The Night Bird

26

Lucy squeezed a heavy garbage bag through the doorway of her apartment. It was filled with a year’s worth of old magazines and leftovers from the refrigerator that had grown a layer of green mold. She’d already split open one bag and stuffed everything into a second bag. She could barely lift it, so the plastic dragged along the ground.

She navigated the bag down the stairwell. The plaster on the walls was cracked, and the stone floors had been worn by decades of foot traffic. The stairwell had an ammonia smell. The front and rear doors were gated, but homeless people still found their way inside, and there were mornings where she had to step over pools of bodily fluids on her way to the street.

Halfway down the stairs, her phone rang, startling her. The garbage bag slipped from her hand and tumbled end over end to the next landing. She swore, hoping it didn’t break again. She grabbed her phone from her pocket. “Hello?”

“Lucy, it’s Frost.”

“Oh, hey.” She stayed calm, but she felt a rush of adrenaline, hearing his voice. She jogged down the steps and reclaimed her bag. “What’s up? You don’t have to cancel, do you?”

“No. Ten o’clock at Alembic. I’ll be there.”

“You better be.”

“I wanted to make sure you were okay,” Frost said.

“I’m great. Why?”

“Did you see anything unusual while you were out?”

“This is San Francisco, Frost. When do you not see something unusual?”

“You know what I mean.”

“I do,” she replied, “and no. I kept looking over my shoulder. Nobody was watching me. You’ve got me paranoid.”

“Paranoid is good. What are you doing now?”

“Taking out the garbage. I have to get the place cleaned up. I need to find another roommate if I’m going to stay in the city. Brynn’s parents are supposed to come by this weekend and pick up her things.”

“Okay.”

She could hear his hesitation. “Anything wrong, Frost?”

“Not really. I’m being overly cautious.”

“About what?”

“There’s a chance that Dr. Stein’s office isn’t secure. Someone might be listening to her conversations with patients.”

“Do you think that’s how he found Brynn?”

“Maybe. It also means there’s a chance he overheard you.”

“Oh.”

Lucy didn’t say anything more. She listened to the silence of the stairwell. She lived in the city, so she was no stranger to voyeurs. Someone was always listening. Someone was always watching. But she hadn’t said anything to Frankie Stein that would really be a secret.

“Lucy?” Frost asked.

“I’m here. I’ll be careful.”

“That’s all I ask. See you later.”

“Bye, Frost.”

He hung up. She felt a twinge of loneliness, no longer hearing his voice. He made her feel good. She always saw an ordinary girl when she looked in the mirror, but something about the way Frost looked at her made her see a different side of herself. Someone special. Someone unique. She liked that feeling.

She hoisted the garbage bag as high as she could and struggled to the ground floor of the building. The marble hallway led to a metal back door with a crash bar. She nudged it with her hip and pushed outside to the street, yanking the garbage bag behind her.

The alley was crowded with evening shadows. Grease stains and tar patches made splotches on the pavement. The cool air gave her a chill. In both directions, garages lined the street, and utility wires dangled overhead like spiderwebs. Cars and motorcycles filled the opposite curb. The nearest car, a white Taurus, had its trunk open, but the owner was nowhere to be seen.

Lucy looked up and down the street from Laguna on one end to Octavia on the other. She was alone, except for Dante, the homeless man sleeping off a day of drinking in front of the garage. She recognized the tattered red quilt he used. He was harmless. He didn’t try to get inside their building at night, and in return, the tenants filled his shopping cart with extra food whenever they could.

“Hey, Dante,” she called. She didn’t expect a reply, and she didn’t get one.

She dragged her bag to the black trash bin ten feet away. When she swung open the lid, flies swarmed. The bin was mostly full. She tried to lift the bag over the lip, but the asphalt had scraped the plastic, and as she shoved it into the bin, the bottom tore, and garbage spilled at her feet.

Lucy dumped what she could into the bin, then got on her hands and knees to gather up magazines, spoiled food, and the remnants of two boxes of tissues she’d cried into after Brynn died. She was annoyed, and she wasn’t thinking about anything else.

Up the block, she heard the rusted squeak of wheels on the far end of the alley, near Laguna. The noise was familiar, but something about it bothered her. Looking up, she glimpsed a man pushing a shopping cart across the intersection, and she recognized Dante, with his copper skin and pronounced limp. Her brain stuttered, trying to make sense of it. Just as she realized that something was wrong — that Dante couldn’t be in two places at once — footsteps hammered behind her.

Lucy turned. Her body twisted.

She saw a man looming over her; she saw the hideous mask grinning at her. She had time for one scream that filled the alley. “Help!”

His arm clamped around her throat, choking off her cry. He jerked her off the ground as her body flailed. She kicked viciously backward, but his arm held her tight. His other fist shoved her head sideways in his grip, and she thought her neck would snap. A sharp prick punctured her skin. A beautiful kind of warmth flowed through her brain like a river and washed over her limbs. She went limp with a strange, formless joy. She realized she could breathe again. He’d let go. She was standing, but she was weightless. She saw the garbage at her feet and the empty street, and she knew she was free. She spun around as if to run, but she lost her balance. The terrible mask swam in circles in her face, as if a hundred masks were laughing at her. She tried to follow them, but the gyrations made her dizzy.

Lucy collapsed forward, and he caught her as she fell.

She was only vaguely aware of being lifted into the air. She could see the sky above her. The clouds looked like islands on an indigo sea that rose and fell with the waves in her mind.

They were moving. He carried her across the alley toward the parked Taurus with the open trunk. Fear suddenly made her twitch. It was like staring into an open mouth that would clamp shut and swallow her down. Weakly, she fought, and protests whimpered from her tongue, but he simply rolled her into the maw of the shark. Then her world was dark, and she drifted down until she was far away.