Carol O’Connell - Killing Critics

He opened the drawer by his bed to see each thing perfectly aligned and all debris cleared away. In the back of the drawer was the small yellowed envelope with his wedding ring and the rainy day bullet with his name on it. He picked up the envelope, hefted it in one hand and found it was light by a few ounces. He crushed the paper in a tight fist and felt only the hard substance of the ring.

Mallory. She had stolen the bullet.

He sat down on the bed, popped the cap off his beer bottle, lit a cigarette and decided to live.

“When will you people ever learn to lock your doors? This is New York City.”

Charles looked up as Mallory cleared the foyer of Henrietta’s apartment and entered the front room.

Oh, God, no.

There was blood on her face and the front of her T-shirt, and smears on the arms of her blazer. He was rising from his chair when she raised one hand to stay him. “Charles, it’s not my blood. Sit down.” He did as he was told.

Mallory in bloodstains and blue jeans was so at odds with delicate flowers in crystal vases, small pieces of sculpture and rose-colored afghans-all the ultrafeminine trappings of Henrietta’s front room. Mallory slung the fencing bag on the floor and knelt beside it to remove the antique sabers. He had not missed them all day.

“Thanks for the loan, Charles.”

The loan? You stole them.

“Mallory!” Henrietta was standing in the hallway, her face in shock.

“It’s not my blood,” said Mallory, weary of having to explain this simple fact to everyone.

Henrietta came into the room as the swords were pulled from the long leather bag. “Well, that explains a lot.” She walked over to the couch where Quinn lay in his bandages, a blanket and a deep sleep.

“Quinn didn’t tell you about the fencing match?”

“No. I did ask him about the cuts while I was stitching him up, but he wouldn’t talk. I told him he was going to have some scars, and he didn’t seem to mind that at all. I think he was almost pleased with them. Men ,” said Henrietta, as though that word encompassed the explanation for every flaw of his gender.

Charles wondered what word she might choose to explain Mallory. No doubt it would be a long word with a psychiatric subtext.

Henrietta was holding Quinn’s wrist and looking at her watch, timing the pulse.

“Will he be all right?” Mallory might have been asking if Henrietta thought it would rain.

“He’s lost a lot of blood,” said Henrietta, “but he’ll be fine in the morning. I pumped him up with antibiotics and gave him a strong sedative. He’ll sleep for at least another six hours. I’ll take good care of him.” Henrietta handed Mallory a wet cloth which had been intended for Quinn’s brow.

“Thanks.” Mallory rose to her feet, and now Charles could see the day had taken a toll on her. She was tired, and moving sluggishly as she wiped the blood from her face.

“I have to change clothes, and then I’ve still got lots to do before the night is over. When Quinn comes to, tell him I was there when Sabra died. Tell him she finally got what she wanted. That’ll be important to him.”

“Oh, no,” said Henrietta, sinking down to the armchair beside the couch. Charles covered his eyes with one hand.

“Don’t worry,” said Mallory. “Quinn will take it very well. He’s been expecting it.” She walked over to Charles’s chair and lightly touched his hand to bring it down so she could see his face. “I know how much you cared about Sabra. But the only thing that was keeping her alive was unfinished business-she saw it through, and then she died. It wasn’t the worst death.”

“Why don’t you rest awhile? I’ll get us some coffee.” Henrietta took the bloody cloth from Mallory’s hand and turned toward the kitchen.

“Nothing for me, thanks,” Mallory called after her. “I have to go.”

No, don’t leave.

Mallory was moving into the foyer, and then she stopped, seeming to hover there with an afterthought. She turned to catch Charles staring at her.

Stay. Please stay.

She walked slowly back to him and stood before his chair, and closer now to stand between his parted legs. She leaned down, placing one white hand on each arm of the chair. Closer. He could feel her breath on his skin, and the delicate feathering touch of her hair, which smelled of some exotic flower that never grew in New York City. Closer now, her eyes growing larger, flooding his field of vision and coloring it green. She pressed her mouth to his, gently, softly, her lips opening to him as she fed him a paralyzing current of electricity and flooded his body with heat and butterflies. And now, pressing into him, she was waking the last of his senses-he could taste her.

She pulled back, startled. In the flicker and widening of her eyes-a flash of discovery-Mallory had finally been taken by surprise.

And then she was going away from him again, moving swiftly to the door, saying, “Goodbye, Charles.”

He sat very still, listening to the sound of the door closing behind her.

Goodbye? Not good night?

She was precise with her words, not liking to waste them.

Goodbye?

He left his chair and walked to the window. He parted the curtains and watched the dark street below until she appeared there, crossing the paving stones, making a long shadow by lamplight. He leaned his forehead against the cool glass as he watched her enter the small tan car and drive off down the street. Behind his back, he heard slippered footsteps and the sound of a cup settling to the coffee table. Without turning, he said to Henrietta, “She won’t be back. It’s over.”

“What’s over, Charles? You never told her what was going on.”

“Well, how could I? She thinks of me as an old friend of the family. It would put her in an awkward situation. Don’t you see? It would be an imposition .”

“That’s not a word in Mallory’s vocabulary. I wouldn’t worry about good manners, Charles.”

“I can’t. I’m afraid she’d-”

“Now there’s the key word. That young woman walks around in bloodstains, and look at you-you’re afraid of an imposition. I think civilized behavior is overrated.”

The only one to see her enter the church was a cat which had crept in with another parishioner and hidden itself away in the alcove, resting on the vaulted relic of a saint. Now the cat, in haste to hide itself a little better, knocked over a candlestick and startled a man in the pews.

His lined, pale face, roused from prayers, turned round. The old priest rose from the pew and stood in silence by a column, covertly watching a young woman with lustrous golden hair and a dark stain on her hand. She lit a candle to the patron saint of lost causes.

The lamb had come back.

With a shuffle of slippers on stone, he walked around the column and into the light. “Kathy?”

“Father, you’re up late.” She never turned away from the candles, lighting one after another.

“There’s something I have to know. About your mother-”

“I made it up.” She raised her eyes to the statue above the flames.

“I don’t believe you.” He reached out and touched her shoulder.

Now she did turn to face him, to shake off his hand. “It was another woman who was murdered. So what? It was a beautiful mass. My compliments, Father.”

“You lied?” He shook his head in disbelief. “You could lie about a thing like that? So your own mother-”

“Who knows? I don’t remember her.”

She averted her eyes and moved away from him. He walked toward her, and quickly, to close the space between them. “Are you lying to me now?”

Mallory turned her cold eyes on the priest, and then turned her back. As she was walking toward the great doors and the night, the old man called after her, “Where are you going?”