And they would anyway. There are too many people who’ve seen him and would be able to pick him out of a lineup. If they catch him, if they pick him up for drunk driving in Wisconsin or Wyoming, a routine fingerprint check is all it will take to end his career, if not his life.
But he never gets drunk, and never drinks before driving.
So it won’t be that. It may be something else, sooner or later, but it’s all far in the future—or near in the future, but in any event not in the present. And the present, after all, is what time it is now, and now’s the only time it ever is. And when all is said and done, really, what do you get?
You get what you get.
There are staircases at either end of the building, but it seems simpler to take the elevator. It’s empty when it arrives on Nine, and the only thing that concerns him is the possibility that someone who might recognize him—Scudder, Elaine, the black youth, some police officer—will be waiting for the elevator when the door opens on Fourteen. But it’s early, it’s not seven yet, and that reduces the likelihood substantially.
And he doesn’t have much time to worry about it, because the elevator is at its destination before he can give the whole business much thought. When he rode up with Selwyn, he noted the placement of the elevator’s security camera, monitored (if the fellow bothers) by the lobby attendant. He positions himself now to minimize his exposure to the camera, and makes sure his body conceals the knife, which he holds open at his side.
But of course there’s no one waiting for the elevator, and indeed the entire hallway is empty. He walks to the door of Apartment 14-G, where a glance at the nameplate confirms that this is indeed the Scudder apartment.
If he had a key—
But, alas, he doesn’t. And any approach he can think of is likely to prompt the apartment’s male occupant to come to the door with a drawn gun, or to leave the door locked and simply call 911.
Stick to the plan, then.
He walks the length of the hallway to the rear stairwell. A few yards from the door leading to it is another door, which opens on a small room holding the chute for the trash compactor and a pair of recycling bins. A service elevator allows the hall porter to clear the bins.
There might be a security camera in the stairwell, though it seems unlikely that they’d have one for every floor. There’s no camera here, in the compactor room, but tenants are apt to wander in with their trash, and how could he account for his presence?
He has a sudden vision of a stream of tenants, old ladies carrying shopping bags full of trash, and himself with no choice but to stab them each in turn, dismembering them and stuffing them piecemeal down the compactor chute, desperate to get one out of the way before the next one shows up.
He chooses the stairwell instead. There’s no camera anywhere to be seen, and if he can’t see it how can it see him?
He props the door open an inch or two. That’s enough to provide a clear view of the entrance of 14-G without giving his own presence away.
Now all he requires is patience. And that quality is one he’s always had in abundance.
36
I slept poorly, and kept slipping in and out of a drinking dream. I woke up remembering none of the details, but concerned at first that it was somehow more than a dream, that I’d actually had a drink.
Elaine was still sleeping. I got out of bed quietly to keep from waking her. Our bedside tables each sported a handgun—the nine on my side, the .38 on hers. In the shower, I tried unsuccessfully to come up with some suitable version of The family that prays together stays together. When I got back to the bedroom the bed was empty, and so was her night table.
I got dressed and went to the kitchen. She wasn’t there, but she’d made coffee, and the .38 now rested on the counter next to the coffee urn. I walked around looking for her, then returned to the kitchen when I heard the shower running. I poured myself a cup of coffee and toasted a muffin, and I was pouring a second cup by the time she joined me. She was wearing a belted silk robe, one I’d given her for Christmas a couple of years back. It had been one of my more successful presents. She hadn’t put on makeup yet, and her scrubbed face looked like a girl’s.
She asked if I wanted some eggs, and I thought about it and decided I didn’t. She turned on the TV and got the local news, and there was nothing on it that demanded my attention. There was really only one topic of interest to either of us.
I said, “He may have left town.”
“No. He’s out there.”
“If he is, he hasn’t got much time. They’ve got his prints.”
“That’ll help a lot. ‘Attention—be on the lookout for a man with the following fingerprints …’”
“The point is the city’s closing down around him. If he didn’t catch a train yesterday, he’ll have trouble boarding one today. They’ll be looking for him at Penn Station. And Grand Central, and the bus terminal and the airports.”
“He could have a car,” she said. “Or he could kill somebody and take theirs.”
“Possible.”
“He’s still in town. I can tell.”
I’d be quicker to dismiss claims of intuitive knowledge if I hadn’t learned over the years to trust them when I have them myself. And I’d have been especially hard put to argue with her this time because I agreed with her. I wasn’t as certain as she was, but I didn’t think he’d left.
And hadn’t I felt him watching me on the way home from the meeting last night?
Maybe, and maybe not. Maybe anxiety was sufficient explanation for the way I’d felt. God knows there was enough of it on hand to do the job.
I said, “I think you’re probably right. Right or wrong, though, we have to act as if he’s here.”
“Meaning stay inside.”
“I’m afraid so.”
“I’m not going to argue with you. I’ve got the worst case of cabin fever I’ve ever had in my life, but I’m also scared to death. At this point it would be hard to get me to leave the apartment.”
“Good.”