Page 11 of Long Way Down

So she said, “Have you ever seen a movie calledTribute?”

From the corner of her eye, she watched his shoulders drop with relief. He frowned in thought. “Tribute…that’s not…is it that old one? With the stalker rapist guy who leaves notes?”

“That one, yeah.”

“Yeah, I saw it. It wasn’t the best thing I ever saw, definitely not as good as–” His head whipped toward her, good eye wide, mouth forming an over-the-top O of eagerness.Shit, she thought, before he said, “Wait. Wait, wait – is that your case? Some guy leaving notes?” He grinned in the face of her unimpressed look. Then whistled. “Damn, Dix. You got a super weirdo straight out of the gate.”

“I shouldn’t have said anything,” she grumbled, turning away from him.

“You didn’t, you didn’t. I just figured it out, is all.”

“Hm.”

“Seriously, though? That’s your guy? Is he doing the phone call thing?”

“What phone call thing?”

“Shit, you never watched the movie?”

“No.” She wasn’t much of a movie person to begin with. Her parents hadn’t ever taken her to the theater as a kid, and when he had the remote, Granddad was hooked on old westerns. Movies had generally involved John Wayne and frequent commercial breaks. When she was out on her own, she’d found she hadn’t the stomach for thrillers, nor the patience for romances. Dinosaurs she could handle, and superheroes. The occasional volcano or alien invasion.

Rape and murder had always been a no-go.

She felt the weight of Pongo’s gaze, and turned to find him studying her, notch of concern marring his normally smooth forehead. “Okay, don’t bite my head off, cause I’m not pushing for details and I’m not telling you how to do your job. But, if this guy’s pulling a Berman – that’s the name of the dude in the movie – then don’t you think it might help to watch it?”

She didn’t tell him she’d already trolled the fansites and web forums to no avail; there wasn’t a very big nor dedicated fandom for a ’96 thriller hailed as a poor imitation of a certain other film.

“Maybe,” she hedged.

“You wanna?” he asked, perking up, reaching for the remote where it lay between them once again. Even then, he paused, hand hovering over it, waiting for her stiff nod. “Pretty sure it’s on Netflix, lemme check.”

“Don’t you need to get home?”

“Nah. I mean…if you need me to get outta your hair…?” The question tilted, hopeful that she wouldn’t kick him out.

He pulled upTribute’s title screen, all eerie dark shadows and a woman’s frightened face. “No,” she said, pressing back into the couch cushions and drawing her legs up. “Stay. Or…whatever.”

“Sweet,” he murmured, and clicked Play.

Sounds of busy city traffic swelled from the speakers as the studio name appeared in white text on a black backdrop. They’d never done this before, she reflected: never started a movie together, here on the couch. They’d sat here, plenty, and she’d passed him beers, and sipped one of her own, and one of them had reached for the other, and it had devolved quickly and messily from there. But there hadn’t ever been a movie – hadn’t ever been a slow, blurry fade-in of a bustling New York sidewalk, and a woman in a beret and a wool coat toting a brown paper shopping bag up the front steps of a building.

The people he passed on the stoop, in the lobby, and on the stairs were a realistic collection of New Yorkers: laborers headed out for night shifts in coveralls; a parent walking a colicky baby; grungy teenagers smoking on the bottom step of a landing. Everyone’s clothes were so very 1996, the film a little grainy and smudgy on her HD TV. The camera shifted, painting out details: a crack in the wall plaster; a No Smoking sign being ignored; a hunted, shifty look in the eyes of the young mother as the girl with the shopping bag passed. But always the shot zoomed back in on that girl, on the tired set of her shoulders, and the glazed-over look in her eyes. Her keys, when she reached apartment 7D and unlocked the door, bore a flashing silver and enamel key ring that readSt. Louis, with the Gateway Arch above, wreathed in clouds.

Was this Hannah? Melissa wondered. On her way home with groceries? Or Lana, first to arrive, the one to be attacked?

A shudder of disquiet moved through her, because she knew what was going to happen, but she dreaded it anyway.Don’t go in, she thought.Wait in the hall. Go back and make small talk with someone else.But the girl let herself in, as the string music grew ominous, and a hand darted out of the shadows and clamped over her mouth. A face pressed in close to the back of her head, lips at her ear. A man’s voice rasped, “Make a sound and I’ll gut you.”

A second hand snatched the girl out of frame. The music broke off, and muffled sounds of a struggle issued from a steady shot of the apartment foyer: wedge of a table, a lamp, grocery bag abandoned on a side table, froth of celery leaves limp over the side. Thumps and low grunts and the sound of furniture shifting over the floor. No screams. Nothing besides another noisy neighbor in a crowded building; nothing to draw attention to the fact that something terrible was happening to someone.

The scene stretched on too long, panted breaths rhythmic in a way that left no question as to what was happening, the occasional faint squeal, a flailing across carpet. A quiet smack. Somewhere distant, a crying baby, a shout of laughter, a swell of thumping music from another apartment. That was how it went, wasn’t it? The worst thing imaginable was happening to someone while everyone around them revolved in their own private worlds. Someone was shushing that baby and hating their life while this young woman’s life was being shattered off-screen.

Melissa realized she was digging crescents into her palms with her nails and forcibly relaxed her hands in her lap.

“The first time I saw this,” Pongo said, quietly for once, and she latched onto his voice, grateful for a respite amid the off-screen brutality, almost worse that seeing it outright, “my dad had rented it and put it on in the middle of a Sunday afternoon. I was just a kid and had no idea what was happening.” He gestured to the screen, that unending shot of the foyer. “Mom came through the room and flipped her shit. Started yelling at him.” A soft snort. “Made me confess at church about seeing it. And I told Father McCabe that I had no idea what I was even confessing about: I watched a boring scene with a lot of grunting and somebody’s grocery bag.”

A scene that wasstill happening.

“Confession?” she asked. “You grew up Catholic?”

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