The Door to December

unthinkable.
     Mrs. Hudspeth went to her enormous Henredon desk, opened a leather folder, and pulled out the top sheet of paper — her boss's schedule for the day. She studied it and said, 'I'm afraid you won't be able to catch him where he is now, and then he'll be in transit for a while — the limousine, of course — so I think the earliest you can hope to connect with him is at four o'clock.'
     'That's more than an hour and a quarter. Are you sure I can't get hold of him sooner?'
     'See for yourself,' she said, handing him the schedule.
     She was right. If he tried driving around the city after Boothe, he'd just keep missing him; the publisher was a busy man. But according to the schedule, at 4:00 he expected to be home.
     'Where does he live?'
     Mrs. Hudspeth told Dan the address, and he wrote it down. It was in Bel Air.
     When he finished writing, closed his small notebook, and looked up, she was watching him intently. There was an avaricious curiosity in her eyes. Clearly, she was aware that something extraordinary was happening, but Boothe had for once not taken her into his confidence, and she required all of her refinement and self-control to keep from pumping Dan for information. She was obviously eaten alive by worry too, an emotion which she had thus far been able to conceal from him, but which now surfaced like a drowned and bloated corpse soaring up through dark waters. She would be this worried only if she knew that Boothe himself was worried, and he would have permitted her to see his own concern only if it was too overwhelming to conceal. For a hard-nosed and crafty businessman like him, it would have been impossible to conceal only if it was the next thing to panic.
     The young executive — or the human equivalent of an attack dog, whichever he was — returned and escorted Dan back to the reception area. The armed guard was still standing alertly by the elevators.
     The beautiful but cool receptionist typed at high speed on her computer keyboard. In the muffling acoustics of the room, the nearly silent keys made soft clicking sounds that reminded Dan of ice cubes rattling against one another.
    * * *
    The movie had started ten minutes ago, much to Laura's relief, and they were now as anonymous as all the other shadowy theatergoers slumped in the highbacked seats.
     Melanie stared toward the front of the theater with the same expression that had been on her face when the screen had been blank. The backsplash of light illuminated her face. Distorted reflections of the images in the film moved across her features, bringing moments of artificial color to her, but for the most part the strange light made her look even paler than she was.
     At least she's awake, Laura thought.
     And then she wondered what Dan Haldane knew. More than he had told her. That was for sure.
     On the other side of Melanie, Earl Benton reached a hand inside his suit jacket, quietly reassuring himself that his revolver was in his shoulder holster and that he could draw it unobstructed. Laura had seen him check the weapon twice even before the film had started; she was sure he would check it again in a few minutes. It was a nervous habit, and for a man who was not the type for nervous habits, it was a disconcerting indication of how profoundly worried he was.
     Of course, if It came to them here in the theater, and if It was finally ready to take Melanie, the revolver would provide no defense, regardless of how quickly Earl could draw and fire it.
    * * *
    With an hour and a quarter to kill before he could meet Palmer Boothe in Bel Air, Dan Haldane decided to drop around to the precinct house in Westwood where, the previous night, charges had been filed against Wexlersh and Manuello. The two detectives were being held solely on Earl Benton's sworn statement, and Dan wanted to add his testimony as another weight against their cell door. He had left Ross Mondale under the impression that he would not accuse Wexlersh and Manuello of assault with intent to kill, and he had told Mondale that Earl would withdraw his accusations in a couple of days, when the McCaffreys were safe, but he had been lying. If he achieved nothing else in this case, if he failed to save Melanie and Laura, he would at least see Wexlersh and Manuello behind bars and Ross Mondale ruined.
     At the precinct house, the officer in charge of the