“So I notice. I told my security people that we were vulnerable until we unified the two security systems.”
“Probably installed the perimeter ones first,” I said. “And when you added the house stuff you didn’t think to overlap them.”
“We are in the process,” Costigan said.
“Where’s Susan?” I said.
“Is this the gentleman who hit my son recently and was jailed for it?”
Hawk moved close to Costigan and stuck the muzzle of the big .44 against Costigan’s neck at the base of the skull.
“He stalling,” Hawk said. “He waiting for help.”
I nodded and moved closer to Costigan. “You hit a button some way,” I said.
“It’s under the book, on the table,” Costigan said. “If anything is placed on that spot the alarm goes off.”
At the far end of the room two men appeared with Uzi submachine guns. They came into the room and stepped to either side of the door. The room was so big I wasn’t sure the Uzis had the range. Four more men came in behind the first two and fanned out along the wall. All had revolvers.
“Drop the weapons,” I said, “or we will blow Costigan’s head off at the neck.”
“No.” Costigan said.
The bodyguards froze, guns leveled.
“You kill me and you’ll lose the girl for sure. You’ll be dead and, believe me, my son will take it out on her.”
“Won’t do nothing for you,” Hawk murmured.
“What would Clausewitz call this,” I said.
“A stalemate,” Costigan said. He held his head steady against the press of Hawk’s gun. “They can’t shoot, because you have me. But you can’t shoot because they have you.”
“Is she here?” I said.
“No,” Costigan said.
“We have to know,” I said.
Costigan shrugged. No one else moved.
“On your feet,” I said. Hawk took hold of Costigan’s collar with his left hand and pulled him up out of the seat, rising behind him as he did with the muzzle of the .44 pressed up under Costigan’s chin. If it is possible to look contained while you’re being dragged upright with a gun pressed under your chin, Costigan did it.
“Room by room,” I said. “Starting at the top.”
Hawk and I stood pressed close to Costigan, Hawk holding him with the gun at his chin. The six bodyguards fanned slowly around us as we moved toward the door. Three in front, the other three in back. I watched the back three. We moved, a kind of traveling ambush, into the front hall and slowly up the vast winding stairway that went two stories to the top floor.
“They shoot Gone With the Wind here?” Hawk said as we went up a slow step at a time.
“Probably not,” I said. “Why? You still hot for Butterfly McQueen?”
“It was her, or Aunt Jemima,” Hawk said. “You given any thought to how we get Susan out of here, if she here?”
“One thing at a time,” I said. “First we see if she’s here.”
“Orderly,” Hawk said.
Except for us all was silence. The three bodyguards in front of us backed up the steps a stair at a time, one Uzi and two handguns. Behind us the other three kept the circle closed with the same firepower. I was getting sick of looking at .357 magnums.
On the third floor we began to move in our peculiar minuet from room to room, turning on the lights in each. Several of the rooms were clearly housing for the bodyguards. Others were apparently for show, full of elegant furniture, gleaming with lemon oil and tree wax and devoid of human sign. As we moved slowly from room to room sweat began to form on Costigan’s forehead. I understood it. There was sweat on mine, too. The strain of moving always with infinite care, always in a circle of threat, made the world beyond that circle seem insubstantial. The world within was intensely immediate.
Hawk was humming softly to himself, “Harlem Nocturne,” as we moved from door to door. “He appears to be enjoying this,” Costigan said, his speech constricted slightly by the pressure o Hawk’s gun.
“Paradigm of the black experience,” I said. The circle of guards moved in perfect concert to our movement. Hawk had Costigan’s collar and I held on to his belt in front, keeping my back to him, facing out toward the guards. The guy with the Uzi was a thin man with a long neck and a big Adam’s apple. The Adam’s apple kept bobbing up and down as he swallowed. He swallowed a lot. The guard next to him had a thick blond mustache; his blond hair was razor cut and blow-dried and sprayed so firmly into place that he looked like he was wearing a helmet. He looked like he was thinking of other things. Surfboards, maybe, or his new Neil Diamond album. The third guard was middle-aged and gray-haired and medium-sized. He didn’t look nervous or distracted or eager or anything. He looked like he might hum along with Hawk soon.
Of the three I could see, the blond beachboy was the weak link. The guy with the Uzi and the Adam’s apple was the most likely to shoot when he shouldn’t. Gray Hair was the one who’d be the hardest. The other three were Hawk’s problem. I couldn’t see them without looking away from my three, so I didn’t think about them.
There was no one in any room on the third floor. We moved slowly back down the stairs to the second floor and began the careful, agonizing, complicated business all over again. Nine of us, moving in limited space without ever
