The Key to Midnight

own ragged breathing.
        The stranger entered the far end of the serviceway and stopped abruptly, surprised by the disappearance of his prey.
        In spite of the apprehension that had pulled him as taut as a drumhead, Alex smiled.
        The stranger stood without moving, without making a sound.
         Come on, you bastard.
        Finally the man approached along the serviceway. Warier than he had been a minute ago, he moved as lightly as a cat, making no noise to betray himself.
        Alex cupped one hand over his mouth, directing the crystallized plumes of his breath toward the ground, hoping they would dissipate before they could rise like ghosts in the darkness and possibly betray his position.
        As the stranger approached, he cautiously checked behind the trash cans on both sides of the alley. He moved in a half crouch. His right hand was jammed in his coat pocket.
         Holding a gun?
        The gaunt man walked out of the first circle of light and into darkness, visible only as a silhouette.
        Although the night was cold and Alex was without a coat, he began to perspire.
        The stranger reached the midpoint light. Methodically he continued to inspect every object and shadow behind which - or in which - a man might hide.
        Beside Alex, the garbage cans exuded the nauseating odor of spoiled fish and rancid cooking oil. He'd been aware of the stench from the moment he'd hidden behind the barrels, and second by second, it grew riper, more disgusting. He imagined that he could taste as well as smell the fish. He resisted the urge to gag, to clear his throat, and to spit out the offending substance.
        The gaunt man was almost out of the light at the halfway point, about to step into the second stretch of darkness, when again he stopped and stood as if quick-frozen.
        He had seen the topcoat. Perhaps he was thinking that the coat had slipped off Alex's shoulder and that, in a panic, Alex had not stopped to retrieve it.
        The stranger moved again - not slowly, as before, and not with caution either. He strode purposefully toward the third streetlight and the discarded topcoat. The hard echoes of his footsteps bounced back and forth between the houses that bracketed him, and he didn't look closely at any more of the trash barrels.
        Alex held his breath.
        The stranger was twenty feet away.
        Ten feet.
        Five.
        As soon as the guy passed by, literally close enough to touch, Alex rose in the shadows.
        The stranger's attention was fixed on the coat.
        Alex slipped soundlessly into the passageway behind his adversary. What little noise he made was masked by the other man's footsteps.
        The stranger stopped in the circle of light, bent down, and picked up the topcoat.
        Because it fell behind, Alex's shadow did not betray him as he moved into the light, but the stranger sensed the danger. He gasped and began to turn.
        Alex swung the Awamori with all his strength. The bottle exploded against the side of the stranger's head, and a rain of glass rang down on the brick pavement. The night was filled with the aroma of sweet-potato brandy.
        The stranger staggered, dropped the coat, put one hand to his head, reached feebly for Alex with the other hand, and then fell as if his flesh had been transformed into lead by some perverse alchemy.
        Glancing left and right along the alleyway, Alex expected people to come out of the houses to see what was happening. The pop of the bottle as it broke and the clink of glass had seemed loud. He stood with the neck of the bottle still clamped in his right hand, ready to flee at the first sign of response, but after half a minute he realized that he hadn't been heard.

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    17
        
        The flurries of snow had grown into a squall. Dense sheets of fat white flakes swirled through the passageway.
        The gaunt man was unconscious but not seriously hurt. His heart was beating strongly, and his breathing was shallow but steady. The ugly red precursor of a bruise marked the spot where the bottle had shattered against his temple, but the superficial cuts in his face had already begun to clot.
        Alex searched the stranger's pockets. He found coins, a wad of paper money, a book of matches that bore no advertising, a packet of facial tissues, breath mints, and a comb. He didn't find a wallet, credit cards, a driver's