'What's her name?'
' I wish I didn't have to kill her.'
'Then don't. You-'
'But I think she suspects.'
'Why don't we-'
'Nietzsche was right.'
'Who?'
'Nietzsche.'
'Who's he?'
'A philosopher.'
'Oh.
'He was right about women.'
'What did he say about women?'
'They just get in our way. They hold us back from perfection.
All those energies we put into courting them and screwing them-wasted!
All that wasted sex energy could be put to other use, to thought and
study.
If we didn't waste our energies on women, we could evolve into what we
were meant to be.'
'And what were we meant to be?'
'Are you trying to trace this call?'
'No, no.'
'Yes. Of course you are.'
'No, really we aren't.'
'I'll be gone from here in a minute. I just wanted to tell you that
tomorrow you'll know who I am, who the Butcher is. But you won't catch
me. I'm the lightning out of the dark cloud man.'
'Let's try to-'
'Good-bye, Detective Martin.'
At seven o'clock Friday evening, a fine dry snow began to fall in
Manhattan, not merely flurries but a full-scale storm.
The snow siftedout of the black sky and made hale, shifting patterns on
the dark streets.
In his living room, Frank Bollinger watched the millions of tiny flakes
streaming past the window. The snow pleased him no end. With the
weekend ahead, and now especially with the change of weather, it was
doubtful that anyone other thin Harris and his woman would be working
late in the Bowerton Building. He felt that his chances of getting to
them and pulling off the plan without a hitch had improved considerably.
The snow was an accomplice.
At seven-twenty, he took his overcoat from the hall closet, slipped into
it and buttoned up.
The pistol was already in the right coat pocket. He wasn't using his
police revolver, because bullets from that could be traced too easily.
This was a Walther PPK, a compact .38 that had been banned from
importation into the United States since 1969. (A slightly larger
pistol, the Walther PPK/S, was now manufactured for marketing in the
United States; it was less easily concealed than the original model.)
There was a silencer on the piece, not homemade junk but a
precisionmachined silencer made by Walther for use by various elite
