layers of darkness that filled the spaces between the landing.
Nothing.
He went back into the hall and ran toward the north stairs.
Billy drove into the alley. His car made the first tracks in the new
snow.
A forty-foot-long, twenty-foot-deep service courtyard lay at the back of
the Bowerton Building. Four doors opened onto it. One of these was a
big green garage door, where delivery could be taken on office furniture
and other items too large to fit through the public entrance.
A sodium vapor lamp glowed above the green door, casting a harsh light
on the stone walls, on the rows of trash bins awaiting pickup in the
morning, and on the snow; the shadows were sharply drawn.
There was no sign of Bollinger.
Prepared to leave at the first indication of trouble, Billy backed the
car into the courtyard. H'e switched off the headlights but not the
engine. He rolled down his window, just an inch, to keep the glass from
steaming up.
iss When Bollinger didn't come out to meet him, Billy looked at his
watch. .
Clouds of dry snow swirled down the alley in front of him. In the
courtyard, out of the worst of the wind, the snow was relatively
undisturbed.
Most nights, squad cars conducted random patrols of poorly lighted back
streets like this one, always on the lookout for business-district
burglars with half-filled vans, muggers with half-robbed victims, and
rapists with half-subdued women. But not tonight. Not in this weather.
The city's uniformed patrolmen would be occupied elsewhere. The
majority of them would be busy cleaning up after the usual foul-weather
automobile accidents, but as much as a third of the evening shift would
be squirreled away in favorite hideouts, on a side street or in a park;
they would be drinking coffee-in a few cases, something stronger-and
talking about sports and women, ready to go to work only if the radio
dispatcher insisted upon it.
Billy looked at his watch again. 10:04.
He would wait exactly twenty-six minutes. Not one minute less, and
certainly not one more. That was what he had promised Dwight.
Once again, Bollinger reached the elevator shaft just as it was filled
with the sound of another door closing on it.
He bent over the railing, looked down. NOthing but other railings,
other platforms, other emergency light bulbs, and a lot of darkness.
Harris and the woman had gone.
I' He was tired of playing hide-and-seek with them, of dashing from
stairwell to stairwell to shaft. He was sweating profusely.
Under his overcoat, his shirt clung to him wetly. He left the platform,
went to the elevator, activated it with a key, pushed the button marked
'Lobby.'
On the ground level, he took off his heavy overcoat and dropped it
beside the elevator doors. Sweat trickled down his neck, down the
center of his chest. He didn't remove his gloves. With the back of his
left hand and then with his shirt sleeve he wiped his dripping forehead.
