The crowd grew more aggressive. A chant began:
“Come out, David!”
“Come out, Death!”
“Drive him out, and we’ll have peace!”
Several teenagers approached, one holding a can of solvent from a nearby paint shop. Gavein recognized Earthworm and Peter. They started making Molotov cocktails: rags were torn into strips and the ends stuffed into bottles as improvised wicks.
The first bottle, thrown with an unsteady hand, broke on the sidewalk, and a puddle of flame spread. The heat forced the attackers back.
It was then that two trucks full of armed soldiers, the Landal Guard, came around the corner. Someone had called them. The driver of the truck in front, seeing the crowd over his hood at the last minute, made a sharp left and hit a streetlamp. The truck rolled over and came to rest upside down, exactly in the center of the burning gasoline. Several of the assailants had been hit. The driver of the second truck swerved, barely missed the overturned vehicle, and plowed into the crowd standing beyond it. Scattering and crushing people, the truck smashed into the glass front of the flower shop on the other side of the street. There was a deafening noise, then an unnatural silence broken only by the groans of the wounded.
The next moment, the crowd and both trucks were engulfed in flames. A blast of air knocked Puttkamel over and threw Gavein against a wall. In the windows of the burning trucks, one could see the guards who had been unable to free themselves from the metal trap. One man, a running human torch, escaped the zone of fire only to fall to the pavement a few meters away.
Gavein’s first impulse was to run to help, but the heat was too intense; it seared his face, his eyes.
He went back inside. Ra Mahleiné had got out of bed and was about to leave the room. They fell into each other’s arms. She said something, sobbing.
“It appears that Death cannot be killed,” he said and told her briefly what had happened. “I’ll help Edda and the others. They were sitting in the front room. You stay here, you’re too weak.”
“Absolutely not.”
There were times when Ra Mahleiné couldn’t be argued with. She put on a sweater and a jacket and went down, leaning on him.
The blaze was abating. Gavein circled the smoking area. Several charred bodies lay here and there. There were no moans now. Those caught by the fire had died, and those who received lesser injuries had managed to flee. The wooden flower shop had ignited when the truck hit it, and the owners stood watching their livelihood turn to ashes. People had already called for help.
The front-room floor was covered with broken glass. The television was on full volume, a performance of some kind, modern ballerinas leaping wildly in time to discordant music. The occupants began crawling out from under the table, from behind the sofa, from various corners. No one was badly hurt. Alerted by the noise of the mob, they had had time to hide.
Lorraine went upstairs.
On the street, police sirens added their howl to those of the fire trucks and ambulances. What remained of the flower shop was soaked with water; the bodies were all collected. Two men in uniform entered the front room to write out their report and obtain statements from witnesses.
Lorraine came down, in tears.
“My father… He’s on the floor and won’t move. A stone hit his head. The bastards!”
“Where is he?” asked a policeman.
Lorraine’s mother ran down the stairs, pointing. The second policeman called for a stretcher. In a few minutes an unconscious Edgar was carried out with an IV in him. In the ambulance they gave him oxygen, tried to resuscitate him. The physician shook his head. Lorraine and a hysterical Myrna got into the ambulance with the medics and drove away.
Wilcox shuffled up. He didn’t seem to know what was going on. He reeked of vodka and old sweat. Leaning on a window frame, he babbled: “This whole thing… I did the same myself. Yes, it was done by someone like me, reading. I can’t take it anymore. But I can’t stop reading either…”
He hiccoughed, swayed.
“We can take the old drunk with us,” said a policeman.
“No need. He’s depressed. He’s a good man,” Gavein said. “A night in jail would do him more harm than good. No one here is charging him with anything.”
“As you wish.” The policeman waved his hands and left.
“Gavein,” croaked Wilcox (he was the only one, besides Ra Mahleiné, who didn’t call Gavein “Dave”), “doesn’t it seem to you that we are one person, the same person?”
“We have different wives.”
But conversing with a drunk only multiplied inanities.
“Look in the mirror. The same profile. True, I’m old, but other than that…”
“I never worked on the police force.”
“Being in a used-book store, being on the beat, it’s the same thirst for power.” The mind of Wilcox was following the paths familiar to it.
Gavein tried to be patient. “If you say so, Harry.”
“My name is Hvar, and I was born in Lavath,” Wilcox went on, stubborn. “Ra Mahleiné and Ra Bharré… the manul and the she-bear, both names of beasts of the north.”
“Sleep it off, Harry. You’ll feel better,” said Ra Mahleiné, not pleased at being put in the same category as Brenda.
“Consider, Gavein… They’re both blondes, they look alike. Brenda’s put on weight, but she used to be as thin as your wife.”
“Ra Mahleiné wears glasses.”
“Brenda is nearsighted too, but she won’t wear them.”
“That’s why she squints?”
Harry nodded, but the nod might have been only a drunken sway.
“Harry, you forgot about me,” said Zef, putting his two cents in, as usual. “I too aspire to be Dave’s alter ego. We both have white wives. We both are physicists—he as a dabbler, I as a graduate student.”
“You’re a fool, Zef.” Despite his stupor, Wilcox could tell he was being mocked. “You’re red, and he’s black. Anyway, he’s Death, and I’m Fate, while you are a run-of-the-mill individual. But alter ego, that’s good. It’s exactly what I meant.”
He spoke more softly, drawn into his own thoughts.
“Was it in your book that you learned that you and Gavein are the same person?” Ra Mahleiné asked.
“Of course. That book, what an eye-opener it is.”
Gavein winked at his wife.
As soon as the police vans drove off, Edda began searching the shelves for her insurance policy. Gavein and Mass, as they had done the day before, began replacing the broken panes, because the evenings now were bitter. Fortunately there were enough extra panes in the storage room. Puttkamel wasn’t there; he had left with the police.
45
It was early when the phone started clattering. Gavein picked it up: Medved again.
“I’m calling on behalf of the Division of Science.”
“My congratulations on your new position.”
“Thanks. I owe it to you. The Division requests that you come in for testing. This matter has grown in importance. As a phenomenon you have come to the attention of the highest people.”
“The testing, how long will it take? You understand, my wife is ill. I need to care for her.”
“The DS will be quick. They should be done with you in a few days, a week at most.”
“And my taking off from work? My expenses?”
“The DS is a government agency. It will see to everything.”
“I guess I have no choice then.”
Ra Mahleiné asked, “Where are you going?”
He covered the receiver with his hand. “He says it’s for testing at the Division of Science.” Then, into the phone, “More are dying, Medved?”
“I’d put it this way: the dying continues. The number is still in the three digits.”