The Servants of Twilight

As Charlie put down the window to talk to Frank, he asked Christine for her house keys. When she produced them from her purse, he gave them to Frank." Check the place out. Make sure nobody's waiting in there."

"Right," Frank said, unbuttoning his suit jacket to provide quick access to the weapon in his shoulder hoister. He headed up the walk to the front door.

Pete got out of the Chevy and stood beside it, surveying the night-shrouded street. He left his coat unbuttoned, too.

Joey said, "Is this where the bad guys show up?"

"Let's hope not, honey."

There were a lot of trees and not many streetlights, and Charlie began to feel uneasy about sitting here at the curb, so he got out of the Chevy, too, warning Christine and Joey to stay where they were. He stood at his side of the car, his back toward Pete Lockburn, taking responsibility for the approaches in his direction.

Occasionally a car swung around the corner, entered the block, drove past or turned into the driveway of another house. Each time he saw a new pair of headlights, Charlie tensed and put his right hand under his coat, on the butt of the revolver in his shoulder holster.

He was cold. He wished he'd brought an overcoat.

Sheet lightning pulsed dully in the western sky. A far-off peal of thunder made him think of the freight trains that had rumbled past the shabby little house in which he'd grown up, back in Indiana, in what now seemed like another century.

For some reason, those trains had never been a symbol of freedom and escape, as they might have been to other boys in his situation. To young Charlie, lying in his narrow bed in his narrow room, trying to forget his father's latest outburst of drunken violence, the sound of those trains had always reminded him that he lived on the wrong side of the tracks. The clatteringgrowling wheels had been the voice of poverty, the sound of need and fear and desperation.

He was surprised that this low thunder could bring back, with such disturbing clarity, the rumbling of those train wheels.

Equally surprising was that the memory of those trains could evoke childhood fears and recall to mind the feeling of being trapped that had been such an integral part of his youth.

In that regard, he had a lot in common with Christine. His childhood had been blighted by physical abuse, hers by psychological abuse. Both of them had lived under the fist, one literally, one figuratively, and as children they had felt trapped, claustrophobic.

He looked down at the side window of the Chevy, saw Joey peering out at him. He gave a thumbs-up sign. The boy returned it, grinning.

Having been a target of abuse as a boy, Charlie was especially sensitive to children who were victims of violence. Nothing made him angrier than adults who battered children. Crimes against defenseless children gave him a cold, greasy, sick feeling and filled him with a hatred and a bleak despair that nothing else could engender.

He would not let them harm Joey Scavello.

He would not fail the boy. He didn't dare fail because, having failed, he very likely wouldn't be able to live with himself.

It seemed quite a long time before Frank came back. He was still watchful but a bit more relaxed than when he'd gone inside.

"Clean, Mr. Harrison. I looked in the back yard, too. Nobody around"

They took Christine and Joey and Chewbacca inside, surrounding the woman and the boy as they moved, allowing no clear line of fire.

Christine had said that she was successful, but Charlie hadn't expected such a large, well-furnished house. The living room had a huge fireplace surrounded by a carved mantel and oak bookshelves extending to the corners. An enormous Chinese carpet provided the focus for a pleasing mix of Oriental and European antiques and antique reproductions of high quality. Along one wall was an eight-panel, hand-carved rosewood screen with a double triptych depicting a waterfall and bridge and ancient Japanese village, all rendered in intricately fitted pieces of soapstone.

Joey wanted to go to his room and play a game with his new dog, and Frank Reuther went with him.

At Charlie's suggestion, Pete Lockburn went through the house, from bottom to top and back again, checking to be sure all doors and windows were locked, shutting all the draperies, so no one could see inside.

Christine said, "I guess I'd better see what I can find for supper.

Probably hot dogs. That's the only thing I have plenty of."

"Don't bother," Charlie said." I've got a man bringing a lot of takeout at seven o'clock."

" You think of everything."

"Let's hope so."

23

O'Hara trained his binoculars on an upstairs window of the Scavello house, then on the next window, and the next, eventually scanning the first floor as well. Light shone in every room, but all the draperies were drawn tight.

"Maybe she came home but sent the boy somewhere else for the night,"

Baumberg said.

"The boy's there," O'Hara said.

"How do you know?"

"Can't You feel him over there?"

Baumberg squinted through the window.