Mister X

4

It had been a grueling series of hot and dusty bus rides from Bennett, South Dakota, to New York City. You could measure the distance in more than miles. Mary Bakehouse didn't want to make the return trip. Ever.

She'd spent the weekend moving in to her new apartment in the East Village. Mary had enough money that she could afford the place for a while. In the meantime she'd be job hunting.

The apartment was the third-floor east unit of a six-story building. The previous tenant had been a smoker, and the scent of stale tobacco smoke made itself known at unexpected times, when closet doors were opened or summer breezes worked their way in through the window and played across the floor. The window was stuck only two inches open and wouldn't budge, so usually the living room was stale and stuffy. Mary would buy some kind of aerosol air freshener when she got a chance. Or maybe one of those things you plugged into an electrical socket and it hissed every fifteen minutes or so and deodorized the air. Something was needed. She didn't like tobacco smoke and could smell it for what seemed like blocks. She had a nose like a beagle, a boyfriend had told her once, not quite grasping what he'd said. She hadn't gone out with him again, figuring him to be mentally inferior.

A few people had warned Mary about living in this part of the Village. It could be dangerous. Mary didn't take those warnings seriously. She'd dealt with thugs before, in Bennett. They were just like New York thugs, only they wore cowboy hats.

The way she dealt with them was by showing a complete absence of fear. Mary had a sweet, heart-shaped face, a frail body, and rather sad brown eyes. A frail person who looked as if her photo belonged in an old locket. But there was something about her that strongly suggested she would hold her ground. Anything done to her would be at a cost. People with the wrong kind of thing in mind usually backed off.

Something else about Mary was that she had a gun. A.32-caliber Taurus revolver with a checked wood grip. She'd shot targets and plunked varmints with it for years on her parents' ranch. Brought it with her in her suitcase on the bus. The security people didn't check bus luggage the way they checked suitcases for airline travel. Or if they had checked her suitcase, they hadn't found the gun, rolled up in an old pair of Levi's.

The apartment was partially furnished, so moving in had been easy. She'd simply opened her suitcase and transferred her clothes to the dresser drawers in the tiny bedroom.

The bedroom smelled better than the living room, so maybe the previous tenant hadn't smoked in bed. The bed itself was a twin size, and the mattress was pretty saggy. She did always allow herself a good bed, so she would buy a better mattress and put this one in the basement storage area that went with the apartment. Her mother had advised her that a good mattress and good shoes were of prime importance. She had a new pair of Nike joggers. The mattress and a few more pieces of furniture-a table, a lamp-were all she should need. Things she'd pick out and that would make the place uniquely hers.

She slid her empty suitcase under the bed and then turned her attention to her big vinyl portfolio that held samples of her work. Mary was a graphic designer with a degree from Happer Design College in South Dakota. Her instructors had told her she was the most talented student they'd ever taught. They said as much in letters of recommendation. She realized that wouldn't make getting a job in New York easy, but surely it should make it possible. She wasn't looking for an easy time here. A chance was all she wanted.

Back in the living room, she stood with her fists propped on her slender hips and looked around.

What have you done, Mary Bakehouse?

The walls were painted a mottled off-white, and the gray carpet was stained and frayed. What furniture there was appeared to be a flea market hodgepodge, but some of it, like the sturdy old matching bookcases that stood side by side against a living room wall, looked to be of pretty good quality. The bookcases held a small TV, an odd assortment of vases, and even a few old books without dust jackets. Mary thought she'd put some flowers in those vases, and maybe even read some of the books.

This will work. It has to work!

She switched the air conditioner in the living room window on low, thinking it would partially cool that room and the bedroom while she was away running errands. There were black ornamental iron bars on some of the windows, along with a U-shaped iron horizontal bar that held the air conditioner fast in its window so it couldn't be removed except from inside the apartment. The windows that looked out over the small courtyard outside her bedroom didn't have bars on them, probably because that was the way to the fire escape. Still, there were bars on enough of the windows that from the inside at least, the apartment had the aspect of a prison.

Okay, Mary thought, the real estate people who'd warned her were probably right; it was a dangerous part of town in a dangerous city. But she wasn't the shrinking innocent they seemed to assume. Mary figured her accent made her seem more naive than she was. She was twenty-five and had been away to college. She'd been around some.

Right now, she needed some groceries, and a few things for the bathroom, such as toothpaste, soap, and shampoo. And that air freshener. When she was finished with shopping for those items and had put them away, she'd go out and see if she could find a place to buy an easel and some art supplies. That shouldn't be hard to do in the Village. It was an artsy place.

An artsy place with bars on the windows.

Mary went into the L-shaped kitchen, gazed into the empty refrigerator, and decided to make a list.

As she was turning around to go get her purse in the bedroom, she noticed the large blue ceramic canisters on the sink counter near the stove. They were lettered FLOUR, COFFEE, SUGAR, and so on. Mary liked them and might have chosen them herself.

She was a tea drinker, so when she returned from the bedroom with her purse, she put her gun in the empty coffee canister.

As she was going out the door, Mary glanced back and smiled. The apartment was nothing like the ones in those old Doris Day white-telephone movies. More like the apartments in Seinfeld, only shabbier. But it was already beginning to feel like home.

This was going to work, Mary assured herself again, making sure the door was closed tight and locked behind her.

Everything was going to be okay.