More Twisted: Collected Stories, Vol. II

“I thought, you called somebody ‘the blonde,’ that meant a girl. Like ‘Look at the blonde.’ Nobody says that about a man. You don’t call a man ‘the blond.’”

“Yeah? Well, I don’t know about that. But he’s blond. And short. He was trimming the hedges and raking today. You know who I mean?”

“Yeah, yeah. Him.”

“What’s his name?”

“I dunno. I didn’t hire him. I don’t do the grounds work. The board hired him.”

“What’s his story?”

“Story? He sweeps up, he rakes, he cuts the grass. That’s the story. Why?”

“He works for a service?”

“Yeah, a service. I guess.”

“Is the company bonded?” Pullman asked.

“He works for?”

“Yeah, that company.”

“I guess. I told you it was the board—”

“Hired him. I know. So you don’t know anything about him.”

“Why?”

“Just curious.”

The super waddled back to his apartment, frowning as if he’d been wrongly accused of something, and Pullman hurried back upstairs.

At one a.m. Tammy returned. Looking as vibrant and sexy as when she’d left, she walked to her door and unlocked it. With a look over her shoulder, she stepped inside and slammed the door shut.

She’d seemed a bit uneasy at the doorstep, Pullman decided, as if she’d seen or heard an intruder, and so he grabbed some binoculars and scanned the bushes. It didn’t seem that the peeper was back but he wasn’t going to take any chances. He stepped into the hallway and padded downstairs. He stood in the shadows near the stand of bushes where the voyeur had perched earlier to play his sick game.

Flies buzzed, lights flickered through the bushes and Pullman could hear the distant howl of coyotes in the hills on the way to Malibu. But the scene was otherwise quiet and still.

No sign of the maintenance man.

After Tammy’s lights went out, Pullman waited a half hour and, seeing nothing but the resident tomcat prowl past, returned to his apartment, vaguely aware that this situation could be a gold mine for his love life, but wondering how best to exploit it.

Well, the first thing to consider: was the guy a serious threat? Pullman’d heard that voyeurs were like people with foot fetishes and exhibitionists. They weren’t generally dangerous. They substitute the emotionally distant — and to them safer — act of watching men or women and fantasizing about them for normal sexual relationships, even though they think they want the latter.

It was true, of course, that rapists would sometimes spy on their victims to learn their habits and patterns before assaulting them but the vast majority of voyeurs would never even think of speaking to their victims, much less assaulting them. The odds were that the groundskeeper was harmless. Besides, he was a slim, meek-looking little punk. With her karate training, Tammy could deck him with a single jab. No, Pullman decided, there was little risk to the woman if he didn’t blow the whistle on the stalker just yet.

He fell into bed and closed his eyes but was unable to fall asleep; his overheated brain continued to wrestle with the problem of how to parlay the stalking into a chance to ask Tammy out. Tossing uncomfortably, he beat the alarm to sleep by half an hour. When it blared on at seven he stumbled out of bed and looked outside. The lights were on in Tammy’s apartment. He pictured her doing her morning workout or enjoying a breakfast of yogurt and berries and herbal tea, content in her ignorance of the stalker.

And of him, Pullman saw nothing.

This was troubling. Had this apartment complex been just a one-day assignment for the guy? What if he never returned? That would ruin all of the plans.

He remained at the window for as long as he could, hoping for the maintenance man’s return. But at eight, he could wait no longer; he had to be at work in fifteen minutes.

Pullman showered fast and staggered outside to the parking lot, head aching from the lack of sleep, eyes stinging in the fierce sunlight. He was just about to get into his battered Saturn when a Pacific Landscaping Services pickup truck pulled into the lot.

He held his breath.

Yes, it was the stalker! He climbed out, collected his tools and a drink cooler and headed toward the courtyard. Pullman stepped behind his car and crouched down. The voyeur slipped into the same bushes where he’d kept his vigil yesterday and started to clip a hedge that was already perfectly trimmed. His hungry eyes didn’t even glance at the clippers; they were focused on Tammy’s bedroom window.

Thank you, Pullman offered to the god his Midwest upbringing suggested might exist and hurried back to his apartment, taking the back path to stay out of the stalker’s view. He was supposed to open the bookstore but he wasn’t going to pass up this chance. He pulled out his cell phone and called the Human Resources director of the store. He faked a raspy voice and told her that he was sick; he wouldn’t be coming in.

“Oh,” she said uncertainly. Pullman remembered that the other assistant manager was scheduled to start vacation today, which meant the HR woman’d have a hell of time finding somebody who could open the store. Pullman coughed hard but the woman offered no sympathy. She said coolly, “Let me know if you’ll be in tomorrow. Give me a little more warning next time.”

“I—”

Click.

Pullman shrugged. He had more important things to worry about. As he walked to his apartment he was running through some of the plans he’d been thinking of as he lay in bed last night.

“Hi, you don’t know me but I live across the way. I just thought you should know… “

Or maybe: “Hi, I’m your neighbor. Don’t think we’ve met. Don’t want to alarm you but there’s a man in those bushes who’s been staring at you for two days.”

No, don’t say two days. She’d wondered why he didn’t say anything earlier.

“Listen, miss, you don’t know me, but don’t look around. There’s a man in those bushes across the walk. He’s been staring at your apartment with some binoculars. I think he’s a stalker or something.”

But after some debate he decided he didn’t like any of those approaches. She might just respond by saying, “Oh, thanks.” Then closing the door on him and calling the cops.

End of Rodney Pullman.

No, he needed to do something dramatic — something that would impress a woman as sleek and cool and, well, unimpressible as Tammy Hudson surely was.

Squinting into the courtyard, Pullman saw that the voyeur had moved closer to her apartment, eyes still focused obsessively on her window. The sunlight glinted off the blades of the clippers, which gave an ominous swick, swick. The tool was long and seemed well-honed. He wondered if his earlier assessment had been wrong. Maybe this guy was dangerous.

Which finally gave him the idea — how to best orchestrate an introduction to the beautiful Resident in 10B.

Pullman rose and walked to his closet, rummaged through it and finally found his old baseball bat. He’d never been much for sports but he’d bought a bat and glove when he’d been hired at the bookstore and learned that they had a team. He’d thought it would be a good way to meet some of the girl clerks. As it turned out, though, the only players were guys and he soon dropped off the team.

A glance outside — no sign of Tammy, though the voyeur was still there, clipping away fervently with the shears.

Swick, swick…

Gripping the bat, Pullman left his apartment and slipped downstairs to the first-floor walkway then edged quietly to the shadows behind the stalker.