The Face

this.”
        “Sure.”
        “You are telling me everything, aren’t you?”
        [253] Holding the watch to one ear, as if listening for ticking, Fric said, “Sure. It was this breather.”
        The boy was withholding information, but putting pressure on him at this time would only ensure that he would guard his secret all the more fiercely.
        Recalling how he himself had responded to Hazard’s interrogation in the church, Ethan relented. “If it’s all right with you, when your line rings tonight or anytime tomorrow while I’m here, I’d like to answer it myself.”
        “Okay.”
        “Your line doesn’t ring in my apartment, but I’ll just go into the house computer and change that.”
        “When?”
        “Right now. I’ll pick it up on the first few rings, but if a call comes in tomorrow when I’m not here, then just let it go to your voice mail.”
        The boy made eye contact at last. “Okay. You know what my ring sounds like?”
        Ethan smiled. “I’ll recognize it.”
        With a look of consternation, Fric said, “Yeah, it’s dorky.”
        “And you think the first nine notes of ‘Dragnet’ makes me feel like I’m getting an important call?”
        Fric smiled.
        “If you need to call me anytime, day or night,” Ethan said, “on one of my house lines or my cell phone, don’t hesitate, Fric. I don’t sleep all that much anyway. You understand?”
        The boy nodded. “Thanks, Mr. Truman.”
        Ethan stepped backward into the hallway once more.
        Self-conscious, Fric chewed solemnly on his lower lip as he pushed a control-panel button, probably for the third floor where he had his rooms.
        Because of the boy’s diminutive stature, the elevator, as big as any in a high-rise building, seemed to be even larger than usual.
        [254] Although short and slender for his age, Fric possessed a quiet determination and a courage, apparent in his posture and in his daily attitude, that were surprising for his years and bigger than his small body. The boy’s strange and lonely childhood had already begun to steel him for adversity.
        In spite of his wealth and wit and growing wisdom, adversity would come to him sooner or later. He was a human being, after all, and therefore heir to his share of misery and misfortune.
        The elevator doors slid shut.
        As Fric disappeared from view and as machinery purred, Ethan looked at the indicator board above the door. He watched until he saw the light change from the ground floor to the second, listened as the lift mechanism continued to grind.
        In his mind’s eye, Ethan saw the elevator doors open on the third floor, revealing an empty cab, Fric having vanished forever between floors.
        Such peculiar dark imaginings were not common to him. On any day but this one, he would have wondered where such a disturbing twist of thought had come from, and he would have at once smoothed it out of his mind as easily as pressing a wrinkle from a shirt.
        This was the day it was, however, so utterly unlike any other that Ethan felt inclined to take seriously even the most unlikely presentiments and possibilities.
        The back staircase wrapped the elevator shaft. He was tempted to race up four flights. The elevator rose so slowly that he might beat it to the third floor.
        When the doors slid open, revealing Fric unharmed, the boy would be startled to be greeted with such alarm. Breathing hard from his frantic ascent, Ethan wouldn’t be able to conceal his concern from Fric-nor would he be able to explain it.
        The moment passed.
        His clenched throat relaxed. He swallowed, breathed.
        [255] The indicator light blinked from the second to the third floor. The elevator motor fell silent.
        Surely Fric had arrived safely at the top of the house. He had not been consumed and digested by demonically possessed machinery.
        As best he could, Ethan smoothed that bizarre idea from his mind as he went to his apartment in the west wing.

CHAPTER 38
        
        HURRYING THE LENGTH OF THE LONG NORTH hall, Fric more than once looked worriedly over his shoulder, for he had always half believed that ghosts lurked in the lonelier corners of the great house. On this night, he was all but certain of their presence.
        As he passed a gilded mirror set above an old-as-dirt console, he thought he glimpsed two figures in the