Eye Contact Read Online Free PDF Page B

television he heard—someone is preaching about moral decay. Through the narrow opening, a face peers out, wondering who’s in the hall. Manning turns to get a glimpse of the woman, and the door snaps shut.
    Returning his attention to Nolan’s door, Manning knocks louder still. “Clifford?” And still there is no response. So he tries the knob, knowing that it will be locked. But in fact, it clicks open, and Manning swings the door wide before him.
    Stepping inside, he remembers entering the living room on the night of the party. Even then, crowded as it was, the place struck him as lavishly furnished, expensively decorated. This return visit confirms that impression—the apartment is serene and tasteful, all velvet and crystal and dark hardwood, with framed old art (real art) on every wall. Air-conditioning wafts through the chilled but stuffy rooms, carrying the slightest whiff of something rotten. Then he notices that all the lights are on. The sun won’t set for another hour, and daylight streams in through west windows. So the lamps have been left on since at least last night.
    In the hush of the apartment, he senses that his ears are ringing—but no, it’s not that—it’s a different sort of noise. What he hears is a low electronic hum. It comes from the next room, which he knows to be Nolan’s study. Manning again calls, “Clifford?” but this time his voice is colored with apprehension. He crosses the room to the doorway of the study and looks inside.
    There in a chair sits Clifford Nolan, his body slumped forward onto the desk. Manning steps closer. “Good God,” he mumbles. “Cliff?” But he knows that his colleague will not answer. The underside of the reporter’s face has turned purple, swollen against the surface of the desk. Bullet wounds, several of them, pierce his back. Blackened blood has caked down his shirt, disappearing into his pants. He’s starting to stink. He’s been here awhile.
    Manning stands at his side for a moment, head bowed, then heaves a sigh of resignation to this grim discovery. Carefully, he nudges Nolan’s shoulder. As he suspected, the body is limp and flaccid—it has been here for at least a full day.
    Aware again of his surroundings, Manning notices that the hum he heard is still sounding from a stereo system housed on shelving along the wall opposite the desk. Stepping over to it, he sees that the volume has been turned to its upper limit. The lights on the amplifier indicate that a CD was playing and has finished. There are many CD cases stacked in the vicinity, and it is not apparent which one contained the disc that’s inside the machine. He’s tempted to tap the button that will open the drawer and give him a look—but no, he reminds himself, don’t touch anything. He shouldn’t even switch off the amplifier, even though it’s running very warm.
    He returns to the desk and studies the articles atop it, which seem to radiate from Nolan’s lifeless body. There’s a phone, of course, pencils and pens, a few pictures and other personal mementos—including the coveted Brass Bird, shoved unceremoniously into a dark corner behind the lit desk lamp. There are several reporter’s notebooks, some of them open to blank pages, all of them sprouting shreds of missing pages from their spiral bindings. At the edge of the desk sits Nolan’s modem, identical to the one issued to Manning by the Journal. It’s plugged in, and its standby light indicates that it’s ready to transmit over the phone line. Missing from this tableau is Nolan’s laptop computer.
    Manning checks. It’s not hidden beneath the hunched body. It doesn’t seem to be anywhere in the room, although its carryall case is plopped next to the desk on the floor, zipped open and empty. Glancing around the carpet, Manning also notices that no shell casings were left behind—they’d be conspicuous within the tidy confines of Nolan’s study.
    Manning reaches for the phone, then stops himself before