He drew it out silently and brought it up against the slight but awful weight that settled on his upper leg. His left thumb flicked urgently against the tiny, corrugated wheel and the harsh flame of his cigarette lighter bit into his thigh. But first it bit the red-brown killer that clung to him like a demon lover, and the thing jerked hideously as the glossy back and furry legs caught fire. The killing flame showed the shriveling, convulsively kicking obscenity turning black, red sparks glinting at the base of its short hairs. It dropped onto the floor, a charred ball with eight bare, glowing legs. Its light went out.
Nick brushed out the small fire on his pants leg and willed himself not to feel the burning pain nor to breathe the acrid air. He stroked the flashlight beam across the floor. Ten little, nine little, eight little spider devils, seven little, six little, five little killer vipers, four little, three little, two little scorpions, one little green lizard dead. They drooped like dying leaves in the beam of his flashlight. At last the scuttling, fluttering, slithering noises stopped.
He waited another twenty seconds or so before stepping down from his perch into the sea of dead and crumpled things. Someone was walking slowly along the street outside. The footsteps stopped as he listened. Stopped and came back and stopped again, just outside the window. He could see the dimness of the room thickening slightly as the figure blocked out most of the little light that filtered through the junkpile window from the street. It was one of Abe’s men, and he had his nose almost pressed against the pane. Looking for a flickering light, no doubt, thought Nick. Well, he isn’t going to see it.
Nick bent into a low crouch and crept across the squishing floor beneath the level of the window. When he had cleared it and reached the shallow side of the room beyond the front door he straightened up and sidled to the back of the room, keeping one eye on the window and trying not to notice the repulsive sounds that came from underneath his feet. No one outside could possibly have heard them, but to him they sounded like bodies splattering on a sidewalk below the thirty-seventh floor.
He paused at the curtained door and watched Abe’s man turn and walk on. By this time Nick’s lungs were beginning to feel like overextended balloons and his ears were hearing the singing of a distant surf. He’d have to get outside — or to an open window — in a hurry. He chose the latter as he pushed aside the curtain and opened the inner door; there was no knowing what he might meet in the lane.
The stairboard creaked as usual as he raced up to the landing and threw himself into the old man’s room. The dead eyes seemed to watch him with acute dislike and disapproval. Nick dropped to his knees at the partly open window and sucked in the cool night air. When his breathing became normal he raised the window as far as it would go, and then crossed into the other room to open the shutters and the shutter-type windows. To anyone watching it would seem a normal enough thing for a man to do in the middle of the night if he woke up in a stuffy room. A fresh draft swished across the upstairs landing. He wished he could open the back door to be sure that Pierre’s lethal fumes would have dispersed by the time Abe’s men decided to investigate the place, but that was much too chancy. Given the slightest break, Pierre would have enough time to leave quietly by the windows. He himself would probably have to do the same, and do it now.
Two of Abe’s watchmen on the Avenida Independencia were standing together and conferring. Then one walked away and joined the third for another brief conference. Nick wondered if the men at the back were supposed to do the same. They must surely have periodic checks with each other.
The poor bloodsoaked bastard in the alley. First sight of him and they’d come crashing into the house. He’d have to stall them somehow, even if only for minutes.
Nick filled his lungs with air and ran down into the mustiness of the lower floor. He unlatched the back door carefully and looked out through a narrow crack before stepping outside. The night was silent. His eyes and his senses told him that he was the only living thing in the lane. Then he pulled the door wide open.
Abe’s backdoor-man was lying where Nick had found him. His blood was drying rapidly now in the rising breeze. The second of the rearguard watchers was out of sight, but Nick could hear two sets of quiet footsteps meet and stop. That made it seem that watcher number one checked with watcher number two; number two turned to number three; number three walked to number four; number four would look for number five and wouldn’t find him; number four would whistle to number three and together they’d find Carter with three bodies and a mouthful of explanations. That kind of predicament would be embarrassing for the special representative of a government already deep in dutch with the Nyangese and their Russian friends. Nick’s eyes skimmed the rooftops while he hoisted the unwieldy body. Maybe. Yes, he could make it if he had to. And he would almost certainly have to — it wasn’t likely he could get past two living men alert to danger.
He hauled the cumbersome shape down the lane and through the open doorway, setting it down gently just inside the door. As he closed the door he heard the footsteps start again. This time there was only one pair of them, and they were coming closer. Holding his breath against the lingering death-fumes of Pierre, Nick locked the door hastily and took the stairs in several light, loping bounds. From a vantage point in the old man’s room, near the window but hidden from outside, he looked down into the lane and saw Abe’s man saunter toward the back door and past it. In seconds he was out of sight, his soft footfalls fading, stopping, and then getting louder again. He paused somewhere near the window and Nick could hear him give a low whistle. Again he started to walk, this time hesitantly as though he were peering into the shadows. If he peered into the right shadow, he’d be sure to see the blood.
But he walked back past the door and repeated the low whistle. Nick risked a quick look to see him reach the end of the lane and just stand there, staring around like a lost sheep. Without waiting for him to come to his senses Nick pulled himself onto the high windowsill and chinned himself swiftly up to the outer lintel. From there it was only a foot or so to the roof, which looked flat from below and was probably — he hoped — cement-finished or asphalted. He propelled himself upward with his feet pushing against the window frame and his arms reaching from lintel to edge of roof. In a moment he was grasping the edge and hauling himself up on to it. It was asphalted. A herd of elephants could walk across it and not be heard. He crouched low on it and looked down over the edge. The lane was empty for a moment, but as he watched a second man joined Abe’s inept alley-watcher and the two of them pussyfooted warily into the lane with the exaggerated care of men walking on dinosaur eggs. Nick left them to their gruesome search and took off from his roof to the one next door at a silent running crouch. From there he could see that one of Abe’s watchers was still at the front but the second was moving around to take the place of the one who had joined the fourth in search of their buddy. And a useless bloody lot they were, too, Nick thought disgustedly.
But they probably weren’t trained for this sort of thing. Abimako’s crimes, until recent months, had never been much more than simple thefts and occasional brawls. Besides that, all of Abe’s best men were busy hunting for bomb-throwers and assassins.
His progress across the roofs was as silent and unseen as a sleek black cat setting out at night across the tiles. He lowered himself just as quietly at the end of the block and crossed the street out of sight of the police-watcher on the Avenue. After that he made good time back to Liz’ house, again approaching it slowly, cautiously.