Last Days

~ ~ ~

The second time was worse than the first, both because he already knew how it would feel and because of how much thicker an elbow is than a wrist. Still, he managed it, left-handed, despite Borchert's pistol trained at his head. First he carefully tied a tourniquet around the upper arm and then brought the cleaver down hard, chopping all the way through on the first try, and then he thrust the stump against the burner. The stump sizzled and smoked, his vision starting to go. He shook his head and took two steps toward Borchert, and then collapsed.

After that, it became more complicated. He came conscious to find Borchert kneeling beside him, still aiming the pistol, grinning eagerly down.

"And what," Borchert asked, eyes glittering, "shall we cut off next?"

He struck Borchert as hard as he could in the throat and the man fell back, gasping. Kline dragged his way on top of him, managing to get to Borchert's gun in time to jam a thumb into the guard behind its trigger. He bore down with his full weight, working his way slowly up Borchert's body while the latter kept squeezing the gun's trigger, trying to tear off his thumb. A moment later, Kline broke Borchert's nose with his forehead.

It took a few more blows before the man was unconscious and Kline could wrest the gun away. Then he stuffed Borchert's mouth with the sash of his robe. Straddling the man's chest, he slapped him softly until his eyes opened.

I feel fine, he tried to tell himself while it was going on, though he felt as though he were some distance from his body. I've never felt better. His missing arm didn't even hurt. He wondered idly how long it would be before he died of shock.

"Hello, Borchert," he said, when the man's eyes focused, and then he reached out and strangled him with his single hand. It was hard to get a good grip, and hard to keep hold. At a certain moment, he began to feel dizzy, and was afraid he might pass out. But by the time that moment had passed, Borchert seemed mostly dead.

After that, it became more complicated still.

I

Light, then dark, then light again. Something pressing into his cheek. Sounds dopplering toward him and away, cars maybe. The taste of blood in his mouth and then his mouth filling with blood and he had to make an effort to cough it up so as to breathe. Slowly his mouth filled with blood again. Almost certainly he was bleeding to death. He kept taking slow breaths and then coughing blood and then taking slower and slower breaths. After a while he stopped hearing anything and it was nothing but dark. He tried to keep breathing anyway.

Once he'd stopped breathing, he opened his eyes. He was in a hospital bed, tubing running from an IV into his arm. He thought he should get up, but when he tried it felt like a knife was being driven hilt-deep into his eye. So he stopped trying.

Instead, he lay there, staring first at the curtain screening the bed off from the rest of the room and then into the bank of fluorescent lights above him. When he closed his eyes, the lights were still there, gathered behind his eyelids, sharp and clear.

Probably really a hospital, he thought, eyes still closed. Which could be good or bad. But never as bad as if it isn't really a hospital.

It took him awhile to notice that the rest of his arm was now missing, lopped off at the shoulder joint. Awkwardly, he unwrapped the dressing, peeling the stained gauze away. Whoever had done it had done a professional job, the stump's end smooth and expertly blocked off, evenly cauterized, suppurating just slightly.

When he flexed his shoulder, the absent arm throbbed and the stump seeped a little faster. His missing hand throbbed less, almost not at all. Worst of all was the stretch between wrist and elbow that he had cut off himself as Borchert watched. The missing flesh and bone above that, from elbow to shoulder, removed without his knowledge, just tingled slightly.

He tried to clamber out of bed again, felt again the stabbing pain in his eye. When he tried again, he got a little farther, but then the pain grew so vivid that the room spun completely away.

When he opened his eyes again a man was sitting beside him, wearing a blue smock and staring at a metal clipboard. He was frowning slightly. Kline watched him turn pages, light gathering and spilling from his glasses as his head moved. There was, pinned to his smock, a name plaque: Morand.

"Ah," Morand said, and smiled. "Decided to live, did we, Mr. Kline?"

His smile slowly faded when Kline didn't respond. "No offense," he said.

"None taken," Kline managed. His voice, weak, didn't sound much like his voice.

"You shouldn't have unwrapped that," said Morand, pointing to his shoulder. He came around to squint at it. "Healing nicely, though," he said.

He drew Kline's foot out from under the blanket and removed the sock, then removed the dressing. Three of his toes were missing, Kline noticed, then remembered what had happened to them. "These were quite a mess," Morand said. "You're lucky not to lose the foot."

He wrote something on the clipboard.

"I have a few questions for you," Morand said. "First, how do you feel about what's happened to you?"

"What exactly did happen?"

"Your arm," said Morand. "It's not easy to lose such a large part of you. How do you feel, scale of one to ten?"

Kline looked at the back of the clipboard. "Is ten good or bad?" he asked.

"Seven or eight is good. That makes ten somewhere along the lines of superlative or never been better, depending on how effusive you are."

"I was already missing a hand," said Kline. "I was mostly used to that."

"Shall we call you a four then?" asked Morand. "Am I reading you correctly? I'm sorry we had to take the rest of the arm," he said, and leaned toward Kline's stump. "Though it came out nicely, if I do say so myself. Sit up, please."

"I can't," said Kline.

"Why not?"

"When I raise my head, it feels like I'm being stabbed in the eye."

"I see," said Morand, and smiled. "Probably due to your having been shot in the head."

"Shot in the head?"

Morand's smile faded again. "You don't remember?" He took from his pocket a round mirror about the size of an eyeball, affixed to a pen-like metal stylus, and held it out. "You've already seen the worst," he said.

Kline took it awkwardly. "Isn't this a dentist's mirror?" he asked. "For mouths?"

"Technically, yes," said the doctor.

"I thought doctors wore their mirrors on their heads. For light or something."

"Not this doctor," Morand said.

Kline spun the stylus about with his fingers until he saw part of his face in the mirror, the reflection shivering slightly. His head, he saw when he turned the mirror minutely, was heavily bandaged. He watched Morand slowly unwind it, working down to a thick pad of gauze, dark with blood and flux.

When Kline reached up to touch it, Morand stopped him.

"We'll change the dressing in a moment," Morand said. "You can look then."

"Where am I?" Kline asked.

"Hospital bed," said Morand, surprised. "I thought that would be obvious. You seemed like you were doing all right, considering."

"In a hospital?"

"Naturally. Where else would a hospital bed be?"

"Am I free to leave?"

"We're hardly in a condition to leave, are we?" said Morand, and smiled. "By we, I mean you. Frankly it's a little surprising you're alive at all. For a while you were dead, technically speaking. Were you aware of that? Of course, technically dead is nothing compared to dead."

"Is that a threat?"

The doctor looked surprised again. "What have I said to offend you?"

"Will you open the curtain?"

"The curtain?" asked Morand. "Why?"

"I just want to see for myself what's on the other side."

"But I've already told you, this is a hospital."

"Please," said Kline, "open the curtain."

Morand looked at him a moment and then shrugged and turned away. As Kline hid the dentist's mirror under his blanket, Morand pulled the curtain back: three other beds, a door leading out into a bright hall. Just a hospital, Kline thought, and began to relax. Nothing to worry about at all.

A nurse came in and began to peel the gauze away from the side of his head, carefully. Morand groped absently in his vest pocket, then checked his other pockets, then searched the bedside table and the blanket with his eyes.

"What is it?" Kline asked.

"Can't seem to find my mirror," said Morand.

"Dentist's mirror? I haven't seen it," Kline claimed.

Morand groped through his pockets again then shrugged and went out. He returned a moment later with a larger mirror, this one affixed to a stiff but flexible cable, a clamp at the cable's end. He clamped it onto Kline's IV stand, then positioned the stand beside the bed, adjusting the mirror until Kline saw himself in it.

The dressing was off now. The nurse dabbed at the wound with a moist pad, slowly breaking the crust away. The wound was big and jagged, a crazed network of stitches running all along one side of his head.

"We got out the bullet, what didn't come out on its own," said the doctor. "Most of it anyway."

The nurse kept dabbing, leaning against the edge of the bed. Kline watched her in the mirror, listened to the sound of her breathing.

"Your biggest worry," said Morand, "is the brain. Also internal bleeding. I'd give up jogging for a while if I were you."

The nurse gave a high, tittering laugh.

"The pain in your eye is worrisome. We can put a shunt in, if it's a brain issue," said Morand. "For now, shall we just watch you?"

The nurse covered the wound again with gauze, beginning to rewrap his head.

"We'll just keep an eye on you," Morand said absently.

"What?" said Kline, suddenly nervous.

"What?" said the doctor. His smile came back. "Nothing to worry about, Mr. Kline," he said. "It's for your own good."

II

They drew the curtains back around the bed as they left, but he didn't hear the door close. He lay staring up at the lights, listening to the echoes of their footsteps down the hall, the alternation between the doctor's treble voice and the nurse's high laugh.

After a while, the telephone began to ring. It was on the bedside table just beside him, on the same side as his missing arm. To reach it, he would have had to roll onto his stump and stretch. He couldn't imagine how that would feel.

So he didn't reach. Instead, he just listened. It rang six times and then stopped. And then rang six more times, and then stopped. And then rang six more times. After that it didn't ring again.

Six-six-six, he thought. Mark of the beast. And then thought, They know exactly where I am.

It made him restless. He made himself sit up again, this time slower and with more care. It still felt like someone was pushing a knife into his eye, but slower now. And once he was seated, the pain slowly faded to a dull ache.

The phone was still on the wrong side, silent now. On this side was the curtain. He stretched his arm out as far as he could, but still couldn't reach it. When he started to twist toward it, the pain in his eye gathered, then spread.

He tried to extend his reach with the dentist's mirror, was still short. He pulled the mirror clamped to the IV stand closer, straightening its cable as far as it would go, then twisted the stand's pole with his wrist until the mirror touched the curtain.

He twisted the pole further and the mirror brushed its way past, ruffling the curtain. He twisted the mirror back toward him, cocked the end of the cable slightly, then twisted the pole back out until the mirror was touching the curtain again. Then he spun the pole hard.

The movement sent a wave of pain through the remnants of his shoulder and deep into the abyss of his eye. He closed both eyes and bit down on the insides of his mouth and squinted hard. It seemed to help.

When he opened his eyes again, he could taste blood in his mouth. The curtain had slid three inches or so along its track, leaving a slight gap near the wall, just behind his head.

He tried again and more than doubled the gap, then once more, which left the curtain open enough, but not so much to look like it hadn't simply been carelessly closed. It was harder to work the IV stand and its mirror into place without passing out, but in the end he had positioned them near the edge of the curtain, mirror pressed against the wall. If he held the dentist's mirror just right, he could look into the larger mirror and have an unimpeded view of the doorway.

A few hours passed before anyone came through the door. When someone did, it was just one man, large of frame, balding, who still had all his limbs. He came in and stopped, then came near the curtain.

Kline hid the dentist's mirror under the sheet, watched the tips of the man's shoes just beneath the curtain.

"Mr. Kline?" the man said.

Kline didn't respond. He watched through veiled eyes as the man slowly dragged back the curtain and then came to stand beside the bed. He was motionless and silent for a moment, and then his footsteps echoed off across the room. When they returned, he was carrying a chair.

He sat down beside the bed, crossing his arms.

Just past him, another flicker passed through the doorway and disappeared. A moment later, it slipped back into Kline's limited vision to become human, a uniformed police officer.

The officer put his hand on the first man's shoulder.

"Asleep is he, Frank?" the officer asked.

"I'll wake him up soon," Frank said.

"Where do you want me, buddy?"

Frank shrugged. "Doesn't matter. In here, if you want. Or just outside the door."

The police officer went and got another chair, carried it over to a corner, sat down. Almost immediately he was sprawled in it. Shortly thereafter was asleep.

After a while Frank reached out, nudged Kline slightly. "You're not asleep," he said. "I can tell."

"Never claimed to be," said Kline.

Frank smirked. "Shifty, are we?" he said. "Kline is it?"

"That's right," said Kline.

"Used to be a cop?"

Kline nodded.

"Undercover," said Frank. "That's no cop. It's someone doesn't know who he is. You know who you are, Kline?"

"Better than you," said Kline.

"Don't be too sure," said Frank. Reaching into one pocket, he pulled out a folded piece of paper. He carefully unfolded it and smoothed the creases out.

"Says here," he said, "missing a hand. I'd say that's an understatement, wouldn't you, Kline? How'd you lose your hand?"

"I let someone cut it off," said Kline.

"Now why would a man go and do a thing like that?"

"You can read about it in the papers."

"I don't suppose you care to tell me how you lost the rest of the arm? And the toes?"

"Long story."

"I've got time," Frank said. He waited. When Kline didn't say anything, he stretched. "Bunch of mutilates south of here," he said.

"That right?" said Kline.

Frank nodded. "A whole compound's worth. The Holy Christian Fellowship of Amputation or some such thing," he said. "The Brotherhood of Mutilation. They been asking after you."

Kline didn't say anything.

"You know why they're asking?" asked Frank.

"Why?"

"They don't care to say. They just seem to want to get in touch with you."

"They've already found me," said Kline.

"They pay you a social call?"

"Not yet," said Kline.

Frank got up and walked slowly around the bed. "You want me to put my cards on the table?" he asked.

"I wasn't aware we were playing cards," said Kline.

"Not much you do know, apparently." Frank scratched his head, turning to look at the curtain. "The way I see it is this: a few weeks back you show up on the side of a country road, delirious, mostly dead. Some good Samaritan catches a glimpse of you sprawled on the shoulder and calls 911. I go out there and what I see is lots of blood and an arm cut back to the elbow, recently and awkwardly done. I'm thinking I got a corpse but you turn out to still be breathing. Shallow breaths: slowly suffocating to death. So out of the goodness of my heart I get you to a hospital. With me so far?"

Kline nodded.

"Same day, earlier on, I get a call from somebody about a fire in the middle of nowhere. I send an officer out and he comes back telling me it's this cult compound. One of the buildings has caught fire. 'Anybody hurt or dead?' I ask him. 'Don't know,' he says, 'they wouldn't let me in.'"

Frank turned to Kline.

"He's just a young kid," he said. "Didn't know any better. Would have been me, I sure as hell would have gotten in. But by the time I get down there myself, the fire's out and it's all cleaned up, no sign of much amiss. They stop me at the gate, explain it's all taken care of. Each of those guards only has one hand, a kind of gun prosthesis where the other one used to be. Is that legal? Probably not, but what do I know? What I do know is I can get in, but if I do somebody's likely to get hurt. And it's too late for me to find out anything they don't want me to find out. So I let it go."

Frank sat back down again.

"And then you show up. Any time you find two one-legged men at the same dance it's no coincidence." He leaned toward Kline. "Got anything to say yet?"

"Not yet," said Kline.

"I got time," said Frank. "I'm in no rush. I'll give you a few hours to think it through." He pointed to the officer in the chair. "Davis here will keep you honest, even though the doctor says you wouldn't get far. Doesn't pay to underestimate a man who can bring himself to chop off his own hand to buy himself a few minutes to think." He smiled grimly. "Maybe I do know a little about you after all."

He stood and rubbed his hand along the back of his neck, as if smoothing his collar down.

"So, care to tell me what you were doing there?"

"Doing where?"

"You know where," Frank said, and made a disgusted face. "Mine's not a pretty job to start with," he said. "Someone like you should know better."

Kline didn't say anything. His eye felt like it was being stabbed, but softer now, with a butter knife. Either the pain was lessening or he was getting used to it. Maybe both. He squeezed the eye shut and waited for the pain to pass.

"How did you lose the arm?" asked Frank.

"Who shot you in the head?" Frank asked.

"Why are the mutilates looking for you?" asked Frank.

"Don't want to answer now?" said Frank. "Fine. I'm off to have dinner and see the girlfriend. I'll be back early tomorrow. You'll answer when I come back, I guarantee."

The pain was suddenly gone. He opened the eye. Davis, he saw, was awake now, alert.

"You a cult member?" Frank asked on his way out the door. "A mutilate?"

"No," Kline said.

"There's at least that," said Frank, and went out.

Davis sat in the chair, slightly slumped, arms crossed, feet out in front of him and crossed at the ankles, staring at Kline.

"How long you been on the force?" Kline finally asked.

"None of your goddamn business," said Davis.

"What's the matter?" asked Kline, surprised. "I'm just making conversation."

"You think you have Frank fooled," said Davis. "But you're not pulling the wool over my eyes. And you're wrong about Frank, too."

"What wool?" asked Kline. "I don't even know what you're talking about."

"That's it," said Davis. "I've had enough of you."

Kline watched him pick up the chair and carry it out into the hall. He put it to one side of the doorframe and sat down. All Kline could see of him was, cutting into the doorway slightly, a sliver of his shoulder and his arm.

III

He was walking toward a guard with a gun in the place of a hand. The guard lifted his arm and tensed his forearm slightly and the gun rattled oddly and then fired. He felt his head jerked around and found himself lying on the ground, dirt and blood filling his mouth. There was a strangeness to everything, as if the separation between things and himself was much less distinct than he had previously supposed, as if he was blurring into the world around him. He had, he realized, a gun in his own hand, but not in place of a hand. He was lying on it, it was somewhere beneath his ribs. Could he move? No. If he aimed at the guard through his own chest and squeezed the trigger would he be able to kill the guard before the guard shot him again?

The guard was coming toward him, footsteps heavy and slow. There was something odd about his footsteps, a kind of chiming to them, metal on metal. And they seemed to last longer than footsteps should. He made a tremendous effort to roll over enough to get the gun out from under him, and felt as if a knife was being stabbed into his eye. But it was enough: the gun was out and in front of him and he was squeezing the trigger.

"What's that?" a nurse was saying to him, a new nurse, nobody he remembered seeing before. Her features were softened by the darkness. "It looks like a dentist's mirror."

He just watched her, still brandishing the dentist's mirror. Next to her, on the bedside table, the telephone was ringing.

"If you're here to see the dentist you're in the wrong place," she said, uncradling the telephone. "Hello?" she said.

The knife slid slowly out of his eye and back into God's sheath. He slipped the dentist's mirror beneath the blanket.

"He's right here," she said. "May I ask who's calling?"

He watched her nod, then hold the receiver away from her mouth, muffling it with her palm.

"Your wife," she said.

"I don't have a wife," he said.

"You don't?" she said, and looked thoughtful. "To be honest, from the voice I was surprised it was even a woman."

"Give me the phone," he said. "I think I know who it is."

It was awkward settling the receiver against the wrong side of his face with the wrong hand. But why? he wondered. I've been missing the other hand long enough that I should be used to this. But losing the rest of his arm seemed to have changed something inside his head, to have transformed him somehow.

"Hello," he said.

"Mr. Kline?" a voice said. It was flat, grainy, with something seriously wrong with it. But vaguely familiar as well.

"Speaking," he said. "Who is this?"

"You know who this is. You've caused a lot of trouble," the voice said.

"I didn't ask for any of it. And I don't know who this is."

"Who asks for anything? That's not how life works."

"Who is it?" the nurse beside him was asking. "Is it a prank call?"

"Mr. Kline," said the voice.

"What?" said Kline.

"What's going on?" he heard Davis say, waking up. Some guard, Kline thought. Davis was standing now, a dark shape framed in the light of the open doorway. Then he turned the light on and stood there blinking, his face puffy.

"Nothing," said Kline to him.

"Mr. Kline," said the voice, "we're coming for you." And then the line went dead.

He told the nurse the call had been a prank, nothing to worry about, just a friend trying to be funny. "Some friend," she suggested. She and Davis wandered unruddered around his room for a while, Davis threatening to call Frank if Kline didn't tell him what the caller had said. The nurse, despite Kline's protests, administered an injection and then left. Davis stayed near the bed watching him suspiciously for a little while, then went back to his seat just outside the door.

Kline lay there wondering how they would kill him. He could feel whatever it was the nurse had given him now starting to work, insects beginning to rustle just beneath his skin. Surely not here, surely not the hospital, he thought. Even if they did come, there was Davis there, at the door; he'd hear something.

If he was awake.

I should stay awake, he thought, I have to, he thought, even as he felt the dark congeal around him, his face growing numb as glass.

IV

Later, he came blurrily conscious to a sound he couldn't place, not sure if he had actually heard it or had merely dreamt it. A low burbling. The lights in the room were out now except for a dim glow near the bathroom and a rectangle of light from the hall. What was it he'd heard? The sound wasn't exactly recognizable or familiar; probably the sound, whatever it was, had awoken him.

Something had changed. The hallway struck him as wrong. He stared at the box of light that was the doorway. It was just a doorway, but it still looked wrong. What am I not seeing? he wondered. He kept staring, but there was nothing extraordinary about it: it was just a simple doorway.

And then he realized that, yes, that was exactly what was extraordinary about it: where were Davis' shoulder and arm?

Nothing to worry about, he told himself. He's just gotten up to use the bathroom. He's moved his chair slightly. That's all.

But there was still the question of the sound. What had he heard?

He was still mulling it over when a nurse came through the doorway, tugging her scrubs straight. It was not the same nurse as earlier. Perhaps this was the night nurse. But hadn't the last nurse been the night nurse?

Through his lidded eyes, he watched her come. Her shoes were tracking in something, he realized, and then realized with a shock that it was blood.

He watched her come, still pretending to be asleep. He gripped the dentist's mirror tightly, thumbing the stylus' end. It wasn't sharp, though it tapered a little at the tip.

When she was closer, it became obvious one hand was prosthetic. The way she was walking made him think something was wrong with her leg as well: either a serious injury or that leg was artificial as well.

Once she reached his bed, she just stood looking down at him. He watched her take from the pocket of her smock a hypodermic needle encased in a gray plastic sheath. Awkwardly she clicked it onto a syringe. She gave a little twist and the plastic sheath came free to reveal a needle. From the other pocket, she removed a squat plastic vial. Resting it on the bedside table she stuck the needle's end through the lid and drew a liquid, bubbling, up into the syringe.

Inverting the syringe, she tapped the air out.

Now, he thought, tensing slightly, she will bring the needle close so as to inject it into my arm. When she does, I'll plunge the mirror's stylus into her eye and will kill her dead.

Only it didn't work quite the way he imagined. Instead of coming close and injecting it into his arm, she simply injected it into his IV bag.

She stood above him, watching, still a little too distant. In the dark, he could see a faint gleam from some part of her face, either her teeth or her eyes.

Slowly, trying to keep the sheets from moving, he turned his hand palm down. He could feel the catheter tug between the bones on the back of his hand, but, taped down, it didn't come free. He flexed his hand first back then forward, trying to catch the thin tubing between his fingers. His mouth was going dry. The tubing was taped too far back on the wrist. There was nothing loose to grab hold of, nothing easy to reach one-handed. He could get to it, but not without her knowing he was awake.

He moved the dentist's mirror out of his fist and held it like a pen, the mirror near his fingertips, the stylus and its tapered tip extending back over the web of his thumb. He bent his wrist back but couldn't catch the IV tubing on the stylus.

Rolling the mirror over between his index and middle finger he tried again, straightening his fingers until the tapered tip touched the back of his wrist. Pushing the mirror down against the mattress, he slid his hand forward. The end of the stylus touched the strip of tape and slipped back over it.

He tried again, slower this time. His tongue had started to feel thick and stiff in his mouth, like the handle of a whip. The stylus touched the tape and caught against its edge a moment and then slipped over.

The third time he got the tip firmly under the tape. He worked it minutely back and forth until he was sure the tape was loose enough and then, using his knuckles as a fulcrum, pulled the tape slowly loose.

It made a slight sound coming off the skin, but the woman didn't notice. The tape came up with the stylus and with it came the catheter, stinging as it pulled out of his vein. He groped for the tubing and held it between his fingers a moment, its wick wet, and then pinched it closed.

She stood beside him, her gaze moving from the IV bag down to him and back again. After a while, she looked at her watch. His mouth was starting to feel like his mouth again, or like somebody's mouth anyway, tingling slightly.

After a while, she picked up the telephone and dialed. He heard her curse and reset the line, then dial again.

He could hear the sound of the ringing between her ear and the telephone. Then he heard a click, a low mumble on the other end of the wire.

"It's me," she said. "Yes," she said, and then waited. "Somebody was outside," she said, and then said, "dead."

"No," she said, "the man outside the door. Two nurses as well.

"No way around it," she said.

"Well, it's done now, no changing it. I had to decide for myself."

He watched her cup the receiver against her shoulder and reach out. He felt her fingers against his hairline, her thumb just below his eyelid, tugging the lid up. He rolled his eye back into his head, then let it float.

"Looks like it," she said. "Hard to be sure in the dark."

"Of course I'll be sure," she said, and let go of his eyelid.

He let his eye slip down until he could see out again through his eyelids. She had turned away now, was facing the IV bag.

"Where?" she was saying. "Just wheel him out like a corpse, then?"

"Yes," she said. "Just as you say."

She reached up and prodded the IV bag with a finger, then pulled the finger back slightly. He watched her stand there, finger outstretched, and waited for her hand to fall. Instead, she prodded the bag again, slower this time.

"Just a minute," she said.

He heard a low rustling on the other end of the line.

"The IV bag," she said. "It's fuller than it should be."

He thought briefly about releasing the cut end of the tubing, letting it drip into the bed. Instead, he groped for the dentist's mirror.

"Probably just a kink in the line," she said. "Hold on."

She turned back toward him, resting the telephone receiver on the bedside table. He could still hear a voice coming out of it. Be careful, it was saying. In the half-light she followed the tubing down from the bag, running her fingers along it until she got to the edge of the bed. With one hand, she lowered the railing. She had already pulled the blanket aside, her head down and close to him, before he realized this was finally his chance and drove the end of the stylus as hard as he could up and into her face, the pain in his eye rising immediately to such a pitch that he passed out.

He came conscious to find himself struggling for breath. The woman had fallen onto him, was lying with her shoulder pressed against his mouth. The tubing had come out of his hand and started dripping: the bed was wet on one side. It was wet around his face too, on the pillow, but warmer, and when he turned his head to try to breathe he could see the fluid was dark and from the smell guessed it must be blood.

His shoulder was beginning to throb. He wriggled a little and her shoulder slid off his face, and her neck and ear slid down to replace it. He wriggled again, and pushed with his remaining arm. The head slowly tilted, the ear rolling down his cheekbone and the skull pushing against his face through hair that swept it wetly along and past his lips. The head yawed up and in the darkness he caught the brief glint of the mirror's stylus and then the mirror itself, anchored somewhere in her face, then the rest of the body slipped off the bed and collapsed onto the floor.

He lay there, panting. Hair was caught in his lips and he tried blowing it out and then brushing it away with his hand. He lay still, catching his breath, the pillow's dampness growing tacky, sticky.

Relax, he told himself. Stay calm.

But lying there in the dark he kept thinking he could hear her somewhere below him, feebly moving. There was a sound like whispering or something rustling over paper. In the dark below, he couldn't help but imagine her fingers moving, her body slowly gathering itself.

Soon he came to feel it was worse lying there imagining her coming back to life than whatever getting out of bed would do to his eye. Slowly, he swung his legs off the bed and raised his body, his head throbbing. At first, he didn't realize he was standing on her body and then he almost fell trying to figure out how to step off her without slipping or falling. But then almost without knowing it he was out of bed, still conscious, steadying himself against the mattress with one hand.

Still hearing the scuttling, he straightened enough to grope for a light switch, almost falling in reaching for it.

The lights flickered a moment before coming on, sickly white. It hurt his head to look down. When he did, she was there, contorted and face down, head suspended a few inches off the floor by the dentist's mirror, face hidden by the back of her head, a swath of blood along the bed and floor to mark how she had slid. She wasn't moving at all.

It took him a moment of standing and staring to realize that the scuttling was not coming from her but from the table, from the uncradled telephone receiver. He reached out and picked it up, held it against his face.

The scuttling became a whisper, then a voice talking into his ear. Mlinko, it was saying. Tell us what happened, Mlinko. Mlinko, please pick up the telephone.

He listened for a while, finally said, "This isn't Mlinko."

The whispering stopped. For a moment, he thought the line had gone dead.

When the voice came back, it was no longer a whisper, but still flat, uninflected.

"Mr. Kline," the voice said.

"Yes," said Kline.

"Would you mind putting Mlinko on?"

"Mlinko seems to be dead," said Kline.

"Appears or is?"

"Both," said Kline.

"You've caused a lot of trouble," the voice said.

"I didn't ask for any of it," he could not stop himself from saying.

"Yes," said the voice. "In that case, you must remember how the rest of the conversation goes. We're still coming for you."

V

Later, once he made it to the loading dock, he wasn't quite sure how he had managed. Only the first part was clear. He had dropped the receiver and then tried to bend down to search Mlinko's pockets, but before he was even bending his knees, he realized that there'd be no getting up again.

He looked for something on the bedside table to use as a weapon, but there was nothing. He pushed off the bed and made slowly for the door. The pain in his eye was still there, more a constant pressure than a lacerating pain as long as he made no quick movements with his shoulder.

He shuffled toward the doorway, feeling as if he were moving underwater. Once there, he balanced against the posts and then moved through the slick of blood. Davis was lying to one side, face up, throat slit, neck cricked back. Two of his fingers had been severed and removed. The blood felt warm through Kline's socks.

He slipped and almost went down, then nearly blacked out and started to go down again. He came to himself clinging to the desk of the nurses' station, on the other side of which were a pair of nurses, both with their throats cut, hands hidden so he couldn't tell if any of their fingers had been freshly amputated. One was the nurse who had answered the telephone earlier. The other he didn't recognize.

He pushed off and started down the hall, his breath coming out in throbs, his shoulder pulsing. The knife was back in his eye, sharp and long. Things began to come in bursts. Suddenly, he was farther down the hall than he thought and he could see a door at the hall's terminus, and without opening it he was on the other side. A scattering of faces reared up around him, frozen and static, like cutouts, stricken with odd expressions, falling quickly away. Another stretch of hall, a slowly descending ramp, then a tight staircase that he tumbled down as much as walked down. Somehow he was still standing when he reached the bottom. Another stretch of hall, this one dimly lit, a series of broken beds lined along one wall, followed by a series of sealed blue plastic bins. Then a double set of swinging doors. By the time things started happening in sequence again, he was slumped over a railing, staring down at the sewer grate below, on some sort of loading dock. Now what? he wondered. The dock was empty, no vehicles to be seen. If he followed the railing in one direction, there was a set of stairs he could go down. He could take them down and then climb the incline of the drive out of the hospital. It wasn't too steep, but he still wasn't sure he could make it. In the other direction, the railing ended just before a large green dumpster. There might be a gap between the dumpster and the far wall. Perhaps he could squeeze in.

He was still trying to decide what to do when he realized two figures had started down the drive and were coming quickly, shadows reeling in closer behind them with each step.

He turned and shuffled toward the dumpster. He could hear the dull echo of their footsteps now. I've been seen, he thought, but kept moving anyway, slower and slower it felt. He could see the gap better as he came closer, but still wasn't sure if it was big enough.

When he reached it, he saw that it wasn't.

He backed into it as far as he could and waited. It was a little darker there, but not dark enough to hide him. He'd probably been seen. Or maybe, he told himself, they aren't looking for me.

They came up the loading dock stairs and right to him.

"You're Kline," one of them said, the dark-haired one. He was missing an eye and most of the fingers on one hand. The other hand had been replaced by a gun prosthetic. An ear was gone as well. The other man, blond, lagging slightly behind, seemed only to be missing a hand, his right. His other hand held a gun.

Kline nodded. The inside of his head felt bruised.

"What did you do to Mlinko?" the dark-haired man asked.

"You mean specifically?"

"I mean where is she?"

"She's not anywhere," said Kline. "She's dead."

The man lifted his gun-arm, pointed it at Kline's head. "I suppose you know we've come to kill you," he said.

"I can't say I'm surprised," said Kline.

"Any last words?" asked the blond man, lifting his gun as well.

"I don't know," said Kline.

"You don't know?" said the dark-haired man, raising his eyebrows.

The blond man, Kline realized abruptly, had taken a step back and was now well behind the dark-haired one. He was no longer pointing his gun at Kline: it seemed to be slowly drifting away. A moment more and it was aimed at the dark-haired man's head, just behind his range of vision.

"Yes," said Kline quickly. "I do have something to say."

"What is it?" said the dark-haired man.

Kline opened his mouth but didn't speak, just kept looking from one man to the other, waiting for whatever would happen next.

"Too late," said the dark-haired man. "Time to die," he said, and then he was shot in the head by the blond man. He fell, gargling and frothing until the blond man pushed the snout of his pistol against the other man's ear and shot him again.

The blond man kicked the body once and then put his pistol away. "He cometh not with an olive branch but with a sword. He smiteth," he said, then moved toward Kline, smiling.

"Mr. Kline," he said, holding out his hand. "What a pleasure it is to finally meet you."

~ ~ ~

He could hear the sound of cars ahead, at some distance-or perhaps only something that sounded like cars. Perhaps only the wind. It was hard to know what he was hearing and what he only hoped to hear. He limped toward the sound.

There was a brief rise and then a dip and then another rise. Something was scraping the lining of his skull. He came out of the scrub and went down into the dip and stopped in a sickly stand of cottonwood edging a dried streambed. After that, there was no cover, only sparse dry grasses and dirt.

He leaned against the tree awhile. Yes, he thought, almost certainly cars. He tried to imagine climbing the rise and seeing asphalt at the top, but he couldn't imagine it. Before he knew it, his body had slipped and he was sitting, stump throbbing. He wasn't sure he'd be able to stand up again, let alone make it up the rise.

With his remaining hand, he unwrapped his stump. Its extreme showed the dead circles from the burner, pus seeping through where he had burnt it too deeply, two lumps just below the elbow that must have been the sheared bones. He covered it up again.

The blood in his shoe had grown sticky, the outside of the shoe pasty with dust and blood. He could tell from the blood dripping down his face and onto his shoulder that his head was bleeding, but he was afraid to touch it. The only time he'd touched it, his fingers had gone in deeper than he'd thought possible.

He sat leaning against the tree, trying not to lie down. His hands felt like they were curling in on themselves and dying, even the hand that wasn't there.

After a while he managed to move his hand enough to fumble a sharp stone off the ground. He prodded the end of his stump with it. It made it feel like a knife was being pushed into his eye, but he felt almost alive again too. Yawing and drunken, he crashed up to his feet, lungs feeling like they were drawing in something other than air. He took a step and saw the ground flash toward him and then flash away, and then he was walking somehow, his vision such that he could only just distinguish between earth and sky. What had sounded like cars now sounded like rock scraping against rock, the pain slowly fading back to the same dull, shocked ache he had felt for hours now.

Gradually he made out the shape of the rise. He moved toward it and slowly started up. The sound warped, became more like cars again. He watched the ground in front of him and tried to lean toward it enough to keep moving forward, but not so far as to fall.

About halfway up, he thought he was going to fall backward and had to tack to one side. His feet kept trying to turn downslope; it was all he could do to keep crabbing uphill. His body felt like a separate animal. He could only watch it, encourage it on.

And then dust and scrub grass vanished, replaced by ash-gray gravel and, just beyond that, the asphalt of a two-lane road. Not a car to be seen in either direction. He took a step onto the gravel and then another step, and then collapsed.

I

When he awoke, he was screaming. He was not on a roadside, he was not on a hospital loading dock; he was in a bed, but not in the bed he had been in before, not the bed he had expected to be in.

"You're awake, then," said a blond man beside him who was missing his right hand.

It was a hospital bed, Kline saw, but he wasn't in a hospital. Instead, he appeared to be in a sort of old-fashioned drawing room: thick brocaded drapes, a grand piano, herringbone parquet floors.

On the wall directly across from him were two paintings which, despite gilt frames, seemed remarkably out of place. One was a simple portrait of a man's head, except the face had been gouged out to leave a pink, cone-shaped hole. The other, all grays and browns, showed a man wearing a leather helmet, leg amputated to the middle of his thigh. One arm was mostly missing, the other arm either partly missing or wrapped up and invisible. He was either blind or his eyes had rolled back into his head. He was either singing or screaming, Kline couldn't say which. Beside him lay a woman partly swallowed by a cloth bag, lying in a puddle of blood.

The blond man, he realized, was observing him closely, almost hungrily. Kline turned his head slightly to meet his gaze. The man didn't blink.

"Which do you prefer?" the man asked with a slight smile, gesturing at the paintings behind him.

"Does it matter?" asked Kline.

The man's face fell. "Of course it matters," he said.

"Is this a test?"

"Why would it be a test? It's just a simple question of taste."

"What if I say I like them both?"

"Do you like them both? Exactly the same?"

"What am I doing here exactly?" asked Kline. "What's all this about?"

"Where are my manners?" said the man. He reached out as if to lay his hand on Kline's remaining arm, instead touched Kline lightly with his stump. "You're with us," he said confidentially. "Trust me, you're safe here," he said.

"Who are you?"

"Call me Paul," said the man.

"Are you planning to kill me, Paul?"

"What a strange idea," said Paul.

"How long have I been here?"

Paul shrugged. "A few days," he said.

"Where's here?" asked Kline.

Paul smiled. "No need to worry about that now," he said.

"But," said Kline.

"No buts," said Paul, standing up now and moving toward the door. "You're still far from well. Lie back now. Try to sleep."

But he couldn't sleep. He lay in the bed, staring at the two paintings, the one on the left precise and clinical, the one on the right chiaroscuro and looking as though it had been done while the artist was channeling an insane Dutch master. The light coming through the window's panes slowly shifted, shuffling about the walls and then disappearing. The windows went slowly dark and opaque, the room lit by a single lamp to one side of him, near the wingchair in which Paul had been sitting. It was harder now to make the paintings out, the light from the lamp catching in the paint and beryling there, hiding the image behind.

In the half-light he began to grow anxious. He sat up slowly. His head ached but not as much as it had in the hospital. When he moved his shoulder, he still felt pressure in his eye, but nothing more. His legs were sore and worked only reluctantly, but after a moment he had edged his legs out of the bed and was standing.

Almost immediately, a blond man was beside him, touching his elbow lightly. He was not sure where the man had come from, certainly not through the door. From behind one of the curtains perhaps?

"You should rest," the blond man was saying in a soothing voice. "There's no need to get up." It was not the same man he had seen before, he realized, not Paul, although they looked similar. This man had a thicker face, was shorter.

"What do you want?" asked Kline.

"Is there something you need?" asked the man. "If you tell me what you need, I'll do my best to retrieve it for you."

"Where's Paul?" he asked.

"I'm Paul," the man said.

"Paul was the other one," said Kline. "You're not Paul."

"We're all Paul," the man said. He touched Kline lightly on the chest, nudged him until he sat on the bed. "Please," he said. "Please rest."

He let the second Paul coax him fully back into the bed, lifting up one of his legs and then the other, then dragging them over until he was lying again where he had been, in the half-light, staring at the vague shapes of the paintings. The Paul circled around behind his head and disappeared.

Getting out of the bed, even briefly, seemed to have exhausted him. Perhaps Paul, the second Paul, had been right.

In the morning he was awoken by a third blond man also missing his right hand. He came in through the door, a tray balanced precariously on his stump. He settled the tray on the bedside table, helped Kline to sit up, then moved the tray onto Kline's lap. Little silver vessels nestled fruits and a hardboiled egg and thick slices of bacon. There were toast points in each corner of the tray like a garnish and a glass of milk and a glass of orange juice.

Kline reached out and took the egg. He took a bite out of it, then looked into the chalky, cooked yolk. The blond man murmured approval.

"What is it?" asked Kline. Looking at him more closely, he could see that his hair wasn't naturally blond. It had been dyed.

"I was certain you'd take the egg first," said the man.

"You were?"

The man nodded, smiled.

"Is everything a test here?"

The man's smile fell. "I didn't mean to offend you," he said. "I would never presume to test you, friend Kline."

Kline grunted, put the rest of the egg in his mouth and chewed.

"What's your name?" Kline asked.

"I'm Paul," said the man.

"You're not," said Kline.

"We all are," he said.

Kline shook his head. "You can't all be Paul," he said.

"Why not?" said the man. "Is this a teaching?"

"A teaching?" said Kline. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"Should I write it down?"

"Write what down?"

"'You can't all be Paul.' And whatever else comes thereafter from your lips."

"No," said Kline, a strange dread starting to grow within him. "I don't want you to write anything down."

"Is that too a teaching?" said Paul. "'Write nothing down'?"

"Nothing's a teaching," said Kline. "Stop saying that."

Kline started into the bacon. As he ate, Paul stared at him, his brow creased in concentration, as if afraid to miss something.

"Am I a prisoner here?" Kline asked.

"A prisoner?" said Paul. "But we're helping you."

"I want to leave," said Kline.

"Why?" asked Paul. "We believe in you, friend Kline," he said. "Why would you want to leave? You're not healed yet."

"You haven't always been called Paul, have you?" Kline said.

Paul looked surprised. "No," he admitted reluctantly.

"What did you used to be called?"

"I'm not allowed to say," said Paul. "It's a dead name. 'You must lose yourself to find yourself.' That's a teaching."

"It's all right to say," said Kline. "You can tell me." Paul looked to either side of him and then leaned forward, whispering into Kline's ear: "Brian."

"Brian?" said Kline.

Paul winced.

"Why Paul?" asked Kline. "Why are you all Paul?"

"Because of the Apostle," said Paul. "And the other one, the philosopher's brother."

"What's this all about?"

"A work," said Paul, his cadence slightly odd as if he were a child reciting something memorized. "A marvelous work and a wonder, such as has never come to pass before in the world of men." He leaned in closer. "We have a relic for you," he whispered.

"A relic?"

"Sshh," said Paul. "They didn't know its value," he said. "But our agent did."

Kline caught a brief movement out of the corner of his eye. He turned to the doorway to see another man standing there, one hand missing, hair blond. He was frowning.

"Ah," said Kline. "You must be Paul."

The Paul beside him stiffened. He lifted the breakfast tray and hurried out. The Paul in the doorway moved to let him past, then followed him out, pushing the door shut behind him.

Another Paul came in a few hours later to bring him lunch, then another Paul not long afterward who changed his dressings and massaged his legs and helped him up to the bathroom. Neither were talkative, both answering his questions simply and noncommittally. Yes, they were each called Paul. Yes, they both had had other names, dead names, but both were firm in their refusal to divulge them. No, he was not a prisoner, they claimed, but they both encouraged him so strongly to remain in bed that he felt as if he were a prisoner. To the question "What am I doing here?" and the question "What do you want from me?" — each posed to a different Paul-they just smiled. All, they assured him, would be explained in time. "By whom?" he asked, and was not surprised when they answered, "By Paul."

After the last Paul was gone, he tried to think. Could he make his way out without them stopping him? His shoulder still throbbed when he moved that side of his body. His head hurt too, but the knife was mostly gone from his eye, and when it came was not nearly as severe, as if it were stabbing into a wound whose edges had already been cauterized, was just slightly tearing the fleshy edge of his brain. He was hardly at his best, but he was far from his worst. Was he in good enough shape to leave?

Over the course of the day, the paintings started to feel familiar, no longer so strange. True, they were grotesque, but it became harder and harder to keep that in mind. The screaming or singing man started to seem more and more incidental to the composition of the picture as a whole, and he found himself thinking about the pattern of ochres and blacks and clammy whites, about the cast of light and shadow, in a way he almost found soothing.

A Paul came in, a new one or a repeater, he wasn't sure. They had all started to look alike to him. The Paul held a dinner tray. Kline ate slowly. He was, he told himself, feeling much better.

"Paul," he said.

"Yes?" said Paul.

"I don't suppose you'd care to tell me what's going on here?"

"That is not for me to say," said Paul.

"I suppose not," said Kline. "I should wait for Paul then, should I?" Paul beamed, nodded. "Soon," he said. "No need to worry."

After Paul was gone, Kline lay thinking. He could get out of bed and when one of the Pauls came, as long as he was not a large Paul, he could probably feign weakness and then, while the Paul was unsuspecting, overpower him. He would hit him in the throat as hard as he could, or almost: not hard enough to kill him. Would it be hard enough? Would it be too hard? He kept thinking about it, imagining his hand flashing out, how the Paul's throat would feel to the blade of it, of the hand.

But no, he realized, he was now too curious to leave before finding out more about what was going on.

That night he had dreams of conflagration, scattered bits and fragments of burnings that seemed, he reflected later, to be assembled from many moments of smoke or fire, benign or otherwise, that he had experienced in his life. Yet in the midst of the fragments was a single roaring kernel: he saw himself, arm missing to the elbow, stumble out of a doorway and shoot a gun-handed guard through the head. This is a dream, he told himself, and was pleased that he could recognize this, though later there came gradually a nagging suspicion that it was not just a dream, had not always been a dream.

He shot the guard through the head and the man fell back gasping, hissing blood through his lips in a fine mist that slowly shadowed the floor beside his face. After a little while, the fellow seemed dead. Kline searched his pockets, found cigarettes, a book of matches. He used the matches to light the dead man's clothing on fire, then stood watching, making sure the flames started feeding up the wall.

Doors near him started to open and then quickly closed again. People were shouting. He stumbled his way down the stairs and shot a guard coming up, a lucky shot this time. A few seconds later he tripped over the man's body and fell the rest of the way down.

When he awoke it was to a man playing the piano, a careful, melancholy piece. He could only see the man from the back but could still tell he was blond and missing a hand. A Paul, certainly. He was playing one-handed but the piece didn't seem to be suffering as a result.

The piece slowed further, wound around itself, slowly died. The man stayed at the instrument, pedal down, letting the last notes resonate. One hand and half his body was hunched over the keyboard. The other arm, the stump, hung loosely at his side, as if each half of his body was controlled by a different brain. It was a curious and startling effect.

Eventually the notes faded utterly and both halves of the man's back finally relaxed to become a single back again. He swiveled around to regard Kline.

"Hindemith," he said. "Wittgenstein commissioned it-not the philosopher but his musical brother, Paul, who'd lost his arm in the war. He commissioned more than half a hundred one-handed piano pieces. He was a visionary."

Not knowing what else to say, Kline said: "Paul, I presume."

"Indeed," said the man, smiling slightly. Standing, he came to Kline's bedside.

"But you haven't always been called Paul, have you," said Kline.

"Perhaps the most successful of the pieces Paul Wittgenstein commissioned, philosophically speaking, is another one by Hindemith, which is a struggle even for a two-handed man to play well. And yet there is something about the stress it places on the fingers of the one-handed man that gives it a poignancy that a more relaxed, more confident two-handed approach is virtually unable to bring about. Hindemith had two hands, but when he wrote that piece it was as if he had only one. Do you play, friend Kline?"

"Play what?"

"The piano, of course," said the Paul.

"No," said Kline.

"Never learned?" said the Paul. "Took childhood lessons but never followed through?"

"Something like that," said Kline.

The Paul went back to the piano and struck a chord, let it resonate, then struck its tonic inverse.

"I of course have the advantage on you," said the Paul. "I've had my eyes on you for quite some time. You, on the other hand, have little if any idea who I am."

"You're Paul," said Kline.

"Who isn't?" asked the Paul. "Even you might well be Paul, were there not another role prepared for you."

"Who says I want to accept it?" said Kline.

"Surely you don't believe, friend Kline, that we have any choice in the paths our lives take? God is the only one who controls our fate. We are predestined from the beginning. You believe in God, don't you?"

Kline didn't answer.

"No matter," said the Paul. "It makes no difference whether you believe in God, since God, so I have been led to understand, believes in you. And we believe in you as well, friend Kline. At first we weren't sure you were the one, so we watched. But now we're sure. From the moment you chose to go with their messengers to the compound, your fate has ground itself inexorably forward."

"Who's we?"

"We," said the Paul, and spread his arms wide. "Paul."

"I'm not the one, Paul," said Kline. "Whatever it is, I'm not it."

"But you are," said the Paul.

Kline shook his head.

"You made us certain when, instead of being killed by them, you extricated yourself wielding a sword of destruction. Metaphorically, I mean. By a sword I mean a gun."

"Like hell," said Kline.

"Yes," said Paul. "Exactly like hell. You harrowed them."

"I want to leave now," said Kline. He tried to look away, but didn't know where else to look.

Paul frowned. "You can go," he said. "You always could. We're not like them. Nobody is stopping you from going. But they'll be looking for you. Borchert's men."

"That so?" said Kline.

"They'll never stop looking," said Paul. "It's either you or them. An eye for an eye, friend Kline. If you leave, you'll have to kill them all."

They left him alone in the room for the rest of the day, though he had the feeling that if he were to get out of bed and go toward the door a Paul would suddenly be there, attentive, perhaps more than one. He could, he thought, leave if he needed to. He felt all right, considering, would be all right if leaving was all it was. But despite their assurances that he was free to go, he couldn't believe they wouldn't try to stop him. And once he was out, if Borchert's men came after him, what then? Better to stay and recover as best he could, choose the right moment to leave.

The trick, he told himself, was to avoid letting his curiosity get the better of his judgment, to know when, still suffering or no, to leave. He looked again at the painting of the one-legged screamer and now it seemed to him that the man wanted to leave the scene but couldn't, couldn't bring himself to limp out on the bleeding woman bundled up beside him, perhaps dead. Perhaps that was why he was screaming.

But I'm not like him, Kline told himself. If I have to leave something behind, I do. Even when it's part of me.

His dinner was brought to him by the piano-playing Paul, the Paul that seemed to be in charge. It consisted of a scoop of mashed potatoes, skins worked in, and a chicken leg.

"You're still here," the Paul said.

Kline nodded.

"I'm glad you decided to stay," said the Paul. "Things have gone so nicely to this point that I'd hate for them to take an unfortunate turn now."

"I'm not the one," said Kline. "Whatever it is you think I am, I'm not it."

"How can you say so if you don't even know what it is, friend Kline? You have to give yourself a chance."

Kline just shook his head.

"There's something I want to show you," said the Paul.

He turned slightly toward the open doorway and in came another Paul, carrying before him a lacquered casket, about a foot and a half long, fairly narrow. He carried it carefully forward and presented it to the first Paul, who took it and then carefully placed it on the bed, balancing it in Kline's lap.

"Go ahead," he said to Kline, "open it."

"What's in it?" asked Kline.

"Open it," he said again.

The casket had a gilt hasp, firmly shut but not locked. He ran his hand over the lacquered wood; it was smooth, felt exactly as it looked.

Undoing the hasp with the edge of his thumb, he opened the lid. The casket was lined with red velvet, the angle of the light lending it an odd sheen. The only thing in the box was a bone. Or rather two bones, from a forearm or foreleg, held together by a strand of wire at each end. He reached in and touched them, then glanced over at Paul.

"Go ahead," Paul said. "Pick it up if you want."

"What is it?" asked Kline.

"A relic," said Paul.

When he lifted the bones out, they clicked against one another. They were, he was suddenly certain, human. Both had been sheared off, leaving the ends open and porous and, he saw, strangely dark. He leaned the bones against the box and prodded the end of one; the marrow gave slightly, was oddly spongy.

"These are recent," said Kline, slightly surprised.

"Of course they are," said Paul. "They belonged to you."

Kline pulled back his hand, as if stung.

"We have one of our best Pauls seeing what he can do about acquiring your toes. We'd like your hand as well, but we've been looking for that for much longer and inquiries seem to have led nowhere. You wouldn't happen to know where it went, would you? Kept in evidence, perhaps?"

"Please," said Kline, "please, take it away."

The Paul stopped and looked at him closely. "There's nothing to worry about, friend Kline," he said. "Every bone has to come from somewhere. This one just happens to have come from you." He reached out and carefully lifted the bones, settled them into the casket, closed the lid. "It has a life of its own now, friend Kline."

"Thank God," said Kline.

The Paul stooped and awkwardly gathered the casket up, settling it on his forearms and carrying it out before him.

"Besides," he said. "It's not just you. We all have relics. I could show you my own if you'd like."

"Somehow that doesn't reassure me," said Kline.

"Would you like to see it?" asked the Paul.

"Absolutely not," said Kline.

"Don't worry," said the Paul. "You'll get used to it. You'll even start to understand it. You won't be able to help yourself." He started toward the door. "Some other time, then," he said, and went out.

Kline closed his eyes but against his eyelids still saw the bone, its spongy end. He opened them again, stared at the piano, the lacquered sheen of it.

The trick, he told himself, is knowing when to leave, and then leaving. And then he thought, I have to leave now.

II

He lay in bed pretending to be asleep, waiting. Every so often he heard a shuffling and one of the Pauls came to the door, peered in, eyes blurry, then shuffled away. He let that happen six times and then the seventh time got up just after the Paul had left and began to search the room.

The top drawer of a mahogany tallboy contained a neat stack of undershirts and an even neater stack of boxers and a robe. He awkwardly struggled out of his gown, stump throbbing, and into an undershirt. The boxers he spread out on the floor and then stepped into the leg-holes, pulling them up around his hips with his single hand. They were a little big but would do. He slipped the robe on.

He tried the other drawers of the tallboy, found them all empty. He searched around the room for a pair of pants, finding nothing of note except, beneath the bathroom sink, a barrage of cleaning supplies and, wrapped in an old towel, a bedpan. This latter he took out and hefted. It was a little awkward but then he realized he could slip his hand into it and make a fist and it would stay in place when he swung it back and forth.

When a Paul came to the door for the eighth time and saw the bed empty, he took a step forward and was struck in the face by a bedpan. It hurt Kline's hand quite a bit, but seemed to hurt the Paul a great deal more. The Paul stumbled and started to go down and then began to catch himself, groping at one of his pockets with his stump. Kline hit him again, on the side of the head this time, and he went down for good.

Kline worked his hand out of the bedpan and let it drop and then started to slip the Paul's pants off. There was blood coming out of the Paul's mouth, he realized, and he opened his mouth to see the Paul had bitten through his tongue. He turned the head a little so as to keep him from choking to death on his own blood, then fished the severed tip out of the mouth and laid it on the carpet beside his head.

Like a slug, he thought, working the Paul's pants the rest of the way off. There was nothing in the pants pockets. He took off his robe and tried the pants on and they didn't fit, they were too tight, so he stepped out of them and put the robe back on.

He imagined the other Pauls coming in to find this Paul unconscious, his severed tongue arranged neatly beside him. And then he realized, his body instantly feeling heavier, they would see the tongue and then do one of two things. Either they would all cut off their own tongues, making all the Pauls identical again, or they would make a holy relic of this tongue.

He picked the tongue up, carried it into the bathroom, and flushed it down the toilet.

He moved down a dim hall, past first one open doorway and then a second, each opening onto rooms that, as far as he could tell in the dim light, were like his own. The hall turned abruptly to the right and then terminated in a T-intersection. He turned right, went past another doorway and into growing darkness. When it became too difficult to see, he stopped and traced his steps back, taking the left fork.

He followed this down to another T-intersection, then followed the right branch, where there seemed to be more light, and came to a heavy banister and a spiral staircase. The light was coming from below. He leaned over the banister and saw, standing perhaps fifteen feet below, a Paul.

He started down the stairs, moving slowly, watching the Paul. The man just stood there, wearing a light jacket, arms crossed, facing a larger door. Kline went silently around another turn of the stairs and then leaned far over the banister and struck the Paul hard over the head with the bedpan.

The Paul took a step and then sat down, the back of his head slowly darkening with blood. Then he slumped over bonelessly.

Kline came down the rest of the way and searched the Paul's pockets. The pocket of his jacket had a gun in it and a ten-dollar bill and a car key on a rubber band.

Kline took everything, then started for the door. It was locked.

He looked at the key again, even tried it but, no, he knew it was a car key not a door key: it didn't fit. When he turned around to try to figure out what to do next, there was the chief Paul sitting on the bottom step of the stairs, watching him.

"Anything the matter?" the Paul asked.

Kline lifted the pistol, pointed it at him.

"Friend Kline," the Paul said. "You sadden me."

"Where's the key to the door?" demanded Kline.

"Nobody here has the key, friend Kline," said the Paul. He spread his arms, displayed his stump and an open palm. "There's no need for any of this."

"How do you get out if there's no key?"

"I don't want to get out," said the Paul. "Paul is perfectly happy where he is." He pointed at the gun with his stump. "No need for that," he said. "Please, put it away."

Kline looked at the gun, then shrugged, let it slowly fall to his side.

"All right," he said.

"There," said the Paul. "Don't you feel much better now that we can talk this over like civilized adults?"

"I want to leave," said Kline.

"If you really wanted to leave, all you had to do was ask," said the Paul. He stood and came slowly toward Kline, then moved past him and to the door. "Ask and ye shall receive," he said, "knock and it shall be opened unto you." He knocked twice, waited, then knocked a third time.

"What is wanted?" asked a muffled voice from the other side.

"Kline, having been true and faithful in all things, desires to turn his face away from the Lord by entering the lone and dreary world."

"Present him at the door and his request shall be granted," said the voice.

The Paul motioned him forward, positioned him in front of the door. He knocked once, then waited, then knocked twice more.

There was a rustling on the other side and the lock clicked. The door opened and Kline found himself looking into what appeared to be an empty building lobby, brightly lit. A revolving door on the far side opened onto a dark street. Beside it stood a Paul wearing a doorman's uniform.

"You see, friend Kline? We're men of our word. You're free to go."

Kline nodded, stopped forward and past the doorman.

"You took Paul's key, friend Kline, and his gun," said the chief Paul from behind. "There was no need to knock him out."

"I'm sorry," said Kline warily, holding out the key.

"No, no," said the chief Paul, waving his stump. "You might as well keep it. Paul's car is parked just outside, isn't it Paul?" he said, looking at the doorman. The doorman nodded. "It's a mistake to leave," said the chief Paul. "They'll kill you," he said. "But we all of us have to make our own mistakes. We all of us have free agency, friend Kline. But far be it from me to force a man to go on foot to his own death. By all means, take the car."

"Thank you," said Kline.

"You sure you won't reconsider?" asked the Paul.

Kline shook his head and moved through the door.

"A pity, friend Kline," he heard from behind him. "I was certain you were the one."

He tried the key in three car doors before it opened the door of a rusted, lime-green Ford Pinto. He climbed in, only now starting to feel how exhausted he was.

He cursed when he realized the car was a standard. He started it in neutral and then shifted it into first, slowly working the steering wheel around with his solitary hand until the wheels jacked sharply out. He could feel pressure in his clutch foot, the toes reminding him of their absence. Not pain exactly, though there was pain too, in his armless shoulder as he moved his other arm. He let out the clutch and the car lurched out, just nicking the bumper of the car ahead of him but scraping past. And then he had his hands, or rather his hand, full trying to correct before plowing into the cars on the other side of the street.

He drove slowly, releasing the steering wheel to shift up or down. After a few minutes, he managed to scoot forward so as to hold the wheel steady with his knee when shifting, and then it was a little easier.

It wasn't a town he knew. He drove around until he came to the marker for a state road, took it. He followed the state road to another state road and then followed that to the interstate, took that south toward home.

It had just started to get light when he realized he was almost out of gas. He took the next exit, went to a Conoco just off the freeway. It was closed. He went to the next exit, found an all-night truck stop, pulled the car in. He pumped in ten dollars of gas, then went inside to pay.

The attendant, old and grizzled, looked oddly at his dressing gown and his missing arm. Kline held out his ten dollars.

"Couldn't sleep?" said the attendant, gesturing at the gown.

"Something like that," said Kline.

"Cops were looking for someone a few days back," the attendant said.

"Description matched you, more or less. Don't suppose it lines up with all that many folks."

A trucker in the candy aisle had started staring at them. Kline began to feel very tired.

"Can't be too easy to drive like that," the attendant said.

Kline shrugged.

"Say the man's a killer," said the attendant.

"Just a misunderstanding," said Kline.

"None of my business," said the attendant, "but seems to me a man who's a killer wouldn't bother to pay for his gas." He reached out and took the ten from Kline's hand and Kline saw he was missing a thumb. "Besides, they aren't even offering no reward. Good luck to you," the attendant said, and Kline made for the door.

He drove for a while on back roads, just in case, but after a half hour or so he realized that if he kept it up he wouldn't make it on the gas he had. The sun rose hot and dry and began to burn through the car. He rolled down the window but became worried that the drag would take up too much gas, so he rolled it back up, turned on the vent, slowly started to sweat.

He made it to the exit to his city and then to the city limits, the car lurching up the last few hills but kicking in again on the way down. Almost a half-mile from his apartment it died for good. He left it there half-blocking the street and set out on foot. The sidewalks had a modest scattering of people on them, late risers or people late for work or people out for other reasons. He tried not to look at them as he limped past in his bathrobe, though many stopped to look at him. He kept going, stopping once in a doorway to catch his breath.

It wasn't until he was at the building door, barely able to stand, that he realized he didn't have his key. He pushed the buzzer for the super's apartment, then sat down on the steps to wait. When there was no answer, he depressed the buzzer again, holding it down until the door buzzed and he finally could push his way in.

The super was waiting just inside the second door, hands on his hips, mustache bristling, eyes bleary, lips pursed. When he saw Kline his anger fled, was replaced by something uneasy, much less sure of itself.

"It's you," he said. "You came back."

"I don't have my key," said Kline. He was so exhausted, he was having difficulty standing.

"What happened?" asked the super.

"Two men kidnapped me," said Kline. "After that, things started getting weird. I meant to come back sooner. Is it the rent you're worried about?"

But the super had his forearms up, as if defending himself from blows. "No," he was saying, "I meant your arm."

"Oh," said Kline. "I lost it."

The super opened his mouth and closed it again. He went back into his apartment and got the master key, then helped Kline up the stairs and to his door, opening it for him.

"I'll have a new key made for you," said the super, "next day or so. Until then, you'll have to talk to me to get in."

Kline nodded and stumbled his way in. Everything, he noticed dimly, was covered in a layer of fine dust. And then he was on the bed, and already, despite the sudden pain in his shoulder, in his eye, mostly asleep.

III

When he awoke, the room was dark. Confused, he looked first for the hospital curtain and then for the two grotesque paintings, but found nothing. There was only a blank white wall, a man's shadow cast upon it. The shadow moved and he turned his head to find himself suddenly looking at Frank, two uniformed cops standing just behind him.

"Seems like I'm always waiting for you to wake up," said Frank.

Kline just blinked.

"If I had a cigarette, this would be the moment I lit it and smoked it while waiting for you to say something," said Frank. "Only I don't smoke."

"No?" said Kline.

"No," said Frank. "And besides, I want things to go quicker this time around."

"Why didn't you wake me?"

"We tried," said Frank. "I shook you and shouted and slapped you around a little, but it didn't help. I tried to convince these boys in blue behind me to see if their kisses would awaken you. But no matter how impatient we were, we just had to wait."

"How'd you find me?"

"If you thought about it even for a moment you wouldn't have to ask," said Frank. "One word. Super."

Kline nodded.

"Enough fun and games," said Frank, and Kline watched his expression shift just slightly, face growing hard, pupils shrinking to dots, gaze steadying. "Let's hear about it."

"Hear about what?"

His eyes grew harder. He took an unsharpened pencil from his pocket and turned it absently between his fingers. He stood and leaned in over the bed, resting a heavy hand on Kline's shoulder. The other hand brought the pencil up near Kline's eye, then moved it toward his temple. Then he moved it down and pressed its end against the dressings over the bullet wound.

At first it was just a gentle pressure, an odd and nervous reminder of its own presence, but then Frank pushed harder, and the vision in one of Kline's eyes began to fold in on itself and go out. He felt the knife dart back again, deep again in his eye, the pain starting to build. He closed his eyes and waited to pass out.

As suddenly as it had started the pressure vanished. When he opened his eyes again, Frank was back in his chair, twirling the pencil between his fingers, watching him.

"Let's hear about it," said Frank.

"Hear about what?" Kline asked.

Then Frank was standing again, his hand against Kline's shoulder and pressing him down into the bed. He was holding the pencil between his teeth and had a pocketknife in one hand and had begun to cut through the dressings over Kline's shoulder. Once he was through, he carefully folded the knife and put it back into his pocket, then took the pencil and pressed its end against Kline's stump.

It made Kline's eye hurt first and then it hurt inside his shoulder too and somehow in his throat so that he wanted to cough. And then Frank pushed very hard and the shoulder seared with pain and God's knife flashed all the way through his skull and out the hole in the back and he stopped being able to think and blacked out.

When he opened his eyes again, Frank was back in his chair, calm, twirling the pencil around between his fingers. Behind him, the two cops looked worried. The end of the pencil was now slick with blood. His shoulder throbbed.

"Let's hear about it," said Frank.

"This could go on all day," said Kline.

"It doesn't have to," said Frank. "It all depends on you."

They stared at each other.

"All right," said Kline finally. "What do you want to know?"

They started with Davis, his murder, Kline telling the truth and then Frank prodding one wound or the other until he was convinced it was actually the truth and there was no more to tell. At the beginning Kline kept thinking he could lie if he wanted to, but as blood began to drip off the pencil he realized that no, probably he couldn't, not now, not convincingly.

"That hurt me worse than it hurt you," said Frank, and smiled. Kline watched the two uniformed officers behind him exchange glances. "I'm a peace-loving man. I tried to do this the easy way, but you weren't interested."

"I'm starting to get interested," said Kline, eyes following the pencil.

"That was then," said Frank. "We're past that now. You know what the difference is? Davis being dead, for one. Not that he was much of a cop, but he didn't deserve to die."

"I didn't kill him," said Kline.

"No," said Frank. "We'd basically determined that. Technically speaking, you didn't kill him. But what I want to know is why the man who was missing an arm and could hardly move, let alone walk, is alive while the police officer with all his limbs is dead?"

"I don't know," said Kline.

"You don't know," said Frank, and leaned forward.

"No," said Kline quickly. "I do know. He fell asleep."

"He fell asleep?"

"I didn't sleep."

"Does that seem fair to you, Mr. Kline?"

"I don't even know what fair means," said Kline. "Why aren't we having this conversation at the station?"

"I have a reputation to maintain," said Frank. One of the officers behind him looked even more nervous. "I don't want people getting the wrong idea."

He reached out and pushed the pencil's end against Kline's stump, twisting it slightly.

Kline winced. "What do you want to know now?" he asked.

Frank looked up, smiled. "Who says I want to know anything?" he asked, and pushed harder.

And then, just as the knife was pushing its way into his eye again, the world burst apart. The door burst open and a man with a gun in place of a hand stood there and there was a rattling and one policeman's head came quickly open to reveal what was inside. The other policeman had his gun partway out and was half-crouched and turning, and then the rattling came again and he jerked about and his side split open and he shot twice into the floor, spun about, and fell.

Frank had dived out the closed window and now flailed about on the fire escape, face and hands cut up by the glass, trying to free his gun from its holster. The mutilate took a few steps toward him and raised his gun prosthesis again and a look of amazement crossed Frank's face. He threw himself sideways, the bullets thudding into the window casement and sparking off the railing of the fire escape. Kline heard him falling or stumbling down the stairs, away.

The guard looked at Kline, who hadn't moved, and smiled.

"We've found you, Mr. Kline," he said. He pointed his gun prosthesis at Kline, gestured. "Up," he said. "Time to go."

Kline stood, raised his hands. The guard kept his distance, always training the gun on him, following him from behind and to the side, always there in the corner of Kline's vision.

"Open the door and take two steps into the hall," the guard said. "Slowly."

He did as he was told, the guard just behind him. The hall was empty except for people standing near their doors, watching his door.

"What do you see?" the guard asked, closer behind him now.

"What's going on?" asked a man three doors down.

"My neighbors," said Kline.

"No police?" he said.

"No," said Kline.

"Tell them to go back inside," said the guard.

"Go back inside," said Kline.

"What's going on?" the man said again.

"Nothing's going on," said Kline.

"I thought I heard shots," the man said.

The guard pushed Kline forward, almost making him stumble down. "Go back inside," he heard the guard say, and half-turned to see the guard pointing his gun-arm at the neighbor. This is the moment, Kline fleetingly thought, if this were a film I'd knock the guard's arm upward and overpower him. But Kline was twisted the wrong way around; the gun was on the same side as his missing arm.

He heard a door close, saw that the neighbor had disappeared.

"All right," said the guard. "Down the stairs."

He started for the door to the back stairs but the guard gestured him away, pointed toward the front.

"This way, Mr. Kline," he said. "We don't have anything to be ashamed of. We're going out the front door."

He went slowly, wondering with each step if another chance would come. He listened to the guard behind. The man's steps were careful and regular, no hesitation to them.

The gun jabbed into his back. "Hurry up," the guard said. "Make it quick."

He sped up a little, stumbled again, caught himself, then continued down the stairs. In the lobby was another mutilate, a man missing both ears, several fingers, most of his palm. He was pacing back and forth nervously. He had a gun but held it awkwardly-as if he'd never seen a gun before, let alone used one.

"Hurry it up!" he shouted when he saw them. "Hurry it up!"

"Where's the cop, John?" asked the guard, looking through the glass doors onto the street.

"What cop?" asked John, gaze darting nervously about.

"Never mind," said the guard. "Out the front door, John," he said. "After you, Mr. Kline."

Kline pushed the door open then lifted his hand back up above his head and went out. The light outside was brighter than he'd imagined. It confused him for a moment.

"Straight ahead," hissed the guard. "Black car. Back door. Run."

He saw the black car, double-parked just across the street, and made for it, John moaning with fear beside him. He reached the car and pulled the door open and threw himself in, John right after him and nearly on top of him, the guard right after that. "Go, go!" John was yelling to the driver, but the driver didn't move and when the guard prodded him the man's head fell to one side and a red gash gaped at his throat. John started to scream, a high-pitched sound, and then the window beside Kline cracked and went opaque and John was dead, the front of his face gone. The guard tried to get his gun-arm around, knocking it against the seat in front of him, and then the rear window cracked and went opaque and his head burst brightly over the headrest in front of him. The gun rattled briefly, slugs thumping through the ceiling, and then stopped.

The door opened and there was Frank, eyes still hard, looking unblinkingly at him, gashed and bloody, breathing heavily.

"I should kill you now," he said. "Save us all a lot of trouble."

"I wish you wouldn't," said Kline.

"Come on," said Frank wearily. "Get out."

Kline slowly climbed over the dead guard, trying not to touch him. He was still managing it when he heard a shot and Frank gave a little cry. Kline slid the rest of the way out and crouched, shielding himself behind the car door. Frank was there too, on one knee, one arm hanging limply as if it were no longer alive. The other arm was trying to aim the gun, failing. He tried to stand but seemed to be having trouble.

Another shot rang out and Frank was knocked down. Kline stayed crouched, wondering if he should try to run or if he should crawl back into the car. In the distance, faintly, sirens. He got his legs under him and got ready to run but instead just stayed there, waiting. What's wrong with me? he wondered. Frank lay on the sidewalk, coughing blood, still alive.

He would run across the street, he told himself, back toward the building. Or rather he would start running, he corrected himself, and then be shot dead.

He got ready to go, tensed himself, but couldn't bring himself to run. Instead he slowly stood and stepped out from behind the car door. He stopped long enough to tilt Frank's head slightly, to keep him from choking to death on his own blood, and then straightened himself and stood, waiting for them to kill him.

Only they didn't kill him. Instead, they came out from behind a car. There were two of them, and they were both smiling even though the one with the gun kept it trained on him. Kline knew them both: Gous and Ramse.

"We've come full circle, Mr. Kline," said Ramse, moving toward him.

"Seems fitting, no?" said Gous.

"We knew the place," said Ramse, "having gotten you the first time. So, we were the logical choice."

"So, back in favor," said Gous.

They got close enough for Ramse to prod Frank with his boot. "Poor bastard," said Gous.

"He deserved it," said Ramse.

"He was just doing his job," said Gous. "His only mistake was not realizing there was a second car. There's always a second car. Except when there's not." He gestured with his gun at Kline. "By all rights this should be our friend Kline."

Ramse shrugged. "That's Kline," he said. "We know and love him. He's like a person to us."

"More or less," said Gous.

"Yes," said Ramse. "More or less." He prodded Frank again with his foot. "What do you think, Gous? Shall we kill him?"

"No point overdoing it," said Gous.

"No," said Ramse. "I suppose not. Besides, we should be going."

"We should indeed," said Gous. The sirens, Kline suddenly realized, sounded quite near. "Into the car, Mr. Kline," he said, gesturing behind him with his gun. "Time to go."

He sat in the front seat. Ramse drove by placing his stump in the cup attached to the steering wheel, while Gous in the backseat trained the gun at Kline's back or his head, sometimes one, sometimes the other.

They passed a police car, siren flailing, going the other way. Ramse didn't even give it a glance, didn't seem at all nervous.

"Back to the compound?" asked Kline.

"Back to the compound," said Ramse, and smiled.

They drove through the suburbs, signs of habitation slowly giving way to dry, withered trees.

"They're planning to kill me?" asked Kline.

"Yes," said Ramse. "We."

"What?" asked Kline.

"We're planning to kill you," said Ramse. "Slowly and painfully. We're part of them."

"It's semantic," said Gous. "There's no point correcting him."

"We know him, Gous," said Ramse, watching his friend in the rearview mirror. "He's shifty. He's trying to draw a line between us and the others."

"So?" said Gous.

"So, we have to watch ourselves," said Ramse. "We have to be on guard."

"I don't think it's that big of a deal," said Gous. "We're smarter than that."

They kept arguing back and forth about it, and then Ramse shouted, and then finally, both furious, they refused speak to one another. The sun slipped down in the sky and disappeared, the car and the landscape it traveled through cast now in an orange light, as if everything were slightly underexposed. When the light was completely gone, Ramse asked him to reach across him and turn on the headlights. He thought fleetingly about jerking the steering wheel and trying to crash the car, but before he'd even started to reach he felt the snout of Gous' pistol push into the nape of his neck. "Careful now," Gous said.

He reached slowly across and pushed in the light button and fell back again. Gous' pistol wavered for a moment beside his ear, then darted away.

They kept driving.

"I'm sorry," said Gous to Ramse. "I didn't mean to say anything to hurt you."

"I'm the one that's sorry," said Ramse. "There's no reason to fight."

Kline rolled his eyes. They kept driving. Kline felt like he should recognize the road, but, in the dark, didn't. "Why do they want us to bring him back?" said Gous. "They're just going to kill him. Why don't we just kill him ourselves?"

"They're not just going to kill him," said Ramse. "They're planning to crucify him." He leaned over to Kline. "Sorry," he said, "but you might as well know."

"It's all right," said Kline.

"If it was our choice," said Gous, "it might turn out differently."

"But it's not our choice," said Ramse.

"I understand," said Kline.

"Very kind of you," said Gous. "You always were considerate."

"Don't overdo it, Gous," said Ramse.

"Sorry," said Gous.

"It's the thought that counts," Kline offered.

"I hope so," said Ramse, "because there's nothing beyond that."

"No?" asked Kline.

"No," said Ramse.

"Ah well," said Kline. "I had a good run."

But he wasn't thinking that. What he was thinking was, When do I try to crash the car?

The city had faded entirely behind him, miles back. The road was dark and deserted. When? he wondered. When? But every time he felt almost ready, he felt the presence of Gous' pistol just behind his ear.

"What are you?" Ramse asked after a few dozen miles. "A four still?"

Kline thought it over. "Yes," he said.

"But it's the whole arm," said Ramse. "Shouldn't it count for more? See what I'm saying? Shouldn't an arm count more than a hand?"

"I don't know," said Kline.

"Sure," said Ramse. "And shouldn't a hand count more than a few fingers?"

"Ramse," said Gous. "You know that's not how it's done."

"I'm not challenging the doctrine," said Ramse. "I'm still faithful. I'm just asking."

They drove for a time in silence. After a while, almost without knowing it, Kline dropped off, jerking awake some time later when they turned down a dirt road.

"Almost there," said Ramse when he realized that Kline was awake again.

They went down the dirt road, the car jouncing with each dip and bump.

"It's nothing personal," said Ramse. "Gous and I both like you."

"Yes," said Gous. "We do."

"But we have our orders," said Ramse.

Gous didn't say anything.

Kline said, "I'd prefer not to die."

"No," said Ramse, distracted. "But we all die when it's our time."

Gous was still there, still always alert. I'm running out of time, Kline thought. He would have to reach over, pistol or no, and pull the steering wheel sharply, try to jam his foot onto the accelerator as well. How much time was there?

"Almost there," said Ramse. "Mr. Kline," he said, "I have nothing but regrets."

"Then let me go," said Kline.

"Ah," said Ramse. "If only we could. But alas we cannot."

"Speak for yourself, Ramse," said Gous.

"Excuse me?" said Ramse. His eyes flicked up to the rearview mirror, then his face went slack. "You wouldn't," he said.

Kline half-turned to see the gun pointed no longer at himself, but at Ramse.

"I wouldn't like to," said Gous. "Pull over."

Ramse took his foot off the accelerator an instant, then put it back again. "What's this all about, Gous?" he asked.

Gous rapped him sharply on the shoulder with the butt of his gun. "Pull over, Ramse," he said. This time Ramse complied, letting the car grind slowly to a stop and then, on Gous' command, handing over the keys.

"I can't say I'm not hurt, Gous," said Ramse. "After all we've been to each other."

"It hurts me more than it hurts you, Ramse," said Gous. "Now suppose we all get out," he said. "I'll go first, then Mr. Kline, then finally you, dear Ramse."

The car swayed slightly as Gous made his way out, leaving the door open. "Now you, Kline," he said, and Kline opened his door and climbed out as well. "In front of the car," said Gous. "In the lights. Put your hand on the hood and wait."

Kline nodded and did as he was told, looking in at Ramse who was pale and silent, lips tight. The hood was warm under his palm.

"Now you, Ramse," said Gous. "Right beside friend Kline."

"You're planning to kill me?" said Ramse.

"Why would I want to kill you?" asked Gous. "I have no desire to kill you. But yes, if you don't get out now, I'll have to kill you."

"You'll kill me anyway," said Ramse.

Gous sighed. "Ramse, don't you know me better than that?" "Apparently I don't know you at all."

Gous gestured impatiently with the gun. "Ramse," he said, "please."

Ramse sighed and clambered out.

"Turn around and raise your hands," Gous said, and when Ramse did so he stepped quickly forward and struck him in the head with the butt-end of the pistol.

Ramse crumpled quickly. Gous prodded him with his foot, then came back to the car.

"You'll have to drive," said Gous. "Get in."

Kline did, and Gous clambered in beside him, looking suddenly worn and tired.

"Think you can manage?" he asked.

"I can manage," said Kline.

He reached across and turned the key, then awkwardly levered the car into drive, started slowly forward.

"Try not to hit Ramse," said Gous.

"All right," said Kline, and turned the wheel a little more sharply.

Gous pointed and Kline spun the car awkwardly around, almost driving it into the ditch. He got it straightened out, let himself go faster.

They drove in silence for the better part of an hour, Kline letting his gaze flit occasionally over to Gous, who hardly moved.

"What's this all about, Gous?" Kline finally asked.

"Please," said Gous. "Call me Paul."

IV

How much weirder, thought Kline, is it possible for my life to get? And then he pushed the thought down and tried to ignore it, afraid of what the answer might be.

They stopped for gas and Kline thought briefly about making a break for it, but Gous stayed right beside him, gun hidden in the pocket of his jacket, as he pumped the gas and then took the money Gous gave him inside to pay. He was still in his robe, but it was dirtier now, and bloodstained. The attendant looked them over carefully as he took the money. He couldn't stop himself, before they were even completely out the door, from reaching for the telephone.

"Ah hell," said Gous, rolling his eyes and turning around long enough to shoot him.

"You'd think he'd have at least some discretion," said Gous on the way back out. "You'd think he'd at least wait until we'd gotten in the car."

"Did you kill him?" asked Kline.

"Probably," said Gous.

"What if he was only calling his girlfriend?" asked Kline as they climbed in and started to drive.

Gous gave him a disgusted look. "Why would you say that to me? Are you trying to make me feel bad?"

"I'm sorry," said Kline, surprised.

"What's done is done," said Gous.

"What exactly is it that's being done, Gous?" asked Kline.

"Paul," said Gous, absently. "Call me Paul."

They drove for some time in silence.

"How'd you become involved with the Pauls?" asked Kline finally.

"The usual way," said Gous.

Kline said nothing.

"I was a one," Gous said. "I'd cut off the proper hand, joined the brotherhood. Then I was approached. What Paul had to say seemed to me correct. It struck a chord."

"But you're no longer a one," said Kline.

"No," said Gous. "They needed someone on the inside. After a while it became clear I'd have to have additional amputations or else become suspect." He turned toward Kline. "I'm still a Paul," he said. "Only more so."

Gous had him pull off the freeway and into a small town, kept giving him instructions on where to turn.

"Of course I've rendered them a few invaluable services," said Gous.

"Is that right?"

Kline didn't say anything, just kept driving. After a while things looked vaguely familiar. Soon after, Gous had him pull to a stop beneath a streetlamp and they got out, walking half a block to the lobby of the Pauls' compound. The doorman raised his missing hand in greeting.

"Well met, Paul," said Gous.

"Well met, Paul," said the Paul. "Hello, friend Kline."

"Cheers," said Kline.

"Just here to report," said Gous.

"Of course," said the Paul. He excused himself, went behind a desk, lifted a telephone receiver, spoke into it. A moment later he was back, unlocking the heavy door at the back of the lobby.

"Paul's expecting you," he said, holding the door wide. "Go right in."

They met the chief Paul in a room very much like the one that had been used for Kline's convalescence, the bed replaced by a sort of Victorian fainting couch, a few additional wing-backed chairs thrown in as well, the sort of room a group of nineteenth-century gentlemen would retire to after dinner to smoke their cigars. The Paul was at the piano when they came in, playing a stylized version of a song Kline knew but couldn't place. The Paul watched him, kept playing. Kline settled into one of the wing-backed chairs and listened. It was, he suddenly realized, Hank Williams' "Hey, Good Looking," reworked to sound like a German cabaret number.

When the Paul was done, Gous thumped his hand against his thigh, applauding. What is the sound of one hand clapping? Kline couldn't help but think. The Paul stood and gave a little bow, then came over near them, stretching out rather effetely on the fainting couch.

"Ah," he said, smiling. "Here we are again. What bliss."

Gous nodded and smiled. Kline didn't do anything.

"You are, friend Kline, I must say, a charmed man," said the Paul. "It appears you can't be killed. Though the same unfortunately cannot be said for almost anyone who comes in contact with you."

"I suppose not," said Kline.

"I see that Paul," he said, nodding at Gous, "has had to come in from the cold, so to speak. And yet I suspect, Mr. Kline, that even had he not been readily available, you would have managed to extricate yourself."

He got up and crossed to Gous, moving behind him to stand behind his wing-chair. He placed his hand and stump on Gous' head and closed his eyes. Gous too, Kline saw, had closed his eyes.

"Our father who art in all things," said the Paul sonorously, and Kline realized with surprise that this was a sort of blessing. "We ask thee, in gratitude and humility, to look kindly upon this thy servant Paul, to arrange the trees and flowers, the rocks and fields, the buildings and bodies that constitute the expression of your being here upon this earth so as to cradle him and shelter him and shield him from harm." The Paul's eyes squinted, his brow tightening. "He has gone into the mouth of affliction for thee; he has given thee not only one hand but the better part of another, more than thou doest require. Now take him into thy bosom, dear Lord, and hereafter protect him. Amen."

He lifted his hand and stump away and opened his eyes. Gous opened his eyes and looked around, as if slightly disoriented, then smiled. The Paul came back toward the fainting couch, stood in front of Kline.

"And now," he said, "Your turn, friend Kline."

"Absolutely not," said Kline.

"Why ever not, friend Kline? What could you possibly be afraid of? That you might actually feel the holy spirit?"

"None of this has anything to do with me," said Kline.

"But it could have something to do with you, friend Kline," said the Paul, regarding him steadily. "And if not, what do you have to lose? It's only a man putting his hands on your head and nothing happening at all. But what if it does have something to do with you? Wouldn't you care to know what you're missing?"

Kline let his gaze wander the room, trying to look anywhere but at Paul. He shook his head.

"Have it your way, friend Kline," said the Paul. "Nobody can be forced to believe." He sat down on the fainting couch. "And now," he said. "We've saved your life, friend Kline. The least you can do is hear us out."

"Just like Paul here," said the Paul, nodding at Gous, "I first began as part of the brotherhood. I was one of the founders, one of the first group that included, among others, Borchert and Aline, both of whom I believe you've had the pleasure of meeting. It began at first as idle speculation, an interest in certain early Christian gnostic groups followed by a fascination for certain passages of scripture, followed by the notion that indeed our hand did offend us and thus it needed to be cut off. But the leap from this conclusion to the actual physical removal of a hand itself is perhaps more difficult to explain. These were heady times, friend Kline, and had there been one less of us to spur the others on, or merely a slight shift in the atmosphere, things might well have turned out differently."

"Why are you telling me this?" asked Kline.

"Be patient, friend Kline.

"Things turned out as they were meant to turn out, and it took only the removal of the first hand-which to my eternal shame I must admit was not my own-to realize we had struck on something divine and inspired and profound." Paul stood up and paced the room, settling finally in front of the portrait of the man with his face bored away. "Before we knew it, we had begun to gather around us others, a society of men willing to go to extremes to demonstrate their faith. There were, you'll be surprised to know, Mr. Kline, more than a few. For a moment we were happy, all equals, developing a new gospel intended, through self-sacrifice, to bring ourselves closer to the divine."

"Sounds like paradise," said Kline.

Gous looked at him sharply. The Paul just turned away from the picture, smiled.

"But every paradise must end," he said. "Even a one-handed one."

"What ended this one?"

"This one?" asked the Paul. "Oh, the usual thing," he said, waving his stump.

"They went too far," said Gous.

"Yes," said the Paul. "As Paul says, they went too far. If the loss of one limb brings one closer to God, they reasoned, additional losses would bring them even closer."

"Less is more," said Gous.

"Less is more," Paul assented. He sat back down. "And everything appended thereto."

"Ramse felt that way," said Gous.

"The hierarchy, the judgment of others with fewer amputations, servitude, holier than thou. They became coarse, greedy. A real shame."

"But you didn't go along," said Kline.

"Oh, I went along," said the Paul. "At first. I had reservations but I lopped off my own foot."

"You did?" said Gous, surprised.

"It's not common knowledge as you see, friend Kline." He turned to Gous. "Just like you, Paul. I did it because I had to." He turned back to Kline. "Or you, friend Kline. I keep it covered, shoed, like you with your toes. I'm not particularly proud of it, Mr. Kline."

"And then?" said Kline.

"And then, the others kept letting more and more of themselves go. I stayed a two, and as their own amputations increased they began to separate themselves from me. Finally I gathered who I could and left."

"I'm surprised they let you leave."

"Let probably isn't the best word to use," Paul said. He pulled at his shirt until it came untucked, then reached across his body to tug it up. On his left side Kline saw four scarred divots, bullet wounds. "Like you, friend Kline, they didn't want me to go. Had I not already converted others to my cause I would have died in a ditch. But as it was, my comrades took me and healed me and now here we are."

"Here we are," said Kline.

"But you, Mr. Kline, made it out entirely on your own, and left them more than a little to remember you by."

"A conflagration," said Gous.

"Fire from heaven," said the Paul. "Though they themselves surely didn't see it in those terms."

"No, they didn't," said Gous.

"But we know who you are," said the Paul.

"You come not with an olive branch but with a sword," said Gous.

"You can't be killed," said the Paul. "You are the Son of God returned."

"You've got to be kidding," said Kline.

"Far from it, friend Kline," said the Paul. "We know thou art He."

"Then why don't I know?" asked Kline.

"Deep down, you know," said the Paul. "You just won't let the scales fall from your eyes."

"You're here for a purpose," said Gous.

"Yes," said the Paul.

"And what," asked Kline reluctantly, "could that purpose possibly be?"

"Mayhem," said the Paul, his voice rising. "Holy wrath. Cast down the false prophets. God wants you to destroy them. Kill them all."

Gous and Paul were close behind him, calling to him, begging him to listen. He kept moving, running as fast as he could. Doors were opening, the heads of Pauls popping out, watching him rush past.

He came to the T-intersection and went left, followed it to the second intersection, turned right, rushed down the spiral staircase, hand sliding along the heavy lacquered banister.

There was the door to the outside, the Paul he had knocked unconscious before standing in front of it.

"I'd like to leave," said Kline, breathless.

"Leave?" said the doorman Paul. "Now why, friend Kline, would you want to do that?"

"Open the door now."

"We haven't made you welcome?" asked the Paul. "Is it because you're not a Paul? I'm sorry to hear it." Lifting his hand, he turned toward the door, then paused, turned back.

"Do you have my key?"

"Your key?" asked Kline. "What do you mean?"

"To the car," said the Paul. "The one we loaned you."

"Mr. Kline," called a voice from behind him. "Surely you're not thinking of leaving us?"

He turned and there, on the stairs, a turn up, looking down, was the chief Paul, Gous beside him, dozens of Pauls clustered behind them.

"I thought I might," said Kline.

"But surely you must see, Mr. Kline, that what happened before can only happen again. They'll be waiting for you, they'll find you, and they'll kill you."

"You just said I couldn't be killed."

The Paul came down another turn, the others following. "As long as you are following God's will, friend Kline. But even God sometimes becomes impatient. You know the story of Jonah, friend Kline? How many whales do you suppose God will deign send to swallow you? When does God run out of whales?"

He came the rest of the way down until he was standing in front of Kline. "How long do you keep running, Mr. Kline? Is that really how you want to live? Listening for the sound of footsteps, heart leaping every time you see someone missing a limb? Like an animal?"

He moved a little closer, spread his arms.

"We're just trying to help you, friend."

"I don't want help," said Kline. "And I'm not your friend."

"Of course not," said the chief Paul, soothingly.

"All I want is to be left alone."

"Who could ask for anything more?" asked the Paul. "We want to leave you alone, friend Kline, we want you to come and go as you please. They're the ones who keep trying to kill you. We only want to help you."

Kline didn't say anything.

"If you'd rather not," said the chief Paul, "I can't force you. But they did remove several of your toes if I'm not mistaken, not to mention your entire arm."

"Forearm," said Kline, "and I was the one who removed it."

"Voluntarily, Mr. Kline? Or were you coerced?"

"Coerced," said Gous.

"Thank you, Paul," said the chief Paul. "'A' for effort. But I was asking our friend Kline. How can you ever live a normal life," he said, turning back to Kline, "until they're dead?"

"I'm not looking for revenge," said Kline.

"This isn't vengeance," said the chief Paul. "It's holy wrath."

Kline stared at him for a long moment and then began to pace, first in one direction then in the other, the crowd of Pauls rustling out of his way. What sort of life do I have left for myself? he wondered. There was still the satchel full of money, secure in a safe deposit box, assuming he could still locate the key. He could simply leave here, get the money, and vanish.

But they'd be waiting, he knew, they'd try to stop him before he could even get the money. Could he make it? Could he really vanish? Even if he did, would he still flinch every time he saw the absence of a limb?

"But of course, there's always vengeance as well," said the chief Paul, and there was a rumble from the Pauls behind him. "Wouldn't you like to kill the man who took your arm?"

"He's already dead," said Kline. "I already killed him."

"Borchert?" said Gous, and laughed. "He's far from dead."

Kline stopped moving, his missing hand tightening into a fist. "You're lying," he said.

"I assure you, he's not," said the chief Paul. "Borchert survived your little fire."

"He was dead before the fire," said Kline.

Gous shook his head. "If he was, he came back to life again," he said.

"This is a trick," Kline said, voice rising, "just to get me to kill them."

"It isn't," said the chief Paul. "Cross my heart and hope to die."

Kline started to pace again. Curiosity is a terrible thing, he was thinking. How is it possible to stop oneself from needing to know? He moved back and forth, trying to figure the best way out. Was it possible simply to walk away and disappear, to leave all this behind forever?

For him, for this, he realized, it wasn't. At least not yet.

"If I do this," said Kline. "I want never to see any of you ever again."

"Agreed," said the chief Paul.

"Even me, Mr. Kline?" asked Gous, a hurt look on his face.

"Even you, Gous," said Kline.

"Paul," said Gous.

"My point exactly," said Kline raggedly. "All right," he said, "so be it."

I

What is the fewest number of them that I will have to kill? Kline wondered as he drove. Just Borchert? Will that be enough to keep them from coming after me?

No, he thought. At the very least he'd have to kill the guards at the gate, then three or four guards in the building. And what about the other high-level amputees? Would one of them be poised to take over from Borchert, and would he continue to hunt Kline? Would he be safe if he killed everyone with twelve amputations or more? Ten? Eight? Could he risk stopping before they were all dead?

About a mile away, he pulled the car off the road and down between some trees, out of sight from the road, then stayed there a moment, gripping the wheel, staring through the windshield at the flutter and wave of leaves in the wind. I could turn around, he mused. I could drive to the police station and turn myself in, he said, knowing even as he thought this that he wouldn't do it, that it was already too late.

He loaded the clips of each of the four pistols on the seat beside him, not easily done with one hand, then clicked them in, then affixed silencers to the end of each gun, awkwardly screwing them into place. The remainder of the bullets he placed in his jacket pockets. He placed one gun in the shoulder holster, one in the holster at his waist. The third he held in his hand. The fourth he wasn't certain what to do with, so he left it in the car.

Angel of destruction. . he thought . . like a thief in the night. . not with an olive branch but with a sword. .

He got out of the car and started walking, sticking close to the edge of the dirt road, always near enough to the trees that he could scramble for cover. His palm was sweating; soon, he had to put the gun down and wipe his hand dry against his shirt. When he picked the gun up again it was sticky with dust. Hardly an auspicious beginning, he thought.

He trudged on. Once he came in sight of the gates, he threaded his way down into the undergrowth, working slowly and carefully until he was in the last clump of bushes before open ground.

There were two guards, perhaps fifty meters away, just inside the gate.

And now what? he thought.

He stayed watching them. From time to time, one would wander in either direction down the fence and then wander back, never more than twenty or thirty meters from his companion. After a while, one guard was relieved and replaced. Kline looked at his watch. Then he waited.

The other guard was relieved two hours later.

Two hours, he thought. In and out.

He waited, thinking it through. He could shoot one of the guards as he wandered down the fence, but could he get back to the other and kill him before he raised the alarm? Should he wait for darkness and try to get them both at once? Where had the alarm system been? And when did they turn the lights on? He tried to remember what it had been like on his trip out, but he had been too crazed, had lost too much blood; he only remembered scattered images, he couldn't make any sense of it. One thing was as good as another, he thought; he might as well just go ahead and rush in now.

But he stayed there, waiting.

Besides, he told himself, it doesn't matter which way I do it. I can't be killed.

The light had started to deepen, shadows lengthening, the sun turning a dark orange and falling lower.

If I use only one clip, he told himself, maybe I can still come out of this human.

He balanced the gun on his knee, wiping his hand dry on his other knee. He took the gun up again. He tried to start forward, but couldn't make himself move.

Easiest thing to do was simply to lift the barrel of the gun and put it snugly into his own mouth and pull the trigger. As Frank had said, it would save everybody a lot of trouble. But then he thought of Borchert, of strangling him with his single hand and trying not to pass out. One clip, he told himself, just one clip, but realized as he thought this that he didn't care how many clips it took, nor what it might do to him.

The sun crossed the edge of the horizon and slowly went, and it was twilight. The lights hadn't yet come on, and one guard had just replaced another, and one guard was wandering out along the fence, bored, near him, and was just starting back, his back turned. Kline, crouched, came out of the bushes, and ran lightly toward him and shot him in the back of the head, the silencer giving off a dull cough as he fired. The guard went down in a heap without a sound. Kline kept running along the fence and there, at the gates, was the other guard, raising his gun prosthetic and looking at him. Kline fired and the shot, skew, struck the guard's gun arm, sparking off it. Kline fired again, the bullet this time striking the guard in the chest. The guard went down but not before a few rounds thunked out of his gun and into the dirt.

Ah, hell, thought Kline.

When he got there the man was still moving, weakly folding up, eyes glazing over in the dark, blood pumping out of his chest as he took crazed little breaths. Kline broke the man's neck with his heel, then rolled him off the roadway and between the guard box and the fence. Then he stood in front of the guard box and waited.

A few minutes later he heard the sound of steps and there, at a little distance, was a human figure, his outline clear, his features far from distinct in the darkness. Kline, his back to the guard box, hoped he was even less distinct, that the gun would look enough like a gun-arm to pass.

"Everything okay?" the figure asked.

"Everything okay," Kline said.

"What about the shots?"

"That wasn't from here," said Kline.

"No? Where's your partner?"

"Down the fence a little way," said Kline. "He went to see if there's a problem."

"That's not procedure," said the man.

"I told him not to do it."

The man cursed softly, then sighed. And then, a different note entering his voice, he asked, "Why haven't you turned on the lights?"

Kline quickly shot him, aiming for his head. The man disappeared into the darkness of the ground and Kline could hear him thrashing loudly, gurgling. Kline rushed forward and fell on him and struck him on the head with the pistol, then dropped the pistol and strangled him with one hand, the guard's eyes vague glints in the darkness that slowly went away.

The guard's neck was wet and slippery, and to strangle him properly Kline had to block the hole he had shot in his throat. By the time he pulled his arm away it was slippery and wet with blood, and he had to wipe his hand as best he could on the dead man's pants before groping the gun out of the darkness and getting up.

Three dead, he thought. But four bullets. But still human.

He started along the road, keeping to one side of it. Ahead were a few lights, the heart of the compound.

Two bullets left, he thought, and then wished he'd thought to ask for a Browning.

He passed a row of houses, light coming out of most of them, then turned down a smaller road, keeping to one side, houses a little more spread out now. He entered a third, smaller, tree-lined alley that dead-ended in front of the small two-story building he had briefly lived in.

From there, he backtracked, searched around until he found the path cutting away from the road, its crushed white shells luminous and unearthly in the darkness. He followed the path carefully, keeping to one side of it to avoid crunching the shells beneath his feet.

The path moved into the trees, then dipped down. There was, he remembered suddenly, a security camera somewhere, affixed to a tree, and then he wondered how many cameras he had already passed without noticing. Did they broadcast to the guard box by the gate, he wondered, or to somewhere else? He should have gone inside the guard box, at least looked, but it was too late now.

There it was, an angular irregularity high on the shadow of one of the trees. He pushed his way through the brush and back into the trees and around the camera, slowly working his way back to the path, which turned out to be difficult, because the path had curved away. He followed the path uphill where it widened into a tree-lined avenue.

There, in front of him and behind its fence, was the old manor house, some of its windows lit and casting a gentle glow on the lawn. There was still, Kline noticed, the smell of burning in the air. It grew stronger as, crouching, he came closer. The lawn was darker in spots and probably burnt away, streaks of smoke all up one side of the building. Looking through the fence he saw, near the entrance, a pile of lumber, a bandsaw. At least, he thought, I made an impression.

What now? he wondered, and started searching for the guard. There he was, just inside the fence, there near the gate. What now? he wondered.

He stood up and moved rapidly toward the gate.

"Don't shoot," he said. "Don't shoot. It's me, Ramse."

"Ramse," said the guard. "What-" and by that time Kline was close enough to shoot him in the head.

Only the guard didn't go down. He seemed instead like he'd been switched off. He just stood there unmoving, his empty eye socket open, the side of his head torn away and oozing. Kline lifted the gun again, but the guard didn't even respond. He slowly lowered the gun, then helped the guard first to sit then lie down. He left him there, staring into the sky.

One bullet left, he thought. Still human.

Mostly, he thought, and moved toward the door.

He knocked, and the door opened slightly.

"What is wanted?" asked the guard, and then saw Kline's face. He tried to close the door, but Kline already had the barrel of the pistol wedged in the crack and shot him in the chest. The guard fell back, gasping, trying to raise his gun prosthesis, but Kline was already through the doorway and on top of him, forcing the man's arm to fold the gun prosthesis back so that when it went off it fired into the guard's belly and was muffled between their two bodies.

Kline held still and listened, keeping his hand over the guard's mouth as the man slowly died beneath him. The shots, despite being muffled, still echoed down the hall, or so it seemed to Kline, right on top of the gun.

He waited, but nothing happened. How is it possible, he thought, that nobody heard? He rolled slowly off the guard and lay beside him, gathering his breath. He was soaked with blood now, wet with it from neck to knees. The guard beside him was even bloodier, though his face was pale as porcelain, expressionless as a plate. Kline sat up.

Out of bullets, he thought and dropped the pistol. He reached for the gun holstered at his waist and then hesitated, picking the first gun off the floor. He ejected the clip, reloaded it.

Six bullets left, he told himself. Still human.

I've beat the system, he thought, and then thought, no. This was simply a sign that he'd already stopped being human and wasn't planning on coming back.

How was it that they had done it? he tried to remember, staring at the end of the white hall. Two times? Three times?

Three, he thought it was. He knocked three times and waited. Nothing happened. He tried it again and heard movement on the other side, and a moment later the door opened and a guard pushed his face out, his single eye puffy with sleep, and Kline shot him dead.

How many does that make? Kline wondered idly, and then was amazed that he didn't immediately know. He shoved at the door until he'd slid the dead guard forward enough that he could squeeze his way in and step over him and into the stairwell. Slowly he started up, only beginning to become aware of the smell that the blood he was covered with seemed to have. It reminded him of something, but he couldn't place it. What if the Pauls are right? he couldn't help but wonder. He tried not to think about it.

He stopped at the third and final landing. Very carefully he opened the door a crack, half-expecting to see a dozen guards there waiting for him, but he saw nobody. I can't be killed, thought Kline, and then thought, I'm slowly going mad.

No, he thought, as he opened the door wide and stepped into the hall, quickly.

He made his way to the door at the end of the hall, pressing his ear to it. There was a sound from the other side, a low and constant humming, and occasionally something rising above it.

He pushed at the door's lever with his elbow, found it unlocked. Slowly he pushed it the rest of the way down, opened the door, slipped quietly in.

It was different inside from when he had last been there. The walls were in the process of being redone, covered with sheetrock that wasn't yet taped or painted. The varnish of the floor, especially near the door, was blistered and scorched. Borchert's simple pallet had been replaced by a hospital bed, identical to the one Kline himself had occupied. The humming was coming from a machine beside the bed, from which a tube ran, connecting to a breathing mask covering Borchert's mouth and nose. He was lying in the bed, swathed in gauze. What Kline could see of his skin was red and peeling and puckered, his hair all gone save for a ragged, ravaged clump. Beside him, sitting in a wheelchair, her back toward Kline, was a legless nurse in a starched white uniform, her back very straight, in the process of replacing the dressings around Borchert's foot.

Kline moved slowly forward. The nurse, still working on the foot, chatting idly, didn't hear him. But Borchert cocked his head.

"Who is it?" he said, into the mask, his breath fogging the plastic. His voice was flatter than normal, Kline noticed, not quite Borchert's voice, something seriously wrong with it. It was, he realized, the voice he'd heard on the telephone in the hospital.

"There's no one," the nurse was saying. "It's just me."

Borchert opened his eyes and Kline saw that both eyes were opaque and dull, seemingly without pupil. Blind. He took another step forward.

"There's someone here," said Borchert. "I can feel it."

The nurse turned slightly and caught sight of Kline out of the corner of her eye, froze. Kline pointed the gun at her.

"You're right," she said.

"Who is it?" Borchert asked.

"It's him," said the nurse.

They stayed like that for a moment then the nurse turned back, finished winding the dressing. Kline came quickly behind her and struck her hard on the head with the pistol butt. She slumped, the top half of her collapsing onto Borchert. Borchert winced. Kline dragged her back into the wheelchair, wheeled her to face against the wall, where he could see her, and set the brakes.

"So we haven't managed to kill you after all, Mr. Kline," said Borchert. "Not, I must say, for lack of trying. You seem to live a charmed life."

"What happened to your eyes?" asked Kline.

Borchert smiled, the movement distorting his face terribly. "Always wanting to know, Mr. Kline. You'd think you'd have learned your lesson. Did you come here just to ask me that?"

"Not exactly," said Kline.

"Not exactly," said Borchert. "Always holding something back, Mr. Kline. Intimacy issues, perhaps?" And he smiled wider, the damaged skin just beside his mouth cracking, growing moist with a pinkish fluid in the cracks, leaking.

"What did you do with the girl?" asked Borchert. "Kill her?"

"No," said Kline. "Unconscious."

"Ah," said Borchert. "Still pretending to be human, are we?" Kline watched his smile tighten further, then slowly die. "Where were we?" he asked.

"Your eyes," said Kline.

"I thought we'd sidled our way past that," said Borchert. "What happened to my eyes, Mr. Kline, was you. You are also what happened to my face, my body, my voice. And now I imagine you've come to finish the job."

"Yes," said Kline.

"I don't suppose you could be convinced to give this one a pass?"

"I don't suppose so," said Kline.

"Say I call off the hunt, Mr. Kline? Say I solemnly swear not to pursue you, grant you immunity as it were?"

Kline hesitated.

"No," he said finally. "I can't trust you."

"I hear the hesitation in your voice, Mr. Kline. Why not give in to it?"

Should I? he wondered. And then he thought of each of the men he had killed, seven, unless it was eight, unless it was nine, the way they had each fallen. What did he owe them, now that he was here? Owe them? he thought. No, that was just him pretending to be human again. He didn't owe them anything. But they were a part of a velocity that still carried him forward and he didn't know how to stop without killing Borchert.

"Well, Mr. Kline?" said Borchert. "How about it?"

But then Kline caught out of the corner of his eye the nurse, still pretending to be unconscious, slowly lifting something out of the seat of her wheelchair, and he realized with a start that it was a gun. As she suddenly came alive and tried to turn it toward him he shot her twice in the head.

Borchert sighed in the bed. "I see you found her gun. Worth a try," he said. And then said, still inflectionless, "Hardly gentlemanly to shoot a lady. You could have simply disarmed her, Mr. Kline. What's happening to you?"

What indeed? wondered Kline.

"Well," said Borchert, "what are we waiting for? Get it over with."

"Not quite yet," said Kline.

"Not yet?" said Borchert.

"First," said Kline, "there are a few things I want to know."

Borchert smiled again, this time so wide Kline thought fleetingly his face was coming asunder. "Ah, Mr. Kline," he said. "We never seem to learn, do we."

"Shall we say twenty questions, Mr. Kline?"

"What?" said Kline.

"Nineteen questions then?" said Borchert. "And then you can kill me?"

"Suits me," said Kline.

"Always game for a game, Mr. Kline? But what am I to receive for my cooperation? Perhaps my life?"

"No," said Kline.

"Not my life? Then what, Mr. Kline? What's my so-called motivation?"

"Your motivation?"

"Eighteen," said Borchert. "You should be more careful. Simply this: Why should I answer your questions? I'm dead either way."

"True," said Kline.

"Perhaps. ." said Borchert. "It's not much, but perhaps I might be allowed to choose the manner of my own death?"

The nurse, Kline noticed, was apparently still alive, her hand quivering against the floor and sending ripples through the pooling blood. He went over to her, prodded her with his foot, turned her face up. She seemed dead, except for her eye, which, unblinking, followed each of his movements.

"Well, Mr. Kline?"

"What about paralysis?" asked Kline.

"Excuse me?" said Borchert. "Seventeen."

He moved his hand slowly, the gun in it, watched her eye follow it. Was there any sign of intelligence in the eye's movement? In the eye itself? Was she still human? More human than he?

"Have I lost you, Mr. Kline?"

"No," said Kline. "I'm right here."

"What are you doing over there?"

"Nothing," said Kline, watching the nurse's eye. "What about paralysis? Does it count the same as amputation?"

"Sixteen and fifteen, Mr. Kline. Is it religious instruction you're hoping for? Paralysis is a shadow and a type of amputation, a next best thing. We do not accept paralytics among us, but we look kindly on them. You have to draw the line somewhere, Mr. Kline."

"I see," said Kline. He watched the eye until he couldn't bear it anymore and then struck her hard on the forehead with the pistol. Immediately the pupil rolled back and was gone.

"But we have yet to reach an agreement, Mr. Kline, and you've already expended a quarter of your questions. I must ask again: Will I be allowed to choose the manner of my own death?"

"Within reason," said Kline, turning back toward him.

"Something quickly achieved, within this room, no tricks? Can we agree to that?"

"What is it?"

"Fourteen," said Borchert. "There's that curiosity again, Mr. Kline. Shall we say I'll tell you at the end? Once you've had your other answers?"

Kline thought. "All right," he finally said.

"Fine," said Borchert, "just fine. What would you like to know?"

"Tell me about Paul," said Kline.

"That's not a question," said Borchert. "Shall we rephrase it as Will you please tell me about Paul? Thirteen." He smiled again. "Ah, Paul," he said. "I knew he was behind this. Paul used to number himself among the faithful, Mr. Kline. Now he numbers himself among the fallen."

"What is he like?"

"Twelve," said Borchert.

"That shouldn't count as twelve," said Kline. "It's the same question."

"It's a modification of the original question," said Borchert, "ergo, no longer the same question. Twelve." Borchert stretched slightly. A plate of pink skin under one arm split, began to suppurate a yellowish substance. "Paul likes exactness and order. He wants everything to be the same. He's a great believer in the saving power of art and culture and, perhaps as a consequence, of the saving gestures of ritual. He's into the ritual of the worship-relics, ceremonies."

"Can I trust him?"

Borchert gave a barking laugh. "You should know better than to ask a question like that. Particularly of me. Who's to say if anyone can be trusted, Mr. Kline? Eleven."

"When I kill you, what will they do?"

"They Pauls or they us?"

"Both."

"That's two questions, Mr. Kline. Ten, nine. What we'll do is convene and decide on a new leader. What they'll do is rejoice at my death. I'm sure they have plans for you."

"What sort of plans?"

"Let's suspend that question for now," said Borchert. "Let's work our way toward that one."

"Who will take your place?"

"Eight. Our process is very simple, Mr. Kline. They'll opt for the person with the most amputations. In case of same number of amputations, one must rely on charisma and Godly vision. It could be either of two men whose rooms are to be found on this floor, at this end of the hall."

"And after them?"

"After them, Mr. Kline? One of the three other men on this floor. Seven."

"And after that?"

"Six. Not very original questions, Mr. Kline. You don't know how to play properly. After that, the next floor down. And then, after that, the ground floor. Then outside and to the nines, among which probably chief among them would be your former associate, Mr. Ramse."

"I thought he was an eight," said Kline.

"He indeed was an eight," said Borchert. "But now he's a nine. Five."

"It wasn't a question," said Kline. "It was a statement."

"It was fishing for information," said Borchert. "Thus a question. 'Isn't he an eight?' you might as well have said."

"Where does Ramse live?"

"Excuse me?"

"Where does Ramse live?"

Borchert paused, hesitated. "I wish I could see your face, Mr. Kline. I'd like to know exactly what you hope to gain from this question. Don't suppose you care to tell me?"

"His address," said Kline.

"Perhaps we should suspend this," said Borchert. "Just gently call a stop to it and allow you to kill me in whatever manner you please."

"If you'd like," said Kline.

"I don't like giving out information whose use strikes me as uncertain."

"Perhaps I just want to see an old friend."

"Not likely, Mr. Kline. But then again, what does it matter to me once I'm dead?"

"That's the spirit," said Kline.

"And there's always the matter of choosing my own death."

"Within reason," said Kline.

"Yes," said Borchert. "Exactness and order in all things. I'm aware of the terms," he said, and told him how to find Ramse's house. "Three more, Mr. Kline," he said, once he was done.

Kline nodded, but of course Borchert couldn't see. The gun had grown sweaty in his hand. He stuck it into his jacket pocket, rubbed his hand against his pants. The hand came back sticky with blood.

"How many of you do I have to kill before you'll leave me alone?" asked Kline.

"How many?" said Borchert, and smiled. "Don't you realize you'll have to kill all of us, Mr. Kline?" he said. "Every last one."

"Two more questions, Mr. Kline," said Borchert. "Do you feel like you've gained something? What do you do with all this knowledge of yours? Do you feel more complete?"

Kline didn't say anything.

"Well, then," said Borchert. "Your move, Mr. Kline."

"What sort of plans do the Pauls have for me?"

"Ah, yes," said Borchert. "The return of the repressed. Isn't it obvious, Mr. Kline?"

"No," said Kline.

Borchert pursed his lips. "Try harder, Mr. Kline," he said. "Consider Paul. A young man who likes things in their place, a strong believer in ritual and in some of the traditions of the old church-the so-called relics of his so-called saints for instance." He smiled. "We have our spies too, Mr. Kline. We know the Pauls inside and out. Think, Mr. Kline, what would a man like that want with you?"

"I don't know," said Kline.

"You do know, Mr. Kline. Think. He thinks of you as their messiah. But messiahs' lives are always messy. What can one do with a messiah so as to allow Him to enter unsullied into the realm of myth?"

"I don't know."

"Martyr Him, of course. Crucify Him."

Kline felt his limbs grow suddenly heavy, the missing limb most of all. Borchert was making a repeated barking sound, like he was choking to death, his breathing mask fogging inside. It took Kline some time to realize he was laughing.

"You're lying," said Kline. "It was you who wanted to crucify me."

Borchert stopped barking. "Of course we wanted to crucify you," he said, "but as one of the two thieves. It's different for them. Think it through, Mr. Kline."

Kline stayed motionless, watching Borchert's damaged face twitch.

"Why?" he finally asked.

"Why?" asked Borchert, and his whole body seemed to flinch. "Because Paul believes in you, Mr. Kline. Paul thinks you're the one. You came like a thief in the night. You came bearing not an olive branch but a sword. You left a swath of fire and destruction in your path. You seem to him as if you are impossible to slay by mortal means. In his eyes, you are the Son of Man, which is to say the Son of God."

"I'm not," said Kline.

"And what does one do with the Son of Man?" asked Borchert. "One crucifies Him, of course. One does him the favor of helping Him step out of this mortal round, thus making the Son of Man the Son of God. There's also of course the matter of you being the only person among the Pauls more powerful than he. At this point, Mr. Kline, you're more useful to him dead than alive."

"What should I do?"

"Alas, Mr. Kline, you've run out of questions. You'll have to figure that one out on your own. Or rather you have one more question that awaits an answer: How does Mr. Borchert choose to die? "

"How does Mr. Borchert choose to die?" asked Kline.

"In the back," said Borchert, "near the hotplate, you'll find a cleaver. I believe you're already rather familiar with its mode of operation. I want you to deliver one final amputation. I want you to separate my head from my body."

"You what?"

"You promised," said Borchert. "A dying man's final request."

Kline didn't say anything.

"It's not that I believe in you exactly," said Borchert. "But I wouldn't say I don't believe in you either. Let's just say I'm hedging my bets."

And then it came again, that barking laugh.

There's no reason to do it, part of him kept saying as he went to fetch the cleaver. Just shoot him in the head and be done with him. But another part of him was saying, Why not? What did it matter? He had come here with the intention of killing Borchert: why not kill him in this way?

And a third part of himself, the part that terrified him the most, was saying, What if Paul is right? What if I am God?

There will always be three of me from now on, he thought, or a third part of him thought, or a fourth part of him thought, and he shook his head.

He was back at the bed, holding the cleaver now, staring down at Borchert.

"Ready?" he asked.

"Go ahead," said Borchert, and Kline felt his hand raise the cleaver and then bring it down hard.

A neck, it turned out, was not nearly so easy as an elbow. Either that or the cleaver was duller than it had been, or Kline flinched when he delivered the blow, or it was not a clean blow to begin with. Or it was simply the fact that Borchert's neck, when compressed, was slightly wider than the cleaver's blade. It took a second blow, Borchert's mouth contorted already into a rictus, and then a third, but even once the spine was severed there was still a thick band of intact flesh, and finally he had to post his stump against Borchert's chin and push the head away from the neck so that the band of flesh grew taut and could be cut. Borchert's eyelids fluttered, fell still. There was blood everywhere.

He went to the door and tried to open it only to realize he was still holding the cleaver. He felt he had lived all this already, and dropped the cleaver. His guns too he took out, all three of them, and let them fall to the floor.

He started out into the hallway, found it deserted, and then had second thoughts and went back in. Gathering the cleaver, he slipped it into his belt. Borchert's head too he gathered, holding it by its sole clump of hair. And then he started out again.

II

How do you know the moment when you cease to be human? Is it the moment when you decide to carry a head before you by its hair, extended before you like a lantern, as if you are Diogenes in search of one just man? Or is it the moment where reality, previously a smooth surface one slides one's way along, begins to come in waves, for a moment altogether too much and then utterly absent? Or is it the moment when you begin opening doors, showing each man behind each door the head of his spiritual leader before killing him with the cleaver tucked into your belt? Or is it the moment when all these dead begin to talk to you in a dull, rumbling murmur? Or is it the moment when these same voices suddenly fade away and stop talking altogether, leaving you utterly alone?

I am remarkably calm, thought Kline, moving from room to room. I am doing remarkably well, he thought, considering.

Or was it the moment, one floor down, when he opened a door and saw a man missing various digits and limbs, a ten or an eleven, and showed him Borchert's head and then, instead of killing the man right away, spent some time positioning Borchert's head on the floor so that it was looking at the man, so that it would have to see what came next? That next being Kline groping the cleaver out of his belt and advancing forward with the cleaver raised as the man began to give hoarse cries and beg inarticulately for mercy.

By the time he opened the last door on the bottom floor of the building, by the time he had killed several dozen mutilates with the cleaver, he was figuring out ways to pretend to be human again. He was thinking of the money in the briefcase, what he might do with it once everyone else in the world was dead. He was thinking of Paul, of the Pauls, wondering whether Borchert had been right after all. He was considering what he would have to do next. Beneath these thoughts he could feel the writhing motion of the limbs and torsos and heads trying to scuttle away from him-here, the rising of a bloody head, there the shock and rapid seep of an open and fresh wound filling with blood, a bluish-white fist of bone torn from its socket, the reduction of bodies to spongy meat and slicks of blood and shattered, drying bone. How many? he wondered, and found himself unable to count them out, nor even quite able to grasp how he had moved from room to room: left with little beyond the act of positioning Borchert's head and then lifting the cleaver high, all of it starting to overlap with the other instances when he had raised a cleaver and brought it down upon himself. And this, indeed, was the most terrible thing of all: each blow he sunk into an arm or a leg or a chest or a head-each of these blows in any case which he could remember-he had felt going into his own body as well.

"Almost over," he said to Borchert's head, "almost done," and then wondered idly when the head would start to talk back.

He opened the front door. It was still dark outside, the night cloudless and with no moon, the stars bright. The guard was still there, his body lying beside the fence, still motionless but breathing, still staring into the air. Kline stepped gingerly around him.

He followed the path back to the rest of the complex, moving cautiously until he was among the larger houses. Once he nearly crossed paths with a guard and was forced to press himself between some bushes and a house's wall until the man had passed. But quickly he was following Borchert's directions again, and soon was standing outside Ramse's door.

He tried the door and found it locked. There was a stained glass panel on the top portion of the door and he broke it out with Borchert's head, sweeping the glass off the casement with the side of Borchert's face. He pushed the head in and heard it thump softly on the floor. He managed to steady himself on the edge of the doorframe enough to get one foot up and onto the doorhandle, and then grabbed the edge of the broken panel and pulled himself up, and then reached in deep through the panel and managed to unlock the door. A moment later he was inside.

He turned on the bedside lamp then stood beside the bed, watching Ramse sleep. He seemed peaceful, serene, his face as pale and motionless as if made of wax. It was almost a shame to wake him.

He balanced Borchert's head on the nightstand, facing away from the bed. Tugging the cleaver from his belt, he sat down on the edge of the mattress.

"Ramse," he said, "Wake up."

Ramse's face scrunched, going from wax to flesh then back again. His eyes fluttered a little then opened, remaining unfocused but slowly coming together on Kline's face. At first they just stared, and then a dull sluggish fear began to build behind them.

"It's all right, Ramse," said Kline. "It's me, Kline." More or less, he thought.

"That's what I'm afraid of," said Ramse, voice still hoarse with sleep.

"No reason to be afraid," said Kline.

"What happened to you?" asked Ramse. "Are you dead?"

Kline looked down, saw his blood-soaked chest. "Nothing happened to me," he said. "I'm what happened to them."

"What's that supposed to mean?" asked Ramse, voice rising, and Kline gestured to the bedside table.

"There's part of it," Kline said.

Ramse turned and saw the back of Borchert's head. He tried to speak but it came out in a shriek. Kline lifted his cleaver and shook his head and Ramse stopped. He looked back to the head, swallowed hard.

"Is it Gous?" he said, and looked like he was going to cry.

"Of course not," said Kline. "It's Borchert."

"I don't believe you," said Ramse.

Kline sighed. He put the cleaver down on the bed, reached over to turn the head to face Ramse.

"Believe me now?" he asked.

Ramse just nodded.

"I just wanted to make you au courant," said Kline. "To summarize: I slaughtered the guards at the gate. Then I killed everyone in the stone building that Borchert is in. Or rather was in. Which makes you next to run things, no?"

"Me or DeNardo," said Ramse. "Are you planning to kill us?"

"I don't want to kill you," said Kline. "DeNardo's a nine too?"

Ramse nodded.

"Only two nines?"

"No," said Ramse. "There are four of us. The other two won't be chosen."

"Why not?"

"It's complicated," said Ramse. He was starting to calm down a little. "Let's just say one isn't interested, the other has made too many enemies."

"Should I kill DeNardo?"

"What?" asked Ramse.

"Are you certain you can beat him?"

"Almost certain."

"You have to be certain," said Kline.

He watched Ramse think, turning it slowly over in his head.

"I can leave Borchert's head with you if you think that'll help," said Kline.

Ramse, looking terrified, shook his own head. "It wouldn't help," he said.

"Fine," Kline said. "Borchert is coming with me then."

"I'm certain," Ramse finally said.

"All right," said Kline. "Good. Now listen very carefully," he said. "If I'm to let you live, I need a promise from you."

"What is it?"

"I want to be left alone," said Kline. "I never want to see any of you ever again."

"Of course I'm going to say yes," said Ramse. "But how can you believe me?"

"Look around you, Ramse," said Kline. "Go outside and look and tally up the number of the dead. And then think about how many there are and about the fact that none of them are me. The only thing they all wanted was for me to be dead and I'm the only one of them still alive."

Ramse swallowed, nodded.

"Wouldn't you rather have a truce?"

"Again," said Ramse, using his stumps to push himself a little higher in the bed, "how can I say anything but yes?"

Kline smiled thinly, feeling the dried blood around his mouth crack. "There's always Gous," he said.

"What about Gous?" said Ramse.

"You break your promise and I'll kill Gous. I'll send him to you bit by bit."

"What do I care about Gous?" asked Ramse.

"You had a falling out," said Kline. "But what's a little thing like religion between old friends? Besides, he's coming back into the fold."

"He told you that?"

"He doesn't know it yet," said Kline. "But he will."

"How would you know? What are you, some kind of prophet?" asked Ramse.

"I'm beginning to wonder," said Kline. "Now which is it?" he asked. "Truce or war?"

Ramse stared at him for a long moment. "Truce," he finally said, and stuck out his stump.

"Good enough for me," Kline said, touching it with his own stump. Sticking the cleaver back in his belt and taking the head by its remaining hair, he made for the door.

III

At a little distance was a guard, strolling casually, but Kline faded into shadow and let the man live. He approached the gate slowly but it was still as deserted as it had been when he'd left it, the dead still comfortably dead in the places they had fallen. Hadn't it been two hours since he had gone in? he wondered, and then wondered if this was a trap. He walked out with his neck prickling, waiting for the shots to come.

But they didn't come. He walked slowly and carefully out the gate without any trouble and then made his way down the road, weary now. He dumped the bullets from his pockets into the dust of the road, letting them go one by one. He passed where he had hidden his car at first, but then backtracked and found it, threw the head in, got in, drove.

He stopped at a closed gas station with a payphone at one end of its lot. The ashtray of the car was crammed with loose change and he took all of it with him. Calling the operator, he mentioned a town, asked to be connected to the police station.

"Second precinct," said a voice.

"I'm looking for Frank," he said.

"Frank who?" the voice asked.

"The detective," he said. "He told me to call," Kline said. "It's regarding those mutilates."

"That Frank," said the officer, "Frank Metterspahr. He's still in the hospital. Why don't you tell me about it?"

"Has to be Frank," Kline said. "I'll call back," he said, and hung up the telephone.

He immediately dialed the operator again, gave the name of the town again, asked to be connected to the hospital.

"Which hospital?" she asked.

"The biggest one," he said, and then waited impatiently to be connected.

When they answered he claimed he was a florist, that he was at the other hospital across town with a heap of flowers for someone named Frank. Matterball or something like that, couldn't quite read the card. Had he gone to the wrong hospital?

"Yes," she said. "He's right here, intensive care, fifth floor. But isn't it a little early to be delivering flowers?"

Well, yes, he admitted, and looked out the phone booth and at the sky caught somewhere between night and morning. But there were a lot of deliveries today and generally they'd just leave them at the desk to be taken up later, would that be all right?

He had hung up the telephone and was on the way back to the car, when it began to ring again. He looked at it awhile, then went back to answer it.

"You're the guy called earlier?" said the voice. "Looking for Frank? I'm the officer who talked to you?"

"Yes," Kline said. "That was me."

"I just talked to Frank," the man said. "He said to tell you to tell me whatever you know."

"Only to Frank," Kline said.

"All right," the man said smoothly. "That's okay too. Why don't you stay there and we'll come get you and take you to him?"

What would an informer do? he wondered.

"Frank promised me money," he finally said. "Two hundred dollars."

"Fine," said the officer. "We'll back up whatever Frank promised."

"All right," he said. "I guess that's all right."

"So stay there and we'll come get you," said the officer.

"You'll bring the money?"

"Yes," the officer said.

"All right," he said. "I'll be right here. I'll be waiting."

Hanging up the telephone he got into the car and drove away as quickly as he could.

He managed to force a service door with the blade of the cleaver, the gap between metal door and metal frame being too big, and made his way up a back stairwell. An alarm started when he opened the door but immediately stopped again when he closed it. He hurried quickly upward.

The door to the fifth floor was unlocked. He put Borchert's head down and slowly cracked the door open, saw a deserted hall, every other light extinguished. There was, at the far end of the hall, a nurse's station, the nurse asleep but sitting up, nodded off.

Propping the door open with his foot, he picked the head back up, made his way in.

He went into the first room he saw, found it to contain two beds, both empty. The next one contained an older lady, asleep or unconscious, her bed lamp still on, a tube snaked down her throat, flakes of blood in her hair. He went out. The nurse at the desk was awake now, but not looking his way.

He slipped across the hall and into a third room, found both curtains drawn. He opened one, found a man, his hands strapped down, his head covered in bandages that blood had seeped through, unless it was mere shadow. The man's eyes were the only thing moving, rolling madly in his sockets and then suddenly focusing sharply on Kline. The man made a strange muffled sound and shifted his head slightly and Kline saw that yes, it was not just shadow, but blood. He pulled the curtain closed.

Behind the second curtain was Frank, asleep. One arm was out on top of the blankets, the other was missing, amputated between the elbow and the shoulder, dressed and wrapped. Kline scooted a chair toward the bed. With his foot he pulled the curtain closed. Holding Borchert's head in his lap, he waited for Frank to wake up.

After a while he realized that something wasn't quite right. Frank was too still. Fleetingly he thought Frank was dead, but no, he was breathing. And then he realized what it must be.

He reached out, prodded Frank's dressings with a finger.

"I can tell you're not asleep," he said.

"Never claimed to be," said Frank, his eyes slitting open.

Kline smiled. They both stared at one another.

"Why are you here?" asked Frank finally. "To kill me?"

"I want to turn myself in," said Kline.

Frank laughed. "This isn't a police station," he said. "Why come here?"

"I thought I owed it to you," said Kline.

"What exactly do you want to turn yourself in about?" asked Frank.

"This," said Kline, and lifted up Borchert's head.

"Good God," said Frank. "What the hell did you bring that in here for?"

"Evidence," said Kline.

"I don't particularly want to see it," said Frank. "Why don't you put it on the nightstand?" he said. "Or, better yet, on the floor."

Kline put Borchert's head on the floor, against the bed's leg.

"What was that exactly?" asked Frank.

"Borchert," said Kline. "Leader of the mutilates."

"He owes me an arm," said Frank. "I'm glad he's dead."

"He's not the only dead," said Kline.

"Who else?"

"I don't know."

"You don't know?"

"Not names," said Kline. "A few dozen people. More or less. I killed them."

"Mutilates?"

Kline nodded.

"How many left?"

"I don't know."

"Jesus Christ," said Frank. "Talk about an avenging angel. And now you've decided to turn yourself in?"

"That's right," said Kline.

"Why?"

"So I can be human again."

"Buddy," said Frank. "Look at yourself. You're covered head to toe in blood. You're never going to be human again."

Kline looked away. He looked at the head on the floor. When he looked back, Frank was still staring at him.

"So now what?" Kline said.

"Now what? You want to turn yourself in, go down to the police station and do it. Don't come around here with your bag full of heads expecting me to do something about it. What do you want? Sympathy? Understanding? Hell if I'll be part of it."

"I only have one head," said Kline.

"Last I saw you had two," said Frank, "the one you're wearing and the one you're carrying. That's one head too many. Maybe in your case two too many. How the hell is it you're not dead?"

Kline shrugged.

"That's it?" said Frank. "You come in carrying a head and say there are a few dozen more where that came from and when I ask you how it is you're still alive all you can do is shrug?"

"Just lucky, I guess," said Kline.

"Lucky?" said Frank. "Blessed is more like it."

"Don't say that," said Kline.

"What do you want me to say?"

Kline shook his head.

"All right," said Frank. "You've had a hard day, with the multiple killings and all. I'll cut you some slack. One question though."

"What?"

"Why are you still here? Why can't you get out and leave me in peace?"

IV

It was morning by the time he got to his apartment. He rang the super's bell and the super buzzed the front door open, but upon seeing Kline, bloody and carrying the cleaver, he tried to close the door to his apartment. Kline was too quick. He knocked him down as the man babbled. He tried to tie him up, finding it too difficult to do well with a single hand, finally knocking him out with the flat of the cleaver and locking him inside a closet.

The keys to his apartment were on one of a series of hooks in the kitchen, just above the sink. He tore the cords for both of the super's phones out of the wall, then left, climbing the stairs to his apartment.

When he got there he found the door ajar, the police tape across it broken.

Does it never stop? he wondered.

He pushed the door open slowly and, cleaver held ready, went in. The air was dusty and thick. He could see in the dim light from the hallway the dust on the floor, dust that he was now stirring up in slow, drunken eddies. There were other footprints, he saw, dim tracks covered over with dust, smears too on the floor and beneath this the glints of broken glass like dim eyes, and a dark spread of dried blood. And also another pair of footprints, singular, newer, dustless, leading him forward.

The footprints led him out of the entrance hall and back into the apartment. There, in the bedroom, was Gous. He didn't notice Kline at first, just kept sitting and staring idly at his mutilated hand, tracing the smooth flesh from his third finger down to his wrist, stroking it like it was an animal.

"Are you alone?" Kline finally asked quietly.

Gous jumped. "Oh," he said, when he saw Kline. "It's you."

"You didn't answer the question," said Kline.

"Yes," said Gous. "Alone. Just me, Paul."

"What are you doing here?"

"I came to get you," said Gous. "Paul wants to see you. He wants you to report."

"Which Paul?" said Kline. "And what do you mean, report?"

"The first Paul," said Gous. "He wants to know how it went."

Kline came a step further into the room, putting the cleaver down on the edge of the bed. Gous' eyes flicked to it and flicked quickly back, and for just a moment Kline thought maybe he himself had finally made a mistake. But Gous made no move for it.

"I'm going to take a shower," said Kline, and stripped off his shirt.

"Don't you want to report?"

"No," said Kline.

"No?"

"I'll tell you about it and then you can go tell Paul."

Gous shook his head. "Paul insisted you come in person."

"No," said Kline. "I won't come."

"Why?"

"Because Paul wants to kill me."

Gous laughed. "Why would Paul want to kill you?"

"We had a deal," said Kline. "I kept my half of it. His half was that I never had to see any of the Pauls ever again."

"Even me?" asked Gous.

"Even you," said Kline. "Even though you're not really a Paul."

"Don't say that," said Gous, giving him a pained look. He stood up, sighed. "Paul said you might prove difficult," he said. He took a gun out of his pocket and, gripping it awkwardly, pointed it at Kline. "I'm going to have to insist," he said.

Does it never stop? thought Kline again.

"You know what he wants to do to me, Gous?" he asked.

"He wants to talk to you," said Gous.

"He wants to kill me," said Kline. "He wants to crucify me."

The gun wavered slightly in Gous' hand, then steadied again. Kline inched forward. "It isn't true," Gous said.

"It is," said Kline. "Do you want me dead?"

"Not particularly," said Gous.

"I didn't kill Ramse," said Kline, and watched the gun waver again, go steady.

"No?" said Gous.

"No," said Kline.

"I suppose that's good," said Gous. "I don't like to imagine him dead."

"If you take me back," said Kline, "they'll kill me."

"No," said Gous. "We won't."

"Then why the gun? Why would Paul insist on me reporting in person? Why would that matter?"

Gous shrugged. "How should I know?"

Kline sighed. "All right," he said. "What else can I do?" he asked. He started to turn away and then half-turned back. "One other thing," he said. "That gun won't do you any good."

"Why not?" asked Gous.

"Haven't you heard?" said Kline. "I can't be killed." And this time when the gun wavered, Kline's hand was already on it, tearing it out of Gous' grasp.

He made Gous turn around and raise his hands and then struck him on the back of the head with the butt of the pistol. He left him lying there in a heap on the floor while he slipped out of his pants. Wiping his chest and legs best he could with a dry towel, he found a clean shirt and a new pair of pants, put them on.

In the kitchen he washed his face. Suddenly he felt very tired.

There was a bucket under the sink and he took this. The sink had a spray nozzle at the end of a piece of retractable tubing and he tore this tubing out and then broke the spray nozzle off, leaving water gouting up in the sink. He coiled the tubing, dropping it into the bucket.

Gous was awake now in the bedroom, groggy, rubbing his head.

"You shouldn't do this," he said.

"Nothing personal," said Kline. "You'll thank me for it later," he said, and then struck Gous again, this time on the side of his head.

He searched Gous, taking his cigarette lighter. Gous' car keys and wallet he threw out the window, and then he left.

V

He stayed there, leaning his head against the steering wheel. Is there any other choice? he was wondering. The plastic of the steering wheel was slick and cold.

Of course there's another choice, he thought. There is always another choice. I'm just not going to take it.

He lifted his head. On the seat beside him, a collection of objects, disjecta: a bucket, a coil of tubing, a cigarette lighter, a cleaver, a pistol, a man's head.

He lifted the head by the hair and dumped it into the bucket, the tubing as well. The cigarette lighter he forced into a pocket. The gun he slid into his belt, the cleaver as well.

He got out carrying the bucket, then set it down on the curb, taking the head and the tubing out.

He snaked one end of the tubing into the car's gas tank and sucked on the other end, feeling the rough plastic of the broken nozzle with his tongue until gas poured first into his mouth and then onto the sidewalk and then into the bucket. He let the bucket fill about three quarters full, then pulled the tube free, threw it under the car.

He carried the sloshing bucket a few dozen meters down the sidewalk. He stopped just shy of the revolving door, and left it there against the building wall.

It's not too late, he thought on his way back for the head, but knew it was-even before he'd picked up the head, even before he'd carried it through the revolving doors and into the lobby.

The doorman Paul was there, or a doorman Paul anyway. How had the sequence gone?

"Well met, Paul," said Kline.

"Well met, Paul," said the Paul. "Friend Kline, I mean."

"Just have to report," said Kline.

"Of course," said the Paul. "Might I ask what you have in your hand?"

"This?" said Kline. "Borchert's head."

"Ah, I see," said the Paul.

"I'm going to put him down," said Kline. "I left something outside."

The Paul nodded, started toward the desk and the telephone. Kline hurried outside, took the bucket by the handle, carried it sloshing back in.

By the time he returned, the Paul was already unlocking the heavy door. Kline came closer and put down the bucket and waited.

"You know where to find him," the Paul said. "He'll be waiting for you," he said, and reached out to open the door. Whereupon Kline killed him with the cleaver.

There was a Paul on the other side of the door and Kline greeted him and killed him as well. This Paul was a little harder to kill, having caught a glimpse of the first guard prone on the floor just before Kline swung the cleaver, but in the end he was dead too.

He dragged in the bucket of gasoline, sliding Borchert's head along with his foot.

From there it was just a matter of dousing the parquet and the walls. He spread some in the entryway and then up the stairs and down the hall at the top of the stairs as well. Then he went back down, lighting it as he went.

By the time he reached the bottom, Borchert's head was a ball of fire and there were blue flames licking the floor and walls and Kline's hand was blistering. His shoes and legs and shirt were aflame. He tried to beat himself out and when it kept up he pushed his way out the door and rolled in the doorman's blood. And then, still smoking, his hands starting to shake, he took the doorman's keys and stood at the door, watching. Once he heard shouts, he closed the door, and locked it.

He stood beside the door, listening to what might be screams, what might be merely the crackle and roar of the flames. When it grew too hot and the door itself began to smoke he moved back and slowly away until finally he was standing alone in the street, watching the entire building catch fire. He listened to the sound of the sirens, distant but coming closer.

Where now? he wondered, at first walking, then loping, then breaking into a run. What next?