The Third Victim

by Collin Wilcox

  He was conscious of Cathy’s water-borne movement. He felt a slow, lingering finger move down his spine.

  “Hi.”

  “Hi.” He turned to face her. She yawned, at the same time pushing her cornsilk hair back from her face. Her eyes were sleep-swollen. She had the smooth, untroubled, faintly petulant face of a willful child. But the facial musculature, he knew, was misleading. Only the eyes hinted at Cathy’s essence. The gray-green eyes were opaque—inscrutably, covertly watchful. Cathy revealed only what she chose to—when she chose to, to whom she chose.

  “What time is it?” she asked.

  “Eight twenty-five.”

  “We’re up early.”

  “We went to bed early.”

  The full lips curved into a slow, knowing smile. “Yes.”

  For a long, speculative moment they stared at each other. Her lips stirred again, this time mischievously. “I have to go to the bathroom. Don’t go ’way.” She pressed the tip of his nose with a slim, playful forefinger, then slid out of bed. He watched her walk to the bathroom, naked. She moved with a deft, self-sufficient grace, as a model might move crossing in front of the camera. She was compactly made. Her torso tapered to firm, flaring flanks. Her thighs were robustly rounded; her calves thinned down to elegant ankles. Her figure could have come from sturdy peasant stock, refined by later decades of privilege. Her long, shining hair fell almost to the small of her back. She carried her head high, neck arched, chin lifted. It was a confident, almost disdainful pose. Cathy’s ego was completely intact, unassailed.

  A folded newspaper was sailing in slow motion over the redwood fence, plopping onto the bricks. It was the Bulletin, late. He flipped back the bedcovers, slipped into his shorts, got the paper. As he propped himself against the padded plastic headboard, thumping at the pillows, he heard the bathroom door open, heard the rustle of her footsteps.

  “Tarot’s at it again,” he said, pointing to the headline. He watched her come toward him. Her breasts were small, curved close to her torso. Cathy would never sag. She swung her legs together as she slid back into bed. It was almost a dancer’s turn: expressive, economical, effortless.

  “Has he killed someone else?” She was close beside him, their shoulders in intimate contact. Aroused, he felt his genitals stir.

  “No. Not yet. He’s warming up to it, apparently.”

  “He means it, too,” she said softly. “This is what he did last time: wrote that he was going to do it, then wrote that he did it.”

  “That’s how he gets his kicks.”

  “The publicity, you mean?”

  “That’s part of it, probably.”

  “Did he warn both the other two women—the last two?”

  “No. Just the second one.” He quickly scanned the news story. “The first one he apparently murdered before he wrote to the Bulletin. The second time, though, he wrote before he did it. Just like he’s doing now. Jesus—” He shook his head. “He’s way out. Way, way out.”

  “I wonder if he rapes them first.”

  “They’ve never said. The papers, I mean.”

  “Are you sure?”

  He shrugged. “Pretty sure.”

  She smiled again, moving closer. Now her thigh was touching his. Her voice became huskier: “You’re a real Tarot fan.”

  He finished the story, folded the paper neatly, and dropped it on the floor beside the bed. As he did, he glanced again at the bedside clock. The time was almost twenty to nine.

  At twenty to nine, Joanna would already have dropped off Josh at nursery school. She would be on the freeway, heading back downtown. In twenty minutes, she’d be at her job. As he’d turned to the back pages of the Bulletin, following the Tarot story, he’d noticed a half-page Gorlick’s ad: a living-room group featuring “the carved-oak look.” The drawing had been excellent. In a year on the job, Joanna had learned a lot.

  “You’re off again, Kevin.” Cathy’s voice was very low. He felt her breath warm on his cheek. “You’re somewhere else.”

  Still turned half away, he decided to smile. “Everyone’s somewhere else, some of the time.”

  “But not most of the time.”

  He allowed the smile to fade. Cathy had a strong sense of her possessions. Had she ever been a loser?

  “What shall we do today?” She was touching his foot with hers. Now her foot was beginning a slow, sinuous upward tracery. “Why don’t we rent a sailboat? Do you have to go to work?”

  He shook his head. “No. But today’s the day that producer’s supposed to be in town. Dick Wagner. He promised to call me this morning.”

  “At this number?”

  “Yes.” It was, he realized, a half-reluctant response.

  “Maybe we can go sailing after you talk to him.” Her fingers were resting lightly on his stomach, expertly beginning a slow, erotic caress.

  “Maybe.” Inexorably aroused, he turned toward her, to draw her close. With the length of his body, he could feel her body answering his.

  It would be another morning of omelettes and last night’s wine.

  He felt her breasts grow taut against his chest. Now her body’s center was moving with his, beginning the first deep, urgent rhythms of love. Her breathing had quickened, matching his own. Their eyes were closed.

  Last night’s wine…

  The phrase had an evocative lilt. It could be a film title.

  Leonard Talbot impatiently turned to the back of the newspaper, fighting the flapping confusion, finally batting the pages flat. Across the table, his mother stirred, momentarily roused by the rattling. But now she frowned, squinted, and once more dropped her eyes to her bowl, scraping up the last of her milk-sogged cereal.

  He scanned the back-section page. Was it the right number? Had it said page twelve?

  Yes. On the right side, halfway down on the last column? Tarot, Con’t.

  Tarot…

  The newsprint blurred as his eyes lost their focus. At that moment—right now—thousands were reading the same words he was reading. They’d already seen the front-page letter. They knew of the three letters before. And they knew, too, about the women—the other two.

  Everybody knew. It was all before them, printed. As much as he wanted them to know, they knew. The rest they’d never know.

  Until he wanted them to know—until he willed it—they would know no more.

  Know no more…

  The phrase had a hollow, ghostly sound—like a bell tolling in empty night. Like mists rising in darkness over the tangled branch-shapes of silent, steaming swamps.

  Know no more…

  If someone died, they knew no more.

  The logic, therefore, was proven. Ipso, a fact. Full circle. A thought—his thought—created the whole. Because circles were perfect, it was perfection. Ipso.

  Therefore, himself. Perfection.

  He was staring at his mother, watching her wipe at her chin with coarse, thick-knuckled fingers. The fingers moved with awkward, simian stiffness. She’d finished the cereal, milk-slurping. The coffee would be next. Slurping.

  Tarot…

  It was a joke. Because, first, he’d imagined it all. He’d created it first deep inside his brain—secretly, like a story. Or a fairy tale. Or a lie. A long, lingering lie. He’d imagined it all—everything. Nothing could surprise him, or frighten him, or threaten him. Everything was perfection: a round, perfect circle.

  Was it a piston ring?

  Yes. Perfect Circle Piston Rings. He’d seen their ads in magazines.

  His eyes were once more on the newspaper.

  Tarot, Con’t.

  What would happen if the police came? Would that, too, be perfection?

  Yes. He could imagine it. Often he’d secretly pictured the scene: the two blue-uniformed policemen knocking at the door. Therefore, ipso, it would happen as he imagined it. They would ask their questions, and frown, and finally go away. Like a story—a bedtime story, told to others.

  Always to others. For him, there had ne
ver been a bedtime story. Never. Only a dark, wild shrieking in the night. Like the cry of someone dying.

  Tarot…

  He tore a piece of dough from a sweet roll and began rolling it into a small round ball—a soft, doughy peaball, rotating between his fingers. He could flatten it, or shape it into a worm—or eat it. He realized that he was smiling—secretly, slightly smiling.

  Was he smiling at the thought of eating a dirt-crusted worm wriggling down his throat?

  No.

  It was the first joke—the Tarot joke.

  But they didn’t know it was a joke. Therefore, they couldn’t laugh.

  He felt the first sudden shift of a sharp, secret snickering. He was blinking, sitting up straighter, frowning against the stomach-tugging spasm. If he laughed, they would know. The danger would begin. The ever-danger. Nothing could…

  The giggle-bubble was growing—growing. Laughter-bursting. Across the table, her eyes blinked, her eyebrows faltered, her forehead puckered. Attention. Suspicion. Danger.

  Inside his mouth, a small, secret pain-shock stabbed against the laughter-sound. He tasted the salt of blood, blinked his eyes against tears. The laughter was stifled—and the giggle-bubble. Everything. It was his secret: the knot of tooth-gnawed scar-mass, inside his mouth. When the blood came, the laughter stopped. Ipso.

  The blood…

  What would happen if the police came for him and talked to him and questioned him—and then forced open his mouth?

  If they saw the scar-knot, would he tell them its reason? If they asked—guessed—would he tell them?

  He couldn’t decide.

  If they asked, he wouldn’t know. Couldn’t know. Yet other things he could know. And the police, too. They could know. If they guessed, they could know.

  “…be late, Leonard.” It was his mother’s voice, hardly audible. He dropped the tiny dough ball beside his plate. For a moment he stared at the plate smeared with remains of his breakfast. He drew a long, cautious breath, testing himself. Yes. It was safe. He could raise his eyes, look at her—even smile, without laughing. Because today she must never suspect him. Today they would all be watching. All of them. All day long. Today it was beginning. Therefore, he would smile at her—without laughing. Today he must be careful.

  He was smiling at her. It was another sign. Mere months ago, he’d been unable to look at her without helpless revulsion. His soul had gagged at the sight of her. He’d vomited, inside. But now he could smile—smile.

  As he rose slowly to his feet, he began thinking of something to say to her. Because, before he left, he must smooth away the danger of her frown. She must again become a lump, before he could leave her.

  Joanna glanced at the clock as she dipped her pen into the India ink. Four and a half hours remained until deadline—take away lunch. Three and a half hours. She slowly began inking the lightly penciled outline of the chafing dish. It would take an hour, at least, to finish the dish itself. The louvered screen and fabric swatch would take another hour, plus the background wash. With no interruptions, she’d finish in time. But interruptions were chronic. And, so far, the day had been a disaster. First there’d been the knife, lying on the hallway floor like some poisonous metallic talisman—like an obscene memento from some evil, mysterious cult. Then there’d been Tarot’s letter, warning his third victim. Finally, the last straw, there’d been the car. She’d been unable to start the car. Last night, coming home, the car had acted strangely, hesitating on hills, losing power. This morning, after she’d ground the starter forever, the motor had caught only once—then died. Finally the battery had quit. Desperate, she’d gotten her next-door neighbor, Mrs. Ferguson, to drive Josh to his day-care center. Mrs. Ferguson disapproved of divorce. Therefore, in exchange for every favor Mrs. Ferguson had rendered during the past two months, she’d extracted a frowning, pinched-nose penalty, claiming the privilege of a full five-minute lecture on modern morality and parental responsibility. So when Mrs. Ferguson, already the morning’s martyr, had offered to pick Josh up that evening, Joanna had declined. Somehow, she’d manage.

  She drew back from the sketch, squinted, frowned, then began crosshatching the chafing dish’s big wooden knob. The sketch was figured for three-to-one reduction, so the crosshatching must be medium coarse. Otherwise, the details would drop out. It was slow, meticulous work—exacting, exasperating. But she was good at it. For as long as she wanted the job, the ad manager had said, she could have it. Very few retail advertising artists, he’d continued, had her background and training. Then, having already said too much, he’d caught himself, embarrassed. Because, with her training—her talent—most artists would be illustrators, not forty-hour-a-week hacks. They’d be working in four colors, selling to the magazines and the ad agencies, earning five hundred dollars a picture.

  Her talent…

  Yes, she had talent. And experience, too. For ten years, technically, she’d been a professional artist. She’d sold her first painting at age eighteen, ten years ago. Success had seemed certain. In Cleveland, she’d been a phenomenon: a prodigy, one of her teachers had proclaimed. By the time she was twenty, he’d assured her, she’d be ready for New York. The “main event,” he’d called it. His name had been Dunninger—Herb Dunninger. He’d been a broad-chested, aggressively virile man in his middle forties who expressed himself in athletic metaphors. But whenever Dunninger got drunk, he made bleary passes at delicate young men.

  Ten years…

  In Cleveland, she’d been a prodigy. Yet in the years since, she’d sold only six paintings. Total revenue, deducting gallery commissions, eight hundred dollars.

  In the main event, she’d failed.

  For her twenty-first birthday, her father had given her a one-way ticket to New York, and a check for a thousand dollars. She’d discovered later that he’d borrowed the money. She’d started bravely on her life’s great adventure, leaving Cleveland the day after Christmas, seven and a half years ago. Taking her mother’s advice, she’d gotten a room at the Manhattan “Y”—a private room, for fifty dollars a week. It had seemed an enormous sum, a twentieth part of her thousand dollars. She’d arrived in a blizzard, with a single suitcase and a bulging portfolio of watercolors under her arm. The oils, on canvas, had been packed separately. Her father had carefully crated the oils. He’d worked a whole weekend, he’d told her. When she’d left Cleveland, both her father and mother, with their separate spouses, had come to the airport. It had been a sad sight, somehow: four aging, ill-at-ease well-wishers, all of them strangers.

  On her first full day in New York, December the twenty-seventh, she’d started making the rounds of the galleries, proudly clutching the portfolio. She’d felt very much the bright, brave young artist, about to conquer New York. She’d been—

  A brisk knock sounded on the flimsy door of her cubicle. The entire door vibrated.

  “Come in.” She glanced at the clock, then at the sketch. Only the wooden knob was finished.

  Tom Southern was standing in the doorway, arranging his lean, graceful body in its most engaging pose.

  “I’m late for a buyers’ meeting,” he said, “so I’ll have to be brief. How about dinner tomorrow night?” He was smiling easily, tugging one colorful cuff into precisely the proper prominence. Each gesture projected a posed sense of negligent self-confidence.

  She frowned. “What’s tomorrow? Wednesday?” Looking at his improbably handsome face, she suddenly realized that she’d never liked Tom Southern.

  “Right. Wednesday.” He moved the cuff back an inch, consulting an elaborate watch. “Come on, ducks, yes or no. We can arrange the details later. Like tomorrow. I’ve got this meeting now, then a salesman’s taking me to a martini lunch. Then there’s another meeting, for God’s sake.”

  She realized that she was smiling at him. Did the smile look as false as it felt?

  “All right. Fine. Tomorrow. Thanks, Tom.”

  His long, playfully dolorous expression mocked her. His eyes sought hers with a smi
ling, quizzical intimacy. He cocked his head, as if he were appraising a so-so acting performance. “By tomorrow, ducks, I hope you can muster a little more enthusiasm. Remember—” He paused, expertly dropping his voice to a lower, sexier register. “Remember, we’re eating in—at my place.” He languidly pushed himself away from the door frame, smiled, flapped a casual hand, and left.

  She sat motionless, staring at the closed door.

  Remember, we’re eating in.

  She picked up the pen, dipping it deliberately into India ink.

  Tom was very punctual, very precise in his sexual scheduling. When they’d first gone out to dinner, he’d said that they’d “do it again, in a couple of weeks.” And tomorrow night would be precisely two weeks—their anniversary.

  Remembering that night, she felt blood rising to warm her face. How long had it been since she’d blushed? Had she blushed that night, when they’d returned to her apartment?

  No. She hadn’t blushed. She’d cried.