When he got back to his apartment, Henry put on New Order’s Brotherhood as loud as he thought he could without getting a complaint. He’d known, as soon as he hung up the phone, that he’d made the right decision. It was time to take some of the heat off Corbin. Even if Alan wasn’t convicted, Henry had muddied the waters. It was going to be fun to follow it from afar. His work was done, for now.
He took a long, stinging shower, then dressed, replayed the album, and lay down on his made-up bed. He was going to miss Kate. When he’d left the apartment that morning he’d only thought of it as a temporary absence. Still, it was best that he stayed away. He closed his eyes, flexing one foot in time to the music. He floated on his river, cool and refreshing, and fell asleep while he was still on the surface, bobbing along, contented, maybe even happy.
He woke in a dark apartment, cold and shivering. He’d slept too long, and when he sat up the air felt liquid and he nearly lay back down again. He was plagued with doubts. Had he gone too far with the call to the police? Alan Cherney didn’t know his real name—he’d just said “Jack,” hadn’t he?—but he could describe him. And so could Kate. She could draw him, as he knew. Henry decided that his involvement with Kate and Corbin and Alan was now done. He’d set his traps, and it was time to walk away. He’d been extraordinarily lucky so far—the near miss with the police this morning—and for the next few weeks he wouldn’t leave his apartment except to go to his office in Newtonville.
He made himself a cheese sandwich and drank a glass of milk, then went to unpack his backpack. He carefully laid out everything he’d brought to Kate’s house. His extra shirts, the gloves, his outdoor hat, his antiperspirant, his granola bars, the empty bottle in case he ever needed to empty his bladder while hiding, his antislip socks with the rubber grips, his night vision goggles with the head strap, and his sheathed filleting knife, brand new. It was all accounted for except for the Lycra ski mask he slept in so as not to leave hairs behind. He searched the pockets of his backpack, then the pockets of his pants and his jacket. It was nowhere. He remembered pulling it on the night before when he’d been sleeping under the guest room bed. It had gotten warm in the night and he’d pushed it up to his hairline. That was his last memory of the ski mask. It must have slipped off his head in the night, and was probably still under the bed. Where else could it be?
He headed back out into the night.
Before returning to Kate’s apartment to look for his ski mask, Henry visited Audrey Marshall’s place one more time. He knew it was his last chance.
He stood in the dark kitchen, breathing the air, remembering . . .
Not the work of cutting her—no, that had been hard—but the way she had looked when she was done, cut open, an arm outstretched to point toward Corbin’s apartment. There was so much spilled blood on the floor that the floor simply looked red, a shining pedestal for a girl who got involved with the wrong man. Henry closed his eyes and stood absolutely still for a moment, savoring the moment. With his eyes closed, he felt invisible, the way a child thinks they’re invisible because they can’t see anything themselves. Except that children were wrong, and Henry was right. He was invisible. Almost, anyway. No one could see him but Corbin. And Corbin could do nothing about it.
He went back down the stairs to the basement corridor, then up toward Corbin’s apartment. As he neared the top, he felt a tiny ripple in the air, and thought he heard the click of a door closing. He paused and listened for a while. Nothing. Then he climbed the remaining stairs and paused outside the door that led into the apartment. He listened for a long time. Just as he felt confident enough to open the door, there was the sound of movement, the pad of steps. Henry sat on the top step and waited. He could be patient. All he needed to do was enter the apartment, go to the guest room for his ski mask, and then leave.
He heard a flush, the sound of water moving through the building’s walls. He thought he heard steps again, then it was quiet. He waited for what felt like twenty minutes before folding his hand around the doorknob and turning it. The door was unlocked. He was pleased, but wary. It was the first time he’d found it that way. Had Kate simply forgotten? He swung the door open and stepped into the moonlit kitchen. The apartment was quiet. He shut the door behind him and walked toward the living room, turning into the hallway that led to the guest room. Muffled sounds plus a flickering light at the end of the hall told him the television was on, which meant Kate was probably asleep on the couch in front of it. Henry ducked into the bedroom, lay down on the plush carpet next to the bed, and felt with his outstretched fingers along the spongy fibers for his lost ski mask. Shifting himself farther under the bed, he found the bunched-up hat. Relief swept over him. Once he was standing, he shoved it into his jacket pocket. He was about to leave the bedroom when he sensed movement in the hallway. Kate must have gotten up. But, no, it was coming the other way. Henry stepped back, watching shadows move along the doorframe. Whoever it was entered the room with the television. Henry, feeling trapped in the bedroom, moved rapidly the other way down the hallway toward the living room, where he stopped and turned. He felt better in the cavernous dark. There was a large armoire near the front door and he stood next to it, waiting in its shadow.
Who else was in here? He guessed it was Alan, coming over for a repeat of the night before. Still, he waited to find out what would happen, listening intently, but all he could hear was the muffled sound of the television.
And then Corbin appeared, unmistakable, even with short hair. He was in the hallway, coming forward, and something dropped down the center of Henry, like a rock sinking through water. It was fear, but it was also excitement.
“You came,” Henry said to Corbin. It was something he’d said to him a hundred times in fantasies, wanting Corbin to know that he had summoned him, that he was the one pulling on his strings. It was all worth it, Henry thought, no matter what happens next.
“What are you doing here, Henry?” Corbin asked, sounding like a stern teacher disciplining a student.
Henry began to speak, to explain, when he realized that Corbin had a knife and was coming toward him. A surge of adrenalized joy went through Henry as he jumped back and avoided Corbin’s lunge. Then he leapt, riding Corbin’s body down to the wooden floor, pinning him and wrestling for the knife. He nearly had it when it sliced across the palm of his hand, and he instinctively jerked backward. Corbin came after him again, nearly stabbing him in the face, but the knife stuck in the floor, and Henry was able to get to it with his good hand, leaping onto Corbin, slicing with the knife at his throat, the skin parting the way skin does. So easily. Corbin fell to the floor. In the dim light the blood that came from his neck was an inky black.
Henry stood, stumbling backward. His hand thrummed, and he looked at it. Blood was oozing its way down into his sleeve, and his thumb hung loose, the tendon severed. He quickly looked around the room for something to stanch the bleeding, then remembered the ski mask in his pocket. He set the knife down, pulled the hat out with his good hand, and crouched down to dress his hand. He gingerly slid his dangling thumb through an opening in the slick material, then wrapped his hand, tucking the excess material so that it held. It would have to do for now. Corbin was still making sounds, soft, bubbling gurgles, and Henry turned his attention to him.
They were no longer alone. Kate had entered the living room and was now crouched over Corbin’s crumpled body. She hadn’t noticed Henry. He took the knife from the floor and stood. He watched for a moment, the world slowing down into this one frozen tableau. Corbin dying, and an angel in white already at his side.
Then Corbin’s gaze shifted, and for a brief moment, his eyes made contact with Henry’s, the two of them looking directly at one another after so many years. Corbin was gesturing with his blood-slicked hand, moving a finger, and trying to say something to Kate. It caused her to turn, and that was when Henry leapt, landing on her back. He heard the air leave her lungs, her head thunk as it hit the floor. He pushed the knife into her back, encountering a shoulder blade, pulled it out again, and stuck the entire blade into the softness high up next to her spine. Henry rolled off her and into a sitting position. Corbin’s hand still clutched at his throat. Henry moved closer, looked at his eyes, open but unfocused now, blood bubbling from his mouth.
There was a loud knock at the door, followed by a woman’s voice: “POLICE. OPEN UP.”
Henry, in the seconds he had, began to calculate. Should he run for the basement? Then he watched, in amazement, as Kate, knife still protruding, stood up and wobbled toward the front door, opening it up as though a cocktail party guest had arrived. Henry pulled his small pocketknife from his jacket pocket, flicked out the blade, then took Corbin by the shoulders and yanked him toward him to act as a shield. The policewoman entered, gun drawn. Henry watched her eyes scan the scene, from Kate to Corbin and then to Henry, who was now dragging Corbin’s body back onto his, holding the pocketknife to Corbin’s damaged neck, the smell of blood thick in the air.
She took a step into the room, gun pointed at Henry. “Let him go, and let me see your hands.” She took her left hand off her gun and fumbled for the radio at her belt.
Henry paused, holding on to the knife. He was grateful, in a way, that it had come to this.