"Really?"
"Uh-huh."
"Well," he said, "I don't think much of the theories everybody was coming up with. Chain murders and cult homicide and all the rest of it. I have a theory of my own, but of course that's all it is. Just a theory."
"I'd really like to hear it."
"You would?"
"Definitely."
Their eyes met and wordless messages were exchanged. He smiled and she smiled in reply. "Well," he said, after a moment. "First of all, I think it was just one guy. Not a group of killers. From the way it was timed. And because he keeps changing the murder method I think he wanted to keep what he was doing undiscovered as long as possible."
"That makes sense. But why?"
"I think it was a source of fun for him."
"A source of fun?"
The man nodded. "This is just hypothesis," he said, "but let's suppose he just killed a person once for the sheer hell of it. To find out what it felt like, say. To enlarge his area of personal experience."
"God."
"Can you accept that hypothetically?"
"I guess so. Sure."
"Okay. Now we can suppose further that he liked it, got some kind of a kick out of it. Otherwise he wouldn't have wanted to continue. There's certainly precedent for it. Not all the homicidal maniacs down through history have been driven men. Some of them have just gotten a kick out of it so they kept right on doing it."
"That gives me the shivers."
"It's a frightening concept," he agreed. "But let's suppose that the first person this clown killed was named Ackerman, and that he wanted to go on killing people and he wanted to make a game out of it. So he-"
"A game!"
"Sure, why not? He could just keep on with it, having his weird jollies and seeing how long it would take for the police and the press to figure out what was going on. There are a lot of Ackermans. It's a common name, but not so common that a pattern wouldn't begin to emerge sooner or later. Think how many Smiths there are in the city, for instance. I don't suppose police in the different boroughs coordinate their activities so closely, and I guess the Bureau of Vital Statistics doesn't bother to note if a lot of fatalities have the same last name, so it's a question of how long it takes for the pattern to emerge in and of itself. Well, it's done so now, and what does the score stand at now? Twenty-seven?"
"That's what the paper said, I think."
"It's quite a total when you stop and think of it. And there may have been a few Ackermans not accounted for. A body or two in the river, for instance."
"You make it sound-"
"Yes?"
"I don't know. It gives me the willies to think about it. Will he just keep on now? Until they catch him?"
"You think they'll catch him?"
"Well, sooner or later, won't they? The Ackermans know to be careful now and the police will have stakeouts. Is that what they call it? Stakeouts?"
"That's what they call it on television."
"Don't you think they'll catch him?"
The young man thought it over. "I'm sure they'll catch him," he said, "if he keeps it up."
"You mean he might stop?"
"I would. If I were him."
"If you were him. What a thought!"
"Just projecting a little. But to continue with it, if I were this creep, I'd leave the rest of the world's Ackermans alone from here on in."
"Because it would be too dangerous?"
"Because it wouldn't be any fun for me."
"Fun!"
"Oh, come on," he said, smiling. "Once you get past the evilness of it, which I grant you is overwhelming, can't you see how it would be fun for a demented mind? But try not to think of him as fundamentally cruel. Think of him as someone responding to a challenge. Well, now the police and the newspapers and the Ackermans themselves know what's going on, so at this point it's not a game anymore. The game's over and if he were to go on with it he'd just be conducting a personal war of extermination. And if he doesn't really have any genuine grudge against Ackermans, well, I say he'd let them alone."
She looked at him and her eyes were thoughtful. "Then he might just stop altogether."
"Sure."
"And get away with it?"
"I suppose. Unless they pick him up for killing somebody else." Her eyes widened and he grinned. "Oh, really, Emily, you can't expect him to stop this new hobby of his entirely, can you? Not if he's been having so much fun at it? I don't think killers like that ever stop, not once it gets in their blood. They don't stop until the long arm of the law catches up with them."
"The way you said that."
"Pardon me?"
"'The long arm of the law.' As if it's sort of a joke."
"Well, when you see how this character operated, he does make the law look like something of a joke, doesn't he?"
"I guess he does."
He smiled, got to his feet. "Getting close in here. Which way are you headed? I'll walk you home."
"Well, I have to go uptown-"
"Then that's the way I'm headed."
"And if I had to go downtown?"
"Then I'd have urgent business in that direction, Emily."
On the street she said, "But what do you suppose he'll do? Assuming you're right that he'll stop killing Ackermans but he'll go on killing. Will he just pick out innocent victims at random?"
"Not if he's a compulsive type, and he certainly looks like one to me. No, I guess he'd just pick out another whole category of people."
"Another last name? Just sifting through the telephone directory and seeing what strikes his fancy? God, that's a terrifying idea. I'll tell you something, I'm glad my name's not such a common one. There aren't enough Kuystendahls in the world to make it very interesting for him."
"Or Trenholmes. But there are plenty of Emilys, aren't there?"
"Huh?"
"Well, he doesn't have to pick his next victims by last name. In fact, he'd probably avoid that because the police would pick up on something like that in a minute after this business with the Ackermans. He could establish some other kind of category. Men with beards, say. Oldsmobile owners."
"Oh, my God."
"People wearing brown shoes. Bourbon drinkers. Or, uh, girls named Emily."
"That's not funny, Bill."
"Well, no reason why it would have to be Emily. Any first name-that's the whole point, the random nature of it. He could pick guys named Bill, as far as that goes. Either way it would probably take the police a while to tip to it, don't you think?"
"I don't know."
"You upset, Emily?"
"Not upset, exactly."
"You certainly don't have anything to worry about," he said, and slipped an arm protectively around her waist. "I'll take good care of you, baby."
"Oh, will you?"
"Count on it."
They walked together in silence for awhile and after a few moments she relaxed in his embrace. As they waited for a light to change he said, "Collecting Emilys."
"Pardon?"
"Just talking to myself," he said. "Nothing important."
The End
Lawrence Block, Collecting Ackermans
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