the keys into his pocket.
He went to the lectern, sat on the stool. He took the box of bullets
from his left coat pocket and replenished the pistol's magazine.
He looked at his watch. 8:10. He was right on schedule.
'That was good pizza,' Graham said.
'Good wine, too. Have another glass.'
'I've had enough.'
'Just a little one.'
'No. I've got to work.'
'Dammit.'
'You knew that when you came.'
'I was trying to get you drunk.'
'On one bottle of wine?'
'And then seduce you.'
'Tomorrow night,' he said.
'I'll be blind with desire by then.'
'Doesn't matter. Love is a Braille experience.'
She winced.
He got up, came around the table, kissed her cheek.
'Did you bring a book to read?'
'A Nero Wolfe mystery.'
'Then read.'
'Can I look at you from time to time?'
'What's to look at?'
'Why do men buy Playboy magazine?' she asked.
'I won't be working in the nude.'
'You don't have to be.'
'Pretty dull.'
'You're even sexy with your clothes on.'
'Okay,' he said, smiling. 'Look but don't talk.'
'Can I drool?'
'Drool if you must.'
He was pleased with the flattery, and she was delighted by his reaction.
She felt that she was gradually chipping away at his inferiority
complex, peeling it layer by layer.
The building engineer for the night shift was a stocky, fair-skinned
blond in his late forties. He was wearing gray slacks and a
gray-white-blue checkered shirt. He was smoking a pipe.
When Bollinger came down the steps from the lobby corridor, the gun in
his right hand, the engineer said, 'Who the hell are you?' He spoke
with a slight German accent.
'Sie sind Herr Schiller, night wahr?' Bollinger asked. His grandfather
and grandmother had been German-Americans; he had learned the language
when he was young and had never forgotten it.
Surprised to hear German spoken, worried about the gun but confused by
Bollinger's smile, Schiller said, 'la, which bin's.
'Es freut which sehr Sie kennenzulernen.
Schiller took the pipe from his mouth. He licked his lips nervously.
'Die Pistole?''
