Part 8 (2/2)
”I was talking to my footstool.”
”Turn around. Weve got orders to bring you to Sinc, if we can. You could still get out of this alive.”
I turned around. ”I'd like to apologize.”
”Save it for Sinc.”
”No, honest. It wasn't my idea to have someone else mix In this. Especially-” Again I felt something brush against the side of my head. The martian must be doing something to stop the impact.
I could have taken Handel then. I didn't move. It didn't seem right that I could break Handel's neck when he couldn't touch me. Two to one I don't mind, especially when the other guy's the one. Sometimes I'll even let some civic-minded bystander help, if theres some chance he'll live through it. But this this...
”What's not fair?” asked a high, complaining voice.
Handel screamed like a woman. I turned to see him charge into the door jamb, back up a careful two feet, try for the door again and make it.
Then I saw the footstool.
He was already changing, softening in outline, but I got an idea of the shape Handel had seen. No wonder it had softened his mind. I felt it softening my bones, melting the marrow, and I closed my eyes and whispered, ”Dammit, you were supposed to watch watch.”
”You told me the impact would damage you.”
”That's not the point. Detectives are always always getting hit on the head. We getting hit on the head. We expect expect it.” it.”
”But how can I learn anything from watching you if your little war ends so soon?”
”Well, what do you learn if you keep jumping in?”
”You may open your eyes.”
I did. The martian was back to his nebbish form. He had fished a pair of orange shorts out of his pile of clothes. ”I do not understand your objection,” he said. ”This Sinc will kill you if he can. Do you want that?”
”No, but-”
”Do you believe that your side is in the right?”
”Yes, but-”
”Then why should you not accept my help?”
I wasn't sure myself. It felt wrong. It was like sneaking a suitcase bomb into Sinc's mansion and blowing it up.
I thought about it while I checked the hall. n.o.body there. I closed the door and braced a chair under the k.n.o.b. The dark one was stiff with us: he was trying to sit up.
”Look,” I told the martian. ”Maybe I can explain, maybe I can't. But if I don't get your word to stay out of this, I'll leave town. I swear it. I'll just drop the whole thing. Understand?”
”No.”
”Will you promise?”
”Yes.”
The Spanish type was rubbing his throat and staring at the martian. I didn't blame him. Fully dressed, the martian could have pa.s.sed for a man, but not in a pair of orange undershorts. No hair or nipples marked his chest. The Spanish type turned his flas.h.i.+ng white smile on me and asked, ”Who's he?”
”I'll ask the questions. Who're you?”
”Don Domingo.” His accent was soft and Spanish. If he was worried, it didn't show. ”Hey, how come you didn't fall down when I hit you?”
”I said I'll ask the-”
”Your face is turning pink. Are you embarra.s.sed about something?”
”Dammit, Domingo, where's Sinc? Where were you supposed to take me?”
”The place.”
”What place? The Bel Air place?”
”That's the one. You know, you have the hardest head-”
”Never mind that!”
”Okay, okay. What will you do now?”
I couldn't call the law in. ”Tie you up, I guess. After this is over, I'll turn you in for a.s.sault.”
”After this is over, you won't be doing much, I think. You will live as long as they shoot at your head, but when-”
”Now drop drop that!” that!”
The martian came out of the kitchen. His hand was flowing around a tin of corned beef, engulfing it tin and all. Domingo's eyes went wide and round.
Then the bedroom exploded.
It was a fire bomb. Half the living room was in flames in an instant. I scooped up the GyroJet, stuck it in my pocket.
The second bomb exploded in the hall. A blast of flame blew the door inward, picked up the chair I'd used to brace the door and flung it across the room.
”No!” Domingo yelled. ”Handel was supposed to wait! Now what?”
Now we roast, I thought, stumbling back with my arm raised against the flames. A calm tenor voice asked, ”Are you suffering from excessive heat?”
”Yes! Dammit, yes!”
A huge rubber ball slammed into my back, hurling me at the wall. I braced my arms to take up some of the impact. It was still going to knock me silly. Just before I reached it, the wall disappeared. It was the outside wall. Completely off balance, I dashed through an eight-foot hole and out into the empty night, six floors above concrete.
I clenched my teeth on the scream. The ground came up- the ground came up- where the h.e.l.l was the ground? I opened my eyes. Everything was happening in slow motion. A second stretched to eternity. I had time to see strollers turning to crane upward, and to spot Handel near a corner of the building, holding a handkerchief to his bleeding nose. Time to look over my shoulder as Domingo stood against a flaming background, poised in slow motion in an eight-foot circle cut through the wall of my apartment.
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