The Face of Fear (27 page)

A small courtyard lay behind Graham Harris’s house. A patch of grass. Two trees. A brick patio. Of course, the two flower beds were barren during the winter
_;
however, the presence of a wrought-iron table and four wrought-iron chairs made it seem that people had been playing cards in the sun just that afternoon.

He crossed the courtyard and climbed three steps to the rear entrance.

The storm door was not locked.

As delicately, swiftly and silently as he could manage, he picked the lock on the wooden door.

He was dismayed by the ease with which he had gained entry. Wouldn’t people
ever
learn to buy good locks?

Harris’s kitchen was warm and dark. It smelled of spice cake, and of bananas that had been put out to ripen and were now overripe.

He closed the door soundlessly.

For a few minutes he stood perfectly still, listening to the house and waiting for his eyes to adjust to the darkness. Finally, when he could identify every object in the kitchen, he went to the table, lifted a chair away from it, put the chair down again without making even the faintest noise.

He sat down and took his revolver from the shoulder holster under his left arm. He held the gun in his lap.

44

The squad car waited at the curb until Graham opened the front door of the house. Then it drove away, leaving tracks in the five-inch snowfall that, in Greenwich Village, had not yet been pushed onto the sidewalks.

He switched on the foyer light. As Connie closed the door, he went into the unlighted living room and located the nearest table lamp. He turned it on—and froze, unable to find the strength or the will to remove his fingers from the switch.

A man sat in one of the easy chairs. He had a gun.

Connie put one hand on Graham’s arm. To the man in the chair, she said, “What are you doing here?”

Anthony Prine, the host of
Manhattan at Midnight,
stood up. He waved the gun at them. “I’ve been waiting for you.”

“Why are you talking like that?” Connie asked.

“The Southern accent? I was born with it. Got rid of it years ago. But I can recall it when I want. It was losing the accent that got me interested in mimicry. I started in show business as a comic who did imitations of famous people. Now I imitate Billy James Plover, the man I used to be.”

“How did you get in here?” Graham demanded.

“I went around the side of the house and broke a window.”

“Get out. I want you out of here.”

“You killed Dwight,” Prine said. “I drove by the Bowerton Building after the show. I saw all the cops. I know what you did.” He was very pale. His face was lined with strain.

“Killed who?” Graham asked.

“Dwight. Franklin Dwight Bollinger.”

Perplexed, Graham said, “He was trying to kill us.”

“He was one of the best people. One of the very best there ever was. I did a program about vice cops, and he was one of the guests. Within minutes we knew we were two of a kind.”

“He was the Butcher, the one who—”

Prine was extremely agitated. His hands were shaking. His left cheek was distorted by a nervous tic. He interrupted Connie and said, “Dwight was half the Butcher.”

“Half the Butcher?” Connie said.

Graham lowered his hand from the switch and gripped the pillar of the brass table lamp.

“I was the other half,” Prine said. “We were identical personalities, Dwight and I.” He took one step toward them. Then another. “More than that. We were incomplete without each other. We were halves of the same organism.” He pointed the pistol at Graham’s head.

“Get out of here!” Graham shouted. “Run, Connie!” And as he spoke he threw the lamp at Prine.

The lamp knocked Prine back into the easy chair.

Graham turned to the foyer.

Connie was opening the front door.

As he followed her, Prine shot him in the back.

He fell and rolled onto his side in time to see Ira Preduski come out of the hallway that led to the kitchen.

He floated on a raft of pain in a sea that grew darker by the second. What was happening?

The detective shouted at Prine and then shot him in self-defense. Once. In the chest.

The talk-show host collapsed against a magazine rack.

Pain. just the first twitches of pain.

Graham closed his eyes. Wondered if that was the wrong thing to do. If you go to sleep, you’ll die. Or was that only with a head injury? He opened his eyes to be on the safe side.

Connie was wiping the sweat from his face.

Kneeling beside him, Preduski said, “I called an ambulance.”

Some time must have passed. He seemed to fade out in the middle of one conversation and in on the middle of the next.

He closed his eyes.

Opened them.

“Medical examiner’s theory,” Preduski said. “Sounded crazy at first. But the more I thought about it ...”

“I’m thirsty,” Graham said. He was hoarse.

“Thirsty? I’ll bet you are,” Preduski said.

“Get me ... drink.”

“That might be the wrong thing to do for you,” Connie said. “We’ll wait for the ambulance.”

The room spun. He smiled. He rode the room as if it were a carousel.

“I shouldn’t have come here alone,” Preduski said miserably. “But you see why I thought I had to? Bollinger was a cop. The other half of the Butcher might be a cop too. Who could I trust? Really. Who?”

Graham licked his lips and said, “Prine. Dead?”

“I’m afraid not,” Preduski said.

“Me?”

“What about you?”

“Dead?”

“You’ll live.”

“Sure?”

“Bullet wasn’t near the spine. Didn’t puncture any vital organs, I’ll bet.”

“Sure?”

“I’m
sure,” Connie said.

Graham closed his eyes.

Ira Preduski stood with his back to the hospital window. The late afternoon sun framed him in soft gold light.“Prine says they wanted to start racial wars, religious wars, economic wars ...

Graham was lying on his side in the bed, propped up with pillows. He spoke somewhat slowly because of the pain killers he had been given. “So they could gain power in the aftermath.”

“That’s what he says.”

From her chair at Graham’s bedside, Connie said, “But that’s crazy. In fact, didn’t Charles Manson’s bunch of psychos kill all those people for the same reason?”

“I mentioned Manson to Prine,” Preduski said. “But he tells me Manson was a two-bit con man, a cheap sleazy hood.”

“While Prine is a superman.”

Preduski shook his head sadly. “Poor Nietzsche. He was one of the most brilliant philosophers who ever lived—and also the most misunderstood.” He bent over and sniffed at an arrangement of flowers that stood on the table by the window. When he looked up again, he said, “Excuse me for asking. It’s none of my business. I know that. But I’m a curious man. One of my faults. But—when’s the wedding?”

“Wedding?” Connie said.

“Don’t kid me. You two are getting married.”

Confused, Graham said, “How could you know that? We just talked about it this morning. Just the two of us.”

“I’m a detective,” Preduski said. “I’ve picked up clues.”

“For instance?” Connie said.

“For instance, the way the two of you are looking at each other this afternoon.”

Delighted at being able to share the news, Graham said, “We’ll be married a few weeks after I’m released from the hospital, as soon as I have my strength back.”

“Which he’ll need,” Connie said, smiling wickedly.

Preduski walked around the bed, looked at the bandages on Graham’s left arm and on the upper right quarter of his back. “Every time I think of all that happened Friday night and Saturday morning, I wonder how you two came out of it alive.”

“It wasn’t much,” Connie said.

“Not much?” Preduski said.

“No. Really. It wasn’t so much, what we did, was it, Nick?”

Graham smiled and felt very good indeed. “No, it wasn’t much, Nora.”