He made his way along the rear of the building, counting the sliders until he was below 207. There were no lights on in the apartment. Either that nurse was already in bed or she was out. Tom didn’t care. Either way had its benefits and disadvantages.
Walking around to the front of the building, Tom had to pause while one of the tenants came out and headed for his car. After the man had driven away, Tom used one of the keys to enter the building. Once inside, he moved quickly. He preferred not to be seen. Arriving outside of 207, he inserted the key, opened the door, stepped inside, and closed the door behind him in one swift, fluid motion.
For several minutes he stood by the door without moving, listening for the slightest sound. He could hear several distant TVs, but they were from other apartments. Pocketing the keys, he allowed the long-bladed chef’s knife to slide out from his sleeve. He clutched its handle as if it were a dagger.
Slowly he inched forward. By the light coming from the parking area he could see the outline of the furniture and the doorway into the bedroom. The bedroom door was open.
Looking into the gloom of the bedroom, which was darker than the living room due to the closed drapes, Tom could not tell if the bed was occupied or empty. Again he listened. Aside from the muffled sound of the distant TVs plus the hum of the refrigerator which had just kicked on, he heard nothing. There was no steady breathing of someone asleep.
Advancing into the room a half step at a time, Tom bumped gently against the edge of the bed. Reaching out with his free hand, he groped for a body. Only then did he know for sure: the bed was empty.
Not realizing he’d been holding his breath, Tom straightened up and breathed out. He felt relief of tension on the one hand, yet profound disappointment on the other. The anticipation of violence had aroused him and satisfaction would be delayed.
Moving more by feel than by sight, he managed to find his way to the bathroom. Reaching in, he ran his free hand up and down the wall until he found the light switch. Turning it on, he had to squint in the brightness, but he liked what he saw. Hanging over the tub were a pair of lacy pastel panties and a bra.
Tom placed the chef’s knife down on the edge of the sink and picked up the panties. They were nothing like the ones Alice wore. He had no idea why such objects fascinated him, but they did. Sitting on the edge of the tub, he fingered the silky material. For the moment he was content, knowing that he’d be entertained while he waited, keeping the light switch and the knife close at hand.
“What if we get caught?” Janet asked nervously as they headed toward the Forbes Center. They’d just come from the Home Depot hardware store where Sean had bought tools that he said should work almost as well as a locksmith’s tension bar and double ball pick.
“We’re not going to get caught,” Sean said. “That’s why we’re going there now when no one will be there. Well, we don’t know that for sure, but we’ll check.”
“There will be plenty of people on the hospital side,” Janet warned.
“And that’s the reason why we stay away from the hospital,” Sean said.
“What about security?” Janet asked. “Have you thought about that?”
“Piece of cake,” Sean said. “Except for the frustrated Marine, I haven’t been impressed. They’re certainly lax at the front door.”
“I’m not good at this,” Janet admitted.
“Tell me something I didn’t know!” Sean said.
“And how are you so acquainted with locks and picks and alarms?” Janet asked.
“When I grew up in Charlestown, it was a pure-blooded working-class neighborhood,” Sean said. “The gentrification hadn’t started. Each of our fathers was in a different trade. My father was a plumber. Timothy O’Brien’s father was a locksmith. Old man O’Brien taught his son some of the tricks of the trade, and Timmy showed us. At first it was a game; kind of a competition. We liked to believe there weren’t any locks in the neighborhood we couldn’t open. And Charlie Sullivan’s father was a master electrician. He put in fancy alarm systems in Boston, mostly on Beacon Hill. He often made Charlie come along. So Charlie started telling us about alarms.”
“That’s dangerous information for kids to have,” Janet said. Her own childhood couldn’t have been further from Sean’s, among the private schools, music lessons, and summers on the Cape.
“You bet,” Sean agreed. “But we never stole anything from our own neighborhood. We’d just open up locks and then leave them open as a practical joke. But then it changed. We started going out to the ’burbs like Swampscott or Marblehead with one of the older kids who could drive. We’d watch a house for a while, then break in and help ourselves to the liquor and some of the electronics. You know, stereos, TVs.”
“You stole?” Janet questioned with shock.
Sean glanced at her for a second before looking back at the road. “Of course we stole,” he said. “It was thrilling at the time and we used to think all the people who lived on the North Shore were millionaires.” Sean went on to tell how he and his buddies would sell the goods in Boston, pay off the driver, buy beer, and give the rest to a fellow raising money for the Irish Republican Army. “We even deluded ourselves into thinking we were youthful political activists even though we didn’t have the faintest idea of what was going on in Northern Ireland.”
“My God! I had no idea,” Janet said. She’d known about Sean’s adolescent fights and even about the joy rides, but this burglary was something else entirely.
“Let’s not get carried away with value judgments,” Sean said. “My youth and yours were completely different.”
“I’m just a little concerned you learned to justify any type of behavior,” Janet said. “I would imagine it could become a habit.”
“The last time I did any of that stuff was when I was fifteen,” Sean said. “There’s been a lot of water over the dam since then.”
They pulled into the Forbes parking lot and drove to the research building. Sean cut the engine and turned out the lights. For a moment neither moved.
“You want to go ahead with this or not?” Sean asked, finally breaking the silence. “I don’t mean to pressure you, but I can’t waste two months down here screwing around with busywork. Either I get to look into the medulloblastoma protocol or I go back to Boston. Unfortunately, I can’t do it by myself; that was made apparent by the run-in with hefty Margaret Richmond. Either you help, or we cancel. But let me say this: we’re going in here to get information, not to steal TV sets. And it’s for a damn good cause.”
Janet stared ahead for a moment. She didn’t have the luxury of indecision, yet her mind was a jumble of confusing thoughts. She looked at Sean. She thought she loved him.
“Okay!” Janet said finally. “Let’s do it.”
They got out of the car and walked to the entrance. Sean carried the tools he’d gotten at the Home Depot in a paper bag.
“Evening,” Sean said to the security guard who blinked repeatedly as he stared at Sean’s ID card. He was a swarthy Hispanic with a pencil-line mustache. He seemed to appreciate Janet’s shorts.
“Got to inject my rats,” Sean said.
The security guard motioned for them to enter. He didn’t speak, nor did he take his eyes off Janet’s lower half. As Sean and Janet passed through the turnstile they could see he had a miniature portable TV wedged on top of the bank of security monitors. It was tuned to a soccer match.
“See what I mean about the guards?” Sean said as they used the stairs to descend to the basement. “He was more interested in your legs than my ID card. I could have had Charlie Manson’s photo on it and he wouldn’t have noticed.”