Эд Макбейн - Barking at Butterflies and other stories

“Well, perhaps you could spend a few nights sleeping by the door.”

“I could spend a few weeks sleeping by the door,” David’s father said. “Or maybe even a few months .”

“Well,” Mr. Harriman said.

“Well,” David’s father said, and everybody was quiet.

“Mrs. Shavinsky thinks it’s some drunk,” David said.

“It might be, son,” Uncle Martin said.

“He doesn’t use the elevator.”

“He probably comes up the service steps,” Mr. Harriman said. “We’ll talk to the elevator operators and ask them to keep an eye open. Though, you know, there’s the possibility he comes down from the roof. I’ll check and see if there’s a lock on the roof door.”

“Why would anyone be doing this?” David’s father asked.

“The world is full of nuts,” Mr. Harriman said. “This is something like calling up a stranger on the telephone, only this guy uses your doorbell.”

“But how long will he continue bothering us?”

“Who knows?” Mr. Harriman said. “It can go on forever, or he can get tired next week. Who knows?”

“Well,” David’s father said.

“Well,” Mr. Harriman said, and that was that.

That night, David’s father slept on a blanket in the entrance hall, and the doorbell didn’t ring. The next night, he slept in the bedroom, and the doorbell rang at two o’clock. The night after that, he slept in the bedroom again, but this time the doorbell didn’t ring. At breakfast the next morning, he told David’s mother there was no way to figure this damn thing out, but that night he slept just inside the entrance door again. David woke up with a nightmare at about one o’clock, and went into his mother’s bedroom. He climbed into bed with her, and she held him in her arms and said, “What is it, darling?”

“I’m afraid,” David said.

“Of what?”

“That he’ll get Daddy.”

“No one’s going to get Daddy.”

“Suppose Daddy opens the door, and he’s standing there? Suppose he kills Daddy?”

“No one’s going to kill Daddy. Daddy is very strong.”

“Suppose. What would we do?”

“Don’t worry about it. Nothing’s going to happen to Daddy.”

“I don’t want anything to happen to Daddy.”

She put him back in his own bed in a little while and he lay there and looked at his watch and wondered if the doorbell would ring that night. He was just falling asleep again when it went off. It went off with a long loud ring, and then a short sharp ring but by that time his father was on his feet, making a lot of noise and unlocking the door as quickly as he could and throwing the door open and running into the hallway. David lay in bed with his heart beating faster and faster, waiting for his father to come back. At last, he heard him close the door, and walk through the apartment to the bedroom.

“Did you see him?” David’s mother asked.

“No. But I heard a door slamming.”

“What do you mean?”

“As I was unlocking our door, just after the ringing, I heard a door slamming someplace.”

“Probably the door leading to the service steps.”

“Yes,” David’s father said. He paused. “Where’s David? Is he asleep?”

“Yes. He had a bad dream a little while ago.”

“Poor kid. What shall I do, honey? Do you think our friend’ll be back tonight?”

“I doubt it,” David’s mother said, and paused. Her voice through the bedroom wall sounded very funny when she spoke again. “Come here,” she said.

That night was the last time the doorbell rang.

What had happened, David supposed, was that his father had frightened the intruder away. He had jumped to his feet at the first long ring and was already unlocking the door by the time the intruder had pressed the bell the second time, which was probably why the second ring had been so short. The intruder must have realized a trap had been set, so he ran for the service steps just as David’s father unlocked the door. That was probably the sound his father had heard, the service steps door slamming behind the intruder as he ran away. David’s father didn’t get to see anyone by the time he rushed into the hallway, but he certainly must have scared whoever had been ringing the bell because that was the end of it.

In September, school started and Helga came back from Denmark with stories about everything she had done. David began thinking about Paris again only because Helga had just come back from Europe. He would lie in bed each night and think about Paris, and one night he suddenly got the idea. He began laughing, and then stuck his head under the pillow because he didn’t want them to hear him in the bedroom next door. He kept laughing, though, under the pillow. It seemed to him that it would be a great joke. In fact, the more he thought about it, the funnier it seemed. He took his head out from under the pillow and listened. The apartment was very quiet. He threw back the covers, got out of bed, tiptoed to the door of his mother’s bedroom, and peeked in. She was lying with his father’s arms around her, the blanket down over her hip, sort of. David covered his mouth with his hand because he felt another laugh coming on, and then tiptoed to Helga’s bedroom. Her door was closed. He could hear her heavy breathing behind it.

He went to the service door of the apartment.

Carefully, he unlocked the door without making a sound, trying his best not to laugh. Then he opened the door and peeked out into the service alcove. There wasn’t a soul in sight. It seemed to him that he could almost hear the whole building breathing in its sleep. He picked up a milk bottle from where it was standing outside the service door, and used it to prop the door open, and then went out of the service alcove and into the area just outside the elevators. He listened to make sure the elevator wasn’t coming up, and then he went to the front door.

He almost laughed again.

He listened.

He couldn’t hear anything.

This was going to be a good joke.

He reached out for the doorbell.

He rang the bell once. He heard it ringing inside the apartment. What he was going to do was run right back through the service entrance and then pretend he didn’t know what had happened, if he could keep a straight face. He was only going to ring the bell that once, as a joke. But somehow, standing there in the hallway with the building asleep all around him, he rang the bell again. And then, he didn’t know why, he rang it again. And again. As he rang it, he could remember the phone ringing each morning at eight o’clock in the Raphael, and running into his mother’s bedroom and climbing into her bed to ask the concierge Quel temps fait-il? He kept ringing the bell and ringing it. He didn’t even hear the front door when it opened. His father was in pyjamas, his mother was standing beside him in her nightgown.

“David!” she said. “What are you doing?”

David started to smile, half-expecting his mother to laugh, or run her hand over his head. But instead she was looking down at him with a very puzzled look on her face, and he decided not to smile because he had the feeling something terrible was going to happen, though he didn’t know what. He ducked his head.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

They were all quiet for a few minutes, and then his father said, “Why’d you ring the doorbell, David?”

“I don’t know.”

“Well, you rang it, didn’t you?” his father said.

“Yes.”

“Well, why?”

“I thought it would be a good joke.”

“A what? ” his father said.

“A joke.”

“A joke? After all we went through last month? You thought it would be a joke to...”

“I didn’t do it last month.”