Sleepless in Hell's Kitchen
She doesn't say anything the first time it happens. It's the middle of the day after all, and people have the right to make a little noise. The swelling crescendo of strings and crashing of cymbals isn't exactly something she can blot out with a pillow over her head, but she tries, if only for the sake of being an understanding neighbor. He couldn't possibly know that she's been working nights and needs mid-afternoon to sleep.
He lives one door down. Mr. F. Castle, if the tag on his buzzer is to be believed. They pass in the hall sometimes when she's heading out for the night shift at Rose’s diner. He seems nice enough, unsmiling as he is. He's even held the door for her once or twice when her arms are loaded down with groceries. So when she's jerked out of sleep a second time she simply uses a pair of foam earplugs to block out the noise. But the plugs cause her to miss the incessant beeping of her alarm, and she can't help but shoot him a withering glare as she dashes past him in the hall that night.
Her eyes widen when the man has the nerve to smile at the way she rushes by. She spends her entire shift at the diner that night pouring coffee for red-eyed patrons and muttering under her breath. She has an entire speech ready for him by the time she's finished, one filled with information about proper listening decibels and the way sound passes through thin walls, and the effects lack of sleep can have on the sanity of a woman.
By the time she trudges back to her building the sun is just rising to the east, exhaustion settling over her like a heavy blanket. She walks straight to her door without a thought, falling like a sack of potatoes on her bed.
A few hours later, when she is so rudely jerked from her slumber, it's the final straw. This time it's the brass section of a fairly large orchestra blowing their lungs out in an attempt to wake up the entire neighborhood. The sound sets her nerves on edge, and she springs out of bed without a thought. Who the hell does this man think he is? Why hasn't anyone else in the building complained?
Instead of stomping down the hall and beating down his door, Karen starts digging through one of her many unpacked boxes, a little grunt of satisfaction escaping her when she finds what she's looking for. She puts on her most confident air, head held night, hair swept back from her face, and walks calmly to her neighbor’s door.
She knocks, like a professional door to door salesman, rapping her knuckles against the wood in sharp even taps. There's no answer, the sound of the dramatic music drowning out her racket. Frowning, she balls her free hand up into a fist and thumps on the door as hard as she can, kinetic energy reverberating through her bones.
The music stops, and a little thrill of anticipation zips through Karen. She feels borderline delirious, lack of sleep sending a weird adrenaline through her veins to compensate for how tired she is.
The door eases open a few inches, just enough to present to her a familiar glare. “What.”
The way he says the word brooks no invitation to answer. It's a flat and annoyed statement. Karen steels herself. Holding up a pair of noise canceling headphones between them like a shield, she says, “Mr. Caslte--”
“Frank.”
Ignoring him, she continues, “I need to sleep. Listen to your stupid phantom of the opera shit on these.”
The door creaks open a little further. The man's expression changing somewhat. He cocks his head as if he's trying to figure her out, glancing back and forth between the headphones and the stern look on her face. “It's a soundtrack. You know, Lord of the Rings.”
Karen blinks. She'd fully expected him to slam the door in her face, to tell her to fuck off. He is certainly intimidating enough to get his way, a giant bruise on one side of his face, a slowly healing cut on the other. Her lips are parted, a question on the tip of her tongue, her fingers itching to reach forward and trace the purple mark on his cheekbone.
The sound of something crashing into the floor snaps her out of her trance. Frank’s head snaps around, a soft curse tumbling from his lips. He dives back into the apartment, leaving Karen to stare in shock at the scene before her.
There's a man tied to a chair, gagged and bloodied. The chair is what made the noise, one leg snapping as the prisoner tried to topple the thing over.
Karen steps forward, peering at the man as Frank re-secures his bindings. “I know you! You're the asshole that snatched my bag last week.”
Frank grunts. “You're lucky that's all he did. Purse snatchin’s one of his more harmless pastimes.”
Suddenly it dawns on Karen, the reason for the loud music. If the mottled pattern of bruises on the criminal’s face is any indication, he's been here for a while. She looks a Frank, more than a little alarmed. “Are you…”
“It's taken three days, but I'm finally done with him. Bastard’s been keeping three women locked up in a loft downtown. He just gave me the address.”
Frank gives the man one last punch, knocking him out. He looks back at Karen, slowly unwrapping the cloth from his knuckles. “You can keep your headphones. I'll find somewhere else to do this kind of thing in the future.”
She's speechless, torn between the urge to run to the nearest police station and the urge to give the unconscious man one last kick in the nuts for stealing her purse. She compromises, looking Frank square in the eyes. “Thank you. When you’re done you should come down to Rosie’s. Coffee’s on me.”