He left Miss Kutzlow’s door wide open, the light spilling out onto the walkway, inviting any passerby to look inside and get a glimpse of hell. Then he staggered down the street to his Falcon, climbed behind the wheel, and sped off.
For twenty minutes he drove aimlessly, putting distance between himself and the crime scene, before finally parking on a quiet street to examine the wound. It was not bleeding too badly. He had been lucky, he saw; the blade had missed his abdomen and merely passed through the small fold of fat at his waist-what some people would call a love handle. The injury was painful, but not serious; no arteries or internal organs had been damaged.
Of course he ought to go to the hospital anyway, but he didn’t dare. The police would alert the staffs at all the local emergency rooms to be on the lookout for any man with a stab wound. No, he would have to deal with this little problem on his own. Like the physician of the proverb, he was obliged to heal himself.
He removed the knife from the drawstring bag and held it up to the glow of a streetlight, studying it. A common kitchen knife. Kitchen. So that was where she got it. When she was in the kitchen, humming to herself and pretending to do the dishes. She must have hidden the knife in her robe. Then, when he ambushed her, she in turn had ambushed him. And had beaten him, quite literally, at his own game.
But how could she have been capable of a deception like that? He’d seen no evidence of icy coolness or low cunning or even simple courage in her. Quite the contrary. She’d been so witlessly flustered and starkly terrified she couldn’t even get her lines straight. Unless her fear had been only an act. Yes. That must be it. She’d never been afraid at all. She’d been toying with him, feigning innocence and helplessness, while poised to strike and kill. Kill…
For the first time. Rood realized how close he’d come to dying tonight. If she’d stabbed him in the stomach… or the heart…
Suddenly his hands were shaking. For a moment, just one moment, he considered forgetting all about Miss Wendy Alden. He could count Miss Kutzlow as his victim and call tonight’s contest a success.
Then he shook his head, angry at himself. The rules of the game were clear. Miss Alden, not Miss Kutzlow, was the player he’d selected. Now he must play out the game to its conclusion.
Besides, he wanted revenge. He hated that bitch.
She’d tried to kill him, for God’s sake.
But she’d failed. And that was her mistake. A fatal mistake. He would not rest until he had her in his hands again. And when he did, he would take her life slowly, not with the garrote, but with the knife she’d used on him. He would cut her to pieces while she grunted and groaned, unable to scream; it was hard to scream without a tongue.
“You’ll be sorry, Miss Wendy lying-slut Alden,” Rood said aloud, his voice hollow in the confines of the car. “Oh, yes, I swear, you’ll be oh-so-very sorry you fucked with me.”
12
The police station on Butler Avenue was a bedlam of ringing telephones, clacking typewriters, and screams. The screams were in Spanish, and they came from a man in handcuffs as he was led away toward a lockup area. His head whipsawed crazily; streamers of spit sprayed from his mouth. Wendy stared at him in paralyzed fascination.
Patrol Officer Sanchez touched her arm. She jumped.
“This way, Miss Alden.”
She followed obediently. Sanchez showed her into a small, windowless office smelling of stale coffee. One of the two fluorescent panels was out, leaving the room half in shadow.
‘“Would you like something to drink?” Sanchez asked, then smiled. “I mean coffee, tea, juice. I can’t offer you the hard stuff.”
“Just water would be fine.”
He returned with a glass of water and handed it to her.
“Thanks,” she said, sipping it gratefully.
“The detective will be with you in just a minute.” Sanchez left, shutting the door.
Wendy sat in a straightback chair. She shivered, feeling wet and cold. Her pajamas and robe, tacky with sweat, clung to her skin in damp patches.
Her bare toes poked through a hole in the one slipper she was still wearing. She wrapped herself more tightly in the blanket she’d been given, then sneezed.
Wendy, she told herself, are you ever a mess.
But at least she wasn’t dead.
The garrote had been tightening around her neck when she remembered the knife. The knife she’d used to carve and core the apple. The knife she’d stowed in a pocket of her robe before leaving the kitchen. In her panic she’d forgotten it. Forgotten the only weapon she had.
Her right hand dived into her pocket and closed over the handle. With all her strength she thrust her arm backward and drove the blade into the killer’s body.
He made a sound that was more than a croak, not quite a shout. The garrote fell from his hands. She flung open the door and fled.
The gallery streaked under her feet like a sheet of ice. She bounded down the staircase, taking the steps two at a time, an act of sheer recklessness she’d never attempted before in her life, not even as a child. When she reached ground level she shot a terrified glance over her shoulder, certain the Gryphon would be following her, wielding the bloody knife in one fist and the garrote in the other. No one was there.
Maybe she’d killed him. Maybe he was lying dead on the floor. Oh, God, she hoped so.
But she knew he wasn’t dead. Just knew it. A man like that wouldn’t die so easily. If he could die at all.
She looked around frantically, trying to decide what to do, where to go. Her car. She had to get in her car and speed to the nearest police station, wherever that was. No, wait. She didn’t have her car keys, did she? They were in her purse, and her purse was in her apartment, where he was.
All right then. Run. Go on, Wendy, run!
She stumbled blindly along Palm Vista Avenue, not looking back, then reached Beverly Boulevard and headed north, sprinting uphill, gasping. Apartment buildings blurred past, buildings crowded with people she didn’t know. She could pound on some stranger’s door and yell for help. But she was afraid to stop. Afraid the Gryphon might be right behind her, gaining on her, ready to bring her down. She was sure she could hear his racing footsteps, his panting breath.
She ran faster. Somewhere along the way she lost one of her slippers, like Cinderella after the ball. She didn’t notice.
At the corner of Beverly and Pico she found a Mobil station, an oasis of light amid the shadowed streets. The smell of auto exhaust and gasoline bit her nostrils as she staggered across the floodlit asphalt, past the two service islands, into the snack shop. She caromed off a wire carousel, spilling candy bars on the tile floor. The clerk looked up from the magazine he was reading and started to say something, and then Wendy was screaming, screaming in terror and release, screaming about the Gryphon. She was still screaming when the clerk dialed 911.
Several endless minutes passed before a police car arrived, domelights flashing. By that time Wendy was calm, yes, remarkably calm, except for the sudden unpredictable tremors that racked her body and set her teeth chattering for no reason at all.
Somehow she mustered the clarity of mind to condense what had happened into a few simple declarative sentences, not unlike the ones she was always writing in those stupid little booklets of hers. The two patrolmen, plainly skeptical, radioed a report of a possible sighting of the Gryphon at 9741 Palm Vista. Another squad car, en route to the scene, volunteered to take a look.
“Tell them to be careful,” Wendy said. “Very, very careful.”