KnockOut

There was only one house beyond the apartment building, the grass overgrown, its windows boarded up, obviously vacant. Beyond that decrepit house stretched a narrow two lane road that disappeared into the thick oak and pine trees. Every-thing looked limp.
    “If the locals don’t take care,” Sherlock said, looking around, “the forest is going to consume the town. Nothing but oaks and pines everywhere. It looks like they swallow up the road.”
    “I wouldn’t mind sitting under an oak tree about now,” Savich said, looking up at the afternoon sun, hot and high in the cloudless sky, “what with the temperature hovering around a hundred, and the humidity at two thousand. Do you know what the problem is—the sun’s too big down here.”
    “We could join that golden retriever over there snoozing away under that pine tree. Everybody must be huddled around their air conditioners.”
    “If Cully and Bernie are watching the apartment building from close by, they could be inside that empty house,” Savich said. “Do you see anyone? A car? Anything?”
    They looked around carefully, saw nothing but the sun beating down. The trees were utterly still, not a breath of moving air.
    Savich turned the car around and headed back toward town. He parked a couple of blocks from the apartment building, between a Toyota SUV and an F-l 50 truck. They walked back toward the building, their SIGs pressed against their sides to avoid any panic from passersby. They needn’t have bothered. Not a single soul appeared, not Cully or Bernie either. They could be well hidden, Savich thought, but surely they’d have recognized them, at least recognized Sherlock’s bright hair. This wasn’t good, Savich knew it.
    Savich would swear the air pulsed with heat. He saw the humidity was making Sherlock’s hair curlier. She turned to him. “Why don’t Cully and Bernie let us know where they are?”
    Savich said nothing; what was there to say? He opened the apartment-building front door and stepped into a tiny lobby that held one palm tree and six mailboxes, painted white. The temperature dropped at least thirty degrees.
    “It’s like I’ve died and gone to an ice locker,” she said. She flapped her arms, enjoying it.
    They looked at the mailboxes even though they knew Victor lived in apartment 403, but why was there a number like that in a two-story apartment building?
    “Let’s take the stairs,” he said. “Stay alert.”
    They didn’t meet anyone on the stairs. Savich imagined a lot of people were inside, eating dinner. They heard children arguing over whether to watch an old Star Trek episode or Batman, but no adult voices.
    The hallway was wide and dark, all the apartment doors painted different colors. Victor Nesser’s apartment was at the very end of the second-floor hall. His front door was painted bright green, with big brass numbers—403.
    Sherlock stepped forward, knocked on the door, and waited a moment, her SIG ready. “Mr. Nesser? It’s Clorie Smith, from the Winnett Herald Weekly. I’m here to offer you a full month’s free subscription, four free issues.”
    No answer.
    She knocked again. “Mr. Nesser?”
    No sound, nothing from inside the apartment.
    Savich pressed his ear to the door.
    He didn’t hear anything at first, pressed his ear closer. He heard a muffled sound— a person’s voice? He didn’t wait, motioned for Sherlock to step back, and he kicked the door in. It flew open, banging against the wall. They went in, fanning their SIGs, and found themselves in a small entry hall, a living room to the right connected to a small dining area and kitchen.
    Empty.
    A muffled voice yelled, “In here!”
    The voice was coming from the bedroom. Savich stepped toward it when the man shouted again, “No! Don’t come in! There’s a bomb and a trip wire!”

58
    SAVICH FROZE , Sherlock behind him. He called out, “Okay, we’re not moving. Cully, is that you? What bomb?”
    “Just a second, got to get this duct tape off my mouth. Damn, it’s hard to talk without any lips. Okay, listen, the young guy—Victor Nesser—I saw him string a wire across the bedroom doorway, floor level. I guess he didn’t mind I saw him, figured I would see you coming and not be able to do a thing about it. Thank God I finally managed to get the tape off my mouth or we’d all be dead.”
    Savich knelt down and saw the wire, maybe a quarter inch off the floor, stretched taut. He called out, “We’re stepping over it. Are