Neighbors

He was Watering the avocado plant when he saw her. The girl was standing behind a sliding glass door, one hand on the mechanism for opening it, and she was peering out in a gingerly manner, presumably leery of the strong wind that was blowing. Apparently satisfied that the air currents would not pitch her from the balcony, she opened the door wide enough to let herself through and stepped outside.

Her costume, he thought, was most appealing, a long-sleeved gingham dress blood-red in color, which contrasted nicely with the blonde hair straight and falling in the most natural style. Leaning into the wind, she walked with purpose to the point on the balcony where the railing met from south to west. With the wind snapping at clothes and hair, with the clouds rolling ominously from the southwest, she resembled the figure-head of some noble ship about to meet the storm head on.

Being a longtime student of high-rise life, he reached for that one accouterment necessary to the vertically glassed-in male species such as himself--binoculars. To the unaided eye, she had appeared tall, well formed and perhaps pretty around the face. Magnified seven times, the matter of height and build was confirmed, though the face did give pause--a squat nose, eyes set too widely apart, a thin mouth that seemed frivolous, a little chin that seemed pointless. Studying this, he decided that the ingredients did not work individually, for each feature was out of whack with the next one, but collectively the parts meshed very well, indeed, and he let the glasses linger on this most promising neighborly discovery.

For several long minutes she remained motionless, giving the impression of toying with the wind, vamping the gusty outriders of the approaching storm. Then when all hell was about to invade her balcony, she began to turn in his direction, a graceful whirl in preparation for going inside, but at that precise instant when head and body faced him directly, she aborted the swinging movement and froze completely, as if upon command.

She sees me, he thought in panic. A distance of 50 feet at most, so how could she miss? But did she? In part, he was shielded by the avocado plant, the lights in his apartment were not turned on and the gloom outside was increasing as the storm approached. Yet with the binoculars, he could clearly see the color of her eyes, a soft brown that blended nicely with the blonde hair.

If the girl had caught him in the act, she was behaving as no one ever had. Upon rare occasions when the object of his viewing had in turn viewed him, the person had simply left the balcony or, if inside, pulled the drapes. Never had one stared him down like the girl in the red gingham dress.

A single raindrop on his window skittered across the binocular's field of vision, a peal of thunder clapped around the buildings. Forewarned in earnest, the girl nimbly dashed for the sliding glass door and a moment later vanished inside.

Terrible timing for him to be heading out on a date, of that there was no doubt, but already he was late, so he put on a raincoat and left. All in all, the evening was not bad--dinner, movie, a walk back to the girl's apartment with the smell of the recent storm all around them. Later, back at his place, and with the lights off, he took up station by the avocado plant.

Where are you, you smashing thing in red gingham and blonde hair? Where are you, Marian Taylor? He had already learned her name and the thought of this caused him to smirk to himself.

Undoubtedly, the layout of the apartment across the way was identical to that of his own, for the builders of this apartment-house complex were not known for originality among buildings. The living-room drapes were drawn, as were the shades in the one bedroom, leaving visible to him only a small corner of a room certain to be the kitchen and a portion of the hall leading to the living room.

His wait was not long. Apparently, she had gone into that part of the kitchen he could not see and raided the refrigerator there, because she showed up in the portion of the kitchen he could see with a glass of milk in her hand. The girl drank slowly from the glass. Her red gingham dress appeared mussed, and so did her hair. Who was the guy? he wondered. Whose hands had explored the dress and rummaged around the hair? The mild disarray suggested that he had been slightly rough on the girl, though perhaps the experience had not been entirely unpleasant. On her face: a trace of what could be annoyance, a measure of excitement. When she finished the milk and left, he went off and lay awake in his own dark bedroom, knowing that he had witnessed the beginning of an affair.

The next evening, however, she stayed home alone. Obligingly, she left the drapes open. Dressed in blue jeans and a plaid shirt not tucked in, she took to the ironing board, doubtlessly sprucing up for the pending rounds. The red gingham dress was ironed, as were other dresses, and even put to the iron was a blue nightgown, transparent, he noticed, when she held it in front of her.

The following week, the girl went out three times. The bedroom drapes were always pulled shut, so the first he knew of the imminent date was her grand entrance into the living room. Anticipating her date's arrival, she would empty an ashtray here, smooth a pillow there, all the while moving with that lithe grace that he was beginning to love.

Upon each of these three occasions, he would abandon his watching post beside the avocado plant to go out before her date arrived and would return home after she was home, and alone, at that; so, curiously enough, that week he never caught so much as a glimpse of the other guy.

The other guy. Whoever he was, he was managing to pull off two neat little tricks at the same time--one good, one bad. He excited her, to be sure, as he had noticed after the first date, when she was drinking milk in the kitchen. And judging from her face, this emotion increased after each of the next three dates. But from the very first, he had seen what he took to be annoyance, and this grew in tandem with the excitement until it was no longer annoyance. Make it read fear, he thought. Pure, undiluted fear. Even terror. Was he viewing the beginning of an affair or the prelude to murder?

Don't be so dramatic, he observed to himself. It was Saturday morning. A week to the day had passed since he had first seen the girl in the red gingham dress. And, like the previous Saturday, the air was heavy with storm, for it is axiomatic that fine Chicago summer days are not reserved for weekends.

In the apartment across the way, 17 floors above the street, the living-room drapes were unexpectedly drawn, and so were the bedroom shades, shielding the lovely girl from his inquisitive gaze. Well, he had nothing to do tonight. Likely, in time, she would pull the drapes and he would take up his post. Perhaps he would even see her date, although he somehow doubted this. The guy, he felt, was all through. He had something going for him and something going against him, but whatever it was that inspired the negative factor surely was adequate to mark finis to the matter.

Which raised an interesting point. Suppose she was in some danger. Suppose the guy was a threat to her. Ah, he would ride to the rescue. You dreamer, you, and he put on his raincoat and went to the supermarket. Returning with the fixings for dinner, he noticed the two thunderheads over the lake. Nigrescent like bruises against the summer sky, they lurked above the water, motionless, pointing menacingly at the sweltering city. Other passers-by, also noticing them, hurried on their way.

He unloaded the groceries and made sure that the air conditioning was turned up high. Several afternoon hours passed with the twin thunderheads stationed over the lake and the girl's drapes shut tight. Marian Taylor, what are you doing behind those curtains?

The time was nearly five o'clock when suddenly the sky became quite dark. Since sunset was some hours off, he went to the window and looked lakeward, knowing what he would see. In front of him was a wall of black; the thunder-heads were on the move. Suspecting that he was not witnessing an ordinary summer storm, he turned on the radio. The weather bureau, the announcer said, had just issued a tornado watch. A moment later, the watch was escalated. Tornado warning!

Outside, all traces of day receded until the building next door was in evidence only by a scattering of light showing. The wind increased its vicious tugs at the windows, and on the quivering glass, raindrops hammered in fury. The first lightning flash was tentative, brief in length, arching over the lake-front sky, but following the exploratory electronics, the air was shattered by a trio of simultaneous zigzag bolts, each (continued on page 248)Neighbors(continued from page 138) grotesquely seeking and finding the earth. The resulting thunderclaps were immense to the ears, and when the buildings had tossed back their last echoes, the silence was absolute. In his apartment, the radio announcer's voice was still, the air conditioning silent. The power had failed in the glass-and-concrete complex.

The fickle lightning moved north toward Milwaukee, leaving in its path trailings like fireflies on a summer night. With the lightning gone, the complex was plunged into darkness, although he could see through the pelting rain the flickering of candles and the beams from flashlights. Which do you use behind your curtains. Marian Taylor? If only I could help you.

This pleasant fancy had no sooner passed than he was startled to see her balcony door slide open and the girl appear outside. With several large steps suggesting urgency, she went to the corner of the balcony nearest him and waved frantically in his direction. Impossible, he thought, she can't see me, for it's as dark as moonless midnight. Nevertheless, there was terror in the wild waving and he opened his own balcony door and went outside.

"Help!" she yelled, her voice diluted by the wind.

"What's the matter?" he shouted. Leaning forward at the balcony, he tried to see more of her, but all he could make out in the gloom were the white of her shorts, the blonde of her hair.

"Please help me!"

"What's the matter?"

"He's going to kill me."

"I'm coming, Marian."

• • •

Resembling tennis balls bouncing about a court, the wind-propelled clouds tumbled toward the group of high-rise apartment buildings. In a few minutes, she thought, the storm will be upon us with lightning and rain. Still, there was time before it hit and, opening the sliding glass door all the way, she stepped out onto the balcony. To her feet, the floor of the concrete balcony was hot from the late-afternoon sun now rendered invisible by the coming storm. At that place on the balcony where the view was directly toward Old Town, she placed both hands on the railing.

Go to church, her mother had said, and you will surely meet some nice young men. In a big city, the advice had proceeded, you must be careful where you meet people. Church is a good place. Well, she had tried church, the Episcopal one over on Dearborn Street, and no thanks, Mother. Not her type, or types, but what was her type? He was . . . maybe. The guy on the number-151 bus and her date tonight. Mother, you'll never guess where I met him. On the bus. On a Michigan Avenue number-151 bus. His name is Don Moretel, but that wouldn't mean anything to you.

The wind played with her dress and long blonde hair and, leaning into the wind, she could feel the temperature of the air descend. Nearly time to go in, she thought, since it appeared that date and storm would arrive almost simultaneously. She was starting to turn, to head back into the apartment, when she noticed the man in the next building. Not more than a shadow in the failing light: nevertheless, he was visible: standing next to a plant (avocado?), holding binoculars pointed directly at her. Of all the nerve, you creep! she shrieked to herself.

No more than 50 feet away and there he was, devouring me with those big powerful glasses, eating me alive at close range. Strongly tempted to bolt inside and escape those invading eyes, nevertheless, she remained motionless and met the gaze head on. Obviously, he must know that he was caught in the act, yet he stayed still and frozen. Or did he believe the fading light rendered him invisible? Anyway. . . . A scattering of raindrops smacked her in the face and she went inside.

Some hours later, she critiqued the first date, mulling it over in the kitchen with a glass of milk for an audience. Don Moretel was an interesting guy, a strange one, too. Possessive and moody, though entertaining and amusing. Contradictions galore. She looked into the glass as if for the answer. Speak, glass. It spoke: The creep's looking at you again. Without glancing his way, she knew it for a fact. Good night, creep, she thought. After finishing the milk, she went to bed.

Next evening came and, with it, the call of a girl who suspects that romance may lurk nearby--a session with a hot iron. The red gingham dress and other possible dating apparel fell to the steaming metal, and she even touched up her blue nightgown. After ironing the nightgown, she held it to the light, approvingly noticing its patent transparency, wistfully musing whether or not Don would ever see her draped in such. While temporarily suspended in this reverie, she became aware that her solitude was an illusion, that the guy across the way was nocturnally scanning, and by turning slightly, she confirmed it. By the potted plant, there was a vague shape in the darkened apartment. One thing, creep, she mused, you'll never see me in this nightgown.

Events of the following week called forth a mixed bag of emotions: pleasure, puzzlement, annoyance. Don Moretel was solicitous, polite, generous with his dating cash.

He was also somewhat of a mystery man concerning where he lived. "Nearby" was his only reply. And he was suspicious, jealous, even threatening.

"What do you do when I don't see you?" he asked at one point.

"Right now, I'm seeing you, don."

"But when I'm not around?"

"Just you, Don."

"Better keep it that way."

"What do you mean?"

"I have this picture of you in my mind, Marian. It's like I monitor you with some kind of ESP." She remembered that one of their early conversations had been about thought transference. It was one of his peculiar interests--but she hadn't been able to tell whether he'd been joking about it or whether he really believed in it.

Six short days had passed since the first date, and in six days and four dates it was all over, ending far short of any scene starring the blue nightgown. Saturday morning and dressed in white shorts and dark T-shirt, she chain-smoked behind closed drapes, hardly aware of the humming of the air conditioning, completely oblivious to the weather outside.

Last night had seen the proverbial final straw. Following an expensive and well-turned-out meal in a French restaurant, they had gone to a Near North bar popular with the young set. Before she had finished her first drink, he had pulled the possessive act with such force that she had taken refuge in the ladies' room and there she reached the final decision. She was returning to the table, threading her way through massed humanity, when she noticed that Don had opened her purse and with one hand was rummaging around inside.

"Don, what are you doing in my purse?"

"Looking for a match. What took you so long?"

"Take me home, please."

In the cab on the way back, she owned the conversation. In precise language, without attempting to keep the heat out of her voice, she delivered the nonnegotiable.

"You don't own me," she concluded.

"Good night," he replied sweetly, not bothering to get out of the cab. And as she was walking away from the cab, he tossed her a kind of throwaway line, one that exploded around her head like a bomb.

"Marian, I'm going to kill you. That's a promise."

She had rushed into her building's lobby, mentally urged the elevator on to greater speed and, once inside the apartment, she slammed the door. Turning the double lock at the top, she felt satisfaction at the solid, metallic click.

"No way," the building superintendent had said when she moved in, "for anyone to get through that double lock without a key. Of course, they could always take the door off," and he laughed at this, since the neighbors would be bound to hear or notice.

Saturday morning passed into afternoon and she sat there behind closed drapes, smoked, commiserated with herself. The principal reassuring thought: Thank God for the double lock. And there was always the phone and the police. And, as a last resort, the gun in the bedroom.

She went into the bedroom. Nestled beneath a maroon wool sweater was a Ruger Mark I automatic target pistol. Great on tin cans and for just fooling around, it wasn't an unusual gun for a city girl to have, especially for a former downstate tomboy. A box of .22-caliber ammunition was kept under another sweater, and she placed both pistol and bullets on top of the bureau.

The world's full of kooks, she thought, returning to the living room. Like Don Moretel from the 151 bus. Well, her mother would say, what would you expect? Now, I suggest. . . . Ok, Mother, I get the picture. Kooks. An ocean full of them. And not to mention my little friend with the binoculars across the way.

That week she had been aware of his watching her when tidying up before Don came over, after Don had brought her home and had left, and the time she had done the ironing. But oddly enough, she had not believed her apartment under surveillance when Don was with her there, although there was no reason to doubt that even creeps have their own social life and go out, too. What do you suppose he's up to now? she wondered. To be sure, the drawn curtains did not offer a tempting view for him; she went to the curtain and drew it back a slit so she could see into the next apartment.

Looking out, she was surprised how dark it was. There could only be a storm on the way, she knew, for it was not quite five o'clock. And, yes, he was there, not by the avocado plant but back in the apartment with binoculars hanging from his neck, the glasses flat on his chest, his head facing the lake, no doubt eying the coming storm. To Marian, he was an indistinct figure in the false dusk.

With the first flash of lightning, she let the drapes return to their normal state and stepped back into her living room. Putting a hand to her chest, she could clearly feel the beat of her heart, strong, increasing in tempo, reflecting anxiety about to overflow to the grounds of panic. Several things were wrong, dead wrong, yet their essences eluded her. She glanced around the room, as if the room itself held an answer--any answer. The double-locked door. News-papers on the floor. An overflowing ashtray. The lamp burning on the coffee table. The purse on the couch.

"The purse!" she said out loud, fingers tearing at the zipper.

Turning it upside down, she let the contents fall to the couch, and then she got down on her knees to better inspect. Suddenly, the little pile of feminine effects seemed to glow not once but three times, localized evidence of three monstrous thunderbolts ripping the sky; but even before the coffee-table lamp went out and the air conditioning ceased to whoosh, she knew that the extra set of keys was gone.

"Marian, I'm going to kill you."

At any moment, entirely at his discretion, Don Moretel could come through the door. The police, she thought: but from the lifted phone, she was insulted by the lack of a hum, isolated by absolute silence. The word escape rang in her brain and, in a trifling, she was in the hall and running for the stairs. With the power failure, surely the elevators were out of action, but 17 flights down she would be in the lobby, with the street outside and a police car soon to pass.

Normally, an electric sign indicated Stairs in the hall, but this also had been extinguished by the storm. Four doors toward the elevators were the stairs, she reckoned on the run, and she was right on target, opening the door as the building shook with an outrageous rumble of thunder. She started down the stairs but had not traveled a flight in the dark when a noise brought her to a stop: from below, the heavy tread of a man ascending the stairs.

The rational part of her mind suggested that an occupant of the building had elected to hoof it up home, while the other part shouted that Don Moretel was on the way. It was impossible to meet anyone in the elevator, so what better place for murder than in a glass house without electricity? She fled back to her apartment, stopping in her dash to bang on two doors, hitting them hard with a doubled fist, striking them with force enough to send the little brass knockers into crazy metallic dances. Thunder answered her desperation.

Back in her own place, she did not bother to lock the door, for what good would it do with Don having the key? She did light a candle, however, to afford some light for the apartment, and placed it on the coffee table. She had a plan now and this made her feel calmer. To her, the use of the gun was repugnant and a last desperate remedy. But there was someone to whom she could call for help. The creep across the way. To be a creep was one thing, to be a possible murderer, another. He was probably safe enough and, at least, better than no one. She rushed for the balcony door.

He must see me waving, she prayed. He does see me. He's coming. Still no more than a blur in the murk, he stood across from her on his balcony, leaning over the railing, trying to catch her plea.

"Help!" she yelled.

"What's the matter?" he shouted.

"Please help me!"

"What's the matter?"

"He's going to kill me."

"I'm coming. Marian."

He knows my name, she thought, both relieved and perplexed. The lightning was very distant now, barely illuminating the dark skies north along the lake. She closed the sliding glass door and returned to the living room. He knows my name. When concentrating hard, Marian had a stance that was, in effect, a characteristic gesture of deep contemplation, legs stiff, with the right foot at a right angle to the left. Standing in such a way, staring at the undulating wave of the candlelight, she grabbed for what was loose and brought it down.

"Oh, my God!" she said, speaking out loud in her solitude for the second time that day. The graceful position evaporated into a huddled figure on the sofa, one hand behind the other and both pressed tightly to her eyes.

"I have this picture of you in my mind, Marian." Don had boasted. But now she guessed the picture came from something more tangible than ESP.

Squarely she must face one ghastly, inescapable truth: Don Moretel and the creep were one and the same.

Surely this was the reason the man in the next building had never snooped when Don was with her and why he had said that she was never out of his sight. Nevertheless, against overwhelming evidence, she wondered if she wasn't making a mistake, if Don had been trying only to scare her from seeing other men and if Don's and the creep's going out at the same time wasn't just coincidence. And the fact that he knew her name virtually could be meaningless. After all, he must be interested in her, because of the intensity of his watching. He lived on the same floor as she, though in a different building. Figuring out her apartment number would not be tough, since each building had an identical layout as to apartment numbers. The directory downstairs would furnish her name in a second. perhaps, she thought; but her final conclusion was hard. The two men were identical and any other rationale was simply fooling herself.

In the bedroom, the metal of the target pistol felt warm and humid to the touch. Carrying the weapon into the living room, she loaded it by candlelight and, going to the corner of the room, flanked by the draperies, she waited with gun pointing at the door.

"Marian, I'm going to kill you."

"Maybe you will," she whispered to herself. "We'll see."

With doors and windows shut and air conditioning off, the air in the room was getting sticky, and she felt a thin unlady-like film spread across her, caused partially by rising temperature and humidity but mainly by the most terrifying experience of her existence.

Falling nearly horizontally, the rain beat a staccato pattern on the windows, and with water came wind howling with an eerie pitch around glass and concrete. Seven thousand people lived in the complex, she had heard, yet she could summon only a single person to help, a jilted suitor who for some warped reason imagined himself wronged, and one who had promised to kill her.

She was too far from the candle to see the gun held in her hand, though she suspected from the vicious grip on the butt that the hand would show white. Please come. Please come. So we can finish whatever it is you and I must finish.

In time he came. In uncounted hours to the waiting girl, in reality only the handful of minutes that it requires a strong man to run down 17 flights, cross a courtyard, climb 17 flights, he burst through the door, hitting it at a run at nearly shoulder height, entering the room in a shallow dive, unnaturally stiff as a creature drawn on wires.

The first shot she could identify individually, a sharp minor ping in the small room, but the rest ran together like a string of irritating firecrackers. The slightly plunging man never had the opportunity to straighten from his dive, for his trip was all one way--to the floor by the coffee table, face flush with the rug when the forward momentum had stopped.

Falling to the rug, the gun made a gentle anticlimactic thud, and the one large gulp of air she took was filled with smoke, so when she screamed, the sound came out hoarse and warbling, like the racket from a hurt animal.

"Shut up," Don Moretel said as he closed the door. In easy fashion, he swung a flashlight. "You'll wake the dead." he added, and laughed.

In the corner, Marian started to cry.