“He’s chased you? Followed you?”
“Yes. How does he know about us? How can he know that we could tell what we saw? Oh yes, he’s followed me. He terrifies me. He almost caught me out on the cliff in the wind. He would have pushed me over. The smell of him makes me retch.”
“But,“she said, purring, “now we are not alone. Now, neither of us is alone.
“Now,” she said, laughing, showing sharp white teeth, “now, maybe that man should beware.”
Joe’s purr shook him, reverberating uneven and wild. She made him feel as no other cat ever had. She made him feel not so much riven with lust, as turned inside out with joy. She smiled again and nuzzled him, her green eyes caressing him. And delicately she licked his whiskers. Life, all in an instant, had exploded from mere pleasure and excitement into a world of insane delight. Nothing that ever happened, from this instant forward, could mar this one delirious and perfect moment.
10 [????????: pic_11.jpg]
Kate Osborne had no memory of entering the dim, smelly alley. She had no idea where she was, she had never seen this place. There were no alleys like this in Molena Point, alleys garbage-strewn and as filthy as some Los Angeles slum.
A dirty brick building walled the alley on three sides. It was built in a U shape to nearly enclose the short, narrow strip of trash-strewn concrete in which she was trapped. At the far end, a solid wood fence blocked the only opening, its gate securely closed. She had no memory of pushing in through that heavy, latched gate though it seemed the only way in; unless she had climbed out into the alley through one of the closed, dirty windows.
None of the first floor windows looked as if it had been opened since the building was erected. The small, dirty, first floor panes were shielded by an assortment of Venetian and louvered blinds as might belong to various cheap business offices. The dirty windows above-there were three stories-looked equally immovable. Behind their limp, graying curtains, she guessed would be small, threadbare apartments.
She stood in long shadow, as if the sun were low, but she couldn’t tell whether the time was early morning or late afternoon. Around her bare, dirty feet were piled heaps of trash, overflowing from five lidless, dented garbage cans. Smelly food containers, dirty wadded papers, rotting vegetables. The stink was terrible.
She felt disheveled, dirty. Her mouth tasted sour, and she felt as if she had just waked from a terribly deep sleep and from a dream that she did not want to remember.
She was breathing raggedly, as if she had been running. Her poor hands were filthy, and she had two broken nails: filthy nails, black underneath.
A faint scent of ripe fish clung around her, but of course that was from the garbage; the smell made her gag.
She was not in the habit of being filthy. She must look like a tramp. She could work in the garden all day and not get dirty. She prided herself on her neatness, on her clear skin and her well-cut, simple clothes, on the sleek trim of her blond hair. Now when she touched her neat, pale bob it was tangled into a mess.
Her jeans were stained with what looked like rust, and quantities of damp sand clung to them. The long sleeves of her cream silk shirt were smeared with rust, too, and with black mud. She felt so hot and sticky. She never let herself get like this. Never. Even her toenails were black with grime; and her lips were dry and chapped.
Her last memory was of home. Of feeling clean and well groomed, comfortable. She had been working in the kitchen, canning applesauce in her sunny, pale yellow kitchen, listening to old Dorsey tunes which had been reissued on CD-music recorded long before she was born, but music she loved. The cooking apples had smelled so good, laced with sugar and cinnamon. Their bubbling aroma, and the steam from the sterilizer had filled the kitchen like a warm, delicious fog. It was perhaps an old-fashioned thing to do, to put up applesauce. She and Jimmie had bought a bushel of winesaps up in Santa Cruz, coming back from a weekend in the city. She loved San Francisco. They always had a good time, but she’d been glad to be home again, tending to the simple chore of canning. It made her feel productive and useful, and the domestic endeavor always pleased Jimmie.
She could not remember sealing the lids or setting the jars to cool. She didn’t remember anything after standing at the stove stirring the warm, cinnamon-scented apples.
She felt in her pocket for her house key, but found nothing, not even a tissue. She wouldn’t have come out without her key even if she left the house unlocked-she had locked herself out too many times. She could not remember leaving the house. Why would she leave, when she was canning?
Somewhere, at the very back of her mind beyond what she could reach-or was willing to reach-a terrifying shadow waited to make itself known. She could feel the thrust of some chilling, unwanted knowledge. Something so shocking she didn’t dare to know. She pushed the presence away, stood frightened and shivering and alone, staring at the dirty brick wall.
Something she dare not remember waited crouched and silent, at the very edge of conscious knowledge.
She studied the building more closely. In a way, it looked familiar. There was a dark brick building like this south of the village, near the old mission, a bit of ugliness left over from Molena Point’s less affluent days. The space was rented, she thought, for small business offices. And probably there would be cheap apartments above.
She thought it was called the Davidson Building, but she had never been in it, certainly had never been behind it; she had no reason to come to such a place.
She was not in the habit of wandering into this part of the village. There was nothing down here but the mission, where she and Jimmie took their tourist friends, but it could be reached more easily by using Highway One. Besides the mission there was only a scattering of the uglier establishments necessary to a small town but kept apart, welding or the dry cleaning plant, various repair shops, warehouses, truck storage. The bus station was down here, and the train station. She did not frequent those places. Jimmie would be the first to tell her she had no business in that part of town.
Iam Kate Osborne. I am the wife of Jimmie Osborne. Jimmie is the Beckwhite Agency manager and its top salesman. My husband is very wellrespected in Molena Point. He is a member of the city council and he has been with Beckwhite’s for ten years. We have been married for nine years and three weeks. We live at 27 Kirkman, seven blocks above the village, in a yellow two-bedroom cottage that cost Jimmie $450,000 four years ago during a slack time in the real estate market, and would cost twice that today. We shop for our clothes at Lord& Taylor. Our house is beautifully decorated, just the way I always dreamed I would make my home, and we have a nice circle of friends, all professionals, all excellent contacts.
All, she thought, but one friend for laughs, one disreputable bachelor who was anything but upwardly mobile.
Clyde had begun as Jimmie’s friend, but ended up closer to her. She was more comfortable with Clyde than with any of the couples she and Jimmie cultivated and, strangely, was more comfortable in Clyde’s ragtag house than in her own.
She had made their house beautiful for Jimmie. Unwilling to hire a decorator, wanting it to be totally hers, she had hunted a long time for the perfect soft, cream-colored leather couches, for the handwoven fabric on Jimmie’s imported lounge chair. She had hunted many galleries and decorator’s showrooms to find the five handmade, signed Timmerman rugs for the living room. The sleek Boughman dining room furniture had come straight from the factory. Her signed Kaganoff place settings, arranged perfectly in the pecan china cabinet, had come from the potter himself.
Strange that she could see the bright rooms so clearly, but when she tried to call forth Jimmie’s face it was smeared and uncertain, almost like the face of a stranger.