But it opened without creaking when I tried it.
On the other side was a different world. I world of paint and glass and fresh-hung wallboard. A bright world where music played and people lived.
I went back on red alert, following my gun to whatever lav-ahead.
A skeleton key was stuck in the door. The radio was playing so softly it could barely be heard a room away. The floor was shiny and new. I saw a kitchen off to the left: well lit, papered yellow, with shiny new appliances. There was a half-finished den and, across from that, a bedroom. A radio sent soft tones down the hall from the kitchen: elevator music from KOSI. The scaffold’s shadow leaped across the room.
I peeped into the bedroom.
He was on the bed, fully dressed, lying on top of a bright blue bedspread. He seemed to be sleeping, but his face was to the wall so I couldn’t be sure. I had a vision of him lying there, eyes wide, waiting. I went in cautiously and he didn’t stir. His breathing was deep and rhythmic, as if he’d been asleep for some time. I eased my way to the side of the bed. I still couldn’t see his face. He lay with one arm under him, his hand out of sight. I didn’t like that, but I was as ready as a guy ever gets. I leaned over and shook him lightly.
“Get up, Neff,” I said, “and bring that hand out very slowly.”
He was awake at once: too quickly, I thought, but a man standing over your bed with a gun will bring you up fast. He drew himself up till he was sitting. It was when he tried to look surprised that I knew I had him. He wasn’t enough of an actor to pull it off.
“Stand up real easy,” I said. “Just like that. Good boy. Now. I want you to go to that wall and put your hands against it, just like you see on TV.”
I patted him down. He didn’t have anything.
“Sit down over there,” I said. “Not there…over in the plain wooden chair. Just sit there and face me.”
He sat and watched while I did what a good cop always does: checked the obvious, easy places for weapons and found none.
He moved.
“Sit still,” 1 said.
“I was gonna scratch my leg.”
“Don’t scratch anything. Don’t even look at me funny. This gun of mine gets nervous.”
“You wouldn’t shoot me.”
“I sure as hell would.”
“So what’s going on?”
That was his total and token attempt at denial. He knew he couldn’t act and now I knew it too. Ruby had said he had been a magician and maybe that was true, but he’d never win an Oscar for bluffing his way out of a tight one. I had known a few others like that, guys who could lie as long as you didn’t suspect them. Look them in the eye, though, and accuse, and they’d fall apart.
Neff was trying to avoid my eyes. He looked at the ceiling, at the window—anywhere but at me. “You like my place, Mr. Janeway? My uncle left it to me; I’ve been working on it a year. Sealed off this part and I just do a little at a time. Eventually I’ll do it all. This isn’t really my thing… carpentry… painting… but I do like the way it’s coming together. I just do a little here and there. I don’t like to sweat much.”
“That’s what Ruby tells me.”
He gave a little laugh: wry, affectionate, almost tender.
“Ruby,” he said. “What a swell guy. Do anything for anybody. Great guy.”
“Would you like to tell me where you put the books?”
He shrugged. Jerked his head to one side. Couldn’t seem to find the words.
He looked through the window. He had a clear view of the road from here. “I saw you coming. I knew the way you were coming, cautiously like that… well, I just knew. 1 could’ve shot you.”
“Why didn’t you?”
“Gun’s in the barn. You’d‘ve seen me run for it. And I wasn’t sure how much you really knew. I thought maybe I could… talk you out of it. Shoulda known better. How’d you find out? What’d I do wrong?”
You were born, I thought.
“Tell me,” he said. “I need to know.”
“Maybe I’ll make you a deal. I might tell you if you tell me where the books are.”
