there were no pieces of tile missing from it. The inner foyer door was
locked and could only be opened by key or with a lock release button in
one of the apartments.
There were three apartments on the top floor, three on the second floor
and two on the ground level. Apartment 1A belonged to Mr. and Mrs.
Harold Nagly, the owners of the building, who were on their annual
pilgrimage to Miami Beach. The small apartment at the rear of the first
floor was occupied by Edna Mowry, and he supposed that right now Edna
would be having a midnight snack or a well-deserved martini to help her
relax after a long night’s work.
He had come to see Edna. He knew she would be home. He had followed
her for six nights now, and he knew that she lived by strict routine,
much too strict for such a young and attractive woman. She always
arrived home from work at twelve, seldom more than five minutes later.
Pretty little Edna, he thought. You’ve got such long and lovely legs.
He smiled.
He pressed the call button for Mr. and Mrs. Yardley on the third
floor.
A man’s voice echoed tinnily from the speaker at the top of the mailbox.
“Who is it?”
“Is this the Hutchinson apartment?” Bollinger asked, knowing full well
that it was not.
“You pressed the wrong button, mister. The Hutchinsons are on the
second floor. Their mailbox is next to ours.”
“Sorry,” Bollinger said as Yardley broke the connection.
He rang the Hutchinson apartment.
The Hutchinsons, apparently expecting visitors and less cautious than
the Yardleys, buzzed him through the inner door without asking who he
was.
The downstairs hall was pleasantly warm. The brown tile floor and tan
walls were spotless. Halfway along the corridor, a marble bench stood
on the left, and a large beveled mirror hung above it. Both apartment
doors, dark wood with brassy fixtures, were on the right.
He stopped in front of the second door and flexed his gloved fingers. He
pulled his wallet from an inside coat pocket and took a knife from an
overcoat pocket. When he touched the button on the burnished handle,
the springhinged blade popped into sight; it was seven inches long, thin
and nearly as sharp as a razor.
The gleaming blade transfixed Bollinger and caused bright images to
flicker behind his eyes.
He was an admirer of William Blake’s poetry; indeed, he fancied himself
an intimate spiritual student of Blake’s. It was not surprising, then,
that a passage from Blake’s work should come to him at that moment,
flowing through his mind like blood running down the troughs in an
autopsy table.
Then the inhabitants of those cities Felt their nerves change into
marrow, And the hardening bones began In swift diseases and torments, in
shootings and throbbings and grindings through all the coasts, till,
weakened, The senses inward rushed, shrinking Beneath the dark net of
infection.
I’ll change their bones to marrow, sure as hell, Bollinger thought. I’ll
have the inhabitants of this city hiding behind their doors at night.
Except that I’m not the infection; I’m the cure. I’m the cure for all
that’s wrong with this world.
He rang the bell. After a moment he heard her on the other side of the
door, and he rang the bell again.
“Who is it?” she asked. She had a pleasant, almost musical voice,
marked now with a thin note of apprehension.
“Miss Mowry?” he asked.
“Yes? ”
” Police.”
She didn’t reply.
“Miss Mowry? Are you there?”
“What’s it about?”
“Some trouble where you work.”
“I never cause trouble.”
“I didn’t say that. The trouble doesn’t involve you.
At least not directly. But you might have seen something important. You
might have been a witness.”
“To what?”
“That will take a while to explain.”
“I couldn’t have been a witness. Not me. I wear blinders in that
place.”
“Miss Mowry,” he said sternly, “if I must get a warrant in order to
question you, I will.”
“How do I know you’re really the police?”
“New York,” Bollinger said with mock exasperation.
“Isn’t it just wonderful? Everyone suspects everyone else.
“They have to.”