One Door From Heaven

the alacrity with which he had betrayed his client confirmed for them that he was, by the current definition, a good citizen.
        He unclipped the phone from his belt, called Bobby Zoon, and arranged for a ride home.
        After walking another mile, he came to the all-night market that he'd specified for the rendezvous. Bobby's Honda was parked next to a collection bin for Salvation Army thrift shops.
        When Noah got into the front passenger's seat, Bobby-twenty, skinny, with a scraggly chin beard and the slightly vacant look of a long-term Ecstasy user-was behind the steering wheel, picking his nose.
        Noah grimaced. "You're disgusting."
        "What?" Bobby asked, genuinely surprised by the insult, even though his index finger was still wedged in his right nostril.
        "At least I didn't catch you playing with yourself. Let's get out of here."
        "That was cool back there," Bobby said as he started the engine. "Absolutely arctic."
        "Cool? You idiot, I liked that car."
        "Your Chevy? It was a piece of crap."
        "Yeah, but it was my piece of crap."
        "Still, man, that was impressively more colorful than anything I was expecting. We got more than we needed."
        "Yeah," Noah acknowledged without enthusiasm.
        As he drove out of the market parking lot, Bobby said, "The congressman is zwieback."
        He's what?"
        "Toast done twice."
        "Where do you get this stuff?"
        "What stuff?" Bobby asked.
        "This zwieback crap."
        "I'm always working on a screenplay in my head. In film school, they teach you everything's material, and this sure is."
        "Hell is spending eternity as the hero in a Bobby Zoon flick."
        With an earnestness that could be achieved only by a boy-man with a wispy goatee and the conviction that movies are life, Bobby said, "You're not the hero. My part's the male lead. You're in the Sandra Bullock role."

Chapter 4
        
        DOWN THROUGH THE HIGH FOREST to lower terrain, from night-kissed ridges into night-smothered valleys, out of the trees into a broad planted field, the motherless boy hurries. He follows the crop rows to a rail fence.
        He is amazed to be alive. He doesn't dare to hope that he has lost his pursuers. They are out there, still searching, cunning and indefatigable.
        The fence, old and in need of repair, clatters as he climbs across it. When he drops to the lane beyond, he crouches motionless until he is sure that the noise has drawn no one's attention.
        Previously scattered clouds, as woolly as sheep, have been herded together around the shepherd moon.
        In this darker night, several structures loom, all humble and yet mysterious. A barn, a stable, outbuildings. With haste, he passes among them.
        The lowing of cows and the soft whickering of horses aren't responses to his intrusion. These sounds are as natural a part of the night as the musky smell of animals and the not altogether unpleasant scent of straw-riddled manure.
        Beyond the hard-packed barnyard earth lies a recently mown lawn. A concrete birdbath. Beds of roses. An abandoned bicycle on its side. A grape arbor is entwined with vines, clothed with leaves, hung with fruit.
        Through the tunnel of the arbor, and then across more grass, he approaches the farmhouse. At the back porch, brick steps lead up to a weathered plank floor. He creaks and scrapes to the door, which opens for him.
        He hesitates on the threshold, troubled by both the risk that he's taking and the crime he's intending to commit. His mother has raised him with strong values; but if he's to survive this night, he will have to steal.
        Furthermore, he is reluctant to put these people-whoever they may be-at risk. If the killers track him to this place while he's still inside, they won't spare anyone. They have no mercy, and they dare not leave witnesses.
        Yet if he doesn't seek help here, he'll have to visit the next farmhouse, or the one after the next. He is exhausted, afraid, still lost, and in need of a plan. He's got to stop running long enough to think.
        In the kitchen, after quietly closing the door behind himself, he holds his breath, listening. The house is silent. Evidently, his small noises haven't awakened anyone.
        Cupboard to cupboard, drawer to drawer, he searches until he discovers candles and matches, which he considers but