Try, or die, he told himself. One rung at a time.
He released his hold on the first and reached up with his right hand. Gripped and pulled. Found himself too feeble. Got both hands on the rung and slackened his body. His shoulders were out of the water, and now one of them was giving him pain he hadn't felt before. From the chest down he was submerged, and he just hung there, cursing his size, unable to achieve any more.
Then he was aware that his thighs were in contact with something. There was distinct pressure above bis knees.
He'd found a lower rung. The ladder extended below the waterline. Not so far down as his feet, unfortunately, but if he could raise his legs high enough to get a foothold on this rung, he'd have a chance of making progress.
He raised his knees to the required level but found that, being pudgy, his knees wouldn't give him any purchase. The only way was to hoist himself up a couple of rungs by using his arms alone.
He breathed deeply and reached up. Got his fingers around the next rung and immediately felt such a searing pain in the shoulder that he let go. Now he knew he was injured. The right arm was virtually useless.
With the imminent prospect of sinking back into the filthy water, he braced himself for one more effort to go higher, reaching up with the left hand while holding on agonizingly with the right.
He made fingertip contact, got a grip and hauled himself higher one-handed, immediately releasing the right arm from its painful duty. The sense of achievement set the adrenaline flowing. Without pause, he forced the right hand into use again and held on, while jackknifing his body in an attempt to get a foothold on the lowest rung.
He managed it
Now it was a matter of leverage rather than brute strength and stoicism. With both feet securely positioned, he heaved himself upwards, raising his torso clear of the water. Clawing at the higher rungs, he began a steady ascent up the side of what he now perceived as a stone pier.
And as he climbed, his brain began to deal with his bizarre situation. Dimly at first, but with increasing clarity, he recalled where he was and why. He understood the reason for the pain that afflicted him, not just in the shoulder, but-as bis circulation was restored-in his head and lower back. It had been a savage beating, and his attackers had assumed he would drown. Maybe the extra poundage that he was finding such a handicap while climbing the rungs had saved him. The body blows-apart from those to his skull-had been cushioned. In the water, his built-in insulation had kept him alive for longer.
But he still felt grim.
Not to say unsafe. He hesitated on the higher rungs, wondering whether anyone would spot him and throw him back again. A mere push in the chest would be enough. He wouldn't survive another ducking.
The darkness was an ally. He put his head above the wall, satisfied himself that no one was near and then climbed up the remaining rungs and flopped like a beached whale.
With no choice but to lie still, he waited for his pulse and breathing to reduce to rates he could cope with. He was getting messages from parts of his body that had suffered injuries he hadn't registered. Now his face was smarting. He put his hand to his left eye and felt a large swelling. There was a cut across the center of his nose.
He couldn't tell how long he'd been in the water. There had certainly been an interval while he was unconscious. Presumably the shock of immersion had revived him.
In the open, darkness is never total. He rolled over and peered across the expanse of open ground between the pier and the warehouse from which his attackers must have come. The limousine had gone, maybe-he told himself optimistically-with the men as passengers. The instinct of killers is to leave the scene.
What now?
Clearly, he needed to get to the police. It was vital that they were informed what had happened, for the Manflex connection was no longer tenuous. Those people were revealed as willing to kill, and he wanted them interrogated as soon as possible. He wanted to hear David Flexner's explanation.
He just hoped he was capable of staying on his feet long enough.
Staying? He realized that he had yet to get to his feet, and now he was about to try. The effort required was immense. He achieved the standing position by a process of crouching for a while, then stooping, propped with hands on knees, and finally trying unsuccessfully to straighten and groaning at the effort. Movement was going to be a painful, shuffling process that made him think how useful a zimmer-frame would have been. Even the light shore breeze threatened to bowl him over.
Obviously he needed to find a way back to the streets, but getting there would be like finishing a marathon. To be positive, he still had both shoes on. All he seemed to have lost was his hat.
In the next twenty minutes he made it across the waterfront, over a no-man's-land cluttered with rubbish, and down a slope to where one of the West Side streets terminated. The nearest block of tenement buildings didn't really have the look of a haven for a half-drowned, badly-beaten Brit, but he staggered to the first door he could find, and looked for a doorbell-a facility the household lacked. He rapped the woodwork with his knuckles. Nobody came. He could hear nothing from inside.
He tried two more houses before anyone appeared, and this was a small, black boy who stared. Anyone would have "Hi," said Diamond with an effort of the imagination.
The stare persisted.
"Are your parents about?"
A blink, and then a resumption of the stare.
"Your Mum and Dad? Sonny, I need help."
The boy frowned and said, "Where you from?"
He didn't want to go through that again, not in the state he was in, but the kid had broken his silence, so: "From England."
"England?" The kid raised a hand as if to strike him.
Just in time, Diamond saw what was intended and let his own right hand come in a sweeping movement to slap against the boy's in salute.
A short time after, wrapped in a blanket, he was seated in a wicker armchair in the living room of the basement apartment, surrounded by a large Afro-Caribbean family. They brought him coffee laced with rum and they put a Band-Aid on his nose.
Twenty minutes or so of this treatment revived him remarkably. He was ready to move on. They wanted to know where he was going and he named the police at the 26th Precinct.
When the amusement had subsided, the boy's father offered to drive him there.
Thus it was that towards ten P.M., Sergeant Stein of the 26th, passing the front counter, was confronted by the disturbing spectacle of a grinning man, notorious across New York for the terms he'd served for armed robbery, carrying a heap of wet clothes, accompanied by Superintendent Diamond dressed in a blanket, a Band-Aid on his nose, his left eye black and closed.
The explanation had to be given twice over, because Lieutenant Eastland, who was off duty, was called in to make decisions. He didn't go so far as to smile at Diamond's state, but he wasn't sympathetic. "So what we have," he summed up, "is a link with Manflex through the child's mother. You set out to investigate, and you were beaten up and dumped in the river. By who?"
"Come on," said Diamond angrily. "There were no lights out there except the car headlights. The girl who called herself Joan I'd know. But the point is that David Flexner himself must have given these people their instructions. Something I said must have really upset him."
"You surprise me," said Eastland.
"What did you say?" asked Stein.
"Just that I wanted information about the research Dr. Masuda was doing some years ago in Yokohama on a grant from Manflex."
"I wouldn't have said this was grounds for murder," commented Eastland. "Are we sure of this connection'"
"What do you mean?"
"I mean can we be certain that these people who jumped you were sent by Flexner?"