Near the top of the screaming gunsh.e.l.l, about eight inches beyond the pull-ring, is a promising red b.u.t.ton. As The General lunges forward again, Carlos thrusts the gunsh.e.l.l gadget at him and pushes the b.u.t.ton. He's hoping for acid.

A cloud of white stu ff billows from the pinhole in the very tip of the gunsh.e.l.l and envelops the General. Hi-Pro gas isn't acid-not quite-but it isn't cotton candy, either. The General feels as if a swarm of biting insects (Gnats from h.e.l.l) had just settled on the wet and delicate surfaces of his eyes. These same insects pour up his nostrils, and the General suspends breathing at once.

Like Carlos, he keeps control. He knows he's been ga.s.sed. Even blinded, he can deal with that, has dealt with it before. It's the siren that's really s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g up his action. It's bludgeoning his brains.

He falls back toward the door, pressing his free hand against his left ear and waving the knife in front of him, creating what he hopes will be a zone of serious injury.

And then, oh praise G.o.d, the siren quits. Maybe its Taiwanese circuits are defective; maybe the nine-volt battery which powered it just ran out of juice. Hecksler doesn't give s.h.i.t One which it is. All he knows is that he can think again, and this fills his warrior's heart with grat.i.tude.

With luck, however, the D.S. won't know he's got it back together. A little acting is in order. Hecksler staggers against the side of the door, still screaming. He allows the knife to drop. His eyes, he knows, are swelling shut. If Carlos buys his ruse-

Carlos does. The doorway is clear. The man sagging against one side of it is out of action, must be out of action after that. Carlos tries to give him another spray for good measure, but this time when he triggers the b.u.t.ton there's nothing but an impotent phut sound and a little gasp of something like steam. No matter. Time to get while the getting is good. Carlos staggers for the office doorway, his blood-sodden pants sticking to his legs. He is already thinking, in a hysterical and unformed way, about emergency rooms and a.s.sumed names.

The General is blind and the General is deaf, but his nose hasn't swelled entirely shut and he catches that dark, peaty odor which Frank DeFelice noticed in the elevator. He straightens up and lashes out at the center of the smell. The Army-Navy hunting knife goes into Carlos's chest up to the hilt, skewering the Mad Florist's heart like a piece of beef on a shish kabob. If he had been at Cony Island with Sandra and Dina, Iron-Guts undoubtedly would have won a teddy bear.

Carlos takes two shu ffling steps backward, tearing the knife out of the General's grip. He looks down at it unbelievingly and utters a single incoherent word. It sounds like Iggala (not that the General can hear it), but it's probably Abbalah. He tries to pull the knife free and cannot. His legs fold up and he drops to his knees. He is still pulling feebly at the hilt when he falls forward, pushing the tip of the blade all the way out through the back of his jacket. His heart gives a final spasm around the knife that has outraged it and then quits. Carlos feels a sensation of flying as the stained and filthy piece of laundry which is his soul finally flies off the line of his life and into whatever world there comes next.

11:33 A.M.

Iron-Guts can't see, but he knows when his enemy dies-he feels the pa.s.sage of the son of a b.i.t.c.h's soul, and good G.o.ddam riddance. He staggers in the doorway, lost in a world of black s.p.a.ce and streaming white dots like galaxies.

"Now what?" he croaks.

The first thing is to get away from the gas the Designated Spic shot into his face. Hecksler backs into the hall, breathing as shallowly as possible, and then a voice speaks to him.

This way, Tony, it says calmly. Turn portside. I'm going to lead you out.

"Doug?" Hecksler croaks.

Yep. It's me , General MacArthur says. You're not exactly looking squared away, Tony, but you're still standing at the end of the fight, and that's the important thing. Turn portside, now. Walk forty paces, and that's gonna take you to the elevator.

Iron-Guts has lost his usually formidable sense of direction, but with that voice to guide him, he doesn't need it. He turns portside, which happens to be directly away from the reception area and the elevator. Blind, now facing toward the ivy-choked far end of the hallway, he begins to walk, trailing one hand along the wall. At first he thinks the soft touch slithering around his shoulders are Dougout Doug's guiding hands...but how can they be so thin? How can there be so many fingers? And what is that bitter smell?

Then Zenith is winding itself around his neck, shutting o ff his air, yanking him forward into its cannibal embrace. Hecksler tries to scream. Leaf-decked branches, slender but horribly strong, leap eagerly into his mouth. One wraps around the leathery meat of his tongue and yanks it out. Others thrust their way down his elderly gullet, anxious to sample the digestive stew of the General's last meal (two doughnuts, a cup of black coffee, and half a roll of antacids). Zenith loops bracelets of ivy around his arms and thighs. It fashions a new belt around his waist. It picks his pockets, spilling out a mostly nonsensical strew of litter: receipts, memoranda to himself, a guitar pick, twenty or thirty dollars in a.s.sorted change and currency, one of the S&H stamp-books in which he wrote his dispatches.

Anthony "Iron-Guts" Hecksler is pulled briskly into the jungle which now infests the rear of the fifth floor with his clothes shredding and his pockets turned out, feeding the plant the blood of insanity, bringing it to full life and consciousness, and here he pa.s.ses out of our tale forever.

From John Kenton's diary April 4, 1981 It's 10:45 P.M., and I'm sitting here waiting for the phone to ring. I remember, not so long ago, sitting in this same chair and waiting for Ruth to call, thinking that nothing could be worse than being a man in love sending thought-waves at the telephone, trying to make it ring.

But this is worse.

This is much worse.

Because when the phone finally rings, what if it's not Bill or Riddley on

the other end of the line? What if it's some New Jersey cop who wants to know- No. I refuse to let my mind run in that direction. It'll ring and it will be one of them. Or maybe Roger, if they call him first and leave it to him to call me. But everything is going to be fine.

Because now we have protection.

Let me go back to when I yanked the frypan right off the stove (which turned out to be something of a blessing; when I got back to the apartment some hours later, I discovered I'd left the burner on). I grabbed the kitchen table and kept on my feet, and then that G.o.dd.a.m.ned siren went off in the middle of my head.

I don't know how long it went on; pain really does negate the whole concept of time. Fortunately, the reverse also seems to be true: given time, even the most horrible pain loses its immediacy, and you can no longer remember exactly how it felt. This was bad, I know that much-like having the most delicate tissues of your body repeatedly raked by some sharp, barbed object.

When it finally did stop, I was cringing against the wall between the kitchen and my combination living room/study, shaking and sobbing, my cheeks wet with tears and my upper lip lathered with snot.

The pain was gone, but the sense of urgency wasn't. I needed to get to

the office, and just as fast as I could. I was almost down to the lobby of my building when I checked to see if I'd put anything on my feet. As it happened, I'd found an old pair of moccasins. I must have gotten them out of the closet by the TV, although I'll be d.a.m.ned if I can remember that part. If my feet had been bare, I'm not sure I could have forced myself to go back up to the ninth floor. That's how strong that sense of urgency was.

Of course I knew what the siren in my head had been, even though I'd never been given an actual demonstration of Sandra's Rainy Day Friend, and I suppose I knew what was calling me, as well: our new mascot.

I caught a taxi with no trouble-thank G.o.d for Sat.u.r.days-and the run from my place to Zenith House was a quick one. Bill Gelb was standing out in front, pacing back and forth with one side of his shirt untucked and hanging down over his belt, running his hands back and forth through his hair, which was standing up in spikes and quills. He looked as nutty as the old lady in front of Smiler's, and

Funny thought to have. Because there was no lady in front of Smiler's, not really. We know that now.

I'm getting ahead of myself again, but it's hard to write scintillating prose when you can't stop looking at the phone, willing the d.a.m.ned thing to go off and put an end to the suspense, one way or the other. But I'll try. I think I must try.

Bill saw me and raced over to the cab. He started grabbing at my arm while I was still trying to pay the driver, pulling me onto the curb as if I'd fallen into a shark-infested pool. I dropped some coins and started to bend over.

"Leave em, for Christ sake, leave em!" he barked. "Have you got your office keys? I left mine on the bureau at home. I was out for a..." Out for a walk was what he meant to say, but instead of finishing he gave a kind of outof-breath, screamy laugh. A woman pa.s.sing us gave him a hard look and hurried on a little faster. "Oh s.h.i.t, you know what I was doing."

Indeed I did. He'd been shooting c.r.a.ps in Central Park, but he'd left the majority of his cash on his bureau (along with his office keyring) because he had other plans for it. I could have gotten the other plans, too, if I'd wanted to look, but I didn't. One thing was obvious: the telepathic range of the plant has gotten stronger. A lot.

We started for the door, and just then another cab pulled up. Herb Porter got out, redder in the face than I'd ever seen him. The man looked like a stroke waiting to happen. I'd never seen him in bluejeans, either, or with his shirt misb.u.t.toned so it bloused out on one side. Also, it was sticking to his body and his hair (what little of it there is; he keeps it cropped short) was wet.

"I was in the G.o.ddam shower, okay?" he said. "Come on."

We went to the door and I managed to get my key in the slot after three pokes. My hand was shaking so badly I had to grasp my wrist with the other one to hold it steady. At least there was no weekend security guy in the lobby to worry about. I suppose that particular paranoid virus will work its way down Park Avenue South eventually, but for the time being, building management still a.s.sumes that if you've got the right set of keys, you must be in the right place.

We got in through the door and then Herb stopped, holding my upper arm with one hand and Bill's with the other. A daffy, goony smile was surfacing on his face, where his complexion had begun to subside to a more normal pink.

"He's dead, you guys. He wasn't before, but he is now. Ding-dong, the General's dead!" And to my total amazement, Herb Porter, the Barry Goldwater of 490 Park Avenue South, actually raised his hands, began snapping his fingers, and did a little Mexican hat-dance step.

"You're sick, Herb," Bill said.

"He's also right," I said. "The General's dead and so's-"

There came a clattery, disorganized knocking on the street door. It made us all jump and clutch each other. We must have looked like Dorothy and her friends on the Yellow Brick Road, faced with some new danger.

"Let go of me, both of you," Bill said. "It's just the boss."

It was indeed Roger, hammering on the door and peering in at us, with the tip of his nose squished into a little white dime against the gla.s.s. Bill let him in. Roger joined us. He also looked as if someone had lit him on fire and then blown him out, but at least he was dressed, socks and all. Probably he was on his way out, anyway.

"Where's Sandra?" was the first thing he asked.

"She was going to Cony Island," Herb said. His color was coming back, and I realized he was blushing. It was sort of cute, in a ponderous way. "She might well turn up, though." He paused. "If it carried that far. The telepathy thing, I mean." He looked almost timid, an expression I never expected to see on Herb's face. "What do you guys think?"

"I think it might have," Roger said. "That was her gadget that went off in our heads, wasn't it? The Dark and Stormy Night whatsit."

I nodded. So did Bill and Herb.

Roger took a deep breath, held it, then let it out. "Come on, let's see what kind of a mess we're in." He paused. "And whether or not we can get out of it."

The elevator seemed to take forever. None of us said anything, not out loud, anyway, and when I discovered I could turn off the run of their thoughts, I did so. Hearing all those muttering voices twined together in the middle of your head is distressing. I suppose that now I know how schizophrenics must feel.

When the door opened on the fifth floor and the smell hit us, we all winced. Not in distaste, but in surprise. "Oh man," Herb said. "All the way out here in the f.u.c.king hall. Do you suppose anyone else could smell it? I mean, anyone else but us?"