I was ready. As soon as the first steel claw released I twisted, dropped, hooked Ted's legs from under him. I saw a blur of black as Lydia dove for Otis's gun.
Ted thudded to the floor, me on top of him. I slammed my elbow into his face, and then I did it again. He softened under me. I rolled off, was pushing to my feet when I heard an explosion, the shattering of glass.
Lydia had Otis bent back against the sink. She had one hand around the gun, which had just gone off, and the other on his throat. Dimly aware of pounding footsteps, I grabbed at Otis's fingers, pried the gun loose. Lydia drove a hard punch into Otis's exposed gut, seized him by the
shoulder, threw him across the room. I swung the gun to face the door opening at the bottom of the stairs. Then another explosion, roaring, blinding, knocked me down, endlessly down.
Chapter 19
My name, spoken faintly in the darkness. I tried to answer, and to move; I couldn't do either. The soft voice spoke my name again, more urgently this time. It came from far away, the other end of a long, dark tunnel. It was hot in the tunnel, stifling; or maybe it was deathly cold. I wasn't sure, and it didn't seem to matter anyway.
I heard my name again, and this time with the sound came the blessed cool of a damp cloth pressed to my temple. A pale shape formed in front of me, gradually resolving, sharpening into a face, Lydia's face. She was sitting on the floor next to me, wringing out a dish towel in a bowl of water. The water was pink with blood.
I was sitting too, my hands behind me, sharp ridges pressing uncomfortably into my back. I tried to shift position, bring my hands around, but it wasn't possible.
'Don't try to move,' Lydia said. 'You're handcuffed. To the radiator.' She dabbed at my face with the wet towel, then laid it against the side of my head again.
I leaned my head back, resting it between two cold metallic ridges. 'What the hell happened?' I managed.
'Arnold shot you. Just a graze. There's a lot of blood, but I don't think it's bad.'
She didn't think it was bad. 'Are you okay?' My voice sounded like someone else's.
'Uh-huh.'
I tried to look at her; my eyes wouldn't focus. I couldn't tell whether what she said was true.
'Where are they?'
'Downstairs. Grice isn't here. They're waiting for him to get back before they decide what to do with us.'
Chances were good they'd already decided, but I didn't say that to Lydia. 'Is there anything to drink?'
'Not the way you mean it. There's water.'
'Water's good.'
She brought me some and it was better than good. I drained the chipped glass twice. Doing that exhausted me, and I leaned my head back again, closed my eyes. 'How come you're not chained to something?' I asked her bitterly.
'They're out of cuffs. They tied me, but only with a rope.'
'Only with a rope.' I opened my eyes again, saw through the throbbing and the haze a snaky length of hemp lying limply on the floor. 'You're amazing. Can you pick a lock?'
'You taught me. But I don't have my picks.'
'In my wallet, in my jacket, left side.'
She searched my jacket, both sides. 'Your wallet's gone.'
'Shit. What about the cell phone?'
'You really think they're dumb enough to leave you a cell phone?'
'I thought maybe they were too dumb to recognize one.'
'Six months ago you wouldn't have recognized one,' she pointed out.
'Oh, Christ, all right. Just remember, I told you the thing was useless. Do I still have cigarettes?'
She fished one out, lit it for me, and then, while I smoked, Lydia prowled the room, collecting things that could be used to pick a lock. She sat on the floor, worked on the handcuffs with the bent tine of a fork, with the prong from my belt buckle, with the straightened end of a wire hanger she'd found hanging from an empty curtain rod. Finally she sat back on her heels, spread her hands emptily. 'I'm sorry, Bill. It's not working.'
'You must have had a lousy teacher.'
Sounds came from somewhere in the house below, the loud slamming of a door, voices. We both froze, eyes on the stairs. Lydia's hand tightened on my arm.
When no footsteps came up the stairs and the voices stopped we breathed again.
'What's outside?' I asked. 'Something you could climb on? Could you make it out a window?'
Lydia looked around without getting up. 'Maybe I could. But I'm not going to leave you here like this.'
'Lydia, please, don't be a hero, just go call a cop.'
'It'll take me an hour to find a phone.'
I started to shake my head, realized that was a mistake. I leaned back again, but I didn't close my eyes. 'There's a Hess station a quarter mile north, where this road hits the paved one.' We'd come from the south. She wouldn't know I was lying.
