“I’m going to do what we didn’t finish in your whorehouse.”
“Listen,” she said, her voice quavering, “I’ll do anything you say. Just don’t hurt me, okay?”
“Okay.”
She walked in front of him into the alley and saw some garbage cans. A cat slinked along the far wall.
“Behind the garbage cans,” he said.
“Listen, you’re not going to hurt me, are you?” She was trembling and she was afraid she might start crying.
“Not if you do what you’re supposed to do.”
She got behind the garbage cans, and turned and faced him. His face was expressionless and covered with so many folds you could barely see his eyes. She had always been afraid something like this would happen someday. There were so many nuts around. But she’d do whatever he wanted and somehow she’d get through it. That goddamn Lorenzo.
“What do you want me to do?” she asked.
“You filthy fucking bitch!” he snarled, drawing the blade back.
She screamed and raised her arms, but his hand and the blade came crashing through. She felt a sharp terrible pain at the side of her throat, and that was the end of Cynthia Doyle.
Chapter Four
The fat man awoke at two o’clock in the afternoon. At first it appeared just like any other day, and then he remembered the blonde whore bleeding in the alley. He’d really done it. It hadn’t been a dream.
Lying there staring at the far wall, he felt a little giddy. He knew the police must have found the whore by now and were looking for the killer. But he didn’t think they could trace anything to him. Nobody saw him. He hadn’t left anything behind. He was safe.
The police were smart. They had special laboratories where they sifted clues. He’d have to watch his step.
It occurred to him that there should be something in today’s papers about it. He got out of bed and dressed himself quickly, eager to see the write-up. He put on dungarees and a blue bomber jacket, plus the gray visored cap he wore when he drove a cab. Leaving his apartment, he descended the murky stairs of the old tenement building and walked to the newsstand on the corner of Second Avenue.
The avenue shuddered under the weight of trucks and cabs, and the sky was covered with gray clouds. The fat man picked up a Daily News, handed some coins to the old Ukrainian guy behind the window, and looked at the front page. He saw a big picture of the whore lying in the dirt, a detective bending over her. The headline read, “Prostitute Knifed in West Side Alley.”
The fat man stood on the corner and read the story quickly. The whore’s name was Cynthia Doyle and she was from Cincinnati, the daughter of a truck driver. The police refused to comment on the case except to say they were conducting a thorough investigation. The politicians were getting into the act. That was about it.
He folded the newspaper under his arm and walked back to his apartment, feeling like a celebrity. What would the people in the building think if they knew he was the killer? It’d really shake them. Police all over the city were looking for him, and here he was walking on his block just like anybody else. If they caught him they’d probably put his picture on the front page. He’d be famous. He’d always known that someday he’d do something that would make him famous.
He entered the building and climbed the stairs to his apartment. Sitting at his kitchen table drinking coffee, with the front page of the Daily News in front of him, he thought that tomorrow the city would forget about the murder, and there’d be something else on the front page.
He didn’t want something else to be on the front page. And he was proud of what he’d done last night. If anybody deserved to die, it was that blonde whore. It was time for men to rise up against the women who were taking advantage of them, insulting them, swindling their money and stealing their jobs. Maybe he could show other men that action could be taken in defense of their rights, the only kind of action the bitches understood. He’d have the bitches quaking in their shoes.
Maybe then they’d realize that they’d gone too far.
Chapter Five
Three nights later, the fat man took the subway uptown to Times Square. He climbed the stairs and emerged beside the cigar store on the corner of Broadway and Forty-second Street. Near the subway entrance a black man was selling the Bilalian News, and a few feet away a white man held out a pamphlet whose headline declared “Without Jesus You Have No Hope.” Neon lights flashed all around and music blared from the front of a record shop.
The fat man walked west on Forty-second Street, his hands in his pockets and his shoulders so round you couldn’t see where they ended and his arms began. He passed movie theaters showing porno films, kung fu epics, and major Hollywood films on their last run through town.
“Loose joints—real Colombian,” said a black man standing with four others beside the entrance to a movie theater.
The fat man kept walking through the mass of humanity that choked the sidewalk. He wondered why so many young people were missing teeth. Must be from taking so much drugs. He looked in the window of the store that sold scuba equipment, hunting boots, and outdoor clothing. A few doors down he veered into a porno bookstore.
It was brightly lit with overhead fluorescent lamps and filled with solemn men looking through books and magazines. He passed the paperback novels in wire racks and made his way to the back where magazines were stacked on tables.
At a high counter a man with slick black hair sat smoking a cigar. In front of him was the cash register. Other employees prowled around making sure no one was trying to steal anything.
The fat man looked at the covers of magazines. He picked one up, thumbed through the pages, saw color pictures of pretty girls screwing guys and going down on them. He picked up another and looked at girls spreading their legs and smiling wantonly at the camera. A third magazine showed girls doing it to each other with their mouths, fingers, and dildos. The fat man thought it was disgusting for women to show themselves that way. Women were lazy and would do anything for money. It was easier for them to lie on their asses and spread their legs than get an honest job. They did it to mess up men’s minds just like his mind was getting messed up.
“This ain’t no library!” the man behind the cash register said loudly, “These books are for sale! Read them at home!”
The fat man put down the magazine and headed for the front door of the bookstore. Everything connected with women was a swindle. They paint themselves to hide their ugly spots. They wear nylon stockings to make their legs look nice. The only men who pose naked in magazines are fags, and fags are men who try to be like women.
On the sidewalk again, the fat man walked toward Eighth Avenue. He wondered why so many black and Puerto Rican men hung around here. What was the big attraction to standing in doorways all day long? Bunch of shitheads. Think they’re so smart. A hand shot out with a leaflet. The fat man took it. It advertised a massage parlor across the street, but the fat man was finished with massage parlors. Tonight he was going to try something else.
The corner of Forty-second Street and Eighth Avenue was thick with punks and bums. The fat man pushed through them and turned uptown on Eighth Avenue.
“I got grass, ups, and downs,” said a man as he passed.
The east block of Eighth Avenue between Forty-second and Forty-third Street had more whores and pickpockets than any other block in Manhattan. Halfway down the block was the Polka Dot Lounge, and the sign in the window said there were sixteen beautiful hostesses inside, but you couldn’t see inside because the window was painted black. The fat man stopped and looked at the open door that was blocked by a partition so you couldn’t see inside that way either. His right hand closed around the knife in his pocket. If anybody fucked with him in there they were going to get sliced from asshole to elbow. He moved toward the door, pushed it open, and went inside.