He paused and looked at me steadily.
I wanted to run. But where?
“The truth of it is, Lane, we found tire marks on the girl’s clothing, glass in her hair, and this in the front room of her house.”
He opened a desk drawer and held up the top quarter of a broken bourbon bottle. He held it gingerly by the jagged edge.
“There are fingerprints on this, Lane. Are they yours?”
Hang on, boy, I told myself. Hang on tight. They still haven’t got you cold.
But I knew they’d get me eventually. They always did. And before I knew it, I was talking, telling them everything.
They put it on tape. And later they had it on paper and the paper in front of me. They wanted me to sign my name.
I did.
Razor, Razor, Gleaming Bright
by Roy Carroll
She threw despairing looks over her shoulder, and each time he was a little closer with the weapon raised high and eager.
Waiting for Mr. and Mrs. Carson, Gretta fell asleep on the living room couch. Hers was a shallow, troubled slumber, shot through with a dream.
She was in a long, narrow corridor of darkness, a faint light shimmering at the far end. She couldn’t see the walls, but each time she tried to escape, she ran into them.
The corridor tipped and tilted in such a way as to make her dizzy. And down it rang his laughter, echoing as in a great, empty chamber.
She threw despairing looks over her shoulder, and each time he was a little closer with the weapon raised high and eager.
It was a razor, and it threw out a phosphorescent glow. It loomed over her, larger and larger. His face was somewhere in the background. A pale blob. She couldn’t see him clearly, only the razor. His laughter rose higher and higher until it filled the whole corridor.
She renewed her efforts to get away. Her heart beat wildly. A faint hope was born in her. She was gaining on him now. Leaving him behind.
Then the corridor tipped up at an angle too steep for her to hold her footing. She fell to her knees. Her toes dug to get her feet beneath her once again. Her hands clawed the hard, slick floor of the corridor until the nails tore loose.
With a gasp of despair, she knew her efforts were useless. She began sliding down the corridor. It was like a slick chute.
She slid faster and faster. Straight toward the man with the razor. It became a giant razor. It came slashing down...
She screamed as a hand shook her. She snapped awake with a nervous jerk of her whole body that almost threw her off the couch.
She pulled back, rigid, staring at the face before her.
Mrs. Carson said, “My dear, whatever is the matter? You were carrying on dreadfully in your sleep.”
“Was I?” Gretta felt the fine beads of sweat on her face. Her heart was still hammering and her breath was short. The razor had seemed so certain to claim her that it was hard for a moment to realize that she was here in the Carson’s apartment with Mrs. Carson’s plump middle-aged face before her filled with concern.
Mr. Carson stood beside his wife, still in his topcoat and hat. Where the years had pleasantly softened his wife, they had had the opposite effect on him. He somehow reminded Gretta of a hard, coiled spring. All his movements were brisk. His face was narrow with each bone sharp and clear beneath the stretched mask of skin.
“Are you ill, Gretta?” he inquired. His tone indicated that he had no real feeling about the matter. He never used any other tone.
“No, sir,” Gretta said.
Mrs. Carson did not dismiss her concern easily. She was a sweet, vague woman. Stupid, Gretta had decided upon first meeting her. But rather kind.
“Perhaps you’ve eaten something that upset you and gave you a nightmare, dear,” Mrs. Carson said.
“No, not at all,” Gretta said. Her voice was cool. She was rapidly gaining possession of herself. She was both ashamed and angry that they should have seen her show of weakness. She stood up, a short, rather heavy set girl. She wore her usual severe, tailored suit. Her face was without makeup, her brows thicker than most girls because she didn’t pluck them.
As she turned to get her coat from the living room cloak closet, Gretta felt Mrs. Carson’s gaze following her. Gretta could almost read the thoughts behind the puffy features. If Gretta had eaten something here to make her sick, maybe Gretta wouldn’t come again. And that would be a calamity in Mrs. Carson’s selfish little world. For Gretta wasn’t like most girls of her age, flighty, their minds filled with thoughts of boys, boys, boys. Mrs. Carson wouldn’t trust her two precious children with just any sitter. Mr. and Mrs. Carson hadn’t married until late in life. Mrs. Carson had given birth to two children, a boy and girl, before natural changes common to her years had precluded further results. As a consequence, Gretta thought she doted over the children with an affection that was stupid, vain, and a little sickening.
“Here,” Mr. Carson said suddenly. “I’ll bet this is what brought on the nocturnal horrors.”
Gretta turned. Mr. Carson had picked up the newspaper from the couch. Gretta had been reading it, pondering over what she had read, just before she had fallen asleep.
The paper rattled in Mr. Carson’s hand. “Razor killer claims a third victim,” he read. “The body of an elderly man, his throat slashed with a razor...”
Mrs. Carson clapped her hands over her ears. “Oh, please dear, I can’t bear to hear such horrid stuff.”
Mr. Carson looked at his wife with contempt. Then he turned his gaze toward Gretta. “You were reading this when you dozed off?”
Gretta nodded.
“Ah,” said Mr. Carson, “you see. That did it. I’ll bet your mind pictured all sorts of things. The rustle of the wind outside became his footsteps creeping up the fire escape. A touch of moonlight at the window was his face.”
“Please, please,” Mrs. Carson said. “I’d die at the thought of him ever coming here. Oh, my precious darlings...”
She rushed across the room, down a short hallway, and there came to the living room the sound of her opening a door. She returned in a moment, fanning her face with a limp hand. “They’re sleeping like angels, the dears. Please, let’s have a cup of tea. I do need something to brace me. Why don’t they catch that horrid man and take his razor away from him?”
“I guess they’re trying,” Mr. Carson said.
“Oh, I suppose so,” his wife said. “But why don’t they do something? He’s operating in this end of town. We have no idea when he might — oh, dear, I think we really should hire someone to protect the children.”
“You mean a bodyguard?” Mr. Carson asked.
“Don’t you think it would be a good idea, dear?”
Mr. Carson laughed in sour humor. “The man we hired might be the very one. He could be any Tom, Dick, or Harry. Outwardly, by day, a respectable business man even. You never know. He could be living in this very building.”
Gretta slipped quickly into her coat, pulling her eyes from Mr. Carson’s face. Mrs. Carson let a short, quick breath out of her red, puffy lips. “It’s dreadful. I won’t sleep a wink— Oh, Gretta, must you go now?”
“Yes, ma’m.”
“Oh, dear, that long walk you have...”
“It’s only six or eight blocks.”