When he did, I kneed him in the balls.
Surfing a tidal wave of pure adrenaline, I snapped my head back against the face of the man behind me. I heard a crack as the back of my head struck his nose, and the arm around my neck loosened. I grabbed the arm and shoved it straight up, up toward the, frayed electrical wire with the bulb hanging from it.
He must have realized what I was going to do, because he didn't choke me with his free hand or try to dig a finger into my eye. Instead, he grabbed at his own arm and tried to yank it down. He didn't make it.
I felt a numbing jolt as I leapt back. The man's whole body convulsed and jerked. Sparks flew from the wire. Then the man collapsed, taking the wire with him. Luckily for the rest of us, since we were all standing on the same wet floor, the wire snapped. The corridor went dark.
I heard a damp slap as the man's body hit the floor, and a small flat explosion as the bulb broke. Something scrambled behind me. Needle-nose. I stood absolutely still.
The lights were obviously wired in series, 1920's-style, because the bulbs in the main passageway had gone out too. It couldn't have been any darker in the belly of the whale.
My heart was hammering, and I was soaking wet. I tried to unfocus my eyes and let a form emerge, but there was nothing. Then there was a ragged intake of breath, and I heaved myself toward it.
I would have gotten him on the first pass if I hadn't tripped over the body of the man on the floor. As it was, I grasped a handful of jacket, and then a hand clawed over my face, searching for the base of my nose. The hand snapped up, trying to shove cartilage into the brain, and hit my cheekbone instead. I struck under it and drove three stiff fingers into an armpit.
Needle-nose went 'Ooooof.' I scrabbled over the body and wrapped an arm around his neck. He pulled in the opposite direction, and instead of yanking back, I pushed with all my strength. Between the two of us, we hammered his head into the concrete wall. It sounded like a breaking egg.
He sagged in a satisfying fashion. I let go of his neck and stood up, a little more shakily than I would have liked. Then I remembered that he might have Sally Oldfield's fingernails in his pocket. Who knew? Maybe he kept souvenirs. I went back, located his head, and lifted him by the hair. Twining my arm around his neck again, I slammed his face into the concrete floor. Then I did it again. He didn't even sigh. There was just a faint slobbering sound as he breathed into the wet. I left him facedown and edged toward the main corridor, wishing the water was a couple of inches deeper.
Unless I wanted to run into these guys' teammates, I could think of only one way out. It was only slightly better than staying.
I felt my way to the end of the cul-de-sac and turned left. Light glimmered in the distance, and I headed toward it.
The air-conditioning unit was right where I'd left it, and the little metal door was shut tight. I opened it, and the fat man inside looked up in surprise. It wasn't time yet.
'Excuse me,' I said. I had so little support for my voice that I had to say it again. 'Excuse me. Duct patrol.'
He looked bewildered. 'Duck patrol?' he said. It was something new.
'Duct,' I said. 'Duct, goddammit. You'll have to get out for a minute.'
He thought about it for a second. Then he shook his head.
'You can get right back in,' I said. He shook his head again. I heard a rapid tapping and turned to look behind me before I figured out that it was the sole of my shoe. My left leg was shaking uncontrollably. 'Listen, it's a rule. All the ducts have to be patrolled every twenty-four hours.'
Agonizingly slowly, he shook his head again.
'Get out,' I said savagely, 'or I'll take you to the dipping pool.'
That did it. He squeezed out and squatted next to the opening. He was trembling, and no wonder. He was probably freezing.
'When I'm gone,' I said, 'you get back in here and close the door tight, understand? No fooling around.'
'No,' he said. 'I'll get in.'
I crawled into the duct. It was just big enough to allow me to progress on my elbows if I kept my rear end down, and the air was cold against my sweat-slick skin. I'd made three or four yards when I heard the little metal door slam shut. Was he in or out? I really didn't want him wandering around asking questions about the duct patrol.
He answered my question for me. 'Thank you,' he said from behind me.
I couldn't bring myself to tell him he was welcome, so I just grunted and kept pulling myself along.
With him wedged in behind me, the force of the cold air wasn't quite as great. And I could smell him as I crawled, a fat little man who hadn't bathed in a while. Maybe he hadn't been allowed to bathe.
It might have been a hundred yards altogether; actually, it was probably less, although it felt like a lot more. The first really difficult stretch began when the duct angled upward at about twenty-five degrees for fifteen or twenty feet. The floor of the duct was smooth and slippery, and for every foot upward I slid six inches back. I was concentrating on the positive by congratulating myself on having quit smoking when I hit my head on the end of the duct.
'Oh, no,' I said out loud. 'No, no, no.' The words echoed around me, and I shut up. Why would an air shaft go nowhere?
It didn't, of course. The air, and the fat man's body odor, continued to flow past me. I touched the wall to my right and the one to my left. Each time, I half-expected rats' teeth to close on my fingers. Instead, I slammed them into duct wall. Solid. That left only one direction, so I reached up. More cold air, no rats.
Swell. Up. Ninety degrees up. But for how far? I was pretty sure that the duct was too narrow for me to climb it like a rock chimney. Anyway, rock chimneys have always scared the hell out of me.
I rolled over onto my back and looked up. I needn't have bothered; there was nothing to see. But at least lying on my back I could bend ninety degrees. Only Eleanor could bend ninety degrees on her stomach. And I'd told her that yoga was useless.
I sat up and then worked myself to a standing position. I was facing in the wrong direction, back the way I'd come.
My cheekbone was beginning to throb where Needle-nose had hit it. I hadn't felt it until then. I'd been too busy. I dismissed it and made a half-turn and brought my hands up in front of me, which was trickier than it sounds. The duct was almost too narrow for my elbows.
The wall of the shaft felt smooth and slick and slightly greasy as I slid my palms upward. Despite the chill air, I was still sweating. When I'd signed up for duct patrol, they hadn't said anything about having to go backwards.
The edge was about six inches above my head. There the duct angled off again, going in the same general direction. Taking the long twenty-five-degree incline into consideration, that would put me just about at street level. If I could get there.
Praying to the patron saint of private detectives, whoever that might be, I curled my fingers over the edge and tried to pull myself up. I got all the way to tiptoe before my fingers slipped and I landed on my heels again. The duct above me slanted up-not much, but enough to deny me the friction I needed.
Now I was smelling my own sweat. This was no place to spend the rest of my life.
The fat little man behind me coughed. It was nice to know he was where he was supposed to be, but he sounded discouragingly near. How far had I really gone?
I tried to drag myself up again, with the same result. Okay, try something else.
I used my right foot to worry at my left running shoe until it came off. Then I repeated the action with my left, until both shoes lay at my feet. Unfortunately, there was no way to bend down and pick them up.
I turned around again and sat down, the shoes lumpy beneath me. Pushing them aside, I wiggled into a semiprone position, with the duct yawning above me, and slipped my hands into the shoes. I hadn't worn socks because the rain would have soaked them, so I was barefoot. The air was cold on the soles of my feet.
With the shoes wedged onto my hands, I stood up again and turned around. I was half an inch shorter now, something I didn't really need. I realized that some obscure part of my mind was rattling off the Lord's Prayer. Bidding it to shut up, I tried to get my hands above my head, but the added thickness of the running shoes made it impossible. My forearms were too long.
I slumped against the wall and closed my eyes, which made it no darker than it already was. Other than the
