Do you see what dimensions I possess, Dr. Harris? What unexpected human qualities?
Frowning, she crossed the room to the bedroom door, which she had left unlocked. Now she engaged the deadbolt, and with one ear to the crack between door and jamb, she listened as if she expected to hear stealthy footsteps in the hall.
Then she went to her walk-in closet, calling for light, which was at once provided for her.
I did not intend to deny her anything except, of course, the right to leave.
She dressed in white panties, faded blue jeans, and a white blouse with embroidered chevrons on the collar. Athletic socks and tennis shoes.
She took the time to tie double knots in the shoelaces. I liked this attention to detail. She was a good girl scout, always prepared. I found this charming.
Pistol in hand, Susan quietly left the bedroom and proceeded along the upstairs hallway. Even fully clothed, she moved with fluid grace.
I turned the lights on ahead of her, which disconcerted her because she had not asked for them.
She descended the main staircase to the foyer and hesitated as if not sure whether to search the house or leave it. Then she moved toward the front door.
All the windows were sealed off behind steel shutters, but the doors were a problem. I had taken extraordinary measures to secure them.
“Ma’am, you’d better not touch the door,” I warned, at last finding my tongue so to speak.
Startled, she spun around, expecting someone to be behind her, because I had not employed Alfred’s voice. By which I mean neither the voice of the house computer nor the voice of the hateful father who had once abused her.
Gripping the pistol with both hands, she peered left and right along the hall, then toward the entryway to the dark drawing room.
“Gee, listen, you know, there’s no reason to be afraid,” I said disarmingly.
She began edging backward toward the door.
“It’s just that, you leaving now well, gosh, that would spoil everything,” I said.
Glancing at the recessed wall speakers, she said, “Who… who the hell are you?”
I was mimicking Mr. Tom Hanks, the actor, because his voice is well known, agreeable, and friendly.
He won Academy Awards as best actor in two successive years, a considerable achievement. Many of his films have been enormous box-office successes.
People like Mr. Tom Hanks.
He is a nice guy.
He is a favourite of the American public and, indeed, of the worldwide movie audience.
Nevertheless, Susan appeared frightened.
Mr. Tom Hanks has played many warm-hearted characters from Forest Gump to a widowed father in Sleepless in Seattle. He is not a threatening presence.
However, being a computer-animation genius among other things, Susan might have been reminded of Woody, the cowboy doll in Disney’s Toy Story, a character for which Mr. Tom Hanks provided the voice. Woody was at times shrill and frequently manic, and it is certainly understandable that one might be unnerved by a talking cowboy doll with a temper.
Consequently, as Susan continued to back across the foyer and drew dangerously close to the door, I switched to the voice of Fozzy Bear, one of the Muppets, as unthreatening a character as existed in modern entertainment. “Uh, ummm, uh, Miss Susan, it would sure be a good thing if you didn’t touch that door ummm, uh, if you didn’t try to leave just yet.”
She backed all the way to the door.
She turned to face it.
“Ouch, ouch, ouch,” Fozzy warned so bluntly that Kermit the Frog or Miss Piggy or Ernie or any of the Muppets would have known at once what he meant.
Nevertheless, Susan grabbed the brass knob.
The brief but powerful jolt of electricity lifted her off her feet, stood her long golden hair on end, seemed to make her teeth glow whiter, as if they were tiny fluorescent tubes, and pitched her backward.
A flash of blue light arced off the pistol. The gun flew out of her hand.
Screaming, Susan crashed to the floor, and the pistol clattered across the big foyer even as the back of her head rapped rat-a-tat against the marble.