Len Levinson - Without Mercy

He took a deep breath and sat up, swinging his legs around to the floor. “Okay, why don’t we just stop it right now.”

“Huh?”

“I’ll just put on my clothes and leave.” She narrowed her eyes. “You don’t get your money back, you know.”

“Did I ask for my money back?” “Well, I’m just telling you anyway. You ain’t getting your money back.” “I don’t want it back.” “Well you’re not getting it back anyway.” He reached for his shorts and stepped into them. She buttoned up her tights and left the cubicle. His hands trembled; his face smarted with anger and shame. He’d been cheated by that nasty little bitch who wasn’t even a good whore. Somebody ought to push her off the end of a pier. Dressing quickly, chewing his lips, he dreaded passing the girls in the front room on his way to the door. He was afraid the bitch would tell the others that he couldn’t fuck. He didn’t think he could deal with that. He put on his red and black jacket and lit a cigarette. Everything always went easier when he had a cigarette to puff on. Opening the door, he left the cubicle and walked nervously toward the front room, where the redheaded guy was sitting looking directly at him in the corridor. The redhead smiled superciliously, and the fat man looked down to the floor, puffing his cigarette. In the front room the girls giggled as he passed by them. One of the Latin girls said something in Spanish and all the others laughed. He glanced up and saw their mocking eyes as they held their tits and stomachs and bounced around in glee.

“Hey buddy,” said the blonde girl, “next time you come here we’ll put it in a splint, okay?”

The girls laughed louder. The fat man charged out of the room and ran down the stairs. He gritted his teeth and balled up his fists.

“How’d it go, stud?” asked the black man on the sidewalk.

The fat man glowered at him and walked toward the bright lights of Broadway.

The fat man went to the Nathan’s on Forty-third Street and ate three hot dogs standing up at a counter because he was too angry to sit down. Once again, he’d been humiliated, and he hated to be humiliated. Once again a woman had taken advantage of him. When he was a little boy the girls used to make fun of him, and they were still doing it. Goddamn bitches.

He drank his orange soda and shifted his weight from one foot to another. The garish lights of the restaurant fell on the faces of Times Square denizens eating cheap food. The men looked like filthy derelicts and the women like witches. The world was a horrible place. Life was disgusting.

The fat man thought of the blonde in the massage parlor and rage boiled up in his chest. If she were standing in front of him right then he’d rip her face apart with his bare hands.

What a cruel bitch she’d been. She almost was as bad as Evelyn, who had taken his money and his gifts but never gave him any pussy, and finally he found out she was sleeping with a sanitation worker.

All women ever do is hurt men and try to steal from them, the fat man thought. They’re terrible hateful creatures and they lead men astray. Look at the example of Eve in the Garden of Eden. They know we need them so that gives them power over us. They like to torture us and turn us into slaves, which is what Evelyn did to me. Deep down they hate us because we’re stronger and better than they are. They’ll do anything and something should be done about them.

He put his hands in his pockets and went outside. In front of Nathan’s was a newsstand with girly magazines hanging from clothespins. The fat man saw them and closed his eyes tightly, because the sight of naked women reminded him anew of the pain he’d felt in the massage parlor.

He walked east on dark, deserted Forty-third Street to collect his thoughts. He felt jumpy and disconnected and didn’t feel like going down into the subway station yet. The blonde in the massage parlor flashed in his mind again, and he ground his teeth together. He squeezed the knife in his pocket and wanted to cut her fucking guts out.

He was getting a headache, and his heart was beating faster than usual. That blonde is probably doing the same thing to some other poor bastard right now, he thought. That’s probably the way she gets her jollies. They’re all no fucking good. And now they’re even trying to steal men’s jobs. I can’t take it anymore.

He stopped and leaned his shoulder against the wall of a building. Hey Buddy, next time you come up here we’ll put it in a splint, okay? His face broke out in a cold sweat as he remembered all those whores laughing at him. Even the redheaded guy behind the desk was laughing.

His hands were shaking. People had been shitting on him all his life, and now he was cracking under the weight of it. Nothing he’d ever tried to do had worked out. He had a lousy job, and nobody had ever loved him. He’d lived his entire life at the bottom of the barrel.

Sweat pouring from his face, he looked up into the street lamp, and his thoughts vanished for a moment in the white-hot glare that spiked through his brain. Then the blonde came back. It’ll be better if you give me ten dollars.

The fucking, lying whore. That miserable stinking cunt. I ought to break her fucking neck. I ought to kick her fucking head in. I ought to cut her fucking throat.

He saw himself stabbing his knife into her throat, and felt a rise of joy. He imagined himself punching her in the mouth, and the joy glowed warmer. Yes, that’s what I ought to do to her. That’s what she deserves.

He put his hands in his pockets and continued walking. He couldn’t cut her throat because of the police. They’d catch him and throw him in jail, probably for the rest of his life. He saw himself choking the blonde, and felt the pleasure again. Wouldn’t it be nice to have that pleasure for real? It sure would. It’d almost be worth going to jail for.

It’d almost be worth going to jail for. The fat man stopped cold on the street at the thought of that. It’d almost be worth going to jail for. He became a little scared, because all of a sudden he realized he wouldn’t have very much to lose if he killed the blonde whore. They’d just put him in jail, and so what? What was so great about his life as it was? At least he wouldn’t have to worry about earning a living if he was in jail, and they hadn’t brought back the electric chair yet in New York. The pleasure of paying that blonde back might be worth it.

And then a new thought entered his mind. They probably won’t even catch me. It was true—he’d read in the paper that many murders go unsolved. If he was careful, he probably could get away with it. And if they caught him, he didn’t care about going to jail. Life wasn’t so wonderful for him on the outside anyway. He had nothing to lose and something wonderful to gain: revenge.

He stopped on the sidewalk again, and it was as though cool rain were falling on his head. A tiny bubble burst and he felt marvelously free. I can do whatever I want, he thought. Nothing can ever harm me. He saw the blonde lying dead at his feet. Yes.

Cynthia Doyle came down the stairs of the Crown Club shortly after three o’clock in the morning, when the place closed. A few of the girls’ boyfriends were waiting outside, but Lorenzo wasn’t there and she became annoyed, because she’d told him again and again that she wanted him to walk her home. But Lorenzo liked to smoke grass and nod out, and often she had to walk home alone. It was embarrassing that the other girls knew her man didn’t think enough of her to walk her home, and she felt mad at Lorenzo. He wasn’t good for anything, but if she didn’t have him she’d be all alone.