Death Wish by Brian Garfield Page A

but he had never actually seen them commit acts of violence. Sometimes it was hard to escape the feeling that the pages of the Daily News and the Mirror were filled not with fact-news but with the lurid fantasies of pulp-fiction writers.
    He knew plenty of people whose apartments had been burglarized. Once, three or four years ago, Carol’s purse had been snatched by a quick nimble arm darting through a closing subway door. Those things happened but they happened anonymously; there was no real feeling of personal human violence to them.
    Now he had to get used to an entire new universe of reality.

6

    There was a crime story in the Sunday Times Magazine and Esther’s name was in it. Sam Kreutzer called at ten that morning to tell him about it. “How are you getting along?”
    â€œI’m all right.”
    â€œIt’s a rotten time. Is there anything at all we can do, Paul?”
    â€œNo. Nothing.”
    â€œMaybe you’d like to come over and have dinner with us one night this week.”
    â€œCan I let you know later on in the week, Sam? Right now I don’t much want to see anybody.” He wanted to evade the kindnesses of friends. It hadn’t happened to them ; it was secondhand to them. You only bled from your own wounds. There was a saccharine quality to people’s sympathy, they couldn’t help it, and pity was a cruel emotion at best.
    He called Jack. Carol was still asleep. Paul said he’d telephone again later; he probably wouldn’t come there to eat unless she was feeling much better—otherwise a raincheck?
    He went out to buy the Times . Walked up the avenue to Seventy-second and over to the newsstand by the subway station on Broadway. It was quite warm. He narrowly watched the flow of people on the streets, wondering for the first time in his life which of them were killers, which were addicts, which were the innocent. Never before had he felt acutely physically afraid of walking on the streets; he had always been prudent, used taxis late at night, never walked dark streets or ventured alone into uninhabited neighborhoods; but that had been a kind of automatic habit. Now he found himself searching every face for signs of violence.
    He carried the Times back along Seventy-second Street, walking slowly, consciously looking at things he had spent years taking for granted: the filth, the gray hurrying faces, the brittle skinny girls who stood under the awning in midblock. There wasn’t much traffic—on these last warm Sundays after Labor Day everyone fled the city, seeking to prolong the summer as much as they could by soaking up sunshine in the country or at the crowded beaches.
    A woman stood staring vacantly into a display window of one of the cheap variety shops. There was a red sign in the window: ¿Cómo sabe Vd. que no tiene enfermedad venérea? How do you know you haven’t got V.D.? She was a primitive woman, her dark face mottled with scars, her mouth loose: an ancient slut, an evil hag with a greasy shopping bag pendant from her doughy hand. How many killers had sprung from her loins? How many muggers had lain between her ancient yielding thighs?
    He rushed back to the apartment, alarmed.

    Monday he was still deep in what he decided was post-trauma tristesse . He had taken sleeping pills last night; they made him irritable in the morning. Last night he had decided it would be best to go in to the office today—even if he didn’t get any work done it would be better to have familiar people around him—but now he knew he couldn’t face any of them.
    He went to the bank because he was low on cash. It was a short walk, across the street from the newsstand on the corner of Broadway and Seventy-second. The same route he had followed yesterday to buy the Times ; the same route he had followed thousands of times, to and from the subway to go to work. Yet now it was different. He slipped into the bank as if it were a hiding