Royal was thinking of his wife, of the possible assults on her, an almost sexual fever of hazard and revenge tightening his nerves.  In another twenty minutes he would leave the apartment and make his killing drop down the shafts of the hight-rise, murder descending.  He wished he could take the brids with him.  He could see them diving down the elevator shafts, spiralling through the stairwells to swoop into the corridors.  He watched them wheel through the air, listening to their cries as he thought of the violence to come.