Blaze

baby blanket pulled to his chin. His dark eyes were popped open to look at the world he had so lately entered.

Blaze reached the door, turned the knob, and paused to look back. She had flung one arm across her bared breast, hiding it. Her husband was sleeping on his back with his mouth open, and for a moment, before he snorted thickly and wrinkled his nose, he looked dead. This made Blaze think of Randy, and how Randy had lain on the frozen ground with the fleas and ticks leaving his body.

Beyond the bed, there was a splotched sugaring of snow on the inside window ledge and on the floor. Both were already melting.

Blaze eased the door open, ready to halt at the first hint of a squeak, but there was no squeak. He slipped through to the other side as soon as the gap was wide enough. Outside was a kind of combination hallway and gallery. There was a thick, lovely carpet under his feet. He closed the bedroom door behind him, approached the darker darkness of the railing that went around the gallery, and looked down.

He saw a staircase that rose in two graceful twists from a wide entrance hall that went out of sight. The polished floor threw up scant, glimmering light. Across the way was a statue of a young woman. Facing her, on this side of the balcony, was a statue of a young man.

“Never mind the statues, Blaze, find the kid. That ladder’s standin right out there —”

One of the two staircases went down to the first floor on his right, so Blaze turned left and padded up the hall. Out here there was no sound but the faint whisper of his feet on the rug. He couldn’t even hear the furnace. It was eerie.

He eased the next door open and looked into a room with a desk in the middle and books on the walls — shelves and shelves of books. There was a typewriter on the desk and a pile of papers held down by a chunk of black glassy-looking rock. There was a portrait on the wall. Blaze could make out a man with white hair and a frowning face that seemed to be saying You thief. He closed the door and went on.

The next door opened on an empty bedroom with a canopy bed. Its coverlet looked tight enough to bounce nickels on.

He moved up the line, feeling trickles of sweat start on his body. He was hardly ever conscious of time passing, but now he was. How long had he been in this rich and sleeping house? Fifteen minutes? Twenty?

The third room was occupied by another sleeping man and woman. She was moaning in her sleep, and Blaze closed that door quickly.

He went around the corner. What if he had to go upstairs, to the third floor? The idea filled him with the kind of terror he felt in his infrequent nightmares (these were usually of Hetton House, or the Bowies). What would he say if the lights went on right now and he was caught? What could he say? That he came in to steal the silverware? There was no silverware on the second floor, even a dummy knew that.

There was one door on the short side of the hallway. He opened it and looked into the baby’s room.

He stared for a long moment, hardly believing he had gotten so far. It wasn’t a pipe dream. He could do it. The thought made him want to run.

The crib was almost exactly like the one he had bought himself. There were Walt Disney characters on the walls. There was a changing table, a rack crowded with creams and ointments, and a little baby dresser painted some bright color. Maybe red, maybe blue. Blaze couldn’t tell in the dark. There was a baby in the crib.

It was his last chance to run and he knew it. As of now, he might still be able to melt away as unknown as he had come. They would never guess what had almost happened. But he would know. Perhaps he would go in and lay one of his big hands on the baby’s small forehead, then leave. He had a sudden picture of himself twenty years from now, seeing Joseph Gerard IV’s name on the society page of the paper, what George called news of rich bitches and whinnying horses. There would be a picture of a young man in a dinner jacket standing next to a young girl in a white dress. The young girl would be holding a bouquet of flowers. The story would tell where they had been married and where they were going on their honeymoon. He would look at that picture and he would think: Oh buddy. Oh buddy, you never had no idea.

But when he went in, he knew it was for keeps.

This is how we roll, George, he thought.

The baby was sleeping on his stomach, head turned to the side. One small hand was tucked under his cheek. His breathing moved the blankets over him up and down in small cycles. His skull was covered with a fuzz of hair, no more than that. A red teething ring lay beside him on the pillow.

Blaze reached for him, then pulled back.

What if he cried?

At the same instant he spotted something that brought his heart into his mouth. It was a small intercom set. The other end would be in the mother’s room, or the babysitter’s room. If the baby cried —

Gently, gently, Blaze reached out and pushed the power button. The red light over it died out. As it did, he wondered if there was a buzzer or something that went off when the power went off. As a warning.

Attention, mother. Attention, babysitter. The intercom is on the blink because a big stupid kidnapper just turned it off. There is a stupid kidnapper in the house. Come and see. Bring a gun.

Go on, Blaze. Take your best shot.

Blaze took a deep breath and let it out. Then he untucked the blankets and scooped them around the baby as he picked him up. He cradled him gently in his arms. The baby whined and stretched. His eyes flickered. He made a kitteny neeyup sound. Then his eyes closed again and his body relaxed.

Blaze exhaled.

He turned, went back to the door, and went back into the hall, realizing he was doing more than just leaving the kid’s room, the nursery. He was crossing a line. He could no longer claim to be a simple burglar. His crime was in his arms.

Going down the ladder with a sleeping infant was impossible, and Blaze did not even consider it. He went to the stairs. The hallway was carpeted, but the stairs weren’t. His first footfall on the first polished wood riser was loud, obvious, and unmuffled. He paused, listening, drawn straight to attention in his anxiety, but the house slept