When the window got to the top, I took a couple of deep breaths to steady myself. Then I put my head inside and risked a quick spray from the flashlight. It looked like a man's den, the kind you see in magazines.
Big leather easy chair, television set in one corner, some kind of plaques on the walls. The room felt musty and dead, like it was never used.
I climbed over the sill and dropped into the room, pulling the window closed behind me, adding up the crimes in my head. Breaking and entering. Burglary of an occupied dwelling. So far, not so bad. I pulled the dark nylon stocking mask over my head, adjusting it so the slits matched up with my eyes. When it felt right, I took the pistol from an inside pocket. From now on, it was going to be Felony City.
I stepped out into a long hallway running down one side of the house. To my right was an eat-in kitchen, windows on two sides. To my left was the foyer, with that plastic-covered living room off to one side. Still quiet. The whole place was covered with thick wall-to-wall carpet the same color as dirt. I think they call it "earth tones." I padded down the hall toward the front door, looking for the staircase. The stairs were carpet-covered too, but I eased my weight onto each one just the same.
Halfway up the stairs I heard the music. Some kind of orchestra stuff, but real light-all strings and flutes. I reached the top, waited, listening hard now. The music was coming from a room at the rear of the house, the only room with a light on-I couldn't see inside. I slipped around the newel post at the top of the stairs, heading in the opposite direction. The second floor wasn't anywhere near as big as the first-just two rooms that looked like bedrooms, windows looking out toward the street. Each had its own bathroom attached. I didn't risk the flash to look closely, just checked to make sure nobody was sleeping there. The rooms were all dark. Empty.
I walked toward the open door at the other end, toward the music and I didn't know what else. When I got close, I could see the door was at the far corner of the room; everything else was off to the left. I took the pistol in both hands, holding it high above my head over my right shoulder; my back was against the wall. Then I stepped inside with my left foot, pivoting and bringing the pistol down and across my chest, sweeping the room.
A short, stocky woman was sitting on a stool at a white drafting table, peering at something under an architect's lamp. The light came from behind her-I couldn't make out her face. She was wearing a pink quilted bathrobe, orthopedic shoes on her feet. She didn't even look up, concentrating on something. I was almost on top of her before she looked up.
"Don't scream," I told her, my voice calm, showing her the pistol.
She opened her mouth wide, gulped in a ton of air instead, her eyes bulging. "Oh my god!" she said, like she'd been expecting this.
"Just keep quiet and you won't get hurt," I said, still calm and quiet, gently reaching out toward her.
"What is this?" she asked, her voice shaking.
"It's about a picture, bitch," I told her, grabbing the front of her robe with one gloved hand, my voice filtered through the nylon mask. "I want a picture you have. Understand?"
She tried to pull away from me, plucking at my arm in a feeble gesture. I slapped her lightly across the face with the pistol. I put my face as close to hers as I could. "I got my orders-I bring the picture or your fucking head!"
The woman's eyes rolled up and she slumped against me-I jerked her face up again-she was breathing in gasps but she wasn't going to faint.
I grabbed her by the back of the neck, holding the pistol in front of her face with the other hand, pulling her off the stool, dragging her toward a chair near a butcher-block desk in the corner. A gooseneck lamp was shining on some papers. I shoved the woman into an oxblood leather chair and stepped back.
"Who are you?" she asked.
"I'm a man with a job, understand? I don't have a lot of time."
I tossed the picture Strega gave me on the table in front of her. Her eyes flicked over to it but she didn't make a move.
"That's the kid," I told her. "You got a picture of him somewhere in this house. I want it."
"Why would I have a picture…?"
I stepped forward and backhanded her across the face, not too hard-just enough to make her focus on what she had to do.
I started pulling things out of my pocket-a small coil of piano wire, a little glass bottle of clear fluid, a strip of leather. And a straight razor. The woman's eyes were huge.
I stepped to her again-she cowered, covering her face with her hands. No rings on her fingers-no polish on her nails. I slipped the leather strip past her clawing fingers, fastening the gag in her mouth. She jumped forward-I jammed the heel of my hand into her chest-she let out a burst of air and fell forward from the waist. It only took me another minute to lash her wrists to the arms of the chair with the piano wire.
Her mouth was silent but her eyes were screaming. "You got two choices," I told her. "You see this bottle? It's ether. To knock you out. If I have to do that, I'm going to chop off the fingers on your hand. One by one. And I'm going to wait for you to wake up, bitch. You'll wake up screaming, understand?"
Her face was coming apart behind the gag.
"You understand!" I snarled at her.
She nodded her head hard enough to make it fall off her neck.
"I'm going to take the gag out now-you don't tell me what I want to know, you bleed to death right in that chair. Through the fucking stumps."
I pulled the gag from her mouth-she struggled for a breath, panting as if she'd run a mile.
I watched her face. "Don't even think about screaming," I told her.
She was more under control now. "I'm not alone in the house," she gasped.
"Yeah, you are," I said. "It's me that's not alone here."
Her eyes were on me, trying to figure out what I meant. Hard, flat doll's eyes-nobody home behind them. A thin, ugly smell came off her. Her breathing was under control. "I have no money here," she said, as if that settled everything.
I leaned close again, letting her look into my eyes. "I want the picture," I told her. "Last chance."
"Just the one picture?"
"Don't bargain with me, you fucking slime. I got my orders."
She was watching me, thinking. No good. I picked up the leather gag.
"In the safe!" she said. "Please, don t"
"Where's the safe?"
"In the floor-under the work table."
I took a look-the floor under the table was all parquet squares. Four of them came away when I pulled. The combination lock was set so it was facing the ceiling.
"Give it to me," I said.
She knew what I meant. "Six left, twenty-four right, twelve left."
The safe was a deep one, maybe three feet into the floor. Video cassettes to the right 35mm cartridges in plastic containers. And Polaroids-hundreds of them, each one in a separate plastic jacket.
"You got an index?" I asked her.
"No," she said, lifeless. She was probably lying, but I didn't have the time to find out. I knew what I was looking for. It only took a couple of minutes-a couple of minutes of looking through the worst thing on this slop basin of a planet-a little baby peacefully sleeping, a man's erect penis in his mouth as a pacifier-kids from a few days old to maybe ten or eleven, penetrated with every blunt object freakish minds could think of-smiling kids, playing with each other-a little boy, maybe six years old, his screaming face adjusted by the camera so you could see him being sodomized from behind, two strands of barbed wire drawn across his little chest to make a bloody "X." All the pictures had the tiny blue image of a man and a boy in one corner-her mark.