Manhunt. Volume 4, Number 6, June, 1956

Lipstick by Wenzell Brown

They didn’t know what a good time was — a real thrill. Only Carlo knew...

Carlo tugged at the cracked celluloid visor of his black canvas cap. He took another sip of the lukewarm coffee on the restaurant table before him, but his eyes never left the sagging door beneath the narrow fan-light across the street. The kid, Freddie, would have to come out soon or he’d be late for school.

Carlo’s eyes moved to the window three stories up. Something stirred there — brown cloth, the movement of a hand. Involuntarily Carlo shrank back and put his arm up as though to shield his face. He gave a start at a sudden blast of sound. Someone had shoved a nickel in the juke-box and the dingy place was flooded with shrill, raucous Latin-American music.

Carlo swung about to glare at the boy and girl who leaned against the green plastic and chrome side of the juke-box. The girl wore saddle shoes, bobby-sox, a bright red skirt with an uneven hem line, a tight fitting white sweater. The boy was only a year or two younger than Carlo, but tall and blond, whereas Carlo was short and dark. Carlo watched them laughing, touching hands, and hate coursed through his body. They thought they were smooth, easy going — the kind of kids who were popular, who always had a good time and left guys like Carlo out in the cold. Carlo snickered a little to himself. They didn’t know what a good time was — a real thrill. He wondered what they’d say if they knew about him — Carlo.

The bitterness that had sprung up within him was tinged with a sense of victory. He looked around and saw that fat man behind the counter watching him. He’d better leave and come back another time. Mooching around in a greasy spoon like this wasn’t so good, but it attracted less attention than hanging around on the street.

Carlo ordered another cup of coffee. It was his third and the fat jerk behind the counter was giving him the eye. Carlo wanted to make some crack, but he knew that wasn’t the smart thing to do. He didn’t dare let some wise guy get under his skin. Not now, when he was so close to the end.

The counter man slid the coffee onto the table, letting the dirty brown fluid slop over into the saucer. Carlo started to dig a dime out of his pocket and that was when he saw Freddie. The kid came running down the steps and onto the sidewalk. He darted across the street, yelling to some friend Carlo couldn’t see.

The counter man was saying, “Come on, I ain’t got all day. Cough up the dime.”

Carlo thrust the dime across the table. He didn’t dare look up. His hands were trembling and he could feel a nerve twitch in his cheek. He wanted to get up and run, the way Freddie was doing. Run far away. Into the past. Into nothingness.

Carlo forced himself to be quiet. Freddie was gone and Mrs. Cortele was up in the apartment all alone. He had time. Loads of time. An afternoon that stretched into eternity.

Carlo sank back in his chair. Suddenly he felt quiet, at ease, with just the slightest tremor of pleasurable excitement to warm him. This time everything was going to be smooth. He couldn’t fail. This was what he’d been looking for all day.

In the streaked mirror on the wall, Carlo could see his own reflection. He studied the narrow, small-boned face. The skin was swarthy, the hair jet black, the eyes brown, almond-shaped, giving a slightly Oriental cast to his features. He looked at his hands. The tapering fingers looked fragile, but he knew their strength. It was the same with his body. He only weighed a hundred and thirty pounds; his shoulders were narrow, his chest flat, but there was a wiry tauntness to him that no one suspected until they felt his strength.

He spooned more sugar into his coffee and stirred it slowly. This was a good time, a time when he could savor what was to come. He’d muffed it twice before, making stupid mistakes, but this time everything was set, planned for, taken care of.

He smiled to himself, thinking how it had all begun. He’d found the badge in a trash can. It had been rusted a little, but he’d polished it up. It was like a cop’s badge, but the big raised letters read Standard Gas Company, then below the single word, inspector, and beneath that, serial number 4411. Maybe the badge was a fake or maybe the real thing. Carlo didn’t know and didn’t care. It had given him the idea.

Carlo felt that he had been alone for a long time, while life swirled all about him. People lived, laughed, wept, made love in the apartments that crowded together in the streets, in turbulent slums, in the huge apartment houses along the Drive. But Carlo had been cut off — with just his mother’s thin, nagging voice, her constant complaints and demands. The badge had changed all that. He had bought half a dozen yellow pencils and stuck them in the outside breast pocket of his jacket, a black leather notebook in which he’d jotted numbers and the black canvas hat with its celluloid visor. He kept the badge attached to the inside of his coat where he could flash it quick and then cover it up.

The badge was a magic wand, letting him in wherever he wished. At first he hadn’t known what he was seeking. He was content to go into strange places, feel the comfort, the warmth, the intimacies of homes such as he had never known. Then he realized that it wasn’t enough to be a mere observer; he had to be God, changing the lives of these people, punishing those who would never accept him.

Feverish desires pricked at him. He knew there was something he had to do, but for a long time he didn’t know what it was. Then he’d been in an apartment on the Drive. The woman had let him in grudgingly, saying she was just about to leave. He’d gone to the kitchen and pretended to read the meter and jot the figures down. But all the time he’d been listening. He had heard the woman’s high heels in the corridor. Then she had gone into a room and he had heard nothing more. He had moved quietly along the hall to the open door. The woman had been sitting before a mirror, leaning close to it. Her lips had been flattened back against her teeth, drawn thin so that she could daub them with the crimson lipstick she held in her hand.

Carlo had stood silent, watching her, and she had been too absorbed in her task to notice him. She had been a small woman, plump, dark with olive skin and black hair. She hadn’t been young and she looked petty and mean. And yet there had been something about her that had made Carlo want to touch her.

He had taken a step toward her and then another. Then he had seen her eyes in the mirror. She had known he was there and was frightened. Carlo had stopped, but one of his hands had stretched out toward her. The woman’s red, smeared mouth had opened in a scream. Carlo had turned and fled. He had lept down the stairs and run along the park, just the way he had seen Freddie running a few minutes before.

The thought of Freddie forced his mind back to the present. The greasy spoon was filling up. Half a dozen people had come in and two men stood talking in the doorway. Carlo knew he mustn’t stay here too long, but there was a luxury to waiting, taking his time. When the thing happened, it would be quick. The joy came now when he knew nothing could stop him.

Just the same he’d better shove before the fat counter man got any more suspicious. Carlo rose and went to the sidewalk, but he still waited, looking up at the third story window, thinking over his plans to see if there was any weak spot.

This was a slum neighborhood, rickety tenements, cold-water flats, rubble — strewn lots where condemned buildings had been ripped down and never rebuilt. It had been two weeks since Carlo had first come here, watching, waiting, sauntering along the streets and through the crowded markets.

It was in the open air fruit market that he had first seen Maria Cortele. He had known in an instant that she was the person for whom he was seeking. He had followed her home, watching the movement of her rounded hips beneath the cheap fabric of her short black dress. When she had turned to enter the tenement, he had caught another grimpse of her profile. The face was thin, the nose sharp, the jaw pointed. She wasn’t beautiful or young, but she was the woman. Carlo had had no doubt about it.

He had tip-toed up the stairs behind her and peeked through the rail, watching her while she took the key from her sleazy black bag and opened the door.

The first week he had been content to watch her the way he had watched other women. He had waited in the streets, sauntering back and forth, smoking, glancing up at the window now and then. Even when she did not leave her flat all day he felt happy, like a hunter waiting in a blind, warm with a sense of anticipation.

On Monday of the second week he had known it was time to act. He had worn his black canvas hat, thrust his yellow pencils in his pocket and rubbed his badge on his sleeve until it shone. When he had come to the tenement, he had walked up the stairs slowly, but without hesitation and knocked on the door. He had shown his badge and the woman had let him in. She had taken him back to the kitchen where the meter was.

He came to a stop as he entered the kitchen and his mouth flew open in surprise. There was a boy seated at the kitchen table, a plate of spaghetti, a glass of milk before him. The boy was eleven or twelve, dark and slight. Carlo watched the boy twist the spaghetti in his spoon, his face serious, his eyes on his task. For a moment, Carlo confused himself with the boy. He had eaten at a table like that in the kitchen of his home, keeping his eyes on his plate to avoid his mother’s gaze.

While Carlo scribbled figures in his notebook, the woman went to the boy and put an arm about him. She called him Freddie and urged him in Italian to drink the milk. The boy gulped at the milk, still without looking up.

The woman turned to Carlo. She said sharply, “Well, what is it?”

Carlo wrinkled his forehead. “There’s something wrong. Can I see your last month’s bill?”

The woman went to a table and jerked out a drawer. There were a dozen bills with a blue elastic band about them. She said, “Here” and lay them on the table. As Carlo picked them up, she turned back to the boy.

The receipted bill was second in the file. Carlo crumpled it in his palm, then making sure the woman was not watching him, slipped it in his pocket. He thumbed through the other bills, noticing her name on the top of one.

After a while she turned again. “What are you waiting for?”

“The bill isn’t here.”

“It must be.” She took the pile from him and ruffled through it, rapidly the first time, then slowly. When she had finished, she pulled out other drawers, searched a cabinet and then disappeared into the room beyond. Carlo could hear the sounds of her moving about. He wanted to go to her, but now the boy’s solemn gaze was upon him and he dared not move.

The woman came back and he could see the panic in her eyes. She was afraid. Not of him, but because of the missing bill. The few dollars would mean a lot to her. She couldn’t have much.

He spoke soothingly. He would come back on the next day or maybe the one after that. She would have found the bill by then and everything would be all right.

He had forced himself to stay away on Tuesday, but on Wednesday he could wait no longer. He climbed the stairs quickly, breathing hard, and knocked on the door. Mrs. Cortele had opened the door, but put her hand across the entry to bar his passage. She had not found the bill she told him, with a hint of defiance, and her son had a cold and was sleeping. Couldn’t Carlo come back another day?

Carlo returned on Thursday and knocked on the door. There was no answer and he knocked again and again. The door opposite opened and a frowsy woman told him Mrs. Cortele had gone away for the day. She would not be back until late in the afternoon.

Carlo sensed defeat. She was suspicious and maybe she had called the gas company or even the police. Caution told him to give up his plan, but he knew he couldn’t. No matter what the chances, he’d have to see this thing through. He lounged around the neighborhood all day. At four he saw Freddie on the street, but it was dark before Mrs. Cortele came home. He saw the light flick on in the third floor window and the woman’s arm as she pulled the shade down. He started toward the entrance of the tenement, but a figure darted in front of him — Freddie. Carlo’s face grew dark with anger, but he turned away.

Now it was Friday and he knew today was the day. If anything went wrong, he’d have to wait over the weekend. Saturday and Sunday stretched ahead of him like endless things. But there wouldn’t be a slip-up. Maria Cortele was alone in the flat upstairs and Freddie was at school.

He started to walk across the street. Some strange trick of vision made the strip of asphalt into a vast black plain. He walked on and on and finally the door topped by its narrow, dirt encrusted fan light loomed ahead. He lurched across the sill and now the stairs had to be climbed. They were tall, much narrower than he remembered. He was breathing hard by the time he had reached the first hallway and he had to rest, leaning heavily against the bannister, before he could mount the second flight.

He was almost sobbing by the time he reached the door of the flat. This wouldn’t do. He had to be calm. He had to play it cool. What was the matter with him? He forced himself straight, pulled at his cap, touched the pencils in his pocket. He meant to tap lightly on the door, but the sound of his knuckles seemed to thunder through the dingy halls.

She was standing in front of him now. She was talking, but he had not heard the words. He could only see the moving lips and the veins, twisting in her thin throat.

His own words were mechanical — the little speech he’d practiced over and over again. “I think we’ve found the error, Mrs. Cortele. If I can just check the meter once more, I’m sure I can put everything to rights.”

He was in the kitchen again with the little black notebook out. He looked up and saw her staring at him. Her face seemed to swim in front of him, huge and bloated. Then the face became hatchet-sharp, tiny and far away.

Her voice, thin and strained, came to him. “What’s the matter with you? Who are you anyway? I don’t believe...”

Her words trailed off and her open hand flew to her throat. She took a step backward, bumped against the side of the door and stood still.

He choked over the words. “You mustn’t go. You mustn’t.”

She screamed at him. “Get out of here. Get out, I say.”

The shrill voice seemed to cut through him. He was across the room and before she could turn, he had swept her hand from her throat and imbedded his fingers in the loose skin. He felt the veins writhing beneath the pressure of his tightening grasp.

Her eyes popped and her face turned gray, but still he dared not let her go. He shook her back and forth. “Listen to me,” he shouted. “You’ve got to help. Can’t you understand?”

Her body was slack now and when he loosened his grip, she sagged against him. He picked her up in his arms and carried her into the bedroom and threw her face down on the bed. Her black skirt rucked up against her thin legs and stretched tight across her thick hips.

Carlo went back to the kitchen. A heavy bread knife lay on the sloping shelf by the sink. He picked it up and took it into the bedroom. The woman was moaning softly. He seized her by the hair and twisted her around. Her eyes were wild with fear and her lipstick was an ugly smear across her thin mouth.

He raised the knife. He said, “Be quiet, damn you! Be quiet.”

The distorted mouth twisted obscenely in a wordless, animal cry.

He clutched her hair more tightly, drawing her to him. There was something more that he had to know; something he had to understand.

Maria Cortele’s face blurred and her fingers clawed at his wrists. He thrust her back on the bed and crouched over her.

But now the features were no longer Maria Cortele’s. The woman lying here was familiar, yet he could not place her. The hair was no longer black, but flecked with gray. The face was flabbier and there were pouches beneath the eyes. The cheek-bones were a little higher, more peaked.

Carlo pulled back, as though startled. He knew now what he had been seeking and what he had to do. The face was his mother’s face and, as he watched, it grew younger, bolder, smiling up at him as at a lover. He remembered now what he had buried deep within his memory. It had happened long ago, when he was a little boy. He had stood in his mother’s bedroom door and watched as she looked up in this way at the man who was her lover. They had kissed and then drawn away. His mother had turned and seen Carlo. She had given a cry and sat rigid. Carlo had seen the white face, the lipstick smeared across the mouth. Hate had held him motionless while she crossed the room to him, then he had whirled and fled...

Now the woman whom he held stirred and whimpered. He saw the lipstick smeared across her mouth, her white face. Suddenly she cried out. He prodded her with his left hand, for his right hand held the knife. Her cry grew higher, shriller, mingling with his hate, drawing it to a crescendo.

Then all was abruptly quiet. And Carlo, as he went down the stairs, quickly, silently, felt at peace.