Death's Door

by Byars, Betsy

  Herculeah made to move to take it.

  “Then what?” she said.

  “Then you’ll find yourself in what used to be the kitchen of the house. Now it’s where I keep my rental books.”

  “Used paperbacks?” Herculeah asked, trying to get a feel for the room she’d be in.

  “I don’t handle anything but used books,” Uncle Neiman said. “The rental library’s a mixture—paperbacks, hardbacks, magazines. Some of these books have been in and out of the shop fifty or sixty times so they’re showing their age.”

  “All right. So I go through the kitchen—the rental library. What then?”

  “You’ll pass the steps that lead upstairs. My apartment‘s up there. I don’t suppose you’d be willing to pack a few of my things while you’re there.”

  “You suppose right.”

  “I could sure use my own raincoat. I’m beginning to feel like I’m three years old in my sister’s cast-off clothes.”

  “No.”

  “My mother never made me wear the girl’s dresses, but those old-timey coats had a lot of wear in them.”

  “No!”

  “All right.”

  After a silence, Uncle Neiman continued. “If you don’t want to go upstairs—”

  “I don’t.”

  “You keep on walking. Death’s Door used to be a private home, and so the two rooms across the front are the old dining and living rooms. The dining room—you’ll go in there first—has ten stacks of books, five here, five here.”

  He diagrammed it with his hands.

  “Well,” he corrected himself, “it usually has that many. One of the shelves fell on me—was pushed on me, if you want the truth. It was no accident.”

  “Probably not.”

  “And I never cleaned it up. The books are still on the floor.”

  “That’s the room where the safe is?” Herculeah asked. “The dining room?”

  “No. Keep to the right. You’ll pass the counter with the cash register and the telephone—”

  Herculeah’s heart quickened at the thought of a telephone.

  “And the computer. Go past that and into the living room. There are bookcases against the back wall. One of them has a glass door. It’s locked. It’s where I keep my valuable books. I’ve got an autographed Josephine Tey.”

  “What’s that?”

  He looked at her with disappointment. “Well, she’s English.” He decided to give her another chance. “I’ve got an autographed Donald E. Westlake.”

  She shook her head.

  “Well, who have you heard of? And don’t go asking for an autographed Nancy Drew, because they were written by anybody that felt like writing them. There never was a Carolyn Keene.”

  “I know that. Agatha Christie?” she asked.

  “Not autographed.” Uncle Neiman sighed. “Well, getting back to the keys—this little one opens the glass door. You take the books from the left side of the top shelf—lay them carefully on the floor, some of these books are worth hundreds of dollars—and you’ll see the combination lock. I’ll give you the combination. It’s fourteen, left—”

  “I haven’t absolutely agreed to do this,” she reminded him.

  They sat there in silence.

  “Oh, give me the keys,” she said.

  He turned quickly. “This one for the door, this one for the glass door. And the combination is fourteen, left, fifteen, right, then all the way around twice to seven.”

  Herculeah repeated the numbers.

  “I could write them down for you.”

  “Maybe you should. I’m usually good with numbers, but I’m nervous about this.”

  “He’s after me, not you.”

  “I hope you’re right.”

  She took the slip of paper he handed her, unbuckled her seat belt and climbed out of the car. She paused on the sidewalk for a moment.

  Uncle Neiman cut the motor, and a silence descended upon Herculeah.

  “That way,” Uncle Neiman said, jabbing a finger toward the overgrown alley.

  “I know.”

  She started forward. They alley seemed to pull her into something unpleasant, something primeval even. She picked her way slowly through the weeds and litter. Daylight was fading, and the alley, with buildings on either side, was cut off from the twilight and evening breezes. The day was darkening fast.

  Suddenly Herculeah wished Meat was with her. Meat wasn’t much of a watchdog—he had even fallen asleep on the job once at a place called Dead Oaks—but he was a wonderful friend. Her heart wouldn’t be beating in double-time if Meat were at her side.

  Painfully aware of her aloneness, she moved carefully down the alley, looking around as she went. She heard a noise and spun around. A cat ran from behind an overturned garbage can.

  “Don’t do that to me,” she told the cat.

  She got to the back of Death’s Door before she wanted to. The keys were moist in her clammy hand. She put the right one in the keyhole and turned.

  She felt the click as the lock opened. She pushed the door slightly ajar.

  Again Herculeah paused to look behind her. The alley seemed deserted. There was only the yellow cat in sight, watching her warily with slitted eyes, waiting until she was gone and he could check the garbage again.

  She pushed the door open all the way.

  Ahead of her, the dim, ghostly stacks were filled, overflowing with old books. She breathed in the complex odor of hundreds of books and the hundreds of people who had read them.

  Herculeah took one last look at the alley. She tried to take comfort in the fact that she saw no footprints in the dry weeds but her own and that the cat had been as startled when he saw her as if she was the first person he’d seen in his life.

  Herculeah stepped over the threshold. As the stacks of old books seemed to reach out for her, she had the odd feeling that she herself was not stepping forward but backward in time.

  A nerve tightened at the back of her neck.

  “Get it over with,” she said to herself.

  18

  NOW THE BULL

  The Bull took his cellular phone from the duffel bag. He pulled up the antenna and punched in a number.

  The phone was answered with the usual one word, “Yeah?”

  The gunman said, “It’s me.” He didn’t have to say anymore. His gravelly voice was his identification.

  “So, where are you?”

  “I’m across the street from the cat in the hat’s bookstore. I’m in an apartment building. Number two-oh- one, to be exact. It’s empty”—he gave a laugh that was without mirth—“except for me and my M16.”

  He reached down and gave the weapon a pat, as if it were a favorite dog.

  “Nobody saw you go in?”

  “Nah. Hey, guess what the dude’s bookstore’s called. Death’s Door—appropriate, huh?”

  “Let’s hope so. Any sign of him?”

  “Not so far. A car came by driving kind of crazy ten minutes ago. I thought it might be him but he didn’t stop.”

  “Keep watching. If the police get him before you do, it’s going to very unfortunate—for all of us.”

  The man emphasized the word “all,” turning the line into a threat.

  “I’m aware of that. But this is his home, man. The dude lives over the bookstore. He’s gotta come here sooner or later.”

  “Let’s hope sooner.”

  “Hold on a minute. I thought I saw something moving over there.”

  Both men held their phones tensely. The Bull moved closer to the window and peered through the glass at the darkened bookstore.

  The streetlights had just come on, casting a faint amber glow beyond the store window and into the interior of Death’s Door.

  “Nah, maybe it was just the streetlights, but I’m gonna keep watching.”

  “Do that.”

  “I might go over and make myself at home.” Another humorless laugh. “At least I’d have something to read.”

  “You bett
er stay where you are.”

  “Unless I see a light go on or something else moving around.”

  The man on the other end of the phone conversation said, “What if he gets in by some back way we don’t know about? What if he gets in and calls the police.”

  “Calling the police is one thing you don’t have to worry about.”

  “Yeah?”

  “I took care of that. I cut the phone wires.”

  “Well, take care of the rest of it.”

  The man hung up with those words, and the gunman punched the Off button and lowered the antenna. He turned his full attention to the bookstore across the street.

  His red eyes seemed to pierce the brick walls as he lit a cigarette and blew smoke out of both nostrils.

  “Come on,” the Bull begged.

  His finger curled impatiently around the trigger of the M16.

  “Come on.”

  19

  AT DEATH’S DOOR

  Herculeah closed the door behind her reluctantly. She would have liked to leave it open, but if she did, anyone could follow her inside.

  In the sudden darkness, her fingers moved over the lock, memorizing the mechanism, making sure she knew how to get it open fast. She practiced a few times before she turned to face the stacks of books.

  It was dark in the bookstore. Some bookcases had been placed against the windows, blocking out what light was left of the day. The silence was absolute. She couldn’t even hear the hum of a furnace or the traffic in the street outside. Maybe books absorbed sound.

  Herculeah had feared that the gunman might be waiting inside the bookstore, but the unearthly silence told her he was not.

  She stepped forward and a board creaked beneath her foot. Well, at least nobody will be able to sneak up on me, she thought. She was not comforted.

  Herculeah felt her way along the stacks of rental books, past the staircase that led to Uncle Neiman’s apartment. She could see a faint light at the top—probably from outside. She took a few more steps, moving once again into darkness.

  Her leg struck the side of a chair. Herculeah cried out in pain as the chair toppled over, strewing books onto the floor.

  “You didn’t mention the chair,” she sang to the absent Uncle Neiman. She paused to rub her shin. “Well, at least there’s no point in trying to be quiet.”

  Skirting the fallen books, she moved to the door of what had once been the dining room. There was more light here. The streetlight through the dusty window gave the room a misty look.

  Herculeah wasn’t pleased that the streetlights had been turned on. Sure, she could see better, but so could anyone outside, looking in. She paused in the doorway, caught by an uneasy feeling.

  She had the feeling that someone was out there, the gunman who had shot at them before. She remembered her statement, “I didn’t see anybody—period,” and Uncle Neiman’s answer, “That doesn’t mean there’s nobody there.”

  She tried to shake off her dread. She told herself she had never had time for hesitation and foolishness.

  She moved carefully to the first bookcase. She could see the scattered books on the floor by the window, the books that had fallen from the shelf someone had pushed at Uncle Neiman.

  She moved carefully toward the living room. She was aware that as long as she was behind the stack, she was hidden from the street. But now she was at the end of the bookcase, and there was a two-foot space before the next one. She went down in a crouch and slipped across.

  At the end of the dining room there was an entrance hall—Uncle Neiman hadn’t told her about that. The door that led outside was glass.

  Here, Herculeah got down on her stomach and inched across, crocodile-style. She stayed down until she was at the counter. Then she straightened.

  Only a wire rack of paperbacks stood in her way. She stepped around it, brushing it so that it gave a half-turn, groaning in protest.

  “Sorry,” she said.

  In the dim light the objects in front of her began to take shape. There was the computer ... the cash register ... a rack of tapes ... and—and something unfamiliar crouching behind them.

  She froze. A car passed in the street and in the glow of the headlights she made it out. A rubber plant.

  And there—there was the telephone.

  Herculeah smiled. It was her first real smile since Uncle Neiman had forced her from the school earlier that afternoon.

  Now at last she could call her mother. Her mother would give her the usual frantic, “Herculeah, where are you?”

  And she would tell the truth. “Mom, I am at Death’s Door.”

  Her smile broadened.

  She picked up the phone and held it against her chest for a moment, overcome with relief and with the thought of her mother’s strength—and her father‘s! Her dad was bound to be in on this too. He would be as frantic as her mother, though he wouldn’t show it.

  And her father would act. He would have a squad car here in minutes, policemen running up to the store, guns drawn. She would tell the police about Uncle Neiman and where he was parked. She would have to.

  But she would not tell them about the kidnapping. Somehow she had begun to feel affection for Uncle Neiman in that brave, blind drive across the city.

  She lifted her head. She noticed that her hair was beginning to frizzle.

  Why is that, she wondered, when rescue was just a phone call away. She smiled. The phone company could use something that comforting in their ads.

  She picked up the phone, punched in her number and lifted the phone to her ear.

  She heard no sound of a phone ringing.

  She held the phone up to what light there was. Sometimes you had to click a phone. She found that button and clicked.

  She heard no dial tone.

  The line was dead.

  And with that thought came others that were even worse.

  Somebody has cut the wire.

  And whoever did it is out there.

  20

  THE MAN/THE CRIMINAL

  A squad car came around the corner.

  Uncle Neiman’s eyes weren’t good enough to see that it was a police car, but he ducked out of sight anyway. He didn’t want to be seen by anyone.

  Also, ever since Herculeah had mentioned the fact that every policeman in the city was after them, he had realized that he could not be taken by the police. It was as Herculeah had said. That girl was no dummy. He was a criminal. He had turned himself into a criminal. He cringed at the thought.

  It had happened against his will. He loved crime and criminals on paper, but in real life he was a gentle, law-abiding man. Used to be, anyway. Not anymore.

  He had stolen a car—it was a friend’s car, but he’d taken it without asking, and if he had asked, his friend would have refused and insisted on driving him wherever he wanted to go.

  He’d kidnapped a girl—that was far worse than car theft.

  He tried to think of the number of years a kidnapper spent in prison, but despite all his knowledge of crime and mystery and murder, he didn’t know that.

  He lifted his head. The car had passed and was out of sight.

  Uncle Neiman lifted the rain hat, wiped the sweat from his brow and quickly put it back on again.

  Maybe it had been a mistake to send the girl in there. Maybe he should just have ...

  Have what? He couldn’t think of one single thing. Of course, he would have had a better chance in the shop. He was used to it—and to the dark. He ran his fingers over his watch, feeling the numbers. Seven forty-five.

  Shouldn’t she be back by now? It couldn’t take that long to open the safe.

  For lack of anything constructive to do, he decided to back up the car and park directly in front of the entrance to the alley. That way he could see Herculeah when she came out. Well, he might not be able to see her, but he could still see motion, and he was fairly sure she would be in motion.

  He reached for the ignition. “Where is it? Where is it? Oh, there.”

/>   In a fog of his own, he turned the key and felt a bump as the car backed slowly off the curb. He stopped at the alley.

  Uncle Neiman waited. He didn’t turn off the ignition this time. He had the feeling that he might have to get out of here in a hurry.

  His head snapped up with a sudden unpleasant thought. He peered forward, but he was unable to distinguish one dashboard instrument from another.

  Still he added one more thing to his pitiful list of hopes, a list that seemed to be growing by the minute:1. He hoped Herculeah would come back soon.

  2. He hoped she would have the money.

  3. He hoped he would get away.And now:

  4. He hoped he wouldn’t run out of gas.

  21

  WITH THE CLICK OF A KNIFE

  Herculeah put the phone back in its cradle as carefully as if the phone were in working order. With a feeling of doom, she glanced around the shop.

  She was torn between leaving immediately and getting the money for Uncle Neiman. She wanted to do what was most safe but she didn’t know what that was. Or was anything safe?

  If the gunman had cut the wires, he was outside somewhere. If she rushed out—

  But he hadn’t seen her come in. That meant he was out front. So maybe ...

  She had made no decision, but she found she was moving toward the rare books. It was if she were sleepwalking and didn’t have control over her actions. Her heart had begun to pound. Her throat was dry.

  She felt in her pocket. The key was there. Her fingers curled around it. She drew it out. With her fingers, she found the keyhole. She got the key in on the third try. She unlocked the door.

  Herculeah found she couldn’t remember Uncle Neiman’s instructions. Where were the books she was supposed to move? The top shelf—she remembered that much. Right or left?

  She took off the books on the right. She set them on the floor. Rising, she felt the space against the wall. There was no combination lock.

  Her hands had begun to tremble. She reached up and took down the books on the left. There it was. She was aware that she was moving faster than she had ever moved in her life. Everything was speeded up, as if to keep time with her racing heart.