The Woman

He pressed his bulky metal binoculars awkwardly onto his eye sockets. The metal behind the rubber eyecups dug into the bone behind his skin. The view from the glass was jilted and blurry but he could make out the figure of a woman in the window across the street. Maybe he should get up and actually open the window, he thought. No, no, no. That would give him away. He had to be discreet, stealthy like she had been for days. Something in his gut gnawed at him. Maybe she knows? Does she? He tried again to make the binoculars actually work but failed once again. Frustrated, he threw them down onto the bed beside him. Cheap-ass things never work when they need to.

               He had been tailing her for a few days now. About a week now that he thought about it. He picked up the job from some old Kraut from the international embassy. Didn’t really say much about her, other than he’d pay him ten grand for whatever he could get in terms of ‘dirt and scheiße’.  Didn’t even bother to give him either her or his name, only information on where she would be that following day. At first, he was very dubious. Sure, he could follow this broad, and yeah, he could try to find some crap if he stayed on her heel long enough. But what the hell for? Was she his wife, lover? Daughter or intern? Didn’t say anything other than follow her. And ten grand for dirty pictures? Didn’t sound real to him. He was moments from throwing the Nazi bastard out when before he could speak, the man pulled out a manilla envelope. Opening up the contents, he showed him the glistening green bills with the great men of America on them. He felt his heart drop. Never had he ever seen that much money up close before. Compared to the rest of the jobs he had, he had nothing but peanuts in his bank account. Swallowing his pride, he shook his hand. The deal was on.

               Before he left, the Kraut did give him one other piece of evidence. Inside the manila envelope was also a picture. In the picture was a tall, statuesque woman that easily stood six feet high. The hat that she wore failed in every way to cover her beautiful blonde locks. Her plump lips colored black fellated a cigarette, a Marlboro red upon closer inspection. Her chin was sharp and elvish and her nose was equally pointed. She looked like she was some fairy from the tales his great-aunt Frieda would tell him before bed who had been dressed to look like the average secretary at a firm. Yet none of those features came close to being as lovely as her eyes. Behind round, dark sunglasses and accentuated by perfect black wingtips, this mystery woman had bright, icy blue eyes that could pierce a man’s soul with a single glance. She had the gaze of a serial killer, the piercing stare of a person ready to end the life of some poor wretch. To his knowledge, she hadn’t killed anyone, or at least, not yet. When he looked upon the Kraut again, his face betrayed both a sense of sexual longing and innate fear. He turned to leave in a huff, not bothering to close the door on his way out. Just what was this man so afraid of?

               As the days passed and he followed her, he could get glimpses of just what this woman was. Though she could have anybody she thought of, she was something of a homebody. All she did was go from her apartment he discovered on Euclid Avenue to the office on 18^th and Broadway. She would go down to the Hopping Streetcat Café and order coffee, a muffin, and a light chicken salad for lunch. She would then work for a few hours before stopping down at the bookstore a half block down. Never to buy anything but instead talk to the elderly owner who looked to be pushing his luck with Death. She would then go up to her apartment where he could only assume she undressed and promptly went to bed. With her cold stare and dangerously beautiful looks, this woman was nothing more than a near shut-in. The only thing that kept her about in the world was work and her bookstore friend. So just what was so scary about her?

               He asked that himself every night after work. With a bottle of scotch and a cigar in his hand, he sat and pondered it. Eventually, he came to the conclusion that this dirty Kraut who paid him was nothing more than a stalker with the sense to pin it on someone else. Eventually, he thought he would have to confront her and let her know what was going on. Not that it would really solve anything; hell it’d probably make things so much worse. But at least his conscience would be clear. He thought that tonight as well, as he sat back in the dirty hotel room he rented and sipped his scotch slowly. The burning acidic taste slammed down his throat like a great waterfall. He relieved it with the sensuous smoke of the Santa Dura cigar. The smoke in his mouth numbed him and all he could taste was the woody after effect. Pondering some more, he couldn’t help but chuckle. This was both the most awkward and the easiest ten grand he ever made. It’d pay off his apartment for months along with the office rent and all the equipment he needed to be repaired. Maybe that’d solve it. Another harebrained idea. Shit, he always had those, every night after work.

               Before he allowed the blissful numbness of alcohol to take him away, he felt something strange. The atmosphere felt awkward and disjointed as if something was about to happen this very second. Coming to his senses, he took his binoculars off the bed. He mustered his courage to at least open the window just a crack to stare at her. The view from them became much clearer. He saw the silhouette of the woman take real shape. She looked out her window with a look of emptiness on her face. She closed her eyes and sucked in slowly a deep breath of the night air. Slowly, she leaned forward. Further and further she leaned until the weight of her own body pulled her down. He could only watch in silence as the beautiful figure of her plummeted down, down, down to the streets below.