It is nearly ten o’clock at night and there is no one on the street, but I rush to the window, open it, and begin to scream at the top of my lungs. They swear, but they don’t stop their efforts to break through my barricade. In fact, they redouble their efforts. Their unshakeable determination is scary. If they were ordinary robbers they would have left by now. At that moment I know, they have come for me. But the police station is not far and I begin to count the seconds until I hear even their sirens in the distance.
Suddenly, the pounding stops.
Then to my astonishment I hear a heavy crash. Then dull thuds. It sounds like someone rolling down the stairs. I stand frozen by the window, still clutching the golf club, and staring at the door in shock. What the hell was happening outside?
“What-the?” I hear one of them say, before what sounded like a blow follows. A grunt of pain. Thudding, hasty footsteps, more dull thuds, and then two further crashes ensue. It all seems to be happening too quickly, that I almost can’t keep up. Have the police arrived? But I haven't heard a single siren.
Suddenly everything goes quiet. I don’t move. I dare not even breathe.
I listen, as still as death, but there is only utter silence. I don’t even blink.
What has happened? Who has come in to help me? Could Larry have returned for some reason? But he is too unfit to take on three armed and clearly dangerous men.
It takes me a few more seconds to once again summon the courage to speak. “Hello,” I call.
Nothing. I swallow. What if it is a trick to get me to come out of the office? Freezing cold air coming from the open window makes me shiver. I am so terrified I can’t move. I just stand there, heart crashing into my rib bones, until I hear police sirens in the distance. The adrenaline that had kept me alert is still fizzing in my blood, I rush to the door and push the cabinet off the desk, then the desk.
In minutes the police are through the front door. Immediately, I unlock the door and run downstairs only to come to a shocked stop. The three men are out cold and in a neat heap in the middle of the gallery floor. I look at the cops in shock.
“What happened?” one of them asks me.
I start blurting out what happened.
“I see security cameras. Can we see the footage?”
I don’t have access to them so I call Larry. He’s there in less than ten minutes. He rushed up to me. “Are you sure you’re okay?”
I nod. He takes us all upstairs to the small room next to his office. We gather around him as he takes the tapes back to the moment I carry the vacuum cleaner upstairs, then he forwards to the moment the men come in. We watch in silence as they go upstairs. The camera shows an empty room for a while, then we see a man, dressed all in black with a hooded sweatshirt come in. He must know about the cameras because he keeps his face turned away from it or downcast.
I inhale sharply. I know that man. One moment he is standing at the door, the next he has streaked up the stairs, but so fast he is a blur.
Larry gasps.
“What the fuck?” one of the cops mutters, and they all lean closer in amazement.
Suddenly one of the intruders comes crashing down the stairs, followed by another, then another. The hooded man comes down the stairs, lifts the men and tosses them all together onto the floor, as effortlessly as if they were rag dolls. His movements are too swift; it is as if the film is on fast forward. Once the men are in an unmoving heap on the floor, he moves to the entrance and stands there silently, his back turned away from the cameras. He is so still it is almost as if he is a statue or a shadow. A few minutes later he slips out of the door. Then the police rush in. It is obvious he had waited to hear the sirens before he left.
“Do either of you recognize him?” an officer asks.
I look at Larry.
“No,” he says, shaking his head. He looks completely sincere so he must not have recognized Rocco.
The officer looks at me. I shake my head slowly. “No.”
The officer looks at me suspiciously. “Are you sure? Because it seemed as if he was protecting you.”
I shake my head again. “No, I’ve never seen him in my life.”
“Right. We’ll arrest the intruders and take a statement from you in the morning.” He turns to Larry. “We’ll need those tapes too.”
“Of course,” Larry says.