The hall light came on. She could hear a mutter of voices, indistinct, male, coming closer. She darted a glance behind her and realized the curtains were still closed. She leaped to one window, jerked the fabric apart, and then ran to the next, almost stumbling over the little chair in front of the desk.
No footsteps now because of the plush thickness of the carpet, just the sound of a voice complaining and another answering shortly. The bathroom was her only hope. She bounded in, shutting the door behind her. It had been shut when she came into the room, hadn’t it? She couldn’t remember. Light from the open window picked out a pedestal sink, a toilet, and a shower stall. She suddenly thought of the crowd around the bathroom downstairs. If she were Malcolm and had to pee, would she wait in line next to the dining room when she had a private john upstairs? Her throat closed and for a second she heard a roaring in her ears.
She could hear the voices, louder now, and then there was a gleam of light beneath the edge of the bathroom door. Her choice was made for her. Slipping out of her heels and clutching them in one hand, she edged her way behind the shower curtain and into the cubicle, gritting her teeth at the quiet rustle and clank of the hooks on the curtain rod.
“I don’t understand how you can be so calm,” a male voice said, muffled slightly by the bathroom door.
“Chill out,” Malcolm said, and suddenly Dave Matthews was singing “Forty-One,” intense and seductive, pure high notes and a wicked bass coming from that suitcase-size CD player. How can his books be so lousy and his music so good? she wondered inanely, and then she heard Malcolm say, “I have to take a leak. Hang on.”
She willed herself into immobility as the door swung open and the bathroom light clicked on. She couldn’t help it—she squeezed her eyes tightly shut, like a child, as if not seeing would make her invisible, too. Her heart was tripping so fast, it was difficult to keep her breathing slow and steady. She fought the urge to hold her breath, knowing that if she did so, she would eventually make even more noise letting it out.
The toilet seat clunked up and Malcolm went about his business, peeing for what seemed like a half hour—did he have the bladder of a racehorse?—before zipping up, a noise like a small guillotine, and flushing. The water racketing down the porcelain bowl gave her enough cover to take a deep, lung-popping breath of air. Then the water was running in the small sink, and she opened her eyes, looking in horror at the half-dissolved bar of soap on the chrome caddy hanging over the showerhead.
She wanted to sag against the back of the shower and slide bonelessly to the floor. She realized she had been clutching her shoes so tightly, her hands ached. She took a deep, slow breath in an effort to settle her heart and unstring her muscles. All she had to do was remain still, quiet, and hidden, and eventually Malcolm and the other man would leave to rejoin the party.
Unless this is his new boyfriend and they’ve come up here to have sex. She tried out the idea. There was simply no way she was going to huddle unseen, like a rabbit, and eavesdrop on that. If it sounded like they were getting intimate, she would have to reveal herself and say—what? That she had come upstairs to use the bathroom? And had happened to walk all the way down the hall to the room farthest from the stairs to find one? Even if she had the excuse of being completely potted, that sounded lame.
The noise of the men’s voices brought her attention back to the room beyond the bathroom. She wasn’t hearing murmured sweet nothings. In fact, from the sound of it, she didn’t have to worry about any tryst, unless they were a couple who used arguing as a substitute for foreplay.
“All I’m saying is, I didn’t sign up for anything like this.” She could hear the second man more clearly now that the bathroom door was slightly open. He sounded vaguely familiar, although she couldn’t place a name or face to the voice. Maybe another party guest?
“Anything like what?” Malcolm spoke like someone who was very annoyed and trying not to show it.
“For God’s sake! The man is dead!”
Clare dropped any speculation about lying her way out of the bathroom. The man’s last statement stabbed through her, fixing all her attention to their words.
“So he’s dead. So what? He went cruising in a park in a town where two queers had already been beaten up. He got what he was asking for.”
The other man’s voice was barely a whisper. “You don’t—he wasn’t—that can’t be all there is to it!”
“Do you have any evidence otherwise?”
“No, of course not. I don’t want any evidence otherwise. I just want your assurances that I’m not going to get picked up by the police and questioned about anything.”
In the pause between the CD’s tracks, there was a faint creaking sound, as if one of them had sat on the bed. “Well, if you are questioned, you won’t have anything to tell them, will you?”
“How can you say that? I’m up to my ass in alligators on this thing! I feel like I’m being set up as the fall guy precisely because I don’t know—Jesus Christ! What the hell is that?” The man’s voice had shot up the scale.
“What’s the matter? You’ve never seen one of these? It’s a Lugar Five-fifty. Wicked, huh?” Over the sound of the music, she heard the click of the chamber being drawn back, but she couldn’t tell if a round had gone in.
“I’m not looking for trouble,” the other man said. His voice was thready and light.
“Hey, I know you’re not. You’re a team player. What? You think I brought this out to threaten you? No way, man. I wanted to show you what else is in here.”
Clare oh so slowly and oh so carefully laid her sandals on the shower floor. She could be out of the shower, throw open the door, and tackle Malcolm in under three seconds, she estimated. She would have to hope Malcolm was a talker, and that he would play with the other man a little before actually shooting him. That would give her time to make her move. Like a pilot reading instrument gauges, she noted that her heart rate had actually slowed
