William Diehl: Seven ways to die

What had once been an altar was now a stage ringed with fire pots to keep the dancers at bay while the band, a bizarre, tattooed, shirtless, Mohawk-shorn group called The Frisian Freaks, played a wild dirge called “Welcome to Hell,” repeating the frantic theme endlessly, like an old 78 rpm record stuck in a single groove:

Boom bata boom, thump, thump…boom bata boom, thump, thump…while the voices of the revelers added to the chaos:

“Yeah, yeah yeah, yeah, yeah…yeah, yeah yeah, yeah, yeah…”

Torches lined the enormous dance floor sporadically erupting into geysers of flame while strobe lights randomly etched the faces of the bizarre crowd, undulating, hunching, swiveling, jumping, rocking. Pupils fixed or dilated by ecstasy or meth of whatever drug enhanced the mood, the crazed crowd created an epidemic of eccentric frenzy beyond reason or self control. And the blazing strobes briefly revealed an extravagant phenomenon, an accoutre revolution.

They wore jeans, suspender slacks, mini-skirts, shorts, and combat fatigues; t-shirts, tank tops, sequined brassieres, and thong bikinis; the colors stark Gothic black, the color of the night, punctuated with splashes of yellow, pink, chartreuse, and Halloween orange.

Bobbing up and down in the throng were bald heads, crew cuts, corn rows, shoulder length ringlets with dyed strips of green, purple or scarlet; grotesque tattoos, weird masks, black lipstick and glitter-bathed cheeks.

And there were rings. Rings everywhere, piercing everything: nipples, noses, belly buttons, ear lobes, tongues, and regions hidden beyond the eye.

In this demonic atmosphere where madness was common and attitude was everything, one girl was different.

It was not her clothing, which was relatively normal, considering her surroundings: a black and white checkered tutu and ballet slippers. But her shoulder-length green hair was curled around a porcelain-delicate face with eyes as innocent as those of a puppy.

Melinda was indifferent to the advances of both men and women who were attracted to her dancing and her stunning figure.

She was tall, which added to the allure as she kicked up her long, sinewy legs like a showgirl and twirled on her toes through the crowd, a beautiful young woman absorbed by her own talent. She spun to the edge of the dance floor near the bar and stopped, distracted for a moment by a figure in the flash of a strobe. Not by the girl, naked from the waist up except for a combat helmet on her head, sitting on the shoulders of a man with a bat tattooed on one cheek and his teeth painted black. But beyond them, at a strikingly handsome man dressed in a tuxedo and a black Halloween mask.

A normal black tuxedo. He was leering at her beneath the mask and then he was gone.

She dabbed her face with a linen handkerchief and pop! She saw him again, staring through the ravers. Then again, when the torches flared, and she glanced back before the crowd engulfed him.

What game was he playing now? she wondered. What else in this temple of games?

She pirouetted back into the wilding throng, spinning through the madhouse, past a girl in a white thong and spiked thigh high boots with an aqua cobra tattooed around her belly button and the guy with black spiked hair wearing only a garish red jock strap. She was obsessed by the man who had glared at her, rising another inch on her toes so she could see over the crowd as she searched for a face in the momentary bursts of light and fire. But to no avail.

Finally, exhausted, she left the floor and walked on her toes to the bar. As she sat down, she noticed a matchbook pyramided beside her champagne glass. She picked it up and flipped the lid open. On the inside was written: “Ray 555 932 1685.”

She shivered. She looked around but there was no one else at the bar. A quick perusal of the mob on the dance floor once again proved futile.

The bartender strolled down from the other end of the bar and took her empty glass.

“How about another one?” he asked.

She held up the matchbook. “See who left this by my glass?”

“Sorry,” he answered. “You know how it is, they come, they go.”

She looked at her watch for the bartender’s benefit. It was after midnight. She shook her head.

“Time’s up, Arnie,” she said. “Cinderella has to work tomorrow.”

“What a shame,” he said, sliding the tab in front of her. She paid up and left a ten dollar tip.?

There was a cab at the curb when she left the club and she crawled in and leaned back with a sigh, giving the cabbie an address in the upper sixties on the West Side.

She was feeling a little giddy from the three champagne cocktails when she entered her apartment which was on the twelfth floor with a view of the Park. She had left the sliding glass doors open onto her small balcony and a warm breeze fluttered through the curtains. A table lamp formed a discreet pool of light on a desk near the balcony.

She went into the kitchenette, poured herself a glass of red wine, whipped off the green wig and tossed it over her shoulder, performing a little strip tease as she shagged to the shower. She had a dancer’s figure, lithe and graceful, molded by vigorous training and hard work.

She showered and strolled naked into the living room, a towel dragging the floor from one hand, sipping her wine with the other as she stood at the opening to the balcony, letting the breeze dry her off.

She took the matchbook from her purse and looked at the name and phone number, and closed her eyes, briefly thinking about the man in the tux. The son of a bitch, she thought with a smile.

So he changed his phone number. Wanted her to call him. Well, he could go screw himself.

The wind briefly wrapped the curtain around her before she brushed it away.

She went back to her desk and put the matchbook book down.

Then she noticed that her laptop was on. The screen was lowered but she could see the light from the screen between the cover and the keyboard. She thought she’d hibernated the machine when she’d finished the review.

She reached over and lifted the screen. There was a letter on the screen which began: “Dear Raymond…”

And the fear choked her.

Before she could react she felt a warm breath on the nape of her neck. A plastic bag whished as it snapped over her head.

The opening was twisted tight.

The bag became a deadly trap.

A strong arm pinned both her arms to her sides and lifted her off the floor. Her screams were muffled by the bag, her muscular legs flailing helplessly as she fought for a breath.

She was frantic, staring out across the Park through the gauzy container. Her attempts to breathe merely sucked the plastic into her mouth and popped it back again.

Just one breath, she thought.

But it was denied. The strong arm jerked hard on her abdomen, emptying her lungs.

The struggle lasted four minutes before she went limp.

Her killer was relentless, holding her in the vice, waiting until the lovely dancer certainly was dead.

The plastic bag was pulled off her head. Her chin fell to her chest. The killer moved the free hand and fondled her tight breast, moved down between her legs and then, in one swift move, lifted and shoved her lifeless body through the door.

She flipped over the balcony, plunged fifteen floors, and splattered on the sidewalk below.

While she was still falling, well-manicured fingers Melinda never saw finished typing the artfully ambivalent email that would be accepted as a suicide note.?

“Before I close this series,” said N.Y.P.D. Max Wolfsheim, who had narrated this unsolved case at his regular NYU Graduate Center class on Crime in the City, “I have been given his permission to recognize our auditor, who’s faithfully attended this forensics series. He’s the author of a dozen bestselling books on famous crimes.”