“Uh-huh.” Speech was difficult. He cleared his throat. “Chicken pot pie.”
He could feel his body shaking, knees liquefying, fingertips tingling. It was intolerable to have her in here with him. The kitchen was too small, and she was too close. The nearness of her body, a woman’s body, not safely dead but warm and living—he couldn’t stand it. He wanted to run. To run and hide in the bedroom with the door closed until she went away.
“It figures,” she was saying. “Bachelors always go for those pot pies. Hungry Man, right?”
“Right.” The word was a dry cough.
“Bet you’ve got a big appetite, a big guy like you.”
His fear receded before a flare-up of anger. What did she mean by that? She’d insulted him just then, hadn’t she? Hadn’t she, the little bitch?
Big, she’d called him. But he wasn’t big. Five-ten wasn’t big at all. So what had she really meant? That he was fat? He wasn’t. A hundred eighty pounds was not excessive for his height. And a good deal of it was muscle. His upper body, particularly. Strong arms. Powerful hands. Hands that could snap this cunt’s neck with one twist of the wrists. One twist—
Suddenly he wasn’t afraid anymore. He had never been afraid. She couldn’t frighten him. No woman could. He was Franklin Rood. He was the Gryphon.
He smiled and handed her the jar of olive oil. “Here you go.”
“Thanks so much.”
“Is there anything else you need?”
“No, this’ll do it.”
“I’ve got some fine things in my freezer.”
“Yeah, you single guys always go for frozen food.”
“Want to take a look?”
“Uh, no. Not really.”
“Why not?” He put a hand on the freezer door. “Lots of nice things.”
She was looking at him strangely now. She was afraid of him now. And she ought to be. They all ought to be.
“No,” she said, as she took a sliding step toward the doorway to the living room, “seriously, the olive oil is all I need. Hey, look, I’d better get going. I’ve got stuff on the stove.”
He almost did it. Almost grabbed her by the hair and jerked open the freezer door and made her look. Then he would throw her to the floor and beat her to death, the same way he’d beaten the whore-bitch waitress who’d been his first kill.
But he couldn’t.
Her disappearance would raise questions. The police would be sure to interview the next-door neighbor. And they would know.
With effort he damped down the fires inside him. He followed her to the front door.
“Hope your recipe turns out okay,” he said.
“Oh, I’m sure it will.” She flashed a nervous smile, keeping her distance. “Thanks a lot. I’ll return this to you ... uh ... tomorrow.”
“The jar’s nearly empty. You might as well keep it.”
“You sure?”
He nodded.
That frightened smile flickered again. “Okay. ’Bye.”
Then she was gone. Rood shut the door and released a long shuddering breath.
He tried to relax, couldn’t. He paced the living room, breathing hard, perspiring freely. Once or twice his glasses threatened to ski off his nose; each time, with a swipe of his hand, he knocked them back into place.
The feelings were strong in him, too strong to be denied. He needed to release them—now, immediately—and there was only one way to do it. Only one.
He could not kill his next-door neighbor without risking capture. But he could kill another woman instead. He even knew who it would be.
Flipping open his wallet, he removed the scrap of paper marked with the name and address of the next contestant in the game. He stood staring at it for a long moment.
Previously he had waited longer between kills. He didn’t care for the idea of hurrying the process. That was the way to get sloppy, to make mistakes. He really should wait another week or two.
Yes, Should. But wouldn’t. Couldn’t.
Eyes shut, he watched Miss Melanie Goshen’s lips split as his fists hammered her face. Slowly his fingers moved, squeezing air, as in his mind he fondled the soft mounds of her buttocks. His tongue clucked at his lips as he imagined himself licking her wet secret parts.
He had to play again. And he had to do it tonight.
“And so,” Franklin Rood breathed while a grin like a grimace warped his face, “let the game begin.”
From a cabinet under the kitchen sink he removed a package of modeling clay. He set the bag down on the counter, then put on a pair of thin rubber gloves. It would hardly be a good idea to chance leaving impressions of his fingerprints m the material as he worked it.
He opened the bag and tore a hunk of soft brown clay off the large mass, then modeled it quickly, expertly, with his nimble hands. First the general shape of the beast—four limbs, two wings, beaked head. Then the subtleties of musculature and texture. With a pencil point he etched ruffles of fur into the creature’s hindquarters and suggestions of feathers into the wings. Last he pushed the pencil gently into the head on each side, creating two small black holes that passed for eyes.
Normally he would have let the sculpture dry overnight, but this time he could not wait that long. Heat would harden the model faster than air alone.
Rood placed the clay gryphon on a baking sheet and slid it into the oven. While he waited for it to bake, he consumed the chicken pot pie, barely noticing the taste.
Finally he tested the model with a spoon and judged it done. The clay was no longer soft and yielding, but rock-hard. With oven mitts he removed the baking sheet. He let the figure cool for half an hour.
Then he picked it up and studied it in the light of the overhead fluorescents. He admired the stylized simplicity of the artwork. A lovely thing. His best work so far. Any woman would be proud to have it. But it was not meant for just any woman.
“For you, Miss Wendy Alden,” Rood whispered. “Only for you.”
7
At five o’clock the communications department began to empty out. Most of the writers headed off to the Avenue Saloon across the street, where they often went after work. Nobody asked Wendy to join the group, not because she wasn’t liked, but because she’d turned down such offers so many times in the past. She always said she just didn’t care for bars—the noise, the swirl of smoke and people, the harsh, raucous atmosphere—and all of that was true enough; but the deeper truth was that she was afraid to go along, afraid to be part of a crowd, afraid the others would gang up on her, taunt and jeer, make her feel ridiculous. The fear was irrational—of course it was—but she felt it anyway.
Well, none of that mattered tonight. Tonight she had something better to do. She was going to see Jeffrey ... and when she did, she would be wearing her new gold necklace.
She lingered in the office till five-thirty, fiddling with a paragraph that didn’t need fixing, then left the office clutching the shopping bag with the necklace inside. The elevator carried her to Level A of the underground parking garage, where she fetched her Honda.
She drove west on Santa Monica Boulevard, turned south at Beverly Glen, and hooked west again on Pico, heading into the glare of the setting sun. The predicted Santa Ana condition had developed on schedule; moisture had vanished from the air, and the breeze through her open window had the rough sandpapery feel of a desert wind. The night wouldn’t be hot, but it would be dry; before bedtime she would have to apply Vaseline to her lips and splash cold water on her face to relieve her burning eyes.
Just past the intersection of Pico and Overland, she eased the Honda into a curbside parking space. She switched off the engine, then sat behind the wheel, summoning her courage.
Slowly she opened the shopping bag, removed the small cardboard box inside, and took out the necklace. It gleamed, catching the last light of day. With trembling hands she hooked it around her neck. She felt its weight on her breastbone, the coolness of the metal against the bare skin of her throat.
&nbs
p; Her heart was beating fast—fluttering, almost. Her mouth was dry. She was a little dizzy.
Tilting down the rearview mirror, she studied her reflection, the band of glittering gold plates ringing her throat. So glamorous. So daring.
And it’s mine, she told herself proudly. I saw it, I wanted it, I bought it. Just like that. Totally on impulse. Didn’t even stop to think. Not much, anyway.
She hoped Jeffrey liked it. She hoped he said all the right things—how lovely the necklace looked on her, how well it set off her hair and eyes, how bold she’d been to have made such a costly purchase. She hoped ...
A hand shot through the open window and closed over her arm.
Wendy whipped sideways in her seat and came face to face with the man leaning in through the window. It was only Jeffrey.
“Oh, Jesus,” she hissed. She let her head fall back on the headrest while she fought to catch her breath.
“What’s the matter?” Jeffrey Pellman asked innocently. “Did I scare you?”
“Only enough to put me in cardiac arrest.”
“Sorry.” The grin on his face said he wasn’t. “I saw you sitting there in a daze, and I figured you could use something to wake you up.”
“Oh, thanks. Thanks a bunch.”
His grin faded. “You really are mad, huh?”
“Oh, I ... I guess not.”
She was, though. Scaring her that way had been such a stupid, thoughtless, childish thing to do. And it wasn’t the first time either. Jeffrey was always tricking her, springing practical jokes, messing with her head. Playing games. God, did she ever hate that. But she’d never told him off, just as she could never bring herself to ask Jennifer to turn down the volume on her stereo.
“Am I forgiven?” Jeffrey asked in a tone of voice a shade too sincere to be believed.
No, she wanted to say, but didn’t. Instead she merely smiled—a wan, forced smile, the smile a survivor of a plane crash might summon for the TV cameras—and said, “Forgiven.”
She cranked up the window and got out of the car. Jeffrey was already feeding change into her parking meter. Which, she supposed, was considerate of him.
A moment later he turned, looked her over, and smiled.
“You look nice tonight.”
It was the same thing he told her every time they went out together. The same exact words.
He hadn’t noticed the necklace. Hadn’t even seen it.
“Oh,” Wendy said. “Thanks. So do you.”
She told herself she ought to feel disappointed. She didn’t. She felt nothing. Nothing at all.
Hooking his arm in hers, Jeffrey led her down the street toward a display of cursive letters in red and green neon that formed the words “Mandarin House,” “Chinese Cuisine,” and “Open.” He held the door for her, as he always did.
The Mandarin House was not particularly crowded tonight. A young couple sat at one table, speaking quietly, lost in each other. At the far end of the restaurant, two tables had been butted together to facilitate a gathering of several generations, all talking loudly and more or less simultaneously in fluent Chinese.
Jeffrey selected a table by the front window, with a view of the traffic streaming past the garish neon facade of the Westside Pavilion across the street. He held Wendy’s chair for her, another of his small courtesies, then seated himself. The waiter, smiling nervously and shifting his weight as if in need of a trip to the rest room, took their order for drinks. Wendy asked for an iced tea, and Jeffrey decided on a beer, specifying Heineken to show that he was too sophisticated to drink an American brand.
Once the waiter hurried off, Wendy settled back in her chair, glancing around at the restaurant, adjusting to the place by slow degrees. A bas-relief of a pagoda hung on the far wall. In a corner a brass Buddha prayed for enlightenment under the spreading leaves of a potted fern. Chinese music tinkled like raindrops, rising over the hiss of steam from the kitchen.
“You know,” Jeffrey said suddenly, “I just noticed something.”
Her heart kicked. The necklace. He’d seen it. He’d finally seen it.
“Oh?” she said as casually as possible. “What’s that?”
He cocked his thumb at the ceiling. “The dragon. It’s turned into a fire-breather. I don’t remember that from last time.”
A small, private death took place inside her. Indifferently she lifted her head to the beam ceiling. Yes, Jeffrey was right. The large papier-mâché Chinese dragon, suspended over the center of the room by strands of fishing line, was now exhaling a tissue-paper plume of orange flame.
“A new touch,” she said softly. “Nice.”
All of a sudden her lower lip was trembling. She couldn’t let him see that. She opened her menu and held it in front of her face, feeling like a fool. There was no reason to be so upset. It was only a necklace, for God’s sake. It wasn’t important. Besides, she must have been crazy to think he’d notice. Nobody ever paid any attention to her. If she hadn’t raised her hopes unrealistically high, none of this would have happened. The whole thing was all her fault for being so ... so immature.
“Made up your mind?” Jeffrey inquired after a few moments.
“Almond chicken for me,” she answered, and was relieved to hear that her voice was steady, safely devoid of emotion.
“I think I’ll have the shrimp with lobster sauce.”
Putting the menu aside, she smiled, a calm, easy smile which, she was sure, betrayed no hint of pain. “Whenever we go to a Chinese restaurant, you always order the shrimp with lobster sauce.”
“I’m reliable. Sue me.” He shrugged. “Anyway, I’m too tired to be experimental. This shoot today was murder. Took me six hours, and I still don’t think I got what I wanted. The thing is, I decided to go for a soft-focus look, but I didn’t want to lose too much detail, so ...”
Jeffrey went on telling her about his current assignment, invariably the principal topic of conversation when they were together. He was a freelance photographer who did magazine spreads for a living and more consciously artistic work on the side, some of which had been exhibited at the smaller local galleries. The galleries provided little income, but the magazines, glossy large-circulation publications with exorbitant advertising rates, paid well—well enough to cover the rental of a two-bedroom house in the Hollywood Hills north of the Sunset Strip, a good neighborhood. The house served as both residence and studio; Jeffrey had converted one bathroom into a darkroom, and used the garage for many of his photo sessions.
On assignment he would shoot anything in any style or format desired, but when he worked for himself he limited his medium to high-grain black and white and confined his subjects to the buildings and monuments of the city; “urbanscapes,” he called the results. To get such shots, he often worked in the early morning, when the streets were empty; no human beings could be permitted to clutter up his vision of the city. Jeffrey positively hated photographing people, because with people, he felt, a photographer could not be in complete control. And as Wendy knew only too well, Jeffrey Pellman was a man who needed to be in control.
Maybe, she’d often reflected, it was his passion for control that made him play tricks on her, in order to keep her off balance, dependent on his whim. Maybe—she didn’t care for this thought, but it sometimes came unbidden, especially late at night when she was alone—maybe that was the only reason he’d ever gone out with her. Maybe he liked the way he could dominate her, control the course of any conversation, hold court with no fear of being challenged by a stronger personality with an opinion of its own. Yes. Just maybe.
Their drinks arrived. Jeffrey made an elaborate show of testing the beer with a connoisseur’s wariness, then pronounced it acceptable. The waiter took their order. Wendy asked for an egg roll as an appetizer, followed by won ton soup and almond chicken. Jeffrey chose pan-fried dumplings, hot and sour soup, and of course, shrimp with lobster sauce.
The waiter returned to the kitchen, vanishing through a swinging door into a haze o
f steam and a clatter of pans. Jeffrey resumed his monologue as if there had been no interruption, describing in considerable detail the specific lenses and filters he’d used, even though he must have known that the technical jargon meant nothing to her. Wendy found herself tuning him out. She didn’t think she was being rude; as far as he knew, she was still listening in rapt attention. Anyway, he mainly wanted to hear himself talk. She was merely the wall off which his voice was bounced.
Still pretending to listen, occasionally prompting him with a word or two—“Yes.” “Uh-huh.” “Really?” “Did you?”—she let her thoughts drift back to the gourmet cooking class where she and Jeffrey had met three months ago. Even signing up for the class had been a major accomplishment. She remembered how she procrastinated about sending in her check, desperate to escape the prison of her loneliness even if only for one night a week, yet afraid to commit herself to the unknown. Finally she went through with it. She was proud of herself, although as things turned out she was too much of a klutz in the kitchen to learn much of value.
Jeffrey, on the other hand, mastered each new recipe with ease. He began showing her how it was done; looking back, she supposed he must have enjoyed playing the part of teacher, master, guru, with Wendy herself safely relegated to the supporting role of the humble apprentice at his side.
At the time, she’d been both astonished and flattered by his attention, while the other single women in the class were clearly envious. Jeffrey was trim, tall, certainly good-looking enough. His eyes, half-concealed behind wire-frame glasses, were a pleasing shade of blue-gray. He wore his sandy blond hair in deliberate disarray, as if stressing his indifference to the superficialities of grooming. His wardrobe consisted mainly of dusty jeans and white shirts, often with a sport jacket tossed on, seemingly at the last minute, to suggest the hurried, harried elegance of a successful man on the move.
And beyond all that, he was a gentleman. He opened doors for her, he always picked up the tab, and he had never gotten fresh, had never pressured her to go further than the brief parting kiss they shared at the end of most of their dates. Perhaps he sensed that if he tried coming on to her, if he even suggested the possibility of greater closeness between them, she would be frightened away like a bird launched into flight by a clap of hands.
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