Mister X

9

Mary Bakehouse maneuvered toward the doors of the crowded subway car, wielding her large, flat imitation-leather artist's portfolio vertically like the prow of an icebreaker to forge ahead. A man with breath smelling of onions pressed tightly behind her, pushing her even faster than she wanted to go. A bead of sweat trickled down her ribs. Someone stepped on her toe.

Nothing like South Dakota.

She'd barely gotten out onto the platform when the doors hissed closed behind her. Walking away, she heard the train squeal and roar as it pulled forward and picked up speed. The public address system was repeating something no one from any country on earth would understand.

Mary was exhausted from her two job interviews, and not very optimistic. An ad agency had told her that things were slow, but maybe. An architectural firm had candidly told her they simply weren't hiring, and in fact the man who had posted the want ad in the paper's classified section had himself been laid off and was leaving at the end of the week.

As she trudged up the granite steps to the entrance to her apartment building, she was beginning to think she'd chosen precisely the wrong time to attempt a move to New York.

The lobby, which was really more of a vestibule, was at least quiet. She pressed the up button for the elevator and settled her weight equally on both tired legs. In the building above her cables thrummed, but the brass arrow floor indicator on the wall over the elevator door didn't budge.

As she waited patiently, she heard footsteps descending the nearby stairs. Somebody in a hurry.

But at the landing just above the lobby, the sound of hurried soles on rubber stair treads suddenly ceased, as if whoever had come down from upstairs was standing absolutely still, waiting for something.

For me to leave?

The landing was out of sight, but Mary thought she could hear someone breathing heavily, almost asthmatically.

A man. She was sure it was a man. Not only because of the loud breathing but because of the sound his soles had made on the stairs, a rapid, repetitive clomping that was almost like a machine gun firing. As if he was simply letting his weight tilt him forward and catching himself with each step. Most women didn't take stairs that way.

The elevator arrived, unoccupied. Mary hurried inside and pressed the button for her floor. When the steel door had glided almost shut, she thought she heard the footfalls continue on the stairs. It was obvious now that whoever was on the landing had been waiting for her to clear the lobby so he or she wouldn't be seen leaving the building.

Mary told herself there could be a dozen reasons for that, none of them concerning her.

As the elevator rose, she glanced down and saw that the dusting of fine hairs on the backs of her arms was standing up. Suddenly she had to swallow.

I guess this means I'm scared.

She told herself that rationally she had no reason to be afraid. If someone wanted to use the stairs instead of the elevator and not be seen, that was fine with her.

Unless her apartment had been burgled.

Well, she'd soon see if that had occurred. She almost smiled. If a burglar had chosen her apartment to break into, he'd be one disappointed thief. She had little worth stealing.

No, that wasn't quite true. She remembered her Dell notebook computer sitting right out in plain view on the desk in the living room. But even that was over five years old, hopelessly obsolete to anyone familiar with electronics.

Still, if it was gone, she'd have to replace it.

This is absurd. Nothing's been stolen and I am not afraid!

When she left the elevator and reached her apartment door, she studied it and saw no sign that it had been forced. She tried the doorknob, and it wouldn't turn. The door was still locked, as it should be.

Even if she hadn't been afraid, she felt a huge relief.

Imagination. Too much imagination because I'm creative.

Curiosity overcame what was now merely a vague unease, and she unlocked the door and opened it. Drawing a deep breath, she stepped into her apartment.

An encompassing glance told her that everything was okay. Nothing seemed to have been disturbed since she'd left to go job hunting this morning.

Telling herself she'd been a big baby, she closed the door to the hall and locked the dead bolt, then fastened the chain. She crossed the room and yanked the drapes open wider so more of the early evening light spilled in through the window.

She looked around more carefully. There were the throw pillows stacked as they'd been on the sofa, so she could prop her feet up while watching television. There was her empty orange juice glass she'd forgotten to carry back to the kitchen this morning, precisely where she'd left it on the coffee table, resting on a magazine so it wouldn't leave a ring.

She went to the window air conditioner and switched it on maximum, enjoying the cool breeze gradually generated by the humming blower. When she turned around her gaze went to the nearby desk, checking to make sure her computer was still there. She knew that it was, yet she still had to look.

And there was her computer.

But its lid was raised and it was on.

Doubt crawled like an insect up the nape of her neck. She was sure she'd shut down the computer this morning. But she must not have. There it was, not online but with the desktop icons displayed against a field of blue.

Mary went to the computer and laid her hand over it. She felt no warmth. Might that mean it hadn't been on very long? Shouldn't it be warm if she'd gone away and left it on for hours? She wasn't sure. She hadn't actually experimented to find out. How could she know?

She switched on the desk lamp, then sat before the computer and went online. She moved the cursor and clicked on the computer's history.

The sites recently visited were familiar. Her e-mail from when she'd checked for messages this morning, the Times and Post online editions. eBay, to do some looking but not buying. USA Today, to find out what was happening outside New York.

All the sites were ones she was sure she'd visited the last time she'd sat at the computer this morning. It didn't appear that anyone had gone fishing for her personal information.

On the other hand, she knew the entire contents of her hard drive might have been copied to an external disk drive, or even a flash drive, and she'd have no way of knowing.

And she was sure, sure, that she'd left the computer this morning with its screen dark.

But how sure was anyone of anything?

Mary got up from the desk and made herself look through the rest of the apartment, extending a tentative hand and switching on lights as she went, even though it wasn't yet dusk. She looked in closets, even peered under her bed, before she was satisfied that she was alone.

She settled into the sofa and worked off her shoes, trying to relax. But she was still afraid-and angry.

It wasn't so much that someone-the man on the stairs?-might have entered her apartment; it was more as if he'd entered her life.

There were plenty of dangerous nut cases in the human turmoil of the city. She'd been warned about them often enough. In the closeness and press of Manhattan, any woman was bound to pass at least some of them on the crowded sidewalks every day.

She knew that some men became fixated on certain women with merely a glance. For them it was like obsessive love.

She knew that some men killed the thing they loved.