Portrait of the Psychopath as a Young Woman - Edward Lee.wps

by phuc

  Johnny about shit his shorts. Might as well be wearing a FUCK ME sign. But she was throwing him for a loop; he wasn't used to girls who came right out with what they wanted. "I'm the D.C.

  scout for the William Morris Agency," he lied. "Screenplays, novels with film potential, that sort of thing." This line always got them going, seemed every cooze in town had some pipedream idea like, "I tried writing a novel a long time ago," or "I've always had this great idea for a movie," after which Johnny would ask about it and act like it was hot stuff, and then he could say something like, "Get it down on paper and I'll send it to our people in New York." Yeah, always got them going, a great in, a great way to exploit their makeshift dreams for the gain of his Eight Inch Wonder.

  But this girl didn't seem to care.

  All she said in response was, "Sounds like an interesting job. I'm a masseuse."

  Masseuse? he thought. Some job.

  "I give good back rubs," she said.

  Johnny had to lean against the bar, not because he was drunk, but because her looks were turning his knees to jelly. Back rubs, he thought. Masseuse. Jesus. She looked like she'd been poured into her gray designer jeans. Up top she wore a light black jacket over a transparent black blouse.

  When she reached for her glass of wine, Johnny could see it all in the jacket's sharp V: tits big and firm as grapefruits; dark, erect, robust nipples. This peach is gonna get the Johnny Duff fuck over to end all fuck overs, he avowed to himself. Gotta giant jizzer for my baby tonight.

  "I guess we all have some things, you know, little obscure things about ourselves that we're especially proud of."

  "Sure," Johnny concurred. Who knew what the fuck she was talking about? Little things?

  Johnny's got a big thing that you can take care of just fine, he thought. And a couple of rocks that need a bigtime draining. I'm gonna come so hard in your box my spooge'll be shooting out your nose. "You're right. A lot of times it's the little things we do that mean the most."

  She smiled. She sipped her drink. She recrossed her legs and said, "It's getting late, isn't it?"

  "Yeah," Johnny drifted more than spoke.

  Another smile, another sip.

  The perfect teeth gleamed.

  The perfect press of her perfect breasts shone darkly through the transparent black blouse.

  "Yeah," he repeated.

  Her beauty was knocking him out: the call of her flesh, and the heady lust, like a silent litany instilled into his blood by the reckoning of her parts, and the whisper, a spirit, as one perfect thigh slid across the other, and the perfume, an angel's presence, in her angel's hair, all a bright light, a simmering blinding blaze in his face. And then her eyes. Those big blue green gray neverblinking eyes.

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  Chapter 24

  (I)

  Spence let the day die behind his back. Past midnight he was still in his office; it never occurred to him to go home. All day, and as headquarters changed shifts at 11 p.m., Spence had remained behind his desk, reading and rereading every word Kathleen Shade had written for '90s Woman.

  He couldn't say he was engrossed. Shade proved a talented wordsmith and analyst; her "Verdict"

  column over 50 entries since she'd been hired instead cast Spence out in some vague cryptic alienation. It was more than the psychical differences between men and women, but something impartially, and simply, human. Had Spence been a woman, in other words, he felt certain the barren alienation would remain.

  That, and the sheer lack of answers to the teeming question. The relative common denominator the nascent. The word itself seemed cryptified too, more so than his own hollow feelings.

  Not one single "Verdict" entry involved sexual abuse, delusional behavior, or psychiatric illness.

  Almost all, instead, responded to interpersonal relationship problems: infidelity, incompatibility, jealousy, divorce, estrangement, etc. No link whatsoever that might shed light on the killer's solicitation of Kathleen Shade. Impulsively, Spence snatched up the phone, punched in Simmons'

  home number. He did not apologize for calling so late, nor did he even first identify himself when Simmons answered. Instead Spence merely said: "It's not here."

  "What's not?" Simmons inquired.

  "The nascent."

  "Ah," Simmons replied at once. "The christening of the icon. Your keystone is eluding you, eh?

  Or are you eluding yourself?"

  Spence didn't quite know what he meant, but it sounded like one of the good doctor's discreet implications. Was it Spence's maleness that obscured his perceptions? Or, conversely, was it that he'd never, ever in his life, been close to a woman? I'm gay, he casually told himself. Was that it?

  He knew less about how women thought than he knew of quantum physics, non Euclidian geometry, the Crimean War. But...

  No, he thought a moment later. It isn't that I'm not seeing something, it's that there's nothing here to see. "I'm not eluding myself," he spoke. "It's just not here."

  "You've read all over Shade's magazine writing?"

  "Yes. All of it. And it's not here."

  "You're quite sure?"

  Spence tried to fully assess the question. "Yes," he said. "And I'm not missing it. It's just...not...here."

  "Hmm," Simmons said.

  "Maybe you should look at it," Spence ventured.

  "Why, Jeffrey? Do you doubt your perceptions?"

  "No."

  "Then what practical use can there be in redundancy? If the nascent is not in Kathleen Shade's magazine writing " Simmons lapsed, chuckled like a whisper. " then it isn't in Kathleen Shade's magazine writing."

  "Thanks. That helps me immeasurably."

  "This killer," Simmons drifted. "This maniacal, incalculable psychopathic murderess... You want her very much, correct?"

  "Yes," Spence said.

  "Dead or alive, correct?"

  "Correct."

  "In fact you want her more than you've ever wanted anything in your life." Simmons' pause seemed like a stone wall. "Correct?"

  Spence closed his eyes, suspended himself in the possibility. Eventually he answered, "Yes."

  "That's quite sad, Jeffrey." Simmons' lax, easy tone changed at once to something almost scolding, or critical. "It's nearly pathetic: that the apprehension of a purveyor of death should be all that you look forward to."

  Spence dwelt on this also. It's true, he realized. It is pathetic. Then he said, "I don't care."

  "Have faith, Jeffrey. There are still investigative avenues for you to plunder."

  "Oh, yeah? Where?"

  "Tomorrow," Simmons said. "Come and see me tomorrow."

  "But I want to know now," Spence dryly pleaded.

  "Go home, Jeffrey. Go to sleep."

  "But I don't want to go to sleep."

  "Good night, Jeffrey."

  CLICK

  Ballbreaker, Spence thought. He drummed his fingers on the blotter. His muscled forearm looked like a bad wax carving in the lamp light. Through the window, he could hear sirens shrieking miles and miles away...

  He grimaced at the stacks of magazines. The nascent isn't here. Period. And if it isn't here, then where the fuck is it?

  His eyes, then, tracked to the window, to the frame of black glass beyond which churned the city, the world.

  And the primeval night.

  (II)

  "I sewed your lips shut," were the first words he heard.

  His consciousness seeped back into his head like slow, steady drips building to a stain, then a puddle, then a pool.

  I'm in hell, were the first words he thought.

  Johnny Duff couldn't move. An etching pain radiated about his face. Low to his right, a small fluorescent tube glowed but that was the only light. The rest of the room if this were a room at all seemed formed of slabs of dark and half dark. The pain flared when he tried to speak, his tongue frantic in his mouth against the fresh, tight stitches, and again he thought: I'm in hell.

  The form blurred, alabaster white swept c
loser.

  "Usually I scrape the eardrums, and glue the eyelids shut too. The energy from every sense I shut down goes directly to the only sense that's left. That's the theory, anyway. I like it."

  I'm going to die, Johnny Duff thought. But the thought was more like a squirming, hopeless flight.

  The soft voice continued from the slablike dark. "In other words, the less Daddy can move, the less he can see, hear, or speak, the more he can feel."

  The white blur blended back.

  To the left, a window hovered. She seemed to be staring out the window.

  He'd been handcuffed to the bed, ankles and wrists. He'd been stripped. He inclined his head against the zipper of pain that was now his mouth, and saw his naked flesh alight on one side.

  And the other side: pure darkness.

  His memory squirmed along with the damped, smothered horror. Eventually, he remembered what sequence of events had brought him to this little cranny of hell: Her heels clicked down the cement ramp of the underground parking garage on l9th, her ass sliding deliciously in the gray jeans. "This is your car?" she asked, surprise in her voice.

  "Sure," Johnny replied in his no big deal tone. He opened her side, let her in. When he was in himself, he gunned the Nissan's OHC V6 Turbo a little, and cruised out of the lot.

  Not much of a talker, he assessed. Good. She sat back in the leather seat, legs crossed. "I like nice cars," she said a little while later. "Wow, even a car phone."

  "Gotta have it, you know. For the job," he lied. "These agents in New York, they don't like to leave messages."

  "I love nights like these," she said.

  Johnny frowned. It was like she didn't even want to hear his bullshit. Most girls went gaga. Who cares? he conceded. I'll be jamming her silly in a few. He could feel his herpes itch, and he smiled. I'll pop a big one for ya, Ditzy.

  He followed clipped directions. Michigan Avenue. Right onto South Dakota. Left onto Bladensburg. Suddenly she leaned over, put her arm around him. "Don't touch me yet, okay?"

  Johnny's brow did a jig. "Okay."

  "You just drive, and I'll touch you, okay?"

  "Whatever you say."

  "I mean, just wait 'til we're there before you touch me, okay? You have to promise."

  Jesus, what a weirdo. "I promise," he said.

  She leaned closer. He could feel her breath on his neck as he took the Nissan through each vacant light. They were heading out of the city. Her perfume baited him; her right hand stroked his legs...

  Then she was kneading his groin through the loose, Savane slacks. Gonna be pitching a tent like Ringling Brothers, Johnny thought, tensing up a little. Kneading, kneading. It was so delightfully lewd: the perfume, the hot breath a half inch from his neck, and her hand working him up.

  Careful you don't tap that geyser, Ditzy. I'm kind of planning on saving it to shoot up your ass.

  Each time he glanced left he could see her gorgeous right breast just sitting there in her jacket V.

  He could see the triangle of her jeans, so tight a gap formed. Johnny was getting hot around the collar. You keep this up, and I'm gonna pull into the nearest alley and bust into that pussy right now.

  This was great. Through the next several traffic lights on Bladensburg, she was actually panting.

  She's feeling my cock through my pants and she's getting hotter than the lid on a pot bellied stove. This would require some special considerations. A chick this good looking, this hot?

  Johnny's gonna have to dream up a special fuck over for Ditzy here, he resolved. I'm gonna rock on this all night. If only he could get her to let him tie her up, then the rest would be cake. She seemed kinky enough; weird girls liked kinky things. He wondered what she was into.

  "Next left," she whispered. Her hand came away. Just in time, he thought. He turned down a dark street, passed a fire station, and rows of dark little houses. Johnny had expected an apartment.

  "You live in a house?"

  "I inherited it from my mother."

  "You got roommates?"

  "No. There's only me."

  So mama's dead, huh? Well that's too bad, 'cos I'd fuck the stuffing out of her too. Any mama that could give birth to a brick shithouse like you deserves only the best. Johnny feigned interest.

  "What about your father?" he asked.

  She stalled.

  Bad move, Johnny thought. Nothing turned a chick's pussy off faster than the wrong question.

  Her old man probably died of brain cancer or something, and I just blew the whole ballgame. But then she said, in a drier voice, "He was never really married to my mother, he just came around a lot. He...left...a long time ago."

  Johnny nodded, pretended to be sympathetic. "My dad ran out on my mother too," he lied, "when I was a kid."

  Now her voice reverted to something close to a croak. "My father...didn't...run out."

  I better get off this subject. "Nice houses," he commented. Actually they were cracker boxes, dumps. "Quaint, cozy."

  "End of the street," she said. "On the right."

  A yellow sign read DEAD END. A burned out streetlight left little to be seen. Her joint, the best he could tell, looked the same as all the others: brooding, run down a little.

  When Johnny pulled the Nissan into the driveway, she took a plastic box out of her purse, an electric garage door opener. "Pull in," she told him as the door groaned to raise. Oh, I'll pull in, all right, Johnny avowed. In and out and in and out But the garage was empty, and he hadn't seen a car in front of the house.

  "Don't you have a car?" he asked.

  "Yeah. I left it in the city."

  "What kind do you have?"

  "A blue Festiva." Suddenly she seemed impatient. "Don't worry about my car. I thought you wanted to fuck."

  That's calling the kettle black. Johnny clammed up. Behind him the garage door shuddered closed.

  "Want some wine?"

  "Love some," Johnny answered.

  Inside looked like something off a David Lynch set. White walls had faded to a dingy yellow in the living room. An old couch and recliner, old green carpet and curtains that looked moth eaten.

  In the corner stood a Philco television that must've been 30 years old, and there was an equally old steepled radio with a big circular lighted dial. Some scrappy late night jazz scratched from the dried monaural speaker.

  Everything's so old, he observed. He could see her getting the wine in the cramped kitchen. A big white enameled refrigerator with rounded corners; a white stove with black burners. No dishwasher, just a rubber sucker mat next to the sink, and a dish rack.

  "So what did you say you did?" he asked just to keep some kind of conversation going.

  "I work in a hospital," she said, her back to him. "I'm a janitor."

  Johnny made a face at the response. Earlier, hadn't she said she was a masseuse? You little liar, you. But...a janitor? The job didn't fit with her looks. Baby, you can mop my floors any time. He was staring into the kitchen. His eyes felt plastered to her ass, and those long, long legs. Only now did he realize how tall she was, maybe six foot. Tall girls're fine as long as they're sleek, he reasoned. He'd fucked over a few who weren't so sleek. Nothing worse than a tall one that's fat.

  Big ass and thighs, big calves, big size 11 feet. Fuck that shit, man. But this peach? Her height only augmented her contours, her trim long lines and curves. Johnny was getting hard again, just looking...

  A tacky old card table stood at the other side of the room, with a typewriter, some stacks of papers, and a couple of magazines. '90s Woman, he noted. Tonight, Ditzy, you're gonna meet a

  '90s man. She reemerged, having poured red wine into juice glasses. "What are you writing?" he inquired, indicating the typewriter.

  "What do you care?" She handed him a glass. "Come on."

  He followed her down the drab hall. She closed a door to her right. "Basement," she said. Johnny smelled something minutely funky. Another door to the left stood open; inside he quickly noticed weights,
a bench, exercise equipment. "You work out, huh?"

  "What do you think?" she said ahead of him.

  Johnny was growing a bit weary of this sudden smart ass tone of hers. He'd be fucking her over soon, sure, but that wasn't the point. Maybe a good smack on the noggin and a few hours of steady ass fucking'll tone down some of that sass, huh, Ditzy?

  "Here's my room," she said.

  Johnny looked past her as she entered. The room didn't jibe either. He'd seen his share of women's bedrooms; they were all the same in ways. There were always frilly pillows on the bed, vanities, makeup boxes, jewelry boxes, shoe racks on the closet door, framed snapshots, prints on the wall. But not here. Weird, Johnny thought very resolutely. Fuckin' weird.