The Death Instinct

'I'd break up the blacks, sir. Break 'em up good.'

'That's a boy. You do the same here.'

'Yes, sir. All right, you lot,' Officer Boyle yelled to the marchers in front of him, pulling out his nightstick, 'get off the streets, all of you.'

'Boyle!' said Littlemore.

'Sir?'

'Not the blacks.'

'But you said-'

'You break up the troublemakers, not the marchers. Let cars through every two minutes. These people have a right to parade just like anybody else.'

'Yes sir.'

Littlemore returned to Younger and Colette. 'Okay, the tooth is a little strange,' he said. 'Why would someone leave you a tooth?'

'I have no idea.'

They continued downtown. Littlemore held the tooth up in the sunlight, rotated it. 'Clean. Good condition. Why?' He looked at the slip of paper again. 'The note doesn't have your name on it, Miss. Maybe it wasn't meant for you.'

'The clerk said the girl asked for Miss Colette Rousseau,' replied Younger.

'Could be somebody with a similar last name,' suggested Littlemore. 'The Commodore's a big hotel. Any dentists there?'

'In the hotel?' said Colette.

'How did you know we were at the Commodore?' asked Younger.

'Hotel matches. You lit your cigarette with them.'

'Those awful matches,' replied Colette. 'Luc is sure to be playing with them right now. Luc is my little brother. He's ten. Stratham gives him matches as toys.'

'The boy took apart hand grenades in the war,' Younger said to Colette. 'He'll be fine.'

'My oldest is ten — Jimmy Junior, we call him,' said Littlemore. 'Are your parents here too?'

'No, we're by ourselves,' she answered. 'We lost our family in the war.'

They were entering the Financial District, with its granite facades and dizzying towers. Curbside traders in three-piece suits auctioned securities outside in the September sun.

'I'm sorry, Miss,' said Littlemore. 'About your family.'

'It's nothing special,' she said. 'Many families were lost. My brother and I were lucky to survive.'

Littlemore glanced at Younger, who felt the glance but didn't acknowledge it. Younger knew what Littlemore was wondering — how losing your family could be nothing special — but Littlemore hadn't seen the war. They walked on in silence, each pursuing his or her own reflections, as a result of which none of them heard the creature coming up from behind. Even Colette was unaware until she felt the hot breath on her neck. She recoiled and cried out in alarm.

It was a horse, an old bay mare, snorting hard from the weight of a dilapidated, overloaded wooden cart she towed behind her. Colette, relieved and contrite, reached out and crumpled one of the horse's ears. The mare flapped her nostrils appreciatively. Her driver hissed, stinging the horse's flank with a crop. Colette yanked her hand away. The burlap- covered wagon clacked past them on the cobblestones of Nassau Street.

'May I ask you a question?' asked Littlemore.

'Of course,' said Colette.

'Who in New York knows where you're staying?'

'No one.'

'What about the old lady you two visited this morning? The one with all the cats, who likes to hug people?'

'Mrs Meloney?' said Colette. 'No, I didn't tell her which hotel-'

'How could you possibly have known that?' interrupted Younger, adding to Colette: 'I never told him about Mrs Meloney.'

They were approaching the intersection of Nassau, Broad, and Wall Streets — the financial center of New York City, arguably of the world.

'Kind of obvious, actually,' said Littlemore. 'You both have cat fur on your shoes, and in your case, Doc, on your pant cuffs. Different kinds of cat fur. So right away I know you both went some place this morning with a lot of cats. But the Miss also has two long, gray hairs on her shoulder — human hair. So I'm figuring the cats belonged to an old lady, and you two paid a call on her this morning, and the lady must be the hugging kind, because that's how-'

'All right, all right,' said Younger.

In front of the Morgan Bank, the horse-drawn wagon came to a halt. The bells of Trinity Church began to boom, and the streets began to fill with thousands of office workers released from confinement for their precious hour of lunch.

'Anyway,' Littlemore resumed, 'I'd say the strong odds are that Amelia was looking for somebody else, and the clerk mixed it up.'

Horns began honking angrily behind the parked horse cart, the pilot of which had disappeared. On the steps of the Treasury, a redheaded woman stood alone, head wrapped in a kerchief, surveying the crowd with a keen but composed gaze.

'Sounds like she might be in some trouble though,' Littlemore went on. 'Mind if I keep the tooth?'

'Please,' said Colette.

Littlemore dropped the cotton wad into his breast pocket. On Wall Street, behind the horse-drawn wagon, a stout cab driver exited his vehicle, arms upraised in righteous appeal.

'Amazing,' said Younger, 'how nothing's changed here. Europe returned to the Dark Ages, but in America time went on holiday.'

The bells of Trinity Church continued to peal. A hundred and fifty feet in front of Younger, the cab driver heard an odd noise coming from the burlap-covered wagon, and a cold light came to the eyes of the redheaded woman on the steps of the Treasury. She had seen Colette; she descended the stairs. People unconsciously made way for her.

'I'd say the opposite,' replied Littlemore. 'Everything's different. The whole city's on edge.'

'Why?' asked Colette.

Younger no longer heard them. He was suddenly in France, not New York, trying to save the life of a one-armed soldier in a trench filled knee-high with freezing water, as the piercing, rising, fatal cry of incoming shells filled the air.

'You know,' said Littlemore, 'no jobs, everybody's broke, people getting evicted, strikes, riots — then they throw in Prohibition.'

Younger looked at Colette and Littlemore; they didn't hear the shriek of artillery. No one heard it.

'Prohibition,' repeated Littlemore. 'That's got to be the worst thing anybody ever did to this country.'

In front of the Morgan Bank, a curious taxi driver drew back one corner of moth-eaten burlap. The redheaded woman, who had just strode past him, stopped, puzzled. The pupils of her pale blue irises dilated as she looked back at the cab driver, who whispered, 'Lord have mercy.'

'Down,' said Younger as he pulled an uncomprehending Littlemore and Colette to their knees.

Wall Street exploded.

Chapter Two

Younger, a man who had witnessed the bombardment at Chateau-Thierry, had never heard a detonation like it. It was literally deafening: immediately after the concussion, there was no sound in the world.

A blue-black cloud of iron and smoke, ominous and pulsing, filled the plaza. Nothing else was visible. There was no way to know what had happened to the human beings within.

From this heavy cloud burst an automobile — a taxicab. Not, however, on the street. The vehicle was airborne.

Younger, from his knees, saw the cab shoot from the cloud of smoke like a shell from a howitzer — and freeze, impossibly, in midair. For a single instant, in perfect silence, the vehicle was suspended twenty feet above the earth, immobile. Then its flight resumed, but slowly now, impossibly slowly, as if the explosion had drained not only sound from the world but speed as well. Everything Younger saw, he saw moving at a fraction of its true velocity. Overhead, the taxi tumbled end over end, gently, silently, aimed directly at Younger, Littlemore, and Colette, growing increasingly huge as it came.

Just then Littlemore and Colette were blown onto their backs by the concussive pressure from the blast. Only Younger, between them, who knew the burst of air pressure was coming and had braced himself for it, remained upright, watching the devastation unfold and the tumbling taxi descend upon them. Somewhere, as if from a distance, he heard Littlemore's voice yelling at him to get down, but Younger only cocked his head as the vehicle passed no more than a few inches above him. Behind him the taxi — without haste or sound — made a gentle landfall, skidding, flipping, embracing a metal lamppost, and bursting into flame.