John Blaine - Rick Brant 24 by The Magic Talisman

Author:The Magic Talisman [Talisman, The Magic]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2012-06-05T11:25:28+00:00

CHAPTER IX

Footsteps in the Night

rick’s back itched. He longed to scratch it, but the itch had lodged in that aggravating spot just out of reach. He yearned for a sharp-edged door frame or something similar on which to rub, but no impromptu scratching post he could reach was at hand.

The Mirella house was alive. He could sense its tiny shifts, the settling of an older house that produces little snaps and squeaks in the dark hours as the house cools to night time temperature. More important, he could hear the house’s heart beat. The sound wasn’t loud, and he wasn’t sure whether it was an actual sound or just a vibration. He felt rather than heard it, a rhythmic thump-THUMP, thump-THUMP that had continued for about fifteen minutes.

Rick had tried to identify the throbbing thumping but had given up. It wasn’t the furnace, because heating plants are on-and-off affairs, regulated by their thermostats. It wasn’t a water pump, because even in houses with wells, the pump went on only when the water level in the storage tank was lowered, and there was no sound of running water.

The thumping wasn’t especially disturbing. It didn’t seem to carry any menace, nor did the volume or speed increase. He couldn’t imagine what caused it. The sound-much like a heartbeat-had started about twenty minutes after the Camerons had closed the door and driven home.

The throbbing stopped. Rick suspected it would start again after the operators, or time clock, or built-in control finished doing whatever the pause allowed. He turned his head, swinging the helmet with its radiometer. He saw the upstairs entrance hall as a not-quite-sharply focused still-life of chairs, end tables, vases, unlit lamps, and flowers. The contrasts were actually pretty good. He could make out a lot of detail in a vase full of flowers, and in the carving on a chair back.

Operating according to a plan worked out by phone with Derek, Rick and Scotty had gone to the House of Illusion as though to see the show. In fact, they had seen the show, and afterwards had casually drifted up to the gentlemen’s lounge, where they waited until the show crowd had gone.

By pre-arrangement, Tom the Mongol had taken their big zipper bag-actually Scotty’s Marine parachute bag-and deposited it in a linen closet in the second floor hallway. One of the car hops had taken their car to a service station a few hundred yards down the highway and parked it, so a car left at the house would not attract attention. The watchman had been told that two friends of the Camerons would be in the house until very late.

After the last guest departed, the boys got out of their suit jackets and put on turtleneck sweaters. Scotty hooked up his infrared light and Rick put on the helmet. Scotty took up station in a dark comer at the bottom of the staircase, from which he could command the front door, the entrance hall, and the doorways into the various rooms.

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