“Coward!” she shouted, and he almost enjoyed her impotence. “I’m not here to kill you,” she said more softly. “If I wanted to, I’d have caught you somewhere by now.”
Easy to say, he thought, clenching his teeth. Anything to get him to open the door. She has to kill me, he told himself, to reestablish her anonymity. But she’ll have to sleep sometime. I’ll kill her while she’s asleep. She won’t expect me to follow her immediately.
“You stupid fool,” she said even more softly, “I want you,” and he knew she’d say anything, even that she loved him.
The new phone began to chirp, alternating with the muffled bulldog growl of the one in the bedroom, as if two sentries crying alarm. He got up slowly, went into the bedroom, closed the door silently, then got down on all fours. He crawled toward the bed and groped around under it for the phone. It continued to growl and he felt its vibrations in his hands and knees. The phone was not where he had left it, and he realized that the vibration had moved it on the bare wood floor. His hand picked up dust as he reached out blindly, but finally his fingers grabbed the receiver and he pulled it to his ear.
“Bill? This is Reddy. Sorry to call so late. Got a moment?” He sounded cautious.
“Yes, Captain, go ahead,” Benek said, almost not recognizing his own shaking voice.
“Is that you?” Reddy asked.
“Yes,” Benek said, trying to sound normal.
“Sorry... if I sounded too severe with you. What I want you to do is see a doctor right away, tomorrow, if possible. If he says you’re all right, then you can just come in and do deskwork. We’re very shorthanded. I want you to know that we’re all pulling for you to get well.” Benek realized that he was being “handled” now. If his problem became anything more than that of an overworked cop, it might harm Reddy’s chances for promotion. That had to be it, because Reddy sounded considerate. Or maybe this was the easy way to get him down to the station, so they could simply lock him up.
It was certainly worth a try before sending down a couple of uniforms.
He said, “I don’t think I’ll be able to come back for a while, Captain,” struggling to sound convincing. “I’ll be seeing my own doctor for whatever help he can give me.”
“So you do see the need?” Reddy asked, sounding relieved.
“I’m sure of it.” That was better, he told himself.
“Well... I’m glad to hear it. It’s a good sign.”
“I do feel much better this evening,” Benek said, thinking of Dierdre outside his door.
“Good. Give me a call day after tomorrow. And Benek... do keep away from that woman, will you?”
“I will, Captain,” Benek said, trying to sound sincere but almost laughing.
“Goodbye, then,” Reddy said.
Benek hung up the phone, got to his feet, opened the bedroom door, and stood there for a minute, straining to hear if she was still at his front door.
After a moment he heard another woman’s voice, sounding as if she were asking a question. He stepped slowly across the living room, squinted through the peephole, and froze. Dierdre was talking to Carla, who was wearing only a white robe over her nightgown. Both women seemed to be smiling, as if sharing a secret, their teeth exaggerated to predatory size in the peephole’s fish-eye lens. He watched and listened, expecting Dierdre to empty Carla and leave her in front of his door.
“Do you know him well?” Dierdre asked, looking her up and down.
“Only slightly,” Carla replied. “You know, we run into each other in the hall, once in a while.” Benek’s pulse quickened. She looked and sounded guilty, and was dressed for the part. “Oh,” she said. “I was going to get some ice around the corner.”
“Oh,” Dierdre said, “but this isn’t a hotel, is it?”
“No, but we have an ice machine,” Carla said.
“Did you see him come in today?” Dierdre asked, disappointed but unable to conceal her suspicions.
“No, but he might be in. I’ll tell him you were looking for him when I see him. Is it police business?”
“Do I look like a cop?” Dierdre asked, sounding offended, and Benek was sure that she had noticed that Carla had said
when
not
if
I see him. He should have been harder on Carla when he last spoke to her. He should have insulted her enough to keep her away from his door, to make her think of him more as an
if
not a
when
..
“Well, I don’t know what a cop looks like these days, you know,” Carla said, making it worse for herself.
He looked away from the peephole, afraid to see her collapse. If he had not gone to Dierdre like a sleepwalker the first time, Carla would now be at his door alone, and he would be welcoming her inside, free of this nightmare that had swallowed his life. He might have been in love with her by now. He might have been happy...
Slowly, he again peered out through the lens.
“I’ll leave a note,” Dierdre said, taking a pad from her purse.
“Well, so long,” Carla said, moving out of view.
Benek was relieved to hear Carla’s door close, then waited for the note to slide under the door, but there was nothing. Carefully, he looked out through the peephole. The hallway was empty within the view of the fish-eye lens. Now he should rush out and hurry back to Dierdre’s house; with any luck, he might arrive first and surprise her when she returned. He saw the back of her head taking the bullet. That would be the end of her. Hope surged through him.
But no—she was waiting for him at the end of the hall, or in the elevator. In an instant, in the twinkling of an eye, he told himself in a sweat, his brains would be soaking the hall carpet, blind and unable to see his body fall over. He staggered back from the door. Was she there, working to touch him with her mind, probing through the steel fire door? Could she visualize him in her mind and strike? After all, he still had no hard evidence that she had to see her victim. Maybe all she had to do was see her victim once. Maybe emptying someone she had seen only once was something she had recently learned to do. Could she work from memory? The only certainty he had was that she did not have the strength to knock down his door.
He sat down on the sofa and tried to think. Nothing was worth the risk of going out the door. Nothing was worth the risk of opening it even a crack. He had to be sure that she had gone away convinced that he wasn’t home.
He got up, went to the window, and peered down into the street. She might have already gone. He waited, hoping to glimpse her walking away. Distance was safety. But she might be sitting by his door out in the hall, waiting for him to feel safe. She might wait all night.
He went to the door again, and listened, then went back to the window, opened it carefully and looked down just in time to see a woman in walking shoes and a long black raincoat turn the corner. Yes, it had been Dierdre.
But he doubted as he went to the door again, still afraid to open it. The phone chirped again, and rumbled in the bedroom. She was calling to check whether he was still here.
It stopped in mid-ring. He let out a deep breath. Rushing into the bedroom, he put on his pants, shirt, grabbed a sweater from the closet and put it on as he slipped into his ankle boots, then got the gun and shoulder holster out of the closet and grabbed his old gray raincoat.
At the door, he stopped suddenly, doubting himself yet again, then opened it quickly, stepped out, and saw a Post-it note stuck just below the peephole. He grabbed the yellow square of paper and hurried toward the elevator.
He pushed the button repeatedly, afraid that she would be inside when the door opened. He was playing Russian roulette with his life, he realized, convinced more than ever that he had to kill her tonight.
As he waited for the elevator, he looked at the note and read:
SO YOU’VE GOT A
BIMBO NEXT DOOR!
The elevator door opened in its usual lumbering way and he stumbled inside. DeSapio, his complaining neighbor, sat in the right hand corner, smelling of rye. As the door closed Benek saw the bloodstain on the inside panel, and turned at once to examine DeSapio. There was blood in the man’s ears, but his eyes were shut. Dierdre, already angry about Carla, had not needed much to set her off. DeSapio might have made a crude joke, and she had emptied him on the spot. He looked around for his brain, but the only sign of it was the bloodstain on the control panel; she had taken the evidence with her.
Benek took a deep breath and pressed the lobby button on the bloody panel, then took out his gun. She might be waiting for him when the door opened. Her shoulder bag could easily hold another brain.
He tensed when the elevator reached the lobby, and cried out as the door opened, his voice echoing in the empty lobby. He staggered out onto the tiles and slipped, coughing, then caught his breath as he stopped, realizing that Dierdre might now strike at anyone with a connection to him. She had to be killed as quickly as possible. It was like losing his gun and worrying about who might get killed with it. Any delay would only give her more time to act.
He glanced back at the body in the elevator as the slow doors lurched shut, slipped his gun back into his shoulder holster, then rushed toward the front doors. He pushed through the inners and the outers and turned left, fleeing away from the corner Dierdre had turned.
He looked back as he hurried, and glimpsed her peering around the corner of the building at the end of the block. She had been waiting for him to come outside, he realized. He stepped off the curb and started toward Central Park.
Halfway across the street, he broke into a run, reached the other side and jumped the short stone wall, then sprinted across the grass toward a patch of trees. After what seemed an endless effort, he glanced back and saw her dark shape climb over the wall and come across the grass after him. He turned, hurried through the trees, and emerged into another open area of grass.
He ran across, straining to make the next clump of trees before she spotted him. She would not be able to break down a door, but she might catch him in a run. The cool air was icy in his lungs. Away from the street lights, the moonlight was quicksilver on the grass. It got in his eyes, dizzying him for a moment. He staggered ahead, breathing deeply as his eyes adjusted.
It was a long way across the park, but a good place to lose her, he told himself as his lungs began to hurt. He was sweating as he scrambled in among the trees. They shaded the moonlight, but the afterimages of cold silver stayed with him, flashing and slowly fading into gray, then into black-green blotches.
He hoped, as he made his way between the trees, that she would not expect him to go to her place. So he would go there and wait for her to give up the chase and come home to face his gun. He glanced back but saw nothing, then wondered if she was reaching out to him now, trying to sever him from himself at a distance she had not yet attempted. He felt a tingle on the back of his neck, and imagined her reaching into his head with cold fingers. He quickened his pace, willing himself toward the distant lights.
Nearly out of breath, he stumbled out of the park and stopped on the sidewalk. He was out in the open again, where she could see him. He caught his breath, watching the cars running like wild beasts on the avenue, until he spotted a cab and waved it down. It stopped short with the high-pitched squeal of something being killed. He stepped off the curb, pulled open the door, and threw himself into the back seat. The cab pulled away as he slammed the door shut, then lurched to a halt at a red light.
He slipped down in his seat and peered out the window in time to see her come walking quickly out of the park, and saw now that she was wearing sports shoes. They were a sign of her dedication to his death. She meant to catch him.
“Where?” asked the driver in a high-pitched voice.
Benek managed to croak out her address through his dry throat as he watched her standing only a hundred yards behind the cab.
Mercifully, the light turned green, and the city began to rush by, and he saw himself killing her in any way possible. His gun was only one way. He would be there ahead of her, grab her from behind, break her neck, and leave. But he had to get there first. She was probably in a cab right now, and might get there ahead of him.
“Faster!” he shouted.
“Aw-kay, we get there. Relax.”
“I’m a cop!”