The Face Of Fear Part 13

Schiller took the pipe from his mouth. He licked his lips nervously. "Die Pistole?" Pistole?"

"Fur den Mord, " Bollinger said. He squeezed off two shots. " Bollinger said. He squeezed off two shots.

Upstairs, on the lobby floor, Bollinger opened the door directly across the hall from the guards' room. He switched on the lights.

The narrow room was lined with telephone and power company equipment. The ceiling and walls were unfinished concrete. Two bright red fire extinguishers were hung where they could be reached quickly.

He went to the far side of the room, to a pair of yard-square metal cabinets that were fixed to the wall. The lid of each cabinet bore the insignia of the telephone company. Although the destruction of the contents would render useless all other routing boxes, switch-boards and backup systems, neither of the cabinets was locked. Each housed twenty-six small levers, circuit breakers in a fuse box. They were all inclined toward the "on" mark. Bollinger switched them off, one by one.

He moved to a box labeled "Fire Emergency," forced it open, and tinkered with the wires inside.

That done, he went to the guards' room across the hall. He stepped around the bodies and picked up one of the two telephones that stood in front of the closed-circuit television screens.

No dial tone.

He jiggled the cut-off spikes.

Still no dial tone.

He hung up, picked up the other phone: another dead line.

Whistling softly, Bollinger entered the first elevator.

There were two keyholes in the control panel. The top one opened the panel for repairs. The one at the bottom shut down the lift mechanism.

He tried the keys that he had taken from the dead guard. The third one fit the bottom lock.

He pushed the b.u.t.ton for the fifth floor. The number didn't light; the doors didn't close the doors didn't close; the elevator didn't move. the elevator didn't move.

Whistling louder than before, he proceeded to shut down fourteen of the remaining fifteen elevators. He would use the last one to go to the sixteenth floor, where Ott and MacDonald were working, and later to the fortieth floor, where Harris and his woman were waiting.

19.

Although Graham hadn't spoken, Connie knew that something was wrong. He was breathing heavily. She looked up from her book and saw that he had stopped working and was staring at empty air, his mouth slightly open, his eyes sort of glazed. "What's the matter?"

"Nothing."

"You're pale."

"Just a headache."

"You're shaking."

He said nothing.

She got up, put down her book, went to him. She sat on the corner of his desk. "Graham?"

"It's okay. I'm fine now."

"No, you aren't."

"I'm fine."

"There for a minute you weren't."

"For a minute I wasn't," he agreed.

She took his hand; it was icy. "A vision?" it was icy. "A vision?"

"Yeah," Graham said.

"Of what?"

"Me. Getting shot."

"That's not the least bit funny."

"I'm not joking."

"You've never had a personal vision before. You've always said the clairvoyance works only when other people are involved."

"Not this time."

"Maybe you're wrong."

"I doubt it. I felt as if I had been hit between the shoulders with a sledgehammer. The wind was knocked out of me. I saw myself falling." His blue eyes grew wide. "There was blood. A great deal of blood."

She felt sick in her soul, in her heart. He had never been wrong, and now he was predicting he would be shot.

He squeezed her hand tightly, as if he were trying to press strength from her into him.

"Do you mean shot-and killed?"

"I don't know," he said. "Maybe killed or maybe just wounded. Shot in the back. That much is clear."

"Who did it-will do it?"

"The Butcher, I think."

"You saw him?"

"No. Just a strong impression."

"Where did it happen?"

"Someplace I know well."

"Here?"

"Maybe..."

"At home?"

"Maybe."

A fierce gust of wind boomed along the side of the highrise. The office windows vibrated behind the drapes.

"When will it happen?" she asked.

"Soon."

"Tonight?"

"I can't be sure."

"Tomorrow?"

"Possibly."

"Sunday?"

"Not as late as that."

"What are we going to do?"

20.

The lift stopped at the sixteenth floor.

Bollinger used the key to shut off the elevator before he stepped out of it. The cab would remain where it was, doors open, until he needed it again.

For the most part, the sixteenth floor was shrouded in darkness. An overhead fluorescent tube brightened the elevator alcove, but the only light in the corridor came from two dim red emergency exit bulbs, one at each end of the building.

Bollinger had antic.i.p.ated the darkness. He took a pencil flashlight from an inside coat pocket, flicked it on.

Ten small businesses maintained offices on the sixteenth floor, six to the right and four to the left of the elevators. He went to the right. Two suites down the hall he found a door that bore the words CRAGMONT IMPORTS.

He turned off the flashlight and put it away.

He took out the Walther PPK.

Christ, he thought, it's going so smoothly. So easily. As soon as he finished at Cragmont Imports, he could go after the primary targets. Harris first. Then the woman. If she was good-looking ... well, he was so far ahead of schedule now that he had an hour to spare. An hour for the woman if she rated it. He was ready for a woman, full of energy and appet.i.te and excitement. A woman, a table filled with good food, and a lot of fine whiskey. But mostly a woman. In an hour he could use her up, really use her up.

He tried the door to Cragmont Imports. It wasn't locked.

He walked into the reception lounge. The room was gloomy. The only light came from an adjacent office where the door was standing halfway open.

He went to the shaft of light, stood in it, listened to the men talking in the inner office. At last he pushed open the door and went inside.

They were sitting at a conference table that was piled high with papers and bound folders. They weren't wearing their suit jackets or their ties, and their shirt sleeves were rolled up; one was wearing a blue shirt, the other a white shirt. They saw the pistol at once, but they needed several seconds to adjust before they could raise their eyes to look at his face.

"This place smells like perfume," Bollinger said.

They stared at him.

"Is one of you wearing perfume?"

"No," said blue shirt. "Perfume's one of the things we import."

"Is one of you MacDonald?"

They looked at the gun, at each other, then at the gun again.

"MacDonald?" Bollinger asked.

The one in the blue shirt said, "He's MacDonald."

The one in the white shirt said, "He's "He's MacDonald." MacDonald."

"That's a lie," said the one in the blue shirt.

"No, he's he's lying," said the other. lying," said the other.

"I don't know what you want with MacDonald," said the one in the blue shirt. "Just leave me out of it. Do what you have to do to him and go away."

"Christ almighty!" said the one in the white shirt. "I'm not not MacDonald! You want MacDonald! You want him, him, that son of a b.i.t.c.h there, not me!" that son of a b.i.t.c.h there, not me!"

Bollinger laughed. "It doesn't matter. I'm also here t to get Mr. Ott."

"Me?" said the one in the blue shirt. "Who in the h.e.l.l would want me killed?" said the one in the blue shirt. "Who in the h.e.l.l would want me killed?"