5:00 P.M.
He had a name, but it doesn't matter; call him the psycho.
That's what the newspapers and everyone who read them called him now, since his second murder two months ago. At first he'd been called by various designations: insane rapist-killer, homicidal maniac, sexual psychopath, and others. For convenience, for shorthand, it had boiled down to the psycho. The police called him that too, although they had been moving heaven and earth to find a better name for him, a name like Peter Jones or Robert Smith, a name that would let them find and apprehend him before he killed again. And again.
And now tonight the Need was on him again. The need to rape and kill a woman.
He stood in the hallway of an apartment building, before a door. Nervous tension was making him flex and unflex his hands—his tremendously strong, strangler's hands that had already killed twice and, if everything went well, were about to kill again. He forced himself to hold them still. Not that it mattered here and now, with no one watching him, but it was a habit that had been growing on him and one that he had to break, lest he forget sometime and do it when people were watching him and make them wonder about him, about why he did it. And maybe go on wondering from there; in this city right now just about everybody was watching his neighbor suspiciously, watching for just such little signs as that.
He took a deep breath and then raised a hand and knocked on the door. A light, almost diffident knock, not a peremptory one.
He heard the click of high heels coming to the door. And her voice called out, "Yes? Who is it?"
He made his voice as soft as his knock had been, and as unfrightening, just loud enough to carry to her. "Western Union, ma'am. Collect telegram, from Pittsburgh." Collect, of course, so she couldn't ask him to slide it under the door. And the "from Pittsburgh" should allay any suspicion she might have, since that's where her husband had gone yesterday, on a business trip. She might wonder why he'd wire her collect—but there could be reasons for that.
He heard the knob turn and tensed himself, ready. Then the door opened—a few inches, on a chain—and he knew that he had failed. He threw himself back flat against the wall alongside the door so she wouldn't get a glimpse of him.
And ran, down the flight of stairs and out to the street. Thank God her apartment was a back one and didn't have a window on the street from which she could still get a look at him. Once out the door he forced himself to walk slowly to his car. He got in and drove away, being careful not to drive too fast or too slow.
What a hell of a lousy break. He'd checked that apartment three days ago and there hadn't been a chain bolt on the door then. Her husband must have put it on for her just before he left on his business trip.
Well, at least he had got away safely.
He was five blocks off and had just turned onto a main traffic artery when he heard the sound of squad car sirens converging on the building he had just left.