The commercial shops gave way to a residential area. These were old houses, built close together with small front yards. Curtains still hung behind the dusty glass of the windows. The street felt abandoned but not ruined like the downtown core.
Stanley selected a house randomly. The front door groaned softly as he pushed it open and closed it behind him. The air inside was stale and smelled of old paper. He moved without stopping through the ground floor. He climbed the stairs, placing his weight carefully on the outer edges of the treads to keep them from groaning.
Upstairs, one door stood open at the far end of the hall.
Stanley stepped into the room. A woman lay on the floor near the foot of the bedl. She lay twisted, one arm stretched toward the door as if she had been reaching for the handle when she fell. Her eyes were wide open, staring fixedly at a point on the ceiling.
He walked closer, his boots silent on the thin carpet.
There was a dark pool of blood underneath the back of her head. The blood was deep red, almost black, and had a shiny, pearly appearance. At that stage, the blood had not yet begun to crust and form at the edges.
Stanley knelt beside her. He extended a hand and pressed two fingers against the side of her neck.
No pulse was felt.
He reached out his hand to her cheek. It was not yet cold. It had a slight lingering warmth that told that the heart had ceased its beating only a few minutes before he came into the house. Again, he stared at the blood pool. It was thick. It was still flowing into the rug fibers slowly.
But then footsteps thundered up the stairs. They were quick and heavy.
Stanley stood up and looked towards the door just as three men burst into the room, obviously from a run. Their faces were flushed, and they were panting for breath, with metal tools clutched tightly in their fists. Their eyes darted between Stanley and the woman at his feet.
"Move aside," one of them ordered.
Another came forward before Stanley could react. His jaw was set, his face tense as if he'd been clamping down for a long time.
"'You son of a bitch,'" he spat. "'You're gonna pay for what you did.'"
Stanley raised his hands slightly, palms open. "She was already like this when I—"
"Don't." The third man interrupted him. Older than the other two, with a deeper, more acute voice. "Don't try that."
Stanley swallowed hard and maintained his calm tone. "I didn't kill her. I just walked in."
The first man let out a short, ugly laugh. "Yeah? Funny how we hear a noise, rush up here, and you're standing over her."
"I didn't touch her," Stanley said more firmly. "Look at the room. I have nothing on me to kill her this quickly."
The older man scanned the room quickly with the eye of experience. It was the eye of a practiced professional. The gaze swept the woman, then Stanley's shoes, then his hands, then the bag at his side.
"Do you expect us to buy this?" he asked.
Stanley retreated, his movements cautious. "I'm not asking you to believe anything. I am just stating what occurred."
The man with the jagged and twisted face came in close as well. Stanley could feel his sweat and steel-smell.
"Think we're stupid?" he said. "Think we haven't seen this trick before?"
"I think you are angry," Stanley said calmly but firmly. "And I think you are going to make a mistake."
That was enough.
The man's expression hardened. He clutched his metal tool in his hand, took a half step closer.
"Doesn't matter," he snarled. "I'll get the right answers after whooping your ass."
The man didn't wait for another word and lunged.
He swung a heavy iron tire iron in a flat, horizontal arc. Stanley lowered his center of gravity, the metal whistling inches above his hair.
The force of the swing propelled the man forward.
Stanley pushed his shoulder into the man's ribs, and he stumbled backward into the wooden dresser.
The other two acted immediately.
The younger one came from the left with a length of pipe in his hand. He swung vertically. Stanley stepped inside the arc, taking the blow on his upper arm. It was a dull, numbing shock that made his fingers go limp.
He ignored the pain and slammed his palm into the younger man's chin. The man's head snapped back. He hit the wall with a hollow thud.
The older man was more patient. He filled the gap, wielding a heavy wrench like a hammer.
The metal clipped Stanley's collarbone, and he gasped as the air was forced from his lungs. He grabbed the older man's wrist, using his own weight to turn, and they crashed together in a mess of limbs and ragged breathing. A foot caught his calf, and a fist crashed into the side of his head.
The man with the tire iron shoveled himself upright and lunged at the heap, swinging blindly. He connected with the older man's shoulder by mistake.
"Watch it!" the older man barked.
This momentary confusion gave Stanley some breathing room. He kneed the older man in the stomach and pushed him towards the others. The three of them melded into a tangled mass of flesh and metal in the small area between the bed and the wall.
He didn't wait for them to sort themselves out. He reached for his bag from the mattress and made a run for the door.
The hallway was filled with the pounding of his boots on the thin carpet as, behind him, the room was filled with curses and the scraping of heavy furniture pushed out of the way.
"Get him!"
Stanley reached the stairs and took them three at a time. His wounded arm weighed heavily in his sling, but the adrenaline held the pain in check.
He burst into the ground floor and sprinted to the rear of the house. He didn't make a run for the front door. They would be expecting that.
He sprinted through the kitchen, the heels of his shoes squeaking on the spilled linoleum. He spotted a window above the sink. It was small to get out.
He turned to the laundry room. A door led to the backyard. He threw the bolt and kicked it open.
Behind him, the three men finally reached the bottom of the stairs.
"In there! He went toward the back!"
Stanley ran into the yard. It was a square of dead grass and rusted wire fencing. He didn't look for a gate, but ran toward the side of the house to squeeze through a narrow gap between the fence and the neighboring garage.
The three men burst out of the laundry room door. The man with the twisted face was in the lead. He was screaming, a raw, wordless sound of fury. He swung the tire iron, catching the wooden door frame and sending splinters flying.
"You're dead! You hear me? You're dead!
Stanley squeezed through the gap, the chain-link fence ripping at his t-shirt. He popped out onto the side street and kept going. He did not look back.
The men arrived at the fence. The younger one tried to climb it, his boots slipping on the wire. The older man stopped at the gap, his chest heaving, his face bright red. He watched Stanley disappear around a corner two blocks away.
"Dammit!" the man with the distorted face screamed, kicking the fence so that the metal rattled fiercely. "Bastard! I'll find you! I'll kill you myself!"