Jeffrey, on the other hand, mastered each new recipe with ease. He began showing her how it was done; looking back, she supposed he must have enjoyed playing the part of teacher, master, guru, with Wendy herself safely relegated to the supporting role of the humble apprentice at his side.
At the time, she’d been both astonished and flattered by his attention, while the other single women in the class were clearly envious. Jeffrey was trim, tall, certainly good-looking enough. His eyes, half-concealed behind wire-frame glasses, were a pleasing shade of blue-gray. He wore his sandy blond hair in deliberate disarray, as if stressing his indifference to the superficialities of grooming. His wardrobe consisted mainly of dusty jeans and white shirts, often with a sport jacket tossed on, seemingly at the last minute, to suggest the hurried, harried elegance of a successful man on the move.
And beyond all that, he was a gentleman. He opened doors for her, he always picked up the tab, and he had never gotten fresh, had never pressured her to go further than the brief parting kiss they shared at the end of most of their dates. Perhaps he sensed that if he tried coming on to her, if he even suggested the possibility of greater closeness between them, she would be frightened away like a bird launched into flight by a clap of hands.
And it was true. She would fly from him. She might not want to, but she would. Intimacy scared her, any sort of intimacy, and physical intimacy most of all.
Jeffrey was still detailing the difficulties posed by the photo session when the waiter delivered the appetizers and soup. Cutting into her egg roll, Wendy squinted at the jet of escaping steam. She blew on forkfuls of food to cool them, wary of burning her tongue.
She told herself she ought to quit grousing about Jeffrey’s inattentiveness, ought to be happy he’d taken an interest in her. Certainly it was an interest no one else had ever shown. In high school, in college, in L.A., she’d had no boyfriends, no dates. She’d never imagined that anyone of the opposite sex could be attracted to her-and certainly not a successful photographer, handsome, confident, worldly. When Jeffrey asked her out for the first time, she was stunned, simply amazed, then so excited she kept fearing she would throw up, literally throw up, during their evening together. But gradually her excitement turned to disappointment as he realized that Jeffrey was not aware of her as a person, that he never saw or heard her, that he merely wanted a silent respectful audience, a role she played so well.
After disappointment came self-reproach. She asked herself how she ever could have thought Jeffrey would be interested in her anyway. Was she good at conversation? Was she worth listening to at all? Did she have anything worthwhile to say, to give, to share? The silent questions, asked and answered on many sleepless nights, were like hammers, padded in soft velvet, striking again and again at her face, leaving no visible scars, but numbing her; in that numbness she found an odd sense of relief.
A few minutes before seven o’clock the main course was served. Wendy spooned steaming white rice onto her plate, then piled on a hot mixture of skinless chicken chunks and chopped almonds, water chestnuts and sliced carrots, celery and onion, in a mildly spicy sauce. She ate slowly, appreciating the taste and texture of the food, the pleasing contrast of the stir-fried chicken and the crunchy nuts and vegetables.
“How’s yours?” Jeffrey asked.
“Really good.”
“Mine too. I’m glad I found this place.” Jeffrey always treated the Mandarin House as his personal discovery, even though he’d once let it slip that he learned of the restaurant’s existence through a favorable review in the L.A. Times. “I like it, tacky dragon and all.”
“Hey”-she attempted a joke-“the tacky dragon is what makes it work.”
The line fell flat as predictably as any of her occasional stabs at humor. She wished she’d kept quiet. It was always safer to-
“You know,” Jeffrey said suddenly through a mouthful of shrimp, “that necklace is really something.”
Her heart was ice, her breath frozen. She stared at him.
“You… you noticed?”
“Sure.” He smiled. It was the same smile she’d seen through the car window. “I could hardly miss it, could I? You’ve been fiddling with the darn thing all night.”
“I have?” She hadn’t realized she’d been doing that.
“Uh-huh. Anyway, I saw it right off. As soon as you got out of the car. Must be brand new.”
“Yes. It is. I bought it today. I went shopping. Well, not really shopping. I was just out for a walk. At lunch time. I went into the department store, and there it was. It wasn’t cheap. But I figured, you know, you’ve got to splurge once in a while…”
The words came in fits and starts, barely coherent, while a confusion of feelings whirled inside her. Of course she was glad Jeffrey had noticed the necklace, glad he’d asked her about it and given her tacit permission to talk about the one big event of her day. Yes, thrilled about all that. Except… except…
I saw it right off, he’d told her. As soon as you got out of the car.
So why hadn’t he said anything then? Why had he strung her along for more than half an hour, chatting about his f-stops and exposure times, while she waited in an agony of suspense for some word of acknowledgment?
She thought she knew the answer. It was simply one more tactic he employed to maintain control, He’d known what she wanted him to say, and he’d found pleasure in withholding that small gift as long as possible, like a sadist who dangles a morsel of food near his starving victim, just out of reach.
In that moment Wendy hated the man across the table from her. Yet in a strange way she loved him too. Because at least he had noticed, and now he was letting her talk, and-oh, God-did she ever need to talk. She needed it badly enough even to put up with his manipulations and smiling lies.
She went on talking and talking and talking, telling him every detail of her purchase. Probably she was boring him or making a complete fool of herself or doing something else that was utterly wrong; but for once, she didn’t care.
8
At six o’clock, having finished his dinner, Rood set about making his preparations for the night’s work.
From his bookshelf he pulled out a copy of the 1990 Thomas Guide for Los Angeles County, a spiral-bound map-book with an alphabetized directory covering every street in the county. He pinpointed Miss Wendy Alden’s address-9741 Palm Vista Avenue-and marked it in red ink.
Then he peered into the large canvas drawstring bag he used for carrying his tools and trophies, taking inventory of its contents.
The hacksaw, fitted with a fresh tungsten-carbide blade. Two spare blades, in case the first one broke; bone was tough. The clay gryphon, carefully wrapped in plastic. His Toshiba tape recorder with a built-in omnidirectional microphone, loaded with a blank thirty-minute cassette; he would clip the tape recorder to his belt before the kill. A jumbo two-gallon Baggie, in which Miss Alden’s head would be sealed. A wire twist tie for the Baggie. Saran Wrap for the hacksaw, which would be bloody, dripping; no use getting the bag soiled. A metal loid and wire tool for opening locked doors. A roll of electrician’s tape and a hammer, useful for breaking windows with a minimum of noise; he’d tried that technique for the first time at Miss Osborn’s place, and it had worked wonderfully well. A Tekna Micro-Lite miniature flashlight, four inches long. A pair of night-vision binoculars for scoping his victim from the street.
His weapon and his leather gloves were tucked in the side pockets of his black winter coat, which he now shrugged on.
Yes, he decided as he reviewed a mental checklist. He had everything.
He left his apartment, shut and locked the front door, and let the screen door bang shut. In the newly fallen darkness he crossed the courtyard, a patchwork of cracked concrete and rectangular grass strips. From the apartment across the way came the steady barking of Mrs. Weiman’s German shepherd, Sherlock. The dog was often allowed to wander the courtyard, and Rood invariably stopped to scratch him behind the ears. He loved animals. In truth, he vastly preferred them to human beings. He had never been what one might call a “people” person.
His car was parked on the street. It was a 1963 Ford Falcon, the Futura Sports Coupe model, a white two- door hardtop with a tan interior. When viewed from the front, the Falcon looked squarish, almost boxy, but in profile
