Chapter Two

But what she didn’t know was that she had in fact been noticed. But not by the people she wanted to notice her. She was unaware of the dark stranger leering at her from across Mott Street one day a month ago. She was dressed in a flowing, yellow, short sleeved shirtwaist dress, bedecked with white and orange flowers, her hair pulled back, the sun glancing off of her face. She didn’t notice as the man followed her the few blocks to her apartment building, making close note of her slight sashay as she strolled along the sidewalks, the merest sway of her hips, the slight bounce to her breasts.

Oh yes, she had been watched. Almost daily, the dark stranger monitored her movements. She had been watched again as she left for work the next Monday, followed uptown. That evening, as she left, the man was waiting across the street from her office building and followed her back downtown to her health club. He watched her there, a nonchalant visitor, as she worked the step machine and later the aerobic exercises. A few days later, she was seen lunching with friends, laughing, talking, enjoying her day.

The man who followed her was well experienced. He was known as Turk or the Turk to those who knew his trade. He was a patient man. He had to be. Anyone could stalk a girl. But to do so regularly, without detection, that was another matter entirely. To choose the day, time and circumstance of the ultimate meeting between stalker and prey was the real trick.

Each day the Turk noted Cheryl’s movements. Surreptitiously he took her picture, walking, talking, leaning over to fix her shoe. Each nuance of her movements was recorded.

Of course, over the past month, Turk had stalked a few different women. He rejected them as subjects either because their physical attributes were revealed not to be up to snuff or because the women concerned had just not caught his fancy. He had bright hopes that first day he had spied Cheryl. At first his monitoring of her movements was casual. But as he saw her more and more, he became sure. This was the one.

When the Turk was certain that Cheryl was a worthy target, a prize worth the risk and his time, he began the final phase of his work. On a bright, cloudless Thursday morning, he sat at a table in a sidewalk café across the street from Cheryl’s building. He waited for Cheryl to emerge and followed her as she made her way to her office building fifteen blocks uptown. Cheryl liked to walk the fifteen blocks when weather and time permitted. The exercise seemed to energize her morning’s work.

When she reached her building, Turk followed her inside the foyer of the steel and glass fortress that was her workplace and into the elevator. On the next Monday, he was in the hallway on the seventeenth floor when she got off and entered the business suite of Harper & Sons, Publishers. Dressed that day in the uniform of an exterminator, he was able to access the suite, marching boldly through the cubby holed office until he found Cheryl’s stall. Cheryl barely noticed Turk’s hulking presence. He lingered briefly, spraying into this corner and that to quell the imaginary onslaught of six legged pests.

New York, at times, seemed the cockroach capital of the world and even these sterile office buildings had their share, feeding on glue, cookie crumbs and leftover pizza boxes. No one thought it unusual that this hulking man in a dark green worker’s outfit was sauntering through the office suite. He was practically invisible.

The stall where Cheryl labored was connected to a series of stalls, all separated by the ubiquitous divider panels common to the modern office environment. They were tall enough to bar the inquisitive glances of coworkers except if you stood right next to one and peered over. Keeping workers isolated cut down on non-productive office chatter. It was impossible to see into Cheryl’s stall unless you stood up right next to it or were able to peer in through the narrow “doorway” left open between the panels.

Turk was well versed in making himself seem part of the background, and it was a simple thing to do to seem otherwise occupied until he got his chance. Cheryl went for coffee, as she usually did around 10:30. Her handbag was left, as usual, draped over her chair. It took less than twenty seconds to wander over, press the nozzle to his exterminator’s can with one hand and reach the other into the purse. As expected, her wallet was on top and from there it took only a moment to gaze quickly at the license: 1675 Ninth Ave., Apt. 1007, Cheryl Purnell. He had, of course, known her address. But now he had her apartment number. That was all he needed.

But of course Cheryl was oblivious to all of this. When she returned, she did not even notice that the exterminator had moved on. Her purse was where she left it. All was normal and right.