The Green And The Gray

2

He did not, in fact, end up carrying the girl, but it was a near thing. By the time they reached their building, she was staggering like a drunken tourist, with the two of them supporting nearly her entire weight. The night doorman was nowhere to be seen, and it was all Roger could do to keep her from collapsing as Caroline fished out her keys and let them in.

The elevator was deserted, as was the hallway leading to their sixth-floor apartment. With Caroline again handling the door, Roger maneuvered the girl inside.

"No—the bedroom," Caroline panted as Roger started toward the living room. "She'll be more comfortable there."

"Okay," Roger grunted, changing direction.

They made it to the bedroom and got the girl up onto the bed. She was already asleep as Caroline folded the end of the comforter up to cover her legs. Roger straightened the lapels of his coat across her shoulders, and as he did so his fingers brushed across her shoulder. The material of her tunic felt odd, like some cross between silk and satin.

"She looks so young," Caroline murmured.

"How old do you think she is?" Roger asked. "I was guessing about fifteen."

"Oh, no—no more than twelve," Caroline said. "Maybe even eleven."

"Oh," Roger said, focusing on the girl's face. He could never tell about these things.

But however old she was, she certainly had an exotic look about her. Her hair was pure black, her skin olive-dark in a Mediterranean sort of way, and there was an odd slant about her eyes and mouth he couldn't place. He hadn't had a chance to see her eyes before she fell asleep, but he would bet money they were as dark as her hair.

"Better leave the closet light on," Caroline said. "She might be frightened if she wakes up in the dark and doesn't know where she is."

Roger nodded and flipped the switch, and together they tiptoed out, closing the door behind them.

"What do you think?" Caroline asked as she pulled off her coat and hung it on the coat tree by the door.

"I think we should call the cops and let them sort it out," Roger said, plucking his shirt distastefully away from his chest as he headed for the kitchen phone. Coming suddenly from the cold night air into the warmth of the building had popped sweat all over his body, and his shirt was sticking unpleasantly to his skin. "Deadbolt the door, will you, and put the chain on? And then check the balcony doors."

The 911 operator came on with gratifying speed. He explained the situation, gave her the address, and was assured that a patrol car would be there as soon as possible.

Caroline was pacing around the living room when he returned. "Everything locked up?" he asked.

"I didn't check the door off the bedroom," she said. "I didn't want to wake her up. But I remember seeing the broomstick in the rail this morning."

"So did I," Roger confirmed. Crossing to the couch, he moved one of the throw pillows aside and sat down. "You might as well get comfortable. This might take awhile."

"I suppose," she said, crossing to one of the two chairs in front of him. She sat down, but immediately bounced up again. "No, I can't."

"Sit," Roger ordered, searching for some way to get her mind off her nervousness. "I want you to look at something."

He pulled out the gun the mugger had given him as she reluctantly sat down again. "You and your dad used to go shooting together, right? Tell me if this feels too light to you."

Her eyebrows lifted as she took it. "Way too light," she said, frowning as she hefted it. "Is it a toy?"

"Don't ask me," he said. "Could it be some kind of high-tech plastic gun?"

"I don't know," Caroline said. "It looks like a standard 1911 Colt .45." She turned it over, and her searching eyes widened slightly as she saw the blood smear. "Is that—?"

"I doubt it's tomato juice," Roger said. "Anything else you can say about the gun itself? I really don't want to have to tell the cops I got mugged by an F.A.O. Schwartz Special."

"Well, the slide works," Caroline said, pulling the upper part of the gun back and then letting it go, the way Roger had seen them do in the movies. "Toy guns usually don't do that."

She fiddled with the bottom of the grip. "But the clip seems to be glued in place," she added.

"So that means no bullets?" Roger asked, trying to decide if that made him feel relieved or just more ridiculous.

"I don't know," Caroline said, pulling the slide back again and peering inside. "There's something in there that looks like a cartridge. But—"

She let the slide go, pulled it back again. "But if it was real, it should eject when I do this. Either the round is jammed, or else it's a fake."

"Any way to tell for sure?"

"You want me to try pulling the trigger?"

Roger snorted. "No, thanks. So what exactly have we got here?"

"I don't know," Caroline said again, handing the gun back. "The slide works, but the slide release doesn't. The safety catch works, but not the clip release. There seems to be a round chambered, only I can't get it to eject. It's like it was designed to look like a real gun, but only up to a point."

"You mean like a movie prop?"

"Maybe, but why go to the trouble of making a prop that only works halfway?" she pointed out.

"Why not just use a real gun filled with blanks? It doesn't make sense."

"Yeah." Roger fingered the gun. "Speaking of making sense, what did you think of her outfit?"

"A little out of style for New York," Caroline said. "Reminds me of the costumes they wear at madrigal concerts."

"I meant the material," Roger said. "What is it?"

"I didn't really pay attention," Caroline said. "It shimmered like silk, though."

"But it doesn't feel like silk," he told her. "It's too smooth."

"I don't know, then," Caroline said. "Maybe something new."

Across the room, the doorbell chimed. "Here they are," Roger said, standing up. "They made better time than I expected."

"Wait," Caroline said suddenly, jumping to her feet and grabbing his arm. "Are we sure that is the police?"

Roger stopped short, a fresh chill running across his skin. "Stay here," he said, dropping the gun into his pocket and moving past the front door into the kitchen. The bell rang again as he pulled a carving knife from Caroline's knife rack and returned to the door.

The two men he could see through the peephole certainly looked like cops. "Who is it?" he called.

"Police," a muffled voice said. "You called in a foundling report?"

Roger got a good grip on his knife. "I'm going to open the door," he said, making sure the chain was secure. "I want to see your identification."

He opened the door a crack, fully expecting the heavy wood to come crashing back at him as the two men tried to break it down. Instead, a hand eased gingerly through the gap holding a police badge and ID card for his inspection.

Roger gazed at the card a moment, uncomfortably aware that he didn't have the slightest idea what a real police ID looked like. But he had called them, and there wasn't much he could do now but hope they were genuine. "Thanks," he said. "Hang on, and I'll unchain it."

The hand withdrew, and he closed the door. Caroline's knickknack shelf was a step to the right; hurriedly sliding the knife out of sight behind one of the enameled plates, he unchained the door and opened it.

The two cops looked like they'd walked off the set of a TV show: one of them burly and Caucasian, with the look of long experience etched into his face, the other young and Hispanic and barely out of rookiehood. "I'm Officer Kern," the older cop identified himself, his eyes resting on Caroline a moment and then taking a quick sweep of the living room behind her. "This is Officer Hernandez.

You said you'd found a missing girl?"

"That's right," Roger said. "At least, we assume she's missing. There was this mugger in an alley on

101st Street—"

"Only he wasn't actually a mugger," Caroline interjected. "He wanted us to take her and—"

"Quiet!" Roger cut her off as a soft thud came from somewhere behind him. "What was that?"

"What was what?" Caroline asked tautly.

"I didn't hear anything," Kern said.

"Something went clunk," Roger said grimly, heading for the bedroom. "Like someone getting hit on the head."

He thought he was hurrying; but even so, both cops got to the bedroom door ahead of him. "Stay here," Kern ordered, his gun ready in his hand. Turning the knob, he shoved it violently open.

Hernandez was ready, diving through and ducking to the left. Kern was right behind him, breaking to the right. The closet light was still on, and from the doorway Roger could clearly see the bed and his coat lying open and rumpled.

The girl was gone.

"The balcony!" Caroline said in a shaking voice, pointing over Roger's shoulder at the sliding door.

"The broomstick's been moved."

"And the latch is open," Roger said grimly. "They've got her out there!"

Kern grunted something as both cops made for the sliding door. Hernandez got there first, shoving the door open and disappearing onto the balcony, the older cop right on his heels. Clenching his teeth, Roger followed, the cold air cutting across his damp shirt like a late-June breaker at Coney Island. He ducked through the opening—

And nearly ran full into Kern's back.

"What is it?" he demanded, skidding to a halt. Both cops were just standing there, looking around.

At the empty balcony.

Roger looked again. Aside from himself, the two cops, and the two heavy ceramic pots with Caroline's orange trees sticking out of them, the balcony was completely empty.

The outside lights suddenly came on, making him jump, and the living room door slid open. "Where is she?" Caroline asked anxiously, poking her head through.

"Good question," Kern said, his voice suddenly darkly suspicious. "You got a good answer to go with it?"

"But she can't be gone," Caroline objected, looking around. "She was right there in the bedroom.

Where else could she be?"

"Not here, anyway," Kern said, holstering his gun as he looked along the sheer wall. "And it's too far to jump to the next balcony."

"Couldn't have gone down, either," Hernandez added, leaning over the solid balcony wall and gazing down. He twisted his head and looked up along the wall of the balcony above theirs. "Or up, either.

Railings you could climb, but not solid walls like these."

"But she was here," Caroline insisted. "She has to still be here."

"Okay, fine," Kern rumbled. "Come on, Hernandez. By the book."

They spent the next fifteen minutes going systematically through the apartment, looking everywhere anything bigger than a Chihuahua could be hiding. In the end, they found nothing.

"Well, it's been fun, folks," Kern said as they headed for the front door. "Next time you feel like pulling someone's chain, leave the NYPD out of it, okay?"

"Sure," Roger growled. "Thanks for your time."

He let them out, deadbolting and chaining the door after them. Caroline had gone back to the balcony, looking around as if she still expected to see the girl hiding in a corner. With a tired sigh, he crossed the room and went out to join her.

"I don't understand," she said as he stepped to her side. "She was here, wasn't she? We didn't just dream it."

"If we did, we dreamed this, too," Roger told her, pulling the gun from his pocket.

"The gun!" Caroline gasped, all but pouncing on it. "Quick—call them back. This proves it!"

"This proves what?" Roger countered disgustedly. "A toy gun? It doesn't prove a thing."

"But—" Caroline seemed to sink back into herself again. "You're right," she said, her voice quiet again. "But then where did she go?"

"I don't know," Roger admitted, looking around the balcony. "I just hope... never mind."

"That whoever tried to strangle her didn't come back and finish the job?" Caroline said, her voice almost lost in the whistling of the wind.

"Yeah." Roger took a deep breath of the cold northern air. Winter was indeed coming early this year.

"Come on," he said, not knowing what else to say. "Let's go to bed."