He collected the black pistol and slipped it into a zippered pocket in his bellman's uniform. He opened the leather tool pouch, extracted a screwdriver and pocketed the pouch too.

Moving fast, he unscrewed the metal guard that allowed the window to open only a few inches (human beings do seem to take any opportunity to kill themselves, don't they? he reflected) and raised the window all the way. He carefully replaced the screwdriver in its spot in the leather pouch and zipped it away.

His strong arms deftly boosted him onto the sill. He stepped carefully out on the ledge, 150 feet above the ground.

The ledge was twenty inches wide—he'd measured the same ledge from the window of the room he'd taken here a few days ago—and though he'd only done limited acrobatics in his life, he had the superb balance of all great illusionists. He moved along the limestone rim now as comfortably as if it were a sidewalk. After a stroll of only fifteen feet he came to the corner of the hotel and stopped, looking at the building next door to the Lanham Arms.

This, an apartment building on East Seventy-fifth Street, had no ledges but did have a fire escape, six feet away from where he now stood—overlooking an air shaft filled with the restless churning of air-conditioners. Malerick took a brief running start and leaped over the bottomless gap, easily reaching the fire escape and vaulting over the railing.

He climbed up two flights and paused at a window on the seventeenth floor. A glance inside. The hallway was empty. He placed the gun and the tool kit on the window ledge then stripped off the fake bellhop's uniform in one fast peel, revealing beneath it a simple gray suit, white shirt and tie. The gun went into his belt and he used the tools again to open the window lock. He hopped inside.

Standing motionless, catching his breath. Malerick then started down the hallway toward the apartment he sought. Stopping at the door, he dropped to his knees and opened the tool kit again. Into the keyhole he inserted a tension bar and above it the lock pick. In three seconds he'd scrubbed the lock open. In five, the deadbolt. He pushed the door open only far enough to be able to see the hinges, which he sprayed with oil from a tiny canister, like breath spray, to keep them silent. A moment later he was inside the long, dark hallway of the apartment. Malerick eased the door shut.

He oriented himself, looking around the entryway.