THE LEDGE

'Go on,' Cressner said again. 'Look in the bag.'

We were in his penthouse apartment, forty-three stories up. The carpet was
deep-cut pile, burnt orange. In the middle, between the Basque sling chair
where Cressner sat and the genuine leather couch where no one at all sat,
there was a brown shopping bag.

'If it's a payoff, forget it,' I said. 'I love her.'

'It's money, but it's not a payoff. Go on. Look.' Re was smoking a Turkish
cigarette in an onyx holder. The air-circulation system allowed me just a
dry whiff of the tobacco and then whipped it away. He was wearing a silk
dressing gown on which a dragon was embroidered. His eyes were calm and
intelligent behind his glasses. He looked just like what he was: an
A-number-one, 500 carat, dyed-in-the-wool son of a bitch. I loved his wife,
and she loved me. I had expected him to make trouble, and I knew this was
it, but I just wasn't sure what brand it was.

I went to the shopping bag and tipped it over. Banded bundles of currency
tumbled out on the rug. All twenties. I picked one of the bundles up and
counted. Ten bills to a bundle. There were a lot of bundles.

'Twenty thousand dollars,' he said, and puffed on his cigarette.

I stood up. 'Okay.'

'It's for you.'

'I don't want it.'

'My wife comes with it.'

I didn't say anything. Marcia had warned me how, it would be. He's like a
cat, she had said. An old tom full of meanness. He'll try to make you a
mouse.

'So you're a tennis pro,' he said. 'I don't believe I've ever actually seen
one before.'

'You mean your detectives didn't get any pictures?'

'Oh, yes.' He waved the cigarette holder negligently. 'Even a motion picture
of the two of you in that Bayside Motel. A camera was behind the mirror. But
pictures are hardly the same, are they?'

'If you say so.'

He'll keep changing tacks, Marcia had said. It's the way he puts people on
the defensive. Pretty soon he'll have you hitting out at where you think
he's going to be, and he'll get you someplace else. Say as little as
possible, Stan. And remember that I love you.

'I invited you up because I thought we should have a little man-to-man chat,
Mr Norris. Just a pleasant conversation between two civilized human beings,
one of whom has made off with the other's wife.'

I started to answer but decided not to.

'Did you enjoy San Quentin?' Cressner said, puffing lazily.

'Not particularly.'

'I believe you passed three years there. A charge of breaking and entering,
if I'm correct.'

'Marcia knows about it,' I said, and immediately wished I hadn't. I was
playing his game, just what Marcia had warned against. Hitting soft lobs for
him to smash back.

'I've taken the liberty of having your car moved,' he said, glancing out the
window at the far end of the room. It really wasn't a window at all: the
whole wall was glass. In the middle was a sliding-glass door. Beyond it, a
balcony the size of a postage stamp. Beyond that, a very long drop. There
was something strange about the door. I couldn't quite put my finger on it.

'This is a very pleasant building,' Cressner said. 'Good security.
Closed-circuit TV and all that. When I knew you were in the lobby, I made a
telephone call. An employee then hot-wired the ignition of your car and
moved it from the parking area here to a public lot several blocks away.' He
glanced up at the modernistic sunburst clock above the couch. It was 8.05.
'At 8.20 the same employee will call the police from a public phone booth
concerning your car. By 8.30, at the latest, the minions of the law will
have discovered over six ounces of heroin hidden in the spare tyre of your
trunk. You will be eagerly sought after, Mr Norris.'

He had set me up. I had tried to cover myself as well as I could, but in the
end I had been child's play for him.

'These things will happen unless I call my employee and tell him to forget
the phone call.'

'And all I have to do is tell you where Marcia is,' I said. 'No deal,
Cressner, I don't know. We set it up this way just for you.'

'My men had her followed.'

'I don't think so I think we lost them at the airport.'

Cressner sighed, removed the smouldering cigarette holder, and dropped it
into a chromium ashtray with a sliding lid. No fuss, no muss. The used
cigarette and Stan Norris had been taken care of with equal ease.

'Actually,' he said, 'you're right. The old ladies-room vanishing act. My
operatives were extremely vexed to have been taken in by such an ancient
ruse. I think it was so old they never expected it.'

I said nothing. After Marcia had ditched Cressner's operatives at the
airport, she had taken the bus shuttle back to the city and then to the bus
station; that had been the plan. She had two hundred dollars, all the money
that had been in ~ny savings account. Two hundred dollars and a Greyhound
bus could take you anyplace in the country.

'Are you always to uncommunicative?' Cressner asked, and he sounded
genuinely interested.

'Marcia advised it.'

A little more sharply, he said: 'Then I imagine you'll stand on your rights
when the police take you in. And the next time you see my wife could be when
she's a little old grandmother in a rocker. Have you gotten that through
your head? I understand that possession of six ounces of heroin could get
you forty years.'

'That won't get you Marcia back.'

He smiled thinly. 'And that's the nub of it, isn't it? Shall I review where
we are? You and my wife have fallen in love. You have had an affair. . . if
you want to call a series of one-nighters in cheap motels an affair. My wife
has left me. However, I have you. And you are in what is called a bind. Does
that summarize it adequately?'

'I can understand why she got tired of you,' I said.

To my surprise, he threw back his head and laughed. 'You know, I rather like
you, Mr Norris. You're vulgar and you're a piker, but you seem to have
heart. Marcia said you did. I rather doubted it. Her judgement of character
is lax. But you do have a certain. . . verve. Which is why I've set things
up the way I have. No doubt Marcia has told you that lam fond of wagering.'

'Yes.' Now I knew what was wrong with the door in the middle of the glass
wall. It was the middle of winter, and no one was going to want to take tea
on a balcony forty-three stories up. The balcony had been cleared of
furniture. And the screen had been taken off the door. Now why would
Cressner have done that?

'I don't like my wife very much,' Cressner said, fixing another cigarette
carefully in the holder. 'That's no secret. I'm sure she's told you as much.
And I'm sure a man of your experience knows that contented wives do not jump
into the hay with the local tennis-club pro at the drop of a racket. In my
opinion, Marcia is a prissy, whey-faced little prude, a whiner, a weeper, a
bearer of tales, a -'That's about enough,' I said.

He smiled coldly. 'I beg your pardon. I keep forgetting we are discussing
our beloved. It's 8.16. Are you nervous?'

I shrugged.

'Tough to the end,' he said, and lit his cigarette. 'At any rate, you may
wonder why, if I dislike Marcia so much, I do not simply give her her
freedom -'

'No, I don't wonder at all.'

He frowned at me.

'You're a selfish, grasping, egocentric son of a bitch. That's why. No one
takes what's yours. Not even if you don't want it any more.

He went red and then laughed. 'One for you, Mr Norris. Very good.'

I shrugged again.

'I'm going to offer you a wager. If you win, you leave here with the money,
the woman, and your freedom. On the other hand, if you lose, you lose your
life.'

I looked at the clock. I couldn't help it. It was 8.19.

'All right,' I said. What else? It would buy time, at least. Time for me to
think of some way to beat it out of here, with or without the money.

Cressner picked up the telephone beside him and dialled a number.

'Tony? Plan two. Yes.' He hung up.

'What's plan two?' I asked.

'I'll call Tony back in fifteen minutes, and he will remove the. . .
offending substance from the trunk of your car and drive it back here. If I
don't call, he will get in touch with the police.'

'Not very trusting, are you?'

'Be sensible, Mr Norris. There is twenty thousand dollars on the carpet
between us. In this city murder has been committed for twenty cents.'

'What's the bet?'

He looked genuinely pained. 'Wager, Mr Norris, wager. Gentlemen make wagers.
Vulgarians place bets.'

'Whatever you say.'

'Excellent. I've seen you looking at my balcony.'

'The screen's off the door.'

'Yes. I had it taken off this afternoon. What I propose is this: that you
walk around my building on the ledge that juts out just below the penthouse
level. If you circumnavigate the building successfully, the jackpot is
yours.'

'You're crazy.'

'On the contrary. I have proposed this wager six times to six different
people during my dozen years in this apartment. Three of the six were
professional athletes, like you-one of them a notorious quarterback more
famous for his TV Commercials than his passing game, one a baseball player,
one a rather famous jockey who made an extraordinary yearly salary and who
was also afflicted with extraordinary alimony problems. The other three were
more ordinary citizens who had differing professions but two things in
common: a need for money and a certain degree of body grace.' He puffed his
cigarette thoughtfully and then continued. 'The wager was declined five
times out of hand. On the other occasion, it was accepted. The terms were
twenty thousand dollars against six months' service to me. I collected. The
fellow took one look over the edge of the balcony and nearly fainted.'
Cressner looked amused and contemptuous. 'He said everything down there
looked so small. That was what killed his nerve.'

'What makes you think -'

He cut me off with an annoyed wave of his hand. 'Don't bore me, Mr Norris. I
think you will do it because you have no choice. It's my wager on the one
hand or forty years in San Quentin on the other. The money and my wife are
only added fillips, indicative of my good nature.'

'What guarantee do I have that you won't double-cross me? Maybe I'd do it
and find out you'd called Tony and told him to go ahead anyway.'

He sighed. 'You are a walking case of paranoia, Mr Norris. I don't love my
wife. It is doing my storied ego no good at all to have her around. Twenty
thousand dollars is a pittance to me. I pay four times that every week to be
given to police bagmen. As for the wager, however . . .' His

I thought about it, and he left me. I suppose he knew that the real mark
always convinces himself. I was a thirty-six-year-old tennis bum, and the
club had been thinking of letting me go when Marcia applied a little gentle
pressure. Tennis was the only profession I knew, and without it, even
getting a job as a janitor would be tough - especially with a record. It was
kid stuff, but employers don't care.

And the funny thing was that I really loved Maria Cressner. I had fallen for
her after two nine-o'clock tennis lessons, and she had fallen for me just as
hard. It was a case of Stan Norris luck, all right. After thirty-six years
of happy bachelorhood, I had fallen like a sack of mail for the wife of an
Organization overlord.

The old tom sitting there and puffing his imported Turkish cigarette knew
all that, of course. And something else, as well. I had no guarantee that he
wouldn't turn me in if I accepted his wager and won, but I knew damn well
that I'd be in the cooler by ten o'clock if I didn't. And the next time I'd
be free would be at the turn of the century.

'I want to know one thing,' I said.

'What might that be, Mr Norris?'

'Look me right in the face and tell me if you're a welsher or not.'

He looked at me directly. 'Mr Norris,' he said quietly, 'I never welsh.'

'All right,' I said. What other choice was there?

He stood up, beaming. 'Excellent! Really excellent! Approach the door to the
balcony with me, Mr Norris.'

We walked over together. His face was that of a man who had dreamed this
scene hundreds of times and was enjoying its actuality to the fullest.

'The ledge is five inches wide,' he said dreamily. 'I've measured it myself.
In fact, I've stood on it, holding on to the balcony, of course. All you
have to do is lower yourself over the wrought-iron railing. You'll be
chest-high. But, of course, beyond the railing there are no handgrips.
You'll have to inch your way along, being very careful not to overbalance.'

My eye had fastened on something else outside the window . . . something
that made my blood temperature sink several degrees. It was a wind gauge.
Cressner's apartment was quite close to the lake, and it was high enough so
there were no higher buildings to act as a windbreak. That wind would be
cold, and it would cut like a knife. The needle was standing at ten pretty
steadily, but a gust would send the needle almost up to twenty-five for a
few seconds before dropping off.

'Ah, I see you've noticed my wind gauge,' Cressner said jovially. 'Actually,
it's the other side which gets the prevailing wind; so the breeze may be a
little stronger on that side. But actually this is a fairly still night.
I've seen evenings when the wind has gusted up to eighty-five . . . you can
actually feel the building rock a little. A bit like being on a ship, in the
crow's nest. And it's quite mild for this time of year.'

He pointed, and I saw the lighted numerals atop a bank skyscraper to the
left. They said it was forty-four degrees. But with the wind, that would
have made the chill factor somewhere in the mid-twenties.

'Have you got a coat?' I asked. I was wearing a light jacket.

'Alas, no.' The lighted figures on the bank switched to show the time. It
was 8.32. 'And I think you had better get started, Mr Norris, so I can call
Tony and put plan three into effect. A good boy but apt to be impulsive. You
understand.'

I understood all right. Too damn well.

But the thought of being with Marcia, free from Cressner's tentacles and
with enough money to get started at something made me push open the
sliding-glass door and step out on to the balcony. It was cold and damp; the
wind ruffled my hair into my eyes.

'Bon soir,' Cressner said behind me, but I didn't bother to look back. I
approached the railing, but I didn't look down. Not yet. I began to do
deep-breathing.

It's not really an exercise at all but a form of self-hypnosis. With every
inhale-exhale, you ~row a distraction out of your mind, until there's
nothing left but the match ahead of you. I got rid of the money with one
breath and Cressner himself with two. Marcia took longer - her face kept
rising in my mind, telling me not to be stupid, not to play his game, that
maybe Cressner never welshed, but he always hedged his bets. I didn't
listen. I couldn't afford to. If I lost this match, I wouldn't have to buy
the beers and take the ribbing; I'd be so much scarlet sludge splattered for
a block of Deakman Street in both directions.

When I thought I had it, I looked down.

The building sloped away like a smooth chalk cliff to the street far below.
The cars parked there looked like those matchbox models you can buy in the
five-and-dime. The ones driving by the building were just tiny pinpoints of
light. If you fell that far, you would have plenty of time to realize just
what was happening, to see the wind blowing your clothes as the earth pulled
you back faster and faster. You'd have time to scream a long, long scream.
And the sound you'made when you hit the pavement would be like the sound of
an overripe watermelon.

I could understand why that other guy had chickened out. But he'd only had
six months to worry about. I was staring forty long, grey, Marcia4ess years
in the eye.

I looked at the ledge. It looked small, I had never, seen five inches that
looked so much like two. At least the building was fairly new; it wouldn't
crumble under me.

I hoped.

I swung over the railing and carefully lowered myself until I was standing
on the ledge. My heels were out over the drop. The floor on the balcony was
about chest-high, and I was looking into Cressner's penthouse through the
wrought-iron ornamental bars. He was standing inside the door, smoking,
watching me the way a scientist watches a guinea pig to see what the latest
injection will do.

'Call,' I said, holding on to the railing.

'What?'

'Call Tony. I don't move until you do.'

He went back into the living room - it looked amazingly warm and safe and
cosy - and picked up the phone. It was a worthless gesture, really. With the
wind, I couldn't hear what he was saying. He put the phone down and
returned. 'Taken care of, Mr Norris.'

'It better be.'

'Goodbye, Mr Norris. I'll see you in a bit. . . perhaps.'

It was time to do it. Talking was done. I let myself think of Marcia one
last time, her light-brown hair, her wide grey eyes, her lovely body, and
then put her out of my mind for good. No more looking down, either. It would
have been too easy to get paralysed, looking down through that space. Too
easy to just freeze up until you lost your balance or just fainted from
fear. It was time for tunnel vision. Time to concentrate on nothing but left
foot, right foot.

I began to move to the right, holding on to the balcony's railing as long as
I could. It didn't take long to see I was going to need all the tennis
muscle my ankles had. With my heels beyond the edge, those tendons would be
taking all my weight.

I got to the end of the balcony, and for a moment I didn't think I was going
to be able to let go of that safety. I forced myself to do it. Five inches,
hell, that was plenty of room. If the ledge were only a foot off the ground
instead of 400 feet, you could breeze around this building in four minutes
flat, I told myself. So just pretend it is.

Yeah, and if you fall 'from a ledge a foot off the ground, you just say
rats, and try again. Up here you get only one chance.

I slid my right foot further and then brought my left foot next to it. I let
go of the railing. I put my open hands up, allowing the palms to rest
against the rough stone of the apartment building. I caressed the stone. I
could have kissed it.

A gust of wind hit me, snapping the collar of my jacket against my face,
making my body sway op the ledge. My heart jumped into my throat and stayed
there until the wind had died down. A strong enough gust would have peeled
me right off my perch and sent me flying down into the night. And the wind
would be stronger on the other side.

I turned my head to the left, pressing my cheek against the stone. Cressner
was leaning over the balcony, watching me.

'Enjoying yourself?' he asked affably.

He was wearing a brown camel's-hair overcoat.

'I thought you didn't have a coat,' I said.

'I lied,' he answered equably. 'I lie about a lot of things.'

'What's that supposed to mean?'

'Nothing . . . nothing at all. Or perhaps it does mean something. A little
psychological warfare, eh, Mr Norris? I should tell you not to linger
overlong. The ankles grow tired, and if they should give way . . .' He took
an apple out of his pocket, bit into it, and then tossed it over the edge.
There was no sound for a long time. Then, a faint and sickening plop.
Cressner chuckled.

He had broken my concentration, and I could feel panic nibbling at the edges
of my mind with steel teeth. A torrent of terror wanted to rush in and drown
me. I turned my head away from him and did deep-breathing, flushing the
panic away. I was looking at the lighted bank sign, which now said: 8.46,
Time to Save at Mutual!

By the time the lighted numbers read 8.49, I felt that I had myself under
control again. I think Cressner must have decided I'd frozen, and I heard a
sardonic patter of applause when I began to shuffle towards the corner of
the building again.

I began to feel the cold. The lake had whetted the edge of the wind; its
clammy dampness bit at my skin like an auger. My thin jacket billowed out
behind me as I shuffled along. I moved slowly, cold or not. If I was going
to do this, I would have to do it slowly and deliberately. If I rushed, I
would fall.

The bank clock read 8.52 when I reached the corner. It didn't appear to be a
problem - the ledge went right around, making a square corner - but my right
hand told me that there was a crosswind. If I got caught leaning the wrong
way, I would take a long ride very quickly.

I waited for the wind to drop, but for a long time it refused to, almost as
though it were Cressner's willing ally. It slapped against me with vicious,
invisible fingers, praying and poking and tickling. At last, after a
particularly strong gust had made me rock on my toes, I knew that I could
wait for ever and the wind would never drop all the way off.

So the next time it sank a little, I slipped my right foot around and,
clutching both walls with my hands, made the turn. The crosswind pushed me
two ways at once, and I tottered. For a second I was sickeningly sure that
Cressner had won his wager. Then I slid a step further along and pressed
myself tightly against the wall, a held breath slipping out of my dry
throat.

That was when the raspberry went off, almost in my ear.

Startled, I jerked back to the very edge of balance. My hands lost the wall
and pinwheeled crazily for balance. I think that if one of them had hit the
stone face of the building, I would have been gone. But after what seemed an
eternity, gravity decided to let me return to the wall instead of sending
down to the pavement forty-three stories below.

My breath sobbed out of my lungs in a pained whistle. My legs were rubbery.
The tendons in my ankles were humming like high-voltage wires. I had never
felt so mortal. The man with the sickle was close enough to read over my
shoulder.

I twisted my neck, looked up, and there was Cressner, leaning out of his
bedroom window four feet above me. He was smiling, in his right hand he held
a New Year's Eve noisemaker.

'Just keeping you on your toes,' he said.

I didn't waste my breath. I couldn't have spoken above a croak anyway. My
heart was thudding crazily in my chest. I sidled five or six feet along,
just in case he was thinking about leaning out and giving me a good shove.
Then I stopped and closed my eyes and deep-breathed until I had my act back
together again.

I was on the short side of the building now. On my right only the highest
towers of the city bulked above me. On the left, only the dark circle of the
lake, with a few pinpricks of light which floated on it. The wind whooped
and moaned.

The crosswind at the second corner was not so tricky, and I made it around
with no trouble. And then something bit me.

I gasped and jerked. The shift of balance scared me, and I pressed tightly
against the building. I was bitten again. No not bitten but pecked. I looked
down.

There was a pigeon standing on the ledge, looking up with bright, hateful
eyes.

You get used to pigeons in the city; they're as common as cab drivers who
can't change a ten. They don't like to fly, and they give ground grudgingly,
as if the sidewalks were theirs by squatters' rights. Oh, yes, and you're
apt to find their calling cards on the hood of your car. But you never take
much notice. They may be occasionally irritating, but they're interlopers in
our world.

But I was in his, and I was nearly helpless, and he seemed to know it. He
pecked my tired right ankle again, sending a bright dart of pain up my leg.

'Get,' I snarled at it. 'Get out.'

The pigeon only pecked me again. I was obviously in what he regarded as his
home; this section of the ledge was covered with droppings, old and new.

A muted cheeping from above.

I cricked my neck as far back as it would go and looked up. A beak darted at
my face, and I almost recoiled. If I had, I might have become the city's
first pigeon-induced casualty. It was Mama Pigeon, protecting a bunch of
baby pigeons just under the slight overhang of the roof. Too far up to peck
my head, thank God.

Her husband pecked me again, and now blood was flowing. I could feel it. I
began to inch my way along again, hoping to scare the pigeon off the ledge.
No way. Pigeons don't scare, not city pigeons, anyway. If a moving van only
makes them amble a little faster, a man pinned on a high ledge isn't going
to upset them at all.

The pigeon backpedalled as I shuffled forward, his bright eyes never leaving
my face except when the sharp beak dipped to peck my ankle. And the pain was
getting more intense now; the bird was pecking at raw flesh . . . and eating
it, for all I knew.

I kicked at it with my right foot. It was a weak kick, the only kind I could
afford. The pigeon only fluttered its wings a bit and then returned to the
attack. I, on the other hand, almost went off the side.

The pigeon pecked me again, again, again. A cold blast of wind struck me,
rocking me to the limit of balance; pads of my fingers scraped at the bland
stone, and I came to rest with my left cheek pressed against the wall,
breathing heavily.

Cressner couldn't have conceived of worse torture if he had planned it for
ten years. One peck was not so bad. Two or three were little more. But that
damned bird must have pecked me sixty times before I reached the
wrought-iron railing of the penthouse opposite Cressner's.

Reaching that railing was like reaching the gates of heaven. My hands curled
sweetly around the cold uprights and held on as if they would never let go.

Peck.

The pigeon was staring up at me almost smugly with its bright eyes,
confident of my impotence and its own invulnerability. I was reminded of
Cressner's expression when he had ushered me out on to the balcony on the
other side of the building.

Gripping the iron bars more tightly, I lashed out with a hard, strong kick
and caught the pigeon squarely. It emitted a wholly satisfying squawk and
rose into the air, wings flapping. A few feathers, dove grey, settled back
to the ledge or disappeared slowly down into the darkness, swan-boating back
and forth in the air.

Gasping, I crawled up on to the balcony and collapsed there. Despite the
cold, my body was dripping with sweat. I don't know how long I lay there,
recuperating. The building hid the bank clock, and I don't wear a watch.

I sat up before my muscles could stiffen up on me and gingerly rolled down
my sock. The right ankle was lacerated and bleeding, but the wound looked
superficial. Still, I would have to have it taken care of, if I ever got out
of this. God know what germs pigeons carry around. I thought of bandaging
the raw skin but decided not to. I might stumble on a tied bandage. Time
enough later. Then I could buy twenty thousand dollars' worth of bandages.

I got up and looked longingly into the darkened pent-house opposite
Cressner's. Barren, empty, unlived in. The heavy storm screen was over this
door. I might have been able to break in, but that would have been
forfeiting the bet. And I had more to lose than money.

When I could put it off no longer, I slipped over the railing and back on to
the ledge. The pigeon, a few feathers worse for wear, was standing below his
mate's nest, where the guano was thickest, eyeing me balefully. But I didn't
think he'd bother me, not when he saw I was moving away.

It was very hard to move away - much harder than it had been to leave
Cressner's balcony. My mind knew I had to, but my body, particularly my
ankles, was screaming that it would be folly to leave such a safe harbour.
But I did leave, with Marcia's face in the darkness urging me on.

I got to the second short side, made it around the corner, and shuffled
slowly across the width of the building. Now that I was getting close, there
was an almost ungovernable urge to hurry, to get it over with. But if I
hurried, I would die. So I forced myself to go slowly.

The crosswind almost got me again on the fourth corner, and I slipped around
it thanks to luck rather than skill. I rested against the building, getting
my breath back. But for the first time I knew that I was going to make it,
that I was going to win. My hands felt like half4rozen steaks, my ankles
hurt like fire (especially the pigeon-pecked right ankle), sweat kept
trickling in my eyes, but I knew I was going to make it. Halfway down the
length of the building, warm yellow light spilled out on Cressner's balcony.
Far beyond I could see the bank sign glowing like a welcome-home banner. It
was 10.48, but it seemed that I had spent my whole life on those five inches
of ledge.

And God help Cressner if he tried to welsh. The urge to hurry was gone. I
almost lingered. It was 11.09 when I put first my right hand on the
wrought-iron balcony railing and then my left. I hauled myself up, wriggled
over the top, collapsed thankfully on the floor. . . and felt the cold steel
muzzle of a .45 against my temple.

I looked up and saw a goon ugly enough to stop Big Ben dead in its
clockwork. He was grinning.

'Excellent!' Cressner's voice said from within. 'I applaud you, Mr Norris!'
He proceeded to do just that. 'Bring him in, Tony.'

Tony hauled me up and set me on my feet so abruptly that my weak ankles
almost buckled. Going in, I staggered against the balcony door.

Cressner was standing by the living-room fireplace, sipping brandy from a
goblet the size of a fish-bowl. The money had been replaced in the shopping
bag. It still stood in the middle of the burnt-orange rug.

I caught a glimpse of myself in a small mirror on the other side of the
room. The hair was dishevelled, the face pallid except for two bright spots
of colour on the cheeks. The eyes looked insane.

I got only a glimpse, because the next moment I was flying across the room.
I hit the Basque chair and fell over it, pulling it down on top of me and
losing my wind.

When I got some of it back, I sat up and managed: 'You lousy welsher. You
had this planned.'

'Indeed I did,' Cressner said, carefully setting his brandy on the mantel.
'But I'm not a welsher, Mr Norris. Indeed no. Just an extremely poor loser.
Tony is here only to make sure you don't do anything . . . ill-advised.' He
put his fingers under his chin and tittered a little. He didn't look like a
poor loser. He looked more like a cat with canary feathers on its muzzle. I
got up, suddenly feeling more frightened than I had on the ledge.

'You fixed it,' I said slowly. 'Somehow, you fixed it.'

'Not at all. The heroin has been removed from your car. The car itself is
back in the parking lot. The money is over there. You may take it and go.'

'Fine,' I said.

Tony stood by the glass door to the balcony, still looking like a leftover
from Halloween. The .45 was in his hand. I walked over to the shopping bag,
picked it up, and walked towards the door on my jittery ankles, fully
expecting to be shot down in my tracks. But when I got the door open, I
began to have the same feeling that I'd had on the ledge when I rounded the
fourth corner: I was going to make it.

Cressner's voice, lazy and amused, stopped me.

'You don't really think that old lady's-room dodge fooled anyone, do you?'

I turned back slowly, the shopping bag in my arms. 'What do you mean?'

'I told you I never welsh, and I never do. You won three things, Mr Norris.
The money, your freedom, my wife. You have the first two. You can pick up
the third at the country morgue.'

I stared at him, unable to move, frozen in a soundless thunderclap of shock.

'You didn't really think I'd let you have her? he asked me pityingly. 'Oh,
no. The money, yes. Your freedom, yes. But not Marcia. Still, I don't welsh.
And after you've had her buried -'

I didn't go near him. Not then. He was for later. I walked towards Tony,.
who looked slightly surprised until Cressner said in a bored voice: 'Shoot
him, please.'

I threw the bag of money. It hit him squarely in the gun hand, and it struck
him hard. I hadn't been using my arms and wrists out there, and they're the
best part of any tennis player. His bullet went into the burnt-orange rug,
and then I had him.

His face was the toughest part of him. I yanked the gun out of his hand and
hit him across the bridge of the nose with the barrel. He went down with a
single very weary grunt, looking like Rondo Hatton.

Cressner was almost out the door when I snapped a shot over his shoulder and
said, 'Stop right there, or you're dead.'

He thought about it and stopped. When he turned around, his cosmopolitan
world-weary act had curdled a little around the edges. It curdled a little
more when he saw Tony lying on the floor and choking on his own blood.

'She's not dead,' he said quickly. 'I had to salvage something, didn't I?'
He gave me a sick, cheese-eating grin.

'I'm a sucker, but I'm not that big a sucker,' I said. My voice sounded
lifeless, dead. Why not? Marcia had been my life, and this man had put her
on a slab.

With a finger that trembled slightly, Cressner pointed at the money tumbled
around Tony's feet. 'That,' he said, 'that's chickenfeed. I can get you a
hundred thousand. Or five. Or how about a million, all of it in a Swiss bank
account? How about that? How about -,

'I'll make you a bet,' I said slowly.

He looked from the barrel of the gun to my face. 'A -'

'A bet,' I repeated. 'Not a wager. Just a plain old bet. I'll bet you can't
walk around this building on the ledge out there.'

His face went dead pale. For a moment I thought he was going to faint. 'You
. . .' he whispered.

'These are the stakes,' I said in my dead voice. 'If you make it, I'll let
you go. How's that?'

'No,' he whispered. His eyes were huge, staring.

'Okay,' I said, and cocked the pistol.

'No!' he said, holding his hands out. 'No! Don't! I. . all right.' He licked
his lips.

I motioned with the gun, and he preceded me out on to the balcony. 'You're
shaking,' I told him. 'That's going to make it harder.'

'Two million,' he said, and he couldn't get his voice above a husky whine.
'Two million in unmarked bills.'

'No,' I said. 'Not for ten million. But if you make it, you go free. I'm
serious.'

A minute later he was standing on the ledge. He was shorter than I; you
could just see his eyes over the edge, wide and beseeching, and his
white-knuckled hands gripping the iron rail like prison bars.

'Please,' he whispered. 'Anything.'

'You're wasting time,' I said. 'It takes it out of the ankles.'

But he wouldn't move until I had put the muzzle of the gun against his
forehead. Then he began to shuffle to the right, moaning. I glanced up at
the bank clock. It was 11.29.

I didn't think he was going to make it to the first corner. He didn't want
to budge at all, and when he did, he moved jerkily, taking risks with his
centre of gravity, his dressing gown billowing into the night.

He disappeared around the corner and out of sight at 12.01, almost forty
minutes ago. I listened closely for the diminishing scream as the crosswind
got him, but it didn't come. Maybe the wind had dropped. I do remember
thinking the wind was on his side, when I was out there. Or maybe he was
just lucky. Maybe he's out on the other balcony now, quivering in a heap,
afraid to go any further.

But he probably knows that if I catch him there when I break into the other
penthouse, I'll shoot him down like a dog. And speaking of the other side of
the building, I wonder how he likes that pigeon.

Was that a scream? I don't know. It might have been the wind. It doesn't
matter. The bank clock says 12.44. Pretty soon I'll break into the other
apartment and check the balcony, but right now I'm just sitting here on
Cressner's balcony with Tony's .45 in my hand. Just on the off-chance that
he might come around that last corner with his dressing gown billowing out
behind him.

Cressner said he's never welshed on a bet.

But I've been known to.