Painted Ladies

23

My office was on the second floor, with windows that opened on Berkeley Street. I went out into the hall and down the back stairs to the alley, where my car was parked illegally. The snow was still drifting down halfheartedly. I got a pair of binoculars from the car and ducked with my head down across Berkeley Street in the middle of the block, and got glared at. If there was somebody in my office, they would be watching the door, not looking at the street.

I went into the Schwartz Building across the street from my office and up to the second floor. It was the office where, when the building was in another incarnation, a dark-haired art director with great hips had often been visible from my office, bending over her board. I slid behind a counter, stood at the window, and adjusted the binoculars.

A clerk said, “Excuse me, sir. May I help you with something?”

“Shhh,” I said. “Surveillance.”

He apparently didn’t know what to say about that, so he stood and stared at me. With the binoculars I brought my office into focus. There were two of them. One sitting behind my desk with an Uzi-like automatic weapon, maybe a Colt M4. The other guy stood to the right of my door, so that he’d be behind the door when it opened. He had a handgun. Neither of them moved around any. As far as I could see from where I was, neither of them said anything.

I lowered the binoculars and looked at the clerk, who was still staring at me.

“Thanks,” I said, and left.

I went back downstairs and out, and crossed Berkeley at the corner, with the light. I hated being glared at. In the alley, I took off my coat and put it on the backseat, along with the binoculars. Then I sat in my car, took out my gun, and made sure there was a round in the chamber. I got an extra magazine from the glove compartment and slipped it into my hip pocket. Then I cocked the gun and got out and went back up to my floor.

Lila’s door was still closed. I stood against the wall to the right of my door and reached out and unlocked it. Nothing happened. I took the key from the lock, put it in my pocket. Then I knelt down and pushed the door open. I was out of the line of fire, low against the wall of the corridor.

Nothing happened.

I waited.

Time was on my side. The longer they sat and stared at the silent, empty doorway, the more it would be on my side. They didn’t know how many I was. They didn’t know which side of the doorway I was on. Or how close. If I were them I’d come out together, shooting in both directions as I came. I backed a little down the corridor and lay flat on the floor with my gun ready. It was a new gun, an S&W .40-caliber semiautomatic. There were eleven rounds in the magazine and one in the chamber. If that wasn’t enough, I probably wasn’t, either.

Most of the people on my floor were in sales. And except for Lila, who served as a communal secretary, there was rarely anyone around during the day. No one moved in the hall. Nothing happened at my office door. I was listening so hard that my breath seemed loud. I moved my shoulders a little, trying to keep them loose. I inhaled gently, trying to be silent.

They came out shooting. The Uzi sprayed the corridor away from me. The handgun guy fired several slugs over my head before I shot him. The man with the Uzi spun toward me, and I shot him, too. They both went down. The man with the handgun never moved. The guy with the Uzi spasmed maybe twice and then lay still. I stayed prone on the hall floor with my gun still aimed, taking in air. Then I stood and walked over and looked at them. They were dead. I uncocked my new gun and holstered it, and heaved in some more air.

Lila had called 911. I could hear the distant sirens rolling down Boylston Street.