The Face of Fear (18 page)

Nevertheless, the plan had failed. Something had gone wrong in there. Terribly, terribly wrong.

Will Bollinger talk if he’s caught? Billy wondered uneasily. Will he implicate me?

He would have to go to work without knowing how badly Dwight had failed, without knowing whether or not Bollinger would be-had been?-apprehended by the police. He was going to find it difficult to concentrate on his job tonight
_;
but if he was going to construct an alibi to counter a possible confession from Dwight, it would help his case if he was calm tonight, as much like himself as he could be, as thorough and diligent as those who knew him expected him to be.

 
Franklin Dwight Bollinger was getting restless. He was bathed in a thin, oily sweat. His fingers ached from the tight grip he had kept on the Walther PPK. He’d been watching the stairwell exits for more than twenty minutes, but there was no sign of Harris or the woman.

Billy was gone by now, the schedule destroyed. Bollinger hoped he might salvage the plan. But at the same time he knew that wasn’t possible. The situation had degenerated to this: slaughter them and get the hell out.

Where is Harris? he wondered. Has he sensed that I’m waiting here for him? Has he used his carnival act, his goddamned clairvoyance to anticipate me?

He decided to wait five minutes more. Then he would be forced to go after them.

 
Staring out of the office window at an eerie panorama of gigantic, snow-swept buildings and fuzzy lights, Graham said, “It’s impossible.”

Beside him, Connie put one hand on his arm.
“Why
is it impossible?”

“It just is.”

“That’s not good enough.”

“I can’t climb it.”

“It’s not a climb.”

“What?”

“It’s a descent.”

“Doesn’t matter.”

“Can it be done?”

“Not by me.”

“You climbed the ladder in the shaft.”

“That’s different.”

“How?”

“Besides, you’ve never climbed.”

“You can teach me.”

“No.”

“Sure you can.”

“You can’t learn on‘the sheer face of a forty-story building in the middle of a blizzard.”

“I’d have a damned good teacher,” she said.

“Oh, yeah. One who hasn’t climbed in five years.”

“You still know how. You haven’t forgotten.”

“I’m out of shape.”

“You’re a strong man.”

“You forget my leg.”

She turned away from the window and went back to the door so that she could listen for Bollinger while she talked. “Remember when Abercrombie and Fitch had a man scale their building to advertise a new line of climbing equipment?”

He didn’t look away from the window. He was transfixed by the night. “What about it?”

“At that time, you said what that man did wasn’t really so difficult.”

“Did I?”

“You said a building, with all its ledges and setbacks, is an easy climb compared to almost any mountain.”

He said nothing. He remembered telling her that, and he knew he had been right. But when he’d said it he never thought he’d be called upon to do it. Images of Mount Everest and of hospital rooms filled his mind.

“This equipment you chose for the buyer’s guide—”

“What about it?”

“It’s the best, isn’t it?”

“The best, or close to it.”

“We’d be perfectly outfitted.”

“If we try it, we’ll die.”

“We’ll die if we stay here.”

“Maybe not.”

“I think so. Absolutely.”

“There has to be an alternative.”

“I’ve outlined them already.”

“Maybe we can hide from him.”

“Where?”

“I don’t know. But—”

“And we can’t hide for seven hours.”

“This is crazy, dammit!”

“Can you think of anything better?”

“Give me time.”

“Bollinger will be here any minute.”

“The wind speed must be forty miles an hour at street level. At least when it’s gusting. Fifty miles an hour up this high.”

“Will it blow us off?”

“We’d have to fight it every inch.”

“Won’t we anchor the ropes?”

He turned away from the window. “Yes, but—”

“And won’t we be wearing those?” She pointed to a pair of safety harnesses that lay atop the pile of equipment.

“It’ll be damned cold out there, Connie.”

“We’ve got the down-lined jackets.”

“But we don’t have quilted, insulated pants. You’re wearing ordinary jeans. So am I. For all the good they’ll do us, we might as well be naked below the waist.”

“I can stand the cold.”

“Not for very long. Not cold as bitter as that.”

“How long will it take us to get to the street?”

“I don’t know.”

“You must have some idea.”

“An hour. Maybe two hours.”

“That long?”

“You’re a novice.”

“Couldn’t we rappel?”

“Rappel?” He was appalled.

“It looks so easy. Swinging out and back, dropping a few feet with every swing, bouncing off the stone, dancing along the side of the building...”

“It looks easy, but it isn’t.”

“But it’s fast.”

“Jesus! You’ve never climbed before, and you want to rappel down.”

“I’ve got guts.”

“But no common sense.”

“Okay,” she said. “We don’t rappel.”

“We definitely don’t rappel.”

“We go slow and easy.”

“We don’t go at all.”

Ignoring him, she said, “I can take two hours of the cold. I know I can. And if we keep moving, maybe it won’t bother us so much.”

“We’ll freeze to death.” He refused to be shaken from that opinion.

“Graham, we have a simple choice. Go or stay. If we make the climb, maybe we’ll fall or freeze to death. If we stay here, we’ll sure as hell be killed.”

“I’m not convinced it is that simple.”

“Yes, you are.”

He closed his eyes. He was furious with himself, sick of his inability to accept unpleasant realities, to risk pain, and to come face to face with his own fear. The climb would be dangerous. Supremely dangerous. It might even prove to be sheer folly
_;
they could die in the first few minutes of the descent. But she was correct when she said they had no choice but to try it.

“Graham? We’re wasting time.”

“You know the real reason why the climb isn’t possible.”

“No,” she said. “Tell me.”

He felt color and warmth come into his face. “Connie, you aren’t leaving me with any dignity.”

“I never took that from you. You’ve taken it from yourself.” Her lovely face was lined with sorrow. He could see that it hurt her to have to speak to him so bluntly. She came across the room, put one hand to his face. “You’ve surrendered your dignity and your self-respect. Piece by piece.” Her voice was low, almost a whisper
_;
it wavered. “I’m afraid for you, afraid that if you don’t stop throwing it away, you’ll have nothing left. Nothing.”

“Connie ...” He wanted to cry. But he had no tears for Graham Harris. He knew precisely what he had done to himself. He had no pity
_;
he despised the man he’d become. He felt that, deep inside, he had always been a coward, and that his fall on Mount Everest had given him an excuse to retreat into fear. Why else had he resisted going to a psychiatrist? Every one of his doctors had suggested psychoanalysis. He suspected that he was comfortable in his fear
_;
and that possibility sickened him. “I’m afraid of my own shadow. I’d be no good to you out there.”

“You’re not so frightened today as you were yesterday,” she said tenderly. “Tonight, you’ve coped damned well. What about the elevator shaft? This morning, the thought of going down that ladder would have overwhelmed you.”

He was trembling.

“This is your chance,” she said. “You can overcome the fear. I know you can.”

He licked his lips nervously. He went to the pile of gear in front of the photographic backdrop. “I wish I could be half as sure of me as you are.”

Following him, she said, “I understand what I’m asking of you. I know it’ll be the hardest thing you’ve ever done.”

He remembered the fall vividly. He could close his eyes any time—even in a crowded room—and experience it again: his foot slipping, pain in the chest as the safety harness tightened around him, pain abruptly relieved as the rope snapped, breath caught like an un-chewed lump of meat in his throat, then floating and floating and floating. The fall was only three hundred feet, and it had ended in a thick cushion of snow
_;
it had seemed a mile.

She said, “If you stay here, you’ll die
_;
but it’ll be an easier death. The instant Bollinger sees you, he’ll shoot to kill. He won’t hesitate. It’ll be over within a second for you.” She took hold of his hand. “But it won’t be like that for me.”

He looked up from the equipment. Her gray eyes radiated a fear as primal and paralyzing as his own.

“Bollinger will use me,” she said.

He was unable to speak.

“He’ll cut me,” she said.

Unbidden, an image of Edna Mowry came to him. She had been holding her own bloody navel in her hand.

“He’ll disfigure me.”

“Maybe—”

“He’s the Butcher. Don’t forget. Don’t forget who he is. What he is.”

“God help me,” he said.

“I don’t want to die. But if I have to die, I don’t want it to be like that.” She shuddered. “If we’re not going to make the climb, if we’re just going to wait for him here, then I want you to kill me. Hit me across the back of the head with something. Hit me very hard.”

Amazed, he said, “What are you talking about?”

“Kill me before Bollinger can get to me. Graham, you owe me that much. You’ve got to do it.”

“I love you,” he said weakly. “You’re everything. There’s nothing else for me.”

She was somber, a mourner at her own execution. “If you love me, then you understand why you’ve got to kill me.”

“I couldn’t do it.”

“We don’t have much time,” she said. “Either we get ready for the climb right now—or you kill me. Bollinger will be here any minute.”

 
Glancing at the main entrance to see if anyone was trying to get in, Bollinger crossed the marble floor and opened the white door. He stood at the bottom of the north stairs and listened for footsteps. There were none. No footsteps, no voices, no noise at all. He peered up the narrow, open core of the shaft, but he didn’t see anyone moving alongside the switchback railing.

He went to the south stairs.

Those too were deserted.

He looked at his watch. 10:38.

Running some of Blake’s verses through his mind to calm himself, he went to the elevator.

31

Well-made boots are essential to a serious climber. They should be five to seven inches high, crafted from the best grade of leather, lined with leather, preferably hand-sewn, with foam-padded tongues. Most important of all, the soles should be hard and stiff, with tough lugs made of Vibram.

Graham was wearing just such a pair of boots. They were a perfect fit, more like gloves than footwear. Although putting them on and lacing them up brought him closer to the act that he regarded with terror, he found the boots strangely comforting, reassuring. His familiarity with them, with climbing gear in general, seemed like a touchstone against which he could test for the old Graham Harris, test for a trace of the courage he’d once shown.

Both pairs of boots in the pile of equipment were four sizes too large for Connie. She couldn’t wear either of them. If she stuffed paper into the toes and along the sides, she would feel as if she were wearing blocks of concrete
_;
and she would surely misstep at some crucial point in the climb.

Fortunately, they found a pair of klettershoes that fitted well enough. The klettershoe—an anglicization of Kletterschuh, German for “climbing shoe”—was lighter, tighter, more flexible, and not so high as standard climbing boots. The sole was of rubber, and the welt did not protrude, making it possible for the wearer to gain toeholds on even the narrowest ledges.

Although they would have to serve for want of something better, the klettershoes weren’t suited for the climb that lay ahead. Because they were made of suede and were not waterproof, they should be used only in the fairest weather, never in a snowstorm.

To protect her feet from becoming wet and from the inevitable frostbite, Connie wore both socks and plastic binding. The socks were thick, gray, woolen; they came to mid-calf. The plastic was ordinarily used to seal up the dry food that a climber carried in his rucksack. Graham had wrapped her feet in two sheets of plastic, securing the waterproof material at her ankles with rubber bands.

They were both wearing heavy, bright red nylon parkas with hoods that tied under the chin. Between the outer nylon surface and the inner nylon lining, his jacket was fitted with man-made insulation, sufficient for autumn climbing but not for the cold that awaited them tonight. Her parka was much better—although he hadn’t explained that to her for fear she would insist that he wear it-because it was insulated with one hundred percent goose down. That made it the warmest garment, for its size and weight, that she could have worn.

Over the parka, each of them was wearing a Kletter
gürtel,
a climbing harness, for protection in the event of a fall. This piece of equipment was a great improvement over the waistband that climbers had once used, for in a fall the band sometimes jerked so tight that it damaged the heart and lungs. The simple leather harness distributed the pressure over the entire body trunk, reducing the risk of a severe injury and virtually guaranteeing the climber that he would not turn upside down.

Connie was impressed by the
Klettergürtel.
As he strapped her into it, she said, “It’s perfect insurance, isn’t it? Even if you fall, it brings you up short.”