Predator's Waltz

by Jay Brandon

  At the end of the alley he turned, drove to the next alley, and slowly down it as well. This one held the dumpsters where the restaurants dumped their trash. When his headlights hit the first dumpster, tiny eyes gleamed back at him before the rat leaped back down inside. Daniel stopped the car, leaving the headlights on, and walked up to the dumpster. He was muttering to himself. He slammed his hand against the dumpster and screamed.

  “Get out of there!” he shouted. “Get out, get out, get out!” He slammed the dumpster’s side again and started kicking it as well, still screaming. Rats came swarming out, over the sides and leaping into darkness. One almost landed on his arm. Daniel was hardly sane. Revulsion rose in his throat, threatening to make him sick, but rage overcame it. He kicked at the skittering swarm of rats running past him.

  When the exodus had ended he grabbed the rim of the dumpster and pulled himself up to peer over the edge.

  Dead eyes stared back at him.

  Daniel screamed. He pulled himself higher and fell over the edge into the dumpster. He screamed again when he landed on something that gave under him. He scrambled to his feet.

  The eyes he had seen weren’t dead after all. A huge rat, bolder than the rest, stood its ground and stared back at him. It wasn’t alone either. Daniel could feel stirrings through the trash in which he stood knee-deep. Some­thing brushed his leg.

  He found a stick close at hand and brandished it at the rat, but the rodent barely shifted its weight. It was a giant, the size of a small cat. Daniel growled at it inarticulately. He began sifting the trash with the stick, probing delicately, wincing when the stick encountered something heavier.

  There were bugs in the trash as well, roaches and smaller insects driven to a frenzy by Daniel’s move­ments. They swarmed through the dumpster, unable to distinguish his legs from the trash. He kept stamping his feet to dislodge them.

  The stick turned up nothing larger than empty industrial-size tin cans. Daniel was sick with disgust, but he was grateful as well. There was no body in the dumpster. His mind had gone blank because he could no longer stand the pictures it had been showing him of Carol’s body in this tiny hell with the rats and the bugs and the rotting food. When he climbed out of the dumpster, he was sobbing without being aware of it. The rat went back to eating.

  The other dumpsters in the alley weren’t quite so bad. He seemed to have encountered the king of the rats in that first one. Daniel didn’t come across one that big or that fearless again. He also found a better stick, one long enough that he could probe through the trash without climbing down in it. He was thorough, though. When he was finished he was certain there was nothing unusual in any of the dumpsters.

  Neither his screams nor his headlights had brought anyone to the alley to investigate. He was all alone in a dim world. Civilization seemed to have retreated from this corner of the city. It was just as well no police came; Daniel would not have been coherent. He walked jerkily and kept brushing at his clothes and stomping his feet. He looked like someone coming down from a bad drug experience. His eyes were red and his throat hoarse. He kept clearing it as if he had something important to say.

  He returned to his car and drove out of the alley. Gradually he grew calmer as a layer of numbness grew over his fear. He drove for half an hour, crisscrossing the same blocks over and over, until it was painfully obvious there was no life here. He ended up back parked in front of his own pawnshop. It looked clinical with its harsh lights, like a place where illegal medical experiments would be conducted in the heart of the night. Daniel stared in its windows, hating the place. If he didn’t own that damned shop they wouldn’t have come there. Carol would be safe now, sleeping, oblivious to the danger she’d escaped.

  He drove slowly home, tears streaming down his face. Houston was vast and streetlights were a joke. Darkness prevailed. He could spend his life searching and not cover a fraction of the city’s terrain.

  His own neighborhood exerted a slight comforting influence. It was a middle-class area of one-story two- and three-bedroom homes. The neighborhood was called Oak Forest, but it was pine trees that dominated, some of them soaring two and three times as high as the houses. It was a pleasant unpretentious neighborhood and Carol had always claimed to like it, but he had never gotten over the feeling that she was slumming, not only in the neighborhood but in her choice of husband.

  He began to think again that she had left him on her own. His mind grasped at the possibility. He pictured her in comfort somewhere, sad but alive. That began to seem likely—more likely than that she had disappeared with­out anyone but him noticing.

  His heart leaped up when he opened his front door. It was such a commonplace act that for an instant he was sure she’d be there waiting. But the house was still silent and empty. For the next half hour he called hospitals. He also had another drink. It had been hours since he’d eaten, and the liquor went straight to his head. None of the hospitals had admitted anyone like Carol that night. He called the police again as well, and learned nothing.

  When he hung up from the last call, he found his glass empty. He shuffled to the refrigerator and twisted a plastic tray of ice cubes to free them. The ice cubes cracking free of the tray made a sound like small bones breaking. Daniel leaned his forehead against the cool freezer door. He was past crying. The liquor began to numb him and his mind cooperated. He was exhausted emotionally as well as physically. He sat on the couch and his eyes struggled to focus on the clock. It was still twelve hours before he could report her as a missing person. What machinery that would set in motion he didn’t know.

  What if she never turned up? What if there were going to be more nights like this, a chain of them stretching into eternity, hope and grief slowly fading? How long would he have to wait until he could be sure she was safely dead, free from suffering?

  He had resigned himself to sitting there all night waiting, but the next time he rose to fill his glass he set it down instead and stumbled down the hall. He took off his filthy clothes and stuffed them into the laundry hamper. He stared vaguely at the shower, but the phone might ring while he was in it. Instead he crossed the hall to the bedroom. The sight of the empty bed made his throat tighten again. When he put his hand over his eyes a wave of dizziness swept through him. He almost fell.

  He decided he would lie down for a few minutes and rest his eyes. There was an extension phone on a nightstand beside the bed, so he wouldn’t risk missing a call. He lay down on his back on top of the covers on the side nearest the door, her side. The bed rippled slightly, absorbing his weight, shaping itself to his body. His forearm was flung up, covering his eyes. It blotted out the whole terrible night. His chest rose and fell more and more slowly. Within a minute he had fallen into a drunken, restless sleep that gradually deepened.

  He was perfectly safe that night. It wasn’t until later, after he’d made himself troublesome, that they came to kill him.

  Chapter 4

  CAROL

  Carol loved the street fair. She loved the crowds, the smells, the apparent bargains. It was like being a tourist in her own city. The day was perfect for it too: crisp, cool, with a promise of change in the breeze. Autumn air smelled adventurous. It reminded her of something as well, though she couldn’t put her finger on it. The decorated street was unfamiliar, but she had been some­where like this before. Every autumn she felt the same way. Nostalgia scratched at her memory.

  She was glad when Daniel walked away—she couldn’t shop with him tagging along impatiently—but she began missing him immediately. She was sorry for last night’s coldness; it made her thoughts toward him all the warmer today. She remembered yesterday when she had dropped in on him in his shop. From his expression it had been clear he’d forgotten she was coming. When she saw Daniel unexpectedly like that during the day, took him by surprise, he could almost have been an acquaint­ance or a lover from years ago. Their marriage was a year old but he still looked at her sometimes as if he were surprised to see her. Carol was happy, bu
t Daniel didn’t believe that, or at least didn’t believe he was the cause of her happiness. He couldn’t step outside himself and see what made him lovable to her. That he liked sitting at home and playing old records. That he was kind and hard-working, without expecting too much to come of the hard work: just a slightly nicer house, money for a child, an ordinary life. That he cared about her. She could sometimes feel concern radiating from him.

  The problem was his insecurity. He was still puzzled that she loved him. That was what made Carol draw away sometimes, her knowledge that deep down he didn’t trust her. Didn’t quite believe in their love.

  Even if she hadn’t been distracted with thoughts of her husband, Carol probably wouldn’t have noticed the man following her. It was too crowded. Occasionally she was conscious of a stare, but she was used to that.

  He was a skinny white man who needed a shave. The blue jeans jacket he wore had its cuffs turned back to expose the black hairs curling at his wrists. He or the jacket or both had gone too long without cleaning. He had the look and the smell of a man who spends no regular time in the company of women. He appreciated his view of Carol, though. A grin kept twitching his lips, threatening to dislodge his cigarette.

  There weren’t that many shops and they weren’t that big, but every time Carol went into one the place seemed to open up like a Chinese box. Merchandise filled shelves and counters. So much of it was in miniature. You could pack a lifetime’s accumulation of treasures into a three- by-five space. She marveled at the delicacy of the carving on some of the figurines. If Daniel took the time to look at them, he’d appreciate them too. She was determined to find him a Christmas present that he would just love. She wanted to embarrass him when she told him its source. “Remember that day at the fair, when you begged me not to buy you anything? ...”

  Once in a while it seemed to her that one or another of the Vietnamese merchants was paying particular atten­tion to her. She wondered if they knew Daniel and had seen her with him, or seen her going in his shop some other day. She smiled and nodded. They nodded back. Daniel could fit in here if he tried, Carol thought. These were not unpleasant people.

  She was unaware of the passage of time. The man following her was not. The shadows grew longer and he stayed in them. The crowd had thinned out a little but not nearly enough. It might have to wait until tomorrow. The man had started out enjoying his work, but now his little eyes were turning mean. He cursed under his breath as the bitch went into another shop and dawdled through it.

  Carol finally found the perfect gift. She coveted it herself. It was a figure of a woman in old-fashioned Asian dress. Carved in ivory, it was small but substantial. Somehow holding it in her hand was very soothing. The carving was beautiful. You could see the expression on her face and the strands of her hair. From the slight pinch of her nostrils you could tell she was inhaling. Carol almost felt her move.

  The proprietor was pleased with her purchase. He should have been, for the price. But he seemed particu­larly glad that the figurine had found Carol. “Good luck,” he said. Carol thought he was wishing her well and thanked him, but he shook his head and indicated the ivory woman.

  “She brings prosperity,” he elaborated.

  Carol closed her hand over the goddess. Perfect, she thought. Daniel could keep her in his own shop. She thanked the merchant again and went out into the street.

  She realized suddenly that it was later than she’d told Daniel she would be. She had made other purchases, including one of those horrible devil masks as a joke. Her sacks felt heavy. She plunged into the crowd in the street. People bobbed and swayed around her. Most seemed satisfied with the day and its conclusion. A few were grumbling.

  She saw Daniel standing on the curb, surveying the crowd. Looking for her. She almost lifted her hand to wave to him, but then remembered the packages. She didn’t want him even to see that she’d bought anything. The goddess had to come as a complete surprise on Christmas morning. Carol ducked her head behind the tall man in front of her. Daniel might have caught a glimpse of her, but no more. She cut obliquely through the crowd. Luckily there were still enough people to hide her, but the crowd was thick only in the very center of the street. Thirty feet away she walked out of it. Only a few stragglers were nearby, walking away with their heads down. Down the block she saw people heading for their cars.

  When she turned the corner she left everyone behind. The alley was ahead. Carol was walking fast, hurrying to put her bags in the trunk of the car and get back to Daniel. She wasn’t aware of how isolated she was until she turned the next comer, into the alley, and caught a glimpse out of the corner of her eye of the man behind her.

  He scared her for a moment just because he was unexpected and because he was looking straight at her. She shrugged it off. It was still daylight and there were people around. He was just another fairgoer headed home.

  In the alley, though, there was no daylight and no people. Shadow fell from one side of the alley to the other. The few lights back here hadn’t come on yet because the sun was still up. But there was no sun here. The buildings blocked it out completely. The air felt cold. She couldn’t see to the far end of the alley.

  And there didn’t seem to be anyone else around. The lucky few who had found these parking spaces back here close to the fair had been those who had come early. Most of them had gone home early too. There were only a few cars left, and no one in them.

  Carol looked back over her shoulder and saw the man there at the mouth of the alley. He was just standing, looking back the way he had come. His head swiveled as he looked the other direction down the street. Then his eyes were on her again. He entered the alley.

  She allowed herself to worry, without embarrassment. The man looked menacing. He hadn’t come with anyone else to the fair. And now he was following her, apparently purposefully. He hadn’t turned into the alley heedlessly like someone just walking to his car. Carol walked faster herself. The packages rustled in her arms.

  The alley grew darker the deeper she plunged into it. Dumpsters loomed out of the dimness. She stepped on something round and her foot almost went out from under her. She stumbled ahead. She could hear footsteps behind her but didn’t turn to look again. The footsteps weren’t hurrying as hers were.

  Carol shifted her purse in front of her so she could get into it and find her keys. She wasn’t going to stop to put her packages in the trunk. She was just going to get into the car, lock the door, and wait for the man to walk away. Undoubtedly that was what would happen. This had happened to her before, worrying about someone follow­ing her, and then the man would just walk on by. She’d had these little moments of panic and nothing ever came of them. That was no reason not to be cautious now, though.

  The Toyota was twenty feet ahead. It seemed to have just appeared there. She was grateful to see it. The old car looked like a friend. She was under its protection now.

  The man behind her seemed to sense that too. When she turned around the car she looked back and saw that he was thirty yards back, too far away to catch her before she got into the car. He Still wasn’t hurrying either. She had been right, there was no threat here. Just a man walking to his car farther down the alley. She wasn’t taking any chances, though. Her car key was already in her hand. She unlocked the driver’s door, opened it, and spilled her packages inside. She sighed with relief as she started to step inside herself.

  The hand that gripped her ankle was rough and thick and very strong. Carol was too startled to scream. She gasped. In another moment she would have screamed, but by then the man in the alley had caught up to her. He came up behind her and put one arm around her waist, the other hand across her mouth.

  Now two hands were gripping her ankles as well. Carol struggled, shaking her head back and forth and trying to get her hands over her head and into the face of the man behind her. He shifted his grip to pin her arms to her sides. One of his arms was right under her breasts. The other arm still crossed her chest so the hand was on her
mouth. She tried to bite his finger.

  “Hurry up,” the man growled.

  He stepped back, dragging Carol with him, and the hands holding her ankles released their grip. A face appeared on the ground. It was broad and flat and bearded. The man dragged himself out from under her car with difficulty. He was so big he almost upended the car.

  “See, babe,” the other man was whispering in her ear, “we know more about you than you think. We know your car, we know where you live . . .”

  She kicked backward and caught his shin. He grunted and shut up. He bent forward heavily, bending her too. Carol kicked back again. This one was a glancing blow to the other leg, but it hurt him too. His grip loosened. She pushed her elbow back as hard as she could, finding his stomach. He exhaled heavily again. Carol tore herself free.

  She turned and looked at him. She wouldn’t forget that face. She put her hands up and went for his eyes with her nails. He was too slow to get his hands up but he lowered his head so she couldn’t get at his face. Instead she kicked him, harder than she’d ever kicked anything in her life. She was trying for his crotch but he turned so that it only caught his thigh. He’d have a bruise to remember but he wasn’t crippled. He fell aside and Carol ran past him. She inhaled to scream finally.

  She was off the ground. Her feet were still moving but they were no longer under her. She was rising straight up in the air.

  The other one had caught her from behind. He was strong, much stronger than the first man. The air rushed out of her. Her captor slung her around so she was again facing the first man. He had recovered enough to stand up and grab her legs, one in each hand, one on each side of his body. He looked at her face and knew what she was thinking.

  “That’s right,” he said. “Soon, baby. Maybe right here in the alley.”

  She drew her legs in, jerking him forward. He lost his leer. “Would you hurry the hell up with that stuff?” he said again.