The Gordian Knot - Bernhard Schlink [59]
Before they reached the second-floor landing, he stopped and bent down as if to tie his shoelace. The man behind him stopped too, while the one beside him continued walking the few steps down to the landing, where he turned back with an expectant look. He had been descending the stairs on Georg’s right, along the wall, and now stood in front of the wood planks across the open elevator shaft. Georg untied his shoelace and then tied it again. He got up and took a step forward. The man on the landing turned away and waited for Georg to come down. Georg lunged forward and rammed his shoulder and arm into the man’s back with all the force he could muster. He heard splintering wood and a surprised cry, followed by a shout of horror. Georg didn’t look back, he just ran, made it down the first flight, past the bend in the stairwell, another flight of stairs, tripped on the paper the painters had put down to protect the floor of the landing, caught himself, and saw the startled faces of the painters, who were too taken aback to try to stop him. Behind him he heard the other man’s loud and heavy steps. The painters were crowded to the right along the wall, and on the left were the cans of paint by the banister. Georg kicked over a large bucket of paint blocking the way, jumped over as it tumbled, and took three steps in one stride. He reached the last bend in the stairwell, the last flight of stairs, when he heard a crash. This time he quickly turned around. The man following him had slipped on the paint and came sliding down the stairs on his back, his head banging against the steps as he went, and finally crashed into the wall. Georg bounded down the last few stairs, ran through the hall, out the door, and into the street.
He kept running, weaving through a throng of pedestrians and dodging cars to get to the other side of the street. He looked back: nobody was following him. He hailed a cab and headed home. Larry wasn’t there.
He stood in his room and looked in the mirror. His face, though unchanged, looked alien to him. Did I kill that man? He realized that his whole body was drenched in sweat. He took a shower. A towel around his middle, he was pouring himself some coffee in the kitchen when the doorbell rang. He tiptoed across the hall and looked through the peephole: two men of the same type as the ones who were to escort him to the airport. They rang again, and exchanged a few hushed words that Georg couldn’t catch. One of them leaned against the wall across the landing, while the other disappeared from Georg’s field of vision. Georg waited. The man by the wall changed his position from time to time. Georg thought about how by now he could have been on his way to the airport with thirty thousand dollars in his pocket. Or had they just wanted to get him out of the building and into a car so they could kill him somewhere along the way? What did these two bastards out there want from him? Should he wait for Larry, and leave the building with him? Where would he go? As it was, he had to wait for Larry and ask him for the name of that New York Times reporter he had met at his party. Why hadn’t I asked him before?
Georg got dressed and put everything he wanted to show the reporter into a folder: the copies of the Mermoz plans, the photographs he had taken of Bulnakov and his men in Pertuis, the newspaper article, the helicopter book, the photograph of Françoise. Through the peephole he saw Larry with a Food Market bag in one hand and his key in the other. One of the bastards was talking up a storm, and Larry was shaking his head and shrugging his shoulders. He turned to the door, and put the key in the lock. His face was near and large in the peephole, his mouth and nose distorted, his eyes, hair, and chin receding grotesquely.
Georg had reached the kitchen window before the door even opened, pulled the kitchen window guard open, and swung himself out onto the fire escape. With a tug he pulled the guard shut again, and with a few jumps found himself in front of the kitchen window