LITMIR.BIZ

      CHAPTER 1

      There was this staircase at the rear of the building, a theater, seldom used now for theatrical performances. Above the stage and auditorium level were half a dozen floors of office space.

      As one of a contingent of special security officers hired for the evening, I was checking out a segment of the building. Apparently, everyone had left. When we completed our inspection, making sure nobody had got lost or was loitering, we would close the building and go home—a simple, familiar routine in which I had participated many times; a quick fifty dollars for five hours’ work, no sweat. I wore a gun, but over the years, through twenty or thirty similar assignments, I had drawn it only once, and that time I had been unduly nervous; there had been no real call to draw it.

      Tonight had been no exception. The auditorium had been hired for a public meeting by a political organization. The speaker, a Congressman from an Eastern state, had expressed controversial views and some of his following was fringe and fanatical; but aside from a clutch of somnambulistic pickets bearing hand-lettered signs, an occasional derisive shout and a minor accident involving a ten-year-old boy who got his pants caught on a nail and lost the entire seat before we pulled him free, there had been no problems.

      I passed the stage at its left and checked the stage door, a high, heavy door that opened on a receiving ramp at one side of the building. It was locked and bolted and a dull red light burned above it. Another officer was checking the stage itself. I could hear his footsteps thudding, receding. Beyond the stage, a broad passage led rearward, lined with dressing rooms, all dark now. I switched on a light in each one, checked it out, closed each door, working my way along the wide corridor.

      The corridor ended at a double swinging door with a square window at eye level in either panel and a red exit sign glowing above it. Beyond the door was another exit, serving the floors above the theater. There was an elevator on the inside wall, then a flight of steps with an iron railing outside and a concrete wall inside. We had no responsibility for the upper levels; the office building had its own night watchman. But the door at the end of the corridor gave access on that service area and I looked through one of the windows to see what I could see.

      I saw a man in a trench coat and soft hat, standing with a young woman at the foot of the stairs. The girl wore a full-length fur coat and her head was bare. She was a natural blond and her hair formed a thick roll across her shoulders, blending into the darker fur of her collar. Her two white-gloved hands gripped the stair railing. Her name was Patricia Farnum. She was the Congressman’s daughter and her companion was her personal bodyguard, a man named Joe Flannery. We had met briefly when I had come on duty. Then I had seen no more of them, because Flannery had nothing to do with our assignment and we had nothing to do with the young lady. I was surprised to see them still in the building—Congressman Farnum had been gone for at least half an hour.

      They were in what seemed to be argumentative conversation. I could see their mouths moving, but couldn’t hear any words, nor even the sounds of their voices. The double door, purposely or not, was soundproof. I waited, uncertain, giving them time to finish, return, disappear—whatever they had in mind. They were not my problem. But the building was my problem, and sooner or later I would have to ask them to leave.

      Where the girl stood, a ramp sloped down to the rear exit, which gave on an alley. The diffused red glow of the exit light played tricks with the girl’s blond hair. She shook her head vigorously, her face strained. The man in the trench coat leaned close, speaking, and she shook her head again. He shrugged. Suddenly he stiffened, his head turned and he looked up the stairs, as if he had heard a sound. The girl looked up too. Flannery said something and started up the steps. He went up quickly, light on his feet. Eight or nine steps would raise him to the first landing, where the stairs switched back and disappeared. The girl, still gripping the railing, turned her face upward, watching.

      He made the landing on the balls of his feet and turned with his back to the rail that protected the landing. I saw him go rigid, his hands lift, palms out, his face twist. I heard a faint slapping sound and saw that he was hit. Another slap and he was hit again, this time in the head. His head snapped back as he fell along the rail and rolled awkwardly down the steps.

      The door bolt jammed and I swore, banging at it with my left hand, thrusting with my shoulder, sucking my gun out with my right hand, pushing into the service area. I had that deadly, snakelike tension between my shoulder blades, rising hot in my neck. My total concern was the Congressman’s daughter. She stood near the rail with both hands over her face. She hadn’t made a sound that I had heard.

      Flannery had rolled to the bottom of the steps and lay with his face up, his arms outflung. There was a large hole in his forehead and blood on his face and shirt. He didn’t move. He was dead.

      I glanced back once, wishing for help. As I reached toward the girl, I cocked my ear, straining, but could hear nothing overhead. I tugged at the girl’s coat sleeve and she took her hands down and looked at me.

      “Go back inside,” I said, jerking my head toward the stage. “Call for someone—there’s someone on the stage—”

      She just stared at me. I gave her a strong tug.

      “Please, miss—”

      Her head turned away and she pulled her sleeve free.

      “No,” she

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