Cini wrote out her check and handed it over. The clerk rubber-stamped the back of it and then began filling in the information he took from Cini's driver's license.
Cini hefted her bags and started out to the car.
Behind her, the clerk said, 'You be careful with all that junk food, missy. Don't want to ruin that figure of yours.'
Cini smiled and walked out the door. The night smelled of cigarette smoke and gasoline. She set the bags on the passenger seat and then walked around and got behind the wheel.
The tears came instantlyhard, hot, harsh tears that made her grab the steering wheel with such force that it bowed beneath the sudden pressure.
She was going to do it again.
Start the eating again.
The gorging that would take her back to obesity.
For the first time since the urge had seized her, she thought: I don't want to do this. I really don't.
But then she started the car and backed out of the 7-Eleven and headed in the direction of her apartment.
Before she had gone three blocks, she had ripped open the King Size Baby Ruth bar and was cramming it into her mouth.
CHAPTER 27
The scalpel is made of stainless steel and feels cold as death to the naked hand.
The same can be said of the other instrument the surgeon chooses on this overcast morning in Berlin, a knife of ten inches in length and two ounces in weight.
The surgeon likes the heft of the knife in his hand. Not many mortals are allowed to cut up a human being in this fashion and get paid for it. And paid so well.
He begins.
CHAPTER 28
I cut her up real good and the bathtub runs maybe an inch-and-a-half deep with her blood and that's when I get the idea of taking her out and then just sitting in there.
So I take her out and set up her bled body on the closed toilet, like maybe she's having a tinkle or something, and then I get in the tub and sit in her blood and light myself a Pall Mall and stare out the window at the dusk.
The dusk always makes me melancholy as hell but it's a dangerous melancholy, one I've never been able to explain to anybody. Things are just so fucking sad and nobody seems to understand that.
And I'm drunk, which doesn't help.
Drunk and sitting in an inch-and-a-half of some woman's blood and there's a sad spring night breeze coming in through the window and some goddammed sad black rhythm and blues song on the radio and then I start talking to her.
Asking her about herself.
I've never really found out anything about any of my victims.
She sits there, kind of propped up, all blue of skin and deeply bloody of wound, and she just stares straight ahead in her stunned, dead way.
And I'm talking to her because I'm so drunk and because the melancholy is on me and when it's on me I just want to be held and held tight and then suddenly I'm jumping out of the tub and I grab her and break her arms until they fit around me and then I start dancing with her, the way I used to slow-dance back in high school, with a big embarrassing erection that brushes against the girl every few seconds or so. I'm dancing with this dead woman in my bathroom and the worst thing is that it makes me feel better.
Not so lonely.
At least for a time.
The night breeze feels good.
And I don't feel so scared now.
I just dance and dance and dance.
CHAPTER 29
Sister Mary Margaret decided to stop at the corner news stand and get herself a magazine.
Black and white habit flowing in the October night, she approached the small kiosk where the dumpy man in the ratty cardigan sweater and the big cigar butt stood talking to another male customer aboutwhat else the Bears.
The night smelled chill; in the autumn scents were traces of winter.
Sister Mary Margaret listened and shivered as the two men made dire predictions about how the season would turn out.
Traffic raced by. The night was alive with an energy that was both exciting and terrifying.
She scanned the magazines. So many promises they made. How to lose weight. Get a man. Find God. Make your erection last longer. Double the profits on your investments. Make your children like you. It was all sort of sad and desperate, the splashy magazines and their even splashier pledges.
Sister Mary Margaret cleared her throat.
Stan, the guy who ran this magazine stand, glanced over at her and said, 'Hey, Sister, sorry. I didn't see you standin' there.'
The good Sister, who was a very shy lady indeed, kept her face tilted down, ostensibly so she could scan all the newspapers Stan had laid out across the front of his counter. 'That's all right. You've got so many interesting things to look at.'
'So what can I get for you, Sister?'
'I wondered if you had a copy of Hustler.'
Stan glanced at his football pal. Both men looked shocked.
'I don't think I heard you right, Sister.'
'I thought she said Hustler,' said the football pal.
'Yeah, so did I.'
'I did,' said the nun.
'Hustler?' Stan repeated. 'With the broads and everything?'
'Yes,' Sister Mary Margaret said, 'with the broads and everything.'
And it was then that she reached up and looked Stan right in the face and said, 'Boy, did I have you going.'
'God, Ralph look, it's Marcy!'
'Marcy Browne!' his football pal said. 'The chick private eye.'
'I'll be damned,' Stan said.
'I'm sure you will be,' Marcy said.
'What's with the nun stuff? You undercover?'
'Something like that.' The grin again. 'Plus I just wanted to see what you'd do if some nun came up and ordered a copy of Hustler.'
'You sure had me goin',' Stan said admiringly. Then, 'So you really want a copy?'
'Are you kidding? That sleazy rag?' And Sister Mary Margaret walked huffily away.
Marcy really dug this acting stuff. It was fun.
Once she was back in her office and dressed in her own clothes again, Marcy heated up some soup in a pan on her hotplate and then sat with her feet up on the desk, sipping Campbell's tomato soup from a Spiderman mug and reading a copy of American Ballerina.
Only her mother knew that Marcy had always wanted to be a ballerina. She'd seen The Turning Point with Shirley MacLaine when she was twelve years old and ever since… But, her Dad being a steelworker and all, Marcy didn't come from the proper social background anyway. After being told by his wife that Marcy needed ballet shoes, Ken Browne had said, 'What the hell'm I supposed to do about it, Candy? Go out to Sears and charge her a pair.' Right, Dad. Ballet slippers at Sears.
But that hadn't been the only thing to hold her back. Even worse than having a dad who thought that Sears sold ballet slippers was being a girl who had absolutely no dancing talent whatsoever. Sweet little face. Sweet little body. But no talent at all.
She slogged through three years of training until one day Nick, the dance instructor, finished his session with Marcy and asked if he could see her mother alone. Mrs Browne came over and Nick looked right at her and burst into tears. 'I can't do it anymore, Mrs Browne. She's driving me crazy. She's a great kid, your Marcy, but she moves like a moose.' At which point he put his head on Mrs Browne's shoulder and proceeded to weep.
The subject of dance was never again mentioned in the Browne household. The ballet slippers were given away; the costumes were packed in a trunk. And Dad was relieved that they didn't have to watch any more PBS dance shows where guys walked around in very tight pants and big cast-iron nut-cups. Those guys made him extremely uncomfortable.