Come Out Tonight

by Bonnie Rozanski

  “How do you know it was a boyfriend?”

  Ryan looked at me as if to say, you think I can’t distinguish between the sounds of two people having vigorous sex from a couple of girls having cupcakes at a pajama party? “The thumping up the stairs sure sounded like a man,” he said instead. “Want some tea? I was just about to make myself a cup.”

  “Sure, thanks,” I said, writing.

  Ryan went off to a kitchen on his left. I could hear that hollow sound water makes when it fills a kettle, a refrigerator door opening and closing. I walked up to the window and stared out at a fire escape running up and down the side of the building. Across the alley stood another brownstone with another fire escape. Maybe Jessica’s naked silhouette, outlined in a bright window, drew the killer to her. As I remembered, her window had been open the morning they found her. So, it could have been anyone – from the alley, from this building, from the other building - who climbed up to her window to do the deed. It could have been anyone.

  A whistling tea kettle brought me back, and I made my way into the little galley kitchen where Ryan was busy pouring water into a ceramic teapot, the scent of jasmine permeating the room. Two Channel Thirteen mugs were set out on a tray along with the teapot, cream, sugar, lemon, and two wooden coasters. The thought of a man doing all this brought back all my tantalizing thoughts of what it would be like to live with Clark Kent.

  Still, there was something about Ryan which seemed a little studied, like his apartment. On the surface, he seemed completely frank, disarming, even, but there was this niggling feeling that he wasn’t telling me everything. “You never saw him?” I asked as we sat down again.

  “The boyfriend? Never. I’m on the third floor, though, and I don’t make a practice of looking down a floor to see who’s coming in.” He paused. “You might ask Arlene.”

  I nodded. I hadn’t gotten a lot from her either. I wondered if both of them knew who this mysterious boyfriend was, but just weren’t saying. “I don’t suppose Jessica and you were ever a couple?” I tried, just for the hell of it.

  Ryan looked shocked. “No, never. I hardly knew her.”

  “Ah, yes, you did say that,” I said, taking a sip of tea. “Were you ever in her apartment?”

  “Um, maybe once. She asked if I could move her bureau. And once to help her with her computer.”

  “That would be twice, then.”

  “Yeah. You’re right. That would be twice.”

  “But you hardly knew her.”

  “Right.”

  “And you don’t know this boyfriend’s name.”

  “No.”

  “And never saw him.”

  “Never. How many times do I have to tell you that, Detective?”

  I set my half-drunk mug of tea back down onto its coaster. The interview was effectively over. I didn’t want to go back to my apartment and find Julian in my bed, but I had nothing else to ask. I thanked him and let myself out.

  HENRY

  “Anything wrong, Henry?” my doctor asked as I came into his office.

  I had already been sitting in the waiting room for more than an hour, trying to get out of range of a woman’s hacking cough, finally wedging myself into the corner as far away from her as possible, where I flipped through old copies of Field and Stream and What Diabetes Means to You until the nurse called my name. What could be wrong?

  “Not really. Just that I’m not sleeping.”

  Dr. Hirsch flipped through the folder in front of him on the desk. “I wrote you two prescriptions for Somnolux,” he said. “The first one was in April, and then your pharmacist called to renew at the end of May.”

  I nodded. “I need some more.”

  “Henry,” Dr. Hirsch said, taking his glasses off, folding them and putting them on top of the folder. “I’m afraid you’re developing a dependency. You can’t use a drug as a crutch to solve your problems.”

  “Why not?” I asked. “It works.”

  “Yes, but you’re a young man. You shouldn’t be having problems sleeping in the first place. I think you should try uncovering where the real problem lies.”

  Uh-oh, I thought. He’s not going to renew it. For a second, I panicked. I had to have it....How to convince him give it to me....

  “The real problem,” I said, suddenly leaning forward, “is that my fiancée….” Well, strictly speaking, Sherry wasn’t my fiancée, but the guy from Vandenberg said she was in love with me, so I figured we could be pretty sure she would have been soon. “My fiancée,” I continued, “is in a coma....” Again, strictly speaking, Sherry was in a persistent vegetative state, but it was a matter of giving him the gist of the thing. “My fiancée is in a coma, because she was hit on the head with a heavy object, and she suffered brain damage.” All true.

  Dr. Hirsch flinched. “Oh my,” he said. “That’s terrible.” He took one more look at me across the desk, put his glasses back on and started writing the prescription. “Okay,” he said, writing, “I’m giving you this for thirty more days. I certainly hope that your fiancée will come out of her coma before then, but in the unfortunate circumstance that she does not, I want you to find someone to talk to - a psychiatrist if necessary - to resolve your sleeping problem without the further use of drugs.”

  “Yessir,” I said.

  “You know, these new generation sleep drugs are pretty marvelous things, but they do have side effects, Henry. Have you noticed any side effects yourself?”

  “Nope,” I said. “With Somnolux, I sleep like a baby.”

  “No cookie crumbs, missing food, open refrigerators?”

  “Nope. Why would I find that?”

  “You haven’t heard of people getting up in the night, eating high calorie foods with no memory of having done it?”

  Well, I never did find that missing box of Wheat Chex, but it had to be in the back of the cabinet somewhere. “Nope,” I said.

  “Any sleepwalking?” he asked.

  “Not that I’m aware of, anyway.”

  “Getting in your car and driving away while asleep?”

  “I don’t have a car.”

  “Memory problems?”

  Well, that one rang a bell. Just the other morning I woke up and found a strange woman in my bed. Apparently, if I were to believe her, we had met at a bar and come back and had lots of rough and kinky sex. Too bad I couldn’t remember a thing about it. “No,” I said.

  “Okay, then,” Dr. Hirsch said, handing me the prescription. “I’m sorry about your fiancée, but this is absolutely the last time.”

  “I really appreciate it, Doctor,” I said.

  I walked slowly out of the office, down the hall to the elevator, went down five flights to the lobby, and then ran the rest of the way back to Duane Reade. Rounding the pharmacy counter I handed the prescription to Carl. “I need this by tonight.”

  Carl looked up. “Again?” he said.

  “Doctor’s orders.”

  “Okey dokey,” Carl said.

  * * *

  After work, I stopped by at Food Emporium and picked up half a barbequed chicken and a batard bread. I carried them home, planning on eating dinner in front of the TV, watching something dumb like American Idol. I got into an old T-shirt and sweat pants, turned on the TV and picked up the bag of chicken. But it just wasn’t doing it for me. I mean the chicken was okay, but I felt lonely. I considered going to see Sherry, but didn’t feel up to it. I thought of the girl in my bed Tuesday morning, but didn’t have a clue how to get a hold of her. She just up and left when I asked her where the hell she had come from.

  It was then that I thought of Heather Kuznitz. I hadn’t seen her for a couple of months, but I had had the sense to copy the number on my hand to the bottom of my mouse pad before it wore off entirely. I turned the mouse pad over and stared at the number a few minutes before I dialed.

  The phone rang three times before the voice message came on with a crazy laugh. “Hi, this is Heather Kuznitz. If you’re not talking to me right now it mu
st mean that I’m either not here or I don’t want to talk to you. So, leave your message at the tone, and maybe I’ll get back to you.” More laughter, then the tone.

  “Hi, Heather,” I said. This is Henry. Um, you know, the guy in the Duane Reade where you picked up your birth control pills. Uh, sorry, maybe I shouldn’t have said that. Um, in case you don’t remember, I’m the, uh, guy you called Edward.... But my name’s Henry. I’d....”

  Suddenly, I heard the phone being lifted, then dropped, then picked up again, and Heather’s voice came on. “Edward!”

  “Uh, no. Really my name’s...”

  “I knew you’d call! I knew you would! I was just going out, but screw him, where do you want to meet?”

  “Um, well...”

  “There’s this little bar on 61st and 2nd, called Barry’s. How about I meet you there in an hour?”

  I took a good look at myself before answering. Sweats, holding a bag of chicken. Was I really ready for this? “Uh, sure. An hour. 61st and 2nd.”

  “Terrif!” she shouted into the phone. See ya, Edward!”

  “I told you my name isn’t...” I said, but the line clicked off.

  I decided to eat my dinner anyway. My mother was always reminding me not to drink on an empty stomach, so I wolfed down most of the bread and the chicken, throwing what was left in the garbage. I took a shower and blew dry my hair, trying to get it to look like I hadn’t done it at all. Then I spent twenty minutes trying to find exactly the right thing to wear that looked like I had just thrown it on. I was going to take a cross town bus and then the Lexington line to 59th, but I only had twenty minutes, so I flagged down a cab and told the cabbie to get me to 61st and 2nd ASAP. He gave me this look like, I’m a New York cabbie, you don’t have to tell me ASAP, stepped on the gas and took off. We were there in fifteen minutes, $9.25 on the dial, me plastered to the back of the seat. I gave him a ten and told him to keep the change.

  He looked up at me from the bill. “Gimme a break, willya?”

  I stepped out onto the curb. The fluorescent sign spelled “Barry’s” in cutesy cursive, with “BAR” in caps. There were a couple of people hanging out in front, dragging on cigarettes they weren’t allowed to smoke inside. Voices and laughter spilled out of the dark doorway. Inside was pitch-black except for the bar, which was all lit up, the mirror in back of a wall of bottles reflecting back the glare and ruckus. I stepped inside, and was waiting till my eyes adjusted, when suddenly someone reached up, pulled my head down and kissed me smack on the lips. I looked up to see Heather, in an outfit that pretty much bared everything.

  “Edward,” she shrieked.

  “It’s Henry,” I said.

  “Okay. Whatever makes you happy, honey,” she said and laughed, pulling me deeper into the dark, to a table with a guy and a girl. “Hey,” they said.

  I was still just standing there, not knowing what to do with myself. “Sit,” Heather said, pushing me down in the chair. “This is the guy I was telling you about,” Heather said to her friends.

  “Him?” said the girl, spitting up her drink.

  Heather sat down on my lap. “Want to get us some drinks, honey?” she said, deciding, I guess, to call me honey and avoid the whole name thing.

  “Sure,” I said. “What can I get you?”

  I think she said an apple martini, but I couldn’t be sure with all that din. It was either apple martini or absinthe martini. I had heard of an absinthe martini, but it wasn’t exactly mainstream, and this place looked mainstream - almost stereotypical New York hot spot - so dark, crowded, and happening that I figured my chances were better with apple. In any case, I wasn’t going to ask again; it was way too uncool, so I just nodded, slid out of from under her and threaded my way to the bar.

  “Two apple martinis,” I said to the bald guy in back of the bar.

  “Apple or absinthe?” he shouted.

  “Apple,” I shouted back.

  “Vodka or gin?”

  “What?”

  “Vodka or gin?”

  “Vodka,” I yelled.

  “Absolut, Ketel One, Grey Goose?”

  I leaned over the cool, polished bar. Now I could see, lined up in front of the mirror, at least ten different vodkas. “What do you recommend?”

  “Ketel One has a good clean taste,” the bartender shouted. “Goes great with apple.”

  “Great, then. Ketel One.”

  I watched him mix apple juice and schnapps in with half a bottle of vodka, and shake it up. Then he poured it out into two basins on stems. “Twenty-five,” the bartender said.

  In the din I decided I must have heard him wrong.

  “How much?” I yelled.

  “Twenty-five.”

  “Dollars?”

  The bartender was getting testy. “What else d’ya think? Rubles?”

  I peeled off a twenty and a five. “Keep the change,” I said, taking off with the martinis.

  “Hey, what change?” the bartender yelled after me.

  I threaded my way back, a basin in each hand, to the table where Heather and her friends were sitting. “Two apple martinis,” I said, setting them down.

  “I wanted an absinthe martini,” Heather said, but took it anyway, taking a long slurp.

  Heather’s girlfriend stared at the martini lustfully. “I want one of those,” she told her date.

  “What are they?” he asked me.

  “Apple martinis.”

  “Yeah,” the girl said. “Go get me one.”

  “Okay, okay,” said her date, pushing his chair out.

  “They’re twelve-fifty a drink,” I shouted after him.

  Meanwhile, Heather was guzzling hers. Her friend pushed her empty glass away and leaned over the table to me. “You seem like a nice guy,” she said.

  “Hey Kimberly,” Heather said, plunking down her glass, splashing the drink.

  “Hey yourself,” she said to Heather. Then, back to me, “From what Heather told me about you, I thought you were going to be Russell Crowe on steroids.”

  “Russell Crowe?” I asked, not quite getting her gist.

  “You know, Gladiator? Master and Commander? Macho, hot dude?

  I didn’t know whether it was the gallon of martini I had been drinking or whether she meant me. “You mean you thought I was some macho, hot dude?”

  “Well, yeah, Heather was going on about you like...”

  “Shut up, Kimberly,” Heather said. “You’ve got a big mouth.”

  “Okay,” Kimberly shrugged. “I only...”

  “Just shut up.”

  Just then Kimberly’s date came back with a couple of basins for the two of them. “Twelve-fifty apiece,” he grumbled, setting them down.

  “I warned you,” I told him.

  So there we were, sipping bottomless martinis. There was hardly any point in talking against a background of Metallica, laughter, voices and general din. I mean, you go on a first date to these places because they’re so cool, and the music’s cool, and the people are cool, but then the noise is so loud that you can’t talk without screaming. Sherry used to hate these places.

  “So what do you think about that babe who got knocked off in her West Side apartment?” Kimberly’s date shouted.

  “Knocked off?” I yelled.

  “Yeah. Two days ago,” Heather said. “She was strangled.”

  “Strangled?” Kimberly shouted. “That’s terrible.”

  “Where on the West Side?” I yelled.

  “Nineties,” her date said.

  “Any clues as to who it was?” I yelled.

  “Not really. Except that the lock wasn’t forced.”

  “So she knew the murderer...”

  “Well, maybe, but...”

  “The police said that the window was open over the fire escape,” Heather yelled.

  At that, I took one long drink of my martini. “Is it hot in here?” I asked.

  “You’re not looking so good, honey,” Heather said, putting a hand to my brow. “
Too much martini?”

  “I’m okay,” I said, but the truth was, I felt like I was going to throw up all that martini, and I better get outside if I was going to do it.

  Heather gave me a nudge and a wink and said maybe she could use some air herself.

  “Sure,” I said, pushing my chair out, holding onto the table as I tried to stand up.

  Heather laughed. “She stood up, weaved, and laughed again. The two of us staggered out. The moment I hit the air, I felt better.

  “You okay now?” she asked.

  I wasn’t. I was still obsessing over the guy who knocked off the babe on the West Side. So, I told Heather the whole sad story of Sherry and the open window, whether she wanted to hear it or not. How I was there, but never heard a thing. How I could have fought off the guy - how I should have fought off the guy - but I was a jerk, sleeping through the whole thing. How she was alive, but in a vegetative state. Still in a vegetative state all these months. Poor Sherry.

  “Wow,” Heather said. “That why you didn’t call me?”

  Meanwhile, I was wondering out loud whether maybe, maybe, the guy who strangled this girl was the same guy who attacked Sherry. Well, by now, Heather was hanging all over me, trying, I think, to get me to stop talking about my old girl friend and to focus on my new one. But it wasn’t working. I kept talking, talking till the effects of all the regrets, the martini, and the fumes from all the evicted smokers got to me, and I had to lean up against a lamp post.

  “C’mon, honey,” Heather said. “My place is one...two...hell I don’t know how many blocks it is, but it’s right over there,” she said, pointing somewhere across town. We stumbled down 2nd for a block, then west on 63rd for another two.

  She stopped at a brownstone. Drunk as we still were, we managed to climb the steps to the front door. She fumbled in her bag for a long time before coming up with four keys on a Mickey Mouse chain. “Big one with the red thingee on it,” she said. You open it, Sweetie.”

  I stuck the key in the lock and opened it. “Which floor?” I asked.