Writing can be murder, whether you like it or not!

The Show Tune Killer

by Jeff Norburn

Steven Radford stared through the barred windows of the pawnshop, at an antique typewriter surrounded by portable stereos, jewelry, and handguns. The old Sun typewriter was in good condition for a machine that was close to a hundred years old. Steven went inside to find out how much the typewriter cost.

The clerk looked puzzled. “What typewriter?”

“The one in the window.”

The clerk lumbered around the counter, wheezing like an asthma patient who'd just run a marathon. “Oh, that typewriter,” he said, as if he knew it had been there all along. “Fifty bucks.”

Steven had no idea what the typewriter was worth. “I'll give you $40,” he said.

The big man shook his head. His face was slick with sweat. Walking the dozen or so steps around the counter to the front of the store was obviously more exercise than he was used to. “It's an antique,” he said. “It's a steal at $50.”

Steven hesitated and then said, “I'll take it. Is cash okay?”

The clerk smiled. “You gonna want that gift-wrapped?” He scooped up the money Steven had dropped on the counter. “Cause if you do, we charge extra for that.”

*

Steven's wife, Terri, stared with curiosity at the typewriter. “Why on earth did you buy this thing?” she asked.

It was a reasonable question, but one he couldn't answer - at least in a way that would make sense. “I don't know,” he said. “It's an antique. It could be worth a lot of money.”

Terri rolled her eyes. “Is that what the guy in the pawn shop told you?”

“I'm not even sure he knew he had a typewriter for sale.”

“Well,” she said, with a weak smile. “It might look nice in the den.”

“It's in great shape,” he said. “I even think it works.”

“You can write your next novel on it. I'll pick up a case of white-out for you. Your editor will love it.” The words were sarcastic, but she was smiling.

“I don't know about that,” he said. “I think every writer should have a typewriter like this, for inspiration.

She kissed him on the cheek. “Aren't I all the inspiration you need?”

Later that night Steven sat at his computer, working on his second novel. His first, ‘Connections', had been published three months earlier. ‘Connections' told the story of a father trying to reconnect with his estranged schizophrenic son, and in the process, finding love again with his first wife. His second novel, tentatively titled ‘Dust Bowl,' was about the lives of three brothers growing up in the rural south during the dirty thirties. He'd spent the past year conducting research, and had only recently started work on the manuscript.

So far, it wasn't going well.

When Steven had written ‘Connections,' he hadn't felt any pressure. But it was different now. He hadn't expected his first novel to get published. ‘Connections' had raised the bar for him and he wasn't sure he could jump that high again.

Steven let out a deep sigh, saved his file, and exited from the word processing program. He glanced at the clock on the wall and noted the time. It was nearly midnight , much later than he'd realized. He stretched, setting off a series of cringe inducing cracks and pops - his joints sounding like popcorn in a microwave. It was another sign he was getting older.

He stood and walked to the typewriter on the bookcase, running his fingers over the keys, pressing down on the space bar, the carriage lurching with each rise and fall of the wooden bar. As if in a trance, Steven carried the typewriter to his desk. He inserted a sheet of paper, rolled it into place, and took a seat.

He began to type. Slowly at first, but soon his fingers were moving at a frantic pace. Steven had never been a spontaneous writer. Before he sat down to write he did careful research and meticulously planned each chapter. Never before had the words flowed so freely.

It was well after 3 AM when Steven stopped typing, his fingers stiff and his back aching. He had typed nearly twenty pages. He flipped through the pages. Remarkably, the ink impressions were crisp and the letters easy to read. He felt pleased with himself and put the pages down on the desk. He stumbled up to bed.

“You were sure working late last night,” Terri said to him the next morning at the breakfast table.

Steven nodded and managed a barely audible grunt. It was early and he needed coffee before he would be able to form complete words, let alone a comprehensible sentence.

“Maybe that typewriter did inspire you,” she said.

Steven mumbled something, his words failing to resemble any known language and poured himself a cup of coffee, his eyes half open.

“I'd be interested in reading the next chapter,” she said, her voice impossibly cheerful.

He sipped the black coffee and waited for its healing powers to take effect. He took a seat at the kitchen table. As far as Steven was concerned, the world would be a much better place if everyone slept until noon .

“You must have made some real progress last night,” Terri went on.

“I started something new,” he mumbled, his first real words of the morning.

“Really? What about ‘Dust Bowl'?”

“I don't know what happened. I was about to come up to bed last night when I felt inspired to write. A new story just poured out of me.”

Terri seemed taken aback. “You've been plotting and planning one novel for over a year, and then out of the blue you start work on a different story?”

Steven shrugged. “It was strange. The story flowed out of me. I lost all track of time. I barely knew what I was writing. The words came as fast as I could think them. Creatively, it was amazing.”

Terri stared back at him like he was an ancient artifact she couldn't identify. “What's it about?” she asked.

“It's a crime novel about a serial killer,” he said, feeling a little embarrassed.

“Really? Where did that come from?”

Crime was a genre of fiction that Steven had shown disdain for in the past. He wrote modern literature, brimming with complex characters, subtle nuances, and creative symbolism. He did not write or read commercial fiction. “I don't know - it just did.”

“What's it about?”

“All that happens so far is that a serial killer murders a woman,” Steven said, sheepishly.

“Kills her how?”

He knew she wouldn't stop asking until he explained it all. “He slits her throat,” he said. “The killer is obsessed with Broadway Musicals and after he murders her he dresses her in costume and poses her as if she were Maria in West Side Story, doing her hair in front of her bedroom mirror. Then he leaves a small CD player behind with the song ‘I'm so Pretty' programmed to repeat over and over.”

Steven could see disappointment on his wife's face. He understood how she felt. Even for the genre, which he knew little about, the plot sounded ridiculous. He couldn't understand why it had excited him so much the night before.

“Are you serious?” she asked quietly.

“It seemed better at the time,” he said.

“But it's not even fiction.”

“What do you mean?”

“The Show Tune Killer is real.”

“What?”

She stared at him incredulously. “You've never heard of the Show Tune Killer?”

“I don't know what you're talking about.”

“You must have heard about it and then forgotten. It got into your subconscious somehow because the Show Tune Killer is real.”

“Why did you move the typewriter?” Terri asked later when they were in the study.

Steven didn't answer. The truth seemed too crazy to say out loud.

“You typed that story on it didn't you?” she said.

He nodded.

Terri moved the typewriter aside, took a seat at the desk, and began typing on the computer keyboard. Within seconds she had used an internet search engine to find a list of sites referring to the ‘Show Tune Killer.' She clicked on the first selection. Steven leaned over her shoulder and read.

Show tune killings had been occurring over the past fifteen years. 30 people had been murdered including 16 women and 14 men, many of them multiple homicides. The killings had occurred in different cities throughout the US , including Miami , Dallas , Kansas City, and Chicago . The murders occurred in spurts over a few nights in each city, and then the killings would stop. A couple of years later they would start again in a different city. The FBI believed that most of the murders were committed by copycat killers. The last murders had occurred two years ago in Boston , the city where Steven and Terri had lived for less than a year.

While authorities had tried not to release certain details about the murders, information about the bizarre crime scenes had been leaked. The killer had staged elaborate sets with victims posed as characters from popular musicals. One of the crime scenes in Kansas City included four victims, dressed as Dorothy, the Scarecrow, the Tin Man, and the Cowardly Lion from the Wizard of Oz.

“Where did your murder happen?” Terri asked.

“LA,” he said.

Terri stared at the screen, scrolling through text. “It doesn't look like any of the murders ever happened in LA.”

“That's good,” Steven said, relieved.

Terri logged off the computer. “So, are you going to write some more today?” she asked.

Steven shook his head. He didn't feel much like writing.

It was after midnight when Steven woke with a start. He climbed out of bed, went to the washroom, and wandered downstairs. He told himself that he was going to get a glass of water from the kitchen, but deep down, he knew different.

The typewriter was waiting for him in the den. Steven took a seat and began to type.

The next morning Terri sat alone at the kitchen table, reading the newspaper. She turned the page, gasped, and dropped her glass of orange juice. The glass hit the floor and shattered, juice splattering across the ceramic tile.

“Oh my God,” she whispered to herself, oblivious of the mess she had made. Her heart was pounding in her chest. She read the newspaper article, her hands shaking.

The body of a young woman had been found in a Los Angeles apartment, her throat slashed. She had been posed like Maria in West Side Story.

Steven stared up at the hotel, his heart racing. He had seen this hotel before, written about it. When Terri showed him the newspaper article he knew he had no choice but to fly to LA, to find the hotel where the Show Tune Killer was staying.

Steven felt a chill, although it was sunny and warm. The cab driver helped him unload his suitcase and a cardboard box that held the typewriter. Steven couldn't explain why he had brought the typewriter with him - he just felt that he needed to bring it.

After he checked into the hotel, Steven went up to his room on the twentieth floor. He removed the typewriter from the box and set it on a writing table.

Steven knew the killer's name was Neil Hamilton and that he was staying in this hotel. He didn't need to ask what room Hamilton was in. He knew. He had seen Neil Hamilton leave Room 1245 two nights in a row, with a knife in his pocket, humming a show tune. Steven had seen all this, three thousand miles away, sitting in front of a typewriter.

Later that night Steven finished his second beer in the hotel's sports bar. He wasn't sure why he had come to LA. After all, if he intended to stop Hamilton from killing again, he certainly couldn't do it by watching a ball game in a bar. Steven stared at the TV screen and then, all at once, felt a sudden urge to go upstairs. He took the elevator up to the 12 th floor and stopped in front of the door to Neil Hamilton's room.

Steven had to stop Neil Hamilton before he killed again. Steven was convinced that he was the only person in the world who could do this and that he had to do it now. It was up to him to stop the Show Tune Killer.

Steven knocked on the door to Room 1245, his heart pounding. He had no plan. He was unarmed. And he had no idea how to stop a killer. Even so, he felt as if he had no choice.

A man opened the door. He was average looking, about Steven's age, exactly as Steven had pictured him.

“I know who you are,” Steven said.

Neil Hamilton stared at him. “I know you do,” he said. “Come in.”

Steven hesitated for a moment. Common sense told him to run; that it wasn't safe to go inside the room of a homicidal maniac. But he needed to. He needed to face this killer.

Hamilton stepped away from the door so that Steven could step inside. The room was exactly as Steven had written about it. He glanced at the nightstand. He knew that there was a knife in the top drawer and that it had been used to slash a woman's throat. He had seen Hamilton rinse blood off it in the bathroom and then put it in the drawer for next time.

Hamilton closed the door. “You came to stop me,” he said.

“Yes,” Steven said, his voice detached. Everything was surreal. He was face to face with a man that should only exist in his imagination.

“I want it to stop too,” he said, his eyes vacant. “But it's more complicated than you think.”

“I understand more than you know,” Steven said.

“That's what I thought too. But I was wrong.”

“You have to stop killing people.”

Hamilton smiled - a sad weary smile. “You think if you kill me or send me to prison, the killings will stop – but they won't.”

Steven noticed for the first time that Hamilton had a gun in his hand. Hamilton aimed it at Steven's chest. “I've been waiting for you.”

“You don't need to do this,” Steven said, pleading.

“It's the only way.”

Steven lunged forward, but there was no time. He heard a loud explosion and then felt a searing pain rip through his abdomen. He looked down and saw an expanding tide of crimson spread across his shirt. He fell to the floor.

Hamilton drew closer, pointing the gun at Steven, preparing to fire again. Steven swung his leg out, knocking Hamilton off balance. The gun went off again, shattering a lamp on the nightstand. Steven scrambled to his knees and drove his shoulder into Hamilton 's hip. Hamilton stumbled back half a step, but stayed on his feet. Steven rocked back, shifted his weight, and drove himself forward. He caught Hamilton higher this time and both men toppled backwards, crashing to the floor.

Steven pinned Hamilton 's arms to the floor, while his own body screamed in pain. There was blood everywhere, his blood. Steven saw the gun on the carpet against the wall. He picked it up and pressed the muzzle against Hamilton 's head. He stared into Hamilton 's eyes, expecting to see an inhuman killer, but all he saw was a broken man, his eyes filled with despair.

“Kill me,” Hamilton croaked. “Do it.”

Steven shook his head. He knew what this man had done, he knew what he was, but he couldn't kill him in cold blood.

“And then kill yourself,” he said. “It's the only way.”

There was a pounding on the door, a commotion in the hallway, then voices demanding that they open the door. Steven craned his head to face the door, distracted, and felt his weight shift. Hamilton had taken advantage of the confusion, twisting his arm free and pushing Steven off him. Steven held the gun tightly in his hand and toppled over, striking the wall in the narrow hallway.

The door flew open and the room filled with armed policemen. Steven was too weak to move. He heard loud voices and gun shots and then he passed out.

Steven woke in the hospital, Terri by his side. Neil Hamilton was dead, shot by police. A knife and other physical evidence confirmed that Neil Hamilton had committed two LA ‘Show Tune Killings', but no physical evidence was ever found to tie him to the other killings in other cities. Neil Hamilton appeared to be another copy cat killer.

Steven had left the typewriter in LA, abandoning it in his hotel room. After Neil Hamilton was dead he felt no urge to use it. He never wanted to see it again.

“I'm glad you left that typewriter in LA,” Terri said when they were alone. “I swear - that thing was evil.”

“It was just a typewriter,” Steven said. “Neil Hamilton was evil.”

“Whatever it was,” she said. I'm glad it's over.”

“Me too.” He kissed her. “Me too.”

Two years later, Steven Radford lay awake in bed following a nightmare. He was in a hotel room in New York City . He'd come to New York for a few days to meet with his publisher about his second novel ‘Dust Bowl'.

He sat up, bathed in sweat. In his dream, he had seen a man enter a pawnshop. It was sunny and warm outside. There were palm trees. The man pointed to a typewriter in the window. Then he saw the man sitting down at a desk, sliding paper into the typewriter carriage. And then the man started to type.

Steven was awake, but he could still hear the clack of typewriter keys striking paper, the ping of the carriage as it reset. It was 2:00 am . He climbed out of bed and began to get dressed. He was humming as he tied his shoes and then put on a dark nylon jacket. Steven slipped gloves and a ski mask into his pocket and went to the nightstand where he removed a bone-handled 10-inch Mexican bowie knife from the drawer. His heart rate quickened. He sang.

“Stick with me baby, I'm the guy that you came in with, luck be a lady tonight.”

Steven Radford left his hotel room and stepped out into the night, the relentless clatter of the typewriter ringing in his head.