“What? What?”
“Listen to me, for Christ’s sake.”
“Calesian,” Buenadella said. He was feeling around with his free hand for Dulare’s position. “He’s shot. Don’t, don’t step on him, he’s down by—”
“Screw Calesian. Do you have an emergency generator in this house, or don’t you?”
“Generator?”
“Electric generator, goddammit.”
Quittner was over by the door somehow, had apparently opened it; the sound of firing was louder from that direction now. Quittner said, as softly as ever, “Something’s happening up front.”
Buenadella tried to concentrate on the question. “Generator. No, we never needed one.”
“We do now,” Dulare said. “Do you have a flashlight in here?”
“Uh—no. In the kitchen there’s one, in a drawer there.”
”Well, if we can’t see,” Dulare said, “neither can they.”
Quittner said, “There’s light up front.”
Dulare said, “There is? Come on, Dutch.”
“Calesian,” Buenadella said helplessly. “He’s on my foot.”
“Oh, for—” There were kicking sounds, sliding sounds, and the pressure left Buenadella’s foot. Dulare’s hand felt for him, grasped his upper arm. “Come on,” he said.
Buenadella went with him. In the hall there was a faint light, they could see the doorway leading to the dining room. Dulare said, “What the hell is that?”
Quittner said, “We’d better go see.”
The three men moved cautiously down the hall, and just as they got to the dining-room doorway a man came through from the other direction: Rigno, one of Dulare’s men. “Mr. Dulare,” he said. “Is that you?” He sounded tense, and a little out of breath.
“What’s going on up there?”
“They got cars,” Rigno said. “They spread them out on the lawn, facing the house, with their headlights on. We stick an arm out the window, they shoot it off.”
Dulare, his frown evident in his voice, said, “What the hell is that for?”
Quittner said, “Because they’re coming from the back.”
Dulare, sounding unconvinced, said, “You mean a diversion?”
“No,” Quittner said. “The only light source is in front. They’ll come in from the back. We’ll be between them and the light, so they’ll be able to see us, but we won’t be able to see them.”
“Son of a bitch,” Dulare said. “We’ve got to put out those fucking headlights.”
“Mr. Dulare,” Rigno said, out of breath and apologetic, “you couldn’t stick a mouse out one of them windows without it getting its head shot off.”
“Come on,” Dulare said. He and Quittner and Rigno hurried away together, toward the front of the house.
Buenadella had come this far only because Dulare had dragged him along. Now Dulare had been distracted by a more urgent problem, and Buenadella was left on his own. For half a minute or so he simply stood where he was, looking at the darkness, listening to the sounds around him: sporadic gunfire, men running, men calling to one another.
Gradually it came in on him what was happening here. This was his home, the home of a legitimate businessman. It was full of armed men, and shooting, and the bitter stink of death. Calesian’s blood was on his shirt and the side of his neck, caking there, itching, still smelling sick. His family had been driven from the house, he himself was being destroyed.
By two men. Parker and Green. Parker, and Green.
He looked up toward the ceiling, up where Green was. They should have killed him right away, yesterday afternoon. All of this business; he should be dead now.
Buenadella turned and shambled toward the stairs. There were silences around him, then little flurries of sound: shooting or voices. Then silence again. He ignored it all. made his way to the second floor, and moved down the corridor toward the guest room, where Green was lying. His big frame had always before this given an impression of controlled strength, but now his movements were loose and shuffling, as though his brain were no longer fully in contact with his body.
He reached the closed door of the guest room. This was a dark area of the house, far from front windows. He touched his palms to the door for a moment, feeling the coolness of it, then slowly turned the knob and pushed the door open.
All he could see was the rectangle of the window. He stepped in, then a figure moved in front of that lighter rectangle, and he stopped, suddenly bone-cold with fear.
A voice spoke at him from across the room: “Who is it?”
He wasn’t going to say anything, would pretend there was no one here; then he recognized the speaker. Dr. Beiny. Sagging with relief, leaning his shoulder against the doorpost, Buenadella said, “It’s me. Doctor.”
The doctor, his fright showing through an attempt at waspishness, said, “I shouldn’t be here. This isn’t fair, Mr. Buenadella, I’m not a party to this, I shouldn’t be here at all.”
