The Face Of Fear Part 20

"That's right."

"We have to go down to escape."

She shook her head; her hair formed a brief dark halo. "You remember what I said about the night guards?" her hair formed a brief dark halo. "You remember what I said about the night guards?"

"They might be dead."

"If Bollinger killed them so he could have a free hand with us, wouldn't he also have sealed off the building? What if we get to the lobby, with Bollinger hot on our heels, and we find the doors are locked? Before we could break the gla.s.s and get out, he'd have killed us."

"But the guards might not be dead. He might have gotten past them somehow."

"Can we take that chance?"

He frowned. "I guess not."

"I don't want to get to the lobby until we're certain of having a long lead on Bollinger."

"So we go up. How's that better?" "We can't play cat and mouse with him for twenty-seven floors. The next time he catches us in the shaft or on the stairs, he won't make any mistakes. But if he doesn't realize we're going up, we might be able to alternate between the shaft and the stairs for thirteen floors, long enough to get to your office."

"Why there?"

"Because he won't expect us to backtrack."

Graham's blue eyes were not as wide with fear as they had been; they had narrowed with calculation. In spite of himself, the will to survive was flowering in him they had narrowed with calculation. In spite of himself, the will to survive was flowering in him; the first signs of the old Graham Harris were becoming visible, pushing through his sh.e.l.l of fear. the first signs of the old Graham Harris were becoming visible, pushing through his sh.e.l.l of fear.

He said, "Eventually, he'll realize what we've done. It'll buy us only fifteen minutes or so."

"Time to think of another way out," she said. "Come on, Graham. We're wasting too much time. He'll be on this floor any second now."

Less reluctantly than the first time, but still without enthusiasm, he followed her into the elevator shaft.

On the platform he said, "You go first. I'll bring up the rear, so I won't knock you off the ladder if I fall."

For the same reason, he had insisted on going first when they descended.

She put her arms around him, kissed him, then turned and started to climb.

As soon as he got off the elevator on the twenty-seventh floor, Bollinger investigated the stairs at the north end of the building. They were deserted.

He ran the length of the corridor and opened the door to the south stairs. He stood on the landing for almost a minute, listening intently for movement. He heard none.

In the corridor again, he searched for an unlocked office door until he realized they might have gone back into the elevator shaft. He located the maintenance supply room; the red door was ajar. the red door was ajar.

He approached it cautiously, as before. He was opening the door all the way when the shaft beyond was filled with the sound of another door closing on it.

On the platform, he bent over the railing. He stared down into the vertiginous depths, wondering which one of the doors they had used.

How many floors had they gained on him?

Dammit!

Cursing aloud, overcoat flapping around his legs, Bollinger went back to the south stairs to listen for them.

By the time they had climbed two flights on the north stairs, Graham was wincing with each step. From sole to hip, pain coruscated through his bad leg. In antic.i.p.ation of each jolt, he tensed his stomach. Now his entire abdomen ached. If he had continued to work out and climb after his fall on Mount Everest, as the doctors had urged him to do, he would have been in shape for this. He had given his leg more punishment tonight than it ordinarily received in a year. Now he was paying in pain for five years of inactivity.

"Don't slow down," Connie said.

"Trying not to."

"Use the rail as much as you can. Pull yourself along. "

"How far are we going?"

"One more floor."

"Eternity."

"After that we'll switch back to the elevator shaft."

He liked the ladder in the shaft better than he did the stairs. On the ladder he could use his good leg and pull with both hands to keep nearly all of his weight off the other leg. But on the stairs, if he didn't use the lame leg at all, he would have to hop from one step to the other; and that was too slow. and that was too slow.

"One more flight," she said encouragingly.

Trying to surprise himself, trying to cover a lot of ground before the. pain transmitted itself from leg to brain, he put on a burst of speed, staggered up ten steps as fast as he could. That transformed the pain into agony. He had to slow down, but he kept moving.

Bollinger stood on the landing, listening for sound in the south stairwell.

Nothing.

He looked over the railing. Squinting, he tried to see through the layers of darkness that filled the s.p.a.ces between the landing.

Nothing.

He went back into the hall and ran toward the north stairs.

29.

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 shift 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 dashing from stairwell to stairwell to shaft. He was sweating profusely. Under his overcoat, his shirt 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 shirt 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.