Red 1-2-3 (47 page)

She raised her gun, trying to remember everything she had been taught by the director of the women’s shelter.

Use two hands.

Flick off the safety.

Hold your breath.

Take careful aim.

Make every shot count.

She fumbled and dropped the flashlight to the floor as she tried to handle the gun as she had been shown, and the couple on the bed in front of her disappeared into crazy shadows. She thought she was screaming

“
Kill him! Kill him!
” but again she couldn’t hear the words, or even feel her lips moving with sound. In that second of hesitation, a shock of orange and red exploded in her eyes as the man she wanted to shoot clubbed her across the face with a wild roundhouse punch. The Wolf, all battle instinct, had thrown himself at Sarah, knocking her sideways. Mrs. Big Bad Wolf had jerked forward, flailing crazily at the dark, viciously grabbing at any shape she could find.

Sarah staggered, and as she did, a second blow landed on her chest, knocking the wind from her lungs. She bounced off a bureau and was suddenly thrown sideways and fell across the bed. She felt a hand grabbing at her gun. She knew only that she had to fight back, but exactly how to do this slipped through her consciousness. The only thought she had was
Don’t let go! Don’t let go!
She was twisted about, spinning like a top, and she felt her feet slipping as she fell from the edge of the bed and slammed against the floor, a sudden immense weight pressing down on her and sharp nails clawing at her face as if trying to rip her mask free.

Behind her, two other black shapes barreled into the room. Karen had the billy club in her hand and was swinging it wildly, ineffectively.

It smashed into a bedside lamp, shattering china. A second uncontrolled swing crashed into knickknacks on a drawer top, sending debris flying.

The darkness cheated them all.

343

JOHN KATZENBACH

The Big Bad Wolf and Mrs. Big Bad Wolf fought desperately. The two of them kicked, bit, punched, used teeth, fists, feet. Bedclothes landed in piles. The wooden frame of their bed groaned beneath their frenzy. It was Mrs. Big Bad Wolf who’d grabbed the gun in Sarah’s hands, holding it by the barrel, wrestling it back and forth, trying frantically to pull it free. She barely understood what
it
was—she knew only that
it
was something that could kill them and that she had to seize it, and not let go. Animal-like, aware only that they had plunged from sleep into a fight for their lives, they fought ferociously. Guttural grunts and sounds of battle filled the room.

The Wolf leapt through the black at Karen. He smashed a blow against her ear. Her head spun. Another blow slammed into Karen’s midsection and the doctor felt a rib crack and sheets of agony pummel her body.

Gasping, she expected a third, something that would knock her unconscious, and she swung the billy club crazily, feeling it crunch against skin and bone. She heard a high-pitched cry of pain.

A second sudden howl pierced the room. Jordan had slashed at the Big Bad Wolf with her filleting knife, catching his arm just as he pulled it back to slam into Karen. With a roar, the Wolf grasped Karen and swung her savagely into Jordan, knocking the youngest Red to the wall, slamming her head into a framed picture that shattered with an explosion.

The Wolf battled, knowing now that there was a club, a knife, and a gun, which his wife seemed to have a grip on. The only light in the room came from the abandoned flashlight that had rolled uselessly into a corner, so the fight had little organization and no rationale; it was simply bleeding, gouging, kicking, and trying to survive in darkness and shadow.

He still did not know whom he was fighting. If he’d had an instant to reflect, he would have perceived three forms, all female, and perhaps this would have made the mathematics of the struggle clear. But the blows raining down, the pain from his sliced forearm, and the shock of going from sleep to a deadly attack all conspired to push clarity aside.

All he could think of was getting to his hunting knife on the desk in his 344

RED 1–2–3

downstairs office, or seizing the gun he knew was somewhere in the room, and evening the odds.

He pushed Karen aside, tossing her against the same wall that Jordan lay slumped against. He threw himself on the two figures—his wife and a shadow—locked together in their struggle for the pistol. He smashed into the two of them not knowing which body was which, pummeling everything he could feel. In the confusion, the Wolf heard the distinct clatter of the weapon coming free and falling to the wood floor. He groped around for it, but could not find it.

And then, suddenly, a hand grasped his forehead and his head was jerked back savagely. He felt a blade at his throat.

Words seemed to come from oblivion. “I will kill you if you move again.”

Jordan was behind him, almost straddling his form, one hand holding his head, the other gripping the knife, like a farmer ready to slaughter some animal for dinner.

His first instinct was to burst forward. The pressure of the knife dis-suaded him.

And then the telephone rang.

345

42

“What Big Teeth You Have, Grandmother . . .”

At first the telephone’s insistence seemed utterly bizarre, some infusion of mundane normalcy into a situation that had none. It stifled the fight, froze everyone in position like in a children’s game.

It was Karen who immediately understood the ringing’s importance.

It had to be answered without delay. It never occurred to her to answer it herself.

She frantically seized the flashlight from the corner where it had fallen, and shined it into the eyes of the Big Bad Wolf. “Answer it!” she shouted.

This was impossible—he was pinned beside the bed, kneeling on the floor, between Jordan and her filleting knife. The phone was on a bedside table across the far side of the room. Each ring screamed louder. Karen focused her light on Mrs. Big Bad Wolf, who was entwined with Sarah. “Answer it!” she cried again. She raised her billy club as if ready to crush the woman’s skull—which, even in the near-panic that Karen felt surging though her, she knew would defeat the purpose of the threat. “It’s the alarm company. Answer the fucking phone!”

346

RED 1–2–3

Sarah, suddenly grasping the urgency of the situation, pushed Mrs.

Big Bad Wolf up and toward the phone. The gun, lying nearby beneath a bureau, half-hidden by sheets and blankets tossed aside in the frenzy of the bedroom battle, suddenly seemed less important, but Sarah grabbed at it, reclaiming it for her own. She, too, pointed her weapon at Mrs. Big Bad Wolf.

Mrs. Big Bad Wolf hesitated. Her eyes widened as they fixed on the knife blade at her husband’s throat, ignoring the gun barrel staring at her.

He managed a small nod, and she scrambled across the bed and grasped the receiver. “Hello?” she said shakily.

“This is Alpha Security. We have a silent alarm at your location. Are you the home owner?”

Mrs. Big Bad Wolf stammered, trying to catch her breath and reply simultaneously. “Yes, yes. The alarm, uh, what . . .”

“Your alarm system is showing an intrusion.”

She held the phone near her ear, but her eyes were on her husband. “An intrusion?”

“Yes. A break-in.”

“We were asleep,” she said. Her mind was working as fast as it could.

“You just woke us up. The phone ringing scared the bejesus out of both of us. We have a new puppy,” she lied. “Maybe he set it off. Can you give me a minute to check?”

“You need to give me your security code,” the voice on the other end said briskly.

“Okay, let me just check,” she repeated. She used an old person’s whiny, shaky voice. “Won’t take more than a second or two. I have to go downstairs. I know I wrote down that code in the drawer there . . .” Again she looked toward her husband.

But it was Karen who whispered a direction. “If you don’t give the right code, and do it right now, he will call the cops. That’s fine,” she said, a smug grin flitting across her face, “We can all just wait here quietly for the cops to show. Then we will happily tell them everything. Think about it: Is that what you want?” This was directed to the Big Bad Wolf.

347

JOHN KATZENBACH

A part of Karen that seemed cruel found the situation suddenly delicious.
So, Mr. Wolf, Mr. Killer, Mr. Whoever the Fuck You Are, you want to
explain to some surprised cop just what’s going on here tonight?

She smiled sickly as she spoke in a low, fierce tone. It was as if her words carried extra weight spoken in the dark shadows thrown by the flashlight.

She felt on the verge of total savagery. Karen the comic, Karen the doctor—

both had been replaced. She did not know that the other Reds were feeling similar conversions. She whispered, “The cops will want to know exactly why three women who are strangers to each other chose this night to join up and break into this house. Not some other fancy house, where there’s money or jewels or expensive art, because we’re sure as hell not here to rob anything. This specific house. A pretty fucking ordinary place, right?

And they will hear a story from the three of us that they will have a lot of trouble believing. But it will only make them more curious. And then they will have questions for you. Those will be hard questions. Do you want to answer their questions? Is that what you feel like doing tonight?”

His eyes widened.

“So, if you are
not
the Wolf,” Karen said slowly, “by all means give the emergency response. Bring the cops here as soon as you can and they can lead us all away in cuffs. But if you are . . .” She reached up and pulled off her black hood, spilling her red hair out. The other two Reds did the same.

At the phone, Mrs. Big Bad Wolf gasped.

The Wolf hesitated. He could still feel the blade tickling his throat.

He could see the fear in his wife’s eyes. He was trying to sort through his options, and saw only one available.
Delay
. And this did not include a conversation with the police. The local cops were ineffectual and incompetent, but not totally. “Give the code,” he muttered angrily. “Tell ’em we’re okay. It was the dog we don’t have, just like you said.”

Mrs. Big Bad Wolf removed her hand from the telephone receiver.

“We’re all okay. Just fine. It was a mistake. The dog set it off,” she carefully repeated. “Our all-clear code is
Inspector Javert.
That’s J-A-V-E—”

“Thank you,” said the voice. “That’s a cool code. Very literary. I saw
Les
Misérables
on Broadway. I’ll reset your system from here.”

348

RED 1–2–3

Mrs. Big Bad Wolf replaced the receiver on its hook.

“Now we should just kill them both,” Jordan said. The words coming from her lips surprised her. The weak, scared-outside-in-the-shadows Jordan had been shunted aside and replaced by the fierce, uncompromising, murderous Jordan. It had happened in the matter of seconds.

Perhaps, she imagined, it was shaken loose inside her by the physical contact; being slammed against a wall can open up unseen resources that are rarely called upon. Regardless, she felt a cold, homicidal urge come over her, and she moved the knife blade back and forth just slightly, tearing the surface of the Wolf ’s skin, so that a thin line of blood started to trickle down to his chest and stain the top of his pajamas. She bent forward, leaning her head down, so that her lips were next to his ear. “You thought it would be the other way around, didn’t you? You thought
you
would be holding the knife to
my
throat, huh? And then what were you going to do?”

He didn’t answer. He wore a snarl on his face and he could barely contain his own rage. He wanted to wrap his hands around her neck.
Any
neck. But he was locked in position.

Sarah struggled to her knees. She had her gun in both hands, holding it straight out. She was right in front of the Wolf with the barrel of the weapon pointed at him from perhaps six inches away, aimed right between his eyes. She thought,
Pull the trigger and you end everything.

Start over again right now and the new you will be safe forever.
The Wolf was bracketed by the two Reds. The gun and the knife were like deadly parentheses.

“I thought you were dead,” the Wolf said bitterly.

“I went to your service,” Mrs. Big Bad Wolf said piteously from across the room, where she suddenly slumped onto the bed, tucking her knees up under her arms like an unhappy child. She spoke in a whiny tone, as if this trick was a cheat and unfair.

“I am dead,” Sarah answered brutally without taking her sight off the Wolf. She squinted down the barrel. “Jordan’s right,” she said coldly. “Let’s kill them both right now.”

349

JOHN KATZENBACH

The Big Bad Wolf felt his muscles constrict. He breathed in sharply. He fantasized himself bursting forward, miraculously slamming Jordan’s knife aside, wrestling Sarah’s pistol away from her with a single immense and magical tug. He would kill them all. Right then and there. Right on the floor of his bedroom, in front of his wife. He would save her. They would kill together. He could hear the sharp reports from the gun. He could see the bleeding forms of the three Reds in front of him. He would win. It was always supposed to be that way.

And then, suddenly, he could not move.

Inwardly he shouted commands: “
Move legs! Hands! Arms! Now!
”
Outwardly he remained frozen. And he thought,
Am I going to die now?

Getting older was inevitable. Being forgotten was something he understood. Getting caught was always a possibility.

But being murdered had never occurred to him.

“No, please,” Mrs. Big Bad Wolf moaned. A small stream of blood was dripping down from the edge of her mouth where Sarah had landed a lucky punch. Her hair was frizzed out in a tangle of knots. She had paled and the doctor in Karen thought she had seen the woman age years in the space of seconds. She suddenly wondered about the woman’s heart.
It
could give out any second. We’ll have caused a heart attack. Is that homicide?