Mister X

11

After entering her apartment, Mary Bakehouse engaged the dead-bolt lock and fastened the chain. She draped the gray blazer she'd been wearing (an essential part of her interview outfit) over a hanger in the closet, then stepped out of her high-heeled pumps.

Mary was returning from three fruitless job interviews. She'd been told after each that they might call her, but she knew better. She had received no callbacks. Nothing had panned out. The economy. That was her problem, she was assured by well-fed men and annoyingly lean, suited women. The bad economy was making jobs scarce and competition for those jobs fierce. "You almost have to sleep with someone," a greyhound of a woman who'd been waiting with Mary to be interviewed had confided to her in a whisper.

Not that, Mary thought. She'd return to small-town life and small ambitions before engaging in thinly disguised prostitution.

She changed into jeans and a loose-fitting blue T-shirt lettered DEATH CAB FOR CUTIE, advertising one of the group's concerts from two years ago in Tulsa. She'd bought it cheap and on impulse from a street vendor, figuring it matched her mood.

Mary poured herself a glass of iced tea from the plastic pitcher she kept in the refrigerator. She carried the glass into the living room and slumped on the sofa, automatically reaching for the remote.

She watched cable news for a while and didn't in the slightest feel buoyed by it. Switched it off.

Misery doesn't really love company.

After staring at the opposite wall for a few minutes, she got up and went back into the kitchen and placed her half-empty glass on the sink counter. Her thirst was slaked, but now she was hungry. Lunch had been a street vendor's pretzel and diet soda, so an early supper was in order.

There's nothing in the fridge.

The deli again.

A glance out the window told her that dusk had moved in, and the drizzle that had started just as she'd arrived at her apartment building had stopped. Playing it safe, she got an umbrella with a telescoping handle from the closet and carried it as she left the apartment. It had rained once today; it could rain again.

The deli was only two blocks away and around the corner. As she walked she decided to have the orange chicken again. It was the best thing they had for takeout, so why not eat it two evenings in a row?

She picked up her pace. She could almost smell the narrow takeout buffet that ran down the center of the diner.

Nose like a beagle.

When she was in the brightly lit deli she felt better. She spooned some of the orange chicken from its heated metal pot into a white foam takeout container, then some white rice. She thought about buying a Daily News when she checked out at the register, then decided she shouldn't spend the money and left the newspaper lying in its rack. Next to it was the last City Beat, one of several smaller New York papers that competed in a city hooked on information. It was a giveaway that made money from advertising space, including personal ads. Mary scanned the personals sometimes and let her imagination roam, but she was a long way from calling any of the numbers.

She picked up the tabloid-style paper and slid it into the bag with the takeout container and unopened bottle of soda.

Something didn't feel right to Mary as she was walking home from the deli. She wasn't sure why she was uneasy, but she picked up her pace.

It didn't take her long to reach her building. Or to ride the elevator up to her floor and lock herself inside her apartment.

She leaned with her back against the door and felt better. She was home. Safe from whatever was out there.

She drew a deep breath and picked up a peculiar odor. Not of tobacco smoke. Something else. Faint but persistent, and definitely not the orange chicken

More like stale perspiration.

Urine.

The man from the subway!

She reined in her fear and made herself think. What was she going to do? Go back outside where there was more danger? Then what? Go to the police? Tell them she thought someone was in her apartment because she'd smelled an unfamiliar odor?

Sure, they'd believe her and send all units.

She sniffed the air again and detected no odor other than the food from the foam takeout container.

My imagination?

Surely. Must have been. Must!

She shut her mind to the faint odor that she might have smelled and moved away from the door and deeper into the living room.

She drew a deep breath and felt better.

Fear had to be faced. And, damn it, she could face it!

Mary placed the foam container on the coffee table and willed her fear-numbed legs to take her where she wanted to go. Where she knew she must go.

She made herself look everywhere in the small apartment. Under the bed, in the closets, behind the closed shower curtain. As she flung the plastic curtain aside, the murder score from the movie Psycho screeched through her mind, almost making her smile. She let the curtain fall back into place. Not so afraid now.

There's no one here. Just me and my overactive imagination. Picture this viewed from above, like in a Hitchcock movie-a foreshortened, fearful woman scurrying about in a maze of cubicles, peeking here, peering there. It's almost laughable.

There were a few more places to look. Extremely unlikely hiding places. Mary decided not to explore them. She told herself she was no longer so afraid that she had to look everywhere in the apartment.

I've made enough of a fool of myself.

He was in the living room.