Single White Female

by John Lutz

She lay and listened to the roar of pressured, rushing water, then silence when the shower was turned off.

  A few minutes later he emerged from the bathroom with a towel around his waist, his dark hair wet and plastered against his forehead. He was average height and lean, with muscle-corded arms and legs. Thick black hair matted his chest and flat stomach. His face was lean, too, with nose and jaw a bit too long. Thin lips. It was an austere New England face except for his kind dark eyes. He carried himself erectly, with an oddly stiff back, and walked lightly as a dancer, as if suspended by a string attached to the top of his head. Allie knew he weighed a hundred and sixty pounds, but he gave the impression that if he stood on a scale, it would register less than twenty.

  He smiled and said, “Awake, huh?”

  “What time’s it?” Allie asked, not bothering to glance at the clock on the nightstand.

  “Ten after eight.”

  “Damn! I’ve got a nine o’clock appointment! Why didn’t you wake me?”

  “Didn’t ask me.”

  True enough; she’d forgotten. Last night hadn’t been conducive to reminding one’s self about morning business appointments. God, last night . . .

  Enough about that.

  She swiveled sideways on the mattress to a sitting position, shivered in the column of cold air thrusting in through the window. Sam had removed the towel from around his waist and was using it to rub his tangled hair dry, studying her nakedness with a bemused expression on his dark features. She wondered, if she sat there long enough, would he get an erection?

  No time to find out. She stood up, trudged to the window, and forced it shut with a bang that rattled the pane. Someday the glass would fall from the ancient window, shatter on the sidewalk three stories below, and maybe kill someone. She remembered the shouts and the sound of breaking glass last night. No one had died. But even if they had, it probably wouldn’t make the news. Things like that happened all too frequently in New York. All those people. All that desperation. Fun City. Nobody seemed to call it that anymore.

  Sam said, “You got goose bumps on your butt. It’s still beautiful, though.”

  She turned. He was smiling at her. That narrow, tender smile. She loved him enough just then to consider forgetting about her nine o’clock meeting with the representative of Fortune Fashions. At times it was almost painfully obvious what was and wasn’t most important in life.

  But Sam had stepped into his jockey shorts and was slipping into his blue pinstripe suit pants. White shirt and red tie waited on a hanger. Working duds. A time for everything, she thought. Was that the Sunday school Bible of her youth echoing in her mind? To everything there is a season? Or campus concerts? Bob Dylan, borrowing from scripture? Whatever the source, the sentiment applied. She hurried into the bathroom to shower.

  Allie scooped up the tailored jacket that went with her gray skirt. She wrestled into the jacket, wondering if it was tighter on her than the last time she’d worn it. She picked up her small black purse, then her matching black briefcase.

  After working the array of chain-locks and sliding bolts on the door, she stepped into the hall first, the procedure she and Sam followed out of habit whenever they left the apartment together. Subleasing and apartment sharing were strictly forbidden and a flagrant lease violation in the Cody Arms. It was essential that no one in the building get a hint of their living arrangement, and they’d worked this knowledge into the fabric of their everyday lives. Apartment space in Manhattan had a scarcity and value that could bring out the worst in neighboring tenants as well as management. In the minds of those around them, there must be no connection between Sam and Allie.

  The long, angled hall was empty. She moved ahead, and Sam followed and edged sideways while she did a half-turn and keyed the three locks on the door. It was almost like a dance step they’d perfected. He drifted along the hall to the elevator, punched the DOWN button with the corner of his attaché case, and stood waiting for her to catch up.

  She was almost beside him when the elevator arrived. It clanked and growled in hollow agony, groping for the floor level like a blind creature. When its doors slid open it was empty.

  Allie and Sam stepped into the elevator and Sam punched the button for the lobby. After the doors had slid shut, he kissed her passionately, using his tongue. When he drew away from her he said, “I love you. Know that?”

  “If I didn’t,” she said, “I do now.” She felt a little breathless and disheveled, and was afraid it might show when the elevator doors opened on the lobby.

  Neither of them spoke the rest of the way down. What needed saying had been said.

  3

  Mike Mayfair rotated his wrist to shoot a glance at his watch. It was already nine-fifteen. He was supposed to meet the computer whiz at nine and she hadn’t shown. Maybe the cunt should program her own computer to wake her up in the morning.

  He stood just inside the hotel restaurant on West 51st, aware of the subtle aromas of breakfast being served, watching pedestrians stream past the stalled traffic outside the window. Horns blared in meaningless cacophony, each solitary blast setting off a flurry of sound. New Yorkers used their car horns more as a means to relieve tension than as warning signals to other drivers or pedestrians. On the other side of the street, a short man with flowing gray hair and beard was holding out an opened display case to show passing potential customers, jabbering his sales pitch. Almost everyone glanced at his glittering merchandise—possibly imitation Rolex watches—but no one stopped and bought. Most of them were on their way to more sophisticated cons.

  Where was the bitch? Mayfair wondered, glancing at his own watch again—a genuine Rolex—peeking out from beneath his white French cuff. Nine-twenty. Another ten minutes and fuck her, he’d head back to the office and see how the new line was selling out west.

  Then the fancy oak door swung open and she entered the restaurant. She was in a hurry, kicking out nicely curved ankles and high heels to cover ground fast, looking worried and a little frazzled despite her crisply tailored gray blazer and skirt. She saw him and smiled with something like relief. Whew! She hadn’t missed him. Hadn’t blown a commission. Blow something else, baby.

  “Mr. Mayfair,” she said, gliding over and shaking his hand. She was composed now, though there was still a slight sheen of perspiration on her forehead. “Nice to see you again.”

  He mustered up a smile. “Same here, Miss Jones. But can we make it Mike and Allison?”

  “That’d be nice. I go by Allie, though.”

  “Fine, Allie.” He moved gallantly to the side, then hesitated before helping her remove her coat. Never could tell about these liberated women. Had to shake them hard sometimes before their artificial balls dropped off. He said, “They’re holding our table.”

  “Sorry I’m late. Got snarled up in traffic.”

  “I got here only a few minutes before you,” he lied.

  The restaurant’s walls were oak-paneled on the bottom, flocked wallpaper on top with a gold fleur-de-lis pattern. Wood partitions jutted out from the back wall, not quite forming booths but providing a certain degree of privacy. It was a restaurant designed for business conversation and expense-account dining, with trendy, overpriced, merely passable food. Just the place to impress out-of-town buyers. After meeting Allie last week at the office of Fortune Fashions, Mayfair had chosen the restaurant in the hope of impressing her.

  When they were settled and had ordered coffee, he studied her across the white-clothed table. She wasn’t a beautiful woman, but there was something about her. Strong, squarish features, green-flecked gray eyes, wavy blond hair cut short so it could be easily managed. Dyed, it looked like, but what did he know at this point? That full lower lip and the cleft in her boxy chin gave her a determined look. She was a self-possessed, confident woman, but now and then a word, a gesture, allowed a glimpse of soft vulnerability that Mayfair wouldn’t mind exploring.

  Not that she’d given him the slightest sign she was in the game; but still,
you never could tell. For now, it better be mostly business, maybe a cautious feeler now and then.

  He said, “You’ve seen our operation, know some of our needs.” Only some, lover. “In the fashion business, security’s vital. The length of our spring hemline can be as important a secret to us as a new weapon might be to a defense contractor. The fashion world may seem trivial and whimsical at times, but I assure you it’s a very serious and competitive place. Few moves are against the rules.”

  Allie smiled. “You make it sound like a jungle.”

  “So it is. The business jungle. Debits are as deadly as vipers.”

  Mayfair couldn’t read her eyes. He wondered what she thought of him. Usually he could tell when women liked him. Even now that he was past fifty, many of them still were receptive to him. His features remained boyish until a close look revealed the crow’s-feet and sagging eyelids. The deep lines swooping from the wings of his nose to the corners of his lips. His hair was streaked with gray in a way that made him look distinguished, he thought. He’d been lucky there, still had most of it, though it was thinning at the crown. He was dressed today in a dove-gray Blass suit with a maroon tie and matching handkerchief, a white-on-white shirt, and black Italian loafers. Casual, but obviously a man with time and money to spend.

  The waiter brought their coffee, placing the cups on the table with dramatic flair, then withdrew smoothly as if he were on rollers.

  “Though we’re primarily concerned with design, inventory control, and payroll,” Mayfair said, “we gotta have a secure system. One that can’t be broken into by a computer hack with a compulsion for industrial espionage. Maybe a system only a few key personnel could access.”

  “That can be done,” Allie said. She leaned down far enough for her left breast to brush the edge of the table when she drew a little leather-bound notebook from the briefcase propped against her chair leg. What did she carry in there? Schematics? Spreadsheets? Was she wearing a bra?

  He knew this: She was methodical and ambitious and overdrawn at the bank, and the account they were here to discuss was important to her survival.

  Mayfair had ordered personnel to check her out thoroughly, and knew more about her than she thought. Knew she’d come to New York six years ago from the small town of Grafton, Illinois, and had no surviving family members. She was alone in the world, and she lived alone in the West Seventies. He also knew that two months ago she’d done an excellent job in setting up a payroll system for Walton Clothiers on Sixth Avenue.

  She said, “I’ll need some basic figures.”

  Mayfair pondered again the possible future with this woman who needed his business, what they might do for each other. It was a quid-pro-quo world; always something for something. She had to know that, if she had her own company. Beyond the Fortune Fashions account, what yearnings did she have? What fires that he might quench while finding the satisfaction that his former wife Janice had never given him? What interesting and possibly kinky drives? So many of these hot-shit female execs were intriguing that way. He’d find out about her someday, find out everything.

  Then he concentrated on the here and now and satisfied her yearning for statistics, watching the way she cocked her head to the side to listen, the way the muted light played off her blond hair.

  Thinking, while he paused so she could catch up taking notes, Soon, baby.

  4

  Allie was optimistic after her breakfast with Mayfair. He’d been all business, which was a relief. He looked like an aging lothario in his tight double-breasted suit and matching tie and handkerchief, his just-so hairstyle that was too young for him. Time held at bay by ego. But except for what might have been a few exploratory remarks, he’d stayed on the subject of the computer system Fortune Fashions wanted Allie to set up, and they’d had hours of involved and fruitful discussion. It was nice to know she didn’t have to worry about Mayfair in that regard, sex being an occupational hazard.

  The account was a rich one, and when final payment was made, Allie’s monetary problems would be solved for a while. Meaning she’d no longer be financially dependent upon Sam; she wasn’t sure why that dependency bothered her, but it did. Perhaps because she was emotionally dependent on him, financial dependency as well left her with nothing.

  Just before eleven o’clock, when she’d parted with Mayfair outside the restaurant, the clouds had drifted away and the sun had transformed gloom into light and hope. A dictatorial Hollywood director couldn’t have ordered it improved. Why not believe in omens? she’d thought, watching Mayfair wave to her from his cab as it pulled away.

  Still buoyed by fate falling right, she wandered around for a while, window-shopping. Then she strode from the subway stop to West 74th through the rare and sunny September day, her light blue raincoat with the white collar folded over her arm.

  She realized she was hungry. The breakfast she’d had with Mayfair was delicious but hardly filling. That and a cup of coffee this morning with Sam was all she’d had so far today. I need fuel, she told herself.

  She stopped in at Goya’s, a restaurant on West 74th three blocks from the Cody Arms. It was a large place with an ancient curved bar and a plank floor. A faded mirror behind the bar reflected shelves of bottles and an antique cash register. The waiters and waitresses all looked like hopefuls waiting for their big break in show business, though some of them were over forty. All wore black slacks and red T-shirts with GOYA’S stenciled across the chest. Allie hadn’t been in there before, but she immediately liked the rough-hewn and efficient atmosphere. If the food was good and the prices were right, she knew she’d come back, maybe become one of the regulars.

  She ordered a chef’s salad and allowed herself a Beck’s to celebrate the way things were going with the Fortune Fashions account. Then she thought about how she and Sam would celebrate when he came home that evening. Sam. Scheming and ambitious as he was in business, he never resented her successes. Liberated man meets liberated woman.

  When the waiter brought her salad, she realized he looked familiar. But she didn’t ask where she might have met him. Possibly she’d passed him on the street often when he was on his way to or from work at Goya’s. New York was like that; people making casual connections over and over, not really recognizing each other because their memories’ circuits were overloaded. So many people, an ebbing and flowing tide of faces, movements, smiles, frowns. Pain and happiness and preoccupation. Good luck and bad. Bankers and bag ladies. All in a jumble. Millionaires stepping over penniless winos. Tourists throwing away money on crooked three-card-monte games. The hustlers and the hustled. A maelstrom of madness. A world below the rabbit hole. If you lived here, you took it all for granted. My God, you adapted. And, inevitably, it affected mind and emotion. It distorted.

  This man, the waiter, was in his mid-thirties, with one of those homely-handsome faces with mismatched features and ears that stuck out like satellite dishes. He wore his scraggly black hair long on the sides in an effort to minimize the protruding ears, but the thatch of hair jutting out above them only served to draw attention. The impression was that without the ears to support it, the hair would flop down into a ragged Prince Valiant hairdo. He was average height but thin, and moved with a kind of coiled energy that suggested he could probably jog ten miles or wear down opponents at tennis.

  When he came back and placed her beer before her on the table, he did a mild double-take, as if he thought he knew her from someplace.

  Then he nodded and went back to the serving counter to pick up another order, probably trying to remember if she’d been in Goya’s before, and what kind of tipper she was.

  5

  Graham Knox had recognized her when he’d served her in Goya’s that afternoon. Allie Jones. It was the first time he’d seen her in the restaurant. He’d considered introducing himself to her but didn’t quite know how. “Hi, I live upstairs from you and can hear everything that goes on in your apartment through the ductwork,” didn’t seem a wise thing for a waiter to sa
y—it was the sort of remark that might prompt the flinging of food.

  Several months ago, curiosity had goaded Graham to find out what his downstairs neighbor looked like. He’d lurked about the third-floor hall like a burglar until he’d seen her emerge from her apartment. Already he’d gotten her last name from her mailbox in the lobby.

  Seeing her up close this afternoon had changed things somehow, made her vividly real and his eavesdropping both more intimate and shameful, no longer an innocent diversion before sleep. But the vent was beside his bed; there was no way not to hear what went on in the apartment below. Even in his living room, when he was working and didn’t have the stereo or TV on, sound from her living room carried through the ducts. It wasn’t exactly as if he were in the room with her and whoever she was talking with, but he might as well have been in the next room with his ear pressed to the door.

  And now he’d seen her up close, and she was interesting. In fact, fascinating. Much more attractive than from a distance. Direct gray eyes. Soft blond hair that smelled of perfumed shampoo. Firm, squared chin with a cleft in it. She had a sureness about her that was appealing and suggested a certain freedom. Not like the rest of us; a woman with a grip on life.

  Graham’s apartment was cheaply furnished, mostly with a hodgepodge of items he’d bought at secondhand shops. The living room walls were lined with shelves he’d constructed of pine and stained to a dark finish. The shelves were stuffed with theatrical books, mostly paperbacks, that he’d found in used bookstores on lower Broadway. One glance at the apartment might give an interior decorator a month of nightmares, but it was neat, functional, and comfortable. Despite the deprivation, Graham liked it here.

  Both apartments were quiet now. Graham was in his contemplative mode, and Allie and Sam had either left or gone into the bedroom.