back and forth. The wet eyes in his deathly white face followed the movement. Perhaps
wasn't quite the right word. His head consisted of a lumpy mass of swollen pustules and ulcerated wounds. No hair grew anywhere on his naked body. One shoulder sloped lower than the other. Loose bits of flesh clung tenuously to his sunken chest.
A rat half-swam, half-scampered through the floating garbage. It bumped into the derelict's leg and angrily bit it. If he noticed at all, he owned a great face for poker. His pale eyes continued to watch the beam.
'Hypnotized by it,' Ann whispered, pulling up so close behind me that I could almost smell her exhausted, womanly scent through the stench around us.
'Or crazy,' I said, 'from being down here since the blast.'
'
' The croak issued from beneath the fleshy lumps. He didn't seem to be addressing us in particular. 'Been up when I get hungry. Lots of food if you know where to look. And I can catch it.'
He lowered his club to lean on it, using it like a cane. A rheumy glaze coated his eyes, what I could see of them.
'Did we beat the Reds?'
I didn't know whether he referred to baseball or battlefields, so I kept quiet. I felt as embarrassed as anyone would feel, dropping in on Hell uninvited.
His free hand twisted around behind him as if to scratch at his back but fell feebly to his side. He took a tremulous step forward, sloshing water aside with his bare feet. The sorts of welts that covered his face were all over his body in small lumps and festering nodules. Here and there grey-white strips of dead skin hung like rags from a beggar.
I wasn't sure what to do next. Was he the one we were after? If not, did we have to get past him first?
He solved the problem conveniently.
'Fire down below,' he murmured in a matter-of-fact way. His eyes glazed over sightlessly. They'd be sightless forever.
He fell forward, the steel strut slipping out under his weight. Slowly, as though savoring the moment, he slid along it. He didn't notice the jagged edges tearing chunks of bloodless tissue from under his arm.
The thin sheet of water parted to make way for him, flowing back an instant after impact to surround his body. At the base of his spine protruded the wavy blade of a flame dagger, placed there, no doubt, by someone who wanted privacy. Light bounced from it to a mirror on the wall, which reflected it to an unbroken piece of mirror on the opposite wall, and so on forever.
Nothing moved. Ann made the sound they usually make in the movies-that sort of half-gasp that catches and holds in the throat like a butterfly waiting for a chance to escape.
I turned to face her. Sure enough, she had the back of her hand against her open mouth, her eyes wide with shock. The only difference between her and a thousand Hollywood cornballs was the carving knife she grasped with a physician's steadiness. She lowered it slowly, her mouth still agape, nostrils flared as if to catch the scent of his departing soul.
I stepped over his inert form into ankle-deep water. 'The answer to your next question is, `He's dead, all right. As dead as a campaign promise.'' I extended my hand to her. 'Let's go.'
She took care to step over the corpse and avoid the area where some clumps of loose skin had splashed down. Once over, she did something that I'd only ever seen myself do. She crouched over the body to yank the flame dagger out of the dead man's back. She examined it for a moment, then let it dangle loosely in her grasp.
'Did the radiation turn him into that?' she asked, slipping the strap of her purse over her opposite shoulder to enable her to carry a knife in either hand.
She'd bounced back fast.
I shrugged noncommittally. 'Whatever was killing him sure didn't work as fast as that blade.'
I shined the Magna-Lite over the walls. Most of the colored tile had cracked and fallen away under the force of the blast years ago. A sign hung slantways on a single peg.
'Welcome to Bond Street,' I said to the darkness. 'Enjoy your walk. Watch for rats and mutants.'
