Bricky thought: I wonder if she’d shoot, if I made a sudden step to the side, tried to break contact with the bore of the gun? Somehow she didn’t make the attempt, and not altogether through fear either. They were taking her back to the very place she had wanted to take them all along: to the scene of the murder. A feat that she probably would never have been able to accomplish single-handed, particularly in the case of the man. Why not wait? That was the better place for it. True, this opportunity might not recur up there — but why not wait and see? There was always Quinn.
Bristol shifted a little, spoke at last. “That’s long enough. Start walking over to the door now. Now let me warn you for the last time. If you let a peep out of you, on the stairs or on the way through the lobby, or outside while we’re walking over to the car, this goes off into you head-first. And don’t think I’m kidding. I’ve never kidded about anything in my life. I was born without a sense of humor.”
Bricky didn’t answer. She probably had been, at that, she reflected. It must be hell to be like that
They went out of the room, and along the musty corridor of before. Behind one of those doors the loose, tinny jangling of an alarm-clock went off just after they’d gone a few steps past, and a curious transmitted shock passed from one to the other, that was almost like electric current passing through the gun for a conductor.
She heard Bristol let out a deep breath behind her. She knew without having to be told how close that accidental, extraneous thing had come to exploding the weapon.
They turned aside where there was a dark-red exit-bulb burning, passed through a fireproofed hinged door, and started down an emergency staircase. Its lower reaches brightened imperceptibly with light from the lobby. They could already hear Griff’s voice, somewhat hollow and resonant in the open down there, before they were quite clear of it.
“Take another one. Go on, don’t be afraid, that’s what it’s for.”
“Wait a minute,” Bristol whispered tensely behind her, and held her motionless at the foot of the stairs. The desk was out of sight from there, around an el-shaped turn. They had to go straight past the front of it, however, to reach the street.
Somebody gave a strangled cough, and Griff’s voice sounded again. “Easy, easy. Don’t swallow the whole bottle.”
“Now,” Bristol hissed, and urged her forward via the gun, as though it were some sort of a handle which controlled her movements.
He was there by himself, leaning engagingly forward over the desk on both arms. In front of him there were just the tiers of pigeonholes, cutting off the view from the rear.
The two-headed, four-legged, curiously-humpbacked creature that was the two women, the two women and a gun, slithered rapidly by. He didn’t turn his head or seem to be aware of them at all, but he fanned one hand loosely behind his back, sweeping it repeatedly in the direction of the entrance. As though he had a funny sort of waggy tail there, cropped short.
They were in the car already when he joined them. It was down further, away from the hotel entrance, and Bristol had her in the back with her, waiting.
He got in in front, and they still didn’t say anything between the three of them. Bristol had shifted the gun around to her side now, because of the impediment of the back of the car-seat. Bricky sat there docilely, made no move to resist. She wanted them to reach there unhindered fully as much as they wanted to themselves.
The night was falling to pieces all around them, cracks and slivers of light showing through all over more and more.
They made the run up swiftly and remorselessly. Just before they took the final turn around into Seventieth, Bristol warned him in a slurred undertone, as though just the two of them were alone in the car: “Watch it, now. Don’t pull up unless you’re sure.”
They turned in and he ran straight past the house first of all, as though it had nothing to do with them, as though they had some destination miles from here.
It held its secret well. Well and long. There was no sign of life, inside or out. It was just as it had been yesterday morning at this same early hour; the morning before.
Their three faces had turned to it as one, as they went by. Was he back yet? Was he in there? Oh, God — now and only now was she beginning at last to get frightened.
Griff swerved in abruptly only after they were well past it; reversed and backed up a house-length or two; braked finally, but still a good three or four doors down from it. Then they watched again briefly, from their stationary position now.
Nothing.
“Still good for another quick trip in and out again,” he murmured tight-lipped. “Come on, let’s go.”
