The Creep (23 page)

Harvey deduced that Bishman had picked up the thread from when he was in Penn Station visualizing the Central Park massacre:

Maggie, a five-buck-a-time hooker, homed in on a guy who had been hanging out in Penn Station; he was drinking beer from a can wrapped in a brown paper bag. He was a big guy, somewhere in his late forties, a Vietnam vet, getting quite drunk. She went up to him and asked him for a cigarette. He supplied it, with pleasure.

"Got a light?" She held the cigarette up to her mouth.

"Yeah, sure."
He got out a disposable Bic lighter and lit her cigarette, while he lit one himself at the same time.

"Where are you off to? Not going to Long Island are ya?" She stuck out her ample breasts.

He noticed them. He couldn't help but notice them! "No, I'm going to North Carolina, I go home to see my folks about once every three months." He blew smoke rings that weren't quite perfect.
Not bad for someone atoxicated by incohol,
he thought.

"What time does the train leave? It doesn't go for a while yet, does it?"

"Nah, ya got that right, about another two hours. I always get here early though. Get my ticket, have a beer, smoke. You know what it's like." He stared hard at her breasts.

"Want to do something? With me you don't even have to hold back, you know. Sometimes a guy likes that."

"How much?"

"Blow job - for you honey, how about five bucks?" She pursed her lips, he got turned on.

"Sounds good to me, let's do it.
Where?"

"My place is just around the corner, you sure you got money?"

"Sure I got money." She was already walking out of the station, toward the Eighth Avenue exit. He followed quickly. Blow job for five bucks! Wouldn't you?

"Just down here, on the left. Buy me a beer first. What's yo
ur name? Mine's Maggie." She le
d him into a liquor store and picked up two Budweisers. He paid two dollars forty cents, cash.

"It's not far now, just down here." She pulled back the ring on the Budweiser and took a deep swallow. He did the same with his.

She led him into a narrow section of scaffolding that led into a building site off 34th Street.

"You sure this is OK? Is this where you live? Is it safe?" He tossed the empty can onto the street.

"Yeah sure, you're going to like this." She took his hand and guided him into a room at the
back,
it seemed quite safe and dark. The only light came through from a fluorescent sign from a building across the street. She lent up against him and caressed his cock through his trousers. He already had a hard-on. She dropped to her knees and started kissing his crutch at the same time fumbling his belt undone.

"Gimme my five bucks." She continued stroking him and rubbing him and unzipping and pulling his trousers to the floor. He was getting extremely excited. He stuffed five bucks in her hand. She got his trousers to the floor and planted a big kiss on the end of his cock. He was ready for this. He was so ready for it, he didn't realize Maggie was rifling his pockets and had emptied them of cash, train ticket, cigarettes, everything.

She stuffed the money into her pocket, got up, and walked off.

"Hey where ya going?"
He tried to pull his trousers up.

"I'll be back in five minutes, I have to do something. Five minutes, just wait?" With that he waited.

"You sure you'll be back?"

"Sure, I'm sure."
You asshole
!
she
mumbled under her breath.

The drunk fumbled with his pants, and she was gone. He fiddled with his pants some more and in a state of bleary-eyed confusion left them down around his ankles, he decided to wait.
Surely she'll be back.

Bishman who'd watched her pick the guy up at Penn Station, followed her down the road. He walked alongside her and smiled. He got the cigarettes out and offered her one, they got talking. After a while she started coming on.

"Do ya want to do something?" She pursed her lips.

"What did ya have in mind, a fuck, a blow job or what?" He drew heavily on his cigarette.

Four blacks in a bright red Bronco drove past.
It was full of tweeters and woofers, it
deaf
initely had two zillion watt speakers in it, and the occupants probably had blood trickling from their ear drums. The music they were playing was crap, or was it rap, probably a bit of both!

"Blow job for five bucks and you don't even have to hold back."

"Sounds good to me.
Let's get a beer first." He led her further down the road and then into a liquor store on the corner of 29th Street. He bought two Coors. He gave her one.

"Where you from?"
He took a long sip of the ice-cold beer.

"Puerto Rico."
She pulled the ring on her can and it broke off.

"You have this
one,
I'll get that one open."
They swapped cans.

"Na, where ya from now?" asked Bishman, struggling to open the can, eventually managing it, wishing he hadn't swapped in the first place.

"Oh, from Brooklyn."

He led her into a boarded-up building on 29th Street. The back door was broken in. It was vacant.

"I know this place," he said, "I've been staying here, it's cool."

They drank and smoked.

"Give me five bucks, or give me ten and you can do what you like - no holding back, right."

"No holding back, right." Bishman handed over his last ten bucks, all he had left was some small change. The place was
deathly
quiet.

The place had a distinct smell of damp plaster, but every now and then the zesty aroma of freshly-baked bread drifted into the place from a nearby bakery.

She was just about to drop to her knees and was looking straight into his
eyes - which is
why she never knew what was coming. Bishman let his right fist drift backwards as far as it would go, then piled it into her stomach, using a rabbit punch, which involves letting the forefinger knuckle protrude in front of the other knuckles and exerts tremendous pressure on impact. When the fist is twisted, which is exactly what Bishman
did,
it has the effect of rupturing vital organs and causing internal bleeding. As she collapsed forward he brought his knee up frighteningly quickly and smashed it under her chin, loosening a lot of teeth. Her head flew backwards. He put both hands around her neck, and in
under
thirty seconds she was dead.

He stuffed his hands into her pockets and took the money, train ticket and cigarettes.

Waste not, want not.
Blood was trickling from her mouth, from where she'd bitten the tip of her tongue off and from internal bleeding. The rabbit punch had had a devastating effect.

He lifted up her sweatshirt and felt her breasts. He undid her belt and pulled down her jeans, slid her pants off and examined her pussy.
Looks like a cat with its head cut off,
thought Bishman. He looked at her ass and felt her tits again,
seen better tits and ass on a snake,
he thought. The light was not all that good, so he might have been wrong.

He finished the two beers and took the cans with him. The whole operation, from the moment he hit her, had taken under ninety seconds.

He walked to the door and a huge brown rat ran in front of him. For a moment he was startled. Bishman jumped as well! He carefully opened the door and peeped outside - there were two black guys talking on the sidewalk.
Shit!
He decided to wait. For an hour and half, he just stood there. Not smoking,
not doing
anything.
Just silent and uncomfortably still.

He remembered the stories about the vets in Vietnam: if they were in the jungle with gooks all around, it was fatal to think about the gooks or even try to look at them through the thick undergrowth. The gooks were able to pick up the vibes and would start shooting in their direction. Time after time troops got shot, until they realized what was happening. Bishman didn't want to attract anyone to him.
It worked.
The next time he carefully opened the door, they'd gone. He slipped
out, wedging the door shut behind him. It would be a long while before they found her body.

Bishman walked down 29th Street, then up Ninth Avenue. He gave the two empty Coors tins to a bum who was going through a trashcan filling his
plastic bags up with cans at five cents a pop. The smell of rotting garbage and filthy sidewalks permeated the humid early morning air.

Street people go through the trashcans for beer and soda tins they can exchange for cash at the supermarket. They also look in every bag for food, including those with dog shit in them.
So much for the scoop the poop law in New York,
thought Bishman.

It was five thirty on a beautiful morning. Bishman lit a cigarette and as he walked he counted out his money.
Got my ten bucks back, less the two dollars sixty cents for the Coors, that's $112 profit. Killing, it's a living
. He started to hum
Money Makes the World Go Round
from
Cabaret
.

Three weeks later a cat dove through the extractor fan in the bakery where the smell of fresh bread had been coming from. It came out shredded onto the sidewalk on 29th Street. That little item got three column inches in the New York Post. Maggie's murder only got one.

Everything was
going wel
l for I.O.H. -
money was rolling into the coffers. Max Hatfield had everything under control. He was everything
Harvey could have wished for in a business manager, the man was a dynamo, and then some!

Bishman was also getting on well at his sessions. Harvey thought they were making fine progress. Bishman held back nothing. Harvey gave feedback in accordance with how the sessions went; a good bond had developed between master and client.

Harvey's relationship with Anita was smooth, like velvet.
They wined and dined in all of '
Tinsel Town's' finest eateries, their favorites being Pennyfeathers on La Cienega Boulevard and another restaurant owned by the same people, Café Sushi. They had fancy picnics and trips all over the place. Harvey was catching up on some favorite haunts.

Anita discovered that Harvey was not a great
socializer
. One on ones he liked much better; strange - for a man who spent so much of his time talking to and at people, in a crowd, he was usually remarkably reserved. When it was just the two of them, he was just the opposite.

Perhaps the great "Dr. Bill" persona was just that: someone Harvey could confidently present to the world, leaving his real self intact, inviolate. As the weeks wore on and Anita got further and further under Harvey's skin, she sensed there was a lot more to him than met the eye - a depth of character that would take a much longer relationship to reach. For the moment, she was content with the pleasures readily available.

They had just finished making delicious wet love in the Star Room where there had been thousands of stars and a full moon, all lit up like a
miniature planetarium, and controlled by computer. Harvey was topping up the champagne glasses. They toasted. He put his arm through hers and she reciprocated and the two clinked glasses.

"Darling, I want to ask you something," said Harvey as he stroked her breasts through her beautiful blonde hair, that he had pulled to her front. He blew sexily in her ear.

She stroked his cock - it was already becoming hard again. "Of course, you want to borrow ten bucks, right?" She teased and continued caressing him.

"No, that wasn't quite what I had in mind. But if I tell you and you don't like it, I promise not to pursue it any further. I promise, honest." He caressed her breasts, this time underneath her long blonde hair. He liked the difference in
texture of how they felt through her hair and without it. He found it incredibly sensual. So did
she
.