“I thought we could have a little talk about books. Or anyway, one special book. I’ll be here in the room waiting for you. Come across.”
The receiver clicked on the other end.
I hung up the phone and started for the door. Then I stopped and turned back.
Jean Dahl was still asleep on the bed.
I was frightened, but I didn’t like to admit it.
I thought, What can possibly happen at Walter Heinemann’s during a cocktail party?
I looked again at Jean Dahl. On my way out, I took the key out of the door.
In the corridor I stopped. I was taking no chances. I intended to lock Miss Dahl in. I had the key in the lock when I heard a faint sound.
Then I realized that there was someone standing about two feet away from me.
The explosion rocked the back of my head with a blinding flash and I slid to the floor.
It was done as quickly and as simply as that.
I could taste the dust from the carpet in my mouth. I was lying on the floor. I was not sure where I was or what had happened.
I moved my hand along the carpet up to my face. My hand came away sticky with blood.
I peered around and decided I was inside the bedroom. Lying on the floor.
I lay there for a long time trying to understand what had happened. I had started out to meet the man with the nasty voice in the room across the hall-I had been out in the corridor, locking the door from the outside. There had been some reason why I wanted to lock the door from the outside.
Jean Dahl.
I rolled over.
The bed was empty.
I sat up. After a minute or two I got slowly to my feet. I could tell before I searched the place that I was alone. Jean Dahl was gone. The man who had hit me was gone.
Jean Dahl’s wet clothes were gone. Her purse was gone.
I made my way back into the bathroom. In the mirror I could see the cut on my cheek and above it, on the temple, the beginning of a swelling. I washed my face with cold water. I dried my face carefully.
Gradually I became aware of the fact that my hands were shaking.
At first I thought I was frightened. I was. But I wasn’t shaking because I was frightened. I was shaking because I was angry.
I opened the medicine chest. It was almost an electric shock when I saw the gun. Somehow, I had been sure that it would be gone too.
I took the small, ugly-looking gun out of the cabinet and studied it. I found the safety catch and after a moment or two figured out how to open and close the magazine. It was loaded.
I held the gun in front of me with the safety catch off as I left the bedroom.
There was no one in the corridor. I rang for the elevator and got in.
As the car wheezed to a stop and the doors opened, I could hear a babble of voices, among them Walter’s high-pitched giggle. I started to my left, down the long, thickly carpeted corridor.
There were perhaps fifty people in the billiard room. Walter was standing near the double doors with a glass of champagne in his hand. He saw me and began to giggle. “Richard!” he said, and came bustling over to me. “Wherever have you been? Good God-did you fall into the john?”
“Walter,” I began.
“You’re just in time. We’re going to turn out all the lights. I’ve called downstairs and they are going to pull the master switch. That’s the only fair way.”
“Walter, listen. I want to talk to you.”
“Afterward, Richard. As a matter of fact, I want to talk to you. We’ll have brandy together upstairs. But the lights are going out any second!”
“Why are the lights going out? What are you talking about?”
“We’re going to play ring-a-leveo,” Walter said. “Someone said this house would be a wonderful place to play ring-a-leveo, so we’re going to play. To make it absolutely fair we’re going to turn out all the lights. Let me get you a partner.”
“Walter, my God, this is important.”
Walter reached out and caught the arm of a dark, exotic-looking girl who was starting past us out the door.
For the second time in a week my first thought when I saw her was, What a beautiful girl.
“Janis, dear,” Walter was saying. “This is Richard Sherman. He’s your partner and I want you to take good care of him. Richard has been dying to meet you all evening. He’s a fan of yours.”
“Hello, Dick,” Janis Whitney said.
“Her picture opens at the Music Hall this week,” Walter said. “It’s going to be ghastly, of course. But she’ll be divine.”
I tried to get hold of Walter’s arm but he was already moving away. “Ready! Everyone ready!” he was shouting. “The lights will be out for exactly twenty minutes!”
I turned to Janis. She was smiling. “Excuse me a minute,” I said. I turned angrily away and headed after Walter. From the corridor I could hear the wheezing sound of the elevator.
The elevator was coming down from one of the upper floors. It was moving slowly and through the open grillework I could see the single passenger.
“Jean! Jean Dahl!” I shouted.
She was wearing a dark skirt. My jacket was still around her shoulders.
She heard me and her mouth opened.
Then, the lights went out.
The entire house was pitch black.
The place was in pandemonium. Laughter, excited shrieks from the young ladies, and Walter’s silly, high- pitched giggle.
I started down the corridor toward the stairs on a dead run, and fell over a small table.
Janis Whitney had me by the arm and was pulling me to my feet.
“Wait a minute, Dick, Walter said we were supposed to be partners or something,” Janis Whitney said. Her appearance had suggested something mysterious, foreign. You might have guessed that she was from one of the Balkan countries and you would have expected her to speak with a trace of some interesting accent.
Her accent was interesting. It was pure southern Texas, only slightly modified by a studio diction teacher.
“That girl in the elevator-I’ve got to get to her,” I said.
“She’s not going anywhere,” Janis Whitney said. “The power is off. That elevator’s not moving. And Walter’s supposed to be guarding the stairs. The stairs are out of bounds. Come on now. We’re partners.”
“What are we supposed to do?” I asked desperately.
“Hunt for people-I think,” Janis Whitney said. “I was in the ladies’ room when they were explaining the rules. But I think the idea is you hunt for people. Or they hunt for you. I’m not very good at these games.”
“Oh, my God,” I said.
I shook myself loose from Janis Whitney and started down the corridor in the dark.
There was much noise and laughter and the sound of people scurrying around in the dark.
I reached in my pocket, found a match, and lit it.
“No fair! No fair!” a girl screamed, and slapped the match out of my hand.
It was pitch black.
I moved quickly down the corridor to the elevator. It was stopped and the gate was open.
In the distance I heard Walter’s voice.
“No one goes downstairs. Downstairs is off limits!”
Apparently someone was giving him trouble. Someone wanted to get down those stairs. I had a pretty good idea who it might be.
The stairs were wide and curving. They swooped down into the hall on the opposite side from the
