“Please,” she says, “what about a drink? You promised me a drink.”
“I lied,” he says, grinning. “I’m always doing that.”
He begins undressing. He stays between her and the door. He takes off his jacket, unknots his tie, unbuttons his shirt. He drops all his clothes onto the floor.
“Come on,” he says. “Come on.”
She takes off her clothes slowly, fingers trembling. She looks about for a weapon. A heavy ashtray. A table lamp. Anything.
“No way,” he says softly, watching her. “No way.”
She takes off shoes, dress, pantyhose. She drapes them over the back of a chair. When she looks up, he is naked. His penis is beginning to stiffen. He touches it delicately.
“Try it,” he says. “You’ll like it.”
He takes one quick stride to her. He clamps his hands on her shoulders. His strength frightens her. She cannot fight that power.
He pulls the strapless bra to her waist. He pinches her nipples. He strips her panties down, lifts her away from them.
“Bony,” he says, “but okay. The nearer the bone, the sweeter the meat.”
He presses her down. His hands on her shoulders are a weight she cannot resist. Her knees buckle. She flops onto the rug.
“I don’t want to mess the bed,” he says. “The floor is best. Harder. More resistance. Know what I mean?”
It is a whirl, beyond her control. Things flicker. She is swept away, protests stifled. Her puny blows on his head, arms, chest, mean nothing. He laughs throatily.
She squirms, moving by inches toward her discarded shoulder bag. But he pins her with his weight, a hard knee prying between her clamped thighs. He makes thick, huffing sounds.
She continues to writhe, and he strikes her. The open-palmed slap stings, flings her head aside. Her eyes water, ears roar. His teeth are on her throat. His body twists, pressing, pressing …
“What the hell is this?” he says, finding her tampon. He makes a noise of disgust. He yanks it out roughly, tosses it aside.
Then she does what she has to do, telling herself it is the only way she might survive.
Her body stills. Her punches stop. Untaloned, she begins to stroke his shoulders, his back. She moans.
“Yeah,” he breathes. “Oh yeah …”
Her thighs ache. She thinks he will split her apart, rip her, leave steaming guts on the carpet. She feels hot tears, tastes bile.
He ramps and plunges, crying out in a language she does not recognize. His hands beneath her, gripping cruelly, pull her body up in a strained arch.
Eyes shut tightly, she sees pinwheels, whirling discs, melting blood. She wraps herself about him, feeling cold, cold. She endures the pain; within she is untouched and plotting.
His final thrusts pound her, bruise. Her moans rise in volume to match his cries. When he collapses, shuddering, sobbing, she shakes her body in a paroxysm. She flings her arms wide—and her fingertips just touch the leather of her discarded shoulder bag.
She opens her eyes to slits. He props himself up, stares down at her, panting.
“More!” she pleads. “More!”
“Wait’ll I turn you over,” he says, glee in his voice. “It’s even better.”
He pulls away from her savagely; she feels she is being torn inside out. He rolls onto his back, lies supine, chest heaving.
She turns onto her side, onto hip and shoulder, pulling herself a few inches closer to her purse. Digs toes and feet into the rug, moving herself with cautious little pushes.
“Oh, that was so wonderful,” she tells him. “So marvelous. What a lover you are. I’ve never had a man like you before.”
He closes his eyes with satisfaction. He reaches blindly, finds her vulva, squeezes and twists roughly.
“Good, huh?” he says. “The greatest, huh?”
Moving slowly, watching his closed eyes carefully, her right hand snakes into the shoulder bag, comes out with the knife.
“Ohh … I feel so good,” she murmurs quietly.
Stretches up her left arm. Above her head, she opens the big, sharpened blade. She eases it into position so it will not click when it locks. She brings her arms gradually down to her sides. Her right hand, gripping the knife, is concealed behind her.
She sits up, pulling herself closer to him. She puts her left hand on his hairless chest, toys with his nipples.
“When can we do it again?” she whispers. “I want more, Nick.”
“Soon,” he says. “Soon. Just give me a chance to—”
His closed eyelids flutter. Immediately she raises the knife high, drives the blade to the hilt into his abdomen, a few inches below the squinched navel.
She twists the knife, yanks it free, raises it for another blow.
But he reacts almost instantly. He rolls over completely, away from her. He springs to his feet. He stands swaying, hands clasped to his belly.
He looks down at the blood welling from between his fingers. He raises his head slowly. He stares at her.
“You stuck me,” he says wonderingly. “You stuck me.”
He lurches toward her, claws reaching. She scrambles out of his way. She stumbles to her feet. A floor lamp goes over with a crash. One of his grasping hands comes close. She slashes it open with a backhanded swipe.
Roaring with rage and frustration, he blunders toward her unsteadily. Blood pours down his groin, his legs, drips from his flaccid penis. His slit hand, flinging, sends drops of blood flying.
An endtable is upset. An armchair is knocked over. Someone bangs on the adjoining wall. “Stop that!” a woman shouts. Still he comes on, mouth open and twisted. No sounds now but harsh, bubbling breaths. And in his eyes, terror and fury.
She trips over his discarded clothing. Before she can recover, he is on her, grappling close. His blood-slick hand finds her wrist, presses down, turns.
In a single violent movement, the naked blade edge sweeps across her right thigh, opens it up six inches above the knee. She feels the burn. Hot and icy at once.
He tries to force her down, to lean her to the floor. But his strength is leaking out, pouring, dripping, leaving pools and puddles and dribblings.
She squirms from his clutch. She whirls and begins plunging the knife into his arms, belly, face, shoulders, neck. Shoving it in, twisting it out, striking again.
She dances about him, meeting his lunges and stumbles with more blows. His life escapes from a hundred ragged wounds. His head comes lower, arms drag, shoulders sag.
He totters, goes down suddenly onto his knees. He tries, shuddering, to raise his bloodied head. Then falls, slaughtered, thumping to the floor. He rolls over once. His reddened, sightless eyes stare meekly at the ceiling.
She bends over him, hissing, and completes the ritual: throat opened wide, a blade to the clotted genitals again and again.
She straightens up, sobbing for breath, looking with dulled eyes at the butchery. His blood is smeared on her hands, arms, breasts, stomach. Worse, she feels the warm course of her own blood on leg, knee, shin, foot. She looks down. How bright it is! How sparkling!
In the bathroom, she stands naked on the tiled floor. She wipes her body clean of his blood with a dampened towel. She washes the knife and her hands with hot, soapy water. Then, using a washcloth tenderly, she cleans and examines her wound.
It is more than a scratch and less than a slash. No arteries or veins appear to be cut, but it bleeds steadily, running down to form a stain and then a shallow puddle on the tile.
She winds toilet paper around and around her thigh, making a bandage that soon soaks through. Over this, she wraps a hand towel as tightly as she can pull it. She limps back into the bedroom to retrieve Nick’s necktie. She uses that to bind the towel tightly to her thigh.
She dresses as quickly as she can, leaving off her pantyhose, jamming them into her bag. She wipes her fingerprints from the sink faucets. She makes no attempt to mop up her own blood—an impossible task—and leaves the sodden towels on t
he floor of the bathroom.
She dons her coat, slings her shoulder bag. At the last minute, she picks up her discarded tampon from the floor. It is not stained. She puts it into her purse. She takes a final look around.
The punctured man lies slack on the floor, wounds gaping. All his magic is gone, soaking into the rug. He is emptied. Of confidence, brute strength, surging life.
She took a cab from the hotel and was back in her apartment a little after 11:00 P.M. She had worn her trenchcoat, although it was much too warm a night for it. But she feared the towel about her leg might soak through her dress.
It had; the front of her gown was stained with blood. She stripped, gently unwound the towel, pulled the wet paper away. The flow had lessened, but the thin line still oozed.
She washed it with warm, soapy water, dried it, wiped it with Q-Tips dipped in hydrogen peroxide. Then she fastened a neat bandage of gauze pads and adhesive tape. The wound throbbed, but nothing she could not endure.
Only after the bandage was secured did she go into the kitchen and, standing at the sink, drink off a double shot of iced vodka almost as quickly as she could gulp. Then she held out her right hand. The fingers were not trembling.
She took Anacin, Midol, vitamins, minerals, a salt tablet, a Darvon. She poured a fresh drink, took it back to the bathroom. She washed her face, armpits, and douched with a vinegar-water mixture. She wiped herself dry and inserted a fresh tampon. It was painful; her vagina felt stretched and punished.
Then she went into the bedroom, sat down slowly on the edge of the bed. She felt bone-weary, all of her sore, rubbed, and pulsing. Not with pain but with a kind of rawness. She felt opened and defenseless. A touch would bring a scream.
Already her adventure was fading, losing its hard, sharp outlines. She could not limn it in her memory. She had chaotic recollections of noise, violence, and the spray of hot blood. But it had all happened to someone else, in another time, another place.
She went back into the kitchen and washed down a Tuinal with the last of her second drink. She pulled on her batiste cotton nightgown with the neckline of embroidered rosebuds. She padded through her apartment to check the bolted door and turn off the lights.
She opened the bedroom window, but made certain the shade was fully drawn. The sheets felt cool and comforting, but the blanket was too warm; she tossed it aside.
As she lay awake, drugged, heart fluttering, waiting for sleep, she tried to recall those moments when she had been convinced that love would be her soul’s salvation.
8
ON MAY 10TH, THE Saturday afternoon Zoe Kohler and Ernest Mittle were flying a red balloon in Central Park, Edward X. Delaney sat in a crowded office in Midtown North with Sergeant Abner Boone and other officers. They were discussing the murder of Leonard T. Bergdorfer at the Cameron Arms Hotel.
Present at the conference, in addition to Delaney and Boone, were the following:
Lieutenant Martin Slavin, who had been relegated to a strictly administrative role in the operations of the task force assembled to apprehend the Hotel Ripper …
Sergeant Thomas K. Broderick, an officer with more than twenty years’ service in the Detective Division, most of them in midtown Manhattan …
Detective First Grade Aaron Johnson, a black, with wide experience in dealing with the terrorist fringes of minority groups and with individual anarchists …
Detective Second Grade Daniel (“Dapper Dan”) Bentley, who specialized in hotel crimes, particularly robberies, gem thefts, confidence games, etc. …
Detective Lieutenant Wilson T. Crane, noted for his research capabilities and expertise in computer technology …
Sergeant Boone opened the discussion by recapping briefly the circumstances of Leonard Bergdorfer’s death …
“Pretty much like the others. Throat slashed. Multiple stab wounds in the nuts. This time the body was found on the floor. Take a look at the photos. The bed wasn’t used. The autopsy shows no, uh, sexual relations prior—”
BENTLEY: “Sexual relations? You mean like my sister-in-law?”
(Laughter)
BOONE: “He hadn’t screwed at least twenty-four hours prior to his death. Like the others.”
CRANE: “Prints?”
BOONE: “The Latent Print Unit is still at it. It doesn’t look good. Two things that may help … The tip of a knife blade was found embedded in the victim’s throat. It’s a little more than a half-inch long. Lab Services is working on it now. There’s no doubt it’s from the murder weapon. Probably a pocket knife, jackknife, or clasp knife—whatever you want to call it.”
JOHNSON: “How long was the blade do they figure?”
BOONE: “Maybe three inches long.”
JOHNSON: “Sheet! A toothpick.”
BOONE: “Victim suffered first-degree burns of the face, especially around the eyes and nose. The Medical Examiner’s office blames phenacyl chloride used in CN and Chemical Mace. The burning indicates a heavy dose at close range.”
BRODERICK: “Enough to knock him out?”
BOONE: “Enough to knock him down, that’s for sure. As far as the victim’s background goes, we’re still at it. No New York sheet. He was from Atlanta, Georgia. They’re checking. Ditto the Feds. Probably nothing we can use. And that’s about it.”
CRANE: “Was the Mace can found?”
BOONE: “No. The killer probably took it along. What’s the law on Mace? Anyone know?”
SLAVIN: “Illegal to buy, sell, own, carry, or use in the State of New York. Except for bona fide security and law enforcement officers.”
BENTLEY: “Black market? Johnson?” JOHNSON: “You asking me ’cause I’m black?”
(Laughter)
JOHNSON: “There’s some of it around. In those little purse containers for women to carry. There’s not what you’d call a thriving market on the street.”
BOONE: “Well, at the moment, the Mace and the knife blade tip are all we’ve got that’s new. Before we start talking about what to do with them, I’d like you to listen to ex-Chief of Detectives Edward X. Delaney for a few minutes. The Chief is not on active duty. At the urging of Deputy Commissioner Ivar Thorsen and myself, he has agreed to serve as, uh, a consultant on this investigation. Chief?”
Delaney stood, leaning on his knuckles on the battered table. He loomed forward. He looked around slowly, staring at every man.
“I’m not here to give you orders,” he said tonelessly. “I’m not here to ride herd on you. I’ve got no official status at all. I’m here because Thorsen and Boone are old friends, and because I want to crack this thing as much as you do. If I have any suggestions on how to run this case, I’ll make them to Thorsen or Boone. They can pick up on them or not—that’s their business. I just want to make sure you know what the situation is. I’d like my presence here to be kept under wraps as long as possible. I know it’ll probably get out eventually, but I don’t need the publicity. I’ve already got my pension.”
They smiled at that, and relaxed.
“All right,” he said, “now I want to tell you who I think the Hotel Ripper is …”
That jolted them and brought them leaning forward, waiting to hear.
He told them why he thought the killer was a woman. Not a prostitute, but a psychopathic female. He went over all the evidence he had presented to Monica and to Thorsen. But this time he remembered to include the additional detail that the person who tipped off the Times could have been a woman.
He said nothing about Thomas Handry’s research, nothing about the statistics showing the increased evidence of alcoholism, drug addiction, and mental disturbance among women.
These men were professional policemen; they weren’t interested in sociological change or psychological motivation. Their sole concern was evidence that could be brought into court.
So he came down heavily on the known facts about the murders, facts that could be accounted for only by the theory he proposed. They were facts already known to everyone in that room, exce
pt for his suggestion that the timing of the killings was equivalent to a woman’s menstrual period.
But it was the first time they had heard these disparate items fitted into a coherent hypothesis. He could see their doubt turn to dawning realization that the theory he offered was a fresh approach, a new way of looking at old puzzles.
“So what we’re looking for,” Delaney concluded, “is a female crazy. I’d guess young—late twenties to middle thirties. Five-five to five-seven. Short hair, because she has no trouble wearing wigs. Strong. Very, very smart. Not a street bum. Probably a woman of some education and breeding. Chances are she’s on pills or booze or both, but that’s pure conjecture. She probably lives a reasonably normal life when she’s not out slashing throats. Holds down a job, or maybe she’s a housewife. That’s all I’ve got.”
He sat down suddenly. The men looked at one another, waiting for someone to speak.
BOONE: “Any reactions?”
SLAVIN: “There’s not a goddamned thing there we can take to the DA.”
BOONE: “Granted. But it’s an approach. A place to start.”
JOHNSON: “I’ll buy it.”
BENTLEY: “It listens to me. It’s got to be a twist—all those straight guys stripping off their pants.”
CRANE: “It doesn’t fit the probabilities for this type of crime.”
DELANEY: “I agree. In this case, I think the probabilities are wrong. Not wrong, but outdated.”
BRODERICK: “I’ll go along with you, Chief. Let’s suppose the killer is a woman. So what? Where do we go from there?”
BOONE: “First, go back and check the records again. For women with a sheet that includes violent crimes. Check the prisons for recent releases. Check the booby hatches for ditto, and for escapees. Go through all our nut files and see if anything shows up.”
CRANE: “My crew can handle that.”
BOONE: “Second, the knife blade … Broderick, see if you can trace the knife by analysis of the metal in the blade.”
DELANEY: “Or the shape. Ever notice how pocket knife blades have different shapes? Some are straight, some turn up at the point, some are sharpened on both edges.”
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