“We’re probably being silly.”
A haunted look filled his bright blue eyes.
“Probably.”
“We’re probably safe where we are.”
“Probably.”
“I’ll grab our coats.”
“Forget the coats.” He took hold of her hand. “Come on. Let’s get to
those elevators.”
Bollinger needed eight shots to finish off Macdonald and Ott.
They kept ducking behind the furniture.
By the time he had killed them, the Walther PPK was no longer firing
silently. No silencer could function at peak efficiency for more than a
dozen shots; the baffles and wadding were compacted by the bullets, and
sound qscaped. The last three shots were like the sharp barks of a
medium-sized guard dog. But that didn’t matter. The noise wouldn’t
carry to the street or up to the fortieth floor.
I in the outer office of Cragmont Imports, he switched on a light.
He sat on a couch, reloaded the Walther’s magazine, unscrewed the
silencer and put it into his pocket. He didn’t want to risk fouling the
barrel with loose steel fibers from the silencer; besides, there was no
one left in the building to hear shots when he killed Harris and the
woman. And a shot fired on the fortieth floor would not penetrate walls
and windows and travel all the way down to Lexington Avenue.
He looked at his watch. 8:25.
He turned off the light, left Cragmont Imports, and went down the hall
to the elevator.
elevators served the fortieth floor, but none of them was working.
Connie pushed the call button on the last lift. When nothing happened,
she said, “The telephone, and now this.”
In the spare yet harsh fluorescent light, Graham’s laugh lines looked
deeper and sharper than usual; his face resembled that of a kabuki actor
painted to represent extreme anxiety. “We’re trapped.”
“it could be just an ordinary breakdown of some sort,” she said.
“Mechanical failure. They might be making repairs right now.”
“The telephones?”
“Coincidence. Maybe there’s nothing sinister about it.
Suddenly the numerals above the elevator doors in front of them began to
light up, one after the other: 16 … 17 … 18 … 19 … 20….
“Someone’s coming,” Graham said.
A chill passed down her spine.
‘ 25 … 26 … 27….
Maybe it’s the security guards,” she said.
He said nothing.
She wanted to turn and run, but she could not move. The -numbers
mesmerized her.
… 30 … 31 … 32….
She thought of women lying in bloody bedclothes, women with their
throats cut and their fingers chopped off and their ears cut off …
33….
“The stairs!” Graham said, startling her.
“Stairs?”
“The emergency stairs.”
… 34….
“What about them?”
“We’ve got to go down.”
“Hide out a few floors below?”
… 35….
“No. All the way down to the lobby.”
“That’s too far!”
“That’s where there’s help.”
… 36….
“Maybe we don’t need help.”
“We need it,” he said.
… 37….
“But your leg-”
“I’m not a complete cripple,” he said sharply.
… 38….
He grabbed her by the shoulder. His fingers hurt her, but she knew he
wasn’t aware of how fiercely he was gripping her. “Come on, Connie!”
… 39….
Frustrated with her hesitation, he gave her a shove, propelled her out
of the alcove. She stumbled, and for an instant she thought she would
fall. He kept her upright.
As they hurried down the dark corridor, she heard the elevator doors
open behind them.
When Bollinger came out of the elevator alcove he saw two people running
away from him. They -ere nothing but ghostly shapes, vaguely
silhouetted against the eerie glow of the red emergency light at the end
of the corridor.
Harris and the woman? he wondered. Have they been alerted? Do they
know who I am? How can they know?
“Mr. Harris?” Bollinger called.
They stopped two-thirds of the way down the hall, in front of the open
door to the Harris Publications suite. They turned toward him, but he
could not see their faces even with the red light spilling over their
shoulders.
“Mr. Harris, is that you?”
“Who are you?”
“Police,” Bollinger said. He took a step toward them, then another. As
he molved he took the wallet with his badge from his inside coat pocket.