Small Town

forty

One purchase the Carpenter had made was a small plastic funnel, and it was proving a handy tool indeed. He had used wide-mouthed fruit juice jars for his first Molotov cocktails, and they’d been easy to fill, though less easy to fit with stoppers. Nor were they readily available by the case in a riverside marina. Thus the beer bottles, and the funnel, which speeded up the task while keeping spillage to a minimum.

The Carpenter filled twelve bottles at a time, stoppered them with the cloth wicks, and carried each full case out of the cabin and onto the open deck, where any fumes would dissipate quickly in the open air. He paused periodically to have a look at the intruder, who had not yet regained consciousness, and who might indeed be dead by now. He’d had a pulse when the Carpenter first checked, but he hadn’t stirred, and it seemed possible that he might have died of a burst blood vessel in the brain, or some other effect of the two blows he’d taken to the head.

His pockets had yielded some treasures, most notably a pair of handcuffs, which encouraged the Carpenter to look further. He’d found a gun, a fully loaded revolver, and maybe this one actually worked. He seemed to recall that pistols had a tendency to jam, as his had evidently done, and he didn’t think that was the case with revolvers. He’d put the pistol back on top of the chest of drawers, held there by the clips, and transferred the intruder’s pistol to his pocket.

Stripping the man, he’d found what he at once recognized as a bulletproof vest. Well, it wouldn’t have kept the Carpenter from putting a bullet into the back of the intruder’s neck, had the gun worked. The Carpenter tried it on and liked the feel of it, the comfort it somehow provided. He’d put his clothes on over it, liking the bulk and weight of it. Then he added the shoulder holster, and transferred the gun from his pocket to the holster. He practiced with it, drawing it, then returning it to the leather holster. He felt as though he were now secretly protected, as if by a guardian angel.

The intruder, in marked contrast, was naked, and entirely vulnerable. He had no body hair, the Carpenter noted, although he had a full head of hair and the beard of a man who’d last shaved in the morning. The Carpenter ran a hand over the smooth skin and wondered at its cause. Some disease? Or had the intruder deliberately removed the hair, perhaps for some religious reason?

Francis Buckram, that was the intruder’s name, according to the cards in his wallet. And he was some sort of policeman, which explained the gun and the handcuffs. It was while he was using those handcuffs to anchor the intruder to the chest of drawers that he remembered where he’d heard that name before, and realized why the man had looked familiar. He’d been the police commissioner once.

And how had he found his way to the Nancy Dee? That was something he might ask the man, if he ever came to. And if it wasn’t necessary to kill him right away.

When the fifth case of bottles had been filled and transferred to the open deck, the Carpenter cast off the lines securing the boat to the pier and maneuvered the Nancy Dee out of the Boat Basin. When he was perhaps twenty yards from the nearest of the moored vessels, he cut the engine and let the boat drift. Then, with a match, he lit the little kerosene lantern.

It was a handy thing, a black sphere eight inches in diameter, flattened on the bottom so it would stay upright, with an adjustable wick at the top. The Carpenter had taken it home from a construction site, where it burned at night to keep trespassers from stumbling into a pit. Now, lit and properly positioned, it greatly simplified the process of lighting the wicks of his firebombs.

He checked his watch. The hour was right, getting on to three in the morning. The Boat Basin was dark and silent. The party had ended in the large houseboat at the southern end of the basin, and the celebrants, like the other houseboaters, were tucked into their bunks. The owners of the other vessels, who lived elsewhere, were either awake or asleep, but in any event they were not here, and thus were of no concern to the Carpenter.

Who picked up a gasoline-filled beer bottle, lit its fuse, and lobbed it high in the air, aimed at a ramshackle houseboat some thirty yards distant.

Before it landed, he had a second bottle in hand.

He was on the verge of consciousness when the first explosion roused him. He opened his eyes, blinked, registered that he was naked, with his right hand cuffed, the other bracelet hooked to the brass pull of the bottommost drawer in a brassbound chest of drawers.

He pulled, but the drawer wouldn’t move, and he saw why. The vertical sides of the chest had extensions that were locked in place to keep the drawers from rolling free in uneven seas. By the time he figured this out there had already been a second explosion, and now there was a third.

And something was burning. He could smell it, and the cabin was unevenly illuminated by the flames.

What the hell was going on?

Molotov cocktails, of course. He’d seen the makings earlier, the bottles and rags and cans of gas. He didn’t see them now, but he heard them, exploding one after the other.

He had to do something. He swung around, braced his feet against the chest of drawers, tried to pull hard enough to break the drawer loose, or yank the handle from the drawer. All he got for his troubles was a sore wrist.

Where were his clothes?

He saw them, on the deck at the far end of the cabin. He stretched out full length, levering himself along the deck with his left hand, reaching out with his feet. He caught hold of a piece of clothing, pinning it between his two bare feet, and drew his legs back, trying to reel in the garment. He lost his purchase on it but then regained it and brought it close enough to grab with his free hand, and it was his jacket, and he went through the pockets and didn’t find a thing. His cell phone had been in one of those pockets, and it would have been useful now, but it was gone.

He stretched out again as far as he could, hurting his right wrist in the process, reaching with his feet, wishing he could see more clearly what he was doing. He caught hold of more cloth, brought it closer, grabbed it with his left hand. His pants, and one pocket held some coins, and what the hell was he supposed to do with them? But another pocket contained his key ring, and he was almost certain he had a handcuff key with him. He held the key ring in front of his face, dropped it, picked it up again, and yes, there was the key, and—

And the explosions had stopped, he realized that, even as the hatch opened. Scrambling, he tucked the key ring under his backside, kicked the trousers away.

And lay there, naked and unable to move, as the Carpenter came into the cabin.

“You’re awake,” the Carpenter said. “I thought you might be dead.”

“What were the explosions?”

“You know what they were.”

“I saw the bottles, the gasoline. But what was the target?”

“Oh,” said the Carpenter, surprised at the question. But you couldn’t really see much from where the man was lying. You could see that something was on fire, but wouldn’t know what it was.

“The boats,” he said.

“At the Boat Basin? Why would you want to burn them?”

The answer was too complicated, and the Carpenter decided not to waste time on it. The man’s trousers lay by his feet, not where he’d left them. He asked the man what he was looking for.

“My cell phone.”

The Carpenter pointed to the dresser top. “Right next to the pistol. Mr. Shevlin’s pistol, I was going to shoot you, but there must be something wrong with it.” He drew the revolver from the holster. “I hope there’s nothing wrong with yours,” he said, and pointed it at the man, interested in seeing what his reaction would be.

But there was no reaction. He might as well have been pointing a flower at him. Instead he asked another question. “Why are you doing this? Not just the boats. Everything. Why?”

Now that was an interesting question. Maybe he wouldn’t shoot the man, not yet. Maybe it would be interesting to have a conversation with him. He was, after all, an important man. Or had been important, running the police department of the world’s greatest city. He might have interesting things to say. And then he could play a role in the last sacrifice.

But all of that would have to wait. “I have to move the boat,” he told the man, and, holstering the gun, he made his way back on deck.

As soon as the hatch closed behind the Carpenter, Buckram retrieved the ring of keys from under his buttock. He rolled over on his side, reaching with his left hand for his imprisoned right wrist, wishing that at least it could have been the other way around, with his less agile left hand immobilized and his right hand free.

Jesus, he told himself, you can always find something to complain about, can’t you?

He heard the boat’s engine turn over, heard sirens in the distance as fire engines sped toward the burning Boat Basin. The boat was moving now, away from the raging fire, and toward what?

The man had set a trap for him and he’d stumbled right into it. And he’d be dead right now if the pistol hadn’t misfired. Peter Shevlin’s pistol, according to the Carpenter, and it was supposed to be on top of the chest of drawers, and so was his cell phone, and if only he could get the little key into the little hole, which he couldn’t quite see but it had to be right about there, and—

The catch released and the cuff fell away from his wrist. He flexed his fingers, willed feeling and circulation back into the hand. The Carpenter had cuffed him too tight, an easy mistake to make, and safer from the Carpenter’s point of view than too loose. What he hadn’t done, and Buckram was glad of that, was cuff him correctly, with a cuff on each wrist and his hands behind his back.

The way Susan had cuffed him, for example.

But he didn’t have time to think about Susan. Didn’t have time to think. His hand was cramped, as if he’d slept on it, but he’d be able to use it. He got his feet under him, found a handhold, and managed to hoist himself into a standing position. Then his head spun, and he sagged against the chest of drawers. It was all he could do to stay on his feet.

There was the gun. A .22, from the looks of it, with a three-inch barrel and crosshatched black rubber grips. He went to pick it up but it stayed where it was, resisting him.

What was holding it, magnets? No, some sort of gripping devices, and if you pulled a little harder it came loose. His right hand had trouble getting a grip on it so he transferred it to his left hand.

Great. He was armed with a gun that wouldn’t fire, and that his opponent knew wouldn’t fire. And the boat had stopped moving, and the hatch was opening.

His mobility was his one asset, his foe’s ignorance of it the closest thing he had to an edge. He couldn’t lose it.

So he got back down onto the floor and slipped his hand into the cold steel cuff. With his left hand he closed the cuff, but just a little way, fastening it loosely enough that he could slip his whole hand right out of it.

At least he hoped he could.

The Carpenter headed the Nancy Dee south, just as he’d done when he circled the island. Manhattan was on his left, his port side, and he stayed as close to shore as he conveniently could, past the old railroad yards. The first pier he came to was that of the Sanitation Department, at Fifty-ninth Street, and he stepped away from the tiller and lobbed two of his firebombs onto it. They exploded with a satisfying roar, and he kept heading south, not waiting to see what effect they had.

More piers, and he had the tiller locked so he didn’t have to tend it, he could go on lighting and hurling his bombs whenever he drew abreast of a likely target. Once he missed, and a bottle, its wick aflame, fell harmlessly into the water, neither breaking nor exploding. No matter — he had plenty of bombs left.

Ah, and now he’d come to where the cruise ships docked. There was only one berthed there tonight, and it was enormous, rising as high as an apartment house, holding as many people as a small village. He sailed as close to it as he dared, saw an opening on one of the lower decks, and scored a direct hit with one of his firebombs. The explosion echoed, the flames leaped. Oh, they’d probably put it out, they’d probably keep it from spreading, but they’d have their work cut out for them.

And then Pier Eighty-three, where the Circle Line vessels were berthed.

And this ship was not so tall, not so forbidding, and there was a vast amount of open deck space. The Carpenter rained bombs on the ship, setting fires everywhere. There’d be no human sacrifice, not unless they had a night watchman aboard, but the ship itself was sacrifice enough. Such a powerful symbol...

Enough for now. The Carpenter headed for open water, set the Nancy Dee on a course to cruise south at a leisurely pace in the middle of the river. And went to check on his passenger.

The Carpenter seemed in an exalted state, as if the flames he’d created had borne him aloft. He didn’t seem to notice that the handcuff was loose on Buckram’s wrist, and so far he hadn’t noticed the gun.

Would the gun fire? According to the Carpenter, it had jammed. That was possible, automatics were notoriously subject to jamming, but it wasn’t the Carpenter’s gun and the Carpenter didn’t know a lot about guns. It was at least as possible that the gun had been loaded with a cartridge clip but, for safety’s sake, didn’t have a round in the chamber. The Carpenter, squeezing the trigger a single time, would have succeeded in chambering a round. If he’d pulled it a second time, he’d have put a bullet in Buckram.

Well, it was possible. And, unless he could come up with something better, any minute now he’d get to bet his life on it.

He had his right thigh over it, screening it as much as possible, but it was impossible to be sure it wasn’t partially visible. And what was unquestionably visible was its absence from its place on top of the chest of drawers. So far the Carpenter hadn’t glanced over there, and might not notice anything if he did, as transported as he appeared to be by the night’s events.

“The ship’s burning,” he announced.

“This one?”

“Of course not. And this is a boat, not a ship. Though it, too, will be burning soon enough.” He smiled, and it changed his mien curiously from exaltation to resigned sadness. “Soon it will all be over.”

“You said the ship was burning. What ship?”

“The Circle Line,” the Carpenter said. “They have different ships with different names. I didn’t notice the name of this one. Have you ever taken their cruise around Manhattan?”

He had, years ago. Someone had booked the ship on a weekday evening for a private party to which he’d been invited. He hadn’t had a chance to see much, had been stuck in one conversation after another, barely got out on deck.

He didn’t say any of this, though, because the Carpenter hadn’t waited for an answer. Instead he’d gone on to recount something of the history of the Circle Line, and some of the more impressive sights to be seen on that voyage. If the Carpenter had seemed sad a moment ago, now he spoke with the enthusiasm of a teacher lecturing on a favorite topic.

Buckram said, “You don’t hate the city, do you?”

“Hate it?”

“That’s what everyone thinks. That you blamed New York for the loss of your family, that everything you’re doing is an act of revenge. But when you talk about New York you sound like a lover.”

“Of course,” the Carpenter said. “I love New York.”

“There were all these books in your storage locker...”

“My library. I’ve missed my books.”

“You know a great deal about the city.”

“One always wants to know more.”

“Then why the hell are you trying to destroy it?”

“To destroy it?”

“With killing and burnings and explosions and...”

He stopped. The Carpenter was shaking his head. “Sacrifice,” he said.

“Sacrifice?”

“Trying to destroy the city. As if I would want to do that. Don’t you understand? I’m trying to save it.”

And he began to explain, spinning a complicated story full of local history, with the Draft Riots and the Police Riots and gang warfare and a maritime disaster, all the horrible things that had happened in the last couple of centuries, wrapped up in a theory of death and rebirth, suffering and renewal. Sacrifice.

“I wanted to die,” he was saying now. “I wanted to share in their sacrifice, to be a part of it. My wife took pills. I found her dead in our bed. Do you know what I did?”

Again the question was rhetorical, and the Carpenter didn’t wait for an answer. “I took pills,” he said, “and lay down beside her, intending to go where she had gone. And do you know what happened? I woke up, with nothing worse than a bad headache, and the deepest sorrow I have ever known. I thought of Cain, making an offering to God and having the smoke go off to the side. And then I came to realize that my sacrifice had not been rejected. It had been postponed, because I had work to do. I had to sacrifice others to the greater glory of the city.”

There was more, and Buckram listened, took it all in. The Carpenter was insane, which was hardly news, but insane in a surprising way. He’d killed all those people — and God only knew how many he’d added to the total tonight, at the Boat Basin and wherever else his bombs had landed. All those deaths, and he didn’t have anything against any of them, didn’t have the slightest wish to do them harm. Didn’t think he was harming them, thought he was ennobling them.

And what was he doing now? Walking over to the can of gas, twisting the top off...

“Chelsea Piers,” the Carpenter was saying. “It’s this great project at the water’s edge, with restaurants and sports facilities, even a driving range. Can you imagine that? A driving range in Manhattan?” He shook his head, awed by the wonder of it all. “We’ll be there soon. And this little boat of ours will be a bomb, filled with combustible fumes, and I’ll run it into the pier, and that will be the last sacrifice.” He beamed at Buckram. “And you’ll be a part of it.”

Buckram couldn’t wait any longer. Once the lunatic started sloshing the gas around, the cabin would be a bomb, and a gunshot would set it off. He said, “I don’t think so,” and wrenched his right hand free of the cuff, grabbing up the gun, hurling his body to the side and firing the gun as he moved.

The recoil wasn’t that massive, not from a .22, but it was enough to dislodge the grip of Buckram’s weakened right hand. But the shot was right on target. It took the Carpenter squarely in the center of the chest. His jaw dropped and he stared and took a step back, but he didn’t clutch his chest and his knees didn’t buckle and he didn’t fall down, the way a person generally does when you shoot him in the heart.

Oh, Jesus. The fucking Kevlar vest. It saved a life, but not the one it was supposed to.

And the Carpenter had his own gun drawn now, Buckram’s .38, and he pulled the trigger, and the sound was much louder in the little cabin. The bullet missed, and Buckram groped for the .22, grabbed it finally with his left hand. He raised it, and the Carpenter, his hand trembling, fired a second shot, and this one didn’t miss. Pain seared Buckram’s belly, pain almost too much to bear, and he remembered something Susan had said, something about pain being nothing but a sensation you make wrong, and he dismissed the pain and brought the gun to bear and made the Carpenter wrong instead, made him wrong forever, squeezing the trigger three times and hitting him three times in the face and throat.

And watched him fall, and lie still.

When the first bullet struck, smack in the center of his chest, the Carpenter felt a rush of joy. He was going to die. His sacrifice was complete, he could let go now, and in a moment he would be with Carole.

But he hadn’t died, he wasn’t even hurt. He’d felt the impact of the bullet but it didn’t seem to have injured him. So he’d been right after all, he thought sadly. He had to kill this man, and then he had to complete the sacrifice.

He fired and missed, fired again and hit the man. Not in the chest, where he’d aimed, but much lower. But he’d hit him, and now the man would die, and then—

Then three shots, and in a mere instant the Carpenter was hovering above the scene, looking down, seeing two bodies on the cabin deck. One was Buckram, the man whom he’d shot and by whom he’d been shot in return. And the other, of course, was his own.

And, seeing himself lying there, the Carpenter felt a veil lift, and knew for the first time, knew with perfect certainty, that everything he’d done in the past months had been completely and overwhelmingly wrong. The realization was crushing, blinding, devastating.

And then, just as quickly, it ceased to matter. Because he was drawn into the vortex now, whirled into the long tunnel, and Carole would be waiting for him at the end of it.

He let go, and sailed away.

Oh, Jesus. A red-hot poker in your bowels, and you could tell yourself it was just a sensation, but it was more than that. It was bad news, because you’d been gutshot and you were going to die.

The cell phone. That was his only hope, and of course the fucking thing was on top of the chest of drawers and he was on the fucking floor, pardon me, the fucking deck, and what he needed was Medic Alert, because he’d fallen and he couldn’t get up.

Had to.

Couldn’t.

Fuck that. He had to.

He got to his feet, grabbed the cell phone, then fell down again and felt it spill out of his hand. Groped around, got hold of it. 9-1-1, he thought. Easy to remember, same as 9/11, the day it all started.

And, talking to the 911 operator, telling her who he was and where he thought he was and what had happened, a thought came to him. He pushed it away until he’d gotten the message across to her, then let go of the phone and sprawled on his back.

And the thought was there again. His mother, telling him how he had to wear clean underwear every morning, in case he got hit by a bus. Because what would they think in the hospital?

And what would they think, he wondered, when they found Francis J. Buckram, the former commissioner of the NYPD, stark fucking naked and not a single hair on his balls?

The worst part, he thought, as his consciousness began to fade, the worst part was that he wasn’t going to be around to see the expressions on their faces.