God

This literary work is pure fiction, all copyright are reserved by its author Ken Follett....
Comments and critical replies are welcomed

THE THIRD TWIN
SUNDAY
1

A HEAT WAVE LAY OVER
BALTIMORE LIKE A SHROUD. THE
leafy suburbs were cooled by a hundred
thousand lawn sprinklers, but the affluent
inhabitants stayed inside with the
airconditioning on full blast. On North
Avenue, listless hookers hugged the shade
and sweated under their hairpieces, and
the kids on the street corners dealt dope
out of the pockets of baggy shorts. It was late September, but fall seemed a long
way off.
A rusty white Datsun, the broken lens of
one headlight fixed in place with an X of
electrician's tape, cruised through a white
working-class neighborhood north of
downtown. The car had no air-
conditioning, and the driver had rolled
down all the windows. He was a
handsome man of twenty-two wearing
cutoff jeans, a clean white T-shirt, and a
red baseball cap with the word
SECURITY in white letters on the front.
The plastic upholstery beneath his thighs
was slippery with his perspiration, but he
did not let it bother him. He was in a
cheerful mood. The car radio was tuned to
92Q—"Twenty hits in a row!" On the
passenger seat was an open binder. He glanced at it occasionally, memorizing a
typed page of technical terms for a test
tomorrow. Learning was easy for him, and
he would know the material after a few
minutes of study.
At a stoplight, a blond woman in a
convertible Porsche pulled alongside him.
He grinned at her and said: "Nice car!"
She looked away without speaking, but he
thought he saw the hint of a smile at the
corners of her mouth. Behind her big
sunglasses she was probably twice his
age: most women in Porsches were. "Race
you to the next stoplight," he said. She
laughed at that, a flirtatious musical laugh,
then she put the stick shift into first with a
narrow, elegant hand and tore away from
the light like a rocket.
He shrugged. He was only practicing.
He drove by the wooded campus of
Jones Falls University, an Ivy League
college much swankier than the one he
attended. As he passed the imposing
gateway, a group of eight or ten women
jogged by in running clothes: tight shorts,
Nikes, sweaty T-shirts, and halter tops.
They were a field hockey team in training,
he guessed, and the fit-looking one in front
was their captain, getting them in shape
for the season.
They turned into the campus, and
suddenly he was overwhelmed, swamped
by a fantasy so powerful and thrilling that
he could hardly see to drive. He imagined
them in the locker room—the plump one
soaping herself in the shower, the redhead
toweling her long copper-colored hair, the
black girl stepping into a pair of white lace panties, the dykey team captain
walking around naked, showing off her
muscles—when something happened to
terrify them. Suddenly they were all in a
panic, wide-eyed with dread, screaming
and crying, on the edge of hysteria. They
ran this way and that, crashing into one
another. The fat girl fell over and lay there
weeping helplessly while the others trod
on her, unheeding, as they tried
desperately to hide, or find the door, or
run away from whatever was scaring
them.
He pulled over to the side of the road
and put the car in neutral. He was
breathing hard and he could feel his
heartbeat hammering. This was the best
one he had ever had. But a little piece of
the fantasy was missing. What were they frightened of? He hunted about in his
fertile imagination for the answer and
gasped with desire when it came to him: a
fire. The place was ablaze, and they were
terrified by the flames. They coughed and
choked on the smoke as they milled about,
halfnaked and frenzied. "My God," he
whispered, staring straight ahead, seeing
the scene like a movie projected onto the
inside of the Datsun's windshield.
After a while he calmed down. His
desire was still strong, but the fantasy was
no longer enough: it was like the thought
of a beer when he had a raging thirst. He
lifted the hem of his T-shirt and wiped the
sweat from his face. He knew he should
try to forget the fantasy and drive on; but it
was too wonderful. It would be terribly
dangerous—he would go to jail for years if he were caught—but danger had never
stopped him doing anything in his life. He
struggled to resist temptation, though only
for a second. "I want it," he murmured,
and he turned the car around and drove
through the grand gateway into the
campus.
He had been here before. The university
spread across a hundred acres of lawns
and gardens and woodland. Its buildings
were made mostly of a uniform red brick,
with a few modem concrete-and-glass
structures, all connected by a tangle of
narrow roads lined with parking meters.
The hockey team had disappeared, but
he found the gymnasium easily: it was a
low building next to a running track, and
there was a big statue of a discus thrower
outside. He parked at a meter but did not put a coin in: he never put money in
parking meters. The muscular captain of
the hockey team was standing on the steps
of the gym, talking to a guy in a ripped
sweatshirt. He ran up the steps, smiling at
the captain as he passed her, and pushed
through the door into the building.
The lobby was busy with young men
and women in shorts and headbands
coming and going, rackets in their hands
and sports bags slung over their shoulders.
No doubt most of the college teams
trained on Sundays. There was a security
guard behind a desk in the middle of the
lobby, checking people's student cards;
but at that moment a big group of runners
came in together and walked past the
guard, some waving their cards and others
forgetting, and the guard just shrugged his shoulders and went on reading The Dead
Zone.
The stranger turned and looked at a
display of silver cups in a glass case,
trophies won by Jones Falls athletes. A
moment later a soccer team came in, ten
men and a chunky woman in studded
boots, and he moved quickly to fall in
with them. He crossed the lobby as part of
their group and followed them down a
broad staircase to the basement. They
were talking about their game, laughing at
a lucky goal and indignant about an
outrageous foul, and they did not notice
him.
His gait was casual but his eyes were
watchful. At the foot of the stairs was a
small lobby with a Coke machine and a
pay phone under an acoustic hood. The men's locker room was off the lobby. The
woman from the soccer team went down a
long corridor, heading presumably for the
women's locker room, which had
probably been added as an afterthought by
an architect who imagined there would
never be many girls at Jones Falls, back in
the days when "coeducational" was a sexy
word.
The stranger picked up the pay phone
and pretended to search for a quarter.
The men filed into their locker room.
He watched the woman open a door and
disappear. That must be the women's
locker room. They were all in there, he
thought excitedly, undressing and
showering and rubbing themselves with
towels. Being so close to them made him
feel hot. He wiped his brow with the back of his hand. All he had to do to complete
the fantasy was get them all scared half to
death.
He made himself calm. He was not
going to spoil it by haste. It needed a few
minutes' planning.
When they had all disappeared, he
padded along the corridor after the
woman.
Three doors led off it, one on either
side and one at the end. The door on the
right was the one the woman had taken. He
checked the end door and found that it led
to a big, dusty room full of bulky
machinery: boilers and filters, he guessed,
for the swimming pool. He stepped inside
and closed the door behind him. There
was a low, even electrical hum. He
pictured a girl delirious with fright,dressed only in her underwear—he
imagined a bra and panties with a pattern
of flowers—lying on the floor, staring up
at him with terrified eyes as he unbuckled
his belt. He savored the vision for a
moment, smiling to himself. She was just a
few yards away. Right now she might be
contemplating the evening ahead: maybe
she had a boyfriend and was thinking of
letting him go all the way tonight; or she
could be a freshman, lonely and a little
shy, with nothing to do on Sunday night but
watch Columbo; or perhaps she had a
paper to deliver tomorrow and was
planning to stay up all night finishing it.
None of the above, baby. It's nightmare
time.
He had done this kind of thing before,
though never on such a scale. He had always loved to frighten girls, ever since
he could remember. In high school there
was nothing he liked better than to get a
girl on her own, in a corner somewhere,
and threaten her until she cried and begged
for merry. That was why he kept having to
move from one school to another. He
dated girls sometimes, just to be like the
other guys and have someone to walk into
the bar on his arm. If they seemed to
expect it he would bone them, but it
always seemed kind of pointless.
Everyone had a kink, he figured: some
men liked to put on women's clothing,
others had to have a girl dressed in leather
walk all over them with spike heels. One
guy he knew thought the sexiest part of a
woman was her feet: he got a hard-on
standing in the women's footwear section of a department store, watching them put
on shoes and take themoff again.
His kink was fear. What turned him on
was a woman trembling with fright.
Without fear, there was no excitement.
Looking around methodically, he took
note of a ladder fixed to the wall, leading
up to an iron hatch bolted on the inside.
He went quickly up the ladder, slid back
the bolts, and pushed up the hatch. He
found himself staring at the tires of a
Chrysler New Yorker in a parking lot.
Orienting himself, he figured he was at the
back of the building. He closed the hatch
and climbed down.
He left the pool machine room. As he
walked along the corridor, a woman
coming the other way gave him a hostile
stare. He suffered a moment of anxiety:........
To be continued

Continuation...

she might ask him what the hell he was
doing hanging around the women's locker
room. An altercation like that was not in
his scenario. At this point it could spoil
his plan. But her eyes lifted to his cap and
took in the word SECURITY, and she
looked away and turned into the locker
room.
He grinned. He had bought the cap for
$8.99 in a souvenir store. But people
were used to seeing guards in jeans at
rock concerts, detectives who looked like
criminals until they flashed their badges,
airport police in sweaters; it was too
much trouble to question the credentials of
every asshole who called himself a
security guard.
He tried the door opposite the women's
locker room. It opened into a small storeroom. He hit the light switch and
closed the door behind him.
Obsolete gym equipment was stacked
around him on racks: big black medicine
balls, worn rubber mats, Indian clubs,
moldy boxing gloves, and splintered
wooden folding chairs. There was a
vaulting horse with burst upholstery and a
broken leg. The room smelled musty. A
large silver pipe ran along the ceiling, and
he guessed it provided ventilation to the
locker roomacross the corridor.
He reached up and tried the bolts that
attached the pipe to what looked like a
fan. He could not turn them with his
fingers, but he had a wrench in the trunk of
the Datsun. If he could detach the pipe, the
fan would draw air from the storeroom
instead of fromthe outside of the building.
He would make his fire just below the
fan. He would get a can of gasoline and
pour some into an empty Perrier bottle and
bring it down here along with some
matches and a newspaper for kindling and
that wrench.
The fire would grow quickly and
produce huge billows of smoke. He would
tie a wet rag over his nose and mouth and
wait until the storeroom was full of it.
Then he would detach the ventilator pipe.
The fumes would be drawn into the duct
and pumped out into the women's locker
room. At first no one would notice. Then
one or two would sniff the air and say: "Is
someone smoking?"
He would open the storeroom door and
let the corridor fill with smoke. When the
girls realized something was seriously wrong, they would open the locker room
door and think the whole building was on
fire, and they would all panic—
Then he would walk into the locker
room. There would be a sea of brassieres
and stockings, bare breasts and asses and
pubic hair. Some would be running out of
the showers, naked and wet, fumbling for
towels; others would be trying to pull on
clothes; most would be running around
searching for the door, half-blinded by
smoke. There would be screams and sobs
and shouts of fear. He would continue to
pretend to be a security guard and yell
orders at them: "Don't stop to dress! This
is an emergency! Get out! The whole
building is blazing! Run, run!"
He would smack their bare asses, shove
them around, snatch their clothes away and feel them up. They would know
something was badly wrong, but most of
them would be too crazy to figure it out. If
the muscular hockey captain was still
there she might have the presence of mind
to challenge him, but he would just punch
her out.
Walking around, he would select his
main victim. She would be a pretty girl
with a vulnerable look. He would take her
arm, saying: "This way, please, I'm with
security." He would lead her into the
corridor then turn the wrong way, to the
pool machine room. There, just when she
thought she was on the way to safety, he
would smack her face and punch her in the
gut and throw her on the dirty concrete
floor. He would watch her roll and turn
and sit upright, gasping and sobbing and looking at him with terror in her eyes.
Then he would smile and unbuckle his
belt.

Updates coming shortly

2

MRS. FERRAMI SAID: "I WANT TO
GO HOME."
Her daughter Jeannie said: "Don't you
worry, Mom, we're going to get you out of
here sooner than you think."
Jeannie's younger sister, Patty, shot
Jeannie a look that said "How the hell do
you think we're going to do that?"
The Bella Vista Sunset Home was all
Mom's health insurance would pay for,
and it was tawdry. The room contained
two high hospital beds, two closets, a
couch, and a TV. The walls were painted
mushroom brown and the flooring was a plastic tile, cream streaked with orange.
The window had bars but no curtains, and
it looked out onto a gas station. There was
a washbasin in the corner and a toilet
down the hall. "I want to go home," Mom
repeated.
Patty said: "But Mom, you keep
forgetting things, you can't take care of
yourself anymore."
"Of course I can, don't you dare speak
to me that way."
Jeannie bit her lip. Looking at the
wreck that used to be her mother, she
wanted to cry. Mom had strong features:
black eyebrows, dark eyes, a straight
nose, a wide mouth, and a strong chin. The
same pattern was repeated in both Jeannie
and Patty, although Mom was small and
they were both tall like Daddy. All three of them were as strong-minded as their
looks suggested: "formidable" was the
word usually used to describe the Ferrami
women. But Mom would never be
formidable again. She had Alzheimer's.
She was not yet sixty. Jeannie, who was
twenty-nine, and Patty, twenty-six, had
hoped she could take care of herself for a
few more years, but that hope had been
shattered this morning at five A.M., when
a Washington cop had called to say he had
found Mom walking along 18th Street in a
grubby nightgown, crying and saying she
could not remember where she lived.
Jeannie had got in her car and driven to
Washington, an hour from Baltimore on a
quiet Sunday morning. She had picked
Momup fromthe precinct house, taken her
home, gotten her washed and dressed, then called Patty. Together the two sisters had
made arrangements for Mom to check into
Bella Vista. It was in the town of
Columbia, between Washington and
Baltimore. Their aunt Rosa had spent her
declining years here. Aunt Rosa had had
the same insurance policy as Mom.
I don't like this place," Momsaid.
Jeannie said: "We don't either, but right
now it's all we can afford." She intended
to sound matter-of-fact and reasonable,
but it came out harsh.
Patty shot her a reproving look and
said: "Come on, Mom, we've lived in
worse places."
It was true. After their father went to
jail the second time, the two girls and
Mom had lived in one room with a
hotplate on the dresser and a water tap in the corridor. Those were the welfare
years. But Mom had been a lioness in
adversity. As soon as both Jeannie and
Patty were in school she found a
trustworthy older woman to mind the girls
when they came home, she got a job—she
had been a hairdresser, and she was still
good, if old-fashioned—and she moved
them to a small apartment with two
bedrooms in Adams-Morgan, which was
then a respectable working-class
neighborhood.
She would fix French toast for breakfast
and send Jeannie and Patty to school in
clean dresses, then do her hair and make
up her face—you had to look smart,
working in a salon—and always leave a
spotless kitchen with a plate of cookies on
the table for the girls when they came back. On Sundays the three of them
cleaned the apartment and did the laundry
together. Mom had always been so
capable, so reliable, so tireless, it was
heartbreaking to see the forgetful,
complaining woman on the bed.
Now she frowned, as if puzzled, and
said: "Jeannie, why have you got a ring in
your nose?"
Jeannie touched the delicate silver band
and gave a wan smile. "Mom, I had my
nostril pierced when I was a kid. Don't
you remember how mad you got about it? I
thought you were going to throw me out on
the street."
"I forget things," Momsaid.
"I sure remember," said Patty. "I thought
it was the greatest thing ever.
But I was eleven and you were fourteen, and to me everything you did
was bold and stylish and clever."
"Maybe it was," Jeannie said with
mock vanity.
Patty giggled. "The orange jacket sure
wasn't."
"Oh, God, that jacket. Mom finally
burned it after I slept in it in an abandoned
building and got fleas."
"I remember that," Mom said. "Fleas! A
child of mine!" She was still indignant
about it, fifteen years later.
Suddenly the mood was lighter.
Reminiscing had reminded them of how
close they were. It was a good moment to
leave. "I'd better go," Jeannie said,
standing up.
"Me too," said Patty. "I have to make
dinner."
However, neither woman moved
toward the door. Jeannie felt she was
abandoning her mother, deserting her in a
time of need. Nobody here loved her. She
should have family to look after her.
Jeannie and Patty should stay with her,
and cook for her, and iron her nightgowns,
and turn the TV to her favorite show.
Momsaid: "When will I see you?"
Jeannie hesitated. She wanted to say,
"Tomorrow, I'll bring you your breakfast
and stay with you all day." But it was
impossible: she had a busy week at work.
Guilt flooded her. How can I be so cruel?
Patty rescued her, saying: "I'll come
tomorrow, and bring the kids to see you,
you'll like that."
Mom was not going to let Jeannie get
off that easily. "Will you come too,Jeannie?"
Jeannie could hardly speak. "As soon
as I can." Choking with grief, she leaned
over the bed and kissed her mother. "I
love you, Mom. Try to remember that."
The moment they were outside the door,
Patty burst into tears.
Jeannie felt like crying too, but she was
the older sister, and she had long ago
gotten into the habit of controlling her own
emotions while she took care of Patty. She
put an arm around her sister's shoulders as
they walked along the antiseptic corridor.
Patty was not weak, but she was more
accepting than Jeannie, who was
combative and willful. Mom always
criticized Jeannie and said she should be
more like Patty.
"I wish I could have her at home with me, but I can't," Patty said woefully.
Jeannie agreed. Patty was married to a
carpenter called Zip. They lived in a
small row house with two bedrooms. The
second bedroom was shared by her three
boys. Davey was six, Mel four, and Tom
two. There was nowhere to put a grandma.
Jeannie was single. As an assistant
professor at Jones Falls University she
earned thirty thousand dollars a year—a
lot less than Patty's husband, she guessed
—and she had just taken out her first
mortgage and bought a two-room
apartment and furnished it on credit. One
room was a living room with a kitchen
nook, the other a bedroom with a closet
and a tiny bathroom.
If she gave Mom her bed she would
have to sleep on the couch every night;and there was no one at home during the
day to keep an eye on a woman with
Alzheimer's. "I can't take her either," she
said.
Patty showed anger through her tears.
"So why did you tell her we would get her
out of there? We can't!"
They stepped outside into the torrid
heat. Jeannie said: "Tomorrow I'll go to
the bank and get a loan. We'll put her in a
better place and I'll add to the insurance
money."
"But how will you ever pay it back?"
said Patty practically.
"I'll get promoted to associate
professor, then full professor, and I'll be
commissioned to write a textbook and get
hired as a consultant by three international
conglomerates."

Continuation coming shortly

Time to keep this back on track