Flopping onto his back, pulling himself up against the sofa, streaming blood from a scalp wound, Earl glared at Wexlersh. ‘Yeah? Is that so? Make it harder on us, huh? What the hell could be worse than what you’re already planning to do?’
Wexlersh smiled. It was a singularly unsettling expression on his bloodless lips and moon-pale face. ‘We could tape your mouth shut and torture you for a while. Then torture this bitch here.’
Shuddering, Laura looked away from his gray eyes.
The room seemed cold, colder than it had been.
‘She’s a nice piece of ass,’ Manuello observed.
‘Yeah, we could screw her,’ Wexlersh said.
‘Screw the kid too,’ Manuello said.
‘Yeah,’ Wexlersh said, still smiling. ‘That’s right. We could screw the kid.’
‘Even though she is a retard,’ Manuello said, then cursed the pistol and silencer that wouldn’t fit together properly.
Wexlersh said, ‘So if you don’t just sit there quiet like, we’ll tape your mouths shut and screw the kid right in front of you — and then kill you, anyway.’
Gagging, choking down the vomit that rose into her throat, Laura settled back on the sofa, subdued by this crudest of all threats.
Earl had been silenced too.
‘Good,’ Wexlersh said, massaging his stomach with one hand, where Earl had butted him. ‘Much better.’
Melanie’s mewling had grown louder and was punctuated with a few words — ‘open … door … open … no’ — and with deep, quaverous gasps.
‘Shut up, kid,’ Wexlersh said, lightly slapping her face.
Her whimpering subsided, but she wasn’t silenced altogether.
Laura wanted to go to the girl, hug her, hold her close, but for her own sake, and Melanie’s, she had to stay where she was.
The room was definitely cold and getting colder.
Laura remembered how the kitchen had grown frigid just before the radio had come to life. And again just before the wind-thing had thrown open the door and surged in from the darkness….
Wexlersh said, ‘Don’t they have heat in this damned place?’
‘There!’ Manuello said, finally screwing the silencer onto the barrel of the gun.
Colder …
Holstering his own revolver now that his partner was at last ready to do the deed, grabbing Melanie by one arm and pulling her out of the way, Wexlersh edged backward toward the front door of the apartment.
Colder …
Laura was electrified, charged with tension and anticipation. Something was about to happen. Something strange. Manuello stepped closer to Earl, who regarded him with more contempt than terror.
The temperature of the room plunged precipitously now, and behind Wexlersh and Melanie the apartment door flew open with a crash—
But nothing supernatural burst into the room. It was Dan Haldane. He came through the door fast, even as he opened it. He took in the situation with remarkable alacrity and jammed his revolver into Wexlersh’s back as that detective was starting to swing toward the door.
Manuello spun around, but Haldane said, ‘Drop it! Drop it, you bastard, or I’ll blow you away.’
Manuello hesitated, probably not because he was worried about his partner getting killed, but because it was clear that Wexlersh’s body would stop the first bullet meant for Dan, and because it was equally clear that Manuello wouldn’t have a chance to fire twice before Dan took his head off. He glanced at Melanie too, as though calculating the chances of leaping toward her, grabbing her. But when Dan shouted at him again — ‘Drop it!’ — Manuello finally conceded the game and let the silencer-equipped pistol fall to the floor.
‘He’s got Earl’s gun,’ Laura warned Dan.
‘And his own service revolver too,’ Earl said.
Keeping a grip on Wexlersh’s coat, the revolver still jammed hard in the man’s back, Dan said, ‘Okay, Manuello, get rid of the other two pieces, slow and easy. No funny stuff.’
One at a time, Manuello rid himself of the weapons, then backed across the room and stood against the wall, as Dan directed.
Laura came forth to gather up the three firearms while Dan relieved Wexlersh of his service revolver.
‘Why the hell is it so cold in here?’ Dan asked.
But even as he voiced the question, the air grew warm again as swiftly as it had turned frigid.