Page 83 of Girl, Unmasked
The Orpheum Theater.That’s where Ezra Borgman was going to be.
CHAPTER FORTY FOUR
The Orpheum Theater wasn't exactly Madison Square Garden, but the woman onstage had managed to pack them in like pickled herrings all the same.The place was a seething sea of wannabe literati and pseudo-intellectual posers, all gagging for a secondhand snoutful of the fame fumes.
Ezra Borgman sat rigid in his front row seat, watching the sour-faced harridan preen and prance for the crowd like a pageant queen gone to seed.Kirsten Lawler was her name, and unlike the others, Ezra hadn’t laid eyes on her in person until ten minutes ago when she glided onto the stage like she was Frank Sinatra.
This was the culmination of the entire mission, and it had also been the seed that sprouted this whole reign of terror.One night, during one of his vodka-fueled meltdowns, Drago LaChance had told Ezra everything that happened between him and Kirsten Lawler.Apparently, Lawler didn’t have a single positive thing to say about Drago’s manuscript when he read it out at some writing group, not even a ‘you’ve clearly put a lot of effort into this.’
Once the booze had subsided, Drago had laughed the thing off and said it was no big deal, but Ezra could tell the incident had left its mark on him.That night, Ezra had looked up Kirsten Lawler online and found that in a few months’ time, she’d be making a public appearance.
From there, Ezra had worked backwards, planning every kill down to the hour.
And now, the final hour had arrived.
This was the end of the line, for both Kirsten and him.Time had given him an endgame courtesy of the cancer in his stomach, and even though these murders had been a love letter to Drago LaChance, Ezra couldn’t deny that bringing four people down with him had been a thrill like no other.
‘Thank you all for coming out tonight,’ Kirsten Lawler said.‘This novel has been a labor of love, and seeing your shining faces out there, well...it makes every sleepless night worth it.'
Cue the fake chuckles from the crowd.Ezra didn’t even twitch, barely even heard the dribble coming out of Kirsten’s mouth, because he was focused solely on his goal of making this the most memorable night in motivational speech history.He’d tucked the knife neatly and discreetly in the sleeve of his army jacket, so he could feel the cold steel against his forearm as he sat and watched.
He let his gaze drift across the stage again, taking in the details, cataloguing the angles.Sight lines were clear, no obstructions.A clear shot from his seat to the podium, maybe fifteen feet at most.He could close that distance in a heartbeat, be on her before she even had a chance to scream.
What about have-a-go heroes in the audience?Ezra subtly looked behind him under the pretense of admiring the chandelier up above, and it seemed that the audience was made up of ninety percent young women.A couple of gents, probably dragged here by their wives and girlfriends, but no particularly fierce-looking characters that might try and intercept.
But even if someone did try to interrupt his final kill, it wasn’t like they’d have enough time to stop it.There was no time for flourishes or angelification tonight.No barbed-wire halos or angel wings flayed from flesh this time around.Just the purity of steel against jugular and the sweet exhale of a life extinguished.
Kirsten had launched into some maudlin spiel about the power of the written word and the solemn duty of the artist to hold a mirror up to the world and show it its own cracked image.Ezra wasn’t sure how she achieved that with a haunted house novel, but the woman seemed to be saying the right words and hitting the right notes.Ezra guessed that anything could sound profound if you said it with enough conviction.
His heartbeat thundered in his ears, drowning out Kirsten's self-aggrandizing drivel.His muscles tensed, coiled like springs, ready to explode into violent motion at a hair trigger.He wanted to get this over with, but he couldn’t yet.The moment wasn't ripe.He needed Kirsten’s guard down, her attention elsewhere.Needed the audience spellbound by her honeyed words so they'd never see him coming.
A bead of sweat trickled down his temple, and he resisted the urge to wipe it away.He couldn’t show weakness, just in case it brought attention and someone realized he didn’t fit the mold of a typical Kirsten Lawler reader.
But even as he strained towards his purpose, doubt began to nibble at the edges.Little rat bites of uncertainty, gnawing through his confidence like worms through a corpse.What if something went wrong?What if he fumbled the strike, missed the artery, gave Kirsten a chance to cry out?He’d never killed in front of an audience before, so he didn’t know what potential hazards lurked amongst the mass of people behind him.He'd only get one shot at this, so failure wasn’t an option.
No.He couldn’t think like that.The others had gone perfectly.Perhaps a little too perfectly.Why would tonight be any different?Ezra might be the unluckiest man alive, but he was nothing if not a fighter.
Somewhere in the background, Kirsten's voice droned on.‘And so, we must ask ourselves: what lurks in the shadows of our own psyches?What ghosts haunt the corridors of our minds?’
Ezra tried not to roll his eyes.He wasn’t much of a wordsmith, but he was pretty sure Kirsten had just said the same thing twice.
‘Now, if you'll indulge me,’ Kirsten continued, ‘I’d like to share some images of the places in Norwalk that inspired me.’
She turned away from the podium, gesturing to a large screen that lowered from the ceiling.The lights dimmed, plunging the theater into a twilight haze.A series of black-and-white photographs flickered to life on the screen.
Perfect, Ezra thought.
He felt it in his bones.This was the moment.Everyone’s attention was on the screen, so no one would see him slip onto the stage and deliver his final blow.
One deep breath.
Then Ezra exploded into motion.He launched himself from his seat and aimed for the steps leading to the stage.He hopped them, fueled by adrenaline and the cathartic feeling of being in front of a crowd.
He ate up the distance between him and Kirsten in three seconds.Fifteen feet became ten.Then five.Then zero.The world fell away, fading to a muffled hum at the edges of his awareness.There was only the target, the task, the inexorable pull of his purpose.
Ezra was on the stage now.He clutched the hilt of his blade.He was close enough to count the hairs in the severe sweep of Kirsten's bun and catch a whiff of her expensive perfume.He could feel eyes on him, perhaps some of the more eagle-eyed audience members, but he paid them no attention.
End of the line.
