Wetting his hands with saliva, he grabbed the metal ladder and began to climb again. He kept going past the next ledge and stopped about five feet below the ledge Weiss was on. Weiss was just above him and slightly to his right. “Mr. Weiss, I’m going to come up, but don’t worry, all I want is to talk,” Rudderham said, hoping his voice sounded reassuring.
When Harry Rudderham was eye level to the ledge, Weiss said, “You stay right there.” Weiss was about five feet to his right, in the same position. He was a small man. Mid-fifties, Rudderham pegged him. He had on work clothes — baggy pants, faded blue shirt. He wore paint-speckled eyeglasses with a crack in the right lens. It made him squint.
“You’re a brave man, Mr. Policeman. But you’re a fool. I mean what I say. I am very determined. Very determined.” Weiss looked at Rudderham, and then beyond him, eyes vacant and glassy.
Harry Rudderham adjusted himself on the ladder. The thing was burning hot and his hands hurt.
“Don’t you try anything, Mr. Policeman. If you do, I’ll push the switch. Here, look.” He held the box for the lieutenant to see. It was a green wooden box, somewhat larger than a shoe box, with a toggle switch on top. “I have twenty-five sticks of dynamite in here, Mr. Policeman. I think that’s enough, don’t you?”
The question was tantalizing. What was in the box? Very possibly, nothing.
Henry Rudderham looked past Weiss to the row of houses, suddenly realizing that he was directly in the line of fire. Somehow, he would have to lure the man to move one way or the other while he got safely below the ledge. “Mr. Weiss,” he said, “my God, it’s hot here especially with the sun beating off this tank. Why don’t we at least move around the other side to the shade?”
“Yes. I’m very hot. But it won’t be for much longer.”
This was perverse. “I have to reach into my pocket for my handkerchief so don’t think I’m reaching for anything else.” Rudderham drew out the rumpled cloth and wiped his dripping nose. He then blew hard into it.
“This hayfever is a real pain in the neck, I’m telling you. I get it every spring and then it goes away for a while until mid-August right through September or even into October.”
It was ludicrous standing on this ladder, holding on first with one hand then with the other because of the hot metal, talking about hayfever when at any moment he might be blown into molecules. As he talked, Harry Rudderham watched Weiss closely. The man would look at him and then look away dreamily. Occasionally, he looked at the green box in his hand, caressing it absently like a pet cat.
“I used to take shots for it when I was a kid. I had it real bad then. Now, the pills control it pretty well, but not completely, as you can see. Heh, heh.”
Paying the lieutenant no attention, Weiss was mumbling to himself. Rudderham wished he had his gun. He was sure he could get the man. “Ah, do you have any kids, Mr. Weiss?”
“What’s that?”
“I just asked if you have any kids.”
Weiss looked strangely at the lieutenant. “No. Not any more.”
Suddenly, Harry Rudderham was convinced that the box really did contain explosives and that the man intended to use them. He knew he had to operate on that assumption. If it were a bluff, there was nothing to lose. If he precipitated the man into early action... well, that was the chance.
“You know what’s sad, Mr. Weiss?” he asked, hoping fear and fatique hadn’t robbed him of good judgement. “That you, by appointing yourself as God, are going to rob a lot of people of the chance to rise above the thing you want to destroy.”
He regarded the man closely. He seemed still to be paying no attention. “There are a lot of kids living in those homes. Kids who like living.” Rudderham glanced down at his watch. Eleven-eighteen. “But now some righteous fanatic is going to take their lives away. History is filled with people like you who do more evil in the name of what they think is good.”
He paused, swallowing hard. What the hell, he didn’t have all day. “In short, Mr. Weiss,” Rudderham shouted, “you’re a goddam nut who’s just going to hurt a lot of people and not solve anything.”
Weiss turned suddenly, eyes blazing. His mouth was working and a stream of incoherent syllables gushed out. As Weiss began to slide in his direction, Rudderham waited until the man had moved about half the distance toward him and then ducked his head.
Two quick reports cracked the air, then a third, followed by a shriek of pain. Rudderham heard the box fall to the ledge. He popped his head up quickly, hoping the rifle fire had ceased.
Weiss was propped against the side of the tank, spun around by the impact of the bullet. Animal noises came from his throat as his eyes rolled wildly. His eyeglasses were gone. Blood trickled from under his right armpit. Exit wound, the lieutenant noted irrelevantly. The box was an inch or two from the side of the ledge about four feet from Rudderham.
Shrieking animal sounds, Weiss started toward it. Pulling-himself up on to the ledge and with a frantic kick of his feet, Rudderham dove at Weiss. The man was fantastically strong. With incredible strength, he dug his fingers into the lieutenant’s face, tearing into the flesh with his nails. Rudderham felt himself being turned over and pinned to the ledge.
Weiss, teeth bared, face contorted in pain and rage, pushed into Rudderham’s chin with the heel of his left hand while with his right he groped for the box. Rudderham clung to Weiss’s right arm; from the corner of his eye he could see the fingers probing for the toggle switch. He felt his head being forced back and throat stretched by the relentless left hand and he thought he was going to gag. The sun glared down, nearly blinding him.
Suddenly, in his efforts to grab the box, Weiss swung over Rudderham, straddling him. Bringing his leg up sharply, the lieutenant drove his knee into the man’s groin. With a bellow of agony, Weiss fell back, clutching his belly.
As Weiss rose to his knees and started toward the box again, Rudderham plunged forward driving his head into his stomach. Falling backward, Weiss slipped into the ladder chute, his head striking one of the rungs. Rudderham watched him fall down the chute like a bag of laundry, bumping back and forth, from side to side, until a leg caught in a rung, and he sat still, wedged grotesquely near the bottom.
For a moment Harry Rudderham lay watching the inert form. In the distance, he heard sirens wailing their electric note. He picked himself up and sidled to the box. He checked his watch. Eleven-twenty-nine. Putting his ear to the box, he listened carefully for a back-up timing device. Nothing. It could be acid and off considerably either way. The box had to be removed from the proximity of the tank.
Lieutenant Harry Rudderham picked the box up, went to the ladder and, wedging it with his right arm against his chest, began a rapid but cautious descent. Near the bottom of the ladder, he heard the demo truck swing through the gate. When he reached Weiss’s form blocking the chute, he removed the leg dangling through the rung and the man fell to the ground. Stepping over Weiss, he handed the box to the heavily padded man who had stepped from the truck.
Less than a half hour later, Chavez pulled the sedan on to the street of neat two and three family homes. Rudderham looked at his watch. Twelve-fifty. A nice cold shower then out for lunch with Helen if she hadn’t eaten. The hell with a nap. He watched the row of houses slide past the car. Not a bad neighborhood, but someday he wanted to live on the first floor. He was tired of climbing stairs.
Mike Chavez pulled the car to the curb and stopped. “Quite a day,” he said.