Deficiency

SIXTEEN

He was never a late sleeper, especially after he had fed and felt invigorated the night before. Sometimes, immediately after he awoke, he would literally fall to the floor and do dozens of push-ups, hundreds of sit-ups before going for his jog. He was like that today, exploding with energy. He had gotten a wonderful rest. The room had proven to be as quiet as the ugly motel owner had predicted. The highway itself was lightly traveled and his room was a good distance from the road.

First, I'll go for my run, he thought, and then I'll find out from the motel owner where I could go for breakfast close by. It would be a big breakfast today. Maybe even steak and eggs. He got into his sweats, put on his running shoes, and opened the door.

It was a much cooler morning than he had anticipated. He could actually see his breath. The sky was clear and a darker shade of blue. Across the way the branches of trees denuded of their leaves turned the scene into a field of skeletons, bones growing out of tree trunks, scarecrows picked clean by oncoming winter, nature's vulture. The bark of many of the trees looked streaked with dried blood. A pair of crows seemed to be looking his way, nervously lifting and dropping their wings as if they were churning up energy for a quick getaway should it be required.

"Hey!" he screamed at them.

One flew off and then the other, after a moment of courage, followed quickly. They circled and disappeared to the right.

He laughed and then stepped completely out of the room. When he looked down the railroad car-designed motel building, he saw his was the only vehicle. He had been the only customer last night. The owner had been right about the dropoff of his business. How the hell did this guy exist? he wondered. He could see the light was on in the office. Walking at a brisk pace to warm up, he started in that direction. When he reached it, he glanced at the newspaper machine at the front door and stopped instantly. The resemblance between him and the drawing on the front page was very clear, very sharp. So much so, it was as if he was looking into a mirror that reflected only one's highlights, but enough of them to make it clear that one was looking at oneself. He read that the police were looking for this man for questioning about the death of Paula Gilbert, a country singer who had performed at the Old Hasbrouck Inn. There were no other details about the man they were looking for, but what he had read and the picture drawn was enough to disturb him deeply. This was the first time such a thing had occurred, and he hated the idea of being the hunted. That's what I do. That's my purpose, he wanted to shout.

His eyes lifted from the machine to the window of the office door. Through it he could see the motel owner staring down at the front page of the paper. He seemed to sense his presence and lifted his eyes, too. They confronted each other. Panic rose to the surface of the owner's face, coming out of it like a thick, red blotch. His eyes brightened like two tiny lights warning outsiders not to enter his thoughts, recording was taking place within.

Without hesitation, he lunged at the door and stepped into the office. The motel owner backed away from the counter.

"Good... morning..." he said, practically choking on each syllable. "How was, was your room?"

"Full of snakes," he replied.

"Whaaa."

"Snakes!" he shouted. "Snakes, everywhere. You put me in a den of snakes!" The owner shook his head vigorously and continued to back up.

"What are you talking about? What snakes?"

In response, he moved quickly, practically leaping over the counter until he was at him, his hands grasping the man at the neck and practically lifting him off the floor as he drove him back into his living quarters, smashing the door open and pushing him in until he stumbled and fell to the floor, carrying him over with him as he went down.

The man struggled to break free and was doing well, his panic giving him unusual strength. Quickly, realizing the motel owner might break loose, he drove his knee onto the man's Adam's apple and pressed all of his weight there. The motel owner's face began to explode with terror. His eyes bulged, rising like hard-boiled eggs being squeezed in the middle. His mouth contorted, the lips losing all their shape, and the blood that rose to the surface of his face seemed to jell and clog in the pores of his skin. His choking grew more and more intense. He clawed and swung and tried to buck like a wild horse so he could throw his aggressor off, but nothing worked. He began to lose consciousness. His tongue edged its way out from under his clenched teeth and peered about like a desperate thick-headed snake. It trembled along with the rest of him until he gasped a final time and then sunk into himself, dropping into his death like a rock sinking in water.

Still he pressed his knee into the dead man's throat as if he had to put a stamp of success on this kill. This sort of battle and killing wasn't something he liked doing. Killing the old lady was one thing. That was nearly effortless on his part. This was a whole different scene, a victim who put up real resistance, so much in fact that he was surprised himself at how successful he had been. Producing death in the women he was with for sexual and feeding reasons came subtly at first and then with an ecstatic easiness that gave him pleasure. This sort of struggle with a man who could offer some opposition required a much bigger physical effort and was therefore far uglier to him. For one thing there was no sexual enjoyment, and for another it made him feel dirtier. The man's sweat was on his hands and the stench of his death, imagined or otherwise, was already rising up to his nostrils.

He stepped back and looked down at him.

Drool ran out of the sides of the man's mouth and down his chin. It was revolting. He hated him even more in death than he had in life.

"You know," he said, "when I first set eyes on you, I knew I was going to have to stamp you out. You're too ugly to live. And what kind of a life did you have anyway, huh?" he shouted at him, waiting as if he expected the corpse would smile and nod and agree he had no reason to be. He would be as grateful as the old lady had been. Or at least, he should be.

"This place...it's a world of death. You should have put yourself to sleep in one of the empty rooms.

"No, instead you were going to do me harm, weren't you? Me, who has ten times the reason to live than you do. You're... you're... an ant, a bug," he said and stepped on the man's swollen abdomen. The mushy feeling disgusted him. He gazed around the pathetic-looking apartment. The furniture looked as if it had all been rejected by a thrift shop. Not even a charity would accept it. The rug was worn so thin, he could see floorboard beneath it in spots, and the sofa dripped stuffing and showed broken springs beneath. The room actually stunk with staleness.

"This putrid life you led, it disgusts me," he muttered. He seized the man's right ankle and pulled the body along the carpet, his head bobbing and turning as though he was saying, "NO! Stop!"

He deposited the corpse in a corner so no one could look through the door and see it lying there. He even sat him up, leaning him against the wall so there would be less of his legs in sight. His head fell forward and he stared down at the owner's coal-black hair, bald spots now quite visible.

"So much for your stupid dye job," he muttered.

Then, he stepped back and tried to remember what he was going to do before all this had exploded in his face.

Oh yes, jog, he thought and started out. When he looked at the paper on the counter again, he stopped. His gaze went from the drawing to the door and then back to the drawing. He couldn't go out there now. Not with that picture plastered everywhere. Someone was sure to spot him.

He backed away as if someone was coming to the door. It was as quiet and deserted looking as it had been, but this situation was no good. Get in the car and drive away, he thought. Go where people won't see the picture and read the description.

"Maybe we should reconsider when you take your vacation, Terri," Hyman Templeman said. She and her mentor met first thing every morning to go over what they knew to be the day's expected events. "As soon as Curt can travel, take him and disappear for a while."

"You know that will be a while anyway, Hyman. Curt needs to be kept calm."

"Go sneak him away to my cabin in Willowemac then," he suggested. "He likes to fish, doesn't he? You'd be out of it and yet not so far you couldn't get back here in a short time if you needed to for any reason. You could go up there tomorrow."

She started to shake her head.

"You're not going to be much good to your patients like this, Terri. You think you can put it all out of your mind and for a while in your examination room here, you might, but every quiet moment, every pause in the action, you will be thinking about Curt, the attack on him, your fears, this madness.

"Are you going to be happy with a policeman parked in front of your home, in front of this office, following you everywhere you go? I know your mother," he added with a smile. "I'm surprised she's not camped out on our front lawn this morning."

"Give her a chance," Terri said and they both laughed. "I don't know, Hyman. Let me see how it goes, okay? And thanks."

He lifted his hands, palms up, and shrugged.

"Every time you think you've lived long enough to have seen everything, there's something new waiting around the corner."

"See," she said, "you have good reason to live forever." He laughed again and then they broke to begin to see the first patients of the day. Her lunch hour was cut short because Mrs. Mogolowitz kept coming up with new pains and aches extending her visit a good fifteen minutes. Hyman had wanted her to join him and Estelle at Willy's Luncheonette, the small village's one and only place for lunch, but she had decided to use her time to take a quick ride up to the hospital and visit with Curt. She still had a good two hours before she had to see her next patient. She wasn't all that hungry anyway, and she knew Hyman would just have Estelle join him in a ganging up on her to persuade her to take him up on his invitation.

Because her last morning examination had cut into her time, she wanted to drive faster. Having a police car on her tail was intimidating, however, and she stayed just a hair or so over the speed limit. When she arrived at the hospital, Curt's parents had just left. She considered that good fortune.

Her fiance looked tired and very upset when she entered his room.

"Dad showed me the newspaper," he said as soon as she kissed him and stepped back. "I don't like Will Dennis releasing your name and the event at your office like that. I think it puts you in even more danger. Dad agrees and your mother called me this morning. She's going to come after you with handcuffs," he added.

"If you lie here worrying about everything, you won't recuperate as quickly, Curt. You won't sleep well and you will be laid up longer," she threatened.

"Don't change the subject. What are you going to do tonight?"

"I have police protection, Curt, round-the-clock."

"It's not enough," he insisted.

She sighed deeply.

"What do you want me to do?"

"Stay with either my parents or your own," he replied. "Until I'm out of here."

"Okay," she said quickly. He raised his eyebrows suspiciously.

"I'll call," he threatened.

"I'll stay with my parents. I promise, swear," she said raising her right hand.

"You'll be able to tell. You'll see the aggravation in my forehead the next day." He finally smiled.

"I want to go home. They're not doing much for me here anyway," he complained, now appealing to her as a doctor.

"It will take a while for the bruising and swelling to go down."

"So? It. can go down outside as well as inside the hospital."

"We'll see," she said, noncommittal.

"Who is this guy? How is he doing these things, Terri?"

"I don't know. According to Will the FBI is here in what he calls significant numbers." She paused, wondering if she should add anything more substantial. Despite his condition, he sensed it.

"What?" he asked.

"They think he's definitely still in the area, something about a major change in his M.O., whatever that is. They don't tell me everything, of course. Maybe they know a lot more."

"I wish we were on our honeymoon," Curt said, closing his eyes and shaking his head.

"Maybe we will be," she told him, thinking of Hyman's offer. "Or, at least a test run."

He looked up sharply.

"Really?"

"Hyman offered us his cabin for a few days, maybe a week."

"You'd do that?"

"Let me think about it a little more," she said. "I'll be back tonight." She kissed him again and then went to speak with the nurse on duty to review his chart. Satisfied he was doing as well as he should, she left the hospital. He could be released tomorrow, she thought.

Her patrolman escort was parked right beside her car. He's not very subtle about it all, she thought, but then again, such protection wasn't meant to be subtle. She just waved at him and then got into her own vehicle.

When she turned the key, nothing happened. Surprised, she did it again and still, the engine didn't start. It was as if there was no engine, not a sound, nothing.

"What the..."

She did it again and again and then slapped the dashboard as if the car was a disobedient child. Checking her watch, she realized she didn't have time to wait for AAA. Now, she was happy she had a police escort.

She got out of her car and opened the passengers' door of his vehicle.

"My car won't start. You have to get me back to the office," she said. "I have patients lined up to the street."

She slipped in and he put his transmission into reverse and backed out without saying a word. She thought he took off rather quickly, too.

"It's all right. We have a little time," she said.

"Oh, I know," he replied. He turned and looked at her. "We have lots of time now."

Her heart seemed to fold up inside her chest the moment she saw the cleft chin.

He practically tore the man's bathroom apart, throwing things behind him -- pill bottles, cough syrup, deodorants -- until he found what he thought he could use. He hated being a scavenger, but he hated being on the run even more. He would need everything and anything to keep himself strong, protected. Searching the closets he found some sweaters he could wear. On the floor of one closet, he discovered a coffee can stuffed with twenties and fifties, too. Every time he passed through the living room, he paused to thank the corpse.

"Very thoughtful of you to keep cash on hand," he told it. Pictures of what must have been the owner's family were in an album on a shelf of a side table in the living room. Curious, he flipped through it.

"Your parents weren't much better looking," he told the corpse. "Looks like you were an only child, huh? Lucky for the world. It limited the ugly." He laughed at his own cleverness and then, for a moment or two, he considered how much in common he had with this dead man. They were both loners. He actually felt sorry for him, for the motel owner had none of the power he had. He was trapped in this life. What sort of a legacy was this for his parents to have left him?

"Inconsiderate bastards!"

He hated them and began tearing their pictures out of the album and scattering the pieces over the living room floor. The rage took him over for a while and then, suddenly, the sound of a bell froze him. He listened and the bell sounded once more.

"What is that?" he asked the corpse.

Then he rose and peered through the door at the motel office lobby. He saw a tall, dark-haired woman with a far shorter, elderly lady standing there. The woman had short hair and a comely face, with just a light shade of lipstick to give it any brightness. She wore what he thought was a much too heavy dark brown coat. The old lady looked a bit distressed.

He gazed at the corpse as if he expected it would be resurrected at the sound of that bell and go and do its duty. Then, he moved out to the motel lobby slowly.

"Oh, hi," the woman said. She smiled. Her teeth were the best part of her face, he thought, very white, very straight.

"Hi."

"We need a room. We started out a little too early this morning and I'm afraid we got a bit lost. My mother is tired. We need to just have a good day's rest before continuing."

"Where are you going?" he asked. He was really curious about it.

"Oh, we're heading for Raleigh, North Carolina. My mother's older sister is very sick and I promised to take her to see her. I had some vacation due me and took it," she added.

The speed and ease with which she revealed personal information impressed him. First, it was nice to have personal information, and second, it was nice to see someone so trusting, so expecting of compassion and sympathy.

"Sure," he said moving with more enthusiasm now. He looked at the old lady.

"You need to rest, Mom," he said as if he had known her all his life. She didn't smile. She was one of those elderly people who resented people who became too personal too quickly. He could see that, but he ignored it. He turned the sign-in book around and the young woman opened her purse.

"How much is a room?" she asked.

"Thirty-eight fifty," he replied.

She nodded and opened a wallet to take out four tens, which she counted carefully.

"Mom hates credit cards," she whispered. "She thinks it makes people spend way above their means. Is cash all right?"

"Oh, absolutely," he said. "Just sign in and I'll give you the keys to..." He looked at the board of keys and saw the room next to his. "Unit 12. Next to the very end. It will be quiet there for you."

"Oh thank you," she said. "We need to get some rest before we go for some dinner. Are there good places nearby?"

"Oh, absolutely," he said. "When you're ready, just let me know and I'll point you in the right direction."

"Thank you very much."

He turned the book around and saw she had written Erna Walker. Her address was in Rochester, New York.

"What time did you two start out, Erna?" he asked.

"A little before four in the morning. I guess we were a bit too enthusiastic, but this is the longest trip I've taken in a car, and certainly the longest for my mother," she said.

"Well I'm sure you two will get some rest. Do you need help with your luggage?" he asked.

"Oh no. Thank you," she said taking the key.

The old lady had been looking around and he could see she wasn't pleased with the lobby. The walls were too dull and the baseboard was dirty. The floor needed a good vacuuming and washing and the windows needed washing, too. She smirked at him, showing her disapproval.

Old people can be so critical, he thought. They expect everyone to be just like they are.

He watched them return to their car and then drive down to the room. Erna took two small suitcases out of the trunk of her car and then opened the door of the unit. She entered and her mother followed very tentatively. He expected them to come charging out, the old lady complaining about cobwebs or something, but they didn't.

"That's good," he muttered. And then, suddenly, he had an epiphany, an incredibly explosive and wonderful revelation.

That woman was choice. She had a virginal aura about her. Everything in her was fresh and high quality. He could mine her, draw everything he needed, and she had come to him!

In fact, he thought, gazing around, this is what I was thinking of, the fish bowl, my feeding ground. They'll come here. I'll have something in every room. I'll never be without.

He rubbed his hands together. He no longer wanted to jog. The struggle with the motel owner had taken too much of his energy. That troubled him for a few moments. He wasn't usually this tired this fast after something physical. But he rejected all negative and troubling thoughts in light of the good luck he had somehow stumbled upon here. I'll grow very strong and then, when I'm ready, I'll go on.

And on.

And on, forever....

He returned to the living room to thank the corpse.

In a real sense, he should thank all the corpses that trailed behind him. It amused him.

I'll send thank-you cards to cemeteries, he thought, and laughing, felt more like his old self.

Whoever and whatever that was.