Nightwatcher (15 page)

After flattening the box, she adds it to the growing stack on the living room floor, then sticks her head into the kitchen.

The large-boned hulk of a maintenance guy is kneeling in front of the open oven door. He’s not tinkering, not even moving a muscle, just seems to be staring off into space.

Maybe he’s thinking about whoever it is that he lost yesterday.

She clears her throat, and still, he doesn’t move. She steps closer and realizes he’s wearing headphones. They’re attached to a Walkman clipped to his belt, and she can hear music coming from them.

She reaches out and touches his shoulder. He jumps, then sees her and pulls off the headphones.

“Sorry,” she says. “Didn’t mean to scare you again. I keep doing that to you, don’t I.”

“It’s okay, Marianne.”

Marianne?

Maybe she
did
introduce herself earlier, but it seems a little jarring that not only does he remember her name—she doesn’t remember his—but he actually used it. That just feels . . . overly familiar.

Or maybe you’re just overly touchy because he’s a man. And you’re not into men, and sometimes it bugs you when they’re into you. Right?

Whatever. “Um,” she says, “I have to be someplace by five, so . . .”

“I’m almost done.”

“Are you sure?”

He nods vigorously.

She checks the clock on the stove above him. Oh, crap. “Listen, I have to go get ready right now, or I’m never going to get out of here on time, and then my mother will think something horrible happened to me.”

“What? Why would she think
that
?”

Taken aback by his wide-eyed dismay, Marianne shrugs. “She always thinks that.”

“But
why
?”

He’s like a child, she realizes, suddenly feeling sorry for him. The world must be a hard place for a guy like this. A boy in a man’s body.

“Never mind. It’s just my mother. It’s how she is. Aren’t they all?”

He greets her forced smile with a troubled expression, and she wonders why the heck she’s bothering to do all this talking.

Because even though you feel sorry for him, there’s something about him that makes you nervous, that’s why.

“I’m going to go get ready. Just finish up and let yourself out, okay?” She doesn’t wait for a reply.

In the bedroom, Marianne closes the door, then, as an afterthought, presses the lock button in the middle of the knob.

It pops right out again.

Dammit—she never noticed the lock didn’t work when the Realtor took her through the apartment.

Maybe she should mention it to the maintenance guy while he’s here . . .

But then, he’s the
reason
she’s locking the door.

Forget it. She lives alone; she’ll never have any reason to use the lock after this. The sooner that guy gets out of here, the better.

She quickly sheds her T-shirt and jeans, changing into another T-shirt and a fresh pair of jeans. After running a brush through her hair and shoving her feet into a pair of sneakers, she grabs her shoulder bag and hurries over to the bedroom door. Throwing it open, she finds herself face-to-face with the maintenance man.

Marianne lets out a little scream. “What are you
doing
?”

“I’m sorry, Marianne.”

“What are you
doing
?” she repeats.

“I’m finished. I fixed it for you.”

“Good. Great. I told you to go ahead and let yourself out when you were done.”

“Oh.”

He doesn’t move. Obviously, he wants something.

Her heart is racing. What if . . . ?

Oh! A tip. That must be it. For a second there, she almost thought he was going to make a pass at her.

She reaches into her bag, fishes a couple of dollars from her wallet, holds them out to him. “Here,” she says. “Thank you.”

“What is that?”

“It’s a tip.”
Isn’t that what you were waiting for?

He looks at it, then at her, bewildered.

What the . . . ?

“Thank you,” he says after a moment, taking the money and putting it into his pocket. But he continues to stand there.

“Look, I really have to go.”

“Do you like music?”

“Excuse me?”

“Do you like music?” He’s fumbling with his Walkman. He pops the cover, ejects the CD, and holds it out to her. “Here.”

“What is it?”

“Music. Here.”

She starts to shake her head, but he’s thrust the CD into her hand. “You’ll like it. It’s good.”

“You don’t have to—”

“I want you to have it. Okay?”

“But—”

“It’s a present. From me.”

She forces a smile. “That’s very sweet . . .” His name . . . what’s his name?

He knows yours.

Yes, and that troubles her.

“Cake,” he blurts. “Do you like cake?”

“I don’t know what you mean . . .”

“I want to have cake with you.”

It’s not a sly euphemism—not with this guy—but he is making a pass. Clumsily, and she doesn’t want to hurt him.

“That’s sweet, but . . .” She gives a little shake of her head. Ordinarily, she would just hint that she’s not interested in men, but she’s not sure he’d even grasp that concept.

“Or something else,” he goes on in a rush. “It doesn’t have to be cake. What do you like? I like hot chocolate. Do you?”

“I . . . I don’t . . .”

“What do you like?” he asks again. Demands, really, and not only is she running out of patience, but he’s setting her nerves on edge.

She glances instinctively at the apartment beyond his massive shoulders. Still not entirely familiar with the layout and traffic pattern, she wonders if she could make a break for it if she had to get away from him.

“I’m sorry,” she tells him, “I really have to go now. My mother is waiting, and worrying  . . .”

“Why?”

Oh geez. “I told you—she worries. I have to go.”

“Wait . . .”

Please let me go.
Maybe her trepidation is off-base, but she can’t help feeling vaguely threatened.

“Do you want to go out on a date, Marianne? Please?”

She takes a deep breath. As gently as possible, she tells him, “No. I . . . can’t.”

He just looks at her, and the pain in his gray eyes makes her more sad than anxious.

“Please . . . ?” he asks in a small, pitiful voice.

“I’m sorry,” she says. “It’s just—”

He turns abruptly and bolts before she can attempt the explanation he wouldn’t have understood anyway. She watches him open the door and disappear into the hall. She can hear his footsteps fading away.

Shaken, she goes over to close the door, and the footsteps stop abruptly. Realizing he’s somewhere down the hall, she closes the door and dead-bolts it.

She’s not going anywhere right now. No way. Not with
him
lurking out there.

C
onscious of Mack’s eyes on her as he sticks his feet into his shoes, Allison dials Kristina’s number again. This time—having spent the afternoon breathing the stench of death in the midst of all those grieving New Yorkers—she doesn’t really expect an answer.

Hearing a click on the other end of the line, though, she has a moment of false hope—then realizes it’s a recorded voice.

“Hi, you’ve reached Kristina. Leave a message and I’ll get right back to you.”

“Hey, are you there? It’s Allison, from downstairs. Call me when you get this.” She hangs up the phone.

“Maybe she’s screening,” Mack suggests.

“I don’t think so. I left a message yesterday. If she’s there, then she would have at least called me back after she got it, to tell me she’s okay.”

“Are you sure about that?”

Allison shrugs. It’s not as though she and Kristina are close friends—certainly not close enough for her to predict Kristina’s reaction in these circumstances. But when things like this happen, you check in on your neighbors, right? Like she did with Mack.

“Well, I haven’t heard footsteps up there,” she tells him, “so I don’t think she’s home, but if she is . . .” She toys with Kristina’s key. “I just want to know she’s okay.”

“If you let yourself into her apartment and she’s not there, you still won’t have an answer.”

“No, but I might be able to tell if she came back yesterday afternoon before she left. Then I’ll know she’s all right.”

“Yeah, well, what if she didn’t come back? That doesn’t mean something happened to her.”

“I know. But she must have been back, because the power was out most of the day, and someone turned the music on.”

It’s the music that’s bothering her, really. It’s just out of the ordinary. She can’t help but picture Kristina, all alone up there, playing the same song over and over in a catatonic stupor brought on by yesterday’s horrific events.

That’s better than thinking she might actually be a victim, of course. But still—

“Maybe there was an electrical surge,” Mack says, tying his sneakers, “and the CD player went into some crazy looping cycle on its own.”

Right. The CD player Kristina suddenly acquired since Sunday afternoon.

“I thought of that,” Allison tells him. “At least I can turn it off so that I can sleep tonight.”

Not that she didn’t manage to sleep last night in spite of the music—and the day’s drama.

But she’d had all that Xanax in her system. It probably knocked her out. Tonight, that won’t be the case.

She shouldn’t be talking about sleep, though—or the lack thereof—with Mack.

Heading for the door, she tells him, “I’m going to go up. You can hang out here for as long as you want.”

“Thanks, but I need to get back home.”

He follows her out. It probably should be an awkward moment, as they linger for a moment in the hallway between the doors to their respective apartments. Somehow, it isn’t. They might have been virtual strangers less than forty-eight hours ago, but now they’re friends. Friends who have been through hell together—and have yet to come back.

“Thanks for everything.”

“You’re welcome.”

Mack unlocks the door, and Allison starts away, then turns back to call, “Let me know if you need anything later.”

“I won’t.”

“You won’t let me know? Or you won’t need anything?”

Maybe he didn’t hear the question; maybe he did and chooses to ignore it. Without answering, he disappears into his apartment and closes the door behind him.

She takes the stairs up to the fifth floor and knocks on Kristina’s door.

Nothing but music from the other side.

“Kristina?”

No answer.

Allison puts the key into the lock.

“Kristina, I’m coming in,” she calls. “I have your keys, remember? If you’re there, and you don’t want me to come in, just tell me.”

Silence.

Allison turns the key, turns the knob, pushes the door open.

“Kristina? Are you in there? Kristina?”

She forces herself to cross the threshold. A few steps in, she can see that the bedroom door is open.

“Kristina?” she calls, walking toward it. “It’s Allison.”

She stops short.

And screams.

Chapter Seven

Y
esterday, while dozens of his fellow NYPD officers were dying, Rocky Manzillo was in a Bronx hospital, sitting naked in a gown that tied in the back, waiting for someone to come shove a scope up his ass.

His wife, Ange, sat in a chair beside him, leafing through
Good Housekeeping
and occasionally complaining that there was no TV in the room. She never misses
The Today Show
.

“Can’t you sacrifice Matt and Katie just once for the man you love?” Rocky asked her. “Look what I’m doing for you.”

“You’re not doing this for me. You’re doing it for
you
,” Ange said without looking up from the article she was reading. “You want to die, Rocco?”

“What kind of question is that? Who wants to die?”

“Colonoscopies save lives.”

“Maybe,” Rocky told her, “but as far as I’m concerned, colonoscopies are a real pain in the—”

“Give it a rest. It was funny the first time you said it, but enough is enough.”

He fell silent, increasingly irritated by the way Ange licked her finger every time she turned a page, and brooding about the upcoming procedure. No, this sure as hell wasn’t his idea.

There he was, sailing along, living life, feeling good, all three of his kids grown up and out on their own. Then he turned fifty, and suddenly everyone he knew was up his ass about his weight, his cholesterol, his colon—everyone was up his ass about getting something shoved up his ass. Everyone: Ange, Rocky’s doctor, even his oldest pal, Vic Shattuck.

“Did you have that colonoscopy yet?” Vic asked Saturday night when they were having a whiskey nightcap after Vic’s fiftieth birthday dinner down in D.C.

“Did
you
?”

“I just turned fifty.
Your
birthday was last spring, and Ange said—”

“Yeah, yeah, I know what Ange said. Ever since Katie Couric did that damned colonoscopy on the air last year, she’s been after me.”

“Who’s been after you? Katie Couric?” Vic asked, deadpan.

“Yeah, me and Katie, we got a thing.”

“She’s cute—but can she make a decent meatball? Because Ange’s meatballs . . .” Vic shook his head. “No one makes them better. Not even your mother.”

“Don’t ever say that to my mother.”

“You think I’m nuts? I won’t. I know your mother.”

He sure does, and has for forty-five years. Rocky, Ange, and Vic started kindergarten at P.S. 77 in the Bronx together in 1955, and graduated James Monroe High School together in 1967. By then, Rocky and Ange had been going steady for two years. They were engaged in ’68, but their plans were put on hold when Rocky was drafted. He got back from Vietnam in ’72, and Vic was best man at their wedding the following year.

Now look. Fifty years old, all three of them. Graying hair, weathered faces, grown kids . . . stupid medical tests.

“Look, the colonoscopy is scheduled, okay?” Rocky told Vic. “For this Tuesday. So Monday, I don’t get to eat anything at all, I get to drink down some stuff that’ll make me shit my brains out, and then Tuesday I get to go to the hospital and someone’s going to—”