Nina walked up silently behind him. She looked up at the facade. "What a neat old building."

Pellam tried the front door. The lock was long broken though the double wooden panels were chained. He pushed inward as far as he could, separating them by two feet then he worked his way inside underneath the chain.

"Do you think you should?" Nina asked as his boot vanished into the doorway. She timidly followed.

Inside, Pellam paused on the oak floor, worn wavy by years of workers' boots and hand trucks. To the right were the darkened factory offices. Banisters and windows were done in streamlined aluminum, and in faded murals muscular laborers towered high above them. To the left through an arched doorway was a huge, cavernous space, now lit red by the intense sun glowing on the yellowed, greasy windows. The ceiling was nearly forty feet high.

Nina walked up behind Pellam.

"This is too good to pass up," he said. "I thought the field was all you needed." "This'd be for another film I've got in mind.

I'll get the Polaroid. Be right back."

After Pellam ducked out of the chained door Nina walked to the back wall, where she had seen in the shadows what she believed was an antique calendar and some other artifacts that might be worth swiping before the movie crews descended.

It was not a calendar, though, just a poster of the Bee Gees, which would have been dated circa 1975. She guessed some lads had used the building as a clubhouse years ago. She found an old, empty tin of cat food. A dozen beer bottles, burnt matches. Nina walked into a large, windowless office in which rested a piece of sleek green machinery like a huge sewing machine. She squinted into the darkness and poked around in drawers and cabinets for ten minutes. She found a beautiful antique orange crate but it was too big to get through the chained door.

Clouds suddenly obsdured the sun, leaving Nina in gray shadow. She felt a chill and, with it, a sense of uneasiness. She started walking quickly back to the front of the factory. She stopped. In the dust on the floor in front of her Nina could see her own footsteps, leading back to the poster and the machine room. And there were Pellams sharp-toed boot prints retreating through the arched front doorway.

She saw another set of prints too.

They disappeared into the back of the building, through the offices. They had been made very recently.

Nina gasped in fear and looked at the arched doorway, beyond which was the chained front door. One hundred feet away. And fifty or sixty of those feet led past darkened doorways.

"John?" she called.

There was no answer.

The panic zipped along her spine and seized the back of her neck. Tears popped into her eyes. Step by step, slowly, to keep the fear at bay, she started toward the door. Her jaw began to quiver.

Ten feet, fifteen. Twenty.

She heard a noise, perhaps a footstep.

"John?" The terrified echo of her own voice came back to her from three directions, and it seemed as if there were a trio of ghosts in the room, mocking her. The tears came more quickly. She forced herself with all her will to walk slowly.

Then Nina was almost at the front door arch. Beyond it she could see the glint of the chain on the door. This reassured her and the terror diminished. Pellam would be returning any minute.

She could-

The hand slipped around her mouth and held her firmly. She tasted tobacco and salt. Another arm curled around the chest and yanked her off her feet. The man threw her to the ground, the air knocked from her lungs. She uttered a painful moan. Her breath came in small gasps. Then he was kneeling beside her, his face very close to hers.

FOURTEEN

She lay on the floor, on wood as cold as iron. The narrow door admitted only reflected light from the main room and she was in shadow. She smelled garbage and urine and mold and tasted her own metallic tears.

"Please!" she cried.

The man stood and walked to the outer door. Only a part of her rational mind was working and this portion believed that he'd simply taken her purse and was leaving. She saw his dark silhouette at the front door, the chained door, looking out.

Then he slowly turned and walked back to her. He crouched down and a band of pale light fell across his face. He was wearing rose-colored sunglasses. She saw his face clearly beneath his trim hair. He was young, he was handsome, he was white. All of these surprised her and lessened her fear slightly. On his cheek was a large, oval birthmark or discoloration. The light startled him. He had not expected to be seen.

Her fear returned. He was going to kill her because she had seen him… Whatever else he did, he was going to kill her afterwards.

He ran his hand along her pale cheek. "Put your hands under you."

She did not understand and he repeated the words calmly. When she still did not comprehend this instruction, he illustrated, lifting up her hips and shoving her hands beneath her buttocks. Maybe he wanted her hands pinned so she could not scratch him.

He bent down, kneeling, and put his mouth next to her ear. Nina twisted her head away, wincing and expecting to be kissed. She felt the heat of his breath.

"Please," she cried, "don't."

"I have a message for your friend."

She did not hear this. "Please."

"Listen!… Are you listening?"

She nodded, crying again.

"Mr. Crimmins knows that your friend saw him in the car that night. You tell him that if he testifies, I'll come back. You understand what I'm saying?"

"What-?"

"Did you hear me?"

Nina said, "Mr. Crimmins…"

"And if I come back-" he touched her cheek again "-you're not going to like it."

Nina's body was racked with sobbing.

He said, "Don't move for a half hour. Stay right where you are." He stood up. She heard no footsteps, nor did she hear the rattle of the chain on the front door. Because of this she believed he was still there, watching her, perhaps hidden in the shadows only ten feet away. She stared at the distant square of greasy glass, lit by the sun and the thin auras encircling it, the rings of red light that her tears created.

He found her sitting curled up, outside the factory, staring down at the branch-cracked sidewalk at her feet. "Nina?"

She did not look up. Not for a moment. When she did it was with eyes full of tears. He sensed she had been assembling herself-forcing herself to be placid.

"John…" Her voice broke with sobbing. She was shivering.

"What is it?" He crouched next to her.

Her arms hugged him hard and she was shaking hysterically. "There was a man."

Pellam stiffened. He took her by the shoulders. "What happened?"

Sobbing again. He had to wait. He wanted to shake it out of her, force her to tell him. But he waited.

Nina pulled away and roughly wiped her ear-where the attackers mouth had been-as if scraping the skin clean.

"He didn't… do anything. He just knocked me down."

"Let's call the cops." Pellam started to stand.

"He said… He told me tb tell you something."

"Me?"

"He said he worked for the man you saw, the man in the Lincoln. And if you tell the police he'd come back and…

Crimmins, he said the name was."

His hands began to quiver in rage, then his neck. He couldn't control it. Then his jaw and head, shaking uncontrollably. He blinked. His eyes watered with the fury. His jaw suddenly cramped and he realized his teeth were jammed together.

"John-" *

"Let's call the police."

She shook her head. "No."

"What? We have to."

"No, John. Please. He didn't hurt me. Not really. But I'm scared of him. He said he'd come back." She looked at him with frightened, wet, round eyes. "Please. Just take me home."