by Adam Vine
It wasn’t.
The Polaroid showed Bea lying naked on her bed, writhing with both hands between her legs. There was a pillow under her butt and her pajama pants and panties were pulled down around her ankles. Her hands slid in and out of the soft, black mess of her pubic hair as she rubbed herself with her fingertips. Her eyes were shut tight and her mouth opened and closed, making little gasps. A gentle flush of red tinged her cheeks, seeping down between her collarbones.
WAIIIIIIIIIT a minute. What the fuck? But I was too turned on to stop and put the picture down.
She was so much better than I’d imagined. The soft coffee and cream color of her skin, the curly obsidian hair where her hands trembled and flicked and played, the deep brown wrinkles of her nipples, the rhythmic rolling of her hips as she got closer and closer to where she was going.
I wanted so badly to be the one who got her there. I got the overwhelming urge to touch myself, too, but I didn’t. As strong as my desire was the guilt gnawing in my stomach that I was seeing it at all.
Bea had told me not even twelve hours earlier that her worst fear was exactly what I was doing, watching her in a private moment without her permission.
I loved Bea. And, I held no illusions that I loved her in an extremely selfish, unhealthy way. There was no denying that. But she was also my friend. My toes were already crossing the line between being a good friend and a bad one. I didn’t think I could take the full step over to betraying her. If I was capable of that, what else was I capable of? That was a question I didn’t want to know the answer to.
And yet, I couldn’t look away. The pictures wanted me to see her. It wasn’t as if I crept outside the co-op house and looked in her window. I didn’t have a choice. Something – someone – wanted me to see Bea masturbating. I didn’t choose what the pictures showed. The pictures chose me.
They chose me.
A knock echoed from the front door.
***
“Man, chu guys have done a lotta damage to this house,” Alfonso said, rubbing a place in the front hall where Carter had half-patched a hole in the drywall after drunkenly head-butting it a month earlier.
Alfonso knelt down to pick at the chipped plaster, letting out a heavy sigh. I couldn’t tell if it was because he was disappointed, or because of the great physical labor it took to lower his formidable gut down to a wrestler’s stance then back up again. “A lotta damage. Wow.”
“Uh, sir,” I began.
“I don’t like when students damage my property. And please, none of these sirs. I am Alfonso.”
“Alfonso,” I said, “The girls who lived here before us trashed this place. Remember? You said those exact words when we moved in.”
The fat Columbian man folded his arms defensively over his chest. They rested on top of his gut, a perfect shelf. “So chu think someone has been sleeping under chur house without paying rent, and it may be the same person who es stalking chur friend.”
“Beatriz. Yeah. We found some really strange pictures in the basement a few days ago. The pictures showed human bones buried in the storage area. It looked like an unmarked grave. Then, we found the sleeping bag, some guy followed Bea home from the store, and we almost got burglarized, but the guy ran away. There is no doubt in my mind that it’s related.”
“Es certainly possible,” Alfonso said, nodding. “If someone es trespassing here, and following Bea on the same day, yes, es probably the same person. But chu did not tell me about any strange pictures. Or bones.”
“They belonged to a group of students who lived here in 1993,” I said.
Alfonso rubbed his belly, barely contained by a starched white dress shirt and black slacks two sizes too small, his suspenders stretched nearly to the point of breaking. He took out a red silk handkerchief with a fleur-de-lis pattern and dabbed at the pools of sweat gathering on his forehead. “I think these pictures were probably a prank. I would be the first to hear about it, before even the police. But, come with me to the basement. I want to see this camp.”
Natalia, a very hung-over Carter, Jay, Popeye, and I went downstairs with Alfonso to the garage, stopping in front of the basement door, where Alfonso gave us a look somewhere between disappointment and disdain.
I didn’t realize until I followed his eye-line to the scored, splintered wood under the Hobbit door’s latch, where the lurker had tried to force his way in, that he thought we were responsible for the damage.
“That was the burglar,” I said. “I told you. We caught him trying to break in under the house.”
“I was outside on the deck smoking a cigarette. Sounded like he was trying to kick the door down,” Jay said, scratching Popeye behind the ears.
“Who are chu?” Alfonso said.
“Oh, I’m Drew’s friend. I’m visiting.”
Alfonso stared until Jay stopped talking and slunk back to the rear of the group. He turned his gaze expectantly to Natalia and Carter.
“We were asleep,” Natalia said.
And Carter, “Out cold, but we heard all about it this morning. Jay here is tellin' the truth.”
Alfonso dabbed more sweat off his forehead. “What did the police say?”
“They wrote us off the first time we called,” I said. “But after we caught the guy trying to break in, Bea chased him down and ripped off his sweatshirt before he got away. I guess that was enough evidence to convince them we weren’t making it all up. The officer said he’d get back to us today, but we haven’t heard from him yet.”
“The police department here es very understaffed,” Alfonso said.
He crouched into his wrestler’s stance again to more closely assess the damage to the knob. Another heavy sigh and heave. He rose. “The whole door will need to be replaced.” Seeing the looks on our faces, Alfonso said, “Don’t worry. It won’t come out of chur deposit.”
“Good,” Natalia said.
“Babe,” Carter put a hand on her back.
“This door used to be hidden behind a piano,” Alfonso said, recalling the shape of the obstacle with his hands. “I didn’t want students going under the house, for insurance reasons. Benny the Piano Man helped me move it. Weird guy. That was twenty years ago.”
Benny the Piano Man? So he does remember them. “Where is it now?” I said.
Alfonso shrugged. “Who knows? Drug off somewhere, maybe they took it with them. I haven’t been down here in years.”
“Maybe you should’ve,” Natalia said.
“Babe,” Carter said. Natalia shrugged.
Alfonso chuckled and dabbed more sweat. “Miss. Please. My tenants have never complained about this basement before. Chu are the first ones. Shall we take a look?”
***
We stood around the hole, watching Alfonso examine the sleeping bag and the Coleman lantern in the dust-stricken beams of our flashlights. More sweat was dabbed. At last, our landlord rose and said, “I think this was a homeless person. There es old urine there. Chu can smell it.”
He pointed to the back wall, where I’d dreamed of the hidden staircase.
I don’t smell anything other than wet dirt.
“Somehow, they wandered up from downtown, found this place, realized these students don’t lock their basement door, and found a new place to sleep.”
“We already considered that,” I said.
“Drew, there es foot traffic in the garage, people coming and going. There es none down here,” Alfonso said.
Natalia folded her arms. “Really? A homeless person? What if it’s a serial killer?”
Alfonso dabbed his face a final time and shoved the handkerchief in his pocket. “I find all of this just as disturbing as chu do. Chur space es being violated. I will understand if the four of chu want to terminate chur lease early. But what advice can I give? Lock all the doors and windows when chu are not home. Report any suspicious activity to the police. Other than that…”
“We don’t want to move out,” Carter interrupted.
“I do,” Natalia
said.
“Baby…”
Alfonso waved Carter silent and checked his pocket planner. “Natalia, call me on Monday, and we can discuss it. As for the rest of chu guys: let’s not worry about these bones and pictures. This was a hoax, a time capsule left for someone else to find, to make a scary story. As I recall, this group from 1993 played many such pranks on each other. Nobody was safe,” he chuckled.
It was my turn to be skeptical and rest my folded hands on the shelf of my gut. “Those bones looked real. Is it even slightly possible there could have been someone buried here, and it wasn’t reported?”
Alfonso shrugged. “Of course. But there es no reason to believe this.”
I put on my lawyer voice. “Beatriz told us there’s a tomb under the co-op you manage down the street. She said the co-op house was built on top of a cemetery, that the land was auctioned by the city, but the graves never got moved. Could some of those old graves be under our house, too?”
Alfonso scoffed. “No. This es only an urban legend. The land used to belong to the church, true, over one hundred years ago. But it was never a graveyard. Now, if that es all, I have a lot of meetings today and need to get going.”
“Is. It. Possible?” I said.
Nostalgia drew his eyes to the darkest purlieus of the basement. “Chu know, I remember those students quite well. They were the first students I ever rented to. I was young, and much closer with them than I am with my tenants now. I used to come to their parties. Can chu guys imagine that? Me, partying at this house?”
Not really, I thought. You’d probably be dead.
“They were very funny, that group – endless practical jokes. They tried to trick me once, with a dead rat in the basement, but I knew it was made of plastic because there was no smell. Chu can’t trick Alfonso.”
The fat Columbian’s eyes tracked back into the light, to us. He raised both eyebrows. “Very, very funny people, those guys. One of them still lives on this street.”
Carter, Jay, Natalia, and I all exchanged a look of unease. “Who?” The four of us said.
“Benny DeLucio, the Piano Man.”
Mr. DeLucio is the Piano Man? Mr. Fucking DeLucio used to live at Sunny Hill. Those were his pictures buried not five feet from where we’re standing. That’s his sleeping bag. The Piano Man, AKA the basement lurk, AKA Bea’s stalker, lives next-door.
I was furious at myself for dismissing him as a suspect. Who else would be creeping around our house late at night, opening the blinds to get a better look inside, trying to break into our basement when he knew we were all drunk, and Carter was passed out cold?
I’m going to kill that creep.
I put my poker face on, hoping it was a better one than I had worn in front of Officer Skoakland. “Mr. DeLucio lived here? At Sunny Hill?”
Alfonso spoke like they were old friends. “Yes, of course! Benny moved to San Francisco after graduation, and was very successful in computers. He decided to buy property here. I sold him his house.”
Jay nudged me hard in the ribs. I gave him a nod when I was sure Alfonso wasn’t looking.
Alfonso turned as if to leave. “I’m sure this will work itself out.” He looked around the basement a final time, touching the handle of the rusty garden shears leaning against the wall. “Lots of junk down here. Someone should clean this place out. I don’t have time. I’m a very busy man.”
He hesitated a moment, then turned back to us. “I will tell you a story. I have two teenage girls, fifteen and sixteen. Chu know what they said to me this past weekend? They said, dad, we want to go to a slumber party. Of course, I put my foot down and said no. They asked me why. They said I would let them go if they were boys. And I said yes, because boys don’t get pregnant.”
Alfonso grinned at his own cleverness.
***
Carter, Natalia, Jay, and I stood on the sun deck. It was a windy day, and up the hill at 1010 Sunny Hill Drive, Mr. DeLucio’s shutters were closed. The redwoods surrounding our backyard snapped and leaned. Fruit fell from the trees in the orchard with every palliative gust.
If the Piano Man tried eavesdropping on us, he wouldn’t hear a thing.
“He was in our house last night,” I said.
Talia frowned and buried her head in Carter’s chest.
“While I was passed out?” Carter said.
“Before, while we were smoking in the living room. During the Housecleaning. He came in and opened all the blinds. He’s the one who’s been camping out in our basement.”
Natalia shivered. Carter stroked her hair.
Jay said, “How can you…”
I cut him off. “Wait. There’s one more thing. I’m pretty sure I saw someone looking in my window last night. It’s possible I may have been having a night terror or something, but I doubt it, especially with the blinds and everything else. I think that’s what he does. Goes down there and listens to us while we’re awake, then watches us while we’re asleep.”
Popeye whined.
“Why?” Jay said.
“Because he can’t let go of the past,” I said.
Carter punched his own fist. “Man, this is some bullshit.”
Talia started to cry.
“Shh, shh,” Carter told her, hugging her closer and glaring up the hill at the side of Mr. DeLucio’s house. “Everything’s gonna be fine, baby. We gonna get this asshole.”
“Yes we are,” Jay said. “I vote we do it right now. Walk in his house with my shotgun and an iPhone pointed at him, get a confession, and send his ass to jail.”
Popeye agreed with a yip.
“If we force a confession out of him, it won’t be admissible in court. We don’t have solid proof he’s involved. If we threaten him, we’ll be the ones going to jail,” I said.
“Thanks, Thunder. I was worried Cowboy over here was about to storm the castle,” Carter said.
“You wanna be my trusty stallion?” Jay said.
Natalia wrung her hands, ignoring them both. She wiped the tears from her eyes and said, “It’s not funny. Drew’s right. Was it him? Probably. But that’s not going to cut it. We need to be smart.”
“I think my plan is pretty smart,” Jay said.
And Natalia, “You’re the only one.”
That’s the first time she’s ever acknowledged I was right about something, instead of putting me down, I realized. It felt pretty damn good.
I scratched my belly and said, “What if we provoke him?” I was met with blank stares. “Think about it. We’ve got plenty of evidence. Maybe not enough to get him sent to prison – yet – but enough to know beyond a reasonable doubt that it was him.”
The stares grew interested.
“Let’s unpack it,” I continued. “We know Mr. DeLucio was the photographer who took those pictures back in 1993, because those were the Piano Man’s pictures. We can therefore speculate he is also the one who breaks into our basement to look at them, and listen to us all having sex.” I almost said you guys having sex, but caught myself at the last second.
“The hell you talkin’ about, Thunder? You think he listens to us bang?” Carter said.
“Why else would he go down there? The sound carries like crazy. Bea and I heard someone boning in the kitchen when we were down under the house on New Year’s Eve. That storage area is like a sound sponge. We could hear everything.”
Jay raised a guilty hand. “I have a confession to make. That was your neighbor Megan and me.”
“Oh, gross,” Natalia said.
“What? We were hammered! I Febreezed the countertop…”
“Just stop talking.”
“Getting back on topic,” I said. “We know Mr. D started losing it when we found his pictures and took them upstairs, where he couldn’t get to them. He came over to chew us out about the noise the next day. Then he went ape-shit, and tried kicking down the basement door after I locked it.”
“Must’ve been the last straw,” Carter said.
“I gotta say, this i
s all hard to deny when you line it up back-to-front. I still vote we shoot him,” Jay said.
“He’s stalking us because he can’t let go of the past? That’s so pathetic,” Natalia said.
I shook my head, staring at the green shutters of that lonely house on the hill, the perfect vantage from which to watch us. I thought I saw one of his blinds close a little tighter.
“It’s not the past he can’t let go of,” I said, lowering my voice. “It’s someone. Someone he was obsessed with. I studied those pictures for hours. The Piano Man – that was Mr. DeLucio’s nickname back in 1993 – was only in two of those Polaroids. The two pictures he was in, he looked anxious, just like he does now, whenever he tries to talk to another human being.”
“Fuck him,” Carter said.
“Simmer down, Lightning. Whatever we do has to be above board. If we go over there without evidence, or do something in anger, he wins.”
“So what do we do?” Jay said.
“We take away what he loves. We burn the pictures, tonight, right here, where he can see us do it.”
I couldn’t believe what I was saying. I’d just discovered I had the power to watch Bea whenever I wanted: to see her naked, or having sex, or doing the day-to-day things that made her Bea. And here I was, about to give it up so I could save the day.
“Force his hand. Nice,” Jay said.
Popeye panted.
“He’s a coward,” Carter said.
“Even cowards get brave when you endanger the things they care about,” I said. “When he flips out, and I'll bet you a hundred bucks he does, and comes over to take revenge on us, we subdue him, sit his ass in the living room and wait for Officer Skoakland to bring the cavalry.”
Carter clapped slowly. Jay slapped me on the back. Natalia nodded in approval. I felt as high as the haunted starship in Event Horizon.
Jay said, “You know I’m always down for another rager.”
Natalia groaned. “Oh god, no…”
“I’ll be sitting the drinking part out, too,” Carter said, squeezing Talia’s hand. “What time you wanna start? I have something I need to do tonight at eight.”