He held his nunchaku loosely, a stick in each hand, letting the rough wire curve as it wanted. When it was 3:41, he stood, and his hands felt strong. They were his glories, those hands; he had worked all his life on them, for the rest of his body was frail. He had never weighed much over a hundred pounds.
Chen began moving forward.
“Was not Scylla a female monster?”
“Scylla was a rock. A rock near a whirlpool. Charybdis was the whirlpool.”
“And are you that? A rock?”
Silence from Scylla.
Chen began closing.
“I am instructed to say that your price is too high.” Damn her! Chen thought, she jumped to that, she was supposed to have gotten there more slowly—of all the times for him to have to get stuck with a novice! Scylla would be on to it now. Chen wanted to quicken his pace, but when you were’ silent, speed was your enemy. You had to be steady, you had to be slow. Otherwise there was the risk of fabric brushing fabric, twigs snapping, thunderous sounds.
“Are you also instructed to negotiate?”
Chen was six feet behind the big man. He would have preferred to have been four, but the damn girl had ruined that.
“Of course.”
Three feet behind Scylla now.
“Well then, for Chrissakes, negotiate, make a counter offer, that’s what negotiating is.”
“Of course,” she said, and as Chen moved the wire around Scylla’s throat he was already aware that Scylla had gotten his hand up. His right hand was keeping the wire from the throat. Bitch, Chen thought, but then he banished everything from his mind but business. He had pulled his wire through flesh before, and hand bones broke easily.
He put his body into perfect balance and began the kill...
As the blood almost leaped free of his wounded right palm, Scylla was aware that the girl in the bench across had a pistol in her hand, which was stupid, guns were stupid in the darkness, just noisemakers, any hit was a lucky hit, but even though she was wrong to have brought the thing into play, she could have taken him with it if she had moved quickly enough, because right then he was dominated by pain, and pain changed the world. Pain put a cloud around you, you couldn’t see through it, couldn’t act in accordance with logic and experience and training.
So, for an instant, as the wire cut deeper into his hand, Scylla was feeble and clouded and ripe for dying.
But she was slow, too slow, the moment went by.
His brain began to clear. He was Scylla the rock. Remember that! You are Scylla the rock and you must do something, now. He hit the words hard in his mind, because the girl was standing up with the pistol, and so what if his mind was clearing, a bullet could crush clear tissue as well as clouded, and it was Chen behind him, an equal, one of the few if not the only because you are Scylla the rock and you must do something!
Something extraordinary, remarkable, unique, that’s all, and you have five seconds. Go.
Chen was great but Chen was small—the girl was approaching—Chen was quick but Chen was now stationary—the girl raised the pistol into firing position —so if you could budge Chen, if you could unsettle his balance, if you could manage that...
Scylla knew what he had to try then.
He had seen it done. Once. On a basketball court. The nonpareil Monroe matched against the genius Frazier. The ultimate in offense against the greatest defender. No one near them. Mano a mano. Monroe moved to the basket and faked right, and if you fake right, there are only two further moves remaining to you: You can fake right and go left, or you can fake right, then fake left, and go right.
Monroe did neither.
He faked right and went right, around Frazier, who could only stand there, watching the score.
Scylla faked right and went right.
He forced his body in that direction along the bench, and then, when he seemed as if about to slow, about to fake back left, he powered everything he had into the completion of the right move, and behind him he could sense the wire momentarily loosen as Chen’s balance deserted him.
Now, with all the power in his great body, Scylla hunched forward, pulling the tiny man unwillingly with him, and when he was in balance off the bench, Scylla put all his strength into a shoulder throw, sailing Chen helplessly over him, aiming him toward the too-slow girl.
They went down hard, and the girl was stunned, the pistol skittering along the sidewalk, and Scylla saw it, but so did Chen, and Chen went for it, scrabbling along the cement like a desperate roach.
Scylla let him.
His right hand was pouring blood and next to useless, and he watched as Chen got close, and then he kicked Chen’s head off. Or tried to. But Chen was ready and took Scylla’s foot and snapped it around, tripping Scylla down, and Scylla came back with a blow from his left hand, but it only grazed Chen’s head because even on his knees, even still dazed from the shoulder throw, Chen could move, and Scylla went for another left-hand blow, and again Chen spun free, and another left-hand hit missed as Chen spun and twisted, and he really was like a roach, a waterbug that you could see and chase but somehow never quite reach, and they both went for the gun then, but it was clumsy going, and when Scylla saw he might not get it first he kicked at it and sent it spinning into silent grassy darkness as Chen chopped him at the neck, and Scylla moved enough so Chen missed a death spot, but that didn’t mean it didn’t hurt, didn’t make his nerves shriek, didn’t start his brain again to clouding, but that must not happen, Scylla thought, if I cloud I’m gone, and again he missed with the left, and his right was useless, to use the right would be simply too painful, he knew that and Chen knew that, so when Scylla went for a death spot with his right, when he connected, there was a double cry of pain, and who was to say which was the greater agony, his or Chen’s. All you could be sure of was that Chen’s was over sooner. Gasping, Scylla stood, moved past the dead Oriental, finished the girl in silence, then started running down the path toward the Albert Memorial, wrapping a handkerchief around his right hand as he moved.
The nearest pay phone was just across Kensington Gore, so Scylla forced himself into a casual walk as he approached it, because even though it was 3:45 in the morning, you could never tell who wasn’t asleep, and a running man at night meant trouble, so when there was trouble, you walked.
He inserted the appropriate coins, dialed the appropriate number, and the first ring was all that was needed. “Removals.”
“Scylla.”
“Yes, Scylla.”
“Two. Between the Albert Memorial and Lancaster Walk.”
“Injuries?”
“Hand.”
“I’ll alert the clinic, Scylla.”
Click.
Scylla left the phone booth and waited. He didn’t have to, he could have just gone, but he always liked to be around for possible eventualities.
Besides, he needed to think. WTiy had Chen tried to retire him? Someone had hired him—who? Why? For what happened back in the Los Angeles men’s room? Possible, but he really hadn’t done enough for the Arabs to Mil him. They could have contacted the Russians easily enough, but the Russians would have tried sending one of their own men, not an Oriental from a country they despised. Scylla’s hand was starting to throb really very badly. He shook his head—whatever was going on, he didn’t know enough yet; insufficient data had been given the machine.
In seven minutes, a proper-seeming ambulance entered Kensington Gardens. Five minutes after that, the ambulance exited. All very efficient, and, naturally, nothing of any kind would ever reach the papers.
Scylla found a cab, took it to near the clinic, paid, and got out. He waited for the cab to leave; then he walked to where they would be waiting for him. His hand was worse, and he wanted to run, but running meant trouble, so when there was trouble, you walked. Dripping badly, Scylla made his slow way.
At the clinic, everything was ready for him. They cleansed the wound, prepared a partial anesthetic.
He told them curtly he was having
none of it The doctors assured him there would be pain.
He assured them he had been there before.
The doctor began, reluctantly, to repair the nonanesthetized hand. Scylla watched it all, every stitch. And he never made a sound.
He was Scylla the rock. On his good days, anyway.
5
Levy sat alone in a corner of the library, working on America in 1875. Not that specific date, actually; specific dates were garbage. His father had written, “For the pedant, dates are deities, worthy of worship, but for the true social historian, they are minutiae only, a shorthand, convenient reminders and no more. You do not ask a Titanic survivor, ‘Let me see now, just exactly when was that?’ You ask him this: ‘What was it like? How did you feel?’ And that is the job of the social historian: to make the past vibrant for the present; to emotionally involve those of us who were not there. And to make us understand.”
America around 1875, Levy thought, lemmesee, lemmesee. (He had spent the previous hour on England, the one before that coupling Italy and France. Germany he was weak on, relatively, but that was because the Germans bored him so, no humor; it was almost as if back in the beginning He had ordained, “Okay, let’s get this earth going, all blonds to Scandinavia, all dummies to Poland, and get the gigglers out of Germany.”) Hmmm, Levy thought, 1875, 1875. Boss Tweed went to jail in New York City around then, which meant lots of big-city rulers around, Big Power men, to each town its own Dick Daley, and Christian Science began then too, old Mary Eddy and her nut notions, and when was the first Kentucky Derby? Same period, and the first telephone exchange began right almost exactly when Custer got his lumps at the Little Big Horn.
Good, Levy thought, terrific double image, the first phone exchange and Custer getting blasted at the same time, what a country this was then, what a mother of a place it must have been, Melville over fifty and unknown, Twain around forty and going good, Joe Pulitzer a kid, twenty-five maybe, and Mrs. O’Leary’s cow had only just destroyed Chicago, and think of the inventions flying out of people’s minds: Remington hustling typewriters in the East and Glidden figuring out a barbed-wire maker to open up the West and Thomas Alva with his gramophone and Bissell with his carpet sweeper, what a fantastic time, a country on the make, that’s what we were, the toughest kid on the block, only we didn’t really know it, and besides, we didn’t want to know it, because being the toughest meant responsibility, leadership, and we were too busy hustling and humping to bother with taking over.
Levy tilted back his chair and gave it a rest for a while. Not bad on America. Superficial, sure, but he wasn’t any nineteenth-century expert, hell, he was just kind of keeping his hand in, he was a modern-times guy if he was anything; still, you had to noodle these other periods around. The main thing was to know the world, every twenty-five years or so, back for a couple hundred years, and if you had that info handy, always there under your belt, then you could figure out the gaps. That was the way his father’s mind had worked. It wasn’t necessary to know it all or anything. Just most, and the rest logic took care of. His father had loved logic, Levy too.
There was a commotion now over at a table to his left; an attractive guy and an attractive girl, punching each other kind of, but you knew they were both more interested in softer contact. Levy watched them. It was really why he did his studying here, rather than in some cubicle in the stacks. He liked watching people.
Liar.
He liked watching girls.
There were a couple of Barnard students that really took the old breath right away. I’m gonna have me one of them some day, Levy told himself. A looker. Please.
He jerked around then, conscious that Biesenthal was watching him. Biesenthal indicated the pile of books in front of Levy. “Your charade fools no one,” he said. “You were ogling.”
“Oh, no sir, it may seem that way, but I’m really doing a terrific lot of work.”
“If you wanted to work, you’d get yourself a cubicle.”
“I’m desperate to get one but there’s a shortage now, so I’m stuck here,” Levy said.
“I always studied here,” Biesenthal said. “It was much better for girl-watching.”
You watched girls? Levy almost said.
“I know what you’re thinking,” Biesenthal said. “I know that look—once I saw a student of mine, and I was in my car, driving along Broadway, and when I stopped at the light he stared at me dumbstruck. I asked him what was wrong, and all he could say was, ‘My God, you can drive.’ We are human, some of us, Levy. Try to let that penetrate. What were you, as you claim, doing a terrific lot of work on?”
“1875,” Levy said.
“Neglect not Glidden,” Biesenthal said.
“Absolutely not, sir.”
“You haven’t the least notion who Glidden was, admit it.”
“Barbed wire, are you kidding, very important.” Hey, son of a bitch, you impressed him. Mark it on the calendar when you run home. “What’d’ya think about phones and Custer?”
Biesenthal looked at him. “Custard, Levy? Your words are all running together.”
“No—no, George Armstrong Custer, the last-stand idiot—the first phone exchange was going on when he got creamed, isn’t that a good image, isn’t that a terrific image for America, I think it’s terrific.”
“As your father used to tell me, ‘Leave images for the poets.’” He glanced at his watch. “It’s almost seven, I’m due home for dinner, walk me, Levy.” He crooked his finger. “Don’t bother bringing your debris. It’s just down to Riverside Drive.”
Levy followed Biesenthal out of the large study room. He must not think I’m a complete fool, Levy decided. I bet he hasn’t asked the Riordan twins to walk him home. “I would invite you for supper, Levy,” Biesenthal began as they left the library. “Except that my wife—a genuine beauty in her time, Levy, and a wonderful mother for our children—is, alas, a totally dreadful cook; not only is the food mediocre, there’s never enough of it. Need I add that we don’t entertain a great deal at home.” They moved on out of the campus toward Broadway and 116th. There was a book and poster shop near the corner, in the window Che and Bette Midler and JFK side by side. “Where were you when he died?” from Biesenthal.
Levy followed him across the street. “Kennedy? I was in the high-school lunch room, and somebody—he was a football player; dumb? not to be believed—and he said, ‘Kennedy’s been shot,’ and together me and this other kid said, ‘What’s the punch line?’ and we laughed at both of us coming out with it at once until we saw this stupid guy’s face and we knew there wasn’t any.”
“I meant your father,” Biesenthal said.
“I was kind of around, I guess,” Levy said.
They slowed the pace as they began the sharp decline toward Riverside. “I’ve wanted you to know something,” Biesenthal began. “No reason, I just did, I’m telling you for my good, understand that.”
“Yes sir.”
“I’m going to tell you a great secret, Levy—this could destroy my career, shatter it overnight if it became common knowledge—if I were a closet queen and the Times made it a banner headline, it would be nothing compared to what I am about to let drop now, so pay attention: I’m a baseball fanatic, Levy. Not the Mets or the Dodgers or Aaron or Mays—I love it all. I covet box scores. I still, approaching senility, sneak into the bathroom Sunday morning with the sports section and lock the door, pretending to bathe while I’m actually memorizing batting averages. All right—use your wondrous brain. Lew. For a man with my fetish, what is the most important single annual event in the universe, greater even than the Miss America Pageant?”
“The Series?”
“Correct. The World Series. And for a man in my position, nothing could be worse, because there are occasions, many of them, when I am forced to teach during a Series game. Do you know what I do when this happens?”
“No sir.”
“I have had a secretary for over thirty years, and she is brilliant. I have given
her the finest portable radio, and after each inning, when I am in class, I have trained her to put a most distraught expression on her face, as if the ultimate cataclysm has just occurred, and she comes into class and says, ‘May I speak to you a moment, Professor Biesenthal?’ and I say, testily, ‘What is it, what is it, can’t you see I’m busy?’ and she takes me aside and while I nod with a most serious mien, she whispers, ‘Oakland’s gone ahead two to one in the sixth, Seaver’s still in for the Mets but he may be tiring, they’ve got McGraw warming up.’ I hesitate, as if undecided as to the proper action, then return to my students, all of whom feel honored that I have kept my time with them sacrosanct, no matter how terribly important the outside world’s intrusions might be.”
They started up Riverside Drive, heading toward 118th. “Your father died in March—”
“The thirtieth—”
“—and I was in class, and in she came, my wondrous secretary, even fifteen years ago she was that, and I’ll never forget that same cataclysmic look on her face, and I remember thinking, ‘It can’t be the Series already, they haven’t even started the season yet,’ and then I thought, but what else can it be, what can be so terrible she interrupts with that face, and I went to her not knowing if I was indeed senile and I’d lost half a year, and fifteen years ago it was Milwaukee with Burdette and Aaron against the Yankees with Mantle and Ford, and I was getting all the names straight, trying to figure what was happening, but she didn’t use a name, she said, ‘He’s dead,’ and then she left the room.
“I was so relieved—I hadn’t gone senile—I remember actually smiling, and I went back and sat down with the students, and then it must have hit me, because I said, ‘You must all leave. You must all go now.’ They left, and an hour or so later my secretary came in with my coat and hat, and I asked how, and she said cerebral hemorrhage. ‘Good,’ I said, ‘good, I hope he went quickly, I hope he didn’t suffer,’ even though I knew how dreadfully he did suffer, and I also suspected it wasn’t any cerebral hemorrhage.”
Marathon Man Page 5
