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His first thought was to haul Hooper out of the yard before anyone saw. But the curtain twitched in one of the front windows of the house across the street. Someone—the nice old guy or his nice old wife—had been watching.

Wayne supposed the best thing he could do was go over there and make a joke out of it, ask if they had a bag he could use to clean up the mess. The old guy, with his Dutch accent, seemed like he could laugh at just about anything.

Hooper rose, unfolding from his hunch. Wayne hissed at him. “Yer bad. Yer so bad.” Hooper wagged his tail, pleased to have Wayne’s attention.

Wayne was about to climb the steps to the front door of Sigmund de Zoet’s house when he noticed shadows flickering along the lower edge of the door. When Wayne glanced at the spyhole, he thought he saw a blur of color and movement. Someone stood three feet away, right on the other side of the door, watching him.

“Hello?” he called from the bottom of the steps. “Mr. de Zoet?”

The shadows shifted at the bottom of the door, but no one acknowledged him. The lack of a response disquieted Wayne. The backs of his arms prickled with chill.

Oh, stop it. You’re just being stupid because you read those scary stories about Charlie Manx. Go up there and ring the bell.

Wayne shook off his unease and began climbing the brick steps, extending one hand for the doorbell. He did not observe that the handle of the door was already beginning to turn, the person on the other side preparing to swing it open.





The Other Side of the Door


BING PARTRIDGE STOOD AT THE SPYHOLE. IN HIS LEFT HAND WAS the doorknob. In his right was the gun, the .38 Mr. Manx had brought from Colorado.

“Boy, boy, go away,” Bing whispered, his voice thin and strained with need. “Come again some other day.”

Bing had a plan, a simple but desperate plan. When the boy reached the top of the steps, he would throw open the door and pull him into the house. Bing had a can of gingerbread smoke in his pocket, and as soon as he had the kid inside, he could gas him out.

And if the kid began screaming? If the kid screamed and struggled to get free?

Someone was having a barbecue down at the end of the block, kids in the front yard chucking a Frisbee, grown-ups drinking too much and laughing too loud and getting sunburned. Bing might not be the sharpest knife in the kitchen, but he was no fool either. Bing thought a man in a gasmask, with a pistol in one hand, might attract some notice wrestling with a screaming child. And there was the dog. What if the dog lunged? It was a Saint Bernard, big as a bear cub. If it got its big bear-cub head in through the door, Bing would never be able to force it back out. It would be like trying to hold the door shut on a herd of cattle.

Mr. Manx would know what to do—but he was asleep. He had been asleep for more than a day now, was resting in Sigmund de Zoet’s bedroom. When he was awake, he was his good old self—good old Mr. Manx!—but when he nodded off, it sometimes seemed he would never wake again. He said he would be better when he was on his way to Christmasland, and Bing knew that it was true—but he had never seen Mr. Manx so old, and when he slept, it was like seeing him dead.

And what if Bing forced the boy into the house? Bing was not sure he could wake Mr. Manx when he was like he was. How long could they hide here before Victoria McQueen was out in the street screaming for her child, before the cops were going door-to-door? It was the wrong place and the wrong time. Mr. Manx had made it clear they were only to watch for now, and even Bing, who was not the sharpest pencil in the desk, could see why. This sleepy street was not sleepy enough, and they would only get one pass at the whore with her whore tattoos and her lying whore mouth. Mr. Manx had made no threats, but Bing knew how much this mattered to him and understood what the penalty would be if he f*cked it up: Mr. Manx would never take Bing to Christmasland. Never never never never never.

The boy climbed the first step. And the second.

“I wish I may, I wish I might, first star I see tonight,” Bing whispered, and shut his eyes and readied himself to act. “Have the wish I wish tonight: Go the f*ck away, you little bastard. We’re not ready.”

He swallowed rubber-tasting air and cocked the hammer on the big pistol.

And then someone was in the street, shouting for the boy, shouting: “No! Wayne, no!”

Bing’s nerve endings throbbed, and the gun came dangerously close to slipping out of his sweaty hand. A big silver boat of a car rolled down the road, spokes of sunshine flashing off the rims. It pulled to a halt directly in front of Victoria McQueen’s house. The window was down, and the driver hung one flabby arm out, waving it at the kid.

“Yo!” he shouted again. “Yo, Wayne!”

“Yo,” not “no.” Bing was in such a state of nervous tension that he had heard him wrong.

“What’s up, dude?” yelled the fat man.

“Dad!” the child yelled. He forgot all about climbing the steps and knocking on the door, turned and ran down the path, his f*cking pet bear galloping alongside.

Bing seemed to go boneless; his legs were wobbly with relief. He sank forward, resting his forehead against the door, and shut his eyes.

When he opened them and looked through the spyhole, the child was in his father’s arms. The driver was morbidly obese, a big man with a shaved head and telephone-pole legs. That had to be Louis Carmody, the father. Bing had read up about the family online, had a general sense of who was who but had never seen a picture of the man. He was amazed. He could not imagine Carmody and McQueen having sex—the fat beast would split her in two. Bing wasn’t exactly buff, but he’d look like a f*cking track star next to Carmody.