By Reason of Insanity (58 page)

Kenton had no interest in the dead. What he needed was flesh and blood. Did Finch have any specific suggestions about what kind of man the maniac might be?

Indeed he did! As a matter of fact, he was in the process of collecting material and writing preliminary notes for a book about the Chess Man. All the great mass murderers had style. Chess Man had style too, and he was rapidly getting the numbers as well.

As the criminologist ran through the litany of qualities such a monster needed—the sum total of which was a superior mentality and a genuine alienation—Kenton kept thinking that he was no longer alone in his convictions about his man. He wasn’t exactly warmed by the thought. It was always more fun to be the only one who knew something. At least until he wrote about it.

Being a good newspaperman, Kenton did not reveal his own beliefs on the matter or any of his sources for those beliefs. He could, for example, have mentioned his idea that Chess Man had killed his own mother and was now reliving that experience. Or that there was some connection between his parents and Caryl Chessman. Instead he pumped all the information he could from Finch, some of which he found most useful in his laborious and painful reconstruction of the killer’s psychic identity.

The two men promised to stay in touch. Both shared, for the present, a consummate passion in mass murder.

Afterward Kenton spent a half hour at his dictaphone machine. Then he called Senator Stoner’s former mistress in Sacramento. She denied knowing Stoner and professed to have no knowledge of any tapes. Kenton repeated his name and phone at the magazine, should she change her mind. He was of course prepared to pay handsomely for such merchandise.

She hung up on him, but not before noting the name and number.

AT 8:30 that evening Pete Allen dialed Franklin Bush’s home in Georgetown. Allen was still in his office at the newspaper.

“I just finished checking our files for 1960, the first five months right through Chessman’s execution. It was just the way I said. Rumors, but nothing definite. The original communique to Governor Brown came from the State Department, over the signature of an assistant secretary of state. There were purported phone conversations between Washington and Sacramento, one of which was reported to have been initiated by Vice-President Nixon. But again no substantiation.”

“Maybe not at the time,” said Bush softly, “and maybe not from the Washington end. But there could be something in California that ties the President to the Chessman thing.”

“Could be,” admitted Allen, “but I still say, so what. Nixon has always been known as a hard-nose. And there’s nothing wrong with a Vice-President interfering in State Department matters. Maybe Eisenhower asked him to see what he could do. Or maybe
Newstime
is interested in Chessman for another reason, having nothing to do with Nixon. You ever think of that?”

Bush thanked Allen for his help and promised to return the favor. He put the phone down, his mind made up. In the morning he would send the report to Bob Gardner himself Which meant it would probably get to the President. Let them figure it out. He had enough to do holding things together on his level.

At the
Washington Post
Pete Allen typed up a brief summary of his meeting with the White House aide. Included was the observation that the White House might be tapping most of its own phones, beyond even what the Watergate hearings had disclosed. On the way out he dropped the memo on the desk of his section chief. Better safe than sorry, said the conscientious young man to himself as he turned up his mackinaw collar on a wind-swept and deserted 15th Street NW.

By the time he got home and to bed, October had slipped quietly into November.

Eighteen

BISHOP SLEPT soundly that night, a long luxurious sleep devoid of the nightmarish monsters and hideous demons that forever filled his nocturnal hours. When he finally rose, fully rested, it was already after nine o’clock Thursday morning. He boiled the water for his breakfast coffee while he dutifully brushed his teeth and did his daily exercises. With infinite care he then made up his bed, folding the sheet and blanket precisely, as he had learned to do all those years in the institution. That over, he sat silently at the breakfast table, coffee cup in hand, and stared at the dismembered body of the young woman spread out on the cold cement floor in front of him.

It had been one week since the killing in Greenwich Village and for most of that time Bishop had gone quietly about his life, doing whatever was necessary to insure his safety and continued comfort. On the previous Thursday he had deposited an additional $2,000 in the bank under the name of Jay Cooper, bringing the total to $4,000 in the savings account. According to the plan he had devised, a second $4,000 was soon to follow. Another $8,000 waited to be deposited in a different bank as soon as the new identity was secured. The remaining $6,000 of Margot Rule’s money would be kept hidden at home for living expenses and emergencies. He had found several loose bricks at the back end of the long wall and had chiseled out enough of a space behind them to hide the bills. It was a good job for a man who had never worked with his hands. Only a close examination would reveal that the mortar was not intact.

That afternoon he had gone again to Modell’s on lower Broadway across from City Hall, where he purchased more wool socks as well as a six-foot muffler and an insulated vest to wear under his suede leather jacket. Not used to the New York chill, he had no intention of freezing to death. Wrapped in wool, wearing his hunter’s fur-lined cap, his sheepskin-collared jacket and heavy brown boots with rubber soles and heels, Bishop believed he might be able to survive.

On Friday morning the headlines had screamed the latest Chess Man outrage and he read about it over coffee in a local donut shop. He had come to like reading of his exploits in the newspapers, and began to see himself as a heroic figure. Much like the Batman on television. No one knew who Batman was but he fought the forces of evil and he always won. Which was exactly what he, Bishop, was doing. He too was fighting the evil demons who would destroy him, destroy everyone, every man they could. And he too would always win.

Reading about himself that day in the coffee shop, Bishop came to a decision. In his next encounter with the powers of darkness he would leave word that the Batman had struck again.

The final Saturday and Sunday of October were spent mostly in meditation. With the TV blaring loudly, he would sit in front of the set hour after hour, his eyes glued to the screen, his mind empty of all thought. Slowly, ever so slowly, his focus would turn inward as his vision blurred to pinpoints of light, to shimmering suns of pure white and to final fiery incandescence. Transported, in his mind he would see strange and wondrous things, shapes and colors and textures beyond comprehension, beyond anything even his disordered imagination could fantasize. In such state he was oblivious to everything external, seeing all, feeling all, knowing all from within.

As the intensity eventually lessened, he would begin to form shadowy figures that slowly hardened into the hated enemy. Demonic beings lashed out at him, diabolic bodies sought to ensnare him. Opening like the petals of a giant flower, feminine forms slithered round his arms, his legs, pulling him irrevocably toward their center where they would close over him, squeezing out the juices of his life, crushing his bones to pulp. But he fought them valiantly, going from flower to flower until all were leveled and he stood solitary and fierce against the next terrible onslaught, and the next and the next.

During the weekend Bishop also visited a chess parlor on 42nd Street, above a clothing store. Here he watched dozens of players, all of them passionately involved in the game. He talked to a few—one was a truck driver who had learned chess while in prison. “There was nothing else to do,” he told Bishop, “nothing at all.” So he was forced to take up chess. Eventually he came to love it.

For his own part, Bishop didn’t reveal that he too had learned chess in an institution. Nor did he mention that he was considered a very good player. Not wishing to cause undue comment, he allowed the truck driver to win. Everybody seemed pleasant enough in the parlor and he felt comparatively safe, especially with his hornrimmed glasses, lightened hair and full beard. People, mostly men, were constantly entering and leaving the place, and when Bishop finally left he promised he would return.

On the way home he had picked up the latest issues of a half dozen detective magazines. In each he found photographs of female models in distress-type poses, some bound to chairs, others sprawled on floors at the feet of sadistic males, all of them seemingly moments away from death. In the apartment he put them with his photographic equipment where they could be easily seen.

Monday morning saw Bishop once more in Jersey City at the YMCA on Bergen Avenue, where he had rented a room the previous Friday. The Y was in an area of heavy traffic, and his appearance occasioned no special interest. To the clerk who gave him his letter, he was just another faceless young man in a world full of travelers. Nor did the name Thomas Wayne Brewster have any significance. Both man and name were immediately forgotten.

To Bishop it had seemed a perfect choice. He needed a Jersey City address and wanted not merely a mail drop but an actual residence. The Y was cheap and it was anonymous. He didn’t intend to live there of course, but it would be a convenient backstop in case of emergency. From a lifetime of television he had learned all about evasive action. Meanwhile he would pay each month in advance and collect his mail whenever any was expected.

After examining the birth certificate and mussing up the bed to show occupancy, Bishop had gone to the Social Security Administration office on Kennedy Boulevard, where he filled out an application for a Social Security number on form SS-5. He printed his full name as Thomas Wayne Brewster, his place of birth as Jersey City. For his mother’s maiden name he put Mary Smith, his father, Andrew Brewster. His mailing address was 654 Bergen Avenue, date of birth May 3, 1946, present age twenty-seven, sex male, color white. He checked the appropriate box for having never before applied for a United States Social Security, railroad, or tax account number. At the bottom he signed his new name.

When his turn in line came he handed over the application form and his newly acquired birth certificate as proof of his identity. After being examined the certificate was returned to him.

The woman with the big glasses behind the desk told him he would receive the new Social Security card at his mailing address within four weeks. He told her he was starting ajob the very next day. Could he somehow get a card immediately, or at least a temporary number? She said that was impossible. All new cards were sent out from Baltimore. But she could give him a form saying he had applied for a Social Security number which would be given him shortly. Bishop smiled his warmest. That would be fine.

He watched the woman as she gathered the papers neatly. In his mind’s eye he saw her face break apart like a jigsaw puzzle and the blood flow out of her mouth and neck and chest as his long knife skewered her to the chair. The vision remained with him even after he had left the office.

A half hour later he deposited $2,000 in a commercial bank near Journal Square, showing the bank officer his temporary card. He had been living in Canada since childhood and was just now returning to his native state. He would give his new Social Security number the moment he received it. Meanwhile he had all this money he didn’t want lying around …

The bank officer nodded understandingly and had him fill out the application card for a savings account, leaving the space for the Social Security number temporarily blank. Within minutes Bishop walked out with a blue bankbook in the name of Thomas Wayne Brewster.

His next stop was a local Motor Vehicle registration and license agency where he paid five dollars for a driver’s permit, good for three months. With the permit he was given a driver manual containing a summary of New Jersey’s traffic laws. The written examination for the license would be based on the contents of the manual, and he was told to study it carefully.

That evening Bishop spent hours at home memorizing facts from the booklet. Many of them seemed frivolous and not relevant to driver safety but he kept at it. When he finally felt confident of his knowledge he went out to prowl the city, this time finding what he needed on Third Avenue and ioth Street.

She was standing under a clock that said 12:30 and she was open for business. When the John mumbled that he’d like some action at her place, her first impulse was to shoo him away. Her trade was mostly cars, passing cars that could whisk her to a darkened street where she would give the driver a quick blow job right on the front seat. Then straight back to her corner to wait for the next car. Fast and easy! She liked blow jobs the best because she didn’t have to take off her clothes or even open her legs. There was no strain or struggle, just a little simple mouth action and the money spilled in. She had once figured she swallowed at least a gallon of the stuff a week. All that pure protein was probably what kept her so healthy the year round. Yessir, she was strictly carriage trade. Lincolns, Cadillacs, Buicks, even Fords and Chevies. Almost anything but Volkswagens; she had once sprained her neck in a Volkswagen. The forced vacation had cost her at least a thousand dollars.

But it had been a slow night so far and she was chilly. The end of October was never her best time; too late for hot pants and too soon for the big boots. When the John told her what he wanted and said he’d pay double to go to her place, she popped her gum and nodded glumly.

She lived on 13th Street between Second and Third Avenue. A room in the rear, with a bed and a dresser and a hotplate on a small table. The two chairs made the room seem crowded. She hung her cotton coat over one of the chairs and flung off her boots. The impact raised dust in the cracks of the wood floor. She got in bed with her clothes still on and he got in bed with his clothes still on, and as she put his penis in her mouth and closed her eyes she didn’t think to ask him why he was still wearing his boots.