He hadn’t been allowed to see Carol anyway. The trip away from the city might clear his head; things were pressing in on him. “I’ll be glad to do it, Mr. Ives. I’m grateful for the opportunity.”

“We’ll go over the details with George Eng before you leave. You’ve got a couple of weeks to prepare yourself. I know you’ll do a fine job with it, Paul—I’ve always had every confidence in you.”

Paul walked in relief to the door. When he glanced back across the length of the room Ives had a copy of the Revenue Code open and was scowling furiously at it.

9

“Well, you got pretty good hinges on this door,” the locksmith said. “Lucky. Some of these newer buildings, they got hinges you could bust with a toothpick.”

The first locksmith with whom Paul had made an appointment had failed to show up. It hadn’t occurred to him at the time and he’d forgotten it for a while. He’d called this fellow two days ago—a squat bald man with a cauliflower ear and feral eyes. He had tools all over the foyer carpet; curlings of sawdust beneath the door where he was drilling into its edge. “Now you realize you can’t just pull the door shut with this lock. You got to turn the key, otherwise it’s not locked at all.”

“I understand that. What concerns me is that nobody should be able to get in when it’s locked. If I leave it unlocked it’s my own stupidity.”

“Sure. Well, there ain’t no lock in the world that’s sure proof against an experienced pickman, but there ain’t many of them around and they usually don’t go for buildings like this one. Where you get trouble with them’s over on the East Side mostly—Fifth along the park, the East Sixties, Sutton Place, like that. I got one place I put three locks on their front door, most expensive locks you can buy, but didn’t stop some pickman from getting in the day after he read in the papers about these folks sailing to Europe. Stripped the place clean.”

The locksmith scraped sawdust out of the hole he had cut and began to fit an enormous device into it. “It sure don’t pay to tell the newspapers you’re going away,” he said. “Listen, you wasn’t planning to sell any valuables, are you?”

“Why?”

“If you do, don’t put your name and address in the ad. That’s an engraved invitation to thieves.”

“I hadn’t thought of that.”

“Listen, there’s plenty of things you can do to make it harder on these guys. Most people just leave one little light on when they go out—that’s stupid. Every burglar in the world knows that leave-the-light-on routine. What I always tell my clients, when you go out for the evening or to the office for the day or whatever, leave two-three lights on and turn your radio on so a guy can hear it if he’s standing outside your door. And there’s another thing—the middle of the hot summer days, these dope addicts go along the street lookin’ up at all the apartment house windows. They see an air conditioner sticking out a window that’s not turned on and dripping, they know nobody’s home. It don’t cost that much electricity to leave a few lights on and run your air conditioner on low when you ain’t home, and leave the radio on. Cheap insurance, I always call it.”

“I’ll keep it in mind.”

He hadn’t skied since 1948, and then only a few timorous times, but in his dream he was skiing down a long white slope—faster and ever faster, and then the slope grew steeper and he could not turn, the cold wind scissored his ears, the skis whispered under him with terrifying sluicing speed, and the hill kept tilting downward and he could not turn.

He awoke with chilled feet and lay in bed listening to the garbage trucks and watching shards of dim light flash through the blinds. Out there they were killing people. There was nothing to think about but that; and nothing to do but think about it in the insomniac night.

His feet were cold and yet the room was filled with a dense stale heat and the thick-tongued smell of bad sleep. He got up and switched on the air conditioner, went to the refrigerator and poured a glass of milk and brought it back to the nightstand by the bed. Now over the chill drumming whisper of the air conditioner he heard the swishing of cars in the street—it had started raining. His eyes dreamily tracked the wavering liquid light-movements on the ceiling; he heard the rain when a gust of wind blew it against the window. Unable to stand it any longer he got up again and took a pair of wool socks from the drawer, put them on and got back into bed, pulling the covers up neatly over him. The edge of the sheet dragged the glass of milk over and spilled it to the carpet. He cursed at the top of his lungs; slammed out of bed and went to get the sponge and paper towels.

It was no good trying to sleep any more. Half-past two in the morning. He reached for a book but couldn’t focus his eyes on the print; put it away and switched off the light and sat up in bed in the dark, swearing, staring.

Even in the darkness—perhaps especially in the darkness—the room had snaggy edges where memories clung. Iought to give up the apartment, move somewhere. Maybe move into one of those residential hotels where you got daily maid service.

The hell, he thought, the only sane thing to do is move out of the city. Get an efficiency in one of those high-rises across the Hudson on the Palisades, or maybe even a cottage in Jersey or Orange County. Not Long Island, he thought; he couldn’t stand Long Island. But somewhere out of the city—out of this madness.

That’s wrong. That’s giving in to them. I’m not running away. Stay and fight.

Fight how?

The mind wove ridiculous fantasies in the middle of the night. Feeling like an ass he got a glass of water, washed down a sleeping pill, set the alarm and went back to bed.

“Damn it, Lieutenant, haven’t you got anywhere at all?”

“We’re doing everything we can, Mr. Benjamin. We’ve picked up several people for questioning.”

“That’s not enough!”

“Look, I know how you feel, sir, but we’re doing everything we know how to do. We’ve assigned several extra men to the case. Some of the best detectives on the force. I don’t know what else I could tell you.”

“You could tell me you’ve nailed the bastards.”

“I could, yes sir, but it wouldn’t be true.”

“The trail’s getting colder all the time, Lieutenant.”

“I know that, sir.”

“Damn it, I want results!”

But the haranguing gave him no satisfaction and after he hung up the phone he sat cracking his knuckles and looking for someone to hit.

*  *  *

Lunch in Schrafft’s—single tables occupied by little old ladies in prim hats. We are all dressing for dinner in the jungle. He remembered a year or so ago in the same restaurant—lunching with Sam Kreutzer that day—he’d sat and watched an elderly woman alone at a table suddenly hurl water tumblers and silverware at the wall mirror. He had been shocked. If it had happened today he would regard it as predictably logical behavior. Everybody lived like a character in a one-act play that nobody understood; getting by from one moment to the next was like trying to hold on to your hat in a gusty wind.

He returned to the office after lunch and spent an hour deliberating over the Amercon papers George Eng had delivered two days earlier. Steeping himself in figures and processes so he would be ready for the trip out West at the end of next week.

At half-past three he phoned Jack’s office but Jack was in court. He tried again just before five and caught him in. “How is she?”

“Rotten.”

His scalp contracted. “What’s happened?”

“Nothing sudden. It’s hard to describe—it’s like watching someone sink into quicksand and knowing there isn’t a damn thing you can do about it.”