Impersonal Attractions (30 page)

“I’ll be right there,” Quynh called.

“It’s okay, darling. I’ve got it.” She crept toward the buzzer, which sounded again. “Coming, coming,” she muttered.

“Annie Tannenbaum?” the voice asked, tinny through the speaker system.

“Yes,” she said.

“Flowers,” he answered. “I’ll bring them right up.”

“Great. I’m on the fifth floor.” She pushed the button marked DOOR, buzzing him in.

“I know where you are,” he said to himself as he opened the door and walked into the lobby carrying the long white box.

*

“Who is it, Auntie Annie?” Quynh asked as she came out of the bathroom pulling down her Michael Jackson sweat shirt.

“A deliveryman. It’s flowers from Tom. He’s on the phone. Do you want to say hello to him?”

“Yes! Yes!” Quynh loved Tom, who kidded her, but also let her beat him at gin rummy. She took the phone from Annie’s outstretched hand and said hello excitedly. “Tom says he didn’t send you flowers. Here, he wants to talk to you.”

“No, no flowers today, babe. I sent you something from Saks, something pink and lacy. Must be your other lover.”

“Silly, I wonder who…”

And then, just as Sean said it might, the voice floated back into her head. The same voice that whispered “Gotcha!” The voice that answered “Flowers.” The voice that had been so insolent, so creepy in her class months ago. The voice that belonged to that blond-haired, blue-eyed (cold eyes, eyes you could die from) Eddie Simms. And now he was on his way up, to bring her flowers.

Flowers, flowers, flowers
—the word spun around and around. And then she got it.

“Oh my God, Tom,” she breathed into the phone as she grabbed Quynh to her, “I’ve just buzzed the Strangler in.”

FORTY-SIX

“An
nie, Annie!” Tom shouted, but she didn’t answer. She stood, precariously balanced, the receiver in one hand, Quynh’s hand grasped in the other, teetering, but, inside, frozen still.

This time he’s going to get me, she thought. She felt the pressure of her crutches in her armpits. I can’t run. There’s nowhere to go. No one can save me this time. He’s going to get me, like he got Lola and all the others. There’s nowhere for me to hide.

But she had to hide Quynh!

“Quynh.” Her voice was calm. “I don’t have time to explain this to you, but it is very important that you do what I say. Do you understand?”

The little girl nodded solemnly. “What do you want me to do?”

Annie tried to think. Quickly, she must do it quickly. Quynh was very small. Where could she hide that would be safe? Where she couldn’t see what was going to happen here? Annie’s mind raced through all the possibilities. Under the bed. In one of the closets.

But what if he had been watching? What if he knew Quynh was here? He’d find her. No, no, he couldn’t have Quynh too.

There was no other way out. Only the one door. Quynh could run out and down the hall, use the stairs. If she
passed him, he wouldn’t know who she was. Unless, unless he had been watching. Then he’d know. There wasn’t time for that. There was no escape.

Escape! That was it! Why hadn’t she thought of it before? “I want you to go to the dining room and open the window and go out on the fire escape.”

Was it safer to go to the bottom or to the roof?

“When you get to the bottom, you won’t be at ground level, but just sit there. Wait and someone will come and get you down.” She shoved Quynh with a crutch and whispered, “Now go!”

Quynh flew like a bird. She stopped as she pulled the window down behind her and mouthed “I love you.” Then her dark head disappeared.

*

Quynh was safe. But Annie was still standing in her entry hall, weakly propped upon her crutches. She was dimly aware of Tom’s voice floating out from her hand. She looked at the receiver as if it were a foreign object, a machine she had never seen before. A voice came from it, but the voice was of no more aid to her than the tinkling of a music box. The voice couldn’t step out of the machine and help her—the voice from the speaker below was going to walk up and kill her. That was the voice that mattered, the voice of Eddie Simms. All the voice on the phone could do was listen to her die.

She let the receiver drop to the floor.

She felt so alone, so helpless, waiting.

This was what it came down to at the end, wasn’t it? Funny. All her life she’d been strong, capable of taking care of herself, just as her mother had taught her, and yet when it came down to it, none of that made any difference. Because now, when it counted, she was as helpless as a bird with a broken wing.

She was so afraid. Tears welled in her eyes. I feel like an old woman, she thought. Or a frightened little girl.

But I’m not as small as Quynh. Where can I hide?

Once again the inventory. She couldn’t get under the bed. There were four closets, but how could she hide herself with her cast, her right leg sticking straight out?

Perhaps the big trunk in the hall closet. She could pull the afghans over her, and the old clothes, and the baby quilt with cat faces her mother had made for her when she was an infant.

But he would find her, wouldn’t he? He’d know she was in there somewhere. And he wouldn’t go away. It would just be a matter of time. And could she stifle her screams through the waiting, the listening, as he opened one door after another and waved that shiny knife?

As she stood, staring at her apartment door, her only door, she heard the clunk of the elevator arrive at the fifth floor. It was only a matter of seconds. A short distance, thirty yards, and then he would be standing there.

Brrrrrr.
The bell. He had arrived.

He was only six feet away on the other side. She could see his form vaguely through the ripple panes of patterned glass.

He was waiting for her to answer.

Brrrrr.

She stood, frozen. The sound was as mesmerizing as a cobra. She couldn’t tear herself away. Even if she could, where would she go?

“Miss Tannenbaum,” he called. Such a polite voice, the voice of a florist’s deliveryman. So well mannered, as if he were hoping to earn a big tip.

Her mouth opened. Her tongue worked.

“Leave the flowers outside,” it said. How clever of your tongue, she thought. Why didn’t
you
think of that?

“No, ma’am, I’m sorry. I can’t do that. You have to sign for them.”

Now what, tongue? What’s your next line?

“I can’t. I’m sick and can’t come to the door. Please just leave them there.”

Silence from the other side. But she could see a slight movement. The cobra waved from side to side.

“Open the door.” The voice had changed. The polite deliveryman was gone. He was not going to play nice-man games anymore.

Annie raised her left hand to her mouth. The freed crutch clattered to the floor.

Another flicker of movement. The cobra was ready to strike.

“Go away,” she breathed in a small voice. She had used that voice with her ex-husband sometimes when his will to win had overpowered hers and she had no resources left. “Please go away.”

“You’d like that, wouldn’t you, Miss Tannenbaum?” And then he laughed. It was the most obscene sound she had ever heard.

“Say ‘Pretty please,’ Miss Anne.”

Then the voice coarsened.

“Beg.”

Two beats passed.

He spit the last word out.

“Bitch.”

Then there was silence. She shifted her weight. It was difficult standing with one crutch, leaning on her bad leg. But then, she thought, it really didn’t matter if she fell. So what if she hurt herself again? What could she do that he wasn’t going to do worse?

Again a flicker against the glass panes. Then a little sound, a little scratching sound. Of something sharp on glass.

Yes, of course. A glass cutter. He was neatly snipping out the pane, the one nearest the dead bolt.

Her head snapped back. The new dead bolt! Tom had installed it after the attack in the garage. You had to have a key to open it, on either side. It could keep him out!

Except, on the inside, just beside the moving glass cutter, the key sat in the lock. In a moment the glass would fall and he would capture the castle.

Move! she willed her legs. Now! Get the key!

She lunged forward and fell against the door.

At the same instant, he shoved in the pane and glass shattered all around her.

His hand drove through the jagged space, feeling for the lock. She stretched up as far as she could. She must get it first. His hand grabbed her arm.

She could see his face through the opening where the pane had been, grinning at her from the other side. He leered at her, his eyes glistening like a madman about to skin a cat.

She stared down at the forearm crushing hers. His skin was alive with blue, tattooed squiggles like the markings of a snake. They meant the same thing, these markings: I am poison, I am death.

I’m going to faint, she thought. His face before her began to spin. He was laughing at her again. Laughing on and on. But her fingers kept working, scrabbling, grasping upward toward the key. And then she had it!

He heard her pull it out, heard her victory, and he roared.

It was a sound she had never heard a human make. There were no words, just a horrendous reverberation in her ears. Like the sound of a voracious furnace, maddened, out of control. Like the cry of Beelzebub.

The roar rushed in and out of her head, attacking all her senses, as he forced her arm back toward him. He was going to pull it through to his side. He was going to win.

She watched as if from a far distance as the force and the sound pulled her arm closer and closer to destruction. Darkness and terror whirled all about her.

Suddenly it was as simple as flicking on a switch.

All she had to do was let go.

She opened her fingers and the key fell behind her, safely out of his reach.

He roared again, the sound of his frustration filling her ears.

She didn’t want to hear it. She closed her eyes, resting her head on the floor. Then the roaring stopped and he released her arm. She turned her head and looked. His hand had disappeared back through the gaping pane.

She heard his footsteps on the hall carpet, heading away. He was leaving.

She had won.

Her eyes flickered closed, open, closed again. She was so tired, so limp. She felt as if she could sleep right there forever.

*

But a sound kept disturbing her. A voice. It sounded dim, very far away. A familiar voice. Tom.

Tom! He was still on the other end of the line.

“Annie, goddammit, Annie!” He was sobbing, hysterical.

She crawled over to the receiver, cradled it like a lover to her face.

“I’m okay,” she whispered. “He’s gone.”

On the other end, Tom struggled for speech.

“Are you really, babe?”

“Yes, oh, yes,” she crooned, “I’m safe.”

“Do you hear the sirens? We called the police on another line. They should be there any second.”

She listened. No, not yet.

“And Quynh?” Tom was saying.

She’d forgotten about Quynh! But then she remembered. Quynh was safe. Safely outside.

“I’ll be there right away,” Tom said. “I’m leaving now.”

“You don’t have to. I promise—he’s gone away.” Then a small aftershock hit her body. She trembled all over. “Yes, do, do, I need you.” She added, “Hurry.”

“Get back in bed,” Tom ordered. “Sam’s been called too. She’ll take care of Quynh. We’ll take care of everything. Just get back in bed.”

Now Annie could hear sirens in the distance. She didn’t need them now. She had won.

“You be careful,” she admonished Tom. He’d drive eighty up the freeway.

“Right, my love. I’ll be careful,” and then he laughed. It was so nice to hear him laugh. “You take a little nap while you’re waiting for me.” And he hung up.

*

Annie lay on the hardwood floor, her head resting on the corner of a small, pale blue Oriental rug. Shattered glass was sprinkled about. Her crutches were tangled up against the edge of the upside-down wicker basket on which her telephone and answering machine rested.

I can’t get up, she thought. I can’t make myself do it. Maybe I’ll just take my nap right here.

She closed her eyes and began to drift. Once the adrenaline was gone, she felt the way she had once when she had fainted, out of her body, floating along just above it.

Then something soft brushed her face.

She started and looked full into Hudson’s golden eyes. He was tickling her cheek with his whiskers.

“Hudsonian P. Pussycat!” She had forgotten he was still there. Where had
he
hidden during all this? He licked her face with his sandpapery tongue. Never had his kitty drool been so welcome. She hugged him to her with her good arm and he howled, but he didn’t move except to better situate himself on her chest. Now he was there for the duration.