To Colin’s eyes, the oddest thing about the place was the total absence of decoration on the walls. No paintings. No photographs. No posters. In the downstairs foyer, in the living room, and on the wall along the stairs, there were a couple of oils, a watercolor, and a few inexpensive prints, but here the walls were bare and white. Colin felt as if he were in a monk’s cell.
Roy led him to a window.
Not more than fifty feet away, in the backyard of the house next door, a woman was sunbathing. She was wearing a white bikini and was lying on a red beach towel that was draped across a cot. Small cotton pads shielded her eyes from the sun.
“She’s really a terrific piece of ass,” Roy said.
Her arms were at her sides, palms turned up as if in supplication. She was tan and lean and shapely.
“That’s Sarah?” Colin asked.
“Sarah Callahan. She lives next door.” Roy picked up a pair of binoculars that had been on the floor beneath the window. “Here. Take a closer look.”
“What if she sees me?”
“She won’t.”
He put the glasses to his eyes, focused them, and found the woman. If she actually had been as close as she suddenly appeared to be, she would have felt his breath on her skin.
Sarah was beautiful. Even in repose, her features held great sensual promise. Her lips were full, ripe; she licked them once while he watched.
A peculiar sense of power overcame Colin. In his mind he touched and caressed Sarah Callahan, but in reality she was unaware of it. The binoculars were his lips and tongue and fingers, feeling and tasting her, exploring her, surreptitiously violating the sanctity of her body. He experienced mild synesthesia: Magically, his eyes seemed to possess senses other than sight. With his eyes he smelled her fresh, thick, yellow hair. With his eyes he felt the texture of her skin, the pliancy of her flesh, the soft roundness of her breasts, and the moist warmth in the musky junction of her thighs. With his eyes he kissed her concave belly and tasted the salty beads of perspiration that ringed her like a jeweled belt. For a moment Colin felt that he could do anything to her that he wished; he had complete immunity. He was the invisible man.
“How’d you like to get in her pants?” Roy asked.
Finally Colin lowered the binoculars.
“You want her?” Roy asked.
“Who wouldn’t?”
“We can have her.”
“You’re living in a dream.”
“Her husband’s at work all day.”
“So?”
“She’s pretty much alone over there.”
“What do you mean-‘pretty much’?”
“She has a five-year-old kid.”
“Then she’s not alone at all.”
“The kid won’t give us any trouble.”
Colin knew that Roy was playing the game again, but this time he decided to play along. “What’s your plan?”
“We just go over and knock on the door. She knows me. She’ll open up.”
“And then?”
“You and me can handle her. We’ll push inside, knock her down. I’ll put a knife at her throat.”
“She’ll scream.”
“Not with a knife at her throat.”
“She’ll think you’re bluffing.”
“If she does,” Roy said, “I’ll cut her a little to show we mean business.”
“What about the kid?”
“I’ll have Sarah under control, so you’ll be free to catch the brat and tie him up.”
“What’ll I tie him with?”
“We’ll take along some clothesline.”
“After I’ve gotten him out of the way, what happens?”
Roy grinned. “Then we’ll strip her, tie her to the bed, and use her.”
“And you think she’s not going to tell anybody what we’ve done?”
“Oh, of course, when we’re finished with her, we’ll have to kill her.”
“And the kid, too?” Colin asked.
“He’s a rotten little brat. I’d like to snuff him most of all.”
“It’s a bad idea. Forget it.”
“Yesterday, you dared me to kill someone,” Roy said. “And now the idea scares you.”
“Look who’s talking.”
“What do you mean?”
Colin sighed. “You’ve protected yourself by coming up with a plan that can’t possibly work. You figured I’d shoot it down, and then you could say, ‘Well, I wanted to prove I could kill someone, but Colin chickened out on me.’”
“What’s wrong with my plan?” Roy demanded.
“First of all, you live next door to her.”
“So what?”
“The cops would suspect you right off.”
“Me? I’m just a fourteen-year-old kid.”
“Old enough to be a suspect.”
“You really think so?”
“Sure.”
“Well … you could give me an alibi. You could swear I was at your house when she was murdered.”
“Then they’d suspect both of us.”
For a long time Roy stared down at Sarah Callahan. Finally he turned away from the window and began to pace. “What we’d have to do is leave clues that pointed away from us. We’d have to mislead them.”
“You realize the kind of lab equipment they’ve got? They can trace you by a single hair, a thread, almost anything.”
“But if we could snuff her in such a way that they’d never in a million years think it was just kids that did it …”
“How?”
Roy continued to pace. “We’d make it look like some raving lunatic killed her, some sex maniac. We’d stab her a hundred times. We’d cut off her ears. We’d slice up the brat pretty good, too, and we’d use blood to write a lot of crazy things on the walls.”
“You’re really gross.”
Roy stopped pacing and stared hard at him. “What’s the matter? Are you a sissy about blood?”
Colin felt queasy but tried not to show it. “Even if you could mislead the cops that way, there’s too many other things wrong with your plan.”
“Like what?”
“Someone will see us going into the Callahan place.”
“Who?”
“Maybe somebody taking out the garbage. Or somebody washing windows. Or just somebody going by in a car.”
“So we’ll use the Callahans’ back door.”
Colin glanced out the window. “Looks to me like that wall goes all around the property. We’d have to enter by the front walk and go around the house to get to the back door.”
“Nah. We could climb over the wall in a minute.”
“If anyone saw us, they’d be sure to remember. Besides, what about fingerprints when we get into the house?”
“We’ll wear gloves, of course.”
“You mean we’ll walk up to the door wearing gloves in ninety-degree heat, carrying a lot of rope and a knife-and she’ll let us in without a second thought?”
Roy was becoming impatient. “When she opens the door, we’ll move so fast she won’t have time to realize anything’s wrong.”
“What if she does? What if she’s faster than we are?”
“She won’t be.”
“We’ve at least got to consider the possibility,” Colin insisted.
“Okay. I’ve considered it, and I’ve decided it’s nothing to worry about.”
“Another thing. What if she opens the inner door but not the storm door?”
“Then we’ll open the storm door,” Roy said. “What’s the problem?”
“What if it’s locked?”
“Christ!”
“Well, we have to expect the worst.”
“Okay, okay. It’s a bad idea.”
“That’s what I said.”