Chapter 10: Eight Minutes

I printed the page.

The old printer by the panel groaned and pushed it out warm.

"Call him," I told the security man. "Tell him to come home."

"He's on his way," he said. "He's been on his way since you rang the buzzer."

I went upstairs to the study.

It was the first time I'd stood in front of that door since the night of October 8.

There was the same line of light under it.

I put my hand on the handle, and this time I opened it.

The room smelled like his cigars and lemon polish.

The old clock was ticking on the wall.

I sat down in his chair behind his desk, because I wanted to.

At twelve-fifteen I heard the gate.

Then the front door.

Then his steps on the stairs, taking them two at a time.

He stopped in the doorway.

He was in his dark coat with the collar up, and the cold of the street came off him.

He looked at me in his chair.

For a second his whole face opened.

Then he saw the paper on the desk.

"What is it?" he asked.

"Sit down."

He sat in the client chair across from me.

Nobody had ever made Cesare Lanza sit in that chair.

I turned the page around and put my finger on it.

"Your bedroom door keeps a log," I said. "All the bedroom doors do. I put them in. The security man knows. Nobody else."

He looked at the paper.

"Read the middle of the night," I said. "Not the doctor. Under it."

He read.

He didn't move.

"Override 02," I said. "That's the emergency code I gave my mother. My sister knew it. Everybody in my family knew it."

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