Smog mixed with a threatening New England sky to prematurely darken the city streets. Mason Stevenson, moving aimlessly through these streets, felt more comfortable when the darkness enveloped him. It represented safety and deepened the obscurity of his life, made him more invisible to others, allowing him darkness and aloneness as if they alone were the seeds of his madness.
When Mason stopped at the busiest intersection of the city, he was undecided as to the direction he should follow for this evening's activities. But he moved west and quickened his stride, drifting from dark to the light provided by streetlights in a way that gave only flashing identification of his features.
Mason Stevenson was tall and slightly stooped. A close observer might say that he moved as if he had a heavy weight upon his shoulders. Or, upon closer observation, as if he had a prison history that had given him the convict's stoop.
Mason was darkly good-looking. His hair was long, but it fit in no particular design. It was not of the theatrical Shakespearean clan, nor did it belong to the beatnik set. Nor was it long from neglect. Rather, it caught a mood of indifference, as did the rest of his appearance. Mason's eyes were dark brown. Sometimes they glinted. His frame was slim and liquid moving. His lips were thin, yet sensual. Mason's clothes were dark and conservative, store purchased, and seemed those of a bank teller though in truth he was a cabinet maker by trade. His hands, more than anything, hinted at his trade. The fingers were long and delicate. The nails were almost violently clean, showing the signs of the constant use of nail file and clippers to banish the irritation of sawdust and glue and varnish and stains.
People passing Mason Stevenson on this evening, if they noticed him at all, would have thought him an ordinary person, one who worked, had a family, or did not, and who on a Saturday night was on a downtown mission of pleasure. Nobody passing Mason would think that he was the man of whom they had read in the afternoon papers. There, he was not called by name. There he was spoken of as an unknown maniac who stalked women, found them, then strangled and raped. Or sometimes followed an opposite order of events.
At a traffic light a few blocks away from the downtown section, the number of pedestrians thinned. Mason waited at the light. When it turned green, he moved through the intersection. Then he paused again and looked from right to left. His eyes still did not show a sign of destination. But when he saw a small bar at the end of the block, he moved purposely towards it.
Now, as if a destination had given him motivation, his eyes glanced from side to side as he passed others. The eyes, it seemed had an investigative quality. They seemed to seek particular persons or special aspects of people. And they seemed especially attentive to women, observing first their eyes, then their breasts, hips, and the movement of their legs. Sometimes a smile would play at the corners of his mouth. Sometimes the eyes shifted more rapidly from one subject to another. But always, they inquired as if they wished to see inside these strangers who passed him in the night.
When Mason reached the bar he paused at the door. Then he started to move inside, but stood aside as a girl of about twenty-four also sought entrance. He smiled and held the door for her.
"Thank you," she said.
"You're welcome," he replied.
Once inside the space that separated the outer door and inner door of the bar, the girl now paused. Quickly, Mason pushed open the inner door to allow the girl to pass through it. She smiled and nodded as she moved. Mason returned the smile, then let his eyes glance quickly over all of her body. She was pretty, he noticed at once. Her short brown hair danced at her ears and the brown of her eyes seemed to add depth to all her being. The girl's body was good; fair-sized breasts which bounced a bit as she moved; hips, wider than average but with fine curves that glided downward to well-proportioned legs that seemed vital and firm.
Mason moved to the bar and climbed upon a stool. No one was on either side of him, but further down the bar there were several men and women, some silent, some talking quietly as they sipped their drinks. Behind the bar, there were a dozen small tables. It was at one of these that the girl paused, hesitated, then sat down. It was almost directly behind Mason Stevenson. The mirror that lined the back of the bar gave a full view of the remainder of the room. And, for Mason, of the girl. He smiled and felt a rumble of excitement cascade throughout his body. It was as if he could see inside the girl and learn everything about her without himself being observed, or, horribly, analyzed in return.
"Good-evening, what will you have?" a barmaid suddenly asked Mason.
He had expected a bartender. The barmaid had come upon him by surprise. He became terribly confused for a second during which the girl at the table and the pretty barmaid became confused.
The barmaid smiled and leaned a little closer to the bar. She, too, was pretty, and this helped confuse Mason all the more. And the way she leaned forward caused the white blouse she wore to peek open and reveal large breasts and even the deep, dark crevice that separated them. Mason felt as if he could leap into that crevice. That was what he wanted, he suddenly thought. To leap inside the crevice that separated the girl's breasts, then become lost there, to wander aimlessly within her body and soul, safe from discovery, from eyes, and scorn.
The barmaid pushed back. Now her breasts flattened a bit.
'I'll have a beer," Mason said.
"One beer," the girl replied. "Coming up."
Mason's eyes followed her as she moved to the center of the bar where the beer taps gleamed. He had liked how she had said that-how she had kind of slurred the emphasis upon the word 'coming'. Oh, yes, he had liked that. Very much. It seemed personal. But if only she wasn't so aggressive, Mason thought. This was what ruined women for him-or, ruined him for women. Why did they have to be so bold and forward? Why? Didn't they realize that they ceased being women when they did that? It was easy to understand, why couldn't women see it?
The barmaid served Mason his beer. He took a dollar from his wallet and gave it to her. She swayed away to the cash register to make change, then returned and placed it on the bar top. And then she spied the girl at the table behind Mason.
"We don't have any floor service yet, honey," the barmaid said to the brown haired girl. "So you can give me your order."
"A whiskey sour, please," the girl said.
"Coming right up," said the barmaid.
Mason Stevenson, caught between the conversation and between the barmaid leaning forward in front of him and the girl behind him, felt like an eavesdropper. It was a good feeling. He liked it. And he felt flattered the way they talked so personally in front of him. What was it the barmaid had said? Coming right up! Yes, that was it, Mason remembered.
Now that was really risque. Coming. Up. Was sex all that girls ever thought of today? He self-questioned. Was it? Well, he didn't really care, he decided. He liked the more passive type himself, but this was all just a matter of choice.
Soon, the barmaid served the girl her drink, moving away from the bar at the end and coming around behind Mason. He watched the action in the mirror. Then, when the barmaid returned to the bar, Mason continued to look at the girl through the mirror. When she finished taking her first sip of the drink, she looked in his direction. Their eyes met. She smiled. Mason returned it. She seemed a little shy and he liked that. Shyness was kin to passivity. And women, always, to Mason Stevenson's taste, should be passive.
He finished his beer and ordered another. The foamy head of it made him think of soap bubbles. Then he had a fleeting memory of his mother, a memory he caught hold of and sought to enlarge.
His mother, most certainly, had not been passive. Mason remembered how when he was small she had bathed him. She had been very aggressive about it, scrubbing him hard as if he had some terrible taint upon his skin that she diligently tried to remove. And she had washed him all over his body. He was always frightened when she washed his genitals. Here, too, she scrubbed furiously as if she desired to tear the parts from the rest of his body. After this experience he would avoid looking at this area of his body, fearful that his sex had indeed been severed. And all the time she worked upon the cleaning of him, she talked. Talked endlessly, about everything, usually criticisms of her son. Talked, talked, talked in an unceasing barrage of hurtful words. She had a prominent adam's apple. It trembled when she talked. It was always trembling. Sometimes he wanted more than anything in the world to see it quiet. Passive. Unmoving. But it never was. Not until the very end when she was at last quiet and pale in her coffin. Then the adam's apple did not jump. Mason had thought it the most amazing phenomena. He was overjoyed-until childish guilt set in. Then he was frightened.
Mason took a long swallow of his beer. His eyes looked over the rim. The girl, finishing her drink at this precise moment was also looking over her glass at him. They both smiled. Then she looked away. So did Mason Stevenson.
Mason had just finished his beer and replaced the glass on the bar top when a scuffing sound behind him raised his eyes to the mirror. The girl was rising from the table. Mason saw that some change remained on the table, signifying a tip for service because she was now leaving the place. Her eyes looked up and held with Mason's for an instant. Then, rather indifferently, she looked away. It was the briefest look she had given him since entering the bar. Mason felt affronted. It seemed as if she had led him up to a point and now rejected him. He wondered why. Then he had the impression that she had come to the bar only to pass the time, that now, very likely, she was leaving for a date at an appointed time. Mason felt rage clutch at his belly, twisting his guts. And the rage caused a momentary arousal of passion. It depleted quickly, however, when the girl left the bar without again looking into the mirror to bless him with her eyes.
In a scramble of motion, Mason slid off the bar stool. In the aisle between the bar and the small tables he paused, looking up and down.
"Leaving?" the barmaid asked when she saw him.
"Yes. Yes, I have to go now," he said.
"Well, come and see us again," she said pleasantly.
"See you again? Yes. Yes, I will."
Mason turned and walked out of the bar. Between the two doors again, he once more paused. He seemed befuddled, not quite sure of his actions. Then he pushed through the outer door and onto the street.
The girl was not as far away as Mason had expected. She stood only a few feet from the bar entrance. Mason, seeing her, felt as if he had been caught in a crime. But now her eyes were not rejective. He felt encouraged.
"You left so fast," he said very rapidly to the girl.
"Bars bore me very quickly," she said. Mason looked around. "Are you-waiting for somebody?"
"No."
"But you're just-just standing here. Not going away."
"I'm waiting for a cab," she said in a way that told him this should be obvious.
"Oh, yeah-a cab."
He shifted his weight from one foot to the other. Then he stared toward the corner as the girl did, simulating the same attention she gave to the passing cars.
Finally a cab came into sight. Mason stepped into the street and hailed it. Then he turned toward the girl. "Thank you," she said. "That's all right," he answered. "Cabs are hard to find this time of night."
"Yes."
Suddenly, he was swamped with inspiration. "Listen, would you mind if I shared the cab with you? We can drop you then I'll go on to my place."
She looked undecided, but then answered, "Yes. I guess that will be all right."
The cab pulled to the curb. Mason held the door open as the girl climbed in. There was a flash of smooth nylon from her thighs and a very definite jutting of her buttocks. Mason guessed that they were smooth too. He liked that. He followed her into the cab.
"Where to?" asked the cab driver.
Mason turned to the girl. "We can drop you off first."
She nodded, then to the driver, said, "220 Amsterdam, please."
"Okay," the driver said. "Are you going to the same address, Mister?"
Mason looked at the girl. She turned and looked out the window. Then he told the driver, "No. Drop the lady off and by that time I'll know where I want you to take me."
The cab leaped forward. Soon it had left the congested downtown section and was cruising on an expressway. From time to time, Mason glanced at the girl. She kept her eyes averted. When she did, as if to make up for the rejection, his eyes glowered over her body, noting everything about it; the way she breathed, the way that action caused her breasts to rise and kind of bloat as if they inhaled independently from her chest and lungs. He wondered about the flat belly-area beneath her breasts. Mason wondered if it was smooth and fine, without the stretch marks that woman-flesh often obtains, even at an early age. And the girl's knees intrigued Mason, too. She kept them primly together but the shortness of her skirt could not conceal them. They seemed round and also smooth to Mason. He liked the way they appeared to be anxious; ready to part after a brief struggle.
The cab turned off the expressway and ran up a ramp that exited on the west side of the city. The girl twisted slightly in her seat.
"Is this close to your place?" Mason suddenly asked the girl.
"Quite close." She hesitated, glanced out the window; then as if her statement had been too curt for one with whom she had shared a ride, she added, "It's down about six blocks."
"An apartment house, eh?" asked Mason, very happy now for the beginning of a conversation.
"Yes. A very small one."
"Apartments are nice," he offered, "except for that climbing the stairs."
"I'm on the main floor," she said, then seemed surprised at herself for the confidence she had offered.
"Well, that makes it better," Mason said.
"Much better." The girl leaned forward in her seat then said to the driver, "It's the only apartment on the right in the next block."
The driver nodded. Then, as the girl brought her purse up to her lap and opened it, the cab pulled to the curb in front of the apartment building.
"Two dollars and twenty cents, Miss," the driver said.
The girl started to sort out bills and change from her purse.
"We'd better split the fare," Mason said. "This is the general direction I come to, so it wouldn't be fair for you to pay the whole fare."
The girl looked surprised-pleasantly, surprised. She objected, but Mason insisted so she handed the driver a dollar bill and a quarter. Then she moved to leave by the door on the street side.
"Here, come out this way," Mason suggested. He threw open the door, then climbed out as the girl followed him. As she straightened after climbing out of the cab, her hip and right forearm struck lightly against Mason's body. She seemed not to notice. He also caught a scent of her light perfume.
"Well, good-night," the girl said.
"Good-night," Mason replied. "And thank you."
She turned around. "For what?"
"Ah-well, the conversation."
"Oh, of course. Good-night."
"Good-night."
Mason watched as she moved up the short walk to the apartment, then paused to secure her key from her purse. When she opened the front door, still fishing for the key because the front was unlocked, Mason climbed back into the cab.
"Back downtown?" asked the cab driver.
"In that direction," he said. 'I'll tell you the spot to drop me. But stay off the expressway."
"Okay," said the driver.
Soon they were traveling down a main street, stopping at traffic lights, moving forward, tangling and untangling in traffic. Mason Stevenson sat comfortably in the back seat. He stared out the window. The neighborhood was foreign to him, but because it resembled many of those of his acquaintances he did not feel strange. There were the usual collection of merchant's shops, theatres, restaurants, and bars. And there were people hurrying back and forth. Mason glanced at his watch, saw that it was eight o'clock and wondered what the girl was now doing in her apartment. Watching TV, he guessed, probably already showered and in night clothes while she relaxed before the silver screen. Why had she been downtown? he asked himself. She carried no packages. She couldn't have been shopping, he reasoned. Maybe working late? Where? he wondered. Probably an office, he decided. She looked like the office type. Neat. Prim. Efficient looking. Did she live alone? he asked himself. The apartment building looked small, probably her place was no larger than a single room and kitchenette. Not likely two girls would live in such small quarters, he thought, then giggled to himself, adding the thought, not unless they're queer.
A thumping sensation from his body distracted the thoughts. His heart was suddenly beating very fast, actually pounding against his chest as if it wanted escape. And at the same time there was a pulsation at his thighs. He knew that sign. And he knew the only way it could be quieted.
"This bar right here will be fine," Mason said to the cab driver.
The cab halted at the curb. Mason paid the fare, then added half the fare that was registered from the downtown section to the girl's apartment. Quickly, he subtracted the recent fare from the past and guessed that he was approximately two miles from the girl's residence. Then he got out of the cab. He walked slowly toward the bar, deliberately delaying until the cab had pulled away. When Mason reached the bar entrance, he turned away, feigning for anyone who might be watching, the expression of a sudden change of mind.
Mason Stevenson started walking in the direction from which he had come. He neither hurried, or dallied. He merely walked onward, purposely, like a man with a destination where the one who waited would continue to wait until his arrival, regardless of the time. And as he walked, the past and present of Mason Stevenson converged upon him in a flood of memories that were neither associated or disassociated from his present action and destination. Nor were they connected with the girl he had deemed to see, know, then murder.
He walked a mile before he rested. At a lunch counter restaurant he ordered coffee and drank it silently at the end of the counter. He looked at none of the others similarly occupied. Nor at the waitresses or cashier. He left a dime on the cashier's counter while she was busy tallying another bill. Then he walked back into the night.
Mason's stride did not falter until he was within two blocks of the Amsterdam address of the girl. Then he slowed his pace and finally halted at a corner, readjusting his location to the one that he wanted. Then he moved forward again, walking more slowly but directly toward the girl's apartment.
Mason slowed when the apartment came into sight. Then he approached it from the inside of the sidewalk, keeping himself in dark shadows.
At the front of the apartment building he walked directly to the door, twisted the handle and moved inside the vestibule. Then he sighed. He stooped and read the name tags beneath the buttons that signaled a caller in the individual apartments. On the main floor there were only three names listed: The manager, a man's name, and the girl. Her name was Peggy Manger. Mason Stevenson smiled. Then he twisted and looked out the door. No one was in sight. Tentatively, he tried the inside door. It was locked. Only a response from one of the buttons at the apartments would unlock it. He considered ringing Peggy Manger's apartment, then decided against it. Then he moved out of the vestibule to the outside again. Deliberately, he followed the narrow cement walk that went to the back of the apartment building.
The back yard was dismal. At the end of the yard there was a collection of trash cans. The grass was not well-kept. Spots of earth showed through. The porch, about six steps up from the ground, was wooden and this seemed odd to Mason Stevenson because the building was brick. The porch seemed as if it had been added as an after-thought.
The stairs creaked a bit as Mason moved up them. A screen door and heavy wooden door led to the inside of the building. The screen door opened easily, even if somewhat more squeakily than Mason appreciated. But, surprisingly, the inside door also opened when he twisted the door knob. Someone, Mason guessed, had forgotten to relock it after carrying trash to the end of the back yard.
The hall that separated the first floor apartments was short. The floor was covered with a thin carpeting. It was dirty and worn in spots. Peggy Manger's apartment was at the end of the hall and to the left, according to the number listed on the registry in the vestibule. Slowly, Mason moved toward it. When he reached it he was pleased to find that her name was imprinted on a small card within a frame on the door.
Mason gave some concentrated attention as to the method he would use to announce himself. Should he knock, then give a phony name if asked for it by the girl? Should he immediately announce himself as a Western Union messenger boy? Should force be immediately used? After all, there were other people close at hand. Finally, he decided to knock and see what happened at that point. Passion, perverted and intense, does not, after all, have any one system for its gratification.
Mason knocked on the door, softly, but in a rhythm that he hoped would sound familiar to the girl. And he knocked heavily enough, too, for inside he heard the sound of a television set or radio presenting some drama. And then, above that sound he heard the scuff of approaching footsteps. Mason tensed as he heard the door unbolted from within. It opened, fully and confidently.
The girl took a step backward when she saw Mason, but she did not cry out or close the door. She stared at him, great surprise showing in her round eyes. She wore a quilted bathrobe and slippers. Her body looked warm and soft.
"Hi," Mason said. "I just dropped by to say hello."
The girl stammered a bit, then said, "But I-how did you find my apartment?"
"Easy," he answered. "I'll tell you all about it."
With that Mason took a stride toward the inside of the room. And at that moment the girl very. likely would have closed, or attempted to close, the door, but Mason smiled disarmingly and winked. She stepped back a pace.
Mason pushed the door shut. It clicked within its lock.
"Now listen," the girl said, a little crossly. "What is this anyway?"
"I wanted to visit with you," he said. "So, I found out where you lived and decided to pay you a call. After all, we're not strangers."
"Not strangers?" she said dumbly.
"Naw. We were at the same bar, took a cab together-heck, Peggy, we're practically old acquaintances." He giggled.
Mason took two more familiar steps into the apartment. It was at that moment that fright gripped the girl. Her eyes darted to either side, then to the door behind Mason. She made a lunge for it, obviously frightened.
Mason caught the girl around the waist with his right hand, then, as her mouth opened, ready to scream, his left hand clamped over it. She struggled fiercely, but he held her tight. For a moment, while she struggled, Mason thought he might faint. The feel of her body rubbing against his was hot and intense. And the struggle itself-the aggression from a female that he loathed-nearly defeated him, made him relax and offer the girl, Peggy Manger, freedom. But he did not faint or relax or give her freedom. He forced her across the room in the direction of a pattern-splashed couch..
"Now, you shouldn't be carrying on like this," he said, hissing and groaning as he forced her across the room. "You shouldn't, girl. That's where you make your mistake. That's where all you gals make a mistake. You should all just be slow and easy and real nice to me. But, oh, no, you can't do that. You have to fight. Be tough. Be meaner than men."
The girl continued to struggle as Mason moved her to the couch. Her arms flayed out and her feet were stubborn about moving. Her eyes were round, with most of the whites showing as if they sought a truce, a delay, or help. And the eyes shifted around the room, too, looking, it seemed, for a weapon or a means of escape. But Mason's arm was strong. It crossed downward over one breast then wound around her stomach. And the left hand upon her mouth was a fortress. She breathed in a rasping, desperate way against it.
When Mason had forced her to the couch, he paused. He looked around. Then he looked directly into the frightened girl's eyes. He smiled. He loosened his hand that held her body and raised it to the bodice of her robe. Then he ripped it downward with a fierce jerk. Her shoulder crushed beneath the impact. The robe came free at a seam. Mason stripped it downward again. Then, freeing his right hand from her body and depending on only his left to hold her mouth and the rest of her, which he succeeded in doing, Mason tore several long strands of the quilted material. He held them in his hand. They dangled to the floor like long tails of a monster. Then he crumbled one of them into a ball, brought it to her face, and, when his left hand slid slightly to one side, he jammed the harsh material into her throat, gagging her, making her moans and groans only a harsh, raspy sound of defeat.
"There," he said, breathing hard. "Guess that'll keep you quiet. If only you gals were smart-if you didn't struggle so, be so goddamn bold-."
Mason forced her to the couch. He twisted her onto her stomach. He placed one knee in the small of her back and held her firmly, even as she continued to struggle. Then he brought her arms over her head and bound them with one of the long strips of cloth. Slowly then, he twisted her around to face him.
"Hey, that's real nice," he said, much as if to compliment himself.
The girl's left breast was fully exposed. Its nipple was indented as if it tried to hide. A jagged tear of her robe exposed a line from one shoulder across the hip on the opposite side. The flesh looked pink. And soft. And smooth. And the rest of the robe had gathered in a twist at her hips, showing her long bare legs and both thighs up to the point where they joined. One slipper had fallen from her foot. The bare toes looked bruised and were soiled where they had dragged resistively against the floor as Mason dragged her to the couch. And now her half-exposed body did not fight. Instead, it seemed alert and a little deceitful as if it only awaited its chance to leap for freedom. Mason quickly ended that hope.
Working carefully, Mason Stevenson bound the girl's hands with a new strip of quilted material. Then he tied it to the leg of the heavy couch. He raised and looked at her. He smiled. This was good, he thought. She was quiet. Unmoving except for those darting eyes. And as he looked at her the rumble that had captured his innards grew, brought to him the bloat of manhood that only female passivity could cause. He became very excited at the event of his own rise. He started breathing hard. His trousers felt rough where he protruded against them. Then, to encourage that feeling, he reached forward and, with both hands attacking wildly, he stripped Peggy Manger of the remainder of her torn clothing: quilted robe and the short, transparent shortie-nightie she had worn beneath it. Mason rose and pushed back, looking at the nakedness he had created with a certain awe-stricken happiness.
He looked at her a long time. Then, moving carefully, he backed up in the direction of the television set, all the time keeping his eyes upon her frightened eyes and naked body. At the TV, he turned the volume up a bit. Not much, just enough to mix those sounds with his own labored breathing that he knew would not be quiet until he had finished with the girl. Then he walked back to the couch and Peggy Manger.
Roughly, he dislodged her from the couch. She fell with a soft thud on the carpeting. Her bare legs closed, locked at the ankles. She was very long, very bare, very fettered and almost passive. Mason looked at her for a long time, then, backing up again, he moved to the open closet door. He glanced inside, then grinned when he saw the nylon stockings looped over a hanger. He dragged one of them from the others and returned to the girl.
Now, her eyes looked desperate. They shot at the stocking, then into Mason's face, then to the bulge at his trousers.
Quickly, he lowered on one knee at her side. He reached out and grasped one breast. Slowly, he kneaded it. Then he brought the nylon up to the other breast and gently rubbed it there. Then he rubbed the nylon in a circle at her belly. Then beneath it. He breathed horribly, like a man involved in death or the struggle against it.
Mason moved back to a sitting position on his knees. Then he raised the nylon and looped it around the girl's neck. He held the ends with his left hand, not tightly but in a position of readiness as if they were a hangman's noose, ready for the lynching. Then with his right hand he exposed himself.
The girl's eyes turned to the bareness he had brought forth. They rolled, showing almost a total view of white, much as if the sight of him had caused her to faint.
Mason Stevenson moved to the front of the girl. He unlocked her ankles, then pushed on her legs until they were braced and open. Then he moved between them. He looked at her. She was quiet. He leaned forward. Gripping the ends of the nylon stocking that looped around the girl's neck with one hand, and directing himself to her body with the other hand, he thrusted forward.
Now the girl's eyes shot their fury at him. Now her body moved, twisting and turning, not in response to his sexual giving, but in a desperate attempt to free herself from his crashing love-making.
"Oh, don't," Mason pleaded as he moved. "Don't, don't, don't."
The girl continued to fight. Mason's movement slowed. Then stopped altogether as the strength of his manhood left him like air from a punctured balloon.
"Oh, see what you've done," he cried. "See, see, see." He moved back so the girl would have a view of his pathetic impotency.
"Oh, why did you have to fight?" he cried. "Why? Now I've got to do it to you. Now I've gotta. Oh, why can't you be smart-why can't you just be quiet? Then, I wouldn't have to hurt you. But now-."
Mason pulled away from the girl. His defeated manhood was a small dab of white against the dark of his trousers. He stretched forward and brought his other hand to the nylon at her throat. For a moment, he held each end in his hands, playing with them as if they represented the same limpness that her fight had brought to him.
She looked at him once as he re-looped the nylon stocking, then pulled it tight. He groaned hatefully as his hands trembled from the pressure he exerted. For a moment, her body stiffened and raised a bit as if she were arching to receive his sexual giving-or as if she held this out as a final lure to save herself from death.
But Mason Stevenson could not now be stopped. He pulled the nylon tighter and tighter and tighter. And when at last the girl's body went limp, his own body underwent an opposite effect. His manhood strained strongly toward the death he had created.
Mason released the nylon from the girl's neck. Then, madly, he scrambled to his feet and wrestled himself between the lifeless, but still warm, thighs.
He wanted to roar as he took her. He pounded and wanted to sear her body with his strength, split her, open her, torture her. But there was not time. Not for anything except the few minutes of movement and the final, excruciating painfully delightful exit of his insane passion.
Mason did not look at the girl when he rose from her lifeless body. He straightened his own clothing, went to the television set and turned the volume low; then walked across the room to the door. He opened it carefully, shut it behind himself carefully, too; then walked to the end of the hall and let himself out of the building at the rear. He traveled the alleys for two blocks, then returned to the streets, to take his place among the others who moved within the city.
CHAPTER TWO
The girl was quite tall, very pretty, and exceptionally patient with the police talk that buzzed around her. As a beginning sociologist, twenty-four year old Janet Helm, had learned that patience was always rewarded. But, as she listened to the pros and cons of police procedure, Janet had her doubts about patience.
The police officers who had gathered in the room seemed impervious to the few suggestions she had already made, and one of them, Lieutenant Clint Henderson, seemed downright hostile. Janet wondered why he, a young man-probably in his early thirties, she guessed-would resist change in the methods that had already proved unfruitful. The lieutenant was intelligent, she recognized, and she was familiar with his reputation as a thorough, hard-hitting, and sometimes brilliant, career police officer. Janet could not understand why he seemed to resent her presence. She wondered if it had something to do with the Police Commissioner's edict that she, as a sociologist, should be actively involved in the search for the Sex Strangler.
"He entered by the back door which was unlocked," said Clint Henderson in answer to a question from one of the two other officers present. "Then he got into her apartment and murdered her."
"Has the pathologist given a report on when the rape occurred yet?" asked a short, balding police detective.
"He can't tell for sure," said Clint. "It's my guess that he raped her, then killed her. He's probably one of these kooks who likes the struggle as well as the act, or maybe can't enjoy the act unless he has a struggle."
"Then why would he have bothered tying her hands?" Janet could not resist asking.
Clint looked at her. His eyes were dark brown and piercing. And the way he towered over her added the illusion of greater height than his six feet deserved. His dark, curly hair was glistening from perspiration.
"Well?" Janet asked when he did not immediately answer.
"He liked the struggle, but not too much struggle," Clint said.
"But most killers who desire a struggle from their victim are really trying to allow their victim to escape-or themselves to be discovered in the act," she said, her voice lilting a bit in a note of protest. "This wasn't the case with the Manger girl."
"No, it wasn't," Clint said. He turned from her and glanced through several photographs of known sex deviates that were stacked on the desk.
"Those are a waste of time," said one of the officers. "We've already shown them all over the neighborhood. Nobody has seen anyone resembling those photos."
"Maybe he doesn't have a police record," Janet suggested.
"Obviously," said Clint coldly. Then he turned and said to the other officers, "And the cab driver remembers the girl but couldn't identify the man who rode with her in the cab?"
The officers nodded.
"And the people where the cabbie dropped-the people in the bars and stores and restaurants-they don't remember seeing him in that area either?"
Again, the officers shook their heads.
Janet waited another few minutes, listening to the conversation between Clint and the other officers. To her, it was amazing that the police did as well as they did in the apprehension of criminals. She thought of her own training in sociology and considered how well it could be integrated with every police department in the nation. But, she admitted to herself, such an event would be a long time coming. Police resisted the sociologist and psychologist, except when they were needed to support the prosecution's case. And men like Clint Henderson resisted scientific change more than most police officers, she decided. When she briefly considered all that she had learned about him, she could understand the reason. Clint Henderson was a two-fisted cop. His results as a police officer had been exceptional: Many citations, dotted his record as an officer. So, for Clint, Janet reasoned, it would always have to be the man, the individual, who prevailed over the criminal, rather than a science.
"Do you think, Clint, that the three recent strangulations are connected?" Janet heard one of the officers ask Henderson.
"The M.O.'s the same," Clint answered. "But still, it could be a coincidence."
"The papers are beginning to howl like hell," one of the officers said.
"Let them," Clint said.
"And the Commissioner's yelling too."
Clint glanced at Janet. His eyes bore first at her eyes, then her body which was good: large breasted, narrow of waist, flaring of hips and good of thighs and legs.
"Well, let's get on with the good solid police work," Clint said to the others. "Continue checking the neighborhoods-the people. Pick up known deviates. Question hell out of them. Work everything over thoroughly. Then-well, let's hope for a break."
"Were there any good fingerprints?" Janet Helm asked.
"Terrific prints," said one of the officers. "But they're not on file with the F.B.I, or any place."
"Isn't that odd?" she asked. "It seems unusual for a man to escape being tagged in this country, the way things are today."
"It's a little unusual," said the officer. "But we do come across it from time to time."
"Check out the pawnshops," Clint said. "Maybe if he's broke he's pawned something."
"Do you think he's a wanderer?" Janet asked. "Steadily employed people sometimes commit crimes like this. Their sexual urges are a pattern of their own, not necessarily a part of other patterns, though some probably do exist."
"All right," said Clint Henderson a little impatiently. "What kind of man would you draw for us in this case? Is the man a butcher-a teacher? What?"
"I don't know," she answered, moving her position in the chair a bit. "I do have some ideas, however."
"Of course you would," said Clint, while the other officers smiled.
"I'd say the man is very neat," Janet continued. "I found that men who do these crimes are compelled toward cleanliness. They wash their hands a lot. Take frequent showers. You know, subconsciously ridding themselves of the stain of blood or sign of their crime."
"The Pontius Pilate theory, eh?" laughed Clint.
"Yes."
"You say you found this to be true. How did you find it?"
"In forty-three sample cases I used for my Masters degree."
"How interesting," said Clint sarcastically.
The two officers pushed up from their chairs. They said good-bye to Janet, then gave Clint Henderson a nod and left the room. Clint started toward the door too, then, as if it were an after-thought, he turned toward Janet Helm.
"Can I drop you anyplace?" he asked.
"No, thanks anyway." She stood up and walked over to him. "Clint, I know you resent my involvement with this case. If I was in your position, I would too. But believe me, I just want to help. I really do. And I hope that the fact that the Commissioner arranged for me to assist on this case won't make us enemies."
He smiled. It was a very good, healthy, manly smile that showed large, straight teeth and the crinkly lines around his eyes and mouth that told of a man, despite a morbid business, who found many opportunities to laugh and enjoy life.
"Okay?" she asked.
He was looking at her very blonde hair, especially, it seemed, at the way it curled around her ears. Then, quite suddenly, he said, "That Peggy Manger girl had brown hair, didn't she?"
"Yes," Janet replied.
As if he was talking to himself, he said, "Why weren't there any strands of it wound in that nylon stocking?"
Janet cocked her head, then said, "Her hair was pretty short."
"But any type of strangulation is bound to catch some hair ends. But there weren't any."
"That's true," Janet said, swinging around a little.
"And we still don't know if he raped her before or after he killed her," Clint said, still thinking aloud.
"And that's important," Janet exclaimed.
"Why?" Clint asked, looking directly into her eyes.
"Because it tells us if we're looking for a particular deviate," she said. "What kind?"
"Well, if he kills the victims first, then has intercourse with them, he might be a necrophiliac."
"Or he might not be, too," said Clint Henderson in a deprecating manner. "I've seen sex criminals go through all different kinds of patterns. All kinds. But the one thing they seem to stay clear of, or have an incapacity for, is normal relations with women."
Janet nodded. Then she moved to the door.
"You're sure I can't drop you?" Clint asked.
"Yes. Thanks. I have a dinner engagement."
"Oh." His eyes surveyed her quickly. "Young sociologists have time for socializing, eh?"
"We squeeze it in," she said, smiling in a way that brightened her blue eyes.
They left the room together. In the hallway, they parted, or started to before Clint Henderson stopped Janet from leaving.
"What are you doing tomorrow?" he asked her.
"I thought I'd go over to the girl's apartment to look around."
"I'll go with you," he said. "Okay?"
"Fine," she answered, pleased that there would be an opportunity to lessen the strain between them.
"In the meantime, I'll check out all her known boy friends. The unknown ones too, if I can. We might get a lead."
"Did she have many boy friends?" Janet asked.
"Three or four. Nobody special, far as we know. She dated around-slept around a little too, according to the neighbors."
"Never married?"
"No."
"You either, eh, Lt. Henderson?" she said, smiling.
He grunted disgustedly, then said, "There's no time for a cop to get married in this crummy city."
"Such a shame," she said, exaggerating her concern.
Clint made a face, then turned and walked into another room as Janet called good-bye again and moved outside the building.
At the curb, she breathed deeply of the evening air, catching all the early spring scents of the city. She thought of the country area she had known until her eighteenth birthday, and missed it, then made a mental note that she would have to return some week-end soon just to enjoy the scent and flavor of the country.
Janet glanced at her watch and saw that she was already ten minutes late meeting her date, Howard Bender, a research psychologist. She moved quickly down the sidewalk in the direction of their meeting place, a cocktail lounge, all the time keeping her eyes alert for a passing taxicab. Finally, one moved toward her. She hailed it. The cab pulled to the curb. Janet got in, gave the address, then settled back for the short ride to the cocktail lounge.
As she looked out the window, Janet sought the faces of the men who moved through the crowded streets. She looked at each one quizzically, wondering if it was the face of a murderer, a strangler who was on his way to terrorizing a city. She thought of the hundreds of women of the city who were now frightened, of the husbands who feared for their wives and daughters. It seemed fantastic that one man-one killer-could raise so much havoc with a city's population. Then she considered how the element of fear itself often works to the fearful one's disadvantage. Fear, she reasoned, does not always make people careful. Sometimes it attracts people to it, especially those people with deeply seated emotional problems that draw them toward violence and even death. If the secret attraction toward horror could be removed from the people, then the strangler would have less opportunity to kill and rape. Janet thought of the latest victim, Peggy Manger. The girl had obviously opened the door of her apartment to see who was calling. Thus, the caller was either known to her, or she opened her door to a stranger. Why? questioned Janet Helm. Why? Could the victim in some strange way be attracted to the violence that she must have know every woman risked by opening a door when she was alone? Could she? What were the elements that helped the killer?
The cab halted at the entrance-way of the cocktail lounge. Janet paid her fare and alighted from the cab.
It was dark inside the lounge. For a moment, Janet stood in the foyer, looking through the archway to the small tables. Then she saw Howard Bender and moved toward him.
Howard was tall and thin and very serious looking for a man who was only thirty. He had a pleasant smile, but it was rarely brought into play. It showed tentatively, however, when he saw Janet heading for his table. He jumped up and immediately pulled out the chair across from him.
"Sorry I'm late," she said a little breathlessly.
"I expected it," he answered. "People in police work are always late-late to catch the murderer, late to warn the victim-late to arrive at the-."
"All right, Howie," she said with a smile. "That's enough ribbing for now."
They talked of everyday occurrences until the waitress came to their table. Janet ordered a cocktail and Howie decided on another highball. Then they resumed talking until the drinks were served.
"But don't you see," said Howie, "that you have to consider the psychology of the victim as much as of the killer."
"I was thinking of that as I came to meet you," she said. "But, since we cannot investigate the secret drives of every woman in the city, we have to proceed with what we have-the killer, his techniques, the location, the weapon, all these things that we do learn."
"And how much have you learned?" he asked.
"Very little."
"Well, don't worry about it. The police will blunder into catching him."
"Blunder?"
"Of course," he said. "That's the way police departments realize most of their successes. They blunder into them. Chance, more than skill, gives them their suspect."
"I don't think I agree with that at all," she said.
He took another swallow of his drink, then placed the glass on the table. "Look, Jan, it's this way. A bank robber makes a clean escape. He's not identifiable. Let's say he wore a Halloween mask or something. So he gets away. Clean. No pursuit. Nothing. Then an hour later his car breaks down on the road and a stupid cop comes along and gets suspicious of the' way the robber talks. The good policeman seeks to question the bad robber more thoroughly and asks to have the trunk unlocked. The robber gets upset because the money and guns are hidden in the trunk, so, bang, he shoots the policeman and goes dashing off in the car until it goes out of control and plunges into a store window, knocking the robber out and making him very easy to capture when the police finally arrive on the scene."
Janet smiled.
"See?" he asked.
"Yes. And no, too."
"The police are lucky," said Howie.
"But at least they use their luck," said Janet. "That's something in their favor."
"Big deal," he said exaggeratedly.
They talked of more casual things, Howard's work at a veterans' hospital, the frustration of out-patient mental cases who don't show up for their therapeutic hour, and the activities of a few people who were known to both of them.
When they had finished their drinks, Howard asked Janet if she'd like to have dinner someplace.
"Yes," she said. "At my apartment. I'll grill you a steak."
"Fine," he responded, giving a rare smile.
The steaks were good. The wine Janet used was good, too, and the effects of dinner created a lazy quality in both Howard and Janet. While she sought activity to relieve the lazy feeling by doing dishes immediately, Howard read in the living room.
Janet, almost from the time she met Howard for cocktails, had kept her mind busy investigating her own feelings as they concerned Howard, who was in love with her, and other elements of her life. Mentally, she criticized the research psychologist. He was too passive for her, she thought, too proper, in the right place at the right time, correct, in everything. She wished, she recognized, that he would sometimes be a little ruthless. When she thought of this, her mind considered again her work with the police department and Lt. Clint Henderson. Did she, like the victims of the strangler, actually seek ruthlessness? she asked herself. Did she seek it because of a wish for excitement? Or did it perhaps have a sexual bearing? she considered. The thought made her concentrate a little harder, investigating her own sexual ideas and drives and wishes. Lately, Janet recognized, she had been more than displeased at her ability for sexual response. Neither promiscuous, or a prude, Janet did indulge in sex, with Howard Bender now, and previously with two other young men with whom she had fancied herself in love. But lately the sex had not been good, Janet thought. Why? Perhaps it was a clue to other things. Perhaps her own sexuality would tell her something about the sexual feelings of those girls who had fallen victim to the strangler.
When she finished with the dishes, Janet joined Howie in the living room. "Finished?" he asked. "Yes."
"I could have helped, you know."
"I know," she said. She glanced at her apron, then said, "I'm soaking wet. Excuse me while I change."
Howard grinned at her. His eyes followed her as she moved to her bedroom. And Janet, knowing that his eyes were on her body, felt a sudden desire to accentuate that body. Deliberately, she swayed her hips a bit. The action caused a very slight jiggling of her breasts. To herself, Janet smiled, thinking that women-perhaps the strangler's victims too-really caused things to happen to them. She was a case in point, she decided. She had decided that she wanted Howard Bender to make love to her this night and now, quite naturally, made her body a lure for that event.
Janet undressed in front of her mirror, dropping her clothes in a pile. She viewed her naked body for a moment, feeling considerable satisfaction for her large breasts and flat belly, even admiring the closeness of her thighs to each other. A forebearing posture, she decided. But one that was quickly changed.
From her closet, Janet selected a negligee that covered her body well, while not subduing its sexual hints too much. Then she returned to the mirror and brushed her blonde hair vigorously. And then she left the room and presented herself to Howard Bender.
They came together without preliminaries. Janet sat down on the couch next to Howard. She turned toward him and he immediately took her in his arms. They kissed. It was lazy at the beginning, but by the excitement of Janet's probing tongue, grew more active and intense.
As Janet pressed her body close to Howard's-as she spun her tongue madly within his mouth, pausing only long enough to accept the same spinning from him-she tried hard to investigate her own feelings and place them in a relationship to other women, especially those women, past and potential, who might fall victim to the Sex Strangler. Janet felt a rapid growth of passion course through her body. It was at her breasts, her belly, and her thighs. Her muscles tightened. Her nipples hardened. And heat ran high. Janet wondered if a woman about to die would know as much excitement. Or more? Or none at all? Would such a woman, she wondered, perhaps be so accelerated in her feelings that death itself would be her final thrill-her orgasm? Would it? she wondered. Then she remembered how some long-ago psychiatrist had drawn a parallel between life and death, that the puruit of life was a constant conflict between these two elements, that people actually struggled between life and death all during their existence. Then she wondered if a sexual climax could not be closely associated with the element of death. The experience was heady, high, breath-taking, profound, fast, all these things and more, she thought. And wasn't death of the same qualities? But how do we know? she asked herself, then faced the unhappy realization that we do not, and may never know. Still, there was a stockpile of suppositions here, she decided, some of which could be answered by thorough investigation and personal involvement. Yes, that was it, she decided quickly, she, in order to apprehend the Sex Strangler, must somehow become more personally involved in his crimes. Yes, that was it, she decided. Her thoughts about it were still fuzzy, but she determined that they would clear.
"Oh, Jan," Howie moaned as he brought his lips away from hers.
Janet smiled, then, following the urging of Howard's hands upon her breasts, she stretched prone upon the couch. As he drew back a bit and made some movements at his clothing, Janet parted her negligee to reveal all of her long, white body.
Soon, there was the approach of Howard. She looked into his eyes as he hovered over her a moment, then slowly brought himself forward to meet her body. She saw his eyes glaze a bit as he made contact, paused, then continued forward, intensifying the sensations as their bodies joined and locked. Janet wondered if her own eyes glazed as she arched a bit to receive him. And then she ceased her self-investigation. Howard was moving strongly and fast. She met his movement, brought her hands around his neck and played there with the tufts of his short hair as her thighs grew taut and more active. And soon, that feeling was upon her, not intense as she would wish, but not slight, either. Rather, it was there, a reminder that their activity had produced a result, a climatic result. She sought to increase the sensation, fought her body more deliberately against Howard's movement and even twisted a bit beneath him, but the sensation had reached its peak and could not be encouraged to go higher.
"Oh, Jan!!" Howie suddenly whispered.
"Yes," she answered, more from politeness than from any uncontrollable gasp.
They moved faster. Soon, Jan realized that Howard had reached his optimum speed and passion, that he could go no higher. And her own sensations had already congested and waited only for the releasing end.
Howard moaned and bent to seek her mouth as he poured himself into the finale. She caught his mouth, felt his tongue and tasted the sourness that passion had caused. And then, as she clung to his tongue, she noticed that the taste of him had changed, had taken on the qualities produced by her own rapidly changing metabolism as she met, and knew, the quick thrill and its all too rapid disappearance.
Much later, after they had rested and sat together on the couch, Howard said, "That wasn't very good for you tonight, was it?"
"It was fine," she lied.
"I'm sorry," he said.
"Don't be," she answered. "If it wasn't good, it's my fault." Her mind, quite uncontrollably, created an image of Lt. Clint Henderson. She felt her heart thud in response. She wondered what it all meant.
CHAPTER THREE
"Oh, you're a riot," said the landlady to Mason Stevenson.
"It's the truth," he kidded. "A pretty woman like you is probably just what that Sex Strangler's looking for."
The woman, in her sixties and not at all attractive, laughed uproariously again. "Mason, you'll be the death of me with all your joking. You really will."
"I hope not," he said quickly. "If I was to be the death of you, then they'd probably sell this place and I'd be out both a nice little apartment and a real good landlady."
The old woman's eyes misted a bit. Then, smiling, she said, "It's real fond of you I am, Mason, but I guess you know that, don't you?"
"Yes. It's the same for me," he admitted. "I've been happier the three years I've lived here at your place than any time in my life."
"And I'm lucky to have a good tenant like you," she said, then, her smile going wider, she added, "And now that the day's compliments are over with, how about a cup of coffee?"
"Thanks," Mason said. "I'd really like to but I've got some business to take care of. Now that you've got the rent for the month, I've got to spread the rest out over my other creditors."
"I bet," the landlady said. "A man the likes of you is never behind in his bills."
"I try not to be," he answered, smiling, looking a little flattered.
"Wait and I'll give you a receipt," she said, suddenly remembering.
"Oh, don't bother now," said Mason. "Any time's all right-just stick it under my door."
"All right," she agreed. Then she said, "How are things going at the shop?"
"Oh, fine," he answered. "We're doing all the cupboards for a new subdivision of homes. It's a big job."
"Keeps a lot of fellas busy, eh?"
"No, we can't free them for just cabinets," he said. "I'm handling all the work myself. Going fast as I can, too, cause some of the people are waiting to move in-some have even moved in without the cupboards being finished yet."
"Now that's inconvenient," said the landlady.
"It sure is," he agreed. "Of course, it makes it nice for me. It'd be pretty lonely out there if I didn't have somebody to talk to. With some of the people in their homes already, it gives me company while I work. That's nice. I like it that way."
"The homes are pretty expensive, I suppose."
"No, they're pretty cheap as a matter-of-fact. Mostly it's young people-quite a few newlyweds-who are buying them. All the same in the neighborhood. People are pretty much the same, too, I guess."
"Well, I've got to be getting on with my cleaning, Mason," the landlady said.
He nodded, smiled, then moved away from the living room and out the door of his landlady's home which was on the same floor as his own three room apartment.
Mason's car was parked in the driveway. He entered it, then backed onto the street. He drove in a direction that led out of the city.
As he drove, Mason Stevenson thought of his day's activities in the new subdivision. Yesterday had been an exciting day for him. He had worked the entire day in the kitchen of one of the new homes, one that the occupants had chose to occupy before the cupboards were finished. And in the kitchen with him a good part of the day, there was the young woman of the house, Helen Stimson, about twenty years of age and only a few months married. Mason had liked that. Helen had been very friendly, chatting with him as he worked, inviting him to coffee at ten o'clock break-time, and going about her various tasks within his presence. Mason had been thrilled by the setting. It was like being married, he had thought. And now as he drove in the direction of those new homes, Mason remembered how he had felt cheated and jealous when the telephone man had arrived to install the telephone. Mason had treated the telephone man like an intruder, or as an opponent for the affections of pretty young Helen Stimson. But, Mason remembered how he had profited by the phone installation, anyway. When Helen was out of the kitchen he had jotted down the telephone number. Thinking about it, Mason smiled. How clever he had been.
When Mason arrived at an area that was close to the new subdivision, yet still several miles away, he pulled the car to a halt at an outdoor telephone booth. He got out of the car.
Inside the booth, Mason looked at a slip of paper with the telephone number of the Stimsons' on it. Then he dialed the number. His body shook a bit as the phone started ringing. Then he looked up and saw the light bulb. He reached up and unscrewed it. Darkness enclosed the booth. And then there was the sound of the phone being answered.
"Hello," said Helen Stimson cheerfully.
Mason did not answer.
"Hello," she repeated.
Mason breathed hard into the telephone.
"Say, who is this, anyway?" asked Helen Stimson.
Mason breathed harder, thinking how she would look, how perhaps even at this moment her breath was quickening as his did, how her breasts would push against her blouse, showing her hard tips and the outline of the flesh that held them.
"What's going on there?" Helen demanded, her voice rising. "Do I have a bad connection or something?"
Now, Mason risked speaking. He uttered an obscenity, then a series of them, all referring to what he wished to do to the innocent Helen Stimson. He heard her gasp, shocked, but the phone did not slam down and break their connection. Then, as he spoke into the phone again, still disguising his voice, Mason reached to his groin and grasped himself. He felt very excited because he was exciting Helen Stimson, the unsuspecting wife of a new subdivision home owner. But, to his dismay, Mason Stevenson found that the response that had once been automatic was not present. He gripped himself harder and began a fast manipulation as he uttered new obscene suggestions into the telephone mouthpiece. It did no good though. Although inwardly excited, he remained without a physical response. And then the telephone was banged down and it seemed the vehicle of complete rejection and castration. Mason trembled madly. Then he released himself and walked out of the phone booth. He thought of the other telephone numbers he had collected from the subdivision, but then decided not to use them, that if a secret conversation with Helen Stimson, the prettiest of the lot by his calculation, could not raise him to passion's readiness, none of the others would succeed either.
Back in his car, Mason made a U-turn and drove back toward the city. When he reached the outskirts of the downtown section, he parked his car in an all-night parking lot, then walked to the corner.
Mason stood in a bus zone and allowed two buses to pass him. When the third appeared, he saw that it was crowded, saw that people jammed the aisle. He boarded it, paid his fare, then started to work his way to the rear of the bus.
As he passed each woman who was standing in the aisle, Mason turned, facing them; then as he excused himself, moved past them, rubbing his body against theirs. He moved very slowly, all the time keeping a passive, but pleasant, expression on his face. He felt the bump of their bodies against him; young bodies, old bodies, teenaged bodies, all females with whom he had brought himself in direct erotic contact. By the time he reached the doors in the middle of the bus, Mason knew that this method was no longer satisfying to him either. Somehow he had been robbed of this less dramatic sexual expression. He was suddenly swamped with depression. When the bus stopped at the next corner and the rear doors opened, Mason, following a man and a woman, stepped out of the bus.
He was in the midst of the downtown area. People moved past him. Mason paid them little heed. None of them, at the moment, he knew, would help his frustration.
After walking the main street for several blocks, Mason turned from it and proceeded down a side street that led away from the department stores and other businesses. Here, the population thinned. The neighborhood showed the symptoms of Urban Renewal. The streets were slum-classified, and had been pinpointed to soon become the sidewalks of the city's new cultural center. Little of the new was in evidence; demolition crews, working by night, wooden frameworks over the sidewalks, a few boarded up buildings, only this transitory kind of evidence showed. But much of the old remained. There were a few cheap bars and restaurants, several pawnshops, and long stretches of small merchant shops and second-hand stores. Few people walked the streets of this area. Those who did, were of the neighborhood, still resisting the change that had started.
Mason continued walking slowly until he was nearly out of the area. At the corner ahead, he saw a figure standing idly. It was a woman. He quickened his pace a bit.
When Mason was still a few feet away from the girl, she turned and smiled at him. She was pretty, but hard-looking. The skirt she wore was very short. Her breasts billowed her sweater outward in a brazen display of unhampered largeness. Her eyes, very dark, fluttered over Mason's body, showing interest, and invitation.
Mason slowed his pace. He was breathing hard again, but controlling it well.
"Nice night," the girl said to him.
"Very nice," he answered. Then he looked around and said, "This neighborhood's changed a lot."
"Yeah," she answered. "But not the people in it."
Mason glanced at her legs. The street light showed that they were slim. She wore nylons that were nearly the color of her flesh.
"What are you doing down this way?" the girl asked. "Looking for a little fun?"
"Maybe."
"Well, that's what I'm here for," she said, shifting her position a bit.
"How much?" Mason asked.
"Let's talk about it up at my place," the girl said, taking a step closer to him.
"Let's talk about it now?" he countered.
She cocked her head to one side as her eyes played over his body again. "Depends on what you want, regular or special."
"It doesn't matter," he said. "Regular will be all right."
"Twenty dollars," she said.
"Humph."
"That's the going price," she said. "We can't take less. It's like the unions-we have a minimum wage scale."
"All right. Twenty dollars," he said.
She took his arm. "Come on, my place is only a block away."
They walked to it together, the girl holding his arm and hugging her breast against him as if she feared the loss of passion and twenty dollars.
Mason didn't like the looks of her house at all. It was boarded up on the downstairs floor. Upstairs, a single room or small apartment, he guessed, was lighted with a single, low-watted bulb, clearly visible from the street.
"Do you live alone?" Mason asked her.
"I have a roommate. She's out for the whole night, though. Big job at one of the hotels, the luck-out."
"You're a free-lancer, eh?" he asked.
"Yeah. It suits my temperament better."
She unlocked the bottom door. They climbed the rickety stairs. On the narrow upstairs landing, she unlocked another door. Then they entered.
The room was a mess. Dirty dishes were piled in the sink. The bed sheets and covers were in a jumble, signs, Mason guessed, of recent, erotic use.
The girl walked to the windows and lowered the shades. When she turned back to face Mason, she was already undressing. She did not look at him while she removed her clothing. When she did face him, she smiled.
"Come on, man, get with it," she said.
"I don't have to undress," he said.
"Ah, come on, now, it won't be as nice for you if you don't."
"It'll be all right for me."
She shrugged her shoulders then walked over to him. "Well, at least you have to...." She deftly found his zipper and pulled it downward. When she touched him, he jumped back.
"The sink's over there," she said, pretending not to notice either his timidity or the passivity of his appearance.
"The sink?" he questioned.
"It's for washing, man. I don't take any chances, see."
Mason looked at the sink, then the girl.
"Come on, I'll do it for you," she said.
Mason allowed her to urge him toward the sink. But when she reached for him after turning on the hot water, he jumped back, an instant memory of the mother-baths of his childhood clogging his mind.
"Most guys like this part of it," she said.
"I don't."
"Then help yourself." She turned from him and moved toward the bed.
Mason, very self-consciously, busied himself at the sink for a few minutes. Then he turned toward the girl and approached the bed.
"Don't you even want to take your suit coat off?" she asked.
He shook his head.
"Well, let's not get so excited that we forget the money," she said, slurring a smile.
Mason reached for his wallet, withdrew it, and extracted two ten dollar bills. He handed them to the girl, then replaced the wallet. The girl quickly placed the money beneath the mattress of the bed. Then she glanced very directly and in a very business-like manner at Mason's exposed body.
"Are you ready?" she asked.
"Yes," he replied.
She laughed lightly. "You don't look it."
"Looks are deceiving," he said.
"They sure as hell are." She paused, then as if stricken with inspiration, she added, "Look, you look like a pretty decent sort, I'll give you a little of the 'special' even if you didn't pay for it."
With that, she climbed off the bed, put her hands on Mason's waist until he lowered to the edge of the bed, then kneeled in front of him.
There was little basis, or base, for her endeavors. Her head bobbed madly, slowed, then bobbed incessantly again, but she worked without success. Mason stared at her bobbing head. Then, when he knew that it was hopeless, when he knew that there was only one method of gratification with this girl, too, he slowly brought his hands up, locked the fingers around her naked neck, and pressured with all his might.
The girl's head strained against his strength. Her head raised sufficiently for him to see the terror-expression on her face, to see, too, the eyes bulging, the tongue bloating and discoloring as it protruded from her mouth, and the marks his own fingers made on her neck. There was only a single sound that came from the girl. Mason relaxed his hold for an instant. A dying gurgle issued from the girl's throat. And then her body sagged lifelessly.
Mason rose from the bed. He jerked the dead body to its knees, then to the bed. The girl sprawled face down on the bed, her knees barely over the edge. Mason considered the position. Then he tugged the knees back a bit, and with his left hand under the girl's belly, he forced her buttocks upward. He held her steady. It was difficult. But the position was meant for only the barest moment's duration. Mason pressured the girl toward him as he thrusted forward, now strong and ready and insanely anxious. His motion ended in seconds. It was made up of a combination of his own forward lurching, and the backward movement he brought to the dead body with his left hand. And then it was over. Completed. Finished.
Indifferently, he let the girl fall back to the bed. She half-rolled from it. Mason didn't notice. He had turned and was leaving the room.
CHAPTER FOUR
Clint Henderson was on the telephone when Janet Helm entered his office. He raised his hand in a little salute, then motioned to the chair at the side of his desk. Janet seated herself in it.
Clint, Janet noticed, looked tired and drawn and she knew that it was the effects of many sleepless nights since the Sex Strangler had last struck. She also noticed the strength of Clint's hands, and could not then wonder what they would be like if they worked upon a girl's naked body. Her body. Would they be gentle, or demanding, would they be aggressive as the possessor of them was aggressive, or would they tend to compensate for his strength? Then, somewhat shocked, Janet wondered why she was considering these things at all, why Clint, now, as it had been the previous evening after making love to Howie, should become part of her fantasies. Or for that matter, why she should indulge in fantasies at all.
"It may be nothing," Clint said into the phone, "but I'm glad you reported it. I'll check it out. We have to check everything out today. Every damn thing."
He listened for another moment, then said a good-bye and replaced the phone on the desk.
He pushed off the edge of the desk where he had been half-sitting, and took the swivel chair behind the desk.
"Listen," he said to Janet. "We have to call the trip to Peggy Manger's apartment off."
"I guessed that," she said. "Especially after the prostitute's death last night."
He nodded.
"Any new leads?" she asked.
"Not really. A few coincidences, though. About two hours before the prostitute was killed, a woman in one of those new subdivisions received an obscene telephone call from some man. She didn't recognize the voice, of course. And her home is a heck of a long ways away from the place the prostitute lived. But the local police chief called it in-thought it was worth reporting."
"Did the girl ever receive that kind of call before?" Janet asked.
"No. One of her neighbors did, though. Quite some time ago, however. The woman doesn't remember when, but guesses it was before the first of these Strangler's victims appeared in the newspapers. Otherwise, she says she would have reported it."
"Seems a little far removed, doesn't it?" Janet said. She crossed her legs and noticed, quite happily, that Clint Henderson had also noticed.
"Too far removed," he said, raising his eyes to hers again. "But it's worth checking out. Want to come along?"
"I certainly do."
Clint started to rise from his chair just as the telephone rang. He picked it up, listened for a few moments, then replaced it on his desk.
"Well, that's something else."
Janet leaned forward, but did not speak.
"The lab checked the two ten dollar bills out-the ones the Strangler paid the whore with. They show signs of sawdust."
"Sawdust?"
"Yip." He leaned back and smiled, then said, "And what opinion does the little sociologist have on that?"
"Maybe he's a butcher," she suggested.
"Naw," he said, half-kidding. "When we have butchers we usually have physical mutilations, too."
"How about a carpenter?"
"Not much in carpenters these days. The last one I broke down used a claw hammer on his wife."
"What a shame," she said, smiling and shaking her head.
"For the carpenter," Clint said. "He's doing life."
"Oh, you always get your man, eh?"
"Or woman," he replied. They're not completely immune to murdering, you know."
"No, I didn't know. Thank you for telling me." She said it in a caustic manner.
"All right, gosh, let's go," he laughed.
Janet raised from her chair and walked with Clint to the door. They went through it. She waited in the lobby while he took care of some police business at the front desk, then joined her. He ushered her out of the building and toward the unmarked police car that waited at the curb.
It was late afternoon and they drove directly into the sun as it set in the west. Clint was very quiet, very far removed from her presence in the car next to him. She matched his mood, and while she did she wondered about him and his life. Why had he never married? Why had he been a policeman to begin with? There seemed so many "whys" connected with Clint Henderson.
Soon, the car nosed into the circling drives of the new subdivision. The homes were all similar except for porch fronts which were of three designs varying every three houses. Janet looked out the window. The houses, she felt, were in a way duplicating the lives of the people who lived in them. Mostly skilled tradesmen or semi-professional people. The men would work all their lives in their trade. The wives would work at the tasks necessary to assist their husbands. There would be children and problems and money worries. There would be some infidelities among the people in the houses. There would be divorces, too. And death. Always there would be the one assurance of eventual death. There would be car accidents to take some of them, illness to claim others, and in a computer prediction of lives there would be some who would go at a young age, some at middle-age, and some when they were old. It all seemed so well-arranged, Janet thought. And, it was a little cynical, too, that so many lives that were computerized could be set apart from predictions by one person, in this instance, the Sex Strangler.
"Samesville," Clint grunted as if he had read her thoughts.
"Not too bad a life though," she said. "The people are probably happy."
"Or dependent upon their unhappiness," he said.
"Why have you never married, Clint?" she asked suddenly.
"Huh," he grunted. "I like my independence too much."
"Your independence," she repeated. "I bet you don't have much of it even though you use that as an excuse. You have a job, responsibilities, probably a nice apartment, a few friends-you don't have a bit more independence than a married man."
"Probably not," he admitted. "But it's mine and I guess I've gotten used to it." He turned and looked at her, then said, "And why haven't you married yet? You're getting older."
"I've been too busy with my education," she said. "But I'll have time for marriage soon."
"Gonna give up the people shrinking sociology business, eh?" he asked with a smile.
"Oh, no. Marriage and a career can mix pretty well."
"It'll never work," he said definitely.
"I intend to make it work."
"Good luck." He nodded to the side. "There's the address."
There was a car parked in the driveway of the small house. Clint parked at the front of the house. Then he and Janet left the car and walked up the driveway to the side door. Clint knocked. It opened immediately, held by a pretty girl as a man carrying a tool box pushed through the door.
"Ooops, excuse me," said the man. He smiled at both Clint and Janet, then walked to the car.
"Hello," the girl said.
"Good afternoon," replied Clint. He flashed his wallet to which there was a badge attached. "I'm Lt. Henderson and I'd like to talk to you for a few minutes. This is Miss Helm, my assistant."
Janet shot him a look of surprise.
"Well, come in, I guess," said the girl. "I suppose this is about the telephone call I got the other night."
"Yes," said Clint.
Janet followed him in the side entrance, up the few steps that separated the landing from the first floor, and into the kitchen.
"You'll have to excuse the looks of the place," the girl said. "They're still building our house."
Clint told her not to apologize. The kitchen table held two empty cups and saucers and the remains of a cake on a platter.
"Is your husband due home soon, Mrs. Stimson?" Clint asked. "We'd probably like to talk to him too."
"Oh, no, Harold travels a lot. He's on the road all of this week. Harold's a salesman, you know, and he's just gone all the time."
"That's too bad," Janet said.
"Yes, it gets lonesome for me," Helen Stimson admitted. "But I'm getting acquainted with the other new neighbors and I've got plenty to keep me busy with the house. Lord, everything's new out here-houses, neighbors, telephone, cupboards-."
"How long has your telephone been installed?" asked Clint.
They had reached the small living room and Helen motioned for Clint and Janet to sit down. They did. So did Helen, across from them on an over-sized foot stool.
"I've only had the telephone a few days," Helen said. "That's why I was so surprised when I got that horrible phone call the other night. I didn't even have time to give the number to my old friends."
"Could you possibly identify the voice?" Clint asked.
"Never. I think it was disguised."
"Have you been molested in any other way in your life?"
"Molested?"
"Yes. Have there been any episodes of men accosting you for any purpose? Other phone calls like these, perhaps, or have men ever exposed themselves to you on the street or anywhere else?"
"Of course not," Helen answered, quite indignantly.
Janet thought Clint was overly rough too quickly, so she added, "The reason Lt. Henderson is asking you these questions, Helen, is to try and see if some man has been keeping his eye on you, so to speak."
"Well, I certainly don't know of anyone like that," she said.
"Also," added Clint, staring directly at her, "some women are more prone to these experiences than others."
"Really, now-."
"I mean they are perhaps more friendly than the average woman, thereby giving men the impression that you like them, though, of course, that isn't your intention."
"Oh, I see. I am friendly."
"If I may ask, who was that man leaving the house as we entered?"
"He's a cabinet maker who's with the construction company that built these houses. You see, our cupboards aren't finished yet-he's still working on them."
"I see," said Clint, nodding.
"You say he's a cabinet maker?" asked Janet.
"Yes," Helen answered.
"Are there any other men who have been around the area since you've moved in? A milkman, bakery delivery man-anybody like that?" Clint asked.
"I'm not taking milk-heavens, it's fifty-five cents a half gallon from the milkman and I can get it-."
"Who else?" interrupted Clint.
"The milkman stopped, and I turned him down. And the baker stopped too, but only once. Then there was an insurance solicitor and a real estate agent-to sell my house, if you can imagine such a thing with us only getting into it now-and there was the man from the junk pick up detail and three ministers and-I guess that's all."
"The welcome wagon gang," Janet suggested with a smile.
"Heavens, yes," Helen agreed.
"Then there's been nothing unusual at all, is that right?" asked Clint.
"No, nothing unusual."
"How about the men of the subdivision-the husbands of your lady neighbor friends-anything suspicious about them?"
"Oh, no," Helen said. "I've only met a few but they're nice as can be."
Clint stood up. Janet did too.
"Isn't this an awful lot of interest for just a telephone call?" Helen asked, looking up at them.
"In a way, yes," agreed Clint. "But sometimes this type of call is connected with other things."
"You mean the-the Sex Strangler?" she asked meekly.
"Not necessarily," he said. "But sometimes these calls are followed up by other things, so I want to warn you to be sure and keep your doors bolted at night or if you go out in the daytime. And I'd suggest you get a dog for the house. Any kind, just so long as it barks."
"Gosh, I'm getting frightened," Helen said, slowly rising from the foot stool.
"Well, don't," Janet said reassuringly. "These are just routine precautions we advise all women to take, whether there's an epidemic of attacks or not."
"Of course," Helen said. "Would you like coffee?"
"No, thanks anyway," Clint said. "Miss Helm and I are on our way to dinner."
"We are?" Janet said, aghast, looking at him in a dumbfounded way.
"Of course."
The three of them walked into the kitchen. Clint looked at the half finished cupboards, then said, "How much longer is the man going to be working on those?"
"He didn't say. He's as slow as molasses in January, though. But very nice. And he's doing a few little extra things on the cupboards for me."
"All right, Mrs. Stimson," Clint said. "Should you get anymore calls, please report them at once. And try to keep the man on the line long enough to find out something about him. Anything. And remember everything and let us know. Okay?"
"Yes, I'll do that," she said.
Janet and Clint left the house and walked to the car. Clint was silent as he pulled away.
"Well?" Janet asked.
"Samesville," he responded.
Neither of them spoke again until Clint nosed the car into a parking lot of an exceptionally fancy roadhouse.
"You meant it about dinner, didn't you?" she said.
"Naturally. Come on."
"But I'm hardly dressed for this place," she protested.
"You're dressed for anyplace. Come on, let's go, I'm starved. Thirsty, too."
Happily, Janet scrambled out of the car and walked with Clint into the roadhouse.
It was a beautiful place. They had several cocktails, a good deal of conversation, fine steaks, and brandy after the dinner.
Hours later, alone in her own apartment, Janet couldn't remember when she had spent such a delightful evening. And she couldn't remember ever being as excited about a man as she was the stern and reluctant Lt. Clint Henderson.
CHAPTER FIVE
Mason Stevenson felt sad as he drove toward the small house in the subdivision. He could not delay the work there any longer. This would be his last day in the presence of Helen Stimson. The cupboards were nearly finished and he would have to move on to a new job. The future seemed quite impossible for him. He could not remember ever feeling so sad about anything.
When he pulled into the driveway, Mason felt an exhilarating lift of spirits. Helen was in the back yard raking the dry, furrowed ground to prepare it for seeding. Helen wore only shorts, the very tightest, shortest shorts that Mason had ever seen. And above them she wore only a bra-top affair that barely covered her large breasts. There was a rumble of sexual response at Mason's groin, but it was not as other men knew sexual desire. It was not producing of strength or hardness. Instead, it purred softly of the means by which he could attain that strength and hardness, a desperate, savage, destructible means.
Mason unloaded his tool box from the trunk of the car. Then he walked to the side door. Helen Stimson joined him there. Her feet were in sandals and her toes were painted red. Mason, lowering his eyes to the ground, saw them and thought of blood and heat.
"Well, I'll bet you're glad this is your last trip way out here," Helen said.
"Oh, I haven't minded it," Mason said. "Not a bit."
"You like the sticks, eh?" she said. "Yes, I think I do."
"Feel like a cup of coffee?" she asked.
He grinned at her, his eyes unable to restrain themselves from a quick glance at her breasts. "That sure would be nice, Mrs. Stimson."
"No sooner said, then done," she responded. "Come on in and sit down."
Mason followed her into the kitchen. He stood to one side, thinking that this had been the only room in the house that he had occupied during his days of labor.
"I just think I'll run into the bathroom and wash up a bit if it's all right," he said.
"Go right ahead," Helen said as she poured water into the coffee pot.
Mason left the kitchen, walked through the small living room, then entered the narrow hall which led to the bathroom. He passed an open door on the left. He glanced inside. It was a bedroom, probably Helen's. The covers on the bed were still in a jumble. He smiled, thinking how warm that bed must have been while she occupied it. Then he thought of her husband's frequent absence and wondered if other men had slept with her. Probably not, he told himself. She wasn't the type. And besides, he reasoned, very clearly for him, she was still too young to have been caught within the web of sexual boredom. Sex was still a kin of love to her. It would take a few years for that to change. So, undoubtedly, Helen Stimson slept alone during her husband's absence.
Mason entered the bathroom. He washed his hands, then looked around. Then, through the door mat was a few inches ajar, he looked inside a closet. There were some of Helen's clothes hanging there. He opened the door wider, feeling a feverish impulse to know them more intimately. He issued a long sigh of delight when he saw that a pink, flimsy, nightie hung on a hanger. Gently, he touched its shoulder. Then he reached to the bathroom door and locked it. When he returned his gaze to the nightie, he couldn't resist it. Carefully, he removed it from the hanger. He held it to his face. The scent excited him, for it seemed to be made up of Helen Stimson alone, her soap, her cleanliness, her perfume, her perspiration, her warmth, her contact with the material, her thighs rubbing against it, her breasts nicking at the bodice, her smooth belly undulating slowly as she moved within the nightie, her buttocks jutting against the material at the rear, her knees touching, her legs free and bare beneath the garment. Hers. Every part of it made up of her-Helen Stimson. Mason trembled as he held the material close and ran it smoothly against his cheeks. And then he was taken with an inspiration from long ago. He looked around. He was alone and undetectable, the single window being concealed by the shower curtain. Shakily, he unzipped his trousers. Then he exposed himself. And then, shaking harder now, he brought the thin nightie into contact with his body.
Mason Stevenson sighed heavily and erotically. He leaned forward, bracing himself with one hand against the wall as the other hand worked toward self-stimulation with the silken nightie. His feelings were urgent, but even the eroticism of Helen's garment against his flesh could not defeat the inhibitions that caused his impotency. But he breathed hard like a man in the midst of an act of love.
In a minute, Mason stopped the action. He replaced the nightie on the hanger in the closet, then closed the door in the position it had been in. And then he went to the wash basin, filled it, and with both hands doused his face until he had cooled. And then he returned to the kitchen and the pleasant, friendly girl who awaited him there.
"Just in time-the coffee's perked," she said when he entered the kitchen.
Mason sat down at the table. He watched as Helen reached to one of the cupboards he had built to retrieve cups and saucers that were already placed there. Mason saw her legs and buttocks tighten from the movement. He noticed the deep line down the middle of her shorts. He thought it was very beautiful, and that her firm thighs were glorious, just as her waist and knees and ankles and feet were. Yes, glorious, wonderful, delightful ... precious.
"Here we go," she said, placing the cups and saucers on the sink.
Mason watched as she poured the coffee. The way her elbow crooked high, causing her breasts to shimmer slightly, was quite one of the most wonderful things he had ever seen.
And the way her legs were so straight. They were really exceptional. So was her skin which was already turning brown from the sun. The hot sun. Mason wondered if she liked all things hot. Coffee. The weather. Men. Men. Men. Him. Him. Could she? Would she? He was hot. Real hot. For her. Was it possible? Would she maybe do it without him having to-to-make her tongue bulge so terribly? Maybe. It was worth the chance. Or was it? Sure it was, his mind whispered encouragingly. Maybe all this time he had been working here she had just been waiting for him to ask. Or make an advance. What about that? It could be, you know. He wasn't bad looking. And ... And ... And she seemed to like him. She talked with him a lot. And smiled. And served him coffee, sometimes even coffee cake. Maybe. What if that was the case? Maybe she had just been waiting all this time. Oh, Lordie, maybe that was it! Maybe! Oh, Lordie, what if that was it? Then he wouldn't have to-to....
"Here's the cream," Helen said, handing it to Mason before she sat down at the table opposite him.
Mason was very silent while he sipped his coffee. Helen Stimson was not. She chattered. Mason heard only parts of what she said, for he was intent upon the probability that she really cared for him and wanted him to make love to her.
When a lull came to her chatter, Mason, feeling the urgings of an aggressor who was wanted, said, "Well, here it is, the last day for me to be out here."
"Yes," Helen nodded, her eyes shifting suddenly, and thankfully, to the cupboards that were nearly completed.
"Must be lonely for you out here with your husband gone all the time," Mason suggested.
"Oh, it is. Terribly."
"That's a shame. Especially you being so-so nice-and everything."
"Well, being nice doesn't have much to do with a salesman's job, I'm afraid," she said. "Of course, I never let anybody know how lonely I really get."
"Just me," Mason said, grinning.
"Yes, just you, I guess," Helen laughed.
"And it's not the same having women friends, is it?" Mason asked.
"It certainly is not," she said. "Sometimes I get so sick of other women I could just scream."
"Good thing I've been working out here or you'd be screaming all the time, eh?"
"I probably would," Helen said, laughing, going along with Mason's display of humor.
When they finished coffee, Helen excused herself, saying she had morning housecleaning to do. Mason nodded, then began his day's work finishing Helen Stimson's cupboards.
As Mason worked, he thought constantly of Helen Stimson in the nearby rooms, making beds, dusting-leaning far over to do that in a way that tightened her brief shorts even more. And mopping and waxing and polishing and straightening clothes in the closet, doing all the delightful tasks that gave expression to her half-naked body. Mason visualized her body. His mind first became fixed upon the bare stretch of skin that ran from below her breasts to the waistband of her shorts. Then his mind shifted, and he concentrated on an image of her thighs, firm, vital, close together, parting, moving, the brown of them and how the shorts pulled higher on the outside to form a V-shaped affair. Mason became very excited. It seemed in Helen Stimson that he had gained a very special subject for fantasies. She liked him. Others had not. Fleetingly he remembered the naked bodies of the women who had become his victims. All of them were lovely, but none of them had liked him. Helen was different. She liked him. If he suddenly came calling at night she wouldn't jump back with that frightened expression on her face. No, sir. She'd open the door and invite him in. Open? The word struck Mason Stevenson with dynamic force. Some long-ago memory flitted around the rim of his brain, seeking entrance and clearness and review. It would not come. He stood perfectly still for a moment, feeling that quietness alone would make him remember. It seemed terribly important that he should remember. It held the key to all his life. His brow furrowed as he tried to tempt the memory to life with other memories, childhood and teenaged memories, but still it would not come forward.
"I'm going to be in the yard for a while," Helen said, suddenly coming into the room. "If it gets too warm for you in here, just open the window."
Mason did not answer. He did not move. The memory teased close, jumped away, then came close again. And then it was upon him in all its fear and grossness and distortion.
* * *
It had been a horrible day for fourteen year old Mason Stevenson. The horror had started early. Upon arising, his mother had instructed him to bathe on this Saturday morning rather than at night. She wanted the tub clear for herself at night. Mason agreed, but not without some misgivings for his mother, his bath, and his own adolescent feelings had become mixed in a confusion of sexual fantasies and search.
Mason went into the bathroom. He wore a robe over his tall, maturing body. He shut the door and, as he always did, tried to lock the door. And, like always, it was impossible. The lock on the bathroom door had been broken for as long as he could remember. And as long as he could remember he always tried to lock it.
Mason dropped his robe in the middle of the floor. Naked, he turned on the spurting water faucets. When the tub was half-filled, he tested it, readjusted the faucets to cool the water, then when it was the temperature he desired, he stepped into the bath tub.
As the water rose to his chest he felt the momentary temptation to faint. That was the way it had been lately. Every time he placed his nude body in the tub, he nearly fainted. He sensed that it had something to do with his genitals, but he wasn't sure. Mason wondered if there was something wrong with him, if perhaps he was sick, maybe with a rare disease. The thought rather pleased him. If he was sick, he reasoned, his mother would have to feel sad. Then she would no longer torment him.
Mason stretched completely beneath the water, resting his head at the back of the tub. There was a commotion outside the room, his mother's sharp voice rising above it. He knew the cause. Last night had been his father's pay day. Today his mother tried to adjust the money to the many overdue bills. Of course it was impossible. But she never failed to scream and berate her husband for his poor earning ability. And she never left the subject alone. She screamed and hollered as if it were her only joy in life. It bothered Mason a good deal, especially when his mother would recite how she would do things differently if she were a man-that indeed she was smarter and stronger and had more ability than any man. Mrs. Stevenson liked this subject. She never left any doubts that she wore the pants of the family. And that she enjoyed the role.
Mason splashed the water, trying to drown out his mother's voice. Soon, her voice did stop its hollering, but only because the back door slammed shut, indicating her husband's sudden departure.
Mason started soaping his body. He was covered with suds when his mother burst into the bathroom.
"Ain't you done yet?" she demanded.
"Be through in a minute," he answered meekly.
She moved closer to the tub and looked down at his naked body. She smiled evilly. Mason started to scrub himself harder: He knew the consequences if he did not. But it was too late. Mrs. Stevenson was displeased.
"Jeeeez, fourteen years old and you don't know how to wash yourself yet," she sputtered. "Here, give me that wash cloth."
"I'll do it, Mom," he protested.
"I'll do it for you," she said. "That's the trouble with both you and your father-I have to do everything for you."
Mason started washing his chest very hard.
"Gimme it, I said."
Sheepishly, highly embarrassed, Mason handed his mother the wash cloth.
She took the cloth and moved it violently over his skin, his back and chest and neck and ears and face. And then she was ready to wash him elsewhere.
"Open your legs," she demanded.
"Please-Mom-I-."
"Open," she hollered.
"But I-."
"Open your legs," she screamed, her face turning red from anger. "Open or I'll tear that goddamn thing right off your body."
Slowly, and tremblingly, Mason parted his thighs. His mother brought the cloth to his young manhood and while it remained hidden beneath the water, she scrubbed him madly, hurtfully, desperately.
Mason leaned his head back and closed his eyes tightly. He felt the motion against his body and realized that he had hardened there, inspired by his mother's rough washing. And then, suddenly, dramatically, there was an outrushing of himself that made him hold his breath, that caused him to boil with heat and approach the rim of unconsciousness as a great, gushing exit occurred in his young body.
It seemed a long time before he opened his eyes. When he did, his mother was raising from her bent-over position at the tub. He felt weak and drained and incapable of movement.
Then his mother laughed. "Little bastard," she declared. "Doing a thing like that with your very own mother. Huh!"
His mother left the bathroom. Mason felt that he would never rise again, that he had been drained of all strength for all of his lifetime.
* * *
Mason shook his head. Then he looked out the kitchen window and saw Helen Stimson raking the ground vigorously. Then he turned to the finishing touches of his work.
Helen Stimson was still in the back yard when Mason finished the cupboards. He looked at them and felt very satisfied with his work. Then, acting suspiciously, he took a hammer and a carpenter's level from his tool box and placed them in the corner of one of the cupboards, keeping them well out of view from any casual observer. Then he went to the back door and called Helen to inspect the finished products.
A half hour later, he left the house. He and Helen Stimson said good-bye in a friendly manner. She thanked him for the excellence of his work, and for the extra, unplanned moulding with which he had trimmed each of the cupboards. Then he was in his car and pulling out of the driveway, leaving behind fond memories of a lovely girl, leaving, too, a promise that was hidden with the hammer and level at the back of the cupboard.
CHAPTER SIX
Proximity conspired with the innate fondness Clint and Janet had for each other to draw them to the threshold of love. Although often of opposite professional views, each day that passed found their personal lives becoming more entwined. But their love was not fully recognized or consummated by an act until they were alone in Janet's apartment following a day that had been spent together in the investigation of the Sex Strangler. It had been a hard day with a lot of foot work. There had been hope and despair, and they remained no closer to the killer than they had been following his first strangulation. They were at Janet's apartment where she had suggested they have a drink. Clint had been quick to accept the invitation.
"Ummm, it's good to stretch out and relax," Clint said, settling on the couch and stretching his long legs out in front of him.
"Well, you just do that and I'll make the drinks." Janet told him. "Scotch for you, isn't it?"
"Yes, but how did you know?" he asked. "Observation, my friend," she said. "That's what you ordered at that divine roadhouse you took me to."
"Very good," he said. "Keep up the work and you might make it as a detective someday."
"Heaven forbid," she said, fleeing into the kitchen.
Janet smiled as she mixed their drinks. Lately, she had been smiling a lot, she had observed. And it was strange, for the business that she and Clint were about was a gruesome business. But maybe it was that which had drawn them together so quickly, she considered. When death is always present, as it is when murders are being investigated, people are certain to feel more for life and seek more from it. And what was she seeking from life? she asked herself. Success in her career, a contribution to society, love, security, marriage, eventually children, too, she decided. Then she smiled when she thought of how Clint Henderson had always avoided involvements with women. Not that he couldn't have them, she thought. He could. Almost any number that he wanted. He was attractive, intelligent-all the things that women seek in a man. Yet, he had rejected marriage and pursued his career with a single purposeness that makes one think more of the scientist than of the police officer. He was a good officer, too, Janet thought, even if he did resist change and scientific methods that had been made available to police work.
Janet carried the drinks into the living room. Clint was in the same position, stretched out, but with his eyes closed. Janet placed the drinks on the table in front of the couch. She looked at Clint and smiled. Then she leaned down close to his face.
"Sleeping?" she asked.
"No. Thinking," he answered.
"About what?"
"Many things," he said, pushing into a sitting position and looking very alert.
Janet handed him his drink. Then she seated herself next to him and took her own drink. Both smiling, they bumped glasses, then sipped at their drinks.
"Janet, I've been thinking about this murderer we're looking for," Clint said.
"Naturally. It's all you ever think of," she answered.
"Once you criticized our department for not depending on computer analysis more than we do."
"Right," she said. "And I still say the same thing."
"All right, you're familiar with computers and what they come up with. What kind of a suspect would you give us on the facts that we already have?"
"That's a big problem," she said, frowning.
"It's important," Clint said. "I keep thinking that we might be able to go right to this guy. Besides, we had better come up with him soon."
"Why?" she asked, looking worried. "The Commissioner's about to get the pitch from the Mayor if we don't break this case. And, naturally, before he goes he'll chop heads in our department." Yours?"
Very likely. Somebody has to take the rap, and I'm not quite far enough up the ladder to have any excuses accepted."
"But that's terrible, Clint," she said, leaning toward him a bit.
"It's the way it goes," he said. "Politics are all over our department. Always has been, always will be, I guess. So, come on, give. What kind of suspect have we got here?"
Janet took a long swallow of her drink, replaced the glass on the table, then leaned back. "Well, I'd say he's in his early thirties or late twenties. I think he probably had a very domineering mother or father who was un-masculine or weak, or perhaps a combination of this type of parents."
"Why must every man who kills a woman be tagged as one who had a nasty mother?" Clint asked.
"Because it always turns out to be the truth," she said. "Believe me, Clint, the mothers are more responsible for the killers in the world than people would admit. Don't you see, this is one of the hardest things in the world for people to admit-that there are bad mothers-because it threatens the very foundation of American society. America was built on Momism and when it's criticized, everyone is threatened."
He nodded, then said, "Tell me something more about our killer."
"I think the evidence connected with the money given to that prostitute is too strong to ignore. I think our man either has a woodwork hobby of some type, or he's actively employed in some job that puts him in contact with wood shavings."
"What if he's unemployed?"
"He could be, but I don't think so," she said. "Why not?"
"Well, for one thing, if we have a man who has been mother dominated he has already been ingrained in the way of work responsibility, or some semblance of it. Although mothers can, and do, make killers because of their own problems, these same men cannot deviate from the pattern of their early life. So, such a woman, domineering, probably the wife of a poor wage earner, or already deserted by a man, could not help but instill the virtues of a regular job in her son."
"Wow, you've really got a lot on this guy, haven't you?" he said, grinning, then taking a long slug of his drink.
"I'm doing the same thing computers do I take in the information, digest it, then spit out the type we're looking for."
"Nice spitting," he said. "So, that's about all I can tell you about the man we're looking for."
"Funny, you know," he said, then paused. "What is?"
"That I figured we were looking for this type, too, and I'm just a dumb, old cop."
"All right, dumb old cop, how do we catch the killer?" she asked, leaning close to him.
"I don't know," he said. "Besides, that's not what I'm interested in catching at the moment."
"Oh, really?"
"Yes."
"What are you interested in?" she asked, breathing suddenly in a way that brought the tops of her breasts into view above the bodice of her blouse.
"In catching you," he said, turning and looking directly into her eyes.
"But I'm not guilty," she said, pretending to be amazed.
"Yes, you are," he said seriously. "You're guilty of making me think of things I've never thought of before. You're guilty of upsetting my life a good deal."
"Upsetting?" she asked.
"Of course. I've never had any place for women in my life."
"And now?"
"Now I've-well, I've changed my mind."
"Why, Clint?"
"Because I want you in my life, Janet. I want that very much-and I want-want-."
"Me?" she asked, interrupting.
"Yes."
"Now, Clint? Do you want me this very instant?"
"Yes," he said again.
"And I want you, too, darling," she said, a little breathlessly and leaning toward him.
He twisted sharply and took her in his arms. The kiss, which was their first, was all the more violent because of the days they had spent together, the hours that they had waited. Clint was overpowering and Janet loved it. Never had she known a man so aggressive, so virile, so bent upon the investigation of her mouth with his lips, his mouth, his sweeping tongue. And never had she known a hand so determined as Clint's as it fondled her breast, then very deliberately undid the buttons of her blouse. That done, and while he continued to kiss her, Clint reached behind Janet and unhooked her bra. Her breasts shimmered forth. He gripped them and held them, all the time working his fingers into the moulds and nipples like a man clawing for his life.
"Oh, Clint-Clint, Clint," Janet breathed, pulling her mouth away from his and lying down on the couch.
Clint moved over her like an assailant. But it was love he presented, not hostility. He buried his face into her naked breasts and mouthed them hard, then gently, then hard again, at every movement drawing his head far back until only a nipple, stretched from its base, burned between his lips. And then he would loom forward, consuming all of her breast again.
Janet trembled with excitement. Her hands went from Clint's back to his head which she encouraged against her body. At intervals, she moved his head vigorously from side to side, from one breast to the other, then back again. And she began breathing very hard, duplicating the harsh sounds that issued from Clint's throat as he lavished her breasts with kisses and his wandering tongue and lips.
Soon, Janet could stand no more exhilaration without union. She whispered her desires to Clint.
"I want you to love me, darling," she said. "Right now-I want you to-to take me and love me very hard, love me with all your great strength and power because I love you so very much."
"And I love you," he whispered as he raised from her breasts.
Janet pushed up immediately. Quickly, she rid herself of the rest of her clothing. Then she helped Clint who had begun to undress.
Both naked now, they did not rush. Their eyes played over each other, Clint showing signs of pleasure for her naked glow; Janet excited about the lean hardness of Clint. Suddenly, they came together in a violent embrace. Their bodies smacked. They trembled together, then rolled from the edge of the couch to the floor. And then Janet was on her back and Clint was hunched at her side, bent over and exploring her with kisses, moving from her breasts to her belly to her thighs. Here he paused. Here he became intrigued. And here he showered her with new passionate giving, so great that Janet whimpered as if she were already involved in that final climb of her sensations. But she could not enjoy without intimate giving. She reached out, gripped Clint and held him. He shifted his position. And then there was the wet heat of her own orality.
They loved like this for a long time, each teasing the other, each rising to a high plateau, only to purposely leave it in order to save it for their final dash toward thrill.
When at last they faced each other again, Janet smiled and wrapped her arms around Clint's neck. He smiled back into her eyes as he raised and posed his hips. And then there was the mighty surge of his forward movement as Janet arched high to meet him. Then they moved, moved in a liquid movement of gradual increase until they had bloated the balloon of their sensations to capacity and beyond.
"Oh, Clint, I'm-I'm!!!!"
"Yes, precious, yes, yes, yes," he chanted as he moved even harder and faster and more dwellingly within her.
"I love-you-you-YOU!"
He clamped his mouth to hers. Their bodies raced and tortured. They ground together with the force of hammers crushing stone to shavings. They both perspired and it mixed together, became puddles that joined them just as their bodies were joined. And moving. Moving, moving, moving, constantly moving.
Suddenly, Janet choked. She brought her mouth from Clint's, needful of the freedom in order to breath. Then her fingers stiffened. They dug into Clint's back. Then dragged downward, and at that exquisite moment when she soared as high as she could, then came crashing down, her nails ripped at Clint's flesh in a jagged line from his neck to his hips. It was a sweet pain for Clint: A happy mutilation for Janet. For both of them it was an expression of hurt delivered from love, a showing of blood to demonstrate the bond that had been sealed between them.
After they had rested, they talked about it a bit. Clint told her that he loved her and that it was a new experience for him.
"I think you're the only woman I've ever trusted," he said.
"And you're the only man I've ever really loved," she answered.
"It's incredible," he said, smiling.
"It's wonderful," she answered.
Janet was a little sad right after Clint left the apartment. But then she remembered the duty she had vowed to herself. She went to the telephone and dialed Howard Bender's number. When he answered, Janet told him that she called because she thought it only fair to let him know that she'd not be seeing him on a personal basis again. When he asked why, she told him it was because she had finally fallen madly in love with the most wonderful man in the world.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Mason Stevenson waited two weeks before deciding that the time had come for him to call on the pretty Helen Stimson. During this time he amused himself in various ways, although he had almost a total preoccupation with Helen and what it would be like when at last he drew close to meet her body in sexual contact.
The telephone occupied some of Mason's time during the two weeks he waited to call on Helen. He made many obscene telephone calls, always from an outdoor phone booth, and usually to a woman whose name he had chosen at random from the telephone directory. He had been tempted to call Helen's number again, but did not. Waiting to hear her voice in person made the period of his denial that much more urgent and erotic. And he had been tempted to call a few of Helen's neighbor's too, feeling that such calls would put him in closer proximity to the woman he wanted. He resisted this temptation too.
After regular work hours-hours that were now unhappily spent on a commercial project rather than within the homes of the young and pretty-Mason roamed the streets and rode the crowded public vehicles, always hoping for, and sometimes achieving, erotic contact with a female body.
But none of Mason's activities sufficed: None of them filled his inadequacies and made him bloat proudly with masculinity. And so it was that he decided the time was ripe for him to pay his call on Helen Stimson.
It was eight o'clock at night and Mason had just finished amusing himself by reading the newspaper accounts of the police's lack of success in apprehending the Sex Strangler who had terrorized the city. Mason pushed the newspapers to the floor, then stood up and stretched.
Mason took fifteen minutes showering and dressing. He wanted to be very clean, very handsome for his late evening call. Standing naked in front of his mirror, Mason applied the scent of a man's cologne at various parts of his body. He smiled, wondering if Helen Stimson would be overwhelmed with the beauty and delight of him. Then he left the mirror and dressed in clean linens, a stiffly starched white shirt, small knotted striped tie, shining shoes, black socks, and a freshly pressed dark suit. He inspected himself in the mirror once more, then left his apartment, moved down the stairs, passed the door of his landlady's residence, and was just opening the front door of the building when the landlady pushed open her door and smiled at him.
"I thought that was you, Mason," she said. "I like to check though-what with this Strangler still loose and everything."
"Good idea," he said, smiling at her.
"And where might you be going so all dressed up and fit to kill?"
"Out for a little relaxation," he said, his smile widening.
"A girl you mean," the landlady said. "You're going out on the town on a date, that's what you're up to."
"And so pretty soon I'll have to be looking for a new roomer, I will, what with you getting married and everything," said the landlady, her eyes glinting mischief at Mason.
"Oh, it's not serious in that way," he said quickly.
"But it will be," she said. "It always starts this way and then gets serious."
Mason looked quizzical, then said, "Yes, maybe it is serious at that."
"Well, have a good time, Mason," the landlady told him.
"I'll try to," he answered.
"And you shouldn't be having any trouble," she said. "You're so handsome tonight you'll kill her dead."
Mason smiled and nodded. Then he bid the landlady a pleasant good-night and exited the building.
When Mason had arrived home from work, he had parked his car several blocks away. Now, he walked to it, wondering if some inner reflex or suspicion had kept him from parking at the usual spot in front of the house. And for the first time, Mason felt a semblance of fear. He looked to the right and left of the street he walked. He looked behind and forward. Then he wondered if by chance, some blundering chance, perhaps, the police had him spotted and were waiting for his next move. Did they perhaps know that he desired Helen Stimson? he asked himself. Had they talked to her to inquire of him? Had they? And who were those people who called on her as he was leaving the house one day? he wondered. Then he put himself at ease, thinking that the police never came in pairs composed of a man and a woman. Helen Stimson's callers that day were very probably insurance solicitors. Helen had mentioned that they had been flooding the new neighborhood.
When Mason reached his car, he walked right past it. It was a preventative action in case someone was watching his car. Or him. Or both. But when nothing suspicious occurred he returned to the car. Once behind the wheel he felt better. More relaxed. In a better condition to present himself at Helen's door.
Mason Stevenson's mind knew some confusion as he headed in the direction of the new subdivision of homes. He was twisted by a complexity of desires. He wished-wished fervently-that Helen Stimson would receive him in as friendly a manner as she had expressed during his work at her house. And he wished that she might passively receive his sexual advances, perhaps even welcome them because she was lonely and without a husband much of the time. But he recognized that if this happened, he would not know, from that point on, how to proceed. It would be a new experience for him, one upon which there was no precedent that had been set earlier in his life. There were other points of confusion too. What if he failed to gain entrance to her home by the simple method of knocking on her door? Would he wait, then later jimmy a window or door? Would he push against the door the instant refusal seemed sure? This perplexed Mason for again there was nothing of his past experience to base present action. And, this victim was to be the first that he knew more than casually.
Within a few miles of the subdivision, Mason noticed that he perspired profusely. He daubed his forehead with his handkerchief. He also noticed that his breathing had increased to a rapid level. He tried to force calmness to come to him, but it was impossible. But then he created an instant image of Helen Stimson and himself involved in an act of love, and this made him calm when actual effort had failed.
As he rounded a corner that jutted off the main road, Mason saw the lights of the subdivision. So many people, he thought. All of them involved with each other and without a thought for him. It seemed unfair. Terribly unfair. Except for the tricks of fate, he could be one of them, secure with home and wife and children and a future. Except for-fate? he questioned, or was his life of his own choosing? Maybe he could have changed things, he considered, and he remembered that he had once gotten as far as a psychiatrist's office door to investigate the possibility of diverting his drives to other, more worthwhile patterns. But he had not entered the office. He did not see the psychiatrist. And now, he quickly admitted to himself, it was too late. Too much had happened. There was too much history. And there was too much loss.
Mason drove his car past Helen Stimson's house, noting as he passed that her husband's car was not present. At the first corner past the Stimson residence, Mason turned. He circled the block. He slowed as he approached Helen's, then moved past it again, feeling a sudden panic. He turned at the corner and moved in a direction opposite to that which he had just traveled. Then he pulled the car to the side of the road, trying to determine what it was that had caused his panic and moved him past the house.
He sat quietly in the car, only his renewed heavy breathing sounding through the car. Then he asked himself if he was frightened? Was he? Of what? he questioned. Certainly not the girl in the house. She couldn't hurt anyone. And wouldn't! She was sweet. Pretty. Desirable. And very, very sexual, Mason guessed. His mind dwelled on this for a few minutes, thinking of Helen Stimson as a sexual being, one who was abandoned in the act of love, one who, nude, looked wanton-a girl that didn't give a damn for conventionalities, a girl who would give him anything that he wanted. Quickly, Mason corrected the vision. Helen was not like that. Not at all. She was passive. Then he thought of the most sexual fantasy of all he had created. He thought of Helen, nude, prone on a bed, her thighs wide and her entire body ready to receive a man.
To receive him. But she lay very quietly. She hardly breathed. Her eyes were closed. She was as if dead, but still the image was of one with enormous life. Mason's fantasy took on strength. It included himself, also nude, approaching Helen, fondling all of her body, then uniting with her, all of it accomplished while the girl remained passive, eyes closed, body breathing evenly. The fantasy was so exciting, so nerve tingling, that Mason concentrated upon it for a few moments, thinking that it would surely make him strong and virile and alive for Helen. But it did not. All of him excited to the fantasy except that part of him which called him man.
Almost angrily now, Mason jumped the car into action. He drove to the main road again, then, as if he were only now entering the subdivision streets, he entered the area and drove directly to Helen Stimson's house.
Mason parked the car away from the driveway, not exactly in front of the house but between it and another. He switched off the lights and the ignition. He daubed his forehead again. Then he breathed deeply and departed the car.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Helen Stimson faced the gushing flow from the shower. It cascaded upon her body, refreshing her and making her body tingle and glow. She had been tired and turned to the shower for revitalization. It had done this for her body. Now she looked forward to an evening of relaxation. With her husband out of town, she knew that she would turn to the television set for pleasure. And she looked forward to it. It would be good.
When she stepped out of the shower, Helen stood in the middle of the bathmat, letting the water drip from her naked body. Then she jerked the shower cap from her head and there was the sprinkle of water drops flecking at all parts of her body. Then she took a large turkish towel and vigorously dried her body, rolling both her large breasts and making a small circle of motion at her belly and thighs.
Finally dried, Helen dressed in a shortie nightie and three-quarter length robe. She pressed her feet into slippers. Then she left the bathroom and was moving in the direction of the living room when the iron knocker on the front door sounded three heavy calls. Helen stopped in her tracks, suddenly feeling anxiety for some unknown reason. Then she moved forward to the door.
Helen opened the door only a few inches. Then she responded instantly to Mason Stevenson who stood facing her. She jumped back a pace, but then smiled and pulled the door open wide.
"Evening, Helen," Mason said at once.
"Well, hello, Mason," she said. "And I bet I know why you're here?"
"No you don't," he said.
"You came for the hammer and level you forgot. They were in the cupboard."
"Yeah. Yeah, that's what I did-I came to get them."
"Well, come in, Mason. And how have things been for you since you finished the job out here?"
"Oh, good. Pretty good," he responded, entering the house.
Helen closed the door. She seemed embarrassed for a moment. Then she said, "Well, sit down for a minute. Heavens, it was a long drive out here from town."
"Yes." He smiled. He glanced at the chairs and couch that were arranged in a semi-circle facing the windows with their closed draperies and the television set.
"When I discovered the things you left, I tried to think of a way of getting in touch with you, but I couldn't. I couldn't even find the phone listing for the contractor you worked for."
"They're sub-contractors, that's why," he said, again glancing at the couch and chairs.
"Go ahead and sit down, Mason," Helen said. "I'll go and get your hammer and level so you don't forget them this time."
He grinned and remained standing as Helen left the room. Then he walked to the couch and sat down. He glanced around. He felt warm and comfortable. Again he thought it was like being married when he was with Helen Stimson.
"Here you are," Helen said, returning to the room and carrying the hammer and level.
"Thanks," Mason said. He made no move to take them from her.
Helen hesitated a moment, then said, "Well, I'll just put them on this table by the door so you'll remember them."
"Thanks," he said again. His eyes swept her body, thinking how snug it looked within the bathrobe.
"Well-," said Helen. She paused, then, as if she were at an impasse, "Would you like a cup of coffee, Mason?"
"Thanks." Suddenly, he felt quite stupid for repeating himself so often and added, "That would be very nice."
"Well, I'll just put the pot on."
"Want me to come out there with you?" he asked.
"If you want to."
"I do. That will be like it used to be between us-in the kitchen, drinking coffee."
"Oh-yes."
Helen walked out of the room. Mason followed her into the kitchen. He sat down at the table as she withdrew cups and saucers from the new cupboards.
Helen felt disturbed more than anxious. She had planned her evening for aloneness and relaxation. Now it had been disturbed, much the same as it would have been had a neighbor or friend suddenly dropped in. She hoped that Mason Stevenson would drink his coffee and leave. But strangely, she felt that he had no such intention. He seemed different, too, she observed. He was dressed up as if he was out on a date. And he acted as if he had come purposely to call upon her. The matter of the hammer and level seemed very incidental to his presence in her home.
Helen put the coffee pot on the stove. She glanced at Mason. His eyes were wandering her body. She wondered if she should dress. Then she reasoned that she was as much covered in the night dress as she would be in slacks and sweater. Still, there was always a hint about a bathrobe, she thought. Then she told herself that she was being silly-absolutely silly.
"Your husband's out of town again, eh?" Mason asked, saying it suddenly.
"As usual," Helen said, standing by the stove. "But that's the life of a salesman for you."
"Bet he likes traveling, eh?"
"He hates it," she exclaimed. "But all those girls?" he said. "Girls?"
"Sure. Salesmen are always supposed to have lots of girl friends in the different towns they visit. You know, the farmer's daughter-all the girls to keep them from getting lonely while they're away from town."
"Oh, Harold's not like that," she said. "Not at all."
"No?" He said it disappointedly. "No." She replied crisply. "Course, you're not with him so you don't know."
"I know," she said confidently. "Still, you can't tell."
"I can."
"What are you, psychic, or something?" he asked, glowering at her.
Helen felt slapped. During all the time she had been in the kitchen with Mason, during all those days she had watched as he had built her cupboards, she had never known him to be rude. And that was what he was right now, she decided. Rude. And something else too. It was as if he wanted her to get mad at her husband. Why? she asked herself. Why would a semi-stranger want that?
"How can you tell your husband hasn't got some little girl friends out of town?" Mason asked, returning to the subject after a slight pause.
"When people are married they can just tell things about each other," she said.
"I suppose," he said, his mood suddenly changing.
"And here's the coffee," Helen said, happy to have had the subject changed.
Helen served coffee. She wondered whether to also serve the cake she had baked earlier in the day. She decided against it, feeling that it would be an excuse for Mason to delay longer. She didn't want that. She wanted him out of the house as quickly as it was politely possible to arrange.
"You like being married?" Mason asked.
"Very much," she answered.
"Why?"
"Oh, I don't know," she said. "I guess it's just the way I like to live."
"What do you like best about being married?" Mason asked.
Helen paused, filling it with a sip from her coffee cup. She didn't like the question. She didn't like any of them, but this one least of all. Somehow it seemed to hint at sexual things. She didn't want to talk about sex with a stranger. No, she couldn't do that. Yet, her basic honesty urged her to answer that besides all the other things of marriage, she truly liked the bed the best, that sleeping with her husband, whether or not they had relations that night, always filled her with a warmth and comfort and security that nothing else in life could match.
"Come on, what do you like best about it?" Mason urged. "You can tell me."
"Oh, there are so many things that I can't think of any one point that's better than the rest."
"No point at all?" he asked, leaning a bit across the table. "No."
"How about the point of your husband's-." He stopped and started to laugh uproariously.
Helen flushed. And she felt a knot of fear in her chest. Somehow, she felt trapped, not by the man Mason Stevenson alone, but by a set of circumstances that seemed too outlandish, too preposterous to believe. Yet, she was trapped within their influence.
"A girl like you, young and pretty like you are, must like the sex part of being married, ain't that true?" Mason said.
Helen looked at him. She made her eyes stay level with his. Then she said, "Mason, what in the world has gotten into you. I've never heard you talk like this before. Are you drunk or something?"
"No. I'm not drunk. Never do drink that much."
"But it's not like you to talk like this," she said. "I've always thought you were one of the kindest, nicest people I've ever met."
"No kidding?" he asked enthusiastically.
"No kidding," she assured him.
"Gee." He put his coffee cup down and looked very pleased.
"That's the way I always felt, Mason," Helen said, sensing her advantage and pushing it.
"I'll be darned."
"But now you've gone and-."
"Spoiled it?" he asked. "Well...."
"Oh, don't say that," he suddenly pleaded. "Please don't say that I've spoiled things between us."
The plea in his tone frightened Helen even more. She knew something was wrong, that another side of Mason Stevenson had come to the front in her presence.
"Oh, please don't say it!" Mason exclaimed.
"Well, we were friends," Helen said, intending to add to it, "And I-."
"Don't say it like that!" he said. His voice had changed again. Now he demanded.
"I was just going to say that I wasn't inferring that we aren't friends, Mason," she said.
"Oh, gosh," he sighed, slumping weakly into the chair. "You really had me scared, Helen."
"Scared?" she asked.
"Sure."
"Mason-?"
"What, Helen?"
"Are you feeling all right?"
"I feel fine."
"But you seem, so-different tonight, kind of wrought up and everything."
"No, I feel fine," he said. "Now that I'm here with you, that is." He beamed at her.
There it is again, she thought. That reference to something personal between them. What was wrong? What? Had she somehow encouraged him? What was it that made him so possessive, so different than he had been while working at her home. Fright gripped her. She didn't know its source, only that she was suddenly terribly afraid. Afraid of Mason Stevenson and terrified at being alone with him.
"That was good coffee," he said, putting the cup back on the saucer, after taking the last of the dark liquid.
"Thank you," she said, unable to think of any other reply.
"Thank you," he said.
She smiled. It was weak.
"This is something like having a date, isn't it?" Mason said, smiling broadly.
Helen waited a few seconds, then she leaned forward and said, "No, Mason, it is not like having a date."
"It isn't?" He seemed surprised.
"No."
"But why not?"
"Because I'm a married woman, Mason," she said. "And this married woman doesn't have anything to do with other men."
"You don't?" He seemed confused.
"Absolutely not!"
"Even though your husband has all those little girl friends in those different towns he visits-even then you don't feel like getting even with him?"
"Mason! Stop it!" She could not keep herself from shouting it.
"Don't you?" he asked as if he hadn't noticed the change in her tone.
Very patiently, displaying a calmness that made her frustration seem a lie, Helen leaned across the table and said, "Mason, I don't know what's wrong-what's happened to you since you were here last, but please understand this. My husband does not have girl friends and I don't have boy friends, and you and I are not now having a date. You simply stopped to pick up the things you had forgotten and we have had a cup of coffee together like we used to. That's all."
"Yes, we used to be together all the time," he said dreamily. "I'd be working on the cupboards and you'd fuss around the house or in the yard. Always together during the day-having coffee, cake, too, sometimes, and having our lunch together." He paused. Wonderment showed in his eyes. "What happened to us, Helen?"
"You finished the cupboards," she said, hissing the words for emphasis.
Mason looked at them. He smiled. Then he brought his eyes back to Helen. They peered at the neckline of her bathrobe. Her hand moved to the bodice. Thumb and forefinger clutched the material. Her hand shook. But her eyes looked steadily into Mason's face, seeking, searching, hopefully intent for some sign of lessening strain.
"I made those cupboards for you," Mason said. "Did you know that?"
"Yes."
"I made them for you, not for that husband of yours who doesn't appreciate what a fine woman you are, who doesn't know anything about you like I do. He-He doesn't put any of his things in our cupboards, does he?"
"No."
"Oh, good," he breathed, relieved. "I couldn't stand that."
Helen stood up. The suddenness of her action caused the chair to tip, then right itself. Mason's eyes shot upward with her motion. Her body tensed, giving him the impression of a cat ready to spring.
"Mason, you have to leave now," she said firmly.
"Why?"
"Because I-I promised a neighbor that I'd stop over and keep her company for a while."
"That's not true," he said. "You're undressed
-you've been planning to stay at home with me."
"Mason, really, if you'll just-."
"Shut up!" he demanded.
Helen's voice choked to silence. And in that instant as she looked into Mason Stevenson's eyes, she knew that he had been responsible for the obscene telephone call she had received. Nothing physical, neither voice or manner, suggested it, yet she knew that it was true. She felt dry and helpless and horribly afraid.
"You're not going to a neighbor's," Mason said. "You're not that impolite. I came calling on you and we've had our coffee and now we're going into the living room and watch TV together. That's what we're going to do, just like a regular night at home when there's no company coming over or we're not going out or anything. Just a peaceful night at home that we always seem too busy to have. It's nice not to have anything special to do. Just relax. Watch TV. Together. We'll sit close together and watch TV and if any of our friends come to the door calling we'll pretend we don't hear them."
Helen knew that Mason Stevenson must have gone insane. He was totally frustrating, impossible to calm, and, apparently, determined to share an evening with her. He had come for that purpose, and that purpose alone. Everything about his dress and manner suggested it. And she was trapped. Helpless. A prisoner in her own home. She considered dashing for the door, but she knew that she would not make it. Mason looked agile. Strong. And, demented as he was, he would be possessed of greater strength and quickness, she reasoned. What could she do? she pleaded to herself. What? How? And then, suddenly, she sensed that her only hope was to go along with the things that he wanted, go along with them up to the point where she could no longer comply.
"Let's see what's on the television tonight," Mason said, rising from the table.
Helen stayed frozen to the spot. Mason came around the table to her side. Then he laced his fingers around her forearm.
Helen tried very hard not to shrink from his touch. And she did conceal her terror to some degree, but she could not prevent the stiffening of her body, the slight withdrawal from his touch.
"It'll be nice just sitting together in the other room," Mason said.
Helen tried to match his step as he urged her into the other room, but she could not do it. Her rhythm of movement was off a beat, a minute degree that made it seem that she resisted going with him. She tried to correct it, but could not. Something deeply imbedded in character and background worked together now to prevent her cooperation with the madman. And Helen felt more desperate and completely angry with herself. She knew that this flaw could cost her life itself.
Mason's grip tightened on her arm. "Come on, Helen-I said we're going in the other room."
"Yes," she whispered.
In the small living room, Mason directed her to the couch. He maintained his hold on her arm until she sat down. Then, backing up, keeping his eyes upon her, he backed up to the front door. Quickly, he lifted the chain and ran it through its catch. Then he went to the draperies and adjusted them at the middle so there was no crack through which one could see on the inside. Then he walked toward Helen, pausing only long enough to flick on the television set, paying no attention to the channel or quality of the picture. Its bright glare illuminated Helen's face. Mason smiled. He walked over to her, then sat down beside her.
Helen stared straight ahead to the flicking television screen. She did not turn from it when she felt Mason's hand again gripping her arm. Nor did she move when his hand moved from her arm to her hand. She could not tell if the moisture came from her hands or his when their fingers locked. She felt pressure, then willed herself to return it, but she could not. Her mind signaled a warning that such an action, although putting Mason at ease for a moment, would only lead to greater difficulties.
The television screen finally adjusted. A picture showed brightly. The program was a drama, midway to its completion, and it showed characters, especially a man and a woman, involved in deep verbal conflict.
"We're not like them," Mason said, looking straight ahead at the TV. "We get along. We sit here and watch other people's problems without having any of our own. We get along just fine. So good that I feel sorry for those people in that story." He pointed with his other hand to the television screen.
Helen tried to keep her breathing even. She succeeded, but only through great effort. She looked neither to the right or left or at Mason Stevenson. She stared straight ahead as her mind probed every possibility of escape, every path that was now open to her, or might be opened to her by way of a change of attitude and intent from Mason. But the moment seemed desperately hopeless-the most hopeless instant she had ever experienced in all of her life.
"Huh, look at her now," Mason said. "Gets through fighting with her husband and goes right out to see a boy friend. She's a cheat, that's what she is. A cheating bitch." He paused, then turned and looked into her face. She felt his breath upon her cheek. "You'd never cheat on me like that, would you?"
Helen was tempted to merely nod or agree with him, but if she did she feared that it would be a subconscious admission to herself that this was really happening to her. She could not yet admit to herself that this was not a nightmare. When she did, there would be no opportunity to wake up. Not ever again.
Mason's fingers unlocked from hers. There was an instant of freedom. But then his arm circled around her back and she was more deeply incarcerated than ever. Now, she could not subdue the tremor that coursed through her body.
"Cold?" he asked.
"Yes."
"Is the heat set high enough?"
"Yes."
"But you're cold, eh?" he asked.
"Yes," she repeated again.
"Then I guess we should sit a little closer."
She made no reply. She stared straight ahead at the television program hoping that from those characters she might find direction for her own terrible moment. But they offered no help. None at all.
Mason's hand slid slowly from Helen's shoulder. It moved in front of her throat. The fingers parted the bodice of her bathrobe, then slid downward, inside the neckline of the nightie and around her right breast.
Helen felt the stammer that came to his body when he touched her. It seemed to course from him to her, then back again. Without looking at him, she knew that Mason Stevenson's face had suddenly contorted with great feeling, and she thought that even now he might be experiencing a sexual end that would free her, leave her to her life and her future. And as she thought of this and felt his hand around her fleshy breast, she thought how odd it was that she could feel nothing. Nothing. There should be something, she reasoned, even if it was more fear or resistance or indignation. And then she knew a panic of thoughts that were more horrible than the moment, thoughts that made her wonder if she might now be forever changed, perhaps would never again know the excitement issued by her husband's hands upon her breasts and body. Had Mason Stevenson caused this to happen to her? Had responsiveness fled her body forever? Had it?
Mason's fingers began playing harder upon her breast, moving from the flesh mound to the nipple which he turned and twisted and bent and pushed and pulled and spun and patted and pinched and twirled and sometimes covered with the palm of his hand.
Helen felt the action. She wondered if Mason's fingers might reach such a fury that her breast would be seared. But she continued looking straight ahead at the action on the television screen.
Mason brought his hand away from her breast.
"Comfy?" he asked. Helen did not answer. "Are you comfy, I asked?"
"No," she replied, turning and looking at him.
"You're not?"
"No."
"Why?"
"Because I want you to leave," she said. "I want you to leave this very instant and stop this nonsense-I want you to get out of here. Now! Right now, Mason!"
"No you don't," he said, his tone kidding her a bit.
"I do!!"
"Naw," he said. "You're just playing coy with me. That's all. But I understand. I know how it is, how girls do that with their beaux and husbands sometimes just cause it makes it better when they get together. You know, you're teasing. That's what they call it. Teasing. I like to be teased a little bit. But not too much! No! Never too much 'cause then-then-." His voice trailed off into nothing as his mind became clouded with many thoughts of long ago.
Helen moved a bit away from him, determined now to bring this drama to a climax, to force some issue from which she might find escape. She knew that she could not endure the waiting game another moment. Not another moment! Not even if it brought her violence. Then, as she thought of this, she wondered exactly what was so terrible about rape. Rape? she questioned. No, Mason did not want to rape her, she was convinced. A rapist would already have stormed his lust into her body. Mason wanted love. That was it! He wanted love from her. And why didn't she give it? It wouldn't be an infidelity, she considered. It would be the simple expedient of saving herself from some horrible bodily harm. Yes, that was it. Cooperate. Be passive. Pretend. Pretend, pretend, pretend, with all her strength. Pretend to like him. To want him. Hurry him to the bed, get it over with, and then be free. Free! Harold would understand. The police would understand. Everyone would. Rape easy, that's how the old saying goes. Well, do it, Helen Stimson, she told herself. Do it. Now. Make the advance. Play his game. Play house with him as he is playing it with you. Now. Don't delay. Hurry. For Christ's sake, give him what he wants!!
"Mason-," she said hesitantly.
"Huh?"
"Aren't-aren't you tired of-of watching TV?"
He pulled a bit away from her. He looked at her.
"I'm-I'm-tired-Mason."
"You are?"
"Uh huh." She tried to make it sound loving.
"Bed tired?" he asked.
"Yes, dead tired," she said before she realized that she had misunderstood him.
"I mean tired like you want to go into the bedroom and take off your robe and lay down and stretch and kind of curl your toes like a little kitty cat-tired like that?"
"Yes, Mason."
"Gee-you're sure?" He said it excitedly, his body trembling again. "Yes."
"And-and-and you want me to come-come-come with you?"
Her throat became clogged. And, despite the purpose of her play-acting, despite the fact that her life might depend upon her action, she felt herself a cheat, an unfaithful wife, when she replied.
"Yes," she said.
"Ohhh, gosh!!"
Slowly, being careful not to upset him by a violent action, she raised from the couch. Mason allowed it. Then Helen faked a stretch, but when she saw his eyes fevering over the outline of her body that the position caused, she broke her pose. Mason stood up. His face glowed and was peppered with beads of perspiration. Then a gush of breath exited his chest as he started to jabber.
"It's nice getting tired together then going to bed," he said. "That's real nice. That's the way it always is with married folks, too. They eat together then watch a little TV and then one of 'em, or both, get tired and they decide to go to bed and when they do it's like not being tired anymore cause then they've got each other. And then it's real nice being tired together cause you can hold each other and touch and kiss and love and...." Helen faked a yawn.
"Yeah, you're tired," he said. "I can tell."
"Yes-I am."
"Well, you just come right along," he said solicitously. He put his arm around her waist and urged her toward the hall.
Helen took several steps in that direction before Mason stopped her.
"Oh, hold it a minute," he said.
She turned and looked at him.
"Gotta turn off the TV and put the lights out," he said. "Married people always gotta do that. And check the doors. And maybe put the cat out if you've got a cat. Do you have a cat?"
"No."
"Oh. Well, you just stand right there, real tired like and I'll check things out for us."
Mason went to the television set. He switched it off. Then he went to the front door, glanced at the chain, then moved to the single lamp that burned. He turned off the lamp. Darkness invaded the room. Only slices of moonlight coming through the adjoining kitchen window outlined their bodies.
Helen tensed. Darkness made her more fearful than she had expected. And it made her feel more the cheat and fraud of marriage than she had intended. She saw Mason approaching her. She fought back a tremble, fought back, too, the impulse to dash past him in the dark and make her way to the back door. She knew she could not escape.
When Mason was nearly next to her, Helen bluffed another episode of their pseudo-marriage. "Don't you think you'd better check the back door, too, Mason?"
He laughed softly. "No, the back door's just fine."
She knew now that while one part of him played at being married to her, there was still that other evil, criminal part of him that remained alert to any attempt that might be made to escape. She could cajole the one part of him, but could not make him depart from that other person of Mason Stevenson even for a moment.
Mason put his arm around her waist again. He urged her down-the hall.
When they entered the bedroom, Helen became frightfully stricken by the dark. She wondered how she had ever in her life been able to endure the dark of her bedroom. It was like tar, and like tar it clung to her with a stickiness that would never leave her body or soul. She felt Mason's body crowding close to her.
"Could we-Mason, could we have a light on, please?" she asked.
"Oh, sure," he blurted. "I been intending that there should be a light on. I like light to look at you. And I read someplace once that women always like lights on when they-when ... Where's the lamp?"
"The switch is right here." Helen flicked it on.
"Oh, that's nice," Mason said.
Helen looked around her room as if she were a stranger or as if she had been a long time away from it.
"I've never been in this room," Mason said, looking around. "It's nice. Real nice. I like it." He paused, then turned to her and in a confidential tone, continued, saying, "I was in your bathroom once though. I-I saw your nightgown there. I touched it. And then I put it against me. That was good. Real good. Real, real good."
Helen felt a gasp start its climb up her throat. She remembered when Mason had gone to her bathroom. The memory of him caressing her clothes was now more than she could stand for it called forth the deepest criticisms of herself. Why had she been so friendly? Why in the world had she talked him into doing extra work on the cupboards? Why had she ever allowed herself to be alone with him? Why, why, why? A thousand 'whys'.
Mason moved a few paces away from Helen then turned around in a small circle, looking at all of the room, the chair, vanity, draperies, closet, and finally, the bed which was large and comfortable looking.
Then he faced Helen. He smiled. "Come here."
She did not move, could not bring herself to move one foot ahead of the other toward him.
"I said to come here," he said, his voice rising and showing instant anger.
Almost imperceptibly, Helen moved toward him. It was a path that would lead to doom or freedom. She did not know which. She wished that it might never end, that the space between her and Mason Stevenson would suddenly become endless, as if in a dream, stretching into an eternity that she would never reach. But at last she was in front of him. She could feel his breath, hot and a little sour smelling, on her face. She noticed his breathing. She noticed everything, had grown hypersensitive to the barest movement from this man.
"I-I wanta undress you now-Helen," Mason said intensely.
She lifted her chin a bit.
Mason tried to be gentle, but could not. Helen saw the very deliberate effort he made to control his shaking hands. It was impossible. It was as if they, independent of the rest of his body, had gone into convulsions. But he managed to part her robe until it hung askew from one shoulder. Then he stepped back.
"Take it off," he commanded, his voice now shaking too.
Helen looked at a point beyond him and just over his left ear. She could not look into his face. Then she slipped the robe from her shoulders and let it fall to the floor.
"Ohhhh, goshhhh," he stammered like a gleeful youngster.
Helen tilted her chin a little higher.
"Take that off too," Mason said.
Slowly, Helen drew it over her head. It floated to the floor. Then she re-fixed her eyes to the spot beyond Mason as his eyes viewed her bare body.
"The slippers-the slippers," he suddenly cried. "Get rid of them too."
Helen kicked them from her feet.
Mason growled an indistinguishable sound. Helen knew that it expelled from him because of the new lust her body had given him. She stared straight ahead, trying to think of nothing but calmness and cooperation, trying to steel herself for submitting sexually to a man she feared, loathed, wished dead.
"Now-now, Helen, we have to do this real easy," said Mason throatily. "Don't-don't-fight me and don't make me-nervous. I couldn't stand that. Couldn't. But if you'll just-."
He put a hand on each of her shoulders and moved her toward the bed. She did not resist. She went as he wanted her, slowly, but unfailingly to the bed. At its edge she turned and faced him.
"Lay down," he said.
Helen lowered to a sitting position on the bed.
"Back further," Mason ordered.
With her hands, she pushed herself until she was sitting in the middle of the bed.
"Lay down," he said again, hoarsely this time.
Helen stretched prone on the bed.
Mason moved to the edge. He stood there looking down at her, a new glint shining from his eyes. Then he brought his hand down and rested it against his groin. Helen turned away when she heard the sound of a lowering zipper. And her head remained turned from her violator as the bed bent beneath the weight of his left, cocked knee.
"Now, easy," he hissed. "Real e-a-s-y."
Helen turned just as he gripped her thighs and parted them. She could not keep the hate from showing. Nor could she omit fear from her expression either.
Mason moved close. Helen was surprised that she felt no probing there, no sign of his extended self. And when he jammed himself even closer, she was truly shocked that there was no evidence of alert and ready manhood. None at all. Her mind thought of impotency, then applied it to Mason Stevenson. Then she wondered what course he would take to gratify his twisted desires.
"Touch-me," he whispered.
She reached her hand between them. Her fingers sought, but could not find. She let them relax and fall flat on the bed.
Mason arched his hips in a mighty sweep toward her. She felt the nick of flesh, but only this and nothing more. For a moment, they both seemed suspended within the split of some fantastically important second-some 100th of a moment that would either save or destroy.
And then she did the thing that careened Mason Stevenson from the hope of the moment passed and sent him reeling into the darkest depths of his insanity. She arched and at the same time gripped him and began a mad twisting manipulation that was meant to stimulate, but instead reminded him of all the castrating threats of his life.
Mason yelped, then struck her hard across the cheek. She fell back. Her body sagged. Her hand flopped away from him. It was quiet.
Helen started to raise at the exact moment that Mason's hands gripped her throat. Then she could not move, could not utter a sound, could only endure the scene of herself being strangled to death as Mason's face grew close and glowered at her then turned black as the depths surrounded and finally downed her in a gurgle of blood and ruptured tissue.
A spark-a distant spark that teetered away from the scene and reality and life-remained as Mason knew his charge of manhood and thrust it upon the dying body. He moved a very short time, and when he was gone, the life of Helen Stimson was also gone.
CHAPTER NINE
Janet and Clint were silent as they drove away from the police activity that surrounded the small house of Harold and Helen Stimson. Neither spoke. Both felt a sense of guilt for the murder of the girl. They had interviewed her, had even passed the man they now knew to be the killer, but they had not responded, not acted to save a life. They felt their guilt individually and severely. All that saved them from true emotional upset was the love that they now shared for each other. And it was this love and the identification it gave that filled them with remorse. Clint, seeing the dead body, substituted his own love, Janet, for the dead girl: Janet, talking quietly to the weeping husband, Harold, felt identification with the dead girl and knew that Clint, too, would weep were she ever taken from him.
"At least we know who we're looking for now," Clint said, staring straight ahead out the windshield.
"Yes. A cabinet maker. A name, Mason Stevenson. A hammer and level that he left behind. And a car that a neighbor recognized."
"A car that has since been found deserted in the country," Clint added.
Janet nodded.
"I moved one person too late," Clint said. "That's what the Commissioner said."
"Don't mind him," she said.
Clint shot her a glance. "You don't have to mind him because you're not responsible to him. I am. And I'm just about to be back walking a beat in the sticks, or worse, typing up reports in the desk sergeant's office."
"It's not as bad as that." She looked at him and saw the furrowed lines of worry at his forehead.
"It's that bad. If I had tagged this nut after the prostitute was killed, I'd be all right. But to let him get a girl that we came all the way out to interview-well, I almost don't blame the old man."
Janet was thoughtful for a few minutes. From time to time she glanced at Clint as if ready to speak. But each time she decided against it.
When they approached the city, Clint looked at Janet, then asked, "Lunch?"
"No. Thanks. I-I just don't feel like it."
"Neither do I."
"Do you want to come up to my place?" she asked.
"No." He looked at her and gave an affectionate wink. "I'd better get to the office. I have to crack this thing right away."
She nodded, then fell silent again. But as they approached her street, she looked at Clint, sighed deeply, then said, "Darling-why don't we set a trap for the killer?"
He shook his head and said, "You're beginning to sound like those movie thrillers-the late ones that are on TV."
"But it could work," she said enthusiastically. "It really could. We know the business he's in. We also know that he can wait just so long, then despite everything, he has to find a girl, kill her and have her. He needs a girl that way, the way a normal man needs a woman at certain intervals."
He grinned, then growled, "Yeahhhhhh."
"Stop it. I'm serious."
"So am I."
"We could trap him," she said again.
"It wouldn't work. He's bound to be overly cautious now."
"I don't think so," she said. "This kind of man hardly realizes-except in snatches that he's done any real harm. We could make a psychological composite picture of the man's habits, the kind of girls he prefers-all these things-then use them to set up a situation where he will f all into it."
Clint shook his head. "Please let me worry about it, Jan. I'll take care of it, one way or another. And if not, you better get used to being in love with a guy who walks a beat."
"I'd love you just as much," she said.
"Sure you would. For a while."
For an answer she cuddled closer to him as he braked the car in front of her apartment building.
"Coming up?" she asked.
"No."
She cocked her head and said, "Well, too bad for me."
"And me," he added. "But, that's the way it goes."
"Sure."
"See you tonight?" he asked. "Why don't you call me first?"
"Okay."
She glanced around, then leaned close for his daylight kiss. He gave it briefly. Then she smiled and hurried out of the car.
As she took the elevator to her apartment, Janet's mind buzzed back to the possibility of setting a trap for Mason Stevenson. Only his apprehension would satisfy the Commissioner. And, only the Commissioner, satisfied and happy, could free Clint Henderson of his burden. That's what she wanted to do, she decided. Free Clint of worry. And, indirectly, save him the promotion he was, except for the Strangler murders, soon to receive. Clint had been kidding about walking a beat again, she knew very well. It was his evasive way of telling her that his promotion to Inspector would not now be forthcoming. And for a man like Clint, this was the same as defeat, the same as being reduced to an ordinary patrolman. Janet felt the greatest urge to save him this anxiety and unhappiness. It was the least her love for him could do, she reasoned.
When she entered the apartment, her telephone was ringing. She hurried to answer it.
"This is the Commissioner, Janet," a male voice said when she answered the call.
"Yes, sir, what can I do for you?"
"For one thing, have you worked out any sociological approach to this Sex Strangler mess?"
I've made a start."
"Good," he said. "Now I realize that this isn't your responsibility, Janet, that you're only with the department as an observer, but still, anything that you can do to stop the terror that's taking over this city will be greatly appreciated."
"Of course," she said, her mind considering the aspects of her plan again.
"You see, most of my advisors-and I, too-are convinced that ordinary police methods will not work in this case. I think it's obvious that this man is a psychopath-now frankly, most of my officers are not too scientific or not even very sympathetic to scientific methods of apprehension. But I'm about to change all that. So, I want to put the full resources of the department at your disposal-to use as you will to get this Strangler off the streets and locked up. The people of the city are afraid to move, and I don't blame them. Besides, the Mayor is very upset, Janet. Very upset. The pressure is really on me."
"I can certainly understand that, Commissioner," Janet said. "But from what I've observed, Lt. Henderson is conducting the investigation in the best possible way."
"And I can understand why you might feel that way," he said. "But, will you do it? Will you make one of those sociological-psychological surveys I've heard about and come up with trapping this man."
"Trapping him, sir?"
"Yes."
"I was thinking along those lines," she said, smiling widely.
"Well, good. And in the meantime, I'm going to make some adjustments and readjustments in the department, but remember that you can use any of the facilities, any of the men, that you want."
"Thank you."
"Keep me informed."
"I will, Commissioner."
"And, Janet-."
"Yes, sir?"
"Good luck."
"Thank you."
Janet looked at the phone for quite some time after replacing it on the hook. She was pleased that she would have the opportunity to test her theories, all that she had been trained to do. But at the same time, she sensed that Clint would resent her more direct involvement in the case which was his responsibility. Still, it was for him she wished to work. His success would be hers, and hers would be his. Success to lovers was a mutual thing. She felt a certain excitement at the prospects of helping Clint Henderson directly. He was so self-assured, so bound by the traditions of manhood that relegated women to the kitchen and the bed, that she could not keep from smiling when he considered how he would fume when he learned that she had set a trap that snapped upon the Sex Strangler. But she knew that his fuming would be with love, and this made the difference.
At her desk, Janet worked with charts and tables and recent resumes of everything the police had been able to learn about Mason Stevenson. To Janet, it was obvious that he would absent himself from his usual employer and that he would be living at different quarters under an alias. A check of these circumstances proved her correct. And she also reasoned that a man such as Mason could only endure sexual abstinence for a short time, a few weeks at most. This had been his pattern. Regularly, his manhood had to be renewed in an act of murder and rape.
After previsioning all of the problem, Janet decided that there were several matters that the killer could not conceal. He had to eat, had to earn money. And, a craftsman such as a cabinet maker could not settle for any lesser trade, really could not endure any work except that which he knew during a long apprenticeship and practiced skill.
Janet leaned back and sighed. There were so many avenues of error. But, she had to be sure about some things in her work. One thing of which she was sure was that Mason Stevenson had not left town. A man ingrained in the problems that stemmed from his boyhood, was not likely to seek a new locale, she reasoned. A change of geography would be much too threatening. She had seen this pattern in dozens of case histories that she had studied. She was sure that it would also hold true for Mason Stevenson.
Janet worked over an hour on the advertisement she intended to place in the city's largest daily newspaper. She wanted every word exactly right. She intended that it should be the one ad of all the others in the paper that would be most likely to tempt Mason Stevenson. There were certain words and phrases that she knew would appeal to him, words like, 'cupboards', and 'career woman', 'evening work in pleasant surroundings', words that made references to female aloneness, the cupboards that had brought him his relationship with Helen Stimson, and everything that might bring him into direct contact with herself from which she would arrange his capture.
It was nearly nine o'clock when she had finished. Then she called the ad into the newspaper where it was to appear regularly until canceled. And then she glanced at her watch and wondered why Clint Henderson had not called as he had promised.
Janet was still wondering what had delayed Clint when the telephone rang at ten o'clock. It was Clint. His voice was different, harder, meaner, and filled with a loathing that she had never heard him express.
"I'll only take a minute of your time," he said. "I want you to know how rotten and despicable it was for you to pretend love-to pretend it so goddamn well, as you did-only so you could get your kicks in with the Commissioner. You should be real happy right now. I've been taken off the case and everyone is supposed to cooperate with you. So, you're the charge-lady and you can go to hell. I never want to hear your name again. Never!"
Janet felt dazed when Clint ended the one-sided conversation by a sharp click of the telephone as the line was disconnected. Everything was confused, mixed up. Clint had misunderstood. So had the Commissioner, apparently. But she knew that it was too late for her to make amends, to correct the false impressions that had been made. It was too late because Clint Henderson was not the type of man to listen. And there was something else too. If Clint didn't trust her, if he wouldn't even listen to what she had to say, well then, it could not be love that he had felt for her. Not that, she reasoned, only sexual attraction. She could never stand a man who didn't love her enough to trust her, she thought.
Sadly, she worked late at her desk, hoping to forget the one man whom, for a while, she had loved very deeply.
CHAPTER TEN
It had been almost impossible for Mason Stevenson to get used to the small room he had rented at the opposite end of town. He had been used to the comforts of his own apartment, amid surroundings and people who were familiar. But he had to leave that quickly. Very quickly. And forever.
Fleeing for his life had brought a number of adjustments. Mason, before establishing new quarters, grew a mustache and had his hair cut in a close crew cut. This made a great change in his appearance. Sometimes when he passed a mirror he felt a shock of strangeness for his own reflection. And Mason couldn't get used to not having money. For years, that had not been a problem. There was money, but it was in a savings account under his own name. He knew that the police would have that account well covered. And so his money ran low.
For perhaps the dozenth time during the evening, Mason had raised from the couch where he had been sprawled most of the day. He walked to the chipped dresser, took his wallet from the top, and counted his money. He had only a few dollars and some change. Suddenly, he felt desperate. Tomorrow, the rent was due again. If he didn't pay, he would be out, and that could mean confusion with the police. That would never do, he thought. It could result in his arrest. Of all his problems, money suddenly focused as the one of most immediate importance. Money was important for him to sustain his life. He had to preserve it in the simplest way in order to save himself from prison or possible death. But how?
Mason paced the floor of his small room. He walked across the evening newspapers. He glanced at them from where he stood on them. They had become a daily ritual for him. They kept him informed upon the police activities. When he read accounts of the search for himself, even when he inspected a composite picture made from the odd bits and scraps supplied by people who knew him, he felt neither increased fear, nor like some criminals, a wry sense of amusement. He did feel a little sad that in all his life there was no existing photo of himself that had now been claimed by the police. How was it possible, he asked himself, to live a life without a visual trace?
Mason resumed his pacing. Then he moved to the chair and sat down. He leaned forward and read an account of a sports event at one of the local high schools. Then he picked the paper up. He leaned back as he turned the pages to the want ads. In a moment he saw the ad he had already read on several different evenings. It seemed just right for him, at least right enough to put some money in his pocket. And it seemed right for something else, too. The craving and gnawing at his innards was upon him again. It was a constant reminder of his insane need, a need that not even the fear of his life could quiet. Mason read the advertisement through again:
Skilled cabinet maker wanted to build cupboards in exclusive apartment residence of young career woman.
Top wage offered.
Night work only. Call:
Janet Helm, 771-4371. Why hadn't the job been taken? Mason wondered. Then he answered it himself: Cabinet makers were swamped with work, they didn't need free-lance trade. They didn't, but he did, he thought.
Mason rose and started pacing again. As he moved back and forth across his small room, he remembered the cupboards he had built for Helen Stimson. He remembered how pleasant it had been with her during those many hours he worked in her house. Those had been good times, he recalled, about the best times in his life. And she had been the best. The very best. Even in death her body had been hot and tight. He remembered the feel of possessing her, the way her body had bounced on the bed as if she had been alive and a willing partner to the sex act. He shivered as he recalled how he had felt at the very end, how he could not refrain from crying out and clutching at her naked dead body with his hands, digging his nails into the still warm flesh. Yes, she had been the best, he was sure. The very best. Mason moved across the room and picked up the newspaper ad again. He read it through twice. It sounded very good. Immediate money, exactly what he needed. And the woman didn't have a husband to interfere. And the hours were at night. A career woman-and young, too. That was precisely what he needed, Mason thought. A pretty, young, career woman who wanted a cabinet maker to build some cupboards. It sounded perfect. Too perfect? he wondered. Was there really something wrong with the ad? Was there? He started pacing again.
During the next hour, Mason read the ad several more times. And he counted his dwindled funds again, too, much as if his financial situation might have changed during his pacing. Then he decided that he would call and inquire about the job. But first there were many questions he should settle with himself. Should he use the same false name he used for his new room and landlady? Should he use a different one? And where would he go when this job was over? A long way away, he decided. Then he wondered if he would be able to wait to have the career woman? Could he wait at least until he had earned some money which was needed for escape? Could he? Would he if he could? He would have to wait. A lot would depend upon the girl herself. If she was attractive and friendly as Helen Stimson had been, well, then he couldn't wait. He'd have to take things as they came.
Mason tore the ad out of the newspaper. Then he slipped on a dark jacket and the slouch hat he had started to wear as part of his disguise. Then he left his room.
The stairs of the old house creaked as he descended them. He didn't like that, and lightened his step to subdue the noise. It was impossible. He wondered why stairs always creaked when you didn't want them to? He remembered how he used to be intercepted by his landlady. How they had talked and kidded together. That had been nice, he recalled. But, it was past. Most everything was past now. Except the need within him that had grown frantic and urgent. But perhaps that would soon be quieted, he considered, quieted by the body of a young career woman.
Mason's figure merged with the night as he left the house and walked in a direction that was away from the more crowded sections of the neighborhood. He was a lean figure with hat pulled down and his hands in his pockets. He seemed undistinguishable, as one who might have lived all his adult life in the immediate surroundings.
When Mason came to an outdoor telephone booth, he paused. Then he moved inside. He fished the newspaper ad from his pocket and stared at it for what seemed like a long time, committing it to memory. Then he replaced it in his pocket. He looked at the telephone. He remembered how the phone had once been his means of sexual exhilaration. For a full minute he considered using it for that purpose again. He thought of the tens of thousands of names that were in the telephone directory and how any one of them could be chosen and called to excite him. Then he decided against it.
As he dialed the telephone number he thought of Helen Stimson again, about her body and her voice and her friendly manner and how she had been so excited about the craftsmanship he had employed for her cupboards.
Mason drew back when the telephone started to ring on the other end of the line. He tried to guess the number of rings it would take before the woman answered. He tried also to visualize her. Would she be as pretty as Helen Stimson and the others had been? When he considered it, he felt a certain pride in his selection of victims. He had not chosen just anyone indiscriminately-he had picked them with care, concentrating on their manner and their physical attributes.
The phone rang a second time. Then a third time. Then Mason breathed deeply as the phone rang a fourth and fifth time. And then his call was answered.
"Hello," a young, feminine voice said to him.
He gulped to himself, then said, "Hello-I'm-I'm calling about the ad in the paper."
"Oh, yes," Janet Helm said. "Goodness, I was beginning to think that there weren't any cabinet makers who wanted a job."
That was friendly, Mason thought. Real friendly. She sounded nice.
"Then the job's not taken yet?" he asked.
"No, and I'm just going crazy waiting for someone to redesign these old things I have."
"Oh," he said.
"I guess what the trouble is," Janet continued, "is that I'm away all day and can only have a man work here at night. I guess cabinet makers don't like that arrangement."
"I don't mind," he said.
"Oh, good," she purred sweetly. "When do you want the work done?" Mason asked.
"As soon as possible," she replied. "Tomorrow?" he asked. "That would be fine."
"What are you paying?" he asked, saying it like an after-thought.
"Whatever your rates are?" she replied. "Frankly, I don't know much about this type of thing-I just have to trust your judgement of what the work is worth. There are quite a few cupboards that I want built, however, so maybe you'd prefer to be paid by the hour. Any way is all right with me, though. When will you be free to start?"
My but she sounds positive, Mason thought. And trustful, too. She even used the word herself; said she'd have to trust me.
"I could probably start tomorrow," Mason said, trying to sound casual and not too anxious.
"Oh, that'd be wonderful," Janet Helm said. "Just wonderful. I'm very grateful-I really can't thank you enough."
"Ah, what's your address?" he asked.
Janet gave it to him, repeating it twice, then a third time when Mason fished a stub of a pencil from his pocket with a slip of paper.
"And what is your name?" she asked Mason.
"Harry-Harry Cotton," he said, using the alias he had recently taken.
"Fine, Mr. Cotton," she said. "What time can I expect you?"
"When do you want me?"
"Is seven or eight o'clock too late at night to work?" she asked. "You see, I live alone and I work quite late sometimes, so seven or eight would seem best for me."
"That sounds best for me, too," he said, then added, "I've-I've got a daytime job."
"My, how nice," she said. "You're very industrious, aren't you?"
"Kind of," he answered, smiling at the nice, friendly tone of her voice.
"Then I can expect you around that time, can't I, Mr. Cotton?"
"Sure," he answered, still smiling.
"And you won't disappoint me?"
"I won't disappoint you," he said.
"Good. I'm-I'm looking forward to meeting you."
"I'll see you tomorrow." Quickly now, he said good-bye and hung the phone on its hook.
Mason remained in the telephone booth a few minutes. Now, he was breathing deeply as he recalled the sound of Janet Helm's voice, as he tried to form an image of her in his mind, and as he thought of how good it would be to once more have a relationship with a woman-a working one, and a killing one. He felt very stimulated, but the erotic churning was on the inside and without physical results. But he felt a deep anticipation for Janet Helm.
Mason was reluctant to return to his room. It was too much a reminder of his flight and fear. So, he walked the streets, being careful to stay clear of crowded areas or sections that might be more populated with police. He tried to avoid street lights too. He remembered walking a similar area when he met the prostitute.
That wouldn't do him any good tonight, he reasoned. No money-too much chance.
When he passed a diner, Mason slowed his pace. There were only a few customers at the counter. Two waitresses stood behind it. He entered the place.
Both waitresses looked up at him as he entered, hesitated, then sat down at one of the stools. One waitress stayed at the end of the counter, the other approached him.
Mason ordered coffee. The waitress brought it. He noticed that she was very young, probably less than eighteen. Her breasts lightly bounced as she moved, and Mason Stevenson wondered how they would appear if nude. Would the nipples be lush and out-pointing? Would the mounds seem large enough to adequately hold the pointing ends? Would they? What about her hips? Would the flare of them seem too much for the narrowness of her waist, or would there be perfect compatibility. And her legs-were they heavy or lithe? Did the calves slope into ankles or was there a dramatic, and unattractive, swoop?
"Anything else?" the waitress asked.
"No." He looked into her eyes. What did they tell him? Only that she was young, probably very sexual, and completely unhappy with the hour of her shift which, he guessed, was at its beginning.
Mason sipped his coffee. He thought of Janet Helm and the call he would be making upon her in less than twenty-four hours. What would she be like? he wondered. Then he experienced a stab of fear as he wondered if she had read all the newspaper accounts about the Sex Strangler. If she had, would she recognize him? He doubted it, and told himself that the mustache and haircut had done a great deal to change his appearance. There was nothing inside him that had changed, he thought. Visions of naked female bodies flashed through his mind, then centered into one unidentifiable woman whom he had not yet met.
Mason finished his coffee and left the diner. He still was disinclined to return to his room. Yet, prowling the streets was dangerous for a man who was sought by every police officer in the city. He remembered reading how major criminals are usually apprehended through chance or mistake, even by luck, rather than true police skill. So, if he made the chances negligible, he would survive-survive to vent his lust again and again upon the flesh of innocent victims.
Now, Mason walked toward the lighted section of the neighborhood. His need for other human beings superseded his need for stealth. He ambled toward activity.
At a neighborhood center of activity Mason was surprised that so many people were still around at the late hour. Little clusters of them stood around the bars and at corners. Mason felt a desire to join them, but he could not. Neither his finances or his fear of discovery permitted it. But he walked past several of the bars, observing the people and seeing how they laughed and talked together. Sometimes their laughter made him smile. And on two occasions he wished that he were a member of the groups for particularly attractive girls were included. Mason's eyes could not help but survey each girl he passed. And with each of them he wondered if they in any manner resembled Janet Helm. His mind soon became clogged with her. His anticipation of her crowded everything else out, even caution, to some degree. At one place he found himself loitering and talking to two men who, like himself, apparently had nothing to do. But Mason did not linger. He moved on.
At a corner, he noticed a bus being besieged by teen aged boys and girls. They were all laughing and seemed to be coming from a nearby theatre which, Mason guessed, they had attended as a group. As the line of young people poured into the bus, Mason crossed the street and took a position at the end of the line.
When he was in the bus and ready to deposit his fare, he almost turned back. But he did not. He entered, dropping a quarter into the metal receiver.
Mason, following a pattern of old, pressed toward the back of the bus. He smiled, was very polite, excused himself like the greatest of gentlemen, and was always careful to pass the girls while facing them. The light brush of their body against him was so excruciating that it almost hurt. And all of the sexual hurt was on the inside and unexpressed physically. He would have to wait for that, he knew, wait until the following night when he would face the one from whom he would receive release.
After the bus had traveled less than a mile, Mason left it at a corner stop. Then he turned and retraced all of his steps until at last he was at his rooming house.
As Mason climbed the stairs he became aware of the differences in noises between his old dwelling and the new. The old had been quiet, dignified. This place yelled its emotions. Every room he passed seemed to express the sounds of the people who occupied it. Television sets blared, a few record players issued jumping, jiving, twisting music, and above it all there was the sound of voices. Some voices were soft and loving. Others were harsh. And a few issued from neither mood, but came instead from the movement sounds of love-making. These sounds Mason liked very much. These sounds set him to new craving, more urgent and more demanding of personal release than anything else could do at that time.
When Mason closed the door behind him, some of the tenant-sounds were blocked out. But a few remained: The mean cursing of a husband and wife down the hall, the laughter of a drunk, and the cooing, love conversation of the young couple who lived in the next room.
It seemed important to Mason to escape the noises. Quickly, he undressed, then, nude, climbed into bed. He stretched between the sheets. He tried for sleep. It would not come. Then he twisted to his side, facing the thin wall that separated him from the young couple. Their cooing sounds had become something else. Now, Mason listened intently.
"Come on, please ... ," the male voice begged.
"But not like that!" the girl exclaimed. "Why not?" asked the man. "Because it's not nice," she told him rather crisply.
"It is too," he said, laughing softly.
"For you, maybe," she answered. "Just try?" he asked. "Well...."
"Please. Don't forget I promised to take you to dinner next pay day."
"And you'll get drunk and forget all about it," she exclaimed.
"I won't if...."
"Is that all men ever think about?" she asked. "Isn't just regular love good enough for them?"
"Men like to know if their women love 'em, that's all," he said.
There was a pause. Mason edged a little closer to the wall. He could hear the increased breathing from both the man and the girl. Mason guessed that he was separated from them by less than a foot, if that. He was so close that he felt like part of their drama, an integral part of it.
"What do you say?" the man asked again. "Oh gosh...." the girl answered. "Did you ever think you might like it?"
"How could I?"
"Some girls do."
"No kiddin'?" she said, truly amazed.
"Sure," he said. "Lots of girls even prefer it-you see, it gives them a chance to really prove how much they love their fella."
"Yeah, I can understand that," she said.
There was another pause between them. Mason, listening at the wall, filled the pause with a fantasy of the kiss the couple now shared. He knew it would be drippingly sweet, tongue piercing, and growing in intensity.
When the pause ended, the man, his voice now thick, said, "Right here, honey ... yeah, right there."
Now, there were no words expressed between them. Only sounds came through the thin wall to Mason Stevenson's anxious ears, the sounds of effort-from the girl, Mason knew-and heavier breathing from the man. The breathing sound increased dramatically, even became a little choked. And the sounds that the girl made were faster, too, and of the quality that reminded of bobbing heads, churning hair that switched from side to side, and an almost inexhaustible energy for lowering and rising incessantly upon the body of the man.
Mason closed his eyes tightly when he heard the man gasp an eerie sound as the motion-sounds from the girl went slower, and slower, and slower until at last they stopped amid her own gurgling sigh.
Mason whipped himself around and away from the wall. He kept his eyes closed tightly, willing sleep to come to him so that the morrow would hurry and arrive, the morrow that would give him manhood, even if for only a little while.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
It seemed incredible to Janet Helm that she and Clint Henderson were no longer in love. Their short love affair, no less intense because of its brevity, now seemed like a preposterous joke to Janet. But she wasn't laughing. Instead, she had done a good deal of crying. Then a dryness set in that was laced with bitterness.
Upon first hearing the verbalization of Clint's rejection of her, Janet had been tempted to seek him out, talk, make a communication that would resolve the problems and send them dashing into each other's arms. But she did not. She could not. If Clint failed to trust her, then they were not good for each other, she reasoned. Something deep within herself demanded trust above all else. So Janet was incapable of compromising the situation, or even, clearing it up. She did, however, feel it incumbent to talk to the Commissioner about the misunderstanding. She was not surprised that he took the whole matter casually. "I said I was going to make some adjustments of personnel on the case," he had said. "It certainly isn't a criticism of Clint-it's just that sometimes officers get too close to a situation.
A new look by different people sometimes leads to the criminal."
Janet understood the Commissioner's reasoning. It would have been her own. She was certain that Clint had jumped to conclusions, but she was determined not to go to him-knew that she could not until he came to her. And in the meantime, she could not do less than continue projecting her plan that was intended to trap Mason Stevenson, the Sex Strangler.
Janet was not sure that the telephone call from the cabinet maker, Harry Cotton, was the one she wanted. But there was something about the caller, his voice, a few key words he used, his manner, that made her sense that she was on the right trail. Besides, according to the schedule she had made the time was ripe for Stevenson to be seeking a new victim. And she was sure that he needed money. His savings account, she had learned through regular police channels, had not been approached. Stevenson would be needing money at about the same time he'd be needing a woman, Janet determined. Every other known cabinet maker in the city was covered by the police. There had been no leads. And it was rare for a man of this craft to be seeking extra work. It was too incongruous to their earnings and habits for Janet to thoroughly believe the story presented to her by one Harry Cotton. She was excited about his call. She was certain that she would soon be face to face with the killer. But, because of the wide margin of error that was possible, and because of the extra duty the police department was already doing on the case of the Strangler, she neither notified the police of her caller nor made preparations to call them. When she faced Mason Stevenson, she would take care of that herself, she reasoned, and take care of it with a hidden gun and a quick telephone call to the police. Janet recognized that she was being silly and careless, but she could not help it. Her split with Clint Henderson made her overly brave, made her even wish for some subtle revenge upon him-revenge such as apprehending the killer, then merely calling the police to pick him up.
An hour before the earliest possible time of the cabinet maker's arrival at her apartment, Janet checked everything, including her own plans. If Harry Cotton was really Mason Stevenson, she would merely go to where she had concealed the pistol beneath the cushions of the couch, display it, hold him at bay, and telephone the police. If her cabinet maker turned out to be someone other than the killer, she would have to fake a reason for putting the work off to some future time. And what if she did not know? she asked herself. What if it seemed that it was going to take time to prove to herself that Cotton was really Stevenson? What then? Well, she would have to play it as it moved along, she decided. By ear. By any means she could until she had made a firm identification.
At six-thirty Janet decided that she had better prepare herself as some kind of lure if it developed that Mason Stevenson was going to be overly cautious. She showered, powdered her lovely body, added scent to intimate places, then dressed in satin lounging pajamas that showed her body to tempting advantage, without overdoing it. And then she seated herself upon the couch to wait the arrival of the cabinet maker who would either be an innocent applicant for a job, or a killer and rapist with an uncontrollable urge for women such as herself.
Seven o'clock came and passed. Janet tried not to feel disappointed when the time turned to seven-thirty. At seven-forty-five she began to doubt that Harry Cotton would present himself. At seven-fifty, Janet rose from the couch, put the book she was trying to read face down on the cocktail table, and walked into her kitchen. She decided to make a pot of coffee. That would keep her busy for a few minutes. And, when Harry Cotton did not appear, as she now expected that he would not, the coffee would serve to steady her and calm her disappointment.
Janet had just put the coffee on the stove and had turned to wait at the kitchen table until it perked, when the downstairs buzzer sounded. She nearly jumped. Her heart pounded furiously. She fought to calm herself, then did and walked into the living room where she pressed the button that released the downstairs, lobby door lock.
Janet sighed deeply, then turned to the couch, prepared to wait for her caller there. Quickly, she decided against it. The pose would be a little too contrived, she thought. So she waited by the door. Within a minute, she heard the elevator doors open, then click shut. She backed away from her door. It seemed to take forever for him to get to her door. She planned to open the door immediately, without caution. That would be best, would not give rise to suspicion. But why didn't he hurry? she asked herself. He was taking forever. Or perhaps he had turned back, had become afraid and decided to flee the place. Or ... A light knock sounded on the door.
Janet turned the handle and opened the door.
Janet smiled when she faced her caller, but she felt a surge of terrible disappointment. This man looked nothing like the image of Mason Stevenson. This man wore a mustache and his hair was short and neat. None of her charts and calculations had suggested that he might make a change in his appearance. Nothing. It was too unlike a killer such as Mason Stevenson. But this man-he looked nothing like the one she had expected.
"Miss Helm?" asked Mason Stevenson.
"Yes." She paused, then forced a smile and her voice to continue in a friendly manner. "You must be Mr. Cotton."
The man nodded and smiled.
"Oh, I'm so glad you came. I was beginning to think you didn't want the job."
"I was held up a little before I could get here," said Mason Stevenson, posing as Harry Cotton.
"Nothing serious, I hope," she said. "Oh, no. Missed bus connections. That's all."
"Oh. But do come in, Mr. Cotton." Janet opened the door wide and Mason turned to the side, stopped, picked up the tool box he had rested in the hall, then entered the apartment.
"Sit down," Janet invited.
Mason nodded, then moved to a large chair that sat near the couch. He sat down and, strangely, Janet thought, placed the tool box at his side, right within the tuft of her expensive carpeting.
Janet had moved to the couch and was ready to sit down opposite him, when suddenly she jerked upright.
"Oh, excuse me," she said quickly, moving toward the kitchen. "The coffee's perking."
"Coffee?" Mason said, his body alerting a bit.
"Yes." Janet paused, then added quickly, "You would like a cup, wouldn't you?"
"Oh, yes," he replied, his eyes appearing to take on a different shade, one that cast the appearance of being far away as if it were reviewing a memory.
"Good. I'll be right with you," she said.
"Take your time. It was-was nice of you to have coffee ready for me."
At the kitchen door, she turned and looked at him. Then she smiled and entered the kitchen.
Janet pondered her problem of identification as she prepared a tray with cups and saucers, sugar and cream. Was this man Mason Stevenson? She couldn't be sure, she recognized. He didn't look like the composite picture that had been drawn of him. Still, there was something in his manner-in his response to certain things, like the coffee, that made her feel that she had met the killer. But there were many things against this assumption, too, Janet realized. Many things. She reminded herself again of the gun beneath the couch cushions. And she told herself that she must be completely concentrated upon the detection of this man's true identification. Even if in doubt, she told herself, she would go to the phone and call the police, all the time keeping him covered with the gun, which was cocked and ready, waiting only her grasp of it.
Janet was careful to make the tray she was preparing as attractive as possible. The silver sugar and cream service were at one end of the tray. The silver urn she had filled from the coffee pot was in the middle. And at the other end of the tray, there were the cups and saucers. Next to each saucer there was a spoon, one of her best from a set she had purchased while still in college.
When the tray was ready, Janet took a step backwards and looked at it. For some reason it seemed important that the service be perfect. She didn't know why, only that it was her sense of things and the way they should be.
Satisfied that everything looked right, Janet bent a bit, lifted the full tray from the table, then turned and bumped right into Mason Stevenson who was standing in the kitchen doorway.
"Oh, good heavens, you-."
"I'm sorry," he said quickly. "I just thought I'd come in here. The kitchen's where you want the cupboards-and besides, it's the best place to have coffee."
"Of course," Janet said, backing away a pace, then turning and replacing the tray on the table. She noticed that Mason, or Harry, was eyeing her very carefully. She wondered if she had made him suspicious.
"So these are the cupboards, eh?" Mason said, turning and looking over the sink.
"Yes. They're quite old," she said.
"You want them replaced, eh?"
"Yes."
"They don't look very old."
"I guess they aren't, really. I think I just want a change."
"Sure," he smiled. "Most women do, I guess."
There was a moment's hesitation from both of them. Finally, Janet broke it.
"Oh, please sit down, Mr. Cotton," she said. "Yeah. Thanks."
Mason seated himself at the head of the table, Janet at the side. She poured coffee into his cup. Then she nodded toward the cream and sugar, indicating that he should help himself. He did. Then Janet prepared her own coffee.
Mason took a sip from his cup. "This is good."
"Yes, I like this brand," Janet said.
"I mean it's good the way we're sitting here having coffee together, real friendly like, even with you just meeting me. I like this. It's nice."
Janet felt her blood chill, then blaze hot. Now, there was no doubt in her mind that her companion at the table was the killer-rapist, Mason Stevenson. She fought to steady her hand upon the cup: She fought desperately to control her sudden fear, for it seared through her and was all the worse because of her lack of full preparation. She had had no idea she would be so frightened. And part of her fear came from the man's casualness, the way that he acted as if he belonged next to her, at the table, in the living room, any place. It made her throat feel parched and her tongue bloated and fuzzy as if the life had already been squeezed out of her.
"Yeah, real nice," Mason said again, after taking a new sip of coffee.
"About the cupboards, Mr. Cotton," Janet said, surprised that her tone had not perceptibly changed. "When do you think you'll get at them and how long will it take?"
He seemed not to have heard her.
"Of course you'll have to tear these old ones out first," Janet continued, the bile taste of panic rising to her throat.
Mason sipped more of his coffee. His mind seemed very far away. But then he seemed to spark to the moment, turned to Janet and said, "You know, I'm sure glad I came up to see you tonight."
"Well, I'm glad, too," she said. "Otherwise, I'd have to wait forever to get a cabinet maker to-."
"That's not what I mean," he interrupted.
"Oh. Isn't it?"
"No."
She did not answer. She could not bring a sound to her lips.
"No, you see, by coming up here tonight, you-well, it brings back one of the happiest times of my life."
"Oh, really?" she finally said.
"Yeah. You see, I used to sit and have coffee like this with a girl-a real pretty girl, like you-and we would have just the best times together. We'd talk. And have coffee, and sometimes lunch. Then she'd do her work around the house and the yard and I'd work on her cupboards for her. I did a real special job
-Hen, I wasn't supposed to, either, but you see, I liked this girl. There wasn't anything I wouldn't do for her. Nothing. Anything. Whatever she wanted. She was ... sweet. Real ... sweet."
"What-whatever happened to her, Mr. Cotton?"
"What happened to her?" he asked. "Yes."
"Well ... she died. Yes, she died. It was
-was very unexpected, her being so young and everything, so pretty too. Nobody knew that she was going to die. It was ... sad. Real sad."
"Yes. I-I can understand that." Janet paused. She wanted to stall, to take more of her coffee, but she couldn't trust the steadiness of her hand.
"Very, very sad," Mason Stevenson said in a voice that seemed very far away.
Inspired, Janet said, "Mr. Cotton, why don't we take our coffee into the living room? It's really much more pleasant there."
"The living room?" he questioned.
"Yes. It's much more comfortable."
He hesitated. He looked at her. His eyes pierced directly at the bulge her breasts made against the satin material of her lounging pajamas. Then they traveled downward. And then they raised to her eyes and it seemed as if he were seeing beyond them and into her mind.
Janet could not stand it another moment. She had to move, had to motivate something, some action other than his insane words, the mad look of his eyes. Something! Anything! And at once!
Janet stood up. She turned and started to move toward the door to the living room. Mason stood up too. It all seemed very natural. They were going into the living room. Janet smiled. She smiled a little wider. Then she decided to hurry him along to the other room and herself to the gun that lay concealed beneath the cushions.
"Come along, Mason, we'll-!"
"MASON?" he exploded, dumbfounded.
Janet looked into his eyes for only a small part of a second. It was long enough to tell her that she had just unwittingly marked herself for instant death. She gasped, then whirled and leaped through the archway toward the living room.
Mason tackled her and sent her crashing to the floor before she was midway to the couch. He rolled on top of her, pinning her flat to the floor. He was stronger than Janet had realized, stronger naturally, and strong by right of his insanity.
"You knew," he hissed, breathing hard. "You knew, you knew. Even before I came here, you knew who I was."
She did not answer. She stared into his face, hoping, praying, for some sign that would give her the opening to escape. But there was none; there was only his hot breath, his psychotic eyes, and the strong, wirey body that kept her a prisoner.
"You didn't want to have coffee with me," Mason groaned. "You didn't. That was a trick-a trick because you knew who I was and wanted to get me. To get me! But now I got you instead." He stopped and laughed.
If only she could get to the couch, Janet thought. Although fear made her nearly immobile, the couch was still her goal. If she could get there. If she could get the gun. If....
"Let me up, Mason," she said, looking straight at him. "Let me up. You're sick-you need help and I promise to see that you get it."
He laughed again. Then, questioningly said, "Help? Me? You'll get me help?"
"Yes."
"Oh, no, I'm going to help you," he said, starting to laugh again.
Mason started to rise from her body, and for a moment Janet thought that she was about to be free. But then she knew that this was not Mason Stevenson's intention. His eyes pecked at her body and her disarrayed attire. He looked at her breasts and the way they were partially exposed because of the bodice that had become torn. Then he looked at the waistband of her pajama pants. It had lowered to her hips and displayed her navel which was pinched and quivering.
Suddenly, Mason seemed to get very excited. He brought his hand to the front of her blouse and let it rest there a few seconds. Janet could feel the moisture of his hand mixing with her own perspiration. And then she was jerked upward for a second as his fingers closed and he ripped the blouse from her body.
Janet made a small cry. Then she felt terribly cold. Her breasts puckered and her nipples hardened, but it came not from passion but from fear. And then she felt the heat of Mason's hand running over her body, touching her breasts, moving downward, then up again, then down to the waistband of her pajamas where it paused. She steeled herself for the new ripping sound. It came. Her hips bounded up, then fell flat against the floor again as the satin material gave and was pulled from her body. Now, Mason's eyes feasted upon all of her, running the length of her nudity until he reached her feet. Here, almost daintily, he removed her slippers and tossed them to one side. Then his eyes ran up and down her flesh again, faster and more fevered as if they must hurry before it was too late.
Suddenly, Mason started to weep. Janet felt his tears splashing upon her skin. She couldn't believe it was happening, for it seemed to offer hope. HOPE. Oh, how she welcomed it. But in a moment she knew that she had misunderstood his weeping. They were not for remorse: They were of passion and for the murdering lust he was about to vent upon her.
"Now, you just be real careful," Mason said, still choked but no longer weeping. "You be careful and I'm going to show you exactly how I do it-how I've done it to the others. You wanted to trick me, catch me-all right, you've got me and I've got you, too. So you just watch everything-everything-and you'll be sorry that you didn't mean it when you gave me coffee and was being nice to me. Real sorry. But then, maybe you won't be because you won't remember. You'll never, never remember."
Janet tensed as Mason drew back a bit. His eyes were still passion-filled, but they remained alert for any movement from her. And as he stared at her, he quickly made an adjustment at the front of his clothing. Then he leaned closer. But he was not ready for an act of sex. Not yet. But his hands were outstretched, the fingers hard and quivering, and they moved closer and closer to her throat, moved to that end-the only end-that could prepare him for lust and action.
Janet knew that she would fight, knew that she could never give up her life without first fighting to save it. She prepared for the struggle, tried to maneuver her hands nearer her side so there would be less distance for them to travel as they raised to fend off Mason Stevenson's strangling fingers. She moved them a bit, then more, but before they were ready or had the strength to rise, she felt the maniac's hands circle her throat. They tightened tentatively. Then they pressured slowly. And then they seemed to find their rhythm for the pressure constantly tightened, came upon her as a noose. She stared straight into his eyes. He stared back, watching for that first sign of lifelessness that would be his aphrodisiac. And then, just as Janet's head began to reel, as her vision became blurred, there was a sudden lessening of the tension around her throat. Saliva bubbled and she was now able to swallow it. And she could hear the sound. The sound! A voice and then a crashing sound. Suddenly, it seemed even more important to her than the life she was about to lose. Terribly important. So important that it seemed like life itself. She raised slightly. There was no restraining movement from Mason. None. And he wasn't looking into her eyes. His head had turned. Janet looked past his shoulders.
At first Janet thought that she had already died and was experiencing the aftermath of a final dream she had carried with her: a dream that told of rescue and love and Lt. Clint Henderson. But when she heard Mason Stevenson yelp, then roll clear of her body, she knew that death, and the dream, had merged with reality.
Janet rolled to one side as Stevenson's movement freed her. And then there was the sharp report of shots, a scramble, the thud of bodies, the crash of furniture, splintering wood and glass, and then another shot. And then quiet. And then, blessedly, the gentleness of Clint's hands raising her from the floor and the death she had nearly known.
* * *
Janet readjusted her position in the big chair where she sat in Clint Henderson's apartment. She smiled, a little frailly, but with great happiness showing.
"Feel better?" asked Clint who sat opposite her.
"Yes. I'm fine. Now."
"Well, at least it's over. For you and for a lot of other women in the city."
She nodded. Then she asked, "Did he die right away?"
"Almost instantly."
"I didn't know what was happening," she said. "I thought I was dead, that you were a part of my dream."
"Try to forget it," he said.
She shuddered, then said, "Oh, Clint-if you hadn't come along like you did-right at that split second."
"I would have been there," he said.
She looked quizzical.
"I've been prowling around your place for days," he said, smiling as if at a secret joke. "You've been-!"
"Sure," he interrupted. "I saw your ad in the paper and knew that you had figured out some crazy scheme. Well, the mood you were in didn't leave me much of a chance to talk to you."
"The mood I was in!" she exclaimed.
"Sure." He smiled easily, then said, "I got things straightened out in my own mind-and the Commissioner helped clear things up, too. I was all set to call, then I saw that damn ad. Well, I couldn't have you catching killers all by yourself, so I planted myself in the building here until Stevenson showed. Of course I didn't know it was Stevenson, either, I have to admit, until you made it possible. So then I simply came in and stopped him."
"And in the nick of time."
He looked a little sheepish, then said, "I would have been here much sooner but I got locked in the basement. I-well, I had to jimmy the door to get up here."
Janet laughed, not at him so much, as at the situation that had an important police officer locked within his own hiding place. Then, she had a confession.
"I gave myself away to him, Clint," she said.
He cocked his head.
"I-well, instead of calling him 'Harry', I had a slip of the tongue and called him 'Mason'. That did it. I don't know why it happened! really don't. My plan was so well laid. So perfect."
"The slip could have killed you," Clint said seriously.
"I know." She paused and looked reflective for a moment, then said, "I guess I had been thinking Mason Stevenson so long that it just blurted out when I realized that it was really Stevenson who had answered my ad."
Clint nodded. He smiled.
"But it's over," she said, sighing.
"Yes. It is."
"What does that mean?" she wanted to know.
Clint stood up and walked over to her. For a moment, he towered above her and she thought how he represented strength, security, love-all the things she needed in a man.
"It means that your one episode as a detective is over," he said, reaching and raising her from the chair.
"My one episode?"
"Yes. You see, officers' wives are supposed to stay in the background-waiting-doing whatever they do while their husbands chase criminals."
"Wives?" she asked, feeling her heart start to flutter madly. "No," he said.
A surge of disappointment careened through her body.
"Wife," he corrected. "Singular. Only one. You. You for me. Understand?"
"I understand," she said, leaning against him and cuddling her head into his chest.
They stayed sweetly embraced in the middle of the room for a full minute. Then, very gently, with love, Clint stooped and lifted her from the floor.
Janet gave herself happily to the security and thrill of his strong arms as he moved across the room. She didn't know where he was taking her. She didn't care. Any place in the world would do-any place so long as they were together.
