“My name is Carlos. I’ve come to kill you.”
“Kim, Kim!” Tracy shouted in Kim’s ear. “What’s going on?”
To help him think, Kim tore the earphone from his ear. Now Tracy’s frantic voice sounded as if she were yelling from a great distance.
Carlos took a step into the room, while holding up the knife so that Kim could appreciate its size and curving shape. The abused door swung shut.
Kim had a hold of the mop and he instinctively raised it.
Carlos laughed. To him the idea of a mop against a kill-floor knife was ludicrous.
With no other alternative, Kim dashed into one of the open toilet stalls and bolted the door. Carlos lunged forward and kicked the door fiercely. The stall shuddered under the impact, but the door held. Kim frantically backed up and straddled the toilet. Beneath the stall door, he could see Carlo’s feet as he prepared to kick the door again.
Tracy panicked. She fumbled with the ignition key before getting the car started. Throwing the vehicle into gear, she stomped on the accelerator. The car shot forward with enough speed to press her into the seat. The antenna she’d balanced on top skidded off the back of the car and bounced along the pavement on its wire tether.
Tracy fought with the steering wheel to bring the speeding car around a tight turn. Misjudging the closeness of a neighboring vehicle, she ricocheted off its side, throwing her own car up onto two wheels for a split second. The car thudded to earth and with squealing tires rocketed along the front of Higgins and Hancock.
Tracy had no plan initially. Her only thought was to try to get to the men’s room where Kim was cornered, apparently by the same man who’d been in Kim’s house the night before. She knew she had little time. She could see the man’s horrid face in her mind’s eye as he’d tried to force his way into her shower stall with his knife.
For a moment Tracy contemplated crashing her car into the front entrance of the building, but she decided it wouldn’t necessarily do the trick. She had to get into the men’s room itself. That was when she remembered the gun and swore at Kim for not having kept it with him.
Slamming on the brakes, Tracy brought her car to a shuddering halt just opposite the window to the record room. She reached down onto the floor and snatched up the gun. Clutching it in her hand, she jumped from the car and ran over to the record-room window.
Remembering how Kim had gained entry, she put down the gun and picked up one of the rocks edging the pavement. Using both hands, she threw it against the plywood. It took two smacks, but she succeeded in knocking the plywood free of its temporary nails. Then she yanked it off.
Tracy snatched up the gun and tossed it through the window. Then she followed it headfirst. Once inside the dark room, she had to grope around for the gun on her hands and knees. As she searched she could hear intermittent thumps behind the wall to the right as if a metal partition was being kicked repeatedly. The noise increased her frenzy.
Her fingers finally brushed up against the weapon where it had come to rest at the base of a table leg. She seized it and then moved as fast as the darkness would allow to the vaguely illuminated door to the hall.
Tracy unlocked the door. From having listened to the conversation between Kim and Elmer she knew the men’s room had to be close to the record room. She decided to follow the sound of the thumping. She made a right. After running only a few steps, she saw the men’s room sign.
Without a second’s hesitation, Tracy crashed through the door using her shoulder. She had the gun clasped in both hands and pointed it into the depths of the room.
She’d had no idea what to expect. What she saw was Carlos less than ten feet away with one leg raised in preparation for kicking a toilet stall door in. The door was already bent.