The Throat

knees. Then he walked back to the end of the aisle and sat down in his old seat.

'Which one?'

'You,' he said, and laughed.

15

'What is Fee going to think when he comes back and finds the chain back in place?'

'Oh, that's going to be helpful.'

Tom turned around and placed his arm on the back of his seat. 'He'll think the reverend came here after someone reported an attempted break-in, checked the place out, and locked it up again. When he works that out, he'll be even more confident that he got here first. So he won't be paying as much attention—he'll be careless.'

We settled back down to wait.

16

I drifted into a strained half-sleep. My eyes were open, and I did not dream, but I began hearing voices speaking just above the level of audibility. Someone described seeing a blue-eyed baby cut in half beside a dead fire. A man said that it would catch up with me in a day or two. I could see everything, another said, I saw my dead friend and his team leader standing beneath a giant tree. They told me to go on, go on, go on.

Dark patterns unfolded and moved in the air before me, shifting as the voices rose and fell.

Someone spoke about a rattling chain. The rattle of the chain was important. Couldn't I hear that the chain was rattling?

The voices whisked backward into the psychic vault from which they had come, the darkness stood still, and I sat upright, hearing the chain clanking over the brackets on the alley doors. A great deal of time had passed, an hour at least, perhaps two, while I drifted along the border between sleep and wakefulness. My mouth felt dry and my eyes could not focus.

'Were you asleep?' Tom asked.

'Will you be quiet?' I said.

The tail of the chain struck one of the brackets as it passed through, making a tinny clink!

'Here we go,' Tom said.

We moved out of our seats and listened to the key sliding into the lock. The alley door opened and shut, and a man moved two steps past the alley door. Harsh light flew around the frame, and then shrank to a yellow glimmer visible only at a point about waist-high on the frame. It disappeared as the footsteps ticked away into silence.

Tom and I looked at each other.

'Should we wait for him to come back up?'

'Aren't you curious about what he's doing down there?'

I looked at him.

'I'd like to know what it is.'

'He'd hear us on the stairs.'

'Not if we use the office stairs—the wooden ones. They're so old they're soft. Remember, he's convinced no one else is here.' Tom stood up and began moving quickly and soundlessly up the aisle.

I almost ran into him at the door. He was sitting on the armrest of the last seat, bending over. 'What are you doing?'

'Taking off my shoes.'

I knelt to unlace my Reeboks.

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We moved out into the lobby and padded past the church equipment to the office door. I whispered something about his being able to hear us unlocking it.

'I can take care of that.' Tom took out the length of ribbed cloth and, after finding the key that fit the office door, pulled out a short length of soft black cloth, about an eighth of an inch wide. With it came a small, narrow metal rod that looked like a toothpick. 'You can only use these once, and sooner or later it fouls up the lock, but do we care?'

He knelt in front of the door, wet the tip of the cloth in his mouth, and patiently worked a small portion into the keyhole. He prodded it into place with the metal toothpick, then nudged the key in beside it. Most of the rest of the cloth moved into the slot along with the lock. When he turned the key, the last of the cloth disappeared. The lock made no sound at all.

Tom motioned for me to squat beside him. He leaned toward me to whisper. 'We're going to have to pick up the rack and set it down again. I'll go through the door first. Count to a hundred, and listen to what's going on down there. If nothing happens, come down. Don't worry about where I am.'

'You want me to sneak up on him?'

'Play it by ear.'

'What if he sees me?'

'Eventually, he has to see you,' Tom said. 'Don't tell him that you made the call, and don't let him see your gun. Give him some stuff about Elvee—say you couldn't stay away, say you were going to call him as soon as you found Fontaine's notes.'

'And what are you going to do?'

'Depends on what he does. Just remember what you know about him.'

What I knew about him?

Without giving me time to ask what he meant, Tom stood up and slid the door toward us and went inside. In utter darkness, we moved side by side toward the rack. My outstretched hands touched smooth fabric, and I felt my way up the robe to the top of the rack. Tom and I worked our way to opposite ends, and he whispered, 'Now,' so softly that the command nearly vaporized before it reached me. I lifted the pole on my side, and the entire heavy rack went two inches off the floor. The rack moved with me when I stepped sideways, and then continued to move. I took another sideways step. Tom and I gingerly lowered the rack, and its wheels noiselessly met the floor.

I heard his feet whisper around the rack and groped toward the wall and the basement door. Suddenly, what we were doing seemed as absurd as the attempt John Ransom and I had made to capture Paul Fontaine. It was impossible to go downstairs without making noise. I rubbed sweat off my forehead. A few cautious steps took me to the wall, and I reached out for Tom, imagining him easing open the plywood door. My hand touched nothing but empty air. I moved sideways, still reaching out. I took another step. My hand brushed the edge of the door, and I nearly banged it against the wall. I lowered myself back down into a squat, still trying to find Tom. He wasn't there. I leaned forward and poked my head over the top of the staircase. In the very faint illumination provided by a flashlight at the other end of the basement, a dark shape glided away from the bottom of the stairs and disappeared.

I pushed myself slowly upright, moving with exaggerated care to keep my knees from popping, and started counting to one hundred.

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