Just hearing her whisper dirty to him like this as she pumps herself against him spins him into a whirlpool of desire. He's on the edge of climax. He can barely restrain himself… and yet he does.
They stop moving, become still, close their eyes, then begin to move again, this time even more tormentingly slow. Together they enter a state of heightened bliss wherein even the slightest movement sends powerful currents of yearning through their bodies, waves of longing and lust.
Suddenly the door is thrust open. A cone of blinding light slashes across the room. They turn together, see a dark figure dressed in a black coat and fedora silhouetted in the doorway against the powerful blast of the summer sun.
A moment of utter stillness as the three of them freeze – man and woman naked on the bed, poised figure in the doorway devouring the couple with his eyes.
Time expands. The moment is prolonged. The woman, feeling danger, recoils. The man grasps hold of her in an effort to protect. The figure in the doorway, empowered by their fear, raises something dark and long from beneath his coat. Then the double detonation, the explosions as two quick, loud reports fill the room, then, after a moment, two more. The walls recoil at the shock as the lovers, their faultless young flesh suddenly penetrated by hundreds of tiny steel balls, are hurled back against the headboard of their bed.
Their bodies spasm without control. Dark ruby-red blood sprays like geysers from their wounds.
The echo fades. The lovers, bodies tangled, cease writhing and lie still. The figure in the doorway lowers his gun, sniffs at the room, which smells now of gunpowder, bowels, and blood. His eyes take in what he his wrought. For a moment they feast upon the carnage, illuminated as if by a spotlight by the rays of sunlight breaking through the door. There is, he recognizes, a terrible beauty before him, the beauty of young bodies freshly torn by death. After a moment, he pulls his hat down to his eyes, gathers his dark coat about his frame, turns, and leaves.
2
Or so I imagine it happening…
I've been sketching this imagined motel room slaughter for several hours, dividing it into scenes, depicting it from various angles. Even now I'm sketching it while seated at the bar in Waldo's, working on the final close-up of the woman. I want to get her face just right – the questioning look in her eyes.
The bar's busy tonight, all the tables are taken. Media people, print and network journalists, are gabbing away, exchanging rumors and gossip, as they have every night since the Foster trial began, which we have all come to town to cover.
I finish my drawing, turn the page of my sketchbook, then look around. The Townsend is the media hotel in town; Waldo's, just off the lobby, is the media bar and assembly point. It's a good bar, posh and dark, with mahogany paneling, soft leather seats, art deco sconces, and an excellent barman named Tony who wears a white jacket and an ironic smile.
Tony, his manner announces, has seen it all. Nothing about us or the trial surprises him. Sophisticated journalists from New York, some with famous faces seen often on TV, do not impress him. He has assured me (for he and I have lately become friends) that they would not impress Waldo Channing either, that man whose portrait hangs on the bar wall, for whom the bar is named.
'Wasn't he something?'
Tony stands opposite me across the bar. He's stopped to chat, as he often does when he has a free moment. 'Noticed you gazing at his picture. Mr. C. knew everybody, you know – all the big stars and personalities. Hemingway and Dietrich, Bogart and Bacall. He wrote about them. They were his friends. He could have lived anywhere – New York, London, the French Riviera – but he chose to stay here. Gotta respect the guy for that. He never gave up on this burg even when most everyone else did…'
Tony moves away to take an order from a slinky black female reporter at the other end of the bar. I make a quick sketch of him shaking a drink. He has sleek silver hair that nicely reflects the light and a complexion so deathly pale I doubt he ever goes out in daytime.
When he returns, he glances at my drawing.
'Not bad,' he says. 'The guy who painted Mr. C. never knew him.' He gestures again at the portrait. 'Did it all from photographs. Shows too. Made him look stiff, which Mr. C. wasn't. He was smooth, suave – could turn a mean phrase, too, when he had a mind. Some didn't like him for that, when he made fun of them in his column. But most respected him. He could charm your pants off. First time I saw him I was tending bar at the opera. Came the intermission, all these folks stream toward me, pushing and shoving to get their orders filled. Then I notice this handsome fellow standing among them, smiling at me, waiting his turn. I fill his order first, dry vodka martini with a twist. He thanks me, tips me double. Later I learned he was the columnist, Waldo Channing. So, see, now it's an honor for me to tend bar here.'
An honor. Sure, I can see that. For even if the oil portrait of Channing makes him look a little stiff, as Tony says, it also displays his sleek good looks, savoir faire, sense of entitlement, and self-assurance. The brittle quality is there, too, the studied artificiality. And there's a gleam in the painted eyes, the barest trace of his malevolence. I know why Waldo Channing didn't move to London or New York, why he stayed in Calista, where he was born. Because here he could preside not just as society columnist but as social arbiter, a person to whom others revealed their confidences, which he could then preserve or betray as he saw fit.
'Lady wants to meet you,' Tony says. He subtly gestures toward a blond sitting alone at a table near the wall. I recognize her at once: Pam Wells, reporting the trial for CNN.
'Interested?' Tony asks.
'Sure.'
Tony raises his right eyebrow, slips away. I pick up my drink, pencil, and sketchbook. Ms. Wells observes me closely as I approach.
'Well, hi! She says, brilliant blue eyes glowing, voice full of good cheer. 'Thanks for stopping by.'
'Thanks for asking me.'
'What a scene!' She indicates the room. 'I feel lots of fear and loathing swirling about. I've been sitting here asking myself, ‘Pam, what's a nice girl like you doing in a snake pit like this?’'
In person she's looser than on the air. Also she doesn't punch up her words the way they train TV reporters to do. She looks softer, too, blond shoulder-length hair hanging loose, lips unpainted, a good quantity of fun in her lively eyes. Her bust is fine, her scoop neck reveals attractive freckles, and her bare arms show well-tended muscles. I won't have much trouble falling for her if she lets me, I think.
I offer my hand. 'David Weiss.'
'I know,' she says, giving it a nice shake. 'I'm Pam-'
Yeah, isn't it great – we both know who we are.'
Her laughter's silver. 'I've seen your sketches on the air, David. You're really kicking our butt.'
'Henderson's good.'
'He's all right, but his stuff doesn't stand up to yours. My producer's looking for someone else.'
'Poor Henderson.'
'Guy can't cut it… what're you going to do?'
Like everyone else in the room, we're talking shop. Two tables away, beneath the portrait, a quartet from NBC are paying rapt attention to Waldo Channing's successor, local society columnist and social guru Spencer Deval, who wears an ascot and affects a British accent, is short, stout, has a slack mouth, a smirky grin, and yellowish bags of flesh beneath his eyes. A habitual name-dropper, he's also a compelling storyteller. Last night he held forth at the same table to a spellbound trio from CBS.
'I hear Westin's flying in for a one-on-one with Kit Foster,' Pam says.
I shrug. 'I'm just the sketch artist. I don't know anything about network stuff.'
'A lot more than ‘just the sketch artist.’ I've seen your ID drawings, David. They're fabulous.'
I make a demure gesture to show modesty.
'Oh, they are!' she says. 'The Zigzag Killer – you had him cold. Also the Saturn Killer and that guy out in Kansas City who kidnapped those little girls. When they finally catch the monsters, they look just like the way you drew them. Yet you never saw them. Or did you?'
