Free Blood Music by Jessie Prichard Hunter Page A

on that one. And the next one had come soon, sooner than expected, and it was not a sacrifice to any moon but to the honey light that glittered in her hair.
    He had played this neighborhood out. Here on the highway the hookers would not stop soliciting if a cloud of locusts descended on them. And that was good; there were times he needed them, them and the ones up on Little West Twelfth Street, when the soft familiar flesh of his wife was bland, like bread or cereal, when he needed dark flesh and dark hair.
    Why had he put his hands around his wife’s throat? That memory had the same quality as the others; as if his wife had been, for a moment, one of the others.
    Why had he forced himself on her? She never refused him. She was not meant to be a challenge.
    He had frightened her—he felt a kick in his gut, deep inside—that was dangerous, she was his wife. She was meant for ordinary pleasure, not for passion. And she was the mother of his child. She must never be touched by the things he did.
    He drove: Red-capped Guardian Angels patrolled the blocks. Women walked in twos or with boyfriends or not at all. They had begun to wear hats, caps, and patterned scarves to cover their honey or ash or yellow hair. Stores on West Fourth Street, stores along Bleeker and Hudson, all carried the same sign in their windows: YOU ARE SAFE HERE. IF YOU ARE THE VICTIM OF A CRIME OR FEEL THAT YOU ARE BEING THREATENED , COME INTO THIS STORE. The signs contained safety tips: DO NOT TRAVEL ALONE AT NIGHT . REPORT ANY ABNORMAL BEHAVIOR OF ANYONE DIRECTLY TO THE POLICE . DO NOT TALK TO STRANGERS . The signs gave the number of the Slasher Task Force.
    The task force had been set up to deal with the hundreds of leads being offered from all parts of the city. People were calling and saying it was their neighbor, their teacher, the Con Ed repairman. The killer was murdering one woman for each year of his failed marriage. The killer was somebody’s son-in-law who drank too much, stayed out late, and had a penchant for blondes. Somebody’s brother who beat his blond wife. Somebody was killing a woman for each astrological sign.
    The air on the Village streets vibrated with fear. No longer were there strolling couples and groups of friends laughing down the busy streets. The West Village had always carried a holiday aspect, to his mind. Now the crowds were quieter, and people looked behind them more often. Couples had stopped sitting hidden behind old ivy on the worn stone steps of the century-and-a-half-old brownstones. The steady hum of people on the streets, in the cappuccino joints, the stores, had stuttered and skipped a beat; a new note had entered, a faint, insistent, shrill note like the echo of a scream. There are thousands of ways to die, and all the vibrant young blondes were going to die someday—but they didn’t want to die with a madman’s hands around their necks, a madman’s sperm between their legs.
    To have such power was like a drug. The labels in the paper didn’t trouble him: psychopath, sociopath. The psychological profiles: marginal man, underachiever, victim of women. There was no one who knew him. He pushed the memory of his wife’s frightened face away: no one.
    That one, there. Slight and dark, leaning up against a lamppost, probably because she was too stoned to stand up straight. Since there would be no love tonight, that one would do just fine.

14
    T here were seven M. Levys in the Manhattan phone book. John took an uncomprehending bite of his ham-and-cheese sandwich and pushed a page of calculations away from a Diet Pepsi can. Two on the Upper East Side, one on the Upper West Side. One in the Thirties, in Murray Hill. A full four within the boundaries of the Village. Horatio Street, Thompson, Greenwich Avenue, Bank Street. No Madeleines, just M.’s.
    John always assumed that an initial meant a woman’s name. How many M. Levys would hang up on him when he said, “I’m