He rolled away from her, lay beside her but not touching her. She rolled on her side, facing him. "You fuck good," she said faintly.
"Not bad yourself."
"Want an encore?"
"Okay."
"Let me rest a minute, then we'll have a fucking encore."
He lay there for several minutes, his mind empty. She hadn't been as satisfying as he'd hoped. If it hadn't been for the way he'd pretended she was Elaine, he might not have reached a climax at all.
She was snoring.
Remembering Alma, Sid Weinman, Debbie Kessler, he decided to call Sid and find out if there'd been any new developments in the case. He also decided he wouldn't stick around to fuck his pick-up a second time. He was so tired he wanted a good night's sleep more than a "fucking encore."
In the glow of the moonlight that filtered through the slats in the Venetian blinds, he dressed again and went into the living room. He turned on a light and looked everywhere but there seemed to be no phone in the room. Realizing that some people occasionally had their phones installed in the kitchen of their apartments or homes, he went into the kitchen and turned on the light.
There was a wall phone there and he moved a chair beside it, searching through his wallet for the slip of paper on which he'd written Sid's home phone number. He lit a cigarette and dialed. "Anything new on the Debbie Kessler case?" he asked abruptly when a muffled voice answered.
"Clark? Why in hell are you calling me this time in the morning?"
"Sorry. I've been up all night." To make it sound better, he added, "Thinking about the case. Couldn't get it off my mind."
"Call me tomorrow at the station, will you? Shit. If this is the way you're going to be ... calling me in the middle of the night, you can take your goddamned money and stick it up your ass."
"Sorry, Sid. I didn't stop to think about the time. I've had a lot of trouble sleeping since Alma died. Mornings ... nights, they all sort of blend together anymore. I'll call you tomorrow at the station. Good night."
"Wait. I might as well tell you now and get it over with. Things are starting to shape up. I talked with Debbie Kessler. I didn't like the way she sounded. She said nothing happened at the tennis courts but ó because I didn't like the way she sounded ó I had her taken to the state hospital and examined by the head psychiatrist there. Had to get her parents' permission for that and it took a lot of talking but it was worth it. The headshrinker at the hospital used sodium pentothal."
"That's the ... truth serum?"
"Right. I don't know how much you know about sodium pentothal but there isn't supposed to be any way to beat it. That is ... if you've killed someone and you've been lying about it ... or if you've been lying about anything at all ... it will make you a blabbermouth in nothing flat. Debbie Kessler, under sodium pentothal, still wouldn't admit she'd been raped ... and ... wouldn't admit she'd willingly had sexual intercourse with someone.
You see the point? A doctor examined her and said she had sexual intercourse. She doesn't remember it. That means she was hypnotized. It proves our theory. I asked the headshrinker if he thought he could break through the hypnosis. He thinks he can, but he's not sure how long it will take. If he can break through, we'll know exactly what happened and we'll be able to get a description of the man."
Clark listened to the emptiness at the other end of the phone while he digested the information. Something was wrong ...
"Are you still there?" Sid asked.
"I ... I was thinking. I thought I heard you can't hypnotize a person to do something against their will. Something they don't want to do."
"That's a damned good question. I don't know. I'll have to ask the headshrinker about it. It's an old idea ó that about not being able to hypnotize people to do things against their will. But it seems the Russians have overcome that with some of their brainwashing. I'd guess maybe it's true in some cases. You probably couldn't hypnotize a person into committing a murder. But ... this rapist must be doing something much different than that. Maybe he just places his victims in a hypnotic spell ... a kind of trance where they're powerless to do anything ... Then he rapes them. Then he hasn't actually forced them to do anything against their will."
"Are you checking all hypnotists in the city?"
"We're checking all the known hypnotists. Guess what? You can count all the professional hypnotists in the whole United States on your fingers and toes.
It isn't a common profession."
"Then you shouldn't have much trouble finding the ó"
"Wrong. I said known hypnotists. Professional hypnotists. Anyone can pick up a book on hypnotism in a library. And ... have you ever seen those ads for books on hypnotism?"
Clark's throat was suddenly dry. He remembered distinctly an advertisement he had seen on the back pages of a magazine. A drawing of a man and a woman.
The man gesturing toward the woman with the woman seemingly in a trance ...
Digging through his memory he realized he'd seen ads for books on hypnotism not just once but dozens of times in the past. He'd never paid any attention to the ads ... the same way he had for years driven by pet shops, seeing them but not seeing them, until he started raising tropical fish as a hobby.
Then he'd been surprised at the number of pet shops he'd never noticed.
He said, "I've seen them." His throat was still dry. He glanced toward the kitchen sink and saw the row of glasses there, suddenly wanting a glass of water.
"That's a pretty thought, isn't it?" Sid asked. "The thought that the man we're looking for could be anyone ... anyone, anywhere, who sent for one of those books on hypnotism or got one through a library ... studied it ... and became good at it. Good enough to hypnotize a woman into a trance while he rapes her."
"A pretty thought." His stomach felt queasy. The implications were tremendous. No woman would be safe from a man with such a mastery of hypnotism. No woman ó no matter if she was married or beautiful or rich or famous or young or virginal. Sooner or later a man with a mastery of hypnosis would be able to look into her eyes ...
"We're checking all the publishing companies that sell books on hypnotism ... asking them for their mailing lists. And checking the libraries. I doubt we'll come up with anything but we have to check them. Goddamn you, you've got me wide awake now, talking a blue streak. My wife is snoring. Hear her?"
As Clark listened, the sound of snoring that had been an unnoticeable, background suddenly became thunderous as Sid held the phone near her mouth and said, "When I'm through with you, you bastard, I'll wake her up and get a piece."
"Anything else new?"
"We questioned kids in the playground near the tennis courts. One of them said there was a black car in the parking area near the tennis courts.
Another kid said there was a white car in the parking area. They couldn't tell us what make car. Nothing there. One of the kids said he saw a man with a TV at the tennis courts. That doesn't make sense. If the rapist drove a black car or a white car to the tennis courts, with the intention of raping one of the girls, why should he lug along a TV? He sure as hell wouldn't watch TV while he raped a girl."
"Anything else?"
"No. Yeah. You woke me up and ruined my sleep ... so now I'll give you something that might keep you awake a little bit tonight. A nice sick thought to mull over. I thought of it while I was working on this case. Now you can have it. I've worked on a lot of rape cases since I've been a cop.
All kinds, all kinds of people. The man who raped your wife ... Debbie Kessler ... all the others who seem to fit in the pattern ... You might call him a maniac. Right?"
"I guess so."
"I had the thought today ... I'll bet there's a million maniacs walking the streets. But they don't have the guts to ó Excuse me. Better way of saying it is they're not crazy enough to put their ideas into deeds. That's the only difference between the million walking around harmless and our baby.
Good night. You ever c
all me again this late at night I'll break your goddamn nose." Click.
Clark hung up the phone. He went to the sink and turned on the cold water faucet. Standing there, drinking the glass of water, he felt as if there was something important in what Sid had said ... something he should have caught ... some incongruity ... some clue to the rapist's identity ...
He heard someone come into the apartment.
"Norma ?" It was a girl's voice calling Norma. He was frozen there by the sink with the glass of water in his hand. He remembered Norma's warning about turning on the lights ó the warning that her girl friend would come visit her if she saw lights in the apartment. "Norma?" The girl was walking through the apartment.
There was a long silence and he realized the girl must have gone into the bedroom. He finished drinking the glass of water, and wondered if he should somehow announce his presence. No. Maybe it would be best if he could slip from the apartment unseen by Norma's friend. He placed the glass in the sink and walked slowly and quietly from the kitchen. Crossing the living room, he saw the girl had turned on the bedroom light and left the door ajar.
"Norma? Wake up, honey."
Glancing toward the bedroom, he saw Norma's legs and a girl's face poised above Norma's thighs. The girl touched Norma's cunt with a finger, gently.
"Wake up, honey."
Leaning to one side, Clark saw the girl was completely naked. A slender young girl with narrow hips and budding, unripe breasts. A lovely face framed by a mass of dark hair.
"Huh? Oh. Peggy. Is Clark still here? Did he turn on the lights? I told him not to turn on the lights!"
"Clark?" the girl repeated, puzzled.
"Nobody, nobody," Norma murmured. "I guess he left."
"No. I'm still here." He went to the bedroom doorway. The girl named Peggy scurried from the bed and snatched at her dress ó not attempting to put it on but covering her nakedness with it. In the instant before she partially concealed herself, Clark saw her young body was smoothly beautiful, the skin as softly textured as a pink velvet. By comparison, Norma's body suddenly very visible in the light, seemed old and coarse.
"Clark! I told you not to turn on the lights."
"I forgot."
"Why'd you get dressed? I thought we were gonna have a fucking encore."
He shrugged his shoulders. "You were sleeping. I didn't want to bother you."
"You call that a bother! Come on!"
The conversation with Sid had sobered him. He knew he'd been drunk when he came here with Norma. Norma was still drunk and now seemed more drunk than when she'd left the bar ó as if the alcohol in her stomach had taken all this time to fully reach her brain. "In front of your friend?" he asked.
"Oh. Peggy, this is Clark. Clark, this is Peggy, my close friend."
Very close, he thought. But he only looked at the girl and nodded. The girl seemed too startled by his unexpected appearance to either nod or speak. She stood there by the bed, clutching her dress before her naked body. Clark studied the smooth lengths of her thighs and calves. Her shoulders were small, softly rounded. He felt a sudden burst of desire for her, a sudden irrational desire to cross the room, snatch the dress from her and fuck her ó quick, hard.
"Come on," Norma repeated, spreading her legs. "Fuck me!"
Clark grinned. "We might embarrass Peggy."
"It won't embarrass her. She likes to watch people fuck. But that's all she likes to do as far as men are concerned. You've watched before, haven't you, Peggy?"
Peggy refused to answer, still paralyzed by Clark's unexpected appearance.
"Peggy's never had a man," Norma explained. "I've been trying to tell her how great it is but she's not convinced yet. Come on. Fuck me and we'll show her how great it can be."
"I'll fuck you tomorrow night if you still want to be fucked then."
"I want it now," she pouted.
"Tomorrow night. I'm too goddamn tired to get it up again. See you at Dino's tomorrow night?"
"To hell with Dino's. Buy a case of beer and come right here."
"Okay." He grinned. "See you tomorrow night." He paused at the doorway.
"Glad to have met you, Peggy." Out on the darkened street, walking toward his car which was still parked near the Kessler house, he knew he had died.
He, Clark Vaughn, the man married to Alma, the husband who'd hardly ever cheated, the husband who'd never wanted to have other women ... had died.
The old Clark Vaughn had died when Alma died.
The new Clark Vaughn was unmarried, a widower, single, unattached. The new Clark Vaughn was at least temporarily jobless and purposeless. Except to find the man who attacked Alma. That was the main desire in the new Clark Vaughn. Other than that, the new Clark Vaughn had new tastes and desires.
Now the new Clark Vaughn wanted a young girl named Peggy with skin as softly textured as pink velvet.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
"Hello, honey."
"You're right. To hell with Dino's. We'll buy our beer wholesale and save money." He nodded toward the case of beer in his arms. He stepped into the apartment and saw Peggy sitting at the card table. There were two chairs at the table, two glasses with half-melted ice cubes, an ashtray near the chair Norma had vacated ó an ashtray cluttered with many lipsticked cigarettes as if the two women had sat and played cards for a considerable time, waiting for him. "Hello, Peggy."
"Hello." Her eyes were large and dark with extraordinarily long eyelashes.
She lowered her eyes as if studying her cards, as if embarrassed by his presence again.
"We were playing canasta," Norma said. "Want to join us?"
"Christ, no. Canasta makes me sick."
"To each his own. Put the beer in the refrigerator. Open three bottles.
Bring three clean glasses. And then sit down and keep your mouth shut until Peggy and I finish this game."
When he returned from the kitchen with the glasses and bottles of beer, he placed a glass near Norma, a glass near Peggy, and his own glass on an unoccupied side of the card table. He poured beer from the three bottles into the glasses. Peggy said, "Thank you," when he finished pouring the beer into her glass ó looking up at him with a brief shyness, returning her attention to her cards.
He sipped his beer and wondered what the night would bring. It might be the most interesting night he'd ever had in his life. At least it was promising as hell.
The day itself had been lousy. He'd phoned Sid at the station but Sid had said they'd sidetracked him onto a liquor store robbery. "Incidentally," he'd said, "I forgot to tell you last night but I guess you realize ... You shouldn't mention our theory about the rapist being a hypnotist. Not until I tell you it's all right to talk about it."
"I'm not an idiot."
"I thought you'd understand that. You understand how the public is. That theory might leak out sooner or later but all the detectives working on it have been told to keep it quiet. That kind of theory about a hypnotist being a rapist could start a mild panic."
"Or a major panic. Anything new?"
"Someday I might get tired of hearing you ask that. Nothing new that I know of. Tomorrow we should start getting results from the publishing companies that sell books on hypnotism ó copies of their mailing lists. Derickson, who's doing some of the leg work, checked the nearest professional hypnotist. Guess what? He's eighty years old. He lives in Philadelphia and the kicker is he went blind about ten years ago. That's a hell of a thing, isn't it? The next closes professional hypnotist lives in New York City.
It's a good possibility. Derickson is checking it today ... getting some help from the New York police. One other thing came up. A girl has been reported missing. Katherine Elsinger. twenty-four. Moderately wealthy family. I don't think it's our baby, though, because it doesn't fit the pattern."
Clark sipped his beer and moved so he was standing beside and slightly behind Peggy. With the pretext of studying her cards and how she was playing the gam
e, he studied the mass of her dark hair. She was wearing a sleeveless blouse and a pink skirt ... still sipping his beer, he studied the slenderness of her arms and could see down the front of her blouse a few inches ó enough to see the soft mounds of her small breasts, the crevice between them, the edge of a white bra that enclosed them ... She was sitting with her knees slightly apart and abruptly seemed aware he was standing close to her. She stiffened in the chair and crossed her legs. She held the cards with one hand, tugged at her skirt with the other hand to pull her skirt down as far as possible. He wondered if Norma was right. Was Peggy a virgin? Thinking about entering that body as softly textured as pink velvet to discover the truth, his cock hardened achingly. He wondered if he could get Peggy ó in addition to, or instead of Norma ...
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