Single white female

29

MAYFAIR'S apartment building was a drab gray structure that housed a flower shop and a book shop in its ground floor. Allie walked around to the side of the building, where there was a narrow gangway that smelled of garbage and stale urine. She glanced up and down the street, then sidled around the corner and walked to the black iron fire escape that stair-stepped jaggedly down the side of the building.

She leaped up and grabbed at the gravity ladder that would lever down to street level, but her grasping fingers missed it by six inches. "Damn!" she said, so loudly she was shocked by the volume. But there were only a few low, dirt-caked windows on the sides of the buildings that flanked her; no one had heard.

Allie moved down the side of the building to a steel dumpster overflowing with trash. She stood on her toes and peered inside, hoping to find a piece of rope or twine she might weight and toss up to snag the gravity ladder and pull it down. The sweet garbage stench of the dumpster nauseated her, and all she saw were stained cardboard boxes, empty cans and bottles, and black and green plastic trash bags.

Backing away from the horrid smell, she noticed that the dumpster rested on small steel wheels. She studied it. Though it had to be heavy, especially laden as it was with trash, she told herself it wasn't all that large. Only about the size of a Volkswagen.

Holding her breath against the sickening stench, she got behind the dumpster. She turned and rested her back against hard steel, and pushed with her legs.

The wheels squealed and the dumpster moved a few inches over the rough pavement.

She took a deep breath, smell or no smell, and pushed harder, felt the steel at her back move again. More than a foot this time. And she knew she could do it.

Slowly, so the wheels would make as little noise as possible, she shoved the dumpster beneath the fire escape. Then she closed its steel lid and climbed up on it.

She easily reached the counterweighted fire escape ladder and pulled it down to her. It squealed, too, but in a lower octave and not as loud as the dumpster wheels.

Though SoHo had become gentrified and quite expansive, it was still the kind of neighborhood where no one would pay a great deal of attention to someone ascending a fire escape in broad daylight. And most New Yorkers, if they did see Allie, would shrug and go on their way. It didn't pay to get involved with strangers climbing fire escapes. Besides, they would conveniently reason, she probably lived or worked in the building and had forgotten her key.

She was careful at each window, but most of the shades were pulled, or the glass looked in on empty offices or apartments being readied for refurbishing.

When she reached the top floor, she found the window to Mayfair's loft apartment locked.

She removed a shoe, then she looked around and gave the glass pane a tap with its soft heel. Nothing happened. She struck again, harder, and the upper-left corner of the glass fell neatly into the apartment and shattered on the kitchen floor.

Cautiously, she angled her arm in and found the window lock. It didn't move easily, but she managed to twist it until it wasn't clasped. She hastily slipped her shoe back on, then she slid open the window and ducked inside. The glass on the tile floor crunched beneath her feet.

She stood poised to scramble back out the window, but Mayfair's apartment felt empty. The air was still. Traffic sounds were barely audible. A tension in Allie eased.

All the kitchen appliances were white and new-looking. The table had a glass top and white metal legs. The chairs were white metal with padded gray seats. The walls were white. Faucets and stove hardware gleamed silver. There was not a sign of a dish or a pot or pan or kitchen utensil; everything was in the neat white cabinets. Allie thought the kitchen looked like the kind of place where autopsies were performed.

She left the kitchen and found that the rest of the apartment was one large room with a sleeping area set off by a folding screen. One wall was mirrored floor to ceiling, and modern sculpture rested here and there on glass-topped, sharply angled tables with stainless-steel legs. The wall behind the low-slung, green leather sofa held a vast unframed canvas coated with thick white oil paint except for an olive-drab square near the upper-left corner. Allie doubted if Mayfair was a collector; probably he'd hired a decorator. Probably he'd attempted to seduce her before paying her. If he ever had paid her. The asshole!

Allie moved forward slowly, her jogging shoes sinking into the deep-piled carpet that covered most of the apartment. What did he have beneath the stuff-a water mattress? To her left was a small dining area with a bleached pine table and chairs, a matching hutch, and a grotesque and angular silver chandelier that was itself like a piece of bad sculpture. Some taste, Allie thought; maybe the decorator deserved to get screwed.

A ribbon of sound from the sleeping area made her stop in midstride. She felt a chill and her heart began banging as if trying to break through her ribs. Music was seeping from behind the folding screen.

She forced herself to move forward, careful not to make the slightest noise. If it weren't for the deep, sound-muffling carpet, she'd have turned and run from the apartment.

She edged closer, leaned forward, and peered around the screen.

Mayfair's sleeping area was unoccupied. The round bed was unmade, its floral-print spread lying in a heap on the floor. On a shelf behind it a stereo system was glowing like the control panel of an airliner. A homogenized version of the old Doors hit "Light My Fire" was oozing softly from the speakers. Wadded white underwear and a pair of black socks also lay on the floor. A glass with an amber residue at the bottom was on the nightstand, alongside an ashtray overflowing with cigarette butts and ashes. A book by Jackie Collins lay open on the bed. Christ! Allie thought.

She remembered seeing a door that must lead to the bathroom, and wondered if Mayfair might be in there.

She went to it and cautiously looked inside. She could see into a blue-tiled shower stall. A large white towel was wadded on the floor near the toilet bowl. She moved in close. A white bar of soap lay near the drain on the floor of the stall, its corners worn smooth; the brand name engraved on its blanched surface reminded Allie of carving on a tombstone.

Apparently Mayfair had simply gone to work and neglected to turn off his stereo. Or maybe he'd left it on to discourage burglars, make them think someone was in the apartment. Allie smiled at that one, as she stood wondering what the stereo might be worth if she took it to a pawnshop down in the Village.

Then it occurred to her that she might attract a lot of attention leaving the building with a stereo system.

She went back to the sleeping area and Mayfair's dresser. There were a crumpled dollar bill and sixty-five cents in change on top, among a stack of papers that turned out to be nothing but laundry tickets and some charge receipts for clothes and a stay at a motel in New Jersey. An empty condom wrapper with some kind of lubricant on it lay near the dollar bill. Yuk! What a life this scuzzball led. She began searching through the dresser drawers. The top ones contained folded underwear, shirts, and socks. The bottom drawer was filled with an extensive collection of pornography.

Allie opened the huge bleached pine wardrobe to an array of exclusive-label suits and sport coats. Not a place for polyester. A rack on the door held dozens of ties. One side of the wardrobe consisted of narrow drawers, which she examined.

Ah, this was better. The shallow top drawer held Mayfair's jewelry. An expensive Movado dress watch, three heavy gold chains, and a man's gold-link bracelet with Mayfair's initials engraved on it. Three rings, one of them set with a diamond. Some onyx and gold cuff links. An aged and cracked photograph of a young blond woman in a Twenties-style feathered hat; the photo was in a beautiful and obviously expensive silver filigreed frame. Allie studied the woman in the photo and wondered if she was Mayfair's mother. She felt a stab of guilt, then she had to smile. She was wanted for murder and was feeling uneasy about stealing.

Then she remembered how Mayfair had manipulated her, and she stuffed the jewelry into her pockets. She left the photograph, frame and all, in the drawer, out of deference to the might-be-mom. That made no sense, she realized, but what in her life had made sense lately? What truth hadn't fallen in fragments?

She walked from the sleeping area and noticed another door on the other side of the apartment. At first she thought it might lead to a hall, but when she opened it she found it was to Mayfair's home office. More goodies? She stepped inside. The office contained a wide cherrywood desk, a table with a copy machine, and several file cabinets. A large glossy photograph of a nude woman reclining on the hood of a red sports car was framed and hung on the wall. The line of her hip and thigh was exactly the same as the line of the front fender. This one probably wasn't Mayfair's mother.

On the desk was a Zenith portable computer, a lap-top job with a backlighted screen and plenty of storage capacity. Allie was familiar with the model and knew what it was worth. She knew also that it folded into a neat and compact carrying case that would attract little attention. She smiled and stepped over to the desk.

She decided to leave Mayfair's apartment the way she'd entered. In the kitchen, she noticed for the first time a used coffee cup in the sink. On one of the kitchen chairs was a folded New York Post.

Allie felt strangely secure in the apartment, and for a moment considered sitting down at the table and reading the newspaper. An interlude of normalcy.

Then she reminded herself that Mayfair might have a cleaning lady due to arrive. Or for that matter a friend, or Mayfair himself, might walk in the door any second. This would be more than mere embarrassment. After all, she was trespassing. Burglarizing. And wanted for murder.

She got a block of cheese and an apple from the refrigerator and poked them into her blouse with some of the stolen jewelry.

Carrying the computer case in her right hand, the newspaper tucked beneath her arm, she climbed back out onto the fire escape and made her way down.

On a bench in Washington Square she ate the cheese and apple while she read the paper.

It had been folded out of order on the table in the apartment. When she straightened it out, she found that Sam's murder was front-page news in the Post because of its sensational nature. "Grisly Sex-Slaying at Midtown Hotel," shouted the headline. There was an accompanying photograph of police cars and an ambulance in front of the Atherton. The desk clerk at the hotel remembered a blond woman in a blue coat with a white collar, whom he'd seen often with the victim. The woman had hurried from the hotel the afternoon of the murder, and the desk clerk and a bellhop remembered several large red stains on the coat but hadn't thought much about it. That evening, when the woman returned, spent time upstairs, and then came downstairs and reported that the victim was dead, she hadn't been wearing the coat, but she still had on bloodstained shoes. There was speculation that she'd returned to the scene of the crime to retrieve something she'd left in the victim's room, or perhaps to pretend to discover the body and divert suspicion from herself.

From items found in the dead man's room, authorities soon identified the woman as Allison Jones of 172 West 74th Street. A quiet woman, neighbors said. Kept to herself. Didn't they all? The ones who exploded into violence?

She'd disappeared after the murder and was now being sought by the police.

The news story didn't say where the bloodstained blue coat was, but Allie knew. She remembered it draped over a hook in her closet. Where Hedra had put it after killing Sam, then phoning her and watching her leave the Cody Arms. And she'd played into Hedra's hands by being dumb enough, and upset enough, to leave the bloodstained shoes behind in the apartment before fleeing from the police.

Of course, the news account didn't mention Hedra. Hedra the elusive, who had moved through Allie's life like an evil illusion, a trick of the light that had left no trace.

As Allie set the newspaper aside, she was astounded to see Graham's photograph. She snatched the paper back up, smoothed the fold hard against her thigh, and stared. Graham was sitting in what looked like an untidy office, looking directly into the camera, his lopsided smile so radiant it seemed to jump from the black-and-white photograph in three dimensions. But this couldn't be Graham Knox! Not the Graham Knox she knew! Because the caption beneath the photo read "Playwright Struck and Killed by Taxi." This couldn't connect to her or Graham's life. There'd been some sort of mixup; why should she even be interested in this?

But she sat forward, hunched over the paper, and read about the other Graham's death. On the successful opening night of his play, Dance Through Life, he'd been standing outside the theater in a crowd and tragically slipped from the curb and been struck by a taxi that was unable to stop in time on the wet street. There was a quote from a Voice critic, comparing Graham's work with that of the young Tennessee Williams.

By the time Allie finished reading, it was the Graham she knew. Had known. The one who lived upstairs and who sneaked her free Diet Pepsi's at Goya's, the lanky, friendly terrier.

And suddenly Allie realized what Graham's death meant. Now no one could corroborate her claim that Hedra had shared her apartment. A slab of ice seemed to form in her stomach, and she shivered and wondered if Graham's death really had been an accident. Was it possible Hedra had murdered him as she had Sam?

Either way, Allie now had no way of proving Hedra had ever existed. Sometimes even she doubted if there'd ever really been a Hedra Carlson.

Allie had tried to learn about Hedra before choosing her as a roommate. Afterward, Hedra must have thoroughly researched Allie, probing for information and answers, learning that she had no surviving family, no one she would have confided in. No one to help her now by at least believing in Hedra's existence. The only way to prove Hedra existed, Allie knew, was to find her. But find her how?

Allie hurled the apple core away, frightening half a dozen pigeons into frantic, flapping flight, and stared at the ground between her feet. The grass was worn away by the feet of people who'd sat there; the earth was dry and cracked, half-concealing the curled pull tab from a can of soda or beer. She was aware of people walking past her, nearby, but she didn't look up.

After a while she remembered something. The man who'd accosted her on the street, mistaking her for Hedra, had mentioned a place called Wild Red's where, supposedly, they'd seen each other and talked. Perhaps made some kind of sexual covenant.

Leaving the newspaper on the bench, Allie left the park and walked until she found an office building with a public phone and directory.

Wild Red's was listed, with an address on Waverly Place in the Village.

The Village. Well, she was in the Village already; she wouldn't have to spend Mayfair's money on subway fare. And the Village was where she wanted to sell Mayfair's computer no-questions-asked.

She dug in her pocket for the change she'd stolen from Mayfair's apartment and shook it so it jingled in her hand. It felt good rattling against her palm.

You never could tell about men. All it had taken was a little breaking and entering, and Mike Mayfair was turning out to be her best friend.