Len Levinson - Without Mercy

She turned right and walked west on Forty-fifth Street, her pea coat open. Her bell-bottomed jeans were frayed from touching the ground. A faint breeze blew through her blonde hair and she felt glad to be out of the massage parlor. So many fucking guys.

At the corner she bought a pack of Virginia Slims from one of those little Lebanese cigarette stands, and lit one with her disposable lighter. Then she proceeded down the block between Eighth and Ninth Avenues, walking flat-footed and carefree; you might even have mistaken her for a high school girl who’d stayed out too late.

She was becoming angrier at Lorenzo, because you never knew who was walking these West Side streets at night. She figured Carmella and Demaris probably were chattering about how Cindy had to walk home alone again. She really ought to get rid of Lorenzo and find somebody else, but who? Guys talked a lot of shit but all they wanted to do was fuck you and have you support them. She’d known Lorenzo for three years and felt almost as though they were married. He was the only person she’d ever really been able to talk to in her life. If only he could get up off his ass once in a while and do something.

She looked behind her and saw a guy about half a block back. She really should have taken a cab home, but last week a cabdriver hassled her and she didn’t feel like going through that again. Anyway, she only lived a few blocks from the massage parlor.

She crossed Ninth Avenue and thought about going to the deli and getting a roast beef sandwich or something, but she didn’t feel hungry and besides Carmella had remarked today that Cindy had put on a few pounds. That bitch Carmella should talk. She looked like a fucking tank rolling around. There was some yogurt in the refrigerator and that should do.

Continuing down Forty-fifth Street between Ninth and Tenth, she told herself that she’d have to talk with Lorenzo when she got home, provided she could wake him up. Maybe if she threatened to leave him that’d do it. He might try to get tough and hit her, but he wasn’t that strong and she wasn’t that weak. She’d bop him with a frying pan if he tried anything funny. The advantage of having a boyfriend like Lorenzo was that she could handle him if it ever came down to violence. Some of the guys the other girls went out with were stone killers. Like Luke the Duke.

Then she heard the footsteps behind her. She’d been aware of them for the past twenty feet, but now they were getting close and coming fast. A little frightened, but certain it wasn’t anything to worry about, she turned around and saw a big fat guy with a face that looked familiar. He was looking at the ground and walking with his hands in his pockets as though she didn’t exist. Facing front again, she moved to the side to let him pass.

The guy came up beside her and grabbed her arm. Startled, she turned toward him and saw the knife in his hand. She couldn’t believe it was a knife.

“Remember me?” he growled.

She recognized him, and the reality of the situation hit her like a Mack truck. Her face drained of color and her jaw dropped. “What do you want?” she asked, trying to be brave.

He looked over her shoulder. “Go into that alley over there.”

She thought maybe she could talk her way out of the mounting horror. “What for?”

“I’m going to do what we didn’t finish in your whorehouse.”

“Listen,” she said, her voice quavering, “I’ll do anything you say. Just don’t hurt me, okay?”

“Okay.”

She walked in front of him into the alley and saw some garbage cans. A cat slinked along the far wall.

“Behind the garbage cans,” he said.

“Listen, you’re not going to hurt me, are you?” She was trembling and she was afraid she might start crying.

“Not if you do what you’re supposed to do.”

She got behind the garbage cans, and turned and faced him. His face was expressionless and covered with so many folds you could barely see his eyes. She had always been afraid something like this would happen someday. There were so many nuts around. But she’d do whatever he wanted and somehow she’d get through it. That goddamn Lorenzo.

“What do you want me to do?” she asked.

“You filthy fucking bitch!” he snarled, drawing the blade back.

She screamed and raised her arms, but his hand and the blade came crashing through. She felt a sharp terrible pain at the side of her throat, and that was the end of Cynthia Doyle.

The fat man awoke at two o’clock in the afternoon. At first it appeared just like any other day, and then he remembered the blonde whore bleeding in the alley. He’d really done it. It hadn’t been a dream.

Lying there staring at the far wall, he felt a little giddy. He knew the police must have found the whore by now and were looking for the killer. But he didn’t think they could trace anything to him. Nobody saw him. He hadn’t left anything behind. He was safe.

The police were smart. They had special laboratories where they sifted clues. He’d have to watch his step.

It occurred to him that there should be something in today’s papers about it. He got out of bed and dressed himself quickly, eager to see the write-up. He put on dungarees and a blue bomber jacket, plus the gray visored cap he wore when he drove a cab. Leaving his apartment, he descended the murky stairs of the old tenement building and walked to the newsstand on the corner of Second Avenue.

The avenue shuddered under the weight of trucks and cabs, and the sky was covered with gray clouds. The fat man picked up a Daily News, handed some coins to the old Ukrainian guy behind the window, and looked at the front page. He saw a big picture of the whore lying in the dirt, a detective bending over her. The headline read, “Prostitute Knifed in West Side Alley.”

The fat man stood on the corner and read the story quickly. The whore’s name was Cynthia Doyle and she was from Cincinnati, the daughter of a truck driver. The police refused to comment on the case except to say they were conducting a thorough investigation. The politicians were getting into the act. That was about it.

He folded the newspaper under his arm and walked back to his apartment, feeling like a celebrity. What would the people in the building think if they knew he was the killer? It’d really shake them. Police all over the city were looking for him, and here he was walking on his block just like anybody else. If they caught him they’d probably put his picture on the front page. He’d be famous. He’d always known that someday he’d do something that would make him famous.

He entered the building and climbed the stairs to his apartment. Sitting at his kitchen table drinking coffee, with the front page of the Daily News in front of him, he thought that tomorrow the city would forget about the murder, and there’d be something else on the front page.

He didn’t want something else to be on the front page. And he was proud of what he’d done last night. If anybody deserved to die, it was that blonde whore. It was time for men to rise up against the women who were taking advantage of them, insulting them, swindling their money and stealing their jobs. Maybe he could show other men that action could be taken in defense of their rights, the only kind of action the bitches understood. He’d have the bitches quaking in their shoes.

Maybe then they’d realize that they’d gone too far.

Three nights later, the fat man took the subway uptown to Times Square. He climbed the stairs and emerged beside the cigar store on the corner of Broadway and Forty-second Street. Near the subway entrance a black man was selling the Bilalian News, and a few feet away a white man held out a pamphlet whose headline declared “Without Jesus You Have No Hope.” Neon lights flashed all around and music blared from the front of a record shop.