Poisonous Kiss (38 page)

     "So how long do you have?" I repeated the question. My voice was even, cold and detached.

     He looked at me, smiling and nodding wordlessly. I began to get nervous.

     "You wanted to talk with me about this, did you? You can't wait to hear my answer, can you?"

     I shrugged.

     Baruch was in need of a refill, he downed this second glass of cognac in one gulp. He deposited his glass on the table with deliberation and slowly wiped his lips with his sleeve.

     "I won't die," he said softly. "Or at least I won't die soon…unless I meet with an accident, of course."

     I stared at him foolishly. The cognac didn't seem to be doctored, so I helped myself to a taste of it.

     "Celia told you I wanted to commit suicide, right?" he looked at me and I nodded automatically, though he would go on without this reinforcing gesture anyway. "Well, I was planning to do so. If you were in my shoes you would shoot yourself, maybe. There are people, who'd prefer to be hit by a train or open their veins in the bathtub. Samurais would opt for hara-kiri. I wanted to act in style, too. Only I didn't count on the Q-virus's efficiency. It's changing my personality slowly and carefully."

     A shot with a hammer would have hit me softer than this news. I sat in my chair, paralyzed. The richly furnished living room suddenly looked like an inanimate, rigid backdrop to some drawing-room comedy. The cuckoo clock started chiming behind me. Even this sound ridiculed me. Baruch reached into his pocket and I didn't have the presence of mind to budge! I'd lost!

     But all he took out of his pocket was a cigarette. He lit it, then looked at me again, smiling. It was obvious I was safe for the moment. He wouldn't kill me in his own home. If he is bent on living, surviving, he didn't need the police breathing down his neck.

     "Did you find those fits unbearable, too?" he asked in a light, bantering manner. "How one's body tries to put up resistance!" He shrugged and continued, undisturbed. "It's so good that this stage doesn't take long. Have you noticed what a help it is if you don't restrain yourself? Before beating those miserable mice to death I thought I would die then and there. I felt like fainting, I was dizzy, I saw everything through a gray-blue haze. I felt sick and I threw up, too." He shook his head slowly, disapprovingly. "I felt some enormous hatred accumulating inside of me. I didn't know who I wanted to hurt or what for. I had always been a restrained person. Everything kept me back, my upbringing, my whole life, my nature. And there were the practical considerations, too. Who should I clobber to death? Should I go out to the outer room and beat my secretary up? Chances are that she would win, and there is the possibility of a scandal, too. I'm not a physical type. And then I looked up and through the mist of nausea I suddenly saw the mice. First I was beating them wildly with my hands, then I smashed them to the floor and crunched them under my heel. Later, I realized how I enjoyed my power, and started to kill them one by one slowly and with pleasure. And you know what? After that I felt much, much better. Still, I knew that mice just provided brief relief, and there'd be a time when I would have to hurt something else, someone else. Someone, I hate so much, that the mere idea of kicking him, shooting him brings me relief. I pictured myself pushing him off a cliff ." He refilled his glass. He seemed to be trying to get himself drunk. "I was in luck. It wasn't so hard to find someone to hate. Someone on whom I could take out my rage."

     "You never wanted to kill yourself," I said. "You played the role of the genius turned hero only because you wanted to impress Celia, to make her admire you more."

     He put down his glass and looked at me pensively.

     "Maybe you're right. Maybe I've had this idea at the back of my head all the time. I could have given myself such a big dose that it would have solved the problem immediately. But I didn't do that. I was increasing the dosage slowly, I was playing along with them, I kept calculating and taking note of things. And in the end I could stop."

     "You only wanted to experiment." Neither of us noticed Celia entering the room. She was standing at the door, her face pale and rigid. She wore a dark skirt, a light blouse and a dark cardigan. She looked so young and fragile. But her face looked older, especially her eyes. They were tired and lacked luster. "You are too good a scientist to have let such an opportunity go. You wanted to see, to feel the result for yourself. You wanted to see if you could keep the experiment under control."

     Baruch smiled at her.

     "Thank you, my dear, it's nice of you to say so." He glanced at me. "Isn't it wonderful to have a wife who holds me in such esteem?"

     I nodded wordlessly.

     Baruch stood up and took another glass from the carved cupboard with the dark glass-panes.

     "You will have a drink with us, won't you, darling? I trust you don't have anything against the company. Oh, relax, for God's sake! I've learned to behave myself. I'm not sick, I'm not having fits, I won't be throwing tantrums. I'm not jealous. I've realized there's no need for that. Let it suffice that when I think of all the things to come I can't help laughing. I'm having fun at your expense, my dear."

     I was watching Celia. I had to grab the arm of the chair so as not to jump up, rush over to her and gather her in my arms. I won't let him hurt you, I thought. Never. She sat down smoothing her skirt carefully. I felt a sudden surge of desire, I almost blushed with my memories of her thighs, now so carefully and modestly covered with her skirt. I felt Baruch's eyes on me. I tore my eyes from Celia and looked up, straight into the ironic, understanding eyes of Baruch.

     "Well, children, you just go on meeting each other as if nothing's happened. Try to enjoy the time you have left. You see, I'm not so malevolent."

     I leaned forward, my muscles tensing.

     "If you think I'll let you hurt her, you're wrong." Even I could hear that my voice rose menacingly.

     But he started to laugh.

     "To hurt Celia? Oh, come on! What do you take me for?" He was leaning forward, too. We were like two cautious beasts facing each other, ready to pounce, in a room full of statuettes, paintings, vases and marvelous rugs. "You should know better. The virus doesn't transform the subject, it changes certain characteristic features in him. I love Celia. I loved her before, I still love her. The difference is that earlier I would have given her up without fight. But not now…now I guess I'll kill you."

     My glance lit upon his hands. They were soft and white, weak hands that never did any hard work or sport. He didn't have a gun in them. So why was I scared? I shot Delacroix, I subdued Frost. Why did I still feel this cold and unexplainable dread?

     Baruch waved his hand.

     "Come on, don't take it literally. Relax! Why don't you have a drink? Or you don't like cognac? Would you have a beer or some whiskey instead? What I meant was simply that now, that I have changed, I would kill you. Eventually. Sometime, tomorrow, next week, it might even take months. I'm not in a hurry. In the meantime I'll be planning, toying with the idea. I'll enjoy the feel of it. Isn't it marvelous? Here you are, a sharpshooter, a good fighter, a muscular young cop and you can't do a thing against it. Against me. I'll kill you and there's only one way to prevent it. If you get ahead of me and kill yourself. But you'll never do that. You're not capable of doing so because you haven't had enough of my wondrous serum. You are still sick, my poor friend, you're still tortured by superfluous scruples. If I attacked you, you obviously would try to defend yourself. You might even be able to kill me in self-defense. But I won't give you a chance, oh, no, never," he smiled shaking his head. "Any time we meet I'll be just as friendly as I am now. I'll be polite and well disposed towards you. You can come here any time, my house will always be open to you. You'll always find a friend waiting for you here. You'll be able to share your troubles with me and I'll share my wife with you. You'll always get a drink and some consolation here. But I'll kill you when the time comes." He laughed again. It was dreadful, yet he was only laughing, happily, seemingly oblivious to the circumstances. "I was clumsy the last time, wasn't I? I really don't see how I could think I'd take you out from such a distance. Well, it doesn't matter now. And it helped me then."

     I thought of Patricia, her beautiful, blond hair fanned out on the pillow, her eyes closed, her face pale. The bandage on her chest.

     Baruch was reading my thoughts, of course. It couldn't have been difficult for him, I admit.

     "You are sorry for the girl, right? Well, it couldn't be helped. How about some injections? Would you like that?"

     I shook my head.

     "Good for you. I wouldn't give you, any. You know, my friend, you can ask for anything. It's yours for the taking, but not my Q-virus serum. I won't give you the help you need to kill me. Now you're wracking your brain about what you could do. Don't overexert yourself. I've been doing the same. You can't go to the police because I'd obviously deny everything. You wouldn't get anywhere with it, even if Celia substantiated your story. People would think it was only your plan to get rid of the elderly husband. You know what people are like. You can't kill me because you aren't capable of it. And what if you could? Celia would hate you for your pains. Isn't that right, darling?"

     Celia sat wordlessly, motionlessly, but I knew Baruch was right again. She would hate me forever.

     "You could leave here, go to some god-forsaken place and start a new life under a new name in the back of beyond. But you won't do that either. You won't be able to leave it all here, your love, your work, your friends, your family, your career…all for the threats of an old fool. Do you see now? You'll stay put. And I'll kill you eventually. It's as simple as that. Now you think you still have one chance, don't you? You think you'll be on the alert and fend my attack off. After all, you're the professional. All right, that's a possibility. But it means that you won't have a single relaxed, carefree moment. You won't have a night of undisturbed sleep. You won't be able to step out in the street without thinking of me, the possibility that I'm lying in ambush to get you. You won't have a moment's peace. And I'll be enjoying myself. If you think of keeping me under observation you can forget it. I have patience and forbearance, I'll wait for my chance. Do you know what the most important virtue of a scientist is? It's patience. The ability to start the umpteen thousandth version of an experiment after umpteen thousand failures."

     I knew he was right. I felt tormented, helpless. I felt the same excruciating, nightmarish pain that I experienced when Frost killed Carl, and almost me, too. I sat rigidly and stared at the friendly, smiling, sophisticated face.

     "Don't you worry," Baruch went on with gusto, "I'll master the technique of killing. I don't think it requires extraordinary skills. The world is full of semi-literate, semi-idiotic killers. I'll find the methods which don't require special skills, special physical agility."

     "Do you want to practice killing?" Celia whispered softly.

     "Maybe. Why not, provided it feels good. Don't worry, your husband won't turn into a homicidal maniac. A couple of killings at most, only to see what it is like and acquire a taste for it by the time it's our mutual friend's turn. You won't even have to know about them." He smiled at us lovingly. "Still, I believe in the saying 'each man to his trade.' It would simply be a waste for me to kill with my hands. Someone else will do nicely instead."

     I stole a glance at Celia and was sure the same thought occurred to her. It sent shivers down my spine.

     "The serum…" Celia said haltingly. It was partly a question, partly a statement. She was shaking her head in shock. She couldn't believe it, but she had to.

     We could see the final glory in Baruch's expression. Now he could wade in for the kill. He's been waiting for this during our entire discussion. Remember, patience and the umpteen thousand experiments…

     "I'll inoculate soldiers. Prisoners, juvenile delinquents on parole." He laughed again. I started to feel anger accumulating in me, I felt it strain against my body to get out, I felt on the verge of exploding. I was dizzy. I reached for the glass with trembling hands and drank. The cognac didn't agree with me. I craved cold water. I wanted to hit, smash, destroy.

     "A mental recuperative drug," Baruch snickered. "That's a good one, I heard it from you." He was almost shouting. His harsh voice clashed with his homely dressing gown, his intelligent face, his puritanical glasses. "An orgy of aggressiveness, violence. Tortured, battered people, exploded buses, schools blown to bits…" he was whinnying with joy. "I've become a vicious person, do you see? Vicious, evil. And you can't do a thing about it. You are in my hands. Just try to go to the police and report me, go ahead! Who in his right mind would believe your story? Oh, yes, I do enjoy killing. My methods are unorthodox, I don't kill with knife or gun, I don't need old-fashioned arms. I kill with the virus, my discovery. And you, my friend—every time you are called to the scene of a meaningless murder, when someone gets shot for a couple of dollars, when people cut each others throat in the course of run-of-the-mill fights, when someone gets kidnapped and tortured solely for fun, when soldiers go berserk and gun down everyone in sight till they are killed by one of their own—you, my dear friend will think every time that you are witnessing my handiwork even in cases, which occur without my active participation. You see, the virus is spreading fast, the future belongs to violence and whatever I might do is only a modest contribution to the great oeuvre of nature. And the nicest thing is that you'll see and know everything and won't be able to do anything to prevent it. It's so nice that I might just spare you longer so that you'll be able to enjoy it longer."