Life Blood Part 20

I wondered if he'd left a package for me, and told myself to check with the super. Not the usual delivery guy--did they come on Sunday now?--and also . . .

Where was the truck? They always parked right here by the building.

I was still so upset over Sarah, I couldn't immediately process those illogical observations, so I just grabbed my pink roses, dripping from the bottom of their paper wrapping, and opened the car door. It was definitely good to be home. I loved my Chelsea neighborhood, where you got to know the locals, running into them in the delis, the little restaurants, the dry cleaners. Just like a small town. If you worked at home, the way I sometimes did, you even got to know the mailman and the delivery guys for UPS and FedEx. . . .

Hey! That guy. I finally placed the walk, a kind of a strut. He was the slimeball who'd been outside Paula Marks' building last week, carrying a gun and threatening me. What's he doing here?

My pulse went off the charts. Was he one of Nicky Russo's wiseguy crew after all? Had he come back, with his pistol, to pay me a return engagement?

My G.o.d.

Chill out, I told myself, take a deep breath. He's leaving. Just try and find out who he is.

Roses in one hand held up awkwardly around my face, I slowly ambled down the street after him. I didn't have to go far. Within about a hundred feet, he unlocked a long black Lincoln Towncar, stepped out of the FedEx camouflage, tossed it onto the seat along with the bag he was carrying, pulled the cap off his bald head got in, and sped away.

The license plate looked different from the usual, but I got what I needed: DL and a string of numbers.

Uh-oh, I thought. Was he leaving a package bomb for me?

I turned back and let myself into the outer lobby, glancing around as I did. There were no parcels anywhere, just blank, brown tile.

My apartment was 3A. The name on the bell was M. James. As I stepped through the inner lobby--still no package--a rumpled face appeared in the doorway just to my left. The sign on it, flaking, said SUPER.

"Oh, hi." The voice was Patrick Mooney, our superintendent, who did not normally emerge to greet those arriving. But there had been complaints from the building's managing agent that he could never be found for emergencies, so he probably wanted to appear available, even on Sundays. His voice was slurred from some midday medicinal Irish whisky.

"Thought you were home. FedEx guy was here earlier looking for you."

Oh, boy. "Did he leave a package?"

"He had something with him, if that's what you mean. Like a bag of some kind."

"And you let him go up?" I couldn't believe what I was hearing. I felt a rush of dismay.

"Said he had to. Needed a signature." Patrick Mooney then shrugged and reached for the dooijamb to steady himself, his whisky breath wafting across the hall. Great security.

I stepped into the elevator as the door was clanking shut, and watched as he rubbed his eyes and eased his own door closed.

Now I was really puzzled. If the FedEx guy came "earlier," why was he just now leaving? A lot of scary theories went through my mind as I pushed the b.u.t.ton for the third floor.

I took a deep breath as the elevator opened, but again I saw no packages. So far so good. Getting off, I set down my roses on the hall carpet and fumbled for my key. When I inserted it, the lock felt a little rough, causing me to think for an instant I'd used the wrong key, but then it responded.

What had caused that? I wondered. Had the guy been fiddling with my door, wiring a bomb? Using one hand I pushed it open, again holding my breath and standing aside, but it opened okay. I exhaled, then reached back to drag in the flowers.

But if he didn't leave a package, what was he doing here? Casing out where I lived? Planting a bug in the elevator? And why was he here so long?

The place was dark when I stepped in, the drapes drawn. I relocked the door, then surveyed the gloom. No explosions, so I guessed he didn't plan to kill me. Yet. Here I was, home, safe and sound. I just stood a minute, still uneasy.

Then I remembered the flowers, my dripping bouquet, and headed for the kitchen. Deal with them, and then maybe get a bottle of white wine out of the fridge and sip some in the bath.

After my unnerving sequence with Sarah, thoughts of going to the office had zero appeal. Time to lighten up, way up.

Preoccupied, not looking around, I stuffed the roses into a vase by the sink, and then I thought again about the white wine and opened the refrigerator. I'd still not bothered to turn on any lights, but the kitchen and its ancient fridge were dimly illuminated by the tiny window just across. I wasn't sure where I'd put the bottle, since I'd had to rearrange things to make room for the dup of Carly's interview.

(I was also planning to take home a safety dup of Paula's interview sometime later in the week.)

Why was I doing that? Taking home copies? It was a sign of deep compulsion. You couldn't really make a professional-quality second negative from a first positive--by that time it would be third-generation--but I'd brought it anyway. Now and then I just have a raw instinct that keeping a safety backup around is a good idea. But the canister had ended up devouring the entire lower shelf of the fridge.

I opened the white door and peered in. The light was out, and for a moment I stared numbly at the dark, half-filled shelves. The only thing that struck me as odd was that I could see the pure white of the empty bottom shelf.

For a second I could only stand and stare, but then I backed away, trying to figure out what was wrong, and stumbled over something. I regained my balance and flipped on the overhead light.

"What!"

The floor around me was littered with bottles, my old toaster, my tiny microwave. It was a total shambles.

I recoiled stumbling again, this time over cans strewn across the linoleum. My kitchen, it was slowly sinking in, had been completely trashed.

I felt a visceral wave of nausea. It's the scariest thing in the world having your s.p.a.ce invaded like a form of psychic rape. I sagged against the refrigerator as I gazed around. The cabinets had been emptied out, a hasty and haphazard search. Quick and extremely dirty, as gla.s.s containers of condiments, including an old bottle of dill pickles, were shattered and their contents smeared into the floor.

"I don't believe this." I marched back into the living room and reached for the lights. This room too had been turned upside down. The TV, stereo, VCR, all had been swept onto the rug. But they were still there. That guy, that animal, who did this wasn't a thief. He'd been looking for something.

My breath now coming in pulses, I edged into the bedroom and switched on the light. The bed was the way I'd left it, the covers thrown back and the pillows in a pile. The clock radio was there, and so was the old Mac, still on the table in the far corner, my "workstation." Again nothing seemed to be missing.

I headed back to the kitchen, where the refrigerator door was still open. I gazed at the interior a moment, still puzzled, trying to figure out what wasn't right. . . .

s.h.i.+t! s.h.i.+t! s.h.i.+t! That's what was wrong. The field of white bottom shelf was empty. Totally empty. The film canister of Paula's interview was gone.

For a moment I just leaned against the kitchen counter, barely pus.h.i.+ng aside an impulse to throw up in the sink. Think, I told myself, get a grip and think. . . .

It was the film he'd wanted. And he'd wanted it badly enough to pick the lock, then rip my home apart looking for it.

I pulled at a tangle of hair, feeling my mind in chaos, and tried to reason out the situation. Why? Why would he steal a positive that couldn't be used for anything?

Finally the real truth of what had happened hit me like a fist in the chest. My Home Sweet Home had been violated.

Seething, I went into the living room and reached for the phone, the only thing not on the floor.

My first instinct was to call David, but then I decided he'd just go into a tizzy of hysteria and be no support at all. So instead I called Lou, praying I wouldn't wake Sarah. In an unsteady voice, I tried to tell him what had happened.

He seemed puzzled to hear from me again so soon, but then he quickly turned FBI, concerned for my safety.

"Guy sounds like a professional," he declared. "Probably got in with an electric picker, like the Edge. Any a.s.shole can buy one for a hundred and thirty bucks. It'll rake cylinders at a hundred times a second. Pro like that, you can be sure there'll be no prints."

"But why would . . . ?" My voice was still a croak. "I mean, my G.o.d, all for a lousy reel of film?"

"f.u.c.ker wants you to know he's in town. So how he did it's as important as what he did. It's a time-proven scare tactic." He paused. "Morgan, I don't like this one bit. There could be more before this is over."

"Think I should call the cops?"

"d.a.m.ned right you should," he said, slowly and sadly, "but to tell you the truth, they ain't gonna do all that much. Somebody messed up your apartment and lifted a third-hand copy of a woman talking. They'll say it sounds more like malicious mischief than a crime. Then they'll write it up and that'll be the last you'll hear from them."