|
Place your ad here for only $15.00! Reach thousands of writers and visitors! CLICK HERE
|
|
|
 Ernest Dempsey, named Karim Khan at birth, developed a passion for creative writing when he was twelve. At the age of fourteen, he used to write complete stories. He had to part with his unpublished writings for a few years as he entered graduation in Geology. At the end of his academic career, Ernest again started writing. As the Internet reached his home town, his writings appeared online. Ernest has been writing for The Surface (Glasgow). His poems have come out in Voices Net Anthologies, Poetry Canada, and Seeker magazine. His e-book Dream Terror is published at http://www.ebookad.com/eb.php3?ebookid=22122. Currently Ernest is going for an MA in English Literature. He is also working on his first novel. SMS: 00929319425. E-contact: dempsey87 AT Yahoo.com
|
|
MY ACCOMPLISHMENTS:
- My first book in print 'The Biting Age' has been published by World Audience Inc. and is available at www.amazon.com.
- http://www.www.bookreviewpot.blogspot.com/
- The Spoiled Ink September Newsletter
What's new? A game for book nuts!
<<< Those of you with books might want to see what the new personal book store looks like!
<<< Want to know if you are on anybody's bookshelf? (You need to be logged in for this to work)
<<< Latest News From The Network!
September Zine On-line Now
Want your book reviewed?
September's Writers Choice Award
Fiction Poetry
Writing is hard. Sometimes just thinking about making the coffee in readiness for a long stint at the VDU is enough to make you consider taking up something less soul-searching like multi-dimensional geometry, particle physics or origami. So here's a little diversion with a literary bent that requires you to exert ABSOLUTELY NO BRAINPOWER, yet should, after the course of a week or so, bring into existence a short piece of unique fiction.
Here's how it works:
1. Open a book, any book, at page 83.
2. Find line 12 and copy the first 2 complete sentences into this thread as a new post.
3. Change the first female name you read to Betty.
4. Change the first male name to Frank.
5. Subsequent names can be left as they are.
6. Make sure you tick the box to be notified of each new post so you can keep abreast of the story's development.
7. At the end of the month, the story will be posted into my reading room. All authors (of the forum posts!) will be credited. Who knows, it might even get a Writer's Choice nomination (from Eddie's Mom).
Of course, there'll be kudos for anyone who can name the books, or their authors, from which excerpts have been taken.
Happy scribbling!
Click here to join in (You need to be logged in).
Sponsored Ads - To book your Sponsored Ad for the October newsletter send an e-mail to ad@spoiledink.com
pabd.com
Online service for today’s self-publishing writer. No need to pay publishing fees or set-up charges. Make use of our free book and cover design templates, create your own book or upload a print ready pdf. Set your own selling price, promote your work through your free exclusive bookstore and the book trade.
www.pabd.com
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Publish your book in 5 weeks!
Starting at $449.00 our packages include 52 copies, retail web page, Marketing Program, 30% royalty on cover price, 60% author order discount, and more. Visit eBookstand Today!
http://www.ebookstand.com/freeguide6.html
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
DOUBLE, TRIPLE OR QUADRUPLE YOUR BOOK/EBOOK PROFITS!
Discover the little known secrets of the Online Publishing Model. Fast-track the creation & marketing of your book/ebook, and catapult your sales/profits. Bypass traditional publishers, take control of your book, and make some decent money.
www.instantbookwritingkit.com/eq.html
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Writers on the Net at WRITERS.COM
On-line writing classes in all genres, taught by published writers who are also experienced teachers. Also, free writers' groups and writers' newsletter, and for-pay tutoring and mentoring. Since 1995 - The first private writing school on the Net.
http://www.writers.com
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Go Publish Yourself.com
Self-Publishing Insights: Visit us today to Discover the Latest Self-Publishing Tips and Book Marketing Secrets. Special Gift: Be sure to get your FREE Self-Publishing Action Plan (it's a $19.95 Value) when you stop by.
http://www.go-publish-yourself.com/
|
|
MY NEWS:
New nonfiction book: WHY I'M GLAD I HAD BREAST CANCER, by Leonore H. Dvorkin. Wildside Press, 2005. $12.95 pbk. ISBN 0-8095-1096-0. Available from www.amazon.com Praise from readers: "An amazing and beautiful story." "An unusual and important perspective." "A terrific read -- well-written, frank, and honest." For full details, excerpts, cover image, and author's photo, please see: www.dvorkin.com
|
|
|
MY FAVORITE LINKS:
|
|
MY RESIDENCE INFO:
City: Peshawar
State/Country: Pakistan
|
|
BOOKS PUBLISHED:
The First Call
It was at five o'clock in the evening, on 20th September, when Louis
Jameson received that phone call. His first ‘Hello’ was answered with
silence. And so was the second one. The third one however was
answered by a serious, masculine voice saying, ‘Hello Louis!’
‘Yes. And you are...?’ Louis asked.
‘I know you,’ he answered. ‘I want to talk to you, for a few minutes.’
‘But who are you?’ Louis repeated his question.
‘You don't know me. But I know more about you.’ He was arousing a
strange curiosity in Louis's mind.
‘For example, what do you know about me?’ Louis was interested in
knowing.
‘For example I know that you are twenty plus two months. You are a
sophomore at the Department of Psychology, and that you live on the
third floor in Apartment number nine, Block U on the University Road.
You leave your residence at seven in the morning daily and return at
about one in the noon. Sharlet is your best friend in the class and you
are planning to get shifted to one of the university's hostels next
month etc. etc.’ He told Louis things that set his curiosity ablaze. He
didn't expect such a joke, if a joke it was, from any of his friends.
‘Anyone who might be a little interested in knowing about me can
easily find these things out about me. And I am thinking what interest
you might have in knowing about me,’ Louis started to probe him.
‘Louis, you are a very important person, the owner of an ideal
personality. You don't know that your comeliness, your sincerity, and
calm temper are enough to win someone's heart. For those like me it's
a dream to become like you.’ Emotion spilled over from his voice.
Louis didn't know what to say.
‘What is it Louis?’ he asked, feeling the silence. ‘Are you, too, getting
bored with me?’
This sounded a little strange to Louis. The caller was manifesting his
personality gradually, in a subtle way.
‘No, no. I was just wondering what makes you think the way you do.
By praising me like this you seem to show that you think low of
yourself while I don't think so. People aren't inferior to others. In my
opinion, there is no standard of comeliness or any proper objective
measure of it. As for the sincerity and calm nature, these are qualities
one produces oneself by effort and adoption. Isn't it?’ Louis expressed
his view.
‘That is precisely what I like about it.’ And then suddenly his tone
became indignant. ‘I wish these filthy people could think like you.
These contemptible curs who consider it their duty to torture everyone
except their favored!’
‘If one is in real sense sincere with oneself then it is not at all a
problem to uproot these social evils,’ Louis answered in a reassuring
manner.
‘Well Louis, Thank you! Thanks a lot! I feel so much better after
talking to you.’ He really sounded gratified.
‘If you don't mind, let me know your name.’ Louis suddenly thought of
his name again.
‘Name doesn't matter. You can call me anything. If you don't mind, I
may ring you up again some time.’ He sought his permission, not
quite answering his question.
‘Oh yes, sure! I am often home in the evening,’ Louis told him.
‘I know. Thank you Louis and goodnight!’ And with this the call came
to an end. Louis replaced the receiver. He was thinking about the
caller. The way that unknown person had talked about him indicated
that he had been asking about Louis. Perhaps he is keeping an eye on
me, Louis thought. Then he stood up almost automatically and went to
the window. He removed the curtain and cast a glance at the road.
Vehicles ran smoothly out there and there was nothing to arouse
suspicion. He replaced the curtain, switched off the light and went into
his bedroom.
Advent of Trouble
‘Hello Louis!’ Sharlet greeted him from behind. He turned around to
look and saw her in blue jeans and a white sweater. She stood by the
stairs. He came towards her and shook hands, saying 'Hello'.
‘Think you didn't get a bus in time,’ she commented. He looked at his
watch and knew that he was late by ten minutes.
‘Uh, no,’ he said. ‘My car's been fixed. I drove myself here. Actually I
was looking for something.’ He didn't tell Sharlet that he had been
thinking about the caller. It just didn’t feel like a good idea to tell her
about that person, knowing her virtuosity in making mountains of
molehills.
‘You left the department early yesterday leaving your camera behind
with me. Here we are.’ She handed him his camera that was hanging
by her shoulder.
‘Thank you!’ He took it, and asked, ‘Did you get yours from Kimmy?’
‘No. She hasn't been here yet,’ she replied, fidgeting with her
scattered black hair. Her blue eyes were fixed on the entrance to the
department.
‘It's time to go in.’ Louis prepared to move ahead to the classroom.
‘I am not quite in a mood you know. You go in there and I'll take a
snack in the cafe,’ she expressed her mood. ‘See you in the next
class.’
‘Okay. Bye for now!’ Louis smiled.
‘Bye!’ And they went off in opposite directions.
Evening shadows had grown outside and Louis, sitting in his room
before a table, was absorbed in his study, taking sips at intervals from
the coffee mug on the table. He glanced at the clock on the table. It
told five thirty. His mind reverted to last evening's caller. It was a
strange incident, if it wasn't a joke. But he was fairly certain it wasn't.
He could feel the somber air in the caller's voice. Hardly two minutes
had passed like this when the phone bell rang. A wave of curiosity
surged through him. He suddenly had this strong, and absurd, wish
that this be the same caller. Picking up the phone he said 'Hello'.
‘Hello Louis!’ It was the same voice but a little glum and worried.
Louis felt a very brief and unexplainable sort of satisfaction.
‘Yes,’ he could only say this much.
‘Remember me?’ he asked.
‘Yes. You called last eve --’
‘Yes. It was me,’ he hurriedly interrupted. Louis felt that he wanted to
share something, immediately. Thinking of what might be coming
next, a sudden surge of curiosity traveled up his spine.
‘Go ahead,’ he said, striving to control his curiosity. Silence ensued on
the other side. Louis waited for his voice. And it came after a few
moments, ‘I don't know why but I feel like telling you everything
exactly the way it is.’
Louis could feel his heart beat rise. He tried to overcome his arousal,
saying, ‘if you think it'll help, do tell me, if you want to.’
‘It's uh....’ He checked as if in indecision, then tried again, ‘Well, I...’
another faltering and his next words entered Louis's ears like a ball of
fire. ‘I've murdered someone.’
Louis's heart sank abruptly; his throat turned dry and he
uncontrollably gave out. ‘Oh my God!’
‘Louis, will you please listen to me?’ His voice was all entreatment. ‘It
wasn't my fault. Believe me! Will you believe me?’ He childishly
begged his assurance.
‘You tell me,’ Louis uttered with effort. He didn't know what to say and
how.
‘You'll think wicked of me, brute perhaps.’ He was still asking for an
assurance of Louis's sympathy.
‘No, not so. But who did you...and why?’ Suddenly Louis thought again
of his may be joking. ‘You are not joking. Are you?’
‘I hate to joke, or bear it!’ he replied with a grim revulsion of accent.
‘Oh, I… I’m sorry! I didn't mean to hurt your feelings. But why did you
do that?’ Louis was now fairly out of the shock and had partly prepared
himself to know the detail of the matter.
‘Louis,’ he called.
‘Yes,’ Louis answered softly.
‘His name was Daniel. A guy of some eighteen years, or nineteen
perhaps. He was some college student. Last night a girl stopped me
along the way and asked something. We talked for a few minutes,
formally. She left in a car. And that...Daniel… saw me talking to her.
He came to me and praised her beauty, vulgarly. But he said
something very... mean and nasty. He said....’ and here he stopped.
Then he flung in; ‘You aren't thinking me mad, are you?’
‘Uh… no, no, not at all. I am attuned,’ Louis returned, taking his
glasses off and putting them on the table.
‘Louis you know what he said to me? He said that if I really had been a
man, she would have spent five hours with me instead of five minutes.
He mocked at my face for something non-human. What right did that
cur have to deride my face?’ He went on telling and a chapter of his
personality unfolded before Louis; certainly he felt inferiority regarding
his complexion. ‘But I punished him well for his filthiness,’ he
continued. ‘I told him that the girl was my acquaintance and that I
could arrange for him a session with her. With this I took him to the
neighboring park where I thrust my knife in his filthy chest and...’ He
sighed deeply and kept quiet. Louis could hear his anxious breath.
‘You... where did you get the knife from? Didn't you try to call the
police?’ Louis asked with a slight tremor in his hand holding the
receiver.
‘I don't want to go to jail and I always keep a knife in…Louis please!
Don't try to probe into me. I was very tense that's why I called you. I
thought you'd say something nice to me.’ He had almost arrogantly
presumed Louis as his sympathizer.
‘Listen. Bad word is inimical and a nice word leads to the right path.
That is why I think you should tell the police everything.’ Louis made
an attempt to make him understand, continuing, ‘If this is your first
crime, it must also be the last one.’
‘No Louis,’ he refused gravely. ‘I can't stand all this any further. I must
put an end to these wicked characters in our life. They make us
miserable. I am satisfied with what I have done. I am sorry for spoiling
your precious time. I really am.’ And he put an end to the call.
Louis kept holding the receiver in almost a trance, and then he got out
of it with a twinkling of his eyes. He put down the receiver, put his
glasses back on, and looked forward. The newspaper lay on the couch.
He rushed to it, picked it up, and rummaged through the pages.
His required news met him in a corner of the third page. It was titled:
‘College Student Murdered’. He went on to read it, 'A nineteen year old
college student, Daniel Frost was murdered last night in the Mirth
Recreational Park adjacent to Melody Theatre by an unknown
assailant.’
The story revealed that Daniel was a freshman at the Obroy College of
computer science. He was inside the theatre watching the drama with
his friends half an hour before his death. Daniel’s body was found by
an old couple that went for a saunter in the park. When the police
arrived at the scene of the crime, the killer had escaped. Medical
examination regarded the lesion inflicted with a knife, near his heart,
as the cause of his death. Daniel’s death occurred at about 10 p.m. His
relatives lived in Los Angeles. They had been informed of his death.
There hadn't yet been found any clue of the murderer.
Louis put the newspaper down. He was feeling tired. He went to his
bed cadaverously and fell on it, staring in the air, thinking confusedly.
Questions besieged his mind: Who was this man? Was he speaking the
truth? Where does he call from and most importantly, why was he
telling him all this? What sort of game was he playing? Suddenly Louis
felt a sense of complicity in his crime. But he couldn't decide what to
do. Was he to call the police and tell them everything? Somewhere
inside him he thought of morality. It seemed inevitably wrong for the
caller to commit a murder but Daniel too shouldn't have targeted him
with derision in their very first encounter, he thought. Melody Theater
was some three kilometers from the university and Louis was thinking
that if the killer was within that distance, he wasn't far from him. He
looked at the phone, took a few steps toward it and then stopped in
indecision. Then he suddenly turned around and went into his bedroom
again. He closed the door behind him and switched off the light.
The Second Murder
His car entered the university gate the next morning. He watched the
mirror time and again to see if anyone was following. But he caught no
suspect. Having parked his car, he walked to the department, looking
behind in an affected manner to see anyone unusual. He also cocked
his eyes sideways; people around there looked to be going their way
without heeding any scruple elsewhere; they were oblivious to Louis.
Finally, he reached his department's gate. As he turned his head to
see one last time behind, someone ran into him head on.
‘Open up your eyes Mr.!’ It was Marsha, final year student, coming out
of the department’s gate. She was glaring at him. Louis begged her
pardon and proceeded. In the class too, he was absorbed in his
thoughts. Would the killer have called the police? Where might he be
at this hour? The questions were dragging his attention in different
directions.
‘Louis, are you listening?’ Mr. Wegner's question woke him. He had
been looking across the window, absorbed in his own stream of
thoughts, and Mr. Wegner had taken notice of it.
‘I'm sorry sir! My attention just wandered a little,’ he said earnestly,
and focused ahead on the teacher. Sharlet called out after him when
they were out in the corridor at the end of the lecture. He stopped by
the stairs.
‘What's up Louis?’ she asked, coming near him. ‘You looked disturbed
in the class. Is everything all right?’
‘Oh yeah. Actually I couldn't sleep well last night, and woke up
prematurely in the morning with the phone bell. So it's just that I am a
bit drowsy. That's all,’ he lied to her. He didn't feel like telling the truth
to her at that time and he knew that if he promised to tell her later,
she would pester him to death with her reminders.
‘Then let's have a hot coffee, right off,’ she suggested, and Louis
heaved a sigh of relief to see that she didn’t ask who had called him
that early in the morning. He smiled and took her arm.
By the evening Louis was almost curiously obsessed with the case of
Daniel's murder. He devoured the whole newspaper. There was no
detailed story in it. With the repetition of the previous day's
information, it had been added that Daniel's classmates had put the
classes off in sorrow of his death and in protest against the brutality.
They had demanded an immediate arrest of his killer. Further, that
Daniel's funeral was to be held this evening. Louis put down the paper.
Two or three other murder news were there in the paper and Louis felt
pangs of discomfort while thinking of a city where people got killed like
insects. He stared in the air emptily. Half an hour went like this. Then
suddenly he got this unpleasant thought of having a complicit part in a
grave crime. He hadn't yet told the police the facts that he knew; facts
that might help them to lead to the killer; facts that he was legally and
morally obliged to tell the police. He was also confused with why that
unknown person had confided in him? Was it simply that he wanted to
throw Louis in a crux? If so, then why?
The phone bell startled him out of his web of thoughts. Louis felt his
heart leap up. The first thought that came to him was that it must be
him. After two more bells, Louis picked up the receiver.
‘Hello!’ A quiet pause answered it, chilling his bones and raising his
beat.
‘Hello Louis!’ It was him. This time his voice was replete with
satisfaction.
‘Yes.... I was... waiting for your call,’ Louis said.
‘Thank you Louis!’ the reply came. ‘I was feeling a little burdened
again so I thought I should call you.’
‘Didn't you tell the police?’ Louis posed his next question.
‘No, and I am thankful to you for not doing this either,’ he replied, and
a cold current surged up Louis’s spine. The caller seemed to be
watching him constantly.
‘It seems like you always watch me,’ Louis said inveterately.
‘I'm gonna meet you some day but not now. Right now I want to tell
you something important. You want to hear?’ Louis felt the tremor in
his hand. For the first time in life he was confronting such a
challenging situation.
‘Uh...Yes, why not,’ he faltered.
‘Louis if you are getting disturbed, I'll cut the call," he said keenly as if
knowing Louis's embarrassment from his voice.
‘No, you can tell me. Is there any problem?’ Louis asked, suppressing
his curiosity.
‘In fact, after calling you last evening, I wandered out to the public
library,’ he started to tell him. ‘There I saw a Jew guy writing
something on the back wall of the library. He was writing some bad
things on the wall. I went close to him and forbade him from that, very
politely. He looked at me and started to laugh loudly. I repeated my
advice and suddenly...suddenly he punched me in my face…’ He
stopped to breathe and Louis could hear his heart thumping again his
chest. And then he heard him saying, ‘He abused me and advanced to
hit me again. I caught him in his throat and thrust my knife in his
chest with the other hand. That cur fell down right there.’
Louis knew his hand had gone numb. He shifted the receiver quickly to
his other hand and sat on the chair lying beside, pressing his hand
between his thighs. The voice continued on the other side, ‘Louis, you
may be thinking that I am cruel but believe me I am not so. He didn't
even think me human, trying to hit me like a beast. Such brutes don't
deserve to live in this world. Louis are you there?’ he suddenly asked.
‘Uh...Yes. Yes, I am right here. I’m listening.’ Louis was startled.
‘You are not afraid, are you?’ he asked.
‘No I am not afraid,’ Louis returned with an effort that could have
made one conquer a sky.
‘I can feel you thinking me crazy,’
‘No, actually...I.... I don't really know why you are telling me all this.’
‘I don't know it myself either.’ He was sort of playing with him.
‘Won’t you tell me your name and the place you are calling from?’
This brought silence from the other side.
‘Are you there?’ Louis asked after some seconds. And this one brought
a very strange response for there were sobs there as if he was crying.
‘Hello! Hello!’ Louis called. ‘What is it? Listen I am sorry if I have...’
But the call was cut. Louis was still as a statue; his face made of
anything but confusing wonder. This was something very strange from
that caller. Replacing the receiver, Louis went back to the couch. He
reflected back on the words of that man. He knew that the caller had
minded his query about his name and address. Louis felt as if the
caller was narrating his event very interestedly to him, and Louis's
asking his name and address had hurt his expectation of getting
Louis’s intention in his talk.
He sat on the table to eat. The newspaper lying on it attracted him
instantly. He quickly found out the required news. It was a short one:
Fred Harvey, a young waiter at the Stanley Hotel, has been found
dead outside the Green Public Library. Harvey, the twenty-year-old
Jew fellow, had been found missing from his hotel for an hour. A police
constable found his dead body while on round on the R Street. No clue
of the murderer has been found yet. The body of late Fred Harvey has
been sent for an autopsy. R Street, usually regarded as a less
populated site, looked almost deserted soon after the news of the
murder went around.
Louis was feeling exhausted. With both hands on the table, he was
thinking of the time whence it had all started with him.
‘What is this thing happening to me?’ he asked himself half -
consciously. And then he asked, ‘What should I do?’ Suddenly his mind
propelled ahead. Whoever was calling him, and however he felt toward
Louis, he was still a criminal, and a most dangerous one. He had
committed two murders in two days. It was a legal and moral offence
not to inform the police about him. If he would tell the police right
now, probably he would save other potential victims from that killer.
He got up to call the police. But then he felt a little hesitation. The
police would surely want to know why he had kept the whole thing till
now. But then he went ahead with the thought that it was most
important to inform the police. What was to follow would be dealt with
later. He made up his mind finally and picked the receiver.
‘Hello! My name is Louis Jameson. I have something important to tell
you.’ In the next five minutes he was driving his car to the police
station.
Contact Reported
‘He never told you his name?’ Inspector Brian Comminworth asked him
again. He had heard the whole of Louis's story and was now
interrogating him.
‘No,’ Louis replied shortly.
‘And you don't remember anyone whom you have formerly met and
who could possibly be him?’ Inspector Comminworth thrust another
question. His narrow blue eyes were fixed on Louis’s face.
‘No,’ Louis repeated.
‘Mr. Louis, why didn't you tell the police when he told you about the
first killing?’ The Inspector came to the question that he dreaded from
the very beginning of the conversation.
‘Inspector I don't have any satisfactory answer to this question except
that I was utterly confused,’ Louis said what he could.
‘Are you thinking it a game?’ The Inspector's accent became sharper.
‘Do you know it equals complicity to keep information knowingly in
case of such a dangerous criminal? You can be charged for it.’
‘I was caught in the puzzle of why he was telling me all this,’ Louis
tried to clarify. He didn't know how to make himself clear. His mind
was blocked.
‘Mr. Louis, It's like protecting a criminal not to inform the police in a
time while he goes around killing people. It really looks you were
afraid of him. Are you sure he didn't threaten you?’ The Inspector
asked bitingly.
‘No, he never said anything threatening,’ Louis denied. ‘I have told you
every single word he said to me.’ He looked in The Inspector's eyes for
a few seconds and then looked at the table.
‘I am gonna set an observation on your phone,’ Inspector
Comminworth told him. ‘Are some of your calls confidential?’
‘No,’ he answered, looking at the officer's sharp eyes.
‘All right. You'd be required not to leave the city without informing us,
emergencies included. I hope you'd cooperate fully.’ Inspector
Comminworth gave him the final instructions.
After dining in Grace Restaurant, Louis was driving to his flat. He was
affront with such a situation in life for the very first time. This
mysterious caller had reminded him strongly of his own childhood
when he used to be known as an obstinate and thin-skinned boy. Up
to high school, he would secretly retaliate on those who had one way
or another hurt him.
He remembered his neighbor, Mr. Wegner, whose coat he had put a
match to and that had resulted in the burning of his flat. Louis's father
had to make up for all the loss and Louis had been taken to Dr. Linda,
the amiable psychologist. He had been thirteen then. Dr. Linda had
deeply moved him as she made him understand why people act the
way they do and asked what was the effect of getting angry at them.
From that moment his personality had changed one eighty degrees; a
willful, thin-skinned, and irritated boy was replaced with an
enlightened, courageous, and optimistic young man. He was disposed
to make every effort to give a normal thinking to every one, whom he
knew needed it. Dr. Linda had changed his life and he wanted to
change others, as he had wanted to do before, but in a wholly different
way. He also had plans for organizing a group of people of like
dispositions who would make combined efforts to convert the
destructive antisocial into beneficent individuals of the society.
But now, at this moment, he had realized that there is a whole big
difference between ideal reformation and one in reality. He had, in his
reveries, convinced many 'imaginary psychos' to see the real face of
life with all the erudition he had attained. But this caller's conduct had
proved to him that it wasn't that easy as he had supposed it to be;
despite expressing his favor for Louis, the caller had done what he
wanted to. He had killed people. He hadn't let his likeness for Louis
interfere with his own drives. All he did for Louis was to praise him,
and this was something disturbing for Louis.
Suddenly Louis moved parked his car and eyed the vehicles coming
from behind him. He didn't notice anything suspicious. He sat still in
his car for about three minutes. Then, shaking his head lightly as if
mildly reproving himself, he restarted the car. And there was but the
echo of one question in his head: What did he want from him? And it
had its reverberations; did he mean to keep him puzzled? Why? It
seemed too absurd to suppose he was doing all this because he
enjoyed making Louis disturbed.
When he got to his flat, it was 10 p.m. He flung himself tiredly on the
bed with his jersey on. Though the police had assured him of full
confidentiality, he was concerned about the way the caller would feel
when he comes to know it. Louis closed his eyes and took slow, deep
breaths. It was his way of placating his aroused mind. After a few
minutes he felt himself entering the boundaries of peace. He opened
his eyes with a slight smile, feeling a deep, calm joy; he was no more
feeling the unintentional complicity in a dire crime. Turning his head to
the side, he looked at his photo, one in which he sat between his
mother and sister, smiling. Louis's smile deepened. It had been many
days since he had last been to Indiana.
‘I'm gonna come soon to you,’ he addressed his family in the photo. It
was after a few moments that the phone bell rang aloud. A wave of
apprehension surged through the sea of his calm. The telephone had
become an entrance of anxiety after that first call from that guy and
now this entrance was opening again. He didn't want to receive the
phone but after it had rung for the sixth time; he got up with a jerk
and picked the receiver.
‘Hello!’ he said, keeping his voice normal.
‘Where the hell are you?’ It was Sharlet and her irritated voice told him
that she had been trying to contact him in vain.
‘I was out for something,’ he said softly. ‘What's up? Is everything all
right?’
‘Far from that,’ she retorted. ‘I told you that I'd need your help in
preparing that goddamned assignment on Mental Events and you
promised to come this evening but you didn't. Now you tell me why
the devil you didn't come?’
Louis held his head. ‘Oh, I'm sorry. Let's have it done in the
department tomorrow. We'll have time, right?’ he suggested.
‘Right.’ She was reconciled quickly, as he knew she would. ‘And what
about your answering machine? Still out of order?’ she asked.
‘Yeah, it'll be fixed by the day after tomorrow. Anything special you
have to say?’ Now he was in sorts.
‘Next week's my birthday. Buy something nice. Bye!’ And this was the
last thing after which the phone was smashed on the other side. Louis
smiled and replaced the receiver. He had gone two steps when he
faltered a little to stop. He then turned, came back to the phone and
pulled the plug out of the phone set. Next he went in to his bed, took
off his jersey, and dropped off to sleep.
A Clue
It was overcast next morning. Louis felt nice. He thought of the killer
while making coffee but he didn't let his mind wander about him.
Having sips from his mug, he was smiling lightly with himself. He
didn't usually play music in his car in the morning but this morning he
played a slow romantic theme on the tape while driving to the
university. His fingers danced on the steering wheel with the melody of
the song. The vehicles overtaking his car were interrupting this
rhythm. Sharlet was there in the department.
‘Dr. Danzel isn’t coming today. We’ll work on the assignment in his
class time,’ she said after shaking hands.
‘Right,’ Louis smiled.
‘By the way, where were you last evening? Someone named Eddie
called to ask for you,’ she told him. A wave of apprehension surged
through his heart. He didn’t know anyone named Eddie who might call
to ask for him.
‘What’s up?’ Sharlet waved her book before his eyes to catch his
attention.
‘What did he say?’ he asked, pretending uncertainty, part of which was
real.
‘That he dialed your number several times but no one received. So he
called me. I told him I wasn’t sure. I was trying your number myself.’
She was telling all that and Louis felt the impending trouble.
‘I did ask him how he got my number and he told me it was you, who
gave him that,’ she went on in her flow. ‘By the way, since when are
you giving out my number to people?’
Louis, thinking about the killer, felt a little awkward. ‘I never gave out
your number to anyone,’ he started to make up. ‘This must be one of
our freaks here. Or maybe it’s one of your friends, those vampires of
yours.’
Sharlet was in a fit of laughter as he spoke. ‘That …leaves…leaves…you
too…’ She couldn’t say what she wanted to, laughing deep from her
lungs.
‘If you want to go to the café, please do! And yes, don’t smile at me in
the class because then I’d have those sweet memories of Lucy as I see
the pastry’s cream on your lips.’ He joked and her laughter was
stretched indefinitely.
After shooing her off, he went straight into the library. The news he
was looking for was there on the front page. It was titled ‘Killer Haunt
Proceeds’. Louis devoured the news.
‘There has been some advance in tracking the killer of Daniel Frost and
Fred Harvey. Doctor Collin Hart of the City Health Bureau, after
analyzing the tiny fibers of the killer’s hand that were separated from
the victim’s body, told the police that it was not that difficult to track
the killer provided that the fibers were his. According to the doctor,
the killer is one of the cases of Klinefelter’s Syndrome. These cases are
comparatively rare. Hence a suspect list can be worked out by
obtaining 24 to 26 years old birth records from the hospitals of all the
states. This because the age of the killer according to Dr. Hart is from
24 to 26 years. Moreover the lesions on Daniel and Fred’s bodies
indicate most probably, if not certainly, to have been made by Sylcox
knives. These are double-edged, and are bigger and sharper than most
domestic knives, and designed especially by the Sylcox Company for
the inhabitants of the countryside where these are effective in cutting
away wild plants and herbs, etc. These knives were particularly
popular in the suburbs of Kentucky. Police have received the autopsy
report and further investigation is underway.’
Louis started to think. Dr. Hart had pointed out an important clue of
the killer, the Klinefelter’s Syndrome. But it wasn’t necessary that the
killer come from Kentucky. It was equally probable that he came from
Florida, California, or some other state. In this case it would be
necessary to carry out an investigation from all the hospitals of all the
states, which would be very time-consuming given that the temper
and behavior of the killer was of an extreme nature. He had committed
two murders within fifty hours and could be a threat to anyone,
anytime. To get out of these anxious thoughts Louis took a book to
read. When the office assistant came to tell him of a phone call, his
heartbeat sped up. Is it him again? Perhaps he has come to know
about the observation on my home phone?
Louis went into the office, took the receiver and said, ‘Hello.’
‘Hello Louis, This is Inspector Comminworth here. I need your help.’
Louis grew suddenly alert.
‘What for?’ he asked.
‘A list of Klinefelter’s Syndrome cases has been obtained from all the
major hospitals of the state. There are fifteen in all. Eight of them
were under treatment after growing up. We have a CD of their voice
records. I want you to listen to it,’ the inspector informed him.
‘I’ll do that on my computer. How soon can you send it?’ Louis asked.
He was impressed with the efficiency of the police department.
‘Won’t it be safer, for you especially, that we send it to one of your
friends? You can take it from there,’ the inspector suggested.
‘All right. Send it to Sharlet, flat 7 of Residents Corner, University
Road. She is home at one thirty in the afternoon. Usually.’ He added
the last word, recalling her eccentricities.
‘Okay Louis, bye then!’ And the contact was closed. Louis left the
office.
The Arson
When Louis entered the Academic Public Library it was 12:30 in the
afternoon.
‘How are you doing Mr. Louis?’ The librarian shook hands with him.
‘I need The History of Languages by Steve Roddick,’ Louis requested.
‘I’m afraid it’s still with the customer.’
‘But she was supposed…’
‘Yes, to bring it today but not yet,’ the librarian told him. ‘But I have
got another message for you.’ Louis looked at the white envelope in
his hand and took it.
‘Someone called Dave Collar left it for you.’ The librarian went on
looking at a piece of paper in his drawer. Louis instantly realized that
the killer had changed his method of correspondence. He didn’t know
anyone by the name of ‘Dave Collar’.
‘Thank you,’ he said, turning softly and throwing a glance at the
people in the study hall. They all seemed absorbed in their reading.
Just a couple of steps had he taken when he turned again to the
librarian.
‘This may well be my pal Green. He is a gagster,’ he made up. ‘Was it
a blue eyed, short-statured guy of about twenty six?’
‘That old, yes. But as far as I can remember, he wasn’t that short. He
was wearing dark glasses so I couldn’t see his eyes,’ the librarian
replied.
‘Did he write this himself?’ Louis pointed at the drawer.
‘Yes, here you are.’ He gave him the slip. Louis took it and looked at it
carefully for a few seconds.
‘I got him. Pig!’ He smiled, throwing a brief glance at the librarian.
Then he went off. Now he had a clue of the killer, an item written in
his very own handwriting. He was lauding the cleverness of the guy
while at the same time feeling a hidden apprehension with the thought
of being constantly watched. The killer was certainly aware of his visit
timings to the library. More than that, he most probably knew about
the observation on Louis’s phone and the involvement of the police in
it; that was why he had adopted this new way to contact. Curious
anxiety had accelerated Louis’s pace notably.
He almost ran to his car. Getting into it, he tore open the envelope at
once. A white paper fell down in his lap. It had a short note: ‘I don’t
blame you for informing the police. That is what you could do. Right
now I am going to the Sinder Library to rid it of its mean librarian.’
There was no sign, initials, nothing at the foot of the note. Even if
there had been any, Louis could hardly have read them because the
written message was enough to electrocute his mind.
‘No!’ he uttered spontaneously in nervousness. What if he uses a
bomb? His heart sank. In the next moment he was out of the car.
Running inside the library he almost rammed into at least three
persons and even in this flurry he remembered to say ‘sorry’. He was
there facing the librarian in seconds.
‘When did he give you that? When was he here? What time?’
Questions gushed out of him.
‘Who? Your friend?’ asked the librarian, taken aback.
‘Yes him. Tell me. Now! This is crucial.’ Louis was gasping now.
‘I think it was about ten in the morning. Yes I…’ Louis didn’t stop to
hear anymore. He picked up the phone on the desk and dialed the
police department.
‘Hello! This is Louis here from Academic Public Library. I have just
received a note from that killer, the psycho. He is going to target the
Sinder Library. A bomb blast or something. I am not sure. Do
something please! Right now!’ he gasped in a single breath, panting in
the end.
‘Sinder Library was set on fire. The police force has been there. Would
you please tell us your full name…?’
Louis banged the receiver down. Tears had appeared in his eyes with
the intensity of his stress. He turned and ran out of the library. ‘I
must drive in peace,’ he advised himself. All his way his thinking was
blurred. Questions were there: How did the killer set fire to the library?
Where does he live and how does he make it so quickly to
everywhere? How many of them would have died there? Would many
of the people have made it outside or would they have been trapped
inside? Why is he telling me all this? Does he mean to make me suffer
mentally?
He was struggling to keep his attention on driving. When he reached
the Sinder Library, he had to look for a proper place to park his car. As
expected, there was a crowd. He parked his car near another one and
ran to the library. The façade didn’t look much damaged. But he could
see smoke coming out of the windows. The fire fighters were coming
out of the building now. It looked as if the fire was out.
‘Everything’s under control.’ He heard. And these words had a soothing
effect on him.
‘Please keep aside.’ The officer on duty started to move the crowd.
‘Officer,’ Louis called her. She looked at him.
‘Hi, my name is Louis. I wanted to know if someone is seriously
injured.’ Louis came closer to her.
‘An old lady has got severe second-degree burns. But she is beyond
danger now,’ she told him. ‘The librarian is injured too. He did a great
deal getting people out. Are you looking for someone?’
‘Yes, my friend. He comes here to study but I think he is safe,’ Louis
said. ‘Is the library done for? I mean the books.’
‘Not really. Four shelves and some furniture. Excuse me,’ She
answered, noticing someone was beckoning her.
Louis went back to his car and then it was there that he went into that
strange state like a fugue. Everything around seemed to dim out; the
people scattered about, voices, bustle. One doesn’t notice much in
such a place. Is he watching me from somewhere? Turning his neck
back he threw a glance behind him. People were there, standing in
groups, and talking together. Vehicles had started moving along the
road. Louis narrowed his eyes. He could be somewhere far behind. A
little more. Farther than that. Louis’s eyes focused the scene like
binoculars and his heart sank with a loud beat. Was he really there?
Up on the bridge. That shadow. It was certainly him. He wasn’t tall.
Louis couldn’t see his clothes clearly. Perhaps it was a black dress.
Louis felt half-conscious. It was only for a few seconds that he saw
him. And then something broke his focus.
‘Excuse me!’ It was a fat lady loaded with bags and parcels waiting for
Louis to give her way to pass.
‘Sorry!’ Louis moved a little. Then he quickly turned to look at the
bridge. The shadow was there no more. People were walking on the
bridge. Louis’s eyes searched for him but no one looked like the
person he was looking for. His mind reverted to its confusion. Eyeing
the library once more before he went to his car. The shadow’s outline
was there in his head. He repressed his disposition to turn his head
and look at the bridge again, and sat inside his car. It occurred to him
that the shadow might have been someone else. But why would
someone stand on the bridge like that? The person had had a hat on
and there was something about him that was compelling Louis to
suppose it was him.
He closed his eyes and tried to visualize the shadow. And then he
came to know what it was that made him think of the shadow as the
killer: He was holding binoculars to his eyes. Yes, he was looking at
me. Louis opened his eyes. He started his car. Now, he was driving to
Sharlet’s flat, while combating to calm his rattled nerves.
Listening to Suspects
Resident Corner was having more cars than usual. Music, mingled with
voices, was coming out of the second flat on the first floor. The noise
was dim outside but must have been quite loud in there. Perhaps a
party was being celebrated. Louis rang the bell of Sharlet’s flat. There
was no response. He pushed the door a little. It was locked.
‘She must be in the party,’ he thought. And he had to go to the noise
to see Sharlet.
The door was open and the volume of the fuss was much more than
Louis had thought. Sharlet was in the company of two girls. She was
dressed in black and red, and was holding her stomach with stretched
lips. Obviously she was in a sidesplitting laughter. And of course she
was looking charming. Louis stood there watching her. The crowd was
too indulged to notice him. As Sharlet breathed in and stood erect, she
caught sight of
Louis. Her friends’ eyes followed her to him and he beckoned a hello
with his head.
‘Hey Louis, come on in. Join us here,’ she said as she came near him.
Her voice still resonated with laughter as if tickled from inside.
‘No, I think we should go outside for a few seconds,’ he replied with an
admiring look.
‘Okay. Ah…Michael, I am coming right back,’ she turned to say to a
brown-haired guy. Then she came out with Louis.
‘So,’ she said as soon she closed the door to dim the noise a little.
‘What’s all the fuss about?’ Louis asked about the gathering, cocking
his eyes to the flat.
‘Come on Louis! I did tell you in the department about Michael’s
birthday. That’s why I left the department early. Won’t you greet
Michael?’ she asked with a lively smile.
‘No. I won’t bother. I have come here to ask for a CD that was
supposed to be delivered for me,’ he told her.
‘Yeah, I‘ve got it. It was someone called Herington or something from
the Computer Science Department. He…’
‘That’s it,’ he quickly intervened lest she would go on for a couple of
minutes.
‘Sorry Louis, I can’t leave now, you know. Why don’t I get you the key
and you go take it yourself. It’s there in the rack beside the bedroom
door. The case carries your name.’ She went inside and came out in a
jiffy with the key to her flat.
‘Here we go.’ She gave him the key. ‘But don’t forget to return it. Do
you understand?’ She lightly shook her finger at him.
‘Yes and thank you. Enjoy yourself.’ He smiled at her. ‘One more
thing,’ he turned and said. Sharlet looked back. ‘You look adorable in
this dress,’ he remarked.
‘And you are as nuts as ever.’ Saying this, she turned electrically and
went in to that fuss.
On his way back, Louis looked about carefully. He suspected a couple
of men of following him but negated himself soon. The shadow on the
bridge inhabited his mind persistently. When he got home, he was
exhausted. All he wanted to do was to get some rest. He washed and
went straight to bed.
It was 5:20 a.m. when he opened his eyes. He sat up in his bed
slowly. Sleep had restored much of his energy and he wasn’t feeling
stressed anymore. However thinking about the killer was something he
couldn’t stop at the moment. For the first time he was feeling angry
over the mysterious murderer. His message to Louis showed that he
had become indignant at the librarian, most probably because the
librarian had behaved a little sternly toward him at which he had flared
up and set the library on fire.
Louis took out the note, read it three times carefully, and then put it in
the drawer of the side-table. He stood up, went into the bath, washed,
and got to his computer. He played the CD on it. The audio records on
the CD began to play. There was a number called before each new
voice record. These voices of different men sounded like they had been
recorded during conversations mostly with a doctor.
He listened to the third one several times. It resembled the voice of
the killer closely but there was a clear difference in the style of
utterance. He went on hearing all the way to the last numbers but
none of them could attract his attention. Finally he took out the CD.
And a light ache in his stomach reminded him of his forgetting to take
his meal in all the worries and confusion. So he went straight into the
kitchen and took out the fruit from the fridge. It was time to watch the
evening news. He turned on the television in his bedroom. The news
began after five minutes or so. And he heard what he meant to in the
head news.
The newscaster told the detail of the fire in Sinder Library. According
to officials, the fire was surely not accidental but had been made on
purpose. One major clue to this was the ripped wire of the smoke
detector resulting in failure of alarm. Currently there was no particular
suspect. The fire was believed to have flared up from an open shelf
containing magazines and journals and was so rapidly spreading that
there was a panic in the library. Everyone seemed to lose attention of
the surrounding. Fifty-year-old Emily Turner, a regular visitor and
contributor to the library caught fire in her dress and received serious
burns. However she was beyond danger now. Two other persons, a
man and a young girl, were also wounded but not seriously. The
librarian who received slight second degree burns on his arms and
neck had been discharged from the hospital. The police were
investigating the case. They were disposed to regard this fire as
another terrorist attack from any of the many organized crime gangs
that aim to propagate the sense of insecurity among the people. Louis
switched off the TV after listening to the details of the news.
It was urgent to inform the police about the real motive behind the
offense. He called Inspector Comminworth. By good chance, he was
there.
‘Have you got something important?’ he asked Louis.
‘Yes, very important I’d say. But I can’t come to the police
department,’ Louis replied.
‘I’ve also got something important for you. Why don’t you come to
Hush Plaza? We can sit there in the Kimmy’s Café.’
‘All right. I am going there right away.’ Louis replaced the receiver. He
took out the note from the drawer, put it in a book, and then took
another book with it. He looked like a tutor or a student going to read
somewhere. Outside, he didn’t look around. He went straight to his car
and drove away. He wanted to mislead any follower. So first he
reached Evening Arcade a place for young writers. Going inside he
went straight to the back door, exited from there, and through a short
cut returned to the road. He got a taxi and after fifteen minutes he
was entering Kimmy’s Café.
The Motive of the Murders
Inspector Comminworth was there at the last table on the left. Beside
him was an elderly man with brown hair that had turned a little gray.
The inspector nodded at Louis to come to them.
‘Hello Inspector,’ he greeted.
‘Hello Louis. Meet Mr. Adam Obroy, a psychologist at our department.’
The Inspector introduced his partner. Louis shook hands with Mr.
Adam.
‘I wanted to show you something important,’ Louis said taking the
note out from inside the book. He gave it to the Inspector.
He read it carefully and looked at Louis with interest. ‘When did you
get it?’ he asked.
‘Today at twelve thirty when I went to the Academic Public Library, the
librarian there gave me this. He didn’t know the man. I called the
police at once but that was too late. I rushed to the library. By then
the fire was out. But I think I saw him,’ Louis told them. The Inspector
looked at Louis with narrowed brows. Mr. Adam was also fixing his
look on Louis’s face.
‘Yes,’ Louis went on. ‘He was standing over the Tower Bridge. Far
there, he had a pair of binoculars and he was looking at the people
with it; or perhaps looking at me.’
‘You didn’t see his face?’ the Inspector asked.
‘No. He was too far to be seen vividly and he also was wearing a black
overcoat and a hat. There was nothing unusual about his appearance,’
Louis said. He could see the Inspector releasing his held breath in a
beaten style.
‘Didn’t you ask that librarian when did he get that note from the
killer?’ the Inspector asked.
Louis kept silent for a few seconds and then said, ‘I did. He told me he
got it at around 10 in the morning. I was exhausted you know. I’ve
never had anything of this sort in my life before.’
‘I understand,’ Inspector Comminworth spoke softly.
‘Louis,’ Mr. Adam spoke for the first time, ‘the Inspector has told me
the details of this case, about you and the killer. You are a psychology
student. What do you think he is up to?’
‘To me he is clearly antisocial, and most probably a moralist. He is
violently manifesting his hatred of people’s immoral behavior.’ Louis
expressed his opinion.
‘That’s very clever of you. But don’t miss an important point. Do you
remember that he is having a problem about his complexion? He went
up to crying when you asked about his name. Why? Because he
strongly felt that you were not taking the expected interest in what he
was telling you then. He is a megalomaniac and that is fueling his
criminal wrath,’ Mr. Adam told with confidence.
Louis took in a breath and then said, ‘Cases of Klinefelter’s Syndrome
have also a genetic disposition toward criminal behavior.’
‘What could be bad about his face that he himself dislikes so strongly?’
Inspector Comminworth posed an important question.
‘Perhaps he has a very low self concept regarding his face, or body
while at the same time he thinks high of himself in every other regard.
He may well be bereft of others’ attention, especially of the opposite
sex,’ Louis said.
‘Yes, that’s sounds very much possible,’ Mr. Adam replied. ‘And what
could be behind that is any accident or such an event that left him
with an ugly mark, a burn, or scar. Or perhaps he has lost a whole
body organ, say, an eye or a tooth. Some people even try to commit
suicide on account of such reasons, particularly those who have a very
high self esteem that is shattered suddenly.’
‘You haven’t yet heard the important thing I had for you.’ The
inspector grabbed Louis’s attention again. Louis looked at him silently.
‘Forensic medical experts working for the department have examined
the wounds of Daniel Frost and Fred Harvey and they have agreed on
the assumption that both murders have been committed using Sylcox
knives, possibly the same one. He did tell you that he keeps a knife
with him all the time. If he really comes from the suburbs of Kentucky,
he can be tracked and perhaps caught also, easily.’
The inspector breathed in and then continued, ‘Five months ago, when
the Sylcox Company began supplying its products to these areas, it
started a gift scheme to attract customers. Each buyer of two or more
items was given a gift and he or she was required to sign a printedpaper
carrying the name and publicity tags of the company. The
products were sold rapidly among the customers, leaving their signs
behind. And so I have ordered the original papers carrying the signs of
the buyers from the said areas. I’ll have them by tomorrow. If he has
signed a paper, he’ll be tracked down.’ The Inspector was enthusiastic.
‘It’d be a great help if so. But if he didn’t buy a couple of items, he’ll
be hard to get to,’ Louis said. Mr. Adam was listening carefully to all
this.
‘What about the voice records?’ the Inspector inquired.
‘None of them,’ Louis told him.
‘All right. I am taking this. We’ll be in touch,’ the Inspector said putting
the note in his pocket. Louis bid them bye and started to leave when
the Inspector called him from behind. He stopped and looked back.
‘Take that CD to your department with you. We’ll send someone to get
it.’ Louis nodded and turned back to go out of the café.
On Psychosis
The never-ending phone bell woke him up. He looked at the clock. It
was seven twenty in the morning. As he picked up the phone and said
‘Hello’, the bell was still resounding in his head.
‘Louis honey, where are you? I have been trying the phone for so long.
It looks like you get up quite late now,’ a soft motherly voice ringed in
his ear. Louis’s face lit up with joy.
‘Mom!’ he exclaimed. ‘Oh Jesus! I am fine. Perfect I mean. How are
you doing?’ He was really happy.
‘I am well. I wanted to know if you were all right.’
‘I am all right, from head to toe.’
‘How’s your study?’
‘Quite smooth,’
‘Louis I watched the news. I know about the murders in the city and
the fire.’ Her voice reflected concern. ‘Son, I just wanted you to take
care though I know I don’t need to exhort but still…’ she said
affectionately.
‘Don’t worry Mom. I am careful as always,’
‘Aren’t you a bit late? Sleeping ‘till now?’ She started her formal
interrogation.
‘Yeah. Actually I couldn’t sleep well last night. Just wasn’t getting it.
It’s good you woke me up. How’s Betty?’ He changed the topic.
‘Betty’s fine. She is free these days. You know her semester is over.
So she’s doing a short course in computer hardware. I actually wanted
to tell you something important. Betty has decided her engagement
with Morgan,’ she told him.
‘Really! Well that’s nice. You’re happy with that?’ Louis expressed his
happiness.
‘Very happy indeed. He is my sister’s son. I admire him. We are
planning the engagement to go on seventeenth of October. You must
come, no matter what.’
‘I’ll be there in a few days,’
‘Okay Louis. Take care honey!’
‘Okay Mom. My love to Betty. I’ll call her soon.’
‘All right. Bye for now!’ And she ended the call. He went to the
bathroom, washed, nibbled at the cake, and went to the department
taking the CD with him.
On his way to the university, he tried to get the news on radio but the
signal wasn’t strong enough. Perhaps there was some problem with
the tuning system. Entering the university gate, he was carefully
watching his back. After parking his car he went straight to the phone
booth. He made a phone call to one of his acquaintances in the mall
telling her about a thesaurus he had returned and asked her to check
it for him for any notes he might have left in it. He waited till she came
back to tell him the thesaurus was sold. He put down the phone,
thinking about the events of the previous day.
There was nothing to wonder about the fact that the killer had given
that note for him the same day he was to set fire to the library, Louis
thought. He certainly had seen Louis going to the police and so he had
stopped calling and just meant to correspond with him by some other,
safer means. And this made Louis think of him as a very active and
clever man to leave the note for him at ten at the library, make it to
Sinder Library, disable the alarm system, set fire to the library and get
away with all that with out being noticed, all by 11:40. For Louis, it
certainly was a pity to think of such a clever fellow wasting his
energies in making vengeance on the society for nothing.
‘Can I do something to save any potential victims of his?’ Louis asked
himself. ‘I should try at least.’
There in the class, the teacher was lecturing on Psychosis. The
students were ardently posting questions.
‘Do you consider it fair to regard the killer of Daniel and Fred as a
psychic patient and let him go?’ This was Isabel.
‘He surely is a patient. I don’t oppose the law or the morals but…’ And
this apology of the teacher was interrupted by someone else asking,
‘Don’t you consider it more important to save the whole rather than a
single, ill, individual?’
‘I don’t see any way to establish peace without taking into account an
individual’s well being, especially someone who is ill.’ The teacher was
determined to make his point.
‘I think he can prove deadly to you too no matter how sympathetic you
tend to think of him.’ Sharlet uttered something else in trying to ask a
question. The class gave out a burst of laughter.
‘That’s very much possible,’ He kept his countenance. ‘But,’ he
stressed the word hard, ‘unless we analyze the behavioral pattern of
such persons, whether it is by psychoanalysis or whatever other
reliable means; unless we trace out the real cause operating behind all
such destructive behavior, we cannot hope to keep people safe from
the illness, or crimes if you would like to say, of such patients. We
need to terminate the illness not the ill.’ The teacher had got hold of a
strong stance.
Three or four of the students started to question at the same time and
Evelyn was the one who, on account of her loud and shrill voice,
managed to make her question heard, “Don’t you think we need to
penalize every burglar, killer, imposter presenting themselves as ill?
Isn’t a penalty their cure?”
‘Personally I think that the common forms of punishment only serve to
exacerbate the things. Though I know it’s not feasible to provide the
kind of treatment I am asking for, I strongly believe that psychological
treatment is the best way to reform them. This seems the only way to
me to benefit their latent abilities.’ The teacher vindicated his position
successfully.
‘But you admit that it is not feasible,’ Evelyn tried to make something
of her position.
‘Yes, I admit that and that is precisely what I lament,’ he answered
her. Murmuring spread through the class giving a general air of
abjuration. At that time Louis got a call from the office. His heartbeat
rose a little. Can it be him? He thought. And this came true.
‘Louis, I won’t take of your time. You saw me yesterday. I know you
too hate me. You think of me as a killer, someone to be hanged. I am
sorry to spoil your time. I won’t contact you again. Good bye!’ He
ended the call without giving Louis a chance to speak.
The Killer’s Den
Louis was dumbfounded, standing still. The clerk in the office
wondered at his silence and how he looked like a statue with still eyes.
‘Is everything all right Louis?’ he asked.
‘Hun!’ Louis woke up. ‘Well, there has been an accident of a friend of
mine there in Florida,’ he made up and quickly came out of there.
Sharlet came to him after the class.
‘Was it from home?’ she asked. She was always eager to meet Louis
sister Betty.
‘Oh no! It wasn’t from home. Actually Mom called me this morning.
Betty has decided to get engaged. They’re expecting an engagement
on seventh of next month.’ Sharlet laughed with joy at this.
‘This is great. I must see her at least once before her engagement. By
the way whom is she getting engaged to?’ she asked, smiling. Her
curiosity had been enkindled.
‘Our cousin Morgan,’ Louis told her.
‘Shall I be invited?’ Her smile was playing on her lips.
‘I’ll recommend you for that.’ And she instantly took out a chocolate
bar from her purse to offer it to Louis.
‘You are kind as an angel,’ she said. ‘Can I meet Betty before her
engagement?’
‘Sure, why not. I’ll give you my home address. You just go straight
there.’
‘Can’t we go together?’ Now she had started drilling into his head.
‘The engagement date hasn’t been finalized yet. But I am thinking of
going home on twenty- seventh. It has been quite a while since I last
saw Mom and Betty.’
‘Okay. Then I’ll get ready to leave with you on twenty seventh too.’
She rose on her heels.
‘Louis someone’s here to see you,’ His classmate Shane called. Louis
looked his way and saw a middle aged man of average built standing
aside and looking at him. He nodded his head very slightly on catching
Louis’s eye.
‘I’ll see you later,’ he told Sharlet. Then he approached his visitor
.
‘Hello Louis. I am James Connor, detective from the police
department.’ He shook hands with Louis.
‘Nice meeting you Mr. Connor. You are here for the CD I suppose?’
Louis asked.
‘Yeah, we better move elsewhere,’ he suggested, looked sideward, and
then asked, ‘where is it?’
‘Out there in the car,’ Louis said, motioning him to go out. As they
stood by the car, he told Louis something thrilling. ‘We found out
where he lived but he had left the place when we got there.’ Louis
gave him the CD, looking at him inquiringly. Curiosity had sprung
again in his head but he stifled it effectively.
‘You know where he lived?’ He was rekindling the suspense.
‘No. But somewhere not far from me, I guess.’
‘Very close to you indeed. He was staying in Pleasure Hotel, since the
last eleven days.’ The detector told him and Louis frowned at this. He
was standing still listening ahead to the James Connor. ‘The most
important thing for me in tracing him was the fact that he was
watching you closely as I knew from your account of whatever he had
told you about you and your routine. And to watch you closely, he
must have been staying close to you. Your balcony and the window of
your flat can be clearly viewed from room No. 9 of Pleasure Hotel on
the second floor. Given your flat’s windows open, one can watch your
living room quite clearly with a binocular.’
Louis felt himself quite stupid at this thinking why it never occurred to
him before. He could imagine himself in his drawing room now, talking
on the phone with the window wide open.
‘When did he leave? Who is he?’ he quickly asked the detective, failing
to hide his feelings any more.
‘He registered himself as Ethan Brandon, from Chicago. But now we
know it’s just a fabricated identity. We looked for him in the hotel at
about 6 am but the receptionist told us that he had checked out at
11:28 in the night. Anyway, we now have a sketch of him based his
account told by the receptionist and an attendant of the hotel. Now he
won’t be able to get out of the city at least and in here he won’t be
able to hide for long.’ James told him the detail.
‘I’d also like to tell you something. He had called me a few minutes
ago,’ he told James Connor and saw the detective’s eyes widening a
little. It was perhaps a bit unexpected for him to think of the killer
calling Louis at his department.
‘What did he say?’ he asked curiously.
‘That he won’t call me again.’ And he could see the detective was
somehow balked at by this news. ‘He won’t be able to get away now,’
he said.
‘You have his sketch now. Is there anything unusual about his face? A
scar or something?’ Louis asked, remembering the thing about the
killer’s face and his self-esteem.
‘No such thing but the writing in the hotel’s register and the one in the
note left to you are nearly identical though effort has been made to
distort them,’ James Connor told him.
‘I’d be leaving now. We’ll shortly be having the list of the customers’
signatures from the Sylcox’s distributors. Thank you Louis for all your
help! It’d have been very hard to trace him without your help; perhaps
impossible.’ He shook hands with Louis and went off.
Louis was feeling better now but his thoughts were still besieged by
the same crux. He had this strong feeling of wanting to see the killer.
He may be sent to a mental reform center after his arrest and then he
can be a wonderful subject of mine, he thought. His interest in
Abnormal Psychology suddenly had flashed back within in him. And the
next moment he was walking into the department.
Flash of a Memory
He got home earlier than usual. After taking some rest, he was looking
at the Pleasure Hotel from his living room. Thinking of the last few
days of his life, he felt as if several weeks had passed. He had gone
through the events very rapidly from the first call of the killer to his
being traced. A train of thoughts ran through Louis’s mind. One thing
was clear; that the killer liked Louis. Why? Did he share something
important with Louis especially in his past? It was simple to judge that
he expected sympathy from Louis. Could he have been an empathetic
person in the past, someone overly sensitive who had had no chance
to be or have the way he wanted to? And then at a breaking point all
his repression had burst out. Something shocking must have happened
to him. If he gets arrested, everything will come out. The crux will be
resolved. Louis remembered his own childhood. He was a sensitive and
willful kid. He remembered how he would take vengeance on people as
far he could. Is that why he likes me? He thought. Possibly, came the
answer.
Louis shook his head lightly to shoo away these thoughts. And then all
of a sudden, a light flashed in his head. He scowled deeply. In seconds
his mind traversed the path of the past electrically. He seemed to
remember something from the past. He certainly has met me, he
thought. And the train of thoughts rushed on; the first year fieldwork
of his class, his first questionnaire, and his first subject. Yes, it was
him! Louis’s breath went faster. His beat was thumping again. That
blue eyed young man; it was him; it certainly was. While answering
Louis, he had thrown away the neighboring kids’ ball, coming in
thorough the window, in to the fire. ‘Sons of a bitch!’ He had called
with scorn. And Louis had felt that moment how much that guy hated
his neighbors. And then his voice came in Louis’s head from
somewhere far away, ‘If these curs let you live!’ followed by another of
his admiring comment about him, ‘I wish they all could be sensible
students, like you are.” And then his voice on the phone
|
|
|
|
|
|
