The 1st Deadly Sin

6

He awoke the first morning on Devil’s Needle, and it seemed to him he had been dreaming. He remembered a voice calling, “Daniel Blank…Daniel Blank…” That could have been his mother because she always used his full name. “Daniel Blank, have you done your homework? Daniel Blank, I want you to go to the store for me. Daniel Blank, did you wash your hands?” That was strange, he realized for the first time-she never called him Daniel or Dan or son.

He looked at his watch; it showed 11:43. But that was absurd, he knew; the sun was just rising. He peered closer and saw the sweep second hand had stopped; he had forgotten to wind it. Well, he could wind it now, set it approximately, but time really didn’t matter. He slipped the gold expansion band off his wrist, tossed the watch over the side.

He rummaged through his rucksack. When he found he had neglected to pack sandwiches and a thermos, he was not perturbed. It was not important.

He had slept fully clothed, crampons wedged under his ribs, spikes up, so he wouldn’t roll off Devil’s Needle in his sleep. Now he climbed shakily to his feet, feeling stiffness in shoulders and hips, and stood in the center of the little rock plateau where he could not be seen from the ground. He did stretching exercises, bending sideways at the waist, hands on hips; then bending down, knees locked, to place his palms flat on the chill stone; then jogging in place while he counted off five minutes.

He was gasping for breath when he finished, and his knees were trembling; he really wasn’t in very good condition, he acknowledged, and resolved to spend at least an hour a day in stretching and deep-breathing exercises. But then he heard his name being called again. Lying on his stomach, he inched cautiously to the edge of Devil’s Needle.

Yes, they were calling his name, asking him to come down, promising he wouldn’t be hurt. He wasn’t interested in that, but he was surprised by the number of men and vehicles down there. The packed dirt compound around the gate-keeper’s cottage was crowded; everyone seemed very busy with some job they were all doing. When he looked directly downward, he could see armed men circling the base of Devil’s Needle, but whether they were protecting the others from him or him from the others, he could not say and didn’t care.

He felt a need to urinate, and did so, lying on his side, peeing so the stream went over the edge of the rock. There wasn’t very much, and it seemed to him of a milky whiteness, not golden at all. There was a clogged heaviness in his bowels, but the difficulties of defecating up there, what he would do with the excrement, how he would wipe himself clean, were such that he resisted the urge, rolled back to the center of the stone, lay on his back, stared at the new sun.

At no time had he debated with himself and come to a conscious decision to stay up there, to die up there. It was just something his mind grasped instinctively and accepted. He was not driven to it; even now he could descend if he wanted to. But he didn’t. He was content where he was, in a condition of almost drowsy ease. And he was safe; that was important. He had his ice ax and could easily smash the skull of any climber who came after him. But what if one should come in the dark, wiggling his way silently upward to kill Daniel G. Blank as he slept?

He didn’t think it likely that anyone would attempt a night climb, but just to make it more difficult, he took his ice ax and using it as a hammer, knocked loose the two pitons that aided the final crawl from the chimney to the top of Devil’s Needle. The task took a long time; he had to rest awhile after the pitons were free. Then he slid them skittering across the stone, watched them disappear over the side.

Then they were calling his name again, a great mechanical booming: “Daniel Blank…Daniel Blank…” He wished they wouldn’t do that. For a moment he thought of shouting down and telling them to stop. But they probably wouldn’t. The thing was, it was disturbing his reverie, intruding on his isolation. He was enjoying his solitude, but it should have been a silent separateness.

He rolled over on his face, warming now as the watery sun rose higher. Beneath his eyes, close, close, he saw the rock itself, its texture. In all his years of mountain climbing and rock collecting, he had never looked at stone in that manner, seeing beneath the worn surface gloss, penetrating to the deep heart. He saw then what the stone was, and his own body, and the winter trees and glazed sun: infinite millions of bits, multicolored, in chance motion, a wild dance that went on and on ’to some silent tune.

He thought, for awhile, that these bits might be similar to the “bits” stored by a computer, recalled when needed to form a pattern, solve a problem, produce a meaningful answer. But this seemed to him too easy a solution, for if a cosmic computer did exist, who had programmed it, who would pose the questions and demand the answers? What answers? What questions?

He dozed off for awhile, awoke with that steel voice echoing, “Daniel Blank…Daniel Blank…” and was forced to remember who he was.

Celia had found her certitude-whatever it was-and he supposed everyone in the world was searching for his own, and perhaps finding it, or settling, disappointed, for something less. But what was important what was important was…What was important? It had been right there, he had been thinking of it, and then it went away.

There was a sudden griping in his bowels a sharp pain that brought him sitting upright, gasping and frightened. He massaged his abdomen gently. Eventually the pain went away, leaving a leaden stuffiness. There was something in there, something in him…He fell asleep finally, dimly hearing the ghost voice calling, “Daniel Blank…Daniel Blank…” It might be his imagination, he admitted, but it seemed to him the voice was higher in pitch now, almost feminine in timbre, dawdling lovingly over the syllables of his name. Someone who loved him was calling.

Was it the second day or the third? Well…no matter. Anyway, a helicopter came over, dipped, circled his castle, tilted. He had been sitting with his knees drawn up, head down on folded arms, and he raised his head to stare at it. He thought they might shoot him or drop a bomb on him. He waited patiently, dreaming. But they just circled him, low, three or four times; he could see pale faces at the windows, peering down at him. He lowered his head again.

They came back, every day, and he tried to pay no attention to them, but the heavy throbbing of the rotor was annoying. It was slow enough to have a discernible rhythm, a heartbeat in the sky. Once they came so low over him that the downdraft blew his knitted watch cap off the stone. It went sailing out into space, then fell into the reaching spines of winter trees. He watched it go.

One morning-when was it? — he knew he was going to defecate and could not control himself. He fumbled at his belt with weak fingers, got it unbuckled and his pants down, but was too late to pull down his flowered bikini panties, and had to void. It was painful. Later he got his pants off his feet-he had to take his boots off first-then pulled down the panties and shook them out.

He looked at his feces curiously. They were small black balls, hard and round as marbles. He flicked them, one by one, with his forefinger; they rolled across the stone, over the edge. He knew he no longer had the strength to dress, but he could tug off socks, jacket, and shirt. Then he was naked, baring his shrunken body to pale sun.

He was no longer thirsty, no longer hungry. Most amazing, he was not cold, but suffused with a sleepy warmth that tingled his limbs. He was, he knew, sleeping more and more until on the fourth day-or perhaps it was the fifth-he was not conscious of sleep as a separate state. Sleep and wakefulness became so thin that they were no longer oil and water, but one fluid, grey and without flavor, that ebbed and flowed.

The days passed, he supposed, and so did the nights. But where one ended and the other began, he did not know. Days and darkness, all boundaries lost, became part of that grey, flavorless tide, warm, milky at times, without odor now. It was a great placid sea, endless; he wished he had the strength to stand and see just once more that silver river that flowed to everywhere.

But he could not stand, could not even make the effort to wipe away a thin, viscous liquid leaking from eyes, nose, mouth. When he moved his hand upon himself, he felt pulped nipples, knobbed joints, wrinkles, folds of scratchy skin. Pain had gone; will was going. But he held it tight, to think awhile longer with a slow, numbed brain.

“Daniel Blank…Daniel Blank…,” the voice called seductively. He knew who it was who called.

On the second day, an enterprising New York City newspaper hired a commercial helicopter; they flew over Devil’s Needle and took a series of photos of Daniel Blank sitting on the rock, knees drawn up. The photograph featured on the newspaper’s front page showed him with head raised, pale face turned to the circling ’copter.

Delaney was chagrined that he hadn’t thought of aerial reconnaissance first and, after consultation with Major Samuel Barnes, all commercial flights over Devil’s Needle were banned. The reason given to the press was that a light plane or helicopter approach might drive Blank to a suicide plunge, or the chopper’s downdraft might blow him off the edge.

Actually, Captain Delaney was relieved by the publication of that famous photo; Danny Boy was up there, no doubt about it. At the same time, with the cooperation of Barnes, he initiated thrice-daily flights of a New York State Police helicopter over the scene. Aerial photographs were taken, portions greatly enlarged and analyzed by Air Force technicians. No signs of food or drink were found. As the days wore away and Blank spent more and more time on his back, staring at the sky, his physical deterioration became obvious.

Delaney went along on the first flight, taking a car north with Chief Forrest and Captain Sneed to meet Barnes at an Air Force field near Newburgh. It was his first face-to-face meeting with Sam Barnes. The Major was like his voice: hard, tight, peppery. His manner was cold, withdrawn, his gestures quick and short. He wasted little time on formalities, but hustled them aboard the waiting helicopter.

On the short flight south, he spoke only to Delaney. The Captain learned the State officer had consulted his departmental surgeon and was aware of what Delaney already knew: without food or liquid, Blank had about ten days to live, give or take a day or two. It depended on his physical condition prior to his climb, and to the nature and extent of his exposure to the elements. The Major, like Delaney, was monitoring the long-range weather forecasts daily. Generally, fair weather was expected to continue with gradually lowering temperatures. But there was a low-pressure system building up in northwest Canada that would bear watching.

They were all discussing their options when the ’copter came in view of Devil’s Needle, then tilted to circle lower. Their talk died away; they stared out their windows at the rock. The cabin was suddenly cold as a crewman slid open the wide cargo door, and a police photographer positioned his long-lensed camera.

Captain Delaney’s first reaction was one of shock at the small size of Daniel Blank’s aerie. Chief Forrest had said it was “double bedsheet size,” but from the air it was difficult to understand how Blank could exist up there for an hour without rolling or stumbling off the edge.

As the ’copter circled lower, the photographer snapping busily, Delaney felt a sense of awe and, looking at the other officers, suspected they were experiencing the same emotion. From this elevation, seeing Blank on his stone perch and the white, upturned faces of the men surrounding Devil’s Needle on the ground, the Captain knew a dreadful wonder at the man’s austere isolation and could not understand how he endured it.

It was not only the dangerous height at which he had sought refuge, lying atop a rock pillar that thrust into the sky, it was the absolute solitude of the man, deliberately cutting himself off from life and the living. Blank seemed, not on stone, but somehow floating in the air, not anchored, but adrift.

Only a few times before in his life had Delaney felt what he felt now. Once was when he forced his way into that concentration camp and saw the stick-men. Once was when he had taken a kitchen knife gently from the nerveless fingers of a man, soaked in blood, who had just murdered his mother, his wife, his three children, and then called the cops. The final time Delaney had helped subdue a mad woman attempting to crunch her skull against a wall. And now Blank…

It was the madness that was frightening, the loss of anchor, the float. It was a primitive terror that struck deep, plunged to something papered over by civilization and culture. It stripped away millions of years and said, “Look.” It was the darkness.

Later, when copies of the aerial photos were delivered to him, along with brief analyses by the Air Force technicians, he took one of the photos and thumb-tacked it to the outside wall of the gate-keeper’s cottage. He was not surprised by the attention it attracted, having guessed that the men shared his own uncertainty that their quarry was actually up there, that any man would deliberately seek and accept this kind of immolation.

Captain Delaney also noted a few other unusual characteristics of the men on duty: They were unaccountably quiet, with none of the loud talk, boasting and bantering that usually accompanied a job of this type. And they were in no hurry, when relieved, to return to their warm dormitory in the high school gymnasium. Invariably, they hesitated, then wandered once again to the base of Devil’s Needle, to stare upward, mouths open, at the unseen man who lay alone.

He discussed this with Thomas Handry. The reporter had gone out to the roadblocks to interview some of the people being turned back by the troopers.

“You wouldn’t believe it,” Handry said, shaking his head. “Hundreds and hundreds of cars. From all over the country. I talked to a family from Ohio and asked them why they drove so far, what they expected to see.”

“What did they say?”

“The man said he had a week off, and it wasn’t long enough to go to Disney world, so they decided to bring the kids here.”

They were organized now: regular shifts with schedules mimeographed daily. There were enough men assigned to cover all the posts around the clock, and the big searchlights and generator truck were up from New York City so Devil’s Needle was washed in light 24 hours a day.

Captain Delaney had a propane stove in his cottage now, and a heavy radio had been installed on the gate-keeper’s counter. The radiomen had little to do and so, to occupy their time, had rigged up a loudspeaker, a timer, and a loop tape, so that every hour on the hour, the message went booming out mechanically: “Daniel Blank…Daniel Blank…come down…come down…” It did no good. By now no one expected it would.

Every morning Chief Forrest brought out bags of mail received at the Chilton Post Office, and Captain Delaney spent hours reading the letters. A few of them contained money sent to Daniel Blank, for what reason he could not guess. Blank also received a surprisingly large number of proposals of marriage from women; some included nude photos of the sender. But most of the letters, from all over the world, were suggestions of how to take Daniel Blank. Get four helicopters, each supporting the corner of a heavy cargo net, and drop the net over the top of Devil’s Needle. Bring in a large group of “sincere religious people” and pray him down. Set up a giant electric fan and blow him off his rock. Most proposed a solution they had already rejected: send up a fighter plane or helicopter and kill him. One suggestion intrigued Captain Delaney: fire gas grenades onto the top of Devil’s Needle and when Daniel Blank was unconscious, send up a climber in a gas mask to bring him down.

Captain Delaney wandered out that evening, telling himself he wanted to discuss the gas grenade proposal with one of the snipers. He walked down the worn path toward Devil’s Needle, turned aside at the sniper’s post. The three pale-faced men had improved their blind. They had dragged over a picnic table with attached benches. From somewhere, they had scrounged three burlap bags of sand-Chief Forrest had helped with that, Delaney guessed-and the bags were used as a bench rest for their rifles. The sniper could sit and be protected from the wind by canvas tarps tied to nearby trees.

The man on duty looked up as Delaney approached.

“Evening, Captain.”

“Evening. How’s it going?”

“Quiet.”

Delaney knew that the three snipers didn’t mix much with the other men. They were pariahs, as much as hangmen or executioners, but apparently it did not affect them, if they were aware of it. All three were tall, thin men, two from Kentucky, one from North Carolina. If Delaney felt any uneasiness with them, it was their laconism rather than their chosen occupation. “Happy New Year,” the sniper said unexpectedly.

Delaney stared at him. “My God, is it?”

“Uh-huh. New Year’s Eve.”

“Well…Happy New Year to you. Forgot all about it.” The man was silent. The Captain glanced at the scope-fitted rifle resting on the sandbags.

“Springfield Oh-three,” Delaney said. “Haven’t seen one in years.”

“Bought it from Army surplus,” the man said, never taking his eyes from Devil’s Needle.

“Sure,” the Captain nodded. “Just like I bought my Colt Forty-five.”

The man made a sound; the Captain hoped it was a laugh. “Listen,” Delaney said, “we got a suggestion, in the mail. You think there’s any chance of putting a gas grenade up there?”

The sniper raised his eyes to the top of Devil’s Needle. “Rifle or mortar?”

“Either.”

“Not mortar. Rifle maybe. But it wouldn’t stick. Skitter off or he’d kick it off.”

“I guess so,” Captain Delaney sighed. “We could clear the area and blanket it with gas, but the wind’s too tricky.”

“Uh-huh.”

The Captain strolled away and only glanced once at that cathedral rock. Was he really up there? He had seen the day’s photos-but could he trust them? The uneasiness returned.

He went back to the cottage, found a heavy envelope of reports a man coming on duty from Chilton had dropped off for him. They were from Sergeant MacDonald, copies of all the interrogations and statements of the people picked up in the continuing investigation. Delaney walked out to the van, got a paper cup of black coffee, brought it back. Then he sat down at his makeshift desk, pulled the gooseneck lamp closer, put on his heavy glasses, began reading the reports slowly.

He was looking for…what? Some explanation or lead or hint. What had turned Daniel G. Blank into a killer? Where and when did it begin? It was the motive he wanted, he needed. It wasn’t good enough to use words like nut, crazy, insane, homosexual, psychopath. Just labels. There had to be more to it than that. There had to be something that could be comprehended, that might explain why this young man had deliberately murdered five people. And four of them strangers.

Because, Delaney thought angrily, if there was no explanation for it, then there was no explanation for anything.

It was almost two in the morning when he pulled on that crazy coat and wandered out again. The compound around the cottage was brilliantly lighted. So was the packed path through the black trees; so was the bleak column of Devil’s Needle. As usual, there were men standing about, heads back, mouths gaping, eyes turned upward. Captain Delaney joined them without shame.

He opened himself to the crisp night, lightly moaning wind, stars that seemed holes punched in a black curtain beyond which shone a dazzling radiance. The shaft of Devil’s Needle rose shimmering in light, smoothed by the glare. Was he up there? Was he really up there?

There came to Captain Edward X. Delaney such a compassion that he must close his mouth, bite his lower lip to keep from wailing aloud. Unbidden, unwanted even, he shared that man’s passion, entered into him, knew his suffering. It was an unwelcome bond, but he could not deny it. The crime, the motive, the reason-all seemed unimportant now. What racked him was that lonely man, torn adrift. He wondered if that was why they all gathered here, at all hours, day and night. Was it to comfort the afflicted as best they might?

A few days later-was it three? It could have been four-late in the afternoon, the daily envelope of aerial photos was delivered to Captain Delaney. Daniel G. Blank was lying naked on his rock, spread-eagled to the sky. The Captain looked, took a deep breath, turned his gaze away. Then, without looking again, he put the photos back into the envelope. He did not post one outside on the cottage wall.

Soon after, Major Samuel Barnes called.

“Delaney?”

“Yes.”

“Barnes here. See the photos?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t think he can last much longer.”

“No. Want to go up?”

“Not immediately. We’ll check by air another day or so. Temperature’s dropping.”

“I know.”

“No rush. We’re getting a good press. Those bullhorn appeals are doing it. Everyone says we’re doing all we can.”

“Yes. All we can.”

“Sure. But the weather’s turning bad. A front moving in from the Great Lakes. Cloudy, windy, snow. Freezing. If we’re socked in, we’ll look like fools. I say January the sixth. In the morning. No matter what. How do you feel about it?”

“All right with me. The sooner the better. How do you want to do it: climber or ’copter?”

“ ’Copter. Agreed?”

“Yes. That’ll be best.”

“All right. I’ll start laying it on. I’ll be over tomorrow and we’ll talk. Shit, he’s probably dead right now.”

“Yes,” Captain Delaney said. “Probably.”

The world had become a song for Daniel Blank. A song. Soonngg…Everything was singing. Not words, or even a tune. But an endless hum that filled his ears, vibrated so deep inside him that cells and particles of cells jiggled to that pleasant purr.

There was no thirst, no hunger and, best of all, there was no pain, none at all. For that he was thankful. He stared at a milky sky through filmed eyes almost closed by scratchy lids. The whiteness and the tuneless drone became one: a great oneness that went on forever, stretched him with a dreamy content.

He was happy he no longer heard his name shouted, happy he no longer saw a helicopter dipping and circling above his rock. But perhaps he had imagined those things; he had imagined so much: Celia Montfort was there once, wearing an African mask. Once he spoke to Tony. Once he saw a hunched, massive silhouette, lumbering away from him, dwindling. And once he embraced a man in a slow-motion dance that faded into milkiness before the ice ax struck, although he saw it raised.

But even these visions, all visions, disappeared; he was left only with an empty screen. Occasionally discs, whiter than white, floated into view, drifted, then went off, out of sight. They were nice to watch, but he was glad when they were gone.

He had a slowly diminishing apprehension of reality, but before weakness subdued his mind utterly, he felt his perception growing even as his senses faded. It seemed to him he had passed through the feel-taste-touch-smell-hear world and had emerged to this gentle purity with its celestial thrum, a world where everything was true and nothing was false.

There was, he now recognized with thanksgiving and delight, a logic to life, and this logic was beautiful. It was not the orderly logic of the computer, but was the unpredictable logic of birth, living, death. It was the mortality of one, and the immortality of all. It was all things, animate and inanimate, bound together in a humming whiteness.

It was an ecstasy to know that oneness, to understand, finally, that he was part of the slime and part of the stars. There was no Daniel Blank, no Devil’s Needle, and never had been. There was only the continuum of life in which men and rocks, slime and stars, appear as seeds, grow a moment, and then are drawn back again into that timeless whole, continually beginning, continually ending.

He was saddened that he could not bring this final comprehension to others, describe to them the awful majesty of the certitude he had found: a universe of accident and possibility where a drop of water is no less than a moon, a passion no more than a grain of sand. All things are nothing, but all things are all. In his delirium, he could clutch that paradox to his heart, hug it, know it for truth.

He could feel life ebbing in him-feel it! It oozed away softly, no more than an invisible vapor rising from his wasted flesh, becoming part again of that oneness from whence it came. He died slowly, with love, for he was passing into another form; the process so gentle that he could wonder why men cried out and fought.

Those discs of white on white appeared again to drift across his vision. He thought dimly there was a moisture on his face, a momentary tingle; he wondered if he might be weeping with joy.

It was only snow, but he did not know it. It covered him slowly, soothing the roughened skin, filling out the shrunken hollows of his body, hiding the seized joints and staring eyes.

Before the snow ended at dawn, he was a gently sculpted mound atop Devil’s Needle. His shroud was white and without stain.

Late on the night of January 5th, Captain Delaney met with Major Samuel Barnes, Chief Forrest, Captain Sneed, the crew of the State Police helicopter, and the chief radioman. They all crowded into the gate-keeper’s cottage; a uniformed guard was posted outside the door to keep curious reporters away.

Major Barnes had prepared a schedule, and handed around carbon copies.

“Before we get down to nuts-and-bolts,” he said rapidly, “the latest weather advisory is this: Snow beginning at midnight, tapering off at dawn. Total accumulation about an inch and a half or two. Temperatures in the low thirties to upper twenties. Then, tomorrow morning, it should clear with temperatures rising to the middle thirties. Around noon, give or take an hour, the shit will really hit the fan, with a dropping barometer, temperature going way down, snow mixed with rain, hail, and sleet, and winds of twenty-five gusting to fifty.

“Beautiful,” one of the pilots said. “I love it.”

“So,” Barnes went on, disregarding the interruption, “we have five or six hours to get him down. If we don’t, the weather will murder us, maybe for days. This is a massive storm front moving in. All right, now look at your schedules. Take-off from the Newburgh field at nine ayem. I’ll be aboard the ’copter. The flight down and the final aerial reconnaissance completed by nine-thirty ayem, approximate. Lower a man to the top of Devil’s Needle via cable and horse collar by ten ayem. Captain Delaney, you will be in command of ground operations here. This shack will be home base, radio coded Chilton One. The ’copter will be Chilton Two. The man going down will be Chilton Three. Everyone clear on that? Sneed, have your surgeon here at nine ayem. Forrest, can you bring out a local ambulance with attendants and a body bag?”

“Sure.”

“I think Blank is dead, or at least unconscious. But if he’s not, the man going down on the cable will be armed.”

Captain Delaney looked up. “Who’s Chilton Three?” he asked. “Who’s going down on the cable?”

The three-man helicopter crew looked at each other. They were all young men, wearing sheepskin jackets over suntan uniforms, their feet in fleece-lined boots.

Finally the smallest man shrugged. “Shit, I’ll go down,” he said, rabbity face twisted into a tight grin. “Fm the lightest. I’ll get the fucker.”

“What’s your name?” Delaney asked him.

“Farber, Robert H.”

“You heard what the Major said, Farber. Blank is probably dead or unconscious. But there’s no guarantee. He’s already killed five people. If you get down there, and he makes any threatening movement-anything at all-grease him.”

“Don’t worry, Captain. If he as much as sneezes, he’s a dead fucker.”

“What will you carry?”

“What? Oh, you mean guns. My thirty-eight, I guess. Side holster. And I got a carbine.”

Captain Delaney looked directly at Major Barnes. “I’d feel better if he carried more weight,” he said. He turned back to Farber. “Can you handle a forty-five?” he asked.

“Sure, Captain. I was in the fuckin’ Marine Corps.”

“You can borrow mine, Bobby,” one of the other pilots offered.

“And a shotgun rather than the carbine,” Delaney said. “Loaded with buck.”

“No problem,” Major Barnes said.

“You really think I’ll need all that fuckin’ artillery?” Farber asked the Captain.

“No, I don’t,” Delaney said. “But the man was fast. So fast I can’t tell you. Fast enough to take out one of my best men. But he’s been up there a week now without food or water. If he’s still alive, he won’t be fast anymore. The heavy guns are just insurance. Don’t hesitate to use them if you have to. Is that an order, Major Barnes?”

“Yes,” Barnes nodded. “That’s an order, Farber.”

They discussed a few more details: briefing of the press, positioning of still and TV cameramen, parking of the ambulance, selection of men to stand by when Blank was brought down.

Finally, near midnight, the meeting broke up. Men shook hands, drifted away in silence. Only Delaney and the radioman were left in the cabin. The Captain wanted to call Barbara, but thought it too late; she’d probably be sleeping. He wanted very much to talk to her.

He spent a few minutes getting his gear together, stuffing reports, schedules, and memos into manila envelopes. If all went well in the morning, he’d be back in Manhattan by noon, leading his little squad of cops home again.

He hadn’t realized how tired he was, how he longed for his own bed. Some of it was physical weariness: too many hours on his feet, muscles punished, nerves pulled and strained. But he also felt a spiritual exhaustion. This thing with Blank had gone on too long, had done too much to him.

Now, the last night, he pulled on cap and fur-lined greatcoat, plodded down to Devil’s Needle for a final look. It was colder, no doubt of that, and the smell of snow was in the air. The sentries circling the base of the rock wore rubber ponchos over their sheepskin jackets: the sniper was huddled under a blanket, only the glowing end of a cigarette showing in black shadow. Captain Delaney stood a little apart from the few gawkers still there, still staring upward.

The gleaming pillar of Devil’s Needle rose above him, probing the night sky, ghostly in the searchlight glare. About it, he thought he heard a faintly ululant wind, no louder than the cry of a distant child. He shivered inside his greatcoat: a chill of despair, a fear of something. It would have been easy, at that moment, to weep, but for what he could not have said.

It might, he thought dully, be despair for his own sins, for he suddenly knew he had sinned grievously, and the sin was pride. It was surely the most deadly; compared to pride, the other six seemed little more than physical excesses. But pride was a spiritual corruption and, worse, it had no boundaries, no limits, but could consume a man utterly.

In him, he knew, pride was not merely self-esteem, not just egotism. He knew his shortcomings better than anyone except, perhaps, his wife. His pride went beyond a satisfied self-respect; it was an arrogance, a presumption of moral superiority he brought to events, to people and. he supposed wryly, to God.

But now his pride was corroded by doubt. As usual, he had made a moral judgment-was that unforgivable for a cop? — and had brought Daniel G. Blank to this lonely death atop a cold rock. But what else could he have done?

There were, he now acknowledged sadly, several other courses that had been open to him if there had been a human softness in him, a sympathy for others, weaker than he, challenged by forces beyond their strength or control. He could have, for instance, sought a confrontation with Daniel Blank after he had discovered that damning evidence in the illegal search. Perhaps he could have convinced Blank to confess; if he had, Celia Montfort would be alive tonight, and Blank would probably be in an asylum. The story this revealed would have meant the end of Captain Delaney’s career, he supposed, but that no longer seemed of overwhelming importance.

Or he could have admitted the illegal search and at least attempted to obtain a search warrant. Or he could have resigned the job completely and left Blank’s punishment to a younger, less introspective cop.

“Punishment.” That was the key word. His damnable pride had driven him to making a moral judgment, and, having made it, he had to be cop, judge, jury. He had to play God; that’s where his arrogance had led him.

Too many years as a cop. You started on the street, settling family squabbles, a Solomon in uniform; you ended hounding a man to his death because you knew him guilty and wanted him to suffer for his guilt. It was all pride, nothing but pride. Not the understandable, human pride of doing a difficult job well, but an overweening that led to judging him, then to condemning, then to executing. Who would judge, condemn, and execute Captain Edward X. Delaney?

Something in his life had gone wrong, he now saw. He was not born with it. It did not come from genes, education, or environment, any more than Blank’s homicidal mania had sprung from genes, education, or environment. But circumstances and chance had conspired to debase him, even as Daniel Blank had been perverted.

He did not know all things and would never know them; he saw that now. There were trends, currents, tides, accidents of such complexity that only an unthinking fool would say, “I am the master of my fate.” Victim, Delaney thought. We are all victims, one way or another.

But, surprisingly, he did not feel this to be a gloomy concept, nor an excuse for licentious behavior. We are each dealt a hand at birth and play our cards as cleverly as we can, wasting no time lamenting that we received only one pair instead of a straight flush. The best man plays a successful game with a weak hand-bluffing, perhaps, when he has to-but staking everything, eventually, on what he’s holding.

Captain Delaney thought now he had been playing a poor hand. His marriage had been a success, and so had his career. But he knew his failures…he knew. Somewhere along the way humanity had leaked out of him, compassion drained, pity became dry and withered. Whether it was too late to become something other than what he was, he did not know. He might try-but there were circumstance and chance to cope with and, as difficult, the habits and prejudices of more years than he cared to remember.

Uncertain, shaken, he stared upward at Devil’s Needle, shaft toppling, world tilting beneath his tread. He was anxious and confused, sensing he had lost a certitude, wandered from a faith that, right or wrong, had supported him.

He felt something on his upturned face: a light, cold tingle of moisture. Tears? Just the first frail snowflakes. He could see them against the light: a fragile lacework. At that moment, almost hearing it, he knew the soul of Daniel Blank had escaped the flesh and gone winging away into the darkness, taking with it Captain Delaney’s pride.

Shortly before dawn the snowfall dissolved into a freezing rain. Then that too ceased. When Captain Delaney came out on the porch at 8:30 a.m., the ground was a blinding diamond pave; every black branch in sight was gloved with ice sparkling in the new sun.

He wore his greatcoat when he walked over to the van for black coffee and a doughnut. The air was clear, chill, almost unbearably sharp-like breathing ether. There was a chiselled quality to the day, and yet the world was not clear: a thin white scrim hung between sun and earth; the light was muted.

He went back to the shack and instructed the radioman to plug in an auxiliary microphone, a hand-held model with an extension cord so he could stand out on the porch, see the top of Devil’s Needle above the skeleton trees, and communicate with Chilton Two and Chilton Three.

The ambulance rolled slowly into the compound. Chief Forrest climbed out, puffing, to direct its parking. A stretcher and body bag were removed; the two attendants went back into the warmth of the cab, smoking cigarettes. Captain Sneed showed a squad of ten men where they were to take up their positions, handling his duties with the solemnity of an officer arranging the defense of the Alamo. But Delaney didn’t interfere; it made no difference. Finally Forrest and Sneed came up to join the Captain on the porch. They exchanged nods. Sneed looked at his watch. “Take-off about now,” he said portentously.

Chief Forrest was the first to hear it. “Coming,” he said, raised his old field glasses to his eyes, searched northward. A few minutes later Captain Delaney heard the fluttering throb of the helicopter and, shortly afterward, looking where Forrest was pointing, saw it descending slowly, beginning a tilted circle about Devil’s Needle.

The radio crackled.

“Chilton One from Chilton Two. Do you read me?” It was Major Samuel Barnes’ tight, rapid voice, partly muffled by the throb of rotors in the background.

“Loud and clear, Chilton Two,” the radioman replied.

“Beginning descent and reconnaissance. Where is Captain Delaney?”

“Standing by with hand-held mike. On the porch. He can hear you.”

“Top of rock covered with snow. Higher mound in the middle. I guess that’s Blank. No movement. We’re going down.”

The men on the porch shielded their eyes from sun glare to stare upward. The ’copter, a noisy dragonfly, circled lower, then slowed, slipping sideways, hovered directly over the top of the rock.

“Chilton One from Chilton Two.”

“We’ve got you, Chilton Two.”

“No sign of life. No sign of anything. Our downdraft isn’t moving the snow cover. Probably frozen over. We’ll start the descent.”

“Roger.”

They watched the chopper hanging almost motionless in the air. They saw the wide cargo door open. It seemed a long time before a small figure appeared at the open door and stepped out into space, dangling from the cable, a padded leather horse collar around his chest, under his arms. The shotgun was held in his right hand; his left was on the radio strapped to his chest.

“Chilton One from Chilton Two. Chilton Three is now going down. We will stop at six feet for a radio check.”

“Chilton Two from Chilton One. Delaney here. We can see you. Any movement on top of the rock?”

“None at all, Captain. Just an outline of a body. He’s under the snow. Radio check now. Chilton Three from Chilton Two: How do you read?”

They watched the man dangling on the cable beneath the ’copter. He swung lazily in slow circles.

“Chilton Two from Chilton Three. I’m getting you loud and clear.” Farber’s voice was breathless, almost drowned in the rotor noise.

“Chilton Three from Chilton Two. Repeat, how do you read me?”

“Chilton Two, I said I was getting you loud and clear.”

“Chilton Three from Chilton Two. Repeat, are you receiving me?”

Captain Delaney swore softly, moved his hand-held mike closer to his lips.

“Chilton Three from Chilton One. Do you read me?”

“Christ, yes, Chilton One. Loud and clear. What the hell’s going on? Do you hear me?”

“Loud and clear, Chilton Three. I’ll get right back to you. Chilton Two from Chilton One.”

“Chilton Two here. Barnes speaking.”

“Delaney here. Major, we’re in communication with Chilton Three. He can read us and we’re reading him. He can hear you, but apparently you’re not getting him.”

“Son of a bitch,” Barnes said bitterly. “Let me try once more. Chilton Three from Chilton Two, do you read me? Acknowledge.”

“Yes, I read you, Chilton Two, and I’m getting fuckin’ cold.”

“Chilton Two from Chilton One. We heard Chilton Three acknowledge. Did you get it?”

“Not a word,” Barnes said grimly. “Well, we haven’t got time to pull him back up and check out the goddamn radios. I'll relay all orders through you. Understood?”

“Understood,” Delaney replied “Chilton Three from Chilton One. You are not being read by Chilton Two. But they read us. We’ll relay all orders through Chilton One. Understood?”

“Understood, Chilton One. Who's this?”

“Captain Delaney.”

“Captain, tell them to lower me down onto the fuckin’ rock. I’m freezing my ass off up here.”

“Chilton Two from Chilton One. Lower away.”

They watched the swinging figure hanging from the cable. Suddenly it dropped almost three feet, then brought up with a jerk, Farber swinging wildly.

“Goddamn it!” he screamed. “Tell ’em to take it fuckin’ easy up there. They almost jerked my fuckin’ arms off.” Delaney didn’t bother relaying that. He watched, and in a few minutes the cable began to run out slowly and smoothly. Farber came closer to the top of Devil’s Needle.

“Chilton Three from Chilton One. Any movement?”

“No. Not a thing. Just snow. Mound in the middle. Snow drifted up along one side. I’m coming down. About ten feet. Tell them to slow. Slow the fuckin’ winch, goddamn it!”

“Chilton Two from Chilton One. Farber is close. Slow the winch. Slow, slow.”

“Roger, Chilton One. We see him. He’s almost there. A little more. A little more…

“Chilton Three here. I’m down. Feet are down.”

“How much snow?”

“About an inch to three inches where it’s drifted. I need more fuckin’ cable slack to unshackle the horse collar.”

“Chilton Two, Farber needs more cable slack.”

“Roger.”

“Okay, Chilton One. I’ve got it unsnapped. Tell them to get the fuck out of here; they’re damn near blowing me off.”

“Chilton Two, collar unshackled. You can take off.”

The ’copter tilted and circled away, the cable slanting back beneath it. It began to make wide rings about Devil’s Needle.

“Chilton Three, you there?” Delaney asked.

“I’m here. Where else?”

“Any sign of life?”

“Nothing. He’s under the snow. Wait’ll I get this fuckin’ collar off.”

“Is he breathing? Is the snow over his mouth melted? Is there a hole?”

“Don’t see anything. He’s covered completely with the fuckin’ snow.”

“Brush it off.”

“What?”

“Brush the snow away. Brush all the snow off him.”

“With what, Captain? I got no gloves.”

“With your hands-what do you think? Use your hands. Scrape the snow and ice away.”

They heard Farber’s heavy breathing, the clang of shotgun on rock, some muffled curses.

“Chilton One from Chilton Two. What’s going on?”

“He’s brushing the snow away. Farber? Farber, how’s it coming?”

“Captain, he’s naked!”

Delaney took a deep breath and stared at Forrest and Sneed. But their eyes were on Devil’s Needle.

“Yes, he’s naked,” he spoke into the mike as patiently as he could. “You knew that; you saw the photos. Now clean him off.”

“Jesus, he’s cold. And hard. So fuckin’ hard. God, is he white.”

“You got him cleaned off?”

“I–I’m-”

“What the hell’s wrong?”

“I think I’m going to be sick.”

“So be sick, you shithead!” Delaney roared. “Haven’t you ever seen a dead man before?”

“Well…sure, Captain,” the shaky voice came hesitantly, “but I never touched one.”

“Well, touch him,” Delaney shouted. “He’s not going to bite you, for Chrissakes. Get his face cleaned off first.”

“Yeah…face…sure…Jesus Christ.”

“Now what?”

“His fuckin’ eyes are open. He’s looking right at me.”

“You stupid sonofabitch,” Delaney thundered into the mike. “Will you stop acting like an idiot slob and do your job like a man?”

“Chilton One from Chilton Two. Barnes here. What’s the problem?”

“Farber’s acting up,” Delaney growled. “He doesn’t enjoy touching the corpse.”

“Do you have to rough him?”

“No, I don’t,” Delaney said. “I could sing lullabies to him. Do you want that stiff down or don’t you?”

Silence.

“All right,” Barnes said finally. “Do it your way. When I get down, you and I will have a talk.”

“Any time, anywhere,” Delaney said loudly, and saw that Forrest and Sneed were staring at him. “Now get off my back and let me talk to this infant. Farber, are you there? Farber?”

“Here,” the voice came weakly.

“Have you got him brushed off?”

“Yes.”

“Put your fingers on his chest. Lightly. See if you can pick up a heartbeat or feel any breathing. Well…?”

After a moment: “No. Nothing, Captain.”

“Put your cheek close to his lips.”

“What?”

“Put. Your. Cheek. Close. To. His. Lips. Got that?”

“Well…sure…”

“See if you can feel any breath coming out.”

“Jesus…”

“Well?”

“Nothing. Captain, this guy is dead, he’s fuckin’ dead.”

“All right. Get the horse collar on him, up around his chest, under his arms. Make sure the shackle connection is upward.”

They waited, all of them on the porch now straining their eyes to the top of Devil’s Needle. So were all the men in the compound, sentries, snipers, reporters. Still and TV cameras were trained on the rock. There was remarkably little noise, Delaney noted, and little movement. Everyone was caught in the moment, waiting…

“Farber?” Delaney called into his mike. “Farber, are you getting the collar on him?”

“I can’t,” the voice came wavering. “I just can’t.”

“What’s wrong now?”

“Well…he’s all spread out, Captain. His arms are out wide to his sides, and his legs are spread apart. Jesus, he’s got no cock at all.”

“Screw his cock!” Delaney shouted furiously. “Forget his cock. Forget his arms. Just get his feet together and slip the collar over them and up his body.”

“I can’t,” the voice came back, and they caught the note of panic. “I just can’t.”

Delaney took a deep breath. “Listen, you shit-gutted bastard, you volunteered for this job. ‘I’ll bring the fucker down,’ you said. All right, you’re up there. Now bring the fucker down. Get his ankles together.”

“Captain, he’s cold and stiff as a board.”

“Oh no,” Captain Edward X. Delaney said. “Cold and stiff as a board, is he? Isn’t it a shame this isn’t the middle of July and you could pick him up with a shovel and a blotter. You’re a cop, aren’t you? What the hell you think they pay you for? To clean up the world’s garbage-right? Now listen, you milk-livered sonofabitch, you get working on those legs and get them together.”

There was silence for a few moments. Delaney saw that Captain Bertram Sneed had turned away, walked to the other end of the porch. He was gripping the railing tightly, staring off in the opposite direction.

“Captain?” Farber’s voice came faintly.

“I’m here. How you coming with the legs?”

“Not so good, Captain. I can move the legs a little, but I think he’s stuck. His skin is stuck to the fuckin’ rock.”

“Sure it is,” Delaney said, his voice suddenly soft and encouraging now. “It’s frozen to the rock. Of course it would be. Just pull the legs together slowly, son. Don’t think about the skin. Work the legs back and forth.”

“Well…all right…Oh God.”

They waited. Delaney took advantage of the pause to pull off his coat. He looked around, then Chief Forrest took it from him. The Captain realized he was soaked with sweat; he could feel it running down his ribs.

“Captain?”

“I’m here, son.”

“Some of the skin on his legs and ass came off. Patches stuck to the fuckin’ rock.”

“Don’t worry about it. He didn’t feel a thing. Got his ankles together?”

“Yes. Pretty good. Close enough to get through the collar.”

“Fine. You’re doing just fine. Now move his whole body back and forth, side to side. Rock him so his body comes free from the stone.”

“Oh Jesus…” Farber gasped, and they knew he was weeping now. They didn’t look at each other.

“He’s all shrunk,” Farber moaned. “All shrunk and his belly is puffed up.”

“Don’t look at him,” Delaney said. “Just keep working. Keep moving him. Get him loose.”

“Yes. All right. He’s loose now. He didn’t lose much skin.”

“Good. You’re doing great. Now get that horse collar on him. Can you lift his legs?”

“Oh sure. Christ, he don’t weigh a thing. He’s a skeleton. His arms are still out straight to the sides.”

“That’s all right. No problem there. Where’s the collar?”

“Working it upward. Wait a minute…Okay. There. It’s in position. Under his arms.”

“He won’t slip through?”

“No chance. His fuckin’ arms go straight out.”

“Ready for the ’copter?”

“Jesus, yes!”

“Chilton Two from Chilton One.”

“Chilton Two. Loud and clear. Barnes here.”

“The collar is on the body. You can pick up.”

“Roger. Going in.”

“Farber? Farber, are you there?”

“I’m still here, Captain.”

“The ’copter is coming over for the pickup. Do me a favor, will you?”

“What’s that, Captain?”

“Feel around under the snow and see if you can find an ice ax. It’s about the size of a hammer, but it has a long pick on one side of the head. I’d like to have it.”

“I’ll take a look. And do me a favor, Captain.”

“What?”

“After they pick him up and land him, make sure they come back for me. I don’t like this fuckin’ place.”

“Don’t worry,” Delaney assured him. “They’ll come back for you. I promise.”

He watched until he saw the helicopter throttling down, moving slowly toward the top of Devil’s Needle. He walked back inside to place his microphone on the radioman’s counter. Then he took a deep breath, looked with wonder at his trembling hands. He went outside again, down the steps, into the compound. The photographers were busy now, lens turned to the ’copter hovering over Devil’s Needle.

Delaney stood in the snow, his cap squarely atop his head, choker collar hooked up. Like the others, his head was tilted back, eyes turned upward, mouth agape. They waited. Then they heard the powered roar of the rotors as the ’copter rose swiftly, tilted, circled, came heading toward them.

At the end of the swinging cable, Daniel Blank hung in the horse collar. It was snug under his outstretched arms. His head was flung back in a position of agony. His ankles were close together. His shrunken body was water-white, all knobs and bruises.

The helicopter came lower. They saw the shaved skull, the purpled wounds where skin had torn away. The strange bird floated, dangling. Then, suddenly, caught against the low sun, there was a nimbus about the flesh, a luminous radiation that flared briefly and died as the body came back to earth.

Delaney turned, walked away. He felt a hand on his shoulder, stopped, turned to see Smokey the Bear.

“Well,” Captain Sneed grinned, “we got him, didn’t we?”

Delaney shrugged off that heavy hand and continued to walk, his back to the thunder of the descending ’copter.

“God help us all,” Captain Edward X. Delaney said aloud. But no one heard him.