The nighttime intrusion at the Toledo Avenue house turns a weekend Bret remembers as a rare interval of uncomplicated desire into an episode of fear and flight. Alone in the dark after the house’s lights and telephone stop working, he watches an unknown person search the rooms with a flashlight. When he calls out Robert Mallory’s name, the light disappears; Bret escapes Palm Springs before dawn, with no confirmation of who entered or why.

Background and Setting

Bret later remembers his September weekend with Ryan Vaughn as the last one untainted by the past. He describes its basis as desire and the hope attached to it, and recalls that the two spent most of their time at the empty house on Mulholland together. That recollection places the weekend within a secret relationship shaped by concealment: Ryan had previously said that their arrangement required subterfuge, and both young men imagined leaving Buckley and Los Angeles to begin again elsewhere.

The intrusion takes place in a different house, on Toledo Avenue in Palm Springs. Bret is asleep there when a crash outside wakes him. He initially considers whether the wind has knocked one of the large, empty terra-cotta pots onto the patio. The Santa Ana winds are strong, but the first explanation does not account for what he finds next: the house is dark, the telephone line is dead, and the streetlights and other entrances outside remain lit.

The Search Through the House

Bret checks the light switches, but none works. At about three-thirty, the house is almost completely dark; faint light from outside and the moon lets him make out the pool and the backyard. He starts back toward the bedroom, thinking he can return to sleep, when a beam begins crossing the living room.

The unseen person appears to be outside near the pool. The flashlight moves over the living room’s furniture, coffee table, rug, and bookshelves, then enters the bedroom and falls on the empty bed. It moves back and forth as if searching, pauses on Bret’s Gucci backpack, and continues around the yard and house. Bret briefly wonders whether the person could be a security guard, but doubts it: the intruder has not rung the doorbell and is moving through the backyard.

When the beam jerks toward where Bret is standing, he drops to the floor. From there, he tries to follow its progress as it crosses the room and lingers in corners. The search changes the meaning of the ordinary signs of occupancy. Bret sees that a car is in the driveway and the bed is unmade; he concludes that the intruder chose this particular house because someone was inside. Though he had noticed other possible break-ins and robberies in the area, he understands this as a search for a person, not simply for property.

The Name Bret Calls Out

The beam returns to the bedroom and traces the headboard and wall above the bed. Then Bret hears slow, even tapping: the intruder is striking the flashlight against the glass sliding door. Bret understands the action as a warning or provocation, as though the person is waiting for him to reveal himself or move toward the keys.

Terrified, Bret shouts Robert’s name twice. The name connects the intrusion to his apprehensions about Robert, but Bret is explicit that he is not sure he actually believed Robert was outside; it is the name panic supplies in the moment. There is no confirmation that Robert is involved. At the first shout, the flashlight clicks off, and the person does not reappear.

Escape and Significance

Bret remains unable to move for what feels like an hour, listening to the wind and trying to calm himself. When he checks his watch, only seven minutes have passed since he woke. The sharp difference between the ordeal’s felt duration and its measured time concentrates the scene’s disorientation: a brief search has made the house, its doors, and its familiar objects feel unsafe.

Bret takes his backpack and car keys and drives out of Palm Springs, wearing only a T-shirt and underwear. He reaches Los Angeles at dawn. The intruder’s identity and purpose remain unresolved, so the escape is the event’s only definite outcome. In the larger pattern of Bret’s growing suspicions, the call to Robert’s name marks a moment when fear attaches itself to a person without proof; the scene intensifies the uncertainty rather than resolving it.