The door to the house swung open and the supermarket lady was illuminated by the light from within. She seemed like a fairy princess to Martin, in her long flimsy robe, her soft brown hair falling to her shoulders in waves.
“Richard?” she called out, thinking that her husband had returned unexpectedly. A puzzled, suspicious look came over her concerned face, and she took a few tentative steps into the garage.
“Richard?” she called again. She walked a little further, then, realizing how she was dressed, brought her arms up to her chest in protection. Martin was frozen, trying to calm his shaking hands and holding his breath until he thought he would burst. The woman looked up and down the driveway. Martin could see a bit of flesh protruding from the sleeve of her robe. Afraid that he might be visible, he tucked his feet under the car.
The woman seemed satisfied that her husband had not returned, and although mystified by the open door, she turned to re-enter the house. Still curious, she looked up at the mounted device as if trying to decipher the cause. She made a movement toward the corner of the room where Martin was hiding, but then realizing how foolish it would be of her to try to repair the faulty device, she suddenly rushed to the opened door and pushed the button that lowered the garage door. As the big door rumbled closed, Martin breathed a sigh of relief, under cover of the loud noise. The woman stood for a moment in the darkness after the door had lowered and then turned, slamming and locking the house door behind her.
After a few minutes’ wait, Martin made his move. He slipped around the station wagon and approached the door to the main house as quietly as possible. First he tried the knob, although he knew she had locked it. Then he pulled out his burglary kit and went to work on the lock with one of his small tools. He felt delicately for the tumblers, and soon he heard their reassuring click. He tried the knob. It responded to his touch.
The door swung open quietly, and Martin peered into the darkness of the cellar hallway. He padded down the cement floor and found a laundry room containing an avocado-colored washer and drier and a wooden rack displaying the woman’s silken lingerie. To the right of the machines there was a huge cement slop sink. The stillness of the cellar was like a tomb. Martin moved on silently through the laundry room until he came to a stairway, which he assumed led to the upper levels of the house.
Martin trotted back to the garage, where he retrieved his knapsack, and then returned to the foot of the stairs.
He took a few deep breaths, trying to calm himself. Then he began his ascent. At the top landing, there was another door. He tried the knob, and it opened easily. Being extremely careful, he swung it open slowly and entered the top level of the house, which led into a kitchen-dining room combination. Martin could make out the shapes of a diningroom table and chairs and an appliance unit under the window. All was still except for the ticking of a clock over the stove. A small night light was on over the sink.
On light cat feet, Martin padded into the room. He looked around the corner of the kitchen door and saw that another hallway led to the livingroom, with its modern glass and chrome tables and leather-covered furniture, a distinct contrast to the old structure of the house. He slowly crept through the livingroom, avoiding the furniture in the darkness as carefully as possible. At the base of the stairway to the bedrooms, Martin prepared himself with only the shadows as observers. He pulled his hypodermic out of the sack and loaded it. Then he pulled out a large towel and his little leather kit of instruments. He set them neatly on the carpeted bottom stair. Falling back into the shadows again, he removed all his clothes. He folded them neatly and placed them at the bottom of the stairway as well. The faint sound of a late-night TV variety show filtered through the stillness. An occasional peal of laughter from the audience, a commercial jingle, some ripples of applause wafted through the air to Martin’s sensitive ears. A naked explorer clutching his gear, Martin started to climb his own peculiar mountain.
Like a Roman gladiator, he was faced with three closed doors to the lion’s den. He traced the sound of the television to the room at the farthest end of the hall from the stairs. Suddenly a wild spinning gripped him, and he fell against the wall for some stability.
Visions flashed into his mind—the supermarket lady, her hair soft and billowing, inviting him in with her smile; the woman on the train, her blood-caked arms open wide to accept a naked Martin; a porn queen from one of the trashy magazines at the penny arcade, her face hard and gaudy, her smile more of a jeer, undulating on the fur-covered pillows, the black strips removed from her face and her breasts and her hands running invitingly up and down her thighs . . .
Martin’s head whirled from the visions, each colliding with the other. Finally the spinning stopped, and a slight nausea overtook him.
Gathering up his strength, he charged at the bedroom door and flung it open. The deafening sound of the TV show hit him like a crashing wave.
To his utter surprise, a bearded young man rolled off the supermarket lady, leaving her in mid-orgasm. The man’s face froze in fear, and the woman let out a blood-curdling scream. Martin stood in the middle of the room. His naked body shook with anger.
“Hey . . . what the hell!” the bearded man said, regaining his composure.
“Who are you?” Martin lashed out like a snake. “What are you doing here?”
“Oh, my God, he’s crazy,” the woman warned in the background. “Be careful, Lewis. He’s crazy . . . oh, my God,” she moaned.
“What are you doing here?” Martin repeated. “What are you doing here?”
The bearded man started to straighten himself out on the bed. He wanted to free himself from the sheets so that he could be ready to move.
“All right,” he said soothingly to Martin. “Listen.”
“What are you doing here?” Martin shouted, his eyes flashing like a madman’s. “What are you doing here?” He had lost all control. An energy gripped him beyond all human capacity, and he flung himself at the bearded man with startling speed. His screaming rage propelled him against the still-confined man. He knocked the man over and into the woman as if he were a bowling ball hitting a set of pins. Their bodies sprawled all over the bed, arms and legs entangled in one great heap. Martin managed to roll on top of the man and plunged his hypodermic all the way to the hilt into the bearded man’s side. The plunger sent a load of serum coursing into the man’s bloodstream.
The woman started to babble almost incoherently:
“Oh, my God . . . oh, Jesus . . . he’s a crazy man . . . Lewis, be careful . . . please . . . what do you want . . . please, don’t hurt us . . . please, leave us alone . . . oh, my God, Lewis . . .”
Martin was like a wounded animal, eyes rolling, saliva drooling. “What are you doing here?” he ranted and raved.
Lewis was involved in pulling the submerged needle from his skin. Finally, he managed to dislodge it.
“Holy shit . . . what the . . . what’d you gimme?” he mumbled as the drug took effect. “What was in that?”
Enraged that the man was still able to speak, Martin fell upon him with his fists as if the man were a rag doll. His punches fell randomly and wildly but managed to hit their mark. The woman, pinned beneath the struggling bodies, began to mutter again.
Martin’s punches were unformed, like a weak woman’s, but he threw them with such frequency that they were effective.
With each punch he threw, he chanted his deadly liturgy:
“What are you doing here? You’re not supposed to be here! You’re not supposed to be here!”
The man made a valiant attempt to fight back, but his arms felt as if he had hundred-pound weights tied to them. He felt as if he had no strength left in his biceps and was shocked to see that Martin’s light weight could pin him down. Martin’s fists pounded like pistons, bloodying the bearded man’s mouth and nose.
The woman cringed under the weight of their bodies, crying out in semi-paralyzed fright, “Oh, God, he’s going to kill us . . . Oh, my God . . . my God . . . Lewis,
do something . . . oh, please . . . please don’t kill us. Lewis, he’s going to kill us . . .”
The bearded man finally was able to get a grip on Martin’s face with his hands. He started to push the anger-contorted face away, but Martin’s fists continued to beat and his hold on Martin’s face was broken once or twice. Finally, Lewis was able to push his thrashing body from the top position, but he needed all the strength he could muster. Martin rolled onto the woman, who was totally fear-stricken and was no use to her battling but rapidly weakening lover. The supermarket lady could only scream and babble louder, nearly drowning out the still-laughing audience on the blaring TV set.
Like a mad dog, Martin bared his teeth, yellow eyes gleaming, and lunged at the man again. Lewis managed to get a grip on his wrists to prevent Martin from swinging, but the injection had begun to take hold, and the man’s strength slipped from him as if he were suddenly stabbed by a knife. He tried to straighten himself up from his position kneeling on the soft mattress, while still holding Martin’s wrists, but the drug made him lightheaded, and it was all he could do to stay conscious. Reeling slightly, one of his knees slipped off the bed. In that moment, Martin was able to break his hold, and he leaned back against the bloodstained, tangled bedclothes. As if biding his time, he relaxed and glared at the man. The man returned a bleary, dazed look.
The woman managed to prop herself up and started her babbling again, “Oh, my God, Lewis . . . what’s the matter? Lewis, what’s the matter!” she cried out frantically.
“He shot me with something,” Lewis managed to mumble. “What . . . what was it?”
The man staggered back and forth like a puppet on a string. He tried to stand still at the foot of the bed. Fear entered his eyes like a flash of lightning. Martin scrambled up close to the headboard, and the woman reacted with a cringe.
“Oh, Jesus,” she called out. “What is it? My God! You’re crazy. What is it? What is it? Lewis?”
The bearded man staggered a few steps backward. Martin’s eyes locked to his like a vise. The woman miraculously gained some presence of mind and tried to scramble off the bed, but Martin caught sight of her from the corner of his eye, and lunged for her. She opened her mouth to scream once again, but Martin managed to clasp his hand over her mouth, using all his strength. She fought back by biting and kicking but it was to no avail. At the sound of a crashing lamp, both Martin and the woman paused in their struggling to see Lewis staggering against a little nightstand. The delicate lamp with its ruffled shade and porcelain base tumbled with the other knickknacks and perfume atomizers that had been displayed on the nightstand top. The woman watched with frightened eyes as her lover tried to support his rubbery body against a wall.
Martin watched expectantly as the man weakened. He bit his lip, waiting.
“Oh . . . Jesus . . . please . . . tell me,” Lewis moaned. “What is it? Did you kill me? What is it?”
Absolutely no emotion showed on Martin’s face. It was as if he were watching a movie as the flickering lights from the TV set danced across the man’s body. He repositioned himself on the bed and tightened his grip on the woman’s head. With his back to the headboard, he pulled her almost onto his lap. With one hand he held down her hands. The woman’s movements seemed to have stopped; she was mesmerized by the sight of her lover, a weak and faltering rubber doll, as the drug finally conquered him.
Martin looked at Lewis calmly. The bearded man’s face turned red with rage and with what little strength he had left he was able to spit out a curse through clenched teeth, “You crazy motherfucker . . . what the hell was in that needle? You crazy motherfucker . . . you crazy . . . mother . . . fu . . .”
With a last spasm of energy, the man fell against the foot of the bed. Like a hurdling bundle, the weight of his upper torso fell on the bed and caused it to bounce. The woman took advantage of the opportunity to try and free herself from Martin’s grasp. Martin tightened his grip on her mouth, and red welts formed on her cheeks from the pressure.
Suddenly, Lewis looked up. His eyes met Martin’s. Beads of sweat had formed all over his face. His eyes were like a frightened deer’s right before the hunter pulled the trigger. Martin stared back in stony silence. His eyes were without sympathy, without any recognition of human suffering. The bearded man’s body went limp, and he slid to the floor, settling into a pitiful heap.
The late night show was over, and the station had stopped transmitting. A faint electronic hum filled in the spaces between the woman’s labored breathing. Gradually, she began to regain some strength. She started to murmur, but the fear still paralyzed her. Her whining was muffled by Martin’s hand. She squirmed, trying to break his grip, but he only tightened it. His eyes had not moved from the point where the bearded man had slipped from view.
Suddenly, a quivering hand reached up and fell back up onto the bed. Martin and the woman waited with baited breath—each, for his or her own reason. The woman became hypnotized by the faint movement. It was her only hope. The muscles in the forearm of the drugged man tightened, and it appeared as if he were coming back to life. But then the arm faltered, and the hand flopped around on the bed as if it were a beached fish. The hand moved again, this time followed by the bearded man’s face as he managed to pull his body up and onto all fours. He moved away from the bed. Martin’s luminous eyes scanned the room and lighted on a small, light blue princess phone on the dresser. Martin toyed with the idea of intervening before Lewis reached his destination, but then he figured that the serum would be more effective and waited patiently for it to take its toll.
Lewis managed to pull himself a few feet closer to the phone. The woman, also realizing her lover’s objective, started to squirm as if to help him. She tried to call out, but Martin’s viselike grip prevented her from uttering a sound.
Lewis’s arm reached out for the phone. His fingers could almost feel the cord, they were so close. He dragged his body nearer and nearer, then with one great quiver, his body fell stiff.
For one long moment, Martin held the woman against his body. Her eyes rolled back in her head as she tried to see her captor. Huge drops of sweat poured from her forehead, and her hair lay matted against her neck.
“Why was he here?” Martin demanded of his mute prisoner. He glared at the crumpled body of Lewis, a red smear of anger on his face. “Why was he here? He wasn’t supposed to be here.”
With a sudden movement, he flipped himself around and threw the woman back against the headboard. He knelt over her legs, poised. She was finally free of his steel grip but unable to move—totally mesmerized by the lean figure that seemed coiled like a cobra.
“What are you gonna do to me?” she managed to ask. “Please . . . please.”
“Why did you do this?” Martin inquired calmly. “Why was he here? Why do people . . . people . . .”
Suddenly, with a force not his own, Martin punched her in the face. With each punch he screamed, “HURT, HURT, HURT EACH OTHER!”
The woman was stunned. Blood poured from her mouth, and her eyes rolled back in her head, this time uncontrollably, as she passed into semi-consciousness. Martin continued to hit her again and again. She fell on the pillow, her face a mangled mess. He looked down at her, panting like a mad dog and foaming at the mouth. He kept hitting her, and she kept coming back for more as if she were a punching bag and he a lightweight boxer practicing for a fight.
Finally, she fell back against the pillows and could not rise.
Martin took slow measured breaths to regain his strength. After a time, he got off the bed. He surveyed the two limp figures unemotionally and then he looked around the devastated room. The woman’s robe was thrown across a satin-upholstered chair. The man’s clothes were strewn about as if they had exploded off him. His eyes moved from the unconscious, bloody body of the woman and then to Lewis again. Then, he quickly looked for and found his hypodermic needle and left the room.
At the bottom of the stairs, Martin pulled his vial of serum from the knapsack and
loaded the syringe with another dose. He squirted some of it into the air to rid the chamber of its bubble. Then, as if he were expected for a party, he trotted back upstairs.
The woman was just beginning to regain consciousness when he entered the bedroom. She was struggling to lift her upper torso onto her arms. Her thoughts were foggy, and she could hardly believe what was happening to her.
Before the poor woman was able to sit up, Martin was at her side plunging the refilled needle into her arm with a sudden movement. The woman, although already punchy, reacted with pain and fear and fell back into the pillows murmuring and whimpering.
After waiting a minute for the serum to take effect, Martin casually went around the room picking up the man’s clothing as though he were a loyal valet. He gathered up his shoes, socks, pants, shirt, and underwear and put them in a neat pile.
The woman was starting to move toward the phone. She was struggling to the edge of the big bed despite her stupor. Martin noticed her awkward movements, but he knew her attempt was futile and went about his business calmly. He balled the man’s clothing all inside the shirt and tossed the bundle onto the floor near where he lay. Then Martin went over to the nightstand and turned it right side up, replacing the trinkets and knickknacks almost lovingly.
The woman managed to swing her blood-caked legs over the side of the bed. She muttered like a madwoman.
Martin preferred to deal with the lamp, which he tried to set back upright. The lamp base had been bent, so Martin straightened it and restored the lamp to its original position on the tabic. Then he discovered that the lightbulb was broken and gathered up the shards of broken glass.
The woman had gained enough consciousness to be completely baffled by the composed, studied way that Martin cleaned up the broken pieces. She made a final effort to get off the bed, but her weakness overcame her totally, and she rolled off onto the floor. All the while, Martin was completely immersed in his cleanup project.
Very meticulously, being careful not to cut his fingers on the jagged glass, Martin cleaned up the broken bits of the lightbulb and brought them into the bathroom, where he deposited them in the wastebasket.
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