“A Honda Prelude.”
“You must have a job then, I assume.”
“Nah. My parents bought the car for me.”
“I see,” Jerry replied, his sudden distaste for the obviously spoiled young man apparent on his face.
Moments later, Amy came down the stairs and entered the room. “Hi, Jason!”
Jason stood up and strode over to her. “Hi. You look totally awesome!”
Amy blushed. “And so do you! Will you go get the flowers, Mom?”
“Sure, honey,” Ann replied.
Ann went into the kitchen to fetch Jason’s boutonniere and Amy’s corsage from the fridge. The two kids managed to attach their flowers to one another as Jerry looked on, brandishing his camera.
“Just a couple of shots?” he said.
Both Amy and Jason sighed and allowed Jerry to pose them in front of the mantle.
“Here we go,” he said encouragingly to the young couple. “Let’s see a smile!”
Amy and her date grinned nervously as Jerry Rankin snapped a shot.
“That was great! Just one more! Get a little closer,” he commanded.
Jason and Amy stared at one another and smirked. Jason put his arm around Amy and smiled confidently. Jerry snapped the shot and placed both prints on the coffee table.
“These are looking great,” he said as the images began to appear. “Take a look at how cute you two look together.”
Amy and Jason joined Ann and glanced at the photos.
“Yeah, we really look cool, Mr. Rankin,” Amy commented less than enthusiastically, “Can we go now?”
“I’ll go get your jacket for you,” Ann told Amy. She fetched Amy’s coat and helped her on with it, kissing her daughter’s cheek afterwards. “Have a wonderful time, honey!”
“Thanks Mom.”
“And drive carefully,” she added to Jason.
“I will, Mrs. Middleton,” he assured her.
Amy stepped out on the porch, Jason following behind.
“Bye mom,” she said as she led her date away from the house.
“Don’t be late!” Ann called after the departing couple.
Ann and Jerry stood inside the doorway and watched as the two got into Jason’s Prelude. After they had backed out of the driveway, Ann closed the door and sighed.
“I hope Amy watches out for herself. That Jason boy is much too old for her.”
“She’ll be all right, Ann. Amy seems to have a pretty good head on her shoulders from what I’ve seen.”
Ann said, “Yes, I suppose you’re right. That is, as long as she stays sober. Come to think of it, I could stand a drink about right now. Do we have enough time?”
Jerry smiled. “Of course. The lanes are open until midnight.”
“Let’s have a drink, then. I really need one after all of this!” Ann exclaimed.
“Lead the way-I’m right behind you,” Jerry said cheerfully.
CHAPTER 20
One month earlier, Stanley Jenkins quietly swung the door open, stepped onto the roof and closed the door behind him. It was even darker on top of the ten-story apartment building than he thought it would be and for a moment he considered using a flashlight before abruptly dismissing the idea. He waited a couple of minutes for his eyes to adjust before making his way toward the corner of the roof.
There was just enough available light for him to see where he was going without being seen by any of the tenants in the neighboring apartment buildings. It hadn’t been particularly easy locating a building with both easy access to its roof plus an unobstructed view of Sara Hunt’s apartment. But as usual, Stanley’s patience and perseverance had paid off. He thought of how much easier it had been entering her apartment unnoticed the other night and the irony in it that made him grin. New York City, in spite of its immense population, wasn’t any safer from Stanley Jenkins that Bum-Fuck, Iowa.
Had he known before that Sara Hunt’s apartment was going to be so laughably accessible, Stanley would have devised a much simpler game plan for this mission and thereby made things much easier on himself. He would have simply chosen a night when Sara’s roommate wasn’t there with her, unlocked her apartment door with the copy of the key he’d made, then gone in and taken care of business. But that would have been too easy (and not nearly as much fun) so he’d opted to stick with his original plan of getting to know Sara a bit better before murdering her. He always enjoyed a challenge and what secret agent worth his oats didn’t? Bond had never once done things the easy way and that’s what made 007 the legend that he was.
Stanley’s eyes were trained on Sara’s apartment building as he silently approached the corner of the roof. When he stopped at the two-foot ceramic masonry wall skirting the roof, he leaned over and peered down at the view below. He could see the traffic moving south toward Spring Street and hear the occasional horn honking echoing up off the walls of the surrounding buildings. His eyes returned to Sara’s building-an ancient, ugly brownstone flanked in the foreground by two other nondescript buildings standing directly across the street from where he now stood. Sara’s apartment was on the seventh floor-two windows to the right-and even at this distance Stanley could see the lone figure of someone moving about inside the apartment. That figure, he already knew, would be Sara Hunt and Sara would be alone tonight until at least midnight since her roommate would be waiting tables at the Stardust Diner until 11:30.
Stanley unzipped the nylon backpack, took out a powerful telescope and set it aside. He removed the tripod, extended its legs, positioned it on the roof and secured the telescope to it. Peering through the eyepiece, he deliberately swung the telescope around and downward until Sara’s apartment building came into view. He carefully panned from side to side until he had a bead on her well-lit living room window. After fine-tuning the focusing knob, Stanley smiled to himself when he saw the crystal clear image come into view.
Sara Hunt was doing her nightly aerobic exercises and apparently felt secure in the fact that no one could possible be watching-she was wearing nothing but her panties. Stanley felt his pulse quicken and his mouth salivate as he stared at her gorgeous body, reveling in the notion that she was performing For His Eyes Only. At the moment, Sara was standing a few feet from the window, her left side facing toward him, her arms extended straight up into the air. Stanley observed her as she did twenty-five reps of this exercise then stopped and turned to face the window.
Sara paused for a few moments and merely stood there motionless, as if awaiting a cue of some kind. Then she suddenly began a totally different exercise. Stanley surmised that she was exercising to music and that she had just paused to wait for the beginning of the next song. As Stanley watched Sara grind her hips from side to side, his breath came in gasps. Her copious breasts were heaving and undulating to the rhythm of the music that he was unable to hear, yet could almost feel. He was all but certain that it was the Rolling Stones she was grinding to-most likely one of their more danceable tunes… Honky Tonk Woman, perhaps?
He had discovered that Sara Hunt was quite possibly the most devoted Stones fan still living judging by the extensive collection of their CDs and vinyl LP’s she had in her possession. He had never seen so many records by any one artist before in a single collective bunch, short of those found in a record store.
But Sara’s love for the Stones was just one of many things Stanley had learned about her as a result of his surveillance over the past couple of weeks. He knew that she was an actress, but not a very successful one, and that acting was by far the most important thing in her life. Her apartment was littered with dozens of copies of Backstage, The Village Voice, and other publications advertising casting calls and screen tests in the NYC theater forum, and when she wasn’t waiting tables at a Greek diner in the Village, Sara was auditioning for parts in every conceivable type of acting job available: soaps, films, commercials, Broadway and off-Broadway productions-even the occasional porno film, he had been surprised to discover. Stanley still couldn’t forget his absolute shock at finding a suspicious looking videocassette entitled Josie Loves Dick stuffed behind a stack of old magazines on a back shelf. His curiosity aroused, he had taken the time to play a quick run-through of the film on Sara’s VCR and sure enough, there was Ms. Sara Hunt portraying the gifted Josie Jobber sucking some big old stud’s prick! Watching her perform her artistry on the man had done nothing but disgust Stanley and only bolstered his desire to kill the slut all that much more.