The Blade This Time

by Bassoff, Jon

  I feared that if I returned to my spot outside of Turner’s apartment, the cops would find me, so I kept walking, keeping my head down, removing my yellow jacket to be less conspicuous. I wandered down Broadway, ducking into shoe stores and electronic shops and eateries along the way. Down to 84th Street I walked, and there I saw a little bookstore called Rizzoli’s, so I went inside and ambled through the rows and rows of shelves stuffed full with books. A mousy little woman with gray hair tied in a bun asked if I needed any help and I said no, and she disappeared and it was just the books and me.

  I pulled down a Balzac and then a Faulkner and then a Hemingway. I sat down on a creaky little chair and read for a while—I’m not exactly sure why—and then returned the books to the shelves.

  A man wearing a suit and glasses, his black hair slicked straight back, moved past me, grabbed a battered copy of Death on the Installment Plan, and hurried away. I was about ready to return to the streets, to return to Turner’s apartment, when I noticed, on the bottom shelf, a book I’d seen before. The little black bird with hands reaching toward it. The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett. The book the mayor had recommended. You remind me a little of Charles Pierce, he’d said.

  I squatted down and grabbed the book. Then I started flipping through the pages. I looked through the book twice, but didn’t see the name. I shook my head and muttered under my breath. Then, on the third time through, I found him. He only appeared for a short while in a little story within the story. I read it twice, just to make sure. Here’s what I remember: It’s about this fellow named Flitcraft. The way the detective, Spade, tells it, he lived a comfortable suburban lifestyle and worked a nine-to-five job as a real-estate agent. He had a pretty wife and a couple of kids. He owned his house and his car and played golf in the afternoon. He was living what might be called the American dream. Then one day he disappeared. He just walked out of his real-estate office and never came back. No one knew what became of him. His wife hired Spade to find him. For a long time, he had no luck. He’d really disappeared without a trace. But years later, Spade did find him. He was living in a town (very similar to the one he’d run from) just an hour or so away. Flitcraft tells Spade why he’d left behind his comfortable life. It all started on his way to get lunch when he’d had a near-death experience: a beam falling from a nearby, unfinished building had landed inches from where he walked. As he realized how close he’d come to death, he quickly reevaluated everything. Having lived a life of order and responsibility he now realized that none of it mattered. He decided to start over, to try to find meaning in a new life. So he got in his car and left. Left behind everything. His wife, his kids. His job. His life. But what’s interesting, what’s strange, is the new life he’s created. He’s now living under the name of Charles Pierce, but everything else is the same. He has a pretty wife and an adorable baby. He owns his house and his car and plays golf in the afternoon. He’s living the American dream. The parable ends: “He adjusted himself to beams falling, and then no more of them fell, and he adjusted himself to them not falling.”

  When I finished reading, I felt a strange sense of dread choking my windpipe.

  You’ll live it again, the mayor had said. You’re doomed to.

  Without thinking, I stuck the novel in my back pocket and headed toward the front of the store. The mousy storeowner asked if I had found everything I was looking for and I nodded my head. Then I returned to the streets and readied myself to kill Turner.

  CHAPTER 23

  As if destined by the devil himself, it was the same group of loud, obnoxious, fur-wearing women who once again allowed me to enter Turner’s building and sneak up the elevator unseen. Well, not entirely unseen. One of the ladies (she with the sequined dress, costume pearls, and flower hat), watched me as I maneuvered through the lobby, but the gaze was accidental and with no alarm. I was just an ordinary tenant come home after a long day in the office.

  I reached the penthouse floor and stepped out of the elevator. I walked across the black and white linoleum, my feet echoing across the floor. I reached Turner’s apartment and rapped gently on the door. He was still at work, I knew that, but I wanted to make sure. No answer, no stirring inside. I reached into my pocket and pulled out the key. Then, with steady hands, I unlocked the door and stepped inside.

  * * *

  I strode to the office and concealed myself behind boxes and cartons, body pressed tightly against the door. It was here I would wait until Turner returned home and the time of reckoning was at hand.

  And it was a strange situation waiting, waiting, and it wasn’t too late to change my course, to leave the apartment and return to the street, my hands still dry of blood, my soul still fluttering with life. But the witches had made their prophecies in the fog and filthy air, and so I waited with bated breath, my own salvation hanging by a strand of spider’s silk.

  No sounds at all, not even my breath; no gashes of light, not even the moonlight. It made no difference if my ears were covered, made no difference if my eyes were opened or closed. I might have slept, I might have dreamed. These things are difficult to know for sure. Occasionally, I heard Leider’s faint whispers warning me that I was making a grave mistake, but I mumbled funeral prayers and soon the tormenting ceased.

  Time passed—but how long?—and I was beginning to worry that Turner might never show, that he had been tipped off by one of the fat ladies, that he had been saved by Claire Browning, when I heard footsteps from outside and the front door creak open. My stomach tightened and my heart thumped loudly in my rib cage. I pressed my ear against the wall, and I could hear Turner shuffling through the hallways. And here’s what’s funny, here’s what made me grin behind my yellow fingers: he thought he was alone; he didn’t know that he was a dead man.

  How badly I wanted to end my personal torment and burst through the closet door and sink the knife into his breast, but I knew that would be a mistake, that too many things could go wrong, like him overpowering me, or me losing my nerve, or the knife slipping from my hand. No, I needed to wait until he was asleep, then the act would be simple, and the suffering would be minimal…

  Some time passed, and I could hear the sound of dishes clattering, could hear the sound of the refrigerator opening and closing. He was in the kitchen eating dinner, and I wondered what his last meal would be. Twenty minutes or less and he was finished. I could hear him placing the dishes in the dishwasher. Then his footsteps in the hallway, moving slowly toward the office. The light switched on and my eyes blinked into focus.

  It was terrible waiting, and now I could hear Turner fumbling through the desk, removing the secret drawer. He was a bad boy and he needed his fix. A smile snaked onto my face, and I thought about how people sure were funny, doing the same thing over and over again, even when it leads to our destruction. Our reasons for living end up being our reasons for dying.

  He sat at his desk and stared at the photographs of the deformed and the destroyed, and he couldn’t help himself, his cock swollen in his fingers, his arm lurching back and forth. And after a few minutes that familiar groan, and I wondered if he was smothered with guilt or if his thoughts quickly turned to his plan to mutilate Claire as well…

  And then his footsteps moving past me, and then the light extinguished. I huddled alone in the darkness, my breath heavy, my heartbeat rapid. I figured that it must be nearing seven o’clock, or maybe even eight o’clock—it was hard to tell. I would wait until I was absolutely convinced that he was asleep and then I would step from the closet and begin the slow walk to his bedroom. Two o’clock. That’s the time I decided on. The loneliest hour of the day. And the time most familiar with death.

  But I had no watch, so how to keep track of time? By counting. 60 seconds in a minute; 3,600 seconds in an hour. So six hours from now would be around 21,000 seconds. I had to be patient, had to be disciplined.

  1, 2, 3, 4…

  I kept counting.

  422, 423, 424…

  I kept counting.
>
  948, 949, 950…

  I kept counting.

  3,254; 3,255; 3,256…

  Sometimes I’d lose my place and have to guess where I was. Occasionally my concentration was interrupted by my own wayward thoughts or the sound of Turner’s footsteps on the hardwood. But still I remained hidden. At some point I heard his voice, a thick Long Island accent. He must have been talking on the phone, but I couldn’t make out many of the words he was saying. Was he speaking to Claire? Was he making her promises while he dreamed of her mutilation? Oh, lovely Claire:

  Your beauty is as deep as the sea

  (But watch out when I peel skin from thee)

  Our souls together is God’s will

  (And I shall lap and lick the blood you spill)

  I kept counting.

  6,327; 6,328; 6,329…

  But don’t you know that this type of anxiety causes mental distress? I needed a respite so I squeezed my eyes shut and tried with all my might to recall a memory, any memory at all, but all I could see were blurry images, each one more disturbing than the last: a slumbering woman, dressed only in a virginal nightgown, her arms extended, her throat exposed; a dog-faced devil, his body red and orange and yellow, his torso a grotesque face; a decrepit old man consuming his own baby, his jagged teeth devouring the infant’s tender chest; a moaning young man strung upside down, his skin flayed inch by inch, a raccoon lapping the blood…

  My eyes opened and I shook my head, trying to rid myself of the images. My head ached, my body trembled.

  And I reached 10,000.

  The house was quiet, and I wondered if Turner was already asleep. But I couldn’t take that chance. I needed to be certain.

  My eyes were getting heavy and I had to struggle mightily not to give in to sleep. I knew that sleeping—for however short a period—was far too reckless. I removed Leider’s knife and began jabbing myself gently whenever I felt myself falling asleep.

  Despite my best efforts to remain alert and on guard, the combination of fatigue and anxiety dampened my senses. The images became more and more terrible, more and more vivid, and on several occasions, I was unable to differentiate between my fantasies and reality. I also heard Leider whispering to me in the form of queer riddles. If the glass shatters, can we piece it back together? I’ll need your help here, Mr. No Name. And what about the hydrochloric acid? I didn’t use it to process leather, I’ll tell you that much! We should get rid of it, don’t you think? Hide it beneath the floorboards? The constant barrage of meaningless mumbling became infuriating. While rationally I knew that his voice had become my own, it was so convincing that I was reduced to a trembling coward of a man, pulling myself to the fetal position, gnawing on the webbing of my skin. Fear can do strange things, I am here to tell you.

  I returned to my counting.

  * * *

  And then the time was at hand. I opened the closet door carefully, clenching my teeth as it groaned. The apartment was wholly dark—no hall lights were on—and I worried that I would trip and fall over something, therefore waking up the devil. I stood in the office for a few minutes, blinking, hoping that my eyes would adjust to the blackness. Eventually, I believed that I could see the vague silhouette of his desk, but I couldn’t be sure.

  Cautiously I moved, keeping my hands in front of me like a blind man. Slow going, but I finally reached the edge of the room. My hands felt along the wall, groping for the frame of the door. When I finally found it, I stepped too quickly and bumped my shoulder into something hanging on the wall. If I hadn’t have reached out with my hand, the frame (was it a photograph or a diploma of some sort?) would have fallen to the ground, glass shattering across the hardwood. Holding my breath, I grasped the frame and leaned it against the wall.

  I continued walking, hands groping, and now I was in the hallway. I closed my eyes and pictured the setup of the apartment, visualized where the coatrack was, where the furniture was. The knife was now in my hand, the same blade that Leider had used to kill Anthony. Strange that something so cheap could end a life so easily. But maybe life itself was just as cheap; maybe life itself was just as disposable.

  I crept farther along, moving along the walls, avoiding the china hutch in the dining room, until I was just outside of the bedroom. Eyes twitching, I fingered the door frame and gazed inside the room. The curtains were open and light from the city shone through the window, giving my eyes a respite from the dark. I could see a clock on a wall, but I couldn’t see the hands. His shoes were placed neatly at the foot of his bed, clothes folded on his chair.

  Turner lay on the bed with his back toward me, his right arm cradling his head. With the glare of city light I could see his shoulders heaving up and down, could see his foot twitching beneath the blanket. I could hear the clock ticking and the heavy breath of slumber. I wondered if he was dreaming, and if he was, if they were pleasant dreams. One thing is certain: he had no awareness that death watched him from the corner of the room, that he was taking his final breaths, that soon he would be sucked down to the blast furnaces of hell.

  But killing a man is not a simple act and I could feel the doubts suffocating my breath. I squatted down against the wall, keeping my eyes focused on Turner’s prone body. I placed the knife on the floor and pulled back my hair with my hand. I couldn’t do it, couldn’t do it, couldn’t do it. I would rise to my feet and tiptoe out the apartment, and Dan Turner would never know how close his miserable life had come to ending.

  But Claire! What would become of Claire?

  The vile images from the photographs flashed before my eyes, and then I pictured him standing in Claire’s apartment with a glass vial full of hydrochloric acid, heard her terrible screams echoing in my skull…

  No, it couldn’t happen. I couldn’t let it happen. Beauty like hers was as rare as painite and needed to be preserved. Depravity like his was as common as slate and needed to be destroyed. I picked up the knife and rose to my feet and took a step forward and then another step.

  And then it was as if I was watching a stranger from up high. I watched him move closer and closer until he hovered over the sleeping man. The knife hung from his hand, shimmering in the city light. He placed his hand on the victim’s shoulder and squeezed, and now Turner stirred, mumbled some nonsense. The room suddenly smelled of mildew and rot, and the killer shook Turner some more. Now his eyes fluttered opened, and when he saw the figure looming over him, he released a dread-filled moan and quickly sat up in bed.

  “She’s not yours to have,” the killer said, and then with his forehand he pinned Turner’s chin upward, exposing his throat. He slid the knife across the soft throat, and the blood came fast, reddening the blade and spilling onto Turner’s designer pajamas. For a moment, Turner didn’t seem to show any awareness of the violence, and he remained still, his eyes shut, his jaw clenched. But then his eyes flew open and they were coated with terror. He grabbed at his throat, and the blood seeped through his fingers, and he was gasping and gurgling and dying, dying, dying.

  The killer took a step back and then another one and the bloody knife was still in his hand. He watched as Turner yanked the sheets from the bed, creating his own shroud and then toppled onto the floor. With animalistic desperation, he managed to pull himself across the floor like a slug, move to within inches of the killer’s foot, before his breath ceased and his body stilled.

  And now I was screaming, but the scream was silent, and I was covering my ears with my hands, so afraid of what I’d just done, of who I might be.

  I left him there, a dead man, and staggered out of the apartment and into the hallway. Nobody was awake but me, and as I stepped into the elevator, the tears filled my eyes, but I smothered them before they fell down my cheeks.

  * * *

  Outside the sky was a terrifying black, and across town Claire stood at the yellow window, staring into the darkness, and now she removed her black veil and touched the glass with her finger. And as the sirens whined and the lonely cried, she mouthed her true
love’s name, but his hands were covered with blood, his eyes were haunted by death, his heart was flayed by the world.

  PART FOUR: BETRAYAL

  CHAPTER 24

  In the days that followed, I didn’t see Claire at her window. I didn’t hear from Max Leider, either. Each day I picked up several newspapers and scoured through them all, looking for some mention of Turner’s death, but there was nothing. I began to breathe easier.

  It was the end of the month and my rent was due. I used the remaining cash from the gallery owner’s advance and paid the albino. My funds were dwindling fast.

  I didn’t paint anymore. My portrait of Claire had been the only painting I needed to create, and now that it was finished, there was nothing left for me to do. So I sat in the apartment waiting.

  If I was really honest with myself, what I wanted to do was return to Claire’s apartment. I wanted to show her the painting. Then she’d understand.

  But I didn’t dare. It was too early.

  * * *

  Nighttime, the end of January, and I couldn’t sleep. I lay in bed, staring at the strange shadows on the wall. Outside I could hear the drone of the traffic and the cries of the wounded and the mournful tune of a muted trumpet.

  In the nightstand were an old package of Kent’s and a book of matches. Leider must have left them behind. I didn’t smoke, but I had the sudden urge. I yanked one out of the package and stuck it in the corner of my mouth. Then I lit it. The smoke burned my lungs and felt good. In the corner of the room, next to the mirror, my eyes adjusted to Leider’s self-portrait. I suddenly had the strange notion that he was watching me, tracking my sins. I jerked my head so the portrait was out of my field of vision.