Chapter Four
He called back when Maggie was digging into a bowl of corn flakes with slices of banana on top. She picked up the receiver and said, “Hello?”
His voice sounded melodic, resonating through the telephone receiver. “Hello, my darling. This is Garrett Dannow. We met at O’Donnell’s the other night. You gave me your telephone number and I thought I’d give you a ring.”
Maggie nervously straightened her hair as though he could see her, and laughed self-consciously into the phone. “Garrett! I’m glad you called. I was hoping that you would.”
Garrett laughed a deep, hearty laugh. “The circumstances were unfortunate, of course. I did see you at the police station after the incident occurred. Are you holding up alright?” His voice marked genuine concern, and she felt flattered.
“It’s a tragedy what happened. It strikes me as much of a coincidence that I was the one who found her, and she had been one of my friends. I am overwhelmed by sadness for her loss, and I do not think that she can ever be replaced. How much did the police tell you?” She asked this last question with nervous apprehension, and she found herself sitting a little closer on her seat. Had he learned what she was? She feared the worst, and half-closed her eyes as though to brace herself.
“They only told me what they could,” he said. “She lived around here and apparently this has happened before. It’s an alert to anyone who plans to be outside during the night hours. Frankly, I would stay in as much as you can, and practice never to go out in the evening unless you are accompanied by someone. It’s frightening how close we both came to a killer—a killer who is still on the loose.”
Maggie thought for a moment. He wasn’t letting on that he knew anything about her, but she felt that it was only right that he know. “Garrett, I need to tell you something.”
“Can this wait until we can see each other? The least I can do is take you out sometime.”
“Sure,” she said uncertainly.
“How about tomorrow? I can pick you up at seven if you like. We have a choice of some great restaurants in your area. Afterwards we could browse the shopping district, or go to the park, whatever you would like.”
She faintly murmured that she would love to go out with him, and the time was just fine. She hung up feeling lighter, happier, as though she were on air.
That day she decided to take the opportunity to start hunting for a job. She walked down to the corner mart and purchased a paper and a red delicious apple. She took her things with her back upstairs and started to dig into the classified section.
A nearby bank was searching for tellers. She decided to circle that one, including the address, and she proceeded to weed through her closet for something understated to wear. She called the number and was met with a cheerful-sounding female voice. “I’m inquiring about the job opening,” she stated, referring back to her newspaper for easy reference. “Your advertisement says that you are in search of someone for a full-time position.”
“I can set you up with an interview,” the woman said, and Maggie rattled off a few dates that she would be able to make it. Actually, she would be available at any time, but she didn’t tell the woman that. “Would you be available as soon as today?” she asked, the sound of shuffling papers in the background.
Maggie didn’t have to think twice. “I would. And whom should I ask for when I get there?”
“You will be asking for Mr. Perkins. My name is Ms. Davies and I am his receptionist. I could pencil you in for two o’clock this afternoon. Is that an acceptable time?”
Maggie agreed that it was, but immediately she became nervous. She had no work experience, and her credentials were non-existent. She figured that if she made a good impression, though, then perhaps she would be able to snag the job. In fact it would all hinge upon that, she thought.
She found a light grey sweater and brown pants in her closet. With a necklace and some earrings, then it would be a perfect outfit to wear to her job interview. Some brown loafers, and she would look perfect.
She proceeded to get ready, and as she blow-dried her hair thoughts of Landon re-entered her mind. What if he was going to come back? She thought. There was no telling when he would be at it again, and when he would come she did not know if she could stop him. Would he listen to her now that it was too dangerous to work the streets? Or would he insist on exploiting her anyway, despite the existence of a serial killer?
Up until the time she needed to leave, he did not show up at her doorstep. She grabbed her purse, filled with tissues, extra make-up, her keys, her wallet, a bus schedule, and the newspaper advertisement, and walked breezily through the door. She perused the bus schedule and headed for the bus stop at the corner.
About five minutes after she arrived, the bus came rumbling to a stop. She entered through the front door, paid, and headed toward the middle section of the inside of the bus. She looked warily around her, seeing faces of obliviousness, and folded more guardedly into her seat.
As they drove she looked out at the familiar roads and buildings, seeing a district abuzz with activity. She needed this to go well. She could not, now, do what she had been doing with the circumstances as such. She may never have had a job before, but she was willing to try her best and put forth all of her efforts to see this endeavor through. She hoped that her interviewer would see how hard she was willing to work.
The bus neared the intersection where she was to get off. The two-story bank loomed proudly over the road with four stone pillars shielding its entrance. Dripping green mildew stains fell from the two top windows, but otherwise it was a clean-looking, newly refurbished edifice. Its concrete walls were standard gray, and the structure presented the bank well, as undoubtedly this was quite a reputable establishment.
Maggie felt the last of her nerves flittering away as she lowered herself from the bus, reaching inside of her purse for the folded newspaper advertisement. She took a deep breath, smoothed out her hair, and strode forward, purposely placing her head high.
“Mr. Perkins, please,” she asked the woman at the front desk, who was very possibly the same person who had helped her on the phone.
“Do you have an appointment?”
“I have an interview. I called earlier today.” The woman had a pinched face and black, probing rat-like eyes. Her hair was smoothed back into a low pony-tail, and Maggie noticed that she wasn’t wearing any make-up and didn’t have any adornments. She thought about giving her some beauty advice, but bit her lip that it probably wouldn’t make the best first impression.
“Wait right there,” she said, “and I’ll page him.”
She made her way to the sorry-looking waiting area, full of a half-dozen folding chairs and a warped wooden coffee table covered with old, ripped magazines. It was decorated with a shoddy-looking oil painting of a wood shed at the water’s edge, canoes lined up along the bank, and here and there evergreen trees brushed at the top of the sky. She chose the seat closest to the receptionist’s desk, picked up an Elle, and tried to occupy herself until it came time for her appointment.
Not finding anything interesting in the magazine, she opened her purse and proceeded to fiddle with her lipstick. As she raised the tube to her trembling lips, a stout man with a serious expression on his face appeared. His faced was sprinkled with fine wrinkles, and his eyes, covered by a pair of wire-rimmed glasses, were dark and concentrating. “Miss Faulkner?” he asked.
Maggie quickly stood and gathered her things together, throwing her magazine back down on the table. She smoothed out her pants and rose to shake the man’s outstretched hand. “I’ll be conducting your interview today,” he said. “Why don’t you come with me?”
Though nervousness had left her when she first got off of the bus, it came back now in full force. She heard the rustling off fabric as she brushed against a side table, and felt an overwhelming urge to faint as the man was leading her into his corner office. She hoped above all else that he would not notice as she braced herself against the table, waiting for the feeling to pass. Little hallucinated bees swarmed around her head, as what often happened before she fainted, and she pleaded that she would not fall down, as more imaginary bees buzzed through her quivering stomach.
As the man alighted behind his desk, the feeling thankfully passed, and Maggie fought to gain control of her train-wrecked mind. Sweat came to her palms and a draft of climate-controlled air chilled her forehead and made her shake.
“Have you ever worked in a bank before?” he asked in a flat tone, eying her up and down as though to pass a quick judgment on her. The way he was looking at her, with his head raised up just slightly, gave Maggie the distinct impression that he was looking down his nose at her. She examined her clothes, which she had thought this morning were quite tasteful, and suddenly came to a glaring realization that nothing she could have chosen would have been good enough for a job interview. The pants were too tight, and the neckline on the sweater was too low. Everything in her closet was all wrong. To be sure, she was much too used to dressing for the streets to be able to throw together a tasteful ensemble. And then she realized, as he was scrutinizing her, that she was probably wearing too much make-up, too.
“No,” she said, “But I’m a quick learner. In high school I used the computer a lot, and I’m a fast typist. I’m also good with numbers. I always made A’s in all of my math classes.”
He crinkled his nose in a gesture of dissatisfaction. “What type of work experience do you have? Do you have any at all?”
Maggie began to feel like a fool. How could she even think that anyone would give her a second look after the kind of life she’d led? She was in the wrong place, of that she was sure. “No,” she said with an uneasy laugh. “But a girl’s got to start somewhere, isn’t that right?”
Mr. Perkins gave a haughty snort, but didn’t look up from his paperwork. She shivered, feeling as though ready to crawl out of her skin and too-tight clothes. Try to say something intelligent, she told herself, placing her hands primly in her lap.
Mr. Perkins looked up pointedly from his desk, then adjusted his glasses. “And what interested you about banking?”
Maggie thought for a moment, her mind blank. She chewed nervously on her lower lip, thinking that the interview wasn’t going well. She felt cheap and out of place, to say the least. Was her perfume going sour? The man was wrinkling his nose in distaste, literally. Before she spoke she drew in a shaky breath, trying her best to give a small smile. “When I was thinking about what job I might like,” she said, “it occurred to me that there’s nothing I appreciate more than money. If I were to become a teller, I’d be working with money all the time. And that’s something I could really get into.”
She had half meant it to be a joke, but Mr. Perkins wasn’t finding it funny. Instead, he closed his stack of papers, looked down his nose at her again, and said, “References?”
She mentioned the first name that came into her head. “Sam Langley,” and knew that she had put herself into a fix. Surely she would have to explain herself to him before the bank could call him.
“Are there any special qualifications that would make you a good candidate for this job?”
At this question, Maggie felt confidence ripple through her. “I know how to handle people,” and it was the truth.
Mr. Perkins excused her and she walked blithely back into the waiting area, adjusted her purse strap, and sailed out of the building.
By the time she got out of her interview, the sky had turned deep grey with splashes of burgundy and violet. A rumbling of thunder pealed across the cloudy sky, and as she looked up at it, her breath came out in rolling fog around her face.
She was disappointed, to say the least. She supposed that she did the best she could possibly do considering that she had never been looking for a bona fide job before, but even still she wished that she had been better prepared for the questions. Sitting in that cramped little sterile room, she remembered she had felt every bit the hooker and nothing of the confident businesswoman that she wanted to portray.
She wrapped her arms tightly beneath her breasts as she walked briskly towards the bus stop, but then decided to walk home. It was, after all, still a little bit light out, and the rain was sure not to come until a long while later.
The click of her heels echoed against the sidewalk like she was walking on top of hollow metal trash cans. Amblers roamed the streets singly and in pairs, heading for the restaurants and bars along the main street. Early crowds were beginning to form at the movie theaters and clubs, and a quiet rustling of excitement brushed the streets with life.
Again, Maggie got the sensation that she was being followed. She didn’t know where the inkling came from or what had started it, but with a sinking certainty she felt that whoever had been following her the night before was following her again.
She rushed on, folding the collar of her coat up to shield her neck from the cold wind, and as a bus pulled to the side she ran to catch up with it. The bus driver waited and held the door open for her, and she hurried on, quickly paying her fare. There was no need to chance things, not when she was that certain that someone was after her.
She went home, and relaxed in the safety of her apartment.