He loved the house. He loved the twin candlelike sconces, the thick wooden crown moldings everywhere, and the dark wooden baseboards and heavy brass-handled doors.
Where was the lady of the house?
He went downstairs.
He heard her voice before he saw her. From the kitchen, he saw her in an adjacent office, amid fax machines or copy machines, computer monitors and mountains of clutter, talking on a landline phone in a low voice.
He didn,t want to eavesdrop, and in truth, he couldn,t really make out what she was saying. She wore a white negligee now, something very soft, with layers of lace and pearls, it seemed, and her smooth straight hair shimmered like satin in the light.
He felt a stab of desire that was painful, just looking at her hand as it held the receiver of the phone, and seeing the light on her forehead.
She turned, saw him, and smiled, gesturing for him to wait.
He turned and went away.
The old woman Felice was going through the big house and turning off the lights.
The dining room was already dark when he came back through it, and he saw that the fire had been scattered and was no more than embers. The rooms up front appeared to be in total darkness now. And he could see the old woman moving down the hall, reaching for the switches of the sconces one by one.
At last she passed him on her way back to the kitchen, and this room she plunged into total darkness as well. She went on out then, without a word to Marchent, who was still talking, and Reuben went on back up the stairs.
A small lamp burned on a table in the upstairs hallway. And there was light coming from Marchent,s open bedroom door.
He sat down at the top of the stairs, with his back to the wall. He figured he would wait for her and surely she would come up soon.
He knew suddenly he,d do everything in his power to get her to sleep the night with him, and he grew impatient wanting to hold her, kiss her, feel her in his arms. It had been powerfully exciting to sleep with her simply because she was new to him and so very different, yet soft and yielding and utterly self-confident and frankly much more passionate than he,d ever known Celeste to be. She didn,t seem like an older woman in any particular way. He knew she was, of course, but her flesh had been firm and sweet, and she,d been a little less muscular than Celeste.
These struck him as crude thoughts; he didn,t like these thoughts. He thought of her voice and her eyes and he loved her. He figured Celeste would probably understand. Celeste after all had been unfaithful to him with her old boyfriend twice. She,d been very candid about both of these "disasters," and they,d gotten past it. In fact, Celeste had suffered over them much more than Reuben had.
But he had it in his mind that she owed him one, and that a woman of Marchent,s age wouldn,t arouse her jealousy at all. Celeste was uncommonly pretty, effortlessly attractive. She,d let this go.
He went to sleep. It was a thin sleep in which he thought he was awake, but it was sleep. His body felt sublimely relaxed and he knew he was happier than he,d been in a very long time.
Chapter Three
A LOUD CRASH. Glass breaking. He woke up. The lights were out. He couldn,t see anything. Then he heard Marchent scream.
He raced down the steps, hand sliding along the broad oak railing, finding his way.
One horrific scream after another drew him straight forward in the blackness, and gradually, by what light he didn,t know, he made out the kitchen door.
The beam of a flashlight blinded him, and before he could shield his eyes, someone had caught him by the throat and was pushing him backwards. His head cracked into wall. The guy was strangling him. The flashlight was rolling on the floor. In sheer rage, he rammed his knee into the attacker, while reaching with both hands for the man,s face. He caught a hank of hair in his left hand and rammed his fist into the man,s eye. The man yelled and gave up the grip on Reuben,s throat. But another figure was bearing down on him with another light. Reuben saw the flash of metal, and felt the sharp stab of the blade going into his stomach. He had never felt rage like he was feeling it now, but as the two men beat him and kicked at him, he felt the blood pumping out of his stomach. Again, he saw the flash of the knife raised. He struck out with all the force he could muster, thrusting his shoulder behind the blow, and threw one of his attackers backwards and away.
Again he felt the blade, this time slicing into his left arm.
A sudden torrent of sounds exploded in the shadowy hallway. It had to be the deep roaring growls of a fierce dog. His attackers were screaming, the animal was snapping, roaring, and Reuben himself had slid down in what was surely his own blood.
Once a long time ago, Reuben had seen a dogfight, and what he remembered was not the sight - because it happened too fast and too furiously for anyone to see anything - but the noise.
That,s how it was now. He couldn,t see the dog. He couldn,t see his attackers. He felt the weight of the beast on top of him, pinning him to the floor, and then the bellowing of the two men stopped.
With a savage snarl, the animal grabbed Reuben by his head, the teeth sinking into the side of his face. He felt himself being lifted as his arms flailed. The pain was worse than the wound in his stomach.
Then suddenly the powerful jaws let him go.
He fell back down on top of one of the attackers, and the only sound in the whole world suddenly was the animal,s panting breath.
He tried to move but he couldn,t feel his legs. Something heavy, the paw of the beast, was resting on his back. "Dear God, help me!" he said. "Dear God, please."
His eyes closed and he went down and down into rolling darkness; but he forced himself back to the surface. "Marchent!" he shouted. Then the darkness rolled over him again.
Utter quiet surrounded him. He knew the two men were dead. He knew that Marchent was dead.
He rolled over on his back, and struggled to reach into the right pocket of his robe. His fingers closed on the cell phone, but he waited, waited in the silence until he was certain that he was truly alone. Then he drew the phone out and up to his face, and punched the button to turn on the small screen.
The darkness rose again, like waves coming up to wash him off the safe white beach. He forced himself to open his eyes. But the phone had slipped from his hand. His hand had been wet and he,d lost it, and as he turned his head, the darkness came again.
With all his strength he fought it. "I,m dying," he whispered. "They,re dead, all of them. Marchent,s dead. And I,m dying here, and I have to get help."
He reached out, groping for the cell phone, and felt only the wet boards. With his left hand he covered the pain burning in his gut and felt the blood coming through his fingers. A person cannot live with bleeding like this.