Part 20 (2/2)

Billy drove into the alley. His car made the first tracks in the new snow.

A forty-foot-long, twenty-foot-deep service courtyard lay at the back of the Bowerton Building. Four doors opened onto it. One of these was a big green garage door, where delivery could be taken on office furniture and other items too large to fit through the public entrance. A sodium vapor lamp glowed above the green door, casting a harsh light on the stone walls, on the rows of trash bins awaiting pickup in the morning, and on the snow; the shadows were sharply drawn. the shadows were sharply drawn.

There was no sign of Bollinger.

Prepared to leave at the first indication of trouble, Billy backed the car into the courtyard. He switched off the headlights but not the engine. He rolled down his window, just an inch, to keep the gla.s.s from steaming up.

When Bollinger didn't come out to meet him, Billy looked at his watch. 10:02.

Clouds of dry snow swirled down the alley in front of him. In the courtyard, out of the worst of the wind, the snow was relatively undisturbed.

Most nights, squad cars conducted random patrols of poorly lighted back streets like this one, always on the lookout for business-district burglars with half-filled vans, muggers with half-robbed victims, and rapists with half-subdued women. But not tonight. Not in this weather. The city's uniformed patrolmen would be occupied elsewhere. The majority of them would be busy cleaning up after the usual foul-weather automobile accidents, but as much as a third of the evening s.h.i.+ft would be squirreled away in favorite hideouts, on a side street or in a park; they would be drinking coffee-in a few cases, something stronger-and talking about sports and women, ready to go to work only if the radio dispatcher insisted upon it. they would be drinking coffee-in a few cases, something stronger-and talking about sports and women, ready to go to work only if the radio dispatcher insisted upon it.

Billy looked at his watch again. 10:04.

He would wait exactly twenty-six minutes. Not one minute less, and certainly not one more. That was what he had promised Dwight.

Once again, Bollinger reached the elevator shaft just as it was filled with the sound of another door closing on it.

He bent over the railing, looked down. Nothing but other railings, other platforms, other emergency light bulbs, and a lot of darkness. Harris and the woman had gone.

He was tired of playing hide-and-seek with them, of das.h.i.+ng from stairwell to stairwell to shaft. He was sweating profusely. Under his overcoat, his s.h.i.+rt clung to him wetly. He left the platform, went to the elevator, activated it with a key, pushed the b.u.t.ton marked ”Lobby.”

On the ground level, he took off his heavy overcoat and dropped it beside the elevator doors. Sweat trickled down his neck, down the center of his chest. He didn't remove his gloves. With the back of his left hand and then with his s.h.i.+rt sleeve he wiped his dripping forehead.

Out of sight of anyone who might come to the street doors, he leaned against the marble wall at the end of the offset that contained the four banks of elevators. From that position, he could see two white doors with black stenciled letters on them, one at the north end and one at the south end of the lobby. These were the exits from the stairwells. When Harris and the woman came through one of them, he would blow their G.o.dd.a.m.ned brains out. Oh, yes. With pleasure.

Hobbling along the fortieth-floor corridor toward the light that came from the open reception-room door of the Harris Publications suite, Harris saw the fire-alarm box. It was approximately nine inches on a side, set flush with the wall. The metal rim was painted red, and the face of it was gla.s.s.

He couldn't imagine why he hadn't thought of this before.

Ahead of him, Connie realized that he had stopped. ”What's the matter?”

”Look here.”

She came back.

”If we set it off,” Graham said, ”it'll bring the security guards up from downstairs.”

”If they aren't dead.”

”Even if they are dead, it'll bring the fire department on the double. Bollinger will have the crimps put to him.”

”Maybe he won't run when he hears the bells. After all, we know his name. He might hang on, kill us, sneak out past the firemen.”

”He might,” Graham agreed, unsettled by the thought of being stalked through dark halls full of clanging, banging bells.

They stared through the gla.s.s at the steel alarm lever that glinted in the red light.

He felt hope, like a muscle relaxant, relieve a fraction of the tension in his shoulders, neck and face. For the first time all night, he began to think they might escape.

Then he remembered the vision. The bullet. The blood. He was going to be shot in the back.

She said, ”The alarms will probably be so loud that we won't hear him if he comes after us.”

”But it works both ways,” he said eagerly. ”He ”He won't be able to hear us. ” won't be able to hear us. ”

She pressed her fingertips to the cool plate of gla.s.s, hesitated, then took her hand away. ”Okay. But there's no little hammer to break the gla.s.s.” She held up the chain that was supposed to secure a hammer to the side of the alarm. ”What do we use instead?”

Smiling, he took the scissors from his pocket and held them up as if they were a talisman.

”Applause, applause,” she said, beginning to feel just enough hope to allow herself a little joke.

”Thank you.”

”Be careful,” she said.

”Stand back.”

She did.

Graham held the scissors by the closed blades. Using the heavy handles as a hammer, he smashed the thin gla.s.s. A few pieces held stubbornly to the frame. So as not to cut himself, he broke out the jagged splinters before he put one hand into the shallow alarm box and jerked the steel lever from green to red.

No noise.

No bells.

Silence.

Christ!

”Oh, no,” she said.

Frantically, the flame of hope flickering in him, he pushed the lever up, back to the green safety mark, then slammed it down again.

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