Free Brainquake by Samuel Fuller Page B

waiting in the street. They’d offered; she’d declined. She had convinced Lieutenant Zara that cops hanging around the street to protect her would draw voyeurs and alert the press, make her life a circus and leave her less safe, not more. Lieutenant Zara had accepted her reason for not wanting protection, though she warned her not to let her guard down. If this Black Psycho was still out for money or for blood…
    A taxi stopped in front of the building, and she tensed, one hand clenching around the cord of her Venetian blinds. But a moment later, the driver stepped out with a familiar package in hand: a long-stemmed, cellophane-wrapped rose. She smiled as he climbed the short set of steps to her building.
    The delivery came as a relief, a small sign that maybe the last twenty-four hours hadn’t changed everything. Every day, for how long now? A new rose. A new blue envelope, too, with a new poem in it—but no name, nothing to identify the sender. This was the first time she’d actually caught sight of the person leaving them. She plucked a dollar from her purse, went to the door, and listened to the footsteps of the taxi driver clapping up to the second floor, then the third.
    When she heard the driver’s footsteps reach her floor and then stop, she pulled the door open, catching Paul bending down to carefully place the rose on the floor. Paul showed no surprise at being caught. He showed no emotion at all, just straightened up with the rose in hand. She looked at his cipher face and wondered who’d sent him, day after day, with the anonymous gift.
    Paul couldn’t believe that she was within touching distance, smiling at him. Under his blank exterior, his heart was suddenly racing.
    She noticed his bruised face as he held out the rose. She took it, saw the blue envelope under the cellophane.
    “Thank you.” Her gentle voice matched her face. Her eyes matched her blue robe. “Are you the one who’s been leaving these every morning?”
    Paul nodded. Inside he was ashamed of himself. This was his chance to talk to her. He was a coward no matter what his father had said. He saw her hold out the dollar but didn’t take it.
    “Oh,” Michelle said, pulling back the hand with the money in it, “I’m sorry. He took care of tips, too?”
    Paul managed a short nod.
    She was more curious than ever. “Who is he?”
    Paul was bursting to tell her, but shook his head instead.
    For weeks Michelle had suspected someone in the building, either a nut or some guy on the make. But paying a taxi driver every morning to deliver a rose—that ruled out a neighbor, and besides, it was a lot of trouble to go to. And expense. Who would do it? She’d never found any card with the florist’s name. The poems were always handwritten on plain blue cards.
    “Can’t you tell me anything? What does he look like?”
    Before he could answer, a sound behind her made her whirl—the sound of her baby gasping. Through the bars of the crib, she could see his tiny face turning blue. The toy he’d been sucking on was gone. “Oh my god!”
    She ran to the crib, leaving the front door open. Didn’t even hear Paul race in behind her. She lifted her baby out but didn’t know how to help him. He was struggling to breathe, choking to death.
    Paul lifted the baby out of her hands, carried him to the table, cleared the baby’s airway with a finger, then bent to perform mouth-to-mouth.
    Horrified, Michelle watched him inhale, then exhale air into her baby’s mouth. Inhale. Exhale. Inhale. Exhale. Her baby was dead!
    But air filled the baby’s lungs. It cried. The crying got louder. Healthier. Michelle picked up the baby, held it close, walked back and forth, thumping the baby on the back. She was crying too, now. Twice in two days! Two times she’d almost lost her son, her baby, her only one. If it hadn’t been for…
    She turned to thank Paul.
    He was gone.
    She hurried to the window. Rain made it impossible for her to read the plate number of