He began to sob. I inched up from the sill and braced myself. All it
would take was about one tear-blinded second--
He must have heard something on the floor below because he stopped
gasping, suddenly, and leaned way out. Then he began hitching along the
wall. He hitched right past me--his eyes on mine the whole way--and I
have never seen any eyes exactly like that, before. They knew what was
going on behind them--and didn't know. They weren't maniacal--but they
were not sane, either.
When he was well beyond my reach, he looked down again and then
hitched some more. He passed the corner of my apartment and came to
the end of the parapet. A flat brick wall, rising for fifteen feet,
made a backstop for him. He was in a corner. And there weren't any
windows below him--because that was how the architect had designed the
building. The net idea was out. And so, I thought, was the idea of some
sort of expert jump at him from an unexpected angle. Unless the roof
offered possibilities. I'd never been up there.