Hot tears welled again, just as he was ready to march into the building and do the deed, and so he walked back and forth, blotting his eyes on the sleeves of his sweater. A security guard was likely to be posted in the lobby. Skeet realized that a gaunt, gray-faced man in clothes two sizes too large for him, sobbing his eyes out, was likely to arouse suspicion.
One row in front of where Skeet had parked the Lexus and a few spaces to the north, a woman got out of a white Rolls-Royce and stood beside it, staring openly at him. His eyes were now dry enough to allow him to see that she was a nice-looking blond lady, very neat, in a pink knit suit, obviously a successful person and good citizen. She didn’t appear to be the rude type who would stand and stare at a perfect stranger, so he figured he must look as suspicious as if he were wearing bandoliers of ammunition and openly carrying an assault rifle.
If this lady in the pink suit found him alarming, the security guard would probably spray him with Mace, shock him with a Taser, and club him to the floor the moment he walked through the door into the lobby. He was going to screw up again.
He couldn’t bear the thought of failing Dusty and Martie, the only people who had ever loved him, really loved him, in his entire life. If he couldn’t do this for them, he might as well pull the gun out from under his sweater and shoot himself in the head right now.
He was no more capable of suicide than he was capable of theft. Well, except for jumping off the Sorensons’ roof on Tuesday. From what he understood, however, that might not have been his own idea.
Under the scrutiny of the lady in pink, pretending not to notice her, trying to appear far too happy and too pleased with life to be a crazed gunman, whistling “What a Wonderful World,” because it was the first thing that came to his mind, he crossed the parking lot to the office building and went inside, never looking back.
The doctor was not accustomed to having his schedule imposed by others, and he grew increasingly annoyed with the Keanuphobe for not calling sooner rather than later. He had no doubt she would respond to the evil-computer fantasy he had provided to her; her obsession allowed no other course of action. Apparently, however, the twit was without a shred of courtesy, without appreciation for the value of other people’s time: the typical nouveau riche clod.
Unable to concentrate on writing but unable to leave his office and go play, he contented himself with making haiku out of the humble material before him.
My little blue bag. My Beretta, seven rounds. Should I shoot the shit? That was ghastly. Seventeen syllables, yes, and technically adequate in every regard. Nonetheless, he had never seen a better example of why technical adequacy was not the explanation for William Shakespeare's immortality.
My gun, seven shots. My little Keanuphobe. Kill, kill, kill, kill, kill. Equally ghastly but more satisfying.
The security guard, twice Skeet’s size and wearing clothes that fit him, sat behind the counter at the information station. He was reading a book, and he never glanced up.
Skeet checked the directory to locate Ahriman’s office, went to the elevators, pressed the call button, and stared straight ahead at the doors. He figured that the guard, a highly trained professional, would immediately sense anyone staring worriedly at him.
One of the elevators arrived swiftly. Three birdlike elderly women and three tall handsome Sikhs in turbans exited the cab; the two groups headed in different directions.
Already stressed out and fearful, Skeet was rattled by the sight of the old ladies and the Sikhs. As he had learned from Fig during the previous thirty-six hours, the numbers three and six were somehow key to understanding why extraterrestrials were secretly on Earth, and here was three twice and six once. Not a good omen.
Two people followed Skeet onto the elevator. A United Parcel Service deliveryman wheeled in a hand truck on which were stacked three boxes. Behind him came the woman in the pink suit.
Skeet had pushed the button for the fourteenth floor. The UPS man tapped the button for the ninth floor. The lady in pink didn’t press anything.
Entering the building, Dusty at once spotted Skeet getting into an elevator at the farther end of the lobby. Martie saw him, too.
He wanted to shout at his brother, but a guard sat nearby, and the last thing they needed was to attract the attention of building security.
They hurried without running. The cab doors slid shut before they were halfway across the lobby.
None of the other three elevators was at the ground floor. Two were ascending, two descending. Of the two headed down, the nearest was at the fifth floor.
“Stairs?” Martie asked.
“Fourteen floors. No.” He pointed to the indicator board, as the elevator on the fifth floor moved down to the fourth. “This'll be faster.”
The deliveryman got off at the ninth floor, and when the doors slid shut, the lady in pink pushed the