One
“TASK FORCE ASSEMBLED IN GROWING MANHUNT FOR PSYCHO KILLER
“Switchblade Slayer Still At Large; Likely Out of City, Police Say
“By Fred Conte
“Over the past six months the working-class neighborhood of Dunbar has been plagued by the most deplorable sort of being mankind has to offer, as a murderer, known only as the “Switchblade Slayer”, has been using its shadowed streets and unwary occupants for his own depraved minds sinister desires. The killers name, obviously derives from his weapon of choice: a stiletto switchblade knife.
“Three woman: 27-year old Kathern Stark, 21-year old Mary Stuart, and 36-year old Elizabeth Greer have all met brutal ends within a block of their own residences. Police admit that from the start, it was clear the killings were connected, and each committed by the same perpetrator.
“It was also thought that each attack was planned meticulously, after the killer familiarized himself with the victim’s daily routine and knew when each would be most vulnerable; however, Lieutenant Brody, veteran detective and lead investigator in the Slayer case, has been most candid with the press in his latest interview and has openly stated that this theory has changed, and that it is now widely believed the killer is nothing more than a deranged opportunist, seeing young, attractive women on the city streets and striking when their backs were turned.
“Lt. Brody has also shared some of the killer’s features, theorized and provided by a reputable criminal profiler: the murderer is thought to be a diminutive, middle-aged male, extremely reticent and anti-social in nature. He likely has a low IQ, and quite possibly, even a mental defect.
“Lt. Brody stated that it was more vital than ever to share this information with the public, as it is now speculated that the killer has fled the city. The Lt. wouldn’t go into detail as to how this information came about, but he did confirm that a specially selected group of trained officers have been assembled in a search that will now reach across state lines.
“The Lieutenant went on to say that no matter how far this maniac may have gotten, it’s only a matter of time before he’s apprehended, and held in front of the courts to face the harshest penalty for his crimes”
“The switchblade knife used in the killings…”
“Will you please stop reading that grisly material out loud,” said the blue hair in the fur-coat sitting to the right of the woman who’d been reading the article. “So, morbid.”
“Horrendous,” said the one on the left. “To think there was someone like that in this very neighborhood. A madman! Walking the same streets, sharing the same taxis, shopping in the same delicatessens!”
From the middle: “Well he’s gone now, Minnie. And good-riddance! There are enough switchblade wielding hoodlums running around this neighborhood; with those leather jackets, and tattoos…”
From the right: “I still say it’s nothing to be discussed in public.
“Excuse me! More coffee, miss.”
The waitress moseyed over, filled the woman’s cup, waited for a thank you that never came, and then drifted back to the other end of the counter. Halfway down she got a que from the man who’d been slouched over every cup of coffee he’d ordered for the last hour. He was drunk; that twistin’ the night away without any music, drunk. He wasn’t bad though, worse had come in. Her only complaint was that he spoke a little loudly, as if he knew his diction would be slurred and was therefore overcompensating for it. And his eyes were so narrow, it looked more like he was shouting in his sleep whenever he thanked her. This time he only grunted something inaudible, and she went on to her spot by the register.
She took advantage of the moment and lit a cigarette. Inhaling the smoke deeply, it gave her the first soothing sensation she’d felt since before the dinner-crowd. Her feet hurt from standing all day, and there was a hole in the toe of one of her stockings that caused the bare skin to rub against the inside of her heel. At least it’s late, she thought. In about an hour she’d clean up as the last of the customers finished and left, then she’d lock up, go home, and sleep for a whole four hours before waking up to start all over again.
Her name was Joanna, but she hated being called that; so, to the world it was Joan Fuller. She was short, slender, with dark-hair and doe eyes that pleaded for respect; though they meant to demand it. And this wasn’t the first time she’d used her moments of leisure to fill her head with thoughts of daily monotony and pessimistic musing over her personal life and unfulfilled professional aspirations: just things like the fact that she was thirty-two and single. Never married, never even proposed to. And not a single thing to indicate that she’d be out of the diner anytime soon.
She’d wanted to be an actress once. Like most young women with this desire, she’d come to the city to make it big. But just like most of these women, nothing came of it. She was pretty enough, sure, but so were a few hundred other women; women still in their early twenties. The auditions had stopped nearly four years ago, and the odd jobs had piled on. The city had worn on her since, losing its anything-is-possible nostalgia and vibrancy it had been so alive with when she’d first come by bus. Lately, she’d entertained the notion of leaving the city; not for home, she didn’t have it in her to go back there and go through everyone she’d known picking her apart when they asked what happened and she admitted defeat. But somewhere back down South. Somewhere quiet.
This was what she was thinking about while glaring off into a corner of the room, unconsciously moving to ash her cigarette, and instead knocking over the coffee pot and sending a flood of black, sweet-smelling drink all over the steak and potatoes of the man sitting at the edge of the counter.
“Oh, my gosh! I’m so sorry, I didn’t even see…”
She wiped at the counter and around the irreparably soggy plate of food, as the man rose from his stool; he didn’t look angry with her, in fact, he seemed as innocently embarrassed by the spill as she was. He grabbed a napkin and helped stop the overflow on his side of the counter. “That’s ok, miss. Really. Just one of those things bound to happen.”
“I’m just glad my boss didn’t see that,” she said, trying to joke away the flush of abashment she felt rising in her face.
“Well, we’ll just make it our little secret,” he said.
She tossed the wet rag and went to start another pot. When she turned back, she could see he was still smiling at her, but now his eyes were riding the unblinking-line between amiable and flirtatious. He was tall, clean-shaven, with dark-hair she could just make out under the brim of his hat. And eyes that were kind, but with cloudy, enigmatic features. She thought he was handsome enough, but above all he was familiar.
After the older women who’d been reading the paper paid and left – and after the pudgy drunk motioned for a refill, before looking into his cup and seeing it was still full, then laughing it off – Joan went back to the other end of the counter.
He smiled as she approached.
“Our cook, Robby, is about to take-off but I could tell him to whip-up one more steak if you’d like; on the house, of course.”
“Don’t bother, I wasn’t really hungry. I was tired of looking at it anyway, you did me a favor.”
She tittered politely and suddenly she knew why he was familiar. “I’ve seen you in here before, haven’t I?”
“Well yes, I suppose you have.”
“Do you live in the neighborhood?”
His smile partially waned. “No. Not exactly. I do a lot of business around here, so to say.”
She leaned closer. “So, what’s the big mystery?”
“Mystery?”
“Yea, this business of yours. What keeps you in this neck of the woods?”
He grinned and hunched a little closer. “No mystery. See, I’m a detective.”
She stood erect. “A detective? No kidding.” She eyed him over. “Not coming here on business, are you?”
He laughed light-heartedly and shook his head. “No, no. I’ve been on patrol in the neighborhood the last few weeks. Until today that is. This just kind of became my favorite place to come and… take a break,” he finished with a smile.
She’d taken his hint (one learns all the hints when they experience them almost every day) and gave a polite grin, but was more interested in what he’d said before that. “And what happened today?”
“Oh, they just don’t need my type around here anymore. Place is safe, now anyway.
“Don’t suppose you’ve been reading the paper?”
“Sure I have,” she said.
“Then you already know all about it.”
She was puzzled momentarily, but thought of what the older woman who’d been reading the paper had said. “You don’t mean… you’re talking about that killer, aren’t you?”
He nodded.
“They say he skipped town. Anything to it?”
“Sure there is,” he assured her. “And that’s exactly why it’s my last night in Dunbar.”
“Last one, huh? Well we’ll be sorry to lose your business.”
“Well, how about making a night of it? I know a good late-night show.”
“That’s awful nice of you to ask, but I think I just want to go straight to sleep when I get off here,” she said with a little extra teeth to the otherwise routinely anodyne rejection.
He gave an easygoing shrug to match the grin. “Suit yourself. Can’t blame a guy for trying though.” He stood and put down several bills; leaving her a tip larger than the cost of the meal. “Just the same, it was nice to finally speak to you, miss…”
“Joan. Joan Fuller.” She held her hand out and instead of shaking it, he took hold of her gently by the fingers; his thumb lightly caressed the knuckles from her index to her pinky.
The way he was holding her hand, she was sure he’d try and kiss it; like all the egghead high society types from the romance films. But he didn’t. “I’m Michael. Michael Brown.”
“Well thanks again, Michael. And thanks for keeping the neighborhood safe.”
He tipped his hat, and just when she thought he was turning to go, he didn’t. He smiled at her a second longer, then said: “Goodnight, Joan.” Then he turned around and sauntered out the door – coincidentally the same time the drunkard slapped a five down and stumbled his own way to the exit, and when he made it, Brown was there to hold the door for him. The slurring man began launching a volley of gratitude as the door eased shut and cut off the outside world.
And Joan was glad; though the detective was physically attractive, some people are just too forward with their intentions, even when it’s clear they’re trying not to be. It was still sort of nice; being flirted with by someone who wasn’t old enough to be her father.
Things can always get better.
Across the room, a man with his wife signaled for two more coffees.
Two
She was clearing the couples table when he came in. When she heard the door open she was sure it was going to be the detective, back for a second try; but it wasn’t. The man who’d come into the diner, less than fifteen minutes before she was going to close, was a complete stranger. She was sure he’d never come in before; though she couldn’t remember every face that came in and out of the place, she was positive she’d have remembered his. His face was sharp and narrow and there was something about his eyes that she could see even from across the room; the skin under those eyes were the kind of drooping dark that came from a condition Joan referred to as, perpetual exhaustion; a condition brought on by working every day of your life and seemingly getting nowhere from it. This might’ve been presumptuous of her, it was just that that look of depleted vigor was more familiar than any diner patron could ever be.
The stranger seemed to notice Joan, too. But those firm, weary eyes took him to the jukebox setup by the door; he fed the machine, and the mellifluous lyrics that played out sent an electric wave of incredulity through her:
“…you give your hand to me, and then you say hello… and I can hardly speak… my heart is beating so…”
It was Ray Charles’ “You Don’t Know Me.” Her favorite song. No one had touched that box all night, and here comes this stranger and the first thing he does is play that song.
“…and anyone can tell… you think you know me well… but you don’t know me…”
He sat almost exactly where the detective had earlier, and she went to him. She knew she should say that the place would not only be closed in a few minutes, but that the cook had already taken off. But what came out was: “I love this song.”
He smiled at her.
“Do you want some coffee?”
He didn’t answer. He was still locked in that close-up look in her eyes. “Do you really like this song?” he asked.
“I ought to, I listen to it enough. I’ve got that very record at the front of my collection.”
That grin widened and she could see he had all his teeth, “What’s your name?”
“Joanna,” she said without thinking. “Don’t call me that though. Just Joan.”
“Well I think I like this song, too, Just Joan.”
She laughed without meaning to. “And what’s yours?”
He looked down in his hands and rubbed at his palms, as though massaging a callous. “Call me, John.”
“And what is it you do, Call Me John?”
It was like he was talking to his hands, “Oh, I’m a working man.” That was when he looked back at her. “You know how it goes, just trying to get by.”
Joan glared off to the jukebox as the song came to an end. “Yea. I know how it goes.” She looked back to the stranger who was calling himself, John. “Can I ask you something kind of personal, John? What would you be. I mean… you know… if you could be anything?”
He cocked his head at a slight angle, like the question amused him. “Oh… I suppose I wanted to be a novelist, once upon a time. Nothing truly exotic.”
“Wanted to be like Hemingway, huh?”
“Oh no,” he said, but with no resentment. “Every writer has something different to say; It’s as much about the delivery as it is the plot, and the way I see it, everyone has their own way of sharing a story. You can write about anything you want if you can make it into an experience. When I was a kid, growing up in Hells Kitchen, that old Underwood was the only thing that made me feel like I could be any different from the others. With it, I could be anyone I loved or anyone I hated; it was like I’d been gifted some tool that let me give an impression of how I saw the world…” He saw she was listening with sincere interest, but he felt he was rambling. “… but, things don’t always work out. Bills have got to be paid; so, you start with something else, find out you’re not half bad at it, and just kind of stick around… I guess that’s what I’ve been doing. Sticking around.”
She didn’t say anything. Except for his own occupation in the arts, the story sounded the same as hers. And though broken dreams weren’t anything new, she found it extremely unusual that this man would admit that to her; some hash house honey he’d never met before.
He spoke again: “What about you, Just Joan? I can’t imagine a woman like you dreamed of being a waitress her whole life.”
She began to tell him. Then the pair on the other end of the diner paid and left. She took advantage of the moment and excused herself. As she cleared the table, she made a decision, and when she put the dishes away she went back to John and told him what he wanted to know.
And they talked.
Three
Ten minutes later Joan walked out of the diner; John held the door for her. They were the last two in the place, and Joan wouldn’t have noticed the time if he had not asked her when her shift ended.
She took a set of keys from her bag, selected one, and engaged the lock of the door.
“Gee, I’m glad to be out of there.”
“You don’t like it much, do you?”
“What’s to like?” she said. “Taking orders from a bunch of rude strangers all day. I’m sick of the smell of burgers and potatoes; the smell follows me everywhere.”
“I know, it’s making me hungry.”
She laughed without meaning to. They were on the sidewalk now, and a silence had fallen between them. Even the nighttime background commotion of the city had tuned-out for the moment.
“Well… goodnight…” she hadn’t meant to say this, but that mounting surge of nerves had become overwhelming and she couldn’t help herself.
“Do you live close?”
“Pretty close.”
“Can I walk you home? The city is dangerous enough to walk through at night without some psychopath running around.”
She looked sharply to him. “You mean the Slayer?”
The shade of his eyes abruptly changed and he gave an awkward impression of someone who’d said something he shouldn’t have. They were ambling down the sidewalk now. “If that’s what he’s called.”
“That’s what todays papers calling him,” she said. “In a column written by the same guy who’s been following the case. Don’t you read the paper? It said he skipped town.”
“Yea, well, sometimes they get it wrong,” he said noncommittally.
“What do you mean?”
“Just that those newspapermen can write about whatever they want; whether it’s to sell more copies, or their own personal reasons for spreading that garbage.”
She stopped walking and looked to him. “Cynical, aren’t we?”
“I try not to be,” he took her gently by the arm and they were moving again. “You just shouldn’t be putting yourself at risk based on what some gossip-pusher says.”
“What am I supposed to do, blow my hard-earned pay on a cab ride to an apartment ten minutes away?”
“Like I said.”
“Well I got it from more than just the paper you know. A detective came into the diner earlier tonight. He said they were on the level about the killer being out of Dunbar.”
“A detective?”
“Yea, he comes in all the time, but I didn’t know he was a detective until tonight.”
“And this guy said the killer was out of the neighborhood?”
“Sure.”
“What else did he say?”
“That was all. Like I said, I see him all the time, but tonight was the first time I ever said anything besides ‘would you like a refill?’.”
“Well, that’s quite a scoop.”
“I’ll say.”
“Did you like him?”
That got her tittering again. “Why, are you jealous?”
“Should I be?”
She smiled as they came to the end of a long brick building that was identical to every other on its street. “Well, this is me.” She went up the first few stairs and met him at eyelevel. “Thanks for walking me home.”
“Think nothing of it,” he said. “Goodnight.”
She knew it was her turn. “I don’t think I have anything to drink… but would you want some coffee? Upstairs I mean. In my apartment.”
That crocodile grin spread, and he trotted up the stairs and held the door for her.
She led the way upstairs.
Four
“…No, you don’t know the one
who dreams of you at night
and longs to kiss your lips
longs to hold you tight
Oh, I’m just a friend
that’s all I’ve ever been
‘cause you don’t know me…”
The record spun and the soft, sweet-sounding melody played out as the two paced slowly in the middle of Joan’s dimly lit living room. Her head just one or two tentative inches away from resting against his shoulder. She could feel his chin brush against the locks of her hair as they swayed steadily to the music. There was no real form or technique to their dance; they were simply holding one another.
She never started the coffee.
As the song ended and the next began, she glanced up to him, and that was when he tried to kiss her. She moved just enough that he kissed the edge of her mouth, where her lips ended and her cheek began, already hating herself for the instinctive brush-off. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. Don’t say a word.
“Well, maybe one…”
“What?”
“Can I use your washroom?”
She giggled and pointed down the hall. “On the left.”
“Thanks,” he said, taking his jacket off. He threw it onto the couch next to her coat. “Don’t dance with anyone while I’m away.” He went down the hall and she heard the door close.
She stood alone, smiling; her arms crossed and her palms gripping her shoulders. She went to the phonograph and flipped the record. As the other side began and she counted the seconds, she took both jackets from the couch and went to the rack by the door.
About halfway across the room was when the slip of paper fell from his jacket. She stopped. Thousands of possibilities rushed through her mind; most of them pessimistic. There’s one way of knowing for sure, Joan thought: She could look.
She quickly resented herself for the thought, snatched the sheet up and continued to the rack. She hung her own coat, and then his. She meant to put the slip back in his pocket, she really did. But when she happened to notice the first word inside of the unfolding paper, she let herself read the second. And then the third. And then a few more.
The top read:
Fritz’s Diner
MONDAY
Arrival: 7:30 am
Departure:
The sheet slipped from her fingers as she heard the bathroom door opening. It fluttered in between her feet as poisoned thoughts stirred like treacherous rapids through her mind; literally making her dizzy.
She’d never seen John before, that much she was certain of. Of course, he could’ve been in the diner on one of those rare occasions she was absent, but that paper had the schedule of someone’s entire last week there… all the way to that afternoon.
The schedule couldn’t be his own. Or if it was, then what was he doing there? And where was he during?
Waiting for John to come back into the room and then calmly inquiring as to the specifics of the sheet, actually occurred to her; there could be a completely innocent, and maybe even funny story to it, she thought.
But what she thought of immediately after was the way he’d been talking, back on the sidewalk; about the newspaper, and what he seemed to imply as false claims of a fleeing murderer. At first, she thought maybe he didn’t care for the articles or maybe even had some sort of grudge against the author of them. But now she was thinking maybe he had another reason for such clear disdain of the column.
And why he’d suddenly seemed so curious and unsure when she’d mentioned the detective.
That did it; Joan was out of the apartment door and scurrying down the hall.
John came into the room then, just in time to catch the swinging door. He saw the open slip on the carpet.
“Joan!” he hollered and started after her, leaving the apartment door open and the music inside to spill out gently into the corridor.
She was just rounding the corner of the stairway as he ran down the hall, calling out: “Joan! Joan stop….”
There was more to it, but the words were muffled out by all the hurry and she didn’t hear them; and she had no intention of letting him catch-up to make them clear. She dashed down one flight of stairs to another, until finally making it to the first floor. The echoing footfalls in the staircase continued and she knew it was him. “Joan!”
“Oh God, help!” she screamed, rushing down the hall for the buildings exit. “Somebody, please!”
Different faces appeared from odd doors as the terrified waitress kept on.
“Joan, stop!” he was at the bottom of the stairs now.
She didn’t stop, and as she made it past the last apartments and to the exit doors, she looked back to see that two, older burley men had taken hold of John by each of his arms; he was writhing and kicking but getting nowhere from it. And he was still shouting to her, “Joan, Listen to me! Listen! You have to…”
But Joan was out of the doors and into the night.
Five
The streets of Dunbar were lonely. She wasn’t sure how long she’d been walking, only that she couldn’t remember a time the neighborhood had ever been so quiet; part of her was grateful for this. The sidewalks were hers, and hers alone.
She was still shaking. How? How? Joan thought. The question was, how could she have let herself be so stupid? She knew the answer. But how could someone like that, turn out to be so completely different.
She wondered if those men who’d been wrestling with John back at the apartments had been able to hold him; if the cops had shown up to arrest him. She supposed they wouldn’t know who he was until she came forth. Maybe… maybe they’d even let him go… what did they really have to go on?
Maybe she should’ve stuck around.
No, she couldn’t do that. She couldn’t bear to look at him again.
But suppose they had let him go… suppose he was out on the streets right now… surely, he’d be looking for…
A dark sedan pulled to the curb beside her
The terror catapulted through her as a scream forced its way to audibility, then all at once was stifled as the figure stepped out of the car and revealed itself as Detective Michael Brown. “Hello Miss Fuller. Late night stroll?”
She broke down and sat on the curb, sobbing into her palms. The detective shut the car door and went to her. Bending down and taking hold of her shoulders, he said, “Now what could you possibly have to cry about?”
She told him; she told him all of it. And he was just as interested in this stranger, as the stranger had been in him.
“It was so awful when I found it… I feel so stupid… I invited him up myself!”
“Now just take it easy, it’s all right now,” he said reassuringly. “Now you say he had notes of your schedule at the diner?”
“It didn’t say my name… but who else could be there every day to keep track of? I’m in that hellhole more than the boss is!”
“But you don’t have it?”
“Well, no…”
“Did you read the times?”
“Times?”
“You said it was a record of when someone came and went. Did you check the times of each day?”
“Not really… No. It all just happened so fast, I had to get out of there when I saw it. It all just made sense at once; the things he said and knew. God, he even knew the song I listen to the most!”
The detective grinned. She didn’t say anything, but she couldn’t believe he was grinning at a time like this. “No kidding? Well it’s a good thing you got out of there when you did. Otherwise, I might not have found you out here.
“Come on, let’s get out of the street.”
He helped her up, and then opened the passengers’ door for her. Then he got back behind the wheel, and pulled away with Joan.
Six
They pulled to the curb and Joan could see that they were next to the diner. “What’re we doing here?” she found her voice was still stirred and quiet.
The detective killed the engine. “I’ve got to report this to the station. There’s a phone, here, right?”
“Yes.”
“And I just sort of figured you had a key to the place. You do have a key, don’t you?”
“Yes.”
“Well, then let’s go.”
They both got out of the car; this time he didn’t open or close the door for her.
The night was still and the parking lot was barren. Suddenly it occurred to her she didn’t have the key. It was back in her apartment. Back with him.
“Michael… Michael I’m sorry. I left the key with my bag. I don’t even have my coat. I don’t have a way to get inside.”
The features of his face changed to a hardened expression she took as the finality of his patience with her, but the detective smirked and thumbed his hat back at the brim. “Well, that’s alright, Miss Fuller. A good policeman always has a way to get inside.” He dug into his inner pocket and Joan realized for the first time that he was wearing gloves; she could hear the taut leather of them stretching as he produced a small black-case from inside his jacket. She’d half-expected a line of tailored cigarettes as he popped the case open, instead there was a group of tools, assorted side to side by size. The detective selected a long, thin instrument that Joan thought looked more like a metal toothpick. After that was a small, L-shaped piece. “here we are now.” He put the case away and moved to the door as Joan stepped aside. “Emergencies call, huh?” she realized he was speaking to her, but his back was turned and he was working at the lock. She sidled over and could see he had the sharp instrument in the bottom of the keyhole at an angle, cranking delicately up and down by the inch. The shorter part of the second tool was just above it, still, but at the same angle. Soon there was an audible click and the detective cranked the top piece to the right; there was a second click and he removed the tools quickly and pocketed them. “Nothing to it,” he said absently.
The door opened and he held it ajar for her; offering her the lead into the darkness of that room… where she’d met him. She looked back, even the street light had died. There was only darkness for Joan in either direction. She breathed heavy and stepped inside the dinner. Detective Michael Brown looked both ways into the night, saw nothing, and shut the door on it.
She flipped the switch and the fluorescents illuminated a room that somehow appeared long abandoned. Her visceral reaction was that she never wanted to see this place again. Its ugly tables and matching chairs set-up sporadically around the room without any delicacy or attractiveness in their placement. The paper-thin walls that typically passed along the blurred reverberations of the outside world. That damn 11×4 counter she spent most of her days behind, like a long, skinny one-man cell.
“The phones in the kitchen.” She led the way and at first was sure he was following her, but once she made it past the archway and to the phone, she turned and didn’t see him. “Michael?” Suddenly a shadow moved and the detective appeared in the doorway. “Where’d you go?” He didn’t say anything. He just stood there. Joan heard machinery click-clacking somewhere in the dinner. The sound – as clear and resound in the silence as if it were in the kitchen with them – was acutely familiar. “Michael?” His face was still a mask of icy indifference. “Say something!” And then she knew what that mechanical echo was coming from.
“…mmmmm, you don’t love me… mmmmm you don’t know me…”
Her mouth gaped. “… I… I… the phones right here…” She spun around and took the phone from its cradle. A powerful hand came from behind and the device was out of her hands before she’d spun the dial. He hung it back on the wall. She began to back away, slowly. Cautiously. “What’re you doing… Michael… Detective?”
He noticed a chair behind him. He took it and drug it toward her; the steel-legs screeching in a painful harmony. She drew back as he brought it around her, positioning it so that it faced where he’d been looming. “Sit down.”
“What?” she muttered nonplussed.
“I said, SIT DOWN!”
She couldn’t have obeyed any faster. For a moment, there was only his silent glare aimed down at her. He was eyeing her the way a wolf might eye a smaller, more fragile creature; maybe one already injured, without any hope of escape. Cold and calculating.
Then he went back to the phone. He took hold and ripped it from its base in the wall, letting it drop to the floor with a resounding crash. Joan jumped in the chair and gave a silent scream; suddenly her throat was tight and dry and she came to the dreadful realization that she couldn’t scream.
He was moving towards her. Shuffling slowly, thoughtfully, as though each sway of his body were deliberate. Suddenly he paused. Noticing something by the stove. He chuckled and cocked his thumb to the wall, where a dartboard hung. “Doubt the health inspector would approve of this.” He stepped aside and took something from his side pocket.
Joan could see it was a knife. A switchblade.
He pressed a button and six-inches of brilliant, menacing steel shot from the contraption. Joan was sure she’d caught a glimpse of her own terrified, black-eyed reflection.
He drew his arm back and flung the knife as casually as a pitcher might a fastball; it spun once in the air and stabbed into the board, rocking it. He’d missed the bullseye by maybe an inch.
A sob escaped Joan before she could stop it. Silent and painful.
He sneered at her. She couldn’t believe she’d thought him a handsome man, before. It was so clear now… what was behind that face. The face of a killer.
From his other side pocket, came another knife, identical to the other except for its bone-hued handle. He ejected the blade and almost immediately hurled it at the board. The same skilled, laxed, launch with the same precise graceful spin – this time it jabbed dead-center, right above the last, at a downward angle. Almost as though he’d been several feet taller when he’d thrown it.
Joan’s tears began to burn and her throat began to ache. He was laughing at her. Cruel, maniacal laughter filled with stark, sadistic pleasure deriving from the palpable terror emitting from the waitress.
He tugged his knives from the wall, the punctured board giving no resistance. He took the black one, folded it shut, and dropped it back into his coat pocket.
The other knife he kept open. Its blade gleaming as he moved toward her. Coming closer. That horrible smile. That eerie flicker of exhilaration in his eyes. He wanted to hurt her. No. He wanted to kill her.
Though she knew this, she found herself unable to move. Unable to force the numbness of her legs to lessen and unable to smother the paralyzing trepidation that came at the idea of making a run for it. The world was a hazy dreamland. A nightmare gliding closer.
Just feet away, the madman raised his blade so that it was in between them. So that they could both admire its shiny, murderous potential. When he spoke, his words cut into her, much the way that knife soon would: “The hours have felt like days… the weeks, eternities… you don’t know the hunger that’s festered inside of me waiting for our moment together… but the moments finally come, Joan… I’ve waited for this…”
“I know you have, Rowker,” a voice came from the shadows.
The killer froze. Now he was the one who looked unsure. Afraid. “WHO’S THERE? WHO SAID THAT? COME OUT! COME OUT OR I’LL KILL YOU!”
Joan jumped in her seat, but not because of the psychotic screaming, but because when the voice spoke again it came from behind her. “You won’t be doing anymore killing, Rowker. It’s over.”
The killer stepped back as the shadow-figure turned to man. Joan’s frightened, unbelieving eyes widened. “John?” He put a hand on her shoulder, but never took his eyes from the knife-wielding maniac he was calling, Rowker. “I’ve brought someone with me, Rowker. You’ve read about him. You might’ve noticed him at some point tonight, too. Lieutenant.”
From the darkness, another shadow come into light. This one larger but equally familiar. It was the drunk who’d spent the evening putting away shots of coffee and nodding in and out of consciousness at the counter. The same drunk who’d gone stumbling out after someone she’d thought was a detective. Only now he wasn’t drunk. Now his expression was hard, and painfully sober. Without slurring, he said, “He’s right, Rowker. It’s all over. You’re coming with us.” Three shadows soon followed from behind him. Glinting badges pinned to uniforms made each of the officers stand out.
“This is Lieutenant Brody. We’ve been looking for you. You’re terribly sick, Rowker. You need to let us take you somewhere where they can help you. You can’t go on like this.”
The killer wasn’t listening. He was shaking his head, his face entangled with a wild mix of hostile panic and incredulity. “… how…how… you were waiting!”
“When I lost her, I had plenty of time to worry about what might happen. Especially when Brody told me how you slipped away from him in a car. I knew then, with her missing and you roaming around playing detective, there was the real possibility that everything had fouled-up, and that you could’ve gotten to her. There’s a dragnet going on out there for you, Rowker. But knowing how familiar you’d made yourself with this place, I had a hunch you’d take her here for some privacy. I knew she’d left her key behind, and that led to plenty of second guessing… time felt eternal for me too. But when I heard the lock on the door shimmying, I knew you were here – “
The killer brought his arm back, and now Joan found she could scream. She screamed because she knew he was throwing the knife. And where.
John cut the monologue short, cut-off by Joan’s’ shrieking and the quick understanding that he was about to hurl his knife; but the killer wasn’t focused on him – he was focused on Joan.
The knife came spinning from across the room. Joan unconsciously stood, but it was too late. The blade stuck into Johns gut as he rushed to shield Joan.
He grunted out in pain and crumpled to the floor, in Joan’s arms. From behind, all the policemen had drawn their revolvers, and one of the uniforms let off a shot. The bullet strafed off a piece of the wall as Rowker ducked back into the dining room just in time.
“Get him!” Brody commanded, stopping to see if John was still alive.
He ordered one of the uniforms to stay behind and he rushed after the others. The room was empty, the front door easing shut; a uniform appeared suddenly, he shook his head. Brody growled and looked right as another door opened. The other officer appeared. “He went out the bathroom window! He’s bookin’ it across the street!”
They followed him out and to the other side of the street, lined with apartment buildings. Dozens of uniforms and plainclothesmen were emerging from alleys, building entrances, and cars from all over the street. “He’s goin’ up the fire escape!” Brody exclaimed, using his revolver to point out the building the shadow was climbing. The hasty figure was already halfway up.
Brody, as an older, heavier man fell behind the younger, more fit patrolmen who were rushing the stairs two at a time.
The first two to make it to the roof: a young detective who’d been closest to the building, and a blonde uniform who’d actually lost his cap while darting up the stairs. There was no one in sight. “You take in between the coops, I’ll go around the left,” said the detective. The blonde-cop nodded and started into the alley of pigeon coops; his .38 special aimed ahead. His palms were clammy, and he began to worry that his gun would slip from his grasp if he had to use it.
There was a springing sound, and he knew that he was in trouble. He stepped aside, but the knife had already plunged into his back as the killer leaped from atop a pen, striking from behind; the officer fired a blind round as the painful weight and pressure of the attack brought him down. The madman didn’t let-up right away. The cop could feel him making sure the blade was as far into his back as it could be.
And then there were voices and the killer ran. Leaving a polished black-handle protruding from the prostrate policeman. The detective was back around the crates and rushing to the wounded officer; Brody and three others made it to the roof.
They knelt beside him, not daring to touch the weapon. “Get an ambulance up here, right now,” Brody dictated to no-one in particular. “Which way, son?”
The blonde officer pointed his revolver down the alley. Managing to grunt out, “Straight ahead.”
“Stay with him.” Another aimless demand before continuing forward.
At the end of the roof there was nothing. No killer, and no second fire escape. No more pigeon coops to hide behind.
The Slayer had vanished.
And then Brody saw it. “Jesus.” A white blanket. Billowing gracefully as it fluttered to the courtyard six-stories below. A man’s hat twirled along with it. “That crazy bastard.” Another piece of linen went soaring as the figure struggled across the highest clothesline. “Jesus, come on.” The young detective and the lone uniform followed the lieutenant as he worked himself onto the nearest balcony. A good four-foot drop from the roof.
The line shook as Rowker inched his way carefully to the other building. Swatting away any laundry in his way.
“How the hell is it holding him?” the uniform spoke incredulously.
“It isn’t,” said Brody.
Almost at once they all saw what he meant. The wheel operating the clothesline, drilled into the bricks just outside the railing, had begun to bend outward. Every few seconds the screws would screech a little farther out. The bottom two slower than the top. “Jesus. Hold it!”
All three held the straining device; knowing it wouldn’t do any good.
About seventeen-feet above the sidewalk in between the buildings, Rowker began to tire. He was losing the hold he had with his feet. Trying to wrap them back around the wire, he noticed the police had followed to the balcony. But they weren’t looking at him. They were busy messing with something. Something where the clothesline he’d wormed across, began.
Suddenly the line dropped a few inches. He hugged onto the thin rope tighter. Another few inches went. Desperation and desolation washed over him in nauseous waves.
He knew what they were doing now.
He looked ahead to the other building. No-one was there to hold that wheel.
“It isn’t fai – “The wheel ripped from the far-building and the Slayer fell from the sky. Screaming. His arms moving wildly, reaching for something to catch that wasn’t there. His legs hit another one of the lines on his way down, and he went spinning. Hitting head-first just over the border of grass into concrete.
The death of his screams and the reverberations of his body cracking against the earth filled the night. Shadows of police officers surrounded the still-figure sprawled out down below. Brody could see most had their guns drawn, covering the figure laying in a growing pool of what was black this high in the night, while a few keep their weapons lowered.
They knew Rowker wasn’t going anywhere.
Seven
They were sitting in the back of an ambulance. She was wrapped in a blanket, while he was having his stomach patched up. At one point, two men-in-white sauntered by carrying a stretcher. The white-blanket draped over its cargo already splotched in red.
Joan held her breath as they passed.
“Well he stuck you pretty good, but he didn’t hit anything too important. Just the fleshy-part here.”
“Good thing he was in a hurry, huh, Doc?”
“I’ll say. It’s alright, for now. But you need to come with me to the hospital.”
Brody approached then, hands buried in his pockets; his expression softened to a man whose job was done. “How you doin’, Conte?”
“I guess I’ll live. How about your boy on the roof?”
“Well he’ll be off the beat for’a while, but I think he’ll pull through.” The lieutenant went on. “Don’t tell anyone I said this… but you ain’t so bad, Conte. You and your nutty ideas. Take care of him, miss.” Then he turned and ambled away before anyone could say something back.
“Conte, huh?” said Joan. “Where have I heard that name before?”
He only grinned at her, amused.
And then it came to her. “You… you’re the paperman… you’re the one who wrote that article… the same one we were talking about!”
His grin widened. “Fred Conte. But my good friends call me, Freddy.”
“Well listen here, Mr. Conte- “
“Didn’t you hear me? I said my good friends call me- “
“I heard you,” she snapped.
He frowned at her.
“I don’t understand anything that’s happened tonight. What’re you doing here? What was with the slip of paper that fell from your jacket?”
He smiled again. “Yea, I knew that was what chased you off. Bet you thought that was a record of your schedule, didn’t you?”
She nodded.
“You should have used those beautiful brown-eyes to look harder at those notes. If you had, you would’ve noticed the arrival and departure times wouldn’t add up to you.
“Want to guess who might’ve stopped by most days, about twenty-minutes at a time?”
She suddenly knew. “His.”
“He’s name was Kyle Rowker. Just one of four suspects Brody and his boys were considering. All of them live right here, in Dunbar. Rowker knew they were onto him. He also knew they weren’t sure. I’d been following the case, and when the attacks suddenly stopped after Rowker got wise – I started following him. When he started spending his days frequenting the diner, I had a feeling he was getting antsy. That was the only place he’d ever show his face more than once. I knew if he felt like he had any kind of a break… he’d slip up.
“That’s why I planted that article.”
“You planted it?”
“The whole piece was bogus. I told Brody about my idea for that bit of fiction. Something to make him think we had nothing but bad info. Brody had his eyes set on Rowker, too, and he thought he’d make a move, just like I did.”
“So, you knew he was going to try… try and kill me?”
His eyes narrowed and he spoke carefully. “I knew it was someone at Fritz’ diner being watched. Someone who spent their days there. But not who. Then tonight, when I finally went inside… and saw you… I knew who was in trouble.”
Joan tried not to smile, but couldn’t help herself. “What… what about the song?”
“You mean, our song?”
“I…”
“I heard him listening to it a few times. It was too sweet a song for someone like him to know. I figured he got it from… well, now I know it was from you.”
“Well… thank you, Mr. Conte. For saving my life. Even if you did have a hand in endangering it.”
“You mean, Thank you Freddy.”
“You know, I think this has finally given me the best reason I need to leave the city.”
“Leave the city?” he repeated grimly.
“I’ve been thinking of leaving for a while. Now, I’m sure it’s right.”
“Can’t anything be done to change you mind?”
“I don’t think- “
But he was already kissing her. And she found herself letting him.
“…well…maybe…”
