The First Billion

Cracking open the door, she peered to her right and left. The landing was empty, dusted with a sheen of plaster that glowed in the dark like some phosphorescent algae. There were no lights on in the house. Advancing on the staircase, she began to get the motion right, heel to toe, rolling her foot, and her tread fell as delicately as a doe's.

But if her steps were controlled, her mind was running full tilt. She remembered that she hated living alone and cursed herself for moving out of Jett's four-thousand-square-foot home in Pacific Heights. At the same time, she reminded herself she'd had no choice, even though leaving had been the hardest thing she'd ever done.

Continuing her spate of recriminations, she turned to the alarm system- or more specifically, to her practiced nonchalance about turning it on at night. What was the point? With so many workmen traipsing in and out of the house at all hours, it was better to keep an open door. Besides, it was hardly as if there was much to steal: a ten-year-old TV, a few silver candelabra, a stereo she had yet to hook up since her return to singledom.

Her neighborhood on the fringes of Haight-Ashbury wore its poverty like a genteel curse. Rusted VW vans, twice-repainted Olds 98s, SS Camaros with fat racing stripes running across their hoods, lined the curb, their bumper stickers badges of membership to a bygone era. "Drop in, Turn on, Tune out," "Age of Aquarius," and her favorite, "Keep on Truckin'," with the magnificent Crumb icon strolling along flashing the peace sign. On a sunny Saturday afternoon you couldn't pass two houses without hearing Mason Williams's "Classical Gas" or catching the scent of Colombian Gold wafting from an open window.

But you didn't put in the alarm to protect your possessions, a wise voice reminded her. You installed it to protect yourself. You always knew they would come. You should have known it would be now.

Laying a hand on the banister, she began her descent. There were fourteen steps to the first floor, the lower six sick with termites. With every step, she craned her neck farther over the rail, curiosity winning over fright as to what or whom she might discover.

Ka-thunk!

Cate stopped cold, frozen so still she might have been geologically petrified. Silhouetted against the ivory wall, her figure was slender, well-proportioned, and if ten pounds heavier than she would have liked, the more fit for it. She ran three times a week, made it to Pilates every Saturday morning, and ate enough Cherry Garcia to make it all for naught. She liked to think of herself as strong and capable, but alone in her house at 4 A.M. the opinion seemed boastful and ridiculous. Refusing to budge, she asked herself who it could be banging away in her study so contemptuously, who the interested party was who was practically daring her to come down and ask what the hell was going on.

Again she entertained the notion that it was a burglar, but she knew better. Nor could she bring herself to believe it was a rapist, a psychopath, a deviant, even a garden-variety lunatic trying to lure her downstairs to have his way with her. It was none of them. Or anyone else, for that matter, who might have randomly chosen her home to break into on this damp, foggy night.

She knew why there was someone in her house and she knew what they were looking for. She had known for some time that her existence could no longer be accepted with a tolerant grunt or dismissed with a paternal wave. Not with events moving as quickly as they were. It amused her that some people might think her dangerous. Cate Magnus, graduate of the East Coast establishment: Choate, Georgetown, Wharton. She, the failed painter, exiled executive, sucker for beat-up Jeeps and obscure French films. The reporter with a dozen great ideas for books and never the tenacity to complete an outline, the lifelong fugitive from romantic misadventures. Why should anyone be afraid of her? She was someone whose fingers felt more comfortable teasing the keys of a computer than the trigger of a gun.

Cate stared at the pistol in her hand, dull, gray, and bluntly menacing. For the life of her, she could not remember fishing it from the cache on the side of her bed. She noticed, too, that she was wearing her panties and nothing else. Great. Get the gun, but forget your clothes. Show 'em your boobs, then shoot.

No, countered the wise voice again. You're still fooling yourself. You're a searcher, a collector, a seeker of the truth. You are a woman with a vendetta and the means to exercise it. In fact, you're very dangerous. Never more than now, and you know that, too. As for the gun, don't be coy. You trained five nights a week for a year so that you could hit a nickel at twenty paces. Why did you steal it from your boyfriend's house if not to use it?

The thud came again. Ka-thump.