conceal shoulder holsters. With nothing to lose, they might do something
recklesslike take wild shots at the kids, rather than at us, before they
themselves were cut down, hoping to kill one more tender victim just to
go out on a final thrill.
With four children in the room, we didn’t dare make a mistake.
“If not for Wisteria, ” Randolph said, addressing me, “Del Stuart would
have pulled the plug on my financing long before he did.”
“Your financing? ”
“But when she screwed up, they needed me. Or thought they did.
To see what the future held.” Sensing a pending revelation of an ugly
truth, I said, “Shut up, ” but I spoke in little more than a murmur,
perhaps because I knew I needed to hear whatever he had to tell me, even
if I’d no desire to hear it.
To Doogie, Randolph said, “Ask me what the stakes are.” The word stakes
spiraled around the ovoid room, still whispering back to us even as
Doogie dutifully asked, “What are the stakes? ”
“Conrad and I play to see who gets to soak each of these tykes in
gasoline.” Conrad mustn’t have been in possession of a gun in the
warehouse the previous night. If he’d had one, he would have shot me
dead the moment that I touched his face in the dark.
Moving his hands as if dealing imaginary cards, Randolph said, “Then we
play to see who gets to light the match.” Looking as if he might shoot
first and worry about ricochets later, Doogie said, “Why haven’t you
killed them already? ”
“Our numerology tells us there should be five in this offering.
Until recently, we thought we had only four. But now we think … ” He
smiled at me. “We think the dog is special. We think the dog makes five.
When you interrupted, we were playing cards to see who lights the mutt
boy.” I didn’t think that Randolph had a firearm, either. As far as I
could remember from my hasty scan of his gallery of hellish achievement,
his father was the only victim he’d dispatched with a gun.
That was forty-four years ago, probably the first murder he’d committed.
Since then, he preferred to have more personal involvement, to get right
into the wet of the work. Hammers and knives and the like were his
weapons of choice until he started to make his burnt offerings.
“Your mother, ” he said, “was a dice woman. Rolled the dice for the
whole human race, and crapped out. But I like cards.” Pretending to deal
cards again, Randolph had moved one hand close to the storm lamp.
“Don’t, ” Doogie said.
But Randolph did. He snapped the lamp switch, and suddenly we were
blind.
Even as the light went off, Randolph and Conrad were on the move.
They got to their feet so fast that they knocked their chairs over, and
these hard noises rattled repeatedly around the room like the sharp
rata-tat produced by a running boy dragging a stick along a picket
fence.
I was instantly on the move, too, following the curve of the room toward
the children, trying to stay out of Conrad’s way, since he was the one
closest to me and would most likely go hard and fast for the place where
I had been when the lights went out. Neither he nor Randolph was the
type to run for the exit.
As I sidled toward the kids, I slipped the infrared goggles off my
forehead, over my eyes. I yanked the special flashlight from my belt,
clicked it on, and swept the room where Conrad might be.
He was closer than I’d expected, having intuited my attempt to shield
the children. He held a knife in one hand, slashing blindly at the air
around him, hoping to get lucky and cut me.
How very strange it is to be a man with sight in the kingdom of the
blind. Watching Conrad seeking without finding, flailing in mindless
rage, seeing him so confused and frustrated and desperate, I knew one
percent of what God must feel like when He watches us at our furious
game of life.