Burning Time

35

Troland knelt on the floor and lifted the blind just a few inches, so he could peer out sideways at Mrs. Bartello’s living room window. He did this every few minutes. She never seemed to be in there. That was good. Sometimes he thought she was dead. There was no sign of life in her house.

When she came to the door the first time, the old lady was wearing a stiff black dress and said, “What do you want? I’m in mourning.”

That was good. He switched his attention to the front window. Out on the street the traffic was backed up. A jet thundered in over the roof, heading for LaGuardia.

“I want to rent the place,” he said. He pointed to the hand-lettered sign in the window, GARAGE APARTMENT FOR RENT.

He had seen the sign as he wandered around looking for the way into Manhattan the first time, and knew it was there for him. He exited to the service road and parked in front, just like he had lived in the neighborhood all his life. It didn’t feel good, though. He breathed in the air and felt dangerous particles entering his body. It was gray and damp. He didn’t think much of New York.

“You can call me Mrs. Bartello.” She was a small, thin woman. She looked him and his rented Ford Tempo over. “I guess you’ll want the garage, too.”

“I have to have the garage,” he said.

She shrugged. He had to have it. It was the only way into the apartment.

“You don’t have wild parties with loud music, do you?” she asked, looking him over again. He was blond and not too big. He had blue eyes, was wearing a leather jacket, black jeans, and boots.

“I don’t like music,” he said.

“What about drugs?”

He shook his head.

“Okay.” She took the two hundred in cash he gave her, counted the bills with surprising speed, and shut the door.

He liked that about her. She wasn’t interested. She let him look at the place alone because she didn’t like going there. Reminded her of her dead husband, she said. For days after he took it, he kept looking for a flaw. He couldn’t find one. It was a perfect setup.

He could drive into the garage and go upstairs without being seen from the outside. He had two rooms, one with a sofa, table and chairs, a little kitchen, and a telephone; the other, a tiny bedroom with a single bed and a skylight. He didn’t like the skylight. He saw faces looking in from above. Airplanes and faces.

There were windows on three sides. Troland checked the back and the side. When he got restless he took the rental car into Manhattan. The first few times he did it he had a map with him. He experimented crossing different bridges and working his way across town to the West Side. Then he tried taking the subway. The subway was faster, but an old crazy lady pulled up the two skirts she was wearing and urinated in front of him, squatting between two cars, as the train sped along. Crazy people made him upset.

He got there early in the morning and sat in the car down the block, looking up at the window and waiting for her to come out. Sometimes he parked the car far away and walked around the neighborhood, getting the feel of it. He hung around the next block over, trying to figure out the buildings.

Half of the block, from west to east, was built around a sort of garden that was part of a larger building on the other side. Sometimes the iron gate to the garden was open. She lived on the fifth floor.

He’d seen her about six times now. The first time it was like being hit by a blast of cold air. Like when he rode the scooter at seventy-five on the freeway with no helmet. Cold, exhilarating beyond anything, and almost out of control. It was a shock. The bitch he’d taken all the trouble for didn’t look like her. She looked like somebody he wouldn’t even look at. It almost took his breath away. Sixteen years and she was someone else.

She was wearing a tan skirt and loose tweed jacket with a kind of purple blouse under it that didn’t show her figure at all. Her hair was not as blond as it used to be, was hardly blond at all now. Not blond by California standards. Even from a distance he could see she was quite thin, and her face was—different. She was not like the girl in the movie. This one was not the kind of woman he would talk to. He didn’t like her. That upset him. Then he told himself, so what? He wasn’t supposed to like her.

He saw her stop at the wrought-iron doors and talk briefly to the doorman, a guy so small he couldn’t stop a child from getting in. Then a tall man came out with a dog. The dog jumped up on her like it knew her, and she leaned over to pat it. A small hairy thing. She smiled. Yeah, it was her. The smile made him mad.

The second blow came when he delivered a pizza and found out she was living with a man. A doctor.

“Chapman, or Dr. Frank?” the doorman asked.

“It says Chapman here.” Troland showed him the receipt where he had written Emma’s name and address. He saw the doorman ring up 5C.

“There must be a mistake. She’s out.”

Course she was out. He saw her go out. Shit, he hadn’t considered a man. What kind of man would let her do that?

“Look, I can’t help you,” the little doorman said. “I’m not supposed to ring the Doc under any circumstances, okay? You’ll have to take it back.”

“Nah, you keep it.” Troland handed the pizza over and walked away.

What kind of doctor wouldn’t let the doorman ring up under any circumstances? He wanted to get a look at the doctor. He wanted to get inside and look around where she lived. But it didn’t take a genius to see the inside was a problem. It was a really old building. He didn’t like the see-through elevator, or the center staircase. Anybody coming in or out could look up the middle of the building and see all the front doors. It didn’t take a genius to see it was a problem.

The man came out of the building early, as Troland was walking by in a windbreaker and baseball cap, with a newspaper under his arm.

“Morning, Dr. Frank,” he heard the night doorman say. The night doorman went off at eight.

“Morning, Pete.”

The doctor didn’t look like a doctor. He was at least an inch taller than Troland and probably a few pounds heavier. He was wearing white shorts and a plain gray sweatshirt, had muscular legs. No gray in his hair. Not a bad-looking guy. He felt himself getting upset.

Troland slowed down and passed him when he stopped to stretch.

“Nice day,” the doctor said to the doorman who stood outside with him, looking.

“Perfect day.”

The doctor took off at a brisk jog and passed Troland, heading for the path along the river. At a slower pace Troland followed him. Much later in the day, he couldn’t believe his luck when he saw him come out of her building with a suitcase and get into a taxi.