Otto Penzler: Dangerous Women

“The natives dip their darts in it.”

“Shoot the darts from blowpipes.”

“The victims are paralyzed.”

“Helpless.”

“Death comes from asphyxia.”

“That means you can’t breathe.”

“Because the respiratory nerve muscles get paralyzed.”

“Are you having trouble breathing yet, Will?”

He did not think he was having trouble breathing. But what were they saying? Were they saying they’d poisoned him?

“The synthetics come in tablet form,” Susan told him.

“Easy to pulverize.”

“Easy to dissolve.”

“Lots of legitimate uses for synthetic curare drugs,” Jessica said.

“Provided you’re careful with the dosage.”

“We weren’t particularly careful with the dosage, Will.”

“Did your champagne taste a little bitter?”

He wanted to shake his head no. His champagne had tasted just fine. Or had he been too drunk to know just how it had tasted? But he couldn’t shake his head, and he couldn’t talk.

“Let’s watch him,” Susan said. “Study his reactions.”

“Why?” Jessica asked.

“Well, it could be helpful.”

“Not for the scene we’re doing.”

“Killing someone.”

“Killing someone, yes. Duh, Susan.”

Killing me , Will thought.

They are actually killing me here.

But, no…

Girls, he thought, you’re making a mistake here. This is not the way to go about this. Let’s go back to the original plan, girls. The original plan was to pop a bottle of bubbly and hop into the sack together. The original plan was to share this lovely night three days before… actually only two days now, it was already well past midnight… two days before Christmas, share this sweet uncomplicated night together, a sister act with a willing third partner is all this was supposed to be here. So how’d it get so serious all of a sudden? There was no reason for you girls to get all serious about acting lessons and private moments, really, this was just supposed to be fun and games here tonight. So why’d you have to go drop poison in my champagne? I mean, Jesus, girls, why’d you have to go do that when we were getting along so fine here?

“Are you feeling anything?” Susan asked.

“No,” Jessica said. “Are you?”

“I thought I’d feel…”

“Me, too.”

“I don’t know… sinister or something.”

“Me, too.”

“I mean, killing somebody! I thought it would be something special. Instead…”

“I know what you mean. It’s just like watching somebody, I don’t know, getting a haircut or something.”

“Maybe we should have tried something else.”

“Not poison, you mean?”

“Something more dramatic.”

“Something scarier, I know what you mean.”

“Get some kind of reaction out of him.”

“Instead of him just sitting there.”

“Sitting there like a dope and dying.”

The girls leaned over Will and peered into his face. Their faces looked distorted, so close to his face and all. Their blue eyes looked as if they were popping out of their heads.

“Do something,” Jessica told him.

“Do something, asshole,” Susan said.

They kept watching him.

“It’s not too late to stab him, I suppose,” Jessica said.

“You think?” Susan said.

Please don’t stab me, Will thought. I’m afraid of knives. Please don’t stab me.

“Let’s see what’s in the kitchen,” Jessica said.

He was suddenly alone.

The girls were suddenly gone.

Behind him…

If he could not turn his head to see them.

… behind him he could hear them rummaging through what he guessed was one of the kitchen drawers, could hear the rattle of utensils…

Please don’t stab me, he thought.

“How about this one?” Jessica asked.

“Looks awfully big for the job,” Susan said.

“Slit his fuckin’ throat good,” Jessica said, and laughed.

“See if he sits there like a dope then,” Susan said.

“Get some kind of reaction out of him.”

“Help us to feel something.”

“Now you’ve got it, Sue. That’s the whole point.”

Will’s chest was beginning to feel tight. He was beginning to have difficulty breathing.

In the kitchen, the girls laughed again.

Why were they laughing?

Had they just said something he couldn’t hear? Were they going to do something else with that knife, other than slit his throat? He wished he could take a deep breath. He knew he would feel so much better if he could just take a deep breath. But he… he… he didn’t seem to be… to be able to…

“Hey!” Jessica said. “You! Don’t poop out on us!”

Susan looked at her.

“I think he’s gone,” she said.

“Shit!” Jessica said.

“What are you doing?”

“Taking his pulse.”

Susan waited.

“Nothing,” Jessica said, and dropped his wrist.

The sisters kept looking at Will where he sat slumped in the easy chair, his mouth still hanging open, his eyes wide.

“He sure as hell looks dead,” Jessica said.

“We’d better get him out of here.”

“Be a good exercise,” Jessica said. “Getting rid of the body.”

“I’ll say. I’ll bet he weighs at least a hun’ ninety.”

“I didn’t say good exercise, Sue. I said a good exercise. A good acting exercise.”

“Oh. Right. What it feels like to get rid of a dead body. Right.”

“So let’s do it,” Jessica said.

They started lifting him out of the chair. He was, in fact, very heavy. They half-carried him, half-dragged him to the front door.

“Tell me something,” Susan said. “Do you… you know… feel anything yet?”

“Nothing,” Jessica said.

On the way up, the car’s air conditioner gave up shortly after Bakersfield. It was September and hot as I pushed through the middle of the state. Pretty soon I could feel my shirt start to stick to the vinyl seat. I pulled off my tie and unbuttoned my collar. I didn’t know why I had put a tie on in the first place. I wasn’t on the clock and I wasn’t going anywhere that required a tie.

I tried to ignore the heat and concentrate on how I would try to handle Seguin. But that was like the heat. I knew there was no way to handle him. Somehow, it had always been the other way around. Seguin had the handle on me, made my shirt stick to my back. One way or the other that would end on this trip.

I turned my wrist on the steering wheel and checked the date on my Timex. Exactly twelve years since the day I had met Seguin. Since I had looked into the cold green eyes of a killer.

The case began on Mulholland Drive, the winding snake of a road that follows the spine of the Santa Monica Mountains. A group of high schoolers had pulled off the road to drink their beer and look down upon the smoggy city of dreams. One of them spotted the body. Nestled among the mountain brush and the beer cans and tequila bottles tossed down by past revelers, the woman was naked, her arms and legs stretched outward in some sort of grotesque display of sex and murder.

The call went to me and my partner, Frankie Sheehan. At the time we worked out of the LAPD’s Robbery-Homicide Division.

The crime scene was treacherous. The body was snagged on an incline with a better than sixty-degree grade. One slip and a person could tumble all the way down the mountainside, maybe end up in somebody’s hot tub down below or on somebody’s concrete patio. We wore jumpsuits and leather harnesses and were lowered down to the body by firemen from the 58th Battalion.