been restricted to the halls and offices during the day, when the
building was full of people Dew R Kooniz and buzzing with commerce, he
would not have noticed the great size and high style of the structure.
One took for granted that which was commonplace; and to New Yorkers,
there was nothing unusual about a forty-two-story office building. Now,
however, abandoned for the night, the tower seemed incredibly huge and
complex; in solitude and silence one had time to contemplate it and see
how magnificent and extraordinary it was. He was like a microbe
wandering through the I'veins and bowels of a living creature, a
behemoth almost beyond measurement.
He felt in league with the minds that could conceive of a monument-like
this. He was one of them, a mover and shaker, a superior man. The
Olympian nture of 'i the building-and of the architects responsible for
itstruck a responsive chord in him, made him reverberate il 1 with the
knowledge of his own special godlike stature.
Brimming with a sense of glory, he was more deter- 4 mined than ever to
kill Harris and the woman. They were animals. Lice.
Parasites.
Because of Harris's freakish psychic gift, they posed a threat to
Bollinger. They were trying to deny him his rightful place in this new
and forceful current of history: the at first gradual but
ever-quickening rise of the new men.
He pushed the doorstop against the floor to keep the door open and the
lights burning. Then he went to the edge of the platform and peered
down the ladder.
They were three floors under him. The woman on top, nearest by a few
rungs. Harris below her, going first. Neither of them looked up.
Thiey certainly were aware of the momentary loss of light and understood
the significance of it. They were hurrying toward the next platform,
where they could get out of the shaft.
Bollinger knelt, tested the railing. It was strong. He leaned against
it, using it like a safety harness to keep him from tumbling to his
death.
He didn't want to kill them here. The place and method of murder were
extremely important tonight. Here, they would drop to the bottom of the
well, and that would ruin the scheme that he and Billy had come up with
this afternoon. He wasn't here just to kill them any way he could; he
had to dispose of them in a certain manner. If he brought it off just
right, the police would be confused, misled; and the people of New York
would begin to experience a spiraling reign of terror unlike anything in
their worst nightmares. He and Billy had worked out a damned clever
gambit, and he wouldn't abandon it so long as there was a chance of
bringing it off as planned.
it was a quarter of ten. In fifteen minutes Billy would be in the
alleyway outside, and he would wait on y until ten-thirty. Bollinger
saw that he probably wouldn't have time for the woman, but he was pretty
sure he'd be able to carry out the plan in forty-five minutes.
Besides, he didn't know what Harris looked like, and he felt there was
something cowardly about killing a man whose face he'd never seen.
It was akin to shooting someone in the back. That sort of killingven of
