Sliver
Page 17
She stood staring. Swallowed.
Leaned against the door jamb, shut her eyes, the gun at her side.
Drew breath.
Sighed it out. Went in, put the gun on the bed. Stood hugging her sweatered arms, her eyes tearing.
She knuckled at the corners of them, went to the window. Pushed billowing drapery aside, spread her arms and grasped cold bronze framing with both hands. Leaned into the wind and snowflakes, looked down at white far below. The wind dropped, accordion doors rolled. She spun around, he came pushing at her middle; pushed her backward out the window.
13
CLOTH BRUSHED HER HAND, she clutched, it pulled her; she grabbed with her other hand, swinging around; hung from handfuls of chintz and muslin, kicking air. Her shoulder hit brick, her sneakered foot slid against glass. She stared up at him staring out the window at her. The drapery quivered; she stared up at its top inside the window.
An end hook popped from the muslin header, the next hook popped, the next, the row of hooks popping as, hitching herself upward, she caught the window track with one hand and the other; pulled, hauling her knees up to the bricks; pushed with her knees and thighs, pulled with her arms and fingers. Wind hit her back, the drapery flapped into the window, the door inside slammed.
“Shit,” he said, shaking his head, grimacing down at her. “Shit . . .”
She hung from the outer metal track, staring up at him.
“I can’t!” he cried. “I’ve got to think of me!” He went from the window.
Staring at dark wet bricks, her knees mashed against a dent of mortar, arms and fingers aching, she squirmed her left hand’s fingers toward the window panel a few inches away. If she could get a decent grip where it met the track, climb up the bricks . . . And not think about hanging twenty stories high in wind and snow from the back of a sliver building . . . An icy trickle slithered down her spine; she shivered. Hung by arms and fingers, pushed with thighs and knees, squirmed fingers leftward in the cold wet metal track, not looking down. Just another invigorating workout. At the Vertical Club . . .
“It’s still going to work.”
She looked up at him.
He sat sideways on the sill, squinting against snowflakes, his hands shiny in plastic, wiping the gun. “He’s the one you fought with,” he said, “then he chased you in here, pushed you out, shot himself. He’ll be here in four minutes and I pray to God he isn’t late.” He tucked the gun inside his jacket, squinted into the wind, frowning. “Maybe I ought to push him. . . .”
She hooked her fingers in behind the panel, pulled with both aching arms; worked her right knee—getting numb, the denim wet through—up to the next dent in the bricks; worked her left knee up. Pushed with both knees, crept her right hand’s fingers into the inner track.
He stood up and picked up the telescope, grasped its narrow end in his plastic-gloved hand. Crouched and hooked the wide end’s edge under her two middle fingertips in the track. Lifted at them. “I’m never going to forget you,” he called against the wind. “I’ve got the tapes. Last night, and the night you moved in—that’s pretty poor quality though—and that Saturday night . . . Six weeks ago, almost to the minute . . .” He smiled, crouching, lifting at her fingertips with the telescope—gently, so as not to mark them. “We’ve certainly run the gamut, haven’t we?” he called. “God, I wish it didn’t have to end this way. I’m going to watch you as long as I live. Scoot, Felice.”
Felice came walking along the windowsill.
“Scoot,” he said.
Felice stopped, looked at him—and walked on, to the fingers hooked down around the corner of the outer panel. Sniffed them.
She recoiled, hissing, her fur ruffling.
He stood up. “Scram,” he said. “Mommy’s busy falling.”
Felice leaned, sniffed the tight-pressed fingers, hissed at them. She took another step, put her head out around the panel, shied at the wind and snowflakes. Looked down at the face staring up at her.
Drew back, sniffed the fingers.
Turned, hissing. Reared back along the sill.
“Cool it,” he said. “It’s me. Daddy.”
She snarled up at him, eyes narrowed; hissed, showed her teeth, wriggled her haunches, tail straight back.
“Fuck off, Felice,” he said. Poked the telescope at her. “Or would you rather—” She shot hissing from his arm to his face, caught his nose in her teeth, dug her claws through his eyelids. The telescope flew as he clutched her, shiny hands sliding. He screamed in her fur, falling backward.
Nary a soul in the twentieth-floor hallway. He checked his watch as the elevator door slid closed behind him: nine on the button, the hands at a perfect ninety-degree angle.
He wondered what exactly were Pete Henderson’s complicated logistics. Checked himself in the mirror—red-eyed, rotten-looking. Fixed the collar of the jacket so the frayed place was hidden—for the moment.
He moved to the 20B door. Listened. No sound of people. He pressed the button; the bell ding-donged.
He studied the beribboned little box from Dollhouse Antics. Hoped he hadn’t gotten too cute. Too late now . . .
A cry from inside?
He tried the doorknob; it turned.
He opened the door a few inches. Lights were on. “Hello?” he called toward the living room. “Anybody home?”
A gargled moan from the bedroom.
He opened the door wider. The kitchen looked messy; he’d figured her for neat. A soaring bird, a knockout painting of a falcon or a hawk or something, hung between the kitchen and the bathroom. The bedroom door was closed.
“Hello?” he called, going in. He put the box on a Victorian coat rack, steadied the wobbly marble shelf. Jumped aside as a knife fell from under it.
He looked at it lying on the floor—a pointed kitchen knife seven or eight inches long, with a black handle.
He picked it up, looked at it. Put it on the shelf with the box.
Went to the bedroom door. Coldness blew from under it. He knocked. “Kay?” he called. “It’s Sam Yale. Are you all right?”
A moan.
He pushed the door against wind. A cat raced out—orange, red, white—raced for the living room, black-tipped tail fluffed.
He opened the door wider. Stared, his heart sinking.
A blood-faced man sat on the floor against the side of the bed by its foot, moaning, holding cupped blood-lumped hands toward him. Pete Henderson. With red-black hollows for eyes—like an actor made up for Oedipus’s final entrance. A path of torn-down twisted drapery ran to the open window where—Christ!—someone climbing in lifted a dark head, looked at him—He rushed past Henderson, got down on a knee by her, his heart pounding. Grabbed the back of her belt, got an arm beneath her—she was cold, shivering, in a wet dark turtleneck—helped lift her up onto the sill. She brought her legs up, rolling onto her side, wincing, the frayed knees of her jeans bloodied. “My God!” he said. A moan from Henderson.
He helped her sit up and swing her legs down; pulled the window closed behind her, stood, closed it all the way. Unbuttoned his jacket. “I’ll call an ambulance in a second!” he shouted.
“I can hear,” Henderson said.
She sat panting on the sill, shivering, staring toward Henderson, her arms folded tight, hands tucked in armpits. Her hair was tangled, wet, her lips bluish. She turned to him as he put his jacket around her shoulders. “Felice?” she said. “My cat?”
“It ran into the living room,” he said.
She unfolded her arms, pushed against the sill. “The shower,” she said.
He helped her stand. “What in God’s name?” he asked. He walked with her on the drapery, steadying her; watched her panting, shivering. Henderson moaned. She kept close to the closets, looking ahead. He held her at the waist and shoulder of his jacket.
She said, “He was—going to—kill us both. . . .”
“Why?” he asked.
“He killed the others,” she said. “The building is bug
ged. With videocameras.”
“What?”
She took his jacket off at the door. “He owns it,” she said. “There’s the phone. Watch out, he has your gun.” She gave him the jacket, looked at him. “He’s Thea Marshall’s son,” she said.
“I thought he might be! Videocameras? Go, go, I’m sorry.”
She went into the bathroom, switching the light on. Closed the door and locked it.
Toed her sneakers off. Went into the shower.
Grasped the chrome Art Deco handle. Turned the water hot.
She stripped in the downpour, examined her raw knees, her hands and fingers, massaged her arms.
Turned the water hotter.
Stood hugging herself, weeping.
When they got out of the patrol car in front of Horror High-Rise, at a little after two by Sam’s watch, halogen lights glared on tripods at both sides of the canopy, vans were double-parked, another van came skidding around the corner from Ninety-second Street. Black cameras swooped at them, riding men’s shoulders; Sam warded them off right and left with his raised finger; Walt brandished a snow shovel.
They made it into the lobby, where twenty or more of the tenants were huddled around radios and agreements to join in class-action lawsuits.
“Is the building really bugged?” Vida asked. “Yes,” she said. Dmitri said, “He killed Rafael, everybody?” “Not Brendan Connahay,” she said. “They took out tapes,” Stefan said. “Were those of us?” She nodded. “Is he blind?” someone asked.
“Yes,” Sam said. “Folks,” he said, standing with his hands raised and his back to the elevators, “we spoke to reporters at the police station; you can read about it in the papers tomorrow. I don’t want to be unneighborly but we’ve had a rough night, especially Ms. Norris. Peter Henderson is in Metropolitan Hospital under police guard. He isn’t watching anything any more. If you have questions, the man to speak to is Detective Wright at the Nineteenth Precinct. You’ll find him very pleasant and courteous. Thank you.”
They rode up in the right-hand elevator.
She made real coffee. They drank it on the sofa, Felice curled sleeping in her lap.
He said, “That’s going to be the most famous cat in the country. She’s going to get a date with Morris from Nine Lives.”
She sipped from her mug. “A lot of good it’ll do them both,” she said.
He smiled, watching her. Sipped, looked at the ceiling light. “Incredible,” he said. “TV madness . . . I guess it was inevitable that someone would come down with it sooner or later.”
“He’s not the first case,” she said. “There’s a hotel that’s bugged too, and a couple of other apartment houses. At least that’s what he said. Sam, listen.” She looked at him. “I want you to know, I never watched you. It was a condition at the outset: not you, not the bathrooms.”
“Nice you were fastidious,” he said.
“You have no idea how hypnotic it is,” she said. “It’s impossible to stop watching. There’s always something going on and even the prosaic things become interesting, because it’s real and you never know what’s going to happen next.”
They sipped from their mugs.
She said, “I’m going down there. There are tapes I don’t think they found that I want to get rid of, tapes of me; and the ones they’re looking for could be there too, though he may have erased them. But I have a feeling he didn’t, not if he was taping tonight.”
“You lost me,” he said.
“Never mind,” she said. “The point is I’m going down to thirteen B, do you want to come?”
They looked at each other.
“I mean just to look,” she said. “Not to watch.”
He said, “Won’t it be sealed?”
“With a strip of tape, I suppose,” she said. “I have a key. Don’t worry, I’m going to tell Detective Wright exactly what I did and why I did it, even if I don’t find the other tapes. I’m sure he’ll understand. If he doesn’t, it’ll be my responsibility.”
He scratched his ear. “Well . . .” he said, “I guess I ought to. Just on the off chance I wind up directing the miniseries.”
“What do you mean, ‘the off chance’?” she said, leaning and putting her mug down. “We’ll make it part of the deal.” She gathered Felice in her arms, got up and turned; winced, raising a foot. “Ooh Jesus, my knees,” she said.
“Ahhh,” he said, wincing, watching her as he got up.
She put Felice down in the hollow in the cushion. Bent, kissed her head. “Good cat,” she said. “What a cat.” Kissed her nose. “Tuna steak from here on in.”
Felice hunkered down in the apricot velvet, purring, eyes closed. Her whiskers twitched.
They headed for the foyer. She said, “I’ll bet everybody in the building is still up talking about everything.”
He opened the hall door, held it for her. “I wouldn’t mind taking one little peek,” he said, going out after her.
About the Author
Acclaimed novelist and playwright Ira Levin (1929-2007) was a native New Yorker whose books include A Kiss Before Dying, Rosemary's Baby, This Perfect Day, The Stepford Wives, The Boys from Brazil, Sliver, and Son of Rosemary. His plays include No Time for Sergeants, Critic's Choice, and Deathtrap (the longest-running thriller in Broadway history). Levin also wrote the lyrics of the Streisand classic He Touched Me, and was the recipient of three Mystery Writers of America Edgar Allan Poe Awards. For more information, please visit www.iralevin.org.
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
copyright © 1991 by Ira Levin
978-1-4532-1746-7
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This 2011 edition distributed by Open Road Integrated Media
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Table of Contents
Cover
Sliver
Dedication
Contents
One
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Two
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Three
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
About the Author
Copyright