Payback!

Chapter 23: September, 1992 It was a warm September evening. Eric had to idle his engine so he could have air conditioning. He was parked in a position where he could see the front door of Bubba and his mother’s apartment. Both the mother’s and Bubba’s cars were in the parking stalls. He waited, listening to the news station KFWB AM 98 which spouted a fairly balanced report of news 24 hours a day. Eric had staked out Bubba’s apartment scores of times in order to determine his schedule of activities. On this night, Bubba veered from his schedule. Eric was there long enough to hear the same news reports twice before Bubba walked out of his apartment door. It was dark and, for some reason, Bubba did not work this evening. Bubba got in his car and drove to an area in the 300 block of south Los Robles Avenue. He parked and got out of his car. Eric, an expert in surveillance, followed at a safe distance and was able to park a block or more away. He exited his car and followed Bubba who was walking south on Los Robles Avenue. “Bubba, you perverted asshole”, he said to himself as Bubba slithered between apartments and houses, looking in windows that appeared to be rooms other than living rooms, dining rooms, or dens. Eric could not actually see him on each occasion without exposing his own cover. He was able to see enough instances to know that Bubba was a voyeur. Bubba found what he was looking for when he peered in a particular bedroom window. Eric was not close enough to see what Bubba saw, but there was no mistaking the fact that Bubba was peering in the window. The rapid movement of his right arm betrayed the fact that he was masturbating. Eric knew he could collect the discharge, if any, and compare that against the stained tissues found in the Studebaker. Unfortunately Eric did not have access to a professional forensic laboratory so a collection would do him no good. Finished, Bubba backed away from the window, walked to his car and drove back to his apartment. He parked, walked to his apartment door, and entered. Eric struggled with whether to call the police, report the activity, and let them collect the seminal fluid, if any. That way, if Bubba in the past had committed a sex crime where seminal evidence was collected, or would commit such a crime in the future, law enforcement would have a comparative. Eric reasoned that it was just a matter of time before Bubba would act on his fantasies, and perhaps already had with Brianna. Had Eric known about Bubba’s enjoyment of torturing animals and birds, his narcissism, his unhealthy need for control, he would have known that Bubba’s profile would suggest a budding sexual sadist and even a serial killer in the making. Eric needed to stay under the radar. Eric needed to call the police about this event. This “Catch-22” damned-if-you-do and damned-if-you-don’t situation was very troubling to Eric. He sat frozen in his car until the familiar tune, “KFWB – News 98”, aroused him from his perplexed trance. He drove back to the exact address that he saw Bubba masturbating at the window. He looked in the mail box and was fortunate to find outgoing mail with a return address. Eric did not want to be found prowling the area so he made a quick mental note of the occupants name and drove to a phone booth, looked in the white pages of the telephone book, and found a listed number for the people living at the South Los Robles address. Eric called and, disguising his voice as best he could, asked for the man of the house. “Hello”, said the man. Eric said, “Sir, I am calling you as an anonymous neighbor. I do not want my name disclosed. Please don’t interrupt me as I need to get off the phone as soon as possible. At 8:45PM this evening, a man named Brian Sinclair was peeking in the window at the northeast corner of your home. He masturbated beneath the window. Sinclair lives at 1070 N. Lake Ave., apartment thirty-two, Pasadena. Did you write that down?” “Yes”, the man of the house said. Before Eric hung up, he said, “Make sure the police take this seriously and collect any seminal fluid that might be below the window. Good bye”. “Wait”, the man of the house said. “Thank you for calling us”. Eric hung up pleased at his middle of the ground solution. He did not bother to return and watch the police arrival. That would have been too close to the radar. Neither did he stay near Bubba’s apartment to see if the police came to interview him. Eric drove home satisfied that he had gone out and, as da Vinci said, “happened to things”.