“No, sir. Mr. Brewster hasn’t come into the office yet.”
I laughed. “The old fox has been out prowling all night, I’ll bet. When’ll he be in?”
“I expect him at nine thirty, sir.” Nina sounded a little disapproving.
“Well, when he comes in, tell him Ed’s in town, and I’ll call him later. Tell him I plan to whip his tail in racquetball as soon as he’s ready.”
“Yes, sir, I’ll tell him,” Nina said. Her disapproval was sharp now.
I hung up and went back to my spot in the doorway. At nine forty-five I went into the Oceania Building, got in the elevator, and went up to Brewster’s office at the top. Several people in the elevator looked at me covertly. I looked like a man who’d been standing around in the rain all night. I did not look like a man who should be an his way up to the executive floor. What they didn’t know is that I never had.
Chapter 27
IN BREWSTER’s OUTER office there were three men in expensive suits sitting near their real leather briefcases. There was also one woman in an expensive business suit with a real leather briefcase and a real leather purse. I headed for the door to Brewster’s office.
Nina Foch was quick as a weasel. “May I help you, sir?” she asked and stepped from her desk to put herself between me and the door. Her eyes widened as she remembered me. I put one hand against her near shoulder and swept her away backhand. I was pumped up as high as I can get and I put more force into it than I needed. She sprawled across her desk and onto the thick carpeted floor beyond it in a swirl of beige slip and panty hose.
I slammed Brewster’s door open and headed on through the small library. Silhouetted against the gray light from his full-wall window, Brewster was at his desk. The library was set up for some kind of conference with an easel near the inner door. My shoulder banged it as I went by, and it went over, spilling its charts across the floor.
Simms was in the office with Brewster. He stepped in front of me as I came in, his hand going to his hip, under his coat. I hit him a left hook and a right cross and he went over backward, the half-drawn gun bouncing out of his hand and across the carpeting. Simms hit the couch, rolled half over, and landed on his right side on the floor. As I moved by him he grabbed at my ankle. I kicked loose of his hand and went for Brewster. Brewster was out of his chair and around the other side of the desk, trying to keep it between me and him. His eyes were wide and his face was very pale. His tan looked yellow. I went over the desk after him the way you dive into surf and got hold of his coat with my left hand. He yanked back, and the struggle pulled me over the desk. I landed and came up the way you do out of a slide. Brewster pulled out of the jacket and headed for the outer office.
Simms was on his hands and knees going for the gun. As I went after Brewster he reached it. I stomped on his hand with my left foot and swung my right knee against the side of his head. He went over and down and didn’t move. Brewster was through the library and into the outer office. I caught him at the door. I got a handful of his hair, yanked him back toward me, swung him past, and sent him sprawling back into the reception room. Two of the men had left. The businesswoman and the third man stood uncertainly. Nina Foch was on the phone. I yanked the cord out of the phone as I went by. Brewster was in a kind of crab-walk posture trying to scuttle one way or the other past me. The remaining businessman said, “Hey.”
I ignored him. I got hold of Brewster by the shirt front and picked him up and pulled him up against me and then slammed him against the wall by the door to the library. Then I pulled him away and slammed him up against it again. His breath came out in loud grunts. The third businessman tried to grab tne around the arms and pull me away. Without letting go of Brewster I said, “Get out of here. You don’t know what you’re into.”
He tried to lock my arms down to my sides. Nina Foch had run out the door. I let go of Brewster and broke the businessman’s grip, and turned and hit him as hard as I could in the middle of his stomach. He said “Uff” and stepped back and doubled over and leaned against the door. Biewster tried to slip past me toward the door while that was happening, but I yanked him back and slammed him against the wall again. He pushed at my face with his hands. He wasn’t very strong. Again against the wall. Then I stepped away. He sagged a little when I let him go. I slapped him open-handed across the face with my left hand, then with my right. Then left again. Then right. He put his hands up and covered his head. I punched him in the stomach. He gasped and dropped his hands. I slapped him left and right again. Each time I hit him, there was a pop inside me like red flashbulbs, and the muscles in my arms and shoulders and chest seemed to take energy from the action. If I closed my fists, I knew I’d kill him. He tried to cover his head and belly at the same time, but it was too much area, and my next slap was so hard, it knocked him over. He doubled up on the ground. His knees to his chest. His hands over his head. I kicked him in the kidneys. He wriggled over, trying to get away and keep me from his kidneys, and he bellied up for a moment. I stomped him in the stomach. Simms appeared in the doorway behind Brewster. His right eye was beginning to shut, and there was a trace of blood at the base of his nose. But he had the gun out, and he was squinting at me. The businesswoman, who had been watching all this time without a word, said, “Jesus Christ,” and dove behind Nina’s desk.
Simms was still groggy, and it made him slow. I stepped sideways and hacked the gun out of his hand. It hit the carpet near Brewster, and I scooped it up and stuck it in my hip pocket. As I straightened, Simms hit me a lunging, looping punch high on the head that jarred. I hit him twice with my left hand and one very hard right. He went back three steps. I went after him and knocked him backward into Brewster’s office. He fell against Brewster’s desk and slid down. I went back for Brewster. The businessman I had hit had some guts. He was still half doubled over but he hadn’t left. He tried to grab my arm, and I threw him away from me. I reached down and brought Brewster back up against the wall again. Saliva drooled out of his mouth. His lip was cut and his nose was bleeding. I slapped him again.
Then something was behind me, and I hunched up and moved my head and something hit me hard on the top of my left shoulder. I let Brewster go and turned and saw a couple of Oceania security types in powder-blue uniforms. They had nightsticks. One of them had just hit me and was about to do it again. I caught his down- swinging right arm on my left forearm and hit him a right uppercut, and as he grunted and stepped back I slid my left hand along his arm and yanked the nightstick out of his hand. I hit him and then his buddy with the nightstick. One of them went down, the other one backed up, parrying with his stick. I hit him again, this time in the stomach and, when his guard came down, across the side of the head. He went down too. I grabbed hold of Brewster and pulled him up and walked him tippy-toe and backward into his private office and shut the door and locked it. I was seeing everything through a slightly reddish haze, but my head seemed as clear as mountain air, and all of the things that were happening seemed to have been happening at half speed, like a slow-motion movie, so that, despite the slight reddish haze, the whole sequence had gone forth with a wordless and almost stately clarity.
I took my gun out and pressed the barrel against his upper lip directly under his nose where there was a slight indentation. He was wavering so, I had to hold his shirt with my left hand to keep him upright. I pressed the gun barrel harder against his upper lip.
My voice came out very softly, and it seemed very far from me. I said, “Here’s what I think happened, Peter. I think you arranged to meet Franco out there in the oil field and you had Simms, and maybe somebody else, set up
