Dr. Lecter’s pulse was elevated to more than one hundred by the exercise, but quickly slowed to normal. He turned off the music and listened.
He went to the stairs and listened again. He turned out Pembry’s pockets, got the desk key and opened all its drawers. In the bottom drawer were Boyle’s and Pembry’s duty weapons, a pair of .38 Special revolvers. Even better, in Boyle’s pocket he found a pocket knife.
CHAPTER 37
The lobby was full of policemen. It was 6:30 P.M. and the police at the outside guard posts had just been relieved at their regular two-hour interval. The men coming into the lobby from the raw evening warmed their hands at several electric heaters. Some of them had money down on the Memphis State basketball game in progress and were anxious to know how it was going.
Sergeant Tate would not allow a radio to be played aloud in the lobby, but one officer had a Walkman plugged in his ear. He reported the score often, but not often enough to suit the bettors.
In all there were fifteen armed policemen in the lobby plus two Corrections officers set to relieve Pembry and Boyle at 7:00 P.M. Sergeant Tate himself was looking forward to going off duty with the eleven-to-seven shift.
All posts reported quiet. None of the nut calls threatening Lecter had come to anything.
At 6:45, Tate heard the elevator start up. He saw the bronze arrow above the door begin to crawl around the dial. It stopped at five.
Tate looked around the lobby. “Did Sweeney go up for the tray?”
“Naw, I’m here, Sarge. You mind calling, see if they’re through? I need to get going.”
Sergeant Tate dialed three digits and listened. “Phone’s busy,” he said. “Go ahead up and see.” He turned back to the log he was completing for the eleven-to-seven shift.
Patrolman Sweeney pushed the elevator button. It didn’t come.
“Had to have lamb chops tonight, rare,” Sweeney said. “What you reckon he’ll want for breakfast, some fucking thing from the zoo? And who’ll have to catch it for him? Sweeney.”
The bronze arrow above the door stayed on five.
Sweeney waited another minute. “What is this shit?” he said.
The .38 boomed somewhere above them, the reports echoing down the stone stairs, two fast shots and then a third.
Sergeant Tate, on his feet at the third one, microphone in his hand. “CP, shots fired upstairs at the tower. Outside posts look sharp. We’re going up.”
Yelling, milling in the lobby.
Tate saw the bronze arrow of the elevator moving then. It was already down to four. Tate roared over the racket, “Hold it! Guard mount double up at your outside posts, first squad stays with me. Berry and Howard cover that fucking elevator if it comes—” The needle stopped at three.
“First squad, here we go. Don’t pass a door without checking it. Bobby, outside—get a shotgun and the vests and bring ’em up.”
Tate’s mind was racing on the first flight of stairs. Caution fought with the terrible need to help the officers upstairs. God don’t let him be out. Nobody wearing vests, shit. Fucking Corrections screws.
The offices on two, three and four were supposed to be empty and locked. You could get from the tower to the main building on those floors, if you went through the offices. You couldn’t on five.
Tate had been to the excellent Tennessee SWAT school and he knew how to do it. He went first and took the young ones in hand. Fast and careful they took the stairs, covering each other from landing to landing.
“You turn your back on a door before you check it, I’ll ream your ass.”
The doors off the second-floor landing were dark and locked.
Up to three now, the little corridor dim. One rectangle of light on the floor from the open elevator car. Tate moved down the wall opposite the open elevator, no mirrors in the car to help him. With two pounds’ pressure on a nine-pound trigger, he looked inside the car. Empty.
Tate yelled up the stairs, “Boyle! Pembry! Shit.” He posted a man on three and moved up.
Four was flooded with the music of the piano coming from above. The door into the offices opened at a push. Beyond the offices, the beam of the long flashlight shined on a door open wide into the great dark building beyond.
“Boyle! Pembry!” He left two on the landing. “Cover the door. Vests are coming. Don’t show your ass in that doorway.”
Tate climbed the stone stairs into the music. At the top of the tower now, the fifth-floor landing, light dim in the short corridor. Bright light through the frosted glass that said SHELBY COUNTY HISTORICAL SOCIETY.