Adam's new friend had gone to sleep in the bedroom. Adam came walking out, buttoning his shirt, ready to leave.
He looked out the window to the phone booth on the street below. He'd call Rick Corday from there. Rick had been pretty upset about finding that note from Adam's one-night stand in Miami. Rick was such a child. He could never seem to grasp that loving somebody was very different from merely sleeping with someone.
As he found his trench coat and let himself out the door, Adam also started wondering how things had gone tonight with Eric Brooks. Not exactly a good time for Rick to be upset, his mind wandering, or his need for violence to surge again.
Much as Adam felt superior to Ricksmarter, better organized, far more focused, certainly more mature and, let's face it, much better-lookinghis mate had one area of clear superiority: he loved violence far more than Adam ever would.
Adam and Rick had met in a gay bar in Chicago and then started hanging out. This was four years ago. One night several weeks into their relationship, Rick saw a young woman walking alone on a dark street and he said, 'You ever thought of killing anybody?'
'Sure. Who hasn't?'
'What if I told you that I've already killed somebody. In fact, several somebodies.'
Adam, who was driving, smiled. 'What if I told you that I'd killed a few people, too?'
'Really?'
'Really.'
'God, that's fantastic.'
Adam, ever the cynic, said, 'What if one of us is lying?'
'Huh?'
'What if I'm telling you the truth but you're lying?'
'That I didn't really kill people before?'
'Right. Then I'd be confessing to murderand you'd just be lying.'
'Sort of like Strangers on a Train.' Rick smiled. 'But I really have killed somebody.'
'So have I,' Adam said. 'But how're we going to prove it?'
'Two blocks back.'
'What?'
'That chick. Two blocks back. That's how we're going to prove it.'
'What about her?'
'Let's go back and get her.'
'You're serious?' Adam said.
'Very serious.'
'Then what?'
'Take her out to the country and kill her.'
'Just like that?'
'Just like that. We're supposed to be killers, remember?'
A few minutes later they came around the corner of the block where the woman was walking.
'Go past her,' Rick instructed. 'Drive down to the next block. There's an alley there.'
'Good idea.'
Adam drove down to the alley, turned in and then parked the car in deep shadow. He killed the lights but left the motor running.
They got out of the car. it was misting. The alley smelled sweet-and-sour of garbage. A tomcat came down it carrying a mouse in his mouth.
They walked up to the edge of the alley. Pressed themselves flat against the wall. Listened hard for footsteps.
Nothingnothingthen
Footsteps.
High heels.
Coming fast.
Coming right toward them.
Adam thought how crazy it was. He was really going to kill somebody again. The ultimate risk…
'Let her get past us a couple of feet,' Rick hissed.
Adam nodded, his heart slamming against his chest. God, if something went wrong
But it went just fine.
When she got three feet past them, Rick virtually leapt on her, clamping his hand over her mouth and dragging her back into the alley.
As soon as they were in shadow, Adam grabbed the woman's feet. They carried her quickly to the car.
Adam set her feet down and popped open the trunk.
Rick picked up a loose brick from the alley and smashed it against the side of the woman's head. She went limp.
They got her in the trunk and drove away.
Rick gave directions. They drove for nearly an hour, finally coming to a stop at a deserted stone mansion. Rick explained that it had once been an artists' colony but had burned down. A huge red barn, sagging westward now with age, sat adjacent to the charred and empty mansion.
Adam drove into the barn.
He climbed out into darkness. The barn smelled of wet hay and animal feces.
They got the woman out of the trunk and took her into one of the stalls where horses once slept.
She was still breathing, but not with any great energy or regularity.
Rick found a rusted lantern and got it going, hanging it on a peg above the woman.
Adam watched as Rick ripped all the woman's clothes off and then proceeded to rape her. All the time he was having her he was also hitting her, again and again and again in the face until nothing recognizable was left of her looks. Adam wanted to say something but was, frankly, a little afraid of Rick at the moment.
When Rick was done, he stood up and nodded for Adam to take his turn. Adam's first impulse was to decline but then he felt that icy ripple of fear down his back.
This was one intense guy, this Rick.
Adam took his turn.
But he didn't hit her and he finished as quickly as he could.
When he was done, he stood up. Rick was gone.
The woman moaned.
From out of the darkness, Rick said, 'You want to finish her or shall I?'
'Be my guest.'
'Afraid, huh?'
'No, I'm not afraid.'
'You really kill somebody before?'
'Yes.'
'Then kill her.'
'Maybe you're the one who's afraid.'
Rick laughed. 'Hey, pal, we're talking about you here, not me. Finish her.'
'How?'
'However you want to.'
The others, he'd cut their throats. 'I don't have a knife with me.'
'Kick her.'
'Where?'
'Where the hell do you think kick her? In the head. Right about the temple.'
'In the head?'
'Sure. Just pretend you're punting a football.'
'You've done that before?'
'Two or three times.'
'What's it like?'
'You know, when your foot makes contact with the skullit's a real satisfying feeling.'
'Wow.'
'Do it.'
Adam nodded. Maybe it would be fun, after all.
He stepped up to the naked woman sprawled on the hay beneath him. Her face really was gone now, just blood and broken bones. Her moaning got fainter and fainter.
Rain pattered the leaky barn roof; a lonely dog barked somewhere nearby; the engine of a plane could be heard faintly, faintly.
'Go ahead.'
He was hesitant at first, self-conscious with Rick watching, but then he did it, one quick short violent kick, and he had to admit, it really was satisfying.
'Wow,' he said. 'You were rightabout how your toe feels when it connects with the skull.'
'Kick her again.'
'Really?'
'Sure. Probably take a couple times to do it right.'
He kicked her again.
This time her head canted a little, as if it wanted to roll away.
'You think she's dead?'
'Why don't you make sure?'
'You mean another one?'
Rick laughed. 'They don't cost you anything, do they?'
He kicked her again, just above the temple.
The tip of his toe felt her skull start to go this time.
'She's dead.'
'I'll make sure for you.'
'You want to kick her?'
'Sure,' Rick said.
He kicked very hard.
Blood started pouring from her nose.
'Man,' Adam said, 'you really gave it to her.'
Coming down the stairs now, six blocks from a fashionable area of restaurants, Adam thought back to that night two years ago and shook his head. He enjoyed taking risks, but within reason.
But Rick, when he got down or depressed, or angry with something that Adam had done
Adam stood for a moment on the corner taking in the fresh night air. Well, as fresh as you were going to get in New York City, anyway.
The lighted phone booth reminded him of a million films noirs he'd seen over the years. How he loved them. Bogart. Robert Ryan. Lawrence Tierney (who maybe had the greatest noir face of all)…
Hearing his footsteps echo in the night, turning up the collar of his trench coat, tilting his head against the bitter wind… he felt like a character in a film noir himself.
When he got to the phone booth, Adam took out his wallet and his Ma Bell credit card and went to work.
Four minutes later their phone was ringing back in Chicago.
Ringing and ringing and
Adam got a bad feeling.
He could see Rick being so upset about the latest of Adam's dalliances (well, the latest till he'd arrived here in New York) that his mate went out tonight and did something stupid.
Rick was always a wild card.
Always.
Adam replaced the receiver.
Then he was out of the booth and walking again, a character in a black-and-white film circa 1948, one with a lot of blue and lonely sax music…