Second Horseman Out of Eden

10

I awoke with a start, knocking the food tray on my lap to the floor. CNN was showing something that looked like a farm report, with a two-hundred-pound woman kneeling and chucking a six-hundred-pound pig under the chin as she spoke about how the new, sophisticated farmer always has a computer linkup to check the latest prices of futures in pork bellies. I glanced at my watch; it was four thirty in the morning. My first reaction was annoyance with Garth for not waking me up when he'd come in.

My second reaction was fear that he hadn't come in.

I bolted out of my chair, kicking the tray and wine bottle out of the way, and hurried down the circular staircase to his apartment, went into the bedroom. His bed was made, unslept in.

This time Santa Claus was more than just late; he was missing.

The first thing I did was make myself instant coffee, using hot water from the tap in the kitchen, just to give myself time to calm down. I sipped at the tepid liquid, grimaced. Then I made a systematic search of his apartment for a note he might have left me. There was none. Next, I sat down at the telephone in his den and pulled out his list of the numbers of all the hospital emergency rooms in the city; there was no Garth Frederickson in any of them. I searched through his desk until I found his private phone directory, found the number I wanted, and dialed it.

Malachy McCloskey answered on the sixth ring. "Yeah," he mumbled sleepily. "What is it?"

"Lieutenant, this is Robert Frederickson."

It took a few moments for the words to register. "Frederickson? How did you get this number? Do you know what the hell time it is?"

"They've got Garth," I said tersely.

There was another lengthy pause, then: "Huh? Who's got Garth?"

"Nuvironment, Patton, that bunch of lunatic ex-athletes-whoever it is that doesn't want us snooping around, and whoever it was who scooped out William Kenecky. Now, I'm calling you because we said we'd keep you informed, and I'm calling you because I know you've been unofficially assigned by the department to keep an eye on us, but most of all I'm calling because I need you. I know there's a forty-eight-hour wait before you can file a missing persons report, but by then I'm afraid I may find Garth nailed upside down to a tree in Central Park. Can you help me out, put something on the wire now?"

"When was the last time you saw your brother, Frederickson?" McCloskey asked, fully awake now.

"Christmas Day. I left early the next morning, because we were pursuing different avenues."

"What were the avenues?"

"I went over to Jersey to check out shipping companies, to see if one of them had been used to bring in the rain forest soil. Garth was going to stay home and make phone calls to various suppliers who may have done business with Nuvironment. He was gone when I got home last night. I fell asleep waiting for him, and I just woke up a little while ago. He isn't here." I paused, took a deep breath, slowly exhaled. "I'm just a little bit upset, Lieutenant. It's kind of hard to get that image of Kenecky out of my mind."

"Take it easy, Frederickson. I hear you. Are you sure he's not sleeping over at his girl friend's house, or something like that?"

"His girl friend is vacationing in Barbados-and he wouldn't be sleeping over there anyway, not while we're working on this matter."

"What kind of suppliers was he checking out?"

"Plastics, glass, steel, what have you. I don't know where he planned to begin, and it wouldn't matter if I did; if he did come across something important, and got snatched as a result of it, whoever he talked to isn't likely to admit it. We're talking very nutty and dangerous people here, Lieutenant. I need your help."

"I'll put out an APB on him, Frederickson."

"That's not good enough, Lieutenant, because it's too much. Whatever screws these guys have left in their heads are pretty loose; they'll kill Garth if the police start making loud noises all over town." If they hadn't killed him already, I thought … but I couldn't bring myself to put that idea into words. I debated whether or not to tell McCloskey about Tanker Thompson, decided not to. Even if the police picked up Thompson, the man wasn't going to tell them anything-and it could goad Garth's captors into killing him. Thompson was just a foot soldier; it was the general who had to be found and put away. "You've got to move fast, but you have to go after the right people. If you're going to put out an APB, put it out on Peter Patton; I doubt very much that he's in Europe. Also, it's time for the big brass there-maybe along with the mayor-to have a chat with Henry Blaisdel. Somebody has to tell him that his people have gone too far, and that he'd better pull them back before it's too late."

"That's crazy, Frederickson. I'm not even sure how I can justify an APB. Now you want me to go after Patton, or risk offending one of the most powerful men in the world, just because your brother is missing?"

I took another deep breath, screwed my eyes shut. "You said we'd made you a believer."

"Believing something isn't the same as having evidence, Frederickson," McCloskey said in a strained voice. "You're asking me to make some very big moves without anything solid to back them up."

"You saw what they did to Kenecky. Do you want Garth to end up looking like that? I'm begging you, Lieutenant. I need help on this. I can't find Patton, or get to speak to Blaisdel, on my own, and they're the keys to finding out where Garth is right now. I know you can't make the big moves on your own hook, but at least you can go to your captain, lay out the situation, and then see what he'll authorize. I realize I'm asking for a lot, the same as I realize we're chasing shadows here, but I don't know what else to do."

There was a long pause during which I could hear McCloskey breathing, then: "You and your brother have been right about a lot of things, Frederickson. Your brother may still show up, but in the meantime let me see what I can do."

"I appreciate that very much, Lieutenant. How long will it be before you can give me some kind of answer as to what you can and can't do?"

"I don't know. How can I get in touch with you, Frederickson?"

"I'm going to be on the move, Lieutenant. You can leave a message with my answering service, or I'll be in touch with you. If you're going to be out, you can leave a number where I can reach you-if you care to."

"Where are you moving to, Frederickson?"

"At the moment, I'm not sure. I just know I can't stand to do nothing. I'll appreciate anything you can do, Lieutenant. Good-bye."

I hung up the phone and immediately went to the computer terminal in Garth's den. I punched up the code we had agreed to use for this case, but nothing came up on the screen except the word Nuvironment, and the names of Peter Patton and Henry Blaisdel; it was about as much as I had in my electronic file. I'd hoped there might be some indication of how he'd planned to proceed, what companies he had planned to contact first. Nothing. However, I understood the paucity of information; when you're in a hurry to stop the sexual abuse of a little girl, you get impatient punching information into a computer.

I shut off the computer, opened his desk drawer, and, in a way, found what I was looking for-but it was useless to me. The drawer was crammed full of photocopies of lists of various manufacturers and distributors, but there were no handwritten notations beside any of them.

And yet, as if by waving a magic wand, Garth had somehow picked, out of hundreds of possibilities, the right company or individual to lean on. He had hit pay dirt-or a land mine, depending on how you looked at it.

I closed the drawer, then clasped my hands against my thighs to stop them from trembling. As far as I could tell, Garth had left absolutely no indication of what he had planned to do, or where he had gone. It was unlike Garth-and contrary to both company and personal policy. Ever since we'd started working together, we'd always left bread crumbs for the other to follow, even while working on the most benign cases. Garth had violated procedure, left no tracks, and I wondered why. I hoped his lapse wasn't going to cost him his life.

Despite the fact that it was still very early, I called Samuel Zelaskowich, on the outside chance that Garth had picked up another lead from the botanist. To my surprise, he sounded wide awake; he explained that he did some of his best work in the early morning hours, and in fact had just returned from a five-mile walk. No, I wasn't disturbing him; no, Garth hadn't contacted him; no, he was sorry to say that he knew of no other consultants who had worked for Nuvironment. I thanked him and wished him a good day.

Feeling like there was an electric current running through me, I forced myself to go into Garth's kitchen and make a. pot of coffee, just to give myself something to do while I struggled to calm myself down. Then I sat at the kitchen table, sipped coffee, and tried to think. It didn't take me long to reach a decision as to what I was going to do next, and it gave me a chill that the hot coffee couldn't touch.

Still concentrating on calming and centering myself for what lay ahead of me in the day, I made myself eggs, bacon, and toast, ate slowly. By the time I had finished eating and cleaning up the dishes, the sun was coming up, glowing reddish-orange, lending some warmth to what looked from Garth's kitchen window to be a very cold day. I went to the bank of windows in the living room and looked down on Fifty-sixth Street; the black limousine was there, parked across the street. I certainly hoped it was Tanker Thompson's day off, and that whoever was manning this shift was no more than a third of the ex-football player's size. I also fervently hoped there was only one.

I rummaged through Garth's kitchen drawers until I found the item I wanted, put it in my pocket. Then I went upstairs to my own apartment. I hadn't carried a gun for more than a year, since there hadn't been any need. Now there was. I took out both my Beretta and my Seecamp; they had been carefully cleaned and oiled before I'd put them away, but I went through the same procedure all over again. I loaded both guns, strapped the Seecamp to my ankle, and put the Beretta in my shoulder holster. Then I put on my coat and went down to the basement garage.

I drove Beloved up and out of the garage at a leisurely pace, punched at the garage door control hanging on the visor as I turned left. I drove three blocks, just to make sure my tail was awake and taking care of business. He was. Still driving at a leisurely pace, I headed toward the West Side Highway. There was virtually no traffic on the streets on this early Sunday morning, so the limousine was always clearly in sight in my rearview mirror-and he wasn't far behind.

This total lack of guile made me suspect that the driver of the other car was none other than Tanker Thompson. Just what I needed for my nerves.

I went up the ramp onto the West Side Highway, heading north. The limousine came up right behind me, no more than two or three car lengths behind. I knew exactly where I wanted to go, and what I wanted to do when I got there, but the timing was going to be very tricky. The on-again, off-again Westway project, designed to replace the crumbling West Side Highway and Henry Hudson Drive with a six-lane expressway, had left in its wake a checkerboard of cleared areas and aborted projects in various stages of construction beneath the present highway, closer to the river. Four months before, in the course of acting as liaison in some very delicate negotiations between federal prosecutors and a certain Mafia don who was willing to inform on the family that had put out a contract on his life, I had met said Mafia don in an isolated, half-finished parking garage-really no more than a concrete slab with a corrugated steel roof-on a landfill jutting out into the river in the upper Eighties. That was where I was going.

Three-quarters of a mile from the exit, I stomped on Beloved's accelerator, and the well-tuned 360 Mercedes-Benz engine under the Rabbit's hood-a little indulgence I'd allowed myself in honor of my newfound wealth-roared to life. Beloved's tires spun, gripped, and the black limousine began to recede rapidly in the distance. Perhaps too rapidly. I let up on the accelerator, watched in the rearview mirror as the Cadillac gained ground, then sped up again. I slowed slightly before the exit, turned off on it, went around a corner, and immediately braked hard. When I saw the nose of the limousine appear in the rearview mirror, I yanked the wheel to the right, sped around a wooden barrier, knocked over a no exit sign, and bounced down a badly rutted road leading to the river and landfill. At the bottom was a concrete ramp with a hairpin turn leading onto the concrete platform that was to have been the first floor of the parking garage. I braked hard, skidded around the turn; Beloved skidded twenty feet sideways and came to rest across the entrance.

Perfect-I hoped.

Bidding good-bye to Beloved, assuring her that she was being sacrificed in a good cause, I jumped out and sprinted toward a concrete support column fifteen yards away, to the left of the entrance. I reached the column just as the air was filled with the tortured scream of brakes being applied full force-and too late. The driver of the limousine, not knowing where he was going, had-as I'd hoped-come speeding out of the blind turn, and by the time he saw Beloved it was too late to stop. The brakes continued to scream as the Cadillac, its rear tires billowing black smoke, slid across the concrete and rammed hard into Beloved, driving her like a billiard ball ten yards down the length of the platform and up against a support column, where she burst into flame.

I drew my Beretta from the shoulder holster and sprinted to the limousine. All of the car's windows had exploded on impact in bursts of white powder, and I could see Tanker Thompson, blood streaming from a gash on his forehead, slumped over the wheel. But Tanker Thompson was certain to have a hard head, and he was already beginning to mumble and stir by the time I reached the driver's side. I shoved the Beretta into a pocket in my parka and took out the tube of Krazy Glue I had taken from Garth's kitchen. Quickly, I squirted some of the liquid on Thompson's left ear, reached around the back of his head and squirted more on the right ear. I reached in, threaded his left arm through the steering wheel, slapped the palm of his hand against his ear. I did the same to his right arm and palm.

Now we were ready to talk turkey.

Tanker Thompson wasn't going to be making any big moves now-not unless he wanted to end up holding his ears in his hands. Feeling rather smug with my cleverness, I casually ambled around to the other side of the car, where the passenger's door was sprung off its hinges. I slid into the front seat over a glistening carpet of powdered glass, once again took out my Beretta, and tapped Tanker Thompson once, smartly, on the top of his shaved head. Acrid black smoke from the burning wreckage of Beloved swept through the shattered front windshield, making my eyes sting. I wasn't sure how long it would be before police and fire trucks arrived, so I was in a bit of a hurry.

"You awake, Thompson?"

The giant with the mashed nose and bruise-colored face grunted, tried to sit up, grunted even louder when he discovered that his palms were securely glued to his ears. He raised his right elbow slightly, shifted in his seat, and studied me with small, black eyes that seemed oddly lifeless, like lumps of coal in the smear of blood that covered his face. I didn't like those eyes; they belonged in an animal, not a human. He mumbled something, of which I understood only the words "fucking dwarf."

"Tut-tut. That's no way for a God-fearing man to talk."

"What have you done to me?" he asked, his deep voice rumbling in his chest with the ominous sound of distant thunder.

"Nothing that I can't undo. Just sit still and answer my questions. If I like what I hear, I'll see if I can't scare up some nail polish remover to dissolve that glue on your ears. Where are you keeping my brother?"

"What's the matter with you two?" Tanker Thompson said with what sounded like genuine confusion and indignation. 'Why are you so unreasonable?"

"Huh?" The question itself, and his injured tone of voice, took me completely by surprise. "Why are we so unreasonable?"

"Yes," the huge man said in the same indignant tone. "You wanted to make sure that Vicky wasn't going to be hurt anymore. She's not. I saw to that. Then why are you continuing to try to thwart God's will?"

I shook my head slightly. "You're admitting you killed William Kenecky?"

"Yes. He was the spawn of Satan masquerading as a man of God. Men of God don't abuse children like that. I love children, and so does God. God told me to kill him, and I did. Patton didn't handle that right. He should have cooperated with you when you first went to him-at least he should have told you that he would make things all right for Vicky. Because of him, the two of you could have caused trouble. He was a fool. God told me to kill him, too."

"Jesus. You killed Patton'.?"

"Please don't take the Lord's name in vain. Yes, I killed Patton. There is no room in God's elite for fools. Why did you and your brother keep coming and trying to make trouble after you knew Kenecky was dead? I thought you'd be pleased."

The wind had abruptly shifted and was carrying the smoke from Beloved's wreckage in the opposite direction, out the other end of the half-finished garage, dissipating it over the ice-choked Hudson River. The flames of the wreck were dying down, and there was still no sound of sirens. It occurred to me that no one had even noticed the crash, or paid attention to the smoke; this was, after all, New York City. I released the hammer on the Beretta, lowered the gun to my lap. "You've certainly been a busy beaver, Tanker," I said in amazement.

"I am Christ's avatar on earth in the Final Days; I am His sword, and He has empowered me to make these decisions." He paused, studied my face. When he spoke again, there was an almost childlike quality to his voice. "You know who I am, dwarf?"

"Of course, Tanker," I replied evenly, speaking to that childlike quality, as well as his obvious madness. Tanker Thompson was not exactly what I had expected; I had anticipated having to deal with a mindless brute, and instead found myself talking to a man who sounded like he was waiting for me to ask him for his autograph. "I'm a big football fan, in a manner of speaking, and I remember when you played. It's just too bad about that nasty little racist streak in you."

Tanker Thompson sighed. "It's true that I had evil in my heart. I killed a man because of the color of his skin, and I hated Jews."

"You don't feel that way any longer?"

"No."

"Then what are you doing with the company you're keeping?"

"It is God's will, part of God's plan for His avatar. God spoke to me in prison. I was forgiven for my sins, and it was explained to me how Jews are God's Chosen, and how they would play an important role in the Final Days. Kenecky and Patton had already prepared the way, but they did not have Jesus in their hearts. They had no further function in what is to come, and they were only complicating things; I was told to kill them."

"Right," I said, not understanding a word he was saying, and not caring. There was only one thing I cared about at the moment. I swallowed hard, found that my mouth was very dry. "Tanker, did God tell you to. . kill Garth?"

"No. He is to be destroyed with all the others when the end comes."

I hadn't realized I'd been holding my breath until my chest and lungs began to ache. I slowly exhaled, passed a trembling hand over my eyes. "But you do have him?"

"Yes. But why did the two of you keep coming on? God wanted Kenecky killed so that you would know that Vicky is protected. I would never let anyone hurt a child, dwarf. That's not what God wants."

"Tanker, Garth and I kept coming because we still weren't sure that the child was unharmed. We didn't know that a decent man like you was watching out for her. Now we do, so there's no need for us to continue with our investigation; all we ever cared about was the girl. If you'll tell me where my brother is, I'll go get him and we'll be out of your hair."

Again, the giant lifted his elbow, stared at me from under its crook. I didn't like the look in his small eyes. "You lie, dwarf," he said at last. "That's a sin. You must think I'm a fool. I'm Christ's avatar on earth; He lets me see into men's hearts, and He tells me you're lying."

"I'm grateful to you for not killing Garth, Tanker, but I don't understand why you want to keep holding him. We're not your enemies."

"You're God's enemies."

"No, Tanker. It's certainly true that we don't share your religious beliefs, but that doesn't make us God's enemies. We don't care what you believe. And it turns out that we shared the same concern. It was because of us that you found out that Kenecky was abusing the girl, and then you … put a stop to it. That's all we wanted. On that piece of business, we were on the same side. That must mean we were on God's side, since you're God's avatar."

"You don't understand."

"Then explain it to me. Why can't you let us be? For that matter, why does Christ need an avatar on earth in the first place? It seems to me that He's been taking care of His own business quite nicely for upwards of two thousand years."

"This is different; these are the Final Days. Satan's demons are already arriving, in human form. Kenecky and Patton were demons."

"Then why were you working for them?"

"I've already explained that to you. God had put evil in my heart so that the demons would come to me, think I was one of them. Even they were part of God's plan, since they had the power to bring on the Final Days. But then God cleansed my heart so that I could see that they were demons, and that He had no further use for them."

"Do you think Garth and I are demons?"

"No. But you're not among God's elite, either. Neither of you will be Raptured next week."

"Next week? You believe the world is going to end next week?"

"The world will begin to end; the battle of Armageddon will begin. These are the Final Days. I and the others will be Raptured up to the heavens to wait with Jesus for seven years. Those who are left behind, those who survive the first minutes, will be tormented by the armies of Satan. When the seven years have passed, Jesus and those He has Raptured will descend to rule the earth in His kingdom."

"Uh, when next week is all this business supposed to start happening, Tanker?"

"The beginning of the new year."

"You mean Friday?"

"Yes."

"Got it. But after that, those of us who haven't been Raptured will be taking our lumps with Satan and his demons, right?"

"You mock, dwarf. But you'll see. All of you unbelievers will see."

"I don't mean to mock, Tanker; I'm just trying to make an argument. If Garth and I are going to be going through so much suffering, don't you, as Christ's avatar, think it only fitting that we should suffer together? And if the Final Days are here anyway, what does it matter if Garth and I are together? Where's the sense of hanging on to him if Satan and his demons are coming around in another five days to make us all miserable? What's the point?"

"Neither you nor your brother will suffer at the hands of the demons, dwarf," Tanker Thompson said in a low voice that had a particularly chilling effect on me."Not everyone will be around to suffer the years of Tribulation."

"Uh, why is that, Tanker?"

"Because you'll be dead."

"Garth and I will be dead?"

"Yes. The two of you, and millions of others, will die at the beginning of the Tribulation."

"How do you know we're going to die?"

"Because it is prophesied."

"All the more reason for brothers to be together, no? What do you care if we're together for the last five days of our lives?"

There was no reply, and I found myself growing even colder.

"I don't understand what's happening, Tanker," I continued. "What's the story? Are you punishing Garth by holding him?"

"No."

"Then why not free him so that he and I can be together for the last five days before Satan arrives?"

Again, there was no reply. And then I realized why I felt cold as I recalled some things a few of the zanier zealots, including William Kenecky, had spoken and written about on a number of occasions; the same things had even been alluded to by a few of the zanier politicians looking to curry favor with the religious right.

Nuclear war with Russia, their line of insane reasoning went, could well be the Armageddon referred to in the Bible. Consequently, not only would it be moral to start such a war, but the people launching it would be carrying out an act of Divine Providence. These chiliasts believed that it was God's will that millions should die in order to bring on Armageddon and the eventual Kingdom of God on earth. These people didn't fear nuclear holocaust; indeed, they couldn't wait for the bombs to start falling.

I could well be talking to such a man. Tanker Thompson, Craig Valley, Floyd and Baxter Small, William Kenecky, Peter Patton, and Henry Blaisdel-lovers of death, all of them, men who viewed their own and everyone else's extermination with what could only be described as a kind of sexual frenzy.

"Tanker," I said softly, "you people are doing more than just hanging around waiting for the Rapture and Tribulation to begin Thursday at midnight, aren't you? You've got something cooked up to start the ball rolling, right? That's why you're so certain Garth and I are going to die."

Tanker Thompson smiled, nodded. "It's God's will."

"It's the ultimate in necrophilia, is what it is," I said tersely, feeling my heart start to pound. "What's going to happen? How many other people are going to escape the Tribulation because they'll be dead, Tanker?"

"Many. It will be a blessing. What's necrophilia, dwarf?"

"You killed Peter Patton. Who's in charge now? Henry Blaisdel?"

Tanker Thompson laughed softly. "God is in charge. It can't be stopped now. Praise the Lord. Jesus is coming."

"If it can't be stopped, why hang on to Garth? If it's God's will that the Tribulation should come, then no human should be able to stop it."

"No human must be allowed to try. That's why I'm here."

"Then it can be stopped?"

"Not by you."

"Where's Garth, Tanker? Is he where Vicky Brown is?"

"No."

"Where is Vicky Brown?"

"She's safe, dwarf. I told you that."

"She's in a biosphere somewhere around here, isn't she? Nuvironment has actually built one of those things, right?"

There was a long pause. I didn't think Thompson was going to answer me, so his answer came as a surprise. "Not around here," he said at last.

"The letter she wrote to Santa Claus was mailed in New York."

"Patton told me about the letter. That was what started it all. It's how you and your brother found out about Vicky and Kenecky. . and other things."

"Yes."

Tanker Thompson made a low, guttural sound in his throat that could have been a curse. "The devil even uses children," he said. "I was a fool. I should have read it before I mailed it."

"You mailed the letter?"

The man absently nodded his shaved head, winced slightly when the motion pulled at his ears. "I didn't see how it could hurt. Vicky asked me to, and I wanted to make her happy. I was wrong; I should have been more vigilant. Satan was trying to trick both of us."

"So you brought the letter with you to New York City from someplace else?"

"It was in my pocket; I'd forgotten about it."

"Where, Tanker? Where did you bring it from?"

Thompson was silent, and I sensed that our conversation had come to an end. "Tanker," I continued quietly, "I don't like pain. I've experienced enough so that I know I certainly don't enjoy getting it, and I don't like giving it. You're not at all what I expected you to be; in some ways, I feel sorry for you, and I respect you for knowing that what Kenecky was doing to Vicky Brown was wrong. But I'm going to have to hurt you if you don't tell me where you're keeping Garth." I replaced the Beretta in my shoulder holster, leaned forward, and pushed in the cigarette lighter. I wasn't certain it would still be working, but a few seconds later it popped. I pulled the lighter out of the dashboard, looked at the glowing end.

The prospect of what I was preparing to do sickened me-but I was damn well going to do it. I didn't have any other choice.

"We've got as long as it takes, Tanker," I said, and swallowed hard. "Three men have killed themselves rather than tell tales out of school. Well, we know you're not going to kill yourself, because I'm not going to let you. But unless you want me to start burning off your skin piece by piece, you're going to tell me where Garth is. Then you're going to tell me what tribulations you loonies have cooked up for the rest of us, so we can put a stop to it."

"I'm certainly not going to kill myself, dwarf," Tanker Thompson said matter-of-factly. "I'm going to kill you."

And with that pronouncement, he yanked his right hand away from the side of his head. Blood spurted from the ragged flesh that had been his right ear. Stunned and horrified, I felt paralyzed as the huge hand, bloody flaps of tissue adhering to the palm, reached out and locked around my left wrist, began to twist. Instinctively, I stabbed at the back of his hand with the cigarette lighter. There was a sharp hissing sound, then the smell of singed flesh and hair. Thompson cried out, reflexively released his grip-at the same time as he pulled his other hand free, and ripped off his left ear with it. Screaming in rage and pain-but also with what sounded eerily like triumph and ecstasy-he reached for me with both his bloody hands.

Moaning with terror and revulsion, I scrambled back across the seat, fell out the door onto cold concrete that was slick with oil and antifreeze from the smashed radiator. A hulking Tanker Thompson, blood welling and rolling out of the wounds on the sides of his head, suddenly appeared above me on the seat, reached down for me with hands that still had the flaps of his ears attached to their palms. I screamed and rolled away from the horror of the grasping hands, jumped to my feet, and clawed for my Beretta. I got the gun out, backed away a few steps and aimed it at Tanker Thompson's massive chest as he climbed out of the car and started toward me.

"That's far enough. Tanker," I said in a voice that squeaked, holding the gun out in front of me with two trembling hands. "You stop right where you are, or I'm going to blow your head off."

"God will keep me alive long enough for me to kill you, dwarf," Thompson replied in an almost casual tone. "After that, it doesn't matter. In a few days, I'll be in Paradise."

Even as I aimed the gun at his chest, it occurred to me that the other man didn't even need God on his side in this face-off; I couldn't afford to kill him, since he was my only link to Garth. I lowered the gun slightly, took careful aim, and squeezed off a shot. The bullet hit Thompson in the left thigh, two or three inches above his knee. He cried out, grabbed his leg.

"The next one goes into the kneecap, Tanker," I said. "Now, you just sit down right there and we'll talk this over."

I should have shot him in the kneecap to begin with; the bullet in his leg only made him stop long enough to reconsider his strategy. He limped back to the car, grabbed hold of one of the Cadillac's hanging doors, and tore it the rest of the way off its hinges. Then he reached down and picked up the crowbar that had come flying out of Beloved's sprung trunk.

Holding the door in front of him as a shield, trailing blood from the wound in his thigh, Tanker Thompson started shuffling toward me.

It seemed like a good time to rethink my own strategy. I had myself a dilemma; I could, I thought, rather easily dart around the gimpy Thompson and get away-but I needed to get information out of the other man, not get away from him. On the other hand, the man with the torn-off ears was not a good candidate for cooperation. It was obvious that Tanker Thompson had a tremendously high tolerance for pain; and he didn't care if he died, as long as he could take me with him.

Not a good situation.

While I was doing all this heavy thinking, Thompson had continued to come forward, and I'd continued to back up-until now he'd cut off a good three-quarters of the concrete platform, and I was heading back onto a lip over the icy Hudson.

I went down on one knee, fired two bullets at his ankles and feet, which were exposed below the door. The bullets ricocheted off the concrete, missing him. He crouched down, began shuffling forward even faster, obviously oblivious to the pain from his torn ears and the wound in his leg. I figured I had two, maybe three, seconds to make my exit, if that was what I was going to do. Watching his beady black eyes that were peering at me over the top of the door, I feinted to the left, then cut to my right. There was a corridor perhaps ten yards wide I might use to try to sprint past the car-door-armored Tanker Thompson, but a flying crowbar just might catch, kill, or cripple me if I tried that.

Besides, I found that I didn't really want to make an exit after all, and my feelings involved more than the need to find my brother. Anger welled in me, rage at the mindless force of evil slouching toward me, evil that could kill not only Garth, but a good many other people-the evil of superstition, chauvinism, megalomania, and willful ignorance that had haunted humankind ever since we'd dropped out of the trees; all of that evil was embodied in the giant shuffling toward me, forcing me back toward the river. I stopped, braced my legs, and emptied the Beretta into the center of the car door. I knew the bullets wouldn't pass through the layers of steel, but the force of the gunfire stopped him, and even backed him up a little. And it made him duck down behind the door. When he again peered over the top of the door, what he saw was me flying feet first toward him through the air.

It seemed I wasn't getting so old after all-or, at least, the rage, frustration, and desperation in me was sufficient to roll back the years momentarily. I hadn't flown so high, or had so much control over my body, since my headliner days with the Statler Brothers Circus, and my timing was perfect. Tanker Thompson poked his head up from behind his shield just in time to catch my heel in his jaw. His head snapped back, and we both landed on the concrete at about the same time. I landed on my left shoulder, rolled over in a somersault to absorb the force of my landing, came up on my feet, and immediately spun around.

The giant, a reformed racist and Jew-baiter who now considered himself a kind of hit man for Christ, was down-but definitely not out. The kick I had delivered to his head would have broken the necks of most men, but it hadn't even knocked Tanker Thompson unconscious, only dazed him slightly. But it was enough-I hoped.

The tire iron had fallen perhaps fifteen feet to his right. With rage still fueling my muscles, I darted to the tire iron, picked it up with my hands on both ends, then ran to Thompson, who was just getting up on his knees. I jumped on his back, pressed the length of the tire iron up against his throat and pulled. I didn't want to strangle him, only knock him unconscious without the risk of breaking open his skull. I had no real idea of what I was going to do with him then, but I knew that I could not-would not-be finished with Tanker Thompson until I had found out where Garth was being held prisoner, or one of us was dead.

Thompson's answer to my grand strategy was simply to get to his feet, carrying me right up in the air with him. I pulled even harder on the steel bar, but the muscles in his neck were like steel cords. He brought his left hand up, wriggled his fingers between his throat and the bar, began to push the tire iron away.

I decided it was time to get off Tanker Thompson's back and go for the Seecamp strapped to my ankle. But it was too late for that. His right hand had come across his body to where the heel of my left foot was digging into his side; thick, powerful fingers wrapped around my ankle. I had no choice but to go along for the ride as Tanker Thompson marched toward the edge of the platform. I dropped the tire iron, started yelling and pounding on the top of his head, but that had about as much effect as someone trying to stop a locomotive by dragging his heel in the gravel. Thompson never slowed his purposeful pace, and I stopped yelling just in time to suck in a deep breath as we plunged off the end of the platform, went crashing through the ice, and slipped into a black, gelid, wet night that hit my body with such a shock that I half expected to die right then of a heart attack. My heart didn't seize up on me, but I knew that I couldn't last long in that icy, underwater darkness; in perhaps twenty seconds or less, the cold would paralyze me and drain away all my energy, I would go into shock, and I would drown.

And Tanker Thompson still had hold of my ankle.

My first reaction was blind panic, a desperate need to try to struggle back toward the surface-but I knew I would certainly die if I tried that. Tanker Thompson was obviously perfectly willing, indeed eager, to die to further his purpose, namely to kill me, and he could easily hang onto a panic-stricken dwarf for the few more seconds it would take me to drown.

I had lost almost all feeling in my body, yet I managed to reach down and, using both my frozen hands as a kind of clamp, pull the small pistol from the holster on my right ankle. As we settled into the muck in the shallow water, I pushed the barrel of the Seecamp between his hand and my left ankle, pushed. The fingers came off. I twisted around, planted both my feet on his barrel chest-and then felt his fingers wrap themselves around my right calf. But Tanker Thompson had had some of the zip taken out of him; he'd absorbed my kick to his head, and he too was freezing, drowning. I pushed with all my strength-and the fingers slipped off. I shot to the surface, bumping my head on floating chunks of ice, and the pent-up breath escaped from my lungs in an explosive, gasping moan.

Seconds were all I had before I lost the ability to move, and then I would sink back down below the surface to join Tanker Thompson in icy death. I clawed at the bobbing chunks of ice, flailing with my arms and legs, and finally made it back to one of the pilings supporting the concrete platform. I gripped the wood, at the same time as I felt my feet touch gravel. I pushed and pulled, made it up over the lip of the platform, and flopped on the concrete. With my clothes and body steaming in the air, I crawled on my hands and knees across the platform to where the wreckage of Beloved still lay smoldering against the concrete support pillar. There was little smoke now, and still no sound of sirens; the wreck and explosion, muffled by an envelope of concrete and steel, had gone unnoticed. However, there were still some flames flickering in the wreckage. There was no feeling at all in my fingers, and there was no way I could manage to handle zippers and buttons, but I was able to use jagged pieces of metal literally to tear the clothes from my body to the waist. Then, slapping and rubbing my hands together, I leaned over the flames, so close that the hairs on my forearms and chest began to sizzle. More steam rose from my skin, and I backed away just before the flesh began to burn-but sensation had begun to return. I stripped off the rest of my clothes, then huddled, naked and shivering, next to Beloved's life-saving flames.

After ten minutes or so of slowly basting myself on all sides, I finally started to feel relatively warm, and I knew that the danger of hypothermia from a precipitous drop in core temperature had passed; but I was still in danger from delayed shock. And Garth would be in even greater danger if and when his captors discovered that I had prematurely dispatched Tanker Thompson off to Paradise. That could be soon, which meant that I had to get moving, no matter how unappealing the thought. I picked up the remnants of my clothes, found that they were still soaked. The fire was almost out, which meant that I had a problem or two. Even if I didn't freeze to death, the sight of a naked dwarf hippety-hopping down the West Side Highway just might attract a tad too much attention, and questions from the police.

I slipped on my shoes, squished my way across the platform to the Cadillac with the smashed front end. I was looking for something-anything-with which to cover myself, for I was already starting to shudder with cold again, and I no longer had a fire to warm myself up with. I peered in, and my eyes went wide when I saw, crumpled on the floor in the back where it had landed when it had slid off the backseat, a quilted jacket bearing the logo of Thompson's former football team. I snatched up the jacket, slipped it on. It was only about a dozen sizes too big for me, which, for my purposes, made it just right. I wrapped myself in its folds, was just starting to zip up my down and wool cocoon, when I felt ice cold hands wrap themselves around my neck. I screamed.

I grabbed a thumb that felt like a nub of frozen steel, twisted it back. The grip loosened. Still screaming in a kind of terrified series of hiccups, I wheeled around, gazed in horror at the dripping, steaming figure of Tanker Thompson. The exposed flesh of his face and hands was blue-white, the color of ice, and his clothes were covered with ooze from the bottom of the Hudson. I could not understand how he could possibly be alive, but he most indubitably was; he couldn't stay alive much longer, certainly, but as long as he was alive it was quite obvious what was on his mind.

I'd had quite enough of Tanker Thompson, who reminded me of nothing so much as some great mythical giant, a cruel Antaeus who gained strength from contact with the elements, and who could not be killed. As he again reached for me, I ducked under his arms, then ran as fast as I could in my oversize coat and water-filled shoes off the concrete platform, scrambled up the rutted dirt access road to the West Side Highway.

I'd once again lost all feeling in my feet, and it felt as if I were hobbling on stumps as, holding up the bottom of the jacket so as not to trip over it, I managed to extricate one arm from the folds and used it to try to flag down a car.

Fat chance. This was New York City, and I wouldn't have been picked up even if I were dressed and looked like Mother Theresa.

What I got was a cop-which, considering the fact that I was close to freezing to death, was probably just as well. I knew him; his name was Frank Palorino.

"Mongo?" he said uncertainly as, shuddering inside Tanker Thompson's massive jacket, I managed to open the door of his squad car and slide into the front seat. "What the hell's going on?"

"Thanks for stopping, Frank," I said through chattering teeth. "I, uh. . I had a little accident."

Suddenly the cop with the close-cropped black hair with matching permanent stubble on his chin and cheeks began to chuckle; the chuckle quickly grew into a full-fledged belly laugh. "A little accident? What the hell? Did you fall in the river?"

"As a matter of fact, I did," I said stiffly as I reached out and turned the heater in the squad car up to full blast. "Listen, would you mind-?"

"Where the hell did you get that jacket?" Palorino managed to say between bursts of giggling. "I didn't know you'd played professional football."

Frank Palorino was beginning to try my patience; I could still feel the icy cold of the river-and fear of death-in me straight to my bowels. "A passing fisherman," I stammered. "Look, Frank, give me a break, will you? Get me home."

"Sure," he said, still chuckling as he accelerated and moved into the left lane.

A few minutes and a couple of miles later, as he was pulling up in front of the brownstone, it seemed to occur to my jolly chauffeur that perhaps something not so amusing was afoot, as it were, and that perhaps he should make further, more sober, inquiries into just what a soaked dwarf swaddled in a decidedly oversize athletic jacket had been doing stumbling alongside the West Side Highway on an otherwise peaceful Sunday morning in the middle of winter.

"Mongo," Palorino said seriously as he pulled the car up to the curb, "tell me just what happened to you. How did you happen to fall into the river?"

"Thanks for the ride, Frank," I said as I got out of the car.

"Mongo, hold on. I'm serious. What's going on? What were you doing down by the river?"

"Listen, Frank," I said, shaking violently now inside the jacket as I turned back to the policeman. "Call Lieutenant McCloskey. Tell him I'll be in touch with him just as soon as I get myself a little more warmed up, and a little more together. Tell him everything I said to him in our earlier conversation goes double now. In the meantime, you can go down to the waterfront off Eighty-sixth Street. You'll find a couple of wrecked cars, and you'll probably find a frozen stiff somewhere close by. The stiff's name is Thomas Thompson. Tell Lieutenant McCloskey that it was Thompson who killed William Kenecky."

Palorino's stubbled jaw dropped open. "What? What the hell are you talking about?"

"Frank, I'm really too cold to repeat it all."

"The lieutenant's going to want to talk to you right now, Mongo."

"Frank, it's not as though you don't know where to find me," I said, then slammed the door shut and headed for the entrance to the brownstone.

I half expected Palorino to start banging at my door, but he didn't. I got in the elevator in the vestibule, kicked off my soggy shoes, and headed for the bathroom when I got up to my apartment. I turned on the hot water in the tub, shuffled back to the bar in my living room, and poured myself half a tumbler of Scotch. I shrugged off the jacket, headed back into the bathroom. The water in the tub felt like it was just this side of boiling as I eased myself down into it, which was just about the temperature I was looking for. I sat in the steaming water, gulping Scotch, until I felt a new kind of numbness, a warm sensation of comfort, slowly oozing through me.

And with the returning warmth inside and outside my body returned the realization that there was no time even to rest, much less get drunk. Garth was still the prisoner of men who thought nothing of killing themselves, and thus would undoubtedly kill him in the wink of an eye if the mood so struck them; I had to find him before the mood struck. It was not yet noon; now that I was out of danger, I certainly could not waste time sloshing around in a tub and getting wasted. I set the remainder of my drink down on the floor, got out of the tub, and toweled myself off as I reflected on the thought that there was only one place left to go. As far as I was concerned, the police should have gone there in the first place-but they hadn't, and probably wouldn't.

Lieutenant Malachy McCloskey and the rest of the NYPD could do what they wanted, but I was going to find a way to drop in on Mr. Big himself.

Constantly feeling like I was moving in a dream, I carefully cleaned, oiled, and reloaded my Seecamp, which I'd somehow managed to hang onto. I was just putting the gun in the pocket of my parka when the phone rang. I hesitated, then picked up the receiver.

"Yeah?"

"Frederickson?! What the fuck's going on?! What were you doing down by the river, and where's the stiff you were talking about?!"

Suddenly I started getting a fresh chill. "You didn't find him, Lieutenant?"

"Find who?! Frederickson-!"

"Tanker Thompson-the ex-football player. He killed William Kenecky, and he tried to kill me. Have you spoken to Henry Blaisdel?"

"Frederickson, you stay right where you are! I'm sending a squad car to pick you up. You're coming over here to the precinct station, and then you and I are going to have a long talk."

"You bet, Lieutenant," I said, and hung up.

I started for the door, suddenly felt my head begin to spin, and promptly fell on my face. I didn't pass out, but for long moments I felt as if I were clinging to the edge of a void, about to fall in. I clung to consciousness, taking deep breaths. Finally my head cleared. I managed to get to my feet, although I swayed. Mr. Big was obviously going to have to wait until I'd had some proper rest and my body had had time to recover from the pretty good shock it had been given during the course of my battle with Tanker Thompson and subsequent dousing in the icy Hudson.

But I couldn't do my resting in the apartment, because, if I did, I was more than a little likely to end up resting in a jail cell. Moving slowly but deliberately, I packed a gym bag with a couple of changes of underwear, toilet articles, some tools of the trade, and a clean shirt. Then I took the elevator down, locked up, and started hoofing it toward the Sheraton Hotel, a few blocks away. I was just turning a corner when I heard the screech of brakes behind me. I looked around, saw two squad cars, lights flashing, pull up to the curb in front of the brownstone. I kept walking.