Another Fine Mess

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The sounds began in the middle of summer in the middle of the night.

Bella Winters sat up in bed about three a.m. and listened and then lay back down. Ten minutes later she heard the sounds again, out in the night, down the hill.

Bella Winters lived in a first-floor apartment on top of Vendome Heights, near Effie Street in Los Angeles, and had lived there now for only a few days, so it was all new to her, this old house on an old street with an old staircase, made of concrete, climbing steeply straight up from the low-lands below, one hundred and twenty steps, count them. And right now…

«Someone's on the steps,» said Bella to herself.

«What?» said her husband, Sam, in his sleep.

«There are some men out on the steps,» said Bella. «Talking, yelling, not fighting, but almost. I heard them last night, too, and the night before, but…»

«What?» Sam muttered.

«Shh, go to sleep. I'll look.»

She got out of bed in the dark and went to the window, and yes, two men were indeed talking out there, grunting, groaning, now loud, now soft. And there was another noise, a kind of bumping, sliding, thumping, like a huge object being carted up the hill.

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