Death Wears a Beauty Mask and Other Stories (27 page)

T
he man next door had known for weeks that it was time to invite another guest to the secret place, the space he had fashioned out of the utility room in the basement. It had been six months since Tiffany, the last one. She had lasted twenty days, longer than most of the others.

He had tried to put Bree Matthews out of his mind. It didn't make sense to invite her, he knew that. Every morning as he followed his routine, washing the windows, polishing the furniture, vacuuming the carpets, sweeping and washing the walk from the steps to the sidewalk, he reminded himself that it was dangerous to choose a next-door neighbor.
Much
too dangerous.

But he couldn't help it. Bree Matthews was never out of his mind for an instant. Ever since the day she had rung his bell and he had invited her in, he had known. That was when his growing need to have her with him became uncontrollable. She had stood in his foyer, dressed in a loose sweater and jeans, her arms folded, one high-arched foot unconsciously tapping the polished floor as she told him that the leak in her adjoining town house was originating from
his
roof.

“When I bought this place I never thought I'd have so much
trouble,” she had snapped. “The contractor could have redone Buckingham Palace for what I paid him to renovate, but whenever it rains hard, you'd think I lived under Niagara Falls. Anyway, he
insists
that whoever did your work caused the problem.”

Her anger had thrilled him. She was beautiful, in a bold, Celtic way, with midnight-blue eyes, fair skin, and blue-black hair. And beneath that she had a slim athlete's body. He guessed her to be in her late twenties, older than the women he usually favored, but still so very appealing.

He had known that even though it was a warm spring afternoon, there was no excuse for the way perspiration began to pour from him as he stood a few inches from her. He wanted so much to reach out and touch her, to push the door closed, to lock her in.

He had blushed and stammered as he explained that there was absolutely no possibility that the leak was coming from his roof, that he'd done all the repairs himself. He suggested she call another contractor for an opinion.

He had almost explained that he had worked for a builder for fifteen years and knew that the guy she had hired was doing a shoddy job, but he managed to stop himself. He didn't want to admit that he had any interest in her or her home, didn't want her to know that he had even noticed, didn't want to give anything about himself away. . . .

A few days later she came up the street as he was outside planting impatiens along the driveway, and stopped to apologize. Following his advice, she had called in a different contractor who confirmed what she had suspected: the first one had done a sloppy job. “He'll hear from me in court,” she vowed. “I've had a summons issued for him.”

Then, emboldened by her friendliness, he did something foolish. As he stood with her, he was facing their semidetached town houses
and once again noticed the lopsided venetian blind on her front window, the one nearest his place. Every time he saw it, it drove him crazy. The vertical blinds on his front windows and those on hers lined up perfectly, which made the sight of that lopsided one bother him as much as hearing a fingernail screech across a blackboard.

So he offered to fix it for her. She turned and looked at the offending blind as if she had never seen it before, then she replied, “Thanks, but why bother? The decorator has window treatments ready to put in as soon as the damage caused by the leaks is repaired. It'll get fixed then.”

“
Then
,” of course, could be months from now, but still he was glad she had said no. He had definitely decided to invite her to be his next guest, and when she disappeared there would be questions. The police would ring his bell, make inquiries. “Mr. Mensch, did you see Miss Matthews leave with anyone?” they would ask. “Did you notice anyone visiting her lately? How friendly were you with her?”

He could answer truthfully: “We only spoke casually on the street if we ran into each other. She has a young man she seems to be dating. I've exchanged a few words with him from time to time. Tall, brown hair, about thirty or so. Believe he said his name is Carter. Kevin Carter.”

The police would probably already know about Carter. When Matthews disappeared they would talk to her close friends first.

He had never even been questioned about Tiffany. There had been no connection between them, no reason for anyone to ask. Occasionally they ran into each other at museums—he had found several of his young women in museums. The third or fourth time they met he made it a point to ask Tiffany her impression of a painting she was looking at.

He had liked her instantly. Beautiful Tiffany, so appealing, so intelligent. She believed that because he claimed to share her enthusiasm
for Gustav Klimt, he was a kindred spirit, a man to be trusted. She had been grateful for his offer of a ride back to Georgetown on a rainy day. He had picked her up as she was walking to the Metro.

She had scarcely felt the prick of the needle that knocked her out. She slumped at his feet in the car, and he drove her back to his place. Matthews was just leaving her house as he pulled into the drive; he even nodded to her as he clicked the garage door opener. At that time he had no idea that Matthews would be next, of course.

Every morning for the next three weeks, he had spent all his time with Tiffany. He loved having her there. The secret place was bright and cheerful. The floor had a thick yellow pad, like a comfortable mattress, and he had filled the room with books and games.

He had even painted the windowless bathroom adjacent to it a cheery red and yellow, and he had installed a portable shower. Every morning he would lock her in the bathroom, and while she was showering he would vacuum and scrub the secret place. He kept it immaculate. As he did everything in his life. He couldn't abide untidiness. He laid out clean clothes for her every day too. He also washed and ironed the clothes she came in, just as he had with the others. He had even had her jacket cleaned, that silly jacket with the name of cities all over the world. He didn't want to have it cleaned, but noticing that spot on the sleeve drove him crazy. He couldn't get it out of his head. Finally he gave in.

He spent a lot of money cleaning his own clothes as well. Sometimes when he woke up, he would find himself trying to brush away crumbs from the sheets. Was that because he remembered having to do that? There were a lot of questions from his childhood, things he couldn't fully remember. But maybe it was best that way.

He knew he was fortunate. He was able to spend all his time with the women he chose because he didn't have to work. He didn't need the money. His father had never spent a cent on anything besides bare essentials. After high school, when he began working for the
builder, his father demanded he turn over his paycheck to him. “I'm saving for you, August,” he had said. “It's wasteful to spend money on women. They're all like your mother. Taking everything you have and leaving with another man for California. Said she was too young when we got married, that nineteen was too young to have a baby. Not too young for
my
mother, I told her.”

Ten years ago his father died suddenly, and he had been astonished to find that during all those years of penny-pinching, his father had invested in stocks. At thirty-four, he, August Mensch, was worth over a million dollars. Suddenly he could afford to travel and live the way he wanted to, the way he had dreamed about during all those years of sitting at home at night, listening to his father tell him how his mother neglected him when he was a baby. “She left you in the playpen for hours. When you cried, she'd throw a bottle or some crackers to you. You were her prisoner, not her baby. I bought baby books, but she wouldn't even read to you. I'd come home from work and find you sitting in spilled milk and crumbs, cold and neglected.”

August had moved to this place last year, rented this furnished and run-down town house cheaply, and made the necessary repairs himself. He had painted it and scrubbed the kitchen and bathrooms until they shone, and he cleaned the furniture and polished the floors daily. His lease ran out on May 1, only twenty days from now. He had already told the owner he was planning to leave. By then he would have had Matthews and it would be time to move on. He would be leaving the place greatly improved. The only thing he would have to take care of was to whitewash all the improvements he had made to the secret place, so no one would ever guess what had happened there.

How many cities had he lived in during the last ten years? he wondered. He had lost track. Seven? Eight? More? Starting with finding his mother in San Diego. He liked Washington, would have stayed
there longer. But he knew that after Bree Matthews it wouldn't be a good idea.

What kind of guest would she be? he wondered. Tiffany had been both frightened and angry. She ridiculed the books he bought for her, refusing to read them. She told him her family had no money, as if that was what he wanted. She told him she wanted to paint. He even bought an easel and art supplies for her.

She actually started one painting while she was visiting, a painting of a man and woman kissing. It was going to be a copy of Klimt's
The Kiss
. He tore it off the easel and told her to copy one of the nice illustrations in the children's books he had given her. That was when she had picked up an open jar of paint and thrown it at him.

August Mensch didn't quite remember the next minutes, just that when he looked down at the sticky mess on his jacket and trousers, he had lunged at her.

When her body was pulled out of a Washington canal the next day, they questioned her ex-boyfriends. The papers were full of the case. He laughed at the speculation about where she had been the three weeks she was missing.

Mensch sighed. He didn't want to think of Tiffany now. He wanted to dust and polish the room again to make it ready for Matthews. Then he had to finish chiseling mortar from the cinder blocks in the wall that separated his basement from hers.

He would remove enough of those blocks to gain entry into Matthews's basement. He would bring her back the same way. He knew she had installed a security system, but this way it wouldn't do her any good. Then he would replace the cinder blocks and carefully re-cement.

It was Sunday night. He had watched her house all day. She hadn't gone out at all. Lately she had stayed in on Sundays, since Carter stopped coming around. He had seen him there last a couple of weeks ago.

He brushed away an invisible piece of dust. Tomorrow at this time she would be with him; she'd be his companion. He had bought a stack of Dr. Seuss books for her to read to him. He had thrown out all the other books. Some had been splattered with red paint. All of them reminded him how Tiffany had refused to read to him.

Over the years, he had always tried to make his guests comfortable. It wasn't his fault that they were always ungrateful. He remembered how the one in Kansas City told him she wanted a steak. He had bought a thick one, the thickest he could find. When he came back he could see that she had used the time he was out to try to escape. She hadn't wanted the steak at all. He'd lost his temper. He couldn't remember exactly what happened after that.

He hoped Bree would be nicer.

He'd soon know. Tomorrow morning he would make his move.

•  •  •

“What is
that
?” Bree muttered to herself as she stood at the head of the stairs leading to her basement. She could hear a faint scraping sound emanating from the basement of the adjacent town house.

She shook her head. What did it matter? She couldn't sleep anyway. It was irritating, though. Only six o'clock on a Monday morning, and Mensch was already on some do-it-yourself project. Some neat-as-a-pin improvement, no doubt, she said to herself, already in a bad temper. She sighed. What a rotten day it was going to be. She had a lousy cold. There was no point getting up so early, but she wasn't sleepy. She had felt miserable yesterday and had stayed in bed all day, dozing. She hadn't even bothered to pick up the phone, just listened to messages. Her folks were away. Gran didn't call, and a certain Mr. Kevin Carter never put his finger on the touch tone.

Now cold or no cold, she was due in court at 9
A.M.
to try to make that first contractor pay for the repairs she had to do to the roof he was supposed to have fixed. To say nothing of getting him to pay for
the damage inside caused by the leaks. She closed the basement door decisively and went into the kitchen, squeezed a grapefruit, made coffee, toasted an English muffin, settled at the breakfast bar.

She had begun to refer to this town house as the dwelling-from-hell, but once all the damage was repaired she had to admit it would be lovely.

She tried to eat her breakfast, but found she couldn't. I've never testified in court, she thought. That's why I'm nervous and down. But I'm sure the judge will side with me, she reassured herself. No judge would put up with having his or her house ruined.

Bree—short for Bridget—Matthews, thirty, single, blue-eyed and dark-haired, with porcelain skin that wouldn't tolerate the sun, was admittedly jumpy by nature. Buying this place last year had so far been an expensive mistake. For once I should
not
have listened to Granny, she thought, then smiled unconsciously thinking of how from her retirement community in Connecticut her grandmother still burned up the wires giving her good advice.

Eight years ago she was the one who told me I should take the job in Washington working for our congressman even though she thought he was a dope, Bree remembered as she forced herself to eat half of the English muffin. Then she advised me to grab the chance to join Douglas Public Relations when I got that offer. She's been right about everything except about buying this place and renovating it, Bree thought. “Real estate's a good way to make money, Bree,” she had said, “especially in Georgetown.”