“Well,” Selby said, carefully, “I, uh, well, you’re an attractive woman, Jessie. I seem to recall asking you out myself.”
“That’s different,” she said. “You’re normal. It’s the way he looks at me.”
“Undressing you with his eyes?” Selby suggested.
Jessie was nonplussed. “No,” she said. “That isn’t it. It’s not sexual, not in the normal way, anyhow. I don’t know how to explain it. He keeps asking me down to his apartment. He’s always hanging around.”
“Well, that’s where he lives.”
“He bothers me. He’s crept into my paintings.”
This time both of Selby’s eyebrows went up. “Into your paintings?” he said. There was a funny hitch in his voice.
Jessie was getting more and more discomfited; this wasn’t coming out right at all. “Okay, it doesn’t sound like much, but he’s creepy, I tell you. His lips are always wet. The way he smiles. His eyes. His squeaky little voice. And that smell. Jesus Christ, you collect his rent, you ought to know.”
The realtor spread his hands helplessly. “It’s not against the law to have body odor. It’s not even a violation of his lease.”
“Last night he snuck into the building and left a pile of Cheez Doodles right where I’d step in them.”
“Cheez Doodles?” Selby said. His voice took on a sarcastic edge. “God, not Cheez Doodles! How fucking heinous! Have you informed the police?”
“It’s not funny. What was he doing inside the building, anyway?”
“He lives there.”
“He lives in the basement. He has his own door, he doesn’t need to come into our hallway. Nobody but the six regular tenants ought to have keys to that door.”
“Nobody does, as far as I know,” Selby said. He pulled out a notepad. “Well, that’s something, anyway. I’ll tell you what, I’ll have the lock changed on the outer door. The Pear-shaped Man won’t get a key. Will that make you happy?”
“A little,” said Jessie, slightly mollified.
“I can’t promise that he won’t get in,” Selby cautioned. “You know how it is. If I had a nickel for every time some tenant has taped over a lock or propped open a door with a doorstop because it was more convenient, well …”
“Don’t worry, I’ll see that nothing like that happens. What about his name? Will you check the lease for me?”
Selby sighed. “This is really an invasion of privacy. But I’ll do it. A personal favor. You owe me one.” He got up and went across the room to a black metal filing cabinet, pulled open a drawer, rummaged around, and came out with a legal-sized folder. He was flipping through it as he returned to his desk.
“Well?” Jessie asked, impatiently.
“Hmmm,” Selby said. “Here’s your lease. And here’re the others.” He went back to the beginning and checked the papers one by one. “Winbright, Peabody, Pumetti, Harris, Jeffries.” He closed the file, looked up at her, and shrugged. “No lease. Well, it’s a crummy little apartment, and he’s been there forever. Either we’ve misfiled his lease or he never had one. It’s not unknown. A month-to-month basis …”
“Oh, great,” Jessie said. “Are you going to do anything about it?”
“I’ll change that lock,” Selby said. “Beyond that, I don’t know what you expect of me. I’m not going to evict the man for offering you Cheez Doodles.”
The Pear-shaped Man was standing on the stoop when Jessie got home, his battered bag tucked up under one arm. He smiled when he saw her approach. Let him touch me, she thought; just let him touch me when I walk by, and I’ll have him booked for assault so fast it’ll make his little pointy head swim. But the Pear-shaped Man made no effort to grab her. “I have things to show you downstairs,” he said as Jessie ascended the stairs. She had to pass within a foot of him; the smell was overwhelming today, a rich odor like yeast and decaying vegetables. “Would you like to look at my things?” he called after her. Jessie unlocked the door and slammed it behind her.
I’m not going to think about him, she told herself inside, over a cup of tea. She had work to do. She’d promised Adrian the cover by Monday, after all. She went into her studio, drew back the curtains, and set to work, determined to eradicate every hint of the Pear-shaped Man from the cover. She painted away the double chin, firmed up the jaw, redid those tight wet lips, darkened the hair, made it blacker and bushier and more wind-tossed so the head didn’t seem to come to such a point. She gave him sharp, high, pronounced cheekbones—cheekbones like the blade of a knife—made the face almost gaunt. She even changed the color of his eyes. Why had she given him those weak, pale eyes? She made the eyes green, a crisp, clean, commanding green, full of vitality.
It was almost midnight by the time she was done, and Jessie was exhausted, but when she stepped back to survey her handiwork, she was delighted. The man was a real Pirouette hero now: a rakehell, a rogue, a hellraiser whose robust exterior concealed a brooding, melancholy, poetic soul. There was nothing the least bit pear-shaped about him. Adrian would have puppies.
It was a good kind of tiredness. Jessie went to sleep feeling altogether satisfied. Maybe Selby was right; she was too imaginative, she’d really let the Pear-shaped Man get to her. But work, good hard old-fashioned work was the perfect antidote for these shapeless fears of hers. Tonight, she was sure, her sleep would be deep and dreamless.
She was wrong. There was no safety in her sleep. She stood trembling on his doorstep once again. It was so dark down there, so filthy. The rich ripe smell of the garbage cans was overwhelming, and she thought she could hear things moving in the shadows. The door began to open. The Pear-shaped Man smiled at her and touched her with cold, soft fingers like a nest of grubs. He took hold of her by the arm and drew her inside, inside, inside, inside.…
Angela knocked on her door the next morning at ten. “Sunday brunch,” she called out. “Don is making waffles. With chocolate chips and fresh strawberries. And bacon. And coffee. And O.J. Want some?”
Jessie sat up in bed. “Don? Is he here?”
“He stayed over,” Angela said.
Jessie climbed out of bed and pulled on a paint-splattered pair of jeans. “You know I’d never turn down one of Don’s brunches. I didn’t even hear you guys come in.”
“I snuck my head into your studio, but you were painting away, and you didn’t even notice. You had that intent look you get sometimes, you know, with the tip of your tongue peeking out of one corner of your mouth. I figured it was better not to disturb the artist at work.” She giggled. “How you avoided hearing the bedsprings, though, I’ll never know.”
Breakfast was a triumph. There were times when Jessie couldn’t understand just what Angela saw in Donald the student shrink, but mealtimes were not among them. He was a splendid cook. Angela and Donald were still lingering over coffee, and Jessie over tea, at eleven, when they heard noises from the hall. Angela went to check. “Some guy’s out there changing the lock,” she said when she returned. “I wonder what that’s all about.”
“I’ll be damned,” Jessie said. “And on the weekend, too. That’s time and a half. I never expected Selby to move so fast.”
Angela looked at her curiously. “What do you know about this?”
So Jessie told them all about her meeting with the realtor and her encounters with the Pear-shaped Man. Angela giggled once or twice, and Donald slipped into his wise-shrink face. “Tell me, Jessie,” he said when she had finished, “don’t you think you’re overreacting a bit here?”
“No,” Jessie said curtly.
“You’re stonewalling,” Donald said. “Really now, try and look at your actions objectively. What has this man done to you?”
“Nothing, and I intend to keep it that way,” Jessie snapped. “I didn’t ask for your opinion.”
“You don’t have to ask,” Donald said. “We’re friends, aren’t we? I hate to see you getting upset over nothing. It sounds to me as though you’re developing some kind of phobia about a harmless neighborhood c
haracter.”
Angela giggled. “He’s just got a crush on you, that’s all. You’re such a heartbreaker.”
Jessie was getting annoyed. “You wouldn’t think it was funny if he was leaving Cheez Doodles for you,” she said angrily. “There’s something … well, something wrong there. I can feel it.”
Donald spread his hands. “Something wrong? Most definitely. The man is obviously very poorly socialized. He’s unattractive, sloppy, he doesn’t conform to normal standards of dress or personal hygiene, he has unusual eating habits and a great deal of difficulty relating to others. He’s probably a very lonely person and no doubt deeply neurotic as well. But none of this makes him a killer or a rapist, does it? Why are you becoming so obsessed with him?”
“I am not becoming obsessed with him.”
“Obviously you are,” Donald said.
“She’s in love,” Angela teased.
Jessie stood up. “I am not becoming obsessed with him!” she shouted, “and this discussion has just ended.”
That night, in her dream, Jessie saw inside for the first time. He drew her in, and she found she was too weak to resist. The lights were very bright inside, and it was warm and oh so humid, and the air seemed to move as if she had entered the mouth of some great beast, and the walls were orange and flaky and had a strange, sweet smell, and there were empty plastic Coke bottles everywhere and bowls of half-eaten Cheez Doodles, too, and the Pear-shaped Man said, “You can see my things, you can have my things,” and he began to undress, unbuttoning his short-sleeved shirt, pulling it off, revealing dead, white, hairless flesh and two floppy breasts, and the right breast was stained with blue ink from his leaking pens, and he was smiling, smiling, and he undid his thin belt, and then pulled down the fly on his brown polyester pants, and Jessie woke screaming.
On Monday morning, Jessie packed up her cover painting, phoned a messenger service, and had them take it down to Pirouette for her. She wasn’t up to another trip downtown. Adrian would want to chat, and Jess wasn’t in a very sociable mood. Angela kept needling her about the Pear-shaped Man, and it had left her in a foul temper. Nobody seemed to understand. There was something wrong with the Pear-shaped Man, something serious, something horrible. He was no joke. He was frightening. Somehow she had to prove it. She had to learn his name, had to find out what he was hiding.
She could hire a detective, except detectives were expensive. There had to be something she could do on her own. She could try his mailbox again. She’d be better off if she waited until the day the gas and electric bills came, though. He had lights in his apartment, so the electric company would know his name. The only problem was that the electric bill wasn’t due for another couple of weeks.
The living room windows were wide open, Jessie noticed suddenly. Even the drapes had been drawn all the way back. Angela must have done it that morning before taking off for work. Jessie hesitated and then went to the window. She closed it, locked it, moved to the next, closed it, locked it. It made her feel safer. She told herself she wouldn’t look out. It would be better if she didn’t look out.
How could she not look out? She looked out. He was there, standing on the sidewalk below her, looking up. “You could see my things,” he said in his high, thin voice. “I knew when I saw you that you’d want my things. You’d like them. We could have food.” He reached into a bulgy pocket, brought out a single Cheez Doodle, held it up to her. His mouth moved silently.
“Get away from here, or I’ll call the police!” Jessie shouted.
“I have something for you. Come to my house and you can have it. It’s in my pocket. I’ll give it to you.”
“No, you won’t. Get away, I warn you. Leave me alone.” She stepped back, closed the drapes. It was gloomy in here with the drapes pulled, but that was better than knowing that the Pear-shaped Man was looking in. Jessie turned on a light, picked up a paperback, and tried to read. She found herself turning pages rapidly and realized she didn’t have the vaguest idea of what the words meant. She slammed down the book, marched into the kitchen, made a tuna salad sandwich on whole wheat toast. She wanted something with it, but she wasn’t sure what. She took out a dill pickle and sliced it into quarters, arranged it neatly on her plate, searched through her cupboard for some potato chips. Then she poured a big fresh glass of milk and sat down to lunch.
She took one bite of the sandwich, made a face, and shoved it away. It tasted funny. Like the mayonnaise had gone bad or something. The pickle was too sour, and the chips seemed soggy and limp and much too salty. She didn’t want chips anyway. She wanted something else. Some of those little orange cheese curls. She could picture them in her head, almost taste them. Her mouth watered.
Then she realized what she was thinking and almost gagged. She got up and scraped her lunch into the garbage. She had to get out of here, she thought wildly. She’d go see a movie or something, forget all about the Pear-shaped Man for a few hours. Maybe she could go to a singles’ bar somewhere, pick someone up, get laid. At his place. Away from here. Away from the Pear-shaped Man. That was the ticket. A night away from the apartment would do her good.
She went to the window, pulled aside the drapes, peered out.
The Pear-shaped Man smiled, shifted from side to side. He had his misshapen briefcase under his arm. His pockets bulged. Jessie felt her skin crawl. He was revolting, she thought. But she wasn’t going to let him keep her prisoner.
She gathered her things together, slipped a little steak knife into her purse just in case, and marched outside. “Would you like to see what I have in my case?” the Pear-shaped Man asked her when she emerged. Jessie had decided to ignore him. If she did not reply at all, just pretended he wasn’t there, maybe he’d grow bored and leave her alone. She descended the steps briskly and set off down the street. The Pear-shaped Man followed close behind her. “They’re all around us,” he whispered. She could smell him hurrying a step or two behind her, puffing as he walked. “They are. They laugh at me. They don’t understand, but they want my things. I can show you proof. I have it down in my house. I know you want to come see.”
Jessie continued to ignore him. He followed her all the way to the bus stop.
The movie was a dud. Having skipped lunch, Jessie was hungry. She got a Coke and a tub of buttered popcorn from the candy counter. The Coke was three-quarters crushed ice, but it still tasted good. She couldn’t eat the popcorn. The fake butter they used had a vaguely rancid smell that reminded her of the Pear-shaped Man. She tried two kernels and felt sick.
Afterward, though, she did a little better. His name was Jack, he said. He was a sound man on a local TV news show, and he had an interesting face: an easy smile, Clark Gable ears, nice gray eyes with friendly little crinkles in the corners. He bought her a drink and touched her hand; but the way he did it was a little clumsy, like he was a bit shy about this whole scene, and Jessie liked that. They had a few drinks together, and then he suggested dinner back at his place. Nothing fancy, he said. He had some cold cuts in the fridge; he could whip up some jumbo sandwiches and show her his stereo system, which was some kind of special super setup he’d rigged himself. That all sounded fine to her.
His apartment was on the twenty-third floor of a midtown high-rise, and from his windows you could see sailboats tacking off on the horizon. Jack put the new Linda Ronstadt album on the stereo while he went to make the sandwiches. Jessie watched the sailboats. She was finally beginning to relax. “I have beer or ice tea,” Jack called from the kitchen. “What’ll be?”
“Coke,” she said absently.
“No Coke,” he called back. “Beer or ice tea.”
“Oh,” she said, somehow annoyed. “Ice tea, then.”
“You got it. Rye or wheat?”
“I don’t care,” she said. The boats were very graceful. She’d like to paint them someday. She could paint Jack, too. He looked like he had a nice body.
“Here we go,” he said, emerging from the kitchen carrying a tray. “I hope you’r
e hungry.”
“Famished,” Jessie said, turning away from the window. She went over to where he was setting the table and froze.
“What’s wrong?” Jack said. He was holding out a white stoneware plate. On top of it was a truly gargantuan ham-and-Swiss sandwich on fresh deli rye, lavishly slathered with mustard, and next to it, filling up the rest of the plate, was a pile of puffy orange cheese curls. They seemed to writhe and move, to edge toward the sandwich, toward her. “Jessie?” Jack said.
She gave a choked, inarticulate cry and pushed the plate away wildly. Jack lost his grip; ham, Swiss cheese, bread, and Cheez Doodles scattered in all directions. A Cheez Doodle brushed against Jessie’s leg. She whirled and ran from the apartment.
Jessie spent the night alone at a hotel and slept poorly. Even here, miles from the apartment, she could not escape the dream. It was the same as before, the same, but each night it seemed to grow longer, each night it went a little further. She was on the stoop, waiting, afraid. The door opened, and he drew her inside, the orange warm, the air like fetid breath, the Pear-shaped Man smiling. “You can see my things,” he said, “you can have my things,” and then he was undressing, his shirt first, his skin so white, dead flesh, heavy breasts with a blue ink stain, his belt, his pants falling, polyester puddling around his ankles, all the trash in his pockets scattering on the floor, and he really was pear-shaped, it wasn’t just the way he dressed, and then the boxer shorts last of all, and Jessie looked down despite herself and there was no hair and it was small and wormy and kind of yellow, like a cheese curl, and it moved slightly and the Pear-shaped Man was saying, “I want your things now, give them to me, let me see your things,” and why couldn’t she run, her feet wouldn’t move, but her hands did, her hands, and she began to undress.
The hotel detective woke her, pounding on her door, demanding to know what the problem was and why she was screaming.
Dreamsongs 2-Book Bundle Page 74
