The Death Instinct (5 page)

    At the top of the stairs, Younger pushed open a rickety door and emerged in the moonlight. He could make out a clothesline hung with sheets; a tipped-over table; a brick chimney at the far end. He went to the edge of the roof overlooking the street. There was no parapet, no rail. The chimney was right next to him. He was, he judged, directly above the room in which Colette and Luc were being held. He tore the curtain rod free from his radiation device, broke the glass tube, and used the jagged glass to hack down the clothesline.

    Colette felt a jerk at the back of her dress, followed by a skittering sound: a button, bouncing on the wood floor. Miljan was behind her again. He tore open the top of her dress; more buttons flew loose. Miljan caressed the white skin between her shoulder blades with the muzzle of his pistol. A little clear button twirled like a spinning coin next to Luc. Whatever the boy felt, he didn't show.

    Younger stood at the edge of the rooftop, his back to the open air, directly above the window he wanted. He had tied one end of the clothesline to the chimney. Tucked beneath one of his arms was the curtain rod, which, with its broken glass end, had turned into a weapon quite familiar to him: a bayonet. He gave the rope a good tug as a test; it held.

    Younger took a deep breath and jumped backward and outward. For a split second he let the rope slip through his fingers. Then he gripped again, the rope went taut, and he swung toward the window. He smashed through it, feet first, in a splintering of dingy glass and brittle pine.

    Littlemore, waiting inside, heard the crash and saw Zelko leap from his chair at the end of the corridor. Zelko lumbered into the room. Littlemore ran down the now-empty hall.

    Younger hit the floor rolling and came to his feet, bayonet in hand, spitting paint and wood chips. What he saw surprised him: a frail old man in a nightgown, gap-toothed and gape-mouthed, wisps of gray about his head. Younger had broken into the wrong apartment.

    Littlemore broke into the right one. The detective, counting on Younger's distraction, had hoped to surprise the men in the room with their backs to him, looking out the window. Instead, as he charged through the door, Miljan and Zelko were staring straight at him. It took them only a second before they opened fire, but that second was enough for Littlemore. Barreling into the room, he dropped to his knees: their shots missed high while he skidded forward on the hardwood floor.

    Littlemore knew better than to try for both men, which would have had him wagging his gun back and forth, probably missing both. I le had immediately sized up Zelko as the one to worry about, and the detective sent three bullets into that man's chest, driving him backward into the fireplace.

    Miljan kept shooting as Littlemore slid toward him, but he was too frantic. He pulled the trigger too quickly, failing each time to compensate for the gun's recoil. The result was that he missed repeatedly over the detective's head until Littlemore slammed into him, the two of them tumbling down over Zelkos corpse. There was no tussle: Littlemore brought his gun down on Miljans head, knocking him unconscious, and handcuffed him to an iron ring that jutted out from the fireplace.

    Younger sprang into the room, pine chips embedded in his hair, fiercely brandishing his bayonet - which sadly was no longer a bayonet, but only a curtain rod, having been denuded of its glass spike at some point during his crash through the window. Colette and Luc looked up at him. The phonograph filled the room with a swing tune.

    'Nice distraction, Doc,' said Littlemore, keeping his eyes off Colette, whose dress had fallen off her shoulders, and going instead to Luc to untie him.

    Younger went to Colette. A little shake of her head and a tiny smile told him she was all right. He pulled her dress over her shoulders, saw the bruise above her eye, and wanted, inappropriately, to embrace her.

    'Do you think you could untie me?' she asked. 'Right.'

    'The other man, the one with the beard,' she added. 'Did you catch him?'

    Younger and Littlemore looked at each other; then they sensed that someone else was watching them from the doorway. Littlemore moved first. He jumped to his feet, trying to turn and draw his gun in one motion, but he never had a chance. From the open door, Drobac fired a single shot, which sent Littlemore spinning, blood spattering, banging into the table, his gun sailing across the room.

    Younger rose much more slowly, back to the door, hands raised to indicate that he had no firearm - although his right hand held the curtain rod. Littlemore lay on the floor, clutching a bloody left shoulder. The gramophone had gone dead when Littlemore crashed into the table. The only sound in the room now was that of a large test tube, on its side, rolling slowly along the tabletop.

    Drobac barked something unintelligible at Miljan, who, still handcuffed in the fireplace, gave an answer, equally unintelligible. 'You turn round,' Drobac ordered Younger, in a thick Eastern European accent Younger couldn't identify. 'Before I kill you.'

    Younger noticed Luc gesturing solemnly toward the table. The boy's eyes were fixed on the gently rolling, stoppered test tube, which was filled with a crystalline black powder and would in a moment fall off the table right at the feet of the prostrate Littlemore. That black powder was, as Luc evidently knew, uranium dioxide, a substance not only radioactive but pyrophoric, meaning it spontaneously combusts on contact with air.

    'Catch that,' Younger said quietly to Littlemore.

    'What?' asked the detective.

    'Catch that tube.'

    Littlemore looked at the table just as the glass test tube rolled off its edge. Reaching out his good right hand, he caught it in midair.

    'Now feed me a nice fat one,' Younger continued in a low voice to Littlemore, 'right down Broadway.'

    'Shut mouth!' ordered Drobac. 'Where are they? I said turn round. I shoot you in back.'

    'All right - I'm turning around,' Younger called out. As he turned to face Drobac, very slowly, he met Littlemore's eyes and nodded. The detective understood what Younger wanted him to do: a 'fat one down Broadway' is baseball slang for a pitch easy to hit. What he didn't understand was why. Nevertheless, shrugging, Littlemore lobbed the test tube into the air a couple of feet in front of Younger. Using the curtain rod as a baseball bat, Younger swung hard and shattered the tube, shooting at Drobac a black cloud of uranium dioxide, which ignited immediately into a fireball.

    Drobac was suddenly aflame from the shoulders up, a pillar of particolored fire, blue and green and yellow and crimson. Arms reaching out blindly before him, he staggered into the center of the room, dropping his pistol, clutching at his burning facial hair. Younger seized the man's gun from the floor. Littlemore scrambled across the room and retrieved his own pistol.

    Not a moment later, the powder had burned itself out, like flash paper. The fire was gone, leaving only curls of smoke and a charred, striped-suited man standing stock-still in the middle of the room, patting at his face as if to confirm that he still had one. His eyes went from wild to calm to sheepish. No one moved; Younger and Littlemore kept their guns trained on Drobac. The smell of singed hair was everywhere.

    Drobac tensed. Slowly he drew a long knife from his jacket.

    'You've got to be kidding,' said Littlemore.

    Drobac ran straight at the large window, flicking his wrist just before crashing through the very panes that Younger had meant to use as a point of entry minutes before. Littlemore didn't fire on him. Younger did, repeatedly, but his gun, the fugitive's own weapon, had jammed - its mechanism apparently fouled by the flaming uranium dioxide. Littlemore and Younger rushed to the windowsill, where in the shadows they saw a man pick himself off the pavement and run, limping, into the darkness.

    'Look!' Colette called out, pointing toward the fireplace.

    Miljan was staring into space, eyes wide, transfixed. Drobac, it turned out, had left his knife behind, planted in his associate's heart.

    It was a long time before other policemen arrived along with an ambulance to take the bodies. Eventually Littlemore agreed to go to the hospital for his shoulder. After that, the question was where to install Colette and Luc for the night. Littlemore said they couldn't go back to the Commodore Hotel. Betty Littlemore, the detective's wife, who had rushed to the hospital upon learning that her husband had been shot - and then appeared half-annoyed because his wound was so superficial - persuaded everyone to come home to the Littlemores' apartment on Fourteenth Street.

    'We'll stop by headquarters on the way,' said Littlemore. 'Statements. Paperwork. Sorry.'

    Two hours later, the last police reports were signed. A squad car, empty, engine running, awaited them in the midnight darkness outside the magisterial police headquarters on Centre Street.

    In two pairs they descended the steps in darkness: in front the women; behind them, Littlemore and Younger, the latter carrying Luc over his shoulder. Littlemore's jacket hung loosely over his left shoulder, which was trussed in a sling.

    An officer called out to Littlemore from the doorway, asking for instructions. Younger and Littlemore turned around to face him. As a result, Luc was looking toward the street, where his sister and Betty were climbing into the police car. What he saw, no one else saw: two female forms, lit up in the glare of the squad car's headlamps. One had red hair fluttering in the midnight breeze; the other wore a kerchief. The first slowly approached the car; her feet were below the beam of light, creating the impression that she was floating. The second remained standing in the headlights; she had a scarf coiled around her neck, which she began to unwrap.

    The first woman reached for the handle of Colette's door. Betty saw her, cried out, then looked in front of the car and pointed. Colette, startled by the alarm in Betty's voice, tried to lock her door, but was too late. The catch gave way; the door cracked open. At the same moment, the woman in the headlights finished unwinding her scarf and exposed what lay beneath.

    Betty screamed in terror.

    Littlemore called out; he and Younger ran down the steps. The red-haired women saw them coming, turned, and disappeared into the darkness. Littlemore gave chase. So did the officer who had asked Littlemore for instructions, and so did a half-dozen other officers, who came rushing from various directions at the sound of Betty's scream. They fanned out, went up and down the block, banged on doors, shined flashlights into parked cars, but found no trace of either woman.

    When Littlemore returned to the squad car, Betty's hands were still covering her mouth. 'You saw it?' Betty asked Colette.

    'Saw what?' said Colette.

    Betty looked stricken, aghast. 'She was a monster, Jimmy.'

    'Easy,' said Littlemore.

    'It was - growing.'

    'What was?' asked Littlemore.

    'I don't know,' said Betty. 'It was alive. Like a head, like a baby's head.'

    'She was carrying a baby?'

    'She wasn't carrying anything!' exclaimed Betty. 'It was attached to her. Like a baby's head, but growing out of her neck.'

    A silence followed.

    'Let's get out of here,' said Littlemore, helping Betty into the car. He threw the keys to Younger. 'You drive, Doc.'

    At two that morning, Younger and Littlemore were drinking bourbon at the detective's kitchen table, a half-empty bottle between them. Everyone else in the apartment was fast asleep.

    Littlemore appeared to be counting in his head. 'When you shipped out,' he asked, 'how many kids did Betty and I have?'

    Younger didn't reply.

    'Whatever it was, it's three more now,' added Littlemore. 'That would make seventy-two.'

    'Okay, I'm going to sum up what we've got. We got a tooth, (we got a bomb, we got a kidnapping, and we got two women outside my squad car, one of them with a spare head growing out of her neck. You're wondering how it's all connected, right?'

    'Maybe.'

    'Well, don't think of it like that. Never assume connections. Take things one at a time. So let me sum up what we got again, one thing at a time: a bunch of crazy stuff that doesn't make any kind of sense.' Littlemore cocked his head. 'You knew that bomb was about to go off. How'd you know that?'

    Younger shook his head.

    Littlemore swirled the whiskey in his glass. 'A baby can't grow out of a woman's neck, can it?'

    Younger shook his head again.

    'You don't say much anymore, do you?' asked Littlemore. Younger considered shaking his head, but decided against it. 'So let me get this straight,' replied Littlemore. 'You haven't asked for your professor job back. You're not doing your scientist thing. You haven't started doctoring again. What are you doing?'

    'Tempting fate.'

    'Not much of a job.'

    'I just got back.'

    'Yeah, but the war ended two years ago. Where have you been?' Several minutes went by. The men drank. 'Nobody I knows so willing to die,' said Littlemore. 'What's that?'