Donald Westlake - The Ax

I don't care about the phone number, at least for now. I look at the map on the back cover of the phone book, to see what town "Slt" might be, and it's probably a place called Slate, that looks to be not very far from here.

I thank the woman as I return the phone book, and ask her where County Route 92 is, and now she has to speak, though minimally. Pointing up the road, out of town, she says, "Six miles. Where you going?"

"Slate."

"Take the left."

I thank her, and go back out to my full vehicle, and take it six miles and a little more to the county road, where green signs with cream letters at the intersection direct me toward various villages. Slate is the third one down on the sign pointing left.

This is a winding hilly road. It's hard to see what's alongside it, except for the occasional lit window of a house and once, well back from the road, the brightly lit interior of a barn.

I may not find URF's house at all tonight, unless his name is on the mailbox. Driving along through this darkness, I try to think of some way to get here on the weekend, in the daytime, either while Marjorie's cashiering at the New Variety on Saturday afternoon, or while we're normally lying around with the newspaper on Sunday. My new friend Ralph Upton may come in handy here.

FALLON.

That was so abrupt I almost missed it. I'm alone on the road, so it doesn't matter that I slam on the brakes. I hadn't seen house lights for a while, so I hadn't expected anything, and I wasn't looking for a mailbox. Then all at once there it was, on the right side of the road, in the shape of a fake log cabin, with a red metal band running along above the roof with the name in white letters.

I back up to take a second look, and that's it, all right, with a blacktop driveway leading in toward darkness next to it. I squint and lean toward the right window, and now I do see a dim light back in there.

How much do I do tonight? Is this the right Fallon? I drive on, looking for a place to stop, and just a bit farther along there's a broad metal cattle-gate leading into a field on the left, with blacktop from the gate out to the road. I turn around and leave the Voyager there, and walk back.

If I'm questioned? I'm lost. I'm looking for Arcadia.

At first the evening seems almost pitch-black, but as my eyes adjust to life without headlights I realize there's a sky full of stars, giving a cool but soft gray light, like a powder over everything. There's no moon, at least not yet. I walk along, completely alone, no traffic, nothing in sight, and here's the mailbox. I turn and walk in along the blacktop driveway, and up ahead I see the house obscurely, through a thick necklace of trees.

This must have been part of a working farm at one time. Whatever woods had been here were long ago cleared, except for those immediately around the house, which looks to be a couple of hundred years old, small but sprawling. One light gleams deep inside, not very brightly.

There's nobody home. You can tell that sort of thing. People leave a light on to discourage break-ins, but they leave too dim a light, too unimportant a light.

On the other hand, many country people have dogs. Has URF a dog? Cautiously, I approach the house. I am still, if need be, the lost traveler seeking directions.

The house has been added to over the years, mostly with rooms attached on the same side as the driveway, making the house increasingly wide. These first rooms I pass are dark, and don't suggest that anybody ever enters through here. The driveway continues on and widens in front of the house, where two vehicles are parked; a tall large pickup truck, its hood as high as my chest, and an old Chevy or Pontiac, very wide and long, that sags in a way to suggest it hasn't been moved in several years.

And here is what is probably the main entrance, at the windowed door of an enclosed porch, through which another windowed door can be seen and, dimly, a kitchen, with the light source somewhere beyond that.

If there were a dog on the premises, wouldn't he have made his presence known by now? Yes; dogs are not shy about announcing themselves. As a further test, I rattle the front door, which is locked but very loose in its frame. No reaction from within.

A professional burglar would, I am sure, get through this locked door in about ten seconds. I would rather try to find some other way in, so I leave that entrance and continue along the front wall, and when I turn the corner at the end I discover that originally this was the front of the house. With all the additions, and the driveway and the twentieth century, it has become the back instead, but this is the original section, facing the other way.

It's a standard Colonial center-hall design, a formal entrance door with two large windows on each side, and a second floor above with five windows, directly above the windows and door below. Inside, when it was first built, there would have been a hall and a stairway beyond this door, and four large rooms; to left and right downstairs, and the same upstairs. With the addition of electricity and indoor plumbing and central heating, all of these old places have been changed and changed and changed again, so that by now you never know what you'll find when you open one of these Colonial doors.

Not even if you're an invited guest.

In most of these old farmhouses, though, this original main entrance is no longer much used, and I see the stone landing in front of this door still has some of last fall's leaves mounded on it. I step up there, turn the handle, and push, and it seems to me it isn't locked, just stuck. I don't want to break anything, alert URF that anything is going on here, but I want to get in if I can. With the handle completely turned and my feet braced among the fallen leaves, I lean my weight against the door, not hitting it but just exerting steady pressure.

I feel it give, and I ease off, but it's still stuck. I lean again, and all at once it makes a quick sound like a sheet of paper ripping, and pops open.

Darkness. A musty smell, like laundry. The air inside is a little cooler and a little damper than the air outside. There isn't a sound. I step in.

I push the door closed behind me. It resists the last inch or so, with small compression sounds, this time like paper being crumpled, but I heave against it with my shoulder and finally hear it click shut.

And now the house. The faintest of light shimmers somewhere off to my right, more than one room away. By its hints, I can see the large doorway just here, and then what might be furniture, and then another, slightly more defined, doorway twenty feet or so away.

I move toward the light, cautiously, not wanting to trip over or disturb anything, and my knee does find a sofa arm. I detour around it, touch nothing else, and reach this next doorway.

Which leads to a corridor. The light source is a room on the left, and when I inch forward and look in, it's a bedroom. A quilt has been thrown somewhat carelessly over a double bed. The small lamp on the left bedside table is lit. There's a wide mirrored dresser, a chair piled with clothing, a lot of shoes scattered on the floor.

I'm beginning to think URF isn't married. I was wondering where his family was, thinking they might all have gone out to a movie or something, but this bedroom has the look of a man who lives alone.

When I get to the next doorway on that side, though, from the little I can see into it, it's a children's bedroom, for two kids. Bunk beds, low dressers, posters on the walls, toys on the floor. Is he a widower?

A bit farther along on the opposite side is the kitchen I saw from outside. I enter it, and cross to look out past the enclosed porch at the road. When he comes home, I'll see his headlights. If he's with his family, I'll have time to ease myself out the door I came in, far from the route they'll take. If he's alone, we'll see what happens.