" . . . hanging by my fingertips from the rim of my own anus, to keep from falling out . . ."
David Spiwack, in conversation
"Pris, this is the first chance I've had to thank you for coring Raffalli's head. You saved my testicles, not to mention my life."
"Yeah, I know, that's been bothering me," she said soberly. "I'm sorry, Ken: I did try to come take you off the hook a couple of times since then. But whenever you were awake, I was on duty. You're welcome, okay? You can save my life some day if you want."
I stared at her. She had been concerned that in saving my life, she had placed me under onerous obligation. "I'll do that. If it ever needs saving. I don't think I'll hold my breath, though. You know, all this aside . . . I like you, Priscilla."
"I like you too," she said. "You risked everything to help the Lady. And you're going to do it again. If we live through this, what do you say we get drunk together some night?"
"That'll be fun," I said, and meant it. I don't know, maybe I'd learned something from Arethusa about relating to someone physically stronger than me. Pris didn't intimidate me any more.
We were in Lady Sally's office, preparing to ship out—although just exactly how, I didn't have a clue. Me, Priscilla, one Arethusa—the other was upstairs, under mild sedation, so I could have her full attention—and Ralph Von Wau Wau. We were all gathered around the Lady's desk, staring at the best map we had of the route from the bowels of Penn Station to the manhole that gave access to a maintenance chamber surrounding the water main. (I do not intend to be more specific than that. If you want to look for it yourself, feel free. But remember that there are a lot of people prowling around Penn Station . . . and the attrition rate is high.)
It was actually a damn good map. I'd be surprised if the City Engineer had one as good. Tesla said it was a printout from his computer, but I think he was pulling my leg: it looked like real printing to me. He claimed it was done with a laser beam, which is ridiculous. However he got it, it showed the salient features of the terrain we were headed for.
"I think you should arrive here," Lady Sally said, pointing to a spot on the map.
"Why there?" I asked.
"For all we know, The Miner—or minor Miner, but let's call him that until we know better—The Miner may very well be looking over that bomb right now, as we speak. This spot is midway between said bomb and the point at which one leaves Penn Station proper to approach it. A person standing right here cannot be seen either from the bomb chamber or from the Station. If he's passing that spot as you arrive, you have him; if he's approaching it, you have time to hide and jump him; if he's already at the bomb, he has to come to you, like it or not. We can't lose."
"The hell we can't," I said. "We've agreed to assume that this guy isn't a moron, right? So if he's even as smart as me, he'll have the whole approach wired some way. Electric eye, heat sensor, motion sensor, something. Especially along that corridor."
"Ah," she said, "but he shan't be as smart as I, who have procured from Nikola Tesla this magic talisman." She handed me a little widget that looked like a transistor radio someone left on a stove. "All three of the devices of which you speak, and cameras and acoustic listening devices as well, will cause this light here to glow—even if they're on the other side of several inches of steel or cement. Push this button, and the Talisman ruins them."
I frowned at it. Combat is a lousy place to test new technology. "Does Tesla guarantee it'll do it faster than they can get off a signal?"
Her turn to frown. "Well, Nikky says he thinks so."
I shook my head. "That tears it. If there's going to be even a momentary alarm, I want it to come from the bomb chamber, where The Miner already knows there's some sort of electrical malfunction. I don't want him thinking about anybody coming along that approach. We arrive in the bomb chamber, and use Tesla's Talisman on the approach corridor from there, through the manhole cover. Then Pris, Arethusa and Ralph work their way back out from there, very cautiously, waving the Talisman before them as they go."
Do you have any idea how few people stop arguing instantly just because they realize they're wrong? "Right you are: the bomb room it is." She squinted at the map, reached into a desk drawer, and twiddled something out of sight. "You'll arrive on the far side of the pipe, facing across it at the bomb access area and the exit ladder to the manhole. It's a bloody big pipe, but there should be plenty of clearance above and below it. Whenever you say."
I looked around at my companions. Alert intelligent faces looked back at me, every commanding officer's dream, far more precious than invulnerable armor or handheld death rays. Arethusa's face actually seemed to hold twice as much personality as usual, although that was probably just power of suggestion. "I guess we're as ready as we'll ever be. About this 'arriving' stuff . . . just how is that done, exactly?"
She closed the drawer, locked it, and stood up. "Ken Taggart, my new friend and champion, do you trust me?" she asked.
"Yes," I said without hesitation.
She went to a big floor-to-ceiling bookcase that covered an entire wall. She selected a big reference book, pulled it halfway from the shelf. The whole bookcase slid smoothly down into the floor, with just the faintest whisper of sound, exposing the bare wall.
"Walk through that wall," Lady Sally said. "And step to the left on the far side."
I counted to five, sighed, and walked through the wall.
It was the eeriest thing I've ever done. It looked exactly like a solid wall, right down to the dust highlighting the painter's brushmarks—even as my nose was entering it, my eyes were trying to tell me that it was a solid wall. I tried to keep my eyes open, but I couldn't manage it; the flinch was quite involuntary. There was absolutely no sensation of penetration or transition; that wall was as substantial as a campaign promise.
On the other side of it was pitch-blackness that smelled like a bathtub drain.
Of course I should have been expecting darkness. You don't leave a night light on by your clandestine nuclear weapon. In fact, dammit, I was expecting it, that was why I had a flashlight clipped to my belt. I just hadn't remembered that I was expecting it . . .
I stopped short, and as I was groping for the flashlight I recalled that Lady Sally had said to step to the left. I've always hated imbeciles who stop just inside a door myself. I stepped to the left, got the flashlight loose, tripped over something low and angular and stubborn. I went down heavily, felt the flashlight go ballistic, whanged my head painlessly against something that felt remarkably like a crowbar, and landed in a heap, smacking my head again on clammy concrete floor.
The flashlight snapped on when it landed. It bounced crazily, came down upright, spun like a top for a while like a little emergency light, and came to rest, pointing at the floor. Try and do that. It didn't even break. But the total illumination approximated that of a fading match at five yards. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. Perversely, I was quite irritated that the double impact had not hurt my head at all. I deserved a headache . . .
Much too close to me, something made a sound, and I knew that sound. I smelled the faintest trace of something, and I knew that smell. I remained perfectly still, holding my breath, until I was nearly out of air, and then I opened my eyes again.
If the ghostly circle of glow from the flashlight was a distant match, then these were no more than the ember at the tip of a match that has just gone out. Two of them. Side by side.
I did not scream, because I knew that Arethusa would be the second one through that wall, any second now. But I really hate rats.
Sure, everybody hates rats. But I got a rat story I'm not even going to tell you. Let it stand that I really hate rats.
Especially rats out of whom I have just literally scared the living shit. I could discern just enough of his silhouette to see that he was paralyzed with fear. At least he wasn't cornered. But he was frozen between fight and flight, and he had to decide soon. My stomach suggested a good trick, a very old reflex, but I did not want the Miner to know something was wrong the instant he cracked the lid to this chamber.
Instead I growled. Loud, and as evil as I was scared, a horrid sound distilled from two million years of successful primate bluff.
Ralph Von Wau Wau couldn't have done better. Templeton remembered a previous engagement and bugged out. I found it oddly hard to stop growling, but I managed just as Arethusa arrived. She had her flashlight on, of course.
"Is everything okay, Joe?"
"Ginger peachy," I said tightly. "I'm just having a bit of a lie-down. And dammit, I'm 'Ken' while we're on this caper, okay? Most of the troops know me by that name, and there's no sense confusing things any more than they already are."
"Yes, Ken."
"Sorry," I said. "It wasn't your head I meant to bite off." I was still trembling slightly with reaction, and I wished she'd aim her flashlight somewhere else.
I got to my feet, reclaimed my own flash, noted that I had tripped over a large plumber's toolbox and that the "crowbar" was a bracing bar for one of the big cement trusses that supported the huge water main. Logical things to expect and be looking out for if you were going to wander around a place like this in the dark.
Arethusa reached a hand back through the solid concrete wall of the chamber and pulled Priscilla through. I wished I'd been bright enough to do that for her. They stepped to the right together and Ralph emerged into the pool of light from their flashlights. His eyes were slits, his ears up, his nostrils wide. "Ratzhit!" he growled at once.
"What's the matter?" Pris asked.
"Ratzhit, I set. Fresh."
"He's gone," I said wearily. "I chased him away."
Ralph's slit eyes opened to as wide as they could go. "You chased avay a Manhattan tunnel wrat?" he said slowly. His nostrils wrinkled. "You mate him zhit himzelf?"
"I growled at him," I said.
Ralph stared. "You . . . gwowled at him. Ant he zhit himzelf." He dropped his eyes, his ears flattened, and he stepped back a pace.
Well, I had succeeded in winning Ralph's respect, anyway. And the rat's too, come to think of it. I started to feel better. Time to get this show on the road.
"Okay, who's got Tesla's bug-hunter?"
"You do, Ken," Arethusa said.
It was in my shirt pocket, where I had stashed it without thinking. Fortunately, when I took it out it was not glowing. "Right," I said. "Pris, Arethusa, stay here and douse your lights. Ralph, come with me."
The pipe was about six feet in diameter, and there were about three feet of clearance above and below it. The rectangular chamber ended in a featureless bulkhead in either direction, and enclosed perhaps fifty feet of pipe, supported by two massive trusses. I picked a spot on the far side of one of the trusses. I was glad that it was dusty in that chamber, it meant that there was air circulation, but I got even dirtier than I was already by the time I came out from under that pipe on the other side. It reminded me that I had fetched a drop cloth for this purpose. Ralph, of course, had no trouble. Dogs usually excel in Limbo contests.
In a cavern, in a canyon, excavating for a mine . . .
On the far side of the pipe were two steel ladders. One was bolted onto the side of the pipe itself; the other was secured to the far wall and led up to the access hatch and Penn Station. I approached that one carefully, brandishing the Talisman with my finger poised over the "ruin-it" button, watching for the first flicker. When I got as far as the top of the ladder without a reading, I went back down again, and shone my flashlight back at the other ladder, up its length.
There was an inspection plate up at the top of that pipe.
I slid the circle of light back down the side of the pipe, centered it.
Death was in there. Death, and worse than death. All this was real. The intuitive certainty I had braced with so much guesswork had been as reliable as my intuitions always were.
Did that mean my jinx was still reliable too?
All at once I wondered why I was so sure I was not being irradiated as I stood there. Sure, it made sense that The Miner would want his mines indetectible—but just how much radiation was going to escape from this crypt, to what detector? Consolidated Edison maintenance men wouldn't carry Geiger counters. (I had the vague idea Con Ed handled city water system maintenance; I later learned that's wrong.) I remembered someone who was provably smarter than Edison, and I started to tell Arethusa to stick her head back into Brooklyn and ask Tesla for a Geiger counter. Then I remembered that The Miner had had to bring the bomb down here and install it himself. It would not be hot. Calm down, Joe! I mean, Ken.
Oh, a CO's life is not a happy one. How had I ended up holding the sack? I had gone to Nam a corporal, come back a private, albeit a private with a Silver Star. My genre was mysteries, not spy stories. Damn Lady Sally for needing a genius gumshoe to solve her puzzles for her. Damn The Miner for existing.
I got out my drop cloth and unfolded it. It seemed to be made of cobwebs, but Lady Sally had sworn that nothing I was liable to encounter could tear or abrade it. From a tiny bundle it unfolded out so big I was able to refold it with two layers on the bottom and a third to slide under. I placed it on the spot I'd already dusted with my own body. "Be careful coming under, Arethusa," I said. "Don't get dirty if you can help it."
She was careful. Pris, on the other hand, pointedly ignored the drop cloth and picked a nice dirty spot to wriggle under. She was costumed and made up as the blind beggar with the Seeing Eye dog; the fresh grime added color to the effect. Also odor. People would tend to leave the blind beggar alone.
"Okay, the corridor just above the manhole checks out clean," I said. "Let Ralph go first. He's got the best nose, and will be the least upsetting to anyone coming the other way. When you get to the Station proper, fan out and pick spots where you can keep an eye on the approach without being seen. If you see a live one, do nothing. Just jungle up, wait for my transmission, and get ready to tail him when he comes back out. Arethusa, look me in the eye."
She did so. In the weak light she was so beautiful my heart hurt.
"Tell me what you will do if I have trouble—if The Miner spots me and kills me, or captures me."
She kept looking me in the eye. "I will stay where I am, and mourn quietly, and tail him when he emerges. He will not spot me. He will not lose me. And I will not kill him until Lady Sally says I may."
I kissed her. Thoroughly. As if it was the last time. Then I gave her the Talisman, so that Pris would have both hands free. "Pris," I said then, "you get the manhole cover. Ralph, you go through first and sniff for trouble—but don't advance until Arethusa gives you the green light, got it?"
The manhole cover did not want to yield; for a moment I was afraid it was dogged down from above. But Pris reasoned with it. It let go with a sound like a dinosaur being killed. Before I thought the opening large enough, Ralph Von Wau Wau was through it. Pris slid the heavy cover aside and followed him. In a moment she reached down and hauled Arethusa up bodily after her. "See you in a little under eight hours, Ken," she called back down softly.
"Don't get spotted coming back here," I cautioned pointlessly.
The cover groaned back into place and seated with another baritone squeal.
I touched my tongue to the crevice between two teeth. "Testing," I said. "All units, report!"
"Unit one," Pris's voice said clearly from everywhere at once.
"Unit two," Arethusa' s lyrical voice sang.
I waited for "Unit sree," and nothing happened. "Ralph, God damn it—"
"Sorry, boss," Pris said. "He says the damn thing must not like dog spit. Ralph's deaf and dumb as far as you're concerned."
I fretted about that, but there was no solution. "Well, keep him in sight. Especially when the tail starts."
"He says not to worry, he'll leave a trail."
I was too keyed up to be amused. "Let's keep radio silence for the rest of the shift. If you do spot an incoming bogie, report after you're sure he can't hear you. I'll still have plenty of warning."
They took me literally; I didn't even get a roger-wilco. Silence descended like a damp fog. I couldn't even hear their departing footsteps through the small holes in the manhole cover.
Then it got even quieter than that.
I was alone, in something very like a tomb or catacomb, with a live nuclear weapon of uncertain megatonnage. There was nothing for me to do but wait. If I was lucky, I had eight hours to kill . . .
I moved the toolbox over behind the truss where it would not be seen by anyone approaching the bomb, glanced incuriously at its contents, and sat down on it. I switched my flashlight off and waited for my pulse to stop racing. I tried to anticipate contingencies, I tried not to be sleepy. I tried hard not to wonder if Arethusa's luck was really as strong as my jinx. I tried very hard not to think about Manhattan tunnel rats.
After about five minutes I sighed, switched the light back on, propped it on the toolbox, made sure I had several spare batteries, and got out Good Behavior, by Donald Westlake. There was no chance I would fall asleep before I finished it. I was determined to find out how Dortmunder got away from those mercenaries before I died.
After a while my eyelids got heavy, so I closed them and lay down.
When I opened them again, the light was slightly better. I saw Arethusa sleeping beside me. For some reason, that did not please me. Beyond her I could hear Pris snoring. Someone else was moving around nearby, very near, and it didn't sound like Ralph Von Wau Wau. I tried to lift my head and investigate, and found that I could not. I tried to worry about that, and could not do that either.
Damn, I thought, Dortmunder was still in deep shit, and now I'll never find out how he escaped . . .