He went in and waited while she finished the little feminine rituals required of a woman, touching a powder puff to her nose here and there, drawing a lipstick across her mouth carefully. Tom Rivas stood at one side of her mirror, watching her lithe, graceful movements, the soft curve of a bare arm, the valley of her bosom as she leaned toward the mirror and her deeply cut blouse fell away from her breasts. She was a beautiful, desirable woman, with her Slavic inheritance of large dark eyes, high cheek bones, a wide full mouth and a skin like moonlight. Tom stared at her, achingly, and with a sudden cry, he grabbed her arm and brought her up, crushing her wide red mouth under his, like a starving man.
“Cherry,” he cried against her lips.
Lips that were like clay, body like a statue.
She stood there letting him kiss her, letting him do whatever he liked. She was like a sleepwalker.
He shook her roughly, digging his fingers into her soft white shoulders. His face was slick with perspiration. “What’s the matter with you?” he gasped hoarsely. “What kind of woman are you? Don’t you ever feel anything?” He was shaking all over, sick with frustration.
Her eyes filled. “I’m sorry,” she said simply. He had been good to her and she was genuinely sorry that she could not give him what he desired.
“Don’t you like me, at all?”
“Of course I like you,” she answered quietly. “I like you, Tom.”
“Then what’s wrong with you? Why can’t you wake it up? Why do you treat me like this? A man can’t make love to an ice statue.”
All she could say, numbly, was, “I’m sorry, Tom. I... I can’t help the way I am. I’m sorry.”
Rivas dug shaking fingers into his hair. It was like ramming your head against an invisible barrier. What could he do? He became filled with rage at something he couldn’t see, couldn’t fight with his own hands. He began cursing her. “You filthy little tramp. There’s somebody else — isn’t that it? You’re sleeping with somebody else.”
“No, Tom,” she answered simply.
“Yes there is,” he screamed, and hit her across the mouth. “I’ve done everything for you — killed for you, and you go out and lay with some bum.” He struck her again, leaving red splotches across her cheek.
She took a step away from him, her head going back. Her lips parted, teeth gleamed. Something stirred in her dark eyes, something he had never seen before.
The months of frustration, desire and bafflement exploded in an uncontrollable fit of jealous rage. Listening to his own words, he had convinced himself that she was frigid with him because she was sleeping with another man. He hit her again and again, with blind, unreasoning anger.
She flew against a wall. Her black hair tumbled over her eyes. There, she cowered, whimpering, staring at him, fascinated. Her dark eyes were filled with a wild excitement he had never seen before. Suddenly, she reached up with both hands, grabbing the collar of her blouse. With a single, impatient gesture, she ripped it open, baring herself to her waist. Then she threw herself at him, mouthing unintelligible sounds. Her parted lips found his, hungrily. Her fingers, like claws, dug into his back while her body writhed and bumped against him in a paroxysm of uncontrollable passion.
But Tom Rivas could no longer stop. He tore the rest of her clothes off and then his fists struck her body again and again, tattooing the soft white flesh with ugly purple bruises. His eyes glazed and his breath rattled in a hoarse gasp.
He kept hitting her, harder and harder.
And across the street, Harry, the bartender, drew a glass of beer off tap, shoved it over the bar to a customer. They both listened to the sound of blows and a woman’s sharp cry from the frame house. Harry put a finger against one nostril and blew.
He grinned at the customer. “Well, Cherry’s happy. She’s gettin’ it again.”
“Yeah,” the man said. “She’s gettin’ it again.”
The Icepick Artists
by Frank Kane
There was only one trouble with the case when Liddell took it. The guy he replaced had just been murdered.
Barney shields was worried. It showed in the way he stopped at each store window, studied the stream of blacks and whites that ebbed and flowed the length of 42nd Street between Broadway and Eighth. When he was satisfied no one was paying him any particular attention, he headed for a second run movie house, bought his ticket, and was swallowed up by the dimness inside.
He didn’t see the thin man with the wedge-shaped face who lost interest in the job he was doing on his nails, closed his pocket knife and dropped it in his pocket. The thin man walked over from the curb, bought a ticket, followed Shields into the theatre.
Inside, the man stood for a moment until his eyes became accustomed to the semi-darkness, then walked over to the center aisle. Barney Shields had the back row to himself, sat right in front of the thin man.
An usherette in a maroon uniform coat that was sizes too big detached herself from the shadows against the back wall, came over to whisper to the thin man that there were plenty of seats. The man nodded. She went back to her companion in the shadows.
The thin man looked around, calculated his chances. On the screen, Alan Ladd as Shane was building up to the big fight scene. The half-empty theatre was charged with the anticipation of violence. The little usherette had lost interest in him, was engrossed in her companion. Over near the entrance, a policeman was stealing a smoke, cigarette cupped in his hand. No one seemed to be paying any attention to the thin man.
He leaned against the railing behind the back row, slid his hand inside his coat, tugged the icepick out of its special leather case. He tested the point against the ball of his thumb and was satisfied.
On the screen, excitement was mounting. Shane was standing off five villains, chairs were being broken, bottles smashed.
The thin man reached over the railing, caught the man in the back row in a murderous mugger’s grip. Shields gasped, tried to struggle, but couldn’t break the hold on his throat. His head was pulled back against the seat. His eyes rolled up to the thin man’s face, white and frightened in the half-light.
The thin man aimed for the right eye, jabbed. The blade sank home almost to the handle. Shields’ body jerked as the icepick bit into his brain, slumped back. The thin man held the body erect, sank the blade into its chest a dozen times. Shields stopped struggling and went limp.
The fight on the screen had reached its climax; the sound died away suddenly. The thin man straightened up, looked around.
The cop had finished his smoke, dropped the butt to the floor, was crushing it out with his heel. The usherette had her back half turned to him, using her body to shield the frenzied fumbling of her companion’s hand in her open coat.
The thin man wiped the icepick blade on the dead man’s shirt, then returned it to its leather case under his coat. He walked unhurriedly to the exit and melted into the stream of humanity that was flowing East toward Broadway.
Johnny Liddell leaned on the bar at Mike’s Deadline Cafe with the ease born of long experience. He lit a cigarette, adding to the grey fog that swirled lazily near the ceiling.
Mike’s Deadline, usually packed during the hours when genius was at work in the advertising agencies in the neighboring skyscrapers, was beginning to thin out at 8 o’clock. Only a handful of commuters who had stopped by at 5 “for just one” before heading for Grand Central were still draped over martinis.