When I was through I shut the door. Perfect. Looking at it from here, you’d never know the closet was really a makeshift coffin.
But I wasn’t finished. I soaked a washcloth and went to work on the carpet where I’d knocked Wellington down. I’d prevented most of the blood seepage, and I rubbed furiously at the foot-wide area trying to remove the stain, or at least blend it into the beige fabric so it wasn’t so obvious at first glance.
I stood back and checked it out. It didn’t look all that bad, only as if someone had spilled a drink and tried to dab it up. I rinsed the cloth, then wiped the wall clean of the minuscule blood specks that had sprayed over it in a two-foot-long arc.
What else? Goddamn it—the telephone. I’d picked it up and held it in my bare hand. I doused the washrag again, squeezed it dry, then went around the bed and swabbed the receiver.
Back in the bathroom I checked myself in the mirror.
Holy fucking shit.
I hadn’t realized it during our to-the-death struggle, but Wellington had succeeded in raking his fingernails across my head. Two of the three marks he’d made were in my scalp, leaving one deep, angry scratch visible on my forehead from the middle of my left eyebrow up to the hairline.
How could I explain that mark to my wife? With a wad of wet toilet paper I washed it clean, then flushed the paper. Vaguely I wondered when I last had a tetanus shot. Damn if I could remember.
Now I had another problem. There was DNA—my DNA—beneath Wellington’s fingernails. What could I do about that? Well, I could go back into the closet and try and clean up the evidence. But how would I know if I got everything? I might just end up making everything worse. And I still had to get out of here. There was that, too.
The main thing was that if my existence wasn’t known to the police, then they couldn’t make a connection between Wellington and my DNA. You’d have to be registered in some genetics databank in the first place, and I wasn’t, not as far as I knew. I was going to have to let that part of it slide.
I stared at my hands. Soft hands, almost effeminate hands, and now they were a killer’s hands. Amazing, that there were no bruises or cuts on them from the brief, violent altercation.
I slid open the closet door and took a last peek at Wellington. Was his skin turning blue? I moved in for a closer look.
I could hardly believe I’d done it. I would never have thought I had it in me. But the way I saw it, I didn’t have much of a choice. Hell, I don’t know that I could have even called it premeditated.
Okay—so what the hell was I waiting for? I looked around for what I might have forgotten and spotted Wellington’s billfold on the bed. I picked it up and deposited it in the inside pocket of my coat.
Anything else? Ah—the photos. Those goddamned, evil photos. They were still sitting there on the footstool where Wellington had dropped them.
I picked up the manila envelope, folded it in half, and stuffed it into another pocket.
Just as I was about to reach for the handle and twist it open with my sleeve, there was a knock on the door.
I froze. What could I do now? I couldn’t very well jump off the balcony, could I?
Whoever was out there knocked again.
Son of a bitch. Trapped.
I had to make a decision. If I opened up, whoever was out there was going to see me. And he might even catch a glimpse of that cut on my head.
But if I didn’t open up, whoever it was might use his passkey and come in anyway. In which case—like if he wanted to look around—there might be trouble. Deep-shit trouble.
I slapped my hat on my head, pulled it low over my forehead to cover the wound, and cracked the door three inches.
“Yeah?”
My visitor was a huge black guy in a gray security guard’s uniform. There was a pissed-off frown on his lips. His eyes narrowed suspiciously as he took me in.
“Everything all right here?”
“Couldn’t be better,” I said, forcing a smile. “What seems to be the problem?”
It was a bold question, but I was gambling on a preemptive strike to disarm the enemy.
“We got a call about some commotion,” he rumbled in a basso. “They thought it might be coming from this here room.”
I made an exaggerated shrug, as if I had no idea what he could possibly be talking about.
“Sorry you had to come all the way up, but everything’s cool here. I’m a little mystified by what the problem is . . .”
“Mm-hmm.” His deep-set porcine eyes darted around whatever interior of the room he could see. “Hear anything unusual yourself?”
I shook my head. “Sorry again. And like I said, everything here’s just fine,” I added.
Finally he seemed mollified. “’kay. We had to check, know what I’m sayin’. We want our guests to be safe and satisfied.”
Instead of slamming the door shut—which is what I wanted to do—I watched the guard lumber off in the direction of the elevator. When he turned the corner out of sight, I let the door fall shut and collapsed back-first onto the bed.
That was close. Too fucking close.
I was oozing sweat from every pore all over again. But a cold shower would have to wait.
After a few seconds I willed myself up and cracked the door again. From the aperture I checked the hall. Empty. Maybe twenty-five, thirty feet to the south was a glowing red “Exit” sign. That was my destination.
I opened the door a little farther and looked both ways. Still nobody.
Behind me I heard the door shut and lock. Panic washed over me again. Had I forgotten anything? I patted my right rear trousers pocket. My wallet was still there, and that was the most important thing. My car keys were in my front pocket. Assuming I’d cleaned up adequately, there’d be nothing to tie me physically to the crime except for my flesh—my unidentified flesh—under Wellington’s nails.
Just as I neared the exit, a porter rounded the corner and nearly slammed into me. He was an Asian guy with bronze skin, and from beneath the brim of my hat I saw him turn his head slightly and glance at me.
Now I had that bastard to worry about, too. I was relatively sure he hadn’t seen me full dead-on, but he might be able to provide some description of me, height, general body type, that sort of thing, later, just like that guard would.
But there was nothing I could do about any of it now.
The stairwell had to go at least seven floors down to the street—or so I hoped. The lower floors in many Manhattan buildings are sealed off for security purposes, so I wouldn’t be sure until I actually made the descent. But I had to at least try that route to the street, since I needed to avoid a trip through the lobby at all costs. Why give people—maybe scores of people—a chance to see and remember me? And what about the security cameras? No doubt, if I’d wandered into their eyes, they’d already recorded the image of a guy of my size and shape skulking around the building. Maybe they’d already recorded me on the way into the hotel today. But who knows, with some luck, maybe my image had been obscured by another body—so why give the lens a second chance?
I flew down those stairs like a freaked-out bird, bouncing and hopping down three at a time in some places. When I reached the door that said “Lobby,” I noticed that the stairwell continued downward—which was what I’d hoped for.
The next floor was 1A, but the steps led even farther into the bowels of the building. I decided to take them as far as they would go.
Floor 1B turned out to be the end of the line. I leaned on the metal door, and when it opened I found myself in a corridor harshly lit by long fluorescent ceiling tubes. At the far end was yet another door, and I could see through the window that it gave out onto a street, where the heads of pedestrians and the roofs of cars were moving to and fro.
There was nobody in the corridor and not a sound to be heard except for the fuzzy hum of
an exhaust fan.
I started toward the daylight. On my left was a double portal marked “Laundry,” and across from it one that read “Team Members,” presumably an employee dressing room or lounge. Resisting the urge to look anywhere but straight ahead, I made for the barrier that separated me from freedom.
I stuck out my arm like a fullback, popped the door open, and found myself on Thompson Street. A greasy sweat still lathered my skin. Never in my life had the cool air of autumn felt so good.
As I hustled north on Thompson I spotted a pair of uniformed cops standing on the corner. I’d never viewed the police as the enemy before, but now the mere sight of blue uniforms had me quaking.
One of them was a muscle-head with a military-style buzz cut. His partner was a young woman, a brunette with thickly braided hair sticking out from under her cap. They were laughing about something. As I got near, they looked lazily in my direction.
I turned on a dime, squeezed between the fenders of two parked SUVs, and darted to the other side of the street. On Grand I hooked a left toward Sixth Avenue. Were the two uniforms watching? I didn’t want to give them any ideas, so I didn’t turn around to check.
I was ecstatic at the sight of my car. I unlocked it, got in, and for a moment or two just slumped there in a daze.
What the hell have I done?
Maybe strangling Wellington had been a dream, another bizarre neurotic symptom of the sort that had made me go out and walk on the edge in the first place, or maybe like a person harboring a brain tumor, I was sick and had just imagined the whole thing.
Because killing someone wasn’t me at all. I hadn’t planned it—it had been the furthest thing from my mind when I went to meet Wellington.
I looked down at my hands—they were quivering like dried-out leaves in a stiff wind. In the merciless light of day, they suddenly looked like the hands of an old man. I peered into the rearview mirror, and sure enough, there was that angry purple-red crevice of raw meat carved into my forehead.
No—this was no dream. I was in deep trouble.
Or was I?
Maybe I’d be one of those guys who got away with it.
Maybe the strange case of Norman Wellington would be one of those riddles that turned up now and then on a TV show like Cold Case Files or City Confidential. I’d have to live with the guilt of having committed murder, but if I didn’t get caught, that was okay. It beat the alternative, which was being locked in a cage for the rest of my life. I could always tell myself that I hadn’t meant to do it, and that was actually the truth. I didn’t know what the hell had gotten into me, and that was the truth, too.
A car horn blared, which catapulted my ass twelve inches out of the seat. I looked over my left shoulder. A guy in a Honda Accord was motioning to me with his right hand—was I going to vacate or was I just going to sit there daydreaming?
I turned the ignition over and pulled out.
Now where was I supposed to go?
I must have made a turn or two because I found myself on the West Side Highway, heading toward the Lincoln Tunnel. I tried to keep my mind on the traffic, but it was damned near impossible. More than once I heard the angry blast of a horn when I drifted over the white line into the adjacent lane.
By the time I slipped into the mouth of the tube, I’d given up trying to think where I could escape to. In the end there was nowhere to go but home.
17.
But before heading back to Essex Fells, I had to get rid of those photos.
I didn’t want the envelope sitting for even a few hours around the house, where Monica or Diane might stumble across it. I could just see their faces as they watched me get it on in freeze-frames with a mysterious young woman in an anonymous hotel room. Some revelation that would be. Hell, I didn’t even want to stash them in the carriage house with the other stuff—they were way too hot. And at the end of the day, despite the fact that I could stare at myself making love to Gretchen forever, there was no point in keeping them.
Then there was the other thing—Wellington’s billfold. I reached into my pocket, pulled it out, and dropped it onto the passenger’s seat. I popped open the glove compartment and slid it into the deepest corner of the space, behind the owner’s manual, registration, and insurance card, and whatever other junk was in there. I’d have to remember to lock the compartment when I got out of the car. For the time being I’d leave it there, until I decided where to dump it, and I wanted to dispose of it far from the photos. Since this was one vehicle Monica never came near, it would be okay.
I was back in Jersey, driving west on Route 3, and I was just now starting to get a grip on myself. The sight of the gas stations, the malls, the fleabag motels, the fast food joints, all made me feel like I was part of the world of the living again. Even after committing mayhem, the mind gropes and grasps for normality. You start thinking of the stuff, the little stuff, that makes life livable: What’s for dinner. That night’s TV lineup. What you have to do tomorrow.
I switched on the radio, punched the AM button, and listened to a pair of voices talking about the National Football League. It made me feel even better. The topic of the day was the New York Giants and how they’d won their last four games, and how they had to be considered a legit Super Bowl contender if their defense held up. As a Giants fan, I found myself nodding in agreement.
The sweat had finally dried on my body, but a dull, mean headache was forming inside my temples. Suddenly I remembered going out a couple of years ago with Monica and Diane to the Meadowlands Environment Center to observe the wildlife. The place was a little off the beaten path—as much as anything can be off the beaten path in a conurbation of twenty-five million people—and decided that maybe somewhere back there would be a good place to get rid of the photos. After all, they say Hoffa’s body had been dumped in the general vicinity, and it had never been found.
I passed the somnolent football stadium and the racetrack and took the Lyndhurst exit off the highway. Within minutes I found myself steering past a Quality Inn and into a quasi-industrial park lined on both sides by international corporate headquarters and service plants. I followed the signs for the Environment Center.
I rolled into the parking lot, which was unoccupied except for two or three cars near the building itself, slipped into the very last space, and shut off the ignition. The wide black waterway of the Meadowlands basin looked cold and forbidding. It was as good a place as any to do what I had to do.
I took the envelope out of my coat pocket and spread it over my lap. Then I pulled out the photos and began tearing them into halves and quarters and eighths. I gathered the little pieces together and shredded them all over again, until they were nothing but a pile of confetti. Let someone try and paste that mess back together!
But I wasn’t kidding myself—the camera that shot them was somewhere I didn’t know. Same with the computer that stored them. And for all I knew, the cockroach that took them had already printed out a second copy. Maybe his wife, if he had a wife, was sitting on them at home.
But at least it made me feel better to destroy the ones Wellington had tried to blackmail me with. And now I was going to get rid of them forever.
I got out of the car, locked it, and pulled my coat collar around my throat. On the eastern horizon the battleship-gray clouds were gathering in bunches—a truly autumnal scene, enough to make you feel cozy if you hadn’t just crushed the life out of someone.
I strolled out on the wooden pier that faced the skyline of Manhattan and pretended to be looking for waterfowl on the flyway to Mexico and South America.
I checked over each shoulder. I had the pier all to myself, which was exactly the way I wanted it.
I reached into my coat pocket and grabbed a fistful of mangled paper. I brought it out and dropped the evidence over the railing.
Then I did it again. After I’d released every last shred, I lingered awhile and
watched them float away and sink slowly into the choppy, impenetrable tide.
18.
“What in the world happened to your forehead?”
Monica had set out dinner, a ready-made selection of items like Asian rice and curry chicken from the organic supermarket. She and Diane were at the table, staring at me, mouths open, when I walked into the dining room. They hadn’t been at home when I got in, and in the meantime I’d taken a long shower and changed into a sweatshirt and khakis. I’d even applied a glob of Monica’s makeup to the mark Wellington had left on me, but it must have still shown through.
The damned thing was throbbing painfully, too, and I’d already downed four Advils to try and take the edge off. Nevertheless, I couldn’t very well hide in my study all evening long, and so I was ready for the question.
“Walked into a door at the office—can you believe that? I was coming, and the other guy was going.”
“Ouch,” said Diane, continuing to gawk at me.
Monica shook her head. She’d had her fair share of freak accidents over the years, tripping off a curb and breaking her ankle, slipping on the stairs and nearly cracking her skull open, so she could relate. She also thought—because I’d told her—that I’d been at Oriole that day, working on a new ad campaign, instead of in the city killing Norman Wellington.
“Do you think maybe you should see Canas?”
Anthony Canas, our family physician.
“Nah, it’s not that bad,” I scoffed, flinching inwardly at the notion that the wound was still so conspicuous despite my efforts to cover it up. Canas would know in a New York second that a cut that vile hadn’t come from any wayward door.
“It’s nothing but a little scratch. I’ll live.”
“You’d better be more careful, dear,” she advised, her brow furrowed with concern, even a bit of incredulity.
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