Learning to Kill: Stories

The Molested

When I was twelve, and the family moved to the Bronx, my commute to school was a short one because we lived on 217th Street between Barnes and Bronxwood avenues, right across the street from Olinville Junior High School. Later, I would walk the ten blocks every weekday morning to Evander Childs High School on Gun Hill Road. But when I won a scholarship to the Art Students League and was later accepted as an art student at Cooper Union, subways and elevated trains from the Bronx to Manhattan became a routine part of my life. It was inevitable, I suppose, that a native New Yorker would one day write a story set in a subway car. This one was published in Manhunt in September of 1953. It carried the Hunt Collins byline.

She was shoved into the subway car at Grand Central. It was July, and the passengers reeked of sweat and after-office beers. She wore a loose silk dress, buttoned high on the throat, and she wished for a moment that she had worn something lower cut. The overhead fans in the cars were going but the air hung over the packed passengers like a damp clinging blanket.

She was packed in tightly, with a stout woman standing next to her on her right, a tall thin man on her left, and a pair of broad shoulders in front of her. The fat woman was wearing cheap perfume, and the aroma assailed her nostrils, caused her senses to revolt. The thin man on her left held a thinly folded copy of the New York Times. He sported a black mustache under his curving nose. The nose was buried in the newspaper, and she glanced at the paper and then took her eyes away from the headlines.

There was a slight movement behind her. She leaned forward. The broad shoulders in front of her shoved back indignantly. Whoever was behind her moved again, and she felt a knee pressing into the backs of her own knees.

She moved again, away from the pressure of the knee, and then she tried to look over her shoulder, turning slightly to her left. Her elbow brushed the Times, and the thin man lifted the paper gingerly, shook it as if it were crawling with ants, and then went back to his reading.

The knee was suddenly removed.

She thought, No, I didn’t mean you should...

She was suddenly aware of something warm touching the back of her leg. She almost leaped forward because the touch had surprised her with its abruptness. Her silk dress was thin, and she wore no girdle. She felt the warmth spread until it formed the firm outline of fingers touching her flesh.

A tremor of excitement traveled the length of her body, spreading from the warmth on her leg. She moved again, and the stout woman on her right shot her an angry glance, but the hand was taken from her leg.

The excitement in her ebbed.

She stood stock-still, wondering when it would start again. She almost didn’t breathe.

It seemed as if there would be no more. She moved her leg impatiently, but the excitement that had flared within her was dead, and now she felt only the oppressive heat of the train. The car jogged along, and she cursed her foolishness in trying the subway to begin with. She thought of the thousands of girls who rode home every night and then the heat overwhelmed her again, and she was sorry for herself once more.

The train rounded a curve, and she lost her balance. She lurched backward, felt the smooth, gentle hands close on her, then release her instantly as she righted herself.

The train pulled into 86th Street, and the door slid open. She was pushed onto the platform, and shoved past the man and woman who had been standing behind her in the train. The man was short and squat, and he wore a battered panama. His hands were thin, with long fingers that clung innocently to the lapels of his suit. She looked at the tall girl, and the girl’s eyes met hers sympathetically. She smiled quickly, darting her eyes away, and the girl smiled. The embarking passengers rushed by her, and suddenly everyone on the platform was scrambling to get into the car again. She stepped in quickly, moving deliberately in front of the tall girl, and away from the man. He pushed into the car behind her, and she felt the girl shoved rudely against her, too. She heard the door close behind them, and she sucked in a deep breath as the heat descended again.

She knew what was going to happen, and she waited expectantly. The excitement was mounting in her again, and she found herself wishing desperately for the warmth. When it came she almost sighed aloud. The hands were gentle, as before, as she knew they had to be. They touched her, and then held tight. She shivered and the hands moved slowly, deliberately. For a moment there was sudden doubt in her mind, and then she put the doubt aside and thought only of the moving hands, the deliberate pressure of the hands.

They became more insistent, strangely so, strongly so. A perplexed frown creased her brow, and the doubt returned, and she was almost tempted to turn and look. But that was absurd... that was...

The hands continued, moving feverishly, and suddenly she realized there was wild strength in the fingers. She looked down in panic. This wasn’t... couldn’t be...

The hand she saw was covered with hair.

Long slender fingers, but dark masculine hair.

“I thought...” she murmured, and then she began screaming.

When the train pulled into 125th Street, she was still Screaming. The tall girl who’d also been standing behind her left the car with the other passengers, all shaking their heads.

The policeman held the short, squat man firmly.

“He was molesting me!” she told the policeman. “A man. A man!” And then, because he was looking at her so strangely, she added, “This man, Officer.”

I promise.

Carrera’s Woman

This story carried the Richard Marsten byline when it was first published in Manhunt in February of 1953. As a twist on a Woman in Jeopardy yarn, it combines an exotic locale with a sort of action-adventure hero and a true bandito-style villain. It is an absolute coincidence that the bad guy in this story is called Carrera whereas the good guy in the 87th Precinct series, three years later, would be called Carella.

The Mexican sky hung over our heads like a pale blue circus tent. We crouched behind the rocks, and we each held .45s in our fists. We were high in the Sierra Madres, and the rocks were jagged and sharp, high outcroppings untouched by erosive waters. Between us was a stretch of pebble-strewn flatland and a solid wall of hatred that seemed alive in the heat of the sun. We were just about even, but not quite.

The guy behind the other .45 had ten thousand dollars that belonged to me.

I had something that belonged to him.

His woman.

She lay beside me now, flat on her belly, her hands and her feet bound. She was slim and browned from the sun. Her legs were long and sleek where her skirt ended. Her head was twisted away from me, her hair as black as her boyfriend’s heart.

“Carrera!” I shouted.

“I hear you, señor,” he answered.

His voice was as big as he was. I thought of his paunch, and I thought of the ten G’s in the money belt pressed tight against his sweaty flesh. I’d worked hard for that money. I’d sweated in the Tampico oil fields for more than three years, socking it away a little at a time, letting it pile up for the day I could kiss Mexico good-bye.

“Look, Carrera,” I said, “I’m giving you one last chance.”

“Save your breath, señor,” he called back.

“You’d better save yours, you bastard,” I shouted. “You’d better save it because pretty soon you’re not going to have any.”

“Perhaps,” he answered.

I couldn’t see him because his head was pulled down below the rocks. But I knew he was grinning.

“I want that ten thousand,” I shouted.

He laughed aloud this time.

“Ah, but that is where the difficulty lies,” he said. “I want it, too.”

“Look, Carrera, I’m through playing around,” I told him. “If you’re not out of there in five minutes, I’m going to put a hole in your sweetie’s head.” I paused, wondering if he’d heard me. “You got that, Carrera? Five minutes.”

He waited again before answering.

“You had better shoot her now, señor. You are not getting this money.”

The girl began laughing.

“What’s so damn funny?” I asked her.

“You will never outwait Carrera,” she said. Her voice was as low and as deep as her laugh. “Carrera is a very patient man.”

“I can be patient, too, sister,” I said. “I patiently saved that ten thousand bucks for three years, and no tinhorn crook is going to step in and swipe it.”

“You underestimate Carrera,” she said.

“No, baby, I’ve got Carrera pegged to a tee. He’s a small-time punk. Back in the States, he’d be shaking pennies out of gum machines. He probably steals tortillas from blind old ladies down here.”

“You underestimate him,” she repeated.

I shook my head. “This is Carrera’s big killing — or so he thinks. That ten thousand is his key to the big time. Only it belongs to me, and it’s coming back to me.”

“If you were smart,” she said, “you would leave. You would pack up and go, my friend. And you wouldn’t stop to look back.”

“I’m not smart.”

“I know. So you’ll stay here, and Carrera will kill you. Or I will kill you. Either way, you will be dead, and your money will be gone, anyway.” She paused. A faint smile tugged at the corners of her mouth. “It is better that you lose only your money.”

I glanced at my watch.

“Carrera has about two minutes, honey.”

“And after that?”

“It’s up to him,” I said. As if to check, I shouted, “You like your girlfriends dead, Carrera?”

“Ten thousand dollars will buy a lot of girlfriends,” he called back.

I looked down at her.

“Did you hear your boyfriend?” I asked.

“I heard.”

“He doesn’t seem to give a damn whether I shoot you or not.”

She shrugged. “It is not that,” she said. “He simply knows that you will not kill me.”

“Don’t be too surprised, baby.”

The smile flitted across her face again, was gone almost before it started. “You will not kill me,” she said.

I didn’t answer her. I kept looking at my watch until the time was up. Nothing came from Carrera. Not another word.

“Now what?” she asked.

“What’s your name?”

She didn’t answer.

I shrugged. “Suit yourself,” I said.

“My name is Linda,” she said.

“Make yourself comfortable, Linda,” I told her. “We’re going to be here for quite some time.”

I meant that. I still hadn’t figured out how I was going to get my money from Carrera, but I knew damn well I was staying here until I did get it. Crossing the open dirt patch would have been suicide. But at the same time, Carrera couldn’t cross it, either. Not unless he wanted a slug through his fat face. I thought of that, and I began to wish he would try to get across the clearing. Nothing would have pleased me more than to have his nose resting on the sight at the end of my gun muzzle.

Ten thousand bucks! Ten thousand, hard-earned American dollars. How had Carrera found out about it? Had I talked too much? Hell, it was general knowledge that I was putting away a nest egg to take back to the States. Carrera had probably been watching me for a long time, planning his larceny from a distance, waiting until I was ready to shove off for home.

“It’s getting dark,” Linda said.

I lifted my eyes to the sky.

The sun was dipping low over the horizon, splashing the sky with brilliant reds and oranges. The peaks of the mountains glowed brilliantly as the dying rays lingered in crevices and hollows. A crescent moon hung palely against the deepening wash of night, sharing the sky with the sinking sun.

And suddenly it was black.

There was no transition, no dusk, no violets or purples. The sun was simply swallowed up, and stars appeared against the blackness. A stiff breeze worked its way down from the caps of the mountains, spreading cold where there had once been intolerable heat.

“You’d better get some sleep,” I said.

“And you?”

“With that pig across the way? I’ll stay awake, thanks.”

She grinned. “Carrera will sleep. You can bet on that.”

“I wish I could bet on that. I’d go right over and make sure he never woke up.”

“Oh my,” she mocked, “such a tough one.”

I said nothing.

“I don’t even know your name,” she said.

“Jeff,” I told her. “Jeff MacCauley.”

She rolled over, trying to make herself comfortable. It wasn’t easy with her hands and feet bound. She settled for her left side, her arms behind her, her legs together.

“Well,” she said, “buenos noches, Jeff.”

I didn’t answer.

I was watching the rocks across the clearing. Carrera may have planned on sleeping the night, but I wasn’t counting on it.

She woke up about two A.M. She pushed herself to a sitting position and stared into the darkness.

“Jeff,” she whispered. Her accent made my name sound like “Jaif.” I pulled the .45 from my waistband and walked over to her.

“What is it?”

“My hands. They’re... I can’t feel anything. I think the blood has stopped.”

I knelt down beside her and reached for her hands. The strap didn’t seem too tight. “You’ll be all right,” I said.

“But... they feel numb. It’s like... like there is nothing below my wrists, Jeff.”

Her voice broke, and I wondered if she were telling the truth. I held the .45 in my right hand and tugged at the strap with my left. I loosened it, and she pulled her hands free and began massaging the wrists, breathing deeply.

“That’s much better,” she said.

I kept the .45 pointed at her. She looked at the open muzzle and sighed, as if she were being patient with a precocious little boy. She leaned back on her arms then, tilting her head to the sky, her black hair streaming down her back.

“It’s a beautiful night,” she said.

“Yeah.”

“Just look at the moon, Jeff.”

I glanced up at the moon, taking my eyes off her for a second.

That was all the time she needed.

She sprang with the speed of a mountain lion, pushing herself up with her bound feet, her fingernails raking down the length of my arm, clawing at my gun hand. I yanked the gun back and she dove at me again, the nails slashing across my face. She threw herself onto my chest, her hands seeking the wrist of my gun hand, tightening there, the nails digging deep into my flesh. I rolled over, slapping the muzzle of the .45 against her shoulder.

She fell backward and then pushed herself up from the ground, murder in her eyes. She hopped forward, and I backed away from her. She kept hopping, her feet close together, the material from her skirt keeping her in check. And then she toppled forward, and she would have kissed the ground if I hadn’t caught her in my arms.

She kissed me instead.

Or I kissed her.

It was hard to tell which. She was falling, and I reached for her, and she was suddenly in my arms. There was a question in her eyes for a single instant, and then the question seemed to haze over. She closed her eyes and lifted her mouth to mine.

Sunlight spilled over the twisted ground, pushing at the shadows, chasing the night.

She was still in my arms when I woke up. I stared down at her, not wanting to move, afraid to wake her.

And then her eyes popped open suddenly, and a sleepy smile tilted the corners of her mouth.

“Good morning,” she said.

“Hello.”

She yawned, stretching her arms over her head. She took a deep breath and then smiled, and I looked deep into her eyes, trying to read whatever was hidden in their brown depths.

“Your boyfriend,” I said. “Carrera.”

“He’s not my boyfriend.”

Her face was serious, so serious that it startled me.

“No?”

“No.”

“He’s still got my ten thousand,” I said.

“I know.”

“I want it back.”

“I know.”

“I want you to help me get it.”

She was silent for a long while.

When she spoke, her voice was a whisper.

“Why?”

“Why? Holy Jesus, that’s ten thousand bucks! You know how much work I did to get that money?”

“Why not forget it?”

“Forget it? No.”

“Carrera will kill you. I know him. Would you rather be dead without your money... or would you rather be alive without it? Alive and... with me?”

“If you help me, we can have both,” I said.

She considered this for a moment and then asked, “What do you want me to do?”

“You’ll help?”

“What do you want me to do?”

“I want to set a trap for him.”

“What kind of a trap?”

“Will you help?”

She moved closer to me and buried her head against my shoulder.

“I’ll do whatever you say,” she said.

We crouched behind the rocks, our heads close together. The sun bore down ferociously, baking the earth, spreading heat over the surface of the land. The sky was streaked with spidery white clouds that trailed across a wide wash of blue. It was the Mexico of the picture books, bright and clear, warm, alive, and it should have been pulsating with the throb of laughter and music, wine and song, fiesta.

Instead, a funeral was being planned.

Carrera’s.

There was a sheer wall behind him, rising like a giant tombstone for some hundred feet, terminating there in a jumble of twisted branches and fallen rock. A few feet in front of the wall was the outcropping behind which Carrera squatted with his .45 and my ten G’s.

My watch read 12:40.

Linda screamed.

“Shut up!” I shouted.

“José!” she bellowed, her head turned toward where Carrera lay crouched behind the rocks. There was no sound from across the clearing. I wondered if he was listening.

“Hey!” I yelled. And then, “Let go the gun!”

I pointed the .45 over my head and fired two quick shots. I screamed as loud as I could, and then I dropped my voice into a trailing moan, and at last fell silent.

It was quiet for a long time.

Linda and I crouched behind the rocks, waiting, looking at each other, the sweat pouring from our bodies. There was still no sound from the other side of the clearing.

And then, softly, cautiously, in a whisper that reached across the pebble-strewn clearing and climbed the rock barrier, Carrera called, “Linda?”

I put my finger to my lips.

“Linda?” he called again.

I nodded this time, and she answered, “It’s all right, José. It’s all right.”

Carrera was quiet again. I could picture him behind his rock barrier, his ears straining, his fat face flushed.

“The American?” he called.

“He is dead,” Linda answered.

“Tell him to come over,” I prompted.

She hesitated for a moment and then said, “Come here, José. Come.”

I waited, my chest heaving, the .45 heavy in my hand.

“Throw out the American’s gun,” Carrera said. His voice was cold and calculating. He wasn’t buying it. He suspected a trick, and he wanted to make sure I wasn’t forcing his woman to play along with me.

“Give me the gun,” Linda whispered.

“What for? What good would that...?”

“I’ll stand up. When he sees me with the gun, he will no longer suspect. Give it to me.”

“Throw out the gun, Linda,” Carrera called again.

“Quick,” she said, “give me the gun.”

I hesitated for a moment, and then I passed the gun to her, holding it by the barrel, fitting the stock into her fingers.

She took the gun gently, and then pointed it at my belly. A small smile tilted the corners of her mouth as she stood up. My eyes popped wide in astonishment.

“It’s all right now, José,” she called. “I’ve got his gun.”

“Bueno,” Carrera said, and I could hear the smile in his voice. I’d been suckered, taken like a schoolboy, hook, line, and sinker.

“So that’s the way it is,” I said.

“That’s the way it is, señor,” she answered. The gun didn’t waver. It kept pointing at my belt buckle.

“And it’s señor now,” I added. “Last night, it was Jeff.”

“Last night was last night,” she said. “Now is now.”

Across the clearing, I could hear Carrera’s feet scraping against the rocks as he clambered to a standing position. Linda heard the sound, too. Her eyes flicked briefly to the right and then snapped back.

“I’m surprised,” I said. I kept my voice low, a bare whisper that only she could hear. From the comer of my eye, I watched Carrera’s progress.

“You should learn to expect surprises, señor,” she answered.

“I thought last night meant a little more than...”

I stopped and shook my head.

She was interested. I could see the way her brows pulled together slightly, a small V appearing between them.

“Never mind,” I said. “We’ll just forget it.”

“What is there to forget?” she asked.

She wanted me to go on. She tried to keep her voice light but there was something behind her question, an uncertain probing. Carrera was halfway across the clearing now. I saw the .45 in his pudgy fist and I began to sweat more heavily. I had to hurry.

“There’s you to forget,” I said. “You and last night.”

“Oh, stop it,” she said. “Last night meant nothing. Not to you, not to me.”

“It meant everything to me,” I said, and took a step closer to her.

“That’s too bad,” she said. “I’m Carrera’s woman.”

He was no more than fifty feet away now. I could feel the sun on my shoulders and head, could hear the steady crunch of his feet against the pebbles.

“Is that who you want?” I asked.

“Yes,” she said.

“Look at him, Linda,” I said, my voice a husky whisper now. “Take a look at the fat slobbering pig you’re doing this for.”

“Don’t,” she said.

“Take a look at your boyfriend!” I said. “Is that who you really want?”

“He’s not my boyfriend,” she said.

He was almost upon us. I could see his features plainly, could see the sweat dripping off his forehead. I took another step toward Linda.

“He’s my husband,” she said.

She lowered the .45 for an instant, and that was when I sprang. I didn’t bother with preliminaries. I brought back my fist and hit her hard, just as the gun went off into the ground. She was screaming when my fist caught her, but she stopped instantly, dropping the gun, crumpling against the ground.

Carrera was running toward us now.

I picked up the gun and fired at once. He wasn’t hard to hit. Something that big never is. I fired two shots that sprouted on his shoulder like red blossoms across his white cotton shirt. He clutched at the blossoms as if he wanted to pick them for a bouquet, and then he changed his mind and dropped the gun, and fell forward onto his face.

I looked over my shoulder at Linda. She was still sprawled on the ground. I climbed over the rocks and walked to where Carrera was lying, breathing hard, bleeding. I rolled him over and unfastened the money belt. Carefully, slowly, I counted the money. It was all there, ten thousand bucks worth. I picked up his .45 and tucked it in my waistband. Overhead, the vultures were already beginning a slow spiral.

I walked back to the rocks, the .45 cocked in my right hand.

She was just sitting up when I got there: Her knees were raised, her skirt pulled back over them. She brushed a lock of hair away from her face, looked up at me.

Her voice caught in her throat.

“Carrera?” she asked.

“He’s hurt bad,” I said. “But he isn’t dead.”

She nodded, stared at the ground for a moment. She got to her feet then, dusted off her skirt, glanced up at the vultures.

“Do you have the money?” she asked.

“I have the money.”

“Did you mean what you said about last night?” she asked.

“Yes,” I said.

“Then let’s go,” she said, and nodded.

“Just what I plan to do,” I said. “Alone.”

A puzzled look crossed her face.

“You’re Carrera’s woman,” I said. “Remember? Go back to him.”

I turned away from her then, and started walking down the twisting path, the sky a brilliant blue above, except where the vultures hung against it, circling.

Dummy

In 1955, when I began writing the first of the 87th Precinct novels, I thought it would be a good idea to make Steve Carella’s girlfriend (and later wife) a deaf mute who would get into all sorts of trouble because she could neither hear nor speak. The ultimate Woman in Jeopardy, so to speak. Over the years, Teddy Carella has developed into a strong and independent woman and no one in his right mind would ever consider her vulnerable — but that was the notion back then. Perhaps I’d forgotten that in that very same year, 1955, a magazine called Real published a story titled “The Big Scream” by Evan Hunter. It follows under my original derogatory title, which I like much better.

The gulls were making a hell of a racket out over the bay, mostly because the boats were coming back and they all had fairly good hauls. Falco was standing knee-deep in the stink of mackerel when the blonde walked down the dock and stood looking out over the water. He didn’t notice her at first because he was busy with the fish, and then he looked up and she was standing there silhouetted against the reddish-gold sky, with her hair blowing back loose over her shoulders.

There was a strong wind that day. It molded the silk dress against her, outlining her body. He was holding a mackerel in his big, hair-covered hands, and his fingers tightened unconsciously on the cold fish, and his mouth fell open, and he kept looking at the girl.

She didn’t seem to notice him at all. She just kept staring out over the water, and Falco kept watching her, his palms beginning to sweat, a funny kind of warmth starting at the pit of his stomach and spreading up to his throat where it almost choked him. The wind kept pressing the dress to her body, and he studied every curve of her, thanking the wind because she might have been standing there without a stitch on. Her long blonde hair kept dancing around her shoulders, rising and falling, almost as if it had a life of its own. She had an oval face with high cheekbones burned dark from the sun, and he could see the startling blue of her eyes even from where he stood.

The gulls kept screaming out there, and Donato’s boat pulled up to the dock, and then DiAngelo, the kid he had working for him, threw the lines over and hopped ashore.

“Ho, Falco!” Donato yelled. “You in early today?”

“Nice catch today,” Falco yelled back, but he did not take his eyes from the girl. An upcurrent of wind caught the hem of her dress, flapped it back wildly over the long curve of her leg. She didn’t seem to notice the wind for a moment, and then she reached down and spread her dress flat again, as if she were spreading a tablecloth. Falco wet his lips, and tightened his hands. He had never seen anything like this girl before, had never felt this way before, either. He heard boots clomping on the wooden dock but he didn’t pay any attention to them until he heard Donato’s voice again.

“Ho, Falco! Wake up, hah, boy?”

He looked up as Donato jumped into his boat, and then he said, “You do all right today?”

“Every day should be like this one, Falco. Then I retire a rich man. When the fish run like—”

He stopped because he saw that Falco wasn’t listening to him, and then his eyes followed Falco’s to where the blonde stood on the dock. He appraised her silently, and then he said, “Nice, hah, Falco?”

Falco didn’t answer. His eyes were riveted to the blonde’s body, and there was a tight, grim set to his mouth.

“That’s Panza’s daughter,” Donato said.

“Whose?”

“Panza. You know Panza?”

“The fat one? Panza? With the crooked teeth and the mustache? You’re kidding me.”

“No, no, this is his daughter. Truly, a silk purse from a sow’s ear.”

Falco nodded and wet his lips. Panza’s daughter. He couldn’t believe it. Why, Panza was a slob. And this girl... no, it couldn’t be.

“But a sow’s ear is always a sow’s ear,” Donato said sadly.

“What do you mean?” Falco asked.

“A dummy,” Donato said.

“A what?”

“A dummy. She doesn’t speak, Falco. There is something wrong with her tongue. She doesn’t speak.”

“But she hears?”

“Ah, yes, she hears. But there is no voice there, Falco. Nothing. A dummy, truly.”

“That’s too bad,” Falco said slowly. “What’s she doing here?”

Donato shrugged. “To meet the old man, perhaps. I’ve seen her once or twice already.”

Falco wet his lips. “I’ve never seen her,” he said.

“And you like what you see, hah, boy?” Donato said, and chuckled heartily. “Why don’t you go talk to her, Falco? Go ahead. You’re young, boy, and your arms are strong. Go talk to her. Who knows?”

“No, I couldn’t,” Falco said.

“Faint heart...”

“No, no, it isn’t that,” Falco said.

“Then what?”

“I... I would tremble. I don’t think I’d be able to... control myself. She is very beautiful.”

The wind lifted her skirt again. This time she did not notice it at all because Panza’s red boat was pulling up to the dock. She ran to the edge of the dock, and her legs flashed in the deepening dusk, and Falco watched those legs, with his palms sweating again. Panza came out of the boat and embraced his daughter, slobbering a kiss onto her with his fat mouth and his dripping mustache. She hugged him tightly. Falco watched. Panza said something to her, and she nodded mutely in answer, her lips not moving. And then she and Panza walked away from the boat and down the dock, and past Falco’s boat full of mackerel. And Falco watched her as she walked by, and wet his lips again, and kept watching her until she was out of sight, and even then the picture of her was still in his mind.

She came to the dock two, sometimes three, times a week. He learned from the others that her mother was dead, and that she did modeling, a job where she did not need her voice, only her body. She was always dressed like a queen, always with clothes that showed the firmness of her body. She lived alone with Panza, they told him, though she could easily have afforded a high-class apartment uptown. She preferred to look after old Panza in the shack where he lived near the docks.

The voice, they said, was something psychological, and this Falco could not understand. They said it had happened to her when she was a little girl, something that paralyzed her throat muscles, something with a stumblebum who had come down to the docks shortly after her mother had died, and found the young girl alone. The doctors could do nothing for this voice of hers that was missing, it was all psychological, all part of this something that had happened to her long ago.

But he didn’t care about her voice.

He watched her whenever she came to the dock.

Always, he watched.

And then one day, he came in very early because he knew it was a day she would be on the dock and she was there as always, sitting on a crate near the loading platform, her legs crossed with the sun flashing on them, the skirt pulled back over her knees. Her head was thrown back with the blonde hair trailing over her shoulders. She sucked in a deep breath, and he watched and thought suddenly, Why, she knows I’m here. She knows I’m watching her.

He dried his hands on a rag and climbed up out of the boat and onto the rotted, wooden planking of the dock. He walked over to her, and she did not look at him. She kept looking out over the water as if he were not there at all.

He cleared his throat and made a small sound, but she showed no indication of having heard him, and he wondered about her ears, because sometimes dummies could not hear, but everyone said her ears were all right.

He cleared his throat again and then said, “Are you waiting for your father?”

She turned then and looked at him. Her eyes were very cold, her mouth was unsmiling. She did not answer, not by voice which she could not, and not by any movement of her head.

“Are you... are you waiting for your father?” he asked again.

This time her eyes met his squarely, and her mouth curled into obvious distaste. He had seen that look before. He had seen it on the women in the marketplace the times he had gone down to the fish stand his brother operated. It was a look that said, “You are a fish peddler,” and this girl, this Panza’s daughter, did not need any voice when she could cast looks like that one.

He began to feel warm again, but a different kind of warmth this time. He felt blood rise to his face, and when the girl turned her back to him and lifted one knee, cupping that knee with her clasping hands, he stood there like an idiot for a moment longer, and then he turned and walked slowly back to his boat, thinking, I’ve been a fool She’s a model I’ve been a fool.

But he could not take his eyes from her.

And later that afternoon, before the other boats returned, she lifted her skirt as she sat where he could not miss seeing her and she straightened the seams of her stockings, running her long tapering fingers up over her legs, and then fastening the garters. He watched her and the old flame roared higher inside him, and then he saw her smile a superior smile and drop the skirt suddenly and walk to the edge of the dock where the descending sun splashed through the thin dress she wore and showed him the full silhouette of her body.

When Panza’s boat came in, she embraced her father as always, and then they walked past Falco’s boat, and he may have imagined it, but he thought she swung her hips with more abandon when she passed above him, and he listened to the click of her high heels on the dock, and his hands longed for the touch of her flesh.

He tried to speak to her only once again. She was wearing slacks this time, and a tight, full sweater. She walked deliberately to his boat where he was mending his nets, an excuse he’d given himself for coming in early. She stood above him, her hands on her hips, looking down at him. And finally he looked up and said, “Good afternoon.”

She continued looking at him, her hands on her hips.

“What do you want of me?” he asked then, and she did not answer.

“Do you want to torment me? Is that what you want?”

She smiled that superior smile again, the smile one gives to an idiot child.

“Don’t play with me!” he shouted. “Do you hear me? Don’t play with Falco!”

She threw her head back and opened her mouth, and he knew she was laughing, but no sound came from her lips and he understood then the full extent of her voicelessness, and his eyes narrowed a little.

He went back to mending his nets, and she walked away from him, her head still thrown back in that silent mocking attitude of laughter, her blonde hair glinting in the sun.

He went out alone in his boat the next day.

He went out alone, and he talked aloud to the water, because the water would listen and not repeat. Sitting in the stern shortly after dusk, water lapping at the wooden sides of the boat, the sun edging the waterline far off on the horizon, he told the water of his plan.

“I must have this one,” he said. “Can you understand the way I feel?”

The sea said nothing. The sea had listened to men before, and the story Falco told was an old one. The sea only lapped gently at the sides of the boat.

“She’s a witch, I know that,” he said. “She’s truly a witch. But she’s here,” he said, and hit his heart with his clenched fist, “and she’s also in my mind, and I won’t rest until I have her. I see her at night, when I sleep. She’s always there with those long legs others, and I see her straightening her stockings until I want to scream aloud. And sometimes I do scream aloud, and I wake myself, and she’s there even when I’m awake, in the darkness, with her body there before me all the time. She knows what she’s doing. She’s a witch, and so she knows. But she’s also a dummy.”

He stared into the black depths of the water, calm and serene, the sun dappling it with oranges and reds and yellows.

“She’s a dummy,” he said. “There’s no voice there, none whatever. Not even to laugh. And if there’s no voice to laugh with, can there be a voice to scream with? No. No, she has a body, and she flaunts the body for the taking, but if the body were taken, could she protest the taking?”

He kept staring into the water, the oranges and yellows and reds vanishing now, leaving only a deep blackness that reflected his own face darkly.

“She stays in the shack when she doesn’t model,” he said, whispering now even though he was alone. “She stays there and she tidies things for that fat slob of a father, Panza, upon whom she showers kisses every night, against whom she presses her young body. For me, she wiggles and she teases, and she says ‘Come, come, Falco’ with her eyes and legs, but her mouth mocks because Falco is only a fisherman.

“She says, ‘Come, come, Falco, come try to take me, Falco,’ but she doesn’t think she will be taken. She doesn’t know she will be taken by me, Falco, nor will she scream for help, by God, because there is no voice in that lovely throat of hers, no voice at all.”

And so he talked while waves rolled beneath the wooden bottom of the boat, and the stars appeared in the sky overhead, hard and unblinking.

He waited until all the fishermen were gone the next day. He had told them he had a bad cold and should not be out on the water. Donato laughed at him, calling him a fake fisherman, a fisherman who would not go out because of a cold. But he waited until they were all gone, waited until Panza’s sleek red boat had joined the rest of the fleet, and then he stood on the dock until he could no longer make out the crafts heading for sea.

He went back to his boat, and he propped up a mirror in the cabin, and he combed his hair and brushed his teeth, and then he washed his hands. He left the boat and walked down the dock, past the loading platform, over the railroad tracks where the refrigerated cars were loading fish, and then out past the big hatchery, and over toward the shacks dotting the harbor’s edge. He knew which shack was Panza’s, and he knew the girl was home today when he saw the smoke coming from the metal stovepipe in its roof. He felt no fear. His palms were dry. He felt extremely calm because he knew just what he was going to do, and he knew there was no way he could be stopped.

He walked up the cinder path leading to the shack and then he knocked on the door, and did not wait for an answer. He shoved the door open and stepped into the small room.

It was almost as if she’d been waiting for him.

She was standing by the woodstove when he came in. Her eyes opened slightly wider in recognition. A smile came onto her face.

“Hello,” he said.

His heart was beginning to pound now, not through fear, but because he was near her, and whenever he was near her there was a fever in his blood.

She said nothing. She looked at him with that strange smile on her face, a haughty smile, a smile that told him she knew he would eventually come here to her. She moved away from the woodstove, walked to a dresser on one wall of the shack, opened a purse there and removed a package of cigarettes from it. She shook one cigarette loose and hung it on her mouth, and then she moved closer to Falco and handed him the book of matches.

He struck a match, watching her eyes all the time, watching the smile on her mouth. She blew out a cloud of smoke and then went to stand near the dresser and the open purse, putting the cigarettes down behind her. She crossed her arms and Falco’s breath caught in his throat.

“Why are you doing this to me?” he asked.

She kept looking at him steadily.

“I’m going to have you!” he shouted. “Do you understand me? Can you hear that, or are you deaf also? I’ve taken too much from you, too much, and now it’s your turn, do you hear me? Do you hear me?”

He reached for her, and she did not scream, nor did she protest. She didn’t even seem frightened. Her eyes remained calm and the smile stayed on her full mouth. He took her in his arms, and she leaned back on the dresser with one arm to support herself.

He buried his mouth in her throat, and smelled the deep perfume of her, and he murmured helplessly, “I could love you, you dummy, I could really love you.”

He took his mouth from her throat then, and he saw her hand close on the small pistol in her purse. He tried to move away but her hand came up fast, and he felt the muzzle of the gun between the second and third ribs on his left side, and then he heard the explosion. The bullet tore him free from her, and his eyes opened wide in shock, because he had not thought a dummy would have a gun, had not thought a pretty dummy like this one — who could not scream if attacked — would protect herself in some other way.

He staggered back, his hands covering the blood that spurted from his chest. He looked at her face, and the coldness was still there in her eyes, a coldness he could not understand. He moved his lips, but no sound came from his mouth, and he felt his legs weakening under him, and he kept staring at her face, and the coldness there, and he realized suddenly that the coldness was not there for him but for the other man a long time ago, the man who had stolen her voice.

His eyes glazed over, and he dropped to the floor, and then he made a crawling, painful reach for her, his big bloodstained hand outstretched. The girl backed away, and the muscles of her throat quivered, and her lips trembled, and then a surprised, awed look came into her eyes.

His hand dropped. He saw her only dimly now, but he heard the scream burst from her mouth, a high, penetrating scream, shrilling into the shack. And then the scream changed to something exultant, something wild in its ecstasy, and it rose higher and higher, louder and louder, assailing his ears until he died.