Six weeks earlier, Stanley Jenkins stood beside a tree and gazed down at Cindy Fuller’s sprawling split-level home. The hillside afforded an excellent vantage point-a virtually unobstructed view of the entire southeast area of her house including the two-car garage, which was perhaps only seventy-five yards away from where Stanley was standing now. The nearest neighbor’s house was dangerously close by-not over fifty feet to the east-but the house was all but obscured from view by the dense stand of Douglas fir running along the boundary between the two homes.
He checked his watch again. It was 8:06. In another ten minutes Cindy would pull into her driveway, engage the garage door opener and pull inside. Then she would get out of her car and head for the door that led into her kitchen, pausing only long enough to press the garage door button mounted on the wall beside the door before entering her impressive home.
Once inside, she would head straight for the kitchen pantry where she kept her copious stock of liquor and take out a brand new bottle of Johnny Walker Red. (She’d just finished off the rest of the old bottle the night before.) Then she would proceed to fix herself her usual drink: two ice cubes, a few ounces of scotch and a splash of soda water. Next, she would take the drink along with her into the den, turn on the television and sit down on the sofa while she nursed her drink, thinking much of the time of how relieved she was that her mother had taken the kids for the night. It was Wednesday again, and that meant another romp in the hay with the mayor, whom she would be meeting at his rented chateau on Buena Vista Lane in another hour.
Tonight, however, Cindy was going to miss her appointment with the mayor. And it was a downright sacrilege that the mayor’s wife would most likely never find out that he had been having a torrid affair with the city prosecutor for God only knew how long.
A smug grin came to Stanley’s face as he stared down at the dimly lit oval-shaped pool in the back of Cindy’s home. He could still picture her on that hot sticky August night, swimming laps, naked, and totally unaware that she was being observed. He remembered thinking to himself how well Cindy’s body had held up over the last twenty years. Back in college, he’d only seen her naked once, and that had been one hell of a major undertaking in itself. He had managed to shimmy up a tree outside of her dorm in the wee hours of the morning and caught her (by sheer luck, really) when she’d gotten out of bed to take a piss. He had a hunch that she always slept in the raw (she just seemed like the type) and he knew for a fact that she almost always had to get up some time in the middle of the night to relieve herself. This he had learned by watching her dorm room for the past week or two and seeing a light go on for a couple of minutes on any given night and then go off. Fortunately for Stanley, not only had he been right about her sleeping in the buff, he’d even had a halfway decent vantage point at the critical moment and been able to get a pretty good look at her.
God, had he ever been stiff and sore after waiting in that awkward position thirty feet above the ground for nearly three hours! And just to get a glimpse of Cindy Fuller nude! But it had been well worth it, really, even if it had been for only a fleeting moment…
He’d come a long way since those days, in more ways than one. One of his greatest accomplishments had been the simple realization that people were predictable as hell. They were all creatures of habit to a degree and had their little routines that they performed day in and day out. The challenging part was getting close enough to them without getting caught so that you could observe those routines. And that took more than mere stealth, he’d eventually learned. It took brains, too. Intelligence, patience and careful planning: that was the key to success. And once you had all of these elements working together there wasn’t a thing you couldn’t achieve.
Locating Cindy Fuller’s whereabouts had been a fucking cinch, for example. All he’d needed was a computer, internet access and knowing all the ropes of using search engines to the max. The abundance of information one could acquire about someone was staggering. Hell, you could practically access their entire life history as long as you knew what to input and where to input it! In a matter of a few minutes he had learned, among other things, that Cindy Fuller presently lived in Portnoy, Colorado, that she was recently divorced from Gregory Martin, was mother to two kids, made over 95K a year, and was leasing a red Mercedes coupe.
Stanley shook his head slowly from side to side, wondering how far he could have possibly gotten in this life if it weren’t for computers. How else could he have become the man he was now if it weren’t for those little beige boxes of power? It was truly mind-blowing!
If only his mother could see him now, he thought. She would be proud of him. And she would realize that he had been right all along-that getting good grades and studying all the time just wasn’t enough to get by in this world. How many times had he told her that girls don’t want to go out with a fucking egghead-that they want to be with someone who is fucking cool-one who wears the right clothes, knows the words to all the latest hits on the radio and knows all the right things to say at the right time.
Jesus! he thought. She wouldn’t even let him ditch those ugly horn-rimmed glasses that he’d hated so much! Why couldn’t she ever get it through her thick skull that it was bad enough to be intelligent and on the straight-A honor roll all the time but to be ugly in the process made it fucking impossible to get any chicks! It was almost as if she’d wanted him to strike out all the time by making him wear those hideous dorky clothes she kept buying for him, always insisting that he keep his hair short and neatly parted on the left side by slapping a ton of Brylcreem on it! And where in the holy horse fuck was the old man all this time? Why, he was sitting there in his Lazy Boy recliner, smoking his pipe and reading his fucking newspaper and telling him to mind his mother-that’s where. Thanks for coming to my defense, Pop, you pussy-whipped, hen-tied shitfuck!
His parents had never been able to understand him. That was because they’d been too nearsighted to see past his 165+ I.Q. Their son was a genius, they figured, so let’s push him to excel in school so he can leave the rest of the students in the rear of the class eating his dust. It was all they had ever cared about: straight A’s and scholarships. They had no idea what it was like to be walking down the hall and having everyone laughing at you behind your back. Or to be in class and have the teacher always calling on you to give him the right answer to a question that no one else could answer. Or to have all the guys in gym class flip you on the ass with a wet towel and facetiously ask how many girls you’d screwed over the past weekend.
But the girls were the worst by far. There they were, in their mini skirts hiked up to their crotches and those skin tight sweaters with their tits screaming to get out and not a fucking one of the halfway decent ones would even give him the time of day. They all looked down their noses at him as if he were a fucking leper or something! How many times did he get shot down, all tolled, anyway? A hundred? A fucking thousand? And how many girls had ever gone out with him in all the time he’d been in high school? One. One fucking girl, and he was using the word loosely. Loretta Hodges: the ugliest fucking hag in the entire school.
And what had happened on his one and only date with the ugliest girl in school? He’d taken her to a movie and had dared to put a hand on her breast. And what had she done? She had fucking decked him, that’s what she’d done. And if that weren’t enough, she’d started screaming bloody murder in the theatre as she stormed out, accusing him of being a pervert!
That had been the last straw. He had figured from there on out that if he was to ever score with a chick, it was going to be a fucking beauty next time-none of this lowering himself to the likes of Loretta Hodges’ abysmal level.
He had decided to focus on one babe in particular instead of spreading himself thin. She was to become his main focus of attention-the one who was finally going to give him what he wanted. And in the meantime, whenever he was alone in his bedroom, he would think of her while he was jerking off instead of pulling out one of those dog-eared Playboys from under the mattress yet again. No more bullshit-she was going to be the one he ate, drank and slept with in his dreams. He would follow her home after school, find out all of her likes and dislikes, and basically view her from afar until he finally felt it was time to make his move. Then one day, when the time was just right, he would approach this beauty and tell her how many things he knew about her and she would be so impressed that he knew all of those intimate details that she wouldn’t be able to resist letting him take her out on a date. She would be the one to suddenly realize that Stanley Jenkins wasn’t the nerd everyone thought him to be but instead a pretty damn suave and cool guy, after all-sort of like a young James Bond.
But he had never followed through with his plan. He’d chosen the beautiful chick, all right, but when he had finally approached her, he hadn’t had the nerve to tell her that he’d been following her all over creation for the past several months or that he knew, for example, that she liked to take long hot baths and never failed to soak in the tub for a good twenty minutes before she ever got around to actually washing herself.
Nope, he had choked instead, in fact. And had made a complete fool of himself. All because he’d made the mistake of not being patient instead of letting someone con him into thinking that he was ready to make the big score. That fucking bitch had ruined nearly a whole year of intense sleuthing!
She was going to pay for it, though-they both were. Just as Cindy Fuller was going to pay for being such a total disappointment and getting him shut up in the nut house.
And once he had Cindy all squared away he was going to track down the other ones and make them regret that they had ever made Stanley Jenkins the laughing stock at school. Then he was at last going to get his second chance in life. He would finally be free to play it by the book and find out what he’d been missing out on all his fucking life.
He suddenly saw a car’s headlights out of the corner of his eye. He turned and peered at Cindy Fuller’s red Mercedes as it approached the house and pulled into the driveway. It was too dark to see inside the car but he could visualize her groping for the garage door opener lying on the console and pressing the button. Stanley saw the door open as Cindy slowed down her speed somewhat until she was in the garage. A moment later, he heard the slam of a car door and in another, the electric clatter of the garage door closing.
He saw the kitchen light come on and waited another five minutes before making his way down the hill to the fringe of the side yard. As expected, Cindy hadn’t turned on the outdoor flood lights which would have lit up the grounds surrounding her house like a Christmas tree-he had since learned that she only turned them on whenever she planned on being out of town for more than a day at a time. Stanley began slinking diagonally across the lawn in the direction of the back door situated at the far corner of the house near the spacious patio, just beyond the swimming pool. As he passed furtively by the kitchen window, Stanley peered inside just long enough to spot the freshly opened bottle of Johnny Walker Red sitting on the counter near the sink, then resumed moving nimbly around the pool, onto the patio and up the steps leading to the back door.
Stanley reached inside his coat pocket and took out a key, then silently stuck it into the keyhole and turned. The dead bolt slid free with a crisp click that he knew would be inaudible in the den. He took out a pair of latex examination gloves from his pocket and pulled them on before turning the brass doorknob, silently pushing the door open with his other hand. Once inside, he inched the door closed, locked it, and waited for his eyes to adjust to the weak light in the room before advancing any further.
Jenkins strode across the room to the hallway and turned right, passing the study and a spare bedroom along the way. When he reached the dining room, he crept slowly through it and around the corner to the doorway leading into the den. He froze for a moment just outside the den and could hear the television set-it sounded like Cindy was watching a rerun of Roseanne. In another moment he could hear the clinking of ice cubes in a glass as Cindy Fuller took a long sip from her drink. Little did she know, he thought, that it was to be her last.
He entered the den and stood for a moment, staring at her. She was sitting on the sofa directly across the room from him. She was still wearing the same outfit he had seen her put on that morning-a matching navy blue skirt and jacket and white blouse: standard fare for the professional woman of the nineties. Cindy’s eyes were glued to the T.V. screen and she held her drink lovingly in both hands with her feet propped up on the coffee table. She suddenly started laughing at one of Darlene Connor’s one-liners and in the process happened to see Stanley standing there. At first she merely froze and her jaw dropped, unable to utter a word. Then he saw all the color drain out of her face as he started walking slowly and methodically toward her.
“Hello, Cindy-long time no see,” he said cheerfully as he strode across the room.
Cindy instinctively bolted up from the sofa, spilling her drink. “Who are you? And what are you doing in my house?” she sputtered, terrified.
Stanley continued pacing steadily toward her. He was only a dozen feet away from her now. “Why Cindy, I’m disappointed in you. Don’t you recognize me?”
“No, I don’t!” she uttered. Stanley watched the drink that was swashing back and forth in her violently trembling hand with delight as she spoke.
He continued his steady gait across the room until he was directly across the coffee table from her.
“Let me give you a few clues,” he said, the crooked smile never leaving his face. “The last time you saw me was about twenty years ago at Fountainhead Tech. I was the guy you absolutely refused to go out with because you thought you were too good for me. I got angry with you since you rebuffed me, so I set fire to your dorm room, hoping to put an end to your unyielding existence. But unfortunately for me, you weren’t in your room at the time like you were supposed to be and I ended up bungling the whole mission. But, my dear, sweet Cindy, it was in a way unfortunate for you as well. Because I think you would have much rather exited this world that way than the way I have planned for you now.”
Cindy Fuller was by now absolutely mortified with fear as she stood there frozen like a statue, an expression of incredulous horror on her face. Stanley continued standing where he was, only the breadth of the coffee table between the two, his smile never waning for a moment.
“No!” she cried as she tried to make a run for it. In an instant, Stanley turned to his left, grabbed her arm and threw her onto the sofa.
“I see now that your memory has returned,” he said in calm, controlled voice as he stared down at her. “And if you try to pull another stunt like that, I’m not going to be responsible for what I might do to you. Am I making myself clear?”
Cindy nodded slowly, tears welling up in her eyes.
“That’s better.” He leaned down and stroked her blonde hair. “Please don’t cry, Cindy-you’re messing up your makeup,”
Stanley sat down on the edge of the coffee table and stared into her eyes as he ran his gloved fingers through her shoulder-length hair. His expression was pensive.
“You still look wonderful, Cindy, if you don’t mind my saying so. You’ve aged quite nicely, in fact. Same thick, golden hair, same gorgeous blue eyes, and from what I’ve seen-practically the same sweet body you had back in the old college days. It almost seems like a shame to let such a lovely creature go to waste.”
He paused a moment, then said, “So here’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to give you another chance. That’s right, Cindy, I’m going to afford you the opportunity of deciding once again if you’re too good for me. In other words, are you going to be a willing participant or am I going to have to beat you into absolute submission to have my way with you? The decision is yours.”
Cindy began convulsing violently as Stanley sat there, continually stroking her hair. She literally could not find her voice. He then placed both of his hands on her shoulders as a token gesture of comfort and stared expectantly into her eyes.
“Well Cindy, what’s it going to be?”
She looked away a moment then back at him. “What are you going to do to me, Stanley?”
He smiled at her, his eyes cold as steel. “It’s what I may not do to you that you should be concerned with, darling.”
Cindy Fuller’s expression became imploring.
“Please don’t kill me! I have two small children! I’ll do anything you ask-but please don’t kill me!” she cried.
Stanley chuckled triumphantly. “That’s both a very prudent and inviting offer, Cindy, but you haven’t yet answered my question. Do you still think that you’re too good for Stanley Jenkins? Or are you beginning to see him in a different light? Tell me Cindy. Are you impressed with what you see now?”
She nodded slowly. “Yes, Stanley. I am.”
“Say it, Cindy! Tell me you regret ever being such a bitch to me back at Fountainhead! That you now realize what a stupid mistake you made!”
Cindy was hysterical. “I’m sorry, Stanley!” she cried desperately. “I should have gone out with you but I didn’t because I’m a bitch and I’m really sorry that I didn’t do it now!”
A huge smirk came to Stanley’s face. “Excellent! You know, Cindy, I almost believe you actually mean what you just said, but my better judgment tells me that you’re only speaking out of fear and desperation. I need to be convinced that you’re really sincere. I want you to show me that you’ve truly learned your lesson.”
His hand went to her breast for a moment, then he withdrew it. Cindy flinched and a look of dread and revulsion showed in her eyes.
Stanley chuckled, “I’m beginning to sense that your heart isn’t really in this, Cindy. Perhaps I should just kill you instead of wasting my time.”
She grabbed his sleeve. “No, Stanley, please!”
He stared at her expectantly. She said, “What do you want me to do?”
His expression softened and he smiled. “The county doesn’t pay you $95.000 a year to be stupid, I see.”
He stood up and declared. “I want you to perform for me, Cindy. That’s all.”
Cindy looked up into his eyes questioningly. “What do you mean?”
He replied, “I want you to just sit there where you are for a moment or two and then I’ll tell you what I want you to do. And I may as well caution you right now not to try anything foolish like running away. I’m in peak physical condition and can run ten miles a day without breaking a sweat. You got it?”
Cindy nodded, her face white as a sheet.
Stanley winked at her then turned and strode over to the television and switched it off. He went to the other end of the room near the doorway and faced her again. He removed the nylon bag slung over his shoulder and opened up a compartment, took out a Polaroid camera and tripod, then tossed the bag aside. After pulling out the legs of the tripod as far as they would go and tightening them, he attached the camera to the base and adjusted the height by means of the crank arm until the camera was up as high as his chin. He looked through the viewfinder at Cindy sitting on the sofa and moved the tripod in closer toward her until he was satisfied with the composition. Then he stepped back and looked over the room to ensure himself that he’d picked the best angle of view attainable, then breathed a long sigh of satisfaction.
“Stand up, Cindy,” he commanded.
Cindy had to grasp the arm of the sofa to steady herself as she arose to her feet.
“Now come around to the other side of the coffee table and stand there.”
Cindy’s eyes were on the plush carpeting as she stepped out from behind the coffee table, went around to the front and stood there as still as she possibly could.
“Raise your head and look at me,” Stanley ordered, peering through the viewfinder.
Cindy raised her head and looked toward him.
“Will you quit fucking crying for chrissakes!” he snapped. “You’re makeup is running!”
Agitated, Stanley reached into his coat pocket, took out a Kleenex, then went over and began dabbing Cindy’s face in an effort to clean off her mascara-streaked eyes and cheeks. Her head bobbed and quivered each time he touched her and the rest of her body trembled violently.
“I wish you would relax, Cindy. There’s nothing to be afraid of. Don’t you want to look good for the camera?”
I… I’m trying,” she moaned, avoiding his eyes.
“There now, that’s better,” he said, standing back and looking her over.
Stanley returned to the camera and looked through the viewfinder. After making a slight adjustment, he said, “Now, Cindy, remove your clothes… slowly.”
“ What?”
“I said to take off your clothes.”
Stanley continued to watch Cindy through the viewfinder as she stared at the wall and began fidgeting with her jacket. Then she suddenly threw her hands up in the air and peered over at him.
“I can’t do it!”
Stanley jumped back from the camera. “Yes, you can, Cindy, and you fucking will do it, by God!”
With that, he stormed over and raised his hand as if to strike her then stopped himself. His rage abated and his expression grew calm again.
“Listen, Cindy. We don’t have all night so I want you to listen closely to what I have to say. If you want to live to see your kids again I suggest that you do exactly as I say. I just don’t understand you gorgeous fucking women! Here you are, with your beautiful bodies and all the things you put yourselves through to keep yourselves that way. Then a man comes along and asks you to show him what you have and you suddenly clam up on him! Now does that make any sense? I’ve seen you in various stages of undress already, so what’s the big problem here? Ha! You didn’t even know that, did you? That’s because I’m good-really good. You haven’t even had an inkling that I’ve been observing you for the past two weeks have you? Well, I have. I’ve seen you in your bathroom taking a bath, in your bedroom getting dressed in the morning, and even in your pool skinny-dipping in the middle of the fucking night. And guess what-I’ve seen you screwing the mayor, too! Bet you thought that was some kind of big secret, didn’t you? I can tell by your expression right now that you’re shocked by all of these revelations, but like I said, I’m good. So I already know what you got there, Cindy, and I want to see it again. Now! So are you going to start taking off those clothes for me or am I going to have to fucking do it for you?”
Cindy was absolutely dumbstruck. She wanted to protest but realized it was useless. She looked around the room for a moment, as if to suddenly discover a miraculous way out of this situation, which she knew didn’t exist. She then looked at Stanley Jenkins in utter defeat and nodded her head slowly.
“Excellent!”
Stanley returned to the camera. He peered though the viewfinder once again and stared as Cindy Fuller removed her jacket. Her eyes avoided the camera when she let the jacket drop to the floor and began unbuttoning her blouse.
“Slowly,” Stanley commanded.
Cindy shot him a pained glance and with trembling hands mechanically undid her blouse, allowing it to fall off her shoulders to the floor. After pulling down her skirt and removing her pantyhose, she stopped and stared at him with pleading eyes.
“The rest, Cindy. Take off the rest,” he insisted, his voice guttural as he continued to peer through the viewfinder.
Cindy sighed in helpless exasperation and undid her bra. She tossed it aside, and with tears streaming out of her eyes, removed her panties.
“Excellent!” Stanley exclaimed. “Say ‘cheese!’”
An instant later, the camera fired-causing Cindy to flinch from the glare of the flash. The camera promptly coughed out a print with a whirring whine and Stanley pulled it the rest of the way out and stuck it into his pocket.
“How about a smile, Cindy?” he coaxed. “And take your hands away from your tits!”
He gaped at her as she hesitantly withdrew her hands from her breasts and let her arms fall limply to her sides. She was sobbing in fear and humiliation as she forced a weak smile that lasted only a second.
“Come on, Cindy, look alive! You know you’re enjoying this just as much as I am. Here I am, admiring that gorgeous bod of yours and it’s making me a very happy camper… You’re fucking pleasing me, Cindy! So give me a show-let’s see your stuff!”
At that moment, Cindy Fuller totally broke down. She started crying hysterically and slumped to the floor, no longer able to deny the pent up terror inside of her.
“Fuck!” Stanley shouted, running over to where Cindy lay writhing on the floor. He thrust his hands in under her arms and tried to force her up to her feet but she was like a dead weight. He let go of her and smacked her face hard with the back of his hand.
“Okay, Cindy. No more Mister Nice Guy. Get up on your feet or I’m going to kick the living shit out of you!”
Cindy remained motionless.
“Last chance!”
Cindy didn’t move.
Stanley brought his arm in under her chin and applied pressure, causing Cindy to choke violently. He held her in a vise-like grip for several moments, then relaxed his hold. Cindy coughed agonizingly and struggled to catch her breath.
“Are you ready to cooperate, Cindy? Or would you like me to finish you off now?”
She shook her head dismally. Stanley lifted her up to her feet and held her until she finished coughing. Then he said, “You’ve really pissed me off Cindy, you know, and I’m beginning to wonder just how much you care about your precious kids. Are you going to start playing ball with me or are you conceding the game?”
She forced herself to say in a broken hoarseness, “Okay, you win.”
Stanley Jenkins grinned victoriously. “Wait here. I’ll be back.”
He returned to the camera and looked through the viewfinder. “Turn around, Cindy. I want your sweet ass to face the camera.”
Cindy turned around.
“Now stay there and don’t move a muscle.”
He stood back and flipped the switch for the self-timer, removed his coat, his eyes never for a moment leaving Cindy’s backside. Then he quickly pulled off his sweat pants, pressed the shutter release button, and ran over to where she was standing.
“Bend over, bitch!” he commanded, then shoved himself into her just as the timer beeped out the final seconds and the camera fired.
Cindy let out an agonizing scream and struggled to break away just as Stanley grabbed her hips in his hands and forced her down onto her knees, continuing to thrust himself into her. Moments later, he withdrew and spun Cindy around, pinning her down flat on her back. He plunged himself into her as Cindy tried desperately to push him off. But she was no match for him as she kicked her feet wildly and clawed him in the back with her fingernails.
“You’re not being a very willing participant,” he panted, staring at her with insatiable lust and malice. “I’m beginning to think that you truly don’t like me one iota!”
He suddenly grasped her breasts in both hands and squeezed them as if checking cantaloupes for ripeness.
“Don’t tell me this doesn’t feel good, bitch. Now are you beginning to see what you missed when you turned down Stanley Jenkins all those years ago? All I ever wanted was this-to fuck your brains out. But you were too good for me, weren’t you, Cindy? Didn’t think I’d be able to give you so much damn pleasure. Thought I was a fucking loser! But now you know. And now I know that you’re a fucking slut, just like all the rest. Big fucking teasing sluts who think they’re shit doesn’t stink. And to think that the only reason I was ever interested in you was because you resembled her so much. But you’re nothing like her-she has class. You are just a cheap imitation of the real thing, you bitch!”
In a sudden fit of uncontrollable rage, Stanley hammered her in the jaw with his fist, sending Cindy’s head reeling to the side. An instant later, he struck her again, this time nearly knocking her unconscious. Cindy moaned incoherently as Stanley sprung up onto his feet and ran over to where the nylon bag was lying on the floor. He reached inside and took out a three-foot length of lamp cord and raced back over to where Cindy lay half conscious on the floor. Her eyes were frozen in terror as he walked around her, forced her up into a sitting position, then drew the lamp cord around her neck from behind.
“Sorry it had to end this way, Cindy,” he declared as he tightened the cord around her neck. “But in spite of the great time I’ve had on our little date, I’m afraid that I’m still going to have to kill you.”
She let out a bloodcurdling screech as Stanley Jenkins pulled the lamp cord taut, causing it to cut into the soft flesh of her neck. Cindy started choking and gasping for breath as he pulled tighter and tighter until she became totally motionless. He let go and watched as her body slumped down to the floor.
Stanley stood up and checked the time-it was almost 9:00. He ran over and quickly removed the camera from the tripod and carried it back over to where Cindy’s body lay. Switching off the self-timer, he aimed and took a quick shot of her. Then he laid the camera aside and stood over Cindy for a moment, staring at her as an interior decorator would while assessing a room’s decor for the first time. Then he began rearranging her body position meticulously until it finally suited him. After retrieving the camera, he experimented with a few angles before snapping three or four shots of Cindy laying flat on her back, her legs spread eagle.
After putting on his sweat pants and coat, Stanley broke down the tripod and placed it into the nylon bag along with the camera and the lamp cord. He scoured the room for any evidence of his ever being there then carried Cindy’s glass into the kitchen and placed it in the sink. He didn’t disturb the bottle of scotch or anything else there, knowing full well that Cindy wouldn’t have bothered with any of it until the next morning.
Just as he was about to return to the den, the phone rang and he felt his heart skip a beat. Stanley stood frozen in his tracks and listened as it rang a total of five times, then ceased. The mayor, he thought to himself with a grin. Most likely checking to see if Cindy had left yet to make their secret rendezvous.
Stanley hastily returned to the den and began putting Cindy’s clothing back on her body. This undertaking proved to be more difficult than he had anticipated and nearly ten minutes passed before he had everything back in place. He picked up Cindy’s body and cradled it in his arms as he made his way out of the den.
When he reached the door leading to the garage, he stopped long enough to catch his breath then opened the door and carried Cindy’s limp body over to where the Mercedes was parked. Stanley swore under his breath when he realized that the passenger door was locked, so he carried her around to the driver’s side and managed to open the door far enough to heave her increasingly cumbersome body onto the seat. With a huff, Stanley turned and went back inside to the kitchen where he found Cindy’s purse and car keys laying on the counter. Returning to the garage, he unlocked the passenger door and opened it, then transferred Cindy’s body over from the driver’s side. He pulled her lower body down as far as he could toward the floorboard until she was out of view from the outside. Sweating profusely from the exertion, Stanley went back inside, made a final look over of the den, turned off the lamp beside the sofa, grabbed up the nylon bag and returned to the garage.
He got into the Mercedes, inserted the key and fired up the engine. Stanley stared at the tachometer. The idle speed, even with the choke engaged, was only about 800 rpm. That certainly won’t do, he thought. After fishing a screwdriver out of the nylon bag, Stanley pulled the hood release button and got out of the car. After raising the hood and locating the idle adjustment screw, he turned it clockwise until the engine was purring along at cruising speed. He then closed the hood and returned to the driver’s seat. He estimated that the rpms would be somewhere around three grand once the car was all warmed up. That should do it.
He depressed the button on the remote garage door opener and waited until the door was fully open before shifting into reverse. The car lurched back with a reverberating squeal and he contemplated lowering the idle a bit but thought against it. Better safe than sorry, he thought; and who gave a tinker’s dam if he had just all but trashed the transmission? It wouldn’t make any difference in a few minutes, anyway.
Halfway down the lengthy driveway, Stanley pressed the garage door button again, just as Cindy would have done. A moment later he pulled away from the house, hoping no one heard the squeal of the patch he’d just laid at the foot of her driveway.
Stanley had learned through his extensive internet research that Portnoy was a small but sprawling Colorado suburb inhabited mostly by affluent residents who conducted most of their business in nearby Denver. The chateau that the mayor used for his liaisons with Cindy was less than a two-mile drive from her home. To get there, she would have merely driven down her street to Ridgemont Road, taken a left hand turn, then descended the steep, winding two lane road until it intersected with Pinecrest Lane. There she would get onto Pinecrest and drive back up the mountain for a half mile or so then pull onto a little unmarked road which was all but obscured from view by the lush, towering pines growing on either side of it. Once on this road, she would drive another quarter of a mile or so until she reached the chateau that was tucked away in the middle of nowhere. The view of the majestic Rockies at their obscure little love nest, Stanley had to admit, was absolutely breathtaking.
Located just before the intersection of Ridgemont and Pinecrest was a sharp, hairpin curve that couldn’t be safely negotiated at any speed in excess of fifteen miles per hour. Along this perilous curve was a short strip of grassy roadside, about thirty feet wide, and beyond that a cliff with a sudden drop-off of perhaps 1500 feet or so. The only barrier standing between the roadside and the cliff was, amazingly, a pathetic guardrail constructed only of treated pine posts and a pair of wooden beams. Stanley had been elated the first time he’d laid eyes on this engineering faux pas as he noted that this would be a primo site for some less-than-responsible motorist to lose control of his car and go plummeting over a cliff with a vertical drop-off of nearly half a mile.
And tonight Cindy Fuller, he thought with relish, was going to be that luckless motorist.
It was a chilly night and the air smelled of an impending snowstorm. He turned on the car’s heater and zipped quickly along the steep mountain road just as Cindy would have done en route to her rendezvous with the mayor. He’d discovered in the last couple of weeks that she was a reckless and incompetent driver to say the least, often exceeding the speed limit and rarely wearing a seat belt. She had been quite a wild lady in general, as a matter of fact, considering her age and her lofty position in the community.
Stanley would never forget the night he had first followed her to the road that led to the mayor’s private getaway, clueless as to what she could possibly be up to. He recalled getting out of his car and following her on foot from that point on, knowing that she couldn’t be going much further, considering the geography of the area. He had followed her for about fifty yards or so before he came upon a steel gate that blocked the entire breadth of the road. It was secured by a thick chain and a heavy padlock that Cindy evidently had a key to. He had scaled the six-foot fence adjacent to the gate and proceeded along the road until he’d finally reached the edge of the grounds surrounding a small stone house that reminded him of a miniature French manor.
The grounds had been well lit by floodlights and it was no small feat circling the grounds in the thick foliage until he found an area where he could approach the chateau unnoticed. Once he’d made it however, the rest of his mission had been easy. The place was like a fish bowl-more windows than anything else-particularly in the rear of the structure where the patio and hot tub were located as well as a spectacular view of the Rockies.
Stanley had stood hidden behind a tree and watched as the mayor, who had to be sixty if he were a day, lowered his fat naked body into the hot tub and waited for Cindy to join him. She was still inside and Stanley watched her as she stripped off her clothes, retrieved a drink the mayor had apparently prepared for her beforehand, then slinked out onto the patio wearing nothing but a smile. When she reached the hot tub, she leaned over in front of the mayor and let her gorgeous tits dangle before his admiring eyes. Then she had sat down on the edge of the tub with her legs spread wide open and allowed the mayor to stick his fat face in between them and start nibbling…
Stanley’s teeth were clenched as he recalled that night. Why in the fuck would a beautiful bitch like Cindy Fuller screw around with an obese, ugly slob like that? And to think that she had once thought of himself as no more than a turd floating in a toilet bowl…
Why in the fuck hadn’t he ever been able to score with this chick for chrissakes! he wondered feebly as he had watched the mayor work on her with relish.
A smug grin came to Stanley Jenkin’s face and he shot a glance over toward Cindy’s body slouched down in the passenger’s seat. He had finally scored with her after all. It may have taken twenty years and a lot of bullshit but at least he’d finally done her. He’d nailed Cindy Fuller and nailed her but good. He had in fact fucked her to death!
She had loved it, too. He swore he could almost see it in her eyes as he was putting it to her earlier that night. He could imagine her thinking to herself, “Jesus, I never knew Stanley was so damned cool! And what a great fuck he is!”
Too late now, Cin, he thought. You should’ve thought about that twenty years ago.
He was approaching the last turn before the hairpin and he slowed down his speed. As expected, he hadn’t seen a single car out on the road yet. There were only a handful of people who lived around this area and those few were all most likely watching the pre-season football game between the Broncos and Chiefs on TV.
The incline of the road descended sharply after he made the turn, making it necessary for him to brake hard to keep the car under control against the fast idle speed. Ahead of him, about a hundred yards or so, he could see the hairpin curve. He drove another fifty yards and slowed down to a complete stop. Time was critical now, he knew, so he was going to have to work fast.
There was no berm to speak of where he had stopped the car-just two lanes of asphalt heading straight for the curve with a drainage ditch on either side. He shifted into neutral and checked the tachometer-the car was idling just under 3,000 rpm, as he had estimated it would. He sat for another moment as he considered the engine’s idling speed and the distance to the guardrail and beyond. Then, figuring in the steepness of the road, he felt confident that the car would indeed have enough gusto to break through the guardrail and continue on to the cliff. This debate was all academic at this stage anyway-he certainly couldn’t risk the extra time it would take to make another idle adjustment anyway.
Stanley threw the gearshift lever back into drive and set the parking brake, praying the engine wouldn’t die. It didn’t, but the car was lunging forward in a fury and felt like it would die any moment. He got out and quickly ran over to the passenger side, opened the door, and gathered up Cindy’s body into his arms. Her skin was already cool to the touch and he nearly vomited as he carried her around to the driver’s side. He stuffed her into the seat and arranged her feet in an approximate driving position. Suddenly the engine missed, sputtered and bogged down to an anemic, sort of choked, purring sound. Holy fuck, it was going to die on him! he thought. Then all of a sudden the engine regained momentum and was back up to three grand again. Stanley felt a bead of sweat run into his eye that stung like a bee.
With a cautious gasp of relief, Stanley quickly hopped out and ran to the front of the car, checking to see that the wheels were heading straight forward. Satisfied, he ran back to the driver’s side long enough to place Cindy’s upper body against the steering wheel to help keep the wheels on course.
Sweat was now literally pouring down Stanley’s face as he glanced up and down the road to be sure there weren’t any oncoming motorists. It was black as pitch in either direction. He again considered with some regret that there would be no skid marks left behind on either the pavement or the berm to indicate that Cindy had hit the brakes before plummeting over the cliff and he was certain that the police would question that. He also knew that they would be speculating a hell of a lot of other things while investigating Cindy Fuller’s fatal car accident, seeing as she was such an important personage in the community. But none of this really bothered him and the reason was quite simple: they would never in a million years be able to pin her death on Stanley Jenkins no matter how extensive their investigation may be.
Because Stanley Jenkins no longer existed.
The smug grin returned to his face as he grasped the top edge of the door with his left hand, leaned inside and took hold of the parking brake lever in his right hand. Taking a deep breath and a final glimpse of Cindy Fuller’s pale but still beautiful face, he released the parking brake and jumped back from the car like a cat.
The Mercedes shot forward like a sprinter from the starting line, the engine roaring and whining in the dark quiet of the mountains. Stanley barely had enough time to run after it and slam the door shut in a sudden panic-stricken afterthought as the car hurtled along toward its destination. By the time the car was half way to the hairpin curve it was doing a good 35 mph. Stanley stood and stared in utter fascination as the phantom runaway car grew smaller in the distance with increasing velocity. Then suddenly the car began veering hard to the right and Stanley held his breath. It was going to plow into the drainage ditch! he thought. With a sickening feeling in the pit of his gut, he realized that he had fucked up royally by not starting this whole death car plot into motion closer to the curve than he had.
Christ!
Then miraculously, the car began straightening itself out as it tore onto the grassy area. Stanley crossed his fingers and looked on, praying that the car stayed on course. Only thirty feet to go until impact.
Twenty feet. The car had to be doing forty-five.
Only ten feet to go. It was really booking now!
Smash! The Mercedes crashed through the guardrail like it was made of matchsticks and kept right on going. (Just like the Energizer bunny, Stanley thought with a smile.)
A few seconds later, the car dipped out of sight. He heard the engine race to a throaty whine as the wheels left the ground and became airborne. A few moments later, an eerie deathlike silence fell over the mountain as the car continued to sail through the air and out of hearing range.
Then he suddenly heard a tree-crunching thud, followed by a rustling sound like a wild bear on a rampage. Finally, the entire Rocky Mountain sky was lit up like the Fourth of July as the Mercedes exploded and caught fire somewhere down near the base of the mountain.
What a Rocky Mountain High! he thought.
“Time to book,” Stanley breathed to himself.
The temptation to run over and look down at the scene was nearly overwhelming but he knew he couldn’t afford himself that luxury. It wouldn’t be long before the whole county would be up here investigating.
He reached inside his coat pocket and took out a flashlight, switched it on then began searching for the path. He spotted it about twenty yards back up the road to the left and hastened toward it. The path was narrow and overgrown but he knew that it was accessible and where it led. He entered the path and began scaling the hillside at a brisk gait. He had only gone forty yards or so when he heard the sirens.
The path ascended a steep hill for several hundred feet before terminating onto a dirt road. When he reached the road, Stanley stopped long enough to gaze down through a clearing in the trees at the scene below. He wasn’t able to actually spot any of the emergency vehicles but he could see the flashing red and blue lights reflecting off the sides of the mountain, their eerie staccato flashes slicing into the yellow-orange glow of Cindy’s burning Mercedes. He was pleased with himself-he hadn’t been able to foretell whether the car would actually catch fire when it hit and this had been one of the few calculated risks he’d taken on this mission. He had debated on whether or not to install an explosive device that would have ensured that Cindy’s body would end up in cinders but had decided not to take any unnecessary risk. The authorities might well find the device during their investigation and that would have bungled the whole thing. Some details simply had to be left to fate.
Stanley turned and began jogging east on the road. He felt good-in fact he felt excellent. His body was in peak physical condition and at one with the road, the air was crisp and the adrenalin was pumping. Right this moment, he felt like he could take on the whole fucking world and win. In a sense, he was doing just that. With each mission he undertook, the world was getting much closer to discovering the truth: that Stanley Jenkins was not going to be pushed around any more. He was a force to be reckoned with-not the innocuous egghead that everyone thought him to be. Nope, he was a fucking cool dude-just like James Bond. And just like his idol, Stanley Jenkins was leaving behind droves of gorgeous babes in his wake as he encountered his missions-every one of them with broken hearts filled with regret that they hadn’t known sooner that Stanley was not only a cool dude and a master spy, but a super stud as well.
But even James Bond had to retire some day. Bond had in fact retired the day that Ian Fleming, his creator, had died. The reincarnations of Bond since then had only been cheap imitations of the real thing. Sort of the same way that Cindy Fuller had been a cheap imitation of the real thing…
The image of her, the real thing, as a teenage girl flashed through Stanley’s mind for a fleeting moment and he felt his pulse quicken even more. The prospect of returning to his roots and settling down with her in the not too far future heightened his euphoria. She was going to be his light at the end of the tunnel, the one who would appreciate everything he had accomplished. She would be able to see what Stanley Jenkins was all about without having to be told or shown. Because this babe had class-always had and always would. That’s what set her apart from all the rest. He’d known it from the very first time he’d followed her home from school and saw the way she’d strutted her sweet little ass ever so gracefully-with confidence and poise. She didn’t have to flaunt her obvious attributes; they were just there. She knew it and the rest of the world knew it.
But the rest of the world would never know her as Stanley Jenkins did. He knew her intimately-her likes and dislikes, her habits, her routines. He’d watched her many times as she lay in bed at night, her homework swept off to the side, staring at the ceiling and fantasizing about the man of her dreams suddenly coming along and sweeping her off her feet. He had read her diary once, and she’d written that someday she would meet someone who truly understood her and knew all the things to do and say that made her happy. And once she found him, she would do anything in the world for him and never let him go.
Little had she known that she would have to wait this long to realize her dreams. But how could she have known back then that he had already been there for her? It hadn’t been her fault.
It had been his own.
He’d not waited patiently for just the right moment to tell her He’d let that fucking bimbo blow the whole operation.
Stanley Jenkins’ blood began to boil and it took everything he had to compose himself. Patience, he thought. In the not so distant future, there would be no one left to stand in his way.
He spotted the rental car up ahead and a smile returned to his face. We reached the car, unlocked the door and got in, flung the nylon bag of the passenger seat and started the engine. In ten minutes he’d be on the main road and in another fifteen minutes would be on the interstate heading north to Denver. After a late supper and a couple of drinks, he’d crash out at his hotel and be up early the next morning to drive to the airport to catch his flight. By the time he landed at New York’s La Guardia Airport, he would have a good four or five hours to spend sightseeing and taking in all those wonderful things that made New York City such a hip city. That would be his own little treat to himself, by God. On the following day, it would be time to get back to work.
Locating and casing out Sara Hunt’s apartment would be a cinch, but it was going to take a master spy to devise a way of making a date with her that she would truly never be able to forget for the rest of her little life…