The Split

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When he didn’t get any answer the second time he knocked, Parker kicked the door in. Only the cheap holt lock was fastened; the chain lock and the police lock were both open. Parker raised his foot and kicked the flat of his shoe against the door above; the knob just one time, and the door popped open like it was surprised. It went with a dry cracking sound as pieces of door frame ripped away from around the bolt. It was dry old wood in a rotten old building and it split easy.

The door swung all the way open, the inner knob bumping finally against the side wall, but Parker didn’t go in right away. He stood in the hall, under the twenty-five-watt bulb stuck in the ceiling, and waited and listened.

The door stood open on a long narrow hall. All the rooms of the apartment opened off that hall, to the right. The kitchen was first, with light spilling out the doorway. Next was the bathroom, in darkness, that part of the hall dark also. Next the bedroom, soft light spreading out to the hallway from there. Last was the living-room, into which the hallway emptied. From out here on the other side of the apartment doorway Parker could look down the hall like looking down a long rectangular funnel and see an edge of the living-room at the far end, a dark brown mohair overstuffed armchair and a rickety dark wood table with a black telephone on it and the beginning of an imitation Persian rug. Also a floor lamp, standing beyond the armchair, lit now and making a soft glow out around its cream shade. There was another light source too, deeper in the living room, out of sight.

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