The Third Victim Read online

  Two knives, exact mates. One was in his hand; the other was inside her house, waiting. There were other knives, too, hidden. And another key. And a spare flashlight, and spare batteries. And a stocking, and a secret fluff of frilly underwear. And two pairs of surgical gloves. And pencils and pens and paper. Bits of newspapers. When the drawer opened, small sounds escaped: sighs and screams and the memory of blood spattered in darkness.

  The key was in the padlock. There was a click. A snap. The lock hung open. The key was in his pocket; the door was slowly swinging away from him. He was inside the dark basement, with the lock in his hand—the same hand that held the knife, open now, its blade gleaming in the narrow, pale light from the door. Now the door was closing; the light sliver was gone. But only for a moment; only long enough for the tiny flashlight to appear in his hand. The slim beam searched beside the door for a hook, where he’d seen her hang the padlock. The hook was a nail; it could only be a nail, driven into the doorjamb. The padlock was hanging on the nail. Close beside the nail was a string that switched on the two bare light bulbs—the lights he couldn’t use. The tiny cone of light was sweeping away from the door, wavering over trashcans, cardboard boxes, dusty trunks, and one spare tire. Shapes changed into shadows, then disappeared in darkness. Garbage smelled. A distant dog barked. Boards creaked. His feet were shuffling softly along the rough cement of the floor, following the flashlight beam. Ahead was a pale square of window light—a door. The flashlight found the knob. But it was an outside door, leading into the backyard. Again the flashlight moved, changing darkness back into shadows, and shadows into shapes. The light found stairs—a short flight of stairs. As his foot touched the first stair, a small, secret tremor began. Genitals tightened, he was trembling. The sensation was spreading upward. On the second step he stopped, standing motionless. The tremor must be mastered—controlled, smothered. Before another step was ventured, muscle must master muscle, thought must stifle thought. It was a battle—a sudden, desperate struggle. And he could fight only with eyes closed. So he was helpless—in danger. First the stomach must tense. The lungs must contract, forcing out all air, all vital movement. To the chest and the lungs, the stillness of death must come—and all in the deadly darkness, with his eyes still closed. Then the throat must close.

  And now he must wait, to be sure. It was the hardest part, this still, silent waiting, eyes closed, motion stopped. But now, from his crotch to his throat, everything was still, finally in control. There was no movement. The only sound was the rushing in his ears—the roar that never left him.

  So, with all bodily movement stopped, his eyes could open—slowly, slowly open.

  And, slowly, the tremor was ebbing, flowing back down his body, ending finally where it began. Had the fluid escaped, to betray him? No. To his exploring fingers, there was no wetness.

  So he could go on. Eyes open, he could mount the next step, then the next. The door was ahead. With the penlight clamped between his teeth, he turned the knob. But the door, of course, was locked. Playing her part, she would have locked the door. So a slim bit of metal was in his right hand, gently probing at the lock. He felt the lock shift, felt the door move—saw the door swing open slowly. The white shape of a stove was a squared-off ghost in the darkness.

  With the probe slipped into the pocket beside the key, he shifted the flashlight to his left hand, moved the knife to his right. The door to the cellar was closing softly behind him. He was standing motionless, listening. From the hallway to his left came the sound of breathing—deep, rhythmic breathing. Pale light from the kitchen windows fell in squares on the linoleum floor. The archway into the hall was coming closer—slowly, noiselessly. The sound of breathing was louder; the sound came from the first door. The door was open, revealing a child’s room. The boy slept with his mouth open, one arm limp over the edge of his bed.

  The front bedroom was hers.

  The door to a bathroom was next, on the left. A tiny night light glowed at baseboard level, dimly illuminating the hallway. So he could switch off the penlight—softly, without a click. On the right, an archway opened into the living room. The furniture, the books, the records were all in familiar order, often seen through drapes seldom drawn.

  Her bedroom door, straight ahead, was open. Wide open, in wanton welcome. It was the last sure sign.

  Beyond the open door, the room was dark. The drapes were always drawn, even in daylight. From inside came the sound of her breathing. As he listened, he was moving into the room. Now he could see a chair, a bureau—a bed. He stepped aside, letting the dim hallway light from behind fall across her bed. The hallway light outlined shadow-rippled blankets. He saw the shape of her feet, her legs, her torso. Her dark hair covered the oblong of the pillow. In the center of the tangled hair-skein her face was a motionless white oval.

  The face was moving slowly, steadily closer as he drew near the bed. Now he was standing directly beside the bed, staring down at the pursed lips, the closed eyes, the small chin. Beneath her ear, a blood pulse throbbed, rhythmically stirring the flesh of her throat. The sharp silver tip of the knifeblade moved, delicately suspended above the smooth, pulsing flesh. His legs were close to the bed. A single step would bring him into contact with the bedclothing. That last step—that final contact—was necessary. Because only the touch could release him.

  But first, with the knife poised, he must lower his eyes. Deliberately, his eyes must discover where the blanket joined her flesh. Her body was naked. Her dark-nippled breasts, unclean, lay rounded and full, uncovered. Just above the waist, the blankets—

  The lips were parting. Beneath closed eyelids her eyes moved, twitching. Beneath the blankets, legs shifted. The eyes quivered, about to open. The knife trembled, poised above the pale curve of the throat. As he moved forward, his legs touched the bed. Instantly, the small, urgent convulsions began, rushing up from taut, straining genitals. But now his eyes were wide, fixed on the oval face surrounded by the dark, wild hair. Now his eyes couldn’t close, as they’d done earlier, in the basement darkness. Now only his throat could move, fighting against the anguished animal sounds he must make.

  They were small, strange cries in the quiet room. But now he was free, released. His body was slowly going slack. In response, she was quiet, once more sinking back into sleep. She’d left him another night with her.

  He was moving away from the bed—one step, two steps. This was the time of danger. Nothing protected him now. He was no longer in contact with the bedclothing that had touched both him and her. So control was gone. Setting her free, he endangered himself. Because now, released, he could only run if she awakened. He couldn’t return to the bedroom and slash at the pulsing throat. She was free. Now—for tonight—she was free. Only he was in danger. With all fluids spent, he was exposed. Every sound in the night was a banshee wail; every movement was a warning rustle from some ferocious thicket.

  If they found him now—saw him, laid hands on him—they could take him. Because now, for tonight, power was gone with the fluids, lost as he stood beside her.

  Yet it was part of the pattern—part of how it must happen. It was his will. It was all his will. Ipso.

  Carefully closing the kitchen door behind him, he switched on the flashlight, to find the basement stairs. In two minutes he would be astride the Yamaha. Twenty minutes more and he’d be safe. Ipso.

  Eyes wide in the darkness, she was staring up at the ceiling. Her heart was hammering. Her throat was drawn painfully tight, as if she’d been screaming.

  Why was she pulling up the covers, to cover her breasts? Why was she—

  From the hallway came the soft sound of movement. Was Josh out of bed? Had he—

  A click sounded. A door was closing furtively. Was it the bathroom door? The kitchen door? Was Josh sleepwalking? He’d done it before, just after Kevin left them.

  She was standing beside the bed, reaching for her robe. As she held her breath, intently listening, she realized that she was trembling. Her knees were unst
eady; the pit of her stomach quivered helplessly. It was, she suddenly realized, an extension of the same sensations she’d experienced that morning, seeing the switch-blade knife in the front entryway.

  The Tarot hysteria, a newscaster had called it.

  But a madman was prowling the city.

  The knife could have been a warning—a warning unheeded.

  And she was alone. She and her child were alone in a ground-floor flat, helpless. Kevin was sleeping with someone else—a stranger. An enemy. Her enemy. Shamefaced, Kevin had left at nine, mumbling a halting good-bye. And now she was standing at the foot of her bed, trembling as she drew her robe close around her.

  Once more, she was holding her breath, listening.

  The house was quiet. And, miraculously, she was no longer trembling. It could have been a nightmare. If Josh could sleepwalk, and cry out in his sleep for his father, then she could have a nightmare, too. She could dream that someone was in her room, reaching out to touch her—to harm her.

  But she didn’t have nightmares.

  Consciously, at least, she didn’t have nightmares. Hers was the opposite problem. She slept too deeply. Sometimes, awakening in the morning, it would frighten her that she could remember nothing. Sleep for her was a dark, dismal void—like death.

  Walking steadily, she was moving out into the hallway, then into the living room. She was standing in the center of the living room, where she could look into the front entryway. The floor revealed nothing—no new sign of terror to add to the knife she’d found that morning, and hidden high in the cupboard. She turned, retraced her steps. In the hallway again, she moved to Josh’s door. The boy lay twisted tortuously in his blankets, breathing heavily. For the past two days, he’d been fighting a summer cold. She slipped into the room and covered him with a sheet and a blanket. Then, motionless beside the bed, she stood staring down into the small oval face, limned by the faint light from the window.

  There were, her life-drawing teachers had told her, certain characteristics of a child’s head. The forehead and cranium were large in proportion to the face. The nose and chin were small. The upper lip overhung the lower lip, and the eyes were large.

  Josh fulfilled all these criteria. Visually, then, he was an average boy.

  Yet, to her, this child could never be average. This was a child who, according to his moods, could lift her from sadness to joy, then drop her back. This was someone she was responsible for—someone who had grown inside her, more than seven years ago. Admittedly, the seed had been planted unexpectedly. Yet when she learned that she was pregnant, they’d both been glad. After the first shock—Kevin’s first shock—they’d both been glad. They’d celebrated—given a party.

  Then they’d gotten married.

  Holding the robe close, she stooped to kiss Josh’s forehead. Conscious of his heavy breathing, she laid her palm against his forehead. It felt cool—healthy. She straightened, stepped into the hallway, and walked the few steps to the kitchen. Nothing was disturbed. Both doors were securely closed; the back door was bolted. The door leading downstairs to the cellar was closed and locked.

  It had been her imagination. Josh had probably cried out in his sleep, awakening her. As a mother, even in the depths of a neurotically sound sleep, she would be awakened—half awakened—by the cry of her child.

  She went to the sink, turned on the tap, drank a glass of water. The wall clock read eleven twenty; she’d been asleep for less than an hour.

  She must get back to bed—get back to sleep. For tomorrow night—for her first adventure in extramarital sex—she must be well rested.

  Kevin pointed to the empty glass. He nodded to the bartender, who took the glass, dropped in fresh ice cubes, and reached for the bourbon bottle.

  It was a small, nondescript neighborhood barroom, featuring shuffleboard, quarter-a-game pool, and bar whiskey at sixty-five cents a shot. A pink-tinted mirror extended full length behind the bar, lit by concealed neon tubes. Kevin glanced at his reflection, then glanced away quickly.

  He was aware that, these last few months, he avoided his own reflection. And, these last few months, he took little pleasure in the sound of his own name.

  It was, he knew, a deficiency of the ego—an affliction that, lately, was becoming increasingly painful. Yet the remedy was obscure. If it had been a distended ego—Dick Wagner’s, for instance—the abscess could be lanced. A chronically shrunken ego, on the other hand, required more subtle treatment. Hormones for the psyche, perhaps. Vitamins for the soul.

  The bartender, grossly fat, was placing the bourbon and water before him. A dollar bill, the next-to-last in his wallet, completed the transaction.

  Sipping the drink, he allowed his gaze to slowly circle the bar, briefly assessing each face in turn. Not one was his intellectual equal. This was a working-man’s bar, catering to the invisible underside of Santa Barbara—to those who served the free-spending tourists and the affluent citizens for whom the Santa Barbara lifestyle was fashioned.

  Why had he chosen this bar, then?

  The answer was obvious. He’d come here because this bar lay on a direct line between his present home and his former home—between Cathy on the north and Joanna on the south.

  He’d gone three blocks before he’d realized that he was walking headlong toward home. Joanna’s home. And the realization had brought him up short. He’d stood alone on the sidewalk, blinking, hearing the wine buzzing in his head. He’d been momentarily immobilized, defeated. Finally, though, he’d made a strategic withdrawal to his present position: seated on a red plastic bar stool, staring into a pink-tinted mirror. But here he was stuck. He couldn’t advance, couldn’t retreat.

  Except that, for years, he’d been retreating.

  For six years, his course had been one long, zigzag retreat.

  How long would it take before the retreat became a rout—a disaster? How long did it take for defeat to become chronic? How long would it be before despair showed in the uncertain movements of his eyes and hands, and in the falseness of his laughter? Were there years allotted for winning, and others allotted for losing? If that were so, then these years would have a meaning—a purpose. Someday, he could write a tragedy.

  But who made the allotments?

  Who decided when the time for losing had ended and the time for winning would begin? Would Mephistopheles, disguised as a greasy-fingered laborer, sit down beside him, on a companion red plastic bar stool, and outline the proposition—

  “Got a match, by any chance?”

  Blinking, he glanced up into the rose-colored mirror. A blowzy, bleary-eyed blonde sat beside him, smiling grotesquely.

  He shook his head. “Sorry. I don’t smoke.” Without looking at her, he finished the bourbon and water.

  “Did you quit, or just never start?” She still held the unlit cigarette poised between her stubby, nicotine-stained fingers.

  “I quit. Three years ago.” Unconsciously, he’d taken a dollar bill out of his pocket—his last dollar. Beside him, the blowzy blonde shifted expectantly. Plainly, she hoped he’d offer her a drink. Then, perhaps, another drink. And then—who could tell—perhaps they’d share a night of love.

  It was something he’d never done. He’d never picked up a woman at a bar. It had never been necessary. Girls—jobs—favorable reviews for his play—he’d had them all.

  Until now. Here. Tonight.

  At this improbable place, with a flat-faced blonde sitting where moments before he’d imagined Mephistopheles toying with his beer and contemplating some Faustian bargain that would trade success for a small piece of his soul, he’d finally come face to face with himself. The wine, doubtless, had helped—and the pot. And the three bourbons. And the pink mirror, and the fat bartender. And the blonde, still with the cigarette clamped in her pudgy fingers.

  “Here…” He dropped the last dollar on the bar as he turned to the blonde. “Buy yourself a drink. I’d join you, except that I’ve got an appointment.” He turned his back on her ex
clamations of virtuously surprised protest and walked out into the night.

  For as far as he could see, the sidewalks were deserted. The bar was part of a modest mom-and-pop shopping community that served a quiet residential neighborhood: small houses built under large trees. In this neighborhood, most citizens sat before their TVs, watching a late movie or the eleven-o’clock news. Soon they would go to bed. Twenty-five percent, perhaps, would make love.

  Would he make love that night? Would Cathy accept him tonight—literally accept him? Would apologies be necessary—an elaborately orchestrated recital of contrition? What price would Cathy exact in exchange for forgiveness and acceptance? Cathy was a smart girl with an instinct for life’s constantly changing ledger of emotional debits and credits. What Cathy wanted, Cathy got. For her, it had always been that way. Perhaps it would never change. Constantly, Cathy ran a credit balance.

  But not Joanna.

  Joanna ran a debit balance. Once, before they’d gotten married, she’d told him that, from the moment her parents had told her that they were getting a divorce, when she was seven, she’d never really been happy. So Joanna’s weapons in the battle of the sexes were dismay and reproach. Joanna’s coups were delivered in utter silence. But Cathy, the indulged child of affluence, fought like a fishwife.

  He was slowly walking, listening to the uneven sounds of his own footsteps. He’d turned to his right, toward Joanna’s house—his house, really. For reasons unknown, he’d decided to walk past Joanna’s. He was taking the long way home.