Snake Eater (20 page)

I do not, however, keep my private papers scattered across the living-room rug. I do not keep my desk drawers upside down on the kitchen table or the cushions of my sofa in a heap in the corner or my canned goods and refrigerator contents strewn around the kitchen floor.

My place had been pillaged.

I wandered around the living room, staring at the mess. Whether it had been a thorough job or a hasty one I couldn’t tell. Nor could I determine if any papers were missing. My TV was there, and my stereo, and the two Aden Ripley watercolors still hung on the wall. The canned goods and pots and pans had been swept out of the cabinets in the kitchen. The freezer door hung open and melting ice dripped into a big puddle on the floor.

I went back into the living room, shoved the cushions back where they belonged on the sofa, and sat down. I lit a cigarette. My hands, I noticed, were steady.

I remembered Daniel’s office the day he was killed. It had been trashed, too.

I smoked the cigarette down to the filter, crushed it out, and stood up. I went into my bedroom. I groped, then found the wall switch. When the light went on, I saw the arrow sticking into my mattress.

It was a mate to the one that had protruded from Daniel McCloud’s chest—the same design on the aluminum shaft, the same colored fletching. But instead of slicing up through Daniel’s abdomen into his heart, this one had been rammed into my bed—in just about the place my chest would have been had I been sleeping there. It had sliced through the blanket and two layers of sheets and penetrated deep into the mattress.

I have been accused on more than one occasion of not being sensitive or intelligent enough to take a hint.

It’s a bum rap. I’m pretty good at understanding hints when I hear them. I just tend to ignore them, which is different.

Anyway, this wasn’t a hint.

It was a warning, and a blatant one, and it was the same one that Charlie McDevitt and Horowitz had issued to me.

Only this one was impossible to ignore.

Sticking razor-sharp hunting broadheads into mattresses wasn’t Charlie’s style, or Horowitz’s, either. It was exactly the style of a man who would shove an arrow into a man’s abdomen, however.

I sat on the edge of my bed. I gripped the arrow and tried to twist it out. It came reluctantly. “Son of a
bitch
,” I muttered. I yanked it from the mattress, then pulled it through the sheets and blanket, and when I got it free big tufts of mattress stuffing clung to the barbed broadhead. It left behind a jagged three-cornered hole in my mattress, just as it would have in my chest.

I carried the arrow out into the kitchen. I poured two fingers of sour mash into a glass, paused, then splashed in some more. I lit another cigarette.

Anger makes me glacially calm and focused. Fear gives me the shakes. I knew I was angry. Getting burglarized made me angry. But I noticed my hands. They were trembling.

I was angry
and
afraid.

A murderer had been in my apartment. I was entitled.

How the hell had he gotten in? It wasn’t the most constructive question I could think of. But it was the one that my anger and my fear conspired to raise first.

Part of my hefty monthly rent check goes to paying the security guard who sits in the lobby of the building. He has a bank of closed-circuit television monitors in front of him that he’s supposed to watch continually, but that must get a little boring, since he has his own portable television set tuned to more interesting channels. Nobody bothers complaining. Harbor Towers is a quiet building, inhabited mostly by retired old folks who spend the cold half of the year in Florida, plus a few separated or divorced single people like me who appreciate privacy. Nothing much ever happens in my building, and although the guards wear revolvers on their hips, none of the many we’ve had over the years has ever had an occasion to remove one from its holster.

For a visitor to gain entrance into the building, he must buzz the guard, who will then scrutinize the appropriate closed-circuit monitor and pick up the intercom phone. The visitor will give his name and the number of the unit he is visiting. The guard will ring the unit. The resident will okay his guest, who will then be buzzed in. The visitor will sign into the book, noting his or her name, the number of the unit visited, and the time. All visitors must sign out, too.

Residents, of course, have their own keys.

Most of us who live there park our cars in the basement garage and take the elevator directly up, bypassing the guard. But without our plastic parking card, which we must insert into a slot to make the barrier go up, we can’t drive into the garage.

There are four fire doors that open into the building plus a service entrance in the back. They can only be opened from the outside with a passkey. A closed-circuit camera is trained on each of them.

If I wanted to invade a building such as mine, I would walk into the garage, ducking under the barrier and sticking close to the wall so that the closed-circuit camera would miss me. I’d have to take my chances getting onto the elevator, since there’s a camera trained on it, too. If I kept my back to the camera, it’s unlikely a guard would set off an alarm if he happened to notice me. He’d assume I was a resident even if he were watching that monitor instead of a ball game. Even more foolproof, I’d lurk in the shadows until some residents drove in. Then I’d walk onto the elevator with them. They’d assume I was one of the many residents they had never met. The guard would assume I was their guest. And an hour later my face would be forgotten by all of them.

Of course, if I had a passkey, or was adept at picking locks, I could get in through a fire door and then enter someone’s apartment where I could, if that’s what turned me on, strew papers around and shove arrows into mattresses.

I called Tony, the weekend guy, through the building intercom.

“Yo,” he answered.

“It’s Brady Coyne, 6E,” I said.

“Hey, Mr. Coyne.” Tony was a cheerful guy, a retired shoe salesman who’d only been on the job for a couple of months. His main responsibility was to be there sitting on his fanny. He liked to watch soap operas and sitcoms, and I figured he barely earned the five bucks or so he was paid per hour.

“What’s your shift these days, Tony?” I asked.

“Noon to eight, same as it’s been.”

“So you’ve been there since noon today?”

“Yep. Why? Problem?”

“Did anybody come looking for me?”

He hesitated. “You okay, Mr. Coyne?”

“I’m fine.”

“You sound a little—I don’t know—shaky.”

“I’m okay. Was there anybody for me?”

“Um. Hm. Nope. Nobody. Expecting someone?”

“No, not really,” I said. “Did anybody come looking for anybody who wasn’t home? Or did you notice anything suspicious at all today?”

“Nah. Quiet day. Sunday, you know?”

“Any deliveries?”

“Nope. Sunday. You sure you’re okay?”

“Yes, dammit.” I took a breath. “I’m sorry, Tony. Listen, did you catch anything from the garage?”

“Whaddya mean?”

“I don’t know. I’m just wondering if you saw anyone you didn’t recognize today, someone who might’ve come around and then left, or buzzed me but found me out or something.”

“Jeez, no, Mr. Coyne. Nothin’ like that. Quiet. It’s Sunday.”

“Who was on before you?”

“That was Lyle. He had four to noon.”

“Take a look in the book, see what’s there after nine this morning.”

“Like what?”

“Guests. Anybody who might’ve signed in.”

“Okay. Hang on.” There was a minute or two of silence, then Tony said, “Nothin’ here, Mr. Coyne. Sunday morning, people go out. No guests at all. You know, half the tenants are away anyhow.”

“Sure. Did Lyle make any notations?”

“Huh? What kind of notations?”

“I don’t know. That he saw anything unusual.”

“I guess he would’ve called in an alarm if he did, huh? That’s what we’re supposed to do. Anything at all, just buzz the police. He would’ve noted it if he’d done that. Nothing here. Quiet day. Sunday.”

“Right,” I said. “Sunday. Listen, has anybody reported losing their keys?”

“Keys?”

“House keys.”

“Jeez, no. I heard nothing like that from anybody.”

“Okay.” I hesitated. “Well, thanks anyway, Tony. If you think of something, give me a buzz, will you?”

“Sure. You bet. Hey, Mr. Coyne. Really. Somethin’ wrong?”

“No. No problem. Thanks.”

“You bet.”

I took my drink and my souvenir hunting arrow to the glass sliders and stared out into the November night. I fondled the arrow and sipped my drink. My hands were no longer trembling. All I saw outside was darkness. I went back to the phone and dialed Charlie’s number at home. When he answered, I said, “How’d you feel if someone got a key to your place, sauntered in, trashed it, and stuck an arrow into your bed?”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“When I got home this afternoon I found the place turned upside down. There was an arrow up to its hilt in my mattress. It looks identical to the one that was sticking in Daniel. I’ve been trying to sort out my feelings. Anger and fear, mingled together. Lots of fear, I think.”

“For Chrissake, Brady—”

“I’m sorry,” I said quickly. I took a deep breath. “I’m not accusing you of anything.”

“It kinda sounded like it.”

“Well, I’m not. I just need to talk to somebody. Look. This thing has freaked me out, Charlie.”

“An arrow sticking into your bed? I don’t blame you.”

“I was away most of the day. When I got back it was there. Right where I would’ve been if I’d been asleep.”

“A warning, you figure, huh?”

“Of course. What else? The sonofabitch was
here
. First you warned me, then Horowitz warned me, now this.”

“Horowitz? The state cop?”

“Yes. He told me what you told me.”

“About Daniel?”

“Yes.”

“To back off?”

“Yes. In the strongest possible terms. Like you did.”

“Well, you don’t think Horowitz broke into your place, trashed it, and jammed some arrow into your bed, do you?”

“Of course not.”

“Or me?”

“Shit, no, Charlie. I didn’t intend that at all. I just don’t know what to think. I know what I’m
supposed
to think. I’m supposed to think I better stop trying to figure out who killed Daniel.”

“You should, you know.”

“Yeah, well, maybe you’re right.”

“Well, good. It’s about time you got some sense.” Charlie let out a long breath. “Did they take anything?”

“I don’t know. I don’t think so. Maybe it was all just to make an impression. Rip up the place, stick an arrow into the bed where I could’ve been. Just a message.”

“A pretty blatant message, at that,” he said.

“Charlie, I don’t know what to do. Jesus…”

“You could have been lying in that bed, Brady.”

“Don’t think for one minute that hasn’t occurred to me.”

“Next time, then.”

“I know. Thanks for the sympathy.”

“That why you called? For sympathy?”

“I don’t know why I called. You’re acting weird lately.”

“
Me?
Me weird? Check the mirror, Coyne.”

“I did. I saw this guy who just had the wee-wee scared out of him.”

“That’s better than seeing someone with an arrow in him.”

“He’s also pretty mad, this guy in the mirror,” I said.

“Listen to the scared part, Brady. That’s the part that makes sense.”

“I know.”

“Look,” he said. “I don’t know anything about this, and yes, I’m concerned. I’m frightened, too, okay? I don’t want to lose you, buddy, and I’m glad you called me. But exactly what do you want?”

I laughed quickly. “I don’t know. Not advice, because you already gave me that, and it’s sounding more and more sensible all the time. Not sympathy, because that’s useless. Your friendship doesn’t need confirming. Maybe I hoped you’d have some insights, but I suppose I didn’t really think you would. I guess I just wanted to vent.”

“Vent away.”

“I already did.”

“Lemme think about it,” said Charlie.

“Okay.”

“I’m a little confused myself,” he said.

“Those names disappearing from your computer’s memory.”

“Yeah. That’s strange.” He hesitated, then said, “Hey, Brady?”

“What?”

“You called the cops, didn’t you?”

“Why?”

“Jesus! To tell them about the burglary, the arrow in your bed.”

“And what would the cops do?”

Charlie hesitated; then he chuckled. “They’ll ask you if anybody is hurt. You’ll say no. And about four hours later they’ll arrive, glance around, ask if anything’s missing, drop some cigar ashes onto your carpet, and you’ll end up feeling as if you’re the criminal. That’s if they show up at all.”

“Exactly. I talked to the security guy. That’s as much as the cops would do. He didn’t know anything.”

“You should still call them. Report the crime. Be a good citizen.”

“Yeah, well, I probably won’t.”

“Listen,” he said.

“I know what you’re going to say.”

“I’m gonna say it anyway. Please. Stop. Cease and desist. Trust me on this.”

“I trust you, Charlie.”

“So what’re you gonna do?”

“I don’t know. Sleep on the sofa, I guess.”

And after I cleaned up my apartment and made sure the chain was secured and the deadbolt thrown, that’s what I did, although I didn’t do much actual sleeping. Mostly I stared up into the darkness. I keep a .38 in the safe in my office. I decided to remove it the next day and bring it home with me.

Otherwise, I didn’t come up with any helpful ideas.

I dozed off, then abruptly awoke. It could have been ten minutes later. Or several hours. I didn’t check the time. I thought I had heard something. I lay there in the darkness, trying not to move. I felt a vise around my chest. My breaths came quickly. I darted my eyes around the shadowy corners of my living room. I heard nothing, saw nothing.

My heart was tripping along like a snare drum.

I switched on the lights and padded barefoot through all my rooms, wishing I had my .38 in my hand.

Nobody was there but me.