by Mason Cross
A tall man wearing blue coveralls came out to greet me, waving me forwards into the bay. I parked in the allocated position and turned my attention to the guy in the coveralls. He was in his mid-thirties, gym toned, thick eyebrows. There was a nametag on the left breast pocket labeling him as “Chris.” If only everyone was as easy to identify.
“What can I do you for?” Chris asked with a professional smile. I turned off the engine and got out, patting my hand on the sill in mild concern.
“She’s running a little rough,” I said. “I wondered if you could take a look under the hood?”
“You’re in luck, mister. Quiet morning, and one of my jobs just canceled.”
“My lucky day,” I agreed.
He gestured at the hood and I obliged, reaching through the window and popping the lever. Chris took a second to survey the outside of the car. The Ford Fusion was only three years old, under forty thousand miles on the clock. Ideally I would have picked a more plausible car to be having car trouble in. But then again, isn’t it the newer cars that always give you trouble?
“I’ve been doing this for twenty years,” Chris said, as though reading my mind, “and there’s always something. You’d think they would have figured everything out by now, but there’s always a design flaw in every car. Exhaust, transmission, ventilation ... always some damn thing ready to go at the wrong moment.”
“What is it that goes wrong on these?” I asked.
“I’ll tell you in a couple of minutes.”
He bent down and started examining the engine, his brow furrowed as he investigated connections and valves. Then it was like a lightbulb went on and he nodded approvingly.
“It’s your drive belt,” he said, pointing at the drive shaft, where the belt was indeed snapped.
“Simple explanation’s always the way, huh?” I said.
“I think we can deal with this right now,” he said. “You okay to wait ten minutes?”
“I have all day,” I said.
“Day off, huh?”
I nodded, although in truth every day had been a day off lately, and this was the closest I had gotten to working in quite some time.
Chris disappeared for a couple of minutes and came back with a new belt. The packaging told me it was a cheaper make than the one I had in the trunk.
“Haven’t seen you around before,” he said as he reached into the engine and pulled the old belt out. “New in town, or on vacation?”
“A little of both,” I said. He looked confused by that, but before he could question me, I carried on. “One of your customers recommended you, actually.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah. Her name’s Emily,” I said.
His expression faltered for a second and he looked back down at the engine.
“Emily huh?” He said it in the manner of one trying out the pronunciation of an exotic new name for the first time.
“Yeah, you know. She lives down at the beach. Has a little dog.”
He pretended to think about it. Snapped his fingers. “BMW 2 Series, right?”
“That’s right.”
“Man, you want to talk about trouble, that thing takes the cake. She should be signed up for frequent flyer miles. Or garage miles or whatever.”
“Sure,” I agreed, watching him carefully.
He avoided my eyes and took the new belt out of its packaging.
“So I think we’ll be able to fix you up here, Mr ...”
“Blake.”
“Mr Blake.”
“She’s had some problems lately, you know,” I said. “Not car trouble.”
Chris was wiping his hands with a rag and stopped. He met my eyes and shrugged. “Okay.”
“Somebody following her around. Watching her when she goes for a run. Sending nasty letters talking about stuff he’d like to do to her.”
Chris stared me out. I didn’t blink.
“You know what, Mr Blake?”
“What?”
He stuffed the replacement belt firmly back in its packaging. “I think I was mistaken. I don’t think I have your part in stock after all.”
“No?”
He shook his head slowly. “There’s a garage up in Galliano. Kelly’s. Reckon they’d be able to help you.”
“And what about my friend’s problem? Do you know how I can make that go away?”
He looked at me for a moment and then turned without another word, walking back to the office. I removed my jacket and tossed it on the passenger seat of the Ford. I closed the door and waited. I had known this would go one of two ways. It looked like Chris was going for the hard way.
A minute later, he reappeared, as I had known he would. He had a friend with him, as I had known he would. The friend was even taller and wider. He had a mustache and wore a denim baseball cap. The two of them approached me purposefully, the big one in the lead, Chris following in tow, now carrying a heavy wrench. All trace of good humor was gone from Chris’s face, but it looked positively welcoming in contrast to his colleague’s raspberry-toned visage.
“Who the fuck are you?”
I glanced behind me, to check if he was addressing someone else and then looked back at him.
“Excuse me?”
“You heard me.”
“I think I’d like to speak to the manager.”
The guy jutted a thumb at his chest. “I am the fuckin’ manager. And I don’t like faggots harassing my employees.”
My eyes moved from him to Chris. “Seems to me it’s your employee who’s been doing the harassment.”
Chris swung at me with the wrench. It was an awkward, stupid move, because he had to twist his body in order to make sure his boss was well out of the danger zone. I sidestepped easily and the wrench arced through the space I had been standing. The ice broken, the manager put his head down and charged for my midsection, aiming to bring me down. I caught his shoulders and brought my knee up into his face, hearing his nose break. He tripped over his feet and I let him fall past me onto the concrete floor of the workshop.
I looked up to see Chris trying for second time lucky, swinging the wrench diagonally down toward my head. There was red mist in his eyes. He had forgotten all about giving me a scare to persuade me to back off. This guy was trying to kill me now. It was a good thing he was as inept in a fight as he was covering his tracks as a stalker.
I caught the wrench with my left hand an inch before it caved in the driver’s side window, and then drove my fist into Chris’s gut. As he doubled over I twisted the wrench free of his hand, grabbed him by the shoulders and slammed him into a pile of tires. He tried to brace himself and tripped as the pile toppled and loose tires bounced across the garage.
The manager was slowly getting to his feet again. He took a step back, preparing to rush me and then his eyes darted to the wrench in my hand, giving him pause.
I waited a second and then dropped the wrench, beckoning to him. He took a step back.
I walked over to where Chris was sprawled and knelt down. I took a handful of the front of his coveralls, turning him around. His nose was bleeding and he had a dazed look on his face.
“The police are going to receive a file detailing all of your activities, along with evidence. They’ll be in touch with you soon. Hopefully that will convince you to stay away from Emily. But just in case it doesn’t, I want you to bear something in mind. If I hear about you going within a mile of her, her car or her house, I’m going to be upset.”
Chris gritted his teeth. “Go fu—”
I cut him off with a hard kick in the stomach. He folded over and gasped. I gripped the lapels of his coveralls and hauled him back up into a sitting position, keeping my voice calm.
“Just so you know, that wasn’t me upset. You want to keep going?”
Chris blinked and averted his gaze. He shook his head.
I dropped him and looked back up at the manager, who had backed even farther away.
“Thanks for your help. I’ll try the other
place.”
3
SUMMERLIN, NEVADA
The new couple had moved in next door to Sarah Blackwell on an overcast day in January. They arrived quietly, without any commotion: one day the house was empty, the next they were there. When they left three months later, it was just as suddenly.
Sarah lived at 34 West Pine Avenue. Number 32 was owned by a lawyer who, like many others around Vegas, had seen the value of his property plummet far below the balance of his mortgage after 2008. Rather than try to sell, he had moved to California and rented the place out. The previous occupants had been a noisy family of six. While Sarah had nothing against kids, she was relieved when she looked up from her computer screen on that January morning to see the new neighbors pull into the driveway in a compact sedan. No baby seats in the back. It would be nice to sit in the yard minus the screams of unruly kids, not to have to clear trikes and space hoppers off her lawn every other day. In contrast, the new couple next door seemed quiet, like they would be no trouble.
In fact, it became clear after a few days that her new neighbors were very quiet indeed. Your classic keep-themselves-to-themselves type.
That was fine by Sarah. And if it had not been for Sarah’s job, she might never have given the matter a second thought. Back when she had been a staff reporter at the Tribune, working long hours and eating on the run, she could have gone months without realizing she even had new neighbors. But the latest round of layoffs at the paper, combined with a fortuitously timed book deal, had meant she now found herself spending a great deal of her day at home. She spent a significant portion of that facing the neighbors’ house, due to the fact that the window on her study looked out onto the side of number 32. She couldn’t help notice the comings and goings of the couple next door as she worked.
Every writer has a routine, and Sarah was no different: working in the morning, from seven to eleven, then taking a walk around the neighborhood. She would eat lunch and attend to light chores in the afternoon to let things settle a little, before editing the day’s work in the evening, eight until ten. The routine was pleasant; the contrast with her old job was like night and day. If she was honest, it was a little too comfortable.
She noticed that neither of her new neighbors seemed to have a job. That was odd. West Pine Avenue was an expensive street, even after the round of foreclosures. Sarah could only afford to live there because her ex-husband had been well off and generous in the divorce settlement. Many of the households had two cars in the drive, both of which went out every morning and didn’t return until late, working to service those colossal pre-crash mortgages. A fortunate few had bought their homes in the past few years, but most of the people on the street were holdouts: defiantly refusing to cut their losses and sell their dream homes for less than they paid for them. Early mornings, grinding commutes and lots of overtime would be immutable facts of life long into the distant future for most of Sarah’s neighbors.
In her more honest moments, Sarah admitted to herself that this was part of the attraction of her morning routine. It was nice to sit in the warm with a cup of coffee, watching as the wage slaves set off for work. She had done her time at that, and she didn’t miss those days at all. It made her all the more grateful for the way she now earned her living.
Sarah barely came into contact with the worker bees, and she was fine with that. The bigger problem was the stay-at-home moms who continually tried to involve Sarah in their bake sales and community events. During the day, the neighborhood felt like one of those historical revival shows, only dedicated to the 1950s rather than Elizabethan England or the Pilgrims. They meant well, for the most part. She could tell some of them felt sorry for her, being as she was divorced and on the shelf. She smiled away the pitying glances with amusement.
But the couple at number 32 didn’t fit either of those profiles. The man never seemed to go out in the morning, and the woman had somehow resisted being involved in the bake sales. Occasionally, she would see the woman—in her thirties, slim, red shoulder-length hair, serious-looking—walk out to the car in the mid-morning and driving away, returning an hour later with groceries. The man—a little older than the woman, broad shoulders, blond hair thinning on top—would venture out in the car occasionally too, though his excursions tended to be in the evenings.
Sarah rarely saw them leave together, and when she did, the vibe she got from their body language was tension all the way. A relationship on the rocks, she guessed. They moved around each other like they had been very used to spending time with one another, being intimate, but no longer. They weren’t demonstrative about it, particularly, but it was plain as day to Sarah. Maybe her reporter’s instinct. Or maybe just her divorcee’s instinct, if there was such a thing. Aside from that, there was no overt hint that there was trouble in paradise until the night the vase broke.
It was around the beginning of March. Sarah heard a crash from across the way, like somebody had dropped a plate, or a lamp. It was warm for the time of year, and both her study window and the window of the bedroom in 32 were open. She looked away from the screen of her computer and toward the window. There was a light on in the bedroom. She could hear a voice. Too quiet to make out words, but the voice was deliberate and angry-sounding. A male voice. And then she heard a female voice, again, too quiet to make out, but the ascending tone was a question. A low murmur from the man and then the woman spoke again. And this time, Sarah thought it would have been loud enough to hear without the windows being open.
“Why the hell do I even bother, Dom? This is a bad idea, a bad fucking idea.”
“Keep your voice down.”
“I think I’m entitled to be a little pissed off here, you know?”
“It’s too late now. I could end up ...” here, the man lowered his voice.
End up what? In trouble? In jail?
Sarah couldn’t help herself. She switched off the lamp on her desk and stood up, leaning closer toward the window to hear more. Inwardly she chastised herself. She wasn’t turning into one of those people, was she? A nosy neighbor eavesdropping on every conversation. But then again, they weren’t exactly whispering.
The woman spoke again. “When this is over, we need to talk, okay?”
When what’s over? As Sarah was pondering that, the woman appeared at the bedroom window, holding the base of a broken vase in her left hand, her right already extending to slam the window shut. But she stopped halfway, looking right at Sarah.
Shit. She had switched the lamp off, but had completely forgotten about the glow from the screen, which was lighting her up like the specter at the feast.
Hurriedly, Sarah ducked out of the way and backed against the wall, wincing in embarrassment. She heard the window slam shut, and there were no more raised voices that evening.
The next morning, the words were stubbornly refusing to appear on the page as Sarah looked up at the sound of a knock at the door. Grateful for the distraction, she got up from her chair and padded barefoot down the stairs to the hallway. She stopped in her tracks when, through the glazed front door, she saw the woman with red hair from 32 waiting, holding a paper bag with something inside it. This was the first time Sarah had seen her neighbor up close. She was a little younger than she had guessed, pretty too. She wore shorts and a white blouse, and her red hair was tied back in a ponytail. There was a nervousness in her blue eyes as she peered through the glass. When she saw Sarah, she smiled awkwardly and raised the paper bag in greeting.
“Hi, I’m Rebecca,” the woman said as Sarah opened the door. “From next door?”
“Of course,” Sarah said, trying to widen her smile enough to make up for the awkwardness. “I’m Sarah.”
There was a pause.
“I, uh ... here,” Rebecca said, drawing a bottle of Sauvignon Blanc from the brown bag and presenting it to Sarah. “I just wanted to apologize about last night. If we disturbed you, I mean, with the ...”
Sarah took the bottle and thanked her. “Oh, don’t be silly. E
verybody has fights occasionally. The last few months with my husband ... well, believe me, we would have made you look like amateur night.” This wasn’t true. There had been no dramatic fights between Sarah and Edward, no broken vases. Just a gradual realization that the marriage wasn’t working.
Rebecca seemed to relax a little. “Well, I appreciate that, and it’s nice to meet you.”
She was turning to go when Sarah called after her. “Why don’t you come in?”
Rebecca glanced over in the direction of her house. From the doorway, Sarah could see the car was still in the driveway, which meant her husband was probably still home. Besides, if he had gone out on foot, she would have seen it from her window.
“Come on in,” she repeated. “It’s me who should be apologizing, I should have come over to meet you when you moved in. You know, welcome you to the neighborhood.”
Rebecca looked back at her. “Really? I didn’t think neighbors did that anymore.”
“Let’s bring it back.”
Sarah knew they were going to like each other ten minutes in, when Sarah had asked how she was finding the neighborhood, and Rebecca had responded with a question of her own, asking how Sarah got on with the Stepfords. Rebecca had put a hand over her mouth immediately and then relaxed as Sarah burst into laughter.
“You call them that too, huh?”
They had talked about Sarah’s writing, about the neighborhood, about the city, about a whole lot of things. But only occasionally did they touch on Rebecca or her husband, Dominic. Rebecca was between jobs, and Dominic was a consultant who worked from home. They didn’t know how long they would be around.
Over the next few weeks, coffee at Sarah’s house became a regular thing, every couple of days. For her part, Sarah was pleased to have a break from the routine and someone normal to talk to. She had never gotten along with the immaculately dressed businesswomen or the soccer moms who populated the rest of the street, and she suspected that even if she had made an effort, it would have been unwelcome after the divorce. Rebecca seemed to get something out of the chats too, even though she never opened up much about herself beyond the sparse details she had furnished Sarah with on that first morning. When she mentioned Dominic, it was with a very mild undercurrent of resentment that Sarah recognized from the last months of her own marriage. When Sarah asked, Rebecca admitted as much. They had met two years ago, married in haste. “But hey, no such thing as a perfect marriage, huh?” She changed the subject quickly, obviously a little uncomfortable talking about her husband.