Detour

THIRTY-TWO

At first he thought the sound at his door was a dream.

Maybe because that’s what he was doing. Dreaming, at least half dreaming.

About his wife and daughter.

About the little girl.

And that sampler that sat over Miles’ desk.

He who saves one child saves the world.

Who was this little girl? Galina’s granddaughter.

She’d clearly stated that in her second letter to Miles. And she’d written about the girl’s father. That too.

Once I thought my own daughter was safe from him, she’d scrawled. I was wrong.

She’d begged Miles for help. Her granddaughter needed to get out of the country.

Her father is looking for her. He won’t stop till he finds her. As you know, R has the power and means to do so.

She needed to be adopted by someone in America. This needed to happen fast.

As the letters continued, she told him a little more about the girl.

She’s seen things no child should ever have to see, she’d written. No one should have to see. She has nightmares.

By the fourth letter it became obvious that Miles had said okay. That he’d help. More than help. He’d evidently made an offer of stunning generosity and selflessness. He’d agreed to adopt Galina’s granddaughter himself.

Are you sure? she’d written him. As overjoyed as I am, you must understand this is not a sometime thing. It’s a forever thing. You won’t simply be her parent. You’ll be her protector. Her guardian. Her only hope.

Yes, Miles must’ve written, he was sure.

But he’d wanted something in return.

What?

It was hard to say.

It was obvious Galina’s joy had more or less vanished. Her letters had taken on the sober tone of a business negotiation.

Understand what you ask might not be possible, Galina wrote. I don’t know them. I don’t speak for them. I can only ask them.

Them.

Paul was like a two-year-old, beginning to understand that meaningless words stand for meaningful things.

Them said yes.

They must’ve, because Galina’s last letter was a heartrending plea for her granddaughter’s future.

I ask a few things of you, she wrote. To comfort her when she wakes up frightened in the middle of the night. Please read to her—she likes stories about trains and clowns and rabbits. Teach her what she needs to know in her new country. Protect her. From time to time, I ask you to please let me know how she’s doing. Not every week, not every month. Now and then. This is my last letter to you. The less contact we have after this, the safer it’ll be. I ask just one more thing. It’s the most important thing. For you and your wife to love her.

There was someone at the door.

He was suddenly wide-awake, staring at the bedroom ceiling.

He heard it again.

A soft scratching. It sounded like a cat asking to be let in.

He didn’t have a cat.

He continued to lie there on his bed; he wondered which door it was. The closed door of his bedroom, the apartment door itself? This was important. If it was the apartment door, he still had a chance. If it was the bedroom door, he was dead.

He concentrated; tried to fine-tune his hearing. Blood was pulsing into his eardrums; his breathing was tight and shallow and noisy.

The scratching sound seemed faint and muffled.

Okay, he thought, the apartment door.

He slid off the bed and resisted the temptation to crawl underneath it. The front door was locked. He was still master of his domain. He could keep them out—he could protect himself.

He was dressed only in boxer shorts. When he glanced at the full-length mirror against the wall, he looked comically vulnerable. He stood stock-still, craned his neck to listen.

Scratch, scratch.

It’s those assholes with Uzis and kerosene I’m worried about.

The men from the swamp, he thought.

Or.

It’s the man with CCCP tattooed on his arm.

He was at the front door. The one Lisa had squinted through, which, if memory served him correctly, was locked tight.

Even double-bolted.

He gingerly opened his bedroom door. He stepped out. He stared at the front door as if seeing it for the first time. Really looking at it. It appeared solid enough—in need of a paint job, sure, but strong as steel. This analogy comforted him.

He could swear he’d double-bolted it but couldn’t remember whether the oblong knob was supposed to be vertical or horizontal.

He suddenly realized he hadn’t heard a sound since he’d walked out of the bedroom. He realized this because he heard it now.

This much closer, it seemed raw and amplified. The fog comes on little cat feet—a poem he remembered from childhood. But this wasn’t a cat, and this wasn’t childhood.

A weapon.

His eyes zigzagged around the apartment, jittery, in circles, like a fly caught between windowpanes.

The metal paperweight from Sharper Image. Maybe.

The polished African walking stick Joanna’s parents had brought back from Kenya. Possibly.

A dull glass egg sitting in the middle of the dining room table. No.

The dining room table.

Knives.

He stared at his kitchen, trying to remember where Joanna kept the steak knives.

He resisted the overwhelming urge to run there.

Walk. Tiptoe. Float like Muhammad Ali. They didn’t know he was here. They were guessing. They might get tired of trying to jimmy the lock. They might give up.

Not if they knew he was in here.

He drifted to the kitchen, visualizing himself as light and noiseless, even though he felt heavier than lead, aware that the sounds at the door were growing louder and more insistent.

They were trying to fit something into the lock—that’s what it sounded like. Frustration was setting in. They were trying to force it in, like date rape—first polite and consensual, then insistent and brutal. The lock was screaming no. The intruder didn’t give a shit.

Paul opened a kitchen drawer. It squeaked.

The scratching stopped dead.

Silence.

You have to do something about these drawers, Paul. If Joanna had said that to him once, she’d said it a thousand times. And a thousand times Paul had told her to hire one of those guys in the back of the Pennysaver.

The handymen had remained unsummoned. The drawers continued to complain every time they were opened.

The people behind the door knew he was in here.

More bad news.

The open drawer contained Joanna’s phone book, some pencils, paper clips, a take-out menu from Hunan Flower.

No knives.

The scratching came back. Harder.

The second drawer down, he hit pay dirt. It contained the entire Ginzu Knife Collection, for which they’d sent $49.95 in five easy monthly installments. Those remarkable knives you saw cutting through tissue paper in thirty-minute infomercials. Forged by actual samurai masters in Yokohama. He wrapped his fingers around a cool plastic handle and pulled one out.

He turned and faced the door.

Maybe ten feet from it. From them. It seemed inconceivable and ridiculous that a mere door could save him. He could almost smell their need. He was sure Joanna could’ve.

Call 911.

This time he could actually tell them his address.

He could summon a patrol car. Scare them away.

Make them think they were coming any minute.

The phone was on the other side of the apartment. It seemed as vast and impassable as the Sahara.

Wait. He didn’t have to call. He just had to pretend to.

“Yes, is this the police?” he suddenly shouted. “Yes, I’m at 341 West 84th Street, apartment 9G. Someone’s trying to break in . . . Yes, that’s right . . . You’ll be here in two minutes? Thank God.”

Oddly enough, his fake phone call didn’t cause the man or men to stop. No.

Maybe he should’ve asked himself why?

Maybe if it wasn’t five in the morning, and if he wasn’t scared out of his mind, and if he was just a little brighter about these things, he would’ve.

Then he would have understood that the only reason a fake phone call to the police wouldn’t deter someone from breaking into your apartment is if they knew it was a fake phone call.

And the only way they could know that is if they knew you didn’t have a phone.

If, say, they’d taken the precaution of disconnecting it.