He looked down at himself and saw that he must have gone to his room before leaving the hotel. His skin smelled of soap and he was wearing different clothes. They were good clothes for this errand, too: chinos, a white roundneck tee-shirt, and a blue work -shirt with the tails hanging out. He looked like the sort of guy who might turn out on a weekend to check a faulty gas connection or . . .
‘Or to check the burglar alarm,’ Norman said under his breath, and grinned. ‘Pretty brazen, Senor Daniels. Pretty goddam bra — ‘
Panic struck like a thunderclap then, and he slapped at the lefthand rear pocket of the chinos he was now wearing. He felt nothing but the lump of his wallet. He slapped at the righthand rear and let out a harsh sigh of relief as the limp rubber of the mask flopped against his hand. He had forgotten his service revolver, apparently — left it back in the room safe — but he had remembered the mask, and right now the mask seemed a bit more important than the gun. Probably crazy, but there it was.
He started up the sidewalk toward 251. If there were only a few cunts there, he’d try to take them all hostage. If there were a lot, he’d hold onto as many as he could — maybe half a dozen — and send the rest scampering for the hills. Then he’d simply start shooting them, one by one, until somebody coughed up Rose’s address. If none of them knew it, he’d shoot them all and start checking files . . . but he didn’t think it would come to that.
What will you do if the cops are there, Normie? his father asked nervously. Cops out front, cops inside, cops protecting the place from you?
He didn’t know. And didn’t much care.
He passed 245, 247, 249. There was a hedge between that last one and the sidewalk, and as Norman reached the end of it he stopped suddenly, looking at 251 Durham Avenue with narrow, suspicious eyes. He had been prepared to see a lot of activity or a little activity, but he had not been prepared for what he was seeing, which was no activity at all.
Daughters and Sisters stood at the end of its narrow, deep lawn with the second- and third-story shades pulled against the heat of the day. It was as silent as a relic. The windows to the left of the porch were unshaded but dark. There were no shapes moving in there. No one on the porch. No cars in the driveway.
I can’t just stand here, he thought, and got moving again. He walked past the place, looking into the vegetable garden where he’d seen the two whores before — one of them the whore he’d grabbed at the comfort station. The garden was also empty this evening. And from what he could see of the back yard, that was empty, too.
It’s a trap, Normie, his father said. You know that, don’t you?
Norman walked as far as a Cape Cod with 257 on the door, then turned and began to saunter casually back down the sidewalk. He knew it looked like a trap, the father-voice was right about that, but somehow it didn’t feel like a trap.
Ferdinand the Bull rose up before his eyes like a cheesy rubber ghost — Norman had pulled the mask out of his back pocket and put it on his hand without even realizing it. He
knew this was a bad idea; anyone looking out a window would be sure to wonder why the big man with the swollen face was talking to the rubber mask . . . and making the mask answer back by wiggling its lips. Yet none of that seemed to matter, either. Life had gotten very . . .
well, basic. Norman sort of liked that.
‘Nah, it’s not a trap,’ Ferdinand said.
‘Are you sure?’ he asked. He was almost in front of 251 again.
‘Yeah,’ Ferdinand said, nodding his garlanded horns. ‘They just went on with their picnic, that’s all. Right now they’re probably all sitting around toasting marshmallows while some dyke in a granny dress sings “Blown’ in the Wind.” You didn’t amount to any more than a temporary wrinkle in their day.’
He stopped in front of the walk leading up to Daughters and Sisters, looking down at the mask, thunderstruck.
‘Hey — sorry, guy,’ ze bool said apologetically, ‘but I don’t make the news, you know, I only report it.’
Norman was stunned to discover there was something almost as bad as coming home to find out your wife had absconded for parts unknown with your bank card in her purse: there was being ignored.
Being ignored by a bunch of women.
‘Well, then, teach them not to do that,’ Ferd said. ‘Teach them a lesson. Go on, Norm.
Teach them who you are. Teach them so they’ll never forget it.’
‘So they’ll never forget it,’ Norman muttered, and the mask nodded enthusiastically on his hand.
He stuffed it into his back pocket again and pinched Pam’s keycard and the slip of paper he’d taken from her address book out of his left front one as he went up the walk. He climbed the porch steps, glancing up once — casually, he hoped — at the TV camera mounted over the door. He held the keycard against his leg. Eyes might be watching, after all. He would do well to remember that, lucky or not, Ferdinand was only a rubber mask with Norman Daniels’s hand for a brain.
The keycard slot was just where he had expected it would be. There was a talkbox beside it, complete with a little sign instructing visitors to press and speak.
Norman pressed the button, leaned forward, and said: ‘Midland Gas, checking for a leak in the neighborhood, ten-four?’
He let go of the button. Waited. Glanced up at the camera. Black-and-white, probably wouldn’t show how swollen his face was . . . he hoped. He smiled to show he was harmless as his heart pumped away in his chest like a small, vicious engine.
No answer. Nothing.
He pushed the button again. ‘Anybody home, gals?’
He gave them time, counting slowly to twenty. His father whispered that it was a trap, exactly the sort of trap he himself would have set in this situation, lure the scumbucket in, make him believe the place was empty, then land on him like a load of bricks. And yes, it was the kind of trap he himself would have set . . . but there was no one here. He was almost sure of it. The place felt as empty as a discarded beercan.
Norman put the keycard into the slot. There was a single loud click. He pulled the card out, turned the doorknob, and stepped into the front hall of Daughters and Sisters. From his left came a low, steady sound: meep-meep-meep-meep. It was a keypad burglar alarm. The words FRONT DOOR were flashing on and off in its message window.
Norman looked at the slip of paper he’d brought with him, took a second to pray the number on it was what he thought it was, and punched 0471. For one hearts topping moment the alarm continued to meep, and then it stopped. Norman let out his breath and closed the door. He reset the alarm without even thinking about it, just cop instinct at work.
He looked around, noted the stairs going up to the second floor, then walked down the main hall. He poked his head into the first room on the right. It looked like a schoolroom, with chairs set up in a circle and a blackboard at one end. Written on the blackboard were the words DIGNITY, RESPONSIBILITY, and FAITH.
‘Words of wisdom, Norm,’ Ferdinand said. He was back on Norman’s hand again. He’d gotten there like magic. ‘Words of wisdom.’
‘If you say so; looks like the same old shit to me.’ He looked around, then raised his voice.
It seemed almost sacrilegious to shout into this somehow dusty silence, but a man had to do what a man had to do.
‘Hello? Anybody here? Midland Gas!’
‘Hello?’ Ferd shouted from the end of his arm, looking brightly around with his empty eyes.
He spoke in the comic-German voice Norman’s father had sometimes used when he was drunk. ‘Hello, vas you dere, Cholly?’
Shut up, you idiot,’ Norman muttered.
‘Yessir, Cap’n,’ ze bool replied, and fell silent at once.
Norman turned slowly around and then went on down the hall. There were other rooms along the way — a parlor, a dining room, what looked like a little library — but they were all empty. The kitchen at the end of the hall was empty, too, and now he had a new problem: where did he go to find what he was looking for?