Absolutely nothing. He wasn't queer. He had no doubt about that.
None at all. The imaginary act that preoccupied him was similar to the
ritual by which members of certain American Indian tribes had once
become blood brothers. The Indians cut their hands and pressed the cuts
together; because they believed that the blood flowed from the body of
one into that of the other, they felt that they would be part of each
other forever. Bollinger's bizarre vision was like the Indians'
bloodbrother ceremony. It was an oath, a most sacred bond.
And he knew that a metamorphosis had taken place; henceforth, they were
not two men but one.
Now, feeling incomplete without Billy beside him, he reached the
elevator cab and switched it on.
Connie clamhered through the window, onto the thirty-eighth-floor
setback.
Graham quickly tied the free end of the hundred foot main line to her
harness.
I "Ready?" she asked.
"Not quite."
His hands were getting numb. His fingertips stung, and his knuckles
ached as if they were arthritic.
He tied carabiners to both ends of one of the five-foot pieces of rope
he had cut. He snapped both carabiners to a metal ring on her harness.
The rope between them looped all the way to her knees.
He clipped the hammer to the accessory strap on the waist belt of her
harness.
"What's all this for?" she asked.
"The next setback is five stories down. Looks about half as wide as
this one. I'll lower you the same way I got you here. I'll be anchored
to the window post."
He tugged on his own five-foot tether. "But we don't have time to rig a
seventy-five-foot safety line for you. You'll have to go on just a
single rope."
She chewed her lower lip, nodded.
"As soon as you reach that ledge," Graham said, "look for a narrow,
horizontal masonry seam between blocks of granite. The narrower the
better. But don't waste too much time comparing cracks. Use the hammer
to pound in a piton."
"This short rope you just hooked onto me: is that to be my safety line
when I get down there?"
"Yes. Unclip one end of it from your harness and snap the carabiner to
the piton. Make sure the sleeve is screwed over the gate."
"Sleeve?"
He showed her what he meant. "As soon as you've got the sleeve in
place, untie yourself from the main line so that I can reel it up and
use it."
She gave him his gloves.
He put them on. "One more thing. I'll be letting the rope out much
faster than I did the first time. Don't panic. just hold on, relax,
and keep your eyes open for the ledge coming up under you."
"All right."
"Any questions?"
"No."
She sat on the edge of the setback, dangled her legs over the gulf.
He picked up the rope, flexed his cold hands several times to be certain
he had a firm grip. A meager trace of warmth had begun to seep into his
fingers. He spread his feet, took a deep breath, and said, "Go!"
She slid off the ledge, into empty space.
Pain pulsated through his arms and shoulders as her full weight suddenly
dragged on him. Gritting his teeth, he payed out the rope as fast as he
dared.
in the thirty-eighth-floor corridor, Frank Bollinger had some difficulty
deciding which business lay directly under Harris's office. Finally, he
settled on two possibilities: Boswell Patent Brokerage and Dentonwick
Mail Order Sales.
Both doors were locked.
He pumped three bullets into the lock on the Dentonwick office.
Pushed open the door. Fired twice into the darkness. Leaped inside,
crouched, fumbled for the wall switch, turned on the overhead lights.
The first of the three rooms was deserted. He proceeded cautiously to
search the. other two.
The tension went out of the line.
Connie had reached the ledge five stories below.
Nevertheless, he kept his hands on the rope and was prepared to belay
her again if she slipped and fell before she had anchored her safety
tether.
He heard two muffled shots.
The fact that he could hear them at all above the bowling wind meant
that they were frighteningly close.
But what was Bollinger shooting at?
The office behind Graham remained dark; but suddenly, lights came on
beyond the windows of the office next door.
Bollinger was too damned close.
Is this where it happens? he wondered. is this where I get the bullet
in the back?
Sooner than he had expected, the signal came on the line: two sharp
tugs.
He reeled in the rope, wondering if he had as much as a minute left
before Bollinger found the correct office the broken window-and him.
li he was going to reach that ledge five stories below before Bollinger
had a chance to kill him, he would have to rappel much faster than he
had done the first time.
Once more, the rope passed over regularly spaced windows. He would have
to be careful not to put his feet through one of them.
Because he'd have to take big steps rather than little ones, and because
he'd have to descend farther on each arc and take less time to calculate
his movements, avoiding the glass would be far more difficult than it
had been from the fortieth to the thirty-eighth floor.
His prospects rekindled his terror. Perhaps it was fortunate that he
needed to hurry. If he'd had time to delay, the fear might have grown
strong enough to immobilize him again.
Harris and the woman were not in the offices of Dentonwick Mail Order
Sales.
Bollinger returned to the corridor. He fired two shots into the door of
the Boswell Patent Brokerage suite.
Boswell Patent Brokerage Gccupied three small rooms, all of them
shabbily furnished-and all of them deserted.
At the broken window, Bollinger leaned out, looked both ways along the
snow-swept six-foot-wide setback. They weren't there either.
Reluctantly, he brushed the shards of glass out of his way and crawled
through the window.
The storm wind raced over him, pummeled him, stood his hair on end,
dashed snowflakes in his face and shoved them down his shirt, under his
collar, where they melted on his back. Shivering, he regretted having
taken off his overcoat.
Wishing he had handholds of some sort, he stretched out on his belly.
The stone was so cold that he felt as if he had lain down bare-chested
on a block of ice.
He peered over the edge. Graham Harris was only ten feet below,
swinging away from the building on a thin rope, slipping down the line
as he followed his arc, swinging back to the building: rappelling.
He reached down, gripped the piton. It was so cold that his fingers
almost froze to it. He tried to twist it loose but discovered it was
well planted.
Even in the pale, almost nonexistent light, he could see that there was
a gate in the snap link that was fixed to the piton. He fingered it,
tried to open it, but couldn't figure out how it worked.
Although he was right on top of Harris, Bollinger knew he could not get
off an accurate shot. The cold and the wind had brought tears to his
eyes, blurring his vision. The light was poor. And the man was moving
too fast to make a good target.
Instead, he put down the Walther PPK, rolled onto his side, and quickly
extracted a knife from his trousers pocket. He flicked it open.
It was the same razor-sharp knife with which he had murdered so many
women. And now, if he could cut the rappelling line before Harris got
down to the ledge, he would have claimed his first male victim with it.
Reaching to the piton, he began to saw through the loop of the knot that
was suspended from the jiggling carabiner.