Out of sight of anyone who might come to the street doors, he leaned
against the marble wall at the end of the offset that contained the four
banks of elevators. From that position, he could see two white doors
with black stenciled letters on them, one at the north end and one at
the south end of the lobby. These were the exits from the stairwells.
When Harris and the woman came through one of them, he would blow their
goddamned brains out. Oh, yes. With pleasure.
Hobbling along the fortieth-floor corridor toward the light that came
from the open reception-room door of the Harris Publications suite,
Harris saw the fire-alarm box. It was approximately nine inches on a
side, set flush with the wall. The metal rim was painted red, and the
face of it was glass.
He couldn't imagine why he hadn't thought of this before.
ILS7 Ahead of him, Connie realized that he had stopped.
'What's the matter?'
'Look here.'
She came back.
'If we set it off,' Graham said, 'it'll bring the security guards up
from downstairs.'
'If they aren't dead.'
'Even if they are dead, it'll bring the fire department on the double.
Bollinger will have the crimps put to him.
'Maybe he won't run when he hears the bells. After all, we know his
name. He might hang on, kill us, sneak out past the firemen.'
'He might,' Graham agreed, unsettled by the thought of being stalked
through dark halls full of clanging, banging bells.
They stared through the glass at the steel alarm lever that glinted in
the red light.
He felt hope, like a muscle relaxant, relieve a fraction of the tension
in his shoulders, neck and face. For the first time all night, he began
to think they might escape.
Then he remembered the vision. The bullet. The blood. He was going to
be shot in the back.
She said, 'The alarms will probably be so loud that we won't hear him if
he comes after us.'
'But it works both ways,' he said eagerly. 'He won't be able to hear
us.
She pressed her fingertips to the cool plate of glass, hesitated, then
took her hand away. 'Okay. But there's no little hammer to break the
glass.' She held up the lag iL chain that was supposed to secure a
hammer to the side of the alarm. 'What do we use instead?'
Smiling, he took the scissors from his pocket and held them up as if
they were a talisman.
'Applause, applause,' she said, beginning to feel just enough hope to
allow herself a little joke.
'Thank you.'
'Be careful,' she said.
'Stand back.'
She did.
