Ed Gorman - Night Kills

Emma was killed on a Tuesday, which meant it was Mr. Pinkham day. Actually she sort of liked Mr. Pinkham, or at least she felt sorry for him. Sometimes pity was a stronger pull for Emma than affection. Anyway, Mr. Pinkham. He was fifty-nine, wore custom-tailored dark suits that helped disguise his girth, smelled of cigarettes and hair spray, and boy, did he tip. On her last birthday he'd given her two hundred dollars in cash in a baby-blue Hallmark envelope that also contained a sentimental card. Mr. Pinkham was in banking and was obviously rich. In nearly eleven months of seeing him, she'd detected only one small kink. He liked her to daub herself between the legs with strawberry flavouring before he got down to business. Given some of the men she'd known, this was not a real kink at all.

One other thing about Mr. Pinkham: His wife was dying. Cervical cancer. Once, after he was finished and dressed and pouring himself a drink, he started telling Emma about the process of chemotherapy his wife was undergoing, and then he started crying so hard, he had to go into the bathroom and throw up. When he came out, he was still crying. She helped him over to the bed and held him and rocked him and kissed him tenderly on the cheek and forehead over and over again. Then Emma started crying. She wasn't even sure why. It was just that sometimes everything seemed so sad.

That Tuesday she was to meet him for shopping at Saks Fifth Avenue in the Gavindae Common, the Twin Cities' only real snotty shopping mall. You felt special just walking around the five levels-Burberrys, Pendleton, the San Francisco Music Box Company, and Anne Klein, they were all there-you didn't even have to buy anything. You just felt special.

It was nearing closing time. Mr. Pinkham had phoned to say that he'd had a long day at the bank and an even worse day at the hospital. His wife was slipping, slipping. Whenever his wife got very bad, Mr. Pinkham became impotent. Both he and Emma knew this from experience. On such days he always met her at a mall. Buying her things seemed to make him feel better for some reason. Then they'd usually have dinner-how Mr. Pinkham loved to pour A-1 sauce on his steak; drown it to the point that Emma would laugh and laugh-and then he'd walk her to her car, pay her, and tip her, just as if they'd spent time in bed, and then kiss her chastely on the nose. Always on the nose, with his dry little mouth. Emma invariably found this sweet and squeezed his hand goodbye in response. Then Mr. Pinkham walked to his huge new Chrysler and got inside and tooted goodbye.

A call came for her at Anne Klein, where she was looking at silk blouses with stand-up collars and three-button cuffs, wondering if they were right for her. When she heard herself paged, she asked the salesperson where she might take the call. The woman smiled and directed her to the office. She was the same salesperson who had five minutes ago told Emma how beautiful she was-so long and graceful a neck, so perfect yet exotic a face. Emma had always found women better at giving compliments than men. They just knew how to do it better.

The call was from Mr. Pinkham. He was terribly sorry, but the doctor was now saying that Mrs. Pinkham might not last the night. Emma could tell Mr. Pinkham was struggling not to cry. For the first time ever she said "I love you" to Mr. Pinkham. She didn't even worry if he'd misinterpret it. She just said, "I love you." She imagined he needed to hear that very badly. Then he did start crying, just a little, and said, "I love you, too, Emma." Then he hung up.

In the parking lot Emma stood by her new Mustang convertible inhaling the chill autumn air. She could smell snow coming. Poor Mr. Pinkham. She wished he could enjoy the night.

In the car she turned up KJJO. She needed to hear good strong rock and roll. It was sort of like taking vitamins.

In twenty minutes she was on the Crosstown headed home. When she came to her exit, she glanced by instinct in the rear-view mirror, and for the first time she saw him, the man who'd been hiding on the floor in back.

He said, "Just keep driving, bitch, just like you're headed home."

By ten o'clock they were driving county roads. Gravel dust glowed silver in their wake.

At a farm that had obviously been deserted, the outbuildings leaning so pitifully they seemed about to collapse, he had her pull in.

She got out, just as he told her to. She kept quiet, just as he told her to. She took off her clothes, just as he told her to.

He felt her breasts-she had very nice breasts-and then he slid his hand between her legs. He complained how dry she was there. "You fucking bitch." He backhanded her hard across the mouth.

She started crying. She thought of when she'd been a little girl on the farm near a small town named Coon Rapids. She thought of her high school graduation night, the only time she'd ever really gotten drunk in her whole life, and of giving up the struggle to keep her purity. She thought of moving to Minneapolis. Of working in the law office. She was now only twenty-eight yet it seemed she'd done so much in her young life and it whirled by her, voices and images and even smells. Memory.

He stabbed her first in the abdomen, ripping the knife through her stomach, and then he started stabbing her in the chest and face. She held up her hands to hold him off but that only gave his knife new targets. He cut and slashed and hacked at her fingers until several of them were just bloody stubs. Before she died, she had time to stare down at several pieces of her fingers in the dust.

Finally he stabbed her in the forehead. By this time she was on the ground, and he was straddling her. He left the butcher knife sticking out of her forehead as he unzipped his trousers and started putting himself into her.

Afterward he lay next to her in the moonlight. They might have been lovers. His whole chest heaved. He was sweaty, sticky, exhausted. Blood-covered. The stench of her was terrible. He closed his eyes, felt the breeze dry his sweat. In the distance cows stirred and mooed. Then pigs. Dead corn stalks rattled in the wind. Skeleton bones.

Fucking bitch.

From the trunk he took the tarpaulin. He spread it out and wrapped her up in it tight. It was awkward carrying her back to the car. He sort of staggered. At least she wasn't leaking. The whole idea of the tarpaulin was that there wouldn't be any blood.

In the car he turned up the radio good and loud. God, did he need a drink. He was careful to drive the speed limit, but still, on those rutted county roads he could hear her bounce and bang.

God, did he need a drink.

The way Brolan figured it, probably not more than three or four couples would get a divorce because of the party tonight. For an advertising shindig that wasn't so bad.

The place was the Hyatt Regency in Nicollet Mall in downtown Minneapolis, the time was 8:37 p.m., and the occasion was the Brolan-Foster Agency's winning the Down Home Bakery account, which had annual billings of slightly more than ten million dollars. In the Twin Cities it was one of three accounts agency presidents would hand over their teenage daughters to win.

Dinner for sixty had been in The Willows, with its mirrored pillars and ceilings, with its seemingly endless amounts of smorgasbord, pates, seafood and vegetable marinades, mousses and salads. The agency people took up about a third of the place, and it was easy to spot them. They were the ones giving drunken champagne toasts every five minutes and then breaking into applause. Some of the restaurant's other guests found this amusing. Some wanted to go over and punch in a few faces. Hovering waiters asked again and again if there could be, uh, just a little more quiet. Chuck you, Farley, and the horse you rode in on.