Panic Attack

It was a cloudy day. It didn’t look like it would rain, but it didn’t look like the sun would come out either. Joh

“Pain in my ass,” he said as he went inside. She was screaming, her face red, trying to get loose but not making any progress. Her nose was swollen to about twice its normal size, and there was a lot of blood, some of it brown and crusted, around her nostrils and upper lip.

“Hey, can you shut up?” Joh

“P-p- please,” she begged, sobbing. “P-pl- please…” “That’s better,” he said. “I mean, why waste your voice screaming? Nobody’s go

“Where… are… w-w- we?” she asked.

“It doesn’t matter where we are,” he said. Then he added, “We’re someplace safe.”

“Why?” she asked, crying. “Why?… Why?”

“It’s complicated, baby,” he said. “But don’t worry, if you stay calm and do everything I tell you to do I won’t hurt you.”

He’d been lying to her since the second he met her; why stop now?

She was sobbing harder, and then he smelled something awful. At first he thought it was something rotting, maybe under the bed, and then he realized she’d shit in her pants during the night. Maybe that was what all the screaming had been about.

“Oh, you had an accident, huh?” he said. “I’m so sorry. Man, that really sucks. I wish I could let you clean yourself up, but you’re nice and tied up now and I don’t want to risk you trying to get away. I mean, I know you wouldn’t get anywhere, because there’s no place to get to, but still.”

“You fucking asshole!” she screamed. “You motherfucking lunatic!”

“You won’t scream again,” he said, dangling the rag over her face to show he was serious. She looked away from him, toward the wall, and started crying again.

“Sorry you feel so shitty,” he said.

He laughed about that one all morning. He really had to start writing this stuff down so he could put it in the Casanova book. It was always good to have a little humor in a story; he couldn’t just go on and on about his sexual conquests for five hundred pages. Well, he could, but still.

At around eleven o’clock he chloroformed Marissa for the last time. She struggled, screaming and trying to bite his hand- and to think, just a couple of days ago she’d had such good ma

Joh

At about eleven thirty, Joh

Joh

At noon, Joh

Joh

Joh

Suddenly furious, Joh

Then, a few minutes later, Joh

Around sunrise, Adam left Forest Hills. The reporters were finally gone, but he had a feeling that, no matter what happened upstate, they’d be back very soon.

He’d left a note for his mother on the kitchen table: Ru

Adam drove to La Guardia Airport, parked in long- term parking, and then rented a Taurus at Bud get. He knew Xan would be looking out for the SUV or the Merc, and he wanted to be as incognito as possible.

Several times, he almost stopped and turned back. He knew he was taking a huge risk by going up alone, but he didn’t see any alternative. If he called the police it would be the equivalent of gambling that the police would bust Xan before he had a chance to kill Marissa or that Xan had been lying about how he’d kill Marissa if the police got involved. He’d misjudged Xan from the begi

Adam exited the New York State Thruway in Kingston and, using directions from a map he’d printed, found the ShopRite. It was early, before ten o’clock, but he was glad he was here, relieved he’d avoided the nightmare scenario of getting stuck on the road and missing the noon meeting time. He didn’t want to stay in a static position, though, and risk being spotted by Xan, so he drove around the area and then parked for a while in the lot of a nearby strip mall. At eleven thirty, he headed back to the ShopRite. As he entered the lot he spotted Xan in his parked car just outside the lot. He was pretty sure that Xan hadn’t seen him, but it was a close call- too close. If Xan had spotted him that would’ve been it; the whole plan would’ve been shot to hell. He should have waited across the road and watched with binoculars or something. He was angry at himself for making that slipup, and he was aware of his raging pulse. In his rush to leave the house he’d forgotten to take the Klonopin with him, and he hadn’t had a pill since last night. Klonopin was supposed to have a long half- life but, maybe because he’d doubledosed yesterday, he was already aware of possible withdrawal symptoms- severe anxiety, irritability, panic. He once had a patient who’d had a seizure when he went off Klonopin too quickly. That was all Adam needed right now, a goddamn seizure.