The Silent Stalker

by James Hanna

part 1

Ollie is a stalker. I say this to define him not delimit him; his receding brow, poached-egg eyes, and sunken chin inspire to no nobler assessment; nor does his voyeuristic stare imply that he is anything other than a seeker of second-hand spoils. I do not know him from Adam — I do not even know that his name is Ollie — but I have to call him something if I am to purge myself of a rather loathsome series of events: a sequence that started six weeks ago when I first saw him sitting at my kitchen table.

“Already?” I said when I spotted him in my kitchen; I had at first mistaken him for a tradesman, the gardener who came monthly to my bungalow home but, when he looked in my direction, I realized that he hadn't been invited. His gaze was too humble, too unintelligent, and conveyed little more than impotent longing, as though he would have liked to engage in conversation but lacked the facility of response. Were it not for his clothing, a neatly-pressed woolen suit, I would have considered him to be a tramp who had wandered into my house. I sat across from him at the table and curiously returned his stare.

He would have to leave, of course, but I saw no good reason to call the police. In spite of the intrusion, he seemed too chubby — too soft in body and soul — to survive very long in a jail. Anyway, I did not want the help of the police: as a retired probation officer, a veteran with thirty years of street experience, I was not intimidated by this short creature and could easily have cuffed him up myself. I wondered if I had done so at some point in my career, if he was among the many miscreants who had threatened me in open court after I had put them in jail. But he aroused no affinity; his face was that of a total stranger, and his presence in my kitchen conveyed not a hint of Karma. It seemed, in fact, that it was he who expected retribution: he was trembling as he watched me as though he were expecting me to punch his face.

I decided to fix breakfast — not because I was particularly hungry but because I did not want to give him credit for interrupting my daily ritual. I prepared toast, coffee, and scrambled eggs for two, watching him from the corner of my eye as I worked. He did not stir in the chair, not even after the breakfast was ready and I had placed a small helping in front of him.

Ignoring the plate, he watched me as I ate, his face so solemn that it became inhibiting for me to chew. Finally, as though doing me a favor, he picked up a single piece of toast, took a few bites from the center, and discarded the crusts onto his plate. The timeliness of the gesture suggested that he did have a modicum of intelligence, enough to realize he had overstayed his welcome and it was time for him to go. I rose from the table, took him by the elbow, and gently walked him to my front door.

Opening the front door, I hesitated: a heavy cloudscape blanketed much of the city, so obscuring the view from my Russian Hill home that I could barely see the bay. Even Alcatraz, that formidable rock, seemed irrelevant in the fog, a landmark less than a floating companion to the garbage scows that were heading out to sea. “Do you want an umbrella?” I asked him.

He did not reply, nor did I expect him to. It did not console me that he was probably a mute; a month of retirement had made me too nostalgic for clamor: the din of the streets, the clanging of jail cells, even the occasional pop-pop-popping of a Glock seemed preferable to the sacrament of silence.

I had almost considered returning to work, but a bullet still lodged in my hip, a souvenir of a gun battle I'd been in a month ago, had given me an overdue hint of my mortality. I had almost become grateful for my post-traumatic stress: my exaggerated reflexes and hyper-vigilance were useful in the tennis matches I now played daily at the club.

“Do you want an umbrella?” I asked him again. He smiled faintly but made no reply, and so I escorted him to my front gate. Frowning and shaking my head, I unlatched the gate and pushed him out onto the sidewalk. “Now you can go,” I said; he smiled once again. He then straightened his tie and walked in the direction of Polk Street.

* * *

He was sitting at my kitchen table the following morning. His eyes were still hungry, like those of an orphan, and he was still wearing his neat, woolen suit. A bump on his forehead, larger than an egg, suggested that he had fared poorly on the street, and I wondered if I should have given him money for safe lodging in a hotel room. But he did not really strike me as destitute; probably he had enough cash for a room and his plush but humble appearance had contributed to his getting mugged.

Watching him closely, I put on the coffee and opened the refrigerator door. He showed no interest as I fixed breakfast — another indication that he did not lack for funds — nor did he move a muscle when I placed his helping in front of him. He just sat as I ate, his eyes roaming the room in the manner of a stockroom clerk taking inventory. Eventually — I'm sure it was out of courtesy — he picked up a single piece of toast, nibbled at the center, and dropped the crusts onto his plate.

“Are you ready?” I asked him. I had decided to deposit him at a shelter in the Tenderloin District — an imposing chore since I would have to forgo the doubles match I was scheduled to play in an hour. This was not an easy sacrifice; I had honed my approach shot to the point that I was now assured of a quick put-away at the net, a feat that distracted me from the seductions of memory and the constant throbbing in my hip.

Still, I did need to get rid of him, an accomplishment that did not seem likely if I allowed him to hang around my neighborhood. And a shelter in the Tenderloin would not endanger him quite as much as jail; he did not seem totally without resources, not if his intrusions into my home were any indication. At the very least, he was adept at picking locks.

When I had finished my breakfast, I rose from the table and took him by the elbow once again. He hung his head as I led him to my front door, his manner so passive that I felt the urge to bully him. Instead, I guided him through the gate and out onto the street where my car, a newly-purchased Ford Hybrid, was parked. After fastening him into the passenger seat, I slipped behind the steering wheel, turned on the motor, and began the downhill descent towards the Tenderloin.

He lifted his head as we turned onto Van Ness Avenue and then looked intently through the passenger window. The shops, civic centers, and city parks seemed like novelties to him, sights so compelling and rare that I began to feel like a tour guide. But the city had grown unconvincing to me, as though it were an estranged girlfriend whom I no longer wanted to take to bed. And so, as I turned onto Ellis Street and headed towards Glide Memorial Church, I began to pity him.

As I pulled into the church parking lot, I hesitated: the church, a magnificent relic, did not seem a promising sanctuary but an edifice that was itself in need of charity. Still, a large group of homeless people were queued up outside it, waiting to be let in for the noon meal. Later in the day, when the doors again opened, many of them would be back in the hope of acquiring a cot for the night.

But the sight of the church did not dampen my sense of mission; instead, I felt a perverse thrill of accomplishment. Since Ollie was an intruder in my home, he did not deserve a comfortable deliverance. He was in fact lucky that I hadn't taken him to the police.

I pulled into a parking space, turned off the engine, and looked at him sternly. “Are you ready?” I asked him again. His lack of response seemed appropriate; the deteriorating church with its marginal bounties was not at all conducive to anticipation.

Shrugging, he unfastened his seat belt and opened the car door. He then stepped from the car to the parking lot where he stood stock still as though tied to a stake. I watched him for a second or two, afraid that he would change his mind, but his face was so impassive that he reminded me of a statue. I hit the accelerator, backed up the car, and eased back into the city traffic.

* * *

He was back in my kitchen the following morning. The sight of him again sitting at my kitchen table was practically a relief since it spared me the irritation of further suspense. He had already made himself toast, perhaps to save me the trouble of feeding him, and the crusts were deposited neatly on a saucer in front of him. He looked at me and smiled, and his smile bore a hint on condescension as though he were convinced that he had done me a favor.

I shook my head sternly, not letting on that his presence now challenged me. Getting rid of him was going to be a bigger task than I had anticipated, a project rather than a chore, and I was somewhat in need of a project. I studied him carefully and began formulating my plan.

I decided on Vegas. I usually went there once or twice a year, so the trip would not be an inconvenience for me. I did not go there for the shows or the gambling but for the sensual vacuum it provided me: a sense of unreality not dissimilar to the sight of Ollie in my kitchen. And so Vegas seemed a good place to unload him; given his doggedness, his obvious talent for obsession, it would be easy enough to hypnotize him with a slot machine while I made my escape. With any luck, he would then wander into a hotel room, startle a tourist, and get himself thrown in jail on a trespassing charge.

This time I handcuffed him. He stood obediently as I placed his hands behind his back, slipped the bracelets over his wrists, and set the safety locks. He even turned his palms outward, an indication that he had been handcuffed before. “We're taking a holiday,” I said.

He smiled — an expression of irony rather than gratitude; his obvious contempt for boundaries suggested that his entire life had been a holiday of sorts.

“Vegas,” I added, and he nodded pleasantly.

He was humming as I led him to my car — a jaunty tune belonging to an old truck commercial (“You asked for it, you got it — Toyota.”). I doubt that he meant anything by it — probably it was the last thing he remembered seeing on television — but I felt somewhat vindicated as I fastened him once more into the front seat of my car. Under the circumstances, a Hybrid would have to do him.

We drove all day and halfway through the night, hitting the Vegas strip a few minutes after midnight. But although it was late, the strip was jammed with tourists: a transient sight that justified my contempt for excess baggage. I parked in front of the Sands Hotel then carefully removed the handcuffs.

When his hands were free, he patted me on my shoulder, a gesture that alleviated my sense of discord, the vague but uncomfortable notion that I could be reported for kidnapping him. He rubbed his wrists as I led him into the hotel restaurant, and he straightened his tie while we waited for a booth. We snacked on hamburgers — he again ate very little — then I led him into the casino, where I bought him a stack of silver dollars. “Go for broke,” I said, a statement that struck me as somehow redundant.

I sat him in front of a dollar-slot machine and ordered him to insert a coin. He complied gingerly, probably because his wrists were still sore, and I pulled the lever for him. The tumblers, as though wise to my plan, produced three lemons as they pop-pop-popped to a halt. A landslide of coins tumbled into his lap. “Go for broke,” I repeated.

He glanced at me, startled by his luck, but picked up another dollar and slipped it into the slot. This time, he pulled the lever himself: the tumblers again whiled, stuttered to a halt, and three more lemons fell into a row. Again, a flood of coins poured into his lap, a flow so abundant that it looked as though the machine was trying to bury him. He clapped his hands eagerly and began feeding coins back into the machine. He was humming as he worked — that same stale commercial — but his attention was so fixed upon the tumblers that I was able to stroll lazily from the casino and return to my car.

Proceed to part 2...