Leon Helfer was hungry and tired; his head ached, his sinuses were clogged and he feared that soon the Claw would know what he had done. If his poem was discovered, and surely it would be, and if the news leaked out, the Claw would know. Even if the news didn't leak out, the Claw would know. Somehow he'd pluck it from Ovid's brain.
Leon had just finished work for the day. His job was a boring one, filled as it was, from hour to hour, with the same mechanical process. And him like a robot for the duration of time he was in the factory. But it was a living, and it kept his mind off the Claw and off killing, off what he had become.
It was his job to inspect pipe. The company made every kind of pipe known, from plumbing pipe to irrigation and city lines, some of the pipe large enough to walk through. The Claw might need to lower his head, but the average man could stand fully upright inside the largest concrete pipe the company made.
Once the pipe was inspected for safety and quality-control purposes, it was loaded onto trucks and sent out into the world. Sometimes Leon felt that his work here was important, but the Claw made it clear that there was only one important task in Leon's life…
Machine noises at the factory were deafening, so much so that Leon could talk at the top of his lungs to himself about the Claw and no one could hear. Sometimes he caught his coworkers staring, but he'd gotten used to that, and they'd gotten used to his talking to himself. Or so it seemed.
Then suddenly today Mr. Malthuesen called him into his office and told him that he needn't come back; he said the company was facing hard economic times, and that layoffs were necessary. He said that he was sorry, and that he'd write him a letter to help him find another job, but that he could do no more.
Leon thought it strange that only he was being laid off, especially since there were any number of men who had come to work for the company after he had, people he had seniority over. He guessed it was due to his behavior since his mother's death… since the Claw had come.
Maybe the Claw had arranged for him to be fired.
The Claw wanted all of his time… wanted him all to himself, wanted Leon to become Ovid twenty-four hours a day.
That seemed quite possible. He would not put it past the Claw to visit Malthuesen in the night to convince him to fire Leon, so that Leon could devote himself completely to being Ovid.
It made sense… made perfect sense…
Now, home alone except for the dead remains surrounding him in every cupboard and cabinet, Leon awaited with mounting apprehension the Claw's certain arrival. He waited hour on hour for him to come, knowing that in having killed two victims the night before last, the Claw would be craving even more, and tonight he'd want to attack and take apart three, and maybe four victims next. This certainly seemed logical to him.
The Claw would come when Leon least expected it.
He'd better be prepared… better be a good Ovid.
Better pray that the Claw was in a merciful mood.
God help him if he had angered the Claw too greatly by planting the poem.
The light-emitting diode of a digital clock began to get on Leon's nerves. He wondered what he'd do now without a job. He knew that if the Claw could get him fired from one job, it'd be a simple matter to keep him from getting another.
The Claw most likely wanted Leon to use his days to increase the number of victims they could take. The Claw wanted the city to run with blood… wanted the skies to rain blood.
And if Leon was not a good provider… a good Ovid, he'd become a good victim.
As the night stretched on, Leon Helfer waited in dread anticipation of his master, his fears colliding with one another to form a knot of anxiety he thought would burst his brain, until late evening turned into morning, and he came to realize that the Claw wasn't coming.
Going with only haphazard sleep where he sat with his knees to his chin in a corner of his living room, thinking about poor Mrs. Phillips, the only victim he had known. Leon realized just how cruel the Claw could be. He had taken old Mrs. Phillips for only one reason, knowing Leon would be devastated by his having to eat from her entrails, to take on the old woman's sins, as the Claw had taught him. Mrs. Phillips had always had a kind word for Leon, always with a smile on her lips. She had seemed innocent of any sins, and yet the Claw had, by virtue of having dispatched her, claimed that her body was riddled with the maggots of sin upon which they must feed.
And so the Claw had fed like a voracious animal over her.
Then the Claw, as if it were just an afterthought, had begun to replace one victim's organs with another's, taking some from the jars he had brought with them, refilling these with the younger organs of the Olin woman.
It was then that Ovid, taking a moment when the Claw was not looking, impetuously shoved the wadded-up poem into Mrs. Phillips' body.
He had felt compelled to communicate with someone outside himself, as compelled as he had been the night Leon had telephoned the all-night radio talk show. He had had to blame it on Leon because this action had made the Claw grow large with anger and strike Ovid with the deadly claw, a razor-sharp series of talons fastened to the Claw's right arm. It was in sharp contrast to the human hand that dangled at the end of his left forearm. The claw itself was made up of three fingerlike extensions, ice-pick sharp, tapered, with cold-steel edges, extending from beneath the black coat at the wrist. It was far deadlier than a hook, each of the three talons having a jagged edge, like those of a fish scaler.
Ovid was the only one alive who had seen the Claw's weapon… and he had seen it in action.
It was so fast his eyes could not possibly follow.
Swwwwissssh, swwwwissssh, swwwwissssh. He heard the horrible sound of it as if it were in the room now with him. It made him get up, stumble around in the dark and cry and shout, but he found himself alone, after all, alone except for the odor of what was in his kitchen cabinets.
It was the first night in so long that the Claw had failed to materialize.
What did it mean? he wondered.
He couldn't hazard a guess, but an overwhelming fear gripped his heart, a double-edged fear. He was afraid that the Claw would come again, but he was equally afraid that the Claw would never come again…
At almost nine the next day Leon was awakened by an insistent knock at the outer door. He owned the building. It was paid off finally with his mother's inheritance, and he had evicted the tenants from upstairs so that now only he and the Claw kept house here. Who could be at the door?
He never had visitors.
He was still in the same clothes as when he had left work the day before. He hadn't brushed his hair or his teeth in all this time. He stared out between the curtains at two people, a man and a woman, both dressed relatively well for the neighborhood. The woman banged on the door again, staring, trying to make out the movement inside from behind the faded curtains, when she decided to hold up a badge. She shouted, “Police, please open up!”
Her partner muttered something about forgetting about it, but she swore she saw some movement from inside, and so she banged again.
Leon wondered if it was a test; if the Claw was testing his loyalty.
Suddenly the glass shattered where the female cop hit it with the butt of her gun. She was shouting an apology to the occupant or occupants inside.
Leon, shocked into action by the shattered glass, fearful of their coming in, rushed to the door, shouting, “What the hell're you doing, breaking my glass? You're going to pay for that.”
“ Mr. Helfer?” she asked.
He was shaken that she should know his name. We stopped by last night and yesterday to speak with you, but you're always out, it seems.”
“ Speak with me? About what?”
“ You must be aware that a neighbor of yours was killed a few doors down,” she replied. “Look, I'm Sergeant Detective Louise Emmons, and this is my partner, Sergeant Turner. We've been assigned to question everybody in the building about-”
“ I'm the only one in the building.”
“ So we've been told.”
“ Don't like boarders… don't trust them… can't.”
Turner, who had come closer, eyeballing Helfer, said, “I know what you mean. I rent a space over my garage… real nightmare.”
Both Emmons and Turner were staring at the way Helfer was dressed. He looked as if he had been ejected from a boxcar with the train going forty. His bloodshot eyes were wide and wild. An odor exuded from his body that spoke of more than mere perspiration and bad breath. Emmons tried to place the odor but it was elusive.
“ Can we come in and ask you a few questions about Mrs. Phillips down the street?”
“ No, no! I mean, I've got to get to work, and… and the place is a mess, and besides… I don't know anything.”
Emmons took in a great breath, her breasts rising in exasperation, but she was also trying desperately to place the odor that seemed to be wafting out to her from the building. “Smells like you've been using cleaning fluids,” she said. “Place can't be any worse than mine.”
He blocked her way. “No, I'm sorry, but I got no time. I'll be fired if I'm late. I got a nasty boss, real nasty.”
“ Mr. Helfer,” said Turner, sounding stern, “am I to understand that you're refusing us entrance to your domicile?”
Leon stared at him, weighing his options, it appeared. “You… you got a warrant? If not, you ask your questions right here and now, and let me get on with my life. I'm sorry about Mrs. Phillips, but I don't know anything and there's nothing I can tell you that will change the fact she's dead.”
She and Leon stared back at one another. Leon finally said, “Go ahead. Ask your questions. I don't have all day.” Emmons asked the questions while Turner reached for a cigarette and asked Leon if he wanted one.
“ How well did you know Mrs. Phillips?”
“ Cigarette?” repeated Turner, holding the packet up to him.
“ No, no thanks… Not well. Just seen her around.”
“ Like at the park?”
“ Sure.”
“ And the supermarket?”
“ Yeah, places like that.”
Emmons noted something in her little book that made Leon nervous. Turner was puffing heatedly on his Marlboro.
Emmons looked Leon directly in the eye for a second time and said, “Your neighbors said you once or twice visited her in her home.”
“ What?” he asked. “Me? That's… that's a lie.”
“ Said when your mother died, she had you over for dinner once.”
“ No, no… not me. I mean, yeah, my mother died… left me… but no, I never had a meal at Mrs. Phillips' place. Talked with her in the park. We… she'd feed the pigeons, and I'd feed the pigeons and-”
Turner piped in. “What'd you talk about?”
“ Weather, the Mets, stuff like that… nothing big.”
“ You know anyone that would want to hurt Mrs. Phillips, Mr. Helfer?”
“ No, no one.”
Emmons asked him his whereabouts the night of her death.
“ I was out… to a movie… with a cousin. Spent the night.”
She asked him where he worked.
He hesitated. “What's where I work got to do with it?”
“ Please, Mr. Helfer,” she said, “it's just for the record.” She pointed to her notebook.
“ Oleander Pipes.”
“ Pipes?” asked Turner. “Smokin' pipes? You think maybe I could get a sample of one of them?”
“ No, it's not smoking pipes, it's industrial pipe.”
“ All right,” said Emmons. “Thanks for your time, Mr. Helfer.”
“ Yeah, thanks, Leon,” added Turner.
Helfer closed the door quickly on them. Emmons recognized the signs of a man who had something to hide, and she continued to wonder about the odor she sniffed at the door. As they walked away from the premises, they could feel Leon's eyes on them.
“ Let's make him sweat,” said Turner.
“ You're on.”
They stood outside for some time, staring up at the building, talking in guarded remarks, using frequent hand gestures, Emmons jotting down items in her notebook. Leon couldn't hear them.
“ Whataya call that kind of brick? Stucco?”
“ Stucco Royale, I think,” she replied. “Think that's bad; look at the weedy yard and that shack out back.”
“ What a junk pile.”
“ Breeding ground for a killer?”
“ This guy can't be the Claw. He's a wuss. I figure the Claw's got to be something more than Leon.”
“ You heard the captain and that lady FBI agent,” she challenged him.
“ What, that there's two Claws?”
“ Or that there's one guy with two heads like Ames says.”
He nodded, considering this. “Still, Leon would be a pretty sorry catch when the TV cameras hit him, but then so was Richard Speck and Jeffrey Dahmer.”
“ Damn sure would like to get inside.”
“ No legal way. And breaking his window was dumb, Louise.”
“ We got probable cause. He refused us entrance. The broken glass was purely accidental.”
“ There's no probable cause for a warrant. No way.”
“ What if we examine him a little closer; catch him in a lie or two?”
“ Like whether he ate with the old girl or not?”
“ Let's talk to some more of his neighbors and maybe his boss at this pipe place.”
“ You're on,” agreed Turner, tossing away a butt, “only first we find some coffee and a can. I gotta go.”