Life Blood --XI---Page 36

"He had something with him, if that's what you mean. Like a bag of some kind."

"And you let him go up?" I couldn't believe what I was hearing. I felt a rush of dismay.

"Said he had to. Needed a signature." Patrick Mooney then shrugged and reached for the dooijamb to steady himself, his whisky breath wafting across the hall. Great security.

I stepped into the elevator as the door was clanking shut, and watched as he rubbed his eyes and eased his own door closed.
        Now I was really puzzled. If the FedEx guy came "earlier,"
why was he just now leaving? A lot of scary theories went through my mind as I pushed the button for the third floor.

I took a deep breath as the elevator opened, but again I saw no packages. So far so good. Getting off, I set down my roses on the hall carpet and fumbled for my key. When I inserted it, the lock felt a little rough, causing me to think for an instant I'd used the wrong key, but then it responded.

What had caused that? I wondered. Had the guy been fiddling with my door, wiring a bomb? Using one hand I pushed it open, again holding my breath and standing aside, but it opened okay. I exhaled, then reached back to drag in the flowers.

But if he didn't leave a package, what was he doing here?

Casing out where I lived? Planting a bug in the elevator? And why was he here so long?

The place was dark when I stepped in, the drapes drawn. I relocked the door, then surveyed the gloom. No explosions, so I guessed he didn't plan to kill me. Yet. Here I was, home, safe and sound. I just stood a minute, still uneasy.

Then I remembered the flowers, my dripping bouquet, and
headed for the kitchen. Deal with them, and then maybe get a
bottle of white wine out of the fridge and sip some in the bath.
After my unnerving sequence with Sarah, thoughts of going to the
office had zero appeal. Time to lighten up, way up.
        Preoccupied, not looking around, I stuffed the roses into a
vase by the sink, and then I thought again about the white wine
and opened the refrigerator. I'd still not bothered to turn on any
lights, but the kitchen and its ancient fridge were dimly illuminated
by the tiny window just across. I wasn't sure where I'd put the
bottle, since I'd had to rearrange things to make room for the dup
of Carly's interview. (I was also planning to take home a safety
dup of Paula's interview sometime later in the week.)

Why was I doing that? Taking home copies? It was a sign of
deep compulsion. You couldn't really make a professional- quality
second negative from a first positive—by that time it would be
third-generation—but I'd brought it anyway. Now and then I just
have a raw instinct that keeping a safety backup around is a good
idea. But the canister had ended up devouring the entire lower
shelf of the fridge.

I opened the white door and peered in. The light was out, and for a moment I stared numbly at the dark, half-filled shelves. The only thing that struck me as odd was that I could see the pure white of the empty bottom shelf.

For a second I could only stand and stare, but then I backed
away, trying to figure out what was wrong, and stumbled over
something. I regained my balance and flipped on the overhead
light.

"What!"

The floor around me was littered with bottles, my old toaster, my tiny microwave. It was a total shambles.

I recoiled stumbling again, this time over cans strewn across the linoleum. My kitchen, it was slowly sinking in, had been
completely trashed.

I felt a visceral wave of nausea. It's the scariest thing in the
world having your space invaded like a form of psychic rape. I
sagged against the refrigerator as I gazed around. The cabinets
had been emptied out, a hasty and haphazard search. Quick and
extremely dirty, as glass containers of condiments, including an
old bottle of dill pickles, were shattered and their contents

smeared into the floor.

"I don't believe this." I marched back into the living room and reached for the lights. This room too had been turned upside down. The TV, stereo, VCR, all had been swept onto the rug. But they were still there. That guy, that animal, who did this wasn't a thief. He'd been looking for something.

My breath now coming in pulses, I edged into the bedroom
and switched on the light. The bed was the way I'd left it, the
covers thrown back and the pillows in a pile. The clock radio was
there, and so was the old Mac, still on the table in the far corner,
my "workstation." Again nothing seemed to be missing.
        I headed back to the kitchen, where the refrigerator door was
still open. I gazed at the interior a moment, still puzzled, trying to
figure out what wasn't right. . .

Shit! Shit! Shit! That's what was wrong. The field of white bottom shelf was empty. Totally empty. The film canister of Paula's interview was gone.

For a moment I just leaned against the kitchen counter, barely pushing aside an impulse to throw up in the sink. Think, I told
myself, get a grip and think. . .

It was the film he'd wanted. And he'd wanted it badly enough to pick the lock, then rip my home apart looking for it.
        I pulled at a tangle of hair, feeling my mind in chaos, and tried
to reason out the situation. Why? Why would he steal a positive that couldn't be used for anything?

Finally the real truth of what had happened hit me like a fist in the chest. My Home Sweet Home had been violated.
        Seething, I went into the living room and reached for the
phone, the only thing not on the floor.

My first instinct was to call David, but then I decided he'd just go into a tizzy of hysteria and be no support at all. So instead I called Lou, praying I wouldn't wake Sarah. In an unsteady voice, I tried to tell him what had happened.

He seemed puzzled to hear from me again so soon, but then
he quickly turned FBI, concerned for my safety.
        "Guy sounds like a professional," he declared. "Probably got
in with an electric picker, like the Edge. Any asshole can buy one
for a hundred and thirty bucks. It'll rake cylinders at a hundred
times a second. Pro like that, you can be sure there'll be no
prints."

"But why would . . . ?" My voice was still a croak. "I mean, my God, all for a lousy reel of film?"

"Fucker wants you to know he's in town. So how he did it's as important as what he did. It's a time-proven scare tactic." He
paused. "Morgan, I don't like this one bit. There could be more
before this is over."

"Think I should call the cops?"

"Damned right you should," he said, slowly and sadly, "but to
tell you the truth, they ain't gonna do all that much. Somebody
messed up your apartment and lifted a third-hand copy of a
woman talking. They'll say it sounds more like malicious mischief
than a crime. Then they'll write it up and that'll be the last you'll
hear from them."

"Well," I said, my anger welling up, "maybe I don't feel quite so laissez-faire. Tell me, you know anybody who can run a plate for you on a Sunday?"