suite, slammed and locked the reception room door.
A second later, Bollinger hit the outside of the door with his shoulder.
it trembled in its frame. He rattled the knob violently.
"He's probably got a gun," Connie said. "He'll get in sooner or later."
Graham nodded. "I know."
part three
FRIDAY 8:30 P.Mo 10:30 PoM.
moas Ira Preduski parked at the end of a string of three squad cars and
two unmarked police sedans that blocked one half of the two-lane street.
Although there was no one in any of the five vehicles, all the engines
were running, headlights blazing; the trio of blue-and-whites were
crowned with revolving red beacons. Preduski got out of his car and
locked it.
A half inch of snow made the street look clean and pretty. As he walked
toward the apartment house, Preduski scuffed his shoes against the
sidewalk, sending up puffs of white flakes in front of him. The wind
whipped the falling snow into his back, and cold flakes found their way
past his collar. He was reminded of that February, in his fourth year,
when his family moved to Albany, New York, where he saw his first winter
storm.
A uniformed patrolman in his late twenties was " standing at the bottom
of the outside steps to the apartment house.
"Tough job you've got tonight," Preduski said. "I don't mind it.
I like snow."
"Yeah? So do I."
"Besides," the patrolman said, "it's better standing out here in the
cold than up there in all that blood."
The room smelled of blood, excrement and dusting powder.
Fingers bent like claws, the dead woman lay on the floor beside the bed.
Her eyes were open.
Two lab technicians were working around the body, studying it carefully
before chalking its position and moving it.
Ralph Martin was the detective handling the on scene investigation. He
was chubby, completely bald, with bushy eyebrows and dark-rimmed
glasses. He avoided looking at the corpse.
"The call from the Butcher came in at ten of seven," Martin said.
"We tried your home number immedi lately, but we weren't able to get
through until almost eight o'clock."
"My phone was off the hook. I just got out of bed at a quarter past
eight. I'm working graveyard." He sighed and turned away from the
corpse. "What did he say-this Butcher?"
Martin took two folded sheets of paper from his pocket, unfolded them.
"I dictated the conversation, as well as I could recall it, and one of
the girls made copies.
my . Preduski read the two pages. "He gave you no clue to who else he's
going to kill tonight?"
"Just what's there."
"This phone call is out of character."
"And it's out of character for him to strike two nights in a row,"
Martin said.
"It's also not like him to kill two women who knew each other and worked
together."
Martin raised his eyebrows. "You think Sarah Piper knew something?"
"You mean, did she know who killed her friend?"
"Yeah. You think he killed Sarah to keep her from talking?"
"No. He probably just saw both of them at the Rhinestone Palace and
couldn't make up his mind which he wanted the most. She didn't know
who-murdered Edna Mowry. I'd bet my life on that. Of course I'm not
the best judge of character you'll ever meet. I'm pretty dense when it
comes to people. God knows. Dense as stone. But this time I think I'm
right. If she had known, she would have told me. She wasn't the kind
of girl who could hide a thing like that. She was open.
Forthright.
Honest in her way. She was damned nice."
Glancing at the dead woman's face, which was surprisingly unmarked and
clear of blood in the midst of so much gore, Martin said. "She was
lovely."
"I didn't mean just nice-looking," Preduski said. "She was a nice
person.
Martin nodded.
"She had a soft Georgia accent that reminded me of home."
"Home?" Martin was confused. "You're from Georgia?"
"Why not?"
"Ira Preduski from Georgia?"
"They do have Jews and Slavs down there."
"Where's your accent?"
"My parents weren't born in the South, so they didn't have an accent to
pass on to me. And we moved North when I was four, before I had time to
pick it up."
For a moment they stared at the late Sarah Piper and at the pair of
technicians who bent over her like Egyptian attendants of death.
Preduski turned away from the corpse, took a handkerchief from his
pocket and blew his nose.
"The coroner's in the kitchen," Martin said. His face was pale and
greasy with sweat. "He said he wanted to see you when you checked in."
"Give me a few minutes," Preduski said. "I want to look around here a
bit and talk with these fellows."
"Mind if I wait in the living room?"
"No. Go ahead."
Martin shuddered. "This is a rotten job."
"Rotten," Preduski agreed.
The gunshot boomed and echoed in the dark corridor.
The lock shattered, and the wood splintered under the impact of the
bullet.
Wrinkling his nose at the odor of burnt powder and scorched metal,
Bollinger pushed open the ruined door.
The reception lounge was dark. When he found the light switch and
flipped it up, he discovered that the room was also deserted.
Harris Publications occupied the smallst of three business suites on the
fortieth floor. In addition to the hall door by which he had entered,
two other doors opened from the reception area, one to the left and one
to the i-ight. Five rooms. Including the lounge. That didn't leave
Harris and the woman with many places to hide.
First he tried the door to the left. It led to a private corridor that
served three large offices: one for an editor and his secretary, one for
an advertising space salesman, and one for the two-man art department.
Neither Harris nor the woman was in any of those rooms.
Bollinger was cool, calm, but at the same time enormously excited.
No sport could be half so dramatic and rewarding as hunting down people.
He actually enjoyed the chase more than he did the kill.
Indeed, he got an even greater kick out of the first few days
immediately after a kill than he did from either the hunt or the murder
itself. Once the act was done, once blood had been spilled, he had to
wonder if he'd made a mistake, if he'd left behind a clue that would
lead the police straight to him. The tension kept him sharp, made the
juices bubble. Finally, when sufficient time had passed for him to be
certain that he had gotten away with murder, a sense of well-beingf
great importance, towering superiority, godhood-filled him like a magic
elixir flowing into a long-empty pitcher.
The other door connected the reception room and Graham Harris's private
office. It was locked.
He stepped back and fired two shots into the lock. The soft metal
twisted and tore; chunks of wood spun into the air.
He still could not open it. They had pushed a heavy piece of furniture
against the far side.
When he leaned on the door, pushed with all of his strength, he could
not budge it; however, he could make the unseen piece of furniture rock
back and forth on its base. He figured it was something high, at least
as wide as the doorway, but not too deep. Perhaps a bookshelf.
Something with a high center of gravity. He began to force the door
rhythmically: push hard, relax, push hard, relax, push hard.... The
barricade tipped faster and farther each time he wobbled it-and suddenly
it fell away from the door with a loud crash and the sound of breaking
glass.
Abruptly the air was laden with whiskey fumes.
He squeezed through the door which remained partly blocked. He stepped