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repentant. "Believe me, it can't. Let us in and we'll talk about it." He made
a little movement forward, stopping just short of the doorway.
Valentine Kaiser& who was he? A young man, yes, but still definitely one you
could turn to with a problem. Almost, Angie found herself willing, hoping, to
be convinced that he might after all have some good reason&
"You're not coming in," said John firmly, from just behind her.
That stiffened her backbone. "Who are you, really?" she demanded. "What was
all that story about publicity?"
Kaiser shook his head. Then somewhat plaintively, making an awkward gesture
with both arms, he appealed: "Do we have to talk out in the corridor?"
Angie turned to look at John, but he was not softening. "Who are these people,
Angie? We're not letting anyone in."
Kaiser ignored him. He craned his neck, trying to look in past both of them,
as if trying to spot someone else. The waitress had retreated around an angle
of wall, but that didn't let her escape. Kaiser raised his voice slightly. "I
see another young lady in the background. How about you, miss? You think we
ought to
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come in?"
Elizabeth Wiswell, looking dazed and not exactly young, took a few steps
forward, as if unwillingly. She moved until she could peer through the doorway
at the young man in the hall, and then she stared at him as if in the grip of
some terrible fascination. The blood spots showed dark upon her pale throat.
Her mouth opened, but what she might have said was never heard.
John suddenly let out an inarticulate cry and hurled himself against the door,
slamming it shut. One of the men outside Angle had a blurred impression that
it was Stewart reacted, lunging forward and trying to hold the door open, but
that effort came too late. The heavy, dull slam the barrier made in closing
suggested to Angie the thickness of the wood.
In the next instant Liz screamed loudly and put her hands up over her face.
At the same moment Angie shouted: "John!" She had recoiled against the wall;
startled by the violence of what she perceived as John's overreaction, she
stared at him in wonder.
John didn't answer. With his shoulder still braced against the wood, his face
pale, his fingers working with desperate haste, he was turning the heavy bolts
on each of the four separate locks and latches that held the door shut tight.
The expression he turned to Angie stilled her startled questions in her
throat.
"Angie, we can't let them in," he was beginning, in a frightened voice. Then
he stopped, looking wildly about. "Where's Liz?" he demanded, a sudden edge of
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panic in his voice.
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For a moment Angie only continued to stare at her fiance in astonishment. She
had never seen him look like this he was pale to the lips and absolutely
terrified.
But in the next moment she turned her gaze around the living room and
entryway. The other woman was gone. "She said something about going out the
service entrance. I guess there must be one& "
"Oh, my God!" John's words were quiet, but desperately urgent. Already he was
running at top speed for the back door, or for the place where Angle supposed
the back door would have to be if it existed.
"
What is it
?" But he wouldn't delay in his headlong flight, wouldn't pause to answer.
Angie followed, helplessly infected by his fear.
Running on bare feet, they pounded through the apartment to the kitchen.
There, set in one wall of the tiny adjacent laundry room, the back door stood
open as far as its security devices, similar to those on the front door, would
allow. Elizabeth was standing just inside, talking to someone through the gap.
When John shouted at her she turned, as if with great difficulty, to present a
face of helpless horror to John and Angie.
Knocking her out of the way, not pausing to see who might be outside, John
leaped at this door as he had the other. Again a heavy barrier slammed shut.
Again Angie had the impression that whoever was outside might have made an
abortive effort to hold it open.
In another moment John had the locks on this door fastened.
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Then he turned, leaning his back against the door, fixing the trembling
waitress with a baleful stare. "Don't call out. Don't ask any of them in. I'm
warning you."
Elizabeth, shivering despite coat and scarf, had retreated to sit in a chair
at the kitchen table. She shook her red curls. "I didn't," she said in a tiny,
helpless voice. "I won't."
Angie, scowling at the man she was planning to marry, moved to stand beside
Elizabeth, silently stroking the woman's hair with her right hand. Meanwhile
Elizabeth had seized Angle's left hand and was clinging to it, almost as if
she needed help from drowning. Liz was still trembling. Angie was silent now,
but her anger was going to burst out at John in about fifteen seconds, unless
he came up with some very good explanations.
The video panel beside the back door was identical with the one in the front
room. John, having made sure the door was sealed and having terrorized
everyone in the process, Angie thought had switched on the video and was
studying the screen intently. He muttered: "Not a real hallway at this end,
just service stairs. There's a landing, and the back door of someone else's
apartment.
He's still there. Know this guy, Angie?"
Angie looked at the viewer, and beheld another male figure, not Mr. Stewart,
also unfamiliar. How many people were with Kaiser, and why would he send
someone to the back door, when he came to the front? Was he some kind of a
policeman? Or
The buzzer on the back door sounded, and simultaneously the door chime from
the front.
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