9
In spite of all that had happened, Rosie enjoyed the ride back to Trenton Street almost as much as the one out to the country that morning. She clung to Bill as they cut across the city on the surface streets, the big Harley-Davidson slicing smoothly through the thickening fog. The last three blocks were like riding through a dream lined with cotton. The Harley's headlight was a brilliant, cloudy cylinder, boring into the air like the beam of a flashlight cutting across a smoky room. When Bill finally turned onto Trenton Street, the buildings were little more than ghosts and Bryant Park was a vast white blank. The black-and-white Hale had promised was parked in front of 897. The words To Serve and Protect were written on the side. The space in front of the car was empty. Bill swung his motorcycle into it, kicked the gearshift up into neutral with his foot, and killed the engine.
"You're shivering," he said as he helped her off. She nodded and found she had to make a conscious effort to keep her teeth from chattering when she spoke.
"It's more the damp than the cold." And yet, even then, she supposed she knew it was really neither; knew on some deep level that things were not as they should be.
"Well, let's get you into something dry and warm." He stowed their helmets, locked the Harley's ignition, and dropped the key into his pocket. "sounds like the idea of the century to me." He took her hand and walked her down the sidewalk to the apartment building steps. As they passed the radio-car, Bill raised his hand to the cop behind the wheel. The cop lifted his own hand out the window in a lazy return salute, and the streetlight gleamed on the ring he wore. His partner appeared to be sleeping. Rosie opened her purse, got out the key she would need to open the front door at this advanced hour, and turned it in the lock. She had only the faintest idea of what she was doing; her good feelings were gone and her earlier terror had crashed back in on her like some huge dead iron object falling through floor after floor of an old building, an object destined to drop all the way to the basement. Her stomach was suddenly freezing, her head was throbbing, and she didn't know why. She had seen something, something, and she was so focused on her effort to think what it might have been that she did not hear the driver's door of the police car open and then chunk softly shut. She did not hear the faintly gritting footsteps on the sidewalk behind them, either.
"Rosie?" Bill's voice, coming out of darkness. They were in the vestibule now, but she could barely see the picture of the old geezer (she thought maybe it was Calvin Coolidge) hanging on the wall to her right, or the scrawny shape of the coat-tree, with its brass feet and its bristle of brass hooks, standing by the stairs. Why was it so damned dark in here?
Because the overhead light-fixture was out, of course; that was simple. She knew a harder question, though: Why had the cop on the passenger side of the black-and-white been sleeping in such an uncomfortable position, with his chin way down on his chest and his cap pulled so low over his eyes that he looked like a thug in a gangster movie from the thirties? Why was he sleeping at all, for that matter, when the subject he was detailed to watch was due at any moment? Hale would be angry if he knew that, she thought distractedly. He'd want to talk to that bluesuit. He'd want to talk to him right up dose.
"Rosie? What's wrong?" The footsteps behind them were hurrying now. She rolled mental footage backward like a videotape. Saw Bill raising his hand to the bluesuit behind the wheel of the cruiser, saying hi there, good to see you, without even opening his mouth. She saw the cop raise his own hand in return; saw the gleam of the streetlamp on the ring he wore. She hadn't been close enough to read the words on it, but all at once she knew what they were. She'd seen them printed backward on her own flesh many times, like an FDA stamp on a cut of meat. Service, Loyalty, Community. Footsteps hurried eagerly up the steps behind them. The door slammed violently shut. Someone was panting low and fast in the dark, and Rosie could smell English Leather.
10
Norman's mind took another of those big skips while he was standing at the sink in the Daughters and Sisters kitchen with his shirt off, washing fresh blood from his face and chest. The sun had been low on the horizon, glaring orange into his eyes when he raised his head and reached for the towel. He touched it, and then, without a single break that he was aware of, not so much as an eyeblink, he was outside and it was dark. He was wearing the White Sox ballcap again. He was also wearing a London Fog topcoat. God knew where he'd picked it up, but it was very appropriate, since a rapidly thickening fog had settled over the city. He rubbed one hand over the expensive waterproofed fabric of the coat, liking the feel. An elegant item. He tried again to think of how he'd come by it and couldn't. Had he killed someone else? Might have, friends and neighbors, might have; anything was possible when you were on vacation. He looked up Trenton Street and saw a city police-car-what they called a Charlie-David car back in Norman's bailiwick-parked hubcap-deep in the mist about three-quarters of the way to the next intersection. He reached into the deep left pocket of the coat-a really nice coat, somebody certainly had good taste-and touched something rubbery and crumpled. He smiled happily, like a man shaking hands with an old friend.
"Ze bool," he whispered.
"El toro grande." He reached into the other pocket, not sure what he was going to find, only sure that there was something in there he would want. He stabbed the tip of his middle finger into it, winced, and brought it carefully out. It was the chromed letter-opener from his pal Maude's desk. How she screamed, he thought, and smiled as he turned the letter-opener over in his hands, letting the light from the streetlamps run off its blade like white liquid. Yes, she had screamed... but then she had stopped. In the end the gals always stopped screaming, and what a relief that was. Meantime, he had a formidable problem to solve. There would be two-count em, two-motor-patrolmen in the car parked up there; they'd be armed with guns while he was armed only with a chrome-plated letter-opener. He had to take them out, and as silently as possible. A pretty problem, and one he didn't have the slightest idea of how to solve.
"Norm," a voice whispered. It came from his left pocket. He reached in and pulled out the mask. Its empty eyeholes gazed up at him with blank rapt attention, and the smile once more looked like a knowing sneer. In this light, the garlands of flowers decking the horns might have been clots of blood.
"What?" He spoke in a low, conspiratorial whisper.
"What is it?"
"Have a heart attack," ze bool whispered, so that was what he did. He plodded slowly up the sidewalk toward where the cruiser was parked, plodding slower and slower as he got closer and closer. He was careful to keep his eyes down and look at the car only with his peripheral vision. They would have seen him by now, even if they were inept-they'd have to, he was the only thing moving out here-and what he wanted them to see was a man looking at his own feet, a man who was working for every step. A man who was either drunk or in trouble. His right hand was now inside his coat, massaging the left side of his chest. He could feel the blade of the letter-opener, which he was holding in that hand, making little digs in his shirt. As he drew close to his objective he staggered-just one moderate-to-heavy stagger-and then stopped. He stood perfectly still with his head down for a slow five-count, not allowing his body to sway so much as a quarter-inch to one side or the other. By now their first assumption-that this was Mr Ginhead making his slow way home after a few hours at the Dew Drop Inn-should be giving way to other possibilities. But he wanted them to come to him. He'd go to them if he absolutely had to, but if he had to do that, they would probably take him down. He took another three steps, not toward the cruiser now but toward the nearest stoop. He grabbed the cold, fog-beaded iron railing which ran up its side and stood there panting, head still down, hoping he looked like a man who was having a heart attack and not one with a lethal instrument hidden inside his coat. Just when he was beginning to think he had made a serious error here, the doors of the police car swung open. He heard this rather than saw it, and then he heard an even happier sound: feet hurrying toward him. Cheezit, Rocky, da cops, he thought, and then risked a small look. He had to risk it, had to know where they were in relation to each other. If they weren't close together, he would have to stage a collapse... and that held its own ironic danger. In such a case one of them would very likely run back to the cruiser in order to radio for an ambulance. They were a typical Charlie-David team, one vet and one kid still wet behind the ears. To Norman, the rookie looked weirdly familiar, like someone he might have seen on TV. That didn't matter, though. They were close together, almost shoulder to shoulder, and that did matter. That was very nice. Cozy. "sir?" the one on the left-the older one-asked. "sir, do you have a problem?"
"Hurts like a bastard," Norman wheezed.
"What hurts?" Still the older one. This was a crucial moment, not quite crunch-time, but almost. The older cop could order his partner to radio for EMT backup at any moment and he would be hung, but he couldn't strike just yet; they were just a tiny bit too far away. At this moment he felt more like his old self than he had since starting on this expedition: cold and clear and totally here, aware of everything, from the droplets of fog on the iron railing to a dirty-gray pigeon feather lying in the gutter next to a crumpled potato chip bag. He could hear the soft, steady susurrus of the cops" breathing.
"It's in here," Norman gasped, rubbing under his coat with his right hand. The blade of the letter-opener poked through his shirt and pricked his skin, but he hardly felt it.
"It's like having a gallbladder attack, only in my chest."
"Maybe I better call an ambulance," the younger cop said, and suddenly Norman knew who the young cop reminded him of: Jerry Mathers, the kid who'd played Beaver on Leave It to Beaver. He'd watched all those shows in reruns on Channel 11, some of them five and six times. The older cop didn't look a bit like the Beav's brother Wally, though.
"Hang on a sec," the older cop said, and then, incredibly, gave away the store.
"Let me take a look. I was a medic in the army."
"Coat... buttons..." Norman said, keeping an eye on the Beavfrom the corner of his eye.
The older cop took another step forward. He was now standing right in front of Norman. The Beav also took a step forward. The older cop undid the top button of Norman's newfound London Fog. Then the second one. When he undid the third one, Norman pulled the letter-opener out and plunged it into the man's throat. Blood burst out in a torrent, gushing down his uniform. In the foggy darkness it looked like steak sauce. The Beav turned out not to be a problem. He stood, paralyzed with horror, as his partner raised his hands and beat weakly at the handle of the thing in his throat. He looked like a man trying to rid himself of some exotic leech.
"Bluh!" he choked.
"Ahk! Bluh!" The Beav turned to Norman. In his shock he seemed totally unaware that Norman had had anything to do with what had just befallen his partner, and this didn't surprise Norman at all. It was a reaction he had seen before. In his shock and surprise, the cop looked about ten years old, now not just something like the Beav, but a dead ringer. "something happened to Al!" the Beav said. Norman knew something else about this young man who was about to join the city's Roll of Honor: inside his head he thought he was shouting, he really did, when what was actually coming out was only a little bitty whisper. "something happened to Al!"
"I know," Norman said, and delivered an uppercut to the kid's chin, a dangerous punch if your opponent is dangerous, but a sixth-grader could have dealt with the Beav as he was now. The blow connected squarely, knocking the young cop back into the iron railing Norman had been clutching not thirty seconds ago. The Beav wasn't as out as Norman had hoped, but his eyes had gone cloudy and vague; there was going to be no trouble here. His hat had tumbled off. The hair beneath was short, but not too short to grab. Norman got a handful and yanked the kid's head sharply down as he brought his knee up. The sound was muffled but terrific; the sound of a man with a mallet whacking a padded bag full of china. The Beav dropped like a lead bar. Norman looked around for his partner, and here was something incredible: the partner was gone. Norman wheeled around, eyes glaring, and spotted him. He was walking up the sidewalk very slowly, with his hands held out in front of him like a zombie in a fright-film. Norman turned a complete circle on his heels, looking for witnesses to this comedy. He didn't see any. There was a lot of hooting and hollering drifting over from the park, teenagers running around in there, playing grab-ass in the fog, but that was all right. So far his luck had been fantastic. If it held for another forty-five seconds, a minute at most, he'd be home free. He ran after the older cop, who had now stopped to have another go at pulling Anna Stevenson's letter-opener out of his throat. He had actually managed to get about twenty-five yards.
"Officer!" Norman said in a low peremptory voice, and touched the cop's elbow. The cop turned jerkily. His eyes were glassy and bulging from their sockets, the eyes of something that belonged mounted on the wall of a hunting lodge, Norman thought. His uniform was drenched scarlet from neck to knees. Norman didn't have the slightest idea how this man could still be alive, let alone conscious. I guess they must build cops tougher in the midwest, he thought.
"Caw!" the cop said urgently.
"Caw! Fuh! Bah-up!" The voice was bubbly and choked, but still amazingly strong. Norman even knew what the guy was saying. He'd made a bad mistake back there, a rookie's mistake, but Norman thought this was a man he could have been proud to serve with, just the same. The letter-opener handle sticking out of his throat bobbed up and down when he tried to talk, in a way that reminded Norman of how the bullmask looked when he manipulated the lips from the inside.
"Yes, I'll call for backup." Norman spoke with soft, urgent sincerity. He closed one hand on the cop's wrist.
"But for now, let's get you back to the car. Come on. This way, Officer!" He would have used the cop's name, but didn't know what it was; the name-tag on his uniform shirt was covered with blood. He couldn't very well call him Officer Al. He gave the cop's arm another gentle tug, and this time got him moving. Norman led the staggering, bleeding Charlie-David cop with the letter-opener in his throat back to his own black-and-white, expecting someone to come out of the steadily thickening fog at any moment-a man who'd gone to get a sixpack, a woman who'd been to the movies, a couple of kids on their way home from a date (maybe, God save the King, an amusement-park date at Ettinger's)-and when that happened he'd have to kill them, too. Once you got started killing people it never seemed to stop; the first one spread like ripples on a pond.
But no one came. There were only the disembodied voices floating across from the park. It was a miracle, really, like how Officer Al could still be on his feet even though he was bleeding like a stuck pig and had left a trail of blood behind him so wide and thick it was starting to puddle up in places. The puddles gleamed like engine oil in the fog-faded glow of the streetlamps. Norman paused to pluck the Beav's fallen hat off the steps, and when they passed the open driver's-side window of the black-and-white, he leaned through quickly to drop it on the seat and pluck the keys from the ignition. There were a formidable number of them on the ring, so many that they couldn't lie flat against one another but stuck out like sunrays in a child's crayon drawing, but Norman had no trouble picking out the one which opened the trunk of the car.
"Come on," he whispered comfortingly.
"Come on, just a little further, then we can get backup rolling." He kept expecting the cop to collapse, but he didn't. He had given up on trying to pull the letter-opener out of his throat, though.
"Watch the curb here, Officer, whoops-a-daisy." The cop stepped off the curb. When his black uniform shoe came down in the gutter, the wound in his throat gaped open around the blade like the gill of a fish and more blood squirted onto the collar of his shirt. Now I'm a cop-killer, too, Norman thought. He expected the idea to be devastating, but it wasn't. Perhaps because a deeper, wiser part of him knew that he really hadn't killed this fine, tough police officer; someone else had. Something. Most likely it had been the bull. The longer Norman thought about it, the more plausible that sounded.
"Hold it, Officer, here we are." The cop stopped where he was, at the back of the car. Norman used the key he had picked out to open its boot. There was a spare tire in there (bald as a baby's ass, too, he saw), a jack, two flak vests-kapok, not Kevlar-a pair of boots, a grease-stained copy of Penthouse, a toolkit, a police radio with half its guts spilling out. A pretty full boot, in other words, like the boot of every other police-car he'd ever seen. But like the boot of every other police-car he'd ever seen, there was always room for one more thing. He moved the toolkit to one side and the police radio to the other while the Beav's partner stood swaying beside him, now completely silent, his eyes seemingly fixed on some distant point, as if he now saw the place where his new journey would begin. Norman tucked the jack behind the spare tire, then looked from the empty space to the person for whom he had created it.
"Okay," he said.
"Good. But I need to borrow your hat, okay?" The cop said nothing, simply swayed back and forth on his feet, but Norman's sly bag of a mother had been fond of saying "silence gives consent," and Norman thought it a good motto, certainly better than his father's favorite, which had been
"If they're old enough to pee, they're old enough for me." Norman took off the cop's hat and put it on his own bald head. The baseball cap went into the trunk.
"Bluh," said the cop, holding one smeared hand out to Norman. His eyes didn't bother; they seemed to have floated away completely.
"Yes, I know, blood, that goddam bull," Norman said, and shoved the cop into the trunk. He lay there limply, with one twitching leg still sticking out. Norman bent it at the knee, loaded it in, and slammed the trunk shut. Then he went back to the rookie. The rook was trying to sit up, although his eyes said he was still mostly unconscious. His ears were bleeding. Norman dropped to one knee, settled his hands around the young cop's throat, and began to squeeze. The cop fell backward. Norman sat on him and kept squeezing. When the Beav had ceased all movement, Norman put his ear against the young man's chest. He heard three heartbeats from in there, random and disordered, like fish flopping on a riverbank. Norman sighed and slid his hands around the Beav's throat again, thumbs pressing into his windpipe. Now someone will come, he thought, now someone'll come for sure, but no one did. Someone called, "Yo, muthafucka!" from the white blank of Bryant Park, and there was shrill laughter, the kind only drunks and the mentally retarded can manage, but that was all. Norman bent his ear against the cop's chest again. This guy was stage-dressing, and he didn't want his stage-dressing coming to life at a crucial moment. This time there was nothing ticking but the Beav's watch. Norman picked him up, carted him around to the passenger side of the Caprice, and loaded him in. He jammed the rookie's hat down as far as he could-black and swollen, the kid's face was now the face of a troll-and slammed the door. Now every part of Norman's body was throbbing, but the worst pain of all had once more settled in his teeth and jaws. Maude, he thought. That's all about Maude. Suddenly he was very glad he. couldn't remember what he had done with Maude... or to her. And of course it really hadn't been him at all; it had been ze bool, el tow grande. But dear God, how everything hurt. It was as if he were being dismantled from the inside out, taken apart a bolt and a screw and a cog at a time. The Beav was sliding slowly to the left, his dead eyes bulging out of his face like croaker marbles.
"No you don't, whoa, Nellie," Norman said, and pulled him upright again. He reached in farther and buckled the Beav's seatbelt and harness. That did the trick. Norman stood back a little and took a critical look. He didn't think he'd done badly, all in all. The Beav just looked conked out, catching an extra forty or fifty winks. He leaned in the window again, careful not to disturb the Beav's position, and pawed open the glove compartment. He expected to find a first-aid kit, and he wasn't disappointed. He popped the lid, took out a dusty old bottle of Anacin, and swallowed five or six. He was leaning against the side of the car, chewing them and wincing at the sharp, vinegary taste, when his mind took another of those skips. When he came back to himself time had passed, but probably not too much; his mouth and throat were still filled with the sour taste of aspirin. He was in the vestibule of her building, snapping the light-switch up and down. Nothing happened when he did it; the little room stayed dark. He'd done something to the lights, then. That was good. He had one of the Charlie-David cops" guns in his other hand. He was holding it by the barrel, and he had an idea he'd used the butt to hammer something. Fuses, maybe? Had he been down cellar? Maybe, but it didn't matter. The lights here didn't work, and that was enough. This was a rooming-house-a nice one, but still a rooming-house. It was impossible to mistake the smell of cheap food, the kind that always got cooked on a hotplate. It was a smell that seeped into the walls after awhile, and nothing could get rid of it. Two or three weeks from now the characteristic sound of rooming-houses in summer would be added to that smell: the low, intermingled whine of small fans set in many different windows, trying to cool rooms that would be walk-in ovens in August. She had traded her nice little house for this cramped desperation, but there was no time to puzzle over that mystery now. The question right now was how many roomers lived in this building, and how many of them would be in early on a Saturday night. How many, in other words, might be a problem? None of them will be, said the voice from the pocket of Norman's new topcoat. It was a comfy voice. None of them will be, because what happens after doesn't matter, and that simplifies everything. If anyone gets in your way, just kill them. He turned, went out onto the stoop, and pulled the vestibule door shut behind him. He tried it and found it locked. He supposed he'd picked his way in-the lock certainly didn't look like much of a challenge-but it was mildly disquieting not to know for sure. And the lights. Why had he gone to the trouble of killing them, when she would most likely come in alone? For that matter, how did he know she wasn't in already? This second was easy-he knew she wasn't in because the bull had told him she wasn't, and he believed it. As to the first question, she might not be alone. Gertie might be with her, or... well, ze bool had said something about a boyfriend. Norman found that frankly impossible to believe, but... "she likes the way he kisses her," Ferd had said. Stupid, she'd never dare... but it never hurt to be safe. He started down the steps, meaning to go back to the cop car, meaning to slide behind the wheel and start waiting for her to show up, and that was when the last flip happened, and it was a flip this time, a flip and not a skip, he went up like a coin flipped from the thumbnail of a referee in a pregame ritual, who to kick, who to receive, and when he came back down he was slamming the vestibule door behind him, lunging into the darkness, and locking his hands around the neck of Rose's boyfriend. He didn't know how he knew the man was her boyfriend and not just some plainclothes cop who had been charged with seeing her home safe, but who cared? He did know, and that was enough. His whole head was vibrating with outrage and fury. Had he seen this guy (she likes the way he kisses her)
swapping spit with her before going in, maybe with his hands sliding down from her waist to cup her ass? He couldn't remember, didn't want to remember, didn't need to remember.
"I told you!" the bull said; even in its fury its voice was perfectly lucid.
"I told you, didn't I? That's what her friends have taught her! Nice! Very nice!" Tm going to kill you, motherfucker," he whispered into the unseen face of the man who was Rosie's boyfriend, and forced him back against the vestibule wall.
"And oh boy, if I can, if God lets me, I'm gonna kill you twice." He clamped his hands around Bill Steiner's throat and began to squeeze.
11
"Norman!" Rosie screamed in the darkness.
"Norman, let him go!" Bill's hand, which had lightly been touching the back of her arm ever since she had pulled her key out of the door, was suddenly gone. She heard stumbling footfalls-foot-thuds-in the darkness. Then there was a heavier bump as someone drove someone else into the vestibule wall. Tm going to kill you, motherfucker," came whispering out of the dark.
"And oh boy, if I can, if God lets me-" I'm gonna kill you twice, she finished in her head before he could finish out loud; it was one of Norman's favorite threats, often yelled at the TV screen when an umpire made a call that went against Norman's beloved Yankees, or when someone cut him off in traffic. If God lets me, I'm gonna kill you twice. And now she heard a choking, gargly sound, and of course that was Bill. That was Bill in the process of having the life choked out of him by Norman's large and powerful hands. Instead of the terror Norman had always roused in her, she felt a return of the rage she'd experienced in Male's car and then at the police station. This time it seemed almost to engulf her.
"Let him alone, Norman!" she screamed.
"Get your f**king hands off him!" "shut up, you whore!" came out of the darkness, but she could hear surprise as well as anger in Norman's voice. Until now she'd never given him a single command-not in the entire course of their marriage-or spoken to him in such a tone. And something else-there was a band of dull heat above the place where Bill had been touching her. It was the armlet. The gold armlet the woman in the chiton had given her. And in her mind, Rosie heard her snarl Stop your stupid sheep's whining! at her.
"Quit it, I'm warning you!" she screamed at Norman, and then started toward the place from which the choking sounds and the effortful grunts were coming. She went with her hands held out before her like the hands of a blind woman, her lips drawn back from her teeth. You're not going to choke him, she thought. You're not, I won't let you. You should have gone away, Norman. You should have gone away and left us alone while you still could. Feet, drumming helplessly against the wall just ahead of her, and she could imagine Norman holding Bill up against it, lips drawn back in his biting smile, and suddenly she was a glass woman filled with a pale red liquid, and that liquid was pure and untinctured fury.
"You shit, didn't you hear me? PUT HIM DOWN, I SAID!" She reached out with her left hand, which now felt as strong as an eagle's talon. The armlet was burning fiercely-she felt she should almost be able to see it, even through her sweater and the jacket Bill had loaned her, glowing like a dull ember. But there was no pain, only a kind of dangerous exhilaration. She grabbed the shoulder of the man who had beaten her for fourteen years and dragged him backward. It was astoundingly easy. She squeezed his arm through the slippery waterproof fabric of his coat, then whipped her own arm out and slung him off into the darkness. She heard the rapid rattle of his stumbling feet, then a thud, then an explosion of breaking glass. Cal Coolidge, or whoever it was in the picture over there, had taken a dive. She could hear Bill coughing and gagging. She groped for him with splayed fingers, found his shoulders, and settled her hands upon them. He was hunched over, tearing for each breath and immediately coughing it back out. This didn't surprise her. She knew how strong Norman was. She slipped her right hand down his left arm and grasped him above the elbow. She was afraid to use her left hand, afraid she might hurt him with it. She could feel power humming in it, throbbing through it. Perhaps the most terrifying thing about the sensation was how much she liked it.
"Bill," she whispered.
"Come on. Come with me." She had to get him upstairs. She didn't know exactly why, not yet, but she did not doubt at all that when she needed to know, the knowing would come. But he didn't move. He only leaned on his hands, coughing and making those gagging noises.
"Come on, goddamit!" she whispered in a harsh peremptory voice... and she had come so close to saying you, as in Come on, goddam you! And she knew who she sounded like, oh yes indeed, even in these desperate circumstances, she knew very well. He got moving, though, and for now that was all that mattered. Rosie led him across the vestibule with the confidence of a seeing-eye dog. He was still coughing and half-retching, but he was able to walk.
"Halt!" Norman shouted from his part of the darkness. He sounded both official and desperate.
"Halt, or I'll shoot!" No you won't, that would spoil all your fun, she thought, but he did shoot, the dead cop's.45 slanted up at the ceiling, the sound terrific in the enclosed space of the vestibule, the smell of burnt cordite sharp enough to make the eyes water. There was also a momentary shutterflash of reddish-yellow light, so bright it printed afterimages on her eyes like tattoos, and she supposed that was why he'd done it: to get a look at the landscape, and a look at where she and Bill were in that landscape. At the foot of the stairs, in fact. Bill made a choked vomiting sound and staggered against her, sending her into the wall of the staircase. As she struggled to keep from going to her knees, she heard a rush of footsteps in the dark as Norman came for them.