Thriller: Stories to Keep You Up All Night

"Fifty grand's a lot less than two million."

"Woffler, I'm getting a little tired of your negativity. No one made you do it."

Woffler looked out the window at the blur of dark woods. "I don't know. It seemed like a good idea at the time."

"And it was a good idea. A freaking brilliant idea! We saw our chance and took it. You liked building cases at the museum for twenty bucks an hour? As for me, I got tired of shaking doors and checking IDs."

"You aren't worried about Lipski?"

"Screw him. He's just a middleman. The real buyer's that guy in Peru."

"What about him? How's he going to react?"

"What's he go

"He sounds like somebody important."

"If you want my opinion, the guy's a psychopath. Probably wants the knife back so he can rip out a few more hearts, just like his ancestors. I bet he doesn't even know we exist."

"Even if he doesn't, Lipski does. And he's going to be looking for us."

"You think he'll find us at Passumkeag Lake? I'd like to see him, with his Armani suits and handmade shoes, stomping around the New Hampshire woods trying to find two guys bass fishing in the middle of nowhere." Perotta laughed. "I really would."

"Slow down, we're coming to another town."

They flashed past a sign that said Waldo Falls. Just to shut Woffler up, Perotta eased down to the speed limit.

They passed a row of white farmhouses, a church, a firehouse, a neat town square with a Civil War monument and a rusted ca

"Welcome to beautiful downtown Dildo Falls," Perotta said. "Can you believe people live in a place like this?"

"As a matter of fact, I can."

In a moment they had left the town behind them and were back in the endless north woods. Perotta started to accelerate, then abruptly slowed again. "Jesus, will you look at that," he said, pointing. "It's like a time warp."

A battered VW bus was pulled off the road in a muddy turnout. It was covered with peace signs, feminist symbols, painted pot leaves and psychedelic flowers. A man with long greasy hair sat smoking in the driver's seat. He watched them go by.

Perotta gave a couple of honks as he passed.

"What'd you do that for?"

"Didn't you see the bumper sticker? Honk If You're Pro-Choice. Hey, I'm pro-choice. Line the girls up and let me choose," he cackled.

"Why don't you just hang a sign out the window, saying, 'Obnoxious museum thief on his way to cabin hideout?'" "Whaddya mean?"

"What I mean is, every town we go through, Perotta, you do something to attract attention."

"Look, will you lighten up? In case you hadn't noticed, it's over. We did it. Quit worrying and enjoy the vacation. When the heat's off, we can figure out how to fence it, or melt it down, or whatever. In the meantime, we've gone fishing."

Woffler sighed heavily. His face looked gray. "I'm no good at this."

"You'll do better next time."

"There won't be a next time."

The side road wound through the dark trees and then suddenly they were at the lake, walled in on all sides by hemlocks. Perotta eased off the gas. The rented cabin stood off to the right, with a sloping wooden porch. A needle-strewn path led to a crooked dock on the bouldered shore. The pond was deathly still in the falling twilight and the water was black.

Perotta shut off the car and turned off the headlights, and they sat there in silence a moment while the engine ticked and cooled. There was no other sound save for the steady drone of insects. After a moment they got out of the car and took their luggage and bags of groceries inside.

The cabin was cool and musty, all the furniture draped in sheets dotted with dead flies. Woffler cleaned up while Perotta cooked up a pot of pasta with tomato sauce and fresh basil. After di

"Feeling better?" Perotta asked.

"I'm getting there."

He nodded at the knife. "How many beating human hearts you think they cut out with it?" "We should hide it." "Nah, let's enjoy it for a moment."

They lapsed into silence. Perotta took another sip of scotch, enjoying the fiery sensation as it slid down his gullet. Here they were in the deep woods, four hundred miles from New York, and every mile had taken them farther into the boonies. The fire popped and crackled on the grate. He gave a sigh of satisfaction.

When the soft knock came at the door, almost below the threshold of audibility, it startled Perotta so much he slopped half his drink into his lap.

"Who the hell-?"

Woffler was already up, hand on the Tumi knife. He slipped it into the velvet bag and disappeared into the bathroom. Per-otta went to the window, flattened himself sideways, opened the curtains, and peered out.

"Who is it?" Woffler asked as he came out of the bathroom.

"Nobody. There's nobody there. What'd you do with it?"

"In the toilet tank."

Perotta went to the door. Hand on the knob, he hesitated a moment. Then he opened it and stepped out on the porch.

The hemlocks were like a dark wall all around the cabin, and they sighed in the night breeze. The surface of the lake gleamed like ruffled velvet in the moonlight.

He stepped back inside, stared at Woffler. "It was a knock, right?"

"Sure sounded like one."

Perotta reached for a tissue, dabbed at his wet pants. "Maybe it was a branch or something."

They sat back down at the fire. Perotta took another slug of Chivas, but the spell was broken.

"How long you figure we have to stay up here?" Woffler asked.

"Don't know. Three, maybe four weeks."

"Think the heat will be off by then?"

"One way or another."

"What does that mean?"

"It means that Lipski-"

And then the soft knock came again. This time, Perotta sprang up and rushed the door, throwing it open. Nobody.

"Go see if someone's around back of the cabin," said Woffler. "I'll need a flashlight first."

They searched through the kitchen drawers and finally found one full of flashlights and packages of batteries. They went back into the living room and stood there, uneasy.

"You think it's some kids?" Perotta asked.

"We're ten miles from the nearest town. And they wouldn't be out messing around on a weeknight."

"Maybe the landlord's a practical joker."

"The landlord," Woffler said stiffly, "is eighty and lives down in Westchester County."

They stood there, uncertain what to do next. Finally Perotta went to the door, opened it and shined the light into the dark woods. The beam played feebly among the dark trunks.

"There!" Woffler said from behind him.

"I didn't see anything."

"It was right there. Something white, moving."

Woffler came forward now, playing his own flashlight beam into the woods.

"Hey!" Perotta yelled. "Who's out there?"

He could hear his voice echoing faintly back from the far side of the pond.

Woffler walked to the edge of the porch and shined the flashlight into the wall of trees. "There!" he said, stabbing with his beam.

Now Perotta thought he saw something, too. It looked like the figure of a man in white.

"Go see who it is," he said.

"Me?"

"You're the one that saw him," Perotta reasoned. "I'm not going out there."

"The hell you aren't. Look, somebody has to stand guard here. Don't worry, I'll watch your back."

Reluctantly, Woffler walked down the steps and slowly made his way toward the edge of the woods, twenty-five feet away. He stopped, swung his beam around. Then he took a step into the trees.

"There's someone in here," he called back, uneasiness clear in his voice. "Someone was spying on us, and look-there are footprints in the wet needles."