Chapter Nineteen
Yorkville
November 18, 8.48 p.m.
Jessica Pascal nodded and sipped slowly from her vodka and cranberry juice. Her eyes were calm but her heart was racing — she had just realized that the man sitting across from her was going to kill her.
From the outset, Jessica had known that there was something not quite right about her date, but she’d only just realized why. He was too good to be true. She felt caught in a way that she’d never experienced before and all she could do was watch him and hope. When would he realize that she knew? Did he know already? What if she got up to go to the bathroom and made a run for it?
What did he want from her? She had liked him anyway. If it was about sex, why force it? She’d made it clear that she liked him, hadn’t she? She hadn’t ever felt that before. Never.
The ice in her glass had long ago melted. Jessica was now scared deep inside — a white fear that shut out everything else. She felt it somewhere so primal that she didn’t even recognize what it was at first.
He was talking and talking, though. His ideas getting crazier and crazier.
Jessica listened and nodded attentively. Her hands clasped the cold glass. It was hard to concentrate on exactly what he was saying.
The man in the black suit and white shirt had been charming and funny too. She had had the best time. There was no way, otherwise, that she’d have invited him up to her apartment. And anyway, he’d been reluctant, hadn’t he? She’d had to ask him if he wanted to come in for a cup of coffee. That’s how you did it, right? Didn’t mean she was promising anything. She just wanted his company a little longer. Life should be happy, right? We should trust people, right?
‘Right!’ he’d said, flashing a knowing look.
They’d gone in. He locked the apartment door. Yes, she’d thought that was odd. He turned and locked all three locks — the double cylinder deadbolt, the vertical deadbolt and the sliding bolt.
‘It’s a rough neighbourhood,’ he said.
Was she just feeling too distracted to notice? She’d made the vodka cranberries, lowered the lights, put Philip Glass on the stereo and for good measure even put on the ambi-light- which glowed in various seductive shades and gradually moved across the spectrum.
He was now bathed in green. She was definitely scared.
When did it hit her? He didn’t make a move on her at all. He could’ve sat next to her on the long red sofa her parents had bought her as a leaving home present, but he chose the black fake-leather armchair. Maybe he was just trying not to be presumptuous. He’s shy, she thought. I like that. Just like me.
She was drinking and they were chatting about… what was it? Art. That was it. He looked at her print of Giorgione’s Sleeping Venus — a painting she just absolutely loved — and was telling her about the artist. She knew next to nothing about the artist. She just loved the erotically charged nude lying seductive and self-assured in a mystical landscape.
‘He was an enigma,’ her date had said. ‘His name was Giorgio Barbarelli da Castelfranco. Only six works are fully attributed to him.’
She had flip-flopped at that one. Speaking Italian! A sudden shudder of electric pulses had shot up and down her spine. ‘What you say his name is again?’
He’d smiled. He was dark-eyed with dark eyebrows and dark hair streaked with grey. Glamorous looks, great smile and confident. He looked at her directly. ‘Giorgio Barbarelli da Castelfranco.’
Yeah, that was it all right! That hit the spot. Now ravish me, she was thinking. She couldn’t help herself. Maybe it was him. Maybe it was the vodka. She was thinking: Castelfranco me right up against the wall. It must’ve been the vodka speaking. Something was getting her giddy.
But he didn’t move. He continued to stare at her. She laughed, but he just stared. Suddenly it was disconcerting.
‘You can stop looking now,’ she said. ‘I’m a shy girl at heart. You might not believe it, but I am.’
‘Why? Does it make you feel uncomfortable being looked at?’
She looked back at him in silence. Her knees pressed together.
That was it, wasn’t it? Where it changed? He had changed. The Prince Charming had somehow evaporated in that stubborn, intense stare. She could see his eyes. But his eyes weren’t full of lust. They were quite cold. He was observing her second by second as her simple open-eyed horniness slowly faded to incomprehension and then, as he still wouldn’t avert his gaze, to fear.
That’s what he wanted all along. He wanted to see fear in her eyes, not lust.
‘Weren’t you making sheep’s eyes at me, Jessica? Didn’t you flash that smile at the church? Didn’t you invite me up here? What were you anticipating? A nice Baptist girl like yourself. Girls like you look like butter wouldn’t melt, but then here we are — and all on a first date. You know what that makes you?’
She shook her head.
‘A whore, Jessica.’
The killer felt a twinge. They were locked in her apartment. It was many hours before dawn and there were things he wanted to do that she would not consent to.
Jessica was just realizing that she didn’t know him at all. He’d come on to her at the Baptist church, smiled, made her laugh out loud.
As she stared, still holding her glass, he put a hand to his inside pocket. He took out a brown leather case. He opened the popper and pulled out a small old-fashioned switchblade with a black handle and a small curved blade. He opened it and looked at her.
‘There was a double murder back in the sixties in an apartment just like this one. Two college girls. Don’t know what happened exactly. I mean, the autopsy showed what had happened — the killer had stabbed one of the girls sixty-three times. Can you imagine that? Sixty-three times. And they weren’t rapid, violent stabs. No, siree, these were slow and considered. He pushed the knife in real carefully. They think he was watching her face as he did it. You know, like he was interested to see what happened? You know what they call people like that, Jessica?’
Jessica’s voice trembled. ‘No, I don’t.’
‘They call them sadists because they enjoy other people’s pain. Sadist. Do you know where the word sadist comes from, Jessica?’
She shook her head. Her knuckles were white on her glass. Her eyes were rimmed with red. She knew she mustn’t cry, but she kept sniffing and the glass was now trembling.
‘From a French gentleman called the Marquis de Sade who enjoyed inflicting pain on his lovers and anyone else for that matter. But the young man who was operating that night wasn’t just an over-enthusiastic lover, Jessica — he was something else entirely. Sixty-three times. In and out, that’s one hundred and twenty-six individual movements. In and out.’
Jessica was praying now. She was hoping her prayers could somehow help her as they had always done before. Help me, Lord Jesus.
‘Seriously. Is that sick or what?’ The killer breathed deeply. ‘Do you think, Jessica, that he was enjoying the sensation? Why do you think he stopped? Do you think he got excited watching the knife go in and out?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Are you scared, Jessica?’
‘Yes, I’m scared.’
‘What do you say, Jessica? Would you like to go to bed with me now or have you changed your mind?’
She shook her head. ‘No, thank you.’
‘I think that’s a wise choice. I don’t think you’d like it at all.’
The man stood up and walked over to her; he flicked open the top button of her blouse. A small silver crucifix caught the light.
‘Do you believe in God, Jessica?’
She nodded.
