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.
He showed her the straight-razor. Her eyes, which had been dazed and cloudy, came alert and opened wide. Her wet red mouth opened.
'Make a sound and I'll cut you, sis,' he said, and her mouth closed.
He wound a hand in her hair again and pulled her into the living room. Her skirt whispered on the polished wood floor. Her butt caught a throw-rug and it snowplowed beneath her. She moaned in pain.
'Don't do that,' he said. 'I told you.'
They were in the living room. It was small but pleasant. Cozy. French Impressionist prints on the walls. A framed poster which advertised Cats — NOW AND FOREVER, it said. Dried flowers. A small sectional sofa, upholstered in some nubby wheat-colored fabric. A bookcase. In the bookcase he could see both of Beaumont's books on one shelf and all four of Stark's on another. Beaumont's were on a higher shelf. That was wrong, but he had to assume this bitch just didn't know any better.
He let go of her hair. 'Sit on the couch, sis. That end.' He pointed at the end of the couch next to the little end-table where the phone and the message recorder sat.
'Please,' she whispered, making no move to get up. Her mouth and cheek were beginning to swell up now, and the word came out mushy: Preesh. 'Anything. Everything. Money's in the wok.' Moneesh inna wok.
'Sit on the couch. That end.' This time he pointed the razor at her face with one hand while he pointed at the couch ' with the other.
She scrambled onto the couch and cringed as far into the cushions as they would allow, her dark eyes very wide. She swiped at her mouth with her hand and looked unbelievingly at the blood on her palm for a moment before looking back at him.
'What do you want?' Wha ooo you wan? It was like listening to someone talk through a mouthful of food.
'I want you to make a phone call, sissy. That's all.' He picked up the telephone and used the hand holding the straight-razor long enough to thumb the ANNOUNCE button on the phone answering machine. Then he held the telephone handset out to her. It was one of the old-fashioned ones that sit in a cradle looking like a slightly melted dumbbell. Much heavier than the handset of a Princess phone. He knew it, and saw from the subtle tightening of her body when he gave it to her that she knew it, too. An edge of a smile showed on the blonde man's lips. It didn't show anyplace else; just on his lips. There was no summer in that smile.
'You're thinking you could brain me with that thing, aren't you, sis?' he asked her. 'Let me tell you something — that's not a happy thought. And you know what happens to people who lose their happy thoughts, don't you?' When she didn't answer, he said, 'They fall out of the sky. It's true. I saw it in a cartoon once. So you hold that telephone receiver in your lap and concentrate on getting your happy thoughts back.'
She stared at him, all eyes. Blood ran slowly down her chin. A drop fell off and landed on the bodice of her dress. Never get that out, sis, the blonde man thought. They say you can get it out if you rinse the spot fast in cold water, but it isn't so. They have machines. Spectroscopes. Gas chromatographs. Ultraviolet. Lady Macbeth was right.