“Was it Boyer?” a deeper voice said.
“Yes, yes! It was! He’s somewhere here! You can find him! Catch him!”
I was gawking at the steering wheel inside the car. Keys were hanging down from behind it.
“I’ll call for backup,” the deep voice said.
I yanked the door open and was inside the car. I turned the key and hit the accelerator and pulled the door closed.
It took two minutes to breathe again, and think. The car was an unmarked police cruiser. I was on the main road back into town, the road I’d walked that morning. The fire in my jaw had spread to my shoulder.
As the panic subsided, the pain swelled. I was tired of it. I kept driving. I was tired of everything.
The road widened and I picked up speed. A highway ramp was ahead and I pulled onto it. From the highway I could see the skyline ahead like a line of teeth. I raced into them.
Traffic was light toward downtown, nothing to slow me. Straight in front was my goal, glowing forty-two stories high.
It probably took less than twenty minutes to reach my exit. I had no time for the red light at the bottom, and the horns and screeching tires amused me. Eight blocks, right turn, three blocks. There were no spaces at the front door so I left the car in the middle of the street.
There was a crowbar in the trunk. Perfect.
I strolled into the empty lobby and looked around-it had become pretty familiar the last few weeks. It would be a good place, this building.
The coffee shop was closed but the television was on, and I stopped a minute to watch through the gate.
“… again eluding police.” It was Bill Sandoff himself. It made me feel so much at home. “The intended victim was Nathan Kern, director of the Melvin Boyer Charitable Foundation, who had been under police surveillance as a possible target. We will continue to update the story as more information comes in. Again, Jason Boyer is still at large, driving a light tan Buick Riviera. He is armed and extremely dangerous.” They had a picture up, the same one they’d been using for a week. Everyone must be getting pretty tired of it. “If you believe you see him, call the police immediately. Do not approach him. Commissioner DeAngelo has asked that citizens-”
Good ole Miguel, he’d be squirming right now. I couldn’t imagine what the Harry Bright quote would be. It would almost be worth waiting one more day to find out.
There’d be the Nathan Kern story; that would be adorable. “Kern told reporters how he managed to use his gun in self-defense.” Maybe he could rumple his suit a little.
No, I didn’t want to hear it. There’d be an even bigger story soon anyway.
I pushed the elevator button. The doors opened and I was face-to-face with a young lady in a blue suit and two-hundred-dollar hair. I grinned at her and she screamed.
She shoved past me and ran. I think she got blood on her suit. I was covered with it.
Top button. Up and up and up, farther and farther from the ground. Faster, up into the sky, away from all the problems and foolish lives, away from all the people wasting their energy living. They didn’t know how useless it all was. I knew better now.
Forty-second floor. Down the hall to the locked door. No fumbling with the key this time. Pamela’s desk was empty. She’d finally be free of us Boyers, lucky her.
The second door wouldn’t open. The lock had been changed? It was a ruin when I got through it. It hurt my shoulder, all of me, to ram the heavy bar into it again and again, but the pain would be over soon.
There was my view! Breathtaking, and that was going to be literally true very soon. All the lights-lights everywhere. Nathan Kern could have it all. Take it! I was the winner, more than he would ever know. It would all be his or Fred’s, the curse of it, and I was glad to let them all kill each other. Gaining that whole world was the worst punishment I could sentence anyone to.
I was seeing his face-the sincere, serious face he’d used to tell me that he’d asked Melvin to change the will. No man would have done that. I knew now, no one could turn down what that will was offering him. Let him have it. It would kill him, too.
Enough of that. How beautiful it was outside! There were blinking lights below, red and blue flashes against the street and buildings. It was a celebration, all for me! I couldn’t hear the sirens because the glass was too thick. Not for long!
I lifted the crowbar and swung. Circles spread out from the impact point like ripples as the glass fragmented. Two more swings sent the shards out into space and down into the heap of lights and sirens. The whole panel was gone except for bits around the edges.
There was irony in escaping Nathan’s gun just to come here- but that was panic, and this was truth. Finally I knew the truth! The questions were over! It was all over. I had reached the end and I’d found what was there. And it was nothing. Nathan had shown me the answers just as I was hoping he would.
I had a cool idea: if only I’d had Eric’s Corvette in the office. The hole in the glass was big enough to drive it through!
I wanted to see what something would look like falling. I took the big armchair Fred sat in and pushed it to the opening. The wind was blowing in and it reminded me of night air out on the boat. There was even a tinge of salt. I pushed the chair over the edge of the glass and watched it sailing down, riding the wind, disappearing. If only Fred had been in it.
There is sound now in the hall outside the office. They’re coming. Time to go.
I stand at the precipice and see what I’ve looked for, for so long, the real reason a man lives. It is just so that he can die, and there is nothing else. Dying is real life, and living in the kingdoms of earth is real death.
I lean out into the void and feel the gale wind taking me and below are the beautiful lights so far away.
I want it to last forever, but almost before it started, the impact and darkness come.
40
I didn’t feel anything-there was just sound.
Faint sound. Rustling, someone breathing. Some other quiet rhythmic whirr.
Footsteps on a hard floor, coming, passing, going.
It was my breathing. My eyes opened, and there was a white ceiling and bright lights. It hurt my eyes, and I closed them.
Something scraped on the floor.
“Tell them he’s awake. Get Wilcox.”
That meant something. I didn’t want to move. I opened my eyes again. It was a hospital room. There was lots of white, and a blue uniform with a policeman in it.
The whirr was a pump. A tube from it wandered to my bed and under the cover.
Heavy footsteps, and people came. More police uniforms and another man, a doctor in a white coat. He studied the machines. “Yes,” he said to one of the uniforms. “He seems to be conscious.” He looked at me. “Good morning.”
I didn’t talk. People came and went, and I didn’t talk to any of them. Time came and went, and I didn’t feel like doing anything.
Then I saw a face I knew.
“Mr. Boyer?” I could only stare at him. “Mr. Boyer?”
Something was on one side of my face, wires holding my jaw. I could hardly move my mouth.
“We need to talk with you.”
I closed my eyes and opened them, but he was still there.
“Mr. Boyer.” He glanced at the doctor beside him. “He’s hearing us, isn’t he?”
“Yes.”
“I need him to talk.”
“I can’t make him do that.”
Detective Wilcox came closer to me. “You’ve given us a real hard time.” He wasn’t talking nice. “They say
