The Library at Mount Char Part 4

"Stand-alone? Not a duplex or anything?"

"Yeah, stand-alone. It's in a subdivision, but the neighborhood is mostly empty. The owner works night shift, so we should have all the time we need."

"All right. First thing is, I've got to get us another car."

"Why?"

"Well, among other things, this one has my name on the door."

"Oh. OK."

They drove to the airport. He parked in short-term parking, then slung the knapsack over his shoulder. They walked into the terminal and out the other side, then took a shuttle to long-term parking. He walked down the rows until he found a car with the ticket stub in plain sight. It was a dark-blue Toyota Camry, just about the blandest car on the road. The owner had dropped it off the day before. Perfect.

"Stand there, would you?" he said.

Carolyn took her place in front of the wheel well. He hung the crowbar from a belt loop and put the wire cutters in his back pocket. Then he took the long strip of sheet steel out of the knapsack, slid it in between the rubber and the window, and slipped open the lock. He was ready for the car alarm to go off, but it never did. He popped the trunk from inside the car and tossed his knapsack in there. "You coming?"

She walked around and got in on the pa.s.senger side. "That was quick," she said. "My sister was right about you."

"That's why they pay me the big bucks." He popped the cover off the steering column with the crowbar and used the screwdriver to pop out the ignition locking bolt. The Toyota started on the first try. Some of the exits from the lot were automated, but the electronic trail that his credit card would leave if he swiped it would be more or less conclusive proof of grand-theft Camry. So instead he replaced the metal cover on the steering column and had cash ready when he got to the window. He needn't have bothered. The lot attendant, a bored-looking black guy in his fifties, was watching TV. He never looked up.

They slipped out into the night.

III.

In his secret heart, Steve fancied that he was a Buddhist.

A couple of years ago, following a whim, he'd picked up a copy of Buddhism for Dummies at the bookstore. He kept it under the bed. Now it was dog-eared, the pages stained with the pizza grease and spilled c.o.ke of repeated readings. Sometimes when he couldn't sleep he fantasized about giving up all his worldly belongings and moving to Tibet. He would join a monastery, ideally one about halfway up a mountain. He would shave his head. There would be bamboo, pandas, and tea. He would wear an orange robe. Probably in the afternoon there would be chanting.

Buddhism, he thought, is a clean religion. You never heard about how eight people-two of them children-just got blown the f.u.c.k up as part of the long-standing conflict between Buddhists and whoever. Buddhists never knocked on your door just when the game was getting good to hand you a tract about what a great guy Prince Siddhartha was. Maybe it was just the fact that he didn't know any Buddhists in real life, but he clung to the hope that they might really be different.

Probably that was bulls.h.i.t. Probably if you actually went to a Buddhist service you'd find out that they were just as petty and f.u.c.ked-up as everyone else. Maybe between chants they talked about how so-and-so was wearing last season's robe, or how the incense little Zhang Wei burned the other day was the s.h.i.tty, cheap stuff because his family was so poor, ha-ha-ha. But this was Virginia and he was a plumber. Why not pretend?

He never went so far as to even fantasize about buying a plane ticket, of course. He wasn't stupid. Pretend for the sake of argument that his vision of the Buddhist ideal had a basis in reality. The fact that he himself was still just a piece of s.h.i.t with a shaved head and an orange robe was bound to come out sooner or later.

Probably sooner, he thought. The Buddha was pretty clear on the subject of stealing. "If you kill, lie, or steal...you dig up your own roots. And if you cannot master yourself, the harm you do turns against you Grievously." The g in "Grievously" was capitalized.

And yet, he thought, with the mental equivalent of a sigh, here I am.

"-left up there," Carolyn said.

"Say again, please?"

"I said turn left up there, by the red car."

They had been driving about twenty minutes, Carolyn giving directions. "Left here. Right on the big road. Whoops, sorry, turn around." Her voice was low and throaty. It was hypnotic. Also, Steve's sense of direction was c.r.a.p. Five minutes out from the airport he'd already been utterly lost. They might as well have been in Fiji. Nagoya. The moon. "Are you sure you know where you're going?"

"Oh yes."

"Are we getting close?"

"Another few minutes. Not long."

She was sitting curled up in the pa.s.senger seat with her back to the door. Her posture, together with her tight bicycle shorts, showed a lot of leg. He was having trouble not staring at that leg. Every time they drove past a billboard or road sign on her side he'd sneak a peek. She didn't seem to mind or, indeed, notice.

"Turn there," she said.

"Here?"

"No, next one down. Where that-yes." She smiled at him, her eyes feral in the moonlight. "We're close now."

The road ahead was dark. They were well outside the city, edging into farm country. They drove into a mostly empty subdivision. It was big, or designed to be big-it had enough acreage for maybe a hundred houses with postage-stamp-sized yards. There were a few finished ones here and there, a few more poured foundations with weeds sprouting from the cracks. But mostly the lots stood empty.

"Perfect," Steve muttered.

"There." She pointed. "That one."

Steve followed her finger out to a smallish ranch house painted a pale shade of green, hideous even in the dark. The driveway was empty. The only source of light was a lonely-looking streetlamp on the corner.

He rolled past the yard slowly, which reminded him in some nonspecific way of a rap video, which made him feel ridiculous. A hundred yards farther down the road curved just enough that the house vanished from sight behind a stand of trees. He parked there and turned to look at Carolyn.

"Last chance," he said. "You're sure you want to do this? If you'll tell me what it is you're after I can-"

Her eyes flared in the moonlight. "No. I have to go with you."

"All righty, then." He snuck another peek at her legs, then got out. The soft thunk of the door shutting sounded satisfactorily covert. He walked around to the back of the car and retrieved the knapsack. "Are you-"

She brushed the back of his neck with her fingertips. He shivered, the little hairs standing up. He turned around to find her very close, close enough that he could smell her. She smelled a bit like she hadn't bathed in...well, a while-but it was a good kind of hadn't bathed in a while-musky, feminine. His nostrils flared.

"Come on," she said. She had put the galoshes back on over the leg warmers.

When they reached the house, Steve checked inside the mailbox. It was stuffed full, easily a week's worth of junk. Owner hasn't been home in a while, he thought. Perfect. He pulled out a magazine and angled it in the moonlight until he could read the cover. It read Police Chief Magazine in big blue letters, and was addressed to..."Detective Marvin Miner." He looked at Carolyn. "This guy's a cop?"

"Looks that way."

"What'd he do to you?"

"Ruined my silk dress."

"How'd he do that?"

"He got blood on it."

"Hmm. Did you try rinsing it with club so-"

"Yeah, it was too far gone. Are you in or not?"

"Well...I guess it doesn't make much difference, if we do it right. Anyway, it doesn't look like Detective Miner is home."

"Mmm."

Steve hesitated, then stepped onto the driveway. He walked up to the front door and rang the bell. No response from inside the house.

"Why'd you do that?"

"I wasn't expecting anybody, but if there's a Rottweiler or something it would be good to know about it now."

"Ah. Good thought." Her voice dripped with distaste.

"You don't like dogs?"

She shook her head. "They're dangerous."

Steve gave her a quizzical look. Most nights when he got home his c.o.c.ker spaniel, Petey, wagged his tail so hard his whole b.u.t.t wiggled. Maybe when this is done me and Petey will go to Tibet. He imagined hiking up the hill to the monastery on a bright spring day, Petey bouncing along beside him, Inner Peace waiting for them at the top of the hill.

Business first. Steve picked up the doormat, looking for a key. Nothing. He slid his finger across the top of the frame. Carolyn looked at him quizzically. "A lot of times people keep spare keys sitting out." The tips of his gloves came away dusty. There was no key. "Oh well," he said. "Have to do this the hard way."

They walked around to the back. Steve took out the crowbar and muscled it in between the door and jamb at the level of the bolt.

He slipped a Phillips and a flathead into his pocket, along with a pair of wire cutters. "If the alarm is set you usually get a full minute to disarm it," he said. "That should be plenty of time. You wait out here, though. I don't want to be tripping over you."

She nodded.

Steve pulled at the crowbar, grunted. The doorjamb bent open an inch or so, enough that the bolt slipped free of its housing. The door popped open into darkness. Warm air rolled out from inside. He waited, but nothing beeped.

"I think we caught a break. The alarm isn't set."

Inside, it was very dark. All the windows were curtained-thick heavy things that the moonlight and that lonely streetlamp couldn't penetrate. The only light in the living room came from an enormous stereo rack, fully as tall as Steve himself. The pale blue LEDs of the receiver shone down over a La-Z-Boy recliner rising up out of a sea of crumpled Busch cans.

"What are you waiting for?" Carolyn asked. The sound of her voice came from in front of him. Steve didn't quite jump, but he was startled. He hadn't heard her move.

"Just giving my eyes a chance to adjust," Steve said. He glanced around. The microwave in the kitchen blinked endless green midnight over a greasy pizza box and a small mountain of crumpled paper towels. "Hmm." He padded into the kitchen and pulled open the fridge, squeezing one eye shut so as not to re-blind himself. The white light of the fridge was startling in the dark. It was mostly empty of food-just a half-empty jar of relish and a plastic squeeze bottle of French's mustard in the door-but there was a box of beer in the back. Steve, thirsty, considered the question this posed for a moment, then shut the door and drank a plastic cup of water from the sink.

"Carolyn? You thirsty?"

She didn't answer.

He poked his head out of the kitchen. "Carolyn?"

"Yes?" She had moved again. Now her voice came from behind him. This time he did jump. He turned to look at her. She was very close.

"Do you want..." His voice trailed off.

She moved in closer, ran her fingers down his chest. "Want what?"

"Hmm?"

"You asked me what I wanted." Faint emphasis on the last word.

"Oh. Right. Sorry. Lost my train of thought." He paused. "You want me to help you look for...whatever it is?"

She said something he didn't understand.

"What was that?"

"Chinese. Sorry. So many languages. Sometimes when I get excited the words blend."

Her touch was electric on his chest. He backed away from it. His eyes had adjusted to the darkness. Where before there had only been vague shapes, he now saw couch and television, chair and table. He walked over to a cabinet next to the television and opened it. "Not bad," he said. The receiver was a German brand, much nicer than the house warranted. "You want a stereo?"

"No."

Steve's own stereo, never particularly high-end, had developed some sort of short. He reached out for this one-Hey, it's a burglary, right? His hand hovered over the power cord for a moment...and then he pulled back, mentally kicking himself in the a.s.s. If you kill, lie, or steal...you dig up your own roots. When he looked up, Carolyn was gone. "Hey," he said. "Where'd you go?"

"It's in here," she said. "I found it."

Her voice came from a different, adjoining room. Steve flinched again. Found what? He followed the sound. She was in the dining room. She sat on a long, formal table, feet dangling, silhouetted against the pale light of the streetlamp. The china cabinet loomed behind her like a black throne.

"Carolyn?"

"Come here," she said. Her legs were slightly parted. He went and stood before her.

"Where is it?"

"Here," she said. She reached out to him, slid her hand around the back of his neck, pulled him in close.

"Wait," Steve said, not resisting much. "What?"

She tilted her head a little, leaned forward, kissed him. Her lips were full, soft. She tasted of salt and copper. For a moment, he let himself go, sank down into the kiss. But it was in his nature that he did not close his eyes.

Behind her, reflected in the gla.s.s plate of the china cabinet, something moved.

Steve jerked away, spun around. In the shadows at the corner of the room stood a man. He was holding a long gun.

"Whoa," Steve said, raising his hands. "Wait a minute..."

"I'm sorry, Steve," Carolyn said. Somehow she had managed to slip off the table and move to the other side of the room.

"You're under arrest," the man said. He leveled the gun at Steve.

"Yeah," Steve said. He raised his hands slowly. "OK. No problem."