Chapter 9

David reached for the glove compartment of his car for another Mars bar, sorry now that he hadn’t bought seven Mounds bars instead of seven Mars bars. There were only three Mars bars left.

David had parked on Pine Street in his favorite parking spot, about seventy-five yards away from the apartment house. He preferred to park on the street at night because he feared the darkness of the garage beneath the building. He also disliked riding up in the elevator from the garage because he didn't like to ride with others who got on the elevator in the lobby.

But many neighborhood residents also liked to park on the street at night, and it wasn't always easy after midnight to find a spot. David's favorite space was usually available, however, because the curb and the sidewalk were broken at this point, and most drivers thought that it was a driveway.

David was waiting for Craig Glassman to come out of the building, with or without the sheepdog. If he could separate the two, one from the other, he was planning to take a shot at one of them with his .22 rifle. David did not think it made much difference, but if the one he shot - Craig or the dog - died, he had a good chance of breaking Craig's evil power over him. The devil's power was awesome, but there were times when Jesus was strong enough to help David fight back. If David couldn't kill either one of them, then he would just give in to the inevitable.

Praying no longer helped. And the deep voice that rumbled out of his kitchenette in answer to his prayers had told him that he must act and have faith. The voice from the kitchen sounded a lot like the voice of the Very Reverend David Moseley, but there was never anyone in the kitchen when David dashed in there to check.

When David had been converted to Christianity in that humid evangelical tent in Covington, Kentucky, he had assumed that his new life would be glorious. With tears streaming down his cheeks, David had gone forward to the altar to accept Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior with joy in his heart. He had been so happy when the Very Reverend David Moseley embraced him, washing him in the blood of the lamb, he thought that his thumping heart would burst from his body.

After the meeting, David hung around, wanting to talk privately to the Reverend Moseley. When the crew began to strike the big top, David sought out the Very Reverend Moseley in the latter's Winnebago. Moseley, a heavy, loose-limbed, middle-aged man, with agate-blue eyes, and a stiff blond-white crewcut, let David into the Winnebago, and asked how he could help him.

Moseley had removed his blue serge suit coat and was in his shirtsleeves, but he put the coat on again when he asked David to sit down at the little table. David was impressed by this courtesy, and he also admired the evangelist's necktie. The wide silk tie was beige, and there was a hand-painted picture of a horse's head on it.

"I know you're leaving for Harlan County tonight, Reverend," David began timidly, "because you said so at the end of the service. But I was embarrassed tonight because I only brought two dollars with me when I came. I put them both in the basket on the first offering, and didn't have any money left for the other offerings later on. The point is, sir, I've got ten dollars in my footlocker back at camp, and if you can delay leaving for about two hours - to give me time enough to take the bus out to camp and back - I’d like to go out and get it for you."

Moseley looked at David for almost a full minute, sucking his teeth all the while. He nodded his head.

"You're Jewish, aren't you, son?"

"I was, sir, but no more. After tonight, thanks to you, I'm a Born Again Christian."

"You are indeed," Moseley said solemnly. "And that's a Christian thing to do, to make such a sacrifice. But there's no need for you to take that long bus ride back and forth to your camp. We're going to be in Harlan for a week, maybe ten days. So in the morning, you just mail me the ten dollars. Here, I’ll write down the forwarding address for you-the Post Office box we're using--"

Reverend Moseley wrote the address on the back of a pamphlet entitled Why A Christian Should Not Marry Out of His Faith and handed it to David.

"Thanks." David was more than a little awed by the holiness that emanated from the minister. "I ... I ... I’ll mail it in the morning, first thing."

"Go with God, my boy." The minister touched David's kinky hair lightly, and then opened the door for him.

David had mailed the ten dollars the next morning. He also wrote letters and mailed ten dollars each payday for three months. But his letters weren't answered, and his last letter was returned to him as undeliverable. David never heard from the Reverend Moseley again, but he continued to attend other evangelical meetings every chance he got when he was stationed, later on, in Louisiana, before being sent to Korea. David learned a great deal about the powers of the devil at these various meetings.

In some cases, Beelzebub, the Prince of Darkness, won, and in others, he lost. And even when you made every effort to put Satan behind you, the Master of Darkness would leap viciously onto your back and make you do his bidding. So in spite of his prayers to Jesus, David had still succumbed to the power of the Prince of Lies, and there didn't seem to be anything that he could do about it. Even -though there was no way out, he could still fight, which would, at least, show Jesus that he was trying.

Craig Glassman, obviously, was more powerful than Sam Carr, but David didn't know, as yet, how powerful Craig's dog happened to be. A bullet would be the test. If he shot Glassman, the dog would then become Glassman. That was one way to tell. If he shot the dog, Glassman would then change into the dog, and perhaps he would be unable to become Craig Glassman again. It was an exciting thought. Of course, if the bullet didn't hurt either one of them, David would give up the fight entirely, and follow Glassman's evil orders just as faithfully as he had Captain Carr's and Harvey's.

Harvey was gone altogether now, and David hadn't seen Captain Carr around either, although Carr's daughter, Wheat Carr, made an appearance in the backyard once in a while. But Wheat Carr, a woman, had no powers at all, and wasn't worth worrying about. But the Labrador retriever hadn't been in the backyard for about ten days now, which indicated that Craig Glassman was, indeed, David's new master. Well, tonight he would see what he would see.

David knew that Glassman and the sheep dog took two or three walks each night around the block, and there was always the off chance that one or the other just might take a walk around the block all alone....

David finished eating the Mars bar, crumpled the paper wrapper, and threw it on the floor. As he reached into the glove compartment for another Mars bar, Craig Glassman and the shaggy dog came out of the lobby. The dog bounded ahead, but for a moment, Craig was clearly outlined against the glass entrance doors, with the lights from the lobby behind him. Craig was wearing cut-off jeans, a University of Miami sweatshirt, with the sleeves cut off at the shoulders, and blue low-cut tennis shoes.

Shivering, David cowered down on the seat, and took a nervous bite out of the Mars bar. The dog's claws rattled on the sidewalk as it romped by the car. As Craig came abreast of the car he shouted:

"Sit! Sit! Wait for me, you silly bitch!" Then Craig whistled.

This was news to David. Was it a female dog? Was Craig a hermaphrodite? Female dogs were even meaner than male dogs, and, for some reason, much harder to kill.

David waited until Craig and the dog turned the corner and started downhill before he got out of the car with his .22 rifle. He held the rifle, barrel down, alongside his leg, and walked stiffly to the comer. It was dark at the corner, and the hill going down was like a cave. He couldn't see either Craig or the dog. David started downhill hesitantly, but after about twenty yards, he stopped at the old aqueduct trail, the trail that ran behind his apartment house and Carr's backyard. It was too dark to shoot anyway, David decided, and he simply couldn't make himself go any farther down that dark street either.

Out of the darkness the dog leaped on David, pawing his chest and whimpering. David dropped the rifle, covered his face with his forearm, and held out the hand with the half-eaten Mars bar.

"Kill, kill, kill," the dog whispered fiercely.

The dog snatched the Mars bar from David's hand, gulped it down, and then bounded quickly away as Craig whistled from the bottom of the hill, a hundred yards away.

David slumped to the ground, his back against a tree. He was semi-conscious, and on the verge of fainting, unable to think, too weak to stand. He sat in the warm darkness for fully ten minutes before he made the effort to get to his feet. He climbed the hill back to Pine Street, and then remembered his rifle. He returned for it, made it weakly to his car, and put the rifle into the duffel bag in the back seat.

David got the order. The message was loud and it was firm. He would have to kill for Craig Glassman.

But Jesus loved him, too. It must have been Jesus who guided him when he bought the Mars bars in the supermarket.

So for the Mars bar, David could thank Jesus, his Lord and Savior. If he hadn't had the Mars bar to give to the dog, she would have ripped out his throat.

The order was urgent. Despite his weariness and weakness, David knew that it had to be carried out this very night. Once again, with the .44 pistol tucked into the large brown envelope on the seat beside him, David drove out of Yonkers, looking for signs.

Of course he had known that he was going to kill again. He had already written letters to the police and to the newspapers informing them in no uncertain terms that he would strike again, but he had wanted more time. He hadn't expected that this was the night he had to kill another pair of strangers. Tonight he had planned to shoot either Glassman or the dog. But there was no way that he could fight the devil. He had been ordered by Glassman to go out tonight and kill.

David didn't find any signs in Queens or in the Bronx. The dark streets were practically deserted, although there didn't seem to be any shortage of marked police cars. There were also, in all probability, twice as many unmarked police cars in the Bronx, he thought.

Finally, David drove to Brooklyn. Brooklyn was fresh territory.

No one would expect him to go to Brooklyn. There would be fewer police, and those few police who were patrolling, would not be on the alert for a killer. David knew Brooklyn fairly well. He knew many of the lovers' lanes from the days he had been in, for a short time, New York's police auxilliary service. He had wanted, at the time, to become a detective, but all they had ever taught him was boring stuff - how to direct traffic and how to administer first aid to traffic victims. He had expected more than that, and he hadn't liked any of his fellow trainees either. After a few training sessions, he had dropped out of the program. But he had learned a good deal about the different boroughs of New York, and how dumb most of the full time New York cops were.

David cruised slowly by the playground alongside the Shore Parkway, at Bay 14th Street. There were several cars containing couples in the playground, all of them occupying parking spaces facing a high chain link fence. The area was brightly lighted by a sodium-vapor overhead streetlight. But David still didn't see any signs. He found a parking spot for himself down the street. It wds darker here, and the space was vacant because of the fire hydrant. Backing and forthing three times, David was finally able to squeeze his car into the space.

David got out of the car on the passenger side, with his .44 still in the envelope, and for a long moment, stood hesitantly on the sidewalk, wondering what to do. It was awfully bright at the playground lover's lane, and there were no signs to tell him what to do. He was in Brooklyn, an exotic territory, and didn't know what had led him there. Should he go back to Queens…?

He sighed, then, with relief A sign. A tall woman, with a tiny white Spitz dog

trotting ahead of her, tugging on its leash, was coming down the sidewalk. David started to walk toward them. As he passed them, almost touching the woman with his shoulder on the narrow walk, the tiny dog woofed once and jerked its head, indicating that David was in the right place after all, and that he should continue to the playground.

The next problem, once he was there, was which car? There were several cars to choose from, all of them containing couples, but perhaps the closest one was best? David walked directly to the brown car, which was parked beneath the bright overhead sodium-vapor light. He fired four times through the driver's window, then turned and ran like hell. Pounding down the sidewalk, he could hear a man's voice screaming, "Help me! Help me!"

Although David hadn't been away from his car for more than three minutes altogether, some cop had put a ticket under his windshield wiper. He had been cited for "parking by a hydrant." David tore up the ticket, and threw it on the floor of his car.

Disappointed and frustrated, David drove away, incredibly tired now, and embittered about the long drive back to Yonkers. He didn't have any physical reaction at all. Except for being a little winded, there was no rush of excitement, and he didn't even have a partial erection. If the man he shot could still holler that loudly, he hadn't killed him, either. He wasn't sure whether he had hit the girl. It had all happened so quickly, he had merely caught a flashing glimpse of her long blonde hair. He had rushed his shots because of the damned light, and had only fired four rounds instead of five. If he had waited a split- second longer, enough time to fire the fifth round, he could have made certain that one or the other was dead. Haste makes waste, he thought unhappily, and Craig is punishing me. At least with Captain Carr he had obtained pleasurable, physical relief, but not with the evil Craig Glassman.

David drove home, parked in the street, and cleaned his pistol before he went to sleep. He slept until noon the next day, called in to the Post Office that he was sick with the flu, and that he wouldn't be in for work for a few days. He then went out for breakfast and the newspapers.

From the papers he learned that he had killed Stacy Moskowitz, twenty, and had blinded her date, Robert Violante, also twenty, probably for life. But this good news did not console David. He had killed for Craig, as he had been ordered to do, but Craig had not given him his reward.

He would have to do something or other to get even with Craig Glassman....