Sacrifice

'How many cards loose?'

'Four in my hand, four in yours, two on the table. Ten.'

'How many cards have I collected?'

'Eleven.'

'Okay, now what do you do when…?' Max sat down next to Luke, made a 'come on' gesture to me, impatient.

'We'll finish this later,' I said to Luke.

The kid bounced in his seat, eyes pleading. 'Can't I come too?'

I looked at Max. He grabbed Luke's belt, hauled him out of the seat like a briefcase. The kid's laughter trailed through the restaurant as Max carried him to the back.

186

We got in the Plymouth. Max made the sign for the Mole. Late afternoon. We slogged our way north on the FDR, Luke sitting between us, eyes bright with the prospect of seeing his pal.

Terry let us in the gate. He and Luke ran off together, Simba circling them, yapping like a pup. Max pulled me ahead.

The Mole was a good distance from his bunker, hunched over a U-shaped metal bracket maybe twelve feet wide. It was anchored to what looked like metal rods, running at forty-five degree angles from halfway up the bracket arms to the ground.

'What's this, Mole?'

He ignored me, looping a thick ribbon of rubber over one end of the bracket, then the other. It looked like a giant slingshot. From the bottom of the U-bracket, he unfolded a pair of metal tubes, about three feet apart. Placed them against the back of the rubber band. Then he pulled on a lever. Ratcheting noise with each pull. The rubber stretched. Stretched some more. He nodded at Max. The Mongolian picked up two sacks of dry cement mix lashed back to back, placed them in the notch formed by the rubber. The Mole pulled the switch and the cement sacks blasted off like the Space Shuttle, flying in a high arc, smashing against the top of a wrecked car maybe two hundred feet away.

'You're fucking insane,' I told the Mole. He bowed. Max grinned.

'It's impossible,' I said. 'Max'll get killed.'

'It's not impossible,' the Mole said. 'It's just a ratio. Thrust to weight, height to distance. It's got way too much power now. All we need is an arc, Max can float down.'

'Float? You're a maniac. And he's a bigger one.

Max was pulling black silk out of a duffel bag when Luke and Terry walked over to us.

'What's Max doing?' the kid asked.

'Making a fool of himself.'

'Max wouldn't do that…Can I see?'

The warrior climbed into his costume. He was encased in silk: a hood fit tightly over his head, Velcro closures at his wrists and ankles. Standard night-stalker stuff— I'd seen it before. Then he spread his arms in a crucifixion gesture and he sprouted wings— ribbed silk billowed from his wrists to his ankles.

'It's wonderful!' Luke clapped his little hands, delighted at the game.

'Jesus!' Terry said.

I didn't say anything.

187

The Mole carried his launch device in one hand. 'Aluminum,' he said when I looked a question at him.

'Why don't you just shoot him out of a cannon?'

'He's not going that far. The drop is about forty-five feet roof to roof. The launch building is much higher than the target.'

Ask a lunatic a question…

We walked over to where junked cars were piled into a mountain about twenty feet high. The Mole slowly made his way to the top, set up his launcher. He climbed down, paced off a distance, took a can of spray paint from his jumpsuit, made a white X on the hard ground.

'About four clicks,' he said. Climbed back to the top. It took a while.

Max went up the mountain like it was a ramp. Leaned back into the notch, nodded once. The Mole pulled on the lever.

'Max is gonna fly!' Luke said.

I held my breath.

A sproong! sound and Max was airborne. He shot straight up, jack-knifed his body like a diver, popped open his wings with a loud snap. His body went up like he'd caught a gust, righted itself, and floated to the ground like a butterfly landing on a flower. Right on the damn X.

Max wasn't breathing hard. The Mole cut open his knee stumbling down from the mountain of cars.

188

'For the last fucking time, Prof, there's no money in this.'