I don't know what made me go looking in the far comer, except plain old bloody desperation. The same thing that makes a trapped rat hug the sides of buildings, or gutter pipes, or old cellarways…
In the very corner of the courtyard, behind a big dumpster bin and several discarded oil drums, was a fire ladder. Not a fire escape, an escape ladder. Vertical, with rungs and such. And it went all the way up the building: six stories high. It also had a barred metal casing around it-a cylindrical cage of steel strips to prevent people from falling off it backward. It was a way out, but not a good one. Inside the ladder cage I would be a sitting duck. A duck at a shooting gallery. And Jim Schilling, besides being a good shot, had a gun that couldn't miss. The rooftop was a long climb away, and time I was very scarce. But the ladder was truly invisible; it snaked up the side of the old building in the farthest, shadiest corner of the dank place, and the bottom rung didn't come closer than about nine feet from the ground. It was the ladder or nothing.
I grabbed an oil drum and placed it underneath the ladder and set it down quietly. Tired as I was I knew that a quick start spelled all the difference. In less than three seconds I was on the drum, then in contact with the rung, then climbing. I think that after about five seconds I was past the second row of windows, and heading for the third story. Please God… please give me one more minute-forty-five seconds-I almost stopped and fell back down the vertical cage when I heard the popping and grinding of the old wall coming apart. Silence. Then another short burst. Schilling was scouring out the far reaches of the old brick court, using the machine pistol as a water hose. He spat another burst, and I heard the deep timpani boom of metal. He'd hit the dumpster and some of the oil drums. With luck he'd also knocked over my stepping stone, the drum I'd placed underneath the ladder. But I climbed as fast as my cast let me. The ground, what was faintly visible of it, seemed a long way down.
"Adams!" '
Fourth floor. I thought. Please God please… just twenty more seconds.
I climbed by feel; it allowed me to go faster. I was panting hard now but keeping my mouth wide open. I looked down. Oh Christ. Christ Almighty: a light.
There it was, a pale yellow pencil beam snaking around on the asphalt far below. I heard the sound of an oil drum kicked over, and then a curse.
"Adams! Adams, you're dead!"
I could see the rooftop now against the pale gray sky. I could see the big tiles that lined the top of the brickwork. I looked down, the light was now snaking around the corner of the yard, right beneath me. Good God, don't point it up. Don't point it up-
Ten more feet. My body ached in every muscle. Eight feet. Seven. I think during the last three seconds of my climb my body slowed a wee bit, thinking the goal was reached.
And the next second I was flooded with light, just as I'd been in the old barn when climbing on another ladder. I didn't stop. I redoubled the effort and the pain. I thought I heard a grunt or bellow come from far, far below me. I had grabbed the smooth, slick tiling on top of the brickwork when the wall around me burst apart in a shattering roar. Bits of mortar and brick stung my face and eyes. I kicked my feet desperately, spastically, climbing up, like getting out of a swimming pool. As I fell over the tile I felt a monstrous kick on my heel, and then a deep burning.
I lay on the tar and gravel of the flat factory roof and breathed deeply for a few seconds, then crept to the edge. I could see without even leaning over that the light beam was shining up the ladderway. But at this height the beam was pretty faint. There wasn't much he could see from down there. I glanced around. If there was no way off the roof I would have to wait at the edge in hopes of jumping or hitting him as he neared the top. If he followed me, which I doubted. On the other hand, if there was any safe way off the roof, I was eager to take it. The light was off now. I hobbled over about twelve feet to the left of the ladder and peeped over. I didn't want to show my head near it. Jesus, it was a long way down.
Nothing. No visible motion. No sound. I scooted back as fast as the pain would let me, and reached out and down and felt the metal sides of the ladder. I grabbed and held. If he was waiting below and saw my arm, he could take it off with a quick burst. But I risked it; I had to know if he was on the ladder. Nothing. No vibration whatsoever.
Then where was he?
That made me nervous. Very. Because I knew Schilling knew the place well. He had to. If there was another way to the roof, he probably knew about it. Was there another ladder, fire escape, ramp, elevator… anything that would allow him to reach a far edge or corner of the big wide roof and come at me from behind?
I kept my fist wrapped around the steel, and turned and swept my eyes around the flat expanse of gray gravel, growing ever lighter as dawn came. A very big roof indeed. To think there was only one approach to its summit was foolishness. There had to be another. Where?
If I left my spot to roam about, would Schilling then come I up the ladder? If I stayed, would he come up another way? Was he in fact doing that very thing right now?
What if I went back down the ladder?
You've got to be kidding, Adams.
I decided on a test. I pawed the rooftop until I had a small handful of gravel. I held the tiny stones in the exact center of the round cage and let three or four of them fall. After what seemed an eternity, I heard the faint bong of the oil drum. Schilling wasn't on the ladder. This meant, if nothing else, that this approach was safe for at least the time it would take him to make the climb, which was about ninety seconds, maybe more, since he'd been clipped by a slug. I had to risk a brief walk around.
I tried to stand and fell down again. I grabbed at my heel. The rubber sole of the Topsider was blown away, but my heel was intact. The slug had hit me obliquely but obviously caused some internal trauma. Perhaps a broken bone. Certainly a horrendous bruise. I hobbled about until something hit me square in the chest. I lowered my arm to chop at it. It was one of those iron steam pipes, snaking over the roof about four feet high set on concrete supports. I ducked under it, then quickly turned back. If that thing snaked down the side of the building, I was for sliding down it, even though it meant there was a big chance of losing my grip and splattering all over the asphalt six' stories below.
But I was in bad, bad shape; Two gimpy arms (the steam pipe chop had just decommissioned the right one), a shot up heel, busted nuts and guts, not to mention an extraordinary case of general fatigue.
But I needed off that bloody roof.
The pipe wound to the edge, and across a roadway to another roof. Shit. Twenty feet of horizontal, six-inch cast-iron pipe almost eighty feet up.
But if I could get across it I'd be safe. I thought of straddling it, letting my legs hang down both sides while I pumped along the length of it with my arms.
My damaged groin winced at the thought…
And then I noticed something else. I saw some big shiny cables and glass insulators right down next to the pipe. High voltage. Sitting there on the steel I would be connected to a natural ground. One stray swipe with arm or leg and I was gone, fried like a squirrel careless enough to skip the wrong way on a utility pole. I didn't like the look of the high-voltage wires at all.
So I returned to the ladder. I thought I saw a flash of light in the center of the steel cage. I approached the edge cautiously and peered over. The light beam climbed up at me. I drew back my head. Seconds later I heard the mean buzz of bullets in front of me, not two feet from my head, right where my face had been seconds earlier. Unlike a high-velocity rifle bullet, the. 45 slug is a snail amongst hares. The average commercial jetliner can fly faster than this speeding bullet. It kills because it weighs as much as a golf ball and is almost as big… It never breaks the sound barrier, and so does not produce the tell tale crack, the sonic boom that warns the quarry that it is being shot at.
I grabbed the ladder top. It thrummed and trembled. The fish was on the line.
I had company.
There was no choice now. I had to either find another way down or risk the pipe and the electric wires. I swung my head over the side two feet to the left of the ladderway, then moved it slowly to the side of the cage, with only my eyes peeping over the edge. I could see a vague glimmering down there. Far, far away. I grabbed the ladder top again. The vibration didn't feel any stronger. Then l noticed a pattern to the vibrations, a regular heartbeat of motion through the vertical steel. It was fairly slow. Schilling was indeed wounded-otherwise a man with his strength and vigor could dash up the rungs as fast as or faster than I had done.
I scurried back to the roof edge where the big pipe dove over the side and straight out to the next building. I swung cautiously over the tile, grabbing the inside edge of the big slick slabs with the tenacity of Beowulf, and poked my feet down. I felt them touch the pipe. I then stood on it, and was almost ready to release my grip, when I felt the sickening loss of resistance from below as the pipe sagged. I clung, and drew my feet up in a fetal position, then hunch-crawled back over the tile like a wounded spider all balled up.
The clock was ticking. I could now hear the faint fring fring fring of scraping feet on the metal ladder. He had that Ingram slung over his shoulder, his flashlight ready too. I remembered-in a tenth of a second at the longest-scoffing at a fish trap in northern Minnesota when I was a kid. I couldn't believe all that seething protein behind the wooden slats in the river could be so dumb. Now I knew exactly how those poor fish felt. Like me, they'd made a mistake. They'd made a wrong tum. That's all it took. I turned fast to go to the far side of the roof. I would cry one last quick search for a way down before lying in wait at the ladder's top, ready to lunge at the murderer with my hands and teeth.
I bumped into the metal pipe again, and heard it groan. I wiggled it. It gave some. Then I ran along its length for perhaps sixty feet before I found what I wanted: a completely crumpled section of the old steam pipe. Three sections of pipe lay scattered on the gravel roof. I grabbed the nearest one and heaved it up. It was black iron, three feet long, and very heavy. One end of the six-inch pipe had a flange, with holes around it for bolts. I dug the fingers of my right hand into this handle and tugged it back to the ladder. The light was again playing along its upper terminus. Then it went off. I hefted the pipe in both hands. I could scarcely lift it. I rested the smooth end of it on the shiny hard tile. As it rolled a bit it made a heavy grating sound, like sand in a mortar and pestle. I reached over and grabbed the ladder sides. There was a heavy vibration, and speeded up too. I chanced it; I looked over. I could see Schilling scurrying up the ladder to kill me. He wasn't looking up. I moved my head way over to the edge of the steel cage-the left side-so I could peer at him with my right eye. He glanced up once. I saw the white face outlined by the dark beard. The wispy-thread line of the puka shell necklace against the tanned neck.
I hated him.
He didn't see me apparently, even in the soft light of full dawn. His head lowered again as he resumed climbing. I saw now the dark line along his back, wide, cylindrical, like a black man's arm with the hand cut off. The Ingram. I hooked my fingers around the flange of the pipe and slid, it over off the tile. The weight of it pulled down hard on my arms and drew my chest down tight on the tile so it ached. My left wrist burned. I walked forward two steps on my knees-felt my kneecaps digging into the loose stones that covered the asphalt roof. Schilling was about three stories below me. All the lines of the metal ladder cage seemed to converge upon him, the small winking figure in the center of the vertical tunnel.
I peered through the section of iron pipe. It had a wide bore, like a stovepipe. Through it I could see very clearly. I moved the pipe to and fro, from side to side, by shifting my weary body and shoulders. Soon I looked straight down the bore-as if down a telescopic sight-and could see nothing but the climbing figure far below.
I couldn't do it. Much as I hated him, I could not get myself to drop the pipe on him.
Considering the great weight of the pipe, the sharp, spadelike edge of the male end of it, and most especially the long distance it would travel, at thirty-two feet per second squared, it was deadly as a bazooka shell. It would slice him in half, pulverize him.
But I couldn't.
It's pretty hard to go to school for over twelve years learning to make bodies whole again after illness and trauma, and then decide to dissect one instantly by way of gravity. But the dark side of me-of Homo sapiens-was working too. I wanted him dead, and I knew it. Admitted it. Mostly because it was fairly obvious by now that he wanted me dead. And he would do it. He'd more than proven that. I had to wait. I needed a sign… a signal…
Then he looked up. I peeped at him through the lowered pipe. He was too far away, the light too faint, to read his expression. But I thought I saw in the growing light, his eyes widen. He stopped climbing, and his slow, startled stare gazed up in wonder, and the beginnings of fear. Was it the I fear that Allan Hart had felt? That Walter Kincaid and Danny Murdock felt?
He was halfway up the ladder. The network of steel rods surrounding him was a little over two feet wide; There just i wasn't any place the poor bastard could go. I saw a broad swirl of light-flicker, a Fourth of July whirligig of dancing light beam and flash, and then a distant dry clatter. He'd turned on the flashlight and dropped it. My fingers and wrists ached now with the holding of the big steam pipe. I saw a great flurry of motion below-saw Schilling's big form sway back and forth, one arm moving quickly, then the other. Then I got my sign. l received the signal, loud and clear. I heard the cocking of the Ingram's bolt, and knew he was about to send a fatal burst of slugs up to take my head apart.
I had drawn up my arms six inches as I saw him squirm around, my fingers still curled around the one-inch flange of iron… When I heard him jerk back the bolt, I let my arms drop in perfect unison, letting my tired hands flow outward with the descent of the heavy pipe. Because I knew I had to release it smoothly, on a very straight path, or it might hang itself up and bind. in the cage. It fell straight as an arrow, a finned bomb, a mortar shell down its own tube. The last vision I had of it was curious: I could still peer down its ever-diminishing bore. And even more curiously, in the milli-second before I drew my head back from fear of its being blown off, I noticed that in that pipe bore, Jim Schilling's head and shoulders loomed larger and larger-geometrically-awfully fast.
I had drawn my head back and down, like a mortarman, and waited for the bullets to sing up toward me. They spanged off the steel cage and rocketed drunkenly off the old brick wall.
But they didn't catch me.
Jim Schilling screamed. It was fitting that he should see his own death coming, and scream in terror.
He shouted, "NO!"
Only the scream was cut off in the middle. A dull clacking sound interrupted it, like a melon being opened with a swipe from a machete-the blunt edge down. It was the sound of his skull being cut in half.
Then silence.
I looked over the edge after half a minute of catching my breath. I saw a big black shiny thing askew in the ladder cage, tilted at a crazy angle, wedged into the iron bars. And then I made out a pair of twisted. legs and knees intertwined in the ladder rungs, They were doubled up, almost pointing up at me. Schilling was underneath the pipe; he hadn't fallen down the cage to the ground. That meant I had to go down there and kick him loose in order to get past him to the ground.
I didn't relish it.
Yet the alternatives were clear: either attempt the crossing on the wilted pipe (something I wasn't even remotely considering) or else climb down the six stories on the outside of the cage. Again: no way. So like it or not, to return to earth I had to haul myself back down that barred steel tunnel, and somehow dislodge the corpse I had just created.
The corpse I had just created.
I had never killed a human being before in my life. No matter how vile, how evil and cruel Schilling had been, the thought struck home.
I climbed back down. It was scary. It was now light. enough to make me realize how danm high the ladder was. But I kept my eyes stoically glued to the brick wall in front of me, watching the rows slide smoothly upward a foot in front of my face.
Then I felt the pipe with my foot. I looked down, and wished I hadn't. I wished instead I'd simply waited up on top of the roof for a reasonable period (like three years) until somebody came and took me off. Jim Schilling, that big and brawny bully, was doubled over, compressed against both sides of the cage by the force of the death blow. His knees pointed up, bottoms of feet resting on the ladder rungs and against the wall behind them. His body was bent, as if in Moslem prayer, except he was facing straight up, toward the Pole Star, rather than toward Mecca. His back was pressed tight against the far end of the cage. His head was facing the pipe that had terminated his nasty life. But his face, and the entire front portion of his head, was curious by its absence. The pipe's lip had caught him as he jerked back, plowing down through the skull at midpoint, removing the front half, face, and mandible. What stared at the jammed pipe was a superbly cross-sectioned head, revealing much of the brain stem, soft palate, throat cavity, and larynx.
I placed my instep underneath the pipe and drew it up with all my remaining strength, which wasn't much. I worked the free end of the pipe around until I could once again grab the flange. Then I lifted it up and dropped it to the side of Schilling's body; It rattled around in the cage a bit on the way down, then thunked sideways into the asphalt of the courtyard.
There remained Schilling. Even in death, he would be a pain. It shall spare the gruesome and clinical anatomical details of removing him from his death perch. My feet, and 175 pounds, finally dislodged his corpse from its weird Yoga stance by thumping down on the blood-soaked shoulders until he straightened out enough to slide down the tunnel cage and thump onto the ground with a sound like a sack of wet laundry. I then reached the ground, took a quick look around, and promptly toted myself over to a dark corner of the courtyard where I proceeded to throw up.
Copiously and repeatedly.