But I didn't go very far. I was more worried than I let her think (luckily) and I drove off only in case she'd be watching from a front window or listening for the sound of my car starting. I U-turned at the corner and drove back the way I'd come, parked on the opposite side of the street and a quarter of a block away. I'd decided to watch the doorway of that building until I saw her husband come home, no matter how late it might be.
She had a code knock of some kind worked out with her husband so she'd know it was he when he came home and I'd impressed on her not to throw the bolt otherwise. But I was still worried about her for two reasons. First, she was confident Ray wouldn't have done any talking in bars about that code knock, but I wasn't. Second, while neither the door to her flat nor the bolt on it were flimsy, neither were they so strong that a husky, heavy man might not be able to break in with one good hard lunge. And it turned out I was right on both of those counts.
At about one o'clock I saw, or thought I saw, Ray Fleck come around the corner and go into the entrance of the building. But he'd hardly disappeared and I hadn't yet turned the ignition key in the car when I did the goddamnedest double take and realized that the man I'd seen had not been Ray Fleck. He'd been about the same height and weight, but not the same build; his bulk had been across the shoulders and he had a narrow waist, whereas Fleck's weight distribution is just the opposite.
And I was out of the car and running. If my second impression had been wrong, if it had really been Fleck I'd seen, I was about to make an awful ass of myself, but I was willing to chance that rather than to take the opposite chance. When I got to the third floor I saw the door was closed and not broken down—so I must have been right about Fleck talking; she'd never have opened the door except to that special knock. I didn't waste time trying the knob, which was just as well since the door had been bolted again from the inside; I threw my weight against the door, so hard that I still have a sore right shoulder, and the door burst open and I almost fell into the living room.
He'd heard, of course; he was in the doorway of the bedroom and rushed me before I got my balance. I managed to turn my head in time to take a vicious blow on the ear (it's still ringing) instead of the jaw. I took a couple of steps back to get on balance and then started to move in on him. I'm a wrestler; I wanted to grapple instead of trying to slug it out. He cooperated, in a way; he rushed me, head down for a solar plexus butt, both fists cocked low to start pumping into my stomach or groin as soon as he connected with the butt.
He couldn't have pleased me more. I moved just enough aside at the last split second to let his head graze past my right side and then I clamped down my arm and had a solid headlock on him. I twisted my body around and twisted his neck with it. Until there was a quite audible snap as his neck broke, and the fight was over. It had probably lasted all of three seconds.
I didn't even bother to check whether or not he was dead; if by any chance he wasn't, he wasn't going to be dangerous for a long time. I just dropped him and ran into the bedroom.
Ruth was lying on the bed, unconscious, where he'd no doubt carried her after knocking her out with a single blow as he came through the doorway.
But otherwise, I'd got there in time. She hadn't been raped, let alone strangled. Her jaw was beginning to swell but it didn't look as though it was broken—and I learned later at the hospital that it wasn't. She was breathing normally, and her heartbeat was okay.
He'd ripped open the housecoat that she was wearing, and torn the tops of her pajamas. I put a cover over her partial (and very beautiful) nakedness and then went to the living room again. I checked the psychopath to see if he was dead; he was. And then I used the phone to call for a police ambulance. The guy I got on the phone annoyingly wanted details, but I told him a woman had been injured by the psycho and I wanted the ambulance fast and I'd do all the talking they wanted after she was hospitalized. I told him they didn't have to worry about the psycho any more; they could send a meat wagon for him at their leisure. He wasn't going anywhere. Then I hung up.