Modern Masters of Noir

by Ed Gorman (ed)

  She decided to endure it. Surely he would get tired, leave, go to sleep, choose a more interesting album. Lisa understood that what she was listening to second-hand was heavy metal. She had learned that she preferred jazz. She loved the intricate rhythms. If worst came to worst, Lisa knew she could call the building managers and complain. That privilege had been explained to her when she’d moved in.

  The next thing she discovered about her neighbor was the fact of his sexual activity. At about seven o’clock, Lisa was taking a pound of ground beef out of the refrigerator. The heavy, sweet odor hung in the air. She felt—as well as heard—the stereo upstairs turned down. Then she heard heavy steps clump out onto the third-floor landing and descend. On the ground floor, the foyer door squeaked open. Two sets of footsteps ascended. She heard voices—a treble piping mixed with the bass rumble. The door to apartment 12 banged shut.

  It wasn’t, Lisa thought, as though she was truly eavesdropping. The building was about fifty years old; the construction, thin to begin with, was loosening up.

  The music from above started again, though the volume wasn’t as loud as it had been in the afternoon. At eleven, Lisa lay sleepless on her Salvation Army Thrift Store mattress. She needed her rest. Bags beneath her eyes at job interviews. . . no! She had just decided to throw on a robe and go upstairs to ask her new neighbor to turn the volume down when the stereo abruptly shut off. Lisa curled up in a warm ball.

  The respite was brief. Sounds began again from upstairs. Since the apartment layouts were identical from floor to floor, her neighbor’s bedroom was directly above Lisa’s own. R. G. Cross’s bedsprings were not subtle. She tried to ignore the rhythm, then pulled the ends of the pillow around her head when she heard private cries.

  After a time, the squeaking stopped and the thumping began. In spite of herself, Lisa wondered what that noise meant: a steady, muffled flump, flump. Something that sounded liquid spattered on the floor above. How weird was R. G. Cross?

  She didn’t wonder long. The sounds stopped for good. Exhausted, homesick, a little lonely, wondering when she would ever get a job in this strange, new city, Lisa fell asleep.

  She dreamed of a warm, lazy, savanna summer, and of lush sun-dappled foliage. It was all green and golden and smelled like life itself. She wanted to be again with everyone she’d left, Lisa thought fuzzily. Mama . . .

  The next day was Saturday. Lisa had no interviews, but she did have a sheaf of application forms to fill out. She hadn’t gotten up until noon. Between mild depression keeping her in bed, along with the simultaneous feeling of stolen luxury, she dozed away the morning.

  When her eyes finally flickered open for good, her mind registered the time as 11:56. Digital clocks amazed her with their precision. Lisa rolled over on her back and remembered vaguely having been awakened earlier in the morning by angry voices from upstairs. She slowly and luxuriously stretched, then padded toward the bathroom.

  Lisa brushed her hair and cleaned her teeth. Then she put on her gloves, terrycloth robe, and slippers, and went downstairs to collect her newspaper. The stairway was chilly, as though someone had left the outer door propped open.

  She encountered a tall, blond stranger in the front hall. Lisa scented him before she actually saw him. He smelled of some sharp, citrus cologne.

  “Hi, there,” He shoved a large, tanned hand at her. “You’re my downstairs neighbor, right? I’m Roger.”

  Lisa glanced at the mailbox and back at him. “R. G. Cross.”

  “That’s me.” He grinned widely. For a second, all Lisa could see was the array of flawless white teeth. “Mighty nice to meet you.”

  His hand overpowered hers. She withdrew her fingers, sensing he could have crushed down much harder. Roger leaned back against the wall and hooked his thumbs in his jeans pockets. He was more than a full head taller than she, though Lisa could stare level into the eyes of most of the men she’d met. He had an athlete’s powerful physique. He probably works out every day, she thought. His jaw was strong. Roger’s eyes were a bright, cold blue; his hair, tousled and light. His grin didn’t seem to vary from second to second by a single millimeter.

  Roger unhooked one thumb to gesture at the mailbox. “You must be L. P. Blackwell.”

  Lisa nodded politely and started to turn toward the steps with her paper.

  “What’s it stand for?”

  “Lisa Penelope.”

  Roger stuck out one long leg so that his foot partially blocked her exit. “Oh yeah? Could stand for a lot of other things.”

  Unsure what to do now, Lisa paused at the foot of the stairs. She examined her options. The list was short.

  Roger said, “Could stand for Long Playing . . .”

  She stiffened, feeling a chill of apprehension.

  “Like with a record album.” He chuckled at his own joke. “Long playing, all right. Stereo too, probably.” He smiled at her expression, then looked slowly and deliberately down the front of her to the floor, and then back up again.

  “Excuse me, but I need to get upstairs.” Lisa made her voice sound as decisive as she could.

  “So what’s the hurry?” His voice remained warm and friendly.

  “I need to fix breakfast.” She regretted saying anything the moment the words came out, but by then it was too late.

  “I haven’t had breakfast yet either,” Roger said. “You like breakfast? I know I do. Best way to start the day.”

  Lisa looked straight ahead, up the stairwell. She sighed and said nothing. She didn’t want this to mean trouble.

  “We could do it together,” said Roger. “Breakfast. What sort of meat do you like in the morning?”

  “Please move your leg.” He slowly, with great deliberation, evidently savoring the power of the moment, withdrew his foot from her path. “Thank you.” Lisa resisted the impulse to bound up the steps two at a time.

  He called after her, “Hey, don’t mind me, L. P. I’m feeling good today. Great night, last night. Now I’m just high-spirited, you know?”

  Lisa fumbled with her keys. She heard slow, steady steps ascending the staircase. She practically kicked the door open when the latch clicked. Once in the refuge of her apartment, she closed and locked the door. Then she turned the dead-bolt home. She did not want trouble. She had enough on her mind already.

  “Damn it,” she said under her breath. “Damn them. Why are they like that?”

  Lisa spent Saturday afternoon filling out job application forms. Unfortunately she recognized her employability problems, not the least of which was her inability to type. After two hours of laborious and exquisitely neat printing, she took a break and made a pot of rich cambric. In rapid succession, she turned on a TV movie, switched it off, picked up a new paperback mystery she’d bought at Safeway, then put it down when she realized she wasn’t concentrating on the plot.

  Someone knocked at her front door.

  Lisa hesitated.

  Her building dated back to the late ‘twenties or early ‘thirties. Lisa’s managers had told her that with some pride. This was a building that hadn’t been razed to make room for a modern and characterless highrise. Some of the art deco touches still remained. About half the renovated apartments had glass spy-tubes in the front doors so that the tenants could scrutinize whatever callers stood on the other side. Lisa’s door had something that antedated the tubes. She could open a little hinged metal door set at face height, and look out through a grill of highly stylized palm trees cast in some pewter-colored metal.

  If she opened the little door. She hesitated.

  There was a second, more insistent knock. She heard the floor-board creaking of someone shifting his weight. She could hear breathing on the other side of the door.

  Lisa reached for the latch of the small door and pulled it open. She looked into the apparently eternally grinning face of Roger Cross.

  “Oh, hi,” he said nonchalantly.

  “Hello.” Lisa made the word utterly neutral.

  “Hey, listen. I wa
nt to apologize for sort of coming off the wall before. You know, stepping out of line.” Roger met her gaze directly. He reached up with one hand to scratch the back of his head boyishly, tousling the carefully styled blond hair. “I didn’t mean to come across as such a turkey. Honest.”

  “It’s all right,” said Lisa. She wasn’t sure what else to say. “Thanks for saying that.”

  “Say, could I come in?”

  He must have seen something in her expression. Roger quickly added, “You know, just for a little while. I thought maybe we could sit down and talk. Get acquainted. You know, I really want to be a good neighbor.” The grin became a sincere smile. “And friends.”

  Lisa said nothing for a few seconds, trying to get a handle on this. “Not—now, thanks, I’m not ready. I mean I wasn’t expecting company and—”

  “I don’t mind a mess,” Roger said. “You should see my place. A real sty.”

  She momentarily noted his vocabulary and wondered that he knew a word like “sty.” He definitely didn’t seem rural. But then, she thought, she knew she had never met anyone like this before. “No. Really. We—I can’t.”

  He switched tracks. “Hey, L. P., you living on your own for the first time?”

  Startled, Lisa said, “How’d you know that?”

  “I thought so. You look pretty young. Going to college?”

  She couldn’t help responding. “No. I haven’t had much formal schooling.”

  “Neat accent,” he said. “I can’t quite place it. From the South?”

  She nodded. “A ways.” Dappled sunlight on the leaves. Lisa felt a sudden stab of homesickness like an arrow piercing her side.

  “Great winters here. You come north to live so you could ski?”

  “No.” It had never occurred to her to ski.

  “That’s why I came here. That and work. I’ve got a great job with an oil company. Marketing.”

  Floundering, Lisa said, “That must be . . .”

  “Oh yeah, real interesting. Get to work with the public. Meet people.” The sincere smile became more engaging. “Say, you come out here to get away from your family?”

  “Uh, yes,” she said. Lisa felt more pangs, equally painful. Food, warmth, security, all provided. Her mother’s satiny touch. She suddenly and desperately wanted to see her parents again. She wanted so much to be on her own, but she also needed to be stroked and reassured. For the thousandth time she regretted leaving home.

  “I know what it’s like,” said Roger earnestly. “I’ve been on my own for a long time. Never knew my father. Mother died when I was real young. Really I’ve got no family.” His voice lowered. “I know it gets real lonely here in the city.”

  “Yes,” said Lisa. “It does.”

  “Let me make things up,” he said. “You want some hot coffee? I’ve got some great Colombian grind up in my place.”

  “I drink tea.”

  “Got all the Celestial Seasonings flavors. Or black, if you want it.”

  “No thanks,” she said. “I just made a pot.” Lisa turned her head and glanced across the living room at the pot of cambric slowly cooling beneath the quilted cat-print cozy. “It’ll be getting cold, so I’d better go.” She thought of the skim forming on the surface of the milk. Lisa turned toward him again. “Excuse me, please.”

  “Wait!” he said, seeming a little frantic now. “This is important—”

  “Yes?”

  “Listen, how’s your laundry?”

  “Beg your pardon?” What was he talking about?

  “Don’t you do your laundry on the weekend?”

  “Well, yes.” Lisa had lived in the apartment for little more than a month, but already discovered that she hated the laundry room. It was a dark, dank cell in the basement beneath the house next door. The laundry served both buildings, as the two were owned by the same company. The room contained two sets of coin-operated washers and dryers. All the machines were usually in use all the weekend daylight hours. It was a secluded and uncomfortable place at night.

  The closest commercial laundromat was more than a mile away, and Lisa had no car.

  “I’m gonna do a load sometime tonight,” said Roger. “If I don’t no socks and underwear for Monday morning. If you want to come along and do a load too—” He spread his hands. “I could escort you, make sure no freako jumps out and grabs you. We could get in some civilized conversation down there. Don’t you need to wash some clothes?”

  Of course she did. Lisa had been putting off the laundry room expedition. She really did need clean clothing for Monday. “Thanks anyway,” she said. “I’ve got to stay in tonight and work. I’ve got a lot to do.”

  “I think you’re lying,” said Roger quietly.

  “I really do have—”

  “Lying!” Roger slammed the heel of his hand against the door. It jumped and rattled in its frame. Lisa involuntarily stepped backward.

  “So what’s wrong with me, you black bitch?” Roger shoved his face forward so that he blocked the entire opening. It occurred to Lisa that his was like looking out of a wild animal’s cage—or into one. There was a fixedness to his eyes that she wondered might be madness. She had done nothing to bring this on herself. Nothing!

  “Listen, I’m sorry,” she said, stepping forward and flipping the little metal door firmly shut. She heard him outside, now speaking to the closed door.

  “These doors are old. Not stout at all. I could kick this one down in just two seconds. Just like the big bad wolf . . .”

  “Please go ‘way,” said Lisa. “I’ll call the manager.”

  “You think you’re gold, don’t you?” His voice was low and intense. She could hear him working into a frenzy. “You think it’s gold.”

  “Go. Please.”

  “You know who I am, Lisa? I’m the boogey man. And I eat up little girls just like that.”

  Lisa decided that perhaps if she didn’t answer him any more, he’d go away.

  “So don’t answer. I know you’re there.”

  She still said nothing.

  “You know who you are?” Roger’s chuckle decayed to something horrible. “You’re a puckered little prude. I think maybe you need to be loosened up.”

  Lisa tried to back away from the door quietly, hoping none of the boards in the hardwood floor would creak.

  “I hear you! You know what else you are, L. P.? You’re a real fruitcake.”

  She continued to step quietly away from the door.

  Roger laughed, almost a giggle. He said, “You’re so weird, girl. Right out of the sticks—or is it off the plantation? Who else would wear gloves with a terrycloth robe. You—”

  He said a string of things she didn’t want to hear, including a few she didn’t understand. Finally he seemed to run out of obscenities. Roger evidently turned away from the door and his voice became muffled. His deliberate, slow steps clumped upstairs. She heard his door open and slam shut.

  Even though he was gone, she still tried to move as quietly as she could toward the couch and the tea cozy. The pot was still warm, so she poured herself a cup of well-steeped cambric. The milky, soothing scent filled the living room.

  Lisa Blackwell had never before encountered anyone like Roger Cross. She had heard of them—creatures like him. A danger to their kind. She said to herself softly, “What is wrong with him?” And was confounded by the inexplicable.

  Later that evening, Lisa heard Roger go out. She listened to the sound of him descending the back stairs, past her kitchen door. Something trailed his footsteps with a series of soft impacts. It made her think of something large and dangerous, dragging its prey. Almost against her will, she went to the kitchen window and looked down as the building’s rear door swung open. Roger emerged, dragging a laundry bag.

  So he does have a load to wash, she thought. Not that it made any difference. The man was clearly disturbed, a defective individual. Roger rounded the corner of the adjacent house and was lost to sight.

  Lisa went into the liv
ing room and looked at the number she’d written on the piece of paper taped beside the telephone. She called the managers, a married couple who lived in the house above the laundry room. She got it wrong on the first attempt and had to dial again.

  Joanne, the female half of the managerial team, answered the phone and Lisa identified herself.

  “Right,” said Joanne. “You’re in number ten. What can I do for you?”

  Lisa hesitated, then gave the woman an abbreviated account of her encounters with Roger, leaving out most of the things he’d said that she didn’t want to repeat. It was still enough to kindle concern in Joanne’s voice.

  “You might be interested in knowing,” the manager said, “that you’re the second complaint. I heard from the tenant in number two. Our studly friend gave her a come-on too. Nothing as jerk-off as his thing with you, but it was still scummy enough for her to mention it to me.” She hesitated. “I only talked to the guy a little when he first came to look at the apartment. He seemed harmless enough then.”

  Lisa said nothing.

  Joanne volunteered, “Listen, if you’re really upset tonight, you’re welcome to come over here. Joe and I have a couch you can use. You won’t have to worry about that guy sneaking around your place.”

  Lisa considered it. “No,” she finally said. “Thank you very much, but no. I’d have to go home sometime. Anyhow, I’m probably just overreacting. I’ll go ahead and stay here tonight and keep my door double-locked.”

  “You’re sure? Really, it’s no problem if you want to come over.”

  “Thanks again, Joanne. I’m sure.” No, she wasn’t sure, but she wasn’t going to admit it. If she were going to be on her own in the city, then she’d just have to learn to cope. Breaking free. That’s what she had come here for. Roger G. Cross wasn’t going to spoil it for her.