Blood Red

Business and pleasure do not always mix. Maggie knew that very well. She was reminded when she spent the night with Leonard Morton. Leonard was a large man, half-bald and sweaty on the best days. He was pleasant enough, actually rather charming in old-fashioned ways, but he was also, simply put, a bit of a pig. He even had the nose for the assignment.

Still, she did what she had to and stayed the night as she had been paid to do. And if she felt worse about it than she normally did, well, that was to be expected when you got right down to it. She suspected Ben would know what she was doing and that bothered her more than she wanted it to.

Tom was going to pay for that. She didn’t know how, but he was going to regret fucking with her. Thinking about his sorry excuse for a face made her grind her teeth together. She could feel a headache coming on and he would pay for that, too.

She just had to work out the details.

She got home a little before the sun rose. The apartments were all dark, which was about what she’d expected.

There was a note against her front door. It was written on the same antiqued stock as the poem she’d gotten a week earlier and the few pieces of artwork and poetry she’d seen in Ben’s bedroom.

She opened the single piece of paper and read the words carefully.

It read:

Alone

From childhood’s hour I have not been

As others were; I have not seen

As others saw; I could not bring

My passions from a common spring.

From the same source I have not taken

My sorrow; I could not awaken

My heart to joy at the same tone;

And all I loved, I loved alone.

Then—in my childhood, in the dawn

Of a most stormy life—was drawn

From every depth of good and ill

The mystery which binds me still:

From the torrent, or the fountain,

From the red cliff of the mountain,

From the sun that round me rolled

In its autumn tint of gold,

From the lightning in the sky

As it passed me flying by,

From the thunder and the storm,

And the cloud that took the form

(When the rest of Heaven was blue)

Of a demon in my view.

—Edgar Allan Poe

Thanks for keeping me not alone,

Ben

She folded the paper and looked over her shoulder to the window of his place. Silly, really, that a poem could make her feel better. But it did.

She took the paper inside her apartment and carefully set it out on the kitchen table. A few hours under a frying pan would take the worst of the wrinkles out, and after that she planned on pinning it to the wall.

She was just getting ready for a few hours of sleep when the phone rang.

“Hello?”

“Well, I kind of expected a phone call from you today.” Tom’s voice crawled through the receiver. He was sounding like he was ready for a fight.

“Really? Why?” He wasn’t the only one who could do innocent.

There was complete silence on the other end for a few seconds. Monkey Boy had to think. It was seldom a pretty thing to watch and almost always took longer than should be necessary.

“Well, just because I haven’t heard from you lately.” He was puzzled. She didn’t much care.

“Hey, school keeps me busy and the client list isn’t getting any smaller.”

“So, Jason Soulis called me. He wants to get together with you tonight.”

“Okay. He can give me a ring to set up the particulars. Anything else?”

“Uhh. No, I guess that about does it.”

“Well, there it is. Talk to you soon, Tom.” She hung up before he could say anything else. She didn’t want to hear his voice, didn’t want to think about him. She wanted free of him, once and for all.

It was time to move on. She had enough money to handle it, but it would take time to work out the details: time or a gun big enough to erase Monkey Boy off the face of the earth. Maggie liked the second idea better, but wasn’t stupid enough to do anything about it.

III

Ben watched Maggie go inside her apartment and breathed a sigh of relief. With all of the people who had vanished of late, he didn’t exactly love the idea of her being out all night.

She cast her eyes in his direction and he studied her as he always did. Every detail of her face fascinated him. He wondered, as he did from time to time when he was feeling a bit self-conscious, whether or not he qualified as a stalker. There was something wrong with watching her as often as he did, and he knew that, but couldn’t stop it.

Didn’t want to stop it.