Darker Than Night

27

New York, 2004.

He knew when she was due home from work, and he’d be watching out the window. Even from twelve stories up, he’d recognize her. He’d seen her leave for work, followed her and observed her eating lunch at an upscale restaurant on Central Park West. She was wearing a light gray dress and carrying a red purse and a folded black umbrella in case of rain. He’d know her by her clothes and by her long dark hair and by her walk, proud and erect, back slightly arched, head held high, her pace slightly faster than those around her. Almost as if she were on parade and could feel the gaze of someone watching her closely, focusing on only her out of the throngs of passing people.

Maybe she senses it already. Maybe she knows.

In the end, when destiny and time meet, they all seem to know, seem to understand that they knew all along and were betraying me. They understand the meaning and the justice and that they must pay. They’re struck by the meanings of life and of death simultaneously and see that there is no difference. A blink, a missed heartbeat, a final exhalation, nothing…the buzzing…color the length of light, nothing more. Their final wisdom is the lesson and the gift.

He glanced at his watch, then went to the window and raised the blind. Pressing his forehead against the glass to gain a better angle, he looked down. Blue distance.

And there she was!

He gasped at the beauty.

Mary Navarre strode along the sidewalk toward her West End apartment, veering slightly now and then to navigate the flow of pedestrian traffic and pass slower walkers. She was wearing the leather strap of her red purse diagonally across her torso as a precaution against snatch-and-run thieves, and she was wielding her folded umbrella in her right hand almost like a weapon with each stride. She might have intimidated those walking toward her, were it not for her smile.

She used the keypad to enter the lobby, then checked for mail in the brass box with her apartment number above it.

Nothing but advertising circulars and a notice urging residents to attend a neighborhood meeting to discuss increasing block security against the threat of terrorism.

Maybe Donald could attend, Mary thought as she relocked the box, then used her key on the door to the inner lobby and elevators.

As she pressed the up button, she saw that one of the elevators was on the twelfth floor, the other on the fifth. The arrow pointing to twelve didn’t move, but the one resting on five immediately began to descend. It stopped briefly on three, then continued down to lobby level.

When the door slid open, a heavyset woman Mary had seen before nodded to her and left the elevator in a swirl of navy blue material, trailing a long scarlet scarf. Trying to look thinner. Mary wondered why overweight people so often tried to hide their bulk beneath tentlike clothing that only accentuated their size. Then she remembered stepping on the bathroom scale this morning, and tried not to think about the five pounds she’d somehow gained during the past month. She and Donald, himself getting thicker through the middle, had been enjoying too many rich meals in too many good restaurants lately.

It has to stop….

As she took possession of the elevator and pressed the button for the twelfth floor, Mary swore to herself again that she was going on a diet. Maybe try the Atkins. Her favorite meal was steak with a salad, rolls, and a baked potato, all washed down with a strong martini. She should be able to give up the potato, maybe a roll.

On twelve, the elevator slowed and stopped, then settled slightly as it found its proper level, and the door slid open.

As Mary stepped out into the hall, she was aware of the adjacent elevator’s door sliding closed.

In the apartment she paused inside the door as she often did and admired the spaciousness and tasteful decor, reminding herself again that it was all hers and Donald’s.

It wasn’t until she went to the kitchen for a glass of water that she noticed the two shrink-wrapped steak filets on a corner of the kitchen table. They were prime cuts, thick and lightly marbled, the way she liked them.

She stared at the steaks, puzzled. How on earth…?

When she’d gotten a glass of orange juice this morning, had she accidentally removed the steaks from the refrigerator and forgotten them?

But she doubted that. She was sure she hadn’t even opened the refrigerator’s meat compartment. She’d had no reason. Besides, she didn’t remember the steaks even being in the refrigerator. Maybe Donald had bought them and planned for a romantic dinner at home this evening. Maybe he wanted to surprise her because they had something to celebrate. That would explain everything.

“Donald?” Her voice surprised her. It was higher than normal. Frightened.

“Donald!” Better.

She went into the living room and called his name again. Kept calling it as she roamed the apartment, peering into all the rooms.

She was alone.

As she walked back through the living room, she noticed one of the blinds was raised.

Something else that doesn’t belong.

But she made no further connection between the blind and the steaks in the kitchen. After all, she might have raised the blind and forgotten. Or maybe Donald had done so.

Mary lowered the blind, restoring—in her mind, anyway—elegance and balance to the room. She only absently took note of the smudges on the windowpane, as if someone had leaned against it in order to peer out and down.

She went back to the kitchen and gingerly touched the shrink-wrapped steaks with the backs of her knuckles.

They were cool.

Can’t have been here long.

Mary sat at the table and stared at the expensive cuts of meat she was sure she hadn’t seen before.

Donald again? Playing his games?

She knew he’d deny it.

This is strange. This is goddamned strange.

She recalled stepping out of the elevator into the hall, the hiss of the adjacent elevator’s door closing, what she’d felt, how the hair on the nape of her neck seemed to stir. She hadn’t thought much about it at the time. And maybe she shouldn’t think about it now.

Nothing…it means nothing…. Imagination…I am not afraid…

But maybe I should be!

Mary put the steaks in the refrigerator’s meat compartment and left the apartment immediately. In the lobby she realized she’d forgotten her umbrella, but she decided not to go back for it.

She’d kill time down the street at Starbucks, sip a café mocha while she browsed through this morning’s paper, and return to the apartment later, when she was sure Donald was home.

Definitely, they needed to talk.

The Night Prowler had stood in the elevator on the twelfth floor and waited for her, his fingertip on the button marked open so the door wouldn’t close and the elevator would remain where it was.

When he heard the adjacent elevator arrive, he removed his finger from open and pressed lobby. The door slid closed just as the door next to it was opening. He actually caught a buzzing glimpse of her gray skirt—its hem, for only an instant—as she emerged into the hall.

As the elevator plunged, he leaned against its back wall and breathed in deeply. For an instant she’d been so near. The scent of her! Not of her perfume, but of her!

The scent of her flesh, of her color and movement and smile and glance!

She knows!

She might not realize it yet, but she knows. Somehow, on some dark level of consciousness in the ancient country of her mind, she has to be aware of what fate plans for us, of the inevitability and momentum of desire, to know how close we are, united, merged, cleaved unto each other, almost as one.

Original sin. Original betrayal.

Almost as one…

She knows!