changed, his feelings about campus radicals hadn't. They still seemed like self indulgent children to him.
Lisa had changed one other thing about Rob: his plans for the future. His father had just assumed that after college, Rob would come back to Minneapolis and start work at one of the department stores, learning the business from the lowliest position to the most exalted. Eventually, of course, Rob's father would pass the management of the stores over to Rob.
But as graduation approached, Rob began to share Lisa's fantasy of heading for Mexico after college, and 'living near the water somewhere and having lots of dope and getting away from all the hypocritical bullshit in this country. You know?'
So those were their plans anyway. But then Lisa met Michael.
Michael Blumenthal was a federal civil rights lawyer who was at the university giving a lecture to pre-law students. At this time, Lisa's plans-after returning from her eyrie in Mexico- were to become a lawyer. So she was in Michael Blumenthal's audience.
As she later told it to Rob, she just couldn't help what happened. There seemed to be an inevitability about her reaction to his dark good looks, his curious mixing of anger and compassion, and his intense desire to make the world a better place. After the lecture, she went up and introduced herself, and they became so engrossed in their conversation about his civil rights work in the South that they continued it in the student union over coffee, and then in a little bar several blocks away over beers, and finally in her apartment where, after pizza and ungodly amounts of marijuana, they climbed into her rumpled bed and made love.
And three days later ran off to Missouri to elope.
She told Rob all this the day after she got back from Missouri. She had only two weeks to go till graduation and then she and Michael were moving back to New York, him working for the government and her going to Columbia.
She hoped Rob would understand, crazy as it all was. She was sure Rob would find the exact right woman for himself very soon now because there wasn't anybody sweeter or more deserving anywhere on the planet than Rob Lindstrom and she'd never forget him or all the wonderful times they'd had.
But right now she had to run. (A quick wet kiss on the cheek- the goddamn cheek-and then she was gone from his life forever.)
Just like that.
So Rob went home to his father's stores. He dealt with the 'Lisa problem' as his mother had taken to calling it by reverting to his former self (at least externally). He cut his hair, he began wearing ties and sports jackets again, he spent Sunday afternoons watching
His sister, Emily, was his only confidante. Only Emily knew what Rob was really going through. The killer depressions. The crying jags. The inability to eat (or at least hold anything down for long). The disinterest in sex.
He would lie for hours on his bed, going over and over his relationship with Lisa, trying to determine if he'd done anything wrong to cause her running off with Michael that way. He hated her and loved her, missed her and never wanted to see her again, lusted after her and wanted to beat her to death with his fists.
And then came the night when he took the Norpramin.
Dr. Steiner, the shrink whom Emily had secretly arranged for him to see (Rob's father seemed to believe that shrinks were part of the communist conspiracy he saw evidence of everywhere), had given Rob pills that worked as both antidepressants and sleeping pills. He was to take three of them at bedtime.
This one particular night, Rob took sixty.
Emily, out on a late date, decided to stop by his room on her way to the late night bath she liked to linger in, and when she got no response, she decided he was asleep and she'd go in and give him a little sisterly kiss.
She found him sprawled on the floor of his room and barely breathing.
Within twenty-five minutes, he was in the hospital emergency ward.
And within twenty-four hours after that, he began a three year stay at a mental hospital called Hastings House.
He killed his first woman on the night of May 11, 1978. This was the first time he escaped the mental hospital.
After a few hours' freedom, during which time he ate a good steak dinner and rented a car, he drove up into the hills where he saw a somewhat plump but pretty young woman standing in front of a somewhat battered 1968 Fairlane, the hood up, and steam pouring out of the radiator. She seemed so helpless and disconsolate that she looked positively fetching. The image of a helpless woman appealed to him enormously.
He pulled in behind where she'd parked just off the road, got out, and went over to her.
He smiled. 'You look like you've got your hands full.'
'I sure do.' She touched surprisingly delicate fingers to her face and shook her head. 'I'm supposed to be at a wedding shower in twenty minutes.'
'Why don't I take a look?' he said, sounding like a doctor about to peek in at a sore throat.
He saw the problem immediately. A hole in her radiator. A rock could have put it there or kids sabotaging cars in a parking lot.
He leaned back from inside the hood. 'Tell you what. Why don't I give you a ride? There's a Standard station down the way. They can come back and tow your car in and if it's not too far out of my way, I can give you a ride to your party.'
'Jeez, it's gonna need towing?'
He smiled again. 'Afraid so.'
She didn't say thanks for the offer of a ride; thanks for looking at my car. She was as cheap as her watch.
'So what's wrong with it?'
'Hole in your radiator probably.'
Cars went by, most of them filled with teenagers prowling the night. Rock music trailed in their wake like banners fluttering in the wind.
'Jeez,' she said, 'why does this crap always happen to me?'
'My name's O'Rourke,' he said. The odd thing was, the false name surprised him. He had no idea why he'd used it. No idea yet what he really had in mind. He put out a slender hand (he'd always hated his hands, tiny as a fourteen year old girl's, the wrists delicate no matter how long he lifted weights) and she took it.
'Paula. Stufflebeam.'
'Now there's a sturdy name for you.'
'Hah. Sturdy. Shitty is what you mean.'
They got in the car and started driving. The radio played Andy Gibb. The girl started singing along very low and then asked if he could maybe turn up the radio a little. Even in his radio playing he was conservative. Kept it low all the time.
When the song was over, she looked at him and said, 'This is a nice car.'
'Thank you.' He wasn't sure why but he didn't want to tell her it was rented.
'If I woulda got married last fall, I woulda had a car like this. The guy really had bucks.'
'Oh?'
'But he was all fucked up, pardon my French. Nam. He had these nightmares. He scared me.'
'I'm sorry for both of you.'
'Well, like my mother says, there's always more fish in the sea.'
The night was busy. Mosquitoes slapped against the windshield. Distantly he could smell the river and the hot fishy odours on the darkness. Donna Summer came on. He wondered what Lisa was doing tonight. Probably something fashionable. Her last note indicated that she had become involved in theatre and had met the neatest acting coach. He wondered if she had already betrayed her husband and if she was sleeping with this acting coach.
He knew he had to hurry. He had to get back to the hospital before he was reported missing.
