The Face of Fear Read Free

She removed the security chain, opened the door and said, “Come in.”
    He stepped past her, inside.
    She closed the door and put the bolt lock in place and turned to him and said, “Whatever trouble—”
    Moving quickly for such a large man he slammed her against the door, brought up the knife, shifted it from his left hand to his right hand, and lightly pricked her throat with the point of the blade.
    Her green eyes were very wide. She’d had the breath knocked out of her and could not scream.
    “No noise,” Bollinger said fiercely. “If you try to call for help, I’ll push this pig sticker straight into your lovely throat. I’ll ram it right out the back of your neck. Do you understand?”
    She stared at him.
    “Do you understand?”
    “Yes,” she said thinly.
    “Are you going to cooperate?”
    She said nothing. Her gaze traveled down from his eyes, over his proud nose and full lips and strong jaw-line, down to his fist and to the handle of the knife.
    “If you aren’t going to cooperate,” he said quietly, “I can skewer you right here. I’ll pin you to the damn door.” He was breathing hard.
    A tremor passed through her.
    He grinned.
    Still trembling, she said, “What do you want?”
    “Not much. Not very much at all. Just a little loving.”
    She closed her eyes. “Are you—him?”
    A slender, all but invisible thread of blood trickled from beneath the needlelike point of the knife, slid along her throat to the neck of her bright red robe. Watching the minuscule flow of blood as if he were a scientist observing an extremely rare bacterium through a microscope, pleased by it, nearly mesmerized by it, he said, “Him? Who is ‘him’? I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
    “You know,” she said weakly.
    “I’m afraid not.”
    “Are you him?” she bit her lip. “The one who—who’s cut up all those other women?”
    Looking up from her throat, he said, “I see. I see how it is. Of course. You mean the one they call the Butcher. You think I’m the Butcher.”
    “Are you?”
    “I’ve been reading a great deal about him in the Daily News. He slits their throats, doesn’t he? From one ear to the other. Isn’t that right?” He was teasing her and enjoying himself immensely. “Sometimes he even disembowels them. Doesn’t he? Correct me if I’m wrong. But that’s what he does sometimes, isn’t it?”
    She said nothing.
    “I believe I read in the News that he sliced the ears off one of them. When the police found her, her ears were on the nightstand beside her bed.”
    She shuddered more violently than ever.
    “Poor little Edna. You think I’m the Butcher. No wonder you’re so frightened.” He patted her shoulder, smoothed her dark hair as if he were quieting an animal. “I’d be scared too if I were in your shoes right now.
    But I’m not. I’m not in your shoes and I’m not this guy they call the Butcher. You can relax.”
    She opened her eyes and searched his, trying to tell whether he spoke the truth.
    “What kind of man do you think I am, Edna?” he asked, pretending to have been hurt by her suspicion. “I don’t want to harm you. I will if I must. I will cause you a great deal of harm if you don’t cooperate with me. But if you’re docile, if you’re good to me, I’ll be good to you. I’ll make you very happy, and I’ll leave you just like I found you. Flawless. You are flawless, you know. Perfectly beautiful. And your breath smells like strawberries. Isn’t that nice? That’s such a wonderful way for us to begin, such a nice touch, that scent of strawberries on your breath. Were you eating when I knocked?”
    “You’re crazy,” she said softly.
    “Now, Edna, let’s have cooperation. Were you eating strawberries?”
    Tears began to form in the corners of her eyes.
    He pressed a bit harder with the knife.
    She whimpered.
    “Well?” he said.
    “Wine.”
    “What?”
    “It was wine.”
    “Strawberry wine?”
    “Yes.”
    “Is there any