by Ed McBain
I kept watching the shadows on the window shades, and then there was a shadow that wasn’t a shadow. The window shade was up, and the girl stood before it. She was a tall girl, a dusky mulatto, with a slim, supple body, and a silk dress that tightened over the thrust of her breasts, flattened over the hard smoothness of her belly.
She reached down for the hem of her dress, and then pulled it over her head, and I leaned forward a little and watched her. The window was on the second floor, and I could see into it with no trouble at all. I lay in the darkness and watched, and I knew she couldn’t see me, and that made me feel fine, like she was stripping down just for me and me alone.
She wore a pink slip, and the dusky tones of her body were soft against the silk. She pulled the slip over her head, and I watched her. She came to the window, and stood there for a long time, her breasts heaving tightly every time she sucked in a breath of air. She looked straight at me, straight down into the darkness, her eyes right on me. I closed my own eyes so that the whites wouldn’t show in the darkness, and when I opened them, the shade had been drawn, and there was only her shadow there.
I was sweating again, and that bitch up there had made me keenly aware of the needle off in the corner. I tried to get out of the sewer. I squeezed my leg up until the swelling caught tight between the bars, and then I threw myself face down on the concrete.
I reached out with my arm and my hand, grasping for the deck of heroin. I could see the packet, could almost taste the sugar-cut white powder in that packet, could almost feel it flowing through my veins. But I couldn’t touch it. My fingers scrabbled at the concrete, but I couldn’t reach it, and I began to curse under my breath, and then I shoved back against the wall again, exhausted.
I lay there breathing hard, looking up at the drawn shade where the bitch had stripped. I wondered if she saw me, and then I wondered why she stripped in front of an open window, and I made a note to look her up once I got out of this.
When the basement door opened, I was still thinking of the broad. I heard the hinges creak, and fear spit and crackled up into my skull. There was a light behind the big man who stood in the doorway. He had broad shoulders and a massive chest, and his fists were clenched. He didn’t hesitate at all. He closed the door behind him, and then walked right to where I was caught in the sewer.
“Hello,” he said.
“Hello,” I told him.
“You stuck here, huh?” he asked. “Junie saw you from the window. She says you were stuck here.”
His face was a pale white in the darkness, his eyes blue, a thatch of red hair covering his head.
“You can’t move, huh?” he said, and there was a smile on his face now, and I didn’t like the smile or the tight way his eyes crinkled.
“Look,” I said, “will you call a friend of mine? Apartment …”
“Maybe I should call the cops,” he said, still smiling.
“No,” I said quickly, hoarsely. “No, not the cops.”
“You in trouble?”
“No. But no cops.”
He smiled and reached down, cuffing me across the face.
“Hey, what the hell …”
“Shut up, kid. Shut up or you’ll get more.”
“Well, what’s the idea …”
“Just shut up.” He pulled my head back and slammed me down against the concrete, and then he began going through my pockets.
“Hey …”
“Shut up!” he said, slapping me again. “Where’s your money?”
“I got none.”
“Where is it, jerk?”
“What is this, a roll job? You got the wrong number, Mac. You …”
“How’d you get down here?”
“I jumped.”
“Why?”
“I—never mind.”
“You lose something down here?” He looked at me steadily, sore because I wasn’t carrying any gelt. “Is that it? You lose something valuable down here?”
I didn’t answer.
“So that’s it, huh? Well now, let’s see.” He began roaming around the courtyard, looking over the concrete. I watched him, and I watched the syringe off in the corner, and I hoped he wouldn’t find it. He edged over the concrete, and then he spotted the gleaming metal, and he said, “Well now. Well now. A goddamn hophead.”
He picked up the syringe and held it on the palm of his hand, the needle sharp and pointed. “This what you come down after, Hoppy? This it?”
“Give me that syringe,” I said tightly.
He laughed, and then said, “You got what goes with it?”
“No,” I said shakily.
“That’s down here, too, huh? Dumped it down here, huh? That’s why you don’t want the cops, huh?” He started looking around on the concrete again, and it was just a few seconds before he found the deck. “Well, well,” he said. “Maybe this ain’t such a bust after all. What’ll this bring me? Five, ten?”
“Look,” I said, “let me have it, huh? I—I need it, believe me. I really need it. I’ll—I’ll pay for it. I’ll—I’ll do anything.”
“You need it, huh? You an addict, kid?”
“Hell, no,” I said irritably.
“Then why you need it?”
“I just …”
“I’m going to peddle this snow,” he said. “Then me and Junie can take in a show. You like Junie, kid? She tells me you peeped her stripping.”
“Look mister, please. Let me have that stuff and I’ll …”
“Shut up!” he snapped. He took the syringe and brought it over to the brick wall, and then he stabbed at the brick with the needle, bending it, twisting it.
“Don’t,” I pleaded. “Don’t! You’re …”
He finished mangling the needle, and then he threw the syringe against the far wall of the courtyard, and I heard the glass shatter when it hit.
“Now I sell this,” he said. “You know a hophead can use it?”
“You bastard,” I said. “You dirty, rotten, filthy sonofabitch bast …”
He kicked me then, and I fell back against the concrete, still swearing at him. He walked to the basement door, and light flooded the courtyard for an instant, and then the door slammed shut harshly, and he was gone with my heroin, and my syringe lay in a million pieces across the yard.
I began to cry, and when I stopped crying I began to vomit again, and I kept heaving dryly until sunlight splashed into the courtyard again, and that was when Annie found me.
They had to saw the bars to get me out of the sewer, and the doctor put the leg in a splint and gave me a shot of something in case there was a chance of gangrene. When he was gone, I lay on the bed and watched Annie in her blue woolen dress, and I thought again of the red-headed guy and his broad Junie, and I wondered what luck he’d had selling the heroin.
He didn’t seem to matter much now. Nothing seemed to matter a hell of a lot. Because Annie was holding a spoon in her hand, and the spoon was piled high with heroin, and the match under the spoon curled a small yellow flame, mixing the H with water.
“You been through something, Joey,” she said.
“Ain’t it the truth?” I told her, and I watched the pile of H dissolve, and I wet my lips. She pushed the air out of the syringe, and then loaded it, and I watched the milky white junk nudge the graduated marks on the glass cylinder.
“You want this, baby?” Annie asked.
“Do I want breathing?”
“Man,” she said, “you’re really hooked. Clear through the bag.”
“Who me?” I said. “I can take it or leave it alone.”
“After what you’ve been through, you should hate this stuff. You should want to spit on it whenever you see it. You’re hooked, brother.”
“Not me,” I said. “I can ditch it whenever I get the urge.”
“Why don’t you, then?”
“What for?” I said. “What’s the harm? Hey, you going to give me that?”
She brought the loaded syringe to the bed, and she sho
t me up the way only Annie knows how to shoot somebody up, booting the drug into my vein until I thought my eyes would pop. I forgot all about the busted leg, and I forgot all about the courtyard. I thought only of the H pouring into those big fat veins, and all the while I was glad I wasn’t really hooked because a guy with a habit is just nowhere.
And when I started nodding, I was already figuring where I could get the next fix, and wondering if Harry the Horse would be ripe for another score.
THE FOLLOWER
The teen-ager followed her home again that night.
She caught a quick glimpse of him as she stepped off the bus, and when she turned her head to look behind her, he ducked into the heavy shadows of the big oak on the corner, a tall young man with wide shoulders and narrow hips.
It was still not dark at this hour of the evening, but autumn was rapidly drawing to a close and she knew darkness would come earlier in the next few weeks. She walked fast in the gathering dusk, listening to the small click of her heels against the pavement, hearing the boy’s footsteps behind her like an echoing whisper. It was five blocks to her house from the bus stop, five lonely blocks of weed-grown lots, of immense trees which cast huge pockets of shadow.
Tonight, she almost ran the last two blocks, listening to the padded footsteps speeding up behind her as she quickened her pace.
She threw open the door, slammed it shut when she was inside, and then leaned her back against it, the palms of her hands moist. A shudder trickled down her spine like a cold drop of water. She felt the reassuring sturdiness of the door behind her, sighed deeply, and walked into the living room.
“That you, Ella?” Bob called from the den.
“Yes, darling.” She draped her topcoat over the arm of a chair, dropped her gloves and purse onto the seat. She stopped before the long mirror over the couch, fluffed her hair, and then walked into the den.
Bob looked up from his desk, and she walked to him and kissed him lightly on the cheek.
“Hey now, that’s a hell of a greeting for a man,” he complained.
He pulled her down onto his lap, kissed her on the mouth, and then pulled away and looked at her curiously. “Something wrong, hon?” he asked.
“No, nothing,” she said quickly. She watched his brows pull together into a pucker, shading the intense blue of his eyes. “Well, yes, Bob, there is something. I … you’ll think I’m foolish, but …”
“The Shadow again?”
She stood up abruptly. “Don’t joke about it, Bob!”
“I’m sorry, Ella. What happened this time?”
“He—he was there again.”
“At the bus stop?”
“Yes.”
“And?”
“He followed me again. He—he was right behind me all the way.”
“All the way to the house?”
“Yes.”
Bob shoved his chair back and swung his legs from beneath the desk. He walked past Ella and into the living room. He stood near the window then, spreading the slats of the blind apart with his fingers. Ella watched him nervously.
“I don’t see anyone out there,” he said over his shoulder.
“You don’t expect him to stand out there all night, do you?”
Bob sighed deeply, releasing the slats. “No, I suppose not.”
“Bob, we’ve got to do something about him. It’ll be getting dark early in the next few weeks and I’m—I’m afraid of what he might do.”
“Ella,” Bob said, “don’t be silly, honey.”
“What’s so silly about it? I’m young and … well, fairly attractive, and—”
“You’re beautiful,” he corrected. He went to her and took both her hands in his. “Honey, I’d follow you home myself.”
“Well, then, there is a real danger, Bob. Can’t you see there is?”
“Ella, if I thought there was—” He stopped, suddenly releasing her hands. “But where is this mystery teen-ager of yours? The first night you told me about him, I rushed right out and scoured the neighborhood. There wasn’t a soul in sight, unless you want to count old Mr. Jaeger next door.”
“This isn’t Mr. Jaeger,” she said firmly. “This is a boy. He can’t be more than nineteen.”
“All right, honey,” he said earnestly, “but who is he? Where is he? I’ve met you at the bus stop three times since you claim he—”
“Claim? Don’t you believe me, Bob?”
“Of course I believe you. I shouldn’t have said ‘claim.’ What I meant was … well, each time I met you at the bus, I didn’t see anyone lurking around, or anyone who looked even mildly suspicious.”
“That doesn’t mean anything. Maybe he saw you waiting there and just went away.”
“Maybe. But the last time I met you, I got there about three seconds before the bus pulled in. He certainly wouldn’t have had enough time to spot me and high-tail it. Not unless he lives in the big apartment house near the bus stop. Honey—”
“Maybe he just wasn’t there that night. You know he’s not there every night.”
“Honey,” Bob said, “can’t you just forget him? Can’t you see it’s these stories about teen-agers in the newspapers that are upsetting—”
“How can I?” she wailed. “How can I forget him when I hear him behind me? Bob, he frightens me to death. And when I think of it getting dark soon …”
“Baby, baby,” he said gently. He took her in his arms. “Come on now, none of that. Look, as soon as it starts getting dark, I’ll meet you at the bus every night. How’s that?”
“What about your work? You have so much to do at night,” she said hesitantly.
“Never mind my work. We’ll try meeting you instead, okay? Maybe The Shadow will just—”
“You’re joking again,” she said.
“But not about meeting you. I’ll be there every night. Does that make you feel better?” He lifted her chin with his bent forefinger. “Does it?”
“Yes,” she answered in a small voice.
“Fine. Let’s eat. I’m starved.”
Winter came quickly, and with it the early darkness she had been dreading. Bob met her at the bus stop every night, and they chatted on the long five-block walk to their home.
They saw no one.
The lot-spraddled streets were deserted, and the only footfalls they heard were their own. She began to feel extremely foolish about the whole matter now, especially when Bob joked about it in his easy way. But at the same time, she could not ignore her earlier fears. Bob did not complain. He met her religiously every evening, even though he lost valuable working time which he had to make up later in the night. She thought of this often and was tempted several times to tell him to forget all about it.
But one week stretched into another, and she could not forget the young man or the furtive way he had ducked out of sight whenever she had turned to look at him. She still remembered the rasping scrape of his shoes against the pavement, and the terror that had gripped her walking the lonely stretch of streets to her house. She was still frightened, and so she didn’t ask Bob to stop meeting her.
They never spoke of her fears any more. As the weeks expanded into a month, and then two months, Bob’s meeting her became something of a ritual, an almost-courtship thing that she looked forward to each night. She almost hoped that he had forgotten exactly why he was meeting her, that he looked forward to their brisk evening walk as much as she did.
It wasn’t until January that anything happened.
Bob called her at the office one day. The sky was gray with the promise of snow, banks of foreboding clouds piled against the horizon. When she heard his voice, it relieved her melancholy mood almost instantly.
“Darling,” she said, “what a surprise!”
“Hello, honey,” he said, “how’s it going?”
“A little dreary, but otherwise fine.” She paused, wondering suddenly why he’d called. “Is anything wrong, Bob?”
“Well, no, not exactly. In fact, this may really
turn into something good.”
“What, Bob?”
“I’ve got to see the vice-president of Thomas Paul and Sons tonight. They’re thinking of taking their account to us.”
“Why, that’s wonderful!”
“Sure, if we can swing it. That’s why I called, honey.”
“Why?”
“I have to go there directly from the office. I won’t be able to meet you at the bus.”
A long silence clutched the line.
“Oh,” she said at last.
“Honey, you’re not going to get silly on me again, are you? Really, Ella, there’s nothing to be afraid of. You don’t think I’d leave you alone if there was, do you?”
“No,” she said.
“And this can be a big thing, hon, honestly. If I can work this switch, I’ll really be—”
“I know, I know,” she said quickly.
“And you don’t mind?”
“No. Of course not, Bob. You—you go ahead and do what you have to do.” She was thinking of the empty streets, the dark lots, the huge trees. “I—I’ll manage.”
“You’re sure now, hon? Just say the word and I’ll—”
“No, Bob, I’ll be all right.”
“You’re positive?”
“Yes. Yes.”
“I won’t be home too late,” he said, “but don’t hold supper for me.”
“All right.”
“Wish me luck.”
“Good luck, darling.”
“Good-by, honey.”
“’By.”
She heard a click on the line, but she held the receiver to her ear long after his voice had gone.
When she got off the bus that night, she saw the young man standing on the corner.
A stab of panic fluttered into her throat, and she started to turn, wanting to step onto the bus again. But the doors slammed shut behind her, and she moved away rapidly as the gears ground and the bus rumbled off down the street. She looked nervously toward the big apartment house across the street, saw him dodge into the shadows of the oak again. She wet her lips and started walking, praying she would meet someone.
The streets were deserted.
Her own heels clacked on the pavement, and behind her she could hear the steady scrape of the follower’s shoes. Her hands began to tremble, and she clenched them together to keep them steady. She swallowed the aching terror in her throat, and continued to walk, hearing the footsteps quicken behind her.