But as time passed, he began to wonder. Who would connect an incident from last year with a kidnapping today? Besides, even if he were suspected, the police would have no proof; he would see to that. Nor would they have any means of tracking him down. He’d never told Kathy his name-how clever he’d been to avoid giving himself away like that-and the restaurant had no record of him that could be traced; he’d paid for all his meals in cash.
He really could pull it off. Kidnap her, take her to the old factory, and then… touch her body. Nothing more than that. He wouldn’t hurt her, that was for sure. Not much anyway. Maybe a little bit. But not like the animals. The animals were entirely different. The animals had nothing to do with this at all.
No, he would have his fun with her, and then he would let her go. And because she had been blindfolded the whole time, she would never know who had been with her in the dark.
It could work. It definitely could work.
He went over the same line of argument many times, and always concluded angrily that there was no point in considering the idea. Because even if he could get away with it-and he was pretty certain he could-even so, he wouldn’t try. The whole thing was crazy. Sure it was.
The jack-o’-lanterns vanished from the windows, replaced by papier-mache Pilgrims, then by Christmas trees. A full year had run its course since she’d humiliated him, and still he lay awake at night while in his thoughts she whimpered and squirmed.
A week before Christmas he found himself in an office-supplies store looking at rolls of strapping tape. In that moment he knew he really meant to do it. He bought a ten-yard roll and stashed it in the dark recesses of his closet like a guilty secret.
The next day he drove to the restaurant. He wondered if she still worked there. He almost hoped she didn’t. If she’d moved on to a new job, he would never be able to find her, and he would have to let go of the idea for good.
But when he studied the restaurant from across the street, he saw her at once, gliding past one of the front windows. She wore her hair differently now, but otherwise she was unchanged. Still an ignorant bitch who thought herself superior to him.
He watched the restaurant for several days, till he knew her schedule. Her shift began at seven in the morning and ended at four in the afternoon, when the early winter dusk was settling over the streets. She always left alone via a side door that opened on the parking lot where her car was kept. The lot was screened off from the street by a high brick wall. If he struck quickly, nobody would see.
He decided to do it next Tuesday. Over the weekend, while Christmas carolers went from door to door and street-corner Santas rang Salvation Army bells, he made his final preparations.
Monday night was hard. Fear cheated him of sleep. He paced his apartment, his thoughts confused. Did he honestly intend to go through with this plan of his? He’d never acted on any of his previous fantasies. Not the ones involving women, anyway. The animals… Why did he keep thinking about the animals? The animals were irrelevant.
The thing was, he wanted to do it so very badly. He could feel desire burning inside him like acid. Somehow he had to relieve that urge. He supposed he could masturbate-that might release the tension at least temporarily-or get hold of a cat and pretend it was her.
But he kept thinking of how she’d said she was sorry. The pity in her voice. The contempt in her eyes. The smile playing at the corners of her mouth.
Abruptly he stopped pacing. “I’ll do it,” he said aloud. The words sounded unreal, and he wasn’t sure he’d actually spoken. “I’ll do it,” he said again, defiantly this time. “I will.”
He knew he was serious this time. He had made his choice. And in making it, he saw that he had reached a turning point in his life. From this point on, he would not be an ordinary man.
Fresh-fallen snow glazed the asphalt, shining wetly in the twilight. He crouched in a pool of shadow near the side door of the restaurant, exhaling frost, waiting. In one gloved hand he held a length of steel pipe sheathed in foam rubber, a homemade blackjack. He rapped it slowly, rhythmically, against his open palm.
Though he intended to strike from behind, he’d taken precautions to ensure that she would not glimpse his face. He wore a black wool hat, pulled down over his forehead, and a black scarf, raised to cover his nose and mouth.
In the pockets of his coat he carried the roll of tape for her wrists and ankles, the wadded rag that would serve as a gag, and the strip of black velvet he would use as a blindfold.
He was ready.
One thought beat in his brain: It’s real this time.
Without warning the door creaked open and clanged shut, and there she was, a yard from him, her slim body tucked into a fur-collar coat, her feet clad in squishy rubber boots.
Don’t think. Do it. Now.
He sprang up behind her and brought the blackjack down on the back of her head. She staggered, lurching away from him, but didn’t fall.
No. That was wrong, all wrong. She was supposed to crumple on the ground at the first blow; that was how he’d always pictured it when he ran this scene over and over in his mind.
He tried to hit her again, but she spun out of his grasp and whirled on him, the first warbling note of a scream rising in her throat.
He smacked her in the mouth with the padded pipe. She went down. He fell on her. Her hands flew at his face, stripping off the scarf, and suddenly she was looking at him with recognition in her eyes.
She sees me, he thought in escalating terror. She can identify me now. It won’t do any good to blindfold her-
Sharp nails raked his cheeks. Blood, his blood, spattered the snow.
Fury seized him. She wasn’t supposed to fight back. In all his hundreds of fantasies, never once had she fought back. God damn her, she was ruining everything.
He slammed the blackjack down on her face. Bone cracked. The sound made him shiver. He remembered the kitten he’d put in the vise, the snap of its leg.
No, don’t think of that. Not the animals. This isn’t supposed to be like the animals.
But why shouldn’t he think of it? What made her better than an animal anyway? What gave her any greater right to live, after the way she’d treated him? The strays he’d collected and taken to the old factory-they’d never done anything to him at all, while this bitch had humiliated him and hurt him and made him bleed. And if he let her go, she would send him to jail.
She clawed him again. The pipe rose and fell. Her nose crunched wetly, like a snail. She writhed on her back, a child making a snow angel.
She didn’t look so smugly superior now, did she? She wasn’t laughing at him now. And she would never laugh again.
He delivered blow after blow with the pipe while she struggled under him, her head rolling, her back arching, her fingers moving blindly over his body. It felt like sex, like those secret things people did in the dark. Dimly he knew he was being intimate with her in a way he’d never expected.
Finally she lay still. He scrambled off her body, looking down at the crumpled shape on the ground. He almost fled, then hesitated. Slowly he unbuttoned her blouse and cupped her breast with a gloved hand. He squeezed, his fingers kneading the soft flesh still warm as if with life. He had never felt a woman’s body before, except in dreams.
“Sweet,” he breathed. “So sweet.”
He brushed a stray hair from her bloodied face. His mouth found hers. He planted a light kiss on her lips, then shyly pulled away.
“I love you, Kathy. Love you. Love you.”
It occurred to him that he could do whatever he liked with her, and she couldn’t stop him. He wanted to; he really did. But he was afraid to linger. At any moment someone else might enter the parking lot.
Reluctantly he abandoned her body and ran to his car. He pulled out of the lot and drove aimlessly till he was sure nobody was following him. Then he parked on a side street and sat behind the wheel, letting out long slow breaths till the windshield was filmed with fog.