The Crate

then resumed again, more slowly. Sudenly the tension and fear were gone, and he only felt cold. The crate was under there, just as Dex had said it was. And the janitor's ballpoint pen. And his shoes. And Charlie Gereson's glasses.

Henry moved the light from one of these artifacts to the next slowly, spotlighting each. Then he glanced at his watch, snapped the flashlight off and jammed it back in his pocket. He had half an hour. There was no time to waste.

In the janitor's closet upstairs he found buckets, heavy-duty cleaner, rags... and gloves. No prints. He went back downstairs like the sorcerer's apprentice, a heavy plastic bucket full of hot water and foaming cleaner in each hand, rags draped over his shoulder. His footfalls clacked hollowly in the stillness. He thought of Dex saying, It sits squat and mute. And still he was cold.

He began to clean up.

'She came,' Henry said. 'Oh yes, she came. And she was... excited and happy.'

'What?' Dex said.

'Excited,' he repeated. 'She was whining and carping the way she always did in that high, unpleasant voice, but that was just habit, I think. All those years, Dex, the only part of me she wasn't able to completely control, the only part she could never get completely under her thumb, was my friendship with you. Our two drinks while she was at class. Our chess. Our... companionship.'

Dex nodded. Yes, companionship was the right word. A little light in the darkness of loneliness. It hadn't just been the chess or the drinks; it had been Henry's face over the board, Henry's voice recounting how things were in his department, a bit of harmless gossip, a laugh over something.

'So she was whining and bitching in her best 'just call me Billie' style, but I think it was just habit. She was excited and happy, Dex. Because she was finally going to be able to get control over the last ... little.., bit.' He looked at Dex calmly. 'I knew she'd come, you see. I knew she'd want to see what kind of mess you gotten yourself into, Dex.'

'They're downstairs,' Henry told Wilma. Wilma was wearing a bright yellow sleeveless blouse and green pants that were too tight for her. 'Right downstairs.' And he uttered a sudden, loud laugh.

Wilma's head whipped around and her narrow face darkened with suspicion. 'What are you laughing about?' She asked in her loud, buzzing voice. 'Your best friend gets in a scrape with a girl and you're laughing?'

No, he shouldn't be laughing. But he couldn't help it. It was sitting under the stairs, sitting there squat and mute, just try telling that thing in the crate to call you Billie, Wilma--and another loud laugh escaped him and went rolling down the dim first-floor hall like a depth charge.

'Well, there is a funny side to it,' he said, hardly aware of what he was saying. 'Wait'Il you see. You'll think--'

Her eyes, always questing, never still, dropped to his front pocket, where he had stuffed the rubber gloves.

'What are those? Are those gloves?'

Henry began to spew words. At the same time he put his arm around Wilma's bony shoulders and led her toward the stairs. 'Well, he's passed out, you know. He smells like a distillery. Can't guess how much he drank. Threw up all over everything. I've been cleaning up. Hell of an awful mess, Billie. I persuaded the girl to stay a bit. You'll help me, won't you? This is Dex, after all.'

'I don't know,' she said, as they began to descend the stairs to the basement lab. Her eyes snapped with dark glee. 'I'll have to see what the situation is. You don't know anything, that's obvious. You're hysterical. Exactly what I would have expected.'

'That's right,' Henry said. They had reached the bottom of the stairs. 'Right around here. Just step right around here.'

'But the lab's that way--'

'Yes... but the girl...' And he began to laugh again in great, loonlike bursts.

'Henry, what is wrong with you?' And now that acidic contempt was mixed with something else--something that might have been fear.

That made Henry laugh harder. His laughter echoed and rebounded, filling the dark basement with a sound like laughing banshees or demons approving a particularly good jest. 'The girl, Billie,' Henry said between bursts of helpless laughter. 'That's what's so funny, the girl, the girl has crawled under the stairs and won't come out, that what's so funny, ah-heh-heh-hahahahaa--'

And now the dark kerosene of joy lit in her eyes; her lips curled up like charring paper in what the denizens of hell might call a smile. And Wilma whispered, 'What did he do to her?'

'You can get her out,' Henry babbled, leading her to the dark. triangular, gaping maw. 'I'm sure you can get her out, no trouble, no problem.' He suddenly grabbed Wilma at the nape of the neck and the waist, forcing her down even as he pushed her into the space under the stairs.

'What are you doing?' she screamed querulously. 'What are you doing, Henry?'

'What I should have done a long time ago,' Henry said, laughing. 'Get under there, Wilma. Just tell it to call you Billie, you bitch.'

She tried to turn, tried to fight him. One hand clawed for his wrist--he saw her spade-shaped nails slice down, but they clawed only air. 'Stop it, Henry!' She cried. 'Stop it right now! Stop this foolishness! I--I'll scream!'

'Scream all you want!' he bellowed, still laughing. He raised one foot, planted it in the center of her narrow and joyless backside, and pushed. 'I'll help you, Wilma! Come on out! Wake up, whatever you are! Wake up! Here's your dinner! Poison meat! Wake up! Wake up!'

Wilma screamed piercingly, an inarticulate sound that was still more rage than fear.

And then Henry heard it.

First a low whistle, the sound a man might make while working alone without even being aware of it. Then it