hit would have had more force, would have knocked him off his feet and
pitched him off the ledge. In a minute or two the wound would begin to
hurt like hell, but it wouldn't kill him.
Fifteen feet....
He was dizzy.
His legs felt weak.
Probably shock, he thought.
Ten feet....
Another shot. Not so loud as the ones that had come before it.
Not as frighteningly close. Fifteen yards away.
At the corner, as he started to inth around onto the Lexington Avenue
face of the highrise where a violent wind wrenched at him, he was able
to glance back the way he had come. Behind him, the ledge was empty.
Connie was gone.
4 Connie was four or five yards below the thirty-thirdfloor ledge of
stone grapes, swinging slightly, suspended over the street.
She couldn't bear to look down.
Arms extended above her, she held the nylon rope with both hands.
She had considerable difficulty maintaining her grip. Strain had numbed
her fingers, and she could no longer be certain that she was clutching
the line tightly enough to save herself. A moment ago, relaxing her
hands without realizing what she was doing, she had slipped down the
rope as if it were well greased, covering two yards in a split second
before she was able to halt herself.
She had tried to find toeholds. There were none.
She fixed her gaze on the ledge overhead. She expected to see
Bollinger.
Minutes ago, when he opened the window on her right and leaned out with
the pistol in one hand, she had known at once that he was too close to
miss her.
She couldn't follow Graham toward the Lexington Avenue corner.
If she tried that, she would be shot in the back. Instead, she gripped
the main line and tried to anticipate the shot. If she had even the
slimmest chance of escaping-and she was not convinced that she had-then
she would have to act only a fraction of a second before the explosion
came. If she didn't move until or after he fired, she might be dead,
and she would certainly be too late to fool him. Fortunately, her
timing was perfect; she jumped backward into the void just as he fired,
so he must have thought he hit her.
She prayed he would think she was dead. If he had any doubt, he would
crawl part of the way through the window, lean over the ledge, see
her-and cut the rope.
Although her own plight was serious enough to require all of her
attention, she was worried about Graham. She knew that he hadn't been
shot off the ledge, for she would have seen him as he fell past her.
He was still up there, but he might be badly wounded.
Whether or not he was hurt, her life depended on his coming back to look
for her.
She was not a climber. She didn't know how to rappel. She didn't know
how to secure her position on the rope. She didn't know how to do
anything but hang there; and she wouldn't be able to do even that much
longer.
She didn't want to die, refused to die. Even if Graham had been killed
already, she didn't want to follow him into death. She loved him more
than she had ever loved anyone else. At times she became frustrated
because she could not find the words to express the breadth and depth of
her feeling for him. The' language of love was inadequate. She ached
for him. But she cherished life as well. Getting up in the morning and
making French toast for breakfast.
Working in the antique shop. Reading a good book. Going out to an
exciting movie. So many small delights. Perhaps it was true that the
little joys of daily life were insignificant when compared to the
intense pleasures of love, but if she was to be denied the ultimate, she
would settle willingly for second best. She knew that her attitude in
no way cheapened her love for Graham or made suspect the bonds between
them. Her love of life was what had drawn him to her and made her so
right for him. To Connie, there was but one obscenity, and that was the
grave.
Fifteen feet above, someone moved in the light that radiated through the
open window.
Bollinger?
Oh, Jesus, no!
But before she could give in to despair, Graham's face came out of the
shadows. He saw her and was stunned.
. I Obviously, he had expected her to be twenty-three stories below, a
crumpled corpse on the snow-covered pavement.
"Help me," she said.
Grinning, he began to reel her up.
In the twenty-third-floor corridor, Frank Bollinger stopped to reload
his pistol. He was nearly out of ammunition.
,So you read Nietzsche last night. What did you think?"
"I agree with him.
,About what?"
"Everything."
"Supermen?"
"Especially that.
"Why especially?"
,He has to be right. Mankind as we know it has to be an intermediate
stage in evolution. Otherwise, everything is so pointless.
"
"Aren't we the kind of men he was talking about?"
"It sure as hell seems to me that we are. But one thing bothers me.
I've always thought of myself as a liberal. In politics.
"SO?"
"How do I reconcile liberal, left-of-center politics with a belief in a
superior race?"
"No problem, Dwight. Pure, hard-core liberals believe in a superior
race. They think they're it. They believe they're more intelligent
than the general run Of mankind, better suited than the little people
are to manage the little people's lives. They think they have the one
true vision, the ability to solve all the moral dilemmas of the century.
They prefer big government because that is the first step to
totalitarianism, toward unquestioned rule by the elite. And of course
they see themselves as the elite. Reconcile Nietzsche with liberal
politics? That's no more difficult than reconciling it with extreme
right-wing philosophy." Bollinger stopped in front of the door to Opway
Electronics, because that office had windows that overlooked Lexington
Avenue. He fired the Walther PPK twice; the lock disintegrated under
the bullets' impact.
Suggesting ways that she could help herself, favoring his injured left
arm, Graham pulled Connie onto the ledge.
Weeping, he hugged her with both arms, squeezed her so tightly that he
would have cut off her breath if they hadn't been wearing the insulated
parkas. They swayed on the narrow ledge; and for the moment they were
unaware of the long drop beside them, temporarily unimpressed by the
danger. He didn't want to let go of her, not ever. He felt as if he
had taken a drug, an upper, something to boost his spirits.
Considering their circumstances, his mood was unrealistic.
Although they were a long way, both in time and in distance, from
safety, he was elated; she was alive.
"Where's Bollinger?" she asked.
Behind Graham, the office was full of light, the window opened.
But there was no sign of the killer.
"He probably went to look for me on the Lexington side," Graham said.
"Then he does think I'm dead."
"He must. I thought you were."
"What's happened to your arm?"
"He shot me."
"Oh, no! "
"It hurts. And it feels stiff, but that's all."
"There's a lot of blood."
"Not much. The bullet probably cauterized the wound; that's how shallow
it is." He held out his left hand, opened and closed it to show her
that he wasn't seriously affected. "I can climb."
,You shouldn't."
"I'll be fine. Besides, I don't have a choice."
"We could go inside, use the stairs again."
"As soon as Bollinger checks the Lexington side and doesn't find me,
he'll come back. If I'm not here, he'll look on the stairs. He'd nail
us if we tried to go that way.