THE PRICE OF VENGEANCE

ours, if Zale counted fro

rimmed. Crane had left the Alden estate the morning after the gala, in a black sedan with a driver and the broad man in the passenger seat. Zale had watched it go from an upstair

h the door shut. The lights in the east wing went out at half past eleven. The lights in the stud

the cypress trees stood blac

once. The scarred knuckles pulled against the lining and he felt nothing, which was the way he liked it. A black knit cap covered his hair. Black

r four. Held for

ewhere near fifty. The cold air t

rm had left a package at the villa's service entrance, and inside the package had been something other than flowers. Since then, Zale had been listening. The screen showed him a grid of blac

square, he sto

panning wide and slow across empty grass. Somewhere in a server closet, a small, patient lie was running in a loop. The lie would ho

s. He start

de into a flowerbed. Cold soil under his palms. A faint smell of mulch. He stayed low for a count of ten and listened. Wind in the cy

f roses two feet in front of his face, white and hard, and passed

tance before his mind did. Forty paces to the service door. Twelve seconds of dark between the floodlight and t

overhanging eave. A steel plate, a brushe

blurred. His breath came out slow and thin through the cloth of his mask. Somewhere in the lock

t se

en and slid inside, an

f a ventilation duct. The tick of a refrigerator two rooms away. The long, soft exhale of a house that thought it

running toward a pale rectangle of light at the far end. He started toward it with his weight on

ed against his rib

ark suit with the jacket open, one hand resting just inside it. The man from the piano. He leaned a shoulder against the plaster and look

arted c

ts ago, from behind a flute of warm champagne. The man's eyes were on the stairwell. The man's thumb tapped against his leg

pans hanging dull in the dark. He passed under a camera, lifted his chin to the exact angl

t sound, a flint and a flame. A long breath out.

t likely to cry out. His rubber soles made no sound. His breath came slow through the mask. Fourte

from a single wall sconce halfway down. At its edge, forty feet away, the broad man lea

to the recess of a tall

d the sound traveled the length of the hall like a pistol shot. His shoulder came

e. Eighty.

ted onto his

Twenty feet. The man's shoulders filled the end of the hall, wide and unconcerned. Fifteen. The red tip of the cigarette glowed and dimmed. Ten.

d not b

d tucked the butt in his pocket, a careful, tidy habit. He turned and walked down the opposi

, thirty sec

mov

andles polished to a soft shine. A thin line of yellow light lay along the bottom. Behind the woo

d in front

nd listened to the man on the other side. His breath ran slow. His

closed it around the cold, quiet weight of the thing he

nd, worn smooth by thirteen years of palms. He drew it out an inch at a time so the cloth made

ndle in his left han

the door open the width of his shoulders a

of the study sat in brown shadow. Leather spines on the shelves. A globe on a stand. The smell of cigar smoke

at with his ba

oom of the world Crane put his back to a wall. In this one, the one room he believed was his, he had turned his chair to face the glass and the dar

catching the lamp. The pen scratched, paused, scratched again. His le

without a sound. The latch cli

d a half

ber soles whispering over the wool, and the loop of wire went over the gray he

weight dragging against the wire. His hands flew up. They tore at the steel, at the gloves, at Zale's wrists, nails scraping uselessly across leather. The pen rolled off the desk

me out was a wet, trapped cra

n waves. His cologne was sharp and expensive, cedar and bitter orange, and under it his sweat had turned sour and hot. One of his hands

e mi

beyond the door a floorboard creaked and he listened to it with the whole of his body, and it creaked ag

. A thin, whistling breath went o

ask and dragged it down, down past the chin, until the cold air of the study touched h

" he said, v

and they swung wildly across the books, the globe, the ceiling, and found t

reathed. "I was

moment. It w

ld dawning. The eyes went wide, wider than the wire should have let them. Crane's mouth opened. It tried to make a word. It never got

slid off

ed once, and the gray eyes lost whatever had been behind them. They stayed open, fixed on

tes, ten

id not

man can come back from a lot, and a dead one can't. Sixty. He felt his own pulse in his ears, slow an

he desk and the chair settle

o

tipped the chair upright. He lifted the head, let it rest against the chair's high back, and turned the face a little toward the window so that it would look, from the door, like a man who had fallen asleep over his pa

inute

his eyes pass once over the whole room, the way he'd been taught, left to right and top to bottom. A cufflink

mask back up o

oom had gone silent. A man cleared his throat, wet and

inute

ket of the back stairwell as the broad man's shadow swung round the corner above him, and he stood there with his back flat to the plaster. The man stopped at the study door. A long pause. A

outside edges of the treads, fo

under it with his chin tilted. The service door open

y sec

he shadow of the eave, and let it pass, and ran. Across the grass, the roses, the cold bite of the ston

moved above hi

his lungs clean. His breath smoked white. His hands, inside the gloves, were perfectly steady. Somewhere behind

not loo

mall, even hand. He took a pen to the first, dre

n