The Third Victim (23 page)

But meantime, he was without a place to sleep that night. Again—for the second night in succession—he was temporarily homeless. Despite the fact that, clearly, Cathy had crossed to the couch an hour earlier with the obvious intention of seducing him. Despite the fact that Joanna might have abetted him, parlaying his abortive promise to Josh into a second night’s offer of lodging, courtesy of Tarot.

Yet, incredibly, he’d managed to blight both prospects. He was back at the scene of last night’s defeat—back at the Bar with the Rose-colored Mirror. Where, for less than a dollar, one could purchase forgetfulness in a glass.

How had it happened that he’d managed to alienate both of them—one after the other, in quick, effortless succession? And how had it happened that, all evening, he’d managed successfully to steer his thoughts clear of the memory of his son’s arms locked around his neck, and the memory of their faces pressed tightly together? What marvelously efficient instinct for survival-without-guilt was operating deep down in the depths of his soul? How long would it take to forget the tears in his own eyes, leaving Josh’s room?

And, lastly, how long could he avoid the realization that Joanna had been right—that, yes, he believed he could have succeeded without the drag of a wife and a child?

How much further could he go without admitting that, yes, he still resented the birth of his son—that, really, he wished his son had never been born?

Was that why destiny had propelled him to this place, at this time? Was it here, staring into this rosy mirror, that he must admit the truth—that, yes, he would be better off without them?

He drained his drink, staring at himself in the mirror as he slowly lowered the empty glass to the wood-grained Formica surface of the bar.

There was a possibility that, ten years hence, he would be sitting in this same spot, staring at this same face. He would be forty. The face would be fleshier, the hair streaked with gray. The eyes, he knew, would be defeated. Josh would be sixteen years old by then—a tall, handsome boy. Joanna would be thirty-eight, and getting heavier. At thirty-three, still exciting, Cathy would have been married and divorced, and married and divorced again. Cathy would never change. Cathy would never have a child; she would never permit so presumptuous an extension of herself. Instead, during those ten years, Cathy would have devoted herself to a life of systematic castration. With targets of opportunity constantly at hand, Cathy would have castrated all her husbands and a fool’s roster of countless casual friends.

And so, finally, Cathy could take her proper place in the cast of this tawdry little tragedy, tentatively titled
The Long Way Home,
subtitled
Drinks on the Devil.
Cathy was the Castrating Female. Joanna, long ago, had assumed the role of the Long-suffering Wife, specializing in destruction by guilt and other suffocating, slow-acting devices.

He, of course, would be the protagonist—the classic tragic figure who, having attained great heights, would be—

“Want another one?”

With difficulty, he focused on the bartender. As he began to shake his head, he saw the reflected face of the blowzy blonde. Her glass was empty. She was no longer smiling. Her morose-looking companion was gone.

Kevin spread a dollar bill flat on the Formica.

“I don’t want anything, thanks. But tell my friend down there—the blonde with the empty glass—that I’d like to buy her a drink. Tell her that I remember her from last night. And then say that I’m sorry, but I’ve got to go. Like last night.”

Nodding, the bartender took the empty glass and the dollar bill. He’d keep the change.

The knife blade gleamed in the darkness like a slim silver spear upthrust through a grave. Flesh from the rotting corpse, clinging to the blade, had turned the steel phosphorescent, like decaying fish glowing in the dark. Prophets followed spears—prophets and puppets.

And Tarot, too.

Tonight—now—he would follow this glow in the darkness. He would let the knife lead him tonight. This time—this third time—he must combine something of the other two: the first time and the second. From the first time there was the child, sleeping in the next room.

And from the second time there was the knife.

The knife, and the nylon stockings, dropped like limp, dead snakes on the floor beside Grace Hawley’s bed. But the stockings were gone, hidden in the desk, lost. Only the knife remained.

He’d first seen Grace Hawley when she’d placed a hamburger steak and a cup of coffee before him. She’d served him and then stood back to lean against the quilted metal wall behind the counter. With her arms folded beneath heavy breasts, with her hips slanted to display the bulge of her belly and the promise of her pubis beneath, she’d stared at him with slow, steady provocation. At first he’d ignored the obscene suggestion in her eyes. But then he’d seen her lips twist into a smile of grotesque invitation. Seeing that smile, he’d instantly known that, once more, he’d discovered evil.

Instantly, he’d put two dollar bills beside his plate and left the restaurant. He hadn’t spoken to her—hadn’t looked at her. He’d left the restaurant and returned home. He’d gone to his room, for his tools. Then, on the Yamaha, he’d returned to the restaurant. The night had been warm, and he’d parked the Yamaha across the street from the restaurant. He’d concealed the motorcycle, just as he’d done today, earlier, at the beach. The patterns, therefore, overlapped. Ipso.

He’d waited for hours, until the restaurant closed. Then, invisible, he’d followed her to her decaying wooden apartment building, with the back stairs that creaked and the spider-stacked porches that groaned in the darkness.

He’d watched that first night. Four nights later, he’d entered. It was during that night inside, standing over her bed, that he’d seen her eyes open, seen her lips part, heard the deadly shriek of her scream beginning.

He’d seen the knife flash down, heard the screaming suddenly strangle into a slow, gurgling silence. She’d held him in a helpless moment of crotch-writhing agony, then released him. He’d escaped from the shabby, foul-smelling apartment and found his motorcycle, still safely hidden. Riding home, he’d coasted to a stop beneath a street lamp, on the dim edge of the light-cone. With the engine switched off, he’d looked carefully for the blood spots that could kill him—her last deadly trick. It was then that he’d found the stocking, stuffed in his pocket. The stocking had been blood-smeared. Only the nylon, never his flesh. So she’d failed. Trying to kill him, she’d failed—first with her screams, then with her secret blood. And therefore she’d died. Ipso.

In the darkness, the knife gleam was blurring. But, blinking, he could bring the blade back into focus. Overhead, the floorboards no longer creaked. For more than an hour, the floor had been silent. The force lines, then, were converging. In the safety of the silence, with the slim silver gleam to follow, Tarot could lift one leg over the box side, then the other. He could move soundlessly between the stacks of boxes and barrels, following the path she’d chosen for him—Tarot’s one way out.

With hands thrust deep into his pockets, feet scuffling the sidewalk with a slow, desultory cadence that evoked vague memories of childhood meanderings, Kevin kicked at a ragged shred of eucalyptus bark, sending the bark bit flying into the darkness. This street, only three blocks from his home, was fragrant with the pungent odor of eucalyptus. It was a cough-medicine smell—Smith Brothers revisited. Because, in fact, turn-of-the-century pharmacists had used eucalyptus elixir for their unguents.

Was it his home, only three blocks away? Still his home? Would there be a light burning in the window for him?

Would he be steady enough—sober enough—to present himself on her doorstep?

If a light burned, there could yet be a satisfactory conclusion to this imperfectly plotted opus, tentatively titled
The Long Way Home.
It was a script with a promising beginning, but the conclusion was still obscure. Yet perhaps, in the clear night air, the elements would somehow come together. A miracle was still possible. Anything, in fact, was still possible, assuming that he could put the elements into motion, hopeful of some random collision. So, therefore, he would walk past Joanna’s flat—still his flat, really. If he saw a light—an invitation—he would knock. The drinks he’d had—four, or five—would strengthen his resolve. Because liquor, he’d discovered, could act as a universal plot solvent. Judiciously administered, liquor could turn tragedy into comedy, and comedy into farce. Liquor could accomplish a miracle: the short-run happy ending.

And so, if the light burned for him, he would knock. He would explain that, after all, he’d decided to honor his promise to Josh, his son.

If, however, he found no light, then he would return to… to what?

…to what?

To his home?

Was the apartment he shared with Cathy a home? Did clothing hanging together in a closet make a home? Did a hundred nights of love and fifty bottles of Chablis foreshadow a life together? Was it love they shared, or mere forgetfulness? What did Cathy offer that he couldn’t eventually find in the rose-colored mirror behind the bar? It was in the depths of that mirror, after all, that he’d first conceived
The Long Way Home,
the unfinished play with a shaky central theme and no visible conclusion.

Would he ever work out a conclusion?

Would he eventually find a place to sleep that night?

Would Dick Wagner’s fast-buck world wait for him? Would Cathy smile at him—really smile? Would Joanna kindly avert her gaze, to spare him the sight of the pain so plain in her eyes?

Would Josh, too, look the other way?

Was it a prayer, that last question—a wet-eyed plea, asked of himself, by himself?

Ahead, at the corner, he would make the last turn into the final two blocks. Committed, he would pass the achingly familiar landmarks: the dry-cleaning store operated by a Chicano with only one arm, the liquor store, the grocery store where Josh spent his pennies for candy and gum.

On his Long Way Home, he was taking the final turn.

As the doorknob turned, the slim metal probe found the latch. The latch was moving, yielding. Even in the darkness, by touch, he could—

The door held fast.

The latch was free, but the door wouldn’t move. Was it a chair, propped against the knob? A bolt? Was this the trap they’d set for him—to padlock both outside doors, and bolt the third door against him? Had they known that his mother had tricked him into forgetting his flashlight—that Tarot was almost blind in the darkness, unable to switch on the basement lights? Did they know that—

The probe struck metal, unyielding. It was a bolt—a new bolt, since last night. Sparked by the dull rasp of metal on metal, a sudden roaring whirled close around him. The constant buzz in his ears had become a wild demon’s scream. The night was tilting, falling away.

Was he sobbing?

Was it fear that wrenched at his throat like a noose?

He was crouched on the second step down from the door as the whirling sounds of terror warbled and shrieked. But, still, he could dimly see. He could see, and he could think. And on the step above he could see the knife blade gleaming, carefully placed at the step’s center. He could see the knife, and he could think—could calculate the significance of what he’d done. Because the miniature sword, at home, could be out of alignment. So the knife, aligned, would compensate.

And if the two were aligned—precisely aligned—then the whirlwind sound of terror would pass. Tarot could once more make out the sounds of danger—the small, scurrying little sounds, like warning rats.

Beside the knife he saw the dim shape of the plastic envelope. Beside the envelope he could see the probe. Inside the envelope were a screwdriver and the flexible wire saw.

His hands were moving—slow, deliberate hands, almost a stranger’s. Fingertips touched the plastic; fingers withdrew the screwdriver, inserted it in the backing strip of the doorway, pried. The shriek was the wood, giving. Now, carefully, the fingers were feeling for the removable saw ring. With the ring separated and laid on the plastic envelope, the carborundum-barbed wire was in the doorjamb, circling the bolt, protruding a few inches below. This was why he’d practiced with his eyes closed. It was for this moment that he’d practiced so often. With the ring once more attached, the saw was ready. A grinding purr was beginning. It was the sound of the saw, soft and steady in the darkness. The sawing sound came clearly through the wailing demon-sounds around him. So the power had returned. In his room, the sword was still on his desk, aligned. Whoever had found her had left the sword untouched. And so, with the knife on the stairstep, alignment was—

The saw was free; the door was swinging away from him, revealing the pale square shapes of refrigerator, a stove, cupboards. He was in the kitchen, standing motionless. Behind him, the door was softly closing. The knife was in his hand, to lead the way. In the hallway now, he could hear the nearby sound of heavy, sleep-spaced breathing. It was the child, in the first room on the left. The knife was angling toward the small bedroom. Inside, a boy’s head lay on a square white pillow. A baseball glove lay on the covers; a bat and a ball were on the floor beside the bed. The head was motionless.

Now the silver knife gleam was turning again, leading down the hallway. The bathroom door, second on the left, was closed. Through the archway to the right, the furniture shapes in the living room were dark and quiet. The tiny night light revealed it all, glowing with a pale, compelling luminescence.

At the end of the hallway, her door was open.

Inside, she waited.

Outside, they were searching the city for Tarot. Men in cars and women at windows—they all searched, waited, wondered. But, inside, Tarot was stepping through the tall, narrow rectangle of her doorway. The darkened room was cloyed with the musk of her sleeping scent. The shades were drawn; the shadows were deep and dangerous, lying thick on the room’s far side. Only one bar of outside light fell across the bed. The dark tangle of her hair and the pale oval of her, face were centered in the path of the light. Her naked shoulders and breasts, unclean, were in shadow. The disembodied gleam of the knife was suspended in the same shadow. Now the knife was slowly, delicately moving into the light, positioning itself directly above her head. Her face was turned to the right, away from him. Beneath her ear, the exposed flesh of her throat was slowly, rhythmically throbbing. She was—