Chapter 13 Chapter 12 Violence in the Apartment

She pushed the key into the lock of the apartment door, and when it didn't go in with the familiar series of clicks, and instead pushed the door open, she knew something was wrong.She didn't think this way: Miriam, what a fool you are to forget to lock the door at work, why don't you put a note on the door that says, "Hey Robber, I've got cash on the kitchen cupboard!" She didn't think so because once you've lived in New York for six months, maybe even four months, you don't forget to lock the door.If you live in the middle of nowhere, maybe you only lock your door when you go on vacation; if you live in a small city, maybe you forget to lock it when you go to work; A cup of sugar, and you'll lock the door too.Forgetting to lock the door is as impossible as forgetting to inhale after exhaling.The city is full of museums and galleries, but it's also full of drug addicts and psychopaths, and you don't take chances unless you're a born idiot, and Miriam isn't a born idiot, maybe a bit of a phenom, but no Silly.

So she knew something was wrong, and Miriam was sure the thieves had gotten into her apartment, they might have left with their stuff three or four hours ago, but they might still be inside.The assumption is the same as kids learn about guns, when they get their first real gun they are told to assume it will always be loaded, even if you just took it out of the factory box, Also assume the gun is loaded. Even before the door stopped turning inwards, she slid extremely quickly towards it, but it was too late.In the darkness a hand shot out like a bullet from the two-inch gap between the door and the locker, gripped her hand tightly, and her keys landed on the hallway carpet.

Miriam Cowley opened her mouth to shout.The tall blond man stood just behind the door, waiting patiently for more than four hours without drinking coffee or smoking.He wanted a cigarette very much, and he wanted one as soon as this was over, but until then the smell would alert her—New Yorkers are like critters alert in the undergrowth, even when they are having fun. Perceived danger. He grabbed her right wrist with his right hand, catching her off guard.Now he fixed the door with the palm of his left hand, and pulled the woman forward violently with his right hand.The doors look like wood but are actually iron, and all the nice apartments in New York have iron doors.Her face hit the door with a thud, two teeth snapped from her gums, slit her mouth, the tight lip was knocked loose, and blood dripped from the lower lip onto the door.Her stork bones snapped like twigs.

She collapsed half unconscious.The blond let her go, and she collapsed on the hallway carpet.Action must be swift.It is said that New York's personnel affairs are so high that a psychopath can stab a woman twenty or forty times in front of a big barber shop on Seventh Street at noon, and no one will interfere. The blond man knows that the legend is fake.That's all well and good for a hunted critter, but an uninquisitive critter dies quickly.Therefore, speed is fundamental. He opened the door, grabbed Miriam by the hair, and dragged her in. A moment later, he heard the knock of the latch on the other side of the corridor, followed by the opening of the door.He could see the face without looking up, a hairless rabbit poking out the door of another apartment, nose twitching.

"You didn't break it, Miriam?" he asked in a low voice, and then he raised his voice a notch, and cupped his hands two inches from his mouth to become a loudspeaker, sending out a woman's voice, "I think No, can you pick it up for me?" He put his hand down and returned to his normal voice, "Of course, wait a minute." He closed the door and looked out through the peep-glass.The mirror is fish-eye shaped, and can see the entire corridor, although it is a bit distorted.He saw exactly what he had imagined: at the other end of the corridor, a white face peered out from a door, like a rabbit from its hole.

The face withdrew. The door is closed. It doesn't hit but closes slowly.Stupid Miriam dropped something and the guy she was with - maybe her boyfriend, maybe her ex - was picking it up for her, nothing to worry about.All is well, bunnies. Miriam woke up moaning. The blond man reached into his pocket, pulled out a pocket razor, and turned it on. The blade flickered in the dim light from the only lamp in the living room that was on. Her eyes opened, looking up at him, and he was bending over her, her mouth painted red as if she had just eaten a strawberry. He showed her the razor, and her dim eyes suddenly widened in alarm, and her wet, red mouth opened.

"I'll cut you if you scream, little girl," he said, and her mouth closed. He wrapped one hand around her hair and dragged her into the living room.Her skirt rustled on the smooth wooden floor, her ass caught a rug, and she grunted in pain. "Hush," he said, "I told you." They enter the living room.It's small but cozy, with paintings by the French Impressionists on the walls and a framed poster that reads: Cats, now and forever.In the vase are dried flowers.A small sectional sofa covered in wheat-coloured cloth.A bookcase, in which he could see two of Beaumont's books in one row, Stark's four in another row, and Beaumont's in the upper row.It's wrong to discharge like this, but this bitch has no idea what's good or bad, so don't take it seriously.

He let go of her hair: "Sit on the sofa, girl. That end." He pointed to the end near the coffee table, where the telephone and answering machine were placed. "Please," she whispered, without getting up.Her mouth and cheeks began to swell, and she couldn't speak, "Take whatever you want, the money is on the cabinet." "Sit on the sofa, that end." This time he pointed to the sofa with one hand and pointed the razor at her face with the other. She climbed onto the sofa and leaned against the cushions, her black eyes wide open.She wiped her mouth with her hand, looked at the blood in her palm in disbelief, then looked up at him.

"What do you want?" It sounded like someone talking with a mouthful of food. "I want you to make a call, girl, that's all." He picked up the phone, pressed the ON button on the answering machine with his razor hand, and handed her the receiver.It's one of those old-fashioned mics that look like a slightly deformed dumbbell, heavier than normal mics.He knew it, and she knew it from the way her body moved when he gave her the microphone.A smile appeared on the lips of the blond man, and there was no warmth in the smile. "You're thinking of hitting me over the head with that, aren't you, girl?" he asked her. "I tell you, that's not a good idea. You know what happens to people whose bad ideas fail? She didn't answer him, and he said, "They're falling from the sky, really, I've seen them in cartoons. So you hold on to the fountain tube on your knees, and put your bad idea to rest."

She stared at him, blood dripped slowly from her chin, and a drop of blood landed on the front of her dress.It'll never come off, little girl, thought the blond. They say you can wash it off if you rush it in cold water, but not this time.They have machines, spectrometers, color meters, ultraviolet light, and Lady Macbeth is right. "If the bad idea comes back, I'll see it in your eyes, little girl, these big black eyes, you don't want a big black eye rolling off your cheek, right?" She shook her head so violently that her hair floated around her face.As she shook her head, those beautiful dark eyes never left his face, and the blond felt a stir in his thighs.Sir, you have a tape measure in your pocket, or you just like to look at me.

This time the smile was in his eyes as well as his lips, and he felt her relax a bit. "I want you to lean over and dial Ted Beaumont's number." She just stared at him, calm in her eyes. "Beaumont," he said patiently, "the writer. Do as I say, little girl, time flies." "My address book." She said, her lips were swollen and she couldn't hear clearly. "What did you say?" he asked. "I don't understand what you're saying. Speak clearly, little girl." She said painfully: "My address book, address book, I don't remember his phone number." The razor stabbed at her through the air, and it seemed to whisper humanly, which might have been imaginary, but they both heard it.She receded deeper into the cushion, her swollen mouth contorted.He turned the razor so that the dim light of the desk lamp fell on the blade, let the light run over it like water, and looked at her as if they were crazy if they didn't worship such a lovely thing. "Don't lie to me, girl," he said now, with a soft Southern accent in his voice, "you're dealing with a guy like me, don't do that. Dial the fucking number now." She might not remember Beaumont's phone number, but she should remember Stark's.In the book world, Starkey is your partner, and the phone number is the same as the person. Tears started rolling out of her eyes. "I don't remember," she moaned. The blond man was already about to cut her - not because he was mad at her, but because if you let her lie like that, she would keep telling it - when he reconsidered.He thought it was entirely possible for her to temporarily forget something as trivial as a phone number, or even the number of someone as important as Beaumont/Stark.She was in shock, and if he asked her to call her own company, she probably wouldn't remember either. But since they're talking about Ted Beaumont and not Rick Cowley, he has a way. "Well," he said, "well, girl, you're upset, and I understand. Believe it or not, I even sympathize with you. You're lucky because I happen to know the phone number, and I know it's Like I know mine. You know what? I don't even want you to make this call, partly because I don't want to sit here waiting for you to recover, but also because I do sympathize with you. I'm going to lean over and dial this myself number. Do you know what that means?" Miriam Cowley shook her head, her dark eyes seeming to eat most of her face. "It means I trust you. Stop here, stop here. Are you listening? Do you understand?" Miriam nodded frantically, her hair flying.God, he likes women with a lot of hair. "Fine, that's fine. Girl, keep your eyes on this blade when I'm calling, it will keep you from acting rashly." He leaned forward, dialing a number on an old-fashioned dial.As he did so, an amplified click came from the answering machine next to the telephone.Miriam sat with the microphone on her lap, looking alternately at the Razor and the face of the terrible stranger. "Talk to him," said the blond man, "if his wife answers the phone and tell her you're Miriam from New York and you have something to talk to her husband. I know your lip is swollen, but let the other person know it's you. Give it to me, girl, if you don't want your face to look like a Picasso painting, give it to me." "What... what did I say?" The blond man smiled.She's so nice, so interesting, with that long hair.There was another commotion in his groin, and the lower part moved. The phone rang and they both could hear it on the phone recorder. "You know what to say, girl." There was a click when the phone was picked up.The blond man waited until he heard Beaumont say "Hello" when he leaned over and cut Miriam's left cheek with a razor in lightning speed, pulling a strip of flesh and blood gushing out , Miriam screamed. "Hi," Beaumont was calling, "Hi, who's that? Damn it, is that you?" Yes, it's me, you son of a bitch, the blond thought.It's me, you know it's me, right? "Tell him who you are and what's going on here!" he yelled at Miriam. "Do as I say! Don't make me say it a second time!" "Who is it?" cried Beaumont. "What is it? Who are you?" Miriam screamed again, blood spattering the wheat-colored sofa cover.Now, instead of a drop of blood on the chest of her dress, it was soaked with blood. "Do as I say or I'll cut your head off with this!" "Ted, there's someone here!" she screamed into the phone.In terror and pain, she could speak clearly again, "There's a bad guy here! There's a bad guy here, Tad—" "Say your name!" he yelled at her, cutting the razor an inch from his eye, and she flinched back crying. "Who are you? For—" "Miriam!" she screamed, "oh Ted don't let him cut me again don't let the bad guys cut me again don't—" George Stark cut the tangled wire with a single blow, and there was an angry yelp from the phone, and then silence. It's good, it's better, he's going to rape her, he hasn't wanted to rape a woman in a long time, but he wants to rape this woman, he doesn't want to kill her, but she's screaming too much.The rabbits would poke their heads out of their holes again, sniffing out dangerous smells. She's still screaming. Apparently she's gone mad. So Stark grabbed her by the hair again and pulled her head back until she was staring at the roof, screaming at it, and slitting her throat. The room was silent. "Okay, little girl," he said softly, and folded the razor back into his pocket, then stretched out his bloody left hand and closed her eyes.His shirt cuffs were instantly soaked with hot blood as her jugular veins were still spurting, but there was still work to be done.When it's a woman, you close her eyes, it doesn't matter how bad she is, you always close women's eyes. She's just one of those small characters, and Rick Cowley is different. And the guy who wrote the article for the magazine. And the bitch who took the picture, especially when she took that picture of the tombstone.A bitch, yes, a bitch, but he'll close her eyes too. Once they've all been dealt with, it's time to talk to Ted himself.No intermediary needed, face to face, let Ted understand why.After he'd dealt with these people, he hoped Ted had figured out why.If he didn't, there was a way to make him understand why. After all, he was a man with a wife, and a very beautiful wife, as beautiful as a queen. And he has kids. He dipped his fingers into Miriam's warm blood and began to write rapidly on the wall.He had to go back and dip it twice, but it wasn't very long, just above the woman's head that was hunched over the back of the sofa.She can read them upside down if she keeps her eyes open. Of course, that's assuming she's still alive. He leaned over and kissed Miriam on both cheeks. "Good night, little girl," he said, and left the apartment. The man in the opposite hallway peered out of his door again. When he saw the tall, blood-stained blond man emerge from Miriam's apartment, he slammed the door and locked it. Clever, thought George Stark, walking down the corridor to the elevator, very fucking clever. He had to go fast, he had no time to dawdle. There's one more thing to tackle tonight.