James Harris sat bolt upright in the rocking subway train. He was squeezed in so tightly between the fat man on his right and the woman reading a newspaper on his left, that he couldn’t have leaned back even if he’d wanted to. This was the way he liked it. There was nothing to interfere with his watching the woman.
She was sitting halfway down the car on the opposite side, her purse and four or five packages piled on her lap. She is a dish, Harris thought, a real prize-winning baby. The kind who wouldn’t give a guy like him as much as the time of day.
The thought made him angry. This dame had everything—looks, money, fame of a sort. And what did Harris have? Nothing. He wet his lips with the tip of his tongue and let his anger rise up against her. If things went right this afternoon, he’d more than even up the whole bloody score with her.
He ought not to be staring so hard, he warned himself. Then he grinned. Who noticed him? Especially with a looker like Mabel Kent close at hand.
Harris couldn’t have tom his eyes away from her if he wanted to. Something about her got through to him, made his pulse race, scooped out a hollow place at the pit of his stomach so that he felt almost as though he were falling. She was a doll, all right. A bit on the flashy side; platinum-blond hair, smooth pink skin and overfull crimson lips made her so. She wore a lot of jewelry, too much perfume and her bottle-green dress stretched too tightly across her bosom. The arrogant way in which she walked and held her head showed that she knew what she had. But she wouldn’t give it out easy. To get close to Mabel Kent, you’d need plenty of folding stuff in your pockets.
Harris had been following her for more than three weeks. But he was willing to bet he could walk right up and speak to her and she wouldn’t remember ever having seen him before. That burned him, yet it gave him a sense of power too. Almost as though he were an invisible man.
That’s the way it had always been with him ever since he was a kid. In the crowded schoolrooms, in the teeming slums where he was raised, he was a complete nobody, the little guy who wasn’t there. Nobody bothered him; they just left him alone. He had been an ordinary kid, shorter than most, with a pale face, undistinguished features, hair of an indeterminate brown and eyes that were a watery gray. Even his name was commonplace. Few people ever bothered to remember it. He’d never had a nickname either. He wasn’t that important to anybody.
Harris had lived alone with his mother, a vague, defeated little woman who subsisted on relief checks. He never got close to anyone. No girlfriends, not even a buddy. There’d been a time when he’d tried to change things, work his way into the gang that hung around the corner drug store. It hadn’t panned out. They beat him up and once they’d beaten him, they forgot all about him, never bothered him again.
Next he’d tried wearing flashy clothes, talking loud, hammering metal cleats on his shoes so that he made a lot of noise when he walked. Now and then he’d draw a snicker, but that was about all. Nobody noticed him unless he thrust himself upon them, and then something unpleasant always happened. So pretty soon he’d given it up. That was when he’d learned the advantages of being a nobody.
He’d discovered this hidden gift almost by accident. One day he’d walked into the drugstore with a nickel to buy a candy bar. But the girl behind the counter had been too busy yacking with a couple of sharpie kids to pay him any mind. He tapped the nickel on the glass, but all she did was turn her head and throw him a pained look.
He picked up a candy bar and thrust it in his pocket, then another and another until his pockets were bulging. He tossed the nickel down on the counter and walked out. He was all shaky inside, and sweat had sprouted out across his forehead and the back of his hands. He expected to be grabbed and dragged down to the police station. But nothing happened—nothing at all. And when he finally gathered up enough nerve to go back to the drugstore, the fat girl’s eyes slid across his face as though she’d never seen him before. That’s when he knew.
What he had, a real gift of being inconspicuous, was one that almost amounted to genius. His worries were over. He’d never starve or have to do menial work. He could take anything he wanted, and no one would ever see him do it.
He quit school and started drifting. At first, he filched in the five-and-ten-cent stores, the cheap, crowded markets, picking up anything that struck his fancy. His fingers grew nimble, but he knew that wasn’t the secret of his success.
He could wander in and out of bars, hotel lobbies, restaurants, snatching up a purse, a wallet or a loose bill. Nobody noticed him while he was around; nobody missed him when he was gone. Instead of fighting against his nondescript appearance, Harris began to cultivate it. Even when he had money, he wore a plain blue serge suit, a white shirt, and plain tie.
But even while he practiced being inconspicuous, he couldn’t hold down a dream that haunted him. Someday James Harris would be a big shot, famous, the talk of him on everybody’s lips.
But until that time, the years rolled by, and Harris remained simply a petty thief. Now and then he got a job, always a piddling little one that he hated, like being a stock clerk or a packer. After a few weeks he’d drift away.
Harris knew he wasn’t going to be president, not even a senator or a representative. He wasn’t going to be a moving picture star or a great novelist. But somehow there had to be a shortcut to fame. Some of the kids he’d known in the slums had made the headlines. How had they done it. Rackets. A big score. Killed somebody. But they’d all been sent up the river or taken the hot squat in Sing Sing, too. It was the same story: you made a name for yourself, then you traded your name for a number. That was strictly for the birds, not for a hep guy like James Harris.
All the same, if you were smart enough, you could get away with murder. The word murder touched off something inside of him. There were plenty of murderers who never got caught. And they didn’t have half the equipment Harris had. Like the Black Dahlia case out in California. Like Jack the Ripper.
Anonymous fame—that was the ticket. It suited Harris to a T.
He started reading books about criminals. Most of these guys were pikers. That was why they landed up on the gallows or in the electric chair. Come to think about it, even Jack the Ripper wasn’t so hot. All his victims were street women, derelicts, drabs. Harris could shoot a lot higher—society women, actresses, the rich and famous. He could make them all shudder at the thought of him. They’d lock themselves up at night, be afraid to walk the streets even in daylight.
At first it was all a dream. Then Harris began to plan. He wouldn’t need a weapon. A gun was noisy, and a knife wasn’t quick enough.
His hands! He knew how strong they were in spite of his appearance of weakness. They were all he would need—except a victim.
He wasn’t in any hurry. When he slept, he’d feel his hands encircling smooth, warm flesh and he’d press harder and harder until he woke up. He’d be covered with perspiration and so excited he couldn’t go back to sleep again. Still he bided his time. It couldn’t be just any woman.
Then he saw Mabel Kent and he knew in a flash that she was the woman. He didn’t know her name or who she was, but he recognized instinctively that she was the target for the homicidal drive that racked his days. She was the enemy; the personification of all the women who wouldn’t give themselves to little men like James Harris. He’d never win from her more than a glance of contempt, a faint expression of derision or distaste.
He’d seen her leaning over the perfume counter in a Fifth Avenue shop. He couldn’t see her face, only the sensual lines of her figure and the contours of her rounded arm and neck. Her legs were nice, a little heavy at the calves, tapering down to slim ankles, the kind Harris liked.
She completed her purchase and turned, her eyes sweeping over him. He started before he remembered he didn’t have to worry. Her gaze went on past him. He studied her face. It was just the way he’d pictured it in his dreams, fine-boned and firm-fleshed. Her cheek bones were wide, giving a depth to her cool blue eyes. He hadn’t made any mistake. This was the woman, all right.
She was moving out of the shop onto the crowded avenue. He stood still until the crowd closed in around her. Suddenly a wave of panic hit him. He should have stayed close, not taking any chances on losing her. He darted forward, sweat pouring from his face, his hands trembling. He needn’t have worried. You couldn’t lose a dame like this. She stood out like a neon sign in a dark alley.
After that he stuck close behind her, never more than a few feet away. Other men turned to stare at her. Harris cast baleful glances at them. Couldn’t they see he’d staked this dame off? He was surprised when she turned in at a subway kiosk. You’d expect a fancy frill like this to ride around in a Caddy. Or a taxi. But the subway made the chase easy. So why should he kick?
He tailed her to an apartment house on the West Side, just off Riverside Drive. He was right there on the steps when she dug out the key from her purse and opened the mailbox. After she’d gone in, he’d read her name on the mailbox. Mabel Kent—that was all.
He’d been disappointed in the place where she lived. He’d expected a plushy backdrop for a dame as smooth as this one. He looked the house over. A shabby old brownstone with an ornate glass door in front, four stories high with only apartments on each floor. Then it dawned on him. She’d like things cosy and private so that no one could stick his nose into her business. It confirmed his earlier impression of her. His lips formed a thin, disapproving line. He’d picked the right woman. She had plenty coming to her.
Mabel Kent—the name suddenly rang a bell. He was an avid reader of the scandal sheets that gave the “inside dope” on the famous and near famous. He dredged his memory for the details of the stories about Mabel Kent. She had been a show girl who’d married a wealthy playboy. She’d ditched him to run off with a band leader. A couple divorces. A role in a Broadway musical. Some TV appearances. Kent had never been tops, but she’d never been bottom either.
He stood in the doorway opposite the brownstone, thinking. She didn’t know it, but pretty soon she’d be on the front pages. Harris would do that for her. He’d give her more fame than she’d ever had. He looked down at his hands, flexing the strong fingers.
After that, there was no room in his life for anything but Mabel Kent. He learned all about her habits, her foibles, how she spent each hour of the day. She rose late, never before two or three. Harris was always there, idling on the corner, lounging in a doorway, ready to pick up her trail. He never, never spoke to her, but he was never far away. Sometimes he took the table next to hers in a restaurant, the seat opposite on a bus. If she had ever smiled, nodded, even drawn away, his resolve might have been weakened. But she was oblivious to his presence.
She slept on the third-floor front, her bed not far from the dormer window. He could glimpse her sometimes when she got up, her blonde hair disheveled, her face a little pouchy without makeup. But by the time she hit the street, she’d look like a million dollars again. He’d feel a welling of pride inside himself. This was the babe he’d picked, the one to share the big adventure with him.
Most of her afternoons she spent by herself. She didn’t have any women friends. But the evenings were different. She never spent a night alone. There were plenty of men in her life. A different guy almost every night. But they all ran to type. Big, beefy studs with a lot of flash to them. Clothes made to order, fancy cars, free spenders.
He’d wander often to the block where Kent lived, haunting the place like a shadow, waiting for her to come home. He even rented a furnished room only a few blocks away, so he’d never be far from her. He was always there when she showed up. He’d watch while her friend of the evening helped her out of the car. Watch while they ascended the stone steps together. The next few minutes would be terrible ones. They’d be climbing the stairs and he couldn’t see them. When the lights clicked on in the third-floor front, he’d let out his breath, but he wouldn’t move away. Not for a long time.
The pictures which formed in his mind created an exquisite torture within him, a compound of hate, pain, pleasure, envy, excitation and frustration. Sometimes he’d want to rush up the stairs, kick down the door, confront Mabel Kent with her duplicity. Couldn’t she understand? She belonged to him, James Harris. Nobody else had a right to her.
He’d check the mad impulse. After all, all he had to do was wait. These lovers of hers were men of straw, shadows, unreal. They could never know, never experience the final intimate rapture that was to exist between himself and this woman. At times, he could almost bring himself to pity them.
After the first week or so there was no reason to wait. He could strike at any time and be sure of success. But that would bring the game to a close before he had fully tasted its savor. He thought up excuses to procrastinate, set imaginary obstacles in his own path.
Hanging around the block day after day was dangerous, but he couldn’t bring himself to make the final play. Not without a sign. Not without a word from her. But that afternoon the sign had come. He’d followed her downtown while she shopped, trailed her from one shop to another.
She’d been leaving Spicer’s when her high heel had slipped on the polished floor. She caught herself in time to prevent a fall, but some of her packages fell from her arm. One of them slithered to within a few inches of Harris’ feet. He picked it up and handed it to her.
She’d said, “Thanks. Thanks a lot,” smiling automatically as she would to any stranger. Her eyes had remained blank, unseeing. Then she had turned away limping a little, not even glancing back at him.
He wanted to rush after her, pull her around, make her look at him. He wanted to shout, “Can’t you see me? Don’t you know I’m alive?” But he held his tongue. There’d be time for that later. He stood still, hating her, yet wanting her too.
This was the day. He wouldn’t wait any longer. He and Mabel Kent would be joined together in a relationship more intimate, more enduring than any of her lovers had known.
He made no conscious effort to follow her, so it was almost with a sense of surprise that he found himself beside her on the subway platform. He entered the car behind her. There weren’t many seats left and she had taken one of them. He wanted to stand so that he could see her better, but his knees went weak and threatened to buckle under him. That was why he squeezed in between the fat man and the old woman with the newspaper.
Now that the game was drawing to a close, his hatred passed, and he felt an almost maudlin affection for Mabel Kent. He wanted to go to her, murmur words of endearment. She seemed to him a beloved child who had to be punished, yet who needed reassurance that the punishment would be quick.
Tears of self-pity burned his eyes. He’d miss her. Miss the long, lonely vigils in the doorway opposite her house.
The train jolted to a stop and she got off. There was no reason for him to follow her. There was no place she could go but home. So he might as well stop at the florist shop for the box of roses he needed for his plan.
He couldn’t bring himself to leave her, however. There was so little time left. He wanted to spend every minute of it close to her. He trailed her to the door, stood on the sidewalk watching the supple movement o£ her body, the flick of her legs as she disappeared up the stairway. Only then did he walk back toward Broadway.
He chose the roses with care, heavy blood-red blossoms, almost black at their throats. This would be his gift to her.
With the roses in his arm, he returned to the block, shambling along slowly like a stranger, pretending to peer at the numbers. He let himself into the foyer, thumbed the bell, and listened to the burr of the automatic release.
When he was halfway up the stairs, he heard her door click open and the tap of her heels in the hall. She was peering down at him over the railing, but she wouldn’t be surprised when she saw the box of flowers. She got them all the time.
She was in her room before he hit the landing, but she hadn’t bothered to close the door. She’d taken off her dress and put on a loose-fitting housecoat. She was standing before her dresser, fumbling with her purse, taking out a coin. A tip.
He almost laughed, then his anger came flooding back. But it wasn’t a blinding anger, he could see her more clearly than ever before, that what he had to do was right.
He entered the room quietly and heeled the door shut behind him. She looked up at the soft slam of the door and a frown creased her forehead. He approached her, almost apologetically, and held the box out to her. He said, “The man who sent them, he wanted you to look at them, to see if they’re okay.”
She hesitated, then lifted the lid. The blood-red roses were in front of her. She gave a little gasp of pleasure and her fingers explored for a card. She said wonderingly, “They’re gorgeous. But who sent them?”
Harris spoke very softly to her. “I did.”
Her glance lifted to his face, but her expression was one of confusion rather than alarm.
He fought to keep his manner calm, not to frighten her too soon. “Don’t you remember me?”
“No,” she answered. Then her breath sucked in and fear came to her eyes.
He stayed still. She was looking at him now, he thought, really seeing him for the first time. Her eyes widened in panic. She started to back away from him. He followed her.
She dropped the roses and they spilled across the floor between them. She said, “You’re the man from this afternoon…” Her voice trailed off and he could see she was getting ready to scream. He couldn’t permit that.
He threw himself upon her and his hands circled her throat just in time. The scream was cut off almost before it started. It came out as a gurgling murmur.
He bent her backward, his fingers biting deeper and deeper into the soft column of her flesh. She tried to struggle, lashing out at him with her feet, raking at his wrists with her long nails. But her strength was no match for his.
He flung her down on the bed and knelt beside her, the pressure of his fingers growing stronger. She lay still, but still he dared not release his grip. He still had not had satisfaction. He squeezed harder, harder, to produce the burst of emotion that he wanted, and when he could squeeze no more, he suddenly wanted to scream.
It wasn’t the way he’d expected it to be!
There was no exultation. Nothing. Only the blindness of despair and the wish to cling to her forever and ever. He lost all sense of time as he crouched beside her. His fingers grew numb and his wrists hurt, but still he could not let her go. Finally he fell across her. His face rested on the pillow close to hers, and he shut his eyes.
He had no idea of how long he remained beside her but when he looked up, the room was dark and the windows in the houses across the street showed squares of yellow light. Panic twisted at him, sent him scuttling across the room. He stumbled, grasped a chair and sent it crashing to the floor.
The noise sobered him, brought him back to his senses. He felt along the wall for the switch, flicked it on, and stood trembling in the unexpected brilliance. The roses were a trampled mass at his feet. Automatically he picked one up.
He was acting crazy, he thought. He had to get out fast. He straightened up and forced himself to remain still for a moment. He mustn’t flip. He had to relax, play it cool.
He let himself out into the dim hall. He walked rapidly but without stealth, as he’d trained himself to do. The stairs were carpeted. They made no sound beneath his feet. He reached the next landing safely and started along the corridor.
Then the door beside him opened.
A woman stood in the doorway, peering out nearsightedly. She was a short stocky woman with hennaed hair. She wore a dowdy purple dress and her eyes were bright behind the lenses of her glasses. Harris knew her type, a busybody.
He wanted to plunge headlong down the last flight of stairs. But he was paralyzed with terror. The woman stepped into the hall, gave him one swift incurious look, and then passed by him to the railing and peered upward.
Her blank gaze had told him all he needed to know. Why did he have to remind himself after all these years of the lesson he’d learned in the drugstore? He pulled himself together and kept on walking. At the bend of the stairs, he heard the woman’s querulous voice. “Something’s going on up there in that Kent woman’s apartment.”
His head jerked around, but she wasn’t talking to him. She was speaking over her shoulder to someone in the doorway. She’d forgotten him already. The nagging fury smoldered inside him. He’d like to sink his fingers into the old witch’s scrawny neck, make her look at him, the way Kent looked before she died.
Mabel Kent—at least the memory of her staring eyes sent a pleasant tingling sensation through him, even if the strangling hadn’t. There was one dame who’d seen him for what he really was; not a nonentity but a killer, a big shot, a guy who’d soon be a legend in crime.
Outside on the street he stopped to light a cigarette. He sucked the smoke deep into his lungs. He felt almost the way he had the time he’d tried a reefer, big, powerful, strong.
But it was only a beginning, and he had to strike again soon—for several reasons. One was to get the feeling of exultation that had eluded him. The other was to make sure people would know.
Maybe the press wouldn’t catch on quick that this was a juicy story, just the first of a series of murders. Next time he’d have to leave a trademark of some kind. His fingers touched the crushed rose in his pocket. It brought a smile to his lips. After this, he’d always honor the woman of his choice by bringing a gift of roses.
Excitement plucked at him and he scurried along the street so fast that several times he almost bumped into people. It didn’t really matter. After a quick glance of irritation they never gave him a second look.
A nightclub loomed up ahead. A woman stepped out of a cab and under the lights. She was lush-figured and her hair glowed like silver in the artificial glare. She was a celebrity of some sort because a little knot of people had already formed about her. Harris could hear her laughter and the bright chatter of her voice.
He slid his way into the crowd until he was close beside her. He forgot all about Mabel Kent.
This was the woman, the one for whom he’d really been searching.
AUTHOR’S POSTSCRIPT: I was visiting some friends one afternoon and we fell into a discussion of John Reginald Halliday Christie, London’s multiple murderer of women. My friends said that such eerie murders could only happen in the atmosphere of London, a contention which I disputed… On the way home, I looked around the crowded New York subway and thought what a strange background it would make for “Mr. Nobody.”