Читать книгу Night Kills - John Lutz - Страница 14

Two weeks earlier

What the hell?

Shellie Marston stood before her open closet door and stared at her meager wardrobe. The black dress with the gray polka dots was still in its plastic bag from the dry cleaners, but she was sure she’d hung it yesterday on the opposite side of the closet rod.

In fact, some of her other clothes seemed to be out of place. The white blouse with the lace collar—she wouldn’t have jammed it between the two business blazers she seldom wore these days. And look, one of the lapels was bent.

This was damned odd. In fact, it made her flesh creep.

She recalled now the morning a few days ago when her cosmetics seemed to have been rearranged. Not drastically. Maybe a jar or bottle transposed or otherwise out of place. A can of hairspray she recalled as still useful had been dead when she picked it up, without the usual sputtering and irregular spray that could go on for several more uses.

She looked at herself in the vanity mirror. What? Was she getting paranoid? No one was getting in here. No one had the key, except for the super, a man in his sixties. She had to smile. Mr. Mercurio would hardly be wearing her clothes and using her cosmetics. He’d split all the seams if he tried to wriggle into the polka-dot dress. A vision of the dignified, mustached, and paunchy Mercurio struggling with her wardrobe almost made her laugh out loud. No, he was definitely not a suspect.

Of course, you never knew about people.

Yeah, she thought. Some people suspect things that never happened.

She had to admit it was possible that she’d hung her clothes in the closet exactly as they were. Same way with the cosmetics. The mind could play tricks. Memory was a joker.

The phone jangled, jarring her out of her thoughts. Not her cell phone. She ran to the table near the sofa, where the land line phone rested.

It was David.

The receiver pasted to her ear, she dropped onto the sofa and sat slumped in a cushioned corner. “The oddest thing just happened,” she said. “When I opened my closet it struck me that some of the clothes weren’t where I’d hung them.”

“Never mind that,” he said. “I’ve been thinking about you.”

She smiled. “I should hope so.”

Their journey from acquaintances to lovers had been smooth and natural, and Shellie couldn’t imagine being happier. Their personalities meshed perfectly, which added to the sexual sparks. He left nothing to wish for, in any respect. David was a gentleman who knew his way around, both in and out of bed.

Especially in bed.

“I want you to move in with me,” he said.

She was pleased but surprised. This was so fast. “I don’t know….”

“I didn’t think you’d hesitate.” He sounded disappointed.

“I mean, this is so sudden. I’ve been stuck in a routine: my apartment, my job—whenever I work.”

“You won’t have to worry about a job, darling. I’ll support you. I can afford it easily. I’d say I won’t even notice you’re around, only I’ll notice you all the time, even when I’m not home.”

“I don’t know, David….” But she did know. She’d already made up her mind.

“Two apartments,” he said. “All that money unnecessarily spent on rent.”

She laughed. Didn’t he know she was already convinced? “We’ve left the subject of love and we’re talking about money now.”

“I didn’t mean—”

“I’m only kidding, David. Of course I’ll move in with you. It makes perfect sense. Why should we rotate where we spend our nights?”

“I don’t care where they’re spent as long as we’re together. I thought about giving up my apartment and moving in with you, taking over the rent payments.”

“This place is a broom closet compared to your apartment.”

“That’s what I decided. You deserve better, darling.”

“David, I’ve got better. You.”

“You know I love you.”

“I do know that. It’s more important than my address.”

“Tomorrow?”

“Nobody makes up their mind and then moves tomorrow, David. I need time to pack, decide what I want to keep, put things in boxes.”

“Get busy. I’ll come over and help you.”

“Why so fast?”

“I don’t want you to change your mind.”

Within four days, Shellie was totally moved into David’s apartment. He’d paid the remaining time on her lease, making the real estate agency that managed the building happy. A small moving company transferred the things Shellie wanted to keep. What was left was bought and moved out of her old apartment by an estate liquidation company. Most of it would probably turn up in flea markets, where Shellie had bought it. Life could certainly change in a hurry, sometimes for the better.

There was only one hitch.

David explained it to her over their first breakfast at home. They were almost like a married couple talking over…the things Shellie imagined married people discussed.

“I sublease the place,” David said, after swallowing a bite of buttered toast. He took a sip of the coffee he’d assured her was just right. “Part of the deal is that I can’t have a roommate.”

Shellie paused in raising a bite of egg on her fork. “You mean my living here has to be a secret?”

He laughed. “I wouldn’t put it so melodramatically. I mean, you don’t have to hide or skulk around. A big apartment building like this, hardly anybody knows or even notices their neighbors. Once you close the door to the hall behind you, they don’t know which apartment you’ve just exited. In the elevator, they don’t know which floor you’ve come from. What’s more, they don’t care. There’s a rapid tenant turnover here.”

“Am I supposed to look both ways in the hall before I go out the door?”

He smiled. “It wouldn’t hurt. What I mean, though, darling, is just don’t make it a point to get to know the neighbors. You don’t have to run and hide if anybody sees you.”

“You make it sound like a game.”

“It is one,” he said. “The way subleases and rental agreements work, lots of New Yorkers play it. If we lose, they’ll throw you out. Which means they’ll throw us both out, because I’ll go with you.” He shrugged. “Getting evicted wouldn’t be the end of the world. It happens somewhere in the city every day.”

“Not to us,” she said, then chewed and swallowed her bite of egg. “Not here. I promise to be careful.”

“Probably,” he said, “no one would turn us in even if they did notice you were staying here. Most people mind their own business. They might even approve of your presence. Who couldn’t approve of you?”

A game, she thought, and finished her breakfast.

More like a romantic movie. The Phantom Tenant.

Like a movie. And I’m the star.

David wouldn’t know that was how she saw it, she thought, so why not give herself top billing?

It worked so well. David was right: no one in the building paid much attention to anyone else. If the tenants passed in the halls or found themselves with one another at the elevator, they usually merely nodded, sometimes smiled. On the elevator itself, they followed elevator etiquette and stood stone-faced staring at the ascending or descending number above the sliding door.

Entering or leaving the building was the same way; often there wasn’t even an exchange of glances. A few times someone held open the heavy street door for Shellie. She’d thanked them perfunctorily and hurried along. She acted the way they did, the way most New Yorkers acted—preoccupied. They passed or had brief contact with thousands of people every day and within a few days forgot all but a few.

Shellie was happy. And the apartment was spacious by New York standards, and with a nice view from a high floor. The furnishings were traditional, with a pale tan leather sofa and matching armchair, a TV behind the doors of a wooden wall unit that also had shelves holding knickknacks and a lineup of books that seemed chosen more for color than content. The furniture, the complementing drapes and carpet, the framed art prints on the wall gave the apartment a composed, decorator look. It was a look she liked, and it took only a few weeks for Shellie to regard it as home.

She would have been even happier if David spent more time in town, but they made the most of it when he was home.

And the most of it was quite a lot.