Honeymoon for Three

flashlight. He shone it through the window. The first thing he saw was Penny’s bed. Something about it looked strange. It was covered with a bedspread, but the spread was flat. There was no pillow underneath it. A minor thing, perhaps, but…. Alfred tensed.
    The room looked different than it had the first time he looked through her window from the top of the palette. He had been watching that window from his car on and off for months. He knew it was a bedroom window because occasionally she would come to the window in a nightgown and look out. Alfred lived for those moments. Apparently she thought no one could see in because she never closed the drapes.
    One night he hadn’t seen her car and thought she was out. He had an impulse to look into her room at close range. That was when he had found the palette set out on the street with the trash from one of the buildings. He had carried it to the window, climbed onto it, and was investigating the room with his flashlight when he heard a noise inside. He just had time to douse the flashlight when the bedroom light came on and Penny walked into the room—naked.
    In spite of his fear of being discovered, he couldn’t take his eyes off her. The first thing he saw was her flat stomach and her beautiful innie bellybutton. The rest of her was just as spectacular. Then he ducked his head below the level of the window. He didn’t dare jump to the ground because the window was open, and she might hear him.
    He balanced there for an eternity of seconds, his bent legs starting to shake from holding his body in a cramped position. Finally, not hearing any sounds from her room and afraid he would collapse, he took a chance and dropped to the ground. He froze there, listening. Silence surrounded him, except for the distant hum of automobiles, ubiquitous in Los Angeles. He hid the palette, being careful not to make any noise, and returned to his car.
    Now, Alfred shone the flashlight around the room. It flashed across the top of the dresser, which was bare. In a panic, he moved the beam to the open closet door. The closet was empty. Penny’s clothes were gone. Penny was gone.

    CHAPTER 2
    Alfred came back to Penny’s apartment building about nine o’clock on Thursday morning. Not too early to arouse suspicion. His instinct that had told him something was about to happen had been right. It was a good thing he had quit his job, so that he could devote full time to this. He had saved some money. He never spent a dime, except for gas, rent, and food. His instinct had failed him in one respect. He hadn’t guessed that the bird would fly the coop.
    He would prove to Penny that he was up to the challenge. He would prove that he was worthy of her. Alfred knocked on the door of the apartment manager. The door was opened by a small man with a small head, topped by thinning gray hair. He squinted up at Alfred, inquiringly, through his wire-rim glasses, with his head cocked. Alfred had been very careful about his prowling and was sure the man had never seen him before.
    “Hi.” Alfred remembered what he had rehearsed. “I’m a cousin of Penny Singleton. I just arrived here from Connecticut and wanted to say hello to her. This is the only address I have for her. Can you give me her forwarding address?”
    The man looked at Alfred, his eyes darting from Alfred’s baseball cap to his dark glasses to his potbelly. The small head moved too, with the jerky motions reminiscent of a bird. He said, in a high-pitched voice, “Hasn’t she given you her forwarding address?”
    “I’ve been on the road.” Alfred forced a chuckle. “It would have been hard for her to get hold of me. And she doesn’t know my address in Los Angeles because, as I said, I just arrived here.”
    “You say you’re from Connecticut? You could contact Penny’s folks and find it that way.”
    Alfred was getting irritated, but he tried to hide it. “I’d like to get in touch with Penny right away. I don’t have a lot of money to waste on long distance phone calls.”
    “Have you rented a place yet?”
    “Yes, I have.” The man was trying to rent him Penny’s apartment. What could he do to convince this sparrow to give him Penny’s address? “The thing is, my mother’s sick. She and Penny’s mother are sisters, but they don’t talk to each other. Some kind of long-standing feud. I felt that Penny would want to know about her aunt.”
    “Sorry. I can’t help you.”
    He closed the door. Right in