Pinky was standing on the bridge, and he looked like one of the fat rats.

  “Stop!”

  The fat man held out the gun and fired. Henry hurled himself forward. Ash dust mushroomed upwards and clouded over him. He plunged along on his knees until he put a mound between him and the bridge. Then he jumped up and ran.

  He heard Pinky yelling behind him. He saw the skyline of Richmont far across the grey wastes. It was like another world, another galaxy—an impossible distance away.

  He was sure he could never reach it, and just as sure that he had to. He looked back. At least he was in better physical condition than the fat Pinky.

  His feet padded up powder in the ankle-deep ashes. It was like running in dry snow, slowing him down and tiring him.

  He ran by grey people who were stooped, poking in the rubble. They turned and stared at him without straightening their bent backs. They were like nightmare people, and Henry decided that they couldn’t straighten up. They were all part of this nightmare world: the stooped people fingering the refuse; the rats, too swollen to run, and the fat man behind him with a gun.

  He heard a car and saw that Abbey was streaking along the ruts, trying to cut him off. He turned, running away from the road. The pistol cracked again. The people straightened up. An old woman began to laugh shrilly at the top of her voice. Some of them pointed at Henry, shouting.

  Henry breathed through his mouth. The fetid odours went through him. His throat burned. He felt that if he had just one breath of fresh air, he’d be all right. Only there was none.

  The pistol exploded behind him. Nearer this time. The people chattered at each other and at Henry, skittering aside as he ran towards them. There was the sudden sound of lightning and thunder, and it was as though a mammoth wasp had stung Henry along the side of his head. The world went skimming crazily, whirling all around him as he fell.

  The sky was beneath him—the blood-red sky. People in rust-black clothes, streaked and blotted with grey, spiralled around his head. Their faces were grey and so were their eyes. Then they began to fall away into darkness.

  Henry threw out his arms and went sprawling face first into the grey filth.

  CHAPTER XVII

  He was riding the billowy clouds, floating across the bloody sky. He had hit a stretch of rough weather; there was thunder and Henry was jostled, rolling until he almost fell off the cloud.

  He stirred. The side of his face was moist. He ran his fingers along the jagged streak the bullet had creased in his temple. His eyes burned. He squeezed his eyelids shut and then opened them.

  First he saw only legs, trousers that were smeared and streaked an ash grey. Henry let his gaze slide upwards. Pinky was sitting on the car seat over him. Henry had been crammed into the rear on the floor. The car was climbing a slight incline. Then it stopped. For a fraction of a second, Henry’s heart stopped, too. They were at the weather-beaten shack again. Back where he’d started from. Great.

  Pinky slapped the door open and got out. Henry sat up. The fat man and Abbey were standing outside the car. Their guns were fixed on him. He was still groggy.

  Pinky reached in, caught Henry’s arm and jerked him from the car. Henry stumbled, falling to his knees in the dirt.

  “Let’s get inside,” Abbey said.

  Henry got up and walked dazedly into the shack. Abbey leaned against a wall. She held the gun loosely, pointed at the floor.

  Sammy Malachi was bound in a chair, facing a wall.

  Abbey said. “They’re here. Pinky. Let’s get it over with.”

  Pinky closed the door. “I’d feel better if I knew where that damned Glory was.”

  “You let her get away?”

  Pinky snarled. “Happened I was busy at the time with your lover—Sammy boy.”

  Abbey said, “I’d feel better if I thought you had sense enough to handle anything right.”

  “Afraid. Abbey?”

  “I’m all right,” Abbey said. “I just found out what a fool you can be when you try real hard.”

  “I’m taking care of it.”

  “Are you? Killing a cop. Leaving that woman alive to describe you to the police.”

  “Til take care of her, too. As soon as I take care of this business.” Pinky stepped forward into the room. “Don’t worry about me. I’m not leaving anything undone this time. When I finish that little job at the hospital, I’m free.”

  “Get started. I want to get it over with. I want to get out of here.”

  There was the rumble of thunder again. At first Henry believed it was thunder. But the way Pinky and Abbey tensed, listening, told him: it was the sound of car wheels on the bridge.

  His heart lurched. He stared at the others. Abbey came away from the wall. She stood rigid, her legs apart, the gun at her side. She was listening so intently she was unaware of the others inside the shack.

  Pinky ran over to the window. He rubbed his hand over the dirt-crusted glass. He stood, half-facing them, and peering outside.

  “It’s a car,” he said.

  “Bright boy,” Abbey said. “You figure that out all by yourself.”

  “Cops?” Pinky yelled the question at her.

  “How could they follow me?” she wanted to know. Her mouth twisted. “That’s a city dump out there. You got the jumps.”

  Wilson’s voice cracked. “I got the jumps. Yeah. There’s a car out there! Whose car. Abbey?”

  She let her mouth twist. “How would I know whose car. Get it over. Pinky. Now.”

  She turned and levelled the gun at Henry. He stared at its black mouth. Abbey was the master of this pair. If there had to be a killing, she was capable of doing it. The moment for her to go to work had arrived.

  The car roared up to the outside of the shack and stopped. The car door slammed. Henry didn’t take his eyes from that gun in Abbey’s hand. Pinky stared from the window to the door. But before he could reach it, it was thrown open.

  Henry felt the breath seep out of him. He didn’t know what he’d expected, but not Glory Malachi. She stood there with that small gun in her hand, and looked like eleven-thirty the night of October thirty-first.

  Pinky had his gun on her, but Glory didn’t even seem to know it. Her wild eyes were fixed on one thing, one person. If there’d ever been any sanity in those eyes, it was gone now. Her gaze was glued on Abbey.

  “You. The bleached bitch!” Glory’s shrill voice cracked.

  Henry watched the gun snout move away from him as Abbey turned on her heel to stare at Glory.

  Glory’s face was twisted. “You. The evil woman. You took him. You ruined him. Made him crooked. Blinded him. No more, woman. No more men. You’ve ruined your last man. You went to hell the day you took my man.”

  “Don’t move. Glory,” Pinky warned. “If you lift that gun I’ll shoot.”

  He was talking to himself. Glory didn’t even know he was alive. She took another step into the room.

  Her voice lashed at Abbey.

  “You think I was simple and stupid enough to come back to Sammy—blind Sammy—just to stay with him and help him look for Henry Wilson? Oh, no. I never looked for Henry Wilson. I was looking for you, woman. That’s all I’ve been looking for. Right from the start. I knew. Find Pinky Wilson and I’d find you—if Pinky’s money lasted long enough.”

  Abbey started to speak. She opened her mouth. That must have been what Glory was waiting for. She was daring the blonde woman to speak to her.

  Glory pressed the trigger and shot Abbey in the face. She pulled the trigger until there was no sound in the shack except the reverberating sound of Glory’s gun.

  Pinky Wilson screamed, his scream ripped through the sound of the shooting like a woman’s scream. Henry stood, still dazed from the bullet crease and the shock from witnessing the sudden death of the blonde Abbey.

  Sammy Malachi sprang off his chair and lunged across the room in the direction of that scream. Pinky stood still, sobbing, his fat legs wide. Almost mechanically he shot Sammy as he ran across the floor. Sammy staggered, and fell, still moving forward. He struck the floor hard and lay still. Glory wheeled around and jerked the gun towards Pinky. She began pressing the trigger, but it struck empty chambers. She’d emptied her clip on Abbey.

  The gun bucked in Pinky’s hand. Glory slumped back against the wall. She dropped the empty gun and clutched at her stomach with both her scrawny hands.

  This was Henry’s last chance and he knew it. He reached behind him, grasping the back of the chair. His fingers closed over it and he started it over his head, putting every ounce of his strength behind it. The chair came down over his shoulder as Wilson fired. Henry was hardly aware of the gunfire. He released the chair, saw it strike Pinky, driving him back.

  He heard the fat man grunt as the chair drove him back against the wall. Henry couldn’t see Pinky clearly through the red blur that obscured his vision. Red fog suddenly enveloped the shack.

  He drove his fist into Pinky’s fat face, felt the shock of it all the way to his shoulder. He saw Pinky jerk the gun up. He heard the breath sobbed out of the fat man.

  Henry clutched wildly at Pinky’s wrist as the fat man leaped past him towards the door. Henry missed and stumbled. He heard the thunder of gunfire, and then his stomach turned to a mass of flame. He felt his knees sag, and then he crumpled to the floor. He was no match for the fat mar«. He never had been. He never would be.

  He sprawled out on the floor. The last thing he remembered was that somebody kicked him over on his back, and he could feel the blood hot and sticky down his side. He was thinking of Lila, and then it was dark and he was unconscious.

  CHAPTER XVIII

  Henry rolled over on the floor and blinked as if strong lights were suddenly being played on his face. He saw no lights at all, except the lavender dancing kind that glittered and exploded when he moved. The pain in his stomach was intolerable and for a moment he lay on the shack floor and tried to think things through.

  Pinky had shot him. For one painful and brutal instant he remembered throwing the chair, the sound of the gun, and the burning in his stomach. He had fallen. When? How long ago?

  “Lila.” He whispered the word aloud, but inside he was yelling it. Lila was in danger. Through his mind pounded the words Pinky had said to Abbey. When he had finally killed the girl in the hospital. Pinky would have silenced his last witness, bought his freedom.

  He pressed against the floor with all his strength and managed to sit up. He wavered like a straw in the wind, and the shack wheeled around his head. He bit down on his lips. For a second he blanked out. Go ahead, he cursed himself, pass out and Pinky will kill Lila.

  He managed to open his eyes and move his gaze about the room. Somehow, Pinky had managed to kill everybody else. His old blind enemy would never follow Pinky in the night any more. Sammy was dead and Glory was dead. Henry’s gaze paused at Abbey. She was sprawled on the filthy floor. Even in her chic clothes she didn’t look out of place in this shack.

  He wished he knew how long he’d been out. Maybe he was already too late. He tried to tell himself that he had nothing to worry about. Wasn’t Lila in the hospital? How could Pinky get to her? But he knew—Pinky would get to her. Pinky would get into that room at the hospital and there would be no one there to help Lila.

  Could Pinky shoot Lila and hope to get away with it?

  Henry crawled over to the wall and pulled himself up against it. Pinky could use a knife in that hospital, couldn’t he? Of course he could. Pinky was desperate. Lila was the only one who stood between Pinky and freedom.

  And me, Henry thought.

  He heard the rumbling thunder of car wheels on the bridge. The hope that it might be Pinky leaving gave him strength enough to lurch across the room and throw open the door. He stared down the road. It was the cream-coloured Cadillac. Pinky was on his way.

  Henry began to tremble. The grey wastes danced before his eyes. Across there, across town, Lila was alone and helpless. Who’d expect someone to try to kill her in the hospital? Sure. Pinky was counting on surprise. He’d drive right up to the front door. Why not? There was nothing in this world less suspicious looking than a lush-looking Cadillac.

  Henry looked around the room. Abbey’s gun lay just beyond her outflung hand. He staggered over to her, holding his hand at his side. He had to let himself down on his knees before he could pick up the heavy gun. It took all his strength to lift it. He dropped it in his pocket and wondered how he’d ever get back on his feet?

  Suddenly he knew a way. It was the magic that was going to take him out of here. He said aloud, “Lila.”

  He got up, swallowing the agony that choked him. He looked down. His shirt was sopping wet and red. He drew his belt in tighter, buttoned his coat.

  He said. “Lila.”

  He put out his arm and fell forward against the door jamb. He had to rest there a moment. He looked back into the room. Abbey? Abbey was dead. But Pinky would get over it. There were other Abbeys. Pinky would find them.

  Without knowing how he was able to do it. Henry was running across the short, interminable distance to Abbey’s car. He pulled open the front door and half fell in under the steering wheel. The keys were gone.

  Tears blurred his eyes and his mouth trembled. He leaned over on the seat and reached under the dashboard. He shoved his hands around under the ignition switch until he found the two wires. He ripped them out. Only it took him a long time. For ever.

  He said, “Lila. God I love you, Lila. I ever tell you how much I love you?”

  His trembling fingers twisted the ends of the wires together. He sat up, pressed the starter button. He was startled when the engine turned over, caught. He would have laughed. But laughter hurts your belly.

  He put both hands on the wheel, clenched them. The world settled. He shifted gears, backed around and started down the incline. Somebody had shrunk the bridge. It was not nearly wide enough for the car. Besides that the bridge was wavering crazily.

  He had to slam on brakes just before he reached it. He held on tight and finally inched the car across it. Great, he thought. Pinky has a Caddy, and a head start, and nothing on his mind but murder. He stepped harder on the gas. He kept saying Lila’s name over and over again.

  The car bumped through the winding ruts across the wastes. He was thinking about the hospital and the best way to get there. Maybe he had one advantage over Pinky after all. He knew all the streets in Richmont, every back alley, every short cut, or every street where he might avoid traffic signals and heavy traffic.

  For a moment the world went red and he lost control of the car. He had to stay awake. He snapped on the radio, turning the volume up full. A dance band blared out at him. That was fine. Lila, he thought, shall we dance, Lila?

  He came out of the ash heaps and struck a speedway. He turned right, sure that Pinky had chosen the other way, through the slums, across John Quincy Bailey Park.

  He told himself he had to keep a sharp look-out for the cross street: Eighteenth. It crossed town with fewer signals and less traffic than any other. He could turn off within two blocks of the hospital.

  The music ceased abruptly. An announcer said, “Ladies and gentlemen, we’ve just had a news bulletin, released by the Richmont police department in the case of Henry Wilson, now at large and a fugitive from justice. Two hours ago, police said. Patrolman Ed Waldron admitted that his stray shot was the one that had struck down Patrolman Nelson last night. This charge at least has been dropped against Wilson, although others more serious remain lodged against him, and he is the object of intense police searching. According to hospital reports, Wilson’s wife Lila has regained consciousness. She was victim of a near-fatal assault by her husband——”

  Henry reached over and cut off the radio.

  He swung into Eighteenth Street. He kept his gaze fixed on the street and managed to hold his speed down to thirty miles per hour. That was five miles above speed limit.

  * * *

  He drove the car into a parking place outside the City General Hospital. He had stopped on the west side near the Out Patients & Emergency entrance. He knew better than to try to go through the front door.

  His front wheel struck the kerb hard. He fell forward against the wheel. He tried to shake the dancing flares of agony from his mind. He stared at the parking lot before the hospital. As he watched, he saw the white Cadillac turn in the parking lot, moving slowly, steadily.

  “Lila,” he whispered.

  He got out of the car, holding his side. He didn’t take his eyes from that white car. He left the motor running and started along the driveway, lurching drunkenly from side to side. He shoved his hand into his pocket, fitted his finger against the trigger.

  He watched Pinky get out of the Cadillac. Pinky brushed at his coat, straightened his tie: man of distinction... on an errand of murder.

  Where’s your knife, Pinky? Henry thought. Or is it an ice pick? Henry’s legs moved him along faster.

  He saw the police cruiser then, and the two cops in it. Were they watching him? It didn’t matter. To hell with them.

  Lila, I love you.

  He said. “Pinky!”

  The fat man of distinction was at the kerb. He stopped, staring at Henry.

  Pinky’s mouth sagged open. Pinky’s eyes bugged. Pinky shook his head. Pinky’s hand leaped towards his coat pocket. Henry fought the gun out and almost dropped it. His knees sagged. He stared at Pinky, hating him, and wondering if he could pull the trigger.

  He said, “Lila.”

  The explosion of the gun in his hand almost deafened him. He felt it jar his stomach. It was too much for his knees and be sagged. His legs crumpled and he stumbled forwards, still watching Pinky.

  Pinky had forgotten the gun in his pocket. The fat man had been sprawled backwards by the force of the bullet, and he was scrambling around on the ground like a beetle turned on its back.

  The cops were out of the cruiser now. Henry toppled forward on his face. The gun fell out his hand.

  He grinned to himself. He had done it. It didn’t matter now. Pinky could never get in there to Lila. He had other witnesses now, and Pinky couldn’t kill them all. The cops would pick him up, and Pinky was going to have to explain that gun, that knife, and those bodies back in that shack.