More Twisted

most gorgeous creatures on earth. But they weren’t just pretty. No, these lasses also had substance. He’d overhear them in the coffee bar of the bookstore,sitting over skim lattés and talking art and politics, brilliant, animated, funny. Just yesterday he’d listened to a couple of twenty-somethings in tight-fitting workout clothes arguing about the odd-sounding instrument on the soundtrack of The Third Man. A dulcimer, no, it was an accordion, no, it was—
    A zither! Pullman had wanted to shout, but sensed an intrusion wouldn’t be welcome (and sensed too that the one who’d been wrong would be royally pissed, putting the kibosh on any chance to hang out with either of them).
    Your typical LA girl’s DVD collection surely wouldn’t include any sappy tearjerkers. They’d have The Bicycle Thief, The Man Who Knew Too Much, Battleship Potemkin, Wings of Desire, The Manchurian Candidate.
    Ah, but how to meet one . . . That was the problem. How he hated the cold leap, the Hi-My-Name’s-Rod-What’s-Yours stage. Pudgy, clumsy, shy, he always clutched.
    He’d hoped his job at the bookstore would connect him with glamorous Hollywoodians. Put him in a situation where he had a purpose—like being a salesman—or where somebody came up to him, then he could charm a woman with the best of them. But at the store, the instant he answered a customer’s question, she had no more use for him. As for his fellow workers, they were either middle-aged losers or youngsters obsessed with their own careers (trying to, guess what, write, act in or direct movies, of course).
    Out of sheer exhaustion, Pullman had given up on romance.
    But then the Resident in 10B moved in.
    Tammy Hudson—he’d asked the super her name the next morning—was a bit older than the stunning young things you’d see at Ivy or the back bar at the Beverly Wilshire. Pullman put her at thirty-three or thirty-four, which was good, a manageable age gap. She was gorgeous. Long hair, black as a raven’s wings, often tied up in a jaunty ponytail or pinned into a flirtatious bun. She was tall and, as her yellow-and-black spandex jogging outfit proved, slim and muscular. She ran every day, and sometimes on his way to open the bookstore in the morning he’d see her in the backyard of the complex, standing in the cool, foggy air, practicing some kind of martial art.
    One other thing he liked: Tammy had a great joy of life. She traveled often and—based on what he’d overheard—had a place down in Baja, or knew someone who did; she often spent weekends there. She rode a bright-red Vespa motor scooter, reminding him of Audrey Hepburn in Roman Holiday. Her auto was an old MG and she drove it lightning fast.
    He hadn’t been surprised to find that nearly every day she’d leave her apartment with her portfolio; of course she’d be involved in films. With her expressive face, she’d make a great character actor. Had he seen her in anything? he wondered. There were not many films Rodney Pullman hadn’t seen.
    He debated, and decided it wasn’t completely out of the question that they could go out and that something serious might develop between them. He wasn’t really bad looking. Too much gut, sure, but that was true of a lot of successful businessmen; women didn’t mind, if you had the charm to offset it. He had a full head of brown hair,not a trace of gray, and a solid jaw that largely covered his double chin. He didn’t smoke and drank only wine, and that in moderation. He always picked up the check at dinner.
    But instantly, as always, the doubts swarmed like bees. How could the shy man meet her some way other than simply walking up and introducing himself? And once you’ve blown your initial chance, he knew all too well, you can’t go back and start over again, not with a beautiful woman like Tammy.
    So for months Pullman worshiped her from afar, struggling to come up with some way to break the ice and not make a fool of himself.
    Then, this cool April evening, he got a break.
    Around seven, Pullman was standing by his window, looking down into the courtyard, when he noticed motion from the bushes across the sidewalk from Tammy’s bedroom. It was repeated a moment later and this time he saw a faint flash of light, like a reflection off glass.
    Pullman shut his lights out and pulled the blinds down. Dropping to his knees, he peered outside and saw that a man was crouching in the bushes. He seemed to be staring into Tammy’s window. He wore