Colin Harrison - Afterburn

Then, on the third day, a windy and warm afternoon that fluttered the shoe-sale fliers out of the overflowing Broadway trash cans, he noticed Christina step out of the Jim-Jack. She slipped on a pair of sunglasses and a baseball cap. Even across the traffic he could feel her attitude. Oh, baby, kill me now, he told himself, get it over with. You didn't score a smile too often from Christina, but when you did and she held your gaze, then all manner of indecencies were proposed, approved, and scheduled. Her eyes said, It's just a matter of time, boy. Until then, why don't you keep your hand out of your pants? She carried a paper shopping bag from one of the big bookstore chains. Head down, she crossed at the light on the other side of the street and stalked past him in her jeans and thick-heeled boots. He remembered the bite of hot dog in his mouth and swallowed. Did she always move her butt like that? He watched the other men notice her. But he could also tell she didn't want to be bothered. She'd been on her feet for hours, drunk too much coffee, smoked too many cigarettes, wanted to get at her books. He eased out to the street, began to follow her. Now is the time, he told himself, now.

She walked briskly, cutting north on the Bowery two blocks, then east again on East Fourth Street. He followed from half a block away, his neck and armpits getting sweaty, darting in and out of the shadowed awnings of the bodegas and hardware shops and other marginal businesses along the avenues, then up and down and behind the stoops on the streets. A couple of junkies enjoying the sun inquired as to his propensity to invest in a shopping cart full of copper cable stolen from the subways. He waved them off. Nice neighborhood she lived in. Half the buildings looked ready to collapse. He glanced back anxiously and saw no one following. No cars easing down the street, no one trailing down the block behind him on either side. He continued after her. He considered running up to her, surprising her. Christina, it's me, Rick. He could almost do it. But she was thinking about good things. It was in her shoulders, her neck, the way she was making the hot wind catch her hair. Maybe Paul's wife is right, maybe she met somebody already, some guy giving her beef injections. Don't get mad about it, he told himself, be cool. Do the cool thing. She stopped and fished into her bag, went inside a blue apartment building. She's doing okay, he thought, she's got a place. He eased up the other side of the block, staying at an acute angle to the building so that if she had windows onto the street she couldn't see him.

He'd check the mailboxes. He stepped up to the building and cupped his hand against the glass of the front door. Not much: a long tiled hallway, dim, littered with giveaway newspapers and takeout restaurant menus, the lip of a stairwell protruding past the plane of the hallway. On the intercom, the apartments were tagged 1A, 1B, 1C, 1D, 2A, 2B, 2C, and so on. He inspected the name tags. Christina's was not there. But five of the apartments had no identification on them; although it was possible that she was living under someone else's name, hers was probably one of these unknown ones: 3A, 4C, 5D, 6C, 6D. And, he noticed, these were generally higher apartments, perhaps toward the rear, if the front apartments were A and B. He stepped back across the street and examined the building. Six floors, four windows across each floor. From the differences in curtains and window plants, he guessed that the four windows were split between two apartments. Two apartments front, two back. The front apartments were the more desirable, which meant that it was less likely that Christina was in one of them. The pattern of the absence of name tags corroborated this. The less desirable apartments would have a higher turnover rate, and therefore be more likely to be either unoccupied or so recently occupied that no one had put a name on the intercom yet or, last, occupied by the type of people who did not want their presence announced on the front of the building. Perhaps.

Or perhaps he was full of shit for trying to have X-ray vision.

He waited long enough that anyone climbing to the top floor would have reached it. No one came to any of the windows. He waited longer. The angle of the sun changed. He noticed that the apartments had various makes of air conditioner. Fucking air conditioners, the whole reason Christina went to prison in the first place. My fault, he told himself, it was my fault she got arrested. A trailer full of lousy air conditioners and she spends four years in prison.

He returned his attention to the building. The difference in the makes of the air conditioners probably meant the landlord hadn't provided them. Bought by the tenants. This, in turn, suggested that each apartment had its own electric meter, since no landlord in his right mind would provide air conditioners for apartments that were not metered. A big air conditioner pulled more juice than a washing machine. Both front apartments on the third floor had air conditioners in the window, nice ones, which, again assuming that the A and B apartments were the front ones, meant that Christina did not live in 3A, the sole untagged apartment on the third floor. That left the four untagged apartments on the top three floors. He could ring the untagged ones and see if she answered. This he did: 4C offered no response; 5D was answered by a little girl saying, "Mom, Dad also wants cigarettes"; 6C provoked a bout of godawful coughing and then one word, "?Si?"; with 6D there was no answer at all.

He retreated across the street, frustrated but also nervous that someone might be watching him. If anyone had successfully followed him, they would be very interested in Rick's behavior. Three more minutes, he told himself. He noticed that the window on 5A or 5B was all the way open and a towel rested on the ledge, something pink peeking over the side. Drying in the sun. Pink, maybe underwear. That could be Christina. She wouldn't be wasting her tip cash on dryers in a Laundromat if she could help it. But this was a front apartment, which did not conform to his speculations.

He crossed the street again and checked the name tag on 5A. It read M. Williams. 5B was marked H. Ramirez. He backed up onto the street. Now the underwear window opened. A woman's left foot stretched out, waggled in the air. Drying the nail polish. Christina? The foot disappeared. If he knew her, then the other foot would soon-there it was! Yes! Waggling, toes pointed! Her lovely little foot, size eight; he'd spent at least three thousand bucks on shoes for her over the years. She was in there doing her nails. Was that apartment 5A or 5B? He pushed 5B. No answer. He pushed again. Nothing. He darted out of the vestibule and looked up. The feet were still there. He returned to the vestibule and rang 5A. He jumped out of the vestibule and looked up. The feet were gone from the window.

"Yes?" came her irritated voice from the intercom.

Rick looked at the mailbox. "Mr. Ramirez?"

"That's 5B," Christina said.

"Okay."

"Try reading," she added.

Try not to be your old bitchy self, Rick thought triumphantly, even though I love it. But now he was stuck in the vestibule. If she looked out the window, she'd see him. He eased out the front door. The feet were back, both paddling the air softly. Let's go, Rick, you got what you needed. He slipped down the street a block, two, the sweat seeping through his shirt, then slowed. His plan was working. He had money, he'd pulled himself together, he'd found her. Now he wanted to think about the approach. You had to consider what kind of life she had now. Building her existence back up. He was standing there, with his hand in his pocket, playing with his dick. Stop thinking about the sex, Rick. What would Paul do? Paulie would say, If you have to approach her, if you really must do it, then do it with a clear head. Don't be thinking about sex or love or forgiveness. She'll see that right away. She'll know you're thinking about yourself and not her, and she'll tell you to get the hell out of her life. The thing is a long shot anyway, so why not play it right? He needed to make himself ready for her. If he was going to talk and to listen, then he couldn't be thinking about the other thing.