“Pete’s wandering around the house, you know.”
“I’ll get rid of him. I’ll fire him.”
“How can you…?”
“I’ll send him out to the airport early.”
“Well…” Diane said hesitantly.
“Well?”
“Well…” An embarrassed smile formed on her mouth.
“Good!” King said. “Let me check with Hanley first.”
“Check with Hanley!”
“I mean, I don’t want him calling back in the…”
“Maybe I should arrange this through your secretary,” Diane said.
King grinned and slapped her on the rump as he went to the phone. He picked up the receiver, turned toward her, and said, “This’ll only take a minute. All I want to do is—” He stopped suddenly, aware that someone else was on the line, and then recognizing the voice as Cameron’s.
“… yes, George,” Cameron was saying, “that’s what I’m trying to tell you. Well, I thought you’d like to know…”
Hastily, King pushed a button in the base of the phone, switching to another line. “Funny,” he said.
“What’s the matter?” Diane asked.
“Pete’s on the other line,” King said. There was a puzzled look on his face. “I could’ve sworn he was talking to…” He shrugged, dialed the operator and waited. “Think you can get me Oscar Hanley at the Hotel Stanhope in Boston?” he said. He listened for a moment. “All right, call me back, will you?” He hung up and turned toward his wife. “In the meantime, my dear, how about a little drink to—”
The front door burst open. The Creeks were returning. Or at least one of the Creeks.
“Bobby, don’t come barging into the house like that!” Diane shouted at her son as he charged up the steps to the bedroom area.
“Sorry, Mom! I forgot my powder horn! Where is it, Mom?”
“Upstairs in the toy chest, where it usually is.”
“Help me find it, will you?”
“You know where it is.”
“Yeah, but I’m in a hurry,” Bobby said. “Jeffs already got a head start, and I—hey! There it is! Hanging on my doorknob!” He let out a wild whoop and stomped down the corridor, to return a moment later with the powder horn slung over his shoulder. “So long!” he yelled. “I got to find myself a tree, Dad!” and he stormed out of the house again.
“Wait,” Diane said reproachfully, “and then pounce.”
* * * *
The man in the bushes was waiting to pounce.
He was dying for a cigarette, but he knew he dared not light one. From his hidden vantage point, he could see the windowless side of the King house and the entrance to the garage. The long black Cadillac was parked in the driveway, and a chauffeur was running a chamois cloth over the sleek hood of the automobile. The man in the bushes glanced at the chauffeur, and then at his watch, and then at the sky. It would be dark soon. Good. Darkness was what they needed.
He wished for a cigarette.
He wondered if Eddie was still with the car. He wondered if everything was okay at the house. He wondered if the whole thing would work, and, wondering about it, he began to worry about it, and his palms got damp and he wanted a cigarette more than ever.
He heard a noise in the bushes, and he felt fear crackle up his spine to explode inside his skull like a yellow skyrocket.
Cool, he told himself. Cool.
He forced his hands to stop trembling by clenching them tightly. He squeezed his eyes shut, and then opened them again, and then saw the figure coming through the woods, and his heart gave a sudden lurch. It was the boy.
He wet his lips.
When his voice came from his mouth, it came as a hoarse cracked sound. He swallowed hard and tried again.
“Hi, sonny,” he said. “What you doing? Playing cops and robbers?”
* * * *
Dusk was beginning to shoulder its way into the city.
In October there is a special feel to dusk, the softness of a cat’s muzzle, and it is accompanied by the smell of wood smoke even in the heart of the city where people do not burn wood or leaves. The smell is something ingrained on the race memory of man, and it lends a quality of serenity to October which no other month can claim. The street lamps go on a little before darkness really falls. The sun stains the sky with a brilliant red, interlaced with the solemn purple of a vault of clouds wheeling heavenward. The bridges span the city in bold silhouette, suspended cables backdropped by the stain of purple dusk, green lights winking in the coming darkness like strung emeralds.
The pace quickens a little, the step becomes a little lighter. There is a briskness on the air, and it bites the cheeks and stings the teeth, and the store fronts are coming alive with light now, like beckoning potbellied stoves, cherry-hot. There is a calm to the night because autumn is a time of stillness, and even the callous city respects the death of summer. Coat collars are lifted higher, hands are blown upon, hats are tilted lower. The wind is the only sound in the streets, and the citizens walk hastily because they are anxious to get indoors, anxious for the smell of cooking food, and the attacking force of steam heat hissing in radiators, anxious for the arms of loved ones.
Dusk is upon the city.
It will be dark soon.
It will be good to get home before it grows dark.
* * * *
4
In the Douglas King living room, the telephone rang. King crossed the room quickly, picked up the receiver, and said, “Hanley?”
A voice on the other end said, “Who?”
“Oh. Oh excuse me, I was expecting another call,” King said. “Who is this, please?”
“All right, Mac,” the voice said. “I’m going to make this short and—”
“There’s no one named Mac here,” King said. “You must have the wrong number.” He replaced the phone and turned toward the steps. Cameron was standing there, watching him.
“Not Hanley?” Cameron said.
“No. Somebody got the wrong number.” King snapped his fingers. “About wrong numbers, Pete.”
“Yeah?”
“Were you talking to George Benjamin a little while ago?”
“On the phone do you mean?” Cameron asked.
“Yes.”
“As a matter of fact, I was.”
“Why’d you call him?”
“To tell him I wouldn’t be around tomorrow. He wanted to discuss that sales letter on the new Far Eastern Brocade line.”
“You didn’t tell him you were going to Boston, did you?”
“Why, no. Should I have?”
“Hell, no. What did you tell him?”
“Just that I’d have to skip the meeting because I was going out of town.”
“But you didn’t mention Boston?”