“Yeah. So, who are our guests?”
“Well, they surely aren’t the police.”
“Do tell.”
“There’s two of them, both in their thirties, both pretty dirty-looking.”
“They come here to rob the place?”
“No, I think they just want a place to stay.”
I swore; Jim winced.
I said, “What are they doing?”
“Just sitting, talking quietly.”
“What about?”
“The house, the neighborhood, how likely they are to be disturbed.”
“So they know no one lives here?”
“Apparently. One of them said that his little brother had just spent the night here.” Jim’s expression was wry.
I smirked. “I told you we should have-”
“No doubt,” said Jim.
I shrugged. “What do they have with them?”
“They each have a suitcase.”
“Big?”
“Small.”
“Should we try to stay out of their way, or drive them from us?”
“Why ask me?” said Jim. “I’m not risking anything, and, as far as I’m concerned, the more the better. I like the company.”
I scowled at him, then slipped down from the attic, careful not to make any noise. I made my way to the top of the stairs and looked and listened. There was very little light, and what there was glowed an unusual white. I smelled the harsh, familiar odor of a camp lantern, and, after listening carefully, heard the characteristic hiss it gave out. Our visitors weren’t saying much just at this time, but I heard the dull, hollow clank metal gives off when it strikes glass, and the sounds of tools being manipulated. This aroused my curiosity, so I ventured down the stairs a little, and very carefully poked my head out.
There wasn’t much light at all; I could see two men, both rather large. One was bearded, and the other one had a face that reminded me of the French countryside after the Great War. Both were very pale in the white glow of the lantern. They were sitting on the floor, working with something I couldn’t make out. The suitcases were open, however, and I could see the contents, which answered all mysteries.
I had to clench my teeth and cover my mouth to keep from laughing; it took me a minute or two to get it under control. Then I considered whether to consult Jim or to simply resolve the situation. I decided that Jim had left it up to me, so I vaulted over the railing from the landing to the floor, letting my shoes slap the ground. I think the effect was augmented by the black clothing I happened to be wearing, so they probably couldn’t see me very well.
One of them out-and-out screamed, the other gave an inarticulate cry, dropped what he was working on, and reached into the pocket of his jacket. I waited until he had the gun out so he’d feel better, and a few seconds later the other one was also holding a weapon of some sort, both weapons being pointed generally in my direction.
“Good evening,” I said pleasantly. “May I help you gentlemen with something?”
The one with the beard said, “Who the f-are you?”
“I live here,” I said. “And you?”
They looked at each other, and the bearded one stood. I could see that he was holding some sort of very large pistol; perhaps a machine pistol, although I had never seen one up close.
“You don’t live here,” said the beard, flatly. I waited for the other one to say “That’s right, if Lefty says you don’t live here, then you don’t,” but he didn’t say anything. I think he hadn’t gotten over his fright.
I said, “I beg to differ. And I’m afraid I must ask you to leave. You may take your possessions with you.”
I had the impression that they were both terrified, and terrified people are unpredictable. I have found that, ironically, fear often drives people into making the worst possible decision.
“F-,” said the beard, and made the worst possible decision. Yes, it was indeed a machine pistol, and I was not at all happy with what it did to the woodwork. Pock-face fired too, a second later, and, though he didn’t have an automatic weapon, it was a very large bullet, and made a real mess of the wainscoting.
When they had stopped their noise-making, they just stared at me. After a moment, Pock-face said, very softly, “Jesus Christ.”
Jim came down a moment later, and when he saw what had been done to the woodwork, I swear he almost cried. I said, “Do you think someone may have heard the shooting?”
“Huh?” he said. “Maybe.”
“Then I should clean up-” which was as far as I got before I saw flashing lights through one of the uncovered and unbroken windows on the main floor. I took the pistol because it came to mind that I might need one, dashed upstairs once more, and hid the pistol in the attic. I was trying to figure out what to do when I heard the door open, and a voice called out, “Police!” This was repeated several times.
Jim was next to me. “They have a dog,” he said.
“I know; I smell it.”
“What are you going to do?”
“What worries me,” I said, “is that, if they think there’s someone here, they’ll keep looking until they find someone.”
“But then-”
“On the other hand,” I said, “they do have a dog.”
I made my way silently to another bedroom, one with an unbroken window. I opened it, and the cold air rushed in. They were being very cautious downstairs; they had found the bodies, and must assume someone else was in the house; they had probably seen two sets of footprints entering through the snow, and none leaving.
I saw the beam of a flashlight from outside just in time to duck back from the window. The easy part was getting out the window, down to an imperfectly sealed and very small basement window, into the basement, and into my hideyhole, all without being seen. The hard part was convincing the dog that I had gone directly up the stairs, into the bedroom, and out the window. From there, I could have gone onto the roof and down a tree, landing on the dry pavement of the alley behind the house.
It must have worked, because they didn’t make an exhaustive search of the house, although I could hear them for hours, going over every inch of the living room. They must have been efficient, however, because by the next evening they were gone, taking the bodies and other evidence with them. The doors have been sealed with yellow tape that reads, “Crime Site, Sealed by Order of the Police Department,” and a placard citing the ordinance that gives them permission to do this, and threatens imprisonment of up to five years, fines of up to one hundred thousand dollars, or both to anyone breaking the seal or disturbing the scene. I am not terribly worried.
When I looked at the mess on the main floor, the first thing I noticed was that they had removed large sections of the woodwork, apparently taking every piece in which a bullet was embedded, which annoyed me and made poor Jim miserable. I don’t think he was happy about the stains on the polished maple floor, either, but what choice did I have?
After commiserating with him for a few minutes, I came up to the typewriting room, found the typewriting machine undisturbed and the papers still in the attic, and set to work recording what had happened, which brings me, Constant Reader, up to the very minute.
I have been sitting here thinking and remembering my thoughts as I lay waiting for the police to either find me or not. I don’t know if these thoughts are sufficiently organized to set down, but let me try.
It seems that attitudes toward criminals have changed substantially since I was a child. It may be that I am wrong, because I was largely sheltered from contact with those sorts of people until I met Laura, but it seems that, when I was young, one was a criminal, or one was an honest citizen, and the demarcation was well drawn. Today, most people break laws and don’t think much of it, perhaps because of the odd things that have come to be illegal. But the result is that the line between lawabiding citizen and hardened criminal is much softer than it was.
It seems clear to me that our visitors of last night were criminals in every sense of the word, but one of them
