“You're tired,” Ann says to Sheyene.
        “No, no, I'm fine,” Sheyene protests, and sits up straighter. “I want to hear the story.”
        She wants to hear it all; I know this. But her eyes have the pinched-glazed look of a jet-laggy day that is already far too long. In the instant before she squeezes my arm to tell me It's OK; I'll make it, I find myself thinking the same thought that seared my mind in Mark's living room, as the gunman retied Mary's wrists: I brought you here. Whatever happens now is my fault.
        At the small civil ceremony in Kansas City a few days ago, just two close friends and a judge, no one danced.

        This time the gunman does not leave. Instead, he simply stands somewhere in the middle of the room. Trying, I am guessing, to decide what to do with us now.
        In the darkness beneath the blanket, I feel movement. I turn my head toward Mary and whisper: Stay still. Then I realize she cannot. She's trembling.
        Don't hurt her! I want to cry out to the gunman. Hurt me instead! I'm the one!
        But these are not the right words to say. Before I can find the right words, any words at all, a new voice—a voice I haven't heard before—explodes the silence:
        Hey, what are you doing?
        I can't tell where the new voice comes from, inside the apartment or out. I heard no other steps approach.
        No'ting, the gunman—the skinny one, I think—answers. No do no'ting.
        What are you doing in there? the new voice repeats. The voice is full of suspicion and threats. Then the voice asks a question that disorients me: Are you playing a game?
        Yes, the gunman replies. We play one game.
        No! I almost cry out. This is no game! Beneath the blanket I am hoping the new voice belongs to a policeman. And it does. When Mrs. Krause first screamed, her next-door neighbor looked out her window. She did not switch on a light, which is why I did not see her watching from behind the dark glass as the first gunman marched Mark and me back down the outside steps to Mark's apartment. Phil couldn't remember Mark's address, but Mrs. Krause's neighbor knew it when she put in her own call to HPD.

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