The Death Instinct (24 page)

    YOU A CABIN ON THESS WELSHMAN LEAVING NEW YORK

    HARBOR FIVE-THIRTY PM MONDAY FOR HAMBURG STOP

    LITTLEMORE WILL BE THERE WITH TICKETS STOP TELL NO

    ONE REPEAT NO ONE

    Because it was a Sunday night, Younger was obliged to pay a king's ransom to get this telegram sent and to have it hand-delivered upon transmission. Unfortunately, Western Union's hastily hired delivery boy in New Haven couldn't distinguish among Yale University's dormitories, and the telegram was slipped under the door of the wrong residence.

    Colette, returning to her room Sunday night after working late at the laboratory, found the door unlocked. This dismayed her. She had told Luc over and over to keep the door locked; he didn't listen to anything she said anymore. Colette stepped into the silent darkness of her dormitory room. It shouldn't have been so dark - or silent. Could Luc already be asleep? He never went to bed until she made him.

    The air felt damp, heavy, pregnant. She fumbled to turn on a lamp, but couldn't find the switch. Then she heard dripping - as if it were raining, but inside. The sound came from her bedroom.

    'Luc?' she called out. No answer came. She felt her way to the bedroom, found a light, switched it on.

    The room was empty. The boy's narrow bed was undisturbed. On the ceiling, drops of water were forming and falling into a puddle on the floor.

    One flight above lived a graduate student in divinity and his kind wife, who had often taken Luc and watched him when Colette was at work. In fact Luc had a standing invitation from these neighbors to come up to their kitchen for milk and cookies any time he wanted - an invitation he'd taken advantage of more than once. The leak was surely coming from their apartment. Luc must be up there as well, Colette thought.

    She went out into the unlit common stairwell of the dormitory building and, groping in the darkness, found the handrail and climbed the steps. A light showed beneath her friends' door. She knocked; the door swung open. The small apartment was bright, silent, and still. The living-room window was open, its curtain fluttering. Colette called out the names of her friends; there was no answer.

    Colette's heart began to beat faster. The divinity student and his wife shouldn't have been out; they were always home at night. Colette went to the kitchen, which was empty, but the icebox door was open, which was wrong; one always shut one's icebox door. Then she heard the sound of water running. A door from the kitchen led to the bathroom. Colette looked down: from the bottom of that door, water was seeping out onto the kitchen floor. Colette opened the bathroom door.

    No one was there. The bath was running, unattended. The tub was full; water overflowed onto the tile floor. Colette didn't shut off the tap. Instead, for no reason she could have explained, she ran back to the living room, pulled open the window curtain, and looked down into the courtyard outside. Luc was there.

    He was standing under a tree near a lamppost, a glass of milk in one hand, a cookie in the other, staring at a female figure who was on her knees, looking into his eyes, her wispy hair tinged red in the lamplight. The girl's lined face was strained and taut. She could almost have been pretty, if the eyes hadn't been so frightful - eyes that had seen something unspeakable or were contemplating something unspeakable. She unbuttoned her dress and pulled it open, showing the boy her throat and her naked chest. Though her face was as taut as a madwoman's, her throat and chest were unmarred, white, soft - almost radiant. The glass slipped from Luc's hands. It fell to the grass, and so didn't break, but for a moment a circle of white milk glistened in the darkness at his feet. The figure stretched out her arms as if beckoning him to her.

    Colette cried out from the upstairs window. She ran into the hallway and down the stairs. When she heaved open the heavy front door, other voices in the courtyard were crying an alarm too - but they were calling out to her, not to Luc. The girl under the tree had disappeared.

    The other voices belonged to Colette's upstairs neighbors - the divinity student and his wife - who breathlessly declared that they had in their possession a telegram that Colette must read at once. They had been home when an undergraduate came knocking with a message from Western Union erroneously delivered to him. The moment the couple read the urgent wire, they ran off to Colette's laboratory, telling Luc to stay behind and wait; they had rushed so precipitously that the divinity student had left his bathtub running. But when they reached the laboratory, Colette had already left.

    After Colette had taken Luc back to their room, after she had read the message, after the neighbors had retired upstairs, she looked at her brother. 'Did she touch you?' asked Colette.

    The boy shook his head. He pointed to his neck and made signs with his hands, which Colette understood.

    'Yes, I saw it too,' she answered. 'The aura.'

    Detective Littlemore returned to the law library early Monday morning. It took him several hours, but he finally found what he was looking for. Armed with this knowledge, he set off for the Astor Hotel, where

    Chief Flynn had set up his command post. Littlemore picked up a couple of hot dogs on the way.

    Inside the Astor, ignoring the protests of a secretary, Littlemore ambled directly up to Flynn's closed door, outside which his two familiar deputies were standing guard. One of them rubbed his jaw on seeing the detective.

    'Big Bill around?' Littlemore asked them. Receiving no answer, Littlemore said, 'I'll just knock, if you don't mind.'

    Both deputies placed their hands on Littlemore's chest. 'We mind,' said the one who had been to the detective's house.

    'No problem,' said Littlemore, taking a bite of his hot dog. 'I'll come back in a few hours. Got to go to court anyway. Make out an arrest warrant. Say, you know those soldiers Big Bill stationed outside the Treasury Building? Reason I ask is the Posse Comitatus Act. You don't want a dog, do you? I got two.'

    The deputies stared at Littlemore.

    'See, the Posse Comitatus Act,' continued the detective, 'that's a federal law, and it says that anyone who orders any part of the United States army to deploy on US soil for law enforcement purposes - well, he's breaking the law. Anyone except the President, that is. So do me a favor. Tell Big Bill that Captain Littlemore of the New York Police Department's coming back at five o'clock with a gang of reporters and a warrant for his arrest. And tell him that the reporters are going to want to know what he's hiding inside the Treasury.'

    On the fifth floor of the massive, gray, chateau-inspired jail known as the Tombs, the order was given at two-thirty Monday afternoon to unlock a temporary detention cell. The flesh around Drobac's eyes remained swollen and bruised. His mouth was wired shut, and a circular metal apparatus was clamped around his jaw and cheeks.

    A well-dressed lawyer, highly satisfied with the proceedings, entered the cell the moment it was unlocked, accompanied by the murderer's surgeon. They each reached for one of the prisoner's arms to assist

    him from his cot. Drobac shrugged off their hands and rose on his own.

    Littlemore stood a long way off, at the other end of a long corridor, chewing his toothpick, a barred door separating him from the cells. Several guards and officers milled about near him, including Roederheusen and Stankiewicz. Younger, having come down from Boston that morning, was there as well.

    'You sure you want to see this?' Littlemore asked him.

    Younger nodded.

    At the end of the corridor, Drobac emerged from his cell, walking slowly, unaided, his wired chin held ostentatiously high. Lawyer and surgeon followed behind, chatting with each other.

    'In that case I'll need your gun, Doc,' said Littlemore in a low voice.

    'What gun?' answered Younger just as quietly.

    'Right now,' said Littlemore.

    Younger didn't move. Slanted light fell on Drobac and his coterie as they approached.

    'Boys,' said Littlemore, raising his voice very slightly, 'restrain Dr Younger.'

    Roederheusen and Stankiewicz stepped up behind Younger and seized his arms.

    Littlemore reached into Younger's jacket, drew out a revolver, and handed it to a prison guard for safekeeping. 'Sorry, Doc. Cuff him.'

    Arriving at the barred door, Drobac saw Younger being handcuffed. Their eyes met. If a man can smile with his jaw wired shut, Drobac smiled.

    'Open the gate,' ordered Littlemore.

    'Don't let him go,' said Younger, hands locked behind his back and arms still in the grasp of Stankiewicz and Roederheusen.

    'Open it,' Littlemore repeated.

    A guard opened the barred gate. Drobac's lawyer spoke: 'Thank you, Captain. I'm glad my little conversation with the Mayor was so effective, but I shudder to think of all the other impoverished men in here unconstitutionally. Do you enjoy breaking the law, Captain? Sign the release, please.'

    A clerk handed Littlemore a clipboard. 'If your client's so poor,' asked the detective, 'who's footing your bill, Mr-?'

    'Gleason,' replied the lawyer. 'I charge nothing for a case like this, Captain. It's
pro bono publico
.'

    'Sure it is,' said Littlemore.

    'Don't let him out,' said Younger.

    'No choice,' said Littlemore, signing the release. 'The law.'

    Mr Gleason accepted his copy of the release with relish. He addressed Younger: 'So you're the one who beat my client within an inch of his life. We're pressing charges, you know.'

    Younger didn't reply.

    'How agonizing it must be,' Gleason continued, 'to stand there believing the fantastic delusions you do. That my client is a highly trained killer. That he's going to pursue the pretty French girl no matter where she runs, from New Haven to Hamburg to the farthest ends of the earth. That one night he'll find her, slip into her bedroom, and cut her throat.'

    Younger's straining at his handcuffs only caused Roederheusen and Stankiewicz to hold him more firmly. 'Not if I find him first,' he said.

    'You heard that, Captain!' crowed Gleason. 'He threatened my client. I demand that you revoke his bail. He belongs behind bars. I'll have your badge, Captain, if you don't.'

    'Get out,' said Littlemore.

    'Very well - if you insist,' replied the lawyer. He turned to Younger again: 'My client was in jail ten days. You'll be there twenty years.'

    Younger was silenced by these words. Not, however, by the threat; it was the phrase ten days that caught his attention. 'Littlemore,' he said as Gleason guided Drobac toward the stairwell that led to freedom. 'Have him take off his shirt.'

    'His shirt?' replied the detective.

    'The kidnapper has a mark on the front of his torso,' said Younger. 'A red mark, in the shape of a test tube.'

    The guard posted at the stairwell door looked uncertainly at Littlemore, waiting to be told whether to let Drobac pass.

    'This is absurd,' said Gleason.

    The surgeon spoke up: 'Is the mark visible to the naked eye?'

    'Yes,' said Younger.

    'I operated on Mr Smith,' the surgeon continued, referring to Drobac, 'and I assure you he has no such mark on his torso.'

    'Then he has nothing to fear from taking off his shirt,' said Younger.

    'Don't be ridiculous,' said Gleason, pushing past the guard and opening the stairwell door himself. 'You heard the surgeon. My client has been released. Now, if you'll excuse us-'

    'Littlemore,' said Younger.

    Drobac started to pass through the door held open by his attorney.

    'Hold it,' the detective called out. 'Take his shirt off.'

    A half-dozen guards pulled Drobac back into the hallway and formed a circle around him.

    'You have no authority,' said Gleason.

    For the first time, Drobac spoke. 'Is all right,' he said in his Eastern European accent, the wires around his jaw glinting silver. 'I do it. Why not? I hide nothing.'

    Littlemore looked at Younger, who raised an eyebrow.

    Drobac calmly removed his jacket, slipped off his suspenders, and began unbuttoning his white shirt, never taking his eyes from Younger. When his chest was bare, everyone could see it: under his left ribs, below the thick hair of his chest, slightly angled from the vertical, was the perfect likeness of a test tube, inscribed in a deep red rash.

    'How do you like that?' said Littlemore.

    Drobac looked down, uncomprehending. 'What - what is?'

    'A radium burn,' said Younger. 'They take ten days to emerge. Yours comes from a test tube you stole from the Commodore Hotel and put in your jacket pocket.' 'This is an outrage,' declared Gleason. 'The Mayor will hear of this.'

    'Put "Mr Smith" back in his cage,' said Littlemore to the guards.