Without Mercy

by Len Levinson

  “Why the hell didn’t you bring a rubber with you?”

  The fat man felt a flash of anger. “What the fuck are you telling me what I should bring here!”

  She backed off a little. “I think I might have one here.”

  She rustled around among her cosmetics, opened a jewelry box, and took out a rubber in a foil wrapper. She had a big unshapely ass and her tits were flabby. She wasn’t worth twenty cents, never mind twenty dollars.

  She tore off the foil and looked at his cock. “You ain’t hard yet.”

  “I guess I’m a little nervous.”

  “It ain’t even hard enough for me to put the rubber on.”

  “Maybe if you do something, it might get hard.”

  “Okay. Lie back.”

  He stretched out on the massage table, and she unbuttoned something in her crotch. Her tights opened up and he could see the brown fuzz of her pubic hairs. Standing beside him, she gave his flaccid penis a few jerks, then bent over and put it into her mouth.

  He tried to concentrate and make himself feel horny, but there was a despairing, nauseous feeling in the pit of his stomach. Reaching to her, he inserted his fingers into the crack of her ass, and wondered how many guys had stuck their cocks in there today. She sucked him vigorously and made it hurt a little.

  She straightened up. “What’s the matter with you?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You been drinking?”

  “Not that much.”

  “You ever have this trouble before?”

  “I haven’t been to a whorehouse since I was in the army, and that was like twenty years ago.”

  She wrinkled her nose, shrugged, bent over, and sucked him off some more. He touched her cunt, and it was cold and damp, probably filled with the cum of twenty guys. His prick hurt and he felt loathsome. This was turning out to be a horrible experience, and he’d had many horrible experiences with women already, a fat ugly man like him. Somehow he had to bring it to an end.

  She stood up and smoothed back her hair. “Listen, you don’t get all night here, understand?”

  He took a deep breath and sat up, swinging his legs around to the floor. “Okay, why don’t we just stop it right now.”

  “Huh?”

  “I’ll just put on my clothes and leave.” She narrowed her eyes. “You don’t get your money back, you know.”

  “Did I ask for my money back?” “Well, I’m just telling you anyway. You ain’t getting your money back.” “I don’t want it back.” “Well you’re not getting it back anyway.” He reached for his shorts and stepped into them. She buttoned up her tights and left the cubicle. His hands trembled; his face smarted with anger and shame. He’d been cheated by that nasty little bitch who wasn’t even a good whore. Somebody ought to push her off the end of a pier. Dressing quickly, chewing his lips, he dreaded passing the girls in the front room on his way to the door. He was afraid the bitch would tell the others that he couldn’t fuck. He didn’t think he could deal with that. He put on his red and black jacket and lit a cigarette. Everything always went easier when he had a cigarette to puff on. Opening the door, he left the cubicle and walked nervously toward the front room, where the redheaded guy was sitting looking directly at him in the corridor. The redhead smiled superciliously, and the fat man looked down to the floor, puffing his cigarette. In the front room the girls giggled as he passed by them. One of the Latin girls said something in Spanish and all the others laughed. He glanced up and saw their mocking eyes as they held their tits and stomachs and bounced around in glee.

  “Hey buddy,” said the blonde girl, “next time you come here we’ll put it in a splint, okay?”

  The girls laughed louder. The fat man charged out of the room and ran down the stairs. He gritted his teeth and balled up his fists.

  “How’d it go, stud?” asked the black man on the sidewalk.

  The fat man glowered at him and walked toward the bright lights of Broadway.

  Chapter Two

  The fat man went to the Nathan’s on Forty-third Street and ate three hot dogs standing up at a counter because he was too angry to sit down. Once again, he’d been humiliated, and he hated to be humiliated. Once again a woman had taken advantage of him. When he was a little boy the girls used to make fun of him, and they were still doing it. Goddamn bitches.

  He drank his orange soda and shifted his weight from one foot to another. The garish lights of the restaurant fell on the faces of Times Square denizens eating cheap food. The men looked like filthy derelicts and the women like witches. The world was a horrible place. Life was disgusting.

  The fat man thought of the blonde in the massage parlor and rage boiled up in his chest. If she were standing in front of him right then he’d rip her face apart with his bare hands.

  What a cruel bitch she’d been. She almost was as bad as Evelyn, who had taken his money and his gifts but never gave him any pussy, and finally he found out she was sleeping with a sanitation worker.

  All women ever do is hurt men and try to steal from them, the fat man thought. They’re terrible hateful creatures and they lead men astray. Look at the example of Eve in the Garden of Eden. They know we need them so that gives them power over us. They like to torture us and turn us into slaves, which is what Evelyn did to me. Deep down they hate us because we’re stronger and better than they are. They’ll do anything and something should be done about them.

  He put his hands in his pockets and went outside. In front of Nathan’s was a newsstand with girly magazines hanging from clothespins. The fat man saw them and closed his eyes tightly, because the sight of naked women reminded him anew of the pain he’d felt in the massage parlor.

  He walked east on dark, deserted Forty-third Street to collect his thoughts. He felt jumpy and disconnected and didn’t feel like going down into the subway station yet. The blonde in the massage parlor flashed in his mind again, and he ground his teeth together. He squeezed the knife in his pocket and wanted to cut her fucking guts out.

  He was getting a headache, and his heart was beating faster than usual. That blonde is probably doing the same thing to some other poor bastard right now, he thought. That’s probably the way she gets her jollies. They’re all no fucking good. And now they’re even trying to steal men’s jobs. I can’t take it anymore.

  He stopped and leaned his shoulder against the wall of a building. Hey Buddy, next time you come up here we’ll put it in a splint, okay? His face broke out in a cold sweat as he remembered all those whores laughing at him. Even the redheaded guy behind the desk was laughing.

  His hands were shaking. People had been shitting on him all his life, and now he was cracking under the weight of it. Nothing he’d ever tried to do had worked out. He had a lousy job, and nobody had ever loved him. He’d lived his entire life at the bottom of the barrel.

  Sweat pouring from his face, he looked up into the street lamp, and his thoughts vanished for a moment in the white-hot glare that spiked through his brain. Then the blonde came back. It’ll be better if you give me ten dollars.

  The fucking, lying whore. That miserable stinking cunt. I ought to break her fucking neck. I ought to kick her fucking head in. I ought to cut her fucking throat.

  He saw himself stabbing his knife into her throat, and felt a rise of joy. He imagined himself punching her in the mouth, and the joy glowed warmer. Yes, that’s what I ought to do to her. That’s what she deserves.

  He put his hands in his pockets and continued walking. He couldn’t cut her throat because of the police. They’d catch him and throw him in jail, probably for the rest of his life. He saw himself choking the blonde, and felt the pleasure again. Wouldn’t it be nice to have that pleasure for real? It sure would. It’d almost be worth going to jail for.

  It’d almost be worth going to jail for. The fat man stopped cold on the street at the thought of that. It’d almost be worth going to jail for. He became a little scared, because all of a sudden he realized he wouldn’t have very much
to lose if he killed the blonde whore. They’d just put him in jail, and so what? What was so great about his life as it was? At least he wouldn’t have to worry about earning a living if he was in jail, and they hadn’t brought back the electric chair yet in New York. The pleasure of paying that blonde back might be worth it.

  And then a new thought entered his mind. They probably won’t even catch me. It was true—he’d read in the paper that many murders go unsolved. If he was careful, he probably could get away with it. And if they caught him, he didn’t care about going to jail. Life wasn’t so wonderful for him on the outside anyway. He had nothing to lose and something wonderful to gain: revenge.

  He stopped on the sidewalk again, and it was as though cool rain were falling on his head. A tiny bubble burst and he felt marvelously free. I can do whatever I want, he thought. Nothing can ever harm me. He saw the blonde lying dead at his feet. Yes.

  Chapter Three

  Cynthia Doyle came down the stairs of the Crown Club shortly after three o’clock in the morning, when the place closed. A few of the girls’ boyfriends were waiting outside, but Lorenzo wasn’t there and she became annoyed, because she’d told him again and again that she wanted him to walk her home. But Lorenzo liked to smoke grass and nod out, and often she had to walk home alone. It was embarrassing that the other girls knew her man didn’t think enough of her to walk her home, and she felt mad at Lorenzo. He wasn’t good for anything, but if she didn’t have him she’d be all alone.

  She turned right and walked west on Forty-fifth Street, her pea coat open. Her bell-bottomed jeans were frayed from touching the ground. A faint breeze blew through her blonde hair and she felt glad to be out of the massage parlor. So many fucking guys.

  At the corner she bought a pack of Virginia Slims from one of those little Lebanese cigarette stands, and lit one with her disposable lighter. Then she proceeded down the block between Eighth and Ninth Avenues, walking flat-footed and carefree; you might even have mistaken her for a high school girl who’d stayed out too late.

  She was becoming angrier at Lorenzo, because you never knew who was walking these West Side streets at night. She figured Carmella and Demaris probably were chattering about how Cindy had to walk home alone again. She really ought to get rid of Lorenzo and find somebody else, but who? Guys talked a lot of shit but all they wanted to do was fuck you and have you support them. She’d known Lorenzo for three years and felt almost as though they were married. He was the only person she’d ever really been able to talk to in her life. If only he could get up off his ass once in a while and do something.

  She looked behind her and saw a guy about half a block back. She really should have taken a cab home, but last week a cabdriver hassled her and she didn’t feel like going through that again. Anyway, she only lived a few blocks from the massage parlor.

  She crossed Ninth Avenue and thought about going to the deli and getting a roast beef sandwich or something, but she didn’t feel hungry and besides Carmella had remarked today that Cindy had put on a few pounds. That bitch Carmella should talk. She looked like a fucking tank rolling around. There was some yogurt in the refrigerator and that should do.

  Continuing down Forty-fifth Street between Ninth and Tenth, she told herself that she’d have to talk with Lorenzo when she got home, provided she could wake him up. Maybe if she threatened to leave him that’d do it. He might try to get tough and hit her, but he wasn’t that strong and she wasn’t that weak. She’d bop him with a frying pan if he tried anything funny. The advantage of having a boyfriend like Lorenzo was that she could handle him if it ever came down to violence. Some of the guys the other girls went out with were stone killers. Like Luke the Duke.

  Then she heard the footsteps behind her. She’d been aware of them for the past twenty feet, but now they were getting close and coming fast. A little frightened, but certain it wasn’t anything to worry about, she turned around and saw a big fat guy with a face that looked familiar. He was looking at the ground and walking with his hands in his pockets as though she didn’t exist. Facing front again, she moved to the side to let him pass.

  The guy came up beside her and grabbed her arm. Startled, she turned toward him and saw the knife in his hand. She couldn’t believe it was a knife.

  “Remember me?” he growled.

  She recognized him, and the reality of the situation hit her like a Mack truck. Her face drained of color and her jaw dropped. “What do you want?” she asked, trying to be brave.

  He looked over her shoulder. “Go into that alley over there.”

  She thought maybe she could talk her way out of the mounting horror. “What for?”

  “I’m going to do what we didn’t finish in your whorehouse.”

  “Listen,” she said, her voice quavering, “I’ll do anything you say. Just don’t hurt me, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  She walked in front of him into the alley and saw some garbage cans. A cat slinked along the far wall.

  “Behind the garbage cans,” he said.

  “Listen, you’re not going to hurt me, are you?” She was trembling and she was afraid she might start crying.

  “Not if you do what you’re supposed to do.”

  She got behind the garbage cans, and turned and faced him. His face was expressionless and covered with so many folds you could barely see his eyes. She had always been afraid something like this would happen someday. There were so many nuts around. But she’d do whatever he wanted and somehow she’d get through it. That goddamn Lorenzo.

  “What do you want me to do?” she asked.

  “You filthy fucking bitch!” he snarled, drawing the blade back.

  She screamed and raised her arms, but his hand and the blade came crashing through. She felt a sharp terrible pain at the side of her throat, and that was the end of Cynthia Doyle.

  Chapter Four

  The fat man awoke at two o’clock in the afternoon. At first it appeared just like any other day, and then he remembered the blonde whore bleeding in the alley. He’d really done it. It hadn’t been a dream.

  Lying there staring at the far wall, he felt a little giddy. He knew the police must have found the whore by now and were looking for the killer. But he didn’t think they could trace anything to him. Nobody saw him. He hadn’t left anything behind. He was safe.

  The police were smart. They had special laboratories where they sifted clues. He’d have to watch his step.

  It occurred to him that there should be something in today’s papers about it. He got out of bed and dressed himself quickly, eager to see the write-up. He put on dungarees and a blue bomber jacket, plus the gray visored cap he wore when he drove a cab. Leaving his apartment, he descended the murky stairs of the old tenement building and walked to the newsstand on the corner of Second Avenue.

  The avenue shuddered under the weight of trucks and cabs, and the sky was covered with gray clouds. The fat man picked up a Daily News, handed some coins to the old Ukrainian guy behind the window, and looked at the front page. He saw a big picture of the whore lying in the dirt, a detective bending over her. The headline read, “Prostitute Knifed in West Side Alley.”

  The fat man stood on the corner and read the story quickly. The whore’s name was Cynthia Doyle and she was from Cincinnati, the daughter of a truck driver. The police refused to comment on the case except to say they were conducting a thorough investigation. The politicians were getting into the act. That was about it.

  He folded the newspaper under his arm and walked back to his apartment, feeling like a celebrity. What would the people in the building think if they knew he was the killer? It’d really shake them. Police all over the city were looking for him, and here he was walking on his block just like anybody else. If they caught him they’d probably put his picture on the front page. He’d be famous. He’d always known that someday he’d do something that would make him famous.

  He entered the building and climbed the stairs to his apartment. Sitting at his kitch
en table drinking coffee, with the front page of the Daily News in front of him, he thought that tomorrow the city would forget about the murder, and there’d be something else on the front page.

  He didn’t want something else to be on the front page. And he was proud of what he’d done last night. If anybody deserved to die, it was that blonde whore. It was time for men to rise up against the women who were taking advantage of them, insulting them, swindling their money and stealing their jobs. Maybe he could show other men that action could be taken in defense of their rights, the only kind of action the bitches understood. He’d have the bitches quaking in their shoes.

  Maybe then they’d realize that they’d gone too far.

  Chapter Five

  Three nights later, the fat man took the subway uptown to Times Square. He climbed the stairs and emerged beside the cigar store on the corner of Broadway and Forty-second Street. Near the subway entrance a black man was selling the Bilalian News, and a few feet away a white man held out a pamphlet whose headline declared “Without Jesus You Have No Hope.” Neon lights flashed all around and music blared from the front of a record shop.

  The fat man walked west on Forty-second Street, his hands in his pockets and his shoulders so round you couldn’t see where they ended and his arms began. He passed movie theaters showing porno films, kung fu epics, and major Hollywood films on their last run through town.

  “Loose joints—real Colombian,” said a black man standing with four others beside the entrance to a movie theater.

  The fat man kept walking through the mass of humanity that choked the sidewalk. He wondered why so many young people were missing teeth. Must be from taking so much drugs. He looked in the window of the store that sold scuba equipment, hunting boots, and outdoor clothing. A few doors down he veered into a porno bookstore.

  It was brightly lit with overhead fluorescent lamps and filled with solemn men looking through books and magazines. He passed the paperback novels in wire racks and made his way to the back where magazines were stacked on tables.