'I don't want to die. Please. I know you think I don't have any guts, butbut I don't want to die. I'll do anything you want me to. I promise.' Beat. 'I have kids. And a wife. Think of what it'd do to them if I died.'
'You see them a lot, do you, Eric? Your wife and kids, I mean.'
'Every chance I get.'
'Sort of like Ozzie and Harriet, I'll bet.'
'What?'
'You know, good faithful wife, good faithful husband.'
'Oh. Right. Absolutely.'
He didn't even stand up, he was close enough sitting on the edge of the desk to stab the scissors deep into Eric's chest.
Eric didn't even come up with a very good scream.
He seemed so shocked he couldn't really do anything but stand there and cover the hole in his chest as blood began to spurt and spray through his fingers.
Corday angled away, so he wouldn't be sprayed.
'Please,' Eric muttered, 'please.'
Corday wasn't sure what Eric was 'pleasing' him about but at this point he didn't much care.
The kill was at hand.
The only thing Corday liked more than the risk was the kill itself.
Indeed indeed.
He eased himself from the edge of the desk and took two steps over to Eric so that he could put the scissors in at an angle this time. Right at the base of the skull.
This time Eric's scream was a little better but it was short-lived because paralysis was setting in. Corday knew the exact spot to effect that. And that's just where the scissors had gone.
By now, there were small puddles and pools of blood on the floor, and the fabric walls were getting blotchy from the spurting geyser escaping from between Eric's fingers.
'You ever kill a puma, Eric? I hear they're really tough. Some hunters tell me they're the toughest of all.'
This time he stabbed him in the stomach.
Had to look like a frenzy kill.
Lots and lots of wounds.
Hatred accumulated over a long period of time suddenly bursting forth.
Eric put up bloody hands so Corday could not cut him but by now Eric was too weak to do much of anything.
He slumped back against the wall.
'Eric, you'd make this a lot easier for both of us if you'd just stand still. You really would, babe.' Corday smiled. 'I heard you calling that woman on the phone 'babe.' You like being called 'babe?' Huh? You like it, Eric?'
This was a good one.
Right in the old larynx.
For a milli-second, Eric looked like that famous painting The Scream; his eyes bulging in horror, his mouth open widebut no sound coming out.
Hard to make a sound when some nasty man has just plunged a pair of scissors deep into your throat.
Poor baby.
Eric slid to the floor.
He was dead by the time his haunches settled into the deep carpeting.
All was silence.
Corday knew better than to stay around.
He worked quickly.
From his pocket he took the Ziploc bag with the pair of scissors identical to the ones he'd used on Eric.
He held the new scissors between thumb and forefinger and carried them delicately to Eric.
He dipped the scissors in blood, then inserted the tips of the scissors into various wounds, collecting not only blood but cotton from the shirt and skin from the stomach, both things the medical examiner would expect to find on the murder weapon. He inserted the scissors into all the major wounds.
Then he placed the bloody scissors several feet from Eric.
This section of the office was a mess by now, especially the wall, blotched blood looking like Rorschach tests in some places.
Then it was time to go.
And go quickly.
PART TWO
CHAPTER 19
Cini had never much liked elevators. As a little girl she'd heard a news story about a Loop elevator car falling twenty-six floors. A woman visiting from Iowa had died from injuries two hours later. The newsman, trying to reassure everybody, talked about how uncommon this wasless common than being struck by lightning was the example he usedbut Cini could never ride an elevator car now without a few moments of anxiety bordering on hyperventilation.
But not now. She was concentrating so hard on her game planretrieving her purse and getting out of the office without letting Eric Brooks lay a finger on herthat she paid no attention to the faint whining sounds of the powerful elevator system, nor to the way the car shimmied every half-floor or so, nor to the way the doors didn't part for long, long moments after the car had reached the top floor.
Ordinarily, she would have wanted to scream for help and start pounding on the door.
But now…
Now Cini got off the car and stood in the eerie silence of a Loop office building after closing hours. The corridor leading to the Brooks Agency's door was long and empty, and the wall-sconce indirect lighting, bouncing off the grid and tile system of the ceiling, produced a curiously alien brilliance.
She started down the corridor.
She was halfway there when the elevator doors rumbled shut behind her. She turned, startled, just as the two doors came together.
Just had to get this over with…
Just had to get out of here…
She no longer cared about the TV commercialor even Michaelanymore. She'd been so foolish…
As she started to open the door, she thought she heard a noise. A muffled shout, perhaps. Or scream.
She listened, hearing only the faint buzz overhead of the electrical system.
She went inside. The main reception area looked neat and empty, the massive front desk situated in front of a row of Clio awards the agency had won. The awards were kept in a glass case that was lit from inside and gave everything a theatrical-accent light.
The corridor leading right was the one she wanted. At the far end of that she would find Eric Brooks' own smaller reception area, and his impressive digs.
She had taken eight steps when she heard the scream and recognized it immediately as belonging to Eric Brooks.
Without wanting to at all, she edged closer to his office and there, framed in the doorway, were two men. One was Eric Brooks. His face, chest, hands were covered with blood and he was cowering backward over his desk, holding his hands up to stop the bloody scissors from stabbing him again and again. The man with the scissors was tall and angular and handsome in a hard way. All she could think of was the actor James Coburn.
Eric saw her but the killer didn't.
Eric tried to call out her name, wave an entreating arm in her direction.
