By Reason of Insanity (17 page)

On the way to the bathroom she kept telling him that she had no idea he was such a real man, he just took her breath away and made her forget everything. She did not, however, forget to take her handbag with her. Several minutes later she returned in her nightgown, after he had snapped off the lamp and opened the curtains at her request. In the romantic glow of the porch light she saw his naked body, slender, boyish, and her nipples hardened as erotic sensations swept over her. She quickly slid under the covers, holding them open for him in smiling invitation. As he joined her in bed she loosened the bow on her nightgown and pulled the bottom up above her thighs.

Her hands soon guided his slim fingers down to her vagina. Like many women, she needed physical stimulation to become lubricated properly, and now she pressed his hand into the slow rhythmic movement necessary for her. She sensed his inexperience, and that became an added thrill. After a while she began to feel her senses melding and she knew she was drifting toward orgasm. She slipped her right hand under his waist and rolled him on top of her, expertly guiding his penis inside her moist body. With quickening motion she began her own rhythmic dance, and as she floated into sensual ecstasy she murmured his name, softly, faintly, forming an endless litany of love. Danny, Danny, Danny …

Bishop wanted to scream. He wanted to kill the woman six times. He felt sick, he felt disgusted at what she was doing, what she was making him do. She was old and she was fat and she had put her disgusting tongue inside his mouth and now his penis inside her disgusting body. She was horrible, a horrible monster that was trying to crush him, devour him. But he would fool her because he was smarter; he would learn what he needed to know and he would take what he needed to survive. Then he would kill her.

He had never been with a woman, had never seen a woman naked except in pictures somebody once had at the hospital. He wanted to find out about sex, how it felt to be with a woman. He hated bodily contact, hated to touch anyone, but he wanted to see if sex was different. He had to see if it made touching somebody else feel good. Now he saw that sex was just another trick that women used to capture men, to kill them little by little instead of all at once. Maybe if they were dead it would be good, or if they were asleep. Or maybe if they were in his power, afraid of him, willing to do anything to save them selves, maybe then it would be nice to touch their bodies.

The woman beneath him began to moan and toss her head from side to side. He thought he was hurting her and he became excited, wanting to hurt her more, but he didn’t know how. Her moans became louder, her tossing more frantic. She started to shriek, quick guttural gasps. He stopped moving, looked at her. She shook his body violently up and down on top of her, getting him to move again. Seconds later she lunged up at him in a final horrible gasp, her face contorted, her lips drawn back, her eyes feverish. For a moment he was frightened, thinking the demon was attacking him. Then she collapsed back on the bed, her voice silent, her body still. Soon her labored breathing stopped and she lay there, eyes closed like a broken rag doll. He hoped she was dead.

Slowly, cautiously, he dismounted her. He put on his pants and went into the bathroom. He stayed there a long time. When he returned she was curled up on her side at the edge of the bed, her flabby face relaxed in sleep. She was snoring loudly.

The roll of bills was not in her handbag. He knew he could find it hidden somewhere in her clothes but he didn’t look. He needed one more thing from her, something very important to him.

He got into bed, well pleased with himself. He had come far in one day. The authorities were searching for Mungo, and he was free and clear in his new clothes and traveling with a respectable businesswoman. Tomorrow, he told himself finally, should be even better.

In the morning he asked the woman to teach him how to drive a car, telling her that he had never bothered to learn as a kid. She was flattered of course, but more than that she saw it as a way to keep him a few days longer. She found him weirdly exciting, his inexperience and clumsiness titillated her. She wondered where he came from, wished she could find a few more like him. He satisfied her strange ways in bed, just as long as she directed him, and yet he didn’t seem to expect anything sexual in return. He didn’t steal her money, as others had done; he didn’t ask for gifts in the morning. Just to learn to drive. Damn right she’d teach him, and get all the good feeling she could while it lasted. Boys like that didn’t come along every day.

For his part Bishop was willing to put up with her vile body and awful touch while he got what he needed. He was a master of emotional disguise, and each time they were in bed he smiled and laughed and did what was expected of him. For three days they lingered on the outskirts of Yuba City. He was a good student, clever and quick, and by the third day he could drive a car as well as anybody.

The three days had been sheer ecstasy for the woman. She was sexually satisfied for the first time in years. She didn’t at all mind that she had to pay for the boy’s food since he had no money. She didn’t even care about the hundred dollars she was going to give him when they parted. She wished only that she could keep him forever.

On their third evening together in bed the woman suddenly turned her body around and kneeled between the boy’s legs. She took his penis in her mouth and slowly and deftly brought him to climax. She did not usually give oral sex to men and she intended it to be something that the boy would remember. It was more than that. Afterward he lay in bed wondering how anything could feel so good. He soon concluded that what she had done was the only real sex; it was clean and he didn’t have to touch the woman and she didn’t have to touch him, except for her mouth on his penis. He quickly resolved that the only sex he would ever have again would be with a woman’s mouth. Not only did it feel good, he reminded himself, but it showed his complete contempt for women when he put into their mouths the very thing he used for urination.

The following day, July 8, they drove south. The woman was going to Sacramento and San Francisco on the way home. He told her he would go as far as San Francisco. The afternoon was sunny and cheerful and they drove slowly, enjoying the scenery along the way.

Several times they stopped to eat fresh fruit from roadside stands. They were a happy couple, laughing and having a good time as friends do. At dusk they stopped by a field. In such a deserted place the woman felt that they were alone in all the world and she wanted the boy to make love to her right there in the field, as was once before done to her when she was seventeen and in Wisconsin.

He smiled his warmest most engaging smile and as she got out of the car, deliciously happy and feeling for the moment like the pretty young girl she once had been, he hit her from behind with the tire iron. It was a savage two-handed blow that noisily cracked her skull. As she fell he hit her again. He then carefully ran the car over the body, the left wheels crushing the chest. Afterward he dragged the remains to a ditch off the road and covered the body with leaves and rotted wood. When he was finished he knelt down, his knees straddling the crushed head, and put his penis in the dead female mouth.

Later that evening he pulled into a motel near Sacramento. in the room he examined the woman’s handbag thoroughly. The roll of bills totaled $800, plus $500 in unsigned traveler’s checks; these he put in his pocket. From the wallet he extracted the woman’s driver’s license, thought a moment, then returned it. Too dangerous. He looked at the pictures in the plastic slots, flipping rapidly: men, women, children, bodies, faces, eyes, all staring at him in silent pose. He came to one of the woman herself, younger, slimmer, crouched on a nameless beach in a seductive manner, her brief swimsuit intentionally revealing her charms. He pulled the picture and slipped it into another pocket. The rest of the contents was the usual female junk. He put the bag in the trunk with her clothes.

The next morning he drove to San Francisco and parked the car at the sprawling airport lot, another thing he had picked up from TV. He threw the parking stub away, knowing that the car would not be found for months. He then bused into the city, where he bought a new suit and light raincoat in a shop on Geary Street. He also bought an American Airlines flight bag into which he put his shaving stuff. His cardboard suitcase and discarded clothes were deposited in a trash barrel in the North Beach area. Not wanting to spend time in San Francisco, a focal point in the search for Vincent Mungo, he caught an early afternoon bus for Los Angeles.

He arrived at 11 P.M. and immediately checked into a nearby hotel, registering as Alan Jones of Chicago. The next morning he transferred to a rooming house on a pleasant street just a ten-minute walk from the downtown area. He used the name Daniel Long and paid for two weeks’ lodging.

As soon as he was settled he visited the local Social Security Administration office and applied for a new card. He told the clerk that he had just moved his family to Los Angeles from upstate and somehow certain things had been lost, including a box of family documents. His Social Security card was among them. He showed her the payroll stubs with his name and Social Security number. The clerk nodded impatiently, she had heard it all before. What she couldn’t understand was why people didn’t carry the card on them at all times. In minutes she typed up a new card for him.

Next he entered a nearby bank and opened a savings account with $100. The bank officer checked the Social Security card, as he was required to do, and noted the number on the application. The address given was the rooming house. Within minutes he was issued a bankbook. A checking account also was opened, this one with $50. He was told the checks would be ready in ten days, and meanwhile he was given a book of plain bank checks.

That afternoon Bishop spent visiting a half dozen public and private institutions, from the public library to the art and natural history museums. He used his Social Security card and bankbook for references. For a minimum fee he received a membership card from each, valid for one year. All the cards had his new name. Afterward he bought a wallet for his growing identification; it looked a little like one he had once owned.

The following morning, July 11, he called a branch of the Bank of America and complained that he was trying to get a bank credit card but seemed to be having difficulty, Could he be put in touch with their credit bureau? He was told that most large Los Angeles companies used a central credit clearing house, and was given the number. To the credit bureau he complained of a mistake in his credit rating and gave them his name and the address on the envelope he had taken from the house on the morning of his escape. He was referred to another clearing house in San Francisco which handled much of northern California.

He put in a call to San Francisco and spoke to a credit clerk about his problem. He again gave his name and the upstate address, as though he were calling from there. Within minutes he was informed that he should be having no difficulty. What specifically was the trouble? He replied that a local furniture store had turned down a time purchase of his after a credit check. His name and address were again examined, and nothing was found amiss. Have we got the right Daniel Long? he asked in exasperated fashion. Born in San Francisco on February 10, 1945? He waited for the reply, knowing it would be negative since he had just made up the place and date of birth.

The answer came swiftly. A mistake had obviously been made. Daniel Long was listed as having been born in San Jose, California, on November 12, 1943. “Good God,” Bishop mumbled quickly, “that’s my brother’s birth date you got instead of mine.” To the mystified clerk he promised to send a letter with the correct information. After supposedly jotting down the address to which the letter should be sent, and the clerk’s name, he hung up.

That same hour he sent a letter to the San Jose Bureau of Records, requesting that a copy of his birth certificate—Daniel Long, born November 12, 1943—be sent to him at his Los Angeles residence. He enclosed a fivedollar bank money order to cover costs.

In the early afternoon he revisited the bank and sadly informed a different officer that his new bankbook had been lost. He had it in his jacket, and when he looked for it at home, it was gone. And the very first day too! He was told that it probably had been stolen by a pickpocket. He stammered, hardly able to believe that he could be a victim of such a thing. He was soon issued another book, giving him two for the same $100—still another trick learned from TV.

During the next week Bishop explored the city of angels. He walked along Sunset Boulevard and a dozen other famous streets, took a tour of Universal Studios. He rode the sightseeing bus and the trip to the homes of movie stars. He visited Disneyland and Magic Mountain, the Los Angeles zoo and Hollywood Park. Everything he saw amazed him; it was like being born an adult with no history and no memory. As a free man with a new identity, able to go anywhere and do anything, he enjoyed every moment.

Toward the end of the week he took a two-day trip to San Diego. He went to Balboa Park and the San Diego zoo, adding another membership card to his wallet. He bused down to the Mexican border and crossed over into Tijuana, where he walked along
Revolucion Ayenida
and drank Mexican beer in dark cantinas.

When he returned home a letter was waiting. Inside was a copy of Daniel Long’s birth certificate. He immediately applied for a driver’s license, showing the birth certificate as proof of identity. He also furnished the several required passport-type photographs, taken at an amusement arcade. A false beard purchased in a theatrical supply store effectively hid his true features. He was quickly given a temporary permit. In a nearby driving school he paid $25 for an instructor to take him for his road test. He passed and was told that a valid California driver’s license would subsequently be mailed to him.

With the temporary driver’s permit as proof of identity he rented a safedeposit box in a different bank, paying an entire year’s rental fee. Into it he put the birth certificate and the picture of the woman in the bathing suit. Once outside, he threw away the two keys, leaving behind a mystery he believed would never be solved.