Night Prey

lights.
    “C’mon, Sara,” he said to his steering wheel. “C’mon, where are you?” He caught her a mile out. Fell in behind.
    Should he pull up beside her? Would she give him a signal?>
    She might.
    He was thinking about it when she slowed, took a right into a drugstore parking lot. Koop followed, parked at the edge of the lot. She sat inside her car for a minute, then two, looking for something in her purse. Then she swung her legs out, disappeared into the store. He thought about following, but the last time, he’d run into that kid. It was hard to watch somebody in a store unobtrusively, with all the anti-shoplifting mirrors around.
    So he waited. She was ten minutes, came out with a small bag. At her car, she fumbled in her purse, fumbled some more. Koop sat up. What?
    She couldn’t find her keys. She started back toward the store, stopped, turned and looked thoughtfully at the car, and walked slowly back. She stooped, looked inside, then straightened, angry, talking to herself.
    Keys. She’d locked her keys in the car.
    He could talk to her: “What’s the problem, little lady?”
    But as he watched, she looked quickly around, walked to the rear of the car, bent, and ran her hand under the bumper. After a moment of groping, she came up with a black box. Spare key.
    Koop stiffened. When people put spare keys on their car, they usually put in a spare house key, just in case. And if she had—and if she’d changed them since she changed her locks. . . .
    He’d have to look.
     
     
     
    KOOP WENT TO the roof as soon as it was dark. Jensen had changed to a robe, and he watched as she read, listened to a stereo, and checked the cable movies. He was becoming familiar with her personal patterns: she never watched talk shows, never watched sitcoms. She sometimes watched game shows. She watched the news rerun on public television, late at night.
    She liked ice cream, and ate it slowly, with a lot of tongue-on-the-spoon action. When she was puzzled about something, trying to make up her mind, she’d reach back and scratch the top of her ass. Sometimes she’d lie in bed with her feet straight up in the air, apparently looking past them for no reason. She’d do the same thing when she put on panty hose—she’d drop onto her back in bed, get her toes into the feet of the hose, then lift her legs over her head and pull them on. Sometimes she’d wander around the apartment while she was flossing.
    Once, she apparently caught sight of her reflection in the glass of her balcony’s sliding doors, and dropped into a series of poses, as though she were posing for the cover of Cosmo. She was so close, so clear, that Koop felt she was posing for him.
    She went to bed at midnight, every working night. Two women friends had come around, and once, before Koop began following her home, she hadn’t shown up at all until midnight. A date? The idea pissed him off, and he pushed it away.
    When she went to bed—a minute of near nakedness, large breasts bobbling in the fishbowl—Koop left her, bought a bottle of Jim Beam at a liquor store, and drove home.
    He barely lived in his house, a suburban ranch-style nonentity he’d rented furnished. A garden service mowed the lawn. Koop didn’t cook, didn’t clean, didn’t do much except sleep there, watch some television, and wash his clothes. The place smelled like dust with a little bourbon on top of it. Oh, yes, he’d brought in Wannemaker. But only for an hour or two, in the basement; you could hardly smell that anymore. . . .
     
     
     
    THE NEXT MORNING, Koop was downtown before ten o’clock. He didn’t like the daylight hours, but this was important. He called her at her office.
    “This is Sara Jensen. . . . Hello? Hello?”
    Her voice was pitched higher than he’d expected, with an edge to it. When he didn’t answer her second hello, she promptly hung up, and he was left listening to a dial tone. So she was working.
    He headed for the parking ramp, spiraled up through the floors. She was usually on five, six, or seven, depending on how early she got in. Today, it was six again. He had to go to eight to find a parking place. He walked back down, checked under the bumper of her car, found the key box. He opened it as he walked away. Inside was a car key and a newly minted door key.
    Shazam.
     
     
     
    HE FELT LIKE victory, going back in. Like a conqueror. Like he was home, with his woman.
    Koop spent half the day at her apartment.
    As soon as he got in, he