Not a Creature Was Stirring(78)

“John,” he said, “not this block coming up, but the one after that. Pull up to the curb in the middle and let me get out for a second.”

“Get out?”

“There’s something I want to see.”

Jackman looked at him like he’d just announced he was going to take LSD, but he slowed the car even further, and in the middle of the block in question pulled up to the pavement. Gregor got out, scanned the building numbers until he found 1227, and went up to its front door.

The front door was two mammoth pieces of plate glass, locked. Through it, Gregor could see the call board, rows of little steel buttons next to white-on-black company names arranged in alphabetical order. The first of those names, at the top of the list, was Aardvark Construction, Inc. The fifth was Federal Bureau of Investigation, Philadelphia Office.

Gregor stepped back. There was a call button on the outside of the building, so that people with late meetings could get far enough into the lobby to buzz up to whoever was waiting for them. Somewhere in the basement there was probably a janitor with access to a television security system. Gregor scanned the door frame and found the camera.

“Fine,” he said, to the snow falling on his head.

He went back to the car, stuck his head in Jackman’s window, and announced, “You can leave me here. I’ve got something I want to do.”

This time, Jackman looked sure Gregor needed a psychiatrist—but he went.





2


The man at the front desk was a stranger. Gregor had expected that. For one thing, he had been retired long enough for a new crop of recruits to go professional. Those recruits almost always ended up at front desks or on information lines for the first six months or so. For another thing, once he’d made it to the call board and announced himself, it had taken at least three minutes before he was buzzed through the inner doors. That meant the deskman hadn’t known his name. It also meant somebody else had.

That somebody else must have been impressed with him. The deskman nearly leapt to his feet when Gregor came into the office. Then he sat down again, reached for his intercom, and said,

“Mr. Demarkian? Mr. Flanagan will be out right away. Please. Why don’t you just sit down?”

Flanagan. Gregor smiled. He’d been sure there’d be someone he knew up here, even this late at night, but Jim Flanagan was a piece of very good luck. Flanagan had been at Behavioral Sciences for three years, and they’d gotten along. Gregor took off his coat, laid it across one chair, and sat down in another. He felt a little guilty about being so amused. The deskman meant well. He was just too wet behind the ears to realize there was no need to be this formal after normal business hours.

Seconds later, the inner door opened and Jim Flanagan stuck his head out. His face was mottled and mournful. His hair was still bright, electric red. His eyes were a deep, clear blue. He looked so much like the stereotypical Irishman, he could have been invented by a turn-of-the-century anti-Papist.

“Gregor,” he said. “It is you. I thought I was hearing things.”

“I still think I’m seeing things,” Gregor said. “Can’t you afford to get someone in here to paint?”

“No,” Flanagan said. “Dope.”

“Dope?” Gregor said. “Not Miller?”

“I don’t even want to think about Miller,” Flanagan said. “Go in the back there and say Miller, four men will probably try to kill you.”

“Just four?”

“Four is all we’ve got, besides me and Steve here.” Flanagan stepped back. “Come into my office and have some coffee. I’m supposed to be working out the details of a coordinated drug bust. I’m bored stiff.”

Gregor knew all about being bored stiff. He also knew Flanagan’s work wouldn’t suffer for it. He gathered up his coat and followed Flanagan through the inner door.





3


Flanagan’s office was a cubbyhole oversupplied with paper, file cabinets, and manila folders. It had been painted even less recently than the outer office and in a shade of particularly unattractive green. The only indication that Flanagan was head man here was on the door. There was a placard screwed into that, with Flanagan’s name on it in letters the size of a National Enquirer headline.

Flanagan cleared off a chair, reminding Gregor of Tibor that first day in the church. Then he dropped into the chair behind the desk and shoved a Pyrex pot of primal ooze onto the hot plate on the shelf behind him.

“So,” he said, “what brings you here? If you’ve just dropped in for a talk, I won’t mind. I’d do just about anything not to have to think about timetables any more.”