They sat at the littered table, lighted cigarettes. Ernie brought out a pint bottle of California brandy and apologized because he had no snifters. So they sipped the brandy from cocktail glasses, and it tasted just as good.
She said, "It must be nice to grow up in a big family."
"Well…" He hesitated, touching the end of his cigarette in the ashtray. "There are some good things about it and some not so good. One of the things I hated was the lack of privacy. I mean, there was just no space you could call your own-not even a dresser drawer."
"I had my own bedroom," she said slowly.
"That would have been paradise. I shared a bedroom with one of my brothers until I went away to college. And then I had three roommates. It wasn't until I graduated and came to New York that I had a place of my own. What luxury! It really was a treat for me."
"Do you still feel that way?"
"Most of the time. Everyone gets lonely occasionally, I guess. I remember that even when I was living at home with my brothers and sisters, sometimes I'd be lonely. In that crowd! Of course, all my brothers were bigger. I was the runt of the litter. They played football and basketball. I was nowhere as an athlete, so we didn't have a lot in common."
"What about your sisters?" Zoe asked. "I always wished I had a sister. Did you have a favorite?"
"Oh yes," he said, smiling. "Marcia, the youngest. The baby of the family. We had a lot in common. We used to walk out of town, sit in a field and read poetry to each other. Do you know what Marcia wanted to do? She wanted to be a harpist! Isn't that odd? But of course there was no one in Trempealeau to teach her to play the harp, and my folks couldn't afford to send her somewhere else to school."
"So she never learned?"
"No," he said shortly, pouring them more brandy, "she never did. She's married now and lives in Milwaukee. Her husband is in the insurance business. She says she's happy."
"I suppose we all have dreams," Zoe Kohler said. "Then we grow up and realize how impossible they were."
"What did you dream, Zoe?"
"Nothing special. I was very vague about it. I thought I might teach for a few years. But I guess I'd thought I'd just get married and have a family. That seemed to be the thing to do. But it didn't work out."
"You told me about your mother. What is your father like?"
"Dad? Oh, he's still a very active man. He has a car agency and owns half a real estate firm, and he's in a lot of other things. Belongs to a dozen clubs and business associations. He's always being elected president of this and that. I remember he was away at meetings almost every night. He's in local politics, too."
"Sounds like a very popular man."
"I guess. I hardly saw him. I mean, I knew he was there, but he really wasn't. Always rushing off somewhere. Every time he saw me, he'd kiss me. He smelled of whiskey and cigars. But he was very successful, and we had a nice home, so I really can't complain. What was your father like?"
"Tall and skinny and kind of bent over when he got older. I think he worked himself to death; I really do. He always had two jobs. He had to with that family. Came home late and fell into bed. All us boys had jobs-paper routes and things like that. But we didn't bring home much. So he worked and worked. And you know, I never once heard him complain. Never once."
They sat in sad silence for a few minutes, sipping their brandies.
"Zoe, do you think you'll ever get married again?"
She considered that. "I don't know. Probably not-as of this moment."
He looked at her. "Were you hurt that much?"
"I was destroyed," she cried out. "Demolished. Maddie Kurnitz can hop from husband to husband. I can't. Maybe that's my fault. Maybe I'm some kind of foolish romantic."
"You're afraid to take another chance?"
"Yes, I'm afraid. If I took another chance, and that didn't work out, I think I'd kill myself."
"My God," he said softly, "you're serious, aren't you?"
She nodded.
"Zoe, none of us is perfect. And relationships aren't perfect."
"I know that," she said, "and I was willing to settle for what I had. But he wasn't. I really don't want to talk about it, Ernie. It was all so-so ugly."
"All rightee!" he sang out, slapping the table. "We won't talk about it. We'll talk about cheerful things and have dessert and coffee and laugh up a storm."
She reached out to stroke his hair.
"You're nice," she said, looking into his eyes. "I'm glad I met you."
He caught her hand, pressed it against his cheek.
"And I'm glad I met you," he said. "And I want to keep on seeing you as much as I can. Okay?"
"Okay," she said. "Now… strawberry or apple tart? Which are you going to have?"
"Strawberry," he said promptly.
"Me, too," she said. "We like the same things."
They had dessert and coffee, chattering briskly about books and movies and TV stars, never letting the conversation flag. Then they cleared the table and Ernest washed while Zoe dried. She learned where his plates and cups and saucers and cutlery were stored.
Then, still jabbering away, they sat again in the armchairs with more brandy. He told her about his courses in computer technology, and she told him about the unusual problems of hotel security officers. They were both good listeners.
Finally, about eleven o'clock, feeling a bit light-headed, Zoe said she thought she should be going. Ernest said he thought they should finish the brandy first, and she said if they did, she'd never go home, and he said that would be all right, too. They both laughed, knowing he was joking. But neither was sure.
Ernie said he'd see her home, but she refused, saying she'd take a taxi and would be perfectly safe. They finally agreed that he'd go out with her, see her into a cab, and she'd call the moment she was in her own apartment.
"If you don't phone within twenty minutes," he said, "I'll call out the Marines."
They stood and she moved to him, so abruptly that he staggered back. She clasped him in her arms, put her face close to his.
"A lovely, lovely evening," she said. "Thank you so very much."
"Thank you, Zoe. We'll do it again and again and again."
She pressed her lips against his: a dry, warm, firm kiss.
She drew away, stroked his fine hair.
"You are a dear, sweet man," she said, "and I like you very much. You won't just drop me, will you, Ernie?"
"Zoe!" he cried. "Of course not! What kind of a man do you think I am?"
"Oh…" she said confusedly, "I'm all mixed up. I don't know what to think about you."
"Think the best," he said. "Please. We need each other."
"We do," she said throatily. "We really do."
They kissed again, standing and clasped, swaying. It was a close embrace, more thoughtful than fervid. There was no darting of tongues, no searching of frantic fingers. There was warmth and intimacy. They comforted each other, protective and reassuring.
They pulled away, staring, still holding to each other.
"Darling," he said.
"Darling," she said. "Darling. Darling."
He went about turning off lamps, checking the gas range, taking a jacket from a pressed wood wardrobe. Zoe went into the bathroom. Because the door was so flimsy and the apartment so small, she ran the faucet in the sink while she relieved herself.
Then she rinsed her hands, drying them on one of the little pink towels he had put out. The bathroom was as clean, tidy, and precisely arranged as the rest of his apartment.
She looked at herself in the medicine cabinet mirror. She thought her face was blushed, glowing. She felt her cheeks. Hot. She touched her lips and smiled.
She examined her hair critically. She decided she would have it done. A feather-cut perhaps. Something youthful and careless, to give her the look of a gamine. And a rinse to give it gloss.
Zoe Kohler brought morning coffee into Mr. Pinckney's office. He was behind his desk. Barney McMillan was lolling on the couch. Sh
e had brought him a jelly doughnut.
"Thanks, doll," he said; then, with a grin, "Whoops, sorry. Thank you, Zoe."
She gave him a frosty glance, went back to her own office. She could hear the conversation of the two men. As usual, they were talking about the Hotel Ripper.
"They'll get him," McMillan said. "Eventually."
"Probably," Mr. Pinckney agreed. "But meanwhile the hotels are beginning to hurt. Did you see the Times this morning? The first cancellation of a big convention because of the Ripper. They better catch him fast or the summer tourist trade will be a disaster."
"Come to Fun City," McMillan said, "and get your throat slit. The guy must be a real whacko. A fegelah, you figure?"
"That's the theory they're going on, according to Sergeant Coe. They're rousting all the gay bars. But just between you, me, and the lamppost, Coe says they're stymied. They had a police shrink draw up a psychological profile, but you know how much help those things are."
"Yeah," McMillan said, "a lot of bullshit. What they really need is one good fingerprint."
"Well…" Mr. Pinckney said judiciously, "prints are usually of limited value until they pick up some suspects to match them with. You know, there hasn't been a single arrest. Not even on suspicion."
"But that guy in command-what's his name? Slavin?-he keeps putting out those stupid statements about 'promising leads' and 'an arrest expected momentarily.' It's gotten to be a joke."
"If he doesn't show some results soon," Mr. Pinckney said, "he'll find himself guarding a vacant lot in the Bronx. The hotel association has a lot of clout in this town."
Then the two men started discussing next week's work schedule, and Zoe Kohler began flipping through her morning copy of The New York Times. The story on the Hotel Ripper was carried on page 3 of the second section, the Metropolitan Report.
The murder of Jerome Ashley, the third victim, had been front-page news in all New York papers for less than a week. Then, as nothing new developed, follow-up stories dropped back farther and farther.
That morning's Times had nothing to add to the story other than the mention of the first cancellation of a large convention directly attributable to the crimes of the Hotel Ripper. The story repeated the sparse description of the suspect: five feet five to five feet seven, wearing a black nylon wig.
But below the news account was an article bylined by Dr. David Hsieh, identified by the Times as a clinical psychologist specializing in psychopathology, and author of a book on criminal behavior entitled The Upper Depths.
Zoe Kohler read the article with avid interest. In it, Dr. Hsieh attempted to extrapolate the motives of the Hotel Ripper from the available facts, while admitting that lack of sufficient data made such an exercise of questionable validity.
It was Dr. Hsieh's thesis that the Hotel Ripper was driven to his crimes by loneliness, which was why he sought out hotels with their dining rooms, cocktail lounges, conventions, etc. "Places where many people congregate, mingle, converse, eat and drink, laugh and carry on normal social intercourse denied to the Ripper.
"Solitude can be a marvelous boon," Dr. Hsieh continued. "Without it, many of us would find life without savor. But there is this caveat: solitude must be by choice. Enforced, it can be as corrosive as a draft of sulfuric. To be wisely used, it must be sought and learned. And the danger of addiction lingers always. A heady thing, solitude. An elixir, a depressant. One man's triumph, another man's defeat. The Hotel Ripper cannot handle it.
"Solitude decays; mold appears; loneliness makes its sly and cunning infection. Loneliness rots the marrow, seeps through shrunken veins into the constricted heart. The breath smells of ashes, and men become desperate. The police call them 'loners,' making no distinction between those who eat alone, work alone, live alone and sleep alone by choice or through the grind of circumstances. Some desire it; some do not. The Hotel Ripper does not.
"There is a fatal regression at work here. It goes like this: Solitude. Loneliness. Isolation. Alienation. Aggression. In the penultimate stage, the happiness of others becomes an object of envy; in the final, an object of rage. 'Why should they…? When I…?' The Hotel Ripper is a terminal case."
Zoe Kohler put the newspaper aside and stared off into the middle distance. Try as she might, she could not recognize herself in the portrait drawn by Dr. David Hsieh.
Something new was happening to her. She had heretofore never sought to deny her responsibility for what had been done to those three men. She had planned her adventures carefully, carried them out with complete awareness of what she was doing, and reviewed her actions afterward.
She, Zoe Kohler, was the Hotel Ripper. She had not disavowed it. Never. Not for a minute. Indeed, she had gloried in it. Her adventures were triumphs. And the notoriety she had earned had been exciting.
But now she was beginning to feel a curious disassociation from her acts. She felt cleft, tugged apart. She could not reconcile the lustful images of the Hotel Ripper with the gentle memories of a woman who said, "Darling. Darling. Darling."
On May 6th, a few minutes before 6:00 p.m., Zoe Kohler entered the office of Dr. Oscar Stark. There were two patients in the reception room, which usually meant a wait of thirty minutes or so. But it was almost an hour before Gladys beckoned. The nurse led her directly to the examination room.
Zoe was weighed, then went into the lavatory with the wide-mouthed plastic cup. She handed the urine sample to Gladys and sat down, sheet-draped. Dr. Stark came bustling in a few minutes later, trailing a cloud of smoke. He set his cigar carefully aside.
"Well, well," he said, staring at Zoe. "What have we here? A new hairdo?"
"Yes," she said, blushing. "Sort of."
"I like it," he said. "Very fetching. Don't you like it, Gladys?"
"I told her I did," the nurse said. "I wish I could wear a feather-cut. It's so youthful."
"Maybe I should get one," the doctor said.
He pulled up his wheeled stool in front of Zoe, warmed the stethoscope on his hairy forearm. She let the sheet drop to her waist. He began to apply the disk to her naked chest and ribcage.
"Mmp," he said. "You didn't run over here from your office, did you?"
"No," Zoe said seriously, "I've been in the waiting room for almost an hour."
He nodded, then felt her pulse, something he rarely did. He took the examination form and clipboard from Gladys and made a few quick notes. The nurse bent over him and pointed out something on the chart. The doctor blinked.
Gladys wheeled up the sphygmomanometer. Stark wrapped the cuff about Zoe's arm and pumped the bulb. The nurse leaned down to take the reading.
"Let's try that again," Stark said and repeated the process. Gladys made more notes.
The doctor sat a moment in silence, staring at Zoe, his face expressionless. Then he took the blood sample and set the syringe aside.
"Gladys," he said, "that big magnifying glass-you know where it is?"
"Right here," she said, opening the top drawer of a white enameled taboret.
"What would I do without you?" he said.
He hitched the wheeled stool as close to Zoe as he could. He leaned forward and began to examine her through the magnifying glass. He inspected her lips, face, neck, and arms. He peered at the palms of her hands, the creases in her fingers, the crooks of her elbows. He scrutinized aureoles and nipples.
"What are you doing that for?" Zoe asked.
"Just browsing," he said. "I'm a very kinky man. This is how I get my kicks. Zoe, do you shave your armpits?"
"Yes."
"Uh-huh. Open the sheet, please, and spread your legs."
Obediently, eyes lowered, she pulled the sheet aside and exposed herself. He tugged gently at her pubic hair, then examined his fingers. He had come away with a few curly hairs. He inspected them through the magnifying glass.
"Why did you do that?" she asked faintly.
He looked at her kindly. "I'm stuffing a pillow," he said, and Gladys laughed.
He hand
ed the glass back to the nurse and began breast palpation. The pelvic examination followed. Ten minutes later, Zoe Kohler, dressed, was seated in Dr. Stark's office, watching him light a fresh cigar.
He blew a plume of smoke at the ceiling. He pushed his half-glasses atop his halo of white hair. He stared at Zoe, shaking his big head slowly. His pendulous features swung loosely.
"What am I going to do with you?" he said.
She was startled. "I don't understand," she said.
"Zoe, have you been under stress recently?"
"Stress?"
"Pressure. On your job? Your personal life? Anything upsetting you? Getting tense or excited or irritable?"
"No," she said, "nothing."
He sighed. He had been a practicing physician for more than thirty years; he knew very well how often patients lied. They usually lied because they were embarrassed, ashamed, or frightened. But sometimes, Stark suspected, a patient's lies to his doctor represented a subconscious desire for self-immolation "All right," he said to Zoe Kohler, "let's go on to something else… Are you on a diet? Trying to lose weight?"
"No. I'm eating just the same as I always have."
"You weigh almost four pounds less than you did last month."
Now she was shocked. "I don't understand that," she said.
"I don't either. But there it is."
"Maybe there's been some mistake," she said. "Maybe when Gladys-"
"Nonsense," he said sharply. "Gladys doesn't make mistakes. All right, here's what you've got… Your pulse is too rapid, your heart sounds like you just ran the hundred-yard dash, and your blood pressure is way up. It's still in the normal range, but very high-normal, and I don't like it. These are all signs of incipient hypertension-all the more puzzling because low blood pressure is a characteristic of your disease. That's why I asked if you've been under nervous or emotional stress."
"Well, I haven't."
"I'll take your word for it," he said dryly. "But it presents us with a small problem. A slight dilemma, you might say. You're still taking your salt tablets?"
"Yes. Two a day."
"Do you have any craving for additional salt?"
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