardly be heard over the sound of approaching sirens.

     "I'm only calling, captain, to let you know that you were right."

     Arany watches the squad cars arrive, from his first class seat inside the phone booth. The cars break and spin around in front of the bank, as if every second mattered. Officers jump out of their cars with guns in their hands. The gathering crowd starts to block Arany's view, so he can't see the cops pulling at the door. All in vain. You can't break into this bank.

     The captain's voice comes to life. Arany can almost see him leaning back in his armchair with a victorious expression on his face. His feet are up on the desk, knocking papers on the floor. The miniature man swings on his miniature gallows.

     "All right then. We'll catch them.
We
are going to catch them."

     Outside, the bank is cordoned off, the sound of impatient horns in the distance. A traffic jam builds up in a matter of seconds.

     Arany is like a sports commentator, broadcasting everything. His frustration and anger with himself pour into the receiver.

     Ericsson argues.

     "Cut the whining, Arany!" he yells. "Are you a detective or some kind of miracleworker? Because if you can do miracles, what the hell are you doing under my command? You did what you could. You had no probable cause to stop those punks before they went in the bank. You would have been facing a civil suit and we would never be able to prove they were about to rob a bank. But now we've got them. Now we can make them do time!

     Arany keeps silent. It's hard enough to argue with a man of Ericsson's experience, but it's even worse when you know he isn't well. What's the best solution: Preventing crime or putting the criminals behind bars? At school the answer would have been unambiguous: Preventing a crime is the priority. The rest is necessitated by society's failure at prevention. A sociologist held a lecture about this once at the Academy. She said such beautiful things that Arany, if he hadn't been confronted with real life later on, would still believe her.

     "What the hell can I do?" he yells back to Ericsson.

     The captain doesn't mind his tone of voice. Maybe Arany's eagerness actually pleases him.

     "Don't waste your time there now. We have plenty of officers on the scene. Go back to the other side of the street, and keep an eye on the Maritime Navigation Company! I don't think Delacroix is there just by accident! If he shows up, follow him. I'll be there in twenty minutes."

     Arany hangs up. The man with his aching wrist is gone. The block in front of the bank resembles a battlefield. The entire street has become a parking lot for police cars. A minivan with a swat team pulls up and black suited men start to pop out. Cameras peak out from behind people's backs. There's no telling what's going on inside. Arany slowly crosses the street. Nervous policemen push back a growing crowd. He has to show his badge just to cross the street. The doorway he'd entered before is no longer quiet. A man in a suit stands next to Arany and barks orders into a cellular phone. Armed men rush inside, sharpshooters going to take positions in the roof. What do these insane men want in the bank—and up there in the third floor apartment looking over the street?

     Arany grows more and more anxious as he waits for Captain Ericsson.

Sean Flaherty chews his lips nervously. He has no idea why this eccentric couple hired him to handle their case when a host of hotshot attorneys would have jumped a chance to defend them. They could afford the best, but money's not an issue. Plenty of lawyers would have taken the job for free—talented, ambitious, big-name lawyers. They believe neither in the law, nor in God. They only believe in themselves, but they have a lot of confidence in themselves.

     And he kind of wonders why he took the case. Why didn't he stick with what he's good at—small-scale divorce trials, petty thefts and light assaults? Why the hell did he take this case? Stupid question! For the same reason anyone would have jumped at the chance. My God, the exposure. The fame! In his private moments of ecstasy he can't imagine life without it. The press has already made his name a household word. And he can stay in the limelight, even if John Arany is found guilty. After all, Arany did kill, and he's not denying it. Flaherty will be golden if Arany gets away with a mild sentence. That should be easy enough to manage. Or at least it seemed easy when things started.

     Now he nervously glances at the tall mustachioed man in the witness stand. His testimony is flawless. Arany broke into the phone booth while he was using it. Didn't even let him finish the conversation. Insulted him, assaulted him, caused a fracture that prevented him from working for a month. He's got insurance statements, medical forms. Flaherty's shirt is glued to his back with sweat.

     Who the hell counts on things like this? All he knew about Arany was that he was some kind of a hero, with a lot of awards. Now the prosecutor is turning all of Arany's heroism into evidence that he was a violent, unstable man. And instead of helping Flaherty refute these claims, Arany just shrugs and says he had to make an urgent call. The mustachioed guy steps down, and another lawyer is waiting to talk to him about his pending civil suit against the Police Department. Now there's an easy case!

     Why couldn't Flaherty have a client like that—one who helps his own case instead of sabotaging it? It's as if Arany is working against him the whole way. All right, Arany confessed that he had killed the woman's husband. He could have withdrawn this confession though. Let the prosecution prove that he committed this crime. But no, he won't do that. And he won't explain why he killed the man—not even to his own lawyer. Arany shrugs quietly, and Dr. D'Allesandro looks at him with a sad, mysterious smile.

     "You wouldn't understand," Arany says to him, to the lawyer who's supposed to pull them out of this pile of shit. And Arany rejects Flaherty's other ideas. They could claim that Celia was regularly beaten by her husband. Or they could say that Arany and her are madly in love—which is obviously true—but the husband wouldn't permit a divorce even though the wife doesn't want money.

     Of course, this story wouldn't justify murder, but it could ameliorate the sentence. They have capital punishment in this state. And if he is sentenced to twenty years? Celia will be an old woman by the time he is released.

     But no. No matter how he begs, these two won't even hear about anything like this. Maybe he should pull out from this case.