The bartender’s lips tightened. He leaned toward Cory conspiratorially. “They’re tightening up on us, Mr. Williams, and I don’t got enough extra cash to lay out myself.”
“I’ll give you a check.”
Fred considered this prospect a moment before rejecting it. “I’ll put it down,” he said reluctantly. He slid out of the bar through the service area and went to a pay phone in the far corner of the room.
Cory felt like a deadbeat but began to think about the rifle. He would have to smuggle it into the building the day before the President arrived. On the morning of the motorcade, he was sure there would be people placed on roofs and in building doorways. They would certainly be watching for anyone carrying long packages into buildings along the parade route. He would have to take it in on Wednesday.
Fred came back to the bar looking disturbed. “You will settle tomorrow, Mr. W.?”
For a guy who was taking a chance with his own life, Cory thought that the rest of the world considered him a loser.
CHAPTER 4
Wednesday: 3:30 P.M.
Cory stood by a newsstand in downtown Deerford and looked up at the three high-rise buildings flanking the street. On his right was the Winchester Building, older than the two fifteen-story buildings on the left side of the street. Of the two newer buildings, the Faber was closest to the street, while the Morrison Building was set back with a plaza and fountain at its front.
He had decided that the Morrison Building would be less obvious and yet still suit his purpose. His position in the farther building would mean a longer shot, but the field of fire would still be clear.
Hell! He wasn’t going to shoot anything more lethal than a camera, and he had better stop thinking in terms like “fields of fire.”
He knew the Faber Building well, as it contained the downtown branch of his bank. He entered the banking floor and took an elevator to the fifth floor. Located next to the elevator and facing the Morrison Building was a vending machine canteen. He deposited coins in the coffee machine and watched as a paper cup fell, jounced to a halt, and canted to the side as it slowly filled with a warmish dark liquid.
The room was empty except for a uniformed hostess, who was wiping tables with a damp cloth. He casually walked over to the window and looked out.
He had a clear view of the Morrison Building, next door, and began to scan the windows above the fifth floor. He found what he was looking for on the seventh floor. It was a small suite of vacant offices with the blinds up and empty paint cans still visible near the window.
It would suit his purposes exactly.
He glanced at his watch: 3:40. The time element was going to be crucial. It would be close, but it had to be this way. He threw the nearly full cup of coffee into a waste receptacle and walked quickly back to the elevator.
Building management for the Morrison Building was located in a small suite of offices on the ground floor. An electric typewriter with a half-completed letter in the platen still hummed, although its occupant was missing. A youngish-looking man in a back office was studiously going through a file folder and looked up when Cory coughed.
“Can I help you?”
Cory entered the office and handed the man one of his business cards. He watched the building manager examine the card. They had been printed last year when Cory was promoted to mortgage officer, and he doubted that in the ensuing months he had handed out more than a dozen. However, he knew that being an officer of the Nutmeg Bank was impressive in Deerford as long as those impressed weren’t aware of his actual salary.
“I have a matter of a confidential nature,” Cory said.
“Anything I can do to help.”
“We at Nutmeg are considering spinning off part of our Real Estate Department into a separate entity held by a holding company. We will subsequently float stock to the general public. We’d like to start small, with office space apart from our other banking facilities.”
“I would think you’d be interested in the Faber Building, next door. The bank already has three floors over there.”
“Exactly. Which is why we need something removed. Something in this vicinity. What we need is a small suite to begin with, with an option to take more space at a later date.”
“We have a suite on the seventh floor with twelve hundred square feet.”
“I’d like to look at it.”
The building manager went into the outer office, followed by Cory, and walked over to a pegboard containing racks of keys. He searched for a moment and then took a set of two keys off a center post. “I can show you the space now. It was just painted, but of course we will repaint to your order.”
Cory lifted the keys from the man’s hand. “I’ll just dash up there and back. Please consider this confidential.” That was imperative, he thought. If the Nutmeg Bank found he was using its influence … The man hesitated. “I’ll be back in a few minutes,” Cory insisted.
“I can lock the office and …”
Cory nonchalantly waved his hand. “Don’t bother. We can talk price when I return.”
The manager flicked Cory’s business card and then smiled. “Of course, Mr. Williams.”
He had to hurry.
He jabbed the elevator button impatiently. He must remember to put the keys back on the wrong post in the manager’s office when he returned them. It wouldn’t prevent them from using a master key to enter the vacant offices but might give him a little needed time at some point. He checked his watch: 4:04. He was on schedule. He wanted to return the keys as near five as possible, to preclude anyone else’s entering the office before eleven tomorrow.
The elevator arrived, and the doors swished open. He pressed the garage button. His car was parked underneath the building, and he opened the trunk. The rifle, with its mounted camera, was wrapped in a blanket. He field-stripped the weapon to separate the barrel from the trigger housing and stock. He inserted the barrel into a tubular container that had once contained a large survey map. The smaller pieces fit into his attaché case.
On the seventh floor he unlocked the door to the vacant offices and stepped inside. He closed the door and locked it. The rooms smelled of new paint.
A small closet in the corner of the suite was empty, and he placed the attaché case and tube containing the rifle parts in a far corner. He wedged the door as tightly shut as he could by inserting a coin in the door tracks.
The view from the windows was as he expected: the plaza, with its bubbling fountain, stretched toward the street where the motorcade would pass. It would be a simple shot at an estimated one hundred meters.
Tomorrow, the plaza would be filled with onlookers, and the motorcade would slow, as it always had, and he would snap the picture and end the damnable game.
By this time Thursday it would be over, and he would have collected the money from Lewis. Cory left the office, leaving it unlocked, and went back to the building manager’s suite.
The day Cory Williams intended to photograph the President of the United States dawned in a bright spring morning. It was the kind of day that made living in New England worthwhile. The past week’s foul weather had been pushed farther north, and the air-mass movement had temporarily cleared the city of haze that so often hung over Deerford.
He felt logy. The combination hot-cold shower helped some, but the previous night’s spasmodic sleep had taken its toll. He had tossed for an hour, tried to read, but found that he couldn’t concentrate. Two stiff nightcaps had only further jangled his nerves.
When he finally did sleep, the dreams had started. Faceless men chased him across tenement rooftops. Periodically, he would stop, turn toward them, and kneel to fire his rifle. His hands would be empty as his trigger finger moved in empty air, and he would turn to run on.
He decided to jog. He put on a sweat suit and Adidas running shoes and went down to the park across the street from the apartment building. The run helped. The synchronized movement of arms and legs, the perspiration and increase of heart and
breathing began to work poisons from his system.
As he jogged, he fell into a nearly mystical state, and his mind filled with clarity and insight. He did four miles and returned to the apartment for another shower.
He felt better until he began to think about it again. Christ! If they caught him in the building with a rifle … camera or not … Even with Norm’s explanations about the wager, there would be hours of questioning, the bank would be embarrassed, and he would be known as a certified nut.
It was too late. He was committed.
He dressed in his most conservative business suit, with white shirt and tie. He would carry a thin attaché case as a further cloak of anonymity. Cory examined himself in the mirror and was satisfied. The uniform he had just donned would dissolve him into a thousand other businessmen in downtown Deerford. His shoulders were too wide, and he was too tall to fall into the usual category of potential assassins, who all seemed to be diminutive bitter men. His jaw was too square, his facial features too jagged and deeply cut to be the face of an inept failure like Oswald or Sirhan. His was the countenance and manner of an up-and-coming banker … or gambler looking for the touch.
He drank a cup of instant coffee and then went to the garage to get the Corvette. As he sat in the darkened underground labyrinth, he thought about the schedule:
10:00—Airport. Presidential jet lands.
10:15—Motorcade forms and starts for Deerford.
10:40—Motorcade turns off highway into downtown area.
10:41—Limousine passes in front of Morrison and Faber buildings.
He looked at his watch. It was nine. Nearly two hours to go, and that was assuming the motorcade was on time. From past experience, he knew it wouldn’t be. There were always delays on presidential trips: a quick conference with a congressman, an impromptu speech at the airport … it would run late, but he had to be ready.
A covey of chattering secretaries stood in the hall on the seventh floor of the Morrison Building. Cory backtracked and reentered the elevator. He rode the elevator to the top of the building and back down again.
They were still there. He noticed that most of them held coffee cups or Styrofoam containers and were grouped around a tall redheaded woman in a tailored business suit.
My God! It was the Avon lady.
Returning to the elevator might tend to draw attention, so without further hesitation Cory entered a nearby office with the legend “Rice Insurance Agency” on the door. The receptionist’s desk was empty. She was probably one of the cluster in the hallway. An older woman seated in the rear of the room looked up.
“May I help you?”
Cory saw a new-model Xerox copier in a far corner. “Yes, I’m with AJAX Copy Company and I’d like to see Mr. Rice.”
“Mr. Rice is dead. Mr. Sweeney is the manager, but we just obtained a new copy machine. I’m sure he wouldn’t be interested.”
The receptionist returned and slid behind her desk and began to examine a lipstick in her hand. He could only assume that the Avon claque in the hall was breaking up. “Thanks anyway.” He stepped out of the Rice office. The group in the hall had dissipated, and the redhead with the sample case was standing by the elevator.
Cory opened the unlocked vacant office and stepped inside. He turned the button locking the door from the inside.
It was 9:32.
He walked to the window, taking care to keep several feet back from the glass in order to remain hidden in the shadows of the inner office. There were two men on the roof of the Faber Building. They carried binoculars and walkie-talkies. He stepped back from the window and moved quickly to the closet and the disassembled rifle. The tubular package and attaché case were exactly where he had placed them. He took the pieces of weapon from their containers and laid them gently on the floor.
At ten he began to cut a small hole in the corner of the window. Later, he assembled the rifle and began to wait.
He was never sure why he had brought the live rounds along. Their very possession placed him in further jeopardy, and perhaps that was the answer.
10:47. Where were they?
He kept pacing past the window. Why wouldn’t they come so he could get out of here?
10:50.
He saw a line of vehicles on the raised highway to the south, and then the motorcycle escort turned down the exit ramp. The crowds in the plaza below and on both sidewalks were heavy as the presidential limousine slowed as it approached.
Cory jammed the rifle sling over his elbow and braced the weapon. He stood a dozen feet back from the hole in the window and waited.
When the limousine pulled abreast of the waiting throngs and the television camera, it stopped. Onlookers burst past the police barricade and surrounded the car. The tall man in the rear of the limousine leaned over the sill and with both hands grasped the outstretched fingers of those surrounding the car.
The two men on the opposite roof were leaning over the parapet, concerned over what was occurring on the street below. Cory raised the rifle and pressed his eye against the reflex viewer of the camera. He made an adjustment to the viewer, and the President’s figure swam into clear view.
Christ, that was an easy shot! It was a clear field of fire over a distance of one hundred meters. The target was stationary, with little wind, and the sight picture was perfect. It would be nearly impossible to miss.
He squeezed the camera shutter. He did it again and a third and fourth time. He heard the nearly inaudible whirr of the camera.
He had the pictures. It was over. He had won.
He decided he would disassemble the rifle and leave it in the packages he had brought them in and retrieve them later.
Something was happening in the street and plaza.
There was now a great deal of new activity. Dismounted motorcycle police were desperately trying to push the crowd back behind the barricades and clear the way for the procession to proceed. They seemed more than zealous in their attempts, as many of the cops were swinging clubs and literally dragging men and women away from the car.
A hoard of uniformed patrolmen and civilian detectives with drawn handguns were pushing their way through the plaza and sidewalk toward the entrance of the nearby Faber Building.
It looked as if the security forces had been alerted to a possible attempt on the President’s life and were now storming the Faber Building.
As Cory’s eyes swept over the scene and past the Faber Building and toward the Winchester Building across the street, he caught a reflected glint. It was a small bright flash that quickly disappeared. It was a nearly subliminal warning, an unconscious feeling of something that shouldn’t be. He knew it was wrong, out of place.
Cory raised the rifle to his shoulder and used the view-finder. The barrel was nearly horizontal as he pointed it across the street at the other building. He peered through the lens and led the rifle across the rows of windows.
He saw him on the sixth floor.
A man with a rifle. A man whose weapon pointed directly toward the figure in the limousine. A man with a high-powered rifle aimed at the back of the President.
It was probably a protecting Secret Service agent.
As soon as Cory formulated the thought, he knew instantly that was not the case. The agents on the Faber roof and the men surrounding the President were turned away from the Winchester Building.
The man in the far window intended to shoot within seconds.
Cory fired without thought.
It was a reflexive action born of thousands of hours spent on firing ranges. Unconscious adjustments for his weapon and its camera, the piercing of window glass, distance, and distortion were made in a millisecond from years of practice and numberless rounds fired at targets.
He had only loaded one live round in the chamber, and the bolt stayed open after he fired. He fumbled in his pocket for the second shell and jammed it in the rifle and pushed down on the receiver.
The bolt clacked forward, cocking the weapon, and he fired a
gain. He felt himself rock back on his heels from the recoil.
The second shot hit the man across the way in the upper torso and knocked him violently away from the window as the rifle flew from his fingers and fell out of sight. Cory lowered his rifle.
It took a portion of a second for the new sound to register. He turned toward the rear wall to see plaster flake and pucker in small holes. The two men on the opposite roof were firing in his direction. The larger of the two held an AR-15 and was methodically squeezing off rounds while the other braced a handgun that fired toward Cory.
The man with the rifle was on semiautomatic, and the shots seemed to walk across the wall. In a second he might push the lever and turn to full automatic, and Cory knew he would be dead. He dropped the Garand and hurled himself sideways. His body hit the floor on his right shoulder, and he rolled away from the exposed windows.
The gunner on the roof had now changed to full automatic. Bullets ricocheted across the small office. The windows were completely shattered by a dozen rounds that poured into the small area.
Cory slithered across the floor, reached for the door handle, and rolled into the hallway.
AR-15 rounds were piercing the office walls into the hallway and embedding themselves in the corridor. Cory hunched over, ran for the elevators, and pushed all the buttons.
On the ground floor an army would be rushing into the building. He needed time. He had to remove himself from the area or some damn fool would shoot him before explanations could be made.
An elevator door opened, and he stepped inside and pushed the Close button and all the buttons for the floors above. He needed time to think and dust his clothes.
They would hit every door in the building. He had to assume that by now motorcycle cops had careened into the basement parking lot. Others would rush for the stairs and elevators, prepared to shoot their way into the vacant office he had occupied.
He stepped out when the elevator doors hissed open on the twelfth floor. The Arcadia Development Corporation was midway down the hall on the side of the building away from the street. It might work; he would give it a try. There was no way he was going to get out of this building without a “beard” to explain his presence.
Game Bet Page 4
