17

Don pushed open the building's front door, and the other two followed him into the vestibule. They pulled their scarves away from their faces, their breath steaming in the small cold space. Peter brushed snow from his fur hat and the front of his coat; none of them spoke. Ricky leaned against the wall, looking almost too weak to climb the stairs. A dead light bulb hung over their heads.

"Coats," Don whispered, thinking that the sodden garments would slow them down; he lay the axe down in the dark, unbuttoned his coat and dropped it on the floor. Then the scarf, stinking of wet wool; his chest and arms were still constricted by the tight sweaters, but at least the heaviest weight no longer pulled at his shoulders. Peter too removed his coat, and helped Ricky with his.

Don saw their white faces hovering before him, and wondered if this was the last act-they had the weapons which had destroyed the Bate brothers, but the three of them were limp as rags. Ricky Hawthorne's eyes were closed: thrown back, its muscles lax, his face was a death mask.

"Ricky?" Don whispered.

"A minute." Ricky's hand trembled as he raised it to blow on his fingers. He inhaled, held the air for a long moment, exhaled. "Okay. You'd better go first. I'll bring up the rear."

Don bent down and picked up the axe. Behind him Peter wiped the blade of the Bowie knife against his sleeve. Don found the bottom step with his numb toe and climbed onto it. He glanced back. Ricky stood behind Peter, propping himself against the staircase wall. His eyes were closed again.

"Mr. Hawthorne, do you want to stay down here?" Peter whispered.

"Not on your life."

With the other two following him, Don crept up the first flight of steps. Once, three well-off young men just beginning their practices in law and medicine and a preacher's son of seventeen had gone up and down these stairs: each of them close to twenty in the century's twenties. And up these stairs had come the woman with whom they were infatuated, as he had been infatuated with Alma Mobley. He reached the second landing, and peeked around the corner to the top of the last flight of stairs. With part of his mind, he wished to see an open door, an empty room, snow blowing unnoticed into an empty apartment…

What he saw instead made him pull back. Peter looked over his shoulder and nodded; and finally Ricky appeared on the landing to look up at the door at the top of the stairs.

A phosphorescent light spilled out from beneath the door, illuminating the landing and the walls a soft green.

Silently, they came up the final set of stairs into the phosphorescent light.

"On three," Don whispered, and cradled his axe just below the head. Peter and Ricky nodded.

"One. Two." Don gripped the top of the banister with his free hand. "Three."

They hit the door together, and it broke open under their weight.

Each of them heard a single distinct word; but the voice delivering it was different for each of them. The word was Hello.