The wind cut around the open dampers, making a singing noise. He peered down the interior of the smokestack, but it was so dark he could see nothing. It muttered and groaned restlessly. The wind blasted across the top, the iron platform shaking, and the stack swayed. The damn thing really was about to fall.
About to fall…
For some reason, an image of Orchid formed in his mind. You’re in some kind of trouble, aren’t you? Why don’t you let me help you? Why do you keep pushing me away?
He looked at the damper system. It was all brass and still in good condition, a long lever operating a set of gears that raised and lowered the semicircular dampers. Grasping the lever, Gideon pulled on it. The heavy dampers creaked and shuddered but appeared frozen in place. He gave the lever a hard yank: still nothing. Grasping the platform with both hands, he raised his foot and gave the lever a kick.
The lever flipped up and the dampers fell shut with a massive boom, sending a shock wave vibrating down the entire length of the smokestack. A dozen bricks peeled off the top, dropping into blackness, and the stack rocked violently.
“What are you doing?” Nodding Crane cried from below, his disembodied voice filled with horror.
A grim smile briefly crossed Gideon’s features.
Grasping the handle, crouching on the trembling platform, he leaned in with all his might and forced the dampers open again, the bass wheels turning, flaking verdigris. The two dampers rose back up like a drawbridge.
He pulled the lever and dropped them again.
This crash sent an even more violent shudder down the smokestack. A flurry of crackling, grinding noises came up the flue as the entire stack shook.
“You’re insane!” cried Nodding Crane. A flash of lightning revealed that he was now just below the lip of the platform and Gideon could hear his heavy gasps, the iron stairway groaning with his steps. He was amazed the man had the courage to get so far. Bizarrely, he could see fingerpicks gleaming on the fingers of Nodding Crane’s right hand.
Gideon forced the dampers open again. “Say good night!” he yelled, letting the lever drop again with a thunderous boom.
“ No!”
He forced the dampers open once more, dropped them again — and this time the entire stack seemed to shift on its rotten base. A grinding noise came from far below.
“You fool!” In a flash of lightning Gideon got a glimpse of Nodding Crane gripping the stairway twenty feet below — clearly terrified — and now descending.
A maniacal laugh erupted from Gideon. “Who’s the fool?” he shouted. “I’m the one who’s not afraid to die! You should have stayed down there, waited me out!”
He let the dampers crash shut again. The platform shuddered, tilted abruptly with the crack of snapping steel, and Gideon began to slide. He seized the damper lever and held on. With a great popping of iron stays, the platform leaned sideways, the wind catching it like a sail and jamming it over; with a final screech it broke loose and plunged down into the darkness, leaving Gideon clinging to the brass lever at the ruined mouth of the chimney, his legs dangling in space.
Another flash of lightning. Nodding Crane was descending the ladder as fast as he could. If he reached the bottom, Gideon would lose his chance at revenge. And he would still die.
With a strength he didn’t know he had, he hoisted himself up and swung his leg over the lever. From there he was able to climb onto the rim of the smokestack, clinging to the ash grating. He could feel it shifting and moving beneath him, the grinding noise rising in volume up the flue. Something was happening and it sounded like a runaway process of failure. He brought down the dampers again with another mighty crash, sending one more shock wave down the stack.
With a strange grinding, moaning noise, the immense stack listed one way, then the other, pausing, stopping — and then, in extremely slow motion, it began to lean more and more away from the direction of the wind.
This time it didn’t move back to vertical. It continued to lean, the wind pushing it over. The top shook violently, once, twice.
“Nooo!” came a scream from below.
There was a rumble of bricks splitting and grinding under the shifting weight of the smokestack. It was going over, no question about it. Both of them would die. Gideon only hoped his end would be quick.
A crack of livid lightning exposed Nodding Crane. He wasn’t quite halfway down.
“This is for Orchid, you bastard!” Gideon screamed down into the darkness.
The stack leaned out, falling faster, gathering speed. Another arc of lightning cut the sky, illuminating the turbulent sea below.
And that was when Gideon realized all was not lost. The stack was falling toward the water.
Faster and faster it fell, the wind roaring in his ears, as he clung to the lever, riding the crumbling smokestack down. His senses were assaulted by the deafening thunder of the collapsing structure; the air that rushed in his ears; the howling wind; the approaching roar of the sea. Through the flickers of lightning he could see the lower sections of the smokestack exploding against the ground in a running cloud of bricks, drawing a line of ruin in the direction of the water. As the sea came rushing up, Gideon braced himself. Just before the mouth of the stack crashed into the sea he leapt up and out, shedding some of his downward momentum while stiffening his body and clenching his stomach muscles and hands, seeking to hit the water in a rigid, vertical position.
He struck with tremendous force and was instantly plunged deep. He quickly spread out his legs and arms, slowing, then stopping, his descent into the depths. Then he swam upward, struggling in the chill water. Up and up he went, but the surface seemed too far to reach.
Just when he thought his lungs would burst, he broke through, gasping and heaving, sucking in air, treading water in the teeth of the storm. All was blackness. But then, as he rose on a swell, he could just make out the lights of City Island, and that oriented him.
Treading water, he tried to recover his breath, his strength. Then he struck out for the cobbled beach and his boat, swimming through the violent, heaving seas, the water breaking over his head and forcing him under every few seconds. His broken ribs were like veins of fire in his chest. But he kept on, the darkness complete, the boom and roar of the storm all around him like a violent womb. What little strength remained was rapidly ebbing. It would be ironic, he thought, if he survived all this only to drown.
But he was going to drown. He could hardly move his arms and legs anymore. He couldn’t keep his head above water. A big wave shoved him under and he realized he just didn’t have the strength to struggle back up.
That was when his feet struck the underwater cobbles of the beach and he was able to stand.
He didn’t know how long he lay on the beach or even how he found the strength to crawl above the booming surf. But he came back into consciousness on the high part of the strand. Next to him he could see the shattered mass of the great smokestack lying across the beach and going down to the water. Pulverized bricks lay everywhere, amid pieces of twisted metal.
Metal.He clasped at his pocket in sudden fear. The wire was still there.
Dragging himself to his hands and knees, he crawled over the rubble, using the lightning as his guide. There, after a brief search, he found the body of Nodding Crane nestled among the broken bricks, not five feet from the sea. In his fear, he had tried to descend. And that was what had killed him: he struck the ground instead of the water.
The body was a hideous, pulped mess.
Gideon crawled away and — finally — managed to rise to his feet. With a sense of emptiness, of utter physical and spiritual exhaustion, he stumbled away from the crushed remains of the smokestack to the salt marsh where he had hidden his boat.
He still had one very important thing left to do.
Epilogue
Gideon Crew followed Garza into the confines of the EES building on Little West 12th Street. Garza had said nothing, but Gideon could feel anger emanating from the man as if from a heat lamp.