He gives a description of the man. “Most victims don’t catch half as much as that,” a policeman says. “But by now he’s probably thrown away that shirt and has his jacket, hat and a pair of fake eyeglasses on.” They look around the apartment. “He’ll probably never show up again, but you never know. Usually those big revenge threats are baseless and if they don’t get any of your I.D.s, they hardly remember what neighborhood you live in. But your place is very vulnerable, so I’d get a few crossbars installed over the kitchen door and possibly even a much stronger door with thick plastic windows in it instead of glass. Door you have a foot could push in with one kick.” They go. He washes and dresses his cuts, cleans up the apartment, puts the kids’ place mats and the rest of their little silverware and Eva’s table seat on the table to get a head start in the morning, makes himself a vodka and grapefruit juice, drinks it down, makes another but after the first sip sticks it in the freezer for one of tomorrow’s predinner drinks. One made him more than enough relaxed. But maybe he shouldn’t get so relaxed. Maybe the guy will come back tonight, thinking it’s the time he’d least expect him to. Doubts it. He’ll think police will be cruising around. Goes into the bedroom with the stick. Lights are off, shades up, Denise in bed. “Are you asleep?” “How can I be? And watch out for the phone cord on the floor. I’ll probably be up all night.” Phone’s by her side of the bed on the floor, far as the cord can go. “I’ll probably be up all night myself,” he says. “No, sleep, I’ll stay awake and tell you if I hear anything.” “No no, you sleep.” He lies down on his back on top of the covers, yawns, feels sleepy, gets up, takes off his bathrobe, gets under the covers, stick by his hand at the edge of the bed. Should he get a jarful of ammonia? No, just the smell of it, even with the cap tight, might keep her up. “You still up?” “Yes; I told you. How’s your arm?” “Fine. I took care of it. They won’t — he won’t — I don’t know why I said they — come back tonight. Tomorrow 111 get a locksmith and see about getting a new lock for the kitchen door.” “Call the landlord and tell him what happened. Ask him for a new door and a couple of better locks for it. No more hook and latch and skeleton key. We want real burglar-preventive locks — even an alarm on the door to go off, if someone tries. We pay enough rent.” “Tomorrow I’ll do that.” “You don’t, I will.” “I will; I said so. Now you go to sleep. It’s silly for both of us to stay up.” “You went through enough; I’ll stay up.” “You didn’t go through enough?” “I did, but you did more. What you did — I can’t believe it. Not that you haven’t done something like that before. But I don’t think it ever got so bad where you were cut like that and faced the man so close.” “Oh no, my head — remember?” “That’s right. The intruder, at school.” “And that time — hey, I just remembered something. Gil never came upstairs when I knocked everything to the floor to get him to come. Broke some very nice things too. I’m sorry. The bell jar and both figurines, did you notice?” “Too bad. It doesn’t matter though. You didn’t throw them away, did you?” “Yes; in the garbage. They were in pieces.” “I’ll get them out tomorrow. And Gil and Jane are away for a few days, that’s why.” “If he wasn’t I’m sure he would have come when I yelled and banged. But that time when I stood on the sidewalk and acted like a total misfit to some guy who had a gun on two men. In a vestibule. Where the mailboxes are. On my street. A gun. But I thought I knew what kind it was. A.45. You don’t want to hear this again.” “It’s been a long time since you told me it.” “It looked like a.45. At least I’d seen pictures of the gun — movies, newspapers, comics as a kid. Like a big black try square. And someone who knew, he’d been an M.P. in the army, had told me it couldn’t shoot straight more than fifteen feet and the guy in the vestibule was about twenty-five feet away and down a few steps. Somehow I also didn’t believe he’d shoot at me. He was a big chubby fellow, with a nice fat face. Shirt out under his jacket — a real shlub. Looked like my cousin Nat.” “Still, it was something to do. You saved those men from God knows what.” “He wanted them to take him up to their apartment. Rape, robbery, even worse — they didn’t know and he wouldn’t say. I just kept acting like an idiot out there, jumping up and down on one foot, hooting, cackling, blubbering with my finger over my lips, looking at the sky in great wonder and then down at my feet as if I were searching for something every time he turned to look at me. It worked. He came out, his back to the men facing me with their arms still raised, put the gun under his belt, looked at me as if he could squash me with that look and very casually walked down the street. I ducked behind a parked car.” “And later ran up the block—” “Right. Immediately. The police call box didn’t work. Nor the fire one attached to it. I wanted Fire to call the police to grab this guy whom I could still see walking down the street. And then the fellow who broke into my apartment. When we were just going together. Same thing as tonight’s, just about. Two or three a.m. Maybe later. I heard him, just as I did this one—” “How long had you heard him?” “Which one?” “This one.” “Minutes. I didn’t know what it was. Thought it could be Kitty or the wind.” “I’m glad you heard him. I was sound asleep. Who knows what he would have done if he’d surprised us.” “That’s what I thought. And after being up against the guy…” “But what happened then — years ago?” “You don’t remember?” “Just tell me.” “It’ll keep you up. Go to sleep, really.” “No, tell me.” “You know I don’t like telling a story if I know the person heard it or knows it fairly well.” “Tell.” “I didn’t know what to do. I just lay in bed — sat up, rather — thinking Lamp? Watch? What could I throw at him, defend myself with?’ I had nothing, just like tonight. Then — it was pitch black but maybe my eyes were adjusting to it — he moved his head slowly past the bedroom door frame, looking in. He had a stocking over it, just as I thought this one might, and he must have been six-six from where his head was behind the door. I measured it right after and it scared the hell out of me he was so big. But I did something that just came out of me — I actually didn’t think. I made the sound of a ghost. First very low — ohhhh — and then louder and higher till I became a screaming ghost, but the same long oh without break from start to finish. He ran right out through the kitchen window he’d come in and onto the roof. And then, I suppose, along the other roofs till he got himself down someplace, while I yelled outside ‘Thief on the roofs, close your windows; thief along the roofs of the 200 block of West Twenty-eighth,’ and maybe even that it was the odd-numbered side of the 200 block, and then locked my window. I slept with a bat, wish I had that bat now, but a bat I bought the next day — slept with it for three months. Held it while I slept sometimes. You remember — even when you were with me.” “You put it on the floor then.” “I did, I didn’t, I don’t remember — maybe only when we made love. I’ll probably sleep with this stick for three months. Or a bat. I should buy a bat. Or a gun. Should I get a gun?” “What?” “Of course not, but I bet I’d be able to get a license for one now.” “What about that time, though, you grabbed a gun from a man’s hand when he pointed it at a hot dog vendor, and he even shot him, didn’t he?” “It was a fake gun — wood, painted silver, maybe his kid’s — but I didn’t know it. Fact is, and this is probably the shot I told you about, when I was struggling to keep his arm up I could have sworn I heard the gun go off in my ear. Could have been a car backfire or construction work explosion nearby, but neither would have been that loud. Anyway, my ears rang for a day — it’s ridiculous. The guy who did it claimed the hot dog man had put ground glass in the mustard, so he pulled out the gun. That’s the story the vendor told later. I saw the gun, and again, I don’t know where it came from in me, but I went up behind him — it was in broad daylight, a busy street. Or the park — I forget, but lots of people around — Grand Army Plaza, that’s where, if that’s what it’s called — opposite the Plaza Hotel. After the police took the guy away, the hot dog man offered me free franks with everything on them and any other time when I saw him selling franks in the street. It was all so crazy.” “Did you have any?” “I don’t remember. Probably not. I hate those things, all pork ears and snouts, and who knows where those vendors piss outside, or wash their hands after, or with what.” “What about the robbery you stopped in a supermarket?” “Come on, enough.” “Just that one. I forget it completely, except for the razors.” “Razorstrops. Who knows where they got them from. Five boys, none older than thirteen it seemed, and they ran and slapped those strops against the checkout counters and demanded all the money and food stamps from the checkers. I was waiting on line with my cart and yelled ‘Get out of here, you brats,’ and they swung the strops at me and hissed and things like that, but from ten and more feet away, and then ran out. I don’t know what I would have defended myself with if they had attacked. Bread. Can of frozen concentrated grapefruit juice.” “Those dividers they have on the counters. Were there other times?” “A couple. Maybe more. Let’s forget them. I am tired.” “The doors are all locked as well as they can be?” “Roger.” “Let me check the girls again.” “I’ll do it.”