The lights gave him a small hope. Hobart stepped closer to the back windows and looked inside for the alarm-system keypad. It was beside the front door. He shaded his eyes and studied the electronic glow on the liquid-crystal display. There were three red letters: RDY. Ready. The alarm had not been turned on. She must have planned to activate it when she was going to sleep, and never gotten around to it.
Hobart opened his pocketknife, and put on his thin rubber gloves and his ski mask. He tugged the sliding glass door to the side until the hook-shaped lock mechanism caught on its bar, then slid his knife under the strip of aluminum frame that protected the lock and made it waterproof, bent it outward, inserted the blade to lift the hook from its bar, and folded the knife and put it away.
He knew that he would have to be very quiet on the stairs, or she would hear him. He took the gun out of his pocket and held it as he climbed. He reached the upper floor and listened. He heard what seemed to be the soundtrack of an old movie. He followed it to the lighted room at the end of the hall, and peered in.
She was lying on the bed wearing a business suit with a skirt and a little jacket. She had obviously fallen asleep fully dressed with the television on. On the screen was a black-and-white movie from the thirties, with men wearing tuxedos and women in evening gowns shouting dialogue at each other in a room that had a set of huge double doors flanked by pillars and pedestals.
Hobart kicked the bed to shake her, and watched her wake up. She blinked her eyes, raised her head a few inches, and squinted at the television. Hobart could see she was a very pretty woman, with dark shoulder-length hair and a smooth, light complexion and big hazel eyes. She looked childlike this way, in the process of remembering why she was lying on top of the bedspread in a suit. Whatever she was remembering, it didn’t seem to please her.
She sat up, turned toward the nightstand to reach for the remote control, and saw him. She gasped, and Hobart saw her change the direction of her movement to reach lower than the remote control.
“If you reach for a gun, you’re dead,” he said.
Her hand stopped moving and her body stiffened with alarm. “I-no.” Her voice was scratchy from sleep. She was terrified, looking up at him with disbelief. After a couple of seconds, she added, “It’s the phone.”
Hobart stepped into the room and stood beside the bed. He could see that what she had been reaching for wasn’t a drawer. It was just a shelf, and it did have a telephone on it. He was relieved because he hadn’t wanted to kill her. “I see,” he said. “That’s not a good idea, either.”
“What … what do you want? My purse is on the dresser.”
“I’m here to talk. If you cooperate, I’ll leave and you’ll be alive. If you don’t, I can kill you in a second. Do you understand?” He was ready for her to begin screaming. He had to remember not to kill her when he silenced her.
“I understand,” she said calmly. “I want to be alive.”
His right hand shot out and slapped her across the face. Her head bounced to the side and hit the headboard, and a line of bright blood began to run from the corner of her lip. He had needed to hit her. She had begun to manipulate him by being agreeable, and it had made her feel less frightened. He needed her fear. It had to be complete, a fear of his unpredictability and craziness. He said, “You’re living from second to second. Don’t plan, don’t think you know what I want until I say it.” Her cheek was already reddened where he had hit her, and she held her hand over it as she stared at him with wide, teary eyes. Hobart decided that was sufficient for now.
“I want to know what got your husband killed.”
“I don’t know.”
Hobart raised his gun with his left hand and aimed it at her head. “Your husband had something, some piece of information that a powerful man thought he shouldn’t have. The man wanted it. Your husband may have handed over a copy and thought that ended things. If he did, I’m positive that he didn’t give up the only copy.”
“I never heard anything like that. He never said anything.”
“And you didn’t look for it? Your husband gets shot, and you don’t even look for what got him killed?”
“No.”
“Take off your clothes.”
“Oh, no. Please.” She looked sick, horrified.
He gave her a quick backhand, then aimed the gun at her again. This time he cocked the hammer with his thumb.
She swung her legs off the bed, stood and undressed quickly, like a woman in a hurry to get into the shower. Then she stood perfectly still, not looking at him, but at the floor.
Hobart stayed on the other side of the bed, waiting for a sign that her feelings of humiliation and vulnerability and fear had become unbearable. As he watched, her knees began to lose their stiffness. One of them began to tremble. She began to cry, and her hands moved to cover herself.
He said quietly, “Can’t you see the difference between us? If you could keep the information away from me, what would you even do with it? Nothing. The man who wants the information your husband had is powerful. You’re not strong enough to talk to him and make him leave you alive. I can use it. I can make the man who had your husband killed pay a price. You can’t do anything.”
“I don’t have anything.”
“Don’t say that. I can do anything I want to you-make you hurt, destroy your face, kill you-whatever occurs to me. If you don’t have anything, you have nothing to trade that will make me leave you alone.”
She mumbled something, too low to understand.
“What?”
“My husband was cheating on me.”
Hobart was surprised that he understood. “You mean he wouldn’t tell you if he had something going because you were breaking up?”
“I mean he was fooling me, keeping things from me-big things, lots of them-and what you want might have been one of them. I only found out about the cheating today. No, that was yesterday, now. I don’t know if we were breaking up or not. All I know is he kept secrets.”
Hobart stared at her. He had thought that by this point she would have given him the paper that would make him rich. He had certainly done enough to scare her, to make her feel frightened and helpless. Now he felt lost, off balance. He needed to go away and think before he did anything irreversible. Above all, he had to regain control. “What the fuck are you thinking? Do you think I care about this? I can tell you that having me come for a visit is about the worst thing that can happen to a woman like you.” He took a step toward the end of the bed.
She half-crouched, shocked and afraid. “Please,” she said. “Don’t. Don’t do this.”
“If you’d given me what I came for, I’d be gone now.”
“It didn’t occur to me that there was any such thing until you asked for it. I haven’t had time to think.”
“I’ll give you lots of time to think about what it is and where it might be. Turn around, very slowly and carefully. You’re going to make very slow, deliberate moves. You’re going to describe to me what you’re doing. If you make a mistake, or move too quickly, I’m going to have to assume you’re reaching for a gun. I know your husband had lots of them around. If I think for even a second that you’re doing that, I’ll shoot you dead. Do you hear?”
“Yes.”
“Then I want you to get dressed, right now.”