If anything, the bathroom was a bigger mess than the living room. Half-empty jars, bottles, tubes, and spray cans of deodorant, hair gel, hair spray, toothpaste and much more covered every available surface. The toilet bowl was rusty and the once-white sink a gritty gray. The mirror in which his face appeared was cracked right down the center and the petite pink wastebasket overflowing with tampon boxes and used Kleenex.
The shower curtain was plastic and white. He could see the silhouette of her body against it. She soaped her bountiful breasts and then let her hand drop to the thatch of pubic hair she kept neatly trimmed.
His loins ached.
But this was not his mission tonight. It never was on the final night.
“You’re out there, right?” shouting so she could be heard above the blasting water.
“Right.”
“This kinda scares me. You know, the way it usually does.”
He said nothing.
“I guess it’s just when you throw back the curtain and I see that phony rubber knife in your hand. Once I get over that part, it’s okay.”
“How was wrestling tonight?”
“The Cowboy won. He’s a real stud.”
“Did you wear the Poet’s shirt?” he asked.
“Yeah.”
“Did you like it?”
“It’s all right. Kinda tight around the boobs, though.”
“You ready?”
“Just like usual, huh? I mean, you throw back the curtain and then pretend to start stabbin’ me and then we go into the bedroom and get it on, right?”
“More or less.”
She was quiet for a time. “You sound kinda — funny tonight.”
“Long day at the office.”
“I’m gettin’ scared.” Pause. “I don’t know if I want to do this.” He said nothing.
“You hear me?”
“I heard you, Myrna.”
“I think I’d like you to leave. Like right now, all right?”
He said nothing.
“You’re scaring the hell out of me. In about ten seconds, I’m going to start screaming.”
But he was faster than that. Much faster.
Before she could even form a scream, he had the curtain thrown back and the knife plunged deeply into the flesh between her sumptuous breasts.
For a moment, he allowed himself the luxury of a look at her face. Even wet and without makeup, the resemblance was startling.
He stabbed her thirty-eight times.
In bed that night, they watched the late news. Kate, rumpled from a hard day with her two sons but as always still beautiful, said, “Listen.” She sat up, her breasts loose beneath the silk of her Poet’s shirt.
“What?”
“Ssssh.” She nodded to the TV set.
He put down his Tom Clancy novel and stared at the screen. Another prostitute had been found brutally slain in her apartment shower. This was the third such killing in three years. The newscaster finished the story by saying, “Police are intrigued by the resemblance of Myrna Tomkins with the other victims, all of whom bore a very strong likeness. A police psychiatrist speculates that the murderer is killing the same woman again and again.”
Myrna’s photograph flashed on TV. He looked at it and then looked over at Kate. The two women could have been sisters, maybe even twins. It was not easy, finding prostitutes who looked so much like his wife.
But he had no choice. Five years ago, shortly after he saw Kate and her lover in the park, Kate surprised him by dropping the man and devoting herself entirely to their relationship. A fling, really, nothing more. How badly he wanted to forgive her but he couldn’t, not quite — until he got the idea for the surrogate killings.
Now, whenever his rage and jealousy at the remembered affair got very bad for him, he began his search for a look-alike hooker.
He spared Kate and their two fine sons the ugliness that he knew still to be within him.
Kate said, “God, it’s so scary, knowing somebody like that is out there.”
He leaned over and kissed her tenderly. “You don’t have anything to worry about, Kate.”
She looked at him skeptically. “I wish I was as sure of that as you are.”
He kissed her on the cheek again, patted her hand, and went back to his novel.
Dark Whispers
When I was young I read all the juvenile delinquent novels I could find. I admired especially — and still do — THE AMBOY DUKES by Irving Shulmar — and virtually all of Hal Elson’s novels. Later, Harlan Ellison brought his own particular anger and fire to the form and produced what is for me his best true novel, Rumble, a book that holds up well today. I always regretted that I never got to do a juvenile delinquent tale. Today’s gangs are so far removed from my experience that I wouldn’t even consider writing about them. But when I was invited by my good friend Richard Chizmar to be in one of his anthologies, I decided to write the sort of Manhunt piece Ed McBain collected in his book THE JUNGLE KIDS, a story equal parts fury and melancholy, a McBain specialty.
The store had one of those bells that tinkled when you walked in. It also had one of those owners who never looked happy to see teenagers, especially unfamiliar teenagers.
Gabe Malley came in, nodded, and started looking around. The place intimidated him. It was big and sunny and obviously everything sold here was expensive. It was unlike the dingy shops in Gabe’s neighborhood.
“Help you?” the man said. He was short and bald and wore the sort of apron a shoe repairman might. He also wore a red necktie which told you instantly that he wasn’t just some employee. He was the owner.
“Just looking, I guess.”
“For anything in particular?”
Gabe shrugged. “TV set, I guess.”
The man looked Gabe over. Gabe was a tall, lean kid with brown hair, neat if a little long, and an appealing but not handsome face. He had dark, sad eyes and the few girls at school who paid him much attention always wondered what had put the sadness there. “Your parents send you or something?”
“Uh, yeah. My Dad.” Of course, Gabe’s Dad had been dead the past four years.
The man eased up a little. He took a roll of Turns from somewhere in his apron and flicked one into his mouth with his thumb.
“TV set for your bedroom or something like that?” the man said.
“Uh, yeah. For my bedroom. Kind of a birthday present.” For his bedroom, right. Mom slept in the only bedroom, he always slept on the fold-out couch in the living room.
“How old you going to be?”
“Fifteen.” Gabe shrugged, as if turning fifteen was not exactly a major accomplishment. Of course it would have been for his sister Karen. She hadn’t made fifteen at all.
“Got a daughter your age,” the man said. There was warmth in his voice now. Gabe felt bad about lying to the guy.
The front door bell rang again. A middle-aged couple came in. “We’re looking for a home entertainment center — TV, stereo, tape deck, everything,” the woman said. She sounded excited.
“Be with you in a minute, kid,” the store owner said, and turned his complete attention to the couple.
For the next ten minutes, Gabe looked around. The store was laid out in three sections: TVs, stereo and tape gear, and home video equipment.
Gabe spent most of the time examining the TVs. Or pretending to. He was really checking out the home video stuff but he didn’t want the owner to notice this.
Not that the owner was paying any attention. He was practically going down on the middle-aged couple. They had made him positively ecstatic — positively keening — by asking him about the most expensive Zenith home entertainment center the man had ever put on the floor.
Gabe took this opportunity to wander into the rear of the store. Beyond a partition, he saw a small office-like area with two desks and phones; a work bench with three picture tubes on it and the smell of burning solder in the air; and the alarm system. Over the past two weeks — ever since he’d decided what he was going to do — he’d studied the various kinds of alarm systems he’d found out about at the public library. The most modem kind was the digital key pad system which would be, in the parlance of computer hacks, difficult to “defeat.” In fact, a downright bitch. Then there were the two dominant older systems that were still much in use today, the door switcher mechanisms which were deceptively easy to “defeat” but which a guy could screw up and get himself busted over. And the photo cell mechanisms. Glancing around the rear area, he checked first at the back door. And saw what he was looking for. The TV store was secured by a photo cell system.