Blind Date (28 page)

She appeared, looking pleased to see him there. Behind her, a porter carried a dress bag and a soft fabric suitcase. Neither piece had an airline baggage tag. Outside the terminal, the dispatcher was trying to hail a yellow cab for them when Levanter noticed a black limousine parked at the curb. It looked far more spacious and comfortable and appeared to be for hire. He gestured to the driver, a short, middle-aged man, who quickly jumped out and came to pick up Serena's luggage.

Opening the trunk, the driver tossed both pieces inside. Serena saw that he had thrown the suitcase on top of the dress bag and spoke to him sharply about crushing her dresses. He glanced at her and, without saying anything, rearranged the luggage. Then he closed the trunk, got behind the wheel, and waited for his passengers to get in.

Levanter gave the driver the address, asking whether he knew the way to the spot high up in Beverly Hills. The man looked at him in the rearview mirror and, again without a word, started the engine and drove off, accelerating as he reached the freeway.

Serena moved closer to Levanter. She put her leg over his, and he felt the pressure on his groin, the force of her hip against his. His right hand slid over her thigh, moved higher, caressing her, until she stretched over him, tense and excited. He put his left arm around her, and as she rested her head on his shoulder, he traced the outline of her breasts, then began stroking her through the thin fabric of her dress. Under his hands, she shivered and pressed against him.

The car turned off the freeway and sped along an empty road. Levanter saw that they had taken the wrong exit. He disengaged himself from Serena and leaned forward to tell the driver that he had left the freeway too soon and would have to go back and continue to the Beverly Hills exit. But the driver seemed to be in a daze. He did not answer, did not even look up into the rearview mirror. Instead, he accelerated suddenly, screeched across Sunset Boulevard, and started to climb along one of the dark roads of the canyon. The sudden turns and speed seemed to agitate Serena.
Visibly frightened, she was about to say something when Levanter squeezed her arm, signaling her to remain silent.

From where he sat, Levanter could see three fourths of the driver's face. The man's hair glistened with perspiration, droplets of sweat streaked along his cheeks and neck and dripped from his eyebrows; Levanter wondered why he was wearing a heavy woolen jacket over his shirt. The driver made another rapid turn; one tire mounted the sidewalk and the front fender scraped the embankment. They were still going up the steep hill, and the engine, throttle fully open, was straining, its whine alternating with the screech of the tires.

At an intersection, the driver speeded up and barely avoided running into a car making a turn. At another intersection, he slowed down so suddenly that the car behind almost smacked into them.

Pushing herself rigidly against the backrest, her feet on the back of the driver's seat, Serena clutched Levanter's arm. She held her breath and, staring over the driver's shoulder, kept her eyes glued to the road.

Assuming an even, almost joking tone, Levanter asked the driver to take it easy, saying that the constant slowing down and speeding up was making him and his companion dizzy. But the man did not respond. Gripping the wheel tighter with both hands, he made another rapid turn. For an instant, two tires lost their hold on the road; in reaction, the driver jerked the steering wheel the other way and the tires banged back onto the road. As they soared over the crest of the hill, Serena screamed and started to shout abuses at the man, but he only went faster. Frantically, she tried to open the car door as they sped down the other side of the hill, but Levanter restrained her. She trembled and cried.

The man had made no threats; he had waved no weapons and did not seem to be concerned about whether his passengers had any. Still, Levanter felt he had to stop him. He could grab the driver from behind and choke him, but there was the danger that, fighting back, the driver might press even harder on the gas pedal and kill them all in a crash.

Again Levanter spoke to the man. In a calm, conciliatory voice he asked him to slow down, to stop for a moment. He said that he and his companion would not mind being discharged at any house; they could phone for a local taxi that knew the way through this maze of unlit canyon roads. But the driver paid no attention to him. He kept the car racing at top speed. Levanter slowly slid off his seat as he spoke. He rested his hand tentatively on the driver's shoulder. The man did not react. Levanter felt the rough surface of the sweat-soaked wool and, in a friendly manner, remarked that it was hot and he might be better off without his jacket. With Levanter gently patting him, the man seemed to lose some of his determination. He was slowing down.

Suddenly, Serena pushed Levanter sideways. He lost his balance and fell to the floor. Screaming, she threw herself forward, a shiny object in her hand. In an instant, she jabbed it into the driver's neck. The man yelled, and the car jerked forward, picking up speed. Serena withdrew the object — a metal rat-tail hair comb — then stabbed the man in the neck again. He howled, twisting in his seat, and once more she plunged the sharp metal into him, this time under his jaw. He began to mumble, but the words died in his throat. Serena twisted the comb sideways and pushed it deeper; his sounds became a gurgle, and he sank lower on the seat. The car veered off, ran into the side of the hill, and stopped, its engine still running.

Levanter scrambled to his feet. He leaned over, pulled the comb out, and let it drop on the floor of the car. Blood gushed from a ripped artery, spilling over the back of the seat onto Levanter's suit and shoes. He opened the door and, dragging Serena with him, stepped out and ran to the driver's window. He reached in to turn off the engine. He looked into the man's face: the driver was dead. Blood was pouring from his mouth and spilling over his chin; the eyes, still open, were fixed on the rearview mirror. Serena sobbed quietly.

It was after midnight; the canyon was quiet. On the other side of the road the palm trees stood motionless in the moonlight. Far away a dog barked, and another answered from below the hill.

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.