Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 51, No. 1 & 2, January/February 2006
- Автор: Бетанкур Джон Грегори, Jr. William J. Carroll,
- Год: 2006
- Язык: английский
- Год: Dell Magazines/Crosstown Publications
- Жанр: Другие детективы
Электронная книга - «Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 51, No. 1 & 2, January/February 2006». Краткое содержание книги:
She trims their hair and beards and mustaches, quickly and efficiently, all the while knowing that it’s happening again.
Oh yes, again and again.
From small town to bigger town to city. Her story gets out and the men come by and eventually one man captures her interest, one man who wants to know everything, and she finds herself succumbing, again and again.
His name is Peter Wickland, about forty years old, old enough to know about Ted and his bloody years of work, but young enough so that he doesn’t know all of the story. He’s stocky but well built, dressed in clean jeans and buttoned dress shirt. He has a close-trimmed beard and nice, thick brown hair. She finds herself enjoying the feel of his hair through her fingers as she works it. He’s a freelance investment counselor, working out of his home at the beach, and after his fourth visit to the Kut & Kurl — about four months after the Sentinel article appeared — he asks her out.
And she says yes.
The first date is just lunch at a restaurant in town, nothing fancy, just a quiet meal and some laughs and then a walk along the park by the river. As they leave the park, Peter says, “I’ve got two things to say to you.”
“Sure,” she says.
“The first is, I’d like to see you again.”
She smiles. It has gone well. “That’d be nice. What’s the second thing?”
He smiles back at her. “I don’t care about the newspaper article, about what happened to you. If you want to tell me, fine. But I won’t ask you.”
She leans forward, kisses him on the cheek, and forgives him on the spot for lying to her.
For among other things, that’s what she has gained over the years, that no matter how many times the men who have come into her life say they’re not curious at all about Ted Bundy, they really do always want to know. Honest to God, that’s all these men cared about was her time with the nation’s most famous serial killer. Men, men, men, it seems all they care about is the blood and the gore and the terror that those women, her poor sisters, went through, and what, if anything, she can tell them to let them in on what had really happened.
And to a man, they were always disappointed.
For a while, it seems like Peter might be the exception, might finally be the one who is different, but like all the others, it comes down to those few months she spent with Ted in Colorado.
After five dates and some kissing and squeezing, she has invited him over to her place for dinner, and she notes the little grimace as he comes into the living room and notices the plastic slipcover on the couch.
She says, “I just like to keep things clean, that’s all.”
“Oh, it’s okay hon,” he says, sitting down. “Just reminds me a bit of my grandma’s place. No offense.”
“None taken.”
She sits next to him and he starts talking about the upcoming weekend and what movie they might see, while she caresses his shoulder, and he smiles and leans over and the kiss and the room gets warmer, and he breaks away and says, “Is it safe?”
“Safe? Safe for what?”
That funny little smile. “Safe to go on. I’ve felt... a bit of tension, that there was a line I couldn’t cross. Patti, I want to kiss you and kiss you and keep on going, and you just seem... reluctant.”
She says nothing.
“Is it... is it because of Bundy? Is that it?”
So, another promise broken.
“Yes, yes it is,” she says.
“Dear heart,” he says, grasping her hand. “You’ve got to let it go... let the past go. Don’t let that evil bastard rule your life.”
Surprisingly enough, tears come to her eyes. “It’s hard. It’s so very hard.”
His voice is reassuring but the words strike home. “You can trust me,” he says. “Tell me everything that happened back there. Everything. I trust you. Honestly, I can help you. I know I can.”
She looks at that smiling face, the beard that she had trimmed, the hair she had cut back and caressed, and she kisses him and says, “You really want to help?”
“Yes, yes I do.”
“You want to know what it was like? What I did back then?”
“Of course. But only to help.”
Sure, she thinks. Only to help.
“I bet you want to know what I learned, don’t you.”
A squeeze of her hand is the only answer he offers.
Another kiss, and she leans back and smiles and starts unbuttoning her blouse. “You stay right here, tiger. And I’ll be back after getting ready.”
“Ready for what?”
Another button unbuttoned, and then another. “Just you wait.”
His smile is brighter. “You’ve got it, Patti.”
She leaves the room, her legs trembling.
And on those long nights, staying in hotel rooms, she has wondered how it has all come to this. The long travels, the attempts to set up a peaceful and quiet existence, and then the need begins, the quiet urge that grows stronger and stronger. The hunger. The yearning. That burning feeling.
A feeling that can’t be ignored, until she goes to the phone book and finds a certain phone number, in each community she has lived in, and makes a quiet and unbidden phone call.
Every single time.
So now she is in the bathroom, disrobing. The blouse and slacks come off, and then the bra and the panties, until she is standing there, nude, looking at herself in the mirror. She briefly runs her hands across her skin, feeling its smoothness, feeling the muscles underneath it, the muscles from all those years of working out to make her strong and fit. No Ted was ever going to seduce her, ever again. And no Ted would ever try to harm her. She would never allow herself to be so vulnerable. Never again.
What did you learn, the men always asked. What did you learn?
And she remembered one man, Tom, up near Sun Valley, who asked perhaps the strangest question of them alclass="underline" Love, he asked, did you learn how to love from Ted?
That thought brings a smile that she observes in the mirror.
For what she learned from Ted wasn’t love, but it was hate. Hate indeed. A hatred so long and so deep that she has carried it with her from town to town, city to city, like some cherished possession. One man, one town, one state at a time. And never to be caught.
A voice from the other side of the cottage. “You okay in there?”
She looks at her nude figure again in the mirror, and then strolls out.
“Coming, Peter!” she calls out, and as she walks to her new boyfriend, sitting patiently on the plastic slipcovered couch, she reaches into the breezeway leading outside and lovingly, gingerly, picks up the sharp axe from next to the woodpile.
Just Watching[1]
by DeLoris Stanton Forbes
It was a pretty house with a nice porch along the front and big white windows along one side of the door. I looked in while Miss Ascot rang the bell. The woman was on the telephone. I leaned against the window and listened.
“That must be the social worker now, Edna. I’ve got to go. Yes, I’m a little nervous, but lots of people do it. So I’m willing to take a chance.”
Miss Ascot put her finger on the button that rang the chimes again. They sounded nice. I like chimes.
“Yes, I’ll call you later and give you the word,” she laughed. “I’ll be worse off than she is if I have to spend another day with the children and no help. Bye, Edna.” She put the telephone down and came toward the door. I thought she was the prettiest lady I had ever seen.
1
Originally published in AHMM, February 1957, as by DeForbes. Copyright © by H.S.D. Publications, Inc., © renewed 1985 by Davis Publications, Inc. Reprinted by permission of the author.