Chris Simon

A real hot number

CHAPTER ONE

I knocked on the door. My mouth was dry and I could feel a tenseness in my stomach. The knock sounded hollow and it seemed to reverberate in my ears.

I listened for some sounds beyond the door. Faintly I thought I could hear a baby crying and some muted sounds of voices. After a moment I could hear softly padding footsteps walking towards the door.

The door cracked open, and a flood of bright yellow light spilled out. There was a man standing in the center of the light, peering out at me.

"Hello!" he said. "You must be Allen."

"Yes," I answered. "Allen Dawson. You're Kenneth Hill?"

"Ken," he said. He shook my hand firmly, and pulled me into the house. "Call me Ken."

He shut the door behind me, and I found myself standing in the hallway of a clean-looking middle-class house. To my right there was a living room filled with heavy Spanish-looking furniture.

"Here," Ken said. "Let me take your coat."

He was a short man, about five six or seven. He was older than I, and I judged that he must have been about thirty-eight or nine. He had a round full face, cracked in the middle with a white-toothed smile, and his hair was receding. His middle was somewhat thickened with a paunch.

"Yvonne will be with us in a moment," he explained, taking my coat and hanging it in the hall closet. "The baby woke up and she's putting him back to sleep. Wouldn't you know it would happen tonight. Always something."