She told him and he listened.
“Babe,” he said in a calm voice, “this isn’t your fault. Cordelia’s a statistic waiting to happen. If we’re lucky she’s on her way to her place. What’s her address?”
Babe gave it to him.
“Go there. If she’s not home, wait for me. I’ll meet you in fifteen minutes. I’m leaving right now.”
51
CARDOZO DISCOVERED IT WAS a mistake to have driven west on Prince.
Traffic was barely moving; double-parkers clogged the lanes, and partying yuppies sat on fenders with plastic wineglasses from somebody’s art opening. In three minutes he covered half a block, and then the congestion brought him to a standstill at the intersection. A sign was hanging from one of the corner buildings: FOOD. He’d read about the restaurant; it served nonsteroid chicken and all-organic tofu fruit pies.
Through the plate glass window he saw Cordelia Koenig, in jeans and a Hawaiian shirt, sitting alone at a table with a plate of pie.
He pulled in behind a double-parked, empty Mercedes whose horn and front lights were blasting and flashing in sync. He put his police card in the window.
Cordelia brushed her hair off her forehead and looked up as he approached.
“What’s your phone number?” he said.
She told him and he went to the payphone and dialed and got a busy signal. He waited a minute and tried again. Still busy. He came back and sat at the table and looked at her.
“You didn’t know he was taping you, did you,” he said.
She shook her head.
“Why do you think he made those films?”
“I don’t know,” she said softly.
“He made them to show to other people. He’s not protecting your secret, Cordelia, so why are you protecting him?”
“I don’t have a secret.”
“But you think you have. You really believe no one besides you and that lunatic knows what you did seven years ago.”
Babe saw from the street that there was no light in Cordelia’s apartment. Either Cordelia was on her way home, or already asleep.
Babe used her key to get into the apartment.
She turned on the light.
She looked in the bedroom. Empty.
She went into the kitchen and searched cabinets and made herself coffee. She saw from the cup in the sink that Cordelia had already made coffee that evening.
She sat in the livingroom, waiting for her coffee to cool.
A mirror hung on the wall opposite her. Something in its glow, some movement, caught her eye.
She saw the reflection of a man.
He was walking slowly and deliberately out of the motionless darkness. He stopped beneath a flood of overhead light, letting the light and shadow play over his close-cropped hair and staring eyes, his strong bare arms hanging from the sleeveless Levi’s jacket.
There was something proud and brutal and dangerous in the way he stood there, the cords of his neck drawn taut, his eyes taking hold of her.
She recognized the face gradually: Claude Loring, the man she had wanted to draw, the man charged with murder who had shouted at her.
His pupils were huge, blue dazzles of light whirling around on themselves.
She stood slowly. “What are you doing here?”
“I’m sorry.” His voice was pleasant. “It’s nothing personal, but I have to kill you.”
He was standing between her and the front door.
She was absolutely unmoving for a moment. She gauged his strength and his madness and realized she had at best a little courage, a little cleverness to muster against him.
She whirled before he could react and she sped through the hallway into the bedroom, flinging the door shut and twisting the key in the lock. She ran to the phone.
Her lungs were pulling in ragged breaths.
There was no dial tone. She jiggled the cradle. The line was dead. She stared at the receiver disbelievingly. She realized Loring had yanked the cord from the wall.
“Jesus,” she gasped.
She ran to the bedroom window and snapped the Levolors open. The windows were dark across the airshaft. There were lights on two floors below, but rock music was screeching into the night and there was no chance anyone would hear her if she yelled for help.
A crash whirled her around. The bedroom door shot open, smashing into the wall.
Babe froze.
Loring stood panting, silhouetted in the doorframe. His right hand held a sledge hammer.
Lifted on a jolt of panic, Babe dashed into the bathroom, flinging the door shut and jamming the bolt into place. She stepped back, her eyes fixed on the door, realizing it offered at the outside no more than thirty seconds’ protection.
A crash filled the brightly tiled space around her. Jars and bottles chattered on the bathtub shelf. The panels of the door buckled and parted and the gray head of the sledgehammer jutted through, swung back, forced deeper entry.
The realization shot through Babe that her one chance was to go outside.
The window lock had been painted shut and she had to jab the paint loose with a nail file from the cabinet.
Behind her, with each deafening smash, the hammer widened the breach.
She shoved the window up and crouched on the ledge. Holding to the window with one hand, she swept through the dark with the other. Another wall of the building ran at right angles to the bathroom and her fingers contacted wood. It was a cutting board propped on its edge, holding the livingroom window open.
She reached one foot for the other ledge, found it, shifted her center of gravity out over the airshaft. She grabbed the livingroom window and pulled herself through. She could feel brick scrape through her gown.
At that instant she heard the door panel give in the bathroom.
Loring had switched off the lights in the livingroom. She fell down from the window into darkness. Her foot caught on a table leg and the table went crashing to the floor.
She raced across the livingroom and pulled at the front door. She remembered putting her purse on the chair by the door. She felt for it, found it, wrestled again with the knob.
The door flew open with the third yank.
She darted into the corridor, slammed the door. She rummaged in her purse, found the key, locked the deadbolt.
That would give her another ten seconds. If he didn’t have a key, maybe another sixty tops.
She ran down the corridor and pushed the elevator button. She could see from the floor indicator that the elevator was climbing up from the ground floor.
She heard Loring pulling at the front door of the apartment, and then she heard the hammer crashing.
She pulled at the door of the fire stairs next to the elevator. It was unlocked. She shot into the stairway. The only light bulb was on the landing below, and she slipped in the dark. Her high-heeled shoe twisted beneath her, sending a sickening wrench up through her calf.
Her balance was gone. She lunged forward, fell three concrete steps, managed to catch the steel railing.
She pulled herself upright. Burning pain was shooting through her ankle. She took off her shoes. Clutching purse and high heels, she scrambled down the stairs to the next landing.
She dashed into the corridor. The indicator showed that the elevator was still rising, just passing the second floor.
She stood jabbing a finger at the call button. She heard Loring break through the door upstairs, and then the thudding of his workboots across the floor.
She sped back to the fire stairs. She ran down another flight to four and into the corridor.
The indicator showed the elevator still climbing, passing three now. She pushed the call button.
The elevator came to a stop.
Making as little sound as possible, Babe drew the elevator door open. She reached for the grill and attempted to pull it aside. It refused to yield.
She hammered at the grill with the heel of her shoe.
Finally, taking its time, the grill opened.
She slipped into the elevator. There was no light and the walls were covered in heavy industrial bunting.
She tried to yank the grill shut. Again, it was automatically timed and there was no way she could speed it. She began jamming buttons—down and close and emergency call and floor one. The grill slowly closed and the elevator cable shuddered.