Never Say No To A Killer

through the crowded traffic. We had traveled six or seven blocks and she hadn't said a word.

Then: “I don't suppose you want to tell me where your sudden riches came from... I know it's none of my business.”

“It's simple. I had something to sell and found a man who wanted to buy; the very soul of commerce, the life blood of capitalism, the age-old law of supply and demand. Look,” I said, “I got off on the wrong foot with you; I admit it. I got a little rough, but actually I'm not a rough guy at all. Believe me, everything is fine.”

“Forget it.”

I parked the Lincoln in one of the garages behind the apartment building and Pat and I used the rear entrance to get to my place. I had the package under my arm, anxious to see her face when she opened it. This will thaw her out, I thought. If she doesn't react positively to the stimulus of this package, then I've wasted a hell of a lot of time studying the science of human motivation!

“Here we are,” I said, putting the key in the lock. I had opened the door, just a little, just a crack, when I saw Dorris Venci there in my apartment! I had just started to shove the door all the way open and step inside for Pat to enter, when I saw her sitting there, motionless, those Zeiss-lens eyes focused emptily on my face. I closed the door, fast.

“Look,” I said, “I just happened to think of something. Something I forgot to do. Will you do me a favor, will you go in your own apartment for a few minutes, powder your nose or something, until I get everything just right? I don't know about you, but this is a big day for me, and I want to be absolutely sure that everything is right. Will you humor me?”

An eyebrow lifted the slightest bit, that was all. “Of course,” she said.

She gave me her key and I opened the door to her own apartment. “Just a few minutes,” I said heartily, “this isn't going to take long.”

Alone, I stood there in the hallway thinking: Christ, I hope she didn't see Dorris in there! She would recognize her sure as hell and pretty soon she would start putting things together. Pat Kelso was no dummy. She wasn't just another piece of gorgeous sex machinery; she had a brain.

I took a deep breath, feeling the anger flow over me, feeling it in my guts, in my muscles, in my brain. I gave myself a few seconds to calm down, then shoved the door open and went in.

I had forgotten about the caterer. She was a short, fat German woman of about fifty, very neat and businesslike in a starched white dress, gleaming white shoes, a small heart-shaped light blue apron. She looked perfectly antiseptic and sterile and happy.

“Oh, Mr. O'Connor,” she beamed, “I believe everything is in order. Everything, just as you ordered it. Smoked turkey, baked ham, a shrimp bowl, mushroom salad. The sweetbreads are in the chafing dish, sir, over the warmer, and the wine is in the refrigerator ready to be iced.”

“Thank you,” I said, “everything looks fine.” Dorris Venci sat as though she were hypnotized, saying nothing. I paid the woman from the caterer's, made a deposit on the dishes and told her she could go.

I turned to Dorris and said, “I'm getting pretty goddamn tired of your walking into my place like this. To be perfectly honest, I'm getting tired of you. Can't you see I had something of my own arranged here?”

She turned those eyes on me, and only then did I see how washed out she looked. Her face had aged ten years in the past two weeks.

“You... haven't called,” she said flatly. “I... haven't heard from you in several days.”

“Listen to me,” I said, “we'd better get something straight, and right now. You have no hold on me at all; the minute you turned over your husband's strongbox, it was over. You didn't buy a damn thing. Is that clear?”

Suddenly she put her hands to her face, covering her face.

“Now what's wrong with you?”

“I wish I were dead!” Her voice came muffled through her hands. “I wish I had the courage to end it!”

“Great God!” I groaned, “don't go into that act. I couldn't stomach it. Look here, you're a good looking woman, there are plenty of men who would go for you in a big way. Stop seeing yourself as so damned abnormal. You know what's really wrong with you? Not your abnormality, but your fear of it. You're a starving woman, surrounded with food, and you haven't got the guts to admit you're hungry. You can't go on pretending that your husband took advantage of you, or that I did. You wanted it, and you know you did, desperately.”

“No!” It was almost like a small scream.

“Then why did you come here?”

“I... I love you....”

I laughed. “That's what I thought you would say. You don't love me, but you do need me. Or think you do. Just the way you needed John Venci. He was the only man in the world for you, almost a god, simply because he knew about you, and you didn't have to tell him. As long as you didn't have to admit it to yourself, you could go on pretending that you were normal, whatever that means.

“Well,” I said, “I'm going to tell you one more thing. You're going to wind up in a nuthouse, and soon, if you don't snap out of it. You don't have your husband now. And you don't have me, either, because I'm tired of you. What you ought to do is go down to the docks and pick up a gorilla that would really know how to treat you.”

“No!”

“All right. If you'd rather have the nuthouse.”

She took her hands from her face and sat there shuddering. She was looking into the future and seeing nothing but darkness. “Well,” I said, “I tried to tell you, but you won't listen. Now you've got to get out of here.”

“... Roy.” It was barely a whisper. “Please... don't send me away!”

“I told you I'm through with you. I told you what's wrong with you and what you need to set you right. That's all I can do.”

I took her arm and pulled her out of the chair. I guided her to the door, made sure that the hallway was clear and shoved her out.

I was through with Dorris Venci.

I've made that clear, I thought, even to her. I'm through with her. If she wants to kill herself, that's fine with me. If she winds up in a nuthouse, that's fine too, I just don't give a damn what happens to her. But she had better keep away from me!

I got myself calmed down, finally. I went to the bathroom and rinsed my face with cold water and felt a little better. Crazy damn woman!

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

“HOW DO YOU like it?”

“It's beautiful! It's positively beautiful!”

“Come on in the bedroom and look at yourself in the mirror.”

“Really, you shouldn't have done this! It's much too expensive!”

“That's nonsense. All good things come expensive, I learned that long ago, while dishwashing my way through college.”

It really was a hell of a coat. To be perfectly truthful, it was much more coat than I had figured on at first, but the minute I saw ft I knew that nothing else would do. It was a French import, a Balmain, with an exterior of oyster white nylon velvet which is absolutely the most decadent material ever created by the hand of man, and it was completely lined with natural wild mink. The fantastic extravagance of lining a coat with wild mink had completely fascinated the more bizarre aspect of my nature. When they first showed it to me I had burst into laughter. How many Frenchmen would go without shoes this winter, how many Parisian bellies would be empty—and who gave a damn? “That coat,”” I had told the sales girl, “is absolutely the god-damnedest, most decadent example of a completely lost civilization that I have ever seen—and I'll take it!”

Pat hugged the coat around her and studied herself from all angles in the bedroom mirror. She had the kind of poise that could not be taught, it was the result of a long purebred bloodline and nothing else. She was class, every inch of her, and that coat was just for her.

“It comes off pretty well,” I said. “If there are any changes you want on it, the shop it came from will take care of it.”

“I wouldn't have it touched!” she said. “Not for anything in the world! It's just perfect... but it frightens me