When one census enumerator was up getting food and another was in the bathroom, only two remained at the table. I approached discreetly and draped my jacket over the nearst U.S. Census bag, which was sitting on the floor. Then, pulling it under my arm, I dashed out.
Now it was a question of which neighborhood. All the clues were there. It was simply a matter of triangulating the various details she had mentioned in her e-mails. I extracted and isolated every single geographical reference into a list. The three most significant details were that she lived a few blocks from the river, and that there was a view of both the Brooklyn Bridge and the Statue of Liberty. In Dumbo you couldn’t make out the statue. From Cobble Hill you couldn’t see the Bridge. Only Brooklyn Heights allowed views of both — it was just that easy. In fact, those two simple variables only allowed about a three-block stretch of real estate. She had to either be on Montague Terrace, Pierrepont Place, or Columbia Terrace. Montague Terrace had a play-ground across the street that she had mentioned. Behind the Breukelen, a door-manned apartment building, was a row of three small brownstones. She had to be in one of them. Two of the brownstones were single-family occupancies. The last one had apartments.
I came early the next day, ready to wait her out. Try to see if I could spot a curly-red-haired middle-aged woman with a dark green sea horse tattoo on her ankle. Red is a minority hair color, so the fact that I had insisted she show it was further proof of my superior intellect.
Her sea horse would be the confirming mark, yet she would have to be wearing a dress or shorts in order to spot the tattoo. As this was unlikely, I realized I might have to subtly interrogate any possible suspects. After four hours, a half-dozen women had come and gone from the buildings, but no big red.
Finally, around 4, before everyone came home from work — and the risk of her sharp screams could get me caught — I pulled on the census bag, put on a hat, a pair of tortoiseshell glasses, and decided to knock on a few doors.
In the first brownstone was an old lady that loved to talk. In the second building was a shy kid whose parents weren’t home. Each of them was a perfectly useful victim, and though I couldn’t help but think that the police would eventually interview these two, I was hopeful that the disguise might work. After all, most people aren’t very observant.
When I finally came to the old outdoor intercom of the last building, I felt my heart beat in my ears, and I knew she was here. Ringing the first-floor and then the second-floor apartments, I got no response. Upon pressing the loose top-floor button, I wondered if the buzzer was even connected to anything.
“Who is it?” a woman’s timid voice peeped out.
“Census.”
A buzz sounded and the downstairs door popped open, allowing access to a musty, dark stairwell. There were no bikes, shopping carts, or baby carriages in the hallway. If there were other tenants in the building, I saw no immediate signs of them. By the time I got up the stairs to her door, it was slightly ajar. I opened it and called out, “Hello, U.S. Government, anyone home?”
“Hi there,” a middle-aged woman muttered.
“Hi, we didn’t get your census form,” I began, looking her up and down. Her hair was a brownish red bundle, so she could’ve been the one, but it wasn’t decisive. She was wearing loose shapeless pants, so it wasn’t evident if she had the tattoo on her calf. As I took a form out of my bag and started slowly going through the questions, she spotted the fact that the sides of my shirt were wet with perspiration — the result of hours in the sun waiting for her. I kept wiping off my forehead to keep the sweat from dripping on the form.
“Would you like a Coke?” she graciously asked, taking a can from her fridge.
“No thanks,” I replied. “Are you married, single, divorced?”
She opened a water faucet and just let it run until it was cold. The slight spray of cool water splattering on my hot neck finally compelled me to say, “Actually, a cup of water would be perfect.”
She grabbed a glass from a high shelf, filled and put it down before me. While I pressed it to my forehead, she said, “If you don’t mind, I’ll fill this out myself.”
As she marked in the various boxes, I sipped the water and surveyed the room. Floral wallpaper, evenly spaced reproductions, various pictures and knickknacks — all the trappings of middle class housekeeping. I was desperately trying to ascertain whether her spouse or lover was in the other room. If she had a dog or cat, I would’ve seen it by then. But was a kid or parent sleeping in the back? All was quiet as she checked through the income boxes and then onto the questions of ethnicity.
“All done,” she replied a moment later, folding the form in half and handing it back to me.
“Can I get another glass of water?” I asked. When I offered her my empty, holding it up to the light, I could see traces of some powder sliding down along the sides. She drugged me! “Holy shit!”
She bolted into the bedroom. I jumped to my feet and raced behind. Inside was a queen-size bed with four metal posts — perfect.
“What the fuck did you slip me?”
“Nothing! I swear!”
With my right hand I yanked her wrist up tightly behind her back, painfully. With my left hand, I reached around front, ripping open her shirt so that her breast tumbled out.
“What did you slip me!”
“Nothing, I swear! It must have been soap from the dish-washer.”
I shoved her face forward and yanked up the right leg of her pants. There it was — the dark green sea horse.
Suddenly I felt myself growing weak.
“You drugged me, you bitch!” I grabbed some ties dangling from her doorknob and had to work quickly, securing her before I passed out. Then when I came to, I could finish the job.
“I can’t believe I found you,” I said, circling the silk tie around her right wrist firmly, pulling it tightly around the post, knotting it again and again.
“Please leave me alone!” she begged as I began with the second wrist. Tying the knot, twisting, cinching, retying, until all she could do was wiggle.
“You know who I am, don’t you?”
“No!” she groaned. “Who?”
“It’s me! I reached right up the ass of the Internet and pulled you out,” I explained, as I secured her right ankle to the right post of the bed. I felt her head shaking violently. She was weeping as I collapsed on top of her. “You must have known I was coming for you,” I added, feeling so little keeping me conscious. “You had something ready for me. Didn’t you?”
That’s when I saw that she wasn’t crying at all, she was giggling, but I had her arms and one leg tied tight. I hit her hard across the face. My lids and limbs were so heavy, and her free leg was kicking — I couldn’t lasso it to the post. Sluggishly, I raced up and fit the tie into her laughing mouth. I tied it again and again. She’ll be ready for me when I…
Smacks across my face, whack upon whack, till I start blinking. I’m handcuffed and she’s looking down on me.
“Men are such half-wits,” she says.
“What are you talking…?” I’m barely able to speak.
“What’s your handle?”
“My what…?”
She smacks me some more. As I awaken, I see I am in a stone room, probably her cellar. I’m spread out on the frame of an old metal army cot without a mattress. My wrists and ankles are cuffed to the four corners. In the bright light, crusted splotches of blood are visible on the floor. She keeps hitting me hard across the face.
“What the fuck!” I yell out.
She empties the contents of my wallet on my chest. She is holding my knife. I can see that she has clipped a square of my pants away so that my genitals are exposed.