The narrow chamber had pale-blue tile from floor to ceiling with a white-tile
border. A huge claw-foot tub. White porcelain and brass fixtures. The large
mirror was somewhat streaked with age.
She looked at her hair, which Streck said was beautiful, dark, glossy. But it
was of one shade, without natural highlights; to her, it wasn’t glossy but oily,
although she had washed it that morning.
She looked quickly at her brow, cheekbones, nose, jaw line, lips, and chin. She
tentatively traced her features with one hand, but she saw nothing to intrigue a
man.
M last, reluctantly, she stared into her eyes, which Streck had called lovely.
They were a dreary, lusterless shade of gray. She could not bear to meet her own
gaze for more than a few seconds. Her eyes confirmed her low opinion of her
appearance. But also . . . well, in her own eyes she saw a smoldering anger that
disturbed her, that was not like her, an anger at what she had let
herself become. Of course, that made no sense whatsoever because she was what
nature had made her—a mouse—and she could do nothing about that.
Turning from the mottled mirror, she felt a pang of disappointment that her
self-inspection had not resulted in a single surprise or reevaluation.
Immediately, however, she was shocked and appalled by that disappointment. She
stood in the bathroom doorway, shaking her head, amazed by her own befuddled
thought processes.
Did she want to be appealing to Streck? Of course not. He was weird, sick,
dangerous. The very last thing she wanted was to appeal to him. Maybe she
wouldn’t mind if another man looked on her with favor, but not Streck. She
should get on her knees and thank God for creating her as she was, because if
she were at all attractive, Streck would make good on his threats. He’d come
here, and he’d rape her . . . maybe murder her. Who knew about a man like that?
Who knew what his limits were? She wasn’t being a nervous old maid when she
worried about murder, not these days: the newspapers were full of it.
She realized that she was defenseless, and she hurried back to the bedroom,
where she had left the butcher’s knife.
5
Most people believe psychoanalysis is a cure for unhappiness. They are sure they
could overcome all their problems and achieve peace of mind if only they could
understand their own psychology, understand the reasons for their negative moods
and self-destructive behavior. But Travis had learned this was not the case. For
years, he engaged in unsparing self-analysis, and long ago he figured out why he
had become a loner who was unable to make friends. However, in spite of that
understanding, he had not been able to change.
Now, as midnight approached, he sat in the kitchen, drank another Coors, and
told Einstein about his self-imposed emotional isolation. Einstein sat before
him, unmoving, never yawning, as if intently interested in his tale.
“I was a loner as a kid, right from the start, though I wasn’t entirely without
friends. It was just that I always preferred my own company. I guess it’s my
nature. I mean, when I was a kid, I hadn’t yet decided that my being friends
with someone was a danger to him.”
Travis’s mother had died giving birth to him, and he knew all about that from an
early age. In time her death would seem like an omen of what was to come, and it
would take on a terrible importance, but that was later. As a kid, he wasn’t yet
burdened with guilt.
Not until he was ten. That was when his brother Harry died. Harry was twelve,
two years older than Travis. One Monday morning in June, Harry talked Travis
into walking three blocks to the beach, although their father had expressly
forbidden them to go swimming without him. It was a private
cove without a public lifeguard, and they were the only two swimmers in sight.
“Harry got caught in an undertow,” Travis told Einstein. “We were in the water
together no more than ten feet apart, and the damn undertow got him, sucked him