The Eyes of Darkness

strength.
    She yawned and turned over and drifted off to sleep. She didn't dream anymore, and when she woke at ten o'clock, she was refreshed and newly excited by the previous night's success.
    She phoned Michael, but he wasn't home. Unless he'd changed shifts in the past six months, he didn't go to work until noon. She decided to try his number again in half an hour.
    After retrieving the morning newspaper from the front stoop, she read the rave review of Magyck! written by the Review-Journal's entertainment critic. He couldn't find anything wrong with the show. His praise was so effusive that, even reading it by herself, in her own kitchen, she was slightly embarrassed by the effusiveness of the praise.
    She ate a light breakfast of grapefruit juice and one English muffin, then went to Danny's room to pack his belongings. When she opened the door, she gasped and halted.
    The room was a mess. The airplane models were no longer in the display case; they were strewn across the floor, and a few were broken. Danny's collection of paperbacks had been pulled from the bookcase and tossed into every corner. The tubes of glue, miniature bottles of enamel, and model-crafting tools that had stood on his desk were now on the floor with everything else. A poster of one of the movie monsters had been ripped apart; it hung from the wall in several pieces. The action figures had been knocked off the headboard. The closet doors were open, and all the clothes inside appeared to have been thrown on the floor. The game table had been overturned. The easel lay on the carpet, the chalkboard facing down.
    Shaking with rage, Tina slowly crossed the room, care-fully stepping through the debris. She stopped at the easel, set it up as it belonged, hesitated, then turned the chalkboard toward her.
     
    NOT DEAD
     
    "Damn!" she said, furious.
    Vivienne Neddler had been in to clean last evening, but this wasn't the kind of thing that Vivienne would be capable of doing. If the mess had been here when Vivienne arrived, the old woman would have cleaned it up and would have left a note about what she'd found. Clearly, the intruder had come in after Mrs. Neddler had left.
    Fuming, Tina went through the house, meticulously checking every window and door. She could find no sign of forced entry.
    In the kitchen again, she phoned Michael. He still didn't answer. She slammed down the handset.
    She pulled the telephone directory from a drawer and leafed through the Yellow Pages until she found the advertisements for locksmiths. She chose the company with the largest ad.
    "Anderlingen Lock and Security."
    "Your ad in the Yellow Pages says you can have a man 'here to change my locks in one hour."
    "That's our emergency service. It costs more."
    "I don't care what it costs," Tina said.
    "But if you just put your name on our work list, we'll most likely have a man there by four o'clock this afternoon, tomorrow morning at the latest. And the regular service is forty percent cheaper than an emergency job."
    "Vandals were in my house last night," Tina said.
    "What a world we live in," said the woman at Anderlingen.
    "They wrecked a lot of stuff—"
    "Oh, I'm sorry to hear that."
    "—so I want the locks changed immediately."
    "Of course."
    "And I want good locks installed. The best you've got."
    "Just give me your name and address, and I'll send a man out right away."
    A couple of minutes later, having completed the call, Tina went back to Danny's room to survey the damage again. As she looked over the wreckage, she said, "What the hell do you want from me, Mike?"
    She doubted that he would be able to answer that question even if he were present to hear it. What possible excuse could he have? What twisted logic could justify this sort of sick behavior? It was crazy, hateful.
    She shivered.
     
     
     

11
     
    tina arrived at bally's hotel at ten minutes till two, Wednesday afternoon, leaving her Honda with a valet parking attendant.
    Bally's, formerly the MGM Grand, was getting to be one of the older establishments on the continuously rejuvenating Las Vegas Strip, but it was still one of the most popular hotels in town, and on this last day of the year it was packed. At least two or three thousand people were in the casino, which was larger than a football field. Hundreds of gamblers—pretty young women, sweet-faced grandmothers, men in jeans and decoratively stitched Western shirts, retirement-age men in expensive but tacky leisure outfits, a few guys in