Wary, not actually expecting trouble but prepared for it, he parked his car across the street from the four-story brownstone apartment house.
When he switched off the engine, he heard a siren wail in the street behind him.
They’re coming for me, he thought. Somehow they’ve found out I’m the one.
He smiled. He wouldn’t let them put the handcuffs on him. He wouldn’t go easily. That wasn’t his style.
Frank Bollinger was not easily frightened. In fact, he couldn’t remember ever having been frightened. He knew how to take care of himself. He had reached six feet when he was thirteen years old, and he hadn’t quit growing until he was six-four. He had a thick neck, broad shoulders and the biceps of a young weightlifter. At thirty-seven he was in virtually the same good condition, at least outwardly, as he had been when he was twenty-seven-or even seventeen.
Curiously enough, he never exercised. He had neither the time nor the temperament for endless series of push-ups and sit-ups and running in place. His size and his hard-packed muscles were nature’s gifts, simply a matter of genetics. Although he had a voracious appetite and never dieted, he was not girdled with rings of extra weight in the hips and stomach, as were most men his age. His doctor had explained to him that, because he suffered constantly from extreme nervous tension and because he refused to take the drugs that would bring his condition under control, he would most likely die young of hypertension. Strain, anxiety, nervous tension-these were what kept the weight off him, said the doctor. Wound tight, roaring inside like a perpetually accelerating engine, he burned away the fat, regardless of how much he ate.
