George Mikos surveyed his domain, his restaurant, and found it good.
Everything was set up and ready for the dinner hour. No customers at
the moment, except for one man having coffee at the counter, but they'd
start coming in soon. Only one waitress on duty at the moment, but Ruth
Fleck would be coming in ten minutes, and he knew he could count on her
getting there; Ruth was dependable.
He turned and went through the swinging door back to the kitchen,
ducking his head a little as he did so. He was a big man, six feet two
inches tall, and that doorway was an inch or so too short for him. When
he'd first bought the restaurant he'd intended to have the doorway made
higher but he hadn't got around to it and by now he was so used to
ducking that it was completely automatic; he didn't even know he did it.
The cook was scraping the top of the range, but looked around as he
heard George come through the door. "Everything under control?" George
asked him. "Sure, George," the cook said.
"Fine. I'll be in my office a while. Give a yell for me if and when I
might be needed, either back here or up front."
He went into the room, a fair-sized room, off the kitchen that served
him as an office. He left the door ajar. The kitchen and restaurant
noises, the banging of pots and the clatter of dishes and such,
wouldn't bother him; he was conditioned to concentrate away from them.
He was also conditioned to hear them and evaluate them subconsciously.
To know, especially from the frequency with which waitresses called
back orders, when things were getting busy enough so his help might be
needed, even if the cook did not, as he suggested, give a yell for him.
He sat down at the oak typewriter desk. The typewriter was already
raised into typing position. There was a sheet of paper in it, blank
except for a numeral 3 at the top; it was to be the third page of a
letter he'd started early in the afternoon.
Before resuming the letter he picked up the two pages of it he'd
already written and reread them rapidly.
Dear Perry:
It was wonderful to hear from you again after lo, these many years
(almost ten of them, isn't it?) since we roomed together at college.
I'm so glad you happened to run into Walt, that he was able to give
you my address.
Congratulations on having gone on to a Ps.D. And on having opened
your own office as a consulting psychologist--in New York and on
Park Avenue, no less; it must be really a happy hunting ground and
if you're not coining money already you will be soon.
No, I have not continued my formal education. Nor do I intend to,
any more. By now I yam what I yam, a Goddam Greek who runs a
restaurant. But I read a lot, study some; I'm not letting my mind
stagnate completely. I try to keep up with things. For instance I
subscribe to and read the _Journal of Psychology_, even though--I
realize now--I'll never be more than a layman in that field. And
although about half of my reading is escape reading, the other half
isn't; I read classics too. My knowledge of and taste in literature
is far ahead of what it used to be in our college days.
As for keeping in shape, I go to a gym two, sometimes three,
mornings a week. I still go in for Graeco-Roman wrestling, when I
can find an opponent, and I haven't found one here who can take me
at it.
You want a description of my restaurant, what it's called,
everything about it. _Everything_ about it would be a large order
and wouldn't interest you unless you think you might start one of
your own, and I doubt if you have that in mind. But I'll give you
a rough idea.
First, it's called _Mikos'_; I don't go in for fancy names and have
no intention of trying to hide the fact that a Greek runs it. It's
small--but not tiny. Between counter and tables it will seat thirty
people, and during rush hours, usually does seat that many or almost
that many.
It'll never make a Duncan Hines's rating, but neither will anyone
ever call it a Greasy Spoon; it's clean. Our forte is good food at
reasonable prices.
I employ an average of ten people. Not that many all at once, of
course; they work varying shifts, since we're open from 7 A.M. till
11:30 P.M.
I myself come in at about 11 A.M., before the lunch hour, and stay
until closing time. That sounds a long working day--twelve and a
half hours--but don't let it fool you because I actually work only
about half of the time. There's a fair-sized room off the kitchen
which I've converted into a combination office and den. I do my
bookkeeping here, write checks for bills and salaries, type menus,
all that sort of thing--but that doesn't take over an average of
four hours a day.
Another two or three hours a day I spend in the kitchen or up front,
helping out wherever needed. Some days more than that if someone
fails to show up and we're short handed. But other days things go
smoothly and I'm not needed at all. Call it an average of two hours
a day.
So you see my actual working day is about six hours; the rest of the
time I'm around, in case of emergency or to solve problems if any
arise, but in general my time is my own. I read or study or think.
If for any reason I'm short on sleep I take naps. Or I write
letters, as I'm doing now.
And so much for the restaurant, except for the most important thing
about it: it makes money. More than I, as a bachelor with relatively
simple tastes, can spend. I've been investing in land just outside
the city limits to the west, and as the city is growing in that
direction, and rapidly, the land is equally rapidly appreciating in
value. So, within another five years--but I'm beginning to sound as
though I'm bragging and I'll stop. Suffice it to say there is no
wolf at my door.
You ask me how my love life is doing. Probably your question was
facetious, but I'm going to give it an honest answer.
That was where the second page of the letter had ended. George Mikos
turned to the typewriter to go on and then decided, before starting
page 3 to take a look to make sure Ruth Fleck had shown up; it was just
five-thirty, her starting time.
He went to the door and opened it wider, and had to look no farther.
She was just about to pass it, coming from the closet where the
employees hung their coats.
"Hello, Ruth," he said. And then, "Ruth, you've been crying. Is
something wrong? Is there anything I can do? Can you come in and talk a
moment?"
She hesitated. "I--There _is_ something I'd like to ask you about,
George. But please not now. Later, after the dinner rush, I'll be
calmer and much more sensible."
She went on, without giving him a chance to say anything more, through
the swinging door into the restaurant. George watched until it had
swung shut behind her. Then he pushed his own door partly shut again
and went back to the desk. This time he started typing.
Now, and for the first time in my life, at least since late
adolescence, I am in love, deeply in love, and with a woman with
whom I have not had an affair and with whom I don't want or intend
to have an affair, even if I could. At least I have found the right
woman for me and I want everything or nothing. I want to marry
the girl.
There is a fly in the ointment; the fly is the husband she already
has. I am trying to convince her to divorce him and to marry me.
Offhand, this may sound reprehensible, but I do not think that it
is, really. Her husband is, if I may change my entomological
metaphor, a louse.
He is a liquor salesman; that's nothing against him, but there is
plenty else that is. He is a compulsive, congenital gambler, mostly
on the horses; he's the type of horse player who does his own
handicapping and thinks he can beat the game, which of course he
can't. He probably earns at least a hundred a week but spends, or
rather loses, at least half of that gambling, for which reason his
wife has to work--and works for me as a waitress. Most of the time
he's broke and in debt, living on his next week's commission check.
I don't think he's brutal to Ruth (that's her name; his is Ray
Fleck) physically. I almost wish he were, because I think that if
he ever struck her she would leave him, which, of course, is what
I want to happen.
I know quite a bit about him, including the fact that he is at least
occasionally unfaithful to her--which in itself justifies to me my
breaking up their marriage if I can.
No, I didn't tell Ruth anything about what I heard. I was afraid
that, whether or not those reports would decide her to divorce
Fleck, she'd be angry at me for having had the presumption to tell
her. Besides for all I know she may already know or at least suspect
that Fleck cheats on her. Wives, I am told, can usually tell. What's
the opinion of a consulting psychologist on that?
But that's not what I really want to ask you about. It's about
something that doesn't concern me personally.
We have among us here a rapist-killer, obviously a psychotic, who
has already raped and killed two women. Raped and killed in that
sequence; he is not a necrophile. His first rape-killing was about
four months ago, his second two months ago. The interval between two
crimes is hardly sufficient to establish a time interval. But if it
does, if it takes him about two months to build up pressure to make
him kill again, then he is about due to strike a third time. His
method--
But wait. Before I give the details, such as they are, I'll tell you
where I come in, and where you come in. The captain in charge of our
homicide department is a friend of mine. He is understandably a very
worried guy. He's been under pressure from the chief of police, the
police commissioner, the newspapers and the public to get friend
psychopath. He may get demoted if he doesn't. And he hasn't a single
clue or lead.
He knows, of course, that I majored in psychology and every time we
see one another he heckles me to make deductions about the killer.
Or even guesses. I've made a few, but I'm afraid that, whether they
are correct or not, they're not very helpful on the practical level
of police work.
Maybe you can do better. You've studied a lot more abnormal
psychology than I have. Anyway, I'm going to toss you the few known
facts about our psycho and ask if you can make any suggestions that
I haven't already made. I'll pass them on to the captain. If you can
come up with anything at all helpful, it may save a life, or several
lives. Here goes:
Both victims were young housewives. Both were attractive. Each was
home alone (home was a house in one case, an apartment in the other)
at the time of the attack. In one case the husband was out of town
on business, in the other working a swing shift at an airplane parts
factory.
In neither case was there any sign of forcible entry; the woman
herself must have admitted him or at least opened the door for him.
Both women were knocked unconscious with a blow to the chin, then
carried to a bed; their clothes were torn off them and they were
raped, then strangled to death. Still, from the lack of anything
indicating a struggle, unconscious from the knockout. (Don't ask me
how the autopsies could prove or even indicate that the rape
preceded the strangling but my friend tells me that the medical
examiner is absolutely certain, so I'm willing to take his word for
it.)
Both crimes occurred in the evening. We happen to know the exact
time of one of them, ten o'clock. This was the one who lived in an
apartment. The couple who lived in the apartment under hers heard a
thud at that hour; they're certain of the time because the husband
was just switching channels on the television to get their favorite
ten o'clock program. Knowing that their upstairs neighbor was home
alone they looked at one another, each wondering whether she might
have had a fall and need help. But before either spoke to the other
they heard footsteps moving around and decided she was all right,
that she'd either dropped something fairly heavy or had a fall that
hadn't hurt her.
That was the first of the two murders. We don't know the time of the
second one so accurately. The woman's body wasn't found until early
the next afternoon when her husband returned from his business trip.
After so many hours the M. E. could only say that death had occurred
late the previous evening, probably between nine o'clock and
midnight.
We know him to be a man of considerable strength, not only from the
steam behind the knockout blows he struck but from the way in which
he ripped the clothes from his victims after carrying them to a bed.
One of the women was wearing a quilted house coat that zipped open
about halfway down the front; he tore it the rest of the way, and
quilted material does not tear easily.
From the speed and accuracy with which he struck the police theorize
that he may be or may have been a boxer. Also, from his strength,
they believe he is more likely to be a laborer than a white collar
worker. I'll go along with both of these deductions as possibilities
or probabilities and not as certainties. A man with no boxing
experience but with good coordination and a little luck could have
struck those blows. And if he has a good mind (except for its warp)
and/or a good education he'd certainly be doing something better
than manual labor.
So much for the physical side, and to the mental. First, I do not
believe he is a moron. He must have cased those jobs and known that
the woman would be alone at the time he came. Otherwise he had
incredible luck--and I refuse to credit the incredible. Also, he
left no fingerprints at the scene of either crime; he either wore
gloves or avoided touching any surface that would take them. A moron
wouldn't think of fingerprints.
But to a more important point, the nature of his psychosis. I have
a theory; I hope you'll be able to expand on it if you agree or to
offer a better one if you disagree.
I believe that he fears women to a psychotic degree, and hates them
because he fears them. Call him a womanophobe. And because of his
fear of women he is self-conscious in the presence of one to the
point of complete impotence, even if the woman is willing; only with
an unconscious woman can he find an outlet for his sex drive. His
reason for killing women after he has used them can be sheer
psychopathic hatred, flaring to highest pitch with or immediately
after the orgasm. Or it can be caution; a dead woman can't describe
him or identify him. My guess is that his reason for killing is a
mixture of both those reasons.
If this description of his psychosis is correct it is almost certain
that he is a bachelor. I use the "almost" because he may have been
married once; an early very bad marriage might have been the
starting point of his psychosis. But, whether once married or not
I'd say it's certain that he is not currently living with a woman.
And I'd say that it's probable that, if he has any choice of
occupations, he's working at a job that brings him into as little
contact with women as possible. And living at a Y.M.C.A., a men-only
hotel or--if he makes enough money--in a bachelor apartment.
Those are only probabilities, though. He may be smart enough, and
actor enough, to have perfectly normal business and social contacts
with women. If that's true he's going to be a lot harder to catch.
Speaking of how smart he is, we'll have a strong indication of that
if and when he attempts a third crime. If he tries the same _modus
operandi_ he used the first two times he'll show himself to be much
more stupid than I think he is. Because that method simply won't
work a third time.
The women of this city are scared, have been scared ever since the
second crime. Women alone in a house or flat simply don't open the
door, even by day, until and unless they're damned sure who's on
the other side of it. Chain bolts have been selling so fast that
the hardware stores keep reordering by air express and still can't
quite keep up with the demand. And from the number of speakeasy-type
peepholes that have been made in doors you'd think we were back in
the days of Prohibition again.
The scare has had an odd incidental effect on our economy. Normally,
in a city this size, there are several hundred house-to-house
salesmen and canvassers working. Here and now there are none. For
the past two months, since the second rape-killing, they have been
able to gain entry into such a small percentage of homes that they
simply can't make a living. They've all had to move on elsewhere to
greener pastures or switch to some other occupation. Even big
outfits like Fuller and Watkins have closed their local
offices--temporarily, they hope. And not only salesmen are affected,
but mailmen--if they have a C.O.D. or a registered letter that must
be signed for--bill collectors, deliverymen, meter readers,
collectors for charity drives, what have you.
It's amazing what strange effect two crimes by a....
George Mikos paused to think out the rest of the sentence and in the
pause heard his cook's voice. "Hey, George, better come out and give a
hand."
"Coming," he called back. And came.