She loosed a final cry from the belly of the thing, and as it rose it seemed to Harry that the beast attempted a grin. Its face crinkled up grotesquely, the eyes narrowing like those of a laughing Buddha, the lips peeling back to expose a sickle of brilliant teeth. Behind this display the cry was finally hushed. In that instant the tiger leapt.
Harry fired into its devouring bulk and as the shot met its flesh the leer and the maw and the whole striped mass of it unwove in a single beat. Suddenly it was gone, and there was only a drizzle of pastel confetti spiralling down around him. The shot had aroused interest. There were raised voices in one or two of the apartments, and the light that had accompanied Butterfield from the elevator was brightening through the open door of the Bernstein residence. He was almost tempted to stay and see the light-bringer, but discretion bettered his curiosity, and he turned and made his descent, taking the stairs two and three at a time. The confetti tumbled after him, as if it had a life of its own. Barbara's life, perhaps; transformed into paper pieces and tossed away.
He reached the lobby breathless. The doorman was standing there, staring up the stairs vacantly.
'Somebody get shot?' he enquired.
'No,' said Harry, 'eaten.'
As he headed for the door he heard the elevator start to hum as it descended. Perhaps merely a tenant, coming down for a pre-dawn stroll. Perhaps not.
He left the doorman as he had found him, sullen and confused, and made his escape into the street, putting two block lengths between him and the apartment building before he stopped running. They did not bother to come after him. He was beneath their concern, most likely.
So what was he to do now? Valentin was dead, Barbara Bernstein too. He was none the wiser now than he'd been at the outset, except that he'd learned again the lesson he'd been taught in Wyckoff Street: that when dealing with the Gulfs it was wiser never to believe your eyes. The moment you trusted your senses, the moment you believed a tiger to be a tiger, you were half theirs.
Not a complicated lesson, but it seemed he had forgotten it, like a fool, and it had taken two deaths to teach it to him afresh. Maybe it would be simpler to have the rule tattooed on the back of his hand, so that he couldn't check the time without being reminded: Never believe your eyes.
The principle was still fresh in his mind as he walked back towards his apartment and a man stepped out of the doorway and said:
'Harry.'
It looked like Valentin; a wounded Valentin, a Valentin who'd been dismembered and sewn together again by a committee of blind surgeons, but the same man in essence. But then the tiger had looked like a tiger, hadn't it?
'It's me,' he said.
'Oh no,' Harry said. 'Not this time.'
'What are you talking about? It's Valentin.'
'So prove it.'
The other man looked puzzled. 'This is no time for games,' he said, 'we're in desperate straits.'
Harry took his .38 from his pocket and pointed at Valentin's chest. 'Prove it or I shoot you,' he said.
'Are you out of your mind?'
'I saw you torn apart.'
'Not quite,' said Valentin. His left arm was swathed in makeshift bandaging from fingertip to mid-bicep. 'It was touch and go ...'he said,'... but everything has its Achilles' heel. It's just a question of finding the right spot.'
Harry peered at the man. He wanted to believe that this was indeed Valentin, but it was too incredible to believe that the frail form in front of him could have survived the monstrosity he'd seen on 83rd Street. No; this was another illusion. Like the tiger: paper and malice.
The man broke Harry's train of thought. 'Your steak ...'he said.
'My steak?'
'You like it almost burned,' Valentin said. 'I protested, remember?'
Harry remembered. 'Go on,' he said.
'And you said you hated the sight of blood. Even, if it wasn't your own.'
'Yes,' said Harry. His doubts were lifting. 'That's right.'
'You asked me to prove I'm Valentin. That's the best I can do.' Harry was almost persuaded. 'In God's name,' Valentin said, 'do we have to debate this standing on the street?'
'You'd better come in.'
The apartment was small, but tonight it felt more stifling than ever. Valentin sat himself down with a good view of the door. He refused spirits or first-aid. Harry helped himself to bourbon. He was on his third shot when Valentin finally said:
'We have to go back to the house, Harry.'
'What?'
'We have to claim Swann's body before Butterfield.'
'I did my best already. It's not my business any more.'
'So you leave Swann to the Pit?' Valentin said.
'She doesn't care, why should I?'
'You mean Dorothea? She doesn't know what Swann was involved with. That's why she's so trusting. She has suspicions maybe, but, insofar as it is possible to be guiltless in all of this, she is.' He paused to adjust the position of his injured arm. 'She was a prostitute, you know. I don't suppose she told you that. Swann once said to me he married her because only prostitutes know the value of love.'
Harry let this apparent paradox go.
'Why did she stay with him?' he asked. 'He wasn't exactly faithful, was he?'
'She loved him,' Valentin replied. 'It's not unheard of.'
'And you?'
'Oh I loved him too, in spite of his stupidities. That's why we have to help him. If Butterfield and his associates get their hands on Swann's mortal remains, there'll be all Hell to pay.'
'I know. I got a glimpse at the Bernstein place.'
'What did you see?'
'Something and nothing,' said Harry. 'A tiger, I thought; only it wasn't.'
'The old paraphernalia,' Valentin commented.
'And there was something else with Butterfield. Something that shed light: I didn't see what.'
'The Castrate,' Valentin muttered to himself, clearly discomfited. 'We'll have to be careful.'
He stood up, the movement causing him to wince. 'I think we should be on our way, Harry.'
'Are you paying me for this?' Harry inquired, 'or am I doing it all for love?'
'You're doing it because of what happened at Wyckoff Street,' came the softly-spoken reply. 'Because you lost poor Mimi Lomax to the Gulfs, and you don't want to lose Swann. That is, if you've not already done so.'
They caught a cab on Madison Avenue and headed back uptown to 61st Street, keeping their silence as they rode. Harry had half a hundred questions to ask of Valentin. Who was Butterfield, for one, and what was Swann's crime was that he be pursued to death and beyond? So many puzzles. But Valentin looked sick and unfit for plying with questions. Besides, Harry sensed that the more he knew the less enthusiastic he would be about the journey they were now taking.
'We have perhaps one advantage -' Valentin said as they approached 61st Street. 'They can't be expecting this frontal attack. Butterfield presumes I'm dead, and probably thinks you're hiding your head in mortal terror.'
'I'm working on it.'
'You're not in danger,' Valentin replied, 'at least not the way Swann is. If they were to take you apart limb by limb it would be nothing beside the torments they have waiting for the magician.'
'Illusionist,' Harry corrected him, but Valentin shook his head.
'Magician he was; magician he will always be.'
The driver interrupted before Harry could quote Dorothea on the subject.
'What number you people want?' he said.
'Just drop us here on the right,' Valentin instructed him. 'And wait for us, understand?'
'Sure.'
Valentin turned to Harry. 'Give the man fifty dollars.'
'Fifty?
'Do you want him to wait or not?'
Harry counted four tens and ten singles into the driver's hand.