Colin groaned.
"Want me to stop?" Hallock asked.
"No. No, it's okay. I was just remembering something." He felt as if he couldn't breathe. "I've got to open the window."
"Go ahead."
He rolled down the window and stuck out his head. The rain pelted his face, soaking his hair. He opened his mouth, felt the drops hit his tongue.
At the end of the road Hallock put on his signal and opened his window to see. "Anything coming that way, Maguire?"
"No, go ahead.
Hallock turned onto the main road, rolled up his window.
Colin wondered why he'd never remembered that before, Nancy saying, "Over my dead body." What would Safier have made of that? The wind and rain were making it harder for him to breathe. He pulled in his head. Water rolled down his face and neck, soaking his shirt front. A touch of nausea made him gulp and swallow air.
"How you doing there, Maguire?"
"I'm hanging in," he whispered.
"Be there before you can say Jack Robinson."
"Jack Robinson," Colin said, turning to look at Hallock. "Liar."
They both laughed.
Hallock said, "No kidding, we're almost there."
"I know." To get to the Gazette building without becoming hysterical was all he asked. Even as he thought this, his mind swirled in dizzying circles, nausea growing.
"Another mile, Maguire, that's all."
He couldn't speak, just grunted, hoping the sound indicated that he understood. If only he could remember some of the tricks Safier had introduced him to. But everything he'd learned eluded him. His mind was as empty as if his brain had been vacuumed. Balling his hands into fists, he suddenly remembered Safier's toe-clenching trick. "If you begin to feel you are going out of control, clench and unclench your toes. Concentrate on that."
Colin obeyed his unseen doctor. He focused on his toes, clenched, unclenched, clenched, unclenched. It wasn't working. He tried something else. This is for Annie, he said to himself. This is for Annie. Over and over. Thinking of nothing else, his panic receded some, his breathing returned to an almost normal rate, the dizziness vanished.
"Here we are, Maguire." Hallock pulled into a side street, killed the motor. "Can't park in front. Even Schufeldt might think it's suspicious. You okay?"
"I'm okay." And he was. He hadn't passed out, hadn't died.
"We're going to get plenty wet between here and there. Let's head for that big tree on the corner, then we'll case the street, make sure it's empty. You ready?"
Colin nodded.
Both men opened their doors, jumped out, and made a dash for the large oak. They were drenched at once. The wind, in a relentlessly battering fury, pushed them against the trunk of the tree.
Shouting, Hallock said, "It looks all clear, nobody around. Make a run for the door."
Heading into the wind, they ran, ankle-deep water slowing their progress. Once there, Colin dug in his windbreaker pocket for his key but came up empty. "Jesus," he yelled over the storm, "the key's gone."
"What d'you mean, 'gone'?"
"It must have fallen out of my pocket when I was running," he explained.
"You sure?"
Feeling like a fool, Colin checked all his pockets. "Nothing," he said.
"I didn't bother bringing my keys since you had yours."
"Should we look?" He gestured toward the street.
"Like looking in a lake," Hallock said impatiently. Let's get off the street." He headed for the alley at the right of the building, Colin following.
In back Colin shouted over the rain, "My window. I went out that way this morning. It should still be open." He gave the window frame a shove and it slid up easily. He climbed through first, gave a hand to Hallock then shut the window.
"God almighty, I feel like I've been in the Sound. And you look like something the cat drug in," Hallock observed.
"You can see in the dark now?"
"I'm using my imagination."
"Well, use it to find our way through this place to the basement. C'mon, let's go. Take my hand." Colin shuffled forward, one hand stretched out in front of him, the other behind, clasping Hallock's.
After a few moments their eyes became accustomed to the dark and they were able to move more swiftly. Once Colin slammed into a chair left in the wrong place, and Hallock crashed a shin into something he couldn't identify.
At the top of the steps to the basement Colin dropped Hallock's hand. "There's a rail on the right."
"Got it. How the hell are we going to read anything down there?" Hallock asked.
"There should be a flashlight somewhere."
"What d'you mean, 'somewhere'?"
"Just that."
It was darker when they reached the bottom. The windows were very small at ground level and offered no light. Carefully, Colin crossed the room toward where the bound papers were stored.
"Hey?" Hallock called. "I can't see a goddamned thing."
"Just follow my voice. Keep coming-here I am-that's right. Straight ahead. You'll make it. Good. This is where the old issues are kept. Christ, how am I going to see which is the one we need?"
"Beats me."
"We've got to find that flash."
"You don't have any idea where it is?"
"There are some shelves over on the far wall. I think maybe I saw it there."
"Where's the far wall? Can't even see that," Hallock said wearily.
"This way." He grabbed Hallock's wet jacket, pulled him along, his right hand thrust forward, protecting himself. The hand collided with something cool, smooth. He wrapped his fingers around the object, lifted it from the shelf. Bringing it close to his face he saw that it was a glass, smelled something acrid. "Okay, we're at the shelves." He reached out to replace the glass and dropped it. "Shit!"
"What was that?"
"A glass."
"What's the smell?"
"Turpentine, I think."
"Don't drop any lit matches."
"I don't have any matches. I wish I did. Come here, next to me. Feel around for the flash."
Both men felt along the shelves as if they were reading Braille. A number of things crashed to the floor, some breaking, others bouncing, rolling away.
Finally Hallock said, "I got it." He snapped the button forward and a dim light appeared. "Not much life left in the batteries."
"Turn it off. Okay. Now let's go back to the books. Keep the flash off so we don't waste it."
"Right."
Again they shuffled across the cement floor like ancient men using walkers. Colin's foot caught on something and he tripped, pitched forward, falling against a crate, cracking his head. He shouted out in pain.
"Maguire. You okay, Maguire?"
"Just dandy."
"Where are you?"
"Don't move, Waldo. There's something on the floor." He sat up, scooted toward whatever had tripped him, touched it. "Over here. Give me the flash." He extended his hand, felt the cool metal slapped in his palm, clicked it on, pointed the beam toward the offending object. "It's one of the bound books," he said excitedly. "It must have fallen when Mark and I were fighting. Let me see if it's the one we need. Come here, sit down."
Hallock joined him on the floor. Colin opened the book. "Yeah, this is the one. Hold this," he said, giving him the flashlight. He turned the pages until he came to the issue he'd seen that morning. "Here it is."
The beam of light dimly illuminated the page, the bodies lying under the tarps.
"Jesus," Hallock said, "I'd forgotten how awful it was."
Colin began to read the story out loud but Hallock interrupted him. "Go to the obit page. That's what we need."
"You're right. Okay, here it is. My God." He kept turning pages. There were three devoted to obituaries. "Waldo, we don't even know what we're looking for."
"I think we'll know it when we see it. You start on the left side, I'll read the right."
Silently they read through the obits, checking names, looking for clues. And then Colin said, "Perkins."
"Who?"
"Perkins. Annie mentioned them to me."
"What d'you mean?"
"She knew them." The flashlight died. "Shit!" He clicked it off, shook it, snapped it on again. Nothing. "Now what?"