Necessity

At the top there’s one of those three-foot-high expandable gates across the doorway, the kind they use to prevent small children from falling down staircases. Rather than risk a noise by opening it she steps over it.

The rattle of poker chips always used to a

On her left the gun room is unoccupied: bookcases filled with Bert’s big picture tomes on wildlife and ballistics; recliner chair, lamp, couch, gun rack bristling with weapons, big console TV under the shelves of pirated videocassette movies.

“You what?”

“Said I raise forty dollars.”

“Marjorie?” Bert is hollering. “You want to go get us some sandwiches? Slice up some of that venison from last night.”

“You gotta be out of your gourd, man. I got trip nines staring you right in the face.”

“You want to play cards or just brag about your nines?”

The sound of a nearby door latch. In sudden alarm she wheels back into the den and flattens herself against the wall just inside the doorway; and hears footsteps march forward along the landing.

She sees Marjorie Quirini go past in the hallway; recognizes Marjorie’s broad beam and the apron ties. There’s some squeaking and snapping as the child gate is opened and shut: Marjorie’s heavy feet plod down the stairs.

Christ. That was close.

She must have been dusting or something.

She goes back out into the hall. The bathroom on the right is empty. There are two possible routes here: through the bathroom to the master bedroom and then out into the landing; or forward to the landing and then along past the row of bedroom doors. But the landing is an open loft above the big front room and the voices are below that balcony. If the furniture hasn’t been rearranged the poker table is in full view of the landing.

So she goes in through the bathroom and opens the co

No one in the big bedroom. She looks at her watch. Twelve-twenty.

Get a move on.

She remembers the fourposter bed. Bert’s previous wife bought it when they redecorated the place after the fire six years ago.

She goes past it to the door and softly eases it open.

This will be the worst part: the gauntlet between this door and the nursery twenty feet to the right along the balcony. Every step of it will be in sight of a good part of the big living room below.

“Look at that. The case nine. Four nines. I lose with jacks full. Can you believe it?”

“I told you not to mess around with my nines, stupid.”

Then she realizes. Of course. All I’ve got to do is lie down and crawl. They won’t see a thing.

She pokes her head out and looks both ways along the landing. Nothing stirs.

Someone coughs. “You want to deal the cards or just sit there looking stu

She hears Bert’s voice clearly for the first time: “I think the son of a bitch shorted us the two kilos on purpose. I think he got a better price from somebody else.”

Feeling idiotic she gets down on her face and begins to crawl along the baseboard. Out under the railing past the edge of the balcony she can see the upper portion of the high plate glass picture windows that run across the front of the house.

Another voice now. Vaguely familiar but she can’t identify it: “What’s wrong with that? You get a better deal someplace, you take it. Hey—am I right or am I right?”

“Not after he agreed to the score.” Bert is petulant. “We had a deal with the son of a bitch.”

She’s halfway along the wall now. Hope to heaven nobody comes up the stairs right now.

Through the picture windows she sees the helicopter and now she realizes whose voice that is: George Talmy the pilot. So he’s still here after all.

She crawls as far as the nursery door. There’s a big cutout of Snoopy thumbtacked above the latch.

She opens it silently.

A big woman in a white uniform—a stranger—sits watching TV on a small portable color set with the sound turned way down.

The baby napping in the crib is only a bundle of sheets and a clutter of toys from here.

The big nurse is lifting five-pound hand weights. Up slowly and down again. Her biceps look like Muhammad Ali’s.

Oh shit.

51 In the rack are six hunting rifles and four handguns. A heavy chain co

It’s the same lock. Her key opens it. As silently as possible she pulls the links of the chain through the trigger housing of the Luger.

Despite its heft it is the smallest caliber revolver on the rack. Any of the others would be a lot more powerful and menacing but this is the only one she’s sure she knows how to use because Bert forced her to memorize the procedures of shooting and reloading and cleaning the damned thing. If you’re ever alone up here, he kept saying—as if she ever was up here in the woods without the company of Bert or the Quirinis or half a dozen of the deer-hunting fraternity and their ditsy wives and girlfriends.

It isn’t loaded of course. She remembers his lectures about keeping loaded guns around the house. She unlocks the ammunition drawer and finds the box of .22 magnum cartridges; fumbles a bit loading the chambers but finally has it full; puts the box back in the drawer and locks everything up and carries the heavy revolver to the door.

She goes back through the bathroom and the master bedroom and out onto the landing. Belly-flat again she creeps toward the nursery.

“You want lettuce and mayo

“I’m dealing. Seven to a possible straight. Three’s, a pair. Nine on the flush, that’s three clubs. And a jack on the table. Treys bet. You guys want mayo?”

“Sure.”

“Why not.”

“Marjorie? Mayo’s fine, anything else you got. Maybe some horseradish.”

Jack Sertic’s voice now, reasoning calmly: “Hey, look Al, like he never gave us trouble before. He delivered three kilos on time. Good quality stuff.”

George Talmy again: “What you go

And now Bert’s reply, husky with insinuation. “George, the way you talk I get the feeling sometimes you believe you’ve been promoted from helicopter driver to partner.”

Jack laughs at him. “The amount of money you pay him, he qualifies as senior partner.”

George says, “You think I’m out of line, Al? I don’t like to feel I’m just some kind of servant around here, you know. But all the same I know who’s in charge. I don’t give you any real lip, do I?”

“Al, you go

She shuts the door behind her. She doesn’t think she’s made any sound but the nurse looks around—alarmed perhaps by some subtle shift in the light.

The weights are on the floor by the chair. The nurse sees her, sees the revolver in her hand. The nurse’s eyes whip around past the crib to the table in the corner.

It draws her attention to the big pistol on the table.

“Don’t. I’ll use this if I have to.”

“You’re her, ain’t you.”

She moves across the room, keeping her distance, making a circle around the nurse. At the crib she looks down.

My God she’s grown. She’s beautiful. Radiant. My lovely child. Still got those fu

She feels herself soften; as if her body is growing heavier. Tears flow into her eyes. I have missed you so much, my love …