I was just a little off balance. The human body is always off balance, unless you’re standing still with both feet planted. The ancient Tibetan monks who worked up the sciences of jiu-jitsu and bar-jitsu knew that. There are ways to fight a knife flashing at you, edge up. The bar-jitsu boys make it look easy. Two slaps with either hand. A nerve bitten at the base of the thumb, on the back of the hand. The knife jumps away, there is only a pain in the forearm. It was something to know. I wished I knew. I only knew to duck low, under the knife he held at belly level, shoving forward to knock him off balance so he couldn’t get the knife around and use it against my neck. I pushed him back and straightened up, taking my arms from around him, shoving his good right arm high so that he had to reverse it to make use of the blade. I got hold of the arm first and, when Gilmer’s reflexes stiffened it, used the arm like a lever to throw him halfway across the room. He sailed in a flat arc to the table where the woman had worked at her figures. He hit the table on his back and rebounded slightly so that when momentum carried him to the edge of the table he was almost sitting up. He went off the table and sprawled face first into another shelf of figures. He got one arm up to ease the impact. The little dolls jumped from the shelves, popping against the concrete floor.
Winkie spun away. He wasn’t holding the knife. His other arm, the one that wasn’t in front of his face, lashed out and cleared a shelf of bottles. He would have fallen but his fingers gripped the edge of the shelf, and he held himself up. A broken jug of something that looked like linseed oil was emptying down over his face and the front of his shirt. He turned, one hand closing on the neck of the broken bottle as I hopped across the table after him. I was going to go into him with my fists but changed my mind in mid-air and hit him with both feet together, right above the belt. The broken bottle went spinning. Winkie’s legs shot out from under him. His hands broke his fall.
Gilmer crawled to his knees. I had hit the floor after kicking him, and one of my elbows was numb. I was afraid it was broken. I turned on the floor to defend myself if he came after me. It would be a poor job with one arm. But Gilmer apparently didn’t know I was hurt. He looked away from me quickly, his face wrinkling with alarm. I glanced under the table and saw the woman on her hands and knees near the door, picking up my automatic. I hadn’t paid any attention to her until now. I saw blood dripping slowly from her face. The gun was all set to go off — when she found something to shoot at.
Winkie’s eyes settled on a window. He went for it, picking up a chair along the way. In the time it took me to get on my feet he smashed out the window and went through it, feet first.
I followed him without bothering to retrieve my gun. He was a fleet shadow running through back yards a hundred feet from me. A fence in his way gave me a chance to narrow the distance. He looked behind him. He didn’t have a knife, didn’t have a gun. I was bigger than he was. Gilmer must have been unhappy. He ran the length of the fence, stumbled into an alley. He ran hard, waving his arms, legs working furiously. I ran more smoothly, with long strides, not using so much energy. Fear pushed him on. He stayed thirty paces ahead of me. Fences kept him in the alley.
Gilmer angled across the first street that intersected the alley, heading for the square skeleton of a four-story building under construction. There were stacks of concrete blocks and lumber lying around. I sprinted harder, closing in on him. He stumbled, struggled across a mound of sawdust. I avoided the pile. His flight carried him inside the building. The supports and floors had been poured, and three of the ground-floor walls were blocked in. Winkie stopped, seeing he had trapped himself, then went up a ladder to the second floor. There were no stairs yet. I followed him. I heard him breathing hoarsely above me. He was only three rungs ahead of me.
He didn’t stop on the second floor but continued upward. There was no place for him to hide on the third floor, either. Both of us were tiring, our speed of climb slowing. My lungs were bound with hot wires. We hit the last ladder. Winkie slipped once, hung by his hands. I came close enough to reach out for his foot. He pulled the leg up, scrambled up the remaining rungs. He was making shrill sounds of anxiety now.
On the top floor his hands found a length of pipe as he crawled away from the ladder opening. I saw him turn with it as I pulled myself up. There was flickering light somewhere and I saw the happy look in his eyes as he swung around, lifted the piece of pipe high.
“Now you gonna get it,” he breathed. I got my knees over the edge of the opening, put an arm up. The blow knocked me flat on my back. If the pipe had connected with my forearm, the bone would have been shattered. Bunched muscles in my upper arm caught the blow. He lunged after me, intent on smashing my head with the pipe. I rolled quickly. There was an oily smell close by. I saw Gilmer hovering above me, his face and hair covered with sweat and linseed oil. It dripped off his chin. Sawdust clung to the oil.
My groping hand found the source of the smoke and the flickering light. My fingers scratched at hardening concrete. I kept my eyes on Winkie. The pipe was swinging backward. He was being careful to nail my head, alert for any evasive movement. I picked up the round flaming pot of kerosene that had been left to warn prowlers away from the drying patch of cement, flung it at him with a sweeping movement of my arm. I aimed for his chest. The little black pot bounced away, but the lick of flame had touched the linseed oil-soaked clothing and a bright flaring torch framed Winkie’s surprised face for just a second before the fist of flame closed around it and charred the stubble of hair on his head, seared the flesh, blinded him. He screamed. His hands let go the pipe and he clawed at his burning face. He stumbled back three steps, shrieking wildly as the flames ate away all expression, staining the air with the scorch of flesh.
Then, surprisingly, Winkie was gone. I crawled to the edge of the rectangular opening in the floor where the stairs would eventually go, and saw him hit the sand floor four stories below. He landed on his back. The fire on his chest and head flared brighter for an instant, then steadily and quietly burned away his clothing.
There was a little pile of sand close by. I shoveled some of it into the opening with my hands and it hissed downward to shower over the burning body. After enough of it had fallen the flames were extinguished.
I went down the ladders with great care, every muscle trembling. I had to stop and rest on every floor. On the ground floor I glanced quickly at the gunman. Half of him was charred. The fall had probably killed him anyway. The stench was nauseating. I felt a touch of regret that he was dead. Now there would be no answers for my questions.
I got out of there, walked back to the furniture store through the alley, climbed in through the shattered window. I stopped with one foot inside. She was sitting at the table, holding the gun in both fat hands. There was a maniacal look in her eyes. Her once carefully waved hair stuck out all over her head. Each breath she took sounded like a retch. There was a long gash on one of her cheeks, cutting deep through the fat to the solid cheekbone. Blood from it was smeared on her face and hands.
“Easy,” I said, not moving. I couldn’t be sure she knew me.
“Where is he?” she said in a hard voice.
“Back there.” I nodded over one shoulder.
“You killed him?”
“He’s dead.”
Her fingers unclenched and the gun thudded on the table. I brought my other leg through the window.
“You see what he did to me,” she said. “Oh, the dirty bastard. He cut me. He didn’t need to do that. He didn’t have to.”