set into a wall otherwise lined with books, were three Mitsubishi television monitors. Each was tuned to one of the rival networks, and at night, when his father was in here, each played out its progression of prime-time images with the sound off.
The curtains were drawn, and Jake had to turn on the desk lamp in order to see. He felt nervous just being in here, even wearing sneakers. If his father should wake up and come in (and it was possible; no matter how late he went to bed or how much he drank, Elmer Chambers was a light sleeper and an early riser), he would be angry. At the very least it would make a clean getaway much tougher. The sooner he was out of here, the better Jake would feel.
The desk was locked, but his father had never made any secret of where he kept the key. Jake slid his fingers under the blotter and hooked it out. He opened the third drawer, reached past the hanging files, and touched cold metal.
A board creaked in the hall and he froze. Several seconds passed. When the creak didn’t come again, Jake pulled out the weapon his father kept for “home defense”—a .44 Ruger automatic. His father had shown this weapon to Jake with great pride on the day he had bought it—two years ago, that had been. He had been totally deaf to his wife’s nervous demands that he put it away before someone got hurt.
Jake found the button on the side that released the clip. It fell out into his hand with a metallic snak! sound that seemed very loud in the quiet apartment. He glanced nervously toward the door again, then turned his attention to the clip. It was fully loaded. He started to slide it back into the gun, and then took it out again. Keeping a loaded gun in a locked desk drawer was one thing; carrying one around New York City was quite another.
He stuffed the automatic down to the bottom of his pack, then felt behind the hanging files again. This time he brought out a box of shells, about half-full. He remembered his father had done some target shooting at the police range on First Avenue before losing interest.
The board creaked again. Jake wanted to get out of here.
He removed one of the shirts he’d packed, laid it on his father’s desk, and rolled up the clip and the box of .44 slugs in it. Then he replaced it in the pack and used the buckles to snug down the flap. He was about to leave when his eye fixed on the little pile of stationery sitting beside his father’s In/Out tray. The reflectorized Ray-Ban sunglasses his father liked to wear were folded on top of the stationery. He took a sheet of paper, and, after a moment’s thought, the sunglasses as well. He slipped the shades into his breast pocket. Then he removed the slim gold pen from its stand, and wrote Dear Dad and Mom beneath the letterhead.
He stopped, frowning at the salutation. What went below it? What, exactly, did he have to say? That he loved them? It was true, but it wasn’t enough—there were all sorts of other unpleasant truths stuck through that central one, like steel needles jabbed into a ball of yarn. That he would miss them? He didn’t know if that was true or not, which was sort of horrible. That he hoped they would miss him?
He suddenly realized what the problem was. If he were planning to be gone just today, he would be able to write something. But he felt a near-certainty that it wasn’t just today, or this week, or this month, or this summer. He had an idea that when he walked out of the apartment this time, it would be for good.
He almost crumpled the sheet of paper, then changed his mind. He wrote: Please take care of yourselves. Love, J. That was pretty limp, but at least it was something.
Fine. Now will you stop pressing your luck and get out of here?
He did.
The apartment was almost dead still. He tiptoed across the living room, hearing only the sounds of his parents’ breathing: his mother’s soft little snores, his father’s more nasal respiration, where every indrawn breath ended in a slim high whistle. The refrigerator kicked on as he reached the entryway and he froze for a moment, his heart thumping hard in his chest. Then he was at