Half World: A Novel by Scott O'Connor Page A

and a man was there, a few feet away, holding a magazine at arm’s length, making the humming sound, his whole body rocking with it. The man replaced the magazine and lifted another from the rack. The man slightly younger than Henry, tall and broad, bent at the shoulders. Thomas in thirty years, possibly, here through one of the time machines on the covers of the science-fiction paperbacks. A man, possibly, whom Henry would see soon enough, in the bedroom, on the other side of the glass.
    The man rocked and hummed until the attendant called down to him. The man smiled at this, or at something else, some private stimulation that just happened to coincide with the attendant’s voice.
    Henry watched the man until the attendant called out again. The man’s smile widened and Henry stepped away from the newsstand, back out onto the street.

28
    Waiting in the darkened office, the three men, headphones on, cigarettes lit, cameras and recorders loaded, listening for footsteps on the stairs, watching the black window, the invisible room.
    They heard the front door open, then the sound of running, stumbling, someone topping the stairs and then pounding on the outer office door. Headphones off, all three men up. Dorn motioned for them to stay put. He moved alone into the outer room. Someone still pounding on the door. Dorn looked through the security eyelet, turned the locks. He opened the door and Elizabeth was leaning against the frame, breathless. There was blood on the shoulder of her dress, cuts under her eye, along her ear. Dorn ushered her across the vestibule, into the north apartment, Clarke following, Henry heading down the stairs to check the front door, the street.
    She sat on the sofa, looking thin and cold. They surrounded her, Clarke standing by the armchair, Dorn back by the windows, leaning with his face to the glass to see down the street. Henry was the only one in motion, pulling a pillowcase free in the bedroom, filling it with ice in the kitchen.
    Dorn lit a cigarette, shook the match. “Did they say anything?”
    Henry handed Elizabeth the rolled pillowcase and she pressed the ice to her eye, winced.
    “They told me they’d heard things,” she said.
    “What things?”
    “Things I was doing to men.”
    “And you came back here,” Clarke said.
    “Where else was I gonna go?”
    Henry stood by the record player, watching her. They were all watching her.
    Dorn said, “How many?”
    “Two, I think.”
    Clarke fumbled in his pockets for his own cigarettes. “You think?”
    “It was dark.”
    “What else did they say?” Henry said.
    “Nothing.” She shifted the ice to her ear. “Just that they’d heard things.”
    “What did they look like?” Dorn said.
    “It was dark, I couldn’t see right. They were behind me.”
    “And you didn’t tell them anything?” Clarke said.
    Elizabeth looked up at him. “I didn’t tell them shit.”
    Dorn stepped toward Elizabeth, gestured with his cigarette. “This is it? The eye and the ear?”
    “And the back of my head,” Elizabeth said. “They hit me in the back of my head to start.”
    “You’re lucky.” Dorn turned back to the window. “You’re really goddamn lucky.”
    “I feel lucky,” she said. She shifted the ice back to her eye. “I feel like I won the fucking jackpot.”
    *   *   *
    An hour later, Dorn came through the apartment door, shook off his coat, hung it on the rack.
    “I gave her some money and told her to stay home for a while.”
    “Did you find Emma?” Henry said.
    “No.”
    “We need to.”
    “I will.”
    “Soon.”
    “I said I will, Hank.” Dorn stepped into the kitchen, poured a tumbler of vodka, added a handful of ice from Elizabeth’s melting pillowcase, slopping liquid over the sides of the glass, onto his fingers.
    Clarke was sitting on the sofa. He looked at Henry. “I know what you’re thinking.”
    “What am I thinking?”
    “You want to shut us down.”
    “There are men out there who know,” Henry