Death Is My Comrade Read Online Free PDF

a pack of cigarettes in the lobby and took the elevator up to the top floor, where I have my office. It has two small rooms, the first hardly more than a windowless vestibule with a couple of leather chairs and a table on which are strewn copies of Time, Newsweek and The Reporter; the second, the office itself, with desk, swivel chair and client’s chair, filing cabinets and that view of the Treasury Building. The door connecting the two rooms is on a snap lock. It locks automatically when I leave the office. The hall door I never lock at all, except when I’m out of town on a case.
    I went in through the hall door and pivoted, crouching, to pick up the mail that had been pushed through the slot. I didn’t quite touch it.
    What I smelled was the acrid stench of gunpowder and what I heard was a scraping sound, as of a shoe on the ersatz marble floor.
    I got halfway up and halfway around. Then the ceiling slammed down like a punch press and someone found the master switch that shut off all the lights in the world.
    On TV they come out of it like men shot from cannons. A level higher up, in the movies, they gingerly touch the back of their heads, blink, smile wryly, strap on their shoulder rigs and go out for bear. What I did first was a slow-motion push-up. That much was instinct: I hadn’t begun to function yet. I tried it twice, and each time my chin came to rest on the hard floor again. By then a trip hammer was pounding in the base of my skull and I was thinking a little. I tried a third push-up. Still no soap. I heard the hum of the elevator outside, and two figures passed in silhouette against the pebbled-glass door.
    â€œHey,” I called weakly.
    They were yammering away in loud, confident voices about a sealed-bid contract for those Navy parts. Low bid, one of them said. Fast turnover, the other one said. A small profit and you’re on your way, said the first one. They didn’t hear me. Their footsteps receded and a door shut behind them.
    Alone again. I dragged myself over to one of the leather chairs and clawed my way into a sitting position on the floor next to it. That left me panting like an ex-con on his first heavy date since the big gates closed behind him. It also left me staring at the door between the waiting room and my office.
    The door had a pebbled-glass panel. Part of it looked like icicles. Shards of it were strewn on the floor. The hole, near the doorknob, was big enough to shove your head through. More than big enough to poke your hand through to release the snap lock and get inside.
    And I still smelled gunpowder.
    I let my head hang for a minute. The blood pounded in it. I stood up and wobbled toward the inner door, losing my balance once and sweeping the magazines off the table with an outflung hand.
    The door had been unlocked, all right. I went inside. As far as I could see, I had everything that belonged to me. But I had a dividend.
    I had a pair of shoes, heels down, toes up, sticking out from behind the desk.
    Three steps brought me there. I leaned over the desk.
    Ilya Alluliev had finally showed up. Too late to catch me in, too late to save his life.
    There was a small hole at the base of his jaw that hadn’t bled a great deal. His eyes were open. His face looked lopsided. A small, soft-nosed bullet fired with a low muzzle velocity, I thought. It can smash bone on the inside like that, altering facial contours.
    But a shot, even the flat snapping sound of a .22—wouldn’t it have been heard somewhere in the building? Still leaning on the desk and staring at him, I answered that one. The answer was no, not necessarily. Assuming it was a .22, and the fact that the slug hadn’t left his head seemed to indicate that, it would have made no more noise than a cap pistol. No more noise than the breaking glass when Ilya had smashed his way into the office.
    And there was another possibility. The office was undisturbed. Ilya had come to get his envelope back,