The Face Of Fear Part 21

Still nothing.

Bollinger had been as thorough with the fire alarm as he had been with the telephones.

The wipers swept back and forth, clearing the snow from the windshield. The rhythmic thump-thump-thump was getting on his nerves.

Billy glanced over his shoulder, through the rear window, at the green garage door, then at the other three doors.

The time was 10:15.

Where in the h.e.l.l was Dwight?

Graham and Connie went to the magazine's art department in search of a knife and other sharp draftsmen's tools that would make better weapons than the scissors. He found a pair of razor-edged scalpel-like instruments in the center drawer of the art director's big metal desk.

When he looked up from the drawer, he saw that Connie was lost in thought. She was standing just inside the door, staring at the floor in front of a light blue photographic backdrop. Climbing equipment-coils of rope, pitons, etriers, carabiners, klettershoes, nylon jackets lined with down, and perhaps thirty other items-lay in a disordered heap before the screen.

"See what I found?" he said. He held up the blades.

She wasn't interested. "What about this stuff?" she asked, pointing to the climbing equipment.

Coming from behind the desk, he said, "This issue we're running a buyer's guide. Each of those pieces was photographed for the article. Why'd you ask?" Then his face brightened. "Never mind. I see why." He hunkered in front of the equipment, picked up an ice ax. "This makes a better weapon than any draftsman's tool."

"Graham?"

He looked up.

Her expression was peculiar: a combination of puzzlement, fear and amazement. Although she clearly had thought of something interesting and important, her gray eyes gave no indication of what was going through her mind. She said, "Let's not rush out to fight him. Can we consider all of our options?"

"That's why we're here."

She stepped into the short, private hallway, c.o.c.ked her head and listened for Bollinger.

Graham stood up, prepared to use the ice ax.

When she was satisfied that there was nothing to listen for but more silence, she came back into the room.

He lowered the ax. "I thought you heard something."

"Just being cautious." She glanced at the climbing equipment before she sat down on the edge of the desk. "As I see it, there are five different things we can do. Number one, we can make a stand, try to fight Bollinger."

"With this," he said, hefting the ice ax.

"And with anything else we can find."

"We can set a trap, surprise him."

"I see two problems with that approach."

"The gun."

"That's sure one."

"If we're clever enough, he won't have time to shoot."

"More important," she said, "neither of us is a killer."

"We could just knock him unconscious."

"If you hit him on the head with an ax like that, you're bound to kill him."

"If it's kill or be killed, I suppose I could do it."

"Maybe. But if you hesitate at the last instant, we're dead."

He didn't resent the limits of her faith in him; he knew that he didn't deserve her complete trust. "You said there were five things we could do." he knew that he didn't deserve her complete trust. "You said there were five things we could do."

"Number two, we can try to hide."

"Where?"

"I don't know. Maybe look for an office that someone forgot to lock, go inside and lock it after us."

"No one forgot."

"Maybe we can continue to play cat and mouse with him."

"For how long?"

"Until a new shift of guards finds the dead ones."

"If he didn't kill the guards, then the new guards won't know what's going on up here."

"That's right."

"Besides, I think maybe they work twelve-hour shifts, four days a week. I know one of the night men. I've heard him curse the long shifts and at the same time praise the eight hours of overtime he gets each week. So if they come on duty at six, they won't be off until six in the morning."

"Seven and a half hours."

"Too long to play cat and mouse in the elevator shaft and on the stairs. Especially with this b.u.m leg of mine."

"Number three," she said. "We could open one of your office windows and shout for help."

"From the fortieth floor? Even in good weather, they probably couldn't hear you on the sidewalk. With this wind, they wouldn't hear you even two floors away."

"I know that. And on a night like this, there's not going to be anyone out walking anyway."

"Then why'd you suggest it?"

"Number five is going to surprise you," she said. "When I get to it, I want you to understand that I've thought of every other possible out."

"What's number five?"

"Number four first. We open the office window and throw furniture into the street, try to catch the attention of anyone who's driving past on Lexington."

"If anyone is driving in this weather."

"Someone will be. A taxi or two."

"But if we toss out a chair, we won't be able to calculate the effect of the wind on it. We won't be able to gauge where it'll land. What if it goes through the windshield of a car and kills someone?"

"I've thought of that."

"We can't do it."

"I know."

"What's number five?"

She slid off the desk and went to the pile of climbing equipment. "We've got to get rigged out in this stuff."

"Rigged out?"

"Boots, jackets, gloves, ropes-the works."

He was perplexed. "Why?"

Her eyes were wide, like the eyes of a startled doe. "For the climb down."

"Down what?"

"Down the outside of the building. All the way to the street."

part four

FRIDAY 10:30 P.M. SAt.u.r.dAY 4:00 A.M.

30.

Promptly at ten-thirty, Billy drove out of the service courtyard behind the highrise.

The snowfall had grown heavier during the past half hour, and the wind had become downright dangerous. Roiling in the headlight beams, the sheets of powder-dry flakes were almost as dense as a fog.

At the mouth of the alley, as he was pulling onto the side street, the tires spun on the icy pavement. The car slewed toward the far curb. He turned the wheel in the direction of the slide and managed to stop just short of colliding with a panel truck parked at the curb.

He had been driving too fast, and he hadn't even been aware of it until he'd almost crashed. That wasn't like him. He was a careful man. He was never reckless. Never. He was angry with himself for losing control.

He drove toward the avenue. The traffic light was with him, and the nearest car was three or four blocks away, a lone pair of headlights dimmed and diffused by the falling snow. He turned the corner onto Lexington.

In three hundred feet, he came to the front of the Bowerton Building. Ferns and flowers, molded in a twenty-foot-long rectangular bronze plaque, crowned the stonework above the four revolving doors. Part of the enormous lobby was visible beyond the entrance, and it appeared to be deserted. He drove near the curb, in the parking lane, barely moving, studying the building and the sidewalks and the calcimined street, looking for some sign of trouble and finding none.

Nevertheless, the plan had failed. Something had gone wrong in there. Terribly, terribly wrong.

Will Bollinger talk if he's caught? Billy wondered uneasily. Will he implicate me?

He would have to go to work without knowing how badly Dwight had failed, without knowing whether or not Bollinger would be-had been?-apprehended by the police. He was going to find it difficult to concentrate on his job tonight; but if he was going to construct an alibi to counter a possible confession from Dwight, it would help his case if he was calm tonight, as much like himself as he could be, as thorough and diligent as those who knew him expected him to be. but if he was going to construct an alibi to counter a possible confession from Dwight, it would help his case if he was calm tonight, as much like himself as he could be, as thorough and diligent as those who knew him expected him to be.

Franklin Dwight Bollinger was getting restless. He was bathed in a thin, oily sweat. His fingers ached from the tight grip he had kept on the Walther PPK. He'd been watching the stairwell exits for more than twenty minutes, but there was no sign of Harris or the woman.

Billy was gone by now, the schedule destroyed. Bollinger hoped he might salvage the plan. But at the same time he knew that wasn't possible. The situation had degenerated to this: slaughter them and get the h.e.l.l out.

Where is Harris? he wondered. Has he sensed that I'm waiting here for him? Has he used his carnival act, his G.o.dd.a.m.ned clairvoyance to antic.i.p.ate me?

He decided to wait five minutes more. Then he would be forced to go after them.

Staring out of the office window at an eerie panorama of gigantic, snow-swept buildings and fuzzy lights, Graham said, "It's impossible."

Beside him, Connie put one hand on his arm. "Why "Why is it impossible?" is it impossible?"

"It just is."

"That's not good enough."