Zoe Kohler brought morning coffee into Mr. Pinckney’s office. He was behind his desk. Barney McMillan was lolling on the couch. She had brought him a jelly doughnut.
“Thanks, doll,” he said; then, with a grin, “Whoops, sorry. Thank you, Zoe.”
She gave him a frosty glance, went back to her own office. She could hear the conversation of the two men. As usual, they were talking about the Hotel Ripper.
“They’ll get him,” McMillan said. “Eventually.”
“Probably,” Mr. Pinckney agreed. “But meanwhile the hotels are beginning to hurt. Did you see the Times this morning? The first cancellation of a big convention because of the Ripper. They better catch him fast or the summer tourist trade will be a disaster.”
“Come to Fun City,” McMillan said, “and get your throat slit. The guy must be a real whacko. A fegelah, you figure?”
“That’s the theory they’re going on, according to Sergeant Coe. They’re rousting all the gay bars. But just between you, me, and the lamppost, Coe says they’re stymied. They had a police shrink draw up a psychological profile, but you know how much help those things are.”
“Yeah,” McMillan said, “a lot of bullshit. What they really need is one good fingerprint.”
“Well …” Mr. Pinckney said judiciously, “prints are usually of limited value until they pick up some suspects to match them with. You know, there hasn’t been a single arrest. Not even on suspicion.”
“But that guy in command—what’s his name? Slavin?—he keeps putting out those stupid statements about ‘promising leads’ and ‘an arrest expected momentarily.’ It’s gotten to be a joke.”
“If he doesn’t show some results soon,” Mr. Pinckney said, “he’ll find himself guarding a vacant lot in the Bronx. The hotel association has a lot of clout in this town.”
Then the two men started discussing next week’s work schedule, and Zoe Kohler began flipping through her morning copy of The New York Times. The story on the Hotel Ripper was carried on page 3 of the second section, the Metropolitan Report.
The murder of Jerome Ashley, the third victim, had been front-page news in all New York papers for less than a week. Then, as nothing new developed, follow-up stories dropped back farther and farther.
That morning’s Times had nothing to add to the story other than the mention of the first cancellation of a large convention directly attributable to the crimes of the Hotel Ripper. The story repeated the sparse description of the suspect: five feet five to five feet seven, wearing a black nylon wig.
But below the news account was an article bylined by Dr. David Hsieh, identified by the Times as a clinical psychologist specializing in psychopathology, and author of a book on criminal behavior entitled The Upper Depths.
Zoe Kohler read the article with avid interest. In it, Dr. Hsieh attempted to extrapolate the motives of the Hotel Ripper from the available facts, while admitting that lack of sufficient data made such an exercise of questionable validity.
It was Dr. Hsieh’s thesis that the Hotel Ripper was driven to his crimes by loneliness, which was why he sought out hotels with their dining rooms, cocktail lounges, conventions, etc. “Places where many people congregate, mingle, converse, eat and drink, laugh and carry on normal social intercourse denied to the Ripper.
“Solitude can be a marvelous boon,” Dr. Hsieh continued. “Without it, many of us would find life without savor. But there is this caveat: solitude must be by choice. Enforced, it can be as corrosive, as a draft of sulfuric. To be wisely used, it must be sought and learned. And the danger of addiction lingers always. A heady thing, solitude. An elixir, a depressant. One man’s triumph, another man’s defeat. The Hotel Ripper cannot handle it.
“Solitude decays; mold appears; loneliness makes its sly and cunning infection. Loneliness rots the marrow, seeps through shrunken veins into the constricted heart. The breath smells of ashes, and men become desperate. The police call them ‘loners,’ making no distinction between those who eat alone, work alone, live alone and sleep alone by choice or through the grind of circumstances. Some desire it; some do not. The Hotel Ripper does not.
“There is a fatal regression at work here. It goes like this: Solitude. Loneliness. Isolation. Alienation. Aggression. In the penultimate stage, the happiness of others becomes an object of envy; in the final, an object of rage. ‘Why should they … ? When I … ?’ The Hotel Ripper is a terminal case.”
Zoe Kohler put the newspaper aside and stared off into the middle distance. Try as she might, she could not recognize herself in the portrait drawn by Dr. David Hsieh.
Something new was happening to her. She had heretofore never sought to deny her responsibility for what had been done to those three men. She had planned her adventures carefully, carried them out with complete awareness of what she was doing, and reviewed her actions afterward.
She, Zoe Kohler, was the Hotel Ripper. She had not disavowed it. Never. Not for a minute. Indeed, she had gloried in it. Her adventures were triumphs. And the notoriety she had earned had been exciting.
But now she was beginning to feel a curious disassociation from her acts. She felt cleft, tugged apart. She could not reconcile the lustful images of the Hotel Ripper with the gentle memories of a woman who said, “Darling. Darling. Darling.”
On May 6th, a few minutes before 6:00 P.M., Zoe Kohler entered the office of Dr. Oscar Stark. There were two patients in the reception room, which usually meant a wait of thirty minutes or so. But it was almost an hour before Gladys beckoned. The nurse led her directly to the examination room.
Zoe was weighed, then went into the lavatory with the wide-mouthed plastic cup. She handed the urine sample to Gladys and sat down, sheet-draped. Dr. Stark came bustling in a few minutes later, trailing a cloud of smoke. He set his cigar carefully aside.
“Well, well,” he said, staring at Zoe. “What have we here? A new hairdo?”
“Yes,” she said, blushing. “Sort of.”
“I like it,” he said. “Very fetching. Don’t you like it, Gladys?”
“I told her I did,” the nurse said. “I wish I could wear a feather-cut. It’s so youthful.”
“Maybe I should get one,” the doctor said.
He pulled up his wheeled stool in front of Zoe, warmed the stethoscope on his hairy forearm. She let the sheet drop to her waist. He began to apply the disk to her naked chest and ribcage.
“Mmp,” he said. “You didn’t run over here from your office, did you?”
“No,” Zoe said seriously, “I’ve been in the waiting room for almost an hour.”
He nodded, then felt her pulse, something he rarely did. He took the examination form and clipboard from Gladys and made a few quick notes. The nurse bent over him and pointed out something on the chart. The doctor blinked.
Gladys wheeled up the sphygmomanometer. Stark wrapped the cuff about Zoe’s arm and pumped the bulb. The nurse leaned down to take the reading.
“Let’s try that again,” Stark said and repeated the process. Gladys made more notes.
The doctor sat a moment in silence, staring at Zoe, his face expressionless. Then he took the blood sample and set the syringe aside.
“Gladys,” he said, “that big magnifying glass—you know where it is?”
“Right here,” she said, opening the top drawer of a white enameled taboret.
“What would I do without you?” he said.
He hitched the wheeled stool as close to Zoe as he could. He leaned forward and began to examine her through the magnifying glass. He inspected her lips, face, neck, and arms. He peered at the palms of her hands, the creases in her fingers, the crooks of her elbows. He scrutinized aureoles and nipples.
“What are you doing that for?” Zoe asked.
“Just browsing,” he said. “I’m a very kinky man. This is how I get my kicks. Zoe, do you shave your armpits?”
“Yes.”
“Uh-huh. Open the sheet, please, and spread your legs.”
Obediently, e
yes lowered, she pulled the sheet aside and exposed herself. He tugged gently at her pubic hair, then examined his fingers. He had come away with a few curly hairs. He inspected them through the magnifying glass.
“Why did you do that?” she asked faintly.
He looked at her kindly. “I’m stuffing a pillow,” he said, and Gladys laughed.
He handed the glass back to the nurse and began breast palpation. The pelvic examination followed. Ten minutes later, Zoe Kohler, dressed, was seated in Dr. Stark’s office, watching him light a fresh cigar.
He blew a plume of smoke at the ceiling. He pushed his half-glasses atop his halo of white hair. He stared at Zoe, shaking his big head slowly. His pendulous features swung loosely.
“What am I going to do with you?” he said.
She was startled. “I don’t understand,” she said.
“Zoe, have you been under stress recently?”
“Stress?”
“Pressure. On your job? Your personal life? Anything upsetting you? Getting tense or excited or irritable?”
“No,” she said, “nothing.”
He sighed. He had been a practicing physician for more than thirty years; he knew very well how often patients lied. They usually lied because they were embarrassed, ashamed, or frightened. But sometimes, Stark suspected, a patient’s lies to his doctor represented a subconscious desire for self-immolation.
“All right,” he said to Zoe Kohler, “let’s go on to something else … Are you on a diet? Trying to lose weight?”
“No. I’m eating just the same as I always have.”
“You weigh almost four pounds less than you did last month.”
Now she was shocked. “I don’t understand that,” she said.
“I don’t either. But there it is.”
“Maybe there’s been some mistake,” she said. “Maybe when Gladys—”
“Nonsense,” he said sharply. “Gladys doesn’t make mistakes. All right, here’s what you’ve got … Your pulse is too rapid, your heart sounds like you just ran the hundred-yard dash, and your blood pressure is way up. It’s still in the normal range, but very high-normal, and I don’t like it. These are all signs of incipient hypertension—all the more puzzling because low blood pressure is a characteristic of your disease. That’s why I asked if you’ve been under nervous or emotional stress.”
“Well, I haven’t.”
“I’ll take your word for it,” he said dryly. “But it presents us with a small problem. A slight dilemma, you might say. You’re still taking your salt tablets?”
“Yes. Two a day.”
“Do you have any craving for additional salt?”
“No, not particularly.”
“Well, that’s something. The menstrual cramps continue?”
She nodded.
“Better, about the same, or worse?”
“About the same,” she said. “Maybe a little worse last month.”
“You’re due—when?”
“In a few days.”
He set his cigar aside. He leaned back in his chair, laced his fingers across his heavy stomach. His china-blue eyes regarded her gravely. When he spoke, his voice was flat, toneless, without emphasis.
“If you were under stress,” he said, “it might account for the higher blood pressure. That would be, uh, of some concern in a woman with your condition. Increased stress—even a tooth extraction—results in higher cortisol secretion in the normal individual. But your adrenal cortex is almost completely destroyed. So if you are under stress of any kind, we should increase your cortisone intake to bring your levels up to normal.”
“But I’m not under stress!” she insisted.
He ignored her.
“Also, while under stress, a higher amount of sodium chloride is required so that your body does not become dehydrated. You haven’t been vomiting, have you?”
“No.”
“Well, we’ll have to wait for the blood and urine tests to come back from the lab before we know definitely that we have a cortisol deficiency. I saw minor signs of skin discoloration, which is usually a sure tip-off. A decrease in armpit and pubic hair is another indication. And there’s that weight loss …”
“But you’re not sure?” she said.
“About the cortisol deficiency? No, I’m not sure. It’s the high blood pressure that puzzles me. Cortisol deficiency should be accompanied by lower blood pressure. The small problem I mentioned, the slight dilemma, is this: Ordinarily, for patients with high blood pressure, a reduced or salt-free diet is recommended. But the nature of your disease demands that you continue to supplement your diet with sodium chloride. So what do we do? For the time being, I suggest an increased cortisone dosage. What are you taking now?” He flipped down his glasses, searched through her file on his desk. “Here it is—twenty-five milligrams once a day. Is that correct?”
“Yes.”
“When do you take it?”
“In the morning. With breakfast.”
“Any stomach upset?”
“No.”
“Good. I’m going to suggest you take another dose in the late afternoon. That will give you fifty milligrams a day. You may not need it, but it won’t do any harm. Try to take the second dose with milk or some antacid preparation. Sometimes the cortisone affects the stomach if it’s taken without food. You understand all that?”
“Yes, doctor. But I’m running short of cortisone. I need another prescription.”
He pulled a pad toward him and began scribbling.
“While you’re at it,” Zoe Kohler said casually, “could I have another prescription for Tuinal?”
He looked up suddenly.
“You’re suffering from insomnia?”
“Yes. Almost every night.”
“Try a highball just before you go to bed. Or an ounce of brandy.”
“I’ve tried that,” she said, “but it doesn’t help.”
“Another dilemma,” he mourned. “Ordinarily, with insomnia, I’d reduce the cortisone dosage. But in view of your weight loss and the other factors, I’m going to increase it until the lab tests come in and we know where we are.”
“And what about the salt pills?”
He drummed his blunt fingers on the desktop, frowning. Then …
“Continue with the salt. Two tablets a day. Zoe, I don’t want to frighten you. I’ve explained to you a dozen times that if you take your medication faithfully—and you must take it for the rest of your days, just like a diabetic—there is no reason why you can’t live a long and productive life.”
“Well, I’ve been taking my medication faithfully,” she said with some asperity, “and now you say something’s wrong.”
He looked at her strangely but said nothing. He completed the two prescriptions and handed them to her. He suggested she call in four days and he’d tell her the results of the blood test and urinalysis.
“Please,” he said, “try not to worry. It might be hard not to, but worry will only make things worse.”
“I’m not worried,” she said, and he believed her.
After she had gone, he sat a moment in his swivel chair and relighted his cigar. He thought he knew the reason for the higher blood pressure. She was under stress, moderate to severe, but certainly acute enough to require an increase in corticosteroid therapy.
She had lied to him for her own good reasons. He wondered to what possible pressures this quiet, withdrawn, rather emotionless woman might be a victim. It wasn’t unusual for female patients with her disorder to experience a weakening of the sex drive. But in Zoe Kohler’s case, he suspected, the libido had been atrophied long before the onset of her illness.
So if it wasn’t sexual frustration, or an emotional problem, it had to be some form of psychic stress that was demanding a higher cortisol level, burning up calories, and setting her blood pounding through her arteries. He felt like a detective searching for a motive when he should be acting like a physician seeking the proper therapy for a disorder that, un
treated, was invariably fatal.
Sighing, he dug through Zoe Kohler’s file for the photocopies he had made at the New York Academy of Medicine when Zoe had first consulted him. She had just come to New York and had brought along her medical file from her family doctor in Winona.
Stark thought that Minnesota sawbones had done a hell of a job in diagnosing the rare disease before it had reached crisis proportions. It was a bitch of an illness to recognize because many of the early symptoms were characteristic of other, milder ailments. But the Minnesota GP had hit it right on the nose and prescribed the treatment that saved Zoe Kohler’s life.
Dr. Oscar Stark found the photocopies he sought. The main heading was “Diseases of the Endocrine System.” He turned to the section dealing with “Hypofunction of Adrenal Cortex.”
He began to read, to make certain he had forgotten nothing about the incidence, pathogenesis, symptoms, diagnosis, and treatment of Addison’s disease.
Her menstrual cramps began on the evening of May 7th, twenty-four hours after her visit to Dr. Stark. In addition to the low-back twinges and the deep, internal ache, there was now an abdominal pain that came and went.
She felt so wretched on the evening of May 8th, a Thursday, that she took a cab home from work, although the night was clear and unseasonably warm. After she undressed, she probed her lower abdomen gingerly. It felt hard and swollen.
She took her usual dosage of vitamins and minerals. And she gulped down a Darvon and a Valium. She wondered what physiological effect this combination of painkiller and tranquilizer might have.
She soon discovered. Soaking in a hot tub, sipping a glass of chilled white wine, she felt the cramps ease, the abdominal pain diminish. She felt up, daring and resolute.
She had been watching the hotel trade magazine for notices of conventions, sales meetings, political gatherings. It appeared to her that the activities of the Hotel Ripper had not yet seriously affected the tourist trade in New York. Occupancy rates were still high; desirable hotel rooms were hard to find.
The Cameron Arms Hotel on Central Park South looked good to her. During the week of May 4-10, it was hosting two conventions and a week-long exhibition and sale of rare postage stamps. When she had looked up the Cameron Arms in the hotel directory, she found it had 600 rooms, banquet and dining rooms, coffee shop, and two cocktail lounges, one with a disco.
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