Maybe she'd just forget it.
Temple edged a few steps back down the hall.
And if something were really wrong? She hated being indecisive worse than she hated being nosy.
While she stood there, ambivalent, she realized that she hadn't tried the obvious. The door itself.
Refusing to let any objections enter her head, she marched back to the door, grabbed the big brass knob, turned it and . . . walked into the unlocked apartment.
Dumb move. Fatally dumb move. If it wasn't locked . . .
No light was on, but a faint streetlamp glow shone through the glass panes of the naked French doors. The lurid, orange-pink aura reflected like spilled mercurochrome from the few things present in the room, outlining the figure standing directly in front of her.
A man's silhouette stood statue still a few feet farther into the room, as if he had walked in, stopped and frozen into a monochromatic image of himself.
Scared to death, Temple reached for the hall light switch--at the exact location as in her place. She pressed it, hoping that it would work.
It functioned so well that she blinked at the sudden brightness, which half blinded her just when she might need to turn and run.
Her eyes adjusted to an impression of Chaos Central. Matt Devine was standing in front of her, only his back visible, surveying the shattered ruins of his orange-crate bookshelves. His books had been scattered to the living room's oddly angled corners as if hurled by a demon censor.
"Matt. Why aren't you at work?"
He turned at her voice, but looked right through her . . . and she wasn't the one acting like a mute ghost of herself.
He shook his head, his eyes squinting in the brightness as he turned again to survey the damage. "Let go," he finally said, without glancing back to Temple. ''Not fired." At least he had anticipated her surprise. 'They didn't need me tonight."
"So you came home early to find . . . this?"
He just shook his head. Temple edged farther into the room. He was okay, she was okay.
Whatever had happened made a... mess, but she was an expert at cleaning up other people's messes.
"Doesn't look like any substantial damage to the apartment itself." Little Miss Optimist. "No windows or doors seem broken. And you didn't have a lot of fancy Memphis modern for anyone to trash."
She checked his face as she came alongside, but her smart remark hadn't thawed the frozen expression that deadened his eyes. Shock. Temple considered what it would be like to return home to find her place ruined, and winced. Violation. That was the only way to describe the sensation, no matter the motive.
"If they were looking for anything to steal, they were out of luck here," she said. "Maybe that's why they got mad and turned to vandalism. Have you checked the bedroom yet?*'
Matt shook his head again, his face still expressionless.
She clattered across the bare wood floors, then paused on the threshold to what was her bedroom a floor below. "This it?"
He nodded as she reached for the light switch. Dumb again, Temple lectured herself. What if an intruder had retreated at their entrance, but not left? Who would help her? At the moment, Matt looked about as useful as the statue of David at Caesars Palace.
Her finger had already flicked the switch upward. The room's central ceiling fixture spread wan light on a landscape as bare as the living room, but in apple-pie order.
Nodding satisfaction. Temple turned off the light and clicked back into the outer room, feeling like an interior decorator on a mercy mission.
"Okay in there. Where's Caviar?"
''She, ah, hasn't been around. Much. Lately."
He was still talking in jerky phrases, like someone whose brain was only partly plugged in. He frowned, struggling to recall a trying detail.
''She was here, though. But I think she must have . . . left. Again."
Temple decided to focus on the future.
"Look, Matt, this could be a blessing in disguise. We can get you some new stuff. I know a great unpainted furniture place and about six dozen thrift shops filled with kicky little furniture items at a low price--vintage Fifties Yuck, you name it. We'll redecorate."
He finally moved. Bent to pick a book from the floor, un-bend its pages, shut it.
"I'm sorry," Temple said, sinking under a sudden helpless feeling. Sometimes a stiff upper lip was not enough; sometimes it was an insult.
He sat on the arm of his overturned sofa. The cushions lay on the floor like giant playing cards,
"Who would have done this?" Temple's ever-ready indignation was rising again, this time in a serious cause. "Kids looking for electronic equipment to sell for drugs? Frustrated punks can be destructive, just for the hell of it. And how did they get in? Did you check the French door locks? We are three stories high here."
His troubled expression was a barrier, putting him beyond her reach. Temple began to panic like a swimmer suddenly out of her depth. Maybe she should call his hotline compadres; maybe he needed some emergency counseling.
She sighed, not knowing what to say for once. Then she bent to gather the splayed books, shutting splintered spines, smoothing crumpled pages. Unfamiliar names and titles slid under her fingertips. C.S. Lewis. G.K. Chesterton . The Seven Story Mountain, Ah. The Little Prince in the original French. Some philosophy books by a man named Rollo May. Novels by Romaine Roland, Iris Murdoch and Susan Howatch.
Matt sat on his pie-wacky sofa and stared at the floor, at her-moving among the ruins of the room.
Temple stacked some books knee-high. Without anywhere to put them, it seemed pointless.
''You have so little, why would anyone--? Unless. ..." Matt was barely watching her. She turned to him suddenly, as they say in the old plays, galvanized.
''Unless . . . Matt! My apartment is just below this one."
He looked up with lusterless brown eyes.
"Don't you see? This could have been a mistake. Someone might have been looking for my place. For me. Maybe those men who assaulted me are back. Of course. That makes sense. No one's been after you, no one would be. It's me. They're still looking for Max. Maybe they got mad when they thought I wasn't home. Maybe they just wanted to warn me. Oh, God, I was sitting downstairs with Louie, just watching 'Mystery'--!"
She cupped a hand over her mouth to stop it from saying any more scary things.
Matt straightened, responding to something she had said for the first time. He shook his head yet again. "No."
His voice was hoarse, as if someone had tried to strangle him. For a wild moment, she wondered if he had interrupted the intruders, and had been hurt.
She watched him intently, alarmed. "Matt. Are you all right?"
''No." His voice was stronger now, and even hoarser.
Temple blinked.'' 'No,' that whoever broke in was after me, or 'No,' you're not all right?"
He stood. "No, nobody was trying to get to you. Temple. I can't let you think that. No, it isn't you at all." His hands spread to encompass the mess. "It's me. Only me. Just me. Me. Me, me, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa."
She swallowed at the sudden violence of this confession, feeling dazed and half frozen herself. What had she said wrong?
Matt's hands spread wider. She noticed then that the knuckles were scraped raw, as if he'd been knock, knock, knocking at Heaven's door, and it was a lot harder mahogany than the Circle Ritz's. "You don't have to look high and low for the culprit. He's here. I did it."
'*You?" She gawked again at the destruction. "What happened?"
He stared at her face, her incomprehension, maybe her disappointment. Then he sat again, his fingers intertwined between his knees, his eyes on the book-strewn floor.