The interior of her building gave lie to the redevelopment exterior, which had been polished up with white bricks in a fashion of many new buildings. But the inside had all the old bones of traditional tenements, complete with a vestibule and a wall full of brass mail boxes and an inner door that opened with a key or a buzzer.
She opened the inner door ahead of me and I pashed into the dark first floor with the apartment for the super on the right and a stairwell leading up to the rest of the building along the left wall.
“How far up?” I asked.
“It’s apartment seven on the fourth floor,” she said, her eyes twinkling a little under the dim overhead light. “Think of it as seventh heaven.”
Someone had tried to maintain the interior, but age oozed out from under the new wall paper and out the cracks of the wooden wainscot that lined the walls even along the sides of the rising stairs.
The first step creaked when I put my foot on it and continued to creak as I proceeded Jeannette up. Above, dangling from the first landing a bare light bulb provided scarce illumination -- so dim was the passage that I could barely see the step ahead of me, and felt relieved when I reached the top.
Clearly more familiar with the turf, Jeannette caught up and passed me, leading me along the banister to the next set of stairs. Apartment doors stood at intervals along the wall, as dark and grim as sentinels. I got the feeling people stood behind each door, listing and watching as we passed.
Something clinked from one of the floors above. Jeannette halted, her elongated face cringing around the mouth and eyes in an expression of silent horror.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
“It’s him.”
“Who?”
“My stalker,” she said, cowering into one of the dark doorways as she stared up the stairs.
“Are you sure?”
“He comes here a lot.”
“But how do you know it’s him?”
“I recognize his cologne.”
“I’ll go have a talk with him,” I said.
“But careful,” she warned. “He’s dangerous.”
I moved passed her and made up way up the next set of stairs, an equally dim passage although against the light I could make out his shadow standing along the rail looking down.
“Hey you!” I shouted.
The shape vanished back into the shadows. But I heard the thump of feet going up the next flight of stairs.
I turned to Jeannette.
“Go into your apartment and lock the door,” I told her and started up the stairs after the man. “I’ll deal with this.”
Slowly, gripping the shaking rail with one hand, and the butt of a my unauthorized 38 in the other, I made my way up, the heavy steps above still retreating, then stop, followed by the slam of a door to the roof.
A scuffling sound, rat-like perhaps, sounded beyond the door when I finally reached it.
My pistol still gripped in my right hand, I gradually turned the door handle with my left, and pushed the door out into the chill air.
The flat expanse beyond left few places to hide in, merely the darkness, partly illuminated by the afterglow of the street lights beyond.
I stepped out, nervously, sensing a trap, pushing ahead with my pistol ahead. I stopped within a few feet of the open door behind me.
“Come out and show yourself,” I said. “If you’re armed, put the gun on the ground and kick it towards me.”
“I’m not armed,” a muffled voice responded from out of a deep shadow cast by the door through which we had just emerged.
‘Fine, then come here. But slowly. I do have a gun and I’ll will use it if I have to.”
The man did what he was told.
A small man at about 5 foot 4, but not petite, he had a belly that said he ate well or drank too much. His bald head shimmered with sweat in the dim light, despite the cold. But he shivered as much from fear as from the temperature. He had a few tuffs of gray hair around his ears, dating him, at around 50, as my best guess.
“Why are you bothering the lady?” I asked, the weight of my pistol easing my hand lower. I felt a bit silly aiming it at him.
“I don’t mean to,” he said.
“She says you’ve been stalking her.”
“I’m not!” he squealed. “She invited me to come over.”
“my ass she did.”
“I can prove it.”
“How?”
“If you let me get my phone I’ll show you.”
“Fine. But don’t do anything stupid,” I said, aiming my revolver at him again.
He gulped twice and took his time lifting out a black iPhone from his jacket pocket. He held this up, so the screen faced me.
“So?” I said.
“You should read what it says,” he said, easing closer to hand me the phone. I took it with my left hand, too nervous to look too closely at it when he stood as close as he did.
“Scroll through the messages and you’ll see,” he said. “They’re all just her and me.”
Never proficient with smart phones in the first place, I struggled to move the screen with the thumb of my left hand. Even then, I could barely make out the text and still keep an eye on him. I saw that it was a texting exchange that went back several days. He seemed to be begging her to take him back, while she seemed to taunt him, making his text sound more and more frantic as the exchange went on, and she got more remote.
I recognized the tone of both, having suffered a similar fate when initially breaking up with my ex-wife.
“How do I know this woman you’re texting is really her?” I asked, though I already knew the truth.
“It’s her,” he insisted. “Take a look at the last few message.”
I thumbed the screen clumsily but managed to get later in the exchange. A day or so had passed since their last long exchange, then out of the blue came her text: “I sure could use a drink.”
“I’ll buy you one if you want,” he texted back.
“I’ll let you know,” she said.
Then a few more days passed.
“I’m at Jake’s Place,” she texted. “Come and buy me the drink you promised.”
“Really? You’ll let me see you?”
“I told you where I am.”
“So, what did you do?” I asked the man, looking up from the screen.
“I went to Jake’s Place.”
“What happened?”
“She tried to get some of her cop friends to beat me up.”
“This was tonight?”
“Yes.”
“What did you do after that.”
“I came here.”
“Why? After what you said she tried to do.”
“I needed to talk to her,” he said. “I needed to straighten it all out.”
“I don’t think she wants to talk to you,” I said, although I had to admit I was a bit confused by her texts.
“But I need to know what I did wrong,” he said, sounding pathetic. “I still don’t know why she stopped seeing me.”
He went on to tell me how he had hired her as a singer/barmaid for his place in Manhattan, where he and she had gotten close.
“Things were great until the business started to tank,” he said. “That’s when she decided she needed to advance her career.”
“She quit?”
“The job and me, taking off somewhere in Europe – though God only knows how she could afford it. She was always complaining I didn’t pay her enough. Nobody ever did, according to her. Yet she always managed to live in a good place and dress up in good clothing, to go out to eat in the best restaurants. I guess I’m stupid. I didn’t figure it out until much later.”
“And you still want her back?”
“I love her, man, I always will.”
“I can assure you; she doesn’t love you,” I said. “Why don’t you do yourself a favor and go home.”
“And do what? Wait for her to text me again? You know I’ll come running if she does, even if her cop friends try to beat me up.”
“Then, you’re a fool,” I said. “Go home or I’ll have to call a squad car.”
“Okay, but I can’t promise not to come back.”
“Go home!”
I handed him back his phone and then escorted him the whole way back down to the front door – which locked behind him. Then, most assuredly confused, I made my way back up to her apartment.
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