The 1st Deadly Sin

4

After wrenching his ice ax from the skull of Frank Lombard, he had walked steadily homeward, looking neither to the right nor to the left, his mind resolutely thoughtless. He had nodded in a friendly fashion to the doorman on duty, then ascended to his apartment. Only after he was inside, the battery of chains and locks in place, did he lean against the wall, still coated, close his eyes, drew a deep breath.

But there was still work to be done. He put the ax aside for the moment. Then he stripped naked. He examined coat and suit for stains, of any kind. He could see none. But he placed coat and suit in a bundle for the drycleaner, and shirt, socks and underclothing in the laundry hamper.

Then he went into the bathroom and held the ice ax so that the head was under water in the toilet bowl. He flushed the toilet three times. Practically all the solid matter-caked blood and some grey stuff caught in the saw-tooth serrations on the bottom point of the pick-was washed away.

Then, still naked, he went into the kitchen and put a large pot of water on to boil. It was the pot he customarily used for spaghetti and stew. He waited patiently until the water boiled, still not reflecting on what he had done. He wanted to finish the job, then sit down, relax, and savor his reactions.

When the water came to a rolling boil he immersed the ice ax head and shaft up to the leather around the handle. The tempered steel boiled clean. He dunked it three times, swirling it about, then turned the flame off under the pot, and held the ax head under the cold water tap to cool it.

When he could handle it, he inspected the ax carefully. He even took a small paring knife and gently pried up the top edge of the blue leather-covered handle. He could see no stains that might have leaked beneath. The ax smelled of steel and leather. It shone.

He took the little can of sewing machine oil from his kitchen closet and, with his bare hands, rubbed oil into the exposed steel surfaces of the ax. He applied a lot of oil, rubbing strongly, then wiped off the excess with a paper towel. He started to discard the towel in his garbage can, then thought better of it and flushed it down the toilet. The ice ax was left with a thin film of oil. He hung it away in the hall closet with his rucksack and crampons.

Then he showered thoroughly under very hot water, using a small brush on hands and fingernails. After he dried, he used cologne and powder, then donned a short cotton kimono. It was patterned with light blue cranes stalking across a dark blue background. Then he poured himself a small brandy, went into the living room, sat on the couch before the mirrored wall, and laughed.

Now he allowed himself to remember, and it was a beloved dream. He saw himself walking down that oranged street toward his victim. He was smiling, coat rakishly open, left hand inside the slit pocket, right arm swinging free. Was he snapping the fingers of his right hand? He might have been.

The smile. The nod. The hot surge of furious blood when he whirled and struck. The sound. He remembered the sound. Then the victim’s incredible plunge forward that pulled the ice ax from his grasp, toppled him forward. Then, quickly pulling the ax free, search, wallet, and the steady walk homeward.

Well then…what did he feel? He felt, he decided, first of all an enormous sense of pride. That was basic. It was, after all, an extremely difficult and dangerous job of work, and he had brought it off. It was not too unlike a difficult and dangerous rock climb, a technical assignment that demanded skill, muscular strength and, of course, absolute resolve.

But what amazed him, what completely amazed him, was the intimacy! When he spoke to Celia about his love for the victim, he only hinted. For how could she understand? How could anyone understand that with one stroke of an ice ax he had plundered another human being, knowing him in one crushing blow, his loves, hates, fears, hopes-his soul.

Oh! It was something. To come so close to another. No, not close, but in another. Merged. Two made one. Once, he had suggested in a very vague, laughing, roundabout fashion to his wife that it might be fun if they sought out another woman, and the three might be naked together. In his own mind he had visualized the other woman as thin and dark, with enough sense to keep her mouth shut. But his wife didn’t understand, didn’t pick up on what he was suggesting. And if she had, she would have attributed it to his depraved appetites-a man naked in bed with two women.

But sex had nothing to do with it. That was the whole point! He wanted another woman both he and his wife could love because that would be a new, infinitely sweet intimacy between them. If he and his wife had gone to bed with a second woman, simultaneously sucked her hard nipples, caressed her, and their lips-his and his wife’s-perhaps meeting on foreign flesh, well then…well then that would be an intimacy so sharp, so affecting, that he could hardly dream of it without tears coming to his eyes.

But now. Now! Recalling what he had done, he felt that sense of heightened intimacy, of entering into another, merging, so far beyond love that there was no comparison. When he killed Frank Lombard, he had become Frank Lombard, and the victim had become Daniel Blank. Linked, swooning, they swam through the endless corridors of the universe like two coupling astronauts cast adrift. Slowly tumbling. Turning. Drifting. Throughout all eternity. Never decaying. Never stopping. But caught in passion. Forever.