About eleven that night a car full of kids pulled into the station in a 1933 Chevy. Two boys no older than fifteen got out of the car. A girl in the back seat was laughing and holding her sides. One of the boys, who was holding a sawed-off rifle, told her to shut up.
Farkas stood calmly, wiping oil from his hands. Later he told me that he was one-quarter Apache and his grandfather had taught him that he was part of the Great Oneness and would join it one day. Farkas had led a wild life before the truth of his grandfather’s words hit him, but once they did, he began to prepare himself for the Great Oneness. The night those two boys came out of the car seemed, to Farkas, a decent enough night to die.
Before either boy could say anything, Santiago, standing inside the station, blew out his own front window with a blast that rained glass on me, Farkas, the Chevy, and the robbers.
“Loco shit!” the kid with the rifle had said, ducking behind the car.
The other kid-skinny, with the eyes of someone who loved the Lady of White Powder-blinked. His cheek was bleeding from flying glass. The butt of a pistol showed from his pocket, but he didn’t reach for it.
My.38 was out before the shards had stopped raining on the gas pumps. The girl in the car wasn’t laughing anymore. The kid behind the car with the shotgun was cursing. The skinny kid in front of the car stood stunned and looked at Farkas. I looked at Farkas, too, as I held my gun on the kid. Farkas smiled a smile that said “Give it up” and I could see that the kid was giving it up, but Santiago came hobbling through his broken window. The kid with the shotgun stood up, aimed at no one in particular, and fired. The shot took out pump number two. Santiago was gurgling with joy as he fired in return, taking out the front window of the Chevy.
The kid with the shotgun jumped into the car, and I nodded at the skinny kid to climb in with him. As he reached for the rear door, the girl inside screamed and the car burned rubber and took off. The skinny kid stood wide-eyed in the driveway of Santiago’s station and watched his partner drive off. Santiago chortled with pleasure and aimed at the kid.
“Go for your gun, ladron,” Santiago challenged.
The dazed skinny kid looked at the mad old man in the Shell baseball cap and started to reach for the gun in his pocket.
“Hold it,” I shouted and the kid stopped.
Santiago cursed.
“I want to kill somebody,” the old man hissed. “I am unfulfilled.”
“Go home and play with yourself,” I said. To the kid I said, “Take off.”
The skinny kid scuttled off in the same direction his friend had driven.
I remembered that night, all right. I had made the mistake of telling Anne about it. I’d come home on top of the world and twenty bucks richer, ready to buy her flowers and a damn-the-Depression dinner at Chasen’s. I told her the story and she packed and said it was the end.
“I remember, Farkas,” I said. “Thanks for the memory. If the cops show up and you’re still sitting here, send them up to apartment six-D. Got it?”
“Got it,” he said, holding up the five. “They’re doin’ an opera somewhere near here sometime soon. Maybe I can find it and buy a ticket. Today’s my lucky day. Come back any time and run me over. We’ll talk about old times.”
“Old times,” I said, thinking of Anne.
I looked up at Lorna Bartholomew’s building. It was a six-story, trying to bring up the neighborhood and failing.
I stepped into the lobby foyer. An old man in a ratty gray sweater and a little badge sat on a bridge chair reading the latest issue of Atlantic Monthly. He didn’t look up.
“Pardon me,” I said.
He looked up.
“Bob La Follette’s worrying about prohibition making a comeback,” he said, pointing to the article on his lap. “Can you imagine with what’s going on in the world someone worrying about people drinking?”
“No,” I said. “I’d like to see Miss Bartholomew.”
“Name?” he asked.
“Peters.”
The old man nodded. I looked out into the street. No cops yet Farkas was sitting there admiring the five I had given him and remembering the good old days in Los Angeles.
“First name?”
“Toby.”
“Check,” he said, and picked up the house phone. “Peters here.”
He hung up, reached under the wooden counter, and the inner lobby door clicked open.
“Six-D,” he said. “She said you can come on up.” The old man sank back in his seat with his magazine.
The lobby was full of glass and mirror, with a cracked white tile floor. No people. The inner lobby door clicked closed behind me, and I headed for the elevator. It was waiting and open. I got in and pushed six, thinking the place was a lot like the one Anne had moved into after walking out on me.
When the elevator opened, I thought I heard a door close, but no one was in the hallway. Six-D was halfway down the corridor to my left. All the doors I passed were the same except for 6-D, which was open. I hoped Lorna had simply opened it when the old doorman called, but she wasn’t standing just inside waiting for me. I expected Miguelito to come yapping out of the shadows and go for my throat, but there was nothing.
“Lorna?” I called, stepping into darkness.
My foot hit something that went skittering across the floor.
I pulled out my:38 and got out of the light from the door.
“Lorna?” I called out again, more softly.
There was no answer. I reached for a light switch on the wall against which I was leaning, found none, and moved back to the open apartment door, there I found a switch, hit it, and turned, gun leveled into the room.
I saw that in the darkness I had kicked a lamp. The lamp didn’t belong on the floor. Neither did most of what was on the floor in the alcove and in the living room beyond. The place was a mess. A mad baboon had been let loose, or the Stanford football team had had a party. The sofa was turned over and ripped open. The radio was smashed and on its back on the floor. Two matching stuffed chairs no longer matched and probably wouldn’t be worth fixing. Even the carpeting had been torn up, but nothing had been torn up as much as Lorna, who lay sprawled on the floor.
“Lorna,” I whispered, and I thought she moved, but I didn’t go to her. Someone had answered the doorman’s call and it hadn’t been her. Whoever it was might still be here. I moved to the windows and threw open the drapes, letting in sunlight.
Then I kicked open the bathroom door. This room had been attacked, too. Medicine cabinet open, broken bottles on the floor. And the bedroom had been chewed up by a giant lawn mower while the kitchen was a swamp of food, drink, and ice cubes on the floor. The refrigerator door was open and everything, even the box of Arm and Hammer, had been pulled out and thrown to the floor or in the general direction of the sink. A dog-food dish was upside down in a corner.
Sure now that no one was there but me, I closed the front door and hurried to Lorna. I kneeled next to her and touched her face. It was cool and turning white.
“Lorna?” I asked, but the question was really Are you alive? Lorna’s eyelids fluttered open. She looked to her left like a disoriented newborn baby and then up at me. A trickle of blood meandered from the corner of her red mouth down her chin.
Her mouth moved, forming a word but no sound.
“He?” I asked.
Her eyes fluttered, and she looked like she was going back into her sleep.
“I’ve gotta call an ambulance.”
She grasped my hand, her fingernails cutting into the flesh of my palms. She had more to say.
“We,” she gasped.
“We?” I asked.
The eyes fluttered. “We are the Phantom.”
“Who did this?” I asked, my face near enough hers to taste her bloody breath.