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  So far he had a few good ideas for his fourth novel, yet he was partial to a story he’d tentatively titled The Pizza Guy. The protagonist, Mac, is a pizza delivery driver. One night he delivers a pie to a very attractive woman named Desiree, and soon after he begins to stalk her. When she orders a pizza the following week, he laces it with Rohypnol, delivers it to her, then waits in his car outside her home. Thirty minutes later he knocks on her door. When she doesn’t answer he breaks in through the back and finds her passed out in the bedroom. He strips her naked and is about to rape her when the front door opens. Some guy—her boyfriend most likely—catches him in the act and goes nuts. During the ensuring fight, Mac drives the heel of one of Desiree’s stilettos into his eye, killing him instantly.

  Mac decides he has to dispose of the body, so he pulls his car into the driveway, then goes back inside to collect the asshole—only to find Desiree awake and spazzing out over her dead boyfriend. Mac sees no choice but to kill her too, and he strangles her to death with her laptop power cord.

  He loads both bodies into the trunk of his car, and he’s about to get the hell out of there when four more people arrive in a convertible, blocking him in the driveway. Mac tells them he’s Desiree’s friend from high school, she’s gone to the liquor store, and invites them inside, where he kills them one by one in gory slasher movie fashion.

  That’s as far as Buddy’s outline went. He still needed an ending. But he was stumped. Because now there would be blood throughout the house. Simply getting rid of the bodies would no longer be enough. When Desiree was reported missing, the police would treat the house like a crime scene. Mac’s fingerprints would be everywhere, his hair would be in the carpet, all that CSI stuff.

  Buddy was toying with the idea of having Mac bring Desiree and the boyfriend back inside and torching the place. The blaze would take care of the DNA problem nicely. Nevertheless, he wasn’t sure whether this was original enough. He needed an ending that would blow the nerds at the literary agencies out of the water. Something really amazing. He was getting sick of rejection letters and didn’t want to waste another year on a book that wasn’t going to get picked up.

  At three thirty in the afternoon, Buddy, running dry on inspiration, stretched and yawned. He closed the notepad in which he had been scribbling his ideas and glanced out his door at Betty and Wilma and the two other tellers. Gino was nowhere in sight, and Buddy wondered why he hadn’t come to see him yet.

  Had he simply forgotten about the promotion?

  Was he waiting until the end of the day to deliver the news?

  Buddy tapped his pen against his knee for several long moments. Then he got up and went to Gino’s office.

  The door was closed. He knocked.

  “Yeah?” Gino called.

  “It’s Buddy.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Can we talk for a sec?”

  “Yeah, yeah. Come in.”

  Buddy entered. Gino’s office was about twice the size of Buddy’s, still not very big. Office Depot furniture, a calendar on the wall, a bottle of hand sanitizer on the desk, next to a framed photograph of his daughter. Gino himself was as insipid as his office. Middle aged, Italian, coarse gray hair parted far on the left side of his skull, bangs swept across his forehead. He wore thick-rimmed eyeglasses that did little to improve his pudgy, gnomish face, and an ill-fitting double-breasted navy suit with gray pinstripes. He was slumped in his Executive’s chair, a cell phone stuck to one ear. His legs were crossed, the top one showing a hairy ankle between pant hem and sock. By the sound of the conversation, he was speaking to his wife.

  “I’ll be back around five,” he told her, rubbing the back of his head. “Want me to pick up a pizza for dinner…? What do you want on it…? How about mushrooms…?”

  Buddy waited patiently, hands clasped in front of him, while Gino spent another minute taking his wife’s order. When Gino hung up he shook his head, saying, “Anchovies. I married the only person in the country who likes goddamn anchovies. What’s on your mind, Buddy?”

  Buddy glanced at the chair he wasn’t offered to sit in, then back at Gino. He shifted his weight from one foot to the other and said, “You mentioned you’d be deciding on that promotion today. Just wondering if you have any news?”

  Gino sat straighter, adjusted his brown tie. “Actually, Buddy, I do. I’ve chosen Fernando.”

  Buddy blinked in surprise. His insides sank beneath an invisible weight.

  “It was a tough decision,” Gino went on. “You were both qualified. But there was only the one position. Tough decision.” He gave Buddy a lame shrug.

  “I’ve been at the bank for four years,” Buddy said evenly.

  Gino nodded. “You’re a valuable member of the team, Buddy, no doubt about that.”

  “Fernando’s been here for, what, one year?”

  “Yeah, well, my decision wasn’t based solely on experience.” He cleared his throat. “Look at the big picture with me, Buddy. All banks have pretty much the same rates, right? So you have to ask yourself: why does someone come here? Why do they choose us? Some, because they live in the neighborhood. Others, because of relationships. They get to know us. Like us. Trust us. Not just Betty and the other tellers. You and Fernando too. Especially you and Fernando. When it comes to something like a loan, they want to know you’re doing your best for them. Answering all their questions. Explaining all their available choices.”

  “I do that,” Buddy said.

  “I know you do, Buddy. I know you do. But there’s more to it. Like I said. Relationships. You need to…open up a bit. Give off friendlier vibes. A smile now and then wouldn’t hurt.”

  “You don’t think I’m friendly?”

  “Sure I do, sure. But Fernando, you know, you’ve seen him. He makes his clients feel at home, jokes with them, makes small talk. Consumer loans are one thing, Buddy. But mortgage loans, there’s a lot more on the line. A lot more money. Clients want to know they’re making the right choice. They need good gut feelings about their loan officers. Relationships, Buddy. Relationships. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

  Buddy balled his hands into fists. “You’re saying I’m not getting the promotion because I don’t grunt enough?”

  Gino frowned. “Grunt?”

  “Make small talk! Jesus.”

  Gino stiffened at Buddy’s tone. “I’ve made my choice, Buddy. I think I’ve explained myself adequately.”

  “Clients like me,” Buddy said. “Everyone at the bank likes me.”

  “How many times did you leave your office today?”

  “I was busy.”

  “During lunch? Your breaks?”

  “I eat at my desk, and I work through my breaks.”

  “Look, Buddy. This isn’t the end of the road. There are plenty of options for advancement within the bank. Perhaps you could investigate transferring to a larger branch—”

  “You want me to transfer?”

  “That’s not what I’m saying—”

  Buddy stepped forward. “Is he sucking your dick?”

  Gino’s cheeks bloomed red. “What did you say?”

  “Is that spic Fernando sucking your fucking dick?”

  Gino’s face hardened. His jaw clenched. “You’ve just gone way overboard, Buddy,” he said in a quiet voice, adding, “You should go home now.” He paused. “And you know what, I don’t think you should come back on Monday.”

  “You’re firing me? You can’t fire me. Due process—”

  “Go home, Buddy.”

  “You can’t fire me!”

  “Get out of here!”

  Buddy wanted to smash something. Instead he snatched the photograph of Gino’s blowfish daughter and launched it against the far wall. Glass exploded.

  “Out!” Gino howled. “Get the hell out of my office right now!”

  Buddy left.

  ***

  While walking home, Buddy composed in his head a dozen different ways to get back at Gino. These ranged from e
rasing his face with sandpaper, to breaking every bone in his body with a frying pan, to skinning him with a hunting knife. In every scenario he kept the asshole alive and conscious for as long as possible, so he would experience every excruciating second.

  “Motherfucker,” he mumbled, turning down the walk to his apartment building. “Cocksucker, motherfucker, lowlife piece of shit.”

  Buddy clomped up the stairs to the third floor and barely glanced at his psycho-bitch neighbor’s door when he passed it. At his unit he fumbled the key into the lock and stepped inside. It was dark, shadows piled upon shadows. The only light came from the gap between the blinds, a strip of white filled with dust motes. His mother said from her wheelchair in front of the TV, “You’re home early, dear.”

  “I didn’t get the promotion,” he grumbled, dumping his keys and wallet on the small deal table, then going over to her and sagging to his knees. Batman was playing on the tube, the original one starring Michael Keaton and Jack Nicholson. Buddy took his mother’s frail hand in his. Tears welled in his eyes, but he fought them back.

  “What happened, dear?” she asked in the soft rasp that passed for her voice. “Why didn’t you get the promotion?”

  “I was fired.”

  “Fired?” she said, surprised. “Whatever for?”

  Buddy only shook his head. “What am I going to do, Ma?”

  “You’ll start looking for another job on Monday, that’s what you’ll do.”

  “What if no one wants to hire me?”

  “Why wouldn’t anyone want to hire you? You’re young, you’re smart—”

  “I’m not social.”

  She paused. “Is that what that manager of yours told you?”

  Buddy shrugged. “In a nutshell.”

  “Ptooey! What does he know anyway?”

  “I can’t use the bank as a business reference.”

  “Does that matter?”

  “If I want to work in another bank it does.”

  “Do you want to work in another bank?”

  “What else am I supposed to do?”

  “You can do whatever you want, dear.”

  “And start from scratch again? I already have four years of experience.”

  “Better starting over now than in ten years from now.”

  “But I liked the bank.”

  “Did you?”

  “Well, it was easy.” He shrugged. “I had a lot of time to do my writing.”

  “You know, Buddy, maybe getting fired was a blessing in disguise, because now you can write fulltime.”

  “But I need money now, Ma. I need to pay the rent next month.”

  “I’m sure Mr. Coolabah at the C-Town will give you a job. He always has different boys in there stocking the shelves.”

  “I can’t stock shelves! I’m twenty-five.”

  “You could do it part-time, just enough to pay the rent. And it would only be temporary. Until you finish your new book. How far are you along on it?”

  “I haven’t started yet. I’m still working out the plot. And I need an ending—”

  A knock at the door made Buddy start. Frowning, he stood and cocked his head, waiting, listening. Another knock. He went to the door cautiously and said, “Who is it?”

  “Dil!”

  Cursing to himself, Buddy opened the door a wedge. He squinted against the brightness of the hallway, then sneezed four times.

  “Bless you!” Dil said, giggling. “That’s the second time today! Are you allergic to me or something?”

  “It’s the light—going from dark to light. A nerve in my nose…” His eyes narrowed suspiciously. “How did you know I lived in this unit?”

  “Mr. Wang told me. He came by this afternoon to make sure I was settling in okay. He’s such a sweet man.”

  Buddy nodded but didn’t say anything. He was hoping the awkward silence would scare her off.

  Undeterred, Dil said, “Um, so what are you up to?”

  “I just got home,” he said. “I was going to take it easy tonight.”

  “Oh.” Her face dropped. “So you don’t want to come by for a beer or anything?”

  “I’ve had a long day.”

  “Yeah, right, okay. I understand… Next time.”

  Buddy closed the door, locked it, and returned to his mother, though he remained standing.

  “Who was that?” she asked him.

  “The new neighbor,” he said. “You were right this morning. She moved into Mrs. McGrady’s.”

  “She sounded nice. You should go spend some time with her.”

  “No way, Ma. I don’t want her thinking we’re friends or something. She’ll be knocking on the door all the time.”

  “Would that be so bad?”

  “Yeah, it would be bad. It would be terrible.”

  “You could use a nice girlfriend—”

  “Don’t start, Ma,” he growled.

  “I’m just saying, if you had a nice girlfriend, you might not need all those other women that want you to pay for—”

  “She’s a murderer! Yeah, your nice little neighbor is a murderer! She killed her boyfriend. You still think she’d be good for me?”

  “Whatever are you talking about?”

  Buddy told her, summarizing everything he’d read online.

  “My oh my,” his mother said when he’d finished. “That’s something, isn’t it?”

  “I know. I should write a book about it. Psycho neighbor moves in and—”

  “What is it, dear?”

  But Buddy barely heard her. He felt as though someone had just plugged a live wire into his brain. His mind raced, the story coming together with effortless ease.

  The protagonist would be a writer—a frustrated writer. Even better, an eccentric hermit. Yeah, make him complex. He hides away in his apartment all day, trying to write the next Great American Novel or some bullshit. Then, out of the blue, he gets a new neighbor. That’s where Buddy could start the story. Just like it happened today. The protagonist is peering out the window, sees her moving in. Then, later, he bumps into her somewhere around the building. Maybe she knocks on his door to ask for sugar. She invites him over for pizza and beer. He doesn’t want to go, he’s a loner remember, but she’s persistent. Finally he says okay, to shut her up. But before he goes he spies on her on Facebook—no, that’s no good. The hero needs to be sympathetic. So maybe he tries to friend her for real? Yeah, that’s better. He tries to friend her, but she’s stopped using Facebook for a year. He looks her up on other social media and comes across a story about her trial in Kentucky. No, gotta change that. Cleveland or Seattle or somewhere. Doesn’t matter. So he learns she’s a killer. Murdered her boyfriend. Stabbed—no, shot him right in the face. More dramatic that way. But she got off. Not like Dil. Can’t make her innocent. More like OJ. She got off on a technicality. She has to be a real killer. Anyway, even after reading this, he goes over for pizza and beer, because he’s curious, he’s never met a killer before, so he goes over, and he ends up sleeping with her—yeah, a romantic subplot for the women readers. But then what? Conflict, need conflict… Okay, she starts acting strange—Single White Female strange. Sure. Maybe some of the pets go missing around the building, the dogs and cats? Then the landlord goes missing. Yes! Nobody suspects anything—nobody except Buddy, or at least the character based on Buddy. Damn right! Then what? He goes to the police, but they won’t do anything without evidence of a crime. They think the landlord’s just gone away on a vacation or something. So it’s up to him, good old Buddy—no, he needs a name. Dave? Don? Sure, Don. It’s up to Don to save the day, to uncover proof that Dil killed him. Or not Dil, whoever. Wendy. Yeah, Wendy’s an okay name. All right, this is good, it’s great, but there needs to be a twist too. Maybe she knows that he knows she killed the landlord. Maybe…maybe in the big finale, while he thinks he’s laying a trap for her, she’s actually laying a trap for him? Nice one, Buddy! The climax will have to involve something big, something dramatic. Maybe a car chase. Or may
be a fight on the roof of the building. Yeah, that would work. He could knock her over the edge. She could be hanging there, fifty feet above the ground, and he could offer her his hand, because some part of him still loves her—? No, too cliché.

  Nevertheless, it didn’t matter. Buddy didn’t need the ending right now. He had the rest of the story. And what a corker of a story it was!

  “Buddy?” his mother was saying. “Buddy, what’s wrong? What’s the matter?”

  “I have a new idea for my book, Ma!” he exclaimed. “It’s The One. I know it is!”

  ***

  Buddy spent the next two hours at his desk in his bedroom, in front of his laptop, writing like a demon. Words had never come so easy to him before. He wasn’t simply dumping crap onto the page either, to make him feel productive. It was all top notch stuff, final draft quality stuff. And he already had close to five thousand words. Five thousand!

  He was up to the point where Don goes to Wendy’s for pizza and beers. He typed:

  Don walked down the hallway to Unit 3A, the floorboards creaking ominously beneath his weight. He stopped in front of his new neighbor’s door and raised his fist to knock. He wasn’t sure why he had agreed to come. He liked his privacy. He didn’t want her coming by and asking for sugar and shit. He didn’t want her thinking they were friends. But she had been so persistent. He didn’t want to hurt her feelings.