''That doesn't seem to be what you're doing…'' Thenshe added, hastily,
''Sometimes it doesn't, anyway.''
''Yeah, I know. Sometimes we play it a little too much like a game. That's just a way to deal with it… but that's not the way it really is. It ain't football, even if TV thinks so.''
They talked a bit longer, then Weather said, ''I've got to get some sleep. I'm working in the morning.''
Lucas kissed her good-night again, and lay on his back, watching the outside light trace feather patterns across the ceiling, and some time later, finally fell asleep.
SANDY MOVED THE WINDOW AN INCH AT A TIME, AND the cold air flooded in. That was a problem. Once she committed herself, she could hardly go back. The room would be cold, and if Martin or LaChaise came in, they'd know…
But she pushed the window up anyway. Then leaned out, brushed snow off the ledge with her hand. The ledge didn't seem too slippery, but she wouldn't be able to walk it with boots. She dropped to the bed, took off her boots and socks, put the socks in the boots and the boots in her parka pockets, the heels sticking out. Couldn't drop those…
She looked down. I'm going to kill myself . She took a breath and stepped out on the ledge: and the shock of the cold on her feet almost pitched her off. She held to the inside of the window frame, then edged to her right. The ledge was plenty wide, almost as though it had been designed to get her to the fire escape. Probably had been, she thought.
She slid another step, and then another, refusing to look down again. She let go of the edge of the window frame, and now was balanced on nothing but her painfully chilled feet, the outside wall pushing against her back. She looked straight out, feeling more balanced that way. Two more steps. Two more.
Reaching out with her right hand, she groped for the steel of the fire escape.
Another step. Christ, she was afraid to look to her right, another step, groping
… and she felt it. Now she turned her head, saw it, grabbed the railing and stepped over to it.
She stopped to check the window above the fire escape. The shade was down, but there was a crack at the bottom between the shade and window frame, and she could see down the hall. In the semidark, Martin looked like an enormous cocoon, rolled up on the floor at the end of the hall.
She stepped over the railing onto the fire escape, breathing hard: she was excited and frightened to death. She took two steps down, onto the drop platform, and bounced gently, to see if that was enough to make it drop. It didn't move. She tried again, harder. Nothing. Hard, this time. There was a metallic clank to the left, but the platform stayed up.
This wasn't the way it was supposed to work, but in the dark, she couldn't see why the platform wasn't dropping. Something was stuck somewhere. ..
She thought about hanging from the bottom, and dropping. But even with a two-step platform drop, and the six feet she'd get by hanging, it'd be a twelve- or thirteen-foot drop onto an uncertain alley surface…
She'd break a leg.
But she thought about it, the cold in her feet growing to pain.
THEN SHE FELT THE VIBRATION.
She didn't know what it was, but she went to her knees under the window, and put her eye to the crack under the shade. Martin was on his feet, walking down the hall toward her room. He stopped at LaChaise's room, looked in, then went into the bathroom. Sandy took a breath-but Martin wasback in three or four seconds, and now he was moving softly down the hall toward Sandy's door.
He stopped at her door, and she ducked, unable to watch, afraid he'd sense her eyes. She waited, then forced herself to look. Martin was at her door, one hand on her knob. Unmoving, listening.
Sandy's feet were burning: she had to move them, but she couldn't. She was afraid that he'd sense anything, any movement.
Then Martin left her door, came down the hall to the fire escape window, pulled arrows out of his target. Then he turned and went back down the hall, looked around once, put the arrows on a shelf and dropped back on the sleeping bag.
Sandy, still holding her breath, ducked below the window again, sat, lifted her feet off the fire escape and cradled them. They hurt, and for a while there was nothing in her world but her heartbeat and her feet. Had to move. She looked through the crack again. Martin was on the sleeping bag again, but awake, twitching. Twitching? She watched: Jesus, he was masturbating.
Now Sandy was breathing like a locomotive, great gouts of steam puffing out into the cold night air: her feet were freezing, the pain excruciating. She looked at the drop, looked at the ledge, and painfully stepped back over the rail onto the ledge.
Back to the bedroom. She moved faster going back, the pain pushing her. She caught the window ledge and crawled back through. Her feet felt as though she were walking on broken bottles, but she ignored them for the moment and focused on closing the window, carefully, not making a sound.
All right. The room was cold, but there was nothing she could do about that, not right away. She couldn't open the door: Martin might catch a draft. She pulled off her coat, tookthe boots out, sat on the bare bed, and used the inside of her coat sleeves to wipe her feet.
When they were dry, she touched them, ran her fingers along the soles. No feeling, but no blood, either. She put on her socks and lay back. If she were quiet…
Wait. She got on her hands and knees, crawled around the perimeter of the room, and found a hot air register. Open, closed? There was no heat coming out. She looked at the light, decided to risk it. She turned it on, just for a second, looked at the register-closed-and turned it off. Went back to the register, in the dark, and opened it as wide as the adjustment level allowed. Still no heat.
The furnace wasn't running at the moment.
What else? The lock. She stepped to the window, twisted the lock, pulled the shade. The window ledge and fire escape would have footprints: nothing she could do about it. Hope for some wind.
She dropped back on the bed, wrapped herself in her parka, and tried to feel her feet. And tried to stave off the disappointment. Twenty feet… maybe she should have gone for it. Twenty feet.
NUDE EXCEPT FOR THE WHITE TAPE WRAP ON HIS wound, LaChaise walked out to the living room, looked at the TV, yawned, scratched himself and said, ''What's on?''
Martin wouldn't look at him. He said, ''That Weather woman was interviewed in the hotel. Didn't say where she was inside, but they got cops all over the place, with shotguns. Vests. Gas. Inside and outside, on the roof.''
''Trying to scare us,'' LaChaise said.
Martin half-laughed and said, ''Well, it's working.'' Still he wouldn't look, and LaChaise stepped over to the window and pulled the blind back an inch or two. Six o'clock in the morning and still dark.
''Sandy sleeping?''
''Yeah,'' Martin said. ''You scared the shit out of her last night.''
''Yeah?'' He didn't care.
''We're gonna need some heavier gear if we're gonna keep going,'' Martin said, staring at the TV.
''What've you got in mind?''
''We can't get the hotel, and they're crazy if any of them are staying at home.
We can't just hang out on the street, looking for them, 'cause they know what we look like…''
''Not with the hair.'' LaChaise touched his gray hair and beard.
''Well, we couldn't hang long-they're checking everybody.''
''So where?''
''The hospital where Capslock's old lady is, and that other cop, Franklin.''
''How do you know they're at the same place?''
''Saw it on TV.''
''Goddamn. Glad I didn't kick it in,'' LaChaise said.
''Yeah. So we need some heavier gear.''