The Auctioneer

John moved to the next door down the hall and yanked. Behind it was a bathroom, everything blinding white—the tub on claw feet, the flat walls, the four fluorescent lights. John turned to leave and bumped into a running figure. It was Tom Pulver. The two drew away and looked at each other, almost without recognition, then backed off and, carefully skirting one another, continued in opposite directions.

John started running again, gathering momentum, rushing from door to door down the hallway. Finally, in a bedroom, he paused. His eyes were stinging and he was gulping for air.

Dan Rouse was tearing the curtains off the windows, grunting with satisfaction as the silky stuff ripped. A traverse rod fell with a clatter.

John kicked at the fallen curtains and watched. It was only after Rouse had moved to the next room that he saw the dressing table—its walnut polished to a dark richness, its elegance more in keeping here than in the plain bedroom at home. John turned away and leaned in the doorway, pressing his hands against the doorposts in an effort to hang on to his anger.

Cogswell lurched out of the bedroom opposite. “He’s gone!” John cried. “Mickey, is he gone?”

Mickey’s face was red with temper. “I’ll find him,” he promised.

“God damn...” He stopped, and he and John found themselves looking at one another, their faces gone slack with bewilderment.

Without sound or warning, all the lights went out. A stunned stillness fell over the house, as if life had been snuffed out with the light.

A woman’s voice rang out, “He’s here!”

There was a soft impact near John and a man shouted in surprise.

Slowly, John backed away from the darkness, returning to the bedroom he had just left, where the pale oblongs of two windows revealed at least the contours of the room. He backed up against one of the windows and waited.

As his eyes adjusted to the dimness, he thought he detected a dark figure standing perfectly still against the wall opposite him. He opened his mouth to make some casual remark, and remembered that he had just been through that room and left it empty. His mouth went dry.

When the figure didn’t move, John began to slide slowly along the wall toward the door. Almost imperceptibly, the figure also inched closer to the door. John stopped. The figure stopped. John started again. And again the figure moved.

John made a furious dive for the figure. He was caught in a muscular embrace, and fell to the floor with his face pressed to the other man’s neck. The two rolled over, kicking and grunting. Then the other man took John firmly by the shoulders. “Let go of me,” he commanded in a detached and unfamiliar voice. “What on earth are you thinking of?”

Reflexively, John loosened his grip.

Then, without knowing how he got there, he found himself lying on his back making his way through layers of sleep, trying to reach and stop the hard pain at the back of his neck. Somehow, he got his feet beneath him and stumbled toward the black shape of the door to the hall. But the man was lost. John tripped over the threshold and fell against the banister. “I had him. I had him,” he moaned.

“You had him!” repeated a man. “You mean he’s here?”

John grasped the banister for support and, in an effort to collect himself, peered down over it into the murky pit of the downstairs front hall. “I don’t know,” he said. “How the hell should I know?”

The other man moved off, his footsteps sounding on the uncarpeted stairs to the third floor.

In the hall below, the glimmer of pocket flashlights began to move cautiously back and forth. Someone cried, “Candles!” and soon people were moving up the stairs, each one cupping a fragile flame.

John started slowly down the stairs. At the bottom, he found himself looking into the living room. In the shimmering orange light from newspapers burning in the fireplace, Frank Lovelace was stamping methodically on a spindly pine rocker and feeding the broken pieces to the fire. “There’s a hundred people in this house,” he said in his slow heavy voice.

“Perly’s too sly to hide in his own hole,” said Dan Rouse.

“Then what are we doin’ here?” cried Arthur Stinson. “Damn!” He swept an arm across the mantel, sending a clutter of candlesticks and knickknacks crashing to the tile hearth.

Lovelace threw the solid seat of the rocker on top of the fire, damping it momentarily. “Good question,” he said soberly.

John turned away. Seven candles lit the dining room on the other side of the hall. Fanny Linden and Janice Pulver were fishing in the drawers of the buffet. John moved toward them and saw that they were filling a shopping bag with silverware.

“Fanny...” he said.

She turned her moon face to him. “It’s stolen goods, ain’t it?” she said flatly.

Janice Pulver examined a fork in her hand and did not look at him. “He left the lights on and the door open, didn’t he? You go right ahead and hunt for his big self, if you think he’s that much of a fool.” She threw the fork into the bag. “Myself, I’ll settle.”