Len Levinson - Without Mercy

The phone was answered on the other end. “Hello?” said a woman’s voice.

Kowalchuk hung up and turned the corner, walking south on Second Avenue. This was his old stomping ground but he looked different now and didn’t think anybody would recognize him. He had to take the chance because he needed money badly and he was intoxicated by the thought of seeing Evelyn again. He’d just found out she was home. In the old days she used to work in an office uptown and he assumed she still did. She’d be shocked to see him.

He turned east on Seventh Street, walking along with his hands in his pockets, looking like a typical middle-aged East Village hippie. He passed the little store where his mother used to send him to buy fresh eggs from New Jersey, and looked in the window at old Mister Rabinowitz behind the counter. Crossing First Avenue, he came to the block where Evelyn lived and felt his blood grow hot with anticipation. Evelyn used to humiliate him in front of other people, but still she took his money and gifts. She used to let him kiss her when they were alone, but that was all. He couldn’t understand why he never thought of beating her ass before. It was so easy once you got into the swing of it.

Walking down the block, he wondered if the police had spoken to Evelyn yet about him. They probably had, but she couldn’t tell them anything. She hadn’t seen him for about five years, but he’d kept track of her. She’d gone out with a few guys but none had ever married her. If she was smart she would have married him, but she wasn’t smart.

He approached the door of her building. Glancing over his shoulder, he saw no one behind him, and ahead was just an old man about thirty feet away. Entering the vestibule of her building, he pressed all the buttons next to the names except hers, and waited, taking a roll of tape out of his pocket. Sure enough somebody in the building was waiting for somebody, and the buzzer in the door went off. Kowalchuk pushed it open, taped the latch, and let it close again. Then he turned and left the hallway, walking nonchalantly to First Avenue. Whoever had buzzed the door would be waiting to see who was coming up the stairs, but soon he’d give up and go back to his apartment. Then Kowalchuk could enter the building and move about pretty much at will.

He walked to First Avenue, turned around, and went back. It was possible that somebody might come downstairs right now, see the tape on the door, and remove it, and he hoped that wouldn’t happen because then he’d have to do the whole thing over again, and that might make people suspicious. He wondered what Evelyn was doing right now. Probably sitting in her slip drinking that black Cuban coffee she used to like. What a day this was going to be for her.

A young hippie guy came out of her building and walked the other way. Kowalchuk ground his back teeth together and cursed, because he hoped the hippie didn’t notice the tape. Kowalchuk entered the hallway and pushed the door. It opened up for him, and he smiled as he entered the downstairs corridor. Those damned hippies are so spaced out they don’t know what the hell’s going on. If the door was off the hinges they wouldn’t notice.

Kowalchuk stealthily climbed the stairs. This was the tricky part, and he’d have to be careful. He’d also have to be lucky. But he wanted to see Evelyn’s dirty blood and take her money, and he was hungry as hell. His stomach had been growling all night and he had a headache. But it was good to miss meals because that would make him lose weight so he could fool the police.

Up the stairs he went. Evelyn lived on the top floor in back, and he passed her floor, climbing the section of stairs that led to the roof. Halfway up, he stopped and sat down. He’d sit down there and wait until she came out of her apartment, then go down and have a little chat with her.

A door opened several floors down, and someone descended the stairs, but it was too many floors down to be Evelyn. He hoped nobody would come up to where he was, but if someone did he’d pretend to be a drunk asleep on the stairs. It was common in the East Village to find bums asleep on the section of stairs between the roof and the top floor of apartments. On East Ninth Street he’d heard that a bum had once spent an entire winter on that section of stairs in the building next door. The building had been full of hippies and none of them had the heart to throw the bum out, but if Kowalchuk had been living in that building he would have thrown the son of a bitch off the roof. He’d never liked bums, and after his weeks on the Bowery, hated them even more, especially since one of them had tipped off the cops to his identity. But that old buzzard had paid for it. Kowalchuk had followed him to the toilet and cut his throat while he was taking a piss. The fucking bum didn’t know what hit him.

Kowalchuk heard doors opening and closing inside the building. He peeked through the railing and saw hands going down the banisters on their way to work or maybe one of the neighborhood bars. He looked at his watch and it was nearing eight o’clock in the morning, the time Evelyn used to leave for work. He knew the time because he used to walk her to the subway when the neighborhood was crawling with junkies.

A door opened at the front on the floor beneath him, and Kowalchuk held his breath. The door closed, he heard the locks click, and then the person moved toward the stairs. Kowalchuk looked through the railing and saw a man’s black pants going down the stairs. Did she have a guy staying all night with her?? he wondered, angry and jealous. No, she wouldn’t dare do that in a building where many people knew her. The guy probably was from the other apartment at the front of the building.

Ten minutes later he heard another door open at the front on the floor beneath him. He heard a jangling of keys and was sure that was Evelyn because she always used to jangle her keys while looking for the right one to lock the door. She’d always carried a lot of keys around, to closets and trunks and things. Evelyn was a little bit of a nut when it came to locking things up.

Footsteps moved toward the stairs, and Kowalchuk looked through the railing. He saw a woman’s tan raincoat and a hand on the banister that looked like Evelyn’s. It was now or never. He got up and moved down the stairs. He descended to the landing of Evelyn’s floor and hopped down the next flight, going fast enough to catch up with her but not enough to alarm her. He heard her quicken her pace, she probably wondered who was coming down the stairs. People in the East Village could get awfully paranoid.

He turned the corner of the stairs between the fourth and third floors, and saw her on the third floor landing. Nervously, she glanced over her shoulder at him. She was a dumpy woman with short black hair, and her eyes widened with fear at the sight of the bearded stranger. She hesitated and opened her mouth. He came at her quickly, taking out his switchblade and hitting the button.

“Don’t make a sound, Evelyn,” he murmured, descending the last few stairs to the landing.

Her face went pale. “You!”

“If you scream I’ll kill you where you stand,” he said softly. “Turn around and go back to your apartment.”

Her lips quivered and her feet became frozen to the floor. “What do you want?”

He pushed her gently. “Get moving.”

She tried to intimidate him like in the old days. “Now put that knife away and stop being silly!”

He looked around nervously, sweat forming on his forehead. “Get moving Evelyn, or I’ll cut you down, so help me God.” He brought the point of his knife to her throat.

Evelyn looked fearfully at him, blinked, and began climbing the stairs. She’d read the papers and knew he was the Slasher. When she’d found out, it had nearly floored her, but she never dreamed that he’d come to see her. She thought he’d forgotten all about her.