69 Barrow Street

by Lawrence Block

  Now she was awake. Now she was wide awake, wide awake and thoroughly terrified and moving away from Stella into the kitchenette, just trying to get away, trying to put as much distance between the two of them as possible.

  She wanted to scream. Oh, God how she wanted to scream. But how did you go about screaming early in the morning? Her mouth opened wide but no sounds came out of it. She tried desperately to launch a scream but only a strangled sob tore forth from her throat.

  Stella came closer.

  Susan couldn’t run any further. Her back was to the wall of the kitchenette, with cupboards and drawers on one side of her and the sink on the other.

  There was, suddenly, no place to go, no way to turn, no one to help her. She wished that Ralph was there.

  She might as well have wished for wings.

  Again she tried to scream and again she was too petrified to launch the cry. Instead she said, her voice little more than a whisper: “What…what do you want?”

  “You.”

  “What—”

  Stella spaced her words very carefully and enunciated with the utmost precision, and while she talked she stopped moving closer to Susan.

  “You led me on,” she said. “You led me on and got me all excited and then you left me. That wasn’t the right thing for you to do. It was wrong, and it is my duty to punish you.”

  “Look, you’ve got to understand! It was all a mistake, I didn’t mean—”

  “You’ve got to be punished,” Stella said. “First I’m going to have you as I wanted to do yesterday. And then I am going to punish you.”

  “Please—”

  “Don’t beg,” Stella said.

  Susan realized that she was dealing with a madwoman, that nothing she could say or do would change Stella’s mind for her. And Susan had a fairly good idea of what Stella’s concept of punishment would turn out to be.

  Stella was going to kill her.

  She didn’t want to die. Suddenly she realized just how much she didn’t want to die, just how much she had to live for. All at once the beauty of the life she and Ralph were going to have together hit her full force and the thought of losing all that was too much to bear.

  I’ve got to stop her, she thought desperately. I’ve got to find some way to stop her.

  She didn’t try to scream anymore. Now that she understood what was happening she realized that a scream would probably provoke Stella to immediate action and cost her her life as a result.

  Stella took another step toward her.

  “Wait!”

  Stella paused.

  And then Susan realized something very important. As long as she managed to keep the older woman talking she was all right. A long as she kept the conversation going, no matter how insane the conversation became, Stella wouldn’t attack her.

  “Tell me,” she said. “Why do you want me?”

  “Because I hate you.” Stella made the words convey the feeling that people only wanted those they hated. The thought alone chilled Susan.

  “You hate me?”

  “Of course.”

  “Why?”

  “You must know why.”

  “But I don’t know why, Stella. Please tell me.”

  The older woman shrugged impatiently. She took another step forward, her eyes blazing. Susan had to say something, had to say something in a hurry. As long as she kept talking, as long as she went on with conversation, any sort of conversation, then—

  “Is it because of Ralph?”

  “What about Ralph?” Stella seemed interested and Susan pursued the topic.

  “Ralph and I are in love. Is that why you hate me?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Ralph and I are in love,” she said again. “We’re going to be married.”

  “You’re lying to me.”

  “No, Stella. It’s the truth. So help me God it’s the truth.”

  “You’re lying to me.”

  “Stella, it’s the truth!”

  “Tell me about it,” Stella said. “Tell me all about you and Ralph.”

  Susan began talking furiously, talking about how she and Ralph had met that first morning, how they went to breakfast together, how he had painted her portrait and how in the interim they fell in love. She told Stella things she didn’t think she would ever tell anybody in her whole life—how she loved Ralph but was afraid of him at the same time, how he loved her, how she tried to save herself from sexual frustration by a visit to Stella’s room, how Ralph had come to her just yesterday and how they slept all night with their arms around each other. She talked as quickly as she could, embellishing everything with a wealth of detail, telling the older woman what they were wearing and what they said and on and on and on, spilling out all the details in an effort to keep Stella’s mind off the murder she was about to commit.

  She talked a mile a minute but her mind traveled elsewhere while she talked. It wasn’t necessary for her to concentrate on what she was saying. Everything she said was something that had penetrated so deeply into her own brain that she could rattle it off without even thinking about it.

  Her mind was busy with other things. Her mind had to figure out a way for her to escape from Stella once and for all. After a while either she would run out of words or Stella would run out of interest and it would be all over. And she knew that she was no match for Stella in a fight. The big woman was much stronger than she was, and only a lucky accident had enabled her to knock Stella unconscious the day before.

  She would need luck now.

  Luck, and more than luck. Luck and a plan, luck and a way out of it all.

  She needed something. Oh, Christ, if only she had listened to Gloria and bought a gun. It would have been easy enough for her to get a permit, and having a gun around the house would be nice just about now.

  It was funny—Gloria advised her to get the gun to protect herself from men. But that was when she worried about men, and now she needed a weapon of some sort to protect herself from a woman! A lesbian’s greatest fear traditionally was getting raped by a man—and now her own greatest worry was getting raped and murdered by a woman.

  If only she had a gun. But she didn’t have a gun, and she was going to need something in a hurry. She kept on talking full speed but she could see that Stella’s attention was wandering. The woman was getting impatient. It was only a question of time, only a minute or two before Stella came at her with one desperate lunge and—

  A knife.

  That might do it. Maybe if she could get a knife from the drawer next to her. But would she be able to do it before Stella realized what she was doing? She had the feeling that if she so much as turned her eyes away from the other woman’s eyes, Stella would make her move.

  But she had to do something. And she was running out of things to do.

  Her eyes still staring into Stella’s eyes, Susan reached to her right. Her hand fumbled around and found the handle of the kitchen drawer. Oh, God, it had to be the right drawer!

  She kept talking. Then, using her right hand only, she began to pull the drawer open a half-inch at a time. It stuck at first as it had a habit of doing and she almost died inside, but she gave another little tug and it came open.

  Bit by bit she pulled on the drawer. When it was open almost four inches she let her hand slip inside, fumbling helplessly around for a knife. Accidentally she started to pick up the little paring knife and gripped it by the blade, wincing as the cold steel bit into her hand.

  But it was just a nick, just a little cut. She held Stella’s eyes with her own and groped around in the drawer until her fingers fastened around the heavy wooden handle of the breadknife.

  The breadknife. Five inches of strong sharp steel. That would do it if anything would. That would save her.

  And just as she gripped onto the breadknife she ran out of things to say to Stella.

  There was a period of silence that was all of ten seconds long but that seemed to last forever. Stella’s eyes bored i
nto hers and her fingers tightened around the handle of the knife until she thought the wood would split between her fingers. She wanted to lift the knife out of the drawer but she was afraid, afraid that she would attract Stella’s attention to what she was doing before she could get the knife ready for action. How long would it take? The knife was bulky and the drawer was open only a little ways, and her whole body seemed numb with fear. How quickly would she be able to react? How quickly would Stella move?

  She didn’t know. She couldn’t take any chances, not until she absolutely had to, not until there was no choice anymore.

  Stella said: “The painting.”

  For a moment she didn’t realize what the woman was talking about. Then it came to her and she waited for Stella to go on.

  “The painting. He painted a picture of you.”

  “Yes,” she said desperately. “That’s right, Stella. Ralph painted a picture of me.”

  “He painted one of me once.”

  “I know. He told me.”

  “The one of me was very beautiful.”

  “I’m sure it was.”

  “Very beautiful.”

  “You’re a very beautiful woman,” Susan said.

  Stella smiled.

  “I want to see the picture,” Stella said.

  “Oh—it isn’t finished yet.”

  “Show it to me.”

  Susan took a deep breath. “It’s over there,” she said, nodding her head in the direction of the easel. When Stella turned to look toward the easel, the girl lifted the knife easily from the drawer and held it at her side. It seemed so easy, so simple.

  When Stella turned back to Susan again she was looking directly at the knife.

  She smiled. And Susan felt her stomach turning over. The woman was mad, raving, hysterically mad.

  “You’re a bad girl,” Stella said. “You shouldn’t play with knives.”

  “Get out of here or I’ll kill you.”

  “You’d better give me the knife,” Stella suggested. “You’d better give me the knife and stop being such a bad little girl.”

  “Stella!”

  The woman took a step closer. Susan could reach her now with the knife. All she would have to do was stab out blindly, stab the knife into Stella’s stomach and it would all be over. Then she would be safe.

  “I’ll kill you,” she warned. “Do you hear me, Stella?”

  Stella smiled again. She took another little step, her right hand reaching out for the knife.

  Susan tried. With all her strength she tried to lift the knife and drive it home into Stella’s belly. But something just went wrong somewhere and she couldn’t quite manage it. She couldn’t seem to move at all.

  Lazily, easily, Stella’s hand moved and took the knife from the girl’s numb fingers.

  It was all over now, all over for her. She knew that, and she stood very still with her eyes on the knife that was now in Stella’s hand, the tip of the blade pointing toward her heart. In another second or so it would be all over forever, and she would never see Ralph again, never feel safe and secure in his arms again, never love him and be loved by him again.

  She wanted to cry but she couldn’t cry any more than she could scream or stab. She was numb and frightened, and her heart was beating so fast and her breath coming so quickly that she thought she was going to pass out cold. Well, she might as well faint. She would be just as dead in a moment anyway.

  Stella smiled again, the sick smile, the twisted smile, the maniacal smile.

  “The picture,” she said. “I want to see the picture.”

  She walked all alone to the easel, the knife still in her hand, the insane smile still fixed on her face. She ripped the cloth covering off and stared down at the canvas while Susan cowered against the wall in the kitchenette, too petrified to move.

  “The picture is very beautiful,” Stella said.

  Susan barely heard her.

  “Very beautiful,” Stella repeated. “Too beautiful to live. Too beautiful to go on living.”

  Susan was shaking uncontrollably.

  “I’m going to kill you,” Stella said.

  Susan wanted to shout at her to go ahead and get it all over with. But something made her stop. And suddenly she realized that the woman was no longer paying any attention to her. Stella’s mind was on the picture, and all her interest was focused upon it.

  “I’m going to kill you,” she repeated. “Kill you because you’re too beautiful to live.”

  But she wasn’t talking to Susan any longer. She was talking to the picture.

  She raised the knife. Savagely she slashed away at the canvas. The first stroke of the knife went through Susan’s portrait diagonally, slicing through the left breast and the right side of the stomach.

  The next stroke was a stab wound where the heart would have been in the painting. Then another slash across the groin.

  Stella kept on wielding the knife, making ribbons out of the canvas. Finally she was through and the knife dropped to the floor with a clatter. She turned from the portrait and walked back to where Susan was huddled against the wall in the kitchenette.

  “You’re dead,” she said calmly. “I killed you.”

  Susan thought hysterically, Ralph’s going to be upset when he sees what she did to the picture.

  “You’re dead,” Stella repeated. “Why don’t you fall down if you’re dead?”

  Susan crumpled up, exhausted, and dropped to the floor.

  Chapter Eleven

  STELLA HURRIED DOWNSTAIRS. As she passed the second floor landing she shouted Maria’s name. Somehow it seemed very important for her to see Maria just now. She wasn’t sure exactly why, but she wanted very much to see Maria.

  She didn’t wait for the girl. She continued on downstairs the same smile still on her lips, the same insane light in her eyes.

  She felt wonderful.

  The strange thing was that she wasn’t quite sure what had happened upstairs. She knew that she had killed somebody but it was difficult to determine just who it was that she killed. A girl, certainly. Yes, she remembered quite clearly that she killed a girl.

  But who was the girl?

  A knife. Yes, she could remember a knife. She took a knife and cut the girl in the breasts and the stomach and the groin and the legs and the throat. She cut the girl all over.

  But who was the girl?

  Susan Rivers. Yes, that was it of course. That was who it was. She remembered quite clearly now that she killed Susan Rivers. But which Susan Rivers?

  Were there two Susan Rivers—one that moved and one that sat in a chair? That was possible, but how could that be? Maybe they were twins. But if they were twins, how come they both had the same first name? Twins were supposed to have different first names, weren’t they?

  Oh, it was all too much for her to try to figure it out. The hell with it. All that she knew for sure was that she had killed a girl and now she felt much better.

  And Maria was coming, and that was good also. For some reason she wanted very much to see Maria.

  She walked into her own bedroom and sat down on the edge of the bed with her back to the door. She reached around behind her and undid her halter, letting it fall to the floor. There—that was much better. It gave her breasts room to breathe, and it was very important for her breasts to have room to breathe.

  Then she kicked off her sandals. Then finally she slipped out of her shorts and dropped them on the floor with the halter and the sandals.

  To hell with it. Let everything stay on the floor. She wanted her little girl. Her Maria.

  There were footsteps in the hallway, then footsteps in the front room. That was probably Maria, she thought. That was Maria, her little daughter, and Maria was coming to take care of her.

  She didn’t turn around.

  The footstep came closer. Yes, that was Maria. She could recognize Maria’s footsteps, and now Maria was coming into the bedroom.

  “Hello,” she said. “Hello, Maria.”
r />   But Maria didn’t answer. That wasn’t very good of Maria, and now she would have to punish the girl. It was all very tiresome but there was nothing else to be done. Maria was being bad and now she would have to be punished. She would have to learn to behave, and it was up to her Mummy to teach her what was right and what was wrong. Why, if her Mummy didn’t teach her, how in the world would the bad little girl ever learn to be good?

  There was a slight whirring sound in the air behind her and Stella started to turn around.

  She didn’t make it.

  The heavy base of the lamp caught her on the skull just an inch or so away from the spot where Susan had struck her the other afternoon.

  And, for the second time in as many days, Stella was knocked unconscious.

  Maria worked very quickly and economically.

  First she took a bedsheet from the linen closet and cut it into strips with a straight razor she found in the medicine chest. She laid Stella down on her back on the bed and used four of the strips to tie her hands and feet to the four posts of the bed.

  She took another strip and placed it in Stella’s mouth, tying it around the back of her head so that it would act as a gag and prevent Stella from making any sounds whatsoever.

  She was very thorough. All of the five strips were tied very securely. The knots were quite tight and it would be impossible for Stella to move at all.

  Then Maria sat down on the edge of the bed and waited for Stella to wake up.

  Stella was not unconscious long. After what seemed to Maria like just a minute or two she opened her eyes and stared up at Maria.

  Maria stared back. Then she started to giggle, because her Mummy looked very silly all tied up like that. Now she couldn’t punish Maria anymore. She couldn’t hurt her with the palm of her hand or the belt or the cigarette.

  Not anymore.

  Stella tried to say something, but Maria couldn’t figure out for the life of her what it was her Mummy was trying to say. The gag stopped her from saying anything at all, and that was funny too.

  Maria giggled again.

  “Hello,” she said. “Hi, Mummy.”

  Stella didn’t answer, which was natural enough when you come right down to it.

  “I was a bad girl, Mummy,” she said. “I was a very bad girl. I got my clothes dirty playing in the sandbox and I said sassy things to my teacher and I broke Billy Rumsey’s shovel. Wasn’t I bad, Mummy?”