The Four Last Things

Chapter 17

"Well, gee," I said through my constricted throat. "Hi."

He didn't seem to recognize me. The guy behind me tightened his chokehold to keep his interest up.

"I'm lost," I said in a voice that sounded like Daffy Duck.

Needle-nose smiled, not a pretty sight, and lowered his hand from the light bulb. "You certainly are," he said. His eyes were a pale gray, flecked with brown. They weren't smiling. They flicked to meet the eyes of the one behind me, and the forearm relaxed a little. "Perhaps there's something we could help you find." His voice was very soft, almost girlish. The gray eyes were extravagantly fringed with sable lashes.

"I don't know," I said. "A Burger King?"

"A Burger King." He considered the answer very seriously.

"I'd kill for a Whopper," I said.

He gazed at me in the gloom. The light bulb above us swung back and forth in a tiny arc. Then the sharp tip of his nose quivered and his eyes narrowed slightly. I lowered my head as far as I could against the restraining arm, throwing my face into shadow, and hoped he'd come closer for a better look.

When he did, I kneed him in the balls.

Surfing a tidal wave of pure adrenaline, I snapped my head back against the face of the man behind me. I heard a crack as the back of my head struck his nose, and the arm around my neck loosened. I grabbed the arm and shoved it straight up, up toward the, frayed electrical wire with the bulb hanging from it.

He must have realized what I was going to do, because he didn't choke me with his free hand or try to dig a finger into my eye. Instead, he grabbed at his own arm and tried to yank it down. He didn't make it.

I felt a numbing jolt as I leapt back. The man's whole body convulsed and jerked. Sparks flew from the wire. Then the man collapsed, taking the wire with him. Luckily for the rest of us, since we were all standing on the same wet floor, the wire snapped. The corridor went dark.

I heard a damp slap as the man's body hit the floor, and a small flat explosion as the bulb broke. Something scrambled behind me. Needle-nose. I stood absolutely still.

The lights were obviously wired in series, 1920's-style, because the bulbs in the main passageway had gone out too. It couldn't have been any darker in the belly of the whale.

My heart was hammering, and I was soaking wet. I tried to unfocus my eyes and let a form emerge, but there was nothing. Then there was a ragged intake of breath, and I heaved myself toward it.

I would have gotten him on the first pass if I hadn't tripped over the body of the man on the floor. As it was, I grasped a handful of jacket, and then a hand clawed over my face, searching for the base of my nose. The hand snapped up, trying to shove cartilage into the brain, and hit my cheekbone instead. I struck under it and drove three stiff fingers into an armpit.

Needle-nose went "Ooooof." I scrabbled over the body and wrapped an arm around his neck. He pulled in the opposite direction, and instead of yanking back, I pushed with all my strength. Between the two of us, we hammered his head into the concrete wall. It sounded like a breaking egg.

He sagged in a satisfying fashion. I let go of his neck and stood up, a little more shakily than I would have liked. Then I remembered that he might have Sally Oldfield's fingernails in his pocket. Who knew? Maybe he kept souvenirs. I went back, located his head, and lifted him by the hair. Twining my arm around his neck again, I slammed his face into the concrete floor. Then I did it again. He didn't even sigh. There was just a faint slobbering sound as he breathed into the wet. I left him facedown and edged toward the main corridor, wishing the water was a couple of inches deeper.

Unless I wanted to run into these guys' teammates, I could think of only one way out. It was only slightly better than staying.

I felt my way to the end of the cul-de-sac and turned left. Light glimmered in the distance, and I headed toward it.

The air-conditioning unit was right where I'd left it, and the little metal door was shut tight. I opened it, and the fat man inside looked up in surprise. It wasn't time yet.

"Excuse me," I said. I had so little support for my voice that I had to say it again. "Excuse me. Duct patrol."

He looked bewildered. "Duck patrol?" he said. It was something new.

"Duct," I said. "Duct, goddammit. You'll have to get out for a minute."

He thought about it for a second. Then he shook his head.

"You can get right back in," I said. He shook his head again. I heard a rapid tapping and turned to look behind me before I figured out that it was the sole of my shoe. My left leg was shaking uncontrollably. "Listen, it's a rule. All the ducts have to be patrolled every twenty-four hours."

Agonizingly slowly, he shook his head again.

"Get out," I said savagely, "or I'll take you to the dipping pool."

That did it. He squeezed out and squatted next to the opening. He was trembling, and no wonder. He was probably freezing.

"When I'm gone," I said, "you get back in here and close the door tight, understand? No fooling around."

"No," he said. "I'll get in."

I crawled into the duct. It was just big enough to allow me to progress on my elbows if I kept my rear end down, and the air was cold against my sweat-slick skin. I'd made three or four yards when I heard the little metal door slam shut. Was he in or out? I really didn't want him wandering around asking questions about the duct patrol.

He answered my question for me. "Thank you," he said from behind me.

I couldn't bring myself to tell him he was welcome, so I just grunted and kept pulling myself along.

With him wedged in behind me, the force of the cold air wasn't quite as great. And I could smell him as I crawled, a fat little man who hadn't bathed in a while. Maybe he hadn't been allowed to bathe.

It might have been a hundred yards altogether; actually, it was probably less, although it felt like a lot more. The first really difficult stretch began when the duct angled upward at about twenty-five degrees for fifteen or twenty feet. The floor of the duct was smooth and slippery, and for every foot upward I slid six inches back. I was concentrating on the positive by congratulating myself on having quit smoking when I hit my head on the end of the duct.

"Oh, no," I said out loud. "No, no, no." The words echoed around me, and I shut up. Why would an air shaft go nowhere?

It didn't, of course. The air, and the fat man's body odor, continued to flow past me. I touched the wall to my right and the one to my left. Each time, I half-expected rats' teeth to close on my fingers. Instead, I slammed them into duct wall. Solid. That left only one direction, so I reached up. More cold air, no rats.

Swell. Up. Ninety degrees up. But for how far? I was pretty sure that the duct was too narrow for me to climb it like a rock chimney. Anyway, rock chimneys have always scared the hell out of me.

I rolled over onto my back and looked up. I needn't have bothered; there was nothing to see. But at least lying on my back I could bend ninety degrees. Only Eleanor could bend ninety degrees on her stomach. And I'd told her that yoga was useless.

I sat up and then worked myself to a standing position. I was facing in the wrong direction, back the way I'd come.

My cheekbone was beginning to throb where Needle-nose had hit it. I hadn't felt it until then. I'd been too busy. I dismissed it and made a half-turn and brought my hands up in front of me, which was trickier than it sounds. The duct was almost too narrow for my elbows.

The wall of the shaft felt smooth and slick and slightly greasy as I slid my palms upward. Despite the chill air, I was still sweating. When I'd signed up for duct patrol, they hadn't said anything about having to go backwards.

The edge was about six inches above my head. There the duct angled off again, going in the same general direction. Taking the long twenty-five-degree incline into consideration, that would put me just about at street level. If I could get there.

Praying to the patron saint of private detectives, whoever that might be, I curled my fingers over the edge and tried to pull myself up. I got all the way to tiptoe before my fingers slipped and I landed on my heels again. The duct above me slanted up-not much, but enough to deny me the friction I needed.

Now I was smelling my own sweat. This was no place to spend the rest of my life.

The fat little man behind me coughed. It was nice to know he was where he was supposed to be, but he sounded discouragingly near. How far had I really gone?

I tried to drag myself up again, with the same result. Okay, try something else.

I used my right foot to worry at my left running shoe until it came off. Then I repeated the action with my left, until both shoes lay at my feet. Unfortunately, there was no way to bend down and pick them up.

I turned around again and sat down, the shoes lumpy beneath me. Pushing them aside, I wiggled into a semiprone position, with the duct yawning above me, and slipped my hands into the shoes. I hadn't worn socks because the rain would have soaked them, so I was barefoot. The air was cold on the soles of my feet.

With the shoes wedged onto my hands, I stood up again and turned around. I was half an inch shorter now, something I didn't really need. I realized that some obscure part of my mind was rattling off the Lord's Prayer. Bidding it to shut up, I tried to get my hands above my head, but the added thickness of the running shoes made it impossible. My forearms were too long.

I slumped against the wall and closed my eyes, which made it no darker than it already was. Other than the cough, I hadn't heard anything behind me: no boots echoing down the hallways, no shouts of "Look in the duct." My cheekbone hurt. Without thinking, I reached up to rub it and hit it with my shoe. That was a surprise in more ways than one. The duct was rectangular; I'd been assuming it was square. Maybe it was an answer to the Lord's Prayer.

By crossing my arms in front of me I was able to get my hands, shoes and all, above my head. I slipped them as far into the new air shaft as I could, planted the soles firmly on the floor of the duct, stood on tiptoe, put my bare left foot against the wall behind me, and pulled.

The shoes gave out a rubbery squeal, but they held. My right foot was off the ground. I braced it against the wall, advanced one hand an inch or two, and pulled again. Right hand, left foot, left hand, right foot, hoping the traction would hold, I inched upward.

Just as I got my underarms over the edge, I slipped and fell. The corner of the duct slammed my chin, and my knees banged against the wall in front of me, but the shoes didn't fall off my hands. I was very grateful for that. I wasn't sure I had the strength to go back down and get them.

It took me three more tries before I was lying on my stomach in the new duct. I heard something that sounded like an asthmatic's cough and realized that I was sobbing. I wiped my face on my shirtsleeves and breathed slowly until it passed. Now I could hear noises, but they weren't pursuing me. They were in front of me.

After another ten or fifteen yards at a slight upward grade the duct angled left and leveled off. Light poured through the far end. Using the shoes on my hands, I pulled myself along at record speed. New Olympic event, I thought. The duct-crawl. I focused all my attention on the light as I dragged myself toward it. After what seemed like a decade it grew brighter. Then it was so bright that I had to stop and close my eyes for a moment. When I opened them I was looking at a grate.

Well, of course. They don't leave ducts open. They put grates over them. Otherwise, you might get rats.

It was a perfectly ordinary-looking grate, perhaps a little sturdier than was absolutely necessary. Beyond it I could see a wooden floor. Heavy electrical cables lay on the floor, and a murmur of voices burbled through the grate. Voices could pass through it, but I couldn't, at least not unless I could cut myself into long inch-square strips like a julienned potato. I'd never seen a julienned potato put itself back together again.

I shrugged the shoes off my hands and pulled at the grate. It didn't give an inch. I pulled again, and then again. Zero. Then I had a brilliant idea. I pushed, and the grate gave way with ridiculous ease and slammed to the floor. I shoved my head and shoulders through, and a bearded man with his hair pulled back in a rubber-banded ponytail leaned down and said "Ssshh."

He was dressed in faded jeans and a T-shirt that read HUSSONG'S CANTINA, MEXICO. He carried a clipboard. "Ssshh," he said again, jerking a thumb over his shoulder. Behind him, in a blaze of light, I saw the flower-bedecked set of "Celebrity Corner." It was apparently Skippy's turn, because he was talking earnestly. The rock star, Clive, whom I remembered from a century ago, looked like he'd nodded off.

"Boy," I whispered to the man with the ponytail. "Have you got problems." I wiggled the rest of the way out of the duct and started to put on my shoes.

"I have?" he said anxiously, squatting down.

"Filtration system's shot to shit. And this grate is loose."

He looked relieved. "Tell it to the Air guys," he said. "I'm Lights."

"Yeah," I said. "Well, the lighting down there is pretty terrible too."

"Hey," he said. "I just do the show. Talk to the Church."

I finished tying my shoes and stood up. "You're not Church?"

"Puhleeze," he said. "I'm a lighting engineer, not an asparagus. No offense, I hope."

"Are you kidding? I'm with the city."

He gestured for me to keep my voice down and glanced around the studio. "What a bunch of spaniels," he said, "although the little girl is cute." He looked at me and edged away. I looked down at myself. I was so filthy I would have edged away too. "Boy," he said, "the things you guys will do for a buck. I wouldn't go down there even if I was straight."

"This is nothing," I said. "I used to pick up dead animals."

"I bet you got some stories," he said, taking another step. "I lit Art Linkletter once."

"We'll sit around and horrify each other someday," I said. "Well, I guess I better get this grate down to Defect Control."

He nodded like he was glad to be rid of me, and I picked up the grate and circumnavigated the stage. People rarely look twice at someone who's carrying something, and nobody focused on me now. There was absolutely no way of knowing how much time I had. I had no idea whether the man who'd grasped the wire was dead, and I didn't really care if Needle-nose was. Even if they were both alive, I didn't think it was likely that either of them would file a complaint soon. When I looked at my watch, it was only twelve-fifty.

"Thank you, Skippy," Mary Claire said over the public-address system. "That was very enlightening. Angel, would you like to say something?"

"Thank you, Mr. Miller," Angel said in her best Brooklynese. The kitten had fallen asleep in her lap. "And thank you, Miss deWinters. I can't wait to see your new picture." She turned to Clive and said, "Would you gimme your autograph?"

"If you'll give me yours," Clive said, reviving briefly. People laughed, and I could see that beyond the lights lay a darkened auditorium that seated about three hundred. It was full of the hopeful, people still wearing their raincoats, leaning forward into the splash of light to catch every word. People who didn't know about the basement yet. I doubted that Angel knew about the basement. But who could tell what Angel knew?

"We're going to close with a special treat," Mary Claire said. "Some music of the moment from our very own group, the Time Signatures. I know you're going to enjoy this."

Lights came up to reveal the sextet who had tormented the audience at the Revealing. A blond woman whose hair looked about as flexible as the fossil record leaned toward a microphone and sang, "This is the moment…"

After all I'd been through, it didn't seem fair that I'd have to listen to "The Hawaiian Wedding Song" too. I was contemplating joining the more discerning members of the audience, who were already shuffling toward the exit, when the lights on the main set went down and everybody stood up and started congratulating each other. Angel and Mary Claire shook hands all around and headed stage left, where they were joined by a slender man in beautifully tailored white linen slacks and an aqua shirt. I had to take a couple of steps closer, my grate firmly in hand, before I could be certain that it was everybody's favorite internist, Dr. Richard Merryman.

Merryman took Mary Claire's arm and put his free hand firmly on the back of Angel's neck, parting her long blond curls to get at it. He steered them quickly away from the set. I followed.

Merryman was talking hard and fast, obviously displeased about something and not caring who saw it. Mary Claire gazed up at him unassertively, but Angel's back was stiff and straight. At one point her steps lagged behind his, and he yanked her forward. The little girl stumbled and dropped the kitten. Merryman leaned down and picked it up roughly by the scruff of its neck. It writhed and twisted in his hand. He passed it to Mary Claire, took hold of Angel's neck again, and jerked her along in his wake. They vanished through a door at the back of the stage. The door had a little sparkly star on it, and the name ANGEL ELLSPETH. I lagged behind, scuffing my foot professionally at some imaginary irregularity in the stage floor. After a moment, Mary Claire came out alone and the door closed behind her. She looked unhappy.

Well, I wasn't very happy either. I went down a series of steps at the edge of the stage and joined the throngs who were fleeing the implacable music. Out on the sidewalk I put my grate down in the rain and went around the corner to Alice. I drove around the block once, checking out the building that housed the TV studio and traversing the alleyway behind the hotel to locate the Borzoi's service entrances. Then, nursing my bruised cheek, I drove off to pick up Eleanor. I knew I was coming back. III — Heaven