That was the plan.
It was simple and to the point, and I knew that that was why it would work.
I set a date: January 30.
Thursday.
On January 30, I woke up early and put on my clown clothes. The clothes had been a last-minute decision. I’d stopped by a costume rental shop on my way home the night before. I’d pretended to myself that it was a disguise, but I knew that was bullshit. In a business environment, a clown suit was not an effective disguise, it was a red flag. And I’d paid for the rental with my Visa card. There was a record of this. There was a paper trail. Evidence.
I think, subconsciously, I wanted to get caught.
I took my time painting my face with the greasepaint supplied by the costume shop, making sure I covered every inch of skin with white, making sure the red smiling mouth was perfectly painted on, making sure the nose was precisely in place.
It was already after eight before I left the house.
Next to me, on the passenger seat of the car, was the carving knife I’d taken from the kitchen.
It was like I was someone else, like I was in a movie and watching myself secondhand. I drove to Automated Interface, parked way the hell out in God’s country, walked through the rows of cars to the building, walked through the lobby, took the elevator upstairs, and went into my office. I carried the knife all the way, holding it out in front of me, practically advertising what I intended to do, making no effort to hide it, but no one stopped me, no one saw me.
I sat at my desk, unmoving, the knife in front of me, until one o’clock.
At five after, I stood, walked down the hallway to the bathroom, went into the first stall. I’d expected to be nervous, but I was not. My hands were neither sweaty nor shaking, and I was calm as I sat down on the toilet. This was the time to back out. Nothing had happened. I could call it off right now and no one would know. No one would get hurt.
But I wanted Stewart to get hurt.
I wanted him dead.
I made a deal with myself. If he walked into my stall, I would kill him. If he walked into one of the other stalls, I would call the whole thing off now and forever.
I grasped the knife tighter. Now I was starting to sweat. My mouth was dry, and I licked my lips, trying to generate some saliva.
The bathroom door opened.
My heart was pounding, whether from excitement or fear I couldn’t tell. The sound seemed extraordinarily loud in my head and I wondered if Stewart could hear it.
Footsteps crossed the tile floor toward the stalls.
What if it wasn’t even Stewart? What if it was someone else and they opened the door of my stall and saw me there, a deranged clown with a knife? What would I do? What could I do?
The footsteps stopped outside my stall.
The metal door was pulled open.
It was Stewart.
For a split second, his face registered surprise. Then I stabbed him. The knife did not slide easily into his body. It hit muscle and rib and it was tough going, and I pulled it out and pushed it in again, only this time with more of a thrusting motion. I guess the shock must’ve worn off then because he started to scream. I shoved my left hand over his mouth to keep him quiet, but even without the screams the loud, rough sounds of our struggle echoed in the empty bathroom. He was pressed against the side of the stall, and he was kicking and fighting and trying desperately to get away. There was blood everywhere, flowing, spurting, on him, on me. A kick connected with my right knee and almost brought me down. His fist hit the side of my head. I realized instantly that I’d made a mistake, but it was too late to turn back now, and I continued to stab.
It didn’t feel good, the way I’d thought it would. I didn’t feel satisfied, didn’t feel as if justice was being served. I felt like what I was. A cold-blooded killer. In my plans, in my fantasies, this had been the payoff scene of a movie, and I’d been cheering the hero — me — as he finally meted out retribution to the villain. But in reality it was not that way. It was brutal and messy and ugly: he trying furiously to save his life, me no longer wanting to kill him but fully committed to that course of action and unable to stop.
He fell, hitting his head on the bottom edge of the metal door and causing a new geyser of blood to gush forth from his forehead. He was dying, but not quickly and not without a struggle, and I was being hurt. If he had been quicker or I had been slower, he would have knocked the knife out of my hand or wrestled it away from me and that would have been the end.
He punched me in the balls and I tripped backward, but I fell onto the toilet, and I lunged forward and stabbed him in the face.
His body convulsed crazily for a few seconds, then was still.
I withdrew my knife from his nose. It was followed by a wave of blood and some sickly gray clumpy stuff that washed over my shoes.
How was I going to explain all this to the costume rental shop? I thought stupidly.
I stood, pulled off some toilet paper, and wiped the blood from the knife. I stepped over Stewart’s body and closed the stall door behind me. His head and one arm were sticking out from underneath the side of the stall, his hand practically touching the edge of the adjacent urinal, but I didn’t care. There was no way I could hide the body at this point or even remotely disguise what had happened.
I felt nothing. No guilt, no fear, no panic, no exhilaration. Nothing. I realized that I was probably suffering from some kind of shock, but I didn’t feel like I was suffering from shock. I seemed to be thinking clearly, my mind functioning normally.
It had not happened the way I’d thought it would happen, but I decided to stick with my original plan. I walked out of the bathroom and down the hall to the elevator. I walked through the lobby and outside, but by the time I started looking around for my car I had already passed it. I was on the sidewalk and looking at cars parked on the street. I guess I was more in shock than I thought.
It hit me then.
I started trembling, and I dropped the knife. I could no longer see because of the tears in my eyes. I could still feel the knife stabbing through muscle and hitting bone, could still feel my hand over his mouth as he bled and drooled all over me and tried desperately to escape. Would I ever be able to erase those images and sensations from my consciousness?
I walked slowly and dazedly down the sidewalk. I probably would have felt foolish had I thought about the way I was dressed, but right now my appearance was the last thing on my mind.
I had killed a man. I had taken a human life.
I realized that I knew nothing about Stewart’s existence away from work. Was he married? Did he have a family? Would there be a young son and daughter waiting at a house with a white picket fence for their father to come home for dinner? I felt guilty, horrible, and within me was a black blank feeling that went far beyond depression. The strength and will I’d felt at the moment of the murder was gone, replaced by a tired, lethargic despair.
What had I done?
Behind me, on the street, I heard sirens.
Police.
“Bob!”
I turned around at the sound of my name.
And saw the sharp-eyed man running toward me across the sidewalk.
I had a momentary sensation of panic, a quickflash feeling of fear, but though I wanted to run, I did not. I turned fully, faced the man.
He slowed as he approached, grinning at me. “You killed him, didn’t you?”
I tried to keep my face innocently neutral, tried not to let the alarm show on my face. “Who?”
“Your boss.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Yes, you do, Bob. You know exactly what I’m talking about.”