Firebreak

some woman, would he? Oh, no, not Paul.

Pam was the last woman Matt had ever had. He realized that all at once, with some surprise, then some regret, regret yet again, in another and equally biting way; all those women he hadn't been able to get his hands on.

Too bad the last one couldn't have been a better article.

Restless, he wheeled around and around his tiny cage, these few rooms, like a lab rat in an experiment, captured and hobbled and placed here in a 'natural' environment. Paul had given him canned soup and salted crackers for dinner, and a bottle of beer that had made him giddy for just a few minutes—he couldn't handle booze any more, not at all the way he used to— and then silently Paul had cleaned up the dishes and gone back upstairs, leaving Matt here to wheel himself back and forth, back and forth.

Look out the front windows at the nighttime street, people walking by, to and from their own dinners, cabs going by, sometimes a horn sounding, every once in a while a siren farther off. Look out the back windows at darkness below, lit windows all around covered by shades or drapes or blinds.

Would he come from down there, from that lake of darkness behind the house? Climb up the brick wall like Spiderman, smash through this window, this window right here. Matt spun the wheelchair wheels, spinning away, rolling forward again, out of the bedroom, around the dining table, forward to the front windows, where every lone pedestrian could be Parker.

He'd come late at night, wouldn't he? Matt had wanted to sleep during the day, but his mind was raging too much, furious and afraid, and the parts of his body he could feel ached with tension, across the shoulders and the back of the neck.

Ten-thirty at night. When would he come, three, four in the morning? If only Matt could sleep now, to be ready then.

Paul kept moving around upstairs, small mouse-like rustlings. I need him, Matt thought, and the thought grated on him, it was like acid. But it was true. He couldn't get through this on his own.

So at last he wheeled himself to the stairwell, waited there a minute, red-eyed, glaring at the steps he couldn't climb, before crying, 'Paul!' But it came out hoarse, not loud enough, a rusty croaking sound. He didn't speak enough, had nobody to talk to, nothing to say. He inhaled, burning his throat, and tried again: 'Paul!'

This time Paul heard, up there, and Matt followed the sound of his hurried footsteps, then saw Paul at the top of the stairs, gawking downward, his own fear naked on his face. 'What is it? Did you hear something?'

'No, I didn't hear anything, I didn't see anything, I don't know anything.' He gripped the wheelchair arms, knowing he had to be less hostile, he needed Paul now. 'Come down,' he said, and paused, and shook his head, and said, 'Paul, please come down. We got to talk, we got to work this out.'

Paul hesitated. 'Do you need your bag changed?'

Hell! That was the most disgusting part of it, the worst part of it, the most degrading part of his helplessness. 'No!' Then he made fists, and punched his dead thighs, and squeezed his eyes shut. 'I want to talk,' he said, as calmly as he could, inside the blackness with his eyes shut. 'I just want to talk, figure this out. Figure out what to do.'

'Oh, sure, Matt, good idea.'

Paul came trotting down the stairs, and when Matt opened his eyes he saw that Paul's face was happy now, behind the worry and fear. He'd always used Paul's love, always taken advantage of it, but he'd always hated it, too, recoiled from it the way he now recoiled from his own body. But he still needed Paul. He needed him all the time, for everything in his life, but never more than right now.

He spun away from that open face, not wanting to have to see it, and wheeled into the dining area again, and then forward. He could look out the front windows, that would be all right. Fewer pedestrians now, less traffic.

Paul followed him, but not all the way. He stood back by the dining table, watching him. Matt sensed him back there and blinked out the window, then turned the wheelchair to face Paul. Being very calm, he said, 'I figure, he'll come in late, three or four in the morning, probably tonight.'

Paul put both hands next to each other on top of a dining table chair, kneaded the wood as though it were dough. 'You don't think we can keep him out?'

'He'll get in,' Matt insisted. 'I think we have to take turns staying awake, one of us on guard. And I think we have to stay together, not separated.'

'I suppose you're right.' Paul looked around. 'I could bring a mattress down,' he decided, 'just for ... just for now. Put it right here on the floor.'

'When I'm on guard, and you're asleep,' Matt said, still being calm, still being reasonable, 'you'll have to give me the gun.'

Paul blinked at him, but instead of arguing he said, 'Matt, I don't have a gun.'

'Oh, don't do that, Paul!' Matt punched the chair arm. 'You can trust me, you don't have to be so goddamn afraid of me all the time!'

Paul shook his head. 'I do have to be afraid of you,' he said. 'You're too angry. I never know what you might do.'

'Do!' Matt spread his arms, to display himself. 'What the fuck can I do?'

'You can take it out on me,' Paul said, and something crashed downstairs.

They both stared. It had been a booming noise, echoing in the stairwell. Something hard had hit the front door.

'It's him!' Paul whispered, turning to stare at the hall, and the something hard smashed into the door again.

Matt knew what that was. It was a ram, the kind of ram the police use to break down a door, a yard-long