TWENTY-THREE

Why, oh why, did she have such horrendous taste in men?

Starting right with her first boyfriend in junior high, George Spain, who set fire to her locker when she broke up with him, continuing with Pete “Pistol Pete” Madigan in her first and only year of junior college, who broke her arm during what he termed “horseplay,” and right on up to husband number one, Earl Van Dyke, who’d done the worst thing of all, the thing she couldn’t even bear to think about. . . .

The point was, Joan had a knack for finding losers and making them her own. She couldn’t seem to learn her lesson—after leaving Earl, she took up with another piano player, Joe Hunter, who went out on the road two days after they got married and never came back; and then there were various other sleazebags here and there, as she worked her way up from Fort Lauderdale to Daytona and on up to Tampa, which brought her right around to the sleazebag at hand. . . .

Mike Tremont, whom Joan had been stupid enough to sleep with a half-dozen times when she first came to the city, before realizing what a dirt ball he was. She’d broken it off clean, she thought, thought he was out of her life forever, heard that he’d moved down to Orlando and gotten a job with Disney, but last Tuesday morning, during the breakfast rush, she’d come down the counter taking orders and whose skeevy little face did she find leering up at her but Mike Tremont’s. She’d pretended to be happy to see him, but when it became clear that he thought he could pick right up where they’d left off, that he for some reason thought she owed him something (sex, for one, money probably, for another), things had turned ugly.

A little scary, even. Mike had pulled a knife.

Luckily, one of the other customers on the counter had been Ben Kubiak, Officer Ben Kubiak, who, even though he was off duty and not packing, had easily disarmed Mike and gotten him hauled away in a black-and-white.

But last night—early this morning, actually, four A.M. or so, no one in the place but her and Willie, the cook—Mike Tremont had wandered right back into the diner.

She threw down her order pad, put her hands on her hips, and got down to it, right away, because that was who she was.

“Don’t make me call the cops, Mike.”

Tremont sat down at the counter and smiled.

“Coffee,” he said.

She glared at him.

He took out a dollar bill and put it on the counter.

“Please.”

She poured a cup and slid it over to him.

He sipped at it for the next half hour, staring at her the whole time. Creep. He kept staring as the diner started filling up with early-morning customers.

Finally, ten minutes before six, just as her shift was about to end, he stood up and pushed his cup toward her.

“Thanks, Joan.”

She didn’t say anything, just reached out to clear the cup away—

And he grabbed her hand.

“You’re lookin’ good. Very, very good.”

Before she could swing at him, he let go.

He put another dollar down on the counter—“Tip.”

—and walked out the door.

Even then, though, he didn’t leave. He stared at her through the front window for the next ten minutes, till Mr. Schurr showed up with Gina. Then when she turned to the window to point him out, he was gone.

Still, Joan had played it safe. She got Willie to drive her home. To wait while she entered the building and shut the door—slammed it so the lock would catch, even though she knew she’d have to fiddle with it to get back out later that afternoon—and made her way down the hall to her apartment, thinking about Mike every step of the way. Bastard. Come back here, try to fuck up my life? She had mace in her apron. She always carried it; she’d even used it a couple times, and she wouldn’t mind spraying it a third. She pictured Mike screaming and clawing at his eyes, and—

A hand touched her shoulder.

She didn’t panic, she didn’t scream, she just turned, reaching for the mace, wondering how in the hell the bastard had snuck up so close without her hearing a thing.

But it was Stanley.

Dressed in his big puffy slippers, sweatpants, and an I LOVE LUCY T-shirt.

“Hi, Joan.”

“Hi, Stanley.” She sighed. “Jesus, you scared me.”

“I’m sorry.” He smiled. “How was work?”

“Work was fine.” She didn’t have the strength to get into it with Bumpo right now; all she wanted to do was sleep.

He was still smiling.

“What?”

“We had some excitement here last night,” Stanley said, leaning forward and whispering conspiratorially. “The new neighbor.”

“What do you mean?”

“I was watching TV—”

No shit, Joan thought.

“—when there was screaming. Really loud screaming.”

“Mr. Badass was screaming?”

“No, not him,” Bumpo said. “Another man.”

Joan’s stomach turned.

Christ, she thought. Carlos has rented out the loft to a serial killer.

“Why was the other man screaming, Stanley?”

“I don’t know. We didn’t go see.”

“We?”

“Me and Dave.”

“Dave heard it, too.”

“Oh, you couldn’t miss it. It was really loud.”

“Stanley, did you call the police?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

The man reddened. “Well . . . No, I mean. We didn’t want to—”

“Oh, Christ.” Joan turned back to her door and opened it. “I’ll call. When was this?”

“Last night, you know. Late. Very late. But, Joan—it’s okay. We don’t need to call.”

“We don’t need to call.” She shook her head in disbelief. “Stanley, for all you know this other guy is dead.”

“No, he’s not. He’s fine.”

“But—”

“I saw him walk out, an hour or so after the screaming. Walked right out the front door, in a little red uniform. Whistling, big smile on his face . . .”

Joan made a noise of disgust. Mr. Badass, in those sunglasses and leather coat; another man in a little red uniform screaming . . . Most definitely, she did not want to know what had been happening in that apartment last night.

One thing was certain, though; her idea about inviting the new neighbor to dinner . . .

That was out the window for sure.