pulled one of the big glossy prints out of the envelope and took it in to Mary. It would be interesting to see if she could recognize a mad-dog killer just by his face and eyes.
She was slumped against the table, playing idly with her earring. She looked tired. I slid the photo in front of her. She glanced at it and looked up. -
'Where'd you get that?'
'Joe left it here. What do you think of it?'
'It's a good photo. It's him all right. Joe works pretty fast.'
'What are you talking about? What do you mean, it's him?'
'The guy who came to fix our furnace. I remember he had a bandaged hand, too.'
'Oh,' I said, putting the photo away. Danny, our yellow Lab, raced into the room, his toenails clicking on the linoleum, and jumped up to the window, paws on the sill. He sniffed and began a low growl, the fur on his back rising in a dark patch.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
I never left the house the next morning. He came in through the front door wearing a green jumpsuit. Mary thought he was the UPS man.
'Charlie…?' I heard her call to me in a high, thin voice that wavered. I came around the hallway to see her standing straight up, as if stretching back, with a green arm around her neck and a small black gun pointing at the side of her head. But I wasn't looking at the gun; I was staring at the four-inch blade that extended down from the right fist of the green sleeve. The tip of the blade was pressed into the material of Mary's nightgown right over her left breast. The fist twitched. The knifepoint dipped into the soft fabric.
Mary gave a yelp and a high, whining shudder.
My knees began to shake and my mouth and throat felt numb and full of electric currents. My hair was moving.
And from around in back of Mary's head of long black hair crept a face.
I was expecting the black Gila-monster eyes, the black hair and wide face. But the face that glared at me with animal hate was not that one. And I was still rational enough to realize why: Mary would have recognized it. A blondish baby's face sat round and pink under the driver's cap.
'Listen real good,' it said quietly. 'We see three dogs out back. Two big ones and a little one. Any more in here?'
'No.'
We. He'd said we…
'Now: anybody else in the house? Any kids, old folks? Anybody?'
'No. We're alone.'
'Now you don't wanta lie.'
'We're alone I said.'
'Okay. Now where's the switch for those lights at the front door? Walk over to it but don't touch it.'
I did, and he walked Mary along until he was directly opposite me. She was looking at me and at the ceiling. Her eyes weren't focused, and her breath was coming in little whiny pants, like a dog crying.
'Charlie? Ohhh…'
He silenced her by a short, hard rap on the head with the barrel of the pistol. It must have hurt terribly. She clenched her teeth and squeezed her eyes shut. Tears rolled down her face. I wanted to kill the man. But I knew better than to move a muscle.
'Now you flip it on while I count three, then you turn it off, hear?'
I nodded, and flashed the light on for three seconds. Almost immediately afterward I heard a distant car door slam. Then footsteps on the gravel walk, and two men dressed in street clothes came in. The door had been left open, and they were inside in a hurry, shutting the door behind them.
'Good morning everyone!' said the man with the wide hat. His right hand held an automatic. I couldn't see his face. Then his left hand went up and grabbed the hat brim. The hand was bandaged. The hat came off and we could all see him now.
It was Carmen DeLucca. He stared at me, smiling. Then suddenly the smile dropped. The lizard eyes bored into mine.
'Hear you been looking for me, Doctor Adams. Well, I saved you the trouble. You both do exactly as we tell you or you'll die.'
He walked farther into the hall, and motioned the third man to bring the large carton that had been the ruse for Mary to unfasten the chain bolt. He turned and looked at both of us again.
'Matter of fact, you might just die anyway.'
CHAPTER TWENTY
It was now almost nine; an hour and a half had passed since the three hoods had forced their way into the house. It felt like a century and a half. Mary had become hysterical and Babyface had led her into the downstairs john, seated her on the toilet, and handcuffed her left wrist to the radiator pipe in there. The door was left open a few inches so we could all hear her. They had me in the living room, my right wrist handcuffed to the arm of a heavy desk chair.
In the hour and a half I had phoned Susan Petri and announced that I was not coming in to the office. There was a two-second hesitation on the other end of the line- a pause that I'm sure was noticed by DeLucca, who listened in on the kitchen phone extension. But finally she had said fine and the conversation closed. Had she guessed that something was amiss? I did not think so. Damn.
Through it all I sleepwalked as if in a dream, the trembling and electric buzzing clouding my senses and thinking. What was I happening was happening to someone else, not Charles and Mary Adams.
The men had helped themselves to coffee and eggs. They rifled through the place- for a second time- and took clothes that fit them. Babyface slid outside fast to make sure our dogs were locked in their runs. The men put their tan Chevy in my garage and locked the doors, but only after they backed out our cars and switched their plates. The plates they took out of the big carton that Babyface had carried with him up to our door an hour and a half earlier. They took out the handcuffs first, then the license plates. They were New Jersey issue, and I knew they were what hoodlums call cold plates. Joe had told me cold plates were stolen but not used for several months so that their descriptions would not appear on police hot sheets.
They were going to take our cars someplace. They were on the run.
What about us? If pursuit was immediate, they would take us as hostages. If not, they would leave us tied up in our house and take off, buying themselves probably ten or twelve hours' time. Enough time to get to another big city and take a plane far, far away. Or they could decide not to leave us tied up.
They could instead decide to kill us.
And knowing Carmen DeLucca, who had killed so often he had nothing to lose, I knew this last possibility was real. And I didn't like it. Mary, seated in the semidark john and looking up through the red-print curtains, knew it too, and did not like it either. That's why she was crying and hysterical.
It was not knowing what course they would take, and the complete powerlessness over it, that was so frightening. It was not only scary, it was exhausting. I was scared to death and weak and tired, all at once.
And then DeLucca came into the room where I was handcuffed and asked me what I had done wish the strip of photo negatives.
At quarter to ten I came to and looked down at the wires taped to my left forearm. DeLucca was good with wires and juice; he could set off gas bombs with them and make people unconscious from pain. I smelled singed hair and skin. Mine. And all because I couldn't answer his question.
Then DeLucca and his gang said they were going to work on Mary until they got an answer. I could hear her
