by Ron Goulart
But it hadn’t happened that way. At the height of his fantasy, he’d watched her reach home safely, had seen the light go on in her room and he was standing outside in the street, shaking and sweating and feeling foolish. When he looked around the street was virtually empty, only a single pedestrian on the far side who glanced at him and walked on. He felt embarrassed, frightened, and then he had hurried home.
What frightened him was the way his fantasy had suddenly changed. Why would he want to hurt Susan? He liked her, a lot, even though she probably saw him as just one more bookworm who haunted the library. He usually imagined himself as her protector, a bodyguard, following his client in a neighborhood that had witnessed a rash of rapes and murders in recent months. He’d been protecting her—until tonight.
The images were still fresh in his mind, and he would have to get it all down on paper quickly. He got up from his bed, turned on the lamp over his desk in one corner of the bookshelf-lined room and rolled a sheet of paper into the typewriter. He thought for a moment, forming the scene more clearly in his mind, and then began to type rapidly. He was still pounding the keys of the machine when there was a soft knock on his door.
“Do you want something to eat, Marvin? It’s seven o’clock.”
“Just a second, mom. I’ll be right there.” He finished a paragraph, got up from his desk and turned on the room lights before he opened the door. His mother stood there smiling up at him, looking small and tired.
“TV dinners tonight,” she said. “Do you mind?”
“No, that’s fine, mom. You look beat. Why don’t you let me do some of the cooking?” He walked back to the desk, his mother following closely behind, and sat down again before the typewriter.
“You have your writing to do. I’ll handle the cooking. Did you have a good day?” She put a hand on his shoulder.
“Pretty good,” he said, and studied the paper in the machine. “Ten pages written, and then I went to the library. But I got another story back in the mail. No comments, just the standard rejection slip. I wish I could figure out what I’m doing wrong.”
“Keep at it,” she said, and patted his shoulder. “Your father used to say a person had to write a lot of junk before anything worthwhile could be produced.”
“I remember that,” said Marvin, smiling, “but at least dad’s newspaper job guaranteed him some kind of income. Maybe that’s what I should be doing.”
“Maybe,” she said. “You’ll have to decide that. But give it another year anyway. Your father always said you had a talent for it, could do better than he ever did. I just wish he was here to help you.”
She squeezed his shoulder, and he put one hand on top of hers. “I’ll keep working at it,” he said softly.
They ate dinner in silence, and his mother went to bed early. Marvin read in bed until early in the morning, finishing one novel and beginning a collection of short stories. When his eyelids seemed heavy he turned off the light and stared into the darkness for a moment, thinking about the past day. And as he drifted into sleep, Susan was standing before him, reaching out a hand to touch his face.
* * * *
Marvin Polack followed Susan for three more evenings before he realized someone else was also following her. At first he thought it was just his active imagination, something to enhance the bodyguard role he fantasized when he was near her. It was a role he expanded and glorified in pages of writing each evening. But as he strolled along behind her, locked in his dreams, he couldn’t ignore the reality of the tall, slim man who walked in the lengthening shadows across the street, pausing occasionally to look in shop windows showing nothing of obvious interest, and twice moving quickly into a doorway when Susan turned to look across the street. It was certainly suspicious behavior, thought Marvin, yet there was nothing really sinister about the man. He was ordinary looking, clean cut, perhaps a student who lived in the neighborhood. He carried no briefcase or books, kept his hands in the pockets of a light jacket and moved with the springy steps of an athlete. But he always moved within shadows near the buildings, and he was watching Susan. When they reached her rooming house she went quickly inside as Marvin stepped into an alleyway a block away. The other man stood in a doorway across the street, looking up towards the window of Susan’s room for a long time. The light went on. From time to time her thin figure was silhouetted in the window, and then the shade was suddenly pulled down. The man stepped out of the doorway, hurried down the street and disappeared from view around a corner. Marvin waited a few minutes as darkness came, and then left the alley and walked quickly back to his home. He was suddenly very frightened.
* * * *
The next evening he followed Susan for a new reason and with a new sense of caution, staying nearly a block behind her the whole time and hovering close to the buildings and alleyways they passed. She walked quickly as usual, head down, not looking at the few people who passed her near the library. He knew she had to be afraid about walking home alone, especially with the recent attacks in the neighborhood. Why didn’t she take a cab? Probably because she couldn’t afford it. But her rooming house did look expensive from the outside. He’d thought about offering to walk home with her, but decided not to because he couldn’t bear the thought of her turning him down. What would she want to do with a young writer who spent much of his time in a fantasy world, and who had no permanent employment? She could do better than that. But now he was walking home with her, protectively, but from a distance.
His heart jumped when he saw the man leave a bookstore across the street and begin to follow Susan as he had the evening before. There was no question about it, the man had been waiting for her. He paralleled her course again, keeping to the shadows and occasionally checking his watch. Marvin felt blood rush to his face and head. The man was timing her walk! And the times would be repeatable, since Susan left work at exactly the same time each evening and walked straight home without fail. Why did she have to follow such a regular schedule?
Marvin dropped far back, watching only the man now and wondering what he could do if Susan were attacked. The man looked wiry and strong. Marvin had no illusions about his own physical strength, but he could make a lot noise if he had to. The question was, would anyone respond to his shouts if Susan were in trouble? He doubted it. People in this neighborhood were not quick to become involved with the problems of others. They had enough problems of their own.
But nothing happened that evening. Susan reached the rooming house safely, and again the man watched the window of her room, until the shades were pulled down, and then walked quickly away. Marvin breathed an audible sigh of relief from his hiding place. He waited until after dark, staring at empty streets and thinking about what he should do. During the long walk back to his typewriter and books he decided that on the next evening he would arrive better prepared to deal with the situation.
He sat in front of the typewriter for three hours that night, but nothing would come. His fantasy world had been totally disrupted, his mind focused only on Susan and the man who followed her. It was nearly midnight when he gave up trying to write. He paced the floor for a while, and then went to his dresser. He pulled open a drawer and searched under neat stacks of socks and underwear until he found a heavy object wrapped in an old flannel shirt. He put the bundle on his bed, unwrapped it, and sat down next to the blue steel three-fifty-seven magnum revolver exposed there. It was his father’s gun. Marvin remembered the day he’s learned how to shoot it. His father had been patient with a son who spent most of his time reading and writing and living in fantasy worlds that didn’t exist. But shooting was something every boy should learn to do, his father had said. Marvin touched the blue steel of the big revolver, remembering what it was like when he pulled the trigger: the shock wave that went up and down his extended arm, the ear-shattering roar and the sheet of flame that flashed from the muzzle. The experience had terrified him, but with his father’s patient coaxing he’d stuck with it until all his shots struck the paper target w
ithin an area the size of a dinner plate at a distance of twenty-five yards. Good enough, his father had said. But when that day was over, Marvin’s entire body had been shaking. He’d been afraid of the gun since that time.
So now he sat on his bed, thinking about carrying the gun to protect Susan from a man who followed her home from work each evening. The whole idea seemed suddenly absurd. He was following her home himself, but meant her no harm. Or did he? The strong fantasy he’d had about her suddenly came back to him. But that had only been one time, his imagination running wild for a moment. After all, he cared about Susan Kensor.
Didn’t he?
Marvin went to his desk and rummaged around in several drawers until he found a nearly empty box of cartridges for the gun. He loaded it carefully and pressed the cylinder back in alignment with the frame with a dull click before wiping it off with the flannel shirt. He placed the gun and cartridge box in a desk drawer and then undressed and went to bed, reading until he finished the last of the books he’d checked out of the library. Marvin slept poorly that night, awakening several times, and getting up once for a glass of water to get rid of the cardboard taste in his mouth. In the early morning he slept soundly, but under closed eye lids his eyes moved rapidly, following the action in several, intense dreams. He didn’t remember the dreams.
* * * *
The next day was hot and muggy. Marvin slept until late in the morning, and awoke drenched in sweat. After a coffee and toast breakfast he worked at the typewriter for three hours, but the writing came hard. His mind was a jumble of confused thoughts, and even with the windows open he found it difficult to breathe in his little room. He finished a story and read it over, scowling at the pages. The plot wandered, had no focus and the dialogue seemed dull and wooden. It was time to put it away and get out into the sun, he thought. He took the library books with him and wandered the streets for a while, watching the people he passed, describing them mentally to himself with words. He bought a hot dog from a street vendor and wandered some more until he suddenly found himself in front of the library. Force of habit, he thought. His travels always took him to where the books were.
When he turned in his books at the checkout desk Susan was sitting at a paper-heaped table, reading a book and eating a late lunch out of a brown, paper bag. She wore a sleeveless, white blouse for the hot day and looked lovely, he thought. Engrossed in her reading she didn’t see him standing there, and another girl took his books. He took a list from his wallet, and then went to the line of computer terminals along one side of the library and sat down in front of one of them to punch in titles and authors of the new books he wanted. The machine responded quickly. He wrote down the reference numbers and location codes on his list and began his search for the volumes along the hundreds of book shelves in the big room. He found three of them, but the fourth seemed to be missing, even though the computer had indicated it was not checked out. Perhaps it had been misplaced. He was scanning titles along the shelves when he suddenly smelled perfume.
“Can I help you with something?”
Susan Kensor stood behind him, replacing some books that had been checked in. She looked at him expectantly. Marvin looked down at his list, and swallowed hard.
“I’m looking for ‘Modern Guns of the World’ by Ray Asmuth. It doesn’t seem to be here, but it’s not checked out.” He fought to keep his voice from quivering.
She moved up close alongside him, and peered at his list. “Maybe it’s a large-sized book—on the bottom shelf—here.” She knelt down and quickly found the volume, grunting as she pulled it off the shelf and handed it up to him. “Heavy reading,” she said. “Are you a shooter, or a collector?”
Marvin opened the book and looked at the table of contents. “I’m a writer,” he said, “trying to find a proper gun for a mystery story I just finished.”
“Really? I’ve never met a writer before. Do we have any of your books in the library?”
“No,” he said, not wanting to tell her he hadn’t published anything. “I write short stories for magazines.”
“I read novels most of the time,” she said quickly, “but I prefer mysteries and science fiction.”
“So do I,” he said, then looked at her and smiled. He was surprised at how easily the smile suddenly came. Susan smiled back, and for just an instant he thought he saw her blush.
“Well, let me know if you need more help. I have to get back to the desk now.”
“Thanks, I will.” His voice was steady.
Another smile, and then she was gone. Marvin followed her out into the reading room, found an empty table and sat down with his books, facing the circulation desk. For just a moment, something nice had passed between him and Susan. As he opened the first book, Marvin was feeling wonderful inside.
He read the rest of the afternoon, taking notes and gazing thoughtfully towards the circulation desk where he caught Susan glancing at him a few times. He studied pictures of guns, compared their ballistics, and found the gun his father had left to him. It was one of the most powerful guns listed in the book, and he decided to use it in his story. But exactly how was another problem he had to—
Susan chose that moment to glance at a clock on the wall, and check her watch. It was nearly five o’clock, and she would be going home soon.
The man would be waiting for her outside in the darkening streets.
Marvin pushed his chair back hard, grabbed the stack of books and hurried from the library. In his haste, he didn’t see Susan wave to him shyly from the circulation desk.
When he reached home he was nearly running. He threw his books down on the bed, retrieved the gun in the desk drawer and shoved it into the front waistband of his pants. It felt heavy and made a huge bulge beneath the light shirt he was wearing. It would be just his luck to get picked up for carrying a concealed weapon without a permit. He put on a light jacket and studied himself in a mirror. Nothing obvious to see, but he was painfully aware of the big barrel pointing diagonally down along his left leg. He tried not to think of what would happen if he fell and the gun went off.
It was five o’clock as he hurried along the street, walking briskly and trotting across intersections. The air was heavy to breathe and he began to sweat in the light jacket, but people didn’t seem to notice him. He might be hurrying along to catch a bus. A silent alarm was ringing in his head, urging him on. On hot days like this one the number of rapes and muggings in the city rose dramatically, and Susan was dressed lightly for heat, nothing provocative, but the sleeveless blouse was certainly enough to stimulate the imagination. Such a lovely target, he thought.
He felt relieved when he reached the library and saw her walking about a block ahead. He got in step with her, following far behind and closely watching the other side of the street. They passed buildings with little shops that had already closed for the day, and silent alleyways just beginning to fill with shadows. They passed the bookstore, and Marvin began to feel a little foolish.
The man wasn’t there.
It puzzled him. The pattern had been so regular over the last three days; the man waited in the bookstore until Susan passed, and then he followed her. There could be no question about that. He had been watching only Susan, moving quickly out of sight when she looked around, timing her moves, watching the window of her room until the shades were pulled down. It wasn’t just a product of the wild imagination Marvin poured out at his typewriter each day. He had seen it happening. So where was the man now and why was Marvin Polack walking along the street with a loaded cannon in his waistband?
The street was silent and empty now, except for Susan walking far ahead of him, and he could hear her footsteps faintly. He had felt drawn to her that day in the library, wondered why he felt so awkward when she tried to start up a conversation about his writing. She seemed interested; all he had to do was talk. So why was that difficult for him? And why had he once imagined himself grabbing Susan from behind and hurting her? The memory still haunted him, confused h
im, and he wondered about his motives in following her each evening. Why didn’t he just ask her for a date and—
There was a scuffling sound ahead of him.
Marvin looked up towards the expected lone figure of Susan Kensor and saw two figures struggling there. A sharp cry, quickly muffled, and an overturned trash can clattered into the street. He tried to shout, but all that came out was a strangled gasp, and then it seemed like his body was on fire and he was running as fast as he could. Susan was dragged across the sidewalk, and then lifted off her feet. She lashed out with both legs, but struck only warm air and her arms were crushed tightly to her sides. The man pulled her backwards into a building as a second floor window suddenly opened on the other side of the street, and someone was shouting at them.
They disappeared from view, leaving the darkening street and the sounds of Marvin’s feet pounding the sidewalk. Time seemed suspended, a distance of one block becoming an infinite space that he crawled slowly across. He slowed as he reached the place of the attack, looking for their exit from the street and seeing only the blank, stone wall of an old building.
“Hey!” someone shouted. Across the street, a man leaned out of a window, pointing near Marvin and clutching a crumpled newspaper in his other hand. “Some creep just grabbed a girl and dragged her in that door ahead of you!”
Marvin saw the door, stepped up to it, and pulled the gun from his waistband. His voice was hoarse and raspy as he fought for breath and shouted at the same time.
“Call the police right now! I’m going in.”
The man’s eyes widened when he saw the gun, but he nodded his head, slammed the window closed and moved quickly out of sight. Marvin put his ear to the door and heard nothing, opened it quickly and stepped inside and away from the doorway in one motion with the gun pointed ahead of him at stomach level. Darkness engulfed him, but there were sounds to follow: someone stumbling around on a wooden floor, bumping into walls and grunting, then a staccato thumping like a crazy tap dance. He moved slowly ahead towards the sounds, breathing rapidly. The gun felt slippery in his hand. He inched forward and stopped when a muffled scream that had to be from Susan came from directly ahead of him. He quickened his movement, and saw a small, dirty window and weak light from the street spilling into a room lined with folded cartons and metal drums, and on a pile of cardboard cartons two people were struggling furiously. Stepping lightly, he moved around the room, keeping out of the direct light, growing suddenly angry as he recognized Susan with a rag stuffed in her mouth and thrashing around under a man tearing frantically at her blouse. The man suddenly slapped her hard across the face, and Marvin’s anger became a rage.
