Just as something slithered inside his belly just now. He could feel it coil and uncoil, coil and uncoil.
The image of something inside him made him sick suddenly and he wanted to vomit. But he knew he would have to hold it as long as he was on the bus. Which was why he got off.
Fortunately, the stop at which he left the bus was a forlorn section of taverns and Laundromats and large empty fields filled with rusting deserted cars and hundreds of jagged busted pop bottles and heel-crunched beer cans.
There was an alley between two rotting taverns that seemed to be having a war of country and western jukeboxes.
He ran into the alley just as a Hank Williams, Jr., song came on and he vomited so long he was half afraid he would start seeing blood.
As he stood up, he saw that a skinny, bald guy in a dirty white apron and holding a broom in one hand was watching him.
"Only three o'clock," the bald, skinny guy said. He was obviously the owner of the tavern.
"What?" he said, pulling the back of his hand across his mouth.
"Only three o'clock. Too goddamned early to start puking."
And with that, the guy hefted his broom and went back inside.
Twenty minutes later he came to a phone booth. This was on a corner loud with semis and thick with diesel fumes. Faces were mostly black; clothes mostly bright and cheap. The people moved as if they were dragging chains behind them. Somebody had recently pissed in the phone booth. It reeked. And somebody had also smashed his head against the glass of the booth. In a circle of shattered safety glass, you could see splotches of blood and hair. A starved dog, all ribs and crazed brown eyes, stood at his feet smelling the rancid piss.
He called a phone number.
He had no idea what number it was.
A woman answered, "Hello."
He said nothing for a time.
"Hello?"
He was afraid to speak.
"It's you, isn't it?"
"I–I don't know your name."
"They said you might be confused, honey. The electroshock you've had recently and everything."
"Who are you?"
"You really don't know?"
"No."
"I'm your wife. Karen."
"Who am I?"
She paused again. "Honey, I'm afraid. For you, I mean. You can't walk around in this condition."
"A while ago I rode by in a bus… I saw a police car there."
"Two of the detectives came back."
"They're looking for me."
"Yes. But you haven't done anything really. Nobody's been hurt. They'd just like to get you back into Hastings House."
The thing in his stomach shifted again.
"I'm afraid," he said. "There's something in my stomach."
"In your stomach?"
"Yes. Something. There's no other way to describe it."
"There's something in your stomach?"
"Yes. I know how that must sound but-there is."
She sighed. "Honey, can't you see that you really need to go back to Hastings House? They want to help you. They really do."
"I can't."
"But why not?"
"I'm not sure."
A pause again. "This morning Cindy heard about your escape. While I was in the bathroom, she went into the living room and turned on the set. She saw your picture."
"Cindy?"
"Our daughter. She's six."
"My God."
"She's afraid she'll never see you again. She's been crying all day."
"I'm sorry. I–I'm just so confused."
"Won't you let me help you, Richard?"
Richard. So that was his name.
"What's my last name?"
"Oh, darling."
And then she started to cry.
He couldn't stand the sound of it, her tears. He'd made her cry. And made his daughter cry. Why couldn't he help them, stop running the way she wanted him to, turn himself in?
"I'm sorry," he said again.
He hung up and left the booth, pushing the dog out on the sidewalk as he did so.
The dog barked at him.
Richard just shook his head and walked away.
4
Rob Lindstrom
May 12, 1989
The third murder was not so easy.
A) The police were looking for him and moving around in the city was dangerous. B) The confusion was getting very bad now. Sometimes he had no idea who or where he was, almost as if he were phasing in and out of a fever dream. C) The thing in his stomach was making him nauseous till the time.
In the bureau he found the same manila envelope with the same photos he had come to dread seeing. They reminded him too much of what he'd done to the two women.
Now there was a new name in the envelope.
Doreen Jackson.
He crumpled it up and threw it in the corner.
He went into the bathroom and barfed.
When he came out he went into the living room and collapsed into the chair.
Sweat beaded his forehead. His teeth were chattering. He was hot and cold. He couldn't decide which.
He kept clamping his hand on his stomach.
The thing inside him kept coiling and uncoiling. He slammed his fist against it.
For a moment it stopped writhing.
He lay back in the chair.
He had brought something with him from his last pass through the kitchen. Now, in the half light of night, streetlights and car lights framing the paper blinds, he raised the butcher knife up to his eyes and looked at it.
He eased the point of it down to his belly.
The thing was writhing again.
You sonofabitch. You! Fucking sonofabitch, he thought.
He pressed the butcher knife against his belly.
An abortion was what he needed.
He tried to find the humour in this, in a man needing an abortion.
It would be so easy-
Just plunge the knife straight in. An abortion.
He tried. Several times.
He couldn't do it.
He started sobbing and he couldn't stop and he ended up puking instead.
Now the thing was working its way up from his stomach into his oesophagus-
Two hours later he dialled information and got the name of an outcall massage parlour.
An hour after that there was a knock on his door.
"Yes?" he said, not getting up.
"You called me. I'm from Pussycats."
"Come in."
He heard the doorknob being turned, the apartment door slowly creaking open.
She stood in silhouette. She was tall, at least six feet, and chunky. She wore hot pants and a halter and a big floppy hat. A huge purse was slung over her shoulder. She smelled of heat and sweat and cigarette smoke and sex and night and cheap wine.
"How come the light ain't on?"
"I prefer the darkness."
"I ain't into no weird shit, babe. I want you to know that up front."
"Just please come in and close the door."
"You don't turn on the light, I'm puttin' an extra five on the tab."
"Fine."
"Wear and tear on the nerves, you know?"
"Please. Just come in and close the door." So she did.
He sat in the chair and smelled her. He found her various aromas erotic.
"You want just a BJ?"
"BJ?"
"Blow job."
"Oh."
"We've got a special on them tonight is why I asked."
"I see." Despite himself, he smiled. My God the world made no sense at all. Prostitution was demeaning enough; now they were selling it at discount prices.
"Can we turn on a light?"
"Not yet."
"It's kind of spooky."
"I know."
"I can see you in the chair there."
"Right."
"You want me to come over and mount you?"
"No, thanks."