PELTS
"I'm scared, Pa."
"Shush!" Pa said, tossing the word over his shoulder as he walked ahead.
Gary shivered in the frozen predawn dimness and scanned the surrounding pines and brush for the thousandth time. He was heading for his twentieth year and knew he shouldn't be getting the willies like this but he couldn't help it. He didn't like this place.
"What if we get caught?"
"Only way we'll get caught is if you keep yappin', boy," Pa said. "We're almost there. Wouldna brought you along 'cept I can't do all the carryin' myself! Now hesh up!"
Their feet crunched through the half-inch shroud of frozen snow that layered the sandy ground. Gary pressed his lips tightly together, kept an extra-tight grip on the Louisville Slugger, and followed Pa through the brush. But he didn't like this one bit. Not that he didn't favor hunting and trapping. He liked them fine. Loved them, in fact. But he and Pa were on Zeb Foster's land today. And everybody knew that was bad news.
Old Foster owned thousands of acres in the Jersey Pine Barrens and didn't allow nobody to hunt them. Had "Posted" signs all around the perimeter.
Always been that way with the Fosters. Pa said old Foster's grandpa had started the no-trespassing foolishness and that the family was likely to hold to the damn stupid tradition till Judgment Day. Pa didn't think he should be fenced out of any part of the Barrens. Gary could go along with that most anywheres except old Foster's property.
There were stories . . . tales of the Jersey Devil roaming the woods here, of people poaching Foster's land and never being seen again. Those who disappeared weren't fools from Newark or Trenton who regularly got lost in the Pines and wandered in circles till they died. These were experienced trackers and hunters, Pineys just like Pa . . . and Gary.
Never seen again.
"Pa, what if we don't come out of here?" He hated the whiny sound in his voice and tried to change it. "What if somethin' gets us?"
"Ain't nothin' gonna get us! Didn't I come in here yesterday and set the traps? And didn't I come out okay?"
"Yeah, but—"
"Yeah, but nothin'\ The Fosters done a good job of spreadin' stories for generations to scare folk off. But they don't scare me. I know bullshit when I hear it."
"Is it much farther?"
"No. Right yonder over the next rise. A whole area crawlin' with coon tracks."
Gary noticed they were passing through a thick line of calf-high vegetation, dead now; looked as if it's been dark and ferny before winterkill had turned it brittle. It ran off straight as a hunting arrow into the scrub pines on either side of them.
"Looky this, Pa. Look how straight this stuff runs. Almost like it was planted."
Pa snorted. "That wasn't planted. That's spleenwort—ebony spleen- wort. Only place it grows around here is where somebody's used lime to set footings for a foundation. Soil's too acid for it otherwise. Find it growin' over all the vanished towns."
Gary knew there were lots of vanished towns in the Barrens, but this must have been one hell of a foundation. It was close to six feet wide and ran as far as he could see in either direction.
"What you think used to stand here, Pa?"
"Who knows, who cares? People was buildin' in the Barrens afore the
Revolutionary War. And I hear tell there was crumblin' ruins already here when the Indians arrived. There's some real old stuff around these parts but we ain't about to dig it up. We're here for coon. Now hesh up till we get to the traps!"
* * *
Gary couldn't believe their luck. Every damn leghold trap had a coon in it! Big fat ones with thick, silky coats the likes of which he'd never seen. A few were already dead, but most of them were still alive, lying on their sides, their black eyes wide with fear and pain; panting, bloody, exhausted from trying to pull loose from the teeth of the traps, still tugging weakly at the chains that linked the trap to its stake.
He and Pa took care of the tuckered-out ones first by crushing their throats. Gary flipped them onto their backs and watched their striped tails come up protectively over their bellies. I ain't after your belly, Mr. Coon. He put his heel right over the windpipe, and kicked down hard. If he was in the right spot he heard a satisfying crunch as the cartilage collapsed. The coons wheezed and thrashed and flopped around awhile in the traps trying to draw some air past the crushed spot but soon enough they choked to death. Gary had had some trouble doing the throat crush when he started at it years ago, but he was used to it by now. It was just the way it was done. All the trappers did it.
But you couldn't try that on the ones that still had some pepper in them. They wouldn't hold still enough for you to place your heel. That was where the Gary and his Slugger came in. He swung at one as it snapped at him.
"The head! The head, dammit!" Pa yelled.
"Awright, awright!"
"Don't mess the pelts!"
Some of those coons were tough suckers. Took at least half a dozen whacks each with the Slugger to kill them dead. They'd twist and squeal and squirm around and it wasn't easy to pound a direct hit on the head every single time. But they weren't going nowhere, not with one of their legs caught in a steel trap.
By the time he and Pa reached the last trap, Gary's bat was drippy red up to the taped grip, and his bag was so heavy he could barely lift it. Pa's was just about full too.
"Damn!" Pa said, standing over the last trap. "Empty!" Then he knelt for a closer look. "No, wait! Lookit that! It's been sprung! The paw's still in it! Musta chewed it off!"
Gary heard a rustle in the brush to his right and caught a glimpse of a gray-and-black-striped tail slithering away.
"There it is!"
"Get it!"
Gary dropped the sack and went after the last coon. No sweat. It was missing one of its rear paws and left a trail of blood behind on the snow wherever it went. He came upon it within twenty feet. A fat one, waddling and gimping along as fast as its three legs would carry it. He swung but the coon partially dodged the blow and squalled as the bat glanced off its skull. The next shot got it solid but it rolled away. Gary kept after it through the brush, hitting it again and again, until his arms got tired. He counted nearly thirty strokes before he got in a good one. The big coon rolled over and looked at him with glazed eyes, blood running from its ears. He saw the nipples on its belly—a female. As he lifted the Slugger again, it raised its two front paws over its face—an almost human gesture that made him hesitate for a second. Then he clocked her with a winner. He bashed her head ten more times for good measure to make sure she wouldn't be going anywhere. The snow around her was splattered with red by the time he was done.
As he lifted her by her tail to take her back, he got a look at the mangled stump of her hind leg. Chewed off. God, you really had to want to get free to do something like that.
He carried her back to Pa, passing all the other splotches of crimson along the way. Looked like some bloody-footed giant had stomped through here.
"Whooeee!" Pa said when he saw the last one. "That's a beauty! They're all beauties! Gary, m'boy, we're gonna have money to burn when we sell these!"
Gary glanced at the sun as he tossed the last one into the sack. It was rising brightly into a clear sky.
"Maybe we shouldn't spend it until we get off Foster's land."
"You're right," Pa said, looking uneasy for the first time. "I'll come back tomorrow and rebait the traps." He slapped Gary on the back. "We found ourselfs a gold mine, son!"
Gary groaned under the weight of the sack, but he leaned forward and struck off toward the sun. He wanted to be gone from here. Quick like.
"I'll lead the way, Pa."
* * *
"Look at these!" Pa said, holding up two pelts by their tails. "Thick as can be and not a scar or a bald spot anywhere to be seen! Primes, every single one of them!"
He swayed as he stood by the skinning table. He'd been nipping at the applejack bottle steadily during the daylong job of cutting, stripping, and washing the pelts, and now he was pretty near blitzed. Gary had taken the knife from Pa early on, doing all the cutting himself and leaving the stripping for the old man. You didn't have to be sober for stripping. Once the cuts were made—that was the hard part—a strong man could rip the pelt off like husking an ear of corn.
"Yeah," Gary said. "They're beauts all right. Full winter coats."
The dead of winter was, naturally, the best time to trap any fur animal. That was when the coats were the thickest. And these were thick. Gary couldn't remember seeing anything like these pelts. The light gray fur seemed to glow a pale metallic blue when the light hit it right. Touching it gave him a funny warm feeling inside. Made him want to find a woman and ride her straight on till morning.
The amazing thing was that they were all identical. No one was going to have to dye these babies to make a coat. They all matched perfectly, like these coons had been one big family.
These were going to make one hell of a beautiful full-length coat.
"Jake's gonna love these!" Pa said. "And he's gonna pay pretty for 'em, too!"
"Did you get hold of him?" Gary asked, thinking of the shotgun he wanted to buy.
"Yep. Be round first thing in the morning."
"Great, Pa. Whyn't you hit the sack and I'll clean up round here."
"You sure?"
“Sure.”
"You're all right, son," Pa said. He clapped him on the shoulder and staggered for the door.
Gary shivered in the cold blast of wind that dashed past Pa on his way out of the barn. He got up and threw another log into the pot-bellied stove squatting in the corner, then surveyed the scene.
There really wasn't all that much left to be done. The furs had all been washed and all but a few were tacked up on the drying boards. The guts had been tossed out, and the meat had been put in the cold shed to feed to the dogs during the next few weeks. So all he had to—
Gary's eyes darted to the bench. Had something moved there? He watched a second but all was still. Yet he could have sworn one of the un- stretched pelts piled there had moved. He rubbed his eyes and grinned.
Long day.
He went to the bench and spread out the remaining half dozen before stretching them. Most times they'd nail their catches to the barn door, but these were too valuable for that. He ran his hands over them. God, these were special. Never had he seen coon fur this thick and soft. That warm, peaceful, horny feeling slipped over him again. On a lark, he draped it over his arm. What a coat this was gonna—
The pelt moved, rippled. In a single swift smooth motion its edges curled and wrapped snugly around his forearm. A gush of horror dribbled away before he could react, drowned in a flood of peace and tranquility.
Nothing unusual here. Everything was all right... all right.
He watched placidly as the three remaining unstretched furs rippled and began to move toward him. Nothing wrong with that. Nothing wrong with the way they crawled over his hands and wrists and wrapped themselves around his arms. Perfectly natural. He smiled. Looked like he had caveman arms.
It was time to go back to the house. He got up and started walking. On the way out the door, he picked up the Louisville Slugger.
* * *
Pa was snoring.
Gary poked him with the bat and called to him. His own voice seemed to come from far away.
"Pa! Wake up, Pa!"
Finally Pa stirred and opened his bloodshot eyes. "What is it, boy? What the hell you want?"
Gary lifted the bat over his head. Pa screamed and raised his hands to protect himself, much like that last coon this morning. Gary swung the bat with everything he had and got Pa on the wrist and over the right ear as he tried to roll away. Pa grunted and stiffened, but Gary didn't wait to see what happened. He swung again. And again. And again, counting. His arms weren't tired at all. The pelts snuggling around them seemed to give him strength. Long before the fortieth swing, Pa's head and brains were little more than a huge smear of currant jelly across the pillows.
Then he turned and headed for the back door.
Back in the barn, he stood by the stretching boards and looked down at the gore-smeared bat, clutched tightly now in both of his fists. A small part of him screamed a warning but the rest of him knew that everything was all right. Everything was fine. Everything was—
He suddenly rotated his wrists and forearms and smashed the bat against his face. He staggered back and would have screamed if his throat had only let him. His nose and forehead were in agony! But everything was all right—
No! Everything was not all right! This was—
He hit himself again with the bat and felt his right cheek cave in. And again, and again. The next few blows smeared his nose and took out his eyes. He was blind now, but the damn bat wouldn't stop!
He fell backward onto the floor but still he kept battering his own head. He heard his skull splinter. But still he couldn't stop that damn bat!
And the pain! He should have been knocked cold by the first whack but he was still conscious. He felt everything.
He prayed he died before the bat hit him forty times.
II
No one answered his knocking at the house—house, shmouse, it was a hovel—so Jake Feldman headed for the barn. The cold early morning air chilled the inexorably widening bald spot that commanded the top of his scalp; he wrapped his unbuttoned overcoat around his ample girth and quickened his pace as much as he dared over the icy, rutted driveway.
Old man Jameson had said he'd come by some outstanding pelts. Pelts of such quality that Jake would be willing to pay ten times the going price to have them. Out of the goodness of Jameson's heart and because of their long-standing business relationship, he was going to give Jake first crack at them. Right.
But the old Piney gonif’s genuine enthusiasm had intrigued Jake. Jameson was no bullshitter. Maybe he really had something unique. And maybe not.
This better be worth it, he thought as he pulled open the barn door. He didn't have time to traipse down to the Jersey Pine Barrens on a wild goose chase.
The familiar odor of dried blood hit him as he opened the barn door. Not unexpected. Buy fresh pelts at the source for a while and you soon got used to the smell. What was unexpected was how cold it was in the barn. The lights were on but the wood stove was cold. Pelts would freeze if they stayed in this temperature too long.
Then he saw them—all lined up, all neatly nailed out on the stretching boards. The fur shimmered, reflecting glints of opalescence from the incandescent bulbs above and the cold fire of the morning light pouring through the open door behind him. They were exquisite. Magnificent!
Jake Feldman knew fur. He'd spent almost forty of his fifty-five years in the business, starting as a cutter and working his way up till he found the chutzpah to start his own factory. In all those years he had never seen anything like these pelts.
My God, Jameson, where did you get them and are there any more where these came from ?
Jake approached the stretching boards and touched the pelts. He had to. Something about them urged his fingers forward. So soft, so shimmery, so incredibly beautiful. Jake had seen, touched, and on occasion even cut the very finest Siberian sable pelts from Russia. But they were nothing compared to these. These were beyond quality. These were beautiful in a way that was almost scary, almost.. . supernatural.
Then he saw the boots. Big, gore-encrusted rubber boots sticking out from under one of the stretching boards. Nothing unusual about that except for their position. They lay on the dirt floor with their toes pointing toward the ceiling at different angles, like the hands of a clock reading five after ten. Boots simply didn't lie like that . . . unless there were feet in them.
Jake bent and saw denim-sheathed legs running up from the boots. He smiled. One of the Jamesons—either old Jeb or young Gary. Jake bet on the elder. A fairly safe bet seeing as how old Jeb loved his Jersey lightning.
"Hey, old man," he said as he squeezed between two of the stretching boards to get behind. "What're you doing back there? You'll catch your death of—"
The rest of the sentence clogged in Jake's throat as he looked down at the corpse. All he could see at first was the red. The entire torso was drenched in clotted blood—the chest, the arms, the shoulders the—dear Lord, the head! There was almost nothing left of the head! The face and the whole upper half of the skull had been smashed to a red, oozing pulp from which the remnant of an eye and some crazily angled teeth protruded. Only a patch of smooth, clean-shaven cheek identified the corpse as Gary, not Jeb.
But who could have done this? And why? More frightening than the sight of the corpse was Jake's sudden grasp of the ungovernable fury behind all the repeated blows it must have taken to cave in Gary's head like that. With what—that baseball bat? And after pounding him so mercilessly, had the killer wrapped Gary's dead fingers around the murder weapon? What sick—?
Jeb! Where was old Jeb? Surely he'd had nothing to do with this!
Calling the old man's name, Jake ran back up to the house. His cries went unanswered. The back door was open. He stood on the stoop, calling out again. Only silence greeted him. The shack had an empty feeling to it. That was the only reason Jake stepped inside.
It didn't take him long to find the bedroom. And what was left of Jeb.
A moment later Jake stood panting and retching in the stretch between the house and the barn.
Dead! Both dead!
More than dead—battered, crushed, smeared\ . . . but those pelts. Even with the horrors of what he'd just seen raging through his mind, he couldn't stop thinking about those pelts.
Exquisite!
Jake ran to his car, backed it up to the barn door, popped the trunk. It took him a while but eventually he got all the pelts off the stretching boards and into his trunk. He found a couple of loose ones on the floor near Gary's body and he grabbed those too.
And then he roared away down the twin ruts that passed for a road in these parts. He felt bad about leaving the two corpses like that, but there was nothing he could do to help the Jamesons. He'd call the State Police from the Parkway. Anonymously.
But he had the pelts. That was the important thing.
And he knew exactly what he was going to do with them.
* * *
After getting the pelts safely back to his factory in New York's garment district, Jake immediately went about turning them into a coat. He ran into only one minor snag and that was at the beginning: The Asians among his cutters refused to work with them. A couple of them took one look at the pelts and made a wide-eyed, screaming dash from the factory.
That shook him up for a little while, but he recovered quickly enough. Once he got things organized, he personally supervised every step: the cleaning and softening, the removal of the guard hairs, the letting-out process in which he actually took a knife in hand and crosscut a few pelts himself, just as he'd done when he started in the business; he oversaw the sewing of the let-out strips and the placement of the thousands of nails used in tacking out the fur according to the pattern.
With the final stitching of the silk lining nearing completion, Jake allowed himself to relax. Even unfinished, the coat—That Coat, as he'd come to call it—was stunning, unutterably beautiful. In less than an hour he was going to be the owner of the world's most extraordinary raccoon coat. Extraordinary not simply because of its unique sheen and texture, but because you couldn't tell it was raccoon. Even the cutters and tackers in his factory had been fooled; they'd agreed that the length of the hair and size of the pelts were similar to raccoon, but none of them had ever seen raccoon like this, or any fur like this.
Jake wished to hell he knew where Jameson had trapped them. He'd be willing to pay almost anything for a regular supply of those pelts. What he could sell those coats for!
But he had only one coat now, and he wasn't going to sell it. No way. This baby was going to be an exhibition piece. It was going to put Fell Furs on the map. He'd bring it to the next international show and blow the crowd away. The whole industry would be buzzing about That Coat. And Fell Furs would be known as the company with That Coat.
And God knew the company needed a boost. Business was down all over the industry. Jake couldn't remember furs ever being discounted as deeply as they were now. The animal lovers were having a definite impact. Well, hell, he was an animal lover too. Didn't he have a black lab at home?
But animal love stopped at the bottom line, bubby.
If he played it right, That Coat would turn things around for Fell Furs. But he needed the right model to strut it.
And he knew just who to call.
He sat in his office and dialed Shanna's home number. Even though shed just moved, he didn't have to look it up. He knew it by heart already. He should have. He'd dialed it enough times.
Shanna ... a middle-level model he'd seen at a fur show two years ago. The shoulder-length black hair with the long bangs, the white skin and knockout cheekbones, onyx eyes that promised everything. And her body—Shanna had a figure that set her far apart from the other beanpoles in the field. Jake hadn't been able to get her out of his mind since. He wanted her but it seemed like a lost cause. He always felt like some sort of warty frog next to her, and that was just how she treated him. He'd approached her countless times and each of those times he'd been rebuffed. He didn't want to own her, he just wanted to be near her, to touch her once in a while. And who knew? Maybe he'd grow on her.
At least not he had a chance. That Coat would open the door. This time would be different. He could feel it.
Her voice, soft and inviting, came on the line after the third ring.
"Yes?"
"Shanna, it's me. Jake Feldman."
"Oh." The drop in temperature within that single syllable spoke volumes. "What do you want, Jake?"
"I have a business proposition for you, Shanna."
Her voice grew even cooler. "I've heard your propositions before. I'm not the least—"
"This is straight down the line business," he said quickly. "I've got a coat for you. I want you to wear it at the international show next week."
"I don't know." She seemed the tiniest bit hesitant now. "It's been a while since I've done a fur show."
"You'll want to do them again when you see this coat. Believe me."
Maybe some of his enthusiasm for the coat was coming over the phone. Jake sensed a barely detectable thaw in her voice.
"Well. . . call the agency."
"I will. But I want you to see this coat first. You've got to see it."
"Really, Jake—"
"You've got to see it. I'll bring it right down."
He hung up before she could tell him no and hurried out to the workroom. As soon as the last knot was tied in the last stitch he boxed That Coat and headed for the door.
"What kind of coat you buy, Mister?" someone said as soon as he stepped out onto the sidewalk.
Oh, shit. Animal lovers. A bunch of them holding signs, milling around outside his showroom.
Somebody shoved a placard in his face:
The only one who can wear a fur
coat gracefully and beautifully
is the animal to whom it belongs.
"How many harmless animals were trapped and beaten to death to make it?" said a guy with a beard. "How many electrocuted up the ass?"
"Fuck off!" Jake said. "You're wearing leather shoes, aren't you?"
The guy smiled, "Actually, I'm wearing sneakers, but even if they were leather it wouldn't be for pure vanity. Cows are in the human food chain. Beavers, minks, and baby seals are not."
"So what?"
"It's one thing for animals to die to provide food—that's the law of nature. It's something entirely different to kill animals so you can steal their beauty by draping yourself with their skins. Animals shouldn't suffer and die to feed human vanity."
A chant began.
"Vanity! Vanity! Vanity..."
Jake flipped them all the bird and grabbed a cab downtown.
* * *
Such a beautiful girl living in a place like this, Jake thought as he entered the lobby of the converted TriBeCa warehouse where Shanna had just bought a condo. Probably paid a small fortune for it too. Just because it was considered a chic area of town.
At the "Elevator" sign he found himself facing a steel panel studded with rivets. Not sure of what to do, he tried a pull on the lever under the sign. With a clank the steel panel split horizontally, dividing into a pair of huge metal doors that opened vertically, the top one sliding upward, the bottom sinking. An old freight elevator. Inside he figured out how to get the contraption to work and rode the noisy open car up to the third level.
Stepping out on the third floor he found a door marked 3B straight ahead of him. That was Shanna's. He knocked, heard footsteps approaching.
"Who's there?" said a muffled voice from the other side. Shanna's voice.
"It's me, Jake. I brought the coat."
"I told you to call the agency."
Even through the door he could sense her annoyance. This wasn't going well. He spotted the glass lens in the door and that gave him an idea.
"Look through your peephole, Shanna."
He pulled That Coat from the box. The fur seemed to ripple against his hands as he lifted it. A few unused letting-out strips fell from the sleeve, landing in the box. They looked like furry caterpillars; a couple of them even seemed to move on their own. Strange. They shouldn't have been in the coat. He shrugged it off. It didn't matter. That Coat was all that mattered. And getting past Shanna's door.
"Just take a gander at this coat. Try one peek at this beauty and then tell me you don't want to take a closer look."
He heard the peephole cover move on the other side. Ten seconds later, the door opened. Shanna stood there staring. He caught his breath at the sight of her. Even without makeup, wearing an old terry cloth robe, she was beautiful. But her wide eyes were oblivious to him. They were fixed on That Coat. She seemed to be in a trance.
"Jake, it's . .. it's beautiful. Can I. . . ?"
As she reached for it, Jake dropped the fur back into its box and slid by her into the apartment.
"Try it on in here. The light's better."
She followed him into the huge, open, loftlike space that made up the great room of her condo. Too open for Jake's tastes. Ceilings too high, not enough walls. And still not finished yet. The paperhangers were halfway through a bizarre mural on one wall; their ladders and tools were stacked by the door.
He turned and held That Coat open for her.
"Here, Shanna. I had it made in your size."
She turned and slipped her arms into the sleeves. As Jake settled it over her shoulders he noticed a few of those leftover fur strips clinging to the coat. He plucked them off and bunched them into his palm to discard later. Then he stepped back to look at her. The fur had been breathtaking before, but Shanna enhanced its beauty. And vice versa. The two of them seemed made for each other. The effect brought tears to Jake's eyes.
She glided over to a mirrored wall and did slow turns, again and again. Rapture glowed in her face. Finally she turned to him, eyes bright.
"You don't have to call the agency," she said. "I'll call. I want to show this coat."
Jake suddenly realized that he was in a much better bargaining position than he had ever imagined. Shanna no longer had the upper hand. He did. He decided to raise the stakes.
"Of course you do," he said offhandedly. "And there's a good chance you'll be the model we finally settle on."
Her face showed concern for the first time since she'd laid eyes on the coat.
" A good chance'?" What's that supposed to mean?"
"Well, there are other models who're very interested. We have to give them a chance to audition."
She wrapped the fur more tightly around her.
"I don't want anyone else wearing this coat!"
"Well. . ."
Slowly Shanna pulled open the coat, untied the terry cloth robe beneath it, and pulled that open too. She wore nothing under the robe. Jake barely noticed her smile.
"Believe me," she said in that honey voice, "this is the only audition you'll need."
Jake's mouth was suddenly too dry to speak. He could not take his eyes off her breasts. He reached for the buttons on his own coat and found the fur strips in his right hand. As he went to throw them away, he felt them move, wiggling like furry worms. When he looked, they had wrapped themselves around his fingers.
Tranquillity seeped through him like fine red wine. It didn't seem odd that the strips should move. Perfectly natural. Funny even.
Look. I've got fur rings.
He pulled at his coat and shirts until he was bare from the waist up. Then he realized he needed to be alone for a minute.
"Where's your bathroom?"
"That door behind you."
He needed something sharp. Why?
"Do you have a knife? A sharp one?" The words seemed to form on their own.
Her expression was quizzical, "I think so. The paperhangers were using razor blades—"
"That'll be fine." He went to the workbench and found the utility knife, then headed for the bathroom. "I'll only be a minute. Wait for me in the bedroom."
What am I doing?
In the bathroom he stood before the mirror with the utility knife gripped in the fur-wrapped fingers of his right hand. A sudden wave of cold shuddered through him. He felt half-frozen, trapped, afraid. Then he saw old Jameson's whiskered face, huge in the mirror, saw his monstrous foot ram toward him. Jake gagged with the crushing pain in his throat, he was suffocating, God, he couldn't breathe—!
And then just as suddenly he was fine again. Everything was all right. He pushed the upper corner of the utility blade through the skin at the top of his breastbone, just deep enough the pierce its full thickness through to the fatty layer beneath. Then he drew the blade straight down the length of his sternum. When he reached the top of his abdomen he angled the cut to the right, following the line of the bottom rib across his flank. He heard the tendons and ligaments in his shoulder joint creak and pop in protest as his hand extended the cut all the way around his waist to his back, but he felt no pain, not from the shoulder, not even from the gash that had begun to bleed so freely. Something within him was screaming in horror but it was far away. Everything was all right here. Everything was fine.
When he had extended the first cut all the way back to his spine he switched the blade to his left hand and made a similar cut from the front toward the left, meeting the first cut at the rear near the base of his spine. Then he made a circular cut around each shoulder—over the top and through the armpit. Then another all the way around his neck. When that was done, he gripped the edges on each side of the incision he had made over the breastbone and yanked. Amid sprays of red, the skin began to pull free of the underlying tissue.
Everything was all right... all right. . .
III
Where the hell is he?
Wrapped in the coat, Shanna stood before her bedroom mirror and waited for Jake.
She wasn't looking forward to this. No way. The thought of that flabby white body flopping around on top of her made her a little ill, but she was going through with it. Nothing was going to keep her from wearing this fur.
She snuggled the coat closer about her but it kept falling away, almost as if it didn't want to touch her. Silly thought.
She did a slow turn before the mirror.
Looking good, Shanna!
This was it. This was one of those moments you hear about when your whole future hinges on a single decision. Shanna knew what that decision had to be. Her career was stalled short of the top. She was making good money but she wanted more—she wanted her face recognized everywhere. And this coat was going to get her that recognition. A couple of international shows and she'd be known the world over as the girl in the fabulous fur. From then on she could write her own ticket.
In spite of her queasy stomach, Shanna allowed herself a sour smile. This wouldn't be the first time she'd spread to get something she wanted. Jake Feldman had been leching after her for years; if letting him get his jollies on her a couple of times assured her of exclusive rights to model his coat, tonight might be the last time she ever had to spread for anyone like Jake Feldman.
What was he doing in the bathroom—papering it? She wished he'd get out of there and get this over with. Then she could—
She heard the bathroom door open, heard his footsteps in the great room. He was shuffling.
"In here, Jake!" she called.
Quickly she pulled free of the coat long enough to shed the robe, then slipped back into it and stretched out on the bed. She rolled onto her side and propped herself up on one elbow but the fur kept falling away from her. Well, that was okay too. She left it open, arranging the coat so that her best stuff was displayed to the max. She knew all the provocative poses. She'd done her share of nudie sessions to pay her bills between those early fashion assignments.
Outside the door the shuffling steps were drawing closer. What was he doing—walking around with his pants around his ankles?
"Hurry up, honey! I'm waiting for you!'
Let's get this show on the road, you fat slob!
Suddenly she was cold, her leg hurt, she saw a boyish-faced giant looming over her with a raised club, saw it come crashing down on her head. As she began to scream she suddenly found herself back in her condo, sprawled on her bed with the fur.
Jake was shuffling through the door.
Shanna's mind dimly registered that he was holding something, but her attention was immediately captured by the red. Jake was all red—dripping red—his pants, the skin of his arm, his bare—
Oh God it was blood! He was covered with blood! And his chest and upper abdomen—they were the bloodiest. Christ! The skin was gone! Gone! Like someone had ripped the hide off his upper torso.
"I. . ." His voice was hoarse. A croak. His eyes were wide and glazed as he shuffled toward her. "I made this vest for you."
And then Shanna looked at what he held out to her, what drooped from his bloody fingers—fingers that seemed to be covered with fur.
It was indeed a vest. A white, blood-streaked, sleeveless vest. Between the streaks of blood she could see the wiry chest hairs straggling across the front. . . whorling around the nipples.
Shanna screamed and rolled off the bed, hugging the coat around her. She wished she could have pulled it over her head to hide the sight of him.
"It's for you," he said, continuing his shuffled toward her. "You can wear it under the coat. . ."
Whimpering in fear and revulsion, Shanna ran around the bed and dashed for the door. She ran across the great room and out into the hall. The elevator! She had to get away from that man, that thing who'd cut his skin into a—
The shuffling. He was coming!
She pressed the down button, pounded on it. Behind the steel door she heard the winches whir to life. The elevator was on its way. She turned and gagged as she saw Jake come though her apartment door and approach her, leaving a trail of red behind him, holding the bloody skin out as if expecting her to slip her arms through the openings.
A clank behind her. She turned, pulled the lever that opened the heavy steel doors, and leaped inside. An upward push on the inner lever brought the outer doors down with a deafening clang, shutting out the sight of Jake and his hideous offering.
Clutching the coat around her bare body Shanna sank to her knees and began to sob.
God, what was happening here? Why had Jake cut his skin off like that? How had he done it?
"Shanna, please," said the croaking voice from the other side of the doors. "I made it for you."
And then the doors started to open! Before her eyes a horizontal slit was opening between the outer doors, and two bloody arms with fur-wrapped fingers were thrusting the loathsome vest toward her through the gap.
Shanna's scream echoed up and down the open elevator shaft as she hit the Down button. The car lurched and started to sink.
Thank you, God!
But the third floor doors continued to open. As she passed the second floor and continued her descent, Shanna's eyes were irresistibly drawn upward. Through the open ceiling of the car she watched the ever-widening gap, watched as the two protruding arms and the vest were joined by Jake's head and upper torso.
"Shanna! It's for you!"
The car stopped with a jolt. First floor. Shanna yanked up the safety grate and pulled the lever. Five seconds . . . five seconds and she'd be running for the street, for the cops. As the outer doors slowly parted, that voice echoed again through the elevator shaft.
"Shanna!"
She chanced one last look upward.
The third-floor doors had retracted to the floor and ceiling lines. Most of Jake's torso seemed to be hanging over the edge.
"It's for—"
He leaned too far.
Oh, shit, he's falling!
"—yooooouuuuu!"
Shanna's high-pitched scream of "Noooo!" blended with Jake's voice in a fearful harmony that ended with his head striking the upper edge of the elevator car's rear wall. As the rest of his body whipped around in a wild, blood-splattering, pinwheeling sprawl, his shoed foot slammed against Shanna's head, knocking her back against the door lever. Half-dazed, she watched the steel doors reverse their opening motion.
"No!"
And Jake . .. Jake was still moving, crawling toward her an inch at a time on twisted arms, broken legs, his shattered head raised, trying to speak, still clutching the vest in one hand, still offering it to her.
The coat seemed to ripple around her, moving on its own. She had to get out of here!
The doors! Shanna lunged for the opening, reaching toward the light from the deserted front foyer. She could make it through if—
She slipped on the blood, went down on one knee, still reaching as the steel doors slammed down on her wrist. Shanna heard her bones crunch as pain beyond anything she had ever known ran up her arm. She would have screamed but the agony had stolen her voice. She tried to pull free but she was caught, tried to reach the lever but it was a good foot beyond her grasp.
Something touched her foot. Jake—it was what was left of Jake holding his vest out to her with one hand, caressing her bare foot with one of the fur strips wrapped around the fingers of his other hand. She kicked at him, slid herself away from him. She couldn't let him get near her. He'd want to put that vest on her, want to try to do other things to her. And she was bare-ass naked under this coat. She had to get free, get free of these doors, anything to get free!
She began chewing at the flesh of her trapped wrist, tearing at it, unmindful of the greater pain, of the running blood. It seemed the natural thing to do, the only thing to do.
Free!
IV
Juanita wasn't having much luck tonight. She'd just pushed her shopping cart with all her worldly belongings the length of a narrow alley looking for a safe place to huddle for the night, an alcove or deep doorway, someplace out of sight and out of the wind. A good alley, real potential, but it was already occupied by someone very drunk and very nasty. She'd moved on.
Cold. Really felt the cold these days. Didn't know how old she was but knew that her bones creaked and her back hurt and she couldn't stand the cold like she used to. If she could find a place to hide her cart, maybe she could sneak into the subway for the night. Always warmer down there. But when she came up top again all her things might be gone.
Didn't want to be carted off to no shelter, neither. Even a safe one. Didn't like being closed in, and once they got you into those places they never let you go till morning. Liked to come and go as she pleased. Besides, she got confused indoors and her mind wouldn't work straight. She was an outdoors person. That was where she did her clearest thinking, where she intended to stay.
As she turned a corner she spotted all the flashing red and blue lights outside a building she remembered as a warehouse but was now a bunch of apartments. Like a child, she was drawn to the bright, pretty lights to see what was going on.
Took her a while to find out. Juanita allowed herself few illusions. She knew not many people want to explain things to someone who looks like a walking rag pile, but she persisted and eventually managed to pick up half a dozen variations on what had happened inside. All agreed on one thing: a gruesome double murder in the building's elevator involving a naked woman and a half-naked man. After that the stories got crazy. Some said the man had been flayed alive and the woman was wearing his skin, others said the man had cut off the woman's hand, still others said she'd chewed her own hand off.
Enough. Shuddering, Juanita turned and pushed her cart away. She'd gone only a few yards when she spotted movement as she was passing a shadowed doorway. Not human movement; too low to the ground. Looked like an animal but it was too big for a rat, even a New York City rat. Light from a passing EMS wagon glinted off the thing, and Juanita was struck by the thickness of its fur, by the way the light danced and flickered over its surface.
Then she realized it was a coat—a fur coat. Even in the dark she could see that it wasn't some junky fun fur. This was the real thing, a true, blue, top-of-the-line, utterly fabulous fur coat. She grabbed it and held it up. Mira! Even in the dark she could see how lovely it was, how the fur glistened.
She slipped into it. The coat seemed to ripple away from her for a second, then it snuggled against her. Instantly she was warm. So warm. Almost as if the fur was generating its own heat, like an electric blanket. Seemed to draw the cold right out of her bones. Must've been ages since she last felt so toasty. But she forced herself to pull free of it and hold it up again.
Sadly, Juanita shook her head. No good. Too nice. Wear this thing around and someone'd think she was rich and roll her but good. Maybe she could pawn it. But it was probably hot and that would get her busted. Couldn't take being locked up ever again. A shame, though. Such a nice warm coat and she couldn't wear it.
And then she had an idea. She found an alley like the one she'd left before and dropped the coat onto the pavement, fur side down. Then she knelt beside it and began to rub it into the filth. From top to bottom she covered the fur with any grime she could find. Practically cleaned the end of the alley with that coat. Then she held it up again.
Better. Much better. No one would recognize it and hardly anybody would bother trying to take it from her the way it looked now. But what did she care how she looked in it? As long as it served its purpose, that was all she asked. She slipped into it again and once more the warmth enveloped her.
She smiled and felt the wind whistle through the gaps between her teeth.
This is living! she thought. Nothing like a fur to keep you warm. And after all, for those of us who do our living in the outdoors, ain't that what fur is for?