when she saw me she stood and stared, with one hand on the open edge of the door.
“May I come in?” I said.
She blinked a couple of times, as if the question was too hard for her.
Then she said, “No, no, I don’t think so. We’re busy now.”
“How about I wait?” I said.
She shook her head.
“No,” she said. “We’ll be busy all day.”
I nodded. Her face was stiff. But as I looked at her, she glanced down at the door lock where her hand rested, and as I looked down with her, she pushed in the little button that kept the door from locking automatically when it was closed.
“Perhaps I could come back tomorrow,” I said.
“Suit yourself,” Winifred said, and closed the door.
I pressed my ear against it and heard her steps receding up the stairs. I stayed where I was for a moment and then gently tried the thumb latch on the door. It was open. I went in very quietly and eased the door shut behind me. I was in a small hallway that led to a sitting room with a big window that looked out on the harbor. The room was furnished as an office. To the left, a stairway led up to what I assumed were the living quarters.
Vertical architecture.
I had a Smith & Wesson .40-caliber on my hip, and a short-barreled .38 in an ankle holster. But if there was shooting in the kind of space I seemed to be in, then Winifred and Missy were at risk. Me, too, but I had signed on for it. I was wearing jeans and sneakers, a black T-shirt, and a leather jacket. The T-shirt had a little pocket on the chest. I took off the leather jacket and put it on the floor. I took the S&W off my hip and cocked it, and held it a little behind my right thigh and started quietly up the steps.
And there he was. Sitting in an armchair, drinking a glass of orange juice. His daughter sat in a straight chair near him. And his ex-wife sat on the couch with her hands clasped tightly and resting on her knees.
“Ariel Herzberg,” I said. “As I live and breathe.”
His reaction time was excellent. He dropped the orange juice, came to his feet in one graceful movement, stepped behind Missy’s chair, and produced a semiautomatic pistol.
Missy said, “Daddy?”
He made a push-away gesture at her.
I said, “Why don’t you go over beside your mother, Missy.”
“No,” Ariel said. “Stay put.”
Missy looked at her mother. Her mother put her hand up, palm out, in a stay-put gesture.
“You know why he wants you to stay?” I said.
“So I won’t be caught in a crossfire,” she said.
She was trying for defiance, but her voice was a little shaky.
“Pretty to think so,” I said. “But he knows I will hesitate to shoot if you are there.”
She looked at Ariel.
“Stay where you are,” he said, without looking at her.
“For God’s sake, Ariel,” Winifred said. “She’s your daughter. You can’t use her as a shield. Even you.”
“I do what needs to be done,” he said. “I have always done what needed to be done.”
Winifred stood.
“Where are you going?” Ariel said.
“If I can’t protect my daughter, at least I can protect myself,” she said, and walked across the living room and up the stairs.
“Remember,” Ariel said, “I have the girl.”
Winifred made no answer as she disappeared up the stairs.
“You have the girl?” Missy said.
“Shut up,” Ariel said to her.
He was looking a little beleaguered, and as best I could see, he hadn’t cocked the pistol.
“I’ve tried to kill you at least twice,” he said. “You are both skillful and lucky, and you have by and large destroyed my operation here.”
“No need to thank me,” I said.
Ariel shook his head slightly, as if there was something in his ear.
“But now I have you,” he said.
“Somebody has somebody,” I said. “And you haven’t cocked your weapon.”
Ariel smiled and thumbed back the hammer.
