August.”
I watched him leave, and then I went to bed. I think best in bed. I cleared my mind by paging through the thick bar book Ollie had loaned me. Every success in life was like a cocktail: a careful blending of elements in exact proportions, done in correct order.
I put the bar book down and I lay watching the ceiling, hatching a plan.
13
I AWOKE TO THE BAREST SOUND . I didn’t move. It was a footstep and then the slightest click of a door closing.
I was bait, and someone was hooked.
I could lay still. I could get up and see who it was. I could wait for one of Howell’s rookies to crash in the door and save my ass. But Howell, for all his warm words to me, didn’t need me alive after the bait was taken. If this was someone from the scarred man, he could dispatch me and the watchers could catch him later. I wasn’t sure the shadows were even listening to me since I’d tossed them their bugs.
Or maybe it was someone like August had said, ridding the Company of their great embarrassment.
I listened for the next footfall. Didn’t hear it. I got up from the bed with enormous care, scooted the pillow where I should be, moved on cat feet to the corner of the room behind the door.
I heard nothing else. Maybe I had dreamed the footfall. I stood in the darkness and a crazy thought wormed its way into my head:
It’s Lucy, come home, finally she’s gotten away and she’s found me
. It was lunacy to think it, but I did.
The air conditioner kicked on. The soft, somnolent hum masked the intruder’s movements. I had no weapons. Nothing. I waited.
I expected the intruder to kick in the door and lay a round of fire into the bed.
Didn’t happen.
Slowly—as slowly as a door opens in a nightmare that floods you with dread—the door opened. The hinges moved in silence. I waited.
No convenient glow of moonlight lit the stage for killer or victim; the dark in my bedroom was nearly total.
Then a tiny flash of light sparked, seeking the bed. A snap of silenced bullet hitting the mattress.
I slammed the door into the intruder. Hard. I heard him fall back onto the floor and in the thin gleam of light from the den window he swiveled the gun toward me. I powered my foot into his wrist and the bullet skimmed along the expensive hardwood. I kicked the gun loose, then away.
The intruder stayed as silent as his gun. No yell, no cry out. He was taller than me, and I felt hard muscle power into my chest as he drove me back into the bedroom. We landed on the bed and he, with crisp efficiency, yanked a length of sheet around my throat. I hardly heard his breathing increase in heaviness from the exertion.
He started strangling me and I seized the pillow and pressed it hard into his face. Silent standoff as the oxygen deprivation kicked in for both of us. The darkness deepened. I let go of the pillow and he tightened the sheet around me with a renewed vigor. I pile-drove fists hard and sharp into rib cage. Harder. Sixth blow I felt bone crack, and the intruder gasped and eased on the strangulation. I was sick and dizzy, struggling to breathe, but Ilaunched myself free of the sheets and aimed a shattering kick into his face.
The intruder fell off the bed and I grabbed at the lamp. I missed, and my hand closed on the bartender’s book Ollie had given me. I slammed its five-hundred-page hardcover spine hard against the intruder’s throat and pressed downward as he struggled on the floor. He tried to kick me loose, but now I had breath and I had fury; there is a primal flutter about killing someone who comes into your house intending you harm. Awful atavistic shudders; I could feel waves of energy pouring from the ganglia at the base of my spine, that ancient seat of instinct. I gritted my teeth.
Harder. His struggles grew more frantic. I put all my weight onto the bartender’s book. I pressed my knees against him. I wanted him unconscious so he could wake up bound and answer my questions. But then I felt his windpipe break
I watched him leave, and then I went to bed. I think best in bed. I cleared my mind by paging through the thick bar book Ollie had loaned me. Every success in life was like a cocktail: a careful blending of elements in exact proportions, done in correct order.
I put the bar book down and I lay watching the ceiling, hatching a plan.
13
I AWOKE TO THE BAREST SOUND . I didn’t move. It was a footstep and then the slightest click of a door closing.
I was bait, and someone was hooked.
I could lay still. I could get up and see who it was. I could wait for one of Howell’s rookies to crash in the door and save my ass. But Howell, for all his warm words to me, didn’t need me alive after the bait was taken. If this was someone from the scarred man, he could dispatch me and the watchers could catch him later. I wasn’t sure the shadows were even listening to me since I’d tossed them their bugs.
Or maybe it was someone like August had said, ridding the Company of their great embarrassment.
I listened for the next footfall. Didn’t hear it. I got up from the bed with enormous care, scooted the pillow where I should be, moved on cat feet to the corner of the room behind the door.
I heard nothing else. Maybe I had dreamed the footfall. I stood in the darkness and a crazy thought wormed its way into my head:
It’s Lucy, come home, finally she’s gotten away and she’s found me
. It was lunacy to think it, but I did.
The air conditioner kicked on. The soft, somnolent hum masked the intruder’s movements. I had no weapons. Nothing. I waited.
I expected the intruder to kick in the door and lay a round of fire into the bed.
Didn’t happen.
Slowly—as slowly as a door opens in a nightmare that floods you with dread—the door opened. The hinges moved in silence. I waited.
No convenient glow of moonlight lit the stage for killer or victim; the dark in my bedroom was nearly total.
Then a tiny flash of light sparked, seeking the bed. A snap of silenced bullet hitting the mattress.
I slammed the door into the intruder. Hard. I heard him fall back onto the floor and in the thin gleam of light from the den window he swiveled the gun toward me. I powered my foot into his wrist and the bullet skimmed along the expensive hardwood. I kicked the gun loose, then away.
The intruder stayed as silent as his gun. No yell, no cry out. He was taller than me, and I felt hard muscle power into my chest as he drove me back into the bedroom. We landed on the bed and he, with crisp efficiency, yanked a length of sheet around my throat. I hardly heard his breathing increase in heaviness from the exertion.
He started strangling me and I seized the pillow and pressed it hard into his face. Silent standoff as the oxygen deprivation kicked in for both of us. The darkness deepened. I let go of the pillow and he tightened the sheet around me with a renewed vigor. I pile-drove fists hard and sharp into rib cage. Harder. Sixth blow I felt bone crack, and the intruder gasped and eased on the strangulation. I was sick and dizzy, struggling to breathe, but Ilaunched myself free of the sheets and aimed a shattering kick into his face.
The intruder fell off the bed and I grabbed at the lamp. I missed, and my hand closed on the bartender’s book Ollie had given me. I slammed its five-hundred-page hardcover spine hard against the intruder’s throat and pressed downward as he struggled on the floor. He tried to kick me loose, but now I had breath and I had fury; there is a primal flutter about killing someone who comes into your house intending you harm. Awful atavistic shudders; I could feel waves of energy pouring from the ganglia at the base of my spine, that ancient seat of instinct. I gritted my teeth.
Harder. His struggles grew more frantic. I put all my weight onto the bartender’s book. I pressed my knees against him. I wanted him unconscious so he could wake up bound and answer my questions. But then I felt his windpipe break
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