pulled free.
Roy-Boy looked across the street at the apartment building. 'Top floor, second unit,' he said. It was one of the apartments that had stayed dark. 'Two bedrooms. Its collegiate occupants have gone home to Daddy for Jesus' birthday and left all their shit behind.'
'Jewelry first,' Blackburn said. 'Then I'll help you carry one big thing, and that's all. Once I'm out, I'm not going back in. And my car's not for hire to haul freight. You have a vehicle?'
'Yeah. That black Toyota in the lot. Yesterday its former owner rode away in a car with snow skis on top. So it's mine now.'
Blackburn couldn't object. He had stolen cars himself, and didn't think he was in any position to cast a stone.
Blackburn and Roy-Boy crossed the street and climbed the stairs that zigzagged up the face of the building. It was almost midnight, but TVs and stereos were turned up loud in some of the lighted apartments. Blackburn was glad. Two burglars would make more noise than one, but the ambient sound might cover it. And every apartment's drapes were closed, so none of the residents would see them.
They reached the top balcony and apartment 302. 'You're the front-door specialist,' Roy-Boy whispered.
Blackburn tried the knob. The door had a half inch of play. As at his last burglary, the deadbolt hadn't been set. People who didn't set their deadbolts were asking to be robbed. He reached into his back pocket and pulled out the metal ruler. In a few seconds the door popped open, and Blackburn and Roy-Boy went inside.
Blackburn took the penlight from his shirt pocket and turned it on. The pale circle of light revealed that the apartment was well furnished. A thick carpet muffled the men's footsteps.
'Ooh, lookee here,' Roy-Boy said. 'A Sony Trinitron. Tell you what-I have great night vision, so I don't need the light. I'll unhook the TV cable and look around in here, and you see what you can find in the other rooms.'
Blackburn couldn't think of a reason against the plan, so he went into the blue- tiled kitchen and took a black plastic trash bag from a roll under the sink. Then he stepped into the hall. Here the penlight revealed four doors, two on each side. The first door on the right was open, and he saw more blue tile. The bathroom. He opened the door across from it and found a linen closet stacked with towels. It smelled like a department store, so he leaned inside and breathed deep. It wasn't a smell he was crazy about, but it cleared his head of Roy-Boy's deodorant-soap stink.
He continued down the hall and opened the next door on the right. This was a small bedroom, as clean as a church. There was a brass cross on the wall and stuffed animals on the dresser. The window was open, and Blackburn's neck tingled from the cold. White curtains puffed out over the narrow bed. The bed had a white coverlet with a design of pink and blue flowers.
A jewelry box on the dresser contained only a small silver cross on a chain. It was worth maybe thirty dollars at a pawn shop, but Blackburn left it. He himself had given up on Jesus while still a child, having seen more evidence of sin than of salvation, but he didn't want to mess with someone else's devotion. He found nothing else of value in the room, so he started back into the hall. Then he paused in the doorway.
The window was open. Even the screen was open. But no one was home.
He looked at the closed door across the hall and turned off his penlight. Then he stepped across, dropping the trash bag, and turned the doorknob. He moved to one side as the door swung inward, and caught a whiff of rust and vanilla. He stood against the wall and listened for a few seconds, but heard only Roy-Boy rummaging in the living room and the dull thumping of a stereo in another apartment.
Then he looked around the doorjamb. Except for the gray square of a curtained window, the room was black. He turned the penlight back on and saw the soles of two bare feet suspended between wooden bars. The toes pointed down. He shifted the penlight and saw that the wooden bars were at the foot of a bed.
A nude woman lay on the bed face-down, spread-eagled, her wrists and ankles tied to the bedposts with electrical cords. She was bleeding from cuts on her back, buttocks, and thighs. Strands of her brunette hair were stuck to her neck and shoulders. Her legs moved a little, pulling at their cords with no strength.
Blackburn sucked in a breath, then entered the room and closed the door. He dropped his penlight, found the wall switch, and turned on the ceiling light. He began to tremble. What he had smelled was blood and semen, and sugared pastry. There was a white cardboard box on the floor, and half-eaten donuts on the floor and the bed.
He stepped closer and saw a long shard of glass on the bed between the woman's knees. One end of the shard was wrapped in white cloth tape. The glass and the tape were smeared with blood.
On the woman's back, in thin red lines, were the words HI MUSICIAN.
Blackburn went to the head of the bed on the left side and knelt on the floor. The woman's wrists were tied so that her arms angled upward. Her face was in her pillow. Even this close, he couldn't hear her breathing. But he saw her back moving. There were teeth marks on her shoulders.
He lifted her head and turned her face toward him. The face was Heather's. Her eyes opened, and they widened as she recognized him. Her mouth was covered with duct tape. He pulled the tape away and then saw that a donut had been stuffed into her mouth. She tried to cough it out, but couldn't.
Blackburn lowered her head to the pillow and dug out the donut with his fingers. The smell was thick and sweet. His trembling became violent. He tried to untie the cord around Heather's left wrist, but his fingers were clumsy and numb. He was worthless, useless, a sissy, a pussy. Little Jimmy, dropping his pants and grabbing the rim of the wheel well. He could hear the fiberglass rod cutting the air. Its hiss became a scream, and it bit into his flesh. His skin caught fire.
Then his hands spasmed, and his fingers sank in. It wasn't the rim of a wheel well. It was the edge of a mattress.
He wasn't little Jimmy anymore. He had learned better. He had no father, no mother, no sister, no friends. His only trust was in himself. He could see not only what was, but what should be. He was Blackburn.
And Blackburn always knew what to do, and how to do it.
He tried the cord again. Heather's left wrist came free, and her arm fell to the bed. Her fingernails scratched his face on the way down. The pain was sharp and pure. His trembling stopped.
'Nasty,' a voice said. 'But maybe she didn't mean it.'
Blackburn looked up. The bedroom door was open, and Roy-Boy was standing in the doorway. He was holding a small silver pistol. He gave his chuckle, his piglike grunt.
'Look what somebody left behind the TV,' he said. 'A twenty-five-caliber semiautomatic. Who woulda thought?'
Blackburn stood. 'This is what comes of committing a sin of omission,' he said.
Roy-Boy's expression became quizzical. 'Omission of what?'
'Your death,' Blackburn said. 'I could see its place in the pattern of my world, but I left it out because I didn't understand why it needed to be there. Now I see that the reason was obvious. Maybe even to you. Do you know why I should have killed you?'
'Beats me,' Roy-Boy said. 'But now you can make up for it with a surrogate. I was grooming her for myself, but when I saw you watching the place, I decided to save her for you. See, you need to become aware of the superiority of
Blackburn took a step toward him. 'So command me.'
