beckoning with as much allure as the lamps of Neptune.
Inside, where an amplified combo blasts out rock-‘n’-roll from the past
two decades, the killer moves toward the huge horseshoe bar in the
center of the room. The air is thick with cigarette smoke, beer fumes,
and body heat, it almost resists him, as if it’s water.
The crowd offers radically different images from the traditional
Thanksgiving scenes flooding television screens during this holiday
weekend. At the tables the customers are mostly raucous young men in
groups with too much energy and testosterone for their own good.
They shout to be heard above the thundering music, grab at waitresses to
get their attention, whoop in approval when the guitarist gets off a
good riff.
Their determination to enjoy themselves has the frantic quality of
insectile frenzy.
A third of the men at the tables are accompanied by young wives or
girlfriends of the big-hair and heavy-makeup persuasion. They are as
rowdy as the men–and would be as out of place at a hearthside family
gathering as screeching bright-plumed parrots would be out of place at
the bedside of a dying nun.
The horseshoe-shaped bar encircles an oval stage, bathed in red and
white spotlights, where two young women with exceptionally firm bodies
thrash to the music and call it dancing. They wear cowgirl costumes
designed to tease, all fringe and spangles, and one of them elicits
whistles and hoots when she removes her halter top.
The men on the bar stools are all ages and, unlike the customers at the
tables, each appears to be alone. They sit in silence, staring up at
the two smooth-skinned dancers. Many sway slightly on their stools or
move their heads dreamily from side to side in time to some other music
far less driving than the tunes the band is actually playing, they are
like a colony of sea anemones, stirred by slow deep currents, waiting
dumbly for a morsel of pleasure to drift to them.
He sits on one of only two empty stools and orders a bottle of Beck’s
dark from a bartender who could crack walnuts in the crooks of his arms.
All three bartenders are tall and muscular, no doubt hired for their
ability to double as bouncers if the need arises.
The dancer at the far end of the stage, the one whose breasts bounce
unfettered, is a striking brunette with a thousand-watt smile.
She is into the music and genuinely seems to enjoy performing.
Although the nearest dancer, a leggy blonde, is even more attractive
than the brunette, her routine is mechanical, and she seems to be numbed
either by drugs or disgust. She neither smiles nor looks at anyone, but
gazes at some far place only she can see.
She seems haughty, disdainful of the men who stare at her, the killer
included. He would derive a lot of pleasure from drawing his pistol and
pumping several rounds into her exquisite body one for good measure in
the center of her pouting face.
An intense thrill shakes him at the mere contemplation of taking her
beauty from her. The theft of her beauty appeals to him more than
taking her life. He places little value on life but a great deal on
beauty because his own life is often unbearably bleak.
Fortunately, the pistol is in the trunk of the rented Ford. He has left
the gun in the car precisely to avoid a temptation like this, when he
feels compelled toward violence.
As often as two or three times a day, he is gripped by a desire to
destroy anyone who happens to be near him–men, women, children, it
makes no difference. In the thrall of these dark seizures, he hates
every last human being on the face of the earth–whether they are
beautiful or ugly, rich or poor, smart or stupid, young or old.
Perhaps, in part, his hatred arises from the knowledge that he is
different from them. He must always live as an outsider.
But simple alienation is not the primary reason he frequently
contemplates random slaughter. He needs something from other people
which they are unwilling to provide, and, because they withhold it, he