James Swain: The Night Stalker

I walked down to the shoreline with Buster. The tide was coming in, and I pulled off my sandals and stuck my feet into the tepid water. I had tasted despair many times in my life, and the ocean always restored my spirits. It wasn’t long before I was feeling better, and I went inside.

The Sunset was a rough-hewn building, half of it sitting on the beach, the other half on wood stilts over the ocean. I rented a small studio above the bar, which was what four hundred and fifty bucks a month got you these days. It wasn’t much, but the ocean view made it feel special.

I was greeted with a chorus of boozy hellos. Sitting at the bar were the same seven sun-burned rummies who’d been drinking there since I’d started renting my room. I called them the Seven Dwarfs because it was rare to see any of them standing upright. I took a stool at the end of the bar, and stared at the TV.

Sonny served me a cold draft and I ordered a burger with french fries. He asked how my day had gone.

“Couldn’t have been better,” I said.

“I taped your daughter’s basketball game,” Sonny said. “Want to see it?”

“You don’t think the Dwarfs will revolt?”

“They’re too drunk to notice.”

“Sure.”

Sonny tossed me the remote, and I made the screaming mutants on Jerry Springer vanish from the screen. Soon my daughter’s basketball game was playing. It was between the Lady Seminoles of Florida State and the Lady Bulldogs of Mississippi State. The opening tip-off fell into my daughter’s hands, and she dribbled down-court, and scored an easy layup. I pounded the bar.

Jessie and I hadn’t done much together when she was growing up. Then in junior high school she’d taken a serious interest in basketball, and I’d nailed a hoop to the garage, and spent countless hours feeding her balls. Her prowess had earned her a full athletic scholarship to Florida State, making me the proudest father on the planet.

Five minutes into the game, Sonny served me dinner on a tray. Two cheeseburgers, two servings of french fries, and two glasses of wine.

“What’s this?” I asked.

“You’ve got a visitor,” Sonny said.

I sat up straight on my stool. “I do?”

“She’s upstairs. Came in a couple hours ago, just dying to see you.”

The Dwarfs got quiet. They weren’t the kind of guys who could keep a secret very long, and I glanced down the bar at them. To a man, they were grinning their fool heads off.

“She’s a real beauty,” one said.

Sonny handed me the tray with a smile on his face.

“You’re not going to tell me who’s upstairs in my room, are you?” I said.

“That’s for us to know and for you to find out,” Sonny said.

I took the tray. The stairwell to my room was in the hallway, and I climbed up the stairs with Buster trailing behind. I hadn’t had many lady visitors since my wife had left me nine months ago. In fact, I hadn’t had any, and I was clueless as to what beautiful woman might be waiting for me.

My father died a long time ago. Before he did, he drummed a bunch of things into my head. One was the importance of manners.

I knocked on the door to my room. Whoever was in there waiting for me, I didn’t want to startle her.

No answer. I kept my door unlocked because there was nothing in my room worth stealing. I twisted the knob, and poked my head inside. The sight of the woman lying on my bed took my breath away.

It was Rose, my wife.

She lay on the bed in her nurse’s uniform, sound asleep. An open magazine lay on her chest, and her glasses were perched low on her nose. My wife was Mexican, small-boned and perfectly proportioned, with round, soulful, expressive eyes that never failed to light up my heart. I’d fallen for her the first time we’d met, and I’d hit the earth hard the day she’d walked out on me.

I put the tray on the night table and lay down beside her. She was in a deep sleep, and I kissed her on the cheek, and saw the beginnings of a smile.

“Hey, beautiful, wake up,” I whispered.

Rose opened her eyes. The look on her face was one I was never going to forget. It was filled with longing and forgiveness. I held her in my arms and we kissed. A minute later, we came up for air.

“You smell like perfume,” she said. “Is there someone I should know about?”

There was a twinkle in her eye and I grinned.

“I was just in an orange grove,” I said. “What are you doing here?”

“The hospital sent its nurses to a special training seminar in Fort Lauderdale,” she said. “I drove down this morning and thought I’d surprise you. What were you doing in an orange grove?”

“Fighting with a cop.”

She thought I was kidding until I showed her the bruise on my arm.

“He must have been trying to hurt you,” my wife said.

“Let’s talk about it later.”

“Okay.”

We climbed off the bed, and went through our ritual of slowly undressing each other. It never failed to get us both aroused, and soon we were standing naked in the center of the room, holding hands and kissing.

Rose pulled me into bed, and we began to make love. My wife stands five feet tall, while I’m an inch over six feet, and it took us a few minutes to get our rhythm back. When we did, the walls began to vibrate and the room started to shake, and I don’t think a full-blown nuclear attack would have stopped us.

We climaxed at the same time, the horn of a passing yacht outside my window masking both our yells. Rose fell on top of me, and I held her overheated body against mine, and tried to catch my breath. The bedspread and pillows were scattered around the room, and I had no idea how they’d gotten there.

“Oh, wow,” she said.

Rose lay her head on my chest. For a while I listened to her breathing. Then I closed my eyes, and started to doze off. Her hand touched my face.

“Tell me why you were fighting in an orange grove with a policeman.”

I opened my eyes, and stared at my room’s cheap popcorn ceiling.

“We had a slight disagreement.”

“How bad?”

“Remember Heather Rinker?”

“Sure. She was one of Jessie’s friends in junior high. She was kind of wild, but I liked her.”

“Heather has a three-year-old son. He was kidnapped three nights ago, and I’ve been hired to find him. I’m certain his life is in danger. The detective working the case doesn’t want me involved, and he’s threatening me. So I threatened him back.”

“Why would he threaten you?”

“I don’t know. He’s got my old job running Missing Persons. Maybe he’s afraid I’ll show him up. Or maybe he’s trying to hide something.”

“Can he hurt you?”

I turned and stared into her eyes. “Yes.”

“How?”

“He could blackball me with other police departments and law enforcement agencies. All he has to do is send out an e-mail saying bad things about me, and I’m finished.”

“You mean it would destroy your business.”

“Yes.”

We didn’t talk for a while. The last time we’d been together, Rose had said that she’d be willing to leave her nursing job and come back to me, provided I could get my business going. If I kept warring with Ron Cheeks, that wasn’t going to happen.

“You hungry?” I asked.

“Starving,” my wife said.

“The food’s probably cold.”

“It will still taste good.”

I opened the window and we sat in bed eating our burgers and watching the cruise ships and pleasure boats pass by. A stiff breeze off the ocean cooled us down. Buster showed his face when we were done, and Rose fed him the rest of our french fries.

“Are you mad at me?” I asked.

Rose took my head in her hands. “Should I be?”

“I may have really screwed myself this time.”