Just One Look

Conclusion: If he was caught, he would go to jail for a very long time.

The police cruiser pulled into the driveway.

Wu snapped into survival mode. He hurried downstairs. Through the window he saw the cruiser glide to a stop. It was dark out now, but the street was well lit. A tall black man in full uniform came out. He put on his police cap. His gun remained in his holster.

That was good.

The black police officer was barely on the walk when Wu opened the front door and smiled widely. “Something I can do for you, Officer?”

He did not draw his weapon. Wu had counted on that. This was a family neighborhood in the great American expanse known as the suburbs. A Ho-Ho-Kus police officer probably responds to several hundred possible burglaries during his career. Most, if not all, were false alarms.

“We got a call about a possible break-in,” the officer said.

Wu frowned, feigning confusion. He took a step outside but kept his distance. Not yet, he thought. Be nonthreatening. Wu’s moves were intentionally laconic, setting a slow pace. “Wait, I know. I forgot my key. Someone probably saw me going in through the back.”

“You live here, Mr. . . . ?”

“Chang,” Wu said. “Yes, I do. Oh, but it’s not my house, if that’s what you mean. It belongs to my partner, Frederick Sykes.”

Now Wu risked another step.

“I see,” the officer said. “And Mr. Sykes is . . . ?”

“Upstairs.”

“May I see him please?”

“Sure, come on in.” Wu turned his back to the officer and yelled up the stairs. “Freddy? Freddy, throw something on. The police are here.”

Wu did not have to turn around. He knew the tall black man was moving up behind him. He was only five yards away now. Wu stepped back into the house. He held the door open and gave the officer what he thought was an effeminate smile. The officer—his name tag read Richardson—moved toward the door.

When he was only a yard away, Wu uncoiled.

Office Richardson had hesitated, perhaps sensing something, but it was too late. The blow, aimed for the center of his gut, was a palm strike. Richardson folded in half like a deck chair. Wu moved closer. He wanted to disable. He did not want to kill.

An injured policeman produces heat. A dead policeman raises the temperature tenfold.

The cop was doubled over. Wu hit him behind the legs. Richardson dropped to his knees. Wu used a pressure point technique. He dug the knuckles of his index fingers into both sides of Richardson’s head, up and into the ear cavity under the cartilage, an area known as Triple Warmer 17. You need to get the right angle. Go full strength and you could kill someone. You needed precision here.

Richardson’s eyes went white. Wu released the hold. Richardson dropped like a marionette with its strings cut.

The knockout would not last long. Wu took the handcuffs from the man’s belt and cuffed his wrist to the stairwell. He ripped the radio from his shoulder.

Wu considered the woman next door. She’d be watching.

She would surely call the police again. He wondered about that, but there was no time. If he tried to attack, she would see him and lock the door. It would take too long. His best bet was to use time and surprise here. He hurried to the garage and got into Jack Lawson’s minivan. He checked the cargo area in the back.

Jack Lawson was there.

Wu moved to the driver’s seat now. He had a plan.

• • •

Charlaine had a bad feeling the moment she saw the policeman step out of the car.

For one thing, he was alone. She had assumed that there would be two of them, partners, again from TV—Starsky and Hutch, Adam-12, Briscoe and Green. She realized now that she had made a mistake. Her call had been too casual. She should have claimed to see something menacing, something frightening, so that they would have arrived more wary and prepared. Instead she had simply come across as a nosey neighbor, a dotty woman who had nothing better to do but call the cops for any little thing.

The policeman’s body language too was all wrong. He sauntered toward the door, slack and casual, not a care in the world. Charlaine couldn’t see the front door from where she was, only the driveway. When the officer disappeared from view, Charlaine felt her stomach drop.

She considered shouting out a warning. The problem was—and this might sound strange—the new Pella windows they had installed last year. They opened vertically, with a hand crank. By the time she slid open both locks and cranked the handle, well, the officer would already be out of sight. And really, what could she yell? What kind of warning? What in the end did she really know?

So she waited.

Mike was in the house. He was downstairs in the den, watching the Yankees on the YES Network. The divided night. They never watched TV together anymore. The way he flipped the remote was maddening. They liked different shows. But really, she didn’t think that was it. She could watch anything. Still Mike took the den; she had the bedroom. They both watched alone, in the dark. Again she didn’t know when that had started. The children weren’t home tonight—Mike’s brother had taken them to the movies—but when they were, they stayed in their own rooms. Charlaine tried to limit the Web surf time, but it was impossible. In her youth, friends talked on the phone for hours. Now they instant-messaged and lord-knew-what over the Internet.

This was what her family became—four separate entities in the dark, interacting with one another only when necessary.

She saw the light go on in the Sykes garage. Through the window, the one covered with flimsy lace, Charlaine could see a shadow. Movement. In the garage. Why? There would be no need for the police officer to be in there. She reached for the phone and dialed 911, even as she began to head for the stairs.

“I called you a little while ago,” she told the 911 operator.

“Yes?”

“About a break-in at my neighbor’s house.”

“An officer is responding.”

“Yeah, I know that. I saw him pull up.”

Silence. She felt like a dope.

“I think something might have happened.”

“What did you see?”

“I think he may have been attacked. Your officer. Please send someone quickly.”

She hung up. The more she’d explain, the stupider it would sound.

The familiar churning noise started up. Charlaine knew what it was. Freddy’s electric garage door. The man had done something to the cop. He was going to escape.

And that was when Charlaine decided to do something truly stupid.

She thought back to those wicked-witch-thin heroines, the ones with the mind-scooped stupidity, and wondered if any of them, even the most brain dead, had ever done something so colossally stupid. She doubted it. She knew that when she looked back on the choice she was about to make—assuming she survived it—she would laugh and maybe, just maybe, have a little more respect for the protagonists who enter dark homes in just their bra and panties.