Single White Female

by John Lutz

  There were a couple of people slouched at tables along the wall opposite the bar, mostly dressed in leather. They were drinking and talking softly. A man wearing what looked like a World War I flying suit, complete with leather helmet and dangling goggles, was dancing swing with a woman in a tight blue jumpsuit with BEYOND BITCH lettered on the back. The impact of their boots on the hard plank floor could be heard as an echoing beat under the music. Whatever the uniform at Wild Red’s, boots seemed to be in fashion.

  Without moving their bodies a millimeter, the three men at the bar turned their heads and stared at Allie. She ignored them and walked over to the bar and sat perched on the end stool, near the door. There was an empty glass in front of the stool next to hers, and a wadded white paper napkin with lipstick on it. A similar red-smeared napkin lay on the floor.

  The bartender was a wiry young guy with a neatly trimmed mustache and beard. Moving lightly, as if he had much more energy than weight, he came over and said, “Yes, ma’am?”

  Allie told him she wanted a Scotch and water on the rocks.

  When he brought the drink, he said, “Been a while.”

  “From when?” Allie asked.

  He looked puzzled. Then he put on a smiling but vacuous expression. Instant department-store mannequin. “Sorry. Thought you were somebody else. A regular.”

  “Who would that be?”

  “Well, I couldn’t really say. You know how it is, something struck a note in my mind.”

  Allie said, “Has Allie Jones been in lately?”

  The bartender smiled. “I don’t know many customers by name. What’s she look like?”

  “Something like me, they say.”

  He grinned, genuinely this time, crinkling the flesh around his eyes and making him look handsomer but ten years older. “Which explains why you looked familiar, I guess. Now I think I know the woman you got in mind. Not that you look a lot like her in the face; it’s more the way you carry yourself or something. Just . . something, but strong. Your gestures and all. But like I said, it’s been a while, even if we’re talking about the same person.”

  “Know anybody who could tell me where to find her?”

  “Don’t know anybody who would, even if they could. This isn’t the kind of place that acts as a referral service, you know?”

  “Sure.” Allie sipped her Scotch. It was surprisingly potent, or maybe she was light-headed from all that had happened to her. The bartender wandered off to see if anyone needed a fresh drink. Glad to get away from her, she thought.

  She sat there awhile, watching, waiting. The other drinkers were studiously ignoring her, she was sure. They had the instincts of herd animals. There was something about her not setting quite right with them, throwing the night slightly out of sync. Danger at the waterhole.

  The blaring music stopped and a softer, slower song came over the speakers, a number by Sade with a hypnotic Latin rhythm. The two guys in leather swiveled down off their stools and started to dance. They were good. What they were doing looked like a slow, grinding cha-cha in perfect time to the syncopated beat. The gamine brunette in the fatigue pants and studded jacket stared openly at Allie, grinned, and stuck out her tongue and wriggled it. The guy in the business suit said, “Stop that, Laverne.” Laverne said, “Fuck you, Cal!” but not as if she were mad. They were friends, Laverne and Cal.

  Allie got up and carried her drink over to where Cal sat with his elbows propped on the bar. He was slightly overweight, in his forties, and had very blond unruly hair and a pleasant moon face. Like a grown-up Huck Finn, Allie thought. Though it was unlikely Twain had ever imagined Huck frequenting a leather bar. Where was Becky Thatcher?

  Settling onto the stool next to him, Allie said, “I’m looking for Allie Jones. Know her?”

  Cal smiled. A beautific smile despite crooked teeth. “Not as I can recall. Wanna dance?”

  “No, thanks. You ever heard the name before?”

  “Allie Jones? Yeah, I think so, but I couldn’t be sure where. Hey, whoa! Aren’t the police looking for an Allison Jones?” Tumblers in his mind had obviously clicked into place. Without waiting for her to answer, he said, “Yeah . . .” Looked apprehensive. Then his open, pale features went as blank as if a lamp inside him had been switched off.

  At first Allie was afraid her photo might have been in the papers or on TV and he’d recognized her. For a crazy instant she considered running for the door.

  Then she realized he probably thought she was an undercover cop, searching for . . . herself. Well, that would make a kind of sense from his point of view.

  She thought, the best defense . . . Said, “Still like to dance?”

  “Uh-uh. Sorry, gotta go.” He turned away from her and dropped a folded five-dollar bill on the bar, then got down off his stool and walked outside, moving fast but trying not to hurry.

  The two leather freaks on the dance floor had been snorting something from a white handkerchief while they swiveled their hips to the beat. Probably butyl nitrate. One of them had been watching what went on at the bar. He blew his nose in the handkerchief and stuffed it in one of his jacket’s many pockets. Innocent guy with a cold, that’s all he was. Sure.

  Allie decided hanging around Wild Red’s any longer was useless. She paid for her drink and got down off her stool.

  As she was walking past the two women at the bar, the redhead in the tan windbreaker said, “C’mon back sometime when you’re not lookin’ for that dumb cunt Allie. You don’t really wanna find her anyways; girl’s sicker’n sick.”

  Laverne said, “Speakin’ of dumb cunts, shut the one under your nose.”

  The redheaded woman smiled and shrugged. Allie nodded to her and went outside, wondering if the stares she felt would leave holes in the back of her jacket.

  She was glad to be on the sidewalk. Breathing fresh night air.

  She’d taken only a few steps when a man’s voice said, “Hey, Allie, you in the deepest shit, girl!”

  She turned and was facing a husky black man with a full beard and a dangling gold earring. He’d been hurrying toward her, but now he stopped in midstride. A surprised, suspicious look washed over his blunt features. He frowned, calculating. There was something wrong with his face, a puckered scar beneath his left eye, almost like another, squinting eye.

  He said, “Sorry, Miss, had you wrong,” and turned to walk across the street.

  “Wait a minute!” Allie said, starting after him.

  He shook his head without looking back. “Ain’t got a minute.”

  He obviously knew Allie was wanted for murder, and thought it more than coincidence that a woman who so much resembled her—Hedra—had emerged from Wild Red’s. He didn’t want to talk to her, didn’t know her and didn’t want her to link him in anyway to the Allie Jones he did know.

  “Dammit! Need to talk!” Allie called, as he picked up too much speed for walking and started to jog.

  She began chasing him, and he glanced back and broke into a flat-out run, crossing Waverly diagonally. He’d decided she was trouble he could outdistance.

  He was bigger, faster. But Allie was desperate. Damn him! She lengthened her stride, feeling the strain in her thighs. Tried to breathe evenly through her nose, the way she’d been taught in gym class in high school, so she could regulate the flow of oxygen to her lungs and wouldn’t get winded too soon.

  The man ahead of her could run; he had an easy, athletic stride despite his bulk. His arms swung loosely and rhythmically and his shoulder muscles rippled beneath his tight brown jacket. He gave the impression he had strength in reserve.

  He cut around a corner, using some of that strength to run faster. Allie tripped over a raised section of sidewalk and almost fell. She stumbled forward half a dozen lurching steps before regaining her balance.

  By the time she’d rounded the corner, he was well ahead of her. Pulling away. She was sure she was going to lose him.

  But at the next corner a cluster of pedestrians waiting to cross the st
reet slowed him down.

  He glanced over his shoulder, saw Allie gaining ground, and elbowed people aside. Tires screeched and a horn blared at him as he interrupted the flow of traffic.

  By the time she reached the intersection, the light had instructed the waiting throng to walk. She crossed the street at a run, bouncing off a heavyset woman who cursed at her. A female voice said, “Rude bitch!” Somebody laughed. Allie didn’t apologize or break stride, only ran faster.

  She’d lost sight of the man, but she held her speed for the next block. Ahead she glimpsed a dark figure swinging around an iron railing and diving down the steps of what appeared to be the entrance to a basement apartment. Like a hunted animal going to ground.

  Allie sucked in a harsh, rasping breath that seared her lungs and ran hard for the iron railing. A throbbing ache flared in her right side, threatening to buckle her body and make her slow to a bent-over walk. Keep running! Push!

  She swung around the corner rail, as she’d seen her quarry do, cutting her hand on a sharp spur of wrought iron. She lunged down two of the concrete steps and then stopped, gasping for air.

  A Hispanic boy about fourteen was standing hunched in the shadowy corner of the entranceway. He had his narrow back to her, but his head was twisted around so he could see her, the glow from the street catching his smooth features. Allie could hear the spattering of his urine on concrete; she breathed in the ammonia stench of it. He continued to gaze insolently over his shoulder, light from above causing the white of one eye to glitter. “What the fuck you want, lady?”

  She didn’t answer.

  He turned his body toward her and stood with his feet spread wide, zipping up his pants. Grinned.

  Allie bolted and ran across the street, then walked back the way she’d come. She looked behind her several times to make sure the boy wasn’t following.

  After a few blocks, her breathing evened out and the pain in her side faded away. But her thighs still ached and her knees felt weak. She walked slowly, trying to collect her thoughts.

  At least she’d met people who’d seen Hedra pretending to be her. Hedra using her name and clothes and mannerisms. Not the sort of people who’d talk to the police, though, even if they might be believed. Even if the police could locate most of them.

  But what did it all actually prove? The police would think it had been Allie herself who’d frequented Wild Red’s, dressed and made up for picking up men, then, in less extreme clothes and makeup tonight, she hadn’t been recognized. Certainly that’s what a prosecutor would maintain in court.

  And it sounded plausible, she had to admit. More plausible than her story.

  Again, Allie found herself wondering if Hedra really existed.

  32

  The next morning, in her room at the Willmont, Allie counted her money. She still had enough to meet her needs for a while, but even living as she was, Manhattan proved expensive. It was a city where money talked, growled, and laughed, and would step over you for dead. Even the air was expensive; a doctor would tell you that. Trading the computer for cash had been no problem; deal enough with computers and computer people, and you learn where hardware and software might be bought and sold cheap and without questions. But stolen jewelry was another matter. She had no idea where to exchange it for cash.

  From the brown envelope she’d stuck behind the bottom dresser drawer, she got out one of Mayfair’s gold chains, a thick, eighteen-inch one lettered 14 KARAT on the clasp. There was also an M engraved there; Allie assumed that was merchandise or manufacturing coding and not Mayfair’s monogram. And even if it was a monogram, so what? Plenty of people whose last names began with M. She hefted the tangled chain in her hand, closing her eyes as if that would heighten her sensitivity. It was surprisingly heavy and should be worth more than the others.

  She returned the envelope to its hiding place behind the drawer. Then she slipped into her jacket, dropped the chain in a pocket, and left the hotel. Eyes in the lobby followed her, as if the chain were visible and everyone knew it wasn’t hers. She almost laughed. A murderer worried about being branded a thief.

  Selling the gold chain was easier than she’d imagined. She’d walked down Forty-seventh Street between Fifth and Sixth, the diamond district. Here, during the day, millions of dollars’ worth of diamonds in all kinds of settings were displayed like mere baubles.

  Halfway down the block, Allie had gone into a small shopping arcade lined with tiny shops, chosen the smallest, and told the man behind the counter she wanted to sell her husband’s gold chain. He was a tiny man with a black beard and had a skullcap perched on the back of his head like a dark bald spot. He studied Allie for a few seconds, then examined the chain briefly with the jeweler’s loupe that was dangling from a red string around his neck. He held the chain up to the light, then let it coil gently down into the small metal cradle of a scale.

  In a thick Yiddish accent he said, “I can give you five hundred dollars, no more.”

  Allie didn’t want to seem eager. “Can’t you make it seven hundred?”

  The man shrugged. “So I’ll make it five-fifty. And I mean no more. Really. Final. Finis. Check the price of gold, figure my profit margin, you’ll see that’s more than fair.”

  “Cash?”

  The man played the chain like liquid through his fingers, thinking about that. Though he was small, he had long, elegant fingers. “Sure, cash,” he said. He handed the chain back to Allie, said, “Wait here,” and disappeared beyond a thick hanging curtain that soaked up light like velvet.

  He came back a few minutes later with eleven fifty-dollar bills. No receipt was offered or requested. There was no paperwork. This was a simple transaction between buyer and seller, what had made the world work for centuries.

  “If you’re in possession of any other such items, bring them in,” he said, smiling. He’d chosen his words carefully, hadn’t said “If you own” or “If you have.” “If you’re in possession of,” was what he’d told her. As if it didn’t matter whether she was the legal owner. She wondered if anyone in the world was actually honest.

  Allie smiled back, nodded, and left the shop.

  Sunday morning she heard about a theft in the Willmont; an old man’s cash from his Social Security check had been stolen when he was out of his room. She wondered if she should keep the rest of Mayfair’s jewelry where it was hidden behind the drawer.

  She decided the smart thing would be to sell all of it as soon as possible where she’d sold the gold chain, then keep the money with her.

  She was there a few minutes after the shop opened Monday morning. The same man, wearing his yarmulke skullcap, was behind the counter, methodically setting out velvet-lined display cases glittering with diamonds.

  Allie smiled at him. “Remember me?”

  He tilted his head, narrowed his eyes. “Ah, sure, the gold chain. I trust you spent the money well.”

  “I did, but I could use more to spend just as well. I brought some other jewelry. Will you look at it? Make an offer?”

  “Of course. That’s my business. Just let me finish setting out these displays.”

  While Allie waited, he made several more trips to the room behind the curtain and emerged with diamond jewelry on display trays.

  He held up a long forefinger, as if to say “One more,” and spent several minutes behind the curtain.

  Allie thought he might have forgotten her, but finally he emerged with another black velvet case and placed it in the display window. He stepped back and brushed his hands together briskly, as if slapping dust from them after hard physical work. Maybe he’d been doing heavy construction behind the curtain.

  “Now,” he said, smiling, “let’s have a look at what you’ve brought me.”

  Allie scooped the jewelry from her Windbreaker pocket and laid it on the glass-topped counter. All of it. More gold chains, the rings, gold-link bracelet, wristwatch. All tangled together from being jostled in her pocket as she walked.

  “Ah,” th
e jewelry merchant said. He studied the rings and set them aside, then he sorted through the twists and kinks of the remaining intertwined jewelry. “Interesting. The watch runs?”

  “My husband says it keeps perfect time.”

  “Of course. Or you wouldn’t be selling it.” He slowly and carefully lifted and examined each piece, then set it gently in the scale’s basket, made notations on a folded sheet of white paper. The last piece, the gold bracelet, he lifted and then placed back on the counter. He said, “I’m sorry, miss.”

  Allie was confused. “Sorry? You don’t want to buy?” Then she saw the man’s sad dark gaze focus over her right shoulder.

  “I’m sorry, too,” a deep and gentle voice said.

  She whirled and was looking at Sergeant Kennedy. A somber but alert uniformed patrolman stood next to him. Two more blue uniforms were just outside the shop’s door. Two more serious, apprehensive faces, peering in through the glass at her like ritual masks. And they really were part of a ritual—the one that had been in her nightmares since the night Sam was killed.

  In a rush she realized it must have been the gold chain with Mayfair’s initial that had raised suspicion and drawn them here, probably photographs of her the police had circulated among shops like this. The police worked in ways that mystified civilians. And now they were actually arresting her, thinking she was Hedra. Or did they think Hedra was Allie? Did it really matter anymore? Hedra, Allie . . . The two personalities were finally and irrevocably linked. Merged. She was ready to accept that she was the weaker and less fortunate of the two components and would soon fade and no longer matter. Like a Siamese twin doomed from the moment of conception. The way Hedra had planned it.