So sort of—trapped?
Let’s say defined.
Does the body define?
Flesh, bone, blood—us?
If not the body, then—what?
She is fumbling to fit the key into the ignition, not that she’s drunk (she is not drunk!—though they will find a high alcoholic content in her blood) but her damned kidskin glove makes it awkward, and she isn’t completely adjusted to the new car, and she is, but isn’t, aware of—someone in the back seat?—rising as if to embrace her?—as if he’d been waiting a very long time to embrace her?—and were she to glance astonished into the rearview mirror she would see only what appears to be a masked face, a head exotically concealed in something dark, possibly woollen, a long scarf wound turban-style about the head covering most of the face including most of the eyes, only peepholes for the eyes, the eyes!—damp-glaring with hurt! with rage! with elation! with resolve!—but she doesn’t have time for it begins at once and will end within sixty seconds, the quick deft terrible arm snaking about her neck choking her pinning her to the seat, the flash of the razor, the cutting tearing digging slicing razor blade, her cheeks, her forehead, her chin, her nose, her screaming mouth, the agonized O! of that mouth, and the hot blood everywhere, she thrashes from side to side tries to move her head from side to side but he has her pinioned, no escape, the bloody razor leaps, flies, flashes, tears, slicing into her flesh like a lover’s caress gone mad, maddened with lust, and then, and then, and then—the splash of the turpentine into her face, into her gouged-bleeding wounds, into her eyes, as if to cleanse—?
What comes out.
2
So it happened: his enemy had struck.
Michael O’Meara half-knew, as, entering his house by way of the kitchen, at approximately 7:45 P.M. of March 1, seeing the new girl, Clara, speaking on the telephone, and Joel and Kenny white-faced beside her—seeing her, seeing his boys, oh God: something has happened to Gina: he knew.
Clara was a sturdy-bodied girl, ordinarily a hearty cheery competent girl, but now her eyes widened at the sight of him, and she cried, “Oh, Mr. O’Meara! Thank God!” and she handed over the receiver to him, as if it were on fire.
So, he knew.
It had been a tightly scheduled day. One of his rather skillfully managed days. A day to keep, for a while, the nightmare at bay.
He’d flown to Boston on a 10:00 A.M. shuttle. Had his luncheon meeting, a fairly satisfactory meeting, and returned, to Newark Airport, on the 3:00 P.M. shuttle. A car was waiting to take him to Pearce, Inc., where he had another meeting, or was it two meetings, and then he hid away in his office, as others left he hid away in his office and he worked, and left at about 7:00 P.M. taking work home with him, driving home on the Parkway he could not recall—had Gina said she would, or would not, be home when he got there; had Gina said they were, or were not, going to have dinner together that evening; thinking of the work he had to do, feeling, perversely, an odd angry pride in the very fact that I can do it: I will do it: God damn it, yes!
Michael O’Meara knew that the top executives at Pearce, Inc., were watching him very closely these days. Him, and his team of energetic young lawyers. They were keenly aware of him, uneasily aware of him (for, loyal as he was to Pearce, Inc., Michael was occasionally approached by other corporations with tentative offers of employment: his reputation had never been more bankable), both dependent upon him and anxious to extract the last drop of effort from him—oh yes. And to bear up under this ceaseless pressure, this omniscient eye from above, Michael had discovered that, taken prudently, in very small doses, Pearce’s popular “mood-adjuster” Euphomine was very helpful. Very!
Not that he believed in amphetamines—he didn’t. And not that he’d abandoned the Liloprane, which was so soothing, comforting, like an old friend—he remained faithful to the Liloprane. But now and then, never more than a few times a week, when, for instance, he needed to be really up for a meeting, like, today, at the office before 8:00 A.M. at the shuttle by 10:00 A.M. required to be as fully awake and alert and as optimistic and as zestful as Michael O’Meara’s reputation required—well, at such times the Euphomine was helpful.
So, ironically, this day had not been one of Michael O’Meara’s more painful days. Like a fast-moving stream it had its own urgent rhythm, carrying him along, propelling him along, with virtually no time to think of the danger to his family; no time to brood upon the fact that Lee Roy Sears was his enemy and wished him harm.
Then, dumbfounded, he was standing in his kitchen being informed by a stranger at a medical center in Ridgewood, New Jersey, that Gina was undergoing emergency surgery there; that she had been savagely attacked by an unknown, as-yet unapprehended assailant; slashed in the face and hands with a razor, robbed of her cash, credit cards, and jewelry, and left, unconscious, to bleed to death behind the wheel of her car, in a high-rise parking garage attached to a Marriott Inn just off the Parkway in—but why Ridgewood, so far away?
Michael could not, at first, comprehend what he was hearing.
Neither the words themselves, nor their meaning.
Weakly he asked, “Ridgewood?—are you sure? Ridgewood?”
Yes, the voice informed him: Ridgewood, New Jersey. Did he know how to get there?
He thought he did, more or less. Yes. Of course. He had a map of the state, he could find it.
About thirty-five miles away, north and east of Mount Orion.
A suburban town of no special distinction, north of Paterson, just a name on the map. Michael O’Meara had never been in Ridgewood that he could recall but, no, of course he’d have no trouble finding it.
Hanging up the phone, dazed as if he’d been struck a blow to the head, Michael still had enough fatherly presence of mind to comfort his badly frightened sons, who had begun crying softly, helplessly, pressing themselves against his legs, plucking at his sleeves. Of late, Joel and Kenny had grown into husky little boys, but now they seemed very small, very young, vulnerable. “Is Mommy hurt?—is Mommy going to die?—where is Mommy?” they whimpered. Michael squatted, and hugged them, one in the crook of each arm, hugged them hard, blinking back tears, telling them that Mommy would be all right—“Daddy will take care of her, and Daddy will take care of you, don’t be afraid, ever again, I promise.”
He drove to Ridgewood, exiting from the Parkway, taking Route 208 north, thinking, repeatedly, over and over, again, again, Don’t let her die, don’t let her die, God don’t let her die, I will always then believe in Your mercy.
Thinking, But I’ll kill him. Must kill him.
Fumbling as if unconsciously to extract from his pocket, and to place on his tongue, one of the chunky Euphomine capsules—but it slipped from his shaking fingers and was lost.
So, he let it go. In the state he was in, he didn’t need further stimulation.
“Turpentine? Turpentine? He splashed turpentine on her?”
Repeatedly, in disbelief, Michael O’Meara asked the emergency room physician this question. He was perceived to be in a state of such extreme emotion as to require medication himself.
The doctor suggested a sedative, but Michael O’Meara backed off, saying, “No! No thank you, Doctor! Not me! Not now!”
While Gina was undergoing surgery, to repair, or attempt to repair, her savagely mutilated face, Michael O’Meara waited, not impassively, but on his feet, pacing, limping, grimacing with pain (because of a bad knee?—though he limped, he seemed scarcely conscious of it); his head lowered, eyes rapidly blinking, sightless. He was perceived to be a professional man, well-dressed, in a gray pinstripe suit, but slightly disheveled, his necktie loose, and his shirt collar unbuttoned; he might have been in his late forties, his face drawn and ashen with fatigue. His skin had a dry, mottled appearance, as if it might be hot to the touch. He gave off a frank odor of masculine sweat, frustration. And, as he paced, he kept clenching and unclenching his fists.
Each time someone in hospital whites appeared—no matter if it was only a very yo
ung nurse, or an orderly—Michael O’Meara looked up, fearful, urgent. Licking his parched lips, asking, “Is she—?”
Gina O’Meara would be in the operating room for two and a quarter hours.
During this time, Michael O’Meara made only two telephone calls, both to his home. He spoke with his sons, assuring them that “Mommy is going to be all right, yes really and truly she is.”
Three police officers questioned Michael O’Meara, and he managed to speak with them politely, if distractedly. He tried to recall which of her several watches Gina was likely to have been wearing, tried to describe her wedding and engagement rings, and to identify which credit cards she routinely carried in her wallet. (The assailant-thief had taken money and credit cards out of Gina’s wallet and left the wallet and the purse behind, in the back seat of the Mercedes. Both were covered in Gina’s blood.) It was noted by these police officers that Michael O’Meara behaved as the husband of any so viciously assaulted and robbed woman might have behaved, except, on the matter of the assailant-thief’s identity, he was peculiarly laconic, resigned. Thus far, there were no witnesses, nor any suspects. The attack had taken place on level C, the highest level, of the parking garage, at a time in early evening when the garage was relatively deserted; the attendant on duty, on the first level, could recall no one suspicious or out-of-the-ordinary entering, or leaving, at the time of the attack. (Gina had been found by a couple returning to their car, approximately twenty minutes after the attack. By then she was unconscious, in shock from loss of blood, sprawled in the front seat of the Mercedes where everything—her fox fur coat, her clothes, the cushioned-leather car seats, the carpeted floor of the car—was soaked in her blood.) Told these stark, not very encouraging facts, Michael grimaced, and said, flatly, “Of course. No witnesses. He would not have tried to kill my wife, if there had been witnesses.”
The police were naturally under the assumption that the attack had been more or less random and anonymous, the primary motive being robbery. Michael O’Meara seemed to acquiesce to this theory; at any rate, he did not object. Certainly he did not mention the name “Lee Roy Sears.”
Michael was told by the surgeon, after the operation, that Gina had sustained countless deep cuts to her face—cheeks, forehead, chin, nose, mouth; her lower lip had been nearly sliced away, and her left earlobe severed. Yet the razor-wielding assailant had been careful, apparently, not to cut her throat. Nor had he cut her eyes—though he’d badly burnt them with the turpentine.
The surgeon, younger than Michael O’Meara, spoke somberly; he appeared somewhat shaken.
Perhaps he was wondering if the woman upon whom he’d performed emergency surgery had been attractive.
He would recall afterward how intensely the husband, Michael O’Meara, listened; yet how glazed his eyes, how compulsively he kept licking his lips. Several times he asked, in a voice just barely controlled, “But she will live, Doctor, won’t she?—won’t she?” The surgeon said, “Yes, Mr. O’Meara, she’ll live. But she’ll require further surgery. Reconstructive surgery. Her face has been so”—he paused, searching for the most discreet word—“injured.” And Michael O’Meara said, with the same barely controlled urgency, “But the main thing, Doctor, is her life.”
Immediately following the operation, Gina had been taken to the intensive care unit, where she had yet to regain consciousness. When a nurse led Michael in, and he saw her—saw the grotesquely bandaged figure she’d become—he gave a cry of horror, stricken to the heart.
Her head (which was shaven) was completely swathed in white, like a mummy’s head—mere peepholes for eyes, nostrils, mouth. A transparent plastic tube ran into one of her nostrils, distending it; another tube ran into a vein in her arm. Though her head appeared swollen in its lengths of gauze, her body appeared small, flat, diminished, like a sick child’s. And how still she was, except for her hoarse, labored, soblike breathing.
Michael clasped her cool, damp, lifeless hand in his. Whispering, “Gina?—darling? I love you.”
She would not regain consciousness for hours. By then Michael O’Meara would have been made to leave, for the facility was closing for the night.
Resist not evil.
3
And again! as in a dream! the big-bellied Hispanic in the soiled undershirt burst out of his room, eyes glaring in his swarthy face, when Michael O’Meara banged his fist on Lee Roy Sears’s door!—this time, seeing what was in the other’s face, retreating back into his room without a word.
And shutting the door.
Quietly.
He’s reckless enough, arrogant enough, to be there.
And so he was, God damn him: the lights on the third floor of the warehouse were on.
Midnight. A dull glow from within the building, illuminating the panes of grimy glass.
There. Waiting.
Michael O’Meara’s heart was pounding hard, fast, steady. He seemed to have no fear. He seemed even to have no plan for what he would do; and what, having done that, he would do next—if there was next.
So, running up the stairs. In the dank airless dark barely illuminated by a single bare lightbulb.
From Lee Roy Sears’s studio there came the jarring sound of a radio—rock music, shrill and raucous. And that smell, that taunting stink, of turpentine.
Michael O’Meara pushed the door open. There stood Lee Roy Sears, at his easel, paintbrush in hand, a cigarette clenched between his teeth and half his face screwed up against the smoke. As the men locked eyes, Sears stiffened; Michael O’Meara hesitated for a fraction of a moment, simply staring. He was not thinking, There: my enemy. He was not thinking, This is the man I must kill. Since leaving Gina, he had had no thoughts, in the usual sense of the word, at all.
He had driven from the Ridgewood Medical Center to Putnam, and to this warehouse in a derelict neighborhood in North Putnam, without knowing what he did; with no clear plan, or consciousness.
Knowing only that he was fated to kill his enemy, or, at last, to be killed by him. And not even knowing this fact so much as sensing it, groping for it, as a blind creature, burrowing in earth, might nonetheless burrow upward toward light.
“You!—fucker!—what are you doing here!”
Lee Roy Sears faced Michael O’Meara defiantly, guiltily.
The paintbrush he wielded glistened crudely with an oily red, a plasticine red, mock blood. Behind him, the canvas on his easel was a lurid cobwebby swirl of reds, grays, black: a stylized grimace: like the loud rock music that continued to blare from the radio, as if jeering at Michael O’Meara’s grief and rage. Sears threw the brush onto the floor, and the red paint splattered. He spat out his cigarette, made a sound somewhere between a laugh and a yodel, he wasn’t afraid, he meant to enjoy himself, seizing a chair and brandishing it like a weapon, advancing upon Michael O’Meara, saying, taunting, “You’re here, huh?—and where’s she?—how’s the cunt, huh?—Mr. and Mrs. Hot-Shit Lawyer-Cunt, huh? Okay, asshole, come and get it!”
Was this the man Michael O’Meara had helped bring to Mount Orion, and welcomed into his and Gina’s life?
Sears was heavier than Michael had ever seen him, especially in the upper torso. Thick with muscle, his neck appeared foreshortened so that his head seemed merely to rest upon his shoulders. His eyes were glassily bright in their mockery, as if he were drunk, or drugged. His hair, Indian-black singed with gray, had been tied back carelessly from his face into a drooping ponytail, secured by a length of twine; his sleeves, rolled up, bared sinewy forearms, and exposed the lewd coiled snake, oily black spangled with gold, on his left arm—how vivid, how pulsating, how springy with malevolent life the tattoo was! Michael was staring at the thing, transfixed, and would have remained rooted to the spot as Sears brought the chair down on his head except, at the very last instant, by a violent wrenching of his will, he broke free.
Broke free, and jumped aside, with an alacrity he hadn’t known he still possessed: he might have been on the football field again, jumping aside t
o elude being tackled.
The chair came crashing down beside him, to shatter on the floor.
Sears grunted and wheeled upon him.
Again the men locked eyes. Each was breathing harshly.
Michael whispered, “Why—why—why did you do it!”
Sears said, sneering, “What?—what the fuck?—I do what I want to do, man!—what I want to do!—got it?”
“My wife—”
“Fuck your wife! The cunt!”
Michael leapt wildly at Sears, who swung at him with a roundhouse right, missing him by inches, the momentum of his blow carrying him forward, and off-balance, so that Michael, not knowing what he did, merely reacting, had only to bring his own right fist up—a clumsy uppercut that, as if by chance, caught the other man on the point of his chin and sent him staggering backward.
The easel, the lurid cobwebby painting, the blaring radio—all went flying. Abruptly, the raucous music was cut off.
Sears seemed genuinely surprised by the blow and momentarily stunned. “Fucker!—God damn you!—gonna kill you!” He seized an empty beer bottle, swung another time at Michael, who ducked, and again rushed at him, pinioning him around the shoulders as both men staggered backward.
They fell against Sears’s cluttered worktable, knocking things to the floor; fell against a pile of canvases stacked against a wall; crashed into the flimsy plywood screen in front of the toilet, and sent it toppling. Sears kneed Michael in the belly and groin, hard enough to make him cry out in pain, but not hard enough to loosen his grip. “Let go!—damn you!—you’re crazy!” Sears grunted.
Was Michael O’Meara mad?—his face had gone deathly white, as if the blood had drained entirely out of it, and his eyes were shut tight, his entire face contorted as a gargoyle’s. And he would not let go of Lee Roy Sears, locking him in a fierce squeezing embrace.
Sears’s hair had come loose from its ponytail and straggled into Michael’s face as well as his own.