Chapter Seventeen

Mark Dietrich cracked open the bottle of Blue Moon and put the cold beer to his lips. For once it tasted bitter and not at all refreshing. You’d think, he thought, after five of these, they would begin to taste good. He downed the beer in three or four swallows and stood on shaky legs.

Ever since Peter had called him last night, he had been even more on edge than since the evil dwarf had come into his life. Sleep was elusive. The previous night he had spent switching positions in a bed with clammy sheets. The brief few moments he did manage to sleep, he was tormented by a nightmare. The nightmare had all the earmarks of reality. He was lying in his bed, trying to fall asleep, knowing that trying to fall asleep never worked. Just rest, he thought, you are getting rest. As he was musing over the torture of insomnia, he tensed. A floorboard in his living room had creaked. The wind was whistling outside, rattling the storm windows in their frame. That’s all it is, he told himself, wondering if he had remembered to lock the back door. Another creak, and Mark tried his best to convince himself it was nothing more than the wind and the building settling. Then he heard another noise, something being put down on the coffee table, the clunk of plastic against wood. The creak again, and this time Mark was certain the creaking was due to a footfall. He lay in bed, his whole body one singing ribbon of steel, muscles tensed. God, he thought, this is where I die. He didn’t want to look up as the footsteps slowly made their way in the darkness to the threshold of his bedroom. Something white and ghastly was standing in the doorway. That was when he had started to scream, really scream, and the muffled cries of nightmare brought him full awake.

Eyes wide in the dark, he finally gave up on the idea of sleep about 3:00 a.m. and had gotten up to read Steve Thayer’s The Weatherman, a book he had just picked up at a used bookstore. When he remembered the book was about a serial killer, he had thrown it in disgust against the wall, turning instead to his windows, where he watched the sky lighten as dawn approached. Normally he would have enjoyed the book, but Mark thought he would be sticking to magazines and newspapers for a very long time.

Peter, his only real gay friend, had called him early last night. His voice almost quivered with worry. How had Mark’s life gone from relatively easy to stressful beyond belief in a few days? Peter had explained how his new boyfriend, Ed, was missing, and he feared the same guy who was on a killing rampage, as Peter called it, in the gay community might have gotten him. He told him all about how Ed used to work for the police force and the reason he’d been suspended.

“If he comes home,” Peter said, letting out a long, quivering sigh, “I’d really like it if you’d talk to him. It isn’t fair that you’re keeping information to yourself that might help take this guy off the street.”

Mark had pictured himself gently replacing the receiver in its cradle and disconnecting the phone from its socket in the wall but knew he could never do such a thing. But Peter’s request had made him so anxious he had begun to sweat, a panicky nervousness rising up in him, almost enough to engulf him, to send him over the brink.

“Look, we don’t even have to tell him your name. Just talk to him. Maybe nothing will come of it.”

Mark had known, the minute the words came out of Peter’s mouth, that the enticement was nothing more than a lure. If he began this dialogue with the former detective, he would be persuaded to do more, and then…everyone would know.

But Mark had finally agreed, and it was for selfish reasons he had done so. He had never in his life felt more paranoid, more fearful of opening the door or stepping onto the sidewalk in front of his apartment building than he was now. Something had to be done to stop this creep, and being outed paled in comparison to what could happen if he maintained this silence. And outed he would be if this creep got his clutches on him. Not only would his family be forced to cope with the trauma of his death, but they would also have to struggle through the shame of one of their fair-haired boys being a fag. The choice was really no choice, and he had reluctantly agreed to come talk to Peter’s friend.

And now he was getting ready to leave, to go outside into a city that was full of fear and uncertainty. Once he had walked down the street, shoulders back, meeting the world head on. Now when he ventured outside, his walk was accompanied by constant looks over his shoulder and nervous jumps when a car backfired or a little boy zoomed too close on his bike.

Mark put his jacket on and checked to make sure he had his keys. He headed toward the door. If meeting with this Ed could at least somehow help in putting an end to this anxiety, he felt he would pay anything. What good was being alive when life was like this?

*

Timothy Bright sat across the street from Mark Dietrich’s building, waiting. He wore a down-filled navy blue ski parka, warm for this bright morning, but it had served him well the night before, as he watched the lights in Dietrich’s window tell a tale of insomnia. The fact that he was scared was good, but small consolation when Bright thought of the threat the frightened young man posed.

How would he get him alone? If the guy spotted him on the street, Timothy was certain he would run, screaming, in the other direction, a Midwestern portrait by Edvard Munch. But Timothy knew, perhaps better than anyone, how anonymous the city could be, and just out of sight was often as good as being alone on a mountaintop.

And then he had an idea, one so brilliant he wondered why he hadn’t thought of it before.

*

Mark locked the door behind him and realized that, for the first time in his life, an unlocked door was a lesser evil compared to what might await him outside. He tried to breathe deeply, because his breath was coming too fast. He had learned last term, in Psych 101, about agoraphobia and wondered if an agoraphobe was what he was becoming.

Outside the air was cold, the wind whipping across the lake. One block over, he could hear the roar and crash of the waves when there was a break in traffic on Lake Shore Drive. The sun told a bright lie.

His car was two blocks north, and he wished he earned enough to afford a parking space so he wouldn’t have to walk this short distance. But, hey, it was daylight. Up ahead, a woman with curly brown hair pulled taut the leash of a German shepherd. “Luke, heel!” she shouted, but the dog, salivating, his pink tongue a facial ornament, ignored her.

What could possibly happen here? Even his parents had approved of this safe urban neighborhood, here on the North Side, yuppification complete years before. Nothing but white faces inspired their approval.

Mark strode up the street, pace brisk. One more block and he would round the corner, and his silver Honda Civic would be waiting for him. He pictured himself running to the little car, throwing himself inside, and locking the door. Safe behind metal and glass. At least for this portion of the day…

He rounded the corner. The car was where he had left it, and fortune smiled on him. Near his car, two men were talking, one an older man with a newspaper in his hand, the other man younger, wearing what looked like a hunting jacket. Mark edged by them, his keys out, and got in the car. He locked the doors quickly—power locks were never more wonderful—and put the key in the ignition. Such a small enclosed space felt good. As Mark jockeyed out of the parking space, he began to feel just the tiniest glimmer of hope. Perhaps Peter’s friend would be able to help him out of this nightmare.

Mark headed east, toward Lake Shore Drive. After waiting for a light and playing with his radio for what seemed like too long, the light turned green and Mark swung left, onto the on ramp.

He joined the river of swiftly moving northbound cars.

He breathed a sigh of relief. He had made it. “Aren’t you proud?” he said aloud to himself.

There was a glimmer in the rearview mirror, and Mark glanced up. The guy was there, in his back seat, pale blue eyes meeting his. His thin lips curled into a grin.

“Hello, dickhead.”

Mark gasped and swerved. The last thing he remembered seeing was a Ford Explorer headed for the side of his car.