Blaze

He grabbed the ladder and trotted toward the protecting shadows of the house. When he got there he crouched down, getting his breath back and looking for any signs of alarm. He saw none. The house slumbered.

There were dozens of windows upstairs. Which one? If he and George had figured this out — if he had known — he had forgotten. Blaze laid his hand against the brick as if expecting it to breathe. He peered into the nearest window and saw a large, gleaming kitchen. It looked like the control room of the Starship Enterprise. A nightlight over the stove cast a soft glow across Formica and tile. Blaze wiped his palm across his mouth. Indecision was trying to crowd in, and he went back to get the ladder to forestall it. Any action, even the most trivial. He was trembling.

This is life! a voice inside him screamed. For this they give you the long bomb! There’s still time, you can still —

“Blaze.”

He almost cried out.

“Any window. If you don’t remember, you’ll have to creep the joint.”

“I can’t, George. I’ll knock something over…they’ll hear and come and shoot me…or…”

“Blaze, you got to. It’s the only thing.”

“I’m scared, George. I want to go home.”

No answer. But in a way, that was the answer.

Breathing in harsh, muffled grunts that sent out clouds of vapor, he unhooked the latches that held the ladder’s extension and pulled it to its greatest length. His fingers, clumsy in the mittens, had to fumble twice to secure the latches again. He had threshed about a great deal in the snow now, and he was white from head to toe — a snowman, a Yeti. There was even a little snowdrift on the bill of his cap, still twisted to the good-luck side. Yet except for the click-clunk of the latches and the soft plosives of his breathing, it was quiet. The snow muffled everything.

The ladder was aluminum, and light. He raised it easily. The top rung reached to just below the window over the kitchen. He would be able to reach the catch on that window from two or three rungs farther down.

He began to climb, shaking off snow as he went. The ladder settled once, making him freeze and hold his breath, but then it was solid. He started up again. He watched the bricks go down in front of him, then the windowsill. Then he was looking in a bedroom window.

There was a double bed. Two people slept in it. Their faces were nothing but white circles. Just blurs, really.

Blaze stared in at them, amazed. His fear was forgotten. For no reason he could understand — he wasn’t feeling sexy, or at least he didn’t think he was — he started getting a hardon. He had no doubt that he was looking at Joseph Gerard III and his wife. He was staring at them but they didn’t know it. He was looking right into their world. He could see their bureaus, their nightstands, their big double bed. He could see a big full-length mirror with himself in it, looking in from out here where it was cold. He was looking in at them and they didn’t know it. His body shook with excitement.

He tore his eyes away and looked at the window’s inside catch. It was a simple little slip-lock, easy enough to open with the right tool, what George would have called a gimme. Of course Blaze didn’t have the right tool, but he wouldn’t need one. The lock wasn’t engaged.

They’re fat, Blaze thought. They’re fat, stupid Republicans. I may be dumb, but they’re stupid.

Blaze placed his feet as far apart on the ladder as they would go, to increase his leverage, then began to apply pressure to the window, increasing it gradually. The man in the bed shifted from one side to the other in his sleep and Blaze paused until Gerard had settled back into the rut of his dreams. Then he put the pressure back on.

He was beginning to think that maybe the window had been sealed shut somehow — that that was why the lock wasn’t engaged — when it came open the tiniest crack. The wood groaned softly. Blaze let up immediately.

He considered.

It would have to be fast: open the window, climb through, close the window again. Otherwise the inrush of cold January air would wake them for sure. But if the sliding window really squalled against the frame, that would wake them up, too.

“Go on,” George said from the base of the ladder. “Take your best shot.”

Blaze wriggled his fingers into the crack between the bottom of the window and the jamb, then lifted. The window rose without a sound. He swung a leg inside, followed it with his body, turned, and closed the window. It did groan coming back down, and thumped into place. He froze in a crouch, afraid to turn and look at the bed, ears attuned to catch the slightest sound.

Nothing.

But oh yes there was. Yes, there were plenty. Breathing, for instance. Two people breathing nearly together, as if they were riding a bicycle built for two. Tiny mattress creaks. The tick of a clock. The low whoosh of air — that would be the furnace. And the house itself, exhaling. Running down as it had been for fifty or seventy-five years. Hell, maybe a hundred. Settling on its bones of brick and wood.

Blaze turned around and looked at them. The woman was uncovered to the waist. The top of her nightgown had pulled to the side and one breast was exposed. Blaze looked at it, fascinated by the rise and fall, by the way the nipple had peaked in the brief draft —

“Move, Blaze! Christ!”

He high-stepped across the room like a caricature lover who has hidden under the bed, his breath held and his chest puffed out like a cartoon colonel’s.

Gold gleamed.

There was a small triptych on one of the bureaus, three photos bound in gold and shaped like a pyramid. On the bottom were Joe Gerard III and his olive-skinned Narmenian wife. Above them was IV, a hairless infant with a