The Golden Globe

I stood on the chair and put my suitcase up into the ventilation ducts. Then I aimed the pistol at one of the floor-to-ceiling windows—not really windows, but huge slabs of what I hoped was plate glass. The bullet punched a hole the size of my fist and the glass was instantly covered, edge to edge, with a network of cracks.

Her suitcase was certainly tempting. I was sure she had things in there I could use. I never tried to open it. Why? If you ever find my Pantechnicon seemingly abandoned, I'd advise you to leave it alone. It has half a dozen ways of defending itself by delivering various degrees of nastiness including, if you don't get the hint after strike three, lethal force. If I could think up stuff like that, I reasoned, who knew what amusements these two bloody-minded monsters had in store for me.

I picked up the suitcase gingerly and hurled it at the window. The glass flew apart in ten thousand glittering ice cubes. I went to the edge and looked down. As I'd hoped, the stuff was landing on the lobby roof. Nobody was likely to get hurt by it. I dragged her body to the edge and tipped her over. I did not stay around to watch the impact.

Then I was in a big hurry. Someone was knocking at the door already. I hoped it was a guest, that the management had not yet been called to deal with the spilled paint and the holes in the door. But they would be up soon, followed shortly by the police. It was time to check out of the luxurious Hotel Othello. Kiss Desdemona good-bye for me.

I moved the chair back to its original position. Then I scuffed at the dents the chair legs had left in the deep carpet. Somebody would look in the duct eventually, but maybe this would buy me some time.

I don't claim to be an acrobat, but I know enough moves to shoot a pretty fair action scene without a stunt double. I jumped up twice to get the measure of the hole in the ceiling. The first time I jumped for real I banged my head hard enough to hear the songs of little birdies for a moment. I took a deep breath and tried it again, and this time I got my palms flat on the bottom of the duct, hung there undecided for several seconds, then with a mighty effort swung my legs up, once, twice, hitching my upper body a few inches forward with each swing, until I could hook my feet over the opposite edge and push myself forward, completely inside the duct.

It was dark inside. I couldn't see very far in any direction. But the cylindrical pipe was just barely big enough for me to turn around, at the risk of permanently turning my spine into a pretzel. I got it done, though, and reached across the opening for the ventilator grille I'd put up there earlier.

I took the toilet paper and the bars of soap and wedged big handfuls of paper and slivers of soap into the ventilator frame. Fingers stuck through the holes of the grating, I carefully lowered the grille down through the hole, then straightened it out and pulled it up against the flange of the ductwork. I tugged hard at it, felt it seat itself a little better, then gingerly let it go. Holding the grille with one hand, I pressed lightly down with the other, then a little harder, and with moderate pressure the grille dropped back out of its frame. Good enough; it wasn't going to be falling on a cop's head like a silent slapstick comedy. I figured if the ruse granted me just an extra ten minutes to get away I'd be happy; half an hour and you'd never find me with a pack of bloodhounds and a herd of process servers.

I backed up so my flailing feet would not dislodge the grating, did the spaghetti shuffle to get myself turned around again, and started my getaway.

In the movie of my life, this getaway would not need a second-unit stunt action team. My progress was nearly as slow as the building itself. I'd shove my suitcase ahead of me an arm's length, then shuffle along on hands and knees until I caught up to it. Then shove it forward again. Repeat step B, repeat step A. Continue until an exit presents itself. But don't take too long, because once they realize you're up here, it's all over with.

At regular intervals I would come to registers like the one I had entered through. I'd look down and see if anyone was below, then gingerly ease myself across it. I didn't know if the gratings would support my weight, and didn't want to find out the answer was no until I was ready to leave.

I wondered at the lack of circulation. Shouldn't there be a howling wind up here? Apparently not. These ducts did not deliver heated or cooled air, since the temperature outside never varied more than fifteen degrees. The purpose of the system was to clean the air, treat it, deodorize it, and keep it fresh as befitted the air in a first-class hotel. Somewhere fans were turning to keep the air in its desultory motion, but I never saw them.

At first, it was a cozy feeling, surrounded on all sides in the darkness. A return to the womb, perhaps. And after the moments of extreme stress, it felt good to relax just a little, get rid of the epinephrine, feel the old ticker slowing below three hundred beats. You're not out of the woods yet, Sparky, I told myself. But could that be a clearing up ahead?

That's when I heard him coming after me.

"You're out of your mind," I muttered to myself, but I knew it wasn't so. He was back there, somewhere in the ductworks. Behind me.

I stopped and held as still as I could. I heard distant fans, almost below the threshold of hearing. Nothing else. But he was back there. I started to crawl again.

It was a thump sssh, thump sssh sound. It stopped when I stopped, started up again when I moved. It was beyond the range of hearing of anybody but a man ru

But there was something even worse than that, a special torture arranged by a God who's always struck me as a practical-joker, life-of-the-party sort of deity. I'll bet he was slapping his thigh over this one. For eight weeks I had played the Old Man in "His Hideous Eye," the one-man, one-act masterpiece inspired by Poe's "Telltale Heart." ("Yikes!!*****"—Joe Miller's One-Second Reviews). The thump sssh thump sssh (repeat until half-crazy) was the exact sound I had heard for eight shows a week, begi

Like a little song you learned when you were three, these conditioned reflexes never really leave you. Like a spider you discover in your bed, and ninety-six years later the sight of a super-web-spi