“Hello,” I tried.
No response. I unzipped my backpack and pulled out the album. She had to react to it. I flipped it open and held it out to her.
“I have all your faces.”
Those cadaverous eyes swung around. She stared down at the open pages.
Four of her faces stared back. Her painted brows rose. The black pucker of her mouth fell open. At last her eyes met mine.
“They’re good shots.” I turned the page. “I took several. Have you ever considered modeling?” Another page, and four more. None the same. She reached out toward the album, her hand shaking. Then she snatched her hand back, leaped up and ran. I stuffed the album into my backpack and charged after her, fumbling with the backpack’s zipper. She ran toward the mail’s loading bay. Few light poles lit the area. The gaping mouth of the only open bay doorway loomed ahead of us. The shadows reached out to her. I lost her for a moment in the blended darkness, then the shower of sparks from her thrown cigarette told me where she was. I ran for the doorway as she vanished into it. The bay was a cavern, filled with boxes and crates. The few yellowed bulbs burning high above cast a feeble light.
“Hey!” I called. A chorus of echoes answered. “Don’t be afraid. I’m a photographer. I just wanted to show you—”
Metal screeched off to my left. Something came flying at me out of the gloom. I fell to my knees, hugging the backpack to protect my camera. Overhead a thick chain whistled past. I scrambled over to a big box and crouched there in the dark behind it, trying to quiet my ragged breathing.
Her heels clattered somewhere ahead of me. I followed the sound, moving farther into the maze of crates and boxes. I eased the zipper open on my backpack and pulled out the Swiss Army knife I kept inside. It was handy for tightening screws or opening film boxes, but right now its blade could serve a more defensive purpose. If she wanted to play rough, I was ready.
I crept forward, listening for her heels. At a crossroad in the narrow aisles she darted past, the tail of her long hair flashing by. I lunged forward, trying to keep her in sight. Echoes told me she turned down another aisle close by. I followed, turning the corner into an even darker and tighter aisle. Cardboard rasped. A weight hit my shoulders and flattened me. The heavy box pinned me. My legs were bent oddly. Thank God the camera wasn’t under me.
Her little stiletto-heel boots tiptoed around the corner. I twisted my head around to follow them but the box blocked my sight.
“Hey! Are you crazy? Get this off me!”
I felt a jerk on my left arm. The backpack straps were tangled around it, cutting off circulation. She tugged harder. I heard the zipper give an inch or so. She fought with it. Good thing it was partially wedged under the box with me.
“Listen! I can get you reprints. Who are you? Talk to me?”
Her silence was scaring the hell out of me. The tugging and zipper noise stopped. Pain stabbed my knife hand. I twisted my head around to see the heel of her boot digging into the back of that hand. Her gloved fingers reached down for my knife. I clung to it, pulling my hand back as far as I could. She stamped down again and wrenched my fingers free. The knife vanished upward in her grip. Real fear chilled me. Maybe she was insane.
More tugging on the backpack, and the rasp of the knife on the straps. She was trying to cut it free! I kicked out, fighting to shove the box off me; it was too heavy. I couldn’t drag the backpack any closer. My left arm was nearly numb. The straps slid down it a few inches. I strained to grab them with my right hand. She was not getting my camera!
The loud clang and roll of the bay door closing filled her horrible silence. The wrenching of the backpack stopped. I heard the knife hit the cement floor. The clatter of her heels faded as she ran. I let out a long breath, sucked in another. My heart hammered and sweat slicked my palms. Now I had to get out.
With much grunting and scraping, I managed to roll over part way onto my back. That gave me enough room to shove the box upward inch by inch, working my knee up under it and wedging it between the walls of the aisle. I worked myself out, dragging my limp arm and backpack after me. I snatched up my knife and staggered down the aisle to retrace my way to the door.
Full night filled the bay with darkness. Even the dim ceiling lights had been turned off. A narrow rectangle of faint light showed me the door was still open a little. I hurried toward it, wary of ambush. She’d need a cigarette after going so long without. I sniffed the air, watching for the red glow, but that oddly sweet smoke had vanished with her.
Out in the parking lot, I leaned against my car and calmed down. Sense told me to find another project. Sense told me to stick with the bread-and-butter work at the paper. Another part of me whispered this was my chance. She was wild. She was dangerous.
I pulled out the album and flipped through it, marveling again at all her different faces. She was gifted, to think up so many and execute them with such precise skill. And the flair she had, to parade her art in such a bourgeois setting. It was too late to listen to sense. With every face I looked on, my fascination with her grew.
The first answer would have to be where that bus took her. I’d start there.
On Sunday the mall closed early. I waited in the parking lot, watching from inside my car. I had my knife in one pocket and in my backpack a flashlight big enough to double as a club. The gas tank was full.
The sun went down. Parking lot lights flickered and lit themselves, pale halos shining against the gathering dark. Shoppers poured out of the mall. Again she was the last one out the door. She reached the bench and smoked a steady stream of cigarettes until a bus pulled up. She stepped inside the steel body and it rumbled off. I was out the driveway and behind it before the bus got too far ahead. It wound its ponderous way through the city. Stores and residences began to thin. The occasional neon of a bar sign lit otherwise blank rows of buildings. City noise faded, leaving me with the audible groans of the bus brakes.
On the dingy outskirts of the industrial zone, the bus pulled up beside the sign marking the isolated stop. The last passenger aboard, she stepped out the back door and took off down a straight stretch of sidewalk.
An empty parking lot was just ahead. I parked, watching the bus make a U-turn. So this was the end of the line. I shouldered my backpack and went after her. She was a block ahead. She kept walking, on and on through the pools of darkness between street lights. I followed, feeling the hum of the overhead power lines in my bones. No cars passed, no dogs barked. We were alone. No fear or anxiety hurried her, a woman on her own in this concrete desolation.
She turned in at a gravel drive which led through a rusted chain link gate hanging crooked on its hinges. I stepped lightly on the gravel, begging silence from my battered Nikes. A small shed offered cover. I ducked behind it. I watched her stop before a large warehouse. In the glare from the single streetlight by the gate, all I could see was cracked wood and a litter of debris. No metal shone through the dark smears of rust.
She crushed out her cigarette beneath her boot and walked around to the side of the building. Ringing thuds carried through the stillness. I ran across the gravel to the warehouse, hoping her noise would cover mine. A door opened and closed, its hinges crying with rust. I inched around the corner. The metal stairway around the side of the warehouse was empty. I eased up the stair and listened at the door. Nothing. The stairway continued upward. I started up, hoping for a skylight.
More gravel and splintered boards lay everywhere on the roof. Air vents thrust up their squat rusty squares. I stepped carefully around them. One bad board and I was in serious trouble. I prowled among the skylights. Those that weren’t boarded over were too dirty to see through.