The Dark Half(44)

'It means nothing at all,' Thad said, in a flat, emphatic voice but when he left the University that day, he was almost fleeing..

Chapter Twelve

Sis

She knew something was wrong when she went to slide her key into the big Kreig lock on her apartment door and instead of slipping into the slot with its familiar and reassuring series of clicks, it pushed the door open instead. There was no moment of thinking how stupid she had been, going off to work and leaving her apartment door unlocked behind her, gee, Miriam, why not just hang a note on the door that says HELLO, ROBBERS, I KEEP EXTRA CASH IN THE WOK ON THE

TOP KITCHEN SHELF?

There was no moment like that because once you'd been in New York six months, maybe even four, you didn't forget. Maybe you only locked up when you were going away on vacation if you lived in the sticks, and maybe you forgot to lock up once in awhile when you went to work if you lived in a small city like Fargo, North Dakota, or Ames, Iowa, but after you'd been in the maggoty old Big Apple for awhile, you locked up even if you were just taking a cup of sugar to a neighbor down the hall. Forgetting to lock up would be like exhaling a breath and just forgetting to take the next one. The city was full of museums and galleries, but the city was also full of junkies and psychos, and you didn't take chances. Not unless you had been born stupid, and Miriam had not been born that way. A little silly, maybe, but not stupid. So she knew something was wrong, and while the thieves Miriam was sure had broken into her apartment had probably left three or four hours ago, taking everything there was even a remote chance of hocking (not to mention the eighty or ninety dollars in the wok . . . and maybe the wok itself, now that she thought of it; after all, was it not a hockable wok?), they could still be in there. It was the assumption you made, anyway, just as boys who have received their first real guns are taught, before they are taught anything else, to assume the gun is always loaded, that even when you take it out of the box in which it came from the factory, the gun is loaded. She began to step away from the door. She did this almost at once, even before the door had stopped its short inward swing, but it was already too late. A hand came out of the darkness, shooting through the two-inch gap between door and jamb like a bullet. It clamped over her hand. Her keys dropped to the hall carpet.

Miriam Cowley opened her mouth to scream. The big blonde man had been standing just inside the door, waiting patiently for just over four hours now, not drinking coffee, not smoking cigarettes. He wanted a cigarette, and would have one as soon as this was over, but before, the smell might have alerted her - New Yorkers were like very small animals cowering in the underbrush, senses attuned for danger even when they thought they were having a good time. He had her right wrist in his right hand before she could even think. Now he put the palm of his left hand against the door, bracing it, and yanked the woman forward just as hard as he could. The door looked like wood, but it was of course metal, as were all good apartment doors in the maggoty old Big Apple. The side of her face struck its edge with a thud. Two of her teeth broke off at the gumline and cut her mouth. Her lips, which had tightened, relaxed in shock and blood spilled over the lower one. Droplets spattered on the door. Her cheekbone snapped like a twig. She sagged, semi-conscious. The blonde man released her. She collapsed to the hall carpet. This had to be very quick. According to New York folklore, no one in the maggoty old Big Apple gave a shit what went down, as long as it didn't go down on them. According to the folklore, a psycho.could stab a woman twenty or forty times outside of a twenty-chair barber shop at high noon on

Seventh Avenue and no one would say a thing except maybe Could you trim it a little higher over the ears or I think I'll skip the cologne this time, Joe. The blonde man knew the folklore was false. For small, hunted animals, curiosity is a part of the survival package. Protect your own skin, yes, that was the name of the game, but an incurious animal was apt to be a dead animal very soon. Therefore, speed was of the essence.

He opened the door, seized Miriam by the hair, and yanked her inside. A bare moment later he heard the snick of a deadbolt being released down the hall, followed by the click of an opening door. He didn't have to look out to see the face which would now be peering out of another apartment, a little hairless rabbit face, nose almost twitching.

'You didn't break it, Miriam, did you?' he asked in a loud voice. He changed to a higher register, not quite falsetto, cupped both hands about two inches from his mouth to create a sound baffle, and became the woman. 'I don't think so. Can you help me pick it up?' Removed his hands. Reverted to his normal tone of voice. 'Sure. Just a sec.'

He closed the door and looked out through the peephole. It was a fish-eye lens, giving a distorted wide-angle view of the corridor, and in it he saw exactly what he had expected to see: a white face peering around the edge of a door on the other side of the hall, peering like a rabbit looking out of its hole.

The face retreated.

The door shut.

It did not slam shut; it simply swung shut. Silly Miriam had dropped something. The man with her - maybe a boyfriend, maybe her ex - was helping her pick it up. Nothing to worry about. All does and baby rabbits, as you were.

Miriam was moaning, starting to come to.

The blonde man reached into his pocket, brought out the straight-razor, and shook it open. The blade gleamed in the dim glow of the only light he'd left on, a table lamp in the living room. Her eyes opened. She looked up at him, seeing his face upside down as he leaned over her. Her mouth was smeared red, as if she had been eating strawberries.