The Face of Fear (14 page)

When they had gone two floors, four flights, they were forced to stop and rest. He bent over, massaging his bum leg. She went to the railing, peered down.

Bollinger was four flights under them. Evidently he had run when he heard them running
_;
but now he had stopped again. He was leaning over the railing, framed in a pool of light, the gun extended in his right hand.

He smiled at her and said, “Hey now, you are pretty.”

She screamed, jerked back.

He fired.

The shot passed up the core, ricocheted off the top of the rail, smashed into the wall over their heads and ricocheted once more into the steps above them.

She grabbed Graham
_;
he held her.

“I could have killed you,” Bollinger called to her. “I had you dead on, sweetheart. But you and I are going to have a lot of fun later.”

Then he started up again. As before. Slowly. Shoes scraping ominously on the concrete:
shuss
...
shuss
...
shuss
...
shuss....
He began to whistle softly.

“He’s not just chasing us,” Graham said angrily. “The son of a bitch is playing with us.”

“What are we going to do?”

“We can’t outrun him.”

“But we’ve got to.”

Harris pulled open the landing door. The thirty-first floor lay beyond. “Come on.”

Not convinced that they gained anything by leaving the stairs, but having nothing better to suggest, she went out of the white light into the red.

Shuss
...
shuss....

Graham shut the door and stooped beside it. A collapsible doorstop was fixed to the bottom right-hand corner of the door. He pushed it all the way down, until the rubber-tipped shank was hard against the floor and the braces were locked in place. His hands were trembling, so that for a moment it looked as if he wouldn’t be able to handle even a simple task like this.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

He stood up. “It might not work if the stop didn’t have locking hinges. But it does. See the doorsill? It’s an inch higher than the floor on either side. When he tries to open the door, the stop will catch on the sill. It’ll be almost as good as a bolt latch.”

“But he’s got a gun.”

“Doesn’t matter. He can’t shoot through a heavy metal fire door.”

Although she was terrified, at the same time Connie was relieved that Graham had taken charge—for however brief a time—and was functioning in spite of his fear.

The door rattled as Bollinger depressed the bar handle on the far side. The stop caught on the sill
_;
its hinges didn’t fold up
_;
the door refused to open.

“He’ll have to go up or down a floor,” Harris said, “and come at us by the stairs at the other end of the building. Or by the elevator. Which gives us a few minutes.”

Cursing, Bollinger shook the door, putting all his strength into it. It wouldn’t budge.

“What good will a few minutes do us?” Connie asked.

“I don’t know.”

“Graham, are we ever going to get out of here?”

“Probably not.”

25

Dr. Andrew Enderby, the medical examiner on the scene, was suave, even dashing, extremely fit for a man in his fifties. He had thick hair going white at the temples. Clear brown eyes. A long aristocratic nose, generally handsome features. His salt-and-pepper mustache was large but well kept. He was wearing a tailored gray suit with tastefully matched accessories that made Preduski’s sloppiness all the more apparent.

“Hello, Andy,” Preduski said.

“Number eleven,” Enderby said. “Unusual. Like numbers five, seven and eight.” When Enderby was excited, which wasn’t often, he was impatient to express himself. He sometimes spoke in staccato bursts. He pointed at the kitchen table and said, “See it? No butter smears. No jelly stains. No crumbs. Too damned neat. Another fake.”

A lab technician was disconnecting the garbage-disposal unit from the pipes under the sink.

“Why?” Preduski said. “Why does he fake it when he isn’t hungry?”

“I know why. Sure of it.”

“So tell me,” Preduski said.

“First of all, did you know I’m a psychiatrist?”

“You’re a coroner, a pathologist.”

“Psychiatrist too.”

“I didn’t know that.”

“Went to medical school. Did my internship. Specialized in otolaryngology. Couldn’t stand it. Hideous way to make a living. My family had money. Didn’t have to work. Went back to medical school. Became a psychiatrist.”

“That must be interesting work.”

“Fascinating. But I couldn’t stand it. Couldn’t stand associating with the patients.”

“Oh?”

“All day with a bunch of neurotics. Began to feel that half of them should be locked up. Got out of the field fast. Better for me
and
the patients.”

“I should say so.”

“Kicked around a bit. Twenty years ago, I became a police pathologist.”

“The dead aren’t neurotic.”

“Not even a little bit.”

“And they don’t have ear, nose and throat infections.”

“Which they don’t pass on to me,” Enderby said. “No money in this job, of course. But I’ve got all the money I need. And the work is right for me. I’m perfect for the work, too. My psychiatric training gives me a different perspective. Insights. I have insights that other pathologists might not have. Like the one I had tonight.”

“About why the Butcher sometimes eats a hearty meal and sometimes
fakes
a hearty meal?”

“Yes,” Enderby said. He took a breath. Then: “It’s because there are two of him.”

Preduski scratched his head. “Schizophrenia?”

“No, no. I mean ... there isn’t just one man running around killing women. There are
two.
”He smiled triumphantly.

Preduski stared at him.

Slamming his fist into his open hand, Enderby said, “I’m right! I know I am. Butcher number one killed the first four victims. Killing them gave him an appetite. Butcher number two killed the fifth woman. Cut her up as Butcher number one had done. But he was ever so slightly more tender-hearted than the first Butcher. Killing
spoiled
his appetite. So he faked the meal.”

“Why bother to fake it?”

“Simple. He wanted to leave no doubt about who killed her. Wanted us to think it was the Butcher.”

Preduski was suddenly aware of how precisely Enderby’s necktie had been knotted. He touched his own tie self-consciously. “Pardon me. Excuse me. I don’t quite understand. My fault. God knows. But, you see, we’ve never told the newspapers about the scene in the kitchens. We’ve held that back to check false confessions against real ones. If this guy, Butcher number two, wanted to imitate the real Butcher, how would he know about the kitchen?”

“You’re missing my point.”

“I’m sure I am.”

“Butcher number one and Butcher number two know each other. They’re in this together.”

Amazed, Preduski said, “They’re friends? You mean they go out and murder—like other men go out bowling?”

“I wouldn’t put it like that.”

“They’re killing women, trying to make it look like the work of one man?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Don’t know. Maybe they’re creating a composite character in the Butcher. Giving us an image of a killer that isn’t really like either of them. Throw us off the track. Protect themselves.”

Preduski started to pace in front of the littered table. “Two psychopaths meet in a bar—”

“Not necessarily a bar.”

“They get chummy and sign a pact to kill all the women in Manhattan.”

“Not all,” Enderby said. “But enough.”

“I’m sorry. Maybe I’m not very bright. I’m not well educated. Not a doctor like you. But I can’t swallow it. I can’t see psychopaths working together so smoothly and effectively.”

“Why not? Remember the Tate murders in California? There were several psychopaths in the Manson family, yet they all worked smoothly and efficiently together, committing a large number of murders.”

“They were caught,” Preduski said.

“Not for quite some time.”

26

Six business offices occupied the thirty-first floor of the Bowerton Building. Graham and Connie tried a few doors, all of which proved to be locked. They knew the others would be shut tight as well.

However, in the main hall near the elevator alcove, Connie discovered an unmarked, unlocked door. She opened it. Graham felt for the light switch, found it. They went inside.

The room was approximately ten feet deep and six or seven feet wide. On the left was a metal door that had been painted bright red
_;
and to one side of the door, mops and brooms and brushes were racked on the wall. On the right, the wall was lined with metal storage shelves full of bathroom and cleaning supplies.

“It’s a maintenance center,” Graham said.

Connie went to the red door. She took one step out of the room, holding the door behind her. She was surprised and excited by what she saw. “Graham! Hey, look at this.”

He didn’t respond.

She stepped back into the room, turned and said, “Graham, look what—”

He was only a foot away, holding a large pair of scissors up to his face. He gripped the instrument in his fist, in the manner of a man holding a dagger. The blades gleamed; and like polished gems, the sharp points caught the light.

“Graham?” she said.

Lowering the scissors, he said, “I found these on the shelf over there. I can use them as a weapon.”

“Against a gun?”

“Maybe we can set up a trap.”

“What kind of trap?”

“Lure him into a situation where I can surprise him, where he won’t have time enough to use the damned gun.”

“For instance?”

His hand was shaking. Light danced on the blades. “I don’t know,” he said miserably.

“It wouldn’t work,” she said. “Besides, I’ve found a way out of the building.”

He looked up. “You have?”

“Come look. You won’t need the scissors. Put them down.”

“I’ll look,” he said. “But I’ll keep the scissors just in case.”

She was afraid that when he saw the escape route she’d found he would prefer to face the Butcher armed only with the scissors.

He followed her through the red door, onto a railed platform that was only eighteen inches wide and four feet long. A light glowed overhead
_;
and other lights lay some distance away in a peculiar, at first unidentifiable void.

They were suspended on the side of one of the two elevator shafts that went from the ground floor to the roof. It served four cabs, all of which were parked at the bottom. Fat cables dangled in front of Connie and Graham. On this side and on the opposite wall of the cavernous well, from roof to basement at the odd-numbered floors, other doors opened onto other tiny platforms. There was one directly across from Graham and Connie, and the sight of it made them realize the precarious nature of their perch. On both sides of the shaft, metal rungs were bolted to the walls: ladders connecting the doors in each tier to other exits in the same tier.

The system could be used for emergency maintenance work or for moving people off stalled elevators in case of fire, power failure, or other calamity. A small white light burned above each door
_;
otherwise, the shaft would have been in absolute darkness. When Connie looked up, and especially when she looked down from the thirty-first floor, the sets of farther lights appeared to be closer together than the sets of nearer lights. It was a long way to the bottom.

His voice wavered when he said,
“This
is a way out?”

She hesitated, then said, “We can climb down.”

“No.”

“We can’t use the stairs. He’ll be watching those.”

“Not this.”

“It won’t be like mountain climbing.”

His eyes shifted quickly from left to right and back again. “No.”

“We’ll have the ladder.”

“And we’ll climb down thirty-one floors?” he asked.

“Please, Graham. If we start now, we might make it. Even if he finds that the maintenance room is unlocked, and even if he sees this red door—well, he might not think we’d have enough nerve to climb down the shaft. And if he
did
see us, we could get off the ladder, leave the shaft at another floor. We’d gain more time.”

“I can’t.” He was gripping the railing with both hands, and with such force that she would not have been surprised if the metal had bent like paper in his hands.

Exasperated, she said, “Graham, what
else
can we do?”

He stared into the concrete depths.

 
When Bollinger found that Harris and the woman had locked the fire door, he ran down two flights to the thirtieth floor. He intended to use that corridor to reach the far end of the building where he could take the second stairwell back up to the thirty-first level and try the
other
fire door. However, at the next landing the words “Hollowfield Land Management” were stenciled in black letters on the gray door: the entire floor belonged to a single occupant. That level had no public corridor
_;
the fire door could be opened only from the inside. The same was true of the twenty-ninth and twenty-eighth floors, which were the domain of Sweet Sixteen Cosmetics. He tried both entrances without success.

Worried that he would lose track of his prey, he rushed back to the twenty-sixth floor. That was where he had originally entered the stairwell, where he had left the elevator cab.

As he pulled open the fire door and stepped into the hall, he looked at his watch. 9:15. The time was passing too fast, unnaturally fast, as if the universe had become unbalanced.