Recoil

Then they waited.

Disquieted by uneasy imaginings he ran his mind back over the preparations they had made, trying to discern whether they’d overlooked anything. They’d picked this hiding place because it was big enough to accommodate eight people and their possessions; they’d studied it by flashlight from the top of the trapdoor and they’d placed the luggage back far enough from the nave so that it wouldn’t be seen by anyone who didn’t actually crawl most of the length of the attic. There’d been a bigger, more comfortable and more obvious pair of dormer wings at the opposite end of the house but that was right by the big attic fan and they’d ruled it out when Vasquez pointed out that the noise of the fan would prevent them from hearing anyone’s approach. Homer, Vasquez and Roger were armed with revolvers and if they were discovered the plan was to try and get the drop on the hoodlums; after that they’d have no choice but to keep the prisoners incommunicado for an indefinite period. But if that happened it would be a costly risk: When the two electrical inspectors disappeared their colleagues would trace their movements.

Somewhere in the house there was a faint thud—probably another door slamming.

Mathieson’s shoulder was jammed up against an overhead rafter and he had to keep his head bent below the sloping roof; his muscles began to ache. Across the way he could only just make out the huddled shadows of Ro

He kept looking at the luminous dial of his watch. Beside him Jan shifted her position slightly. He tensed; but there was no sound. The beam on which he sat was pinching a groove into his rump. He wanted, of all things, a cigarette—he hadn’t smoked in years.

Thirty-five minutes had passed. It was almost noon. Despite the exhaust fan’s powerful circulation the corner was close with musty heat; he was sweating heavily.

The faintest of clicks—his eyes flashed toward Roger and he saw a pale flash ripple along the blued gun barrel as it lifted. The cords stood out in Roger’s neck.

Mathieson turned his face a bit and then he caught it on the flats of his eardrums: the scrape of wood on wood.

There was light—dim irregular reflections that moved the shadows under the center roofbeam. In alarm he watched the shadows dance, faint as ghosts. He knew what it was: Someone had come up through the trapdoor and was playing a flashlight around; what he was seeing was secondary and tertiary reflections of the light beam.

Beads of sweat stood out on Roger’s forehead. His knuckles went pale on the grip of the revolver. Its muzzle stirred, pushing toward the central runway where, if the searchers advanced this far, they would appear.

Across the way Mathieson could see subtle movements—Homer and Vasquez preparing themselves; he caught, once, a glint of light on steel.

Cramp put a stitch in Mathieson’s neck. He opened his mouth and drew a shallow breath. Jan sat absolutely still except for her eyelids: She was blinking very fast, staring sightlessly and fixedly at an indeterminate shadow amid the suitcases. A pale movement—it drew his eye: Amy, lifting her hand to chew on a fingernail.

The vague dappling of lights grew dimmer. He guessed they were prowling toward the far end—toward the attraction of noise and movement: the exhaust fan.

Then a voice. It startled him by its very faintness; the fan, drawing air, sent the sound away and made it seem to reach him from a great distance downwind:

“It’s just a fan.”

An ordinary voice—no menace in it—but the skin of his back crawled.

His nerves were so keyed up that the tiniest movement in the corner of his vision drew his alarmed attention. It was Roger: his thumb curling over the hammer of the revolver.

A creaking of planks. The lights came lancing down the attic—the flashlights pointing this way now. Two of them: the beams crisscrossed, bobbing around the rafters, throwing the shadows into sharp relief. Against the sudden light Jan’s profile in silhouette was preternaturally still like something carved out of stone. Then he heard something catch in her throat: She dipped her face, stifling it, With great care he slid his arm around her shoulders. She was rigid.

“This insulation’s making me all itchy. Come on, there’s nothing up here.”

The lights receded. He heard the scrape of the trapdoor. Darkness returned.

He let the breath out of him; he sagged back against the roof.

Jan stirred. His grip clenched her shoulder. “No.” He mouthed the whisper against her ear. “Wait till they’ve gone—wait till we hear the car.”

“God—God …”

“Take it easy. It’s all over.”

2

His back ached and his arms were getting weak; he took a break and set the ax beside the stacked logs. In the night the cool breeze brushed his cheeks. Lamplight from the windows of the house made little pools on the lawn above him. He filled his lungs and dragged another limb to the sawhorses: Meuth had pruned the maples during the week and dragged the limbs around behind the barn with his tractor and they’d been waiting for the ax. Mathieson had volunteered for it because he needed to be alone and because he needed to work hard with his hands and body, exhaust himself to the extreme so that there wouldn’t be any strength left for feeling and thinking.

In the end his muscles rebelled and he had to quit. He put the ax away and left the barn, walking stiffly in slow weariness, guiding on the porch lights.

He stopped under the porte cochere, reluctant to go inside. The scene still reverberated in his skull. They had fought many times but never quite like this. God, the things I said. At its climax she had burst into screaming tears. They were real tears—it was real emotion—but her histrionics had been so theatrical he’d found himself unmoved; and that had frightened him more than the rest. He’d rushed outside.

On the porch steps he sat down with his elbows on his knees, face in his hands.

An insubstantial cloud drifted across the moon; he forced himself to his feet and stumbled inside and up the stairs.

He looked in on Ro

She was at the dressing table prospecting for pins in her hair. She had a headache again: He could see the pain across her eyes. She looked up, locking glances with him in the mirror, and he saw her breathe in through her nose, slowly and expressively, pinching her lips together. Her hair, still fresh from washing, shimmered in the lamplight; the portable dryer was in the open suitcase; now she was taking her hair down. She twisted half around to look at him directly and his glance traveled the long column of her back—even in anger she still had the capacity to arouse him deeply.

She swung her legs around and crossed them and leaned forward as though she had a severe pain in her stomach: She held that attitude, watching him, anxiety behind the surface anger in her eyes. Her arms hugged her upraised knee.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

“Are you?”

“I’ll make it up to you.”

“How?”

“I don’t know yet.”

“I’m going to pieces, Fred.”

“You can’t. Not yet.”

“Easy to say. Easy for you to say.”

“When I put Ro

She only looked at him blankly.

“‘If I grow up.’”

Comprehension changed her face.