The 1st Deadly Sin

3

A week or so after the death of Bernard Gilbert, Daniel Blank went on the stalk. It was not too unlike learning to climb. You had to master the techniques, you had to test your strength and, of course, you had to try your nerve, pushing it to its limit, but not beyond. You did not learn how to murder by reading a book, anymore than you could learn how to swim or ride a bicycle by looking at diagrams.

He had already acquired several valuable techniques. The business of concealing the ice ax under his top coat, holding it through the pocket slit by his left hand, then transferring it swiftly to his right hand shoved through the opened fly of his coat-that worked perfectly, with no fumbling. The death of Lombard had been, he thought, instantaneous, while Gilbert lingered four days. He deduced from this that a blow from the back apparently penetrated a more sensitive area of the skull, and he resolved to make no more frontal attacks.

He was convinced his basic method of approach was sound: the quick, brisk step; the eye-to-eye smile; the whole appearance of ease and neighborliness. Then the fast turn, the blow.

He had, of course, made several errors. For instance, during the attack on Frank Lombard, he had worn his usual black calfskin shoes with leather soles. At the moment of assault his right foot had slipped on the pavement, leather sliding on cement. It was not, fortunately, a serious error, but he had been off-balance, and when Lombard fell backward the ice ax was pulled from Blank’s grasp.

So, before the murder of Bernard Gilbert, Blank had purchased a pair of light-weight crepe-soled shoes. It was getting on to December, with cold rain, sleet, snow flurries, and the rubber-soled shoes gave much better traction and stability.

Similarly, in the attack on Lombard, the leather handle of the ice ax had twisted in his sweated hand. Reflecting on this, he had, before the Gilbert assault, roughed the leather handle by rubbing it gently with fine sandpaper. This worked well enough, but he still was not satisfied. He purchased a pair of black suede gloves, certainly a common enough article of apparel in early winter weather. The grip between suede glove and the roughened leather of the ice ax handle was all that could be desired.

These were details, of course, and those who had never climbed mountains would shrug them off as of no consequence. But a good climb depended on just such details. You could have all the balls in the world, but if your equipment was faulty, or your technique wasn’t right, you were dead.

There were other things to consider; you just didn’t go out and murder the first man you met. He cancelled out rainy and sleety nights; he needed a reasonably dry pavement for that quick whirl after he had passed his victim. A cloudy or moonless night was best, with no strong wind to tug at his unbuttoned coat. And he carried as few objects and as little identification as possible; less to drop accidentally at the scene.

He went to his health club twice a week and worked out, and he did his stretch exercises at home every night, so strength was no problem. He was, he knew, in excellent physical condition. He could lift, turn, bend, probably better than most boys half his age. He watched his diet; his reactions were still fast. He meant to keep them that way, and looked forward to climbing Devil’s Needle again in the spring, or perhaps taking a trip to the Bavarian Alps for more technical climbs. That would be a joy.

So there was the passion-just as in mountain climbing-and there was also the careful planning, the mundane details-weapon, shoes, gloves, smile-just as any great art is really, essentially, a lot of little jobs. Picasso mixed paints, did he not?

He took the same careful and thoughtful preparation in his stalk after Gilbert’s death. A stupid assassin might come home from his job and eat, or dine out and then come home, and return to his apartment house at the same time. Sooner or later, the apartment house doorman on duty would become aware of his routine.

So Daniel Blank varied his arrivals and departures, carefully avoiding a regular schedule, knowing one doorman went off duty at 8:00 p.m., when his relief arrived. Blank came and he went, casually, and usually these departures and arrivals went unobserved by a doorman busy with cabs or packages or other tasks. He didn’t prowl every night. Two nights in a row. One night in. Three out. No pattern. No formal program. Whatever occurred to him; irregularity was best. He thought of everything.

There was, he admitted, something strange that to this enterprise that meant so much to him emotionally, privately, he should bring all his talents for finicky analysis, careful classifying, all the cold, bloodless skills of his public life. It proved he supposed, he was still two, but in this case it served him well; he never made a move without thinking out its consequences.

For instance, he debated a long time whether or not, during an actual murder, he should wear a hat. At this time of year, in this weather, most men wore hats.

But it might be lost by his exertions. And, supposing he made a murder attempt and was not successful-the possibility had to be faced-and the intended victim lived to testify. Surely he would remember the presence of a hat more strongly than he would recall the absence of a hat.

“Sir, did he wear a hat?”

“Yes, he wore a black hat. A soft hat. The brim was turned down in front.”

That would be more likely than if Blank wore no hat at all.

“Sir, did he wear a hat?”

“What? Well…I don’t remember. A hat? I don’t know. Maybe. I really didn’t notice.”

So Daniel Blank wore no hat on his forays. He was that careful.

But his cool caution almost crumbled when he began his nighttime reconnaissance following the death of Bernard Gilbert. It was on the third night of his aimless meanderings that he became aware of what seemed to be an unusual number of single men, most of them tall and well proportioned, strolling through the shadowed streets of his neighborhood. The pavements were alive with potential victims!

He might have been mistaken, of course; Christmas wasn’t so far away, and people were out shopping. Still…So he followed a few of these single males, far back and across the street. They turned a corner. He turned a corner. They turned another corner. He turned another corner. But none of them, none of the three he followed cautiously from a distance, ever entered a house. They kept walking steadily, not fast and not slow, up one street and down another.

He stopped suddenly, half-laughing but sick with fear. Decoys! Policemen. Who else could they be? He went home immediately, to think.

He analyzed the problem accurately: (1) He could cease his activities at once. (2) He could continue his activities in another neighborhood, even another borough. (3) He could continue his activities in his own neighborhood, welcoming the challenge.

Possibility (1) he rejected immediately. Could he stop now, having already come so far, with the final prize within recognizable reach? Possibility (2) required a more reasoned dissection. Could he carry a concealed weapon-the ice ax-by taxi, bus, subway, his own car, for any distance without eventual detection? Or (3), might he risk it?

He thought of his options for two whole days, and the solution, when it came, made him smack his thigh, smile, shake his head at his own stupidity. Because, he realized, he had been analyzing, thinking along in a vertical, in-line, masculine fashion-as if such a problem could be solved so!

He had come so far from this, so far from AMROK II, that he was ashamed he had fallen into the same trap once again. The important thing here was to trust his instincts, follow his passions, do as he was compelled, divorced from cold logic and bloodless reason. If he was finally to know truth, it would come from heart and gut.

And besides, there was risk-the sweet attraction of risk.

There was a dichotomy here that puzzled him. In the planning of the crime he was willing to use cool and formal reason: the shoes, the gloves, the weapon, the technique-all designed with logic and precision. And yet when it came to the reason for the act, he deliberately shunned the same method of thought and sought the answer in “heart and gut.”

He finally came to the realization that logic might do for method but not for motive. Again, to use the analogy of creative art, the artist thought out the techniques of his art, or learned them from others and, with patience, became a skilled craftsman. But where craft ended and art began was at the point where the artist had to draw on his own emotions, dreams, fervors and fears, penetrating deep into himself to uncover what he needed to express by his skill.

The same could be said of mountain climbing. A man might be an enormously talented and knowledgeable mountaineer. But it was just a specialized skill if, within him, there was no drive to push himself to the edge of life and know worlds that the people of the valley could not imagine.

He spent several evenings attempting to observe the operations of the decoys. So far as he could determine, the detectives were not being followed by “back-up men” or trailed by unmarked police cars. It appeared that each decoy was assigned a four-block area, to walk up one street and down the next, going east to west, then west to east, then circling to cover the north-south streets. And unexpectedly, hurrying past a decoy who had stepped into a shadowed store doorway, he saw they were equipped with small walkie-talkies and were apparently in communication with some central command post.

It was, he decided, of little significance.

Sixteen days after the attack on Bernard Gilbert, Daniel Blank returned home directly from work. It was a cold, dry evening with a quarter moon barely visible through a clouded sky. There was some wind, a hint of rain or snow in a day or so. But generally it was a still night, cold enough to tingle nose, ears, ungloved hands. There was one other factor: the neighborhood theatre was showing a movie Daniel Blank had seen a month ago when it opened on Times Square.

He mixed himself a single drink, watched the evening news on TV. Americans were killing Vietnamese. Vietnamese were killing Americans. Jews were killing Arabs. Arabs were killing Jews. Catholics were killing Protestants. Protestants were killing Catholics. Pakistani were killing Indians. Indians were killing Pakistani. There was nothing new. He fixed a small dinner of broiled calves’ liver and an endive salad. He brought his coffee into the living room and had that and a cognac while listened to a tape of the Brandenburg Concerto No. 3. Then he undressed, got into bed, took a nap.

It was a little after nine when he awoke. He splashed cold water on his face, dressed in a black suit, white shirt, modestly patterned tie. He put on his crepe-soled shoes. He donned his topcoat, pulled on the black suede gloves, held the ice ax under the coat by his left hand, through the pocket slit. The leather thong attached to the handle butt of the ax went around his left wrist.

In the lobby, doorman Charles Lipsky was at the desk, but he rose to unlock and hold the outer door open for Blank. The door was kept locked from 8:00 p.m., when the shift of doormen changed, to 8:00 a.m. the following morning.

“Charles,” Blank asked casually, “do you happen to know what movie’s playing at the Filmways over on Second Avenue?”

“Afraid I don’t, Mr. Blank.”

“Well, maybe I’ll take a walk over. Nothing much on TV tonight.”

He strolled out. It was that natural and easy.

He actually did walk over to the theatre, to take a look at the movie schedule taped to the ticket seller’s window. The feature film would begin again in 30 minutes. He had the money ready in his righthand trouser pocket. He bought a ticket with the exact sum, receiving no change. He went into the half-empty theatre, sat in the back row without removing his coat or gloves. When the movie ended and at least fifty people left, he left with them. No one glanced at him, certainly not the usher, ticket taker, or ticket seller. They would never remember his arrival or departure. But, of course, he had the ticket stub in his pocket and had already seen the film.

He walked eastward, toward the river, both hands now thrust through the coat’s pocket slits. On a deserted stretch of street he carefully slipped the leather loop off his left wrist. He held the ax by the handle with his left hand. He unbuttoned his coat, but he didn’t allow the flaps to swing wide, holding them close to his body with hands in his pockets.

Now began the time he liked best. Easy walk, a good posture, head held high. Not a scurrying walk, but not dawdling either. When he saw someone approaching, someone who might or might not have been a police decoy, he crossed casually to the other side of the street, walked to the corner and turned, never looking back. It was too early; he wanted this feeling to last.

He knew it was going to be this night, just as you know almost from the start of a climb that it will be successful, you will not turn back. He was confident, alert, anxious to feel once again that moment of exalted happiness when the eternal was in him and he was one with the universe.

He was experienced now, and knew what he would feel before that final moment. First, the power: should it be you or shall it be you? The strength and glory of the godhead fizzing through his veins. And second, the pleasure that came from the intimacy and the love, soon to be consummated. Not a physical love, but something much finer, so fine indeed that he could not put it into words but only felt it, knew it, floated with the exaltation.

And now, for the first time, there was something else. He had been frightened and wary before, but this night, with the police decoys on the streets, held a sense of peril that was almost tangible. It was all around him, in the air, in the light, on the mild wind. He could almost smell the risk; it excited him as much as the odor of new-fallen snow or his own scented body.

He let these things-power, pleasure, peril-grow in him as he walked. He opened himself to them, cast off all restraint, let them flood and engulf him. Once he had “shot the rapids” in a rubber dinghy, on a western river, and then and now he had the not unpleasant sensation of helplessness, surrender, in the hands of luck or an unknown god, swept along, this way, that, the world whirling, and, having started, no way to stop, no way, until passion ran its course, the river finally flowed placid between broad banks, and risk was a happy memory.

He turned west on 76th Street. Halfway down the block a man was also walking west, at about the same speed, not hurrying but not dallying either. Daniel Blank immediately stopped, turned around, and retraced his steps to Second Avenue. The man he had seen ahead of him had the physical appearance, the feel, of a police decoy. If Blank’s investigations and guesses were accurate, the man would circle the block to head eastward on 75th Street. So Blank walked south on Second Avenue and paused on the corner, looking westward toward Third Avenue. Sure enough, his quarry turned the corner a block away and headed toward him.

“I love you,” Daniel blank said softly.

He looked about. No one else on the block. No other pedestrians. All parked cars dark. Weak moon behind clouds. Pavement dry. Oh yes. Walk toward the approaching man. Pacing himself so they might meet about halfway between Second and Third Avenues.

Ice ax gripped lightly in fingertips of left hand, beneath his unbuttoned coat. Right arm and gloved hand swinging free. Then the hearty tramp down the street. The neighborly smile. That smile! And the friendly nod.

“Good evening!”

He was of medium height, broad through the chest and shoulders. Not handsome, but a kind of battered good looks. Surprisingly young. A physical awareness, a tension, in the way he walked. Arms out a little from his sides, fingers bent. He stared at Blank. Saw the smile. His whole body seemed to relax. He nodded, not smiling.

They came abreast. Right hand darting into the open coat. The smooth, practised transfer of the ax to the free right hand. Weight on left foot. Whirl as smooth as a ballet step. An original art form. Murder as a fine art: all sensual kinetics. Weight onto the right foot now. Right arm rising. Lover sensing, hearing, pausing, beginning his own turn in his dear pas de deux.

And then. Oh. Up onto his toes. His body arching into the blow. Everything: flesh, bone, sinew, muscle, blood, penis, kneecaps, elbows and biceps, whatever he was…giving freely, completely, all of him. The crunch and sweet thud that quivered his hand, wrist, arm, torso, down into his bowels and nuts. The penetration! And the ecstasy! Into the grey wonder and mystery of the man. Oh!

Plucking the ax free even as the body fell, the soul soaring up to the cloudy sky. Oh no. The soul entering into Daniel Blank, becoming one with his soul, the two coupling even as he had imagined lost astronauts embracing and drifting through all immeasurable time.

He stooped swiftly, not looking at the crushed skull. He was not morbid. He found the shield and ID card in a leather folder. He no longer had to prove his deeds to Celia, but this was for him. It was not a trophy, it was a gift from the victim. I love you, too.

So simple! It was incredible, his luck. No witnesses. No shouts, cries, alarms. The moon peeped from behind clouds and withdrew again. The mild wind was there. The night. Somewhere, unseen, stars whirled their keening courses. And tomorrow the sun might shine. Nothing could stop the tides.

“Good movie, Mr. Blank?” Charles Lipsky asked.

“I liked it,” Daniel Blank nodded brightly. “Very enjoyable. You really should see it.”

He went through the now familiar drill: washing and sterilizing the ice ax, then oiling the exposed steel. He put it away with his other climbing gear in the front hall closet. The policeman’s badge represented a problem. He had tucked Lombard’s driver’s license and Gilbert’s ID card under a stack of handkerchiefs in his top dresser drawer. It was extremely unlikely the cleaning woman, or anyone else, would uncover them. But still…

He wandered through the apartment, looking for a better hiding place. His first idea was to tape the identification to the backs of three of the larger mirrors on the living room wall. But the tape might dry, the gifts fall free, and then…

He finally came back to his bedroom dresser. He pulled the top drawer out and placed it on his bed. There was a shallow recess under the drawer, between the bottom and the runners. All the identification fitted easily into a large white envelope, and this he taped to the bottom of the drawer. If the tape dried, and the envelope dropped, it could only drop into the second drawer. And, while taped, it was a position where he could easily check its security every day, if he wanted to. Or open the envelope flap and look at his gifts.

Then he was home free-weapon cleansed, evidence hidden, all done that reason told him should be done. He even saved the ticket stub for the neighborhood movie. Now was the time for reflection and dreaming, for pondering significance and meaning.

He bathed slowly, scrubbing, then rubbing scented oil onto his wet skin. He stood on the bathroom mat, staring at himself in the full-length mirror, unaccountably, he began to make the gyrations of a strip-tease dancer: hands clasped behind his head, knees slightly bent, pelvis pumping in and out, hips grinding. He became excited by his own mirror image. He became erect, not fully but sufficiently to add to his pleasure. So there he stood, pumping his turgid shaft at the mirror.

Was he mad? he wondered. And, laughing, thought he might very well be.