I had him. I had the gush, and him and Old Captain in the front room, the streetcar 
crashing past outside, and him saying to Old Captain, "You ever show it to me again or 
ask me to touch it and I won't ever come near you." And Old Captain swearing he never 
would. Old Captain taking him to the movies, and to dinner at the Monteleone, and on the 
plane to Atlanta, having vowed never to do it again, "Just let me be around you, son, 
just let me be near you, I'll never, I swear." His mother drunk in the doorway, brushing 
her hair.  "I know your game, you and that old man, I know just what you're doing. He 
bought you those clothes? You think I don't know." And then Terry with the bullet hole in 
the middle of her face, a blond-haired girl turning to the side and crumpling to the 
floor, the fifth murder and it has to be you, Terry, you. He and Dora were in the truck. 
And Dora knew. Dora was only six and she knew. Knew he'd shot her mother, Terry. And 
they'd never, never spoken a word about it.  Terry's body in a plastic sack. Ah, God, 
plastic. And him saying, "Mommy's gone." Dora hadn't even asked. Six years old, she knew. 
 Terry screaming, "You think you can take my daughter from me, you son of a bitch, you 
think you can take my child, I'm leaving tonight with Jake and she's going with me." 
Bang, you're dead, honey. I couldn't stand you anyway. In a heap on the floor, the very 
flashy cute kind of common girl with very oval pale pink nails, and lipstick that always 
looks extraordinarily fresh, and hair from a bottle. Pink shorts, little thighs.
  
  He and Dora driving in the night, and they never had spoken a word.
  
  What are you doing to me! You are killing me! You are taking my blood, not my soul, you 
thief, you... what in the name of God?
  
  "You talking to me?" I drew back, blood dripping from my lips, Good God, he was talking 
to me! I bit down again, and this time I did break his neck, but he wouldn't stop.
  
  Yes, you, what are you? Why, why this, the blood? Tell me, damn you into hell! Damn you!
  
  I had crushed the bones of his arms, twisted his shoulder out of the socket, the last 
blood I could get was there on my tongue. I stuck my tongue into the wound, give me, give 
me, give me....
  
  But what, what is your name, under God, who are you?
  
  He was dead. I dropped him and stepped back. Talking to me!  Talking to me during the 
kill? Asking me who / was? Piercing the swoon?
  
  "Oh, you are so full of surprises," I whispered. I tried to clear my head. I was warmly 
full of blood. I let it stay in my mouth. I wanted to pick him up, tear open his wrist, 
drink anything that was left, but that was so ugly, and the truth was, I had no intention 
of touching him again! I swallowed and ran my tongue along my teeth, getting the last 
taste, he and Dora in the truck, she six years old, Mommy dead, shot in the head, with 
Daddy now forever.
  
  "That was the fifth killing!" he'd said aloud to me, I'd heard him.
  
  "Who are you?"
  
  "Talking to me, you bastard!" I looked down at him, ooh, the blood was just flooding my 
fingertips finally and moving down my legs; I closed my eyes, and I thought, Live for 
this, just for this, for this taste, this feeling, and his words came back to me, words 
to Dora in a fancy bar, "I sold my soul for places like this."
  
  "Oh, for Godsakes, die, damn it!" I said. I wanted the blood to keep burning, but 
enough of him, hell, six months was plenty for a love affair between vampire and human! I 
looked up.
  
  The black thing wasn't a statue at all. It was alive. And it was studying me. It was 
living and breathing and watching me under its furious shining black scowl, looking down 
at me.
  
  "No, not true," I said aloud. I tried to fall into the deep calm that danger often 
produces in me. Not true.
  
  I nudged his dead body on the floor deliberately just to be sure I was still there, and 
not going mad, and in terror of the disorientation, but it didn't come, and then I 
screamed.
  
  I screamed like any kid.
  
  And I ran out of there.
  
  I tore out of there, down the hall, out of the back and into the wide night.
  
  I went up over the rooftops, and then in sheer exhaustion slipped down in a narrow 
alley, and lay against the bricks. No, that couldn't have been true. That was some last 
image he projected, my Victim; he threw that image out in death, a sweet vengeance. 
Making that statue look alive, that big dark winged thing, that goat-legged....
  
  "Yeah," I said. I wiped my lips. I was lying in dirty snow. There were other mortals in 
this alley. Don't bother us. I won't. I wiped my lips again. "Yeah, vengeance; all his 
love," I whispered aloud, "for all the things in that place, and he threw that at me. He 
knew. He knew what I was. He knew how...."
  
  And besides, the Thing that stalked me had never been so calm, so still, so reflective. 
It had always been swelling and rising like so much thick, stinking smoke and those 
voices ...That had been a mere statue standing there.
  
  I got up, furious with myself, absolutely furious for having fled, for having passed up 
the last little trick involved in the whole kill. I was furious enough to go back there, 
and kick his dead body and kick that statue, which no doubt returned to granite the 
instant that conscious life went completely out of the dying brain of its owner.
  
  Broken arms, shoulders. As if from the bloody heap I'd made of him, he'd called up that 
thing.
  
  And Dora will hear about this. Broken arms, shoulders. Neck broken.
  
  I went out onto Fifth Avenue. I walked into the wind.