There was just enough available light for him to see where he was going without being seen by any of the tenants in the neighboring apartment buildings. It hadn’t been particularly easy locating a building with both easy access to its roof plus an unobstructed view of Sara Hunt’s apartment. But as usual, Stanley’s patience and perseverance had paid off. He thought of how much easier it had been entering her apartment unnoticed the other night and the irony in it that made him grin. New York City, in spite of its immense population, wasn’t any safer from Stanley Jenkins that Bum-Fuck, Iowa.
Had he known before that Sara Hunt’s apartment was going to be so laughably accessible, Stanley would have devised a much simpler game plan for this mission and thereby made things much easier on himself. He would have simply chosen a night when Sara’s roommate wasn’t there with her, unlocked her apartment door with the copy of the key he’d made, then gone in and taken care of business. But that would have been too easy (and not nearly as much fun) so he’d opted to stick with his original plan of getting to know Sara a bit better before murdering her. He always enjoyed a challenge and what secret agent worth his oats didn’t? Bond had never once done things the easy way and that’s what made 007 the legend that he was.
Stanley’s eyes were trained on Sara’s apartment building as he silently approached the corner of the roof. When he stopped at the two-foot ceramic masonry wall skirting the roof, he leaned over and peered down at the view below. He could see the traffic moving south toward Spring Street and hear the occasional horn honking echoing up off the walls of the surrounding buildings. His eyes returned to Sara’s building-an ancient, ugly brownstone flanked in the foreground by two other nondescript buildings standing directly across the street from where he now stood. Sara’s apartment was on the seventh floor-two windows to the right-and even at this distance Stanley could see the lone figure of someone moving about inside the apartment. That figure, he already knew, would be Sara Hunt and Sara would be alone tonight until at least midnight since her roommate would be waiting tables at the Stardust Diner until 11:30.
Stanley unzipped the nylon backpack, took out a powerful telescope and set it aside. He removed the tripod, extended its legs, positioned it on the roof and secured the telescope to it. Peering through the eyepiece, he deliberately swung the telescope around and downward until Sara’s apartment building came into view. He carefully panned from side to side until he had a bead on her well-lit living room window. After fine-tuning the focusing knob, Stanley smiled to himself when he saw the crystal clear image come into view.
Sara Hunt was doing her nightly aerobic exercises and apparently felt secure in the fact that no one could possible be watching-she was wearing nothing but her panties. Stanley felt his pulse quicken and his mouth salivate as he stared at her gorgeous body, reveling in the notion that she was performing For His Eyes Only. At the moment, Sara was standing a few feet from the window, her left side facing toward him, her arms extended straight up into the air. Stanley observed her as she did twenty-five reps of this exercise then stopped and turned to face the window.
Sara paused for a few moments and merely stood there motionless, as if awaiting a cue of some kind. Then she suddenly began a totally different exercise. Stanley surmised that she was exercising to music and that she had just paused to wait for the beginning of the next song. As Stanley watched Sara grind her hips from side to side, his breath came in gasps. Her copious breasts were heaving and undulating to the rhythm of the music that he was unable to hear, yet could almost feel. He was all but certain that it was the Rolling Stones she was grinding to-most likely one of their more danceable tunes… Honky Tonk Woman, perhaps?
He had discovered that Sara Hunt was quite possibly the most devoted Stones fan still living judging by the extensive collection of their CDs and vinyl LP’s she had in her possession. He had never seen so many records by any one artist before in a single collective bunch, short of those found in a record store.
But Sara’s love for the Stones was just one of many things Stanley had learned about her as a result of his surveillance over the past couple of weeks. He knew that she was an actress, but not a very successful one, and that acting was by far the most important thing in her life. Her apartment was littered with dozens of copies of Backstage, The Village Voice, and other publications advertising casting calls and screen tests in the NYC theater forum, and when she wasn’t waiting tables at a Greek diner in the Village, Sara was auditioning for parts in every conceivable type of acting job available: soaps, films, commercials, Broadway and off-Broadway productions-even the occasional porno film, he had been surprised to discover. Stanley still couldn’t forget his absolute shock at finding a suspicious looking videocassette entitled Josie Loves Dick stuffed behind a stack of old magazines on a back shelf. His curiosity aroused, he had taken the time to play a quick run-through of the film on Sara’s VCR and sure enough, there was Ms. Sara Hunt portraying the gifted Josie Jobber sucking some big old stud’s prick! Watching her perform her artistry on the man had done nothing but disgust Stanley and only bolstered his desire to kill the slut all that much more.
He had wondered what Sara’s parents back in Pennsylvania would have thought of their daughter’s stellar performance when he suddenly come across several dozen letters, all unopened and apparently from her parents. Stanley had decided (perhaps without thinking, he had to admit now) to risk opening up one of the letters and reading it. The letter had been from her father, begging her to forgive him for all of the pain and suffering he’d caused her as a child. He had gone on to tell her that he’d only done what he had done to her because he loved her and begged her to please come home and give him a second chance. Stanley had read the rest of the letter and it didn’t take a genius to figure out by reading between the lines that not only had her father sexually abused Sara but that he was in fact the very reason she was in NYC now acting out other people’s lives in an effort to try and forget her own fucked up past as an abused child.
Stanley had also learned that Sara Hunt was very methodical and faithfully kept a journal of her everyday activities, which she logged into each night before she went to bed. He had quickly skimmed through it and learned that she had recently broken up with her boyfriend and that she now felt “lonely and directionless.” His name was Jonathan Baker and Stanley had later found a photograph of Jon-boy in her photo album. On the back of the picture Sara had written: Jonathan, before he shaved off his beard. I miss that beautiful beard!
Based on what he’d learned in the process of investigating her apartment, Stanley had eventually come to a conclusion: Sara Hunt was a mess. She was insecure, naive, and lonely, had had a terrible childhood full of abuse, and was probably about as vulnerable now as she had ever been in her life since having recently lost her boyfriend of the last three years. Stanley was glad for all of this-the bitch certainly fucking deserved it.
As much as Stanley despised Sara Hunt (and everything that she stood for) he had to admit that she still had one beautiful fucking body. He felt the almost overwhelming urge to masturbate right now as he watched her half nude body gyrating to the music he couldn’t hear. The expression on her face was intense and provocative as she lip-synced the lyrics to whatever song she was grooving to. His hand went down to his crotch for a brief moment and he could feel his rock-hard erection pulsating with the nagging need for release. But he suddenly took his hand away with resigned determination. Tomorrow, Stanley thought, he would have the real thing. He would slice that bitch from both sides and have her screaming for more…
Perspiration had formed on his brow as he continued peering at Sara through the telescope. She was really getting into it now, her hands cupping her luscious tits and her eyes closed tight in ecstasy. He could almost sense that she knew he was watching her and that she was regretful for having ever double-crossed Stanley Jenkins all those years ago at high school. She wanted to make it up to him now by giving him something that would really please him and hopefull
y make him forget how angry he was with her. She was treating him to his own little private audition and she was going to make it one of her most unforgettable performances yet…
Sara suddenly stopped and froze for a moment. Stanley could tell by the annoyed expression on her face that something had distracted her, possibly the ringing of her telephone. He watched as she turned and headed toward the door, just visible at the far end of the living room. She stood by the door for a moment as if listening to what someone on the other side was saying then suddenly shrugged her shoulders. She said something then moved out of Stanley’s sight. When she returned a moment later and resumed her exercises, it was only for a minute for so. Sara then left the room in a huff.
It started registering with Stanley what may have just happened. A neighbor had knocked on her door and complained about the music so Sara had turned it down before resuming her aerobics. But the lower volume evidently wasn’t to her liking so she had decided to give it up for the night.
Stanley continued peering through the telescope until he saw Sara reappear several moments later. She was carrying a glass of water as she made her way across the living room. She flipped off the light switch before continuing toward the other side of her apartment. This would be her bedroom, Stanley knew, and both of her bedroom windows unfortunately faced the front of the building, out of Stanley’s field of view.
Stanley breathed a long sigh before removing the telescope from the tripod. He now had his plan solidly formulated in his mind and tomorrow he would carry it out.
He retracted the legs of the tripod and stashed away the telescope with a smug grin on his face. He loved the feeling of exhilaration he was experiencing right this moment-that adrenalin-induced high he always felt just before the completion of a mission. By this time tomorrow, he will have succeeded in accomplishing what he had set out to do and be on his way back home.
Did he really want to give all of this up and retire? he wondered. It was all so challenging, so gratifying. Would he truly be happy settling down with a wife and family? Maybe he would only semi-retire, on second thought. She would be able to understand that he was absolutely driven to go out on these missions and how important they were to him, wouldn’t she?
His heart suddenly sank for a moment as it dawned on him that there would no longer be the motivation that had been driving him all along once he settled down. He will have completed his master plan and no longer feel the compulsion to murder again…
Or would he?
Stanley had read somewhere that murder was just like an addictive drug and he was beginning to see what they meant by that. The experience felt so awesome and the high was better than any of the acid he’d dropped in college. And what better way was there to get a point across to some fucking slut than putting a sudden end to her existence? To relieve the world of yet another ungrateful bitch that thought she was so above everyone that her shit didn’t stink? They needed to be taught a lesson, by God! And who better to teach them that lesson than Stanley Jenkins, who had been shit upon his whole goddamn life?
His teeth were now clenched in total extreme rage and Stanley realized that he had just smashed his fist into the concrete wall. He brought his bloodied hand to his mouth and licked at the blood on his knuckles, savoring the salty iron aftertaste. He smiled to himself as he recalled what the shrinks had kept telling him while he was in the nuthouse: “You have got to get a handle on that temper of yours, Stanley, or someone besides yourself might get hurt someday.” He had always hated the way the doctor and entire staff seemed to be talking down to him, as if he were some kind of sick person or total moron. Like, did they really think that he wasn’t already quite aware of his temper? Or that he didn’t know exactly why he had been committed to the institution in the first place? They of course thought he was nuts, but Stanley knew better. He had been sent to the institution because he’d fucked up and that was basically the whole ball of wax. There wasn’t any more to it.
Stanley had played their game though, only because he knew that he’d be in there forever if he couldn’t prove to them that he was “safe to return to society.” It had been a breeze, actually, because he had known just the right things to do and say to the shrinks to win them over and eventually convince them that they weren’t dealing with some lunatic asshole here, but a perfectly sane and intelligent young man who had fooled around and gotten himself just a little too stoned one night at college then pulled a little harmless prank on someone.
He soon realized that the only reason they had kept him in as long as they had was because they had grown fond of him and didn’t want to let him go. Especially that faggot, Doctor Flagg. Christ, were his consultations ever a humdrum! The way he would always try to psychoanalyze him with all that Freudian bullshit about mother-son relationships, latent homosexuality tendencies, insecurity and lack of self-respect. It was all x-amount of bullshit and the good doctor knew it, too. But finally the doctor’s true colors started to show and the game suddenly took on an entirely new twist. Hell, if Stanley had known that all he had to do was let the doctor give him an occasional blowjob, he would have been out of that hellhole one fuck of a lot sooner!
But that was then, and this is now, Stanley thought. No sense in crying over spilt milk, ha-ha.
In retrospect, it was probably to his advantage to have been locked up in the nuthouse as long as he’d been. It had given him plenty of time to read, research and figure out what he was going to do with himself once he was released. Had he gotten out sooner, he probably would have done something rash, with his temper and all, and ended up getting thrown right back in there.
But instead, he’d hung tight and devised his master plan. And when he finally had gotten released on that glorious May morning, he knew that he had the added plus of his father’s life insurance settlement to help make his plans materialize.
Rest in peace, Pop-you wimpy little son of a bitch!
Stanley glanced over at Sara Hunt’s faintly lit window and felt a renewed surge of excitement. He was really going to enjoy making her pay for what she had done. By the time he was through with her she was indeed going to wish that she’d never shit upon Stanley Jenkins all those years ago. And unlike Cindy Fuller, Sara was gong to suffer some before he did her in. He’d knock her around a bit, make her feel some real pain in her fucked up life before she bought the farm. After all, that bitch had purposely screwed over Stanley Jenkins. Hell, it was not only premeditated but down right cold-blooded what she had done to him! Cindy Fuller had been an innocent casualty, in a sense; and for that reason Stanley had gone easy on her.
But Sara was an entirely different case. And this time the whole world was going to know who brought her to justice. No covering his tracks as he’d done with Cindy. The whole fucking world was going to learn that you don’t fuck around with Stanley Jenkins and get away with it. And finally, after all these years, he would get the respect that he by God deserved! These gorgeous two-faced sluts weren’t going to push Stanley Jenkins around anymore!
He glimpsed at the luminous dial on his wristwatch. It was 11:40. Time to split. He wanted to get a good night’s sleep for the big day tomorrow.
He went over his plans one more time in his head. He would get up early tomorrow morning-no later than 6:30-eat a light breakfast before taking his shower. Then he’d get dressed: white polo shirt, gray sport jacket, faded blue jeans and a pair of loafers. Then he’d pack up his belongings, leave his hotel key on the dresser, then take the stairs down to the lobby and slink out of the hotel.
He would take a cab over to Penn Station and place all his belongings into the locker he’d rented except for the clipboard and Rolling Stones CD he’d just purchased. Then he’d hail another cab to Bleecker Street in Greenwich Village and get out a few blocks from the coffee shop where Sara worked. It would be around 8:00 by then and much of the breakfast crowd will have already cleared out.
He would enter the coffee shop and sit down at one of Sara’s tables. When she came
over to take his order she would notice the Stones CD laying there on the table as well as the clipboard with the made up script he’d created, which he would be pretending to read.
Sara’s interest would of course be aroused when she spotted the Stones CD, not just because the Stones were her favorite rock and roll band in the world but also because she didn’t own this particular CD. It was an extremely rare bootleg copy of a concert they’d played at the Fillmore East back in 1966 (which he had been able to procure with the help of the internet and a few hundred bucks). It was something that Sara Hunt no doubt would die for and if luck was on his side, she would promptly initiate the conversation while salivating over this rarity: “My god! I don’t believe it! I’ve been trying to find that recording for years!”
But he realized that luck may not be on his side and instead of her getting all excited about seeing the CD, Sara may simply ignore it and ask what he wanted for breakfast.
That’s when the clipboard with the mock screenplay would come into play. If Sara didn’t happen to notice it the first time around while taking his order, he’d make damn sure that she did when she returned with his coffee. And once she saw what was written on the cover page, Sara Hunt would unlikely be able to remain passive any longer:
The Rolling Stones: The Myth Behind the Legend
A Three Star Pictures Production
Screenplay by Hugh Quincy
Directed by Hugh Quincy
The questions Sara Hunt would suddenly be dying to ask him would overwhelm her and why shouldn’t they? Here she was, a struggling actress waiting tables at a coffee shop, and there he was, a director/writer sitting there at her table with a screenplay for an upcoming movie documentary about her most favorite rock and roll band in the whole fucking world! Could any aspiring actress as desperate and downtrodden as Sara Hunt be able to contain herself after this sudden quirk of fate? Especially after taking into account the fact that this writer/director was not only in possession of a rare CD that she would die for, but was also sporting quite a decent looking beard that looked a lot like the one her ex-boyfriend used to wear.
The May Day Murders Page 24