The cop was unimpressed. With a jaundiced look, he said, “I bet you know what’s gonna happen if you raise your voice to me again.”
She blinked. The glass chimney rattled as she held the lamp. She kept quiet.
The cop nodded. “Put the lamp down on this table,” he said. “Before you catch yourself on fire.”
“Yes, sir.” Putting the lamp down, growing calmer because of the calm in his voice, she began to think at last, and said, “Maybe... maybe he went to see that woman.”
The cop raised an eyebrow. “Woman? You mean he got himself another whore?”
“No, sir. I don’t know, sir. Not a name like that, sir.”
“Not a name like that?” The cop glared at her, angry because she was confusing him. “What do you mean, not a name like that? What name?”
Panic leaped up in her again. She couldn’t remember the name! Shaking both closed fists in front of herself, she tried desperately to think. “Oh! It’s — it’s — oh, please, oh, wait, it’s — Susan!”
The cop’s thumbs leaped out of his belt. He sat forward, meaty palms slapping on the table. “Susan? Susan what?”
“I don’t know! He just said it, and then he went, and I don’t know these names here!”
“All right, all right,” the cop said, with less agitation, and raised a hand to make her stop. He stared at her very intently. “The last name. Was it Carrigan?”
That was it! “Yes, sir!” she cried, in great relief. “You know it, then! You know everything!”
“Do I?” The cop sat back. One hand flopped down limply into his lap, the other lifted to rub his chin. He was thinking it over. “Okay, Pami,” he said at last. “Go in and get dressed.”
She stared at him. “Why?”
“Because I’m taking you downtown, what else you think?”
“I helped you!”
“Not a lot, Pami.” He shrugged. “Don’t make it tough on yourself. Come on, get dressed.”
She knew what she was going to do before she knew she was going to do it. She pointed at the lamp. “Can I take that in with me?”
“Sure.”
He was sprawled again, across the table from her. She stepped forward, picked up the kerosene lamp, flung it in his face. His hands jolted up, but too late. Glass shattered, liquid fire splashed across the front of him, and Pami ran to the door and out.
Leaping down the stairs, in her mind’s eye she saw him sitting there, not even moving, the kerosene burning all over his face and chest. Almost as though he knew she was going to do it. Knew it when she did. Knew it and didn’t know it when she knew it and didn’t know it.
Barefoot, dressed in the T-shirt, without her clothes and her shoulder bag and her money and her spring knife, Pami fled down 121st Street, as the fire spread behind her.
Ananayel
Susan!
As the fire burns this body, this table, this floor, I continue to sit here, trying to decide what this means. I’ve been spending so much of my time near Susan, one of that creature’s fellow demons must have found me and reported. And now he’s gone to see what he can learn about my plans from Susan.
What will he do? He didn’t hurt Pami, just stayed close to her, waiting for me to find her useful. Will he do the same with Susan? Or will he decide it’s time to take action?
I must remind myself of the situation here. Susan is nothing to do with the plan. Susan was the bait only, to bring Grigor Basmyonov into play. If the bait is useful twice, how much better, of course. Of course. If Susan will now draw that devil off, distract him while I get on with my work, how much better. Of course.
I must remind myself of the situation here. At the best of circumstances, Susan Carrigan will survive no longer than one long inhalation of my life; and these, for Susan are not the best of circumstances. Her life expectancy is now that of the planet; weeks, at most. What does it matter if her life is even briefer than that? What does it matter, between brevities?
I must remind myself of the situation here, as the fire burns through this floor and the living creatures in this fiery shell flee for their fleeting lives and this body falls with this chair and this table through the rotted smoldering boards through two levels of smoky heated air and the fire department sirens are heard in the night.
I must remind myself of the situation here.
X
She sleeps. I sit on her chest, almost weightless, scratching my upraised knees with my claws, and I smell the smells of her breath and her body She has had sex, she is comfortable in her body and her bed and her mind. I touch her dreams with my thoughts, and she whimpers. She feels my touch, she feels my feather weight on her chest, and she is afraid.
This is no Pami. I’ll tear this one into narrow strips and it will tell me everything in its mind. Everything. And that god-dung creature will never use it again.
I knead her chest with my toes. She opens her eyes. She sees me. She screams.
23
I should have stayed in New Jersey, Frank thought. The police car was still there in his rearview mirror, pacing him, not doing anything yet, just pacing him.
I shouldn’t have driven into the city at five in the morning, Frank told himself. I should have waited and come in at rush hour, disappear in the crowd.
The damn thing of it was, he’d decided to avoid the rush hour. Here he was, still in the Chevy from Weir Cook Airport in Indianapolis, driving across New Jersey in the middle of the night, and he’d figured the hell with it, get the trip over with, drive on into New York and ditch the car tonight and get a hotel room and start fresh tomorrow.
So he’d pushed it across New Jersey, and then the tollbooth guy at the George Washington Bridge looked at him funny; he knew it, he felt it at the time. There was just something about Frank or the car or something that alerted the guy, Frank knew it. He’d spent a lifetime knowing things like that.
And then, on the Manhattan side, he was almost alone on the Henry Hudson Parkway as he drove down the west side, and at 158th Street a police car was just pulling up onto the highway. He slowed down to maybe three miles over the limit, and the blue and white police car tucked in at the same speed about six car lengths back, and here they both were.
The tollbooth guy turned me up, Frank thought. He knew there was something wrong, and he got the word to the NYPD, and right now those guys behind me are running this license plate through the computer at Motor Vehicle. Has it been reported stolen yet? Has the Indianapolan returned from his flight and taken the courtesy bus to the spot where his car used to be?
Even if not, even if not, if the cops back there decide anyway to just check out this guy in the Chevy on general principles and because it’s a slow night tonight, Frank is without papers; not on himself and most especially not on the car. “Who is this car registered to?” “John Doe, Officer.”
125th Street; the next exit. Driving smoothly, without fuss, even managing to look casual though no one in the world would be able to see his face at this moment, Frank steered for the exit, flowed smoothly down and around the curve, and the police car followed!
Damn! Damn damn damn! The first traffic light Frank came to was green and he went straight and the cops came right along in his wake, half a block back. The second light was just turning yellow; he pressed the accelerator and zipped through, then eased off again. Now would tell; either the police car stops, or its red and white flashers come on and start revolving and the cops come straight on through the intersection and right up Frank’s tailpipe.