A few hours later, the sun was well above the horizon, and Walt was tuning up Harry's Mustang. The hood was open, parts and tools littered the ground, an oily rag hung from the car's bumper. Butch and Maude lay together on the grass, watching the work in progress.
Walt was talking to the dogs as he worked. "Danged pea-brained idea all along. You know what I am?"
He looked at the dogs. He got only blank looks in return. He ducked back under the hood of the car. "What I am is a fool caught between two crazy people. I shoulda said 'No' right off. 'Don't send her to me,' I shoulda said. 'I got work to do, I can't be babysitting no gold-digging female that don't know a ranch from a hole in the ground. Not me. I don't owe you that much, Harry Pace. I don't owe you so much that I gotta lie and pretend and be something I'm not while you go on some tomfool crusade for justice."
He stood and shook his wrench at the dogs to emphasize his words. "Ain't no justice in this life, Harry Pace, and if there was, you wouldn't get it by lyin' and cheatin'. That's what I shoulda told him." He stooped under the hood again. "Why the heck didn't I tell him? She's drivin' me nuts. It's gone too far."
From inside the house a phone rang. Walt stood, put down his wrench, and wiped his greasy hands. The phone rang again. Walt stomped toward the house. The dogs watched him as he passed them, still fuming. "It's gone too danged far."
Walt entered the house and lifted the receiver of the ringing phone. "McGurk."
The caller was Dan Stern, who was sitting in his car in the parking garage of Sylvie's erstwhile penthouse. A sack of groceries occupied the passenger seat beside him. "Is Harry there?"
"Harry doesn't live here."
"Yes, I know, Harry supposedly doesn't live anywhere, but I'll bet you can get a message to him for me."
"Sorry, I don't know what you're talkin' about."
"Listen, Dogpatch. Harry called me and set up a meeting for tonight at the penthouse. You tell him for me that I'll be there -- but Sylvie will be with me. Tell Harry the only thing I want him to say when he gets there is 'The money's in your account in Geneva. Have a nice trip.' Got that?"
"Leave Sylvie out of it!"
"Impossible now, I'm afraid. See that Harry gets my message." Dan hung up.
Walt slammed the phone down. Then he yanked it up again and punched in a number from memory. Cradling the phone between his ear and shoulder, he carried it to the kitchen sink and began scrubbing the auto grease off his hands. While the distant phone could be heard ringing, he muttered, "Come on! Answer the gol-danged phone! Come on!"
He rinsed his soapy hands and dried them on a kitchen towel. He laid the phone on the counter long enough to pull off his shirt, then he pressed the receiver to his ear again.
"Come on, Harry, be there! Aw, shoot!" He slammed the phone down in frustration.
He thought for a second and snatched up the phone again. He punched in a number. Busy signal. He shouted, "Clarice, get off the dad-blame phone! Dang!" He smacked the phone down and raced for the bedroom.
Moments later he emerged from the house, pulling on a clean shirt, and leaped over the two dogs. He slammed shut the hood of the pink Mustang and jumped into the driver's seat. He cranked and cranked and cranked -- but the car wouldn't start. He jerked the door open, climbed out, and slammed the door behind him. "Dang it! I knew this would happen!"
He reopened the hood with a fierce yank, and he started to work in earnest.
....
Two hours later, about a hundred miles away, in the parking garage of the penthouse condominium, a cellular phone rang in its holster. The holster was mounted inside a red pickup truck with yellow doors. The phone rang again and again and again. But the parked truck was unoccupied. The call went to voicemail. Moments later it rang again with the same result. The caller tried a third time, then the phone went silent.
Across the garage, Dan Stern was leaving his car, carrying a sack of groceries, walking toward the elevators.
Outside on the street, Harry Pace, wearing his windbreaker, boots, and Stetson, sauntered down the sidewalk toward the condominium parking garage. He was carrying a bag of takeout burgers and whistling "Your Cheatin' Heart."
Dan Stern let himself into the condominium formerly occupied by Sylvie Pace. He went to the kitchen and stocked the refrigerator with the contents of his grocery sack. Then he crumpled the sack and stuffed it down the refuse chute. The kitchen -- and indeed the entire apartment -- remained fully furnished inasmuch as Sylvie had been permitted to remove nothing but her clothing and personal articles.
Noticing a cutlery rack on the wall, Dan removed an ice pick, contemplated it, then stowed it in his pocket. He had plans for an ice bucket and a champagne bottle later, but the ice maker in the apartment had been idle while the apartment was vacant. The ice bin was a solid block that would have to be chipped apart when it was time to chill the wine.
He looked around the apartment and decided he was pleased with his preparations. He palmed his keys and left.
When the elevator doors opened in the parking garage, Dan stepped out and headed for his car. He stopped when he heard whistling. Wary, he stole forward using the garage's concrete pillars as cover until he could see if the whistler was whom he suspected it was.
Harry Pace was standing in the open door of the red pickup truck, unloading takeout food onto the seat and whistling "Your Cheatin' Heart." From Dan's point of view, however, the man in boots and Stetson looked exactly like Walt McGurk.
Dan looked at his watch, then he slipped the ice pick out of his pocket, muttering to himself. "You made good time, Dogpatch. But your time just ran out."
Dan crept up behind Harry. The whistling stopped abruptly when Dan jabbed the ice pick through the back of the man's head, beneath the brim of the Stetson, directly into the brain.
Harry fell forward, face down, across the takeout food on the truck seat. Hastily Dan shoved the booted feet inside and closed the truck door. Still thinking he had killed Walt, Dan said to the corpse, "They won't find you until the smell gets bad, and I'll be long gone by then."
Dan hurried to his car and left the garage with the greatest possible speed.
....
That afternoon at Clarice's Beauty World, Sylvie tightened the screws on the electrical plug of a blow-dryer. Then she reached across the appointment book, knocking the desk telephone off the hook, and poked the plug into an outlet. She turned the dryer on. It made a satisfying whirring-whooshing noise, and she turned it off.
Sylvie unplugged the dryer, without noticing the askew telephone, and carried the appliance across the room to Clarice. The shop was only moderately busy, and Clarice was giving a facial to a lady who seemed to be asleep in the chair. Sylvie placed the dryer on Clarice's station with a flourish.
"There you are," Sylvie announced. "I can't believe you were going to throw that out when all it needed was a new plug. These things cost money, you know."
"And I can't believe you fixed it! Where did you learn to do that?"
"Walt. Walt can fix anything." Sylvie's tone became apologetic. "You know, if I weren't here, he would've fixed that dryer for you."
"I know nothing of the kind." Clarice reached into a drawer nearby and produced an electric curling iron, which she handed to Sylvie. "Why don't you take this home tonight and see what you can do with it. It shocks me so bad it like to knocks me down ever time I try to use it."
"I don't know what I can do, but I'll try."
"I'll pay you for the time you work at home."
"Don't be silly. It's a favor for a friend." Sylvie returned to the reception desk and placed the curling iron in her purse.
Outside the picture window Dan Stern's car swooped into the parking space just outside Clarice's front door. In a trice, Dan was out of the car and through Clarice's door. Sylvie was closing the drawer with her purse in it when Dan entered the salon. She still had not noticed that the telephone was not seated on its hook.
"Dan! What are you doing here?" Sylvie smiled at him and turned toward Clarice. "This is one of my oldest friends, Dan Stern. Dan, this is my boss -- and my friend -- Clarice Putnam."
"The pleasure is all mine, Miss Putnam," said Dan with his most winning smile. "I had heard that Sylvie had a job, but I never expected such a young, attractive employer."
Clarice smiled and sent Sylvie a wink. "Why don't you bring him around more often?"
With considerable finesse, Dan managed to turn his attention to Sylvie without seeming rude. "Sylvie, may we speak outside?"
Sylvie looked to Clarice, who nodded approval. Sylvie and Dan stepped outside the front door.
Through the picture window, Clarice watched the conversation between Dan and Sylvie on the sidewalk outside. Sylvie was doubtful about what he told her, but he was charming and persuasive, and she finally believed him. He suggested a course of action, but she demurred. He persisted. She acquiesced. She re-entered the shop while he waited at his car.
"Something's come up about my father's estate," Sylvie told Clarice. "I need to go to Miami right away to straighten it out. Would you mind terribly if I left early today?"
Clarice had a bad feeling but couldn't pinpoint a reason. "Is everything all right?"
"Well, yes," said Sylvie, sounding anything but certain. "That is, it will be if I'll go and take care of this paper work today. Do you mind? I hate to leave you high and dry."
Clarice looked at Sylvie, at Dan, and at Sylvie again. Maybe she was just picking up on Sylvie's grief-tinged stress over legal red tape. Clarice brushed aside any misgivings. "We'll be fine," she told Sylvie. "It's slow today. You do what you need to do. I'll see you tomorrow."
"Thanks," said Sylvie. She retrieved her purse from the desk drawer and left.
On the reception desk, the phone was still off the hook, emitting beeping sounds that were masked by the background noise of the beauty salon.
Sylvie and Dan had been gone only minutes when through the picture window Clarice saw a pink Mustang screech to a stop outside. Walt McGurk was out of the car and in through the salon door in nothing flat.
"Sylvie, you've got to-- Where's Sylvie?" His eyes scoured the reception desk and found the bleating off-hook telephone. He snatched up the receiver and slammed it down on its cradle. "I been tryin' to call! Ain't she here!?"
"Good afternoon to you, too," Clarice responded. "She said she had to go to Miami. Somethin' about Harry's estate. What the heck are you drivin'?"
"Tunin' it up for Harry. He's got my truck. ... Her bug's outside. Sylvie take your car?"
"No, her friend took her. Dan."
Walt erupted. "And you let him take her!"
Clarice's sleeping client was startled awake and nearly knocked the chair and Clarice flying. Clarice had her hands full steadying and calming the wide-eyed, mud-packed lady. "It's all right," Clarice soothed, "just Walter actin' the fool."
Clarice looked over her shoulder at Walt. "He wasn't kidnapping her, McGurk! Looked to me like she wanted to go with him. Now, if that bothers you so dad-blame much, I suggest you stop scaring my customers and go after her."
"I'll dang sure do that, thank you very much!" Walt stormed out the door.
....
The car carrying Dan and Sylvie sped southwest past scattered farmhouses, crops, and pasturelands. Dan turned on the charm, admiring how Sylvie filled out the simple polyester beautician's uniform she wore -- not ignoring the pretty legs between skirt hem and nurse-y, white rubber-soled shoes.
Dan rested his hand on her knee. "I've tried to be patient, to give you some time after Harry's death, but it's no use. I can't stop thinking of you. We've had good times, haven't we? We've never fought. We like the same things. Things haven't changed between us, have they, Sylvie?"
A lumbering tractor-trailer rig ahead of them distracted Dan. This stretch of Highway 27 was too narrow for Dan to safely pass the slow-moving truck. Dan grimaced in frustration and honked his horn, but the tractor-trailer moseyed along without increasing its pace.
"I have responsibilities now," Sylvie told him. "I have a job. I have obligations at home. I can't party every night like we used to." She glanced at how closely the car approached the rear of the massive truck. "Danny, please ... you're speeding!"
He took her hand and clasped it reassuringly. Then he released her, grasped the steering wheel with both hands and attempted to pass the tractor-trailer. Oncoming traffic forced him to swerve back into his lane, still behind the truck.
"I understand about your ... obligations, Syl. I have obligations, too," Dan said. "In a way, that's something I've been wanting to talk to you about."
They were approaching a curve, and the oncoming lane seemed empty, but there was a solid yellow no-passing line on the asphalt. Dan disregarded the line, honked his horn, gunned his engine, and whipped around the tractor-trailer.
Sylvie held her breath and covered her eyes. Dan swerved in front of the tractor-trailer's front grill and sped southward around the curve. Neither of them saw that behind them the tractor-trailer, cut off by Dan's reckless maneuver, jack-knifed on the curve and ended up on its side, blocking both lanes of the two-lane highway.
Still barreling down Highway 27, Dan again took Sylvie's hand. "Please don't be angry with me, but that story about 'estate business' was only a ruse to get you to come with me today."
Sylvie took her hand from her eyes and looked at him. "Danny, slow down or let me out! ... Why didn't you just ask me to come with you?"
Dan saw something new and serious in her face. He deliberately slowed down. When he leveled off at a moderate speed, he looked to Sylvie for approval. She smiled her gratitude.
He answered her question. "I didn't 'just ask' because, well, you were living with that cowboy. ... Then I heard at the Club that you two were on the outs and, well, today I acted on impulse."
He gave her his most sincere face and his gravest tone of voice. "I thought a lot of Harry. In a way, he was my hero. When he died, I was so upset I couldn't, I'm sorry, but I just couldn't think straight, y'know?"
Sylvie, getting misty, patted his hand, understanding.
Dan seemed to choke on his words. "And then when you were forced to move out, I was away just when you needed me most. But I couldn't stop thinking of you struggling day after day, doing without things, being unhappy." He stopped talking to collect himself.
Sylvie said, "It's okay."
....
After peeling out of the space in front of Clarice's Beauty World, Walt sped toward Miami in the pink Mustang. On Highway 27 he whipped by cane fields and pastureland, but then: frustration. A long line of cars sat bottled up by a roadblock, flashing lights, Florida Highway Patrol vehicles, and rescue vans.
Agitated and stopped dead in traffic, Walt climbed onto the roof of the car. He could see a tractor-trailer jack-knifed on its side across the highway and a traffic jam like those he had seen before on television newscasts. Furious, he slammed his Stetson to the ground.
....
Twilight muted the colors and shapes of the Port of Miami. Tiny points of light blinked along the skeletons of cranes and the superstructures of cargo ships. Dan's car pulled up and parked just as a seaplane dropped over the Miami skyline to land on the waters of Biscayne Bay.
As he had been doing all the way from Clewiston to Miami, Dan continued wooing Sylvie. "I want to do something special for you, Syl. I want to make you happy." He produced a shiny key from his pocket and flourished it.
"What is it?"
"The key to your penthouse. Everything's exactly like you left it. Just waiting for you."
Sylvie was incredulous, excited, and increasingly hopeful. "But ... but Les sold it. She told me a Bahamian company owns it now."
"Owned it," he gloated. "They sold it to me. You and I are taking a chartered plane to Nassau this evening to celebrate closing the deal."
Sylvie looked at him as if he had just offered her the moon and was capable of delivering.
A telephone rang. Dan placed the key in Sylvie's hand, closed her hand around it, then lifted her hand to his lips and kissed it, slowly.
The phone rang again. Out on the bay, the seaplane had now taxied to its ramp, ready to load for takeoff. Sylvie stared at her hand, then back at Dan. He was her knight in shining armor.
The phone rang a third time. Sylvie said, "Do you hear bells?"
Dan reached for his phone and turned it off.
In Leslye Larrimore's Miami office, her secretary, Diane, hung up the phone. She looked up with red, swollen eyes at Walt McGurk, standing across the desk from her.
"He's not answering his cell, either," Diane said. "I don't know where else to try. There's no phone service at the penthouse yet. They're going to connect it tomorrow."
The door from the lobby to Les Larrimore's private office stood open. City of Miami Police officers were searching Leslye's office. Diane looked at the police officers and began to cry again. She pulled her last tissue from the dispenser on her desk. "I just can't believe it."
Walt handed her his handkerchief and tossed her empty tissue box into the trashcan behind her desk. "Let me get you some coffee," he offered. "Then maybe I'll go over myself and see if they're at the penthouse, just in case."
Diane nodded gratefully, and Walt left to get the coffee. City of Miami Police officers strung yellow crime scene tape across the doorway to Leslye's office. Diane sniffled.
When Walt returned with her coffee, Diane was cradling her head in her hands. He set the coffee down. She grasped it desperately and drank, then she rolled her shoulders.
"Thank you," she said.
"Headache?" asked Walt when she rubbed the bridge of her nose.
Diane nodded. Walt placed his hands on her shoulders and began the neck rub for which he was famous, according to Clarice Putnam.
A police sergeant whose name tag said "Mank" stepped close to Diane's desk and consulted a small notebook. Walt continued the massage, standing behind Diane's chair.
"I'm looking for a Daniel Stern," said Sergeant Mank.
"Isn't everybody," said Walt.
The sergeant addressed Diane, "You know Mr. Stern?"
Diane nodded. Walt kept massaging. Sergeant Mank raised an eyebrow at Walt, looking for an answer to the same question.
"Know him," said Walt. "Ain't warm for him."
"Do you know his whereabouts?" asked Mank.
Diane shook her head. Walt shrugged and kept massaging.
Mank jotted something in his notebook, turned a page, and read further in his notes. "Do you know whether he was with Ms. Larrimore yesterday evening?"
Diane answered, "I don't know, but it's possible. Ms. Larrimore often met with Mr. Stern after hours. She wouldn't usually say anything about it."
"Neither would I," quipped Walt.
"They had personal business," Diane continued. "Mr. Stern is sometimes ... overtextended. Ms. Larrimore would lend him money. She and Mr. Pace used to argue about it all the time." Diane began to sob again. "First Mr. Pace, then poor Ms. Larrimore."
Mank jotted more notes in his pocket notebook. "So, if Stern owed Ms. Larrimore money, there might have been a confrontation?"
At this, Walt stopped massaging and stared at the policeman.
Diane gasped in horror. "You can't mean--!" She raised one hand as if to cover her mouth. "I think I'm going to be sick. Excuse me, please."
Walt helped her up from her chair and she hurried away. Walt asked Sergeant Mank, "You intend to arrest Dan Stern for murder?"
"Probably won't get the chance," Mank answered. "My guess is if he's not out of the country already, he will be soon."
At that very moment, Dan and Sylvie were sitting, all lovey dovey, in their seats on the chartered seaplane. Biscayne Bay and the Miami skyline glittered through the windows as twilight welcomed the lights of the Magic City.
Dan held Sylvie's hand and leaned toward her. "We'll just zip over to the islands, do it, and zip back. I don't want to give you any time to change your mind."
"I won't change my mind," she said.
"Tomorrow morning I'm cooking you breakfast right back in your own penthouse in Miami. It'll be the perfect hideaway -- everybody thinks it's vacant. I'll have you all to myself."
"I still can't believe it," gushed Sylvie.
"Believe it. I love you. I'm going to take care of you." Dan leaned a little further and kissed her lips.
Sylvie melted against him.
The seaplane taxied down Biscayne Bay and lifted off, headed for the Bahamas.
The seaplane flew over the condominium building as Walt's pink Mustang turned from the street onto the entrance driveway of the parking garage. The Mustang cruised up and down the rows of parked cars until its headlights passed over the red and yellow pickup truck. Walt parked the Mustang nearby, got out, and approached the truck.
He went first to the driver's side door and tried the handle. Locked. In the semi-dark of the garage, he almost didn't see anything inside the cab. Then Walt did a double take.
"Harry? ... Harry!" Walt raced around to the passenger side of the truck and pounded on the window with his fist. "Harry! Oh, God, please let him be asleep! Harry!"
Walt palmed the pistol from his ankle holster and used the butt of it to smash the truck window. He reached in and opened the door. Harry's Stetson rolled out the door and across the garage floor, revealing the ice pick in Harry's brain.
"Ah, no! No!" Walt cradled Harry's head against his chest. Tears streaked Walt's cheeks, but he made no other sound -- until he had a gruesome afterthought. "Sylvie. Oh, Jesus help me. Sylvie!"
Leaving Harry's body, Walt slammed the truck door and ran full tilt toward the elevator. He stopped, raced back to the truck, opened the door again and searched Harry's pockets. "The keys, Harry. Where are the keys?"
He jerked a set of keys from Harry's jeans and ran again to the elevator.
The cell phone rested in its holster in the truck, forgotten.
....
At midnight in the penthouse the only light was the dim city glow coming through the endless glass wall of the living room. Somewhere in the apartment, an expensive clock chimed twelve times.
The front door rattled, the knob turned, and the door was kicked gently open. A wedge of light spilled onto the floor of the foyer. A briefcase slid across the foyer as if kicked from the hallway. In the doorway, Dan lifted Sylvie to carry her across the threshold. Sylvie was still wearing her white beautician's uniform and nurse shoes. She giggled, brandishing her shiny new key.
"You made it!" crowed Dan. "You're back! Revel in it while you can, because tomorrow we leave for Rio!"
Inside the door he set her down and kissed her. He slammed the door with his foot, shutting out the hallway light and throwing the room again into darkness.
Out of the dark Walt's voice called, "Y'all come on in. Champagne's getting warm."
The startled couple jerked apart. Sylvie handed her key to Dan, stepped further into the apartment, and flicked the switch lighting the lamps at either end of the sofa. She placed her purse on one end of the couch.
Walt was sitting deep in a living room chair, invisible until she reached the center of the room and looked back at him. He held an iced tea tumbler half full of orange juice. His hunting knife protruded from half of an apple atop the large fruit bowl on the end table.
Sylvie looked at him, amazed.
Dan took the time to lock the dead bolt on the front door with Sylvie's key. Then he pocketed the key, retrieved his briefcase, and joined Sylvie in the living room.
A bottle of champagne leaned inside a silver ice bucket that held water with only a few chunks of ice floating in it.
"Found the O.J. with the eggs and bacon in the ice box. Figured you planned to come back here for breakfast, so I waited." Walt remained seated. He lifted his tumbler of orange juice as if in a toast, then took a drink.
"What are you doing here, and how did you get in?" asked Sylvie.
"You're supposed to be dead," said Dan.
Sylvie's gaze zipped from Walt to Dan. "What?"
"Harry's dead," Walt told Dan.
"Thank you, Walter Cronkite," Sylvie said. "And what's the latest on Elvis?"
Walt stiffened. "Dang it, Sylvie! I ain't joking around here now!"
Dan remained unperturbed. "What do you mean, 'Harry's dead'?"
Sylvie thought the two men were playing some unfathomable, macabre joke. "Danny, be serious."
Abandoning all pretense, Dan turned cold and hard. "That wasn't you in the red truck today?" The question was rhetorical. Whoever had been in the red truck was a dead man now, and Walt was obviously no corpse.
Walt rose from his chair and approached Sylvie, who still stood in the center of the room. "Harry was driving the truck today," he said, making eye contact with her and holding it. "That's what I'm trying to tell you, Sylvie. Harry faked the whole thing. I never wanted to lie to you, but I owed him. So, when he insisted on doing it his way--"
"Harry? ... Today?" Sylvie was stunned.
"Stop blathering," said Dan.
Sylvie peered into Walt's eyes, looking for answers. "You're not kidding! Harry ... alive? But the money ..."
"Stolen," said Walt. "There were no margin calls or bad loans or creditors' liens or whatever Leslye told you. Harry never lost his money. It was stolen from him -- legally stolen by some very clever people. Harry had a scheme. He thought he could get it back for you. And it nearly worked."
Dan had no patience for explanations. "Yes, yes, get on with it! Where's the money now?"
Walt glared at Dan, barely restraining himself from assaulting the man barehanded.
"No!" Sylvie said, barely audible.
Walt caught her when it seemed she would collapse.
Dan was unaffected by anyone else's distress. "Did he make the transfers like I told him?!"
Sylvie swiveled to stare at Dan in horror. "How can you-- ?"
"He never got your message," said Walt.
Sylvie looked at Walt. "What mess-- ?"
"It doesn't matter," said Dan. "I knew I couldn't trust him to do it, so I took care of it another way. Sylvie and I were married this evening in Freeport."
Sylvie seemed dazed. "I don't understand any of th-- ," she murmured.
"That true, City Mouse?" Walt interrupted. He grabbed her shoulders and made sure she was looking him full in the face.
"He said he wanted to take care of me," she said.
"Dang, Sylvie!" He nearly shook her. "Maude don't even like him! Hell, if you just had to have a rich husband, why couldn't you play up to me a little longer? I'd 'a' come around!"
Sylvie's eyes filled with tears and she slapped his face. Using her hands to push against his chest, she stepped away from his grasp.
Walt shook his head as if in disbelief. "Well, I swear. If it wasn't so tragic, it'd be comic. Did you think he had money and you didn't, is that what you thought? Did he act like he was doing you some big favor?
"He wanted to take care of me!" Sylvie was more insistent this time, as if Walt didn't get the message before.
But Walt understood better than she knew. "You can take care of yourself!" he replied with equal insistence. "You've proved that. Don't you see? You don't need him. He needs you."
"That's enough," said Dan.
Walt pleaded with Sylvie. "Don't you see? Harry stole the money back. It was in your name only. And Harry would never have transferred it back to the slime who stole it to begin with."
"I said, that's enough!" Dan cried.
Walt continued, "So, Dan Stern got Harry's money the only way he could. He married it."
"I said shut up!" roared Dan.
Walt and Sylvie maintained eye contact. Slowly, she walked closer to him. She placed one hand in the center of his chest, and she felt the steady beating of his heart. Without looking away from Walt's eyes, she spoke softly to the other man. "Danny?"
Walt looked away from her and directly at Dan. "It won't work, Stern. I'll have this thing annulled before you can say 'fraudulent inducement.' And I'll make sure your marriage partner lives longer than your business partners did."
Sylvie looked at Dan as if in shock. "Partners?" She looked at Walt. "Not Leslye!"
Walt's eyes softened with sympathy as he shook his head indicating there was no more Leslye.
"Oh, Walt, no," she moaned. She did not see Dan kneel beside his briefcase, snap it open, and pull out a pistol.
"I don't think you'll be getting anything annulled, Dogpatch," Dan said.
Walt thrust Sylvie behind him as Dan fired. The impact of the bullet spun Walt, but he did not fall.
Sylvie screamed. Walt faltered, pawed his belt, but his knife was not in it. He took a step toward Dan. Dan fired again. Walt fell hard and didn't move.
Sylvie dropped to the floor and crawled swiftly to his side. Blood welled from his abdomen and upper chest. She shrieked, "What have you done?! Are you out of your mind, Danny?! Call an ambulance!"
Dan's voice was eerily calm. "I can't do that, Syl. I seem to have left my cell in the car, and the landline isn't connected yet. It'll be connected tomorrow, but of course, that will be too late." He moved to stand over Sylvie, preparing to shoot her, too.
Sylvie, though teary eyed, kept trying to stanch the blood of Walt's wounds with the bandanna she had taken from around his neck. She didn't look at Dan.
"How sad to have one's bride killed by a jealous former lover," Dan mused. "And on one's wedding night. And how fortunate to be able to dispatch the killer myself, in self-defense."
Sylvie swung Dan's briefcase up from the floor, smashing it into his crotch. He went down.
She ran to the front door, but Dan had locked it. The deadbolt required the key, even from the inside, and Sylvie's key was in Dan Stern's pocket.
Dan rolled in agony on the living room floor. Sylvie pulled, twisted, and pounded on the locked door. It was no use. She turned her back to the door. Dan was in the living room. She made a decision and, avoiding the living room, hurried through the galley kitchen.
Exiting the kitchen, Sylvie ran toward the back door, between the laundry room and the butler's pantry. A sharp sliver of light washed down the hall from the living room lamps. It was enough. She would feel her way if need be. There was no time to stop and turn on lights as she went.
She reached the back door. It, too, was locked. She wanted to scream in frustration. There was no key in the lock. No key in the rack on the wall. No key under the mat on the floor. She was trapped.
The shadows on the distant living room wall indicated that Dan was recovering, standing up, moving about.
Sylvie started toward the kitchen again. Perhaps something there-- but wait! Dan's shadow was moving toward the hallway. He would be between her and the kitchen in a second.
She retreated into the laundry room, where it was even darker. Almost no light from the living room lamps reached as far as the laundry room doorway.
She heard Dan coming closer, walking slowly, looking into the other rooms off the hallway as he stalked her. His shoes creaked softly.
Dan's eyes flicked back and forth, and his ears strained to catch a sound, some sign of Sylvie. "Yes, I think I'll be content as a rich widower living abroad. And frankly, Syl, you seem to have grown too fond of the 'grassroots' lifestyle, anyway. I'd have gotten bored with you very soon, I'm afraid."
Inside the laundry room, Sylvie's eyes adjusted to the darkness. She made out a shape in the far corner. The circuit breaker box. She moved toward it, careful not to rattle the bag of clothespins hanging on the lingerie rack mounted across that corner.
Dan's shadow fell across the doorway of the laundry room just as Sylvie's hand reached out and flipped a circuit breaker switch. Snap. Utter darkness from the living room. Snap, snap, snap, snap, the other rooms, just for good measure.
Dan stumbled and cursed somewhere nearby. Sylvie pressed herself to the wall, barely breathing, only listening. Listening.
She heard Dan's footsteps in the hallway. Light switches went click-click, then click-click again, as he tried to find one that worked. She knew none of them would. She heard his breathing rasp angrily, like a bull about to charge.
If Sylvie had peered around the doorway of the laundry room and down the hallway, she would have seen Dan's shape, visible against the city lights coming through the living room's wall of windows. He held his gun in one hand, and with the other he worked at his shoelaces while balancing against the wall. One shoe hit the floor with an ominous thud.
Sylvie gasped at the noise and quickly covered her mouth. The second thud told her the other shoe had fallen. She wouldn't be able to hear him coming any more.
She lowered herself silently to the laundry room floor and crawled behind the washer and dryer, flinching at the dust and filth and empty soap boxes she must wriggle past.
Sylvie did not know that Dan was creeping systematically around the walls of the small butler's pantry across the hall from the laundry room. He found a flashlight and tried it. The batteries were old, the light dim, but it was something. He used it to finish searching the butler's pantry, then he moved across the hall into the laundry room.
Sylvie was scrunched behind the washer, inching carefully toward the door, when she was stopped by a flashlight beam passing over the washer and dryer on its way to the far wall. Holding her breath and trembling in terror, she watched the light play over each corner and cranny as Dan moved into the room.
He was standing on the opposite side of the washer from Sylvie when a mouse crawled out from under the washer and skittered across Sylvie's dust-covered hands. Sylvie stuffed her hand into her mouth, dust and all, and fought to keep from shrieking. Daring to breathe, she tried to slow her heart rate and respiration. She had to regain her composure if she was going to save herself and Walt.
Dan began creeping toward the far wall of the laundry room. Sylvie edged around the washer toward the hallway door. She was watching Dan's progress so intently, she didn't see the substantial spider web and its pancake-size brown spider until she turned her head toward the doorway and -- at the same instant Dan identified the circuit breaker box.
Dan's sudden "Ah-hah!" providentially covered up Sylvie's loud gasp of terror as she slapped the spider away and ran out into the hallway. At the same time, Dan was reaching for the breaker box.
Sylvie ran into the kitchen just as the living room lamps snapped back on.
Back in the laundry room, Dan was making his way through the breaker box, reactivating all the light switches in the apartment.
She looked desperately around the dark kitchen. Perhaps she could make the re-established electrical power work in her favor. She turned on every switch in sight, on the stove, on the radio, on the oven timer -- knocking over a roll of paper towels in the process.
She reached into the dark refrigerator and grabbed the carton of eggs, stuffed them into the microwave oven, and turned it on.
Just then, the kitchen electricity snapped on.
Sylvie ran for the living room.
In the laundry room, Dan reacted to a sudden burst of noise and light from the kitchen. Country music blared from the kitchen radio at top volume.
Dan ran from the laundry room to the kitchen, but he found no Sylvie there. He threw his flashlight at the radio, knocking it off the counter and silencing it with a crash.
Dan backed out of the kitchen into the hallway and started toward the living room.
At the other end of the kitchen, Sylvie's hand snaked around the corner of the cabinets to grab a wall-mounted fire extinguisher and take it out of sight.
Walt struggled toward consciousness on the living room floor. Barely able to focus, he made out Dan's shape stalking the hallway, gun in hand. Walt attempted to roll close enough to the end table to retrieve his knife from the fruit bowl. He failed. In the attempt, he knocked over the water-filled ice bucket and its bottle of champagne.
The resounding noise of the falling metal bucket caused Dan to spin automatically in the direction of the sound. He stumbled over his own briefcase.
Thinking this was the hardest thing he had ever done, Walt gritted his teeth against the vicious pain and made a desperate grab for the knife. His hand was on the hilt, but before he could pull the blade free of the apple that held it, his jaw exploded into lightning bolts of new pain. Dan had kicked Walt's head as hard as he could. Dark oblivion claimed Walt instantly. If Dan had been wearing shoes, Walt would be dead.
As Walt's mindless bulk crumpled to the floor, the weight of his falling arm drove the hunting knife all the way through the apple and knocked the fruit basket askew. The knife sat, firmly wedged, blade up, in the tilted fruit basked on the end table. Beneath the table, a lake of champagne, broken glass, and ice water formed around the overturned silver bucket.
Dan might have made sure of Walt's mortality right then, but he reacted to a sudden noise from the kitchen. He smiled. She must be in there. He started to step over Walt's body, but looking at the locked door, a thought occurred to him. He stooped, rifled Walt's pockets and took his keys.
In the kitchen, Sylvie crept from her hiding place near the foyer and set the fire extinguisher down like a roadblock just inside the doorway at one end of the galley kitchen. She turned back toward the foyer and, edging around that end of the kitchen -- while Dan left Walt's body and skulked toward the opposite end of the kitchen -- she managed to slip into the living room.
She hunkered, hidden, behind the sofa, and eased a hand over the back of it to retrieve her purse. She hoped Dan was too far away to detect her small sounds as she clambered through the miscellany of her purse, all the while mouthing, "Keys, keys, keys!"
She found nothing even resembling a key, and nothing that looked useful against a homicidal sociopath. Her eyes fell on Clarice's broken curling iron, and she began to think.
Unaware that Sylvie was slithering out the opposite end of the kitchen, Dan leapt from the hall into the kitchen doorway, gun leveled. He saw no one. Deciding to keeping looking down the hall, he backed out of the kitchen and slunk once more toward the laundry room. He spared a glance toward the living room and saw no one there but the prostrate Walt.
As Dan prowled away from her down the hallway, Sylvie was shoving the broken curling iron under the sofa and out the other side, into the puddle of ice water beneath the coffee table. She worried that Walt was too close to her trap -- she feared she might kill him. If her trap worked. If he wasn't already dead.
Unacceptable! She shoved morbid thoughts aside in favor of a proactive approach. As quickly and quietly as possible, she crawled from behind the sofa and dragged Walt by the arms, one desperate centimeter at a time, away from the pool of water.
In the hallway, Dan approached the laundry room door. A faint rustling sound met his ear. Silently, he edged close to the door and leaned to peer into the dark laundry room. Then ... a movement! He fired! Dan swung into the room to finish the job -- on Sylvie's mouse.
The sound of Dan's gunshot sent Sylvie skittering back to her hiding place behind the sofa. The lamp at the end of the sofa cast a dangerous light, and she yanked the plug from the wall.
The room went dark. From the hallway, Dan fired a shot toward the living room. The lamp shattered. Broken glass and ceramics clattered down around Sylvie's ears, but she made no sound.
Dan started up the hallway, in the direction of the sofa. As he neared the darkened kitchen the toaster popped up with a loud clang. Dan jerked toward the sound.
The paper towels that had fallen against the stovetop began to smolder.
In the microwave, a dozen eggs exploded, sounding like automatic weapons. Dan fired a shot toward the kitchen.
The paper towels on the stove ignited. The smoke detector bellowed. Disoriented and distracted by the sudden sound and fury, Dan moved toward the kitchen.
In the living room, Sylvie rose from behind the sofa and tossed a throw pillow across the room to hit the refuse chute at the foyer end of the kitchen.
The chute's metal door rattled and clanked. Dan ran toward the sound and tripped over the fire extinguisher on the floor. Cursing the object, he nonetheless had the presence of mind to pick it up and use it to put out the flaming towels on the stovetop. Then he turned the extinguisher on the blaring smoke alarm and froze it into silence.
While Dan was in the kitchen, putting out fires in his stocking feet, Sylvie was plugging in the broken curling iron in the living room. Then, carefully avoiding the icy puddle, she knelt beside Walt and searched his pockets for keys. No luck.
Then she remembered his ankle holster. She looked in the wrong pant leg first, but she soon found Walt's gun and ghosted toward the kitchen with it.
Dan was putting out the last of the fire. He had laid his pistol on the counter in order to wield the extinguisher with both hands. Sylvie silently appropriated his weapon.
When the smoke detector finally ceased its piercing wail, the next sound Dan heard was his gun clanging down the refuse chute, where it would fall thirty floors to the basement dumpster.
Dan turned toward the sound and found Sylvie pointing Walt's gun at him. "You don't approve of killing, Sylvie," he reminded her with confidence.
"No, but I'd kill a dangerous animal if I had to."
She backed Dan into the living room, where she forced him to sit on the sofa. Between Sylvie and Dan were the coffee table, fruit basket, ice-water puddle, and Walt's unconscious, bleeding body. Sylvie kept the gun trained on Dan as best she could while, again, she felt in Walt's pockets.
Smiling, Dan held up the key to the front door. "Looking for this?"
Sylvie stood and faced him with grim determination. "Give it to me, Danny. I don't want to hurt you, I don't care about the money, I don't care where you go or what you do. I just want to call an ambulance, okay."
He scoffed. "Do you seriously expect me to believe that Sylvie Pace, the Princess of Worth Avenue, no longer thinks that having money is important?"
"It's important, I can't deny that," she said, "but it's not as important as other things. Things you don't even know about, Danny. Intangible things. Things you'll never have, no matter how rich you think you are. Give me the keys."
He pretended to go along, throwing the keys to her, but he threw them short. She would have to take her eyes off him and grope on the dark floor to get them.
She glanced away, and Dan lunged for her. He stepped in the puddle and sharply reacted to the strong shock that whacked him from the defective curling iron. Sylvie watched in horror as he reeled and fell -- onto the knife protruding up from the coffee table. Then all was still.
Stunned, Sylvie stared for several seconds at the gruesome tableau before her, outlined by the city light from the wall of windows. She swallowed a sob, shook herself, and scanned the floor nearby. A glint of silver flashed in the meager light, and she snatched up the key.
Praying that Walt was still alive, she ran for the door, let herself out into the building's corridor, and raced to find a telephone and help.