The two intruders remain in the threshold for a moment. The gust of air-conditioning that comes in from the gallery brings with it a scent of old things. A scent of wood and earth and something that could be the aroma of moth-eaten fabric stored at the back of a closet. They both look at their watches. Two minutes to midnight. Their operation has so far taken four and a half minutes.
The Night of the World Launch of Stephen King's New Novel is extremely cold and triggers that feeling of distress you get in the seconds before a great disaster. Aníbal Manta and Eric Yanel noticed it in the car on the way to the Hannah Linus Gallery. Hannah Linus herself is noticing it right now, in the form of a sexual session with Saudade that is less satisfying and exhausting than usual and much less filled with moments of evil, self-degrading pleasure. Marcia Parini notices it as a vague fear that something terrible will happen in the discothèque where she is having drinks with a potential sexual partner. Raymond Panakian notices it in the middle of his delirium tremens shakes. Everyone notices it, although just during a few seconds of confusion. Objects are more defined than normal. The fine hair on your skin stands on end when touched, with the exacerbated sensitivity of a high fever. The same empty gallery that on any ordinary night would be placid suggests imminent catastrophe. Like those things that hunt children in their dark bedrooms. Those nameless, shapeless things.
Aníbal Manta and Eric Yanel leave their backpacks on the floor and take out the zippered bags designed to transport fragile works of art. They are silver bags that from the outside are strangely similar to the bags used to transport refrigerated foodstuffs. Each one of their movements inside the gallery has been scrupulously rehearsed and calculated. To save time and enhance the operation's internal efficiency. They take the four St. Kieran Panels off the wall and leave them on the floor next to their backpacks and zippered bags. The distance between the edges of each painting's base and the hooks that hold it to the wall have been replicated to the millimeter. Everything is going well, in spite of the vague, general sensation that everything is going badly. Then something happens. The two intruders look at each other. At first it's just a slight trembling of the outlines of things. It takes them a moment to realize that it's the light flickering. Or, better put, the lights. The pilot light of the gallery's security circuit. The glow of the streetlights that enters through the gallery's skylight. Even the light from the flashlights attached to their heads. Everything blinks for a second. And then goes out.
Aníbal Manta and Eric Yanel remain in the dark for a moment. Listening to the noise of their own breathing. Even though they're at least three feet away from each other, the darkness is so complete that they can't make out each other's movements. The world seems to have just disappeared.
“What's going on?” says Yanel.
“It's a blackout,” says Manta.
Neither of them mentions the fact that their battery-powered flashlights have also gone out. They deliberately don't mention it.
“Let's wait.” Manta lifts a finger even though he knows Yanel can't see him. “And let's not lose our cool.”
They both remain in their places. After a moment an erratic noise is heard, coming from where Manta thinks Yanel is. Some sort of soft, damp cough that slowly turns into a choked, hoarse weeping. Aníbal Manta takes the band off of his head and taps the flashlight with his finger. He brings it to his ear with a frown. Perhaps unconsciously imitating the classic gesture of bringing a wind-up watch that's stopped working to one's ear. A second later, as he's placing the elastic band around his head again, the lights come back on with a flicker. The pilots of the security circuit and the flashlights and all the rest. The blackout, if that's what it was, lasted less than half a minute.
Manta holds his breath. He waits a second. Two. Three. But nothing happens. The return of the electricity didn't set off the alarms. He doesn't hear the symphony of sirens, bells and howls that usually fills the streets when the electricity comes back on after a power outage. Everything is just as it was before. As if the blackout had never happened.
Manta takes a look around. Then he kicks Yanel, who is sitting on the floor with his back against the wall and whimpering with his face sunk into his hands. Yanel lifts his damp face and looks around with a frown. Four minutes later they have hung the copies of the paintings and put the originals into their backpacks and are back on the street. Walking away from the gallery with nimble, but not hurried, steps. Just as the centuries-old tradition stipulates that criminals should flee crime scenes. Precisely calibrating the speed of their flight.
Eric Yanel stops in the middle of the street. With a frown. With his meticulously waved and conditioned hairdo transformed into a twisted grotesque Mohawk. Like one of those comedic characters that get caught in bad weather and whose hair freezes into impossible crystalline forms. He makes a half turn and stares at the gallery building at the end of the street.
Manta looks at him quizzically.
“That thing that happened in the gallery,” says Yanel, “wasn't normal, was it? That wasn't a normal blackout.”
Manta shrugs his shoulders.
“Who cares?” he says. “We have the paintings. And if you get your ass in gear, everything will work out fine.”
Yanel starts walking behind Manta, who has resumed his departure with his own brand of paradoxical gracefulness. Which stems from the seeming impossibility of anyone his size achieving any sort of gracefulness. Now the two men turn a corner and a tall office building with a parking area at back appears before them. The few pedestrians that walk after midnight through the neighborhood of bank headquarters and corporate buildings walk alone and stare intently at the ground in their path.
“I've seen that before,” says Yanel, jogging a bit to keep up with Manta. The speed makes his wave of blond hair undergo a new rhythmic, vertical waving. “The exact same thing. I didn't know before what it reminded me of, but I just remembered. And you should remember, too. I bet you've seen it in your comic books.”
Aníbal Manta goes into the building's parking lot and walks between the parked cars toward the van at the back of the lot with the corporate logo of “ARNOLD LAYNE, WOOD PARASITE SOLUTIONS” printed on one side. With the lightning bolt splitting the insect in half. Manta walks toward the frost-covered window of the van's cab. He lifts up one of his colossal arms and makes a series of taps with his knuckles on the window, causing several pieces of frost to fall to the parking lot's asphalt floor. No reply comes from inside the van.
“I remember it from movies about aliens.” Yanel uses his index finger to push the nonprescription glasses that are part of his disguise back on his nose. “When the spaceship passes by. You know. And everything stops working for a moment.”
Manta cleans the windowpane with his hand and looks inside. There is no one in the van's cab. His face transmits several degrees of shock and anger. Then he walks with furious strides toward the back doors of the van, followed by Yanel. He pulls open the back doors, which for a moment give the impression they're about to go flying. Manta and Yanel stare into the back of the van.
Saudade seems to have found a way to partially remove the “ARNOLD LAYNE, WOOD PARASITE SOLUTIONS” jumpsuit in such a way that the whole thing lies empty and wrinkled around his ankles. The naked young woman on her knees in front of his open legs has goose bumps. Saudade looks up and stares at Manta and Yanel. The young woman looks over her shoulder with Saudade's penis still in her mouth and stares at Manta and Yanel with a not-very-friendly expression. A little cloud of steam comes out of her mouth.