It was late morning of the day that would long live in my memory as Simmons' Sunday.
Crouched in the closet again, this time with the door plainly marked "Occupied," I eagerly watched events begin to unfold.
Heller, at his office desk, had been working on some calculations for quantities and volumes of spores. He now stood up and went to the window. Lower Manhattan spread out before his gaze under the mantle of sun-illuminated smog.
The Countess Krak was lying in the middle of the room on the rug going over museum programs, the cat dragging them off a pile for her.
"What's the matter, dear?" she said to Heller. "You seem rather agitated."
"Me? Agitated? Well, yes, but that's a pretty strong word. Bang-Bang phoned about an hour ago and said the Nature Appreciation class location had been changed to
Van Cortlandt Park today. It was to have been the Bronx Zoo. I was wondering why."
"That's that Miss Simmons, isn't it, dear?"
"I wish you'd forget about this Miss Simmons thing. She hates me like poison. My only interest in her is that she could cost me my diploma and nobody will listen to me when I make my proposals."
"I shouldn't be counting on proposing to Miss Simmons, dear."
"Please, can't we call a truce on..."
"Dear, what is the weather like?"
"A warm, spring day," said Heller. "If it weren't for the smog, it would be beautiful. In a lot of ways, you know, this is a very nice planet."
"Well, that's probably why they changed the class location," said the Countess Krak. "Who'd want to be penned up in some stuffy zoo? Are you driving, dear?"
"Well, yes. That's a good idea," said Heller. "I put the new carburetor on the Porsche and I haven't had a chance to give it a good spin."
"You do that," said the Countess Krak. "I have some exhibits I want to see, so if you don't mind, dear, I'll just run along."
She was up like a shot. She had her blue suede topcoat, purse, shopping bag and hat right by the door. She gathered them up in one scoop and was gone.
Heller glanced out of the window again. Then he got into a white silk trench coat, found some papers and a notebook and put them in his pocket. He glanced down at his feet. He was wearing ankle-high walking boots and not his spikes. It gave me a nice feeling: if the police were waiting for him up there, he had no cleats to battle with. He was getting satisfactorily careless.
The Countess Krak had plummeted down in an elevator. She came out of the building on 34th Street, walked swiftly up the block and sped into a new, multistory, spiral-roadway garage. The attendant waved at her; she got into an elevator and shot upwards.
She was fishing in her purse. She stepped out into the ranks of cars. She spotted the blue Porsche. She opened the door, entered, closed and relocked it from within, and then, as only a trained magician's assistant can do, curled herself up in the big luggage compartment behind the front seat and dropped the luggage canvas over her.
It made me nervous. I had forgotten to fill the strip well in her viewer and had no way to check back on what she had packed in that shopping bag. I had not counted on her presence at the next class. Maybe Bang-Bang, (bleep) him, had gotten her a demountable sniper rifle. These stupid men around her didn't seem to realize what they were dealing with-a killer! The Countess Krak would have made top Mafia hit men look like kids shooting marbles. I knew her for what she was-a dangerous fiend with a thirst for blood unequalled by even Dracula of Earth fame.
Heller came trotting along shortly. He must have noted that the springs seemed a bit lower, for he gave the car a cursory exterior and motor check, probably for bombs. Then he gave an "Oh well," and started the car up, possibly believing all the monkeying he was doing with it had changed its balance or weight.
He sent it spinning down the ramp and shot it out onto the street. It was Sunday and New York, doubtlessly recovering from a Saturday night hangover, had about as much traffic on the streets as a cemetery.
He was shifting up and down through the gears like a rally driver. The purring Porsche was shortly onto the West Side Elevated Highway and in no time at all was on the Henry Hudson Parkway. The river was blue and sparkling in the spring sun. The George Washington Bridge flicked by.
It worried me. He was driving by the tachometer, not the speedometer, and while he could have outdistanced a cop with that Porsche like the squad car was standing still, I yet was afraid he would get arrested for speeding and his appointment with destiny would be interrupted. But there just plain wasn't any traffic. Those leaving for the country were gone and they had not yet begun to create the traffic jams of return. For once I was glad the police were asleep where Heller was concerned. Nothing must interfere with the coming catastrophe.
He had the stereo going and a song came over:
Fatal Woman,
Cherchez la femme.
Fatal Woman,
So drenched in sin.
Fatal Woman,
The Devil's twin.
Fatal Woman,
You done me in.
And that's why I shall die.
I smiled so broadly, I almost tore my lip. It went double for Heller: the one riding just behind him and the one waiting in that park ahead with scissors across his fate line, all ready to snip.
I almost felt sorry for the poor (bleepard). There he was, driving along so gay in his hopped-up Porsche, enjoying the early spring day, little suspecting the bomb that had been planted by the woman hidden behind him-and neither of them aware at all of the fuse sizzling up ahead, lit by me.
It's bad enough to face one woman. But he was absolutely surrounded with the treacherous species.
He continued on the highway into Van Cortlandt Park and shortly took a branch to the right. He was now driving through a vast expanse of golf course. He found a turnoff and a parking lot. He stopped, got out and locked his car. He went swinging off past some golfers and onto a woods trail.
The Countess Krak waited. Then she rose up and looked around. All was clear. She got out and locked the car. Then, with the aid of a side mirror, she adjusted her black beret and put on a set of very dark glasses, for all the world as though they would disguise her, and set off after Heller, shopping bag on her arm.
I was puzzled. I was getting two sets of footsteps in the Countess Krak's audio. I couldn't make it out. I turned Heller's off for a moment. Yes, two sets of footsteps from the Countess Krak's speaker.
Very difficult to understand how this was happening.
She was going along the path at least two hundred yards behind Heller, completely out of his view.
He was walking along briskly.
The Countess Krak did not seem to be the least bit concerned about losing him.
Heller came to a high point in the trail. I recognized it. It was the same place he had stood months before when he had been stopped by the gang. This time he looked behind the trees to right and left. Nobody hiding there. But a bullet scar was visible.
He looked down into the vale. New grass was just beginning to spring up. The trees round about were in bud.
Several students were down there, sitting around on broken trunks and stones.
Miss Simmons was standing behind a large, flat stump. It made a sort of an altar facing the class. A sacrificial altar, I trusted.
Heller, unarmed and unsuspecting, walked down the path to the group. Miss Simmons had spotted him from some distance away. When he came up, he would have taken a place back of the other students, a bit off to himself.
Miss Simmons fixed him with a cold eye. She pointed to a white stone near the altar to her right. She said, firmly, "Wister, sit there."
It was like putting somebody in the dock reserved for the accused. Or, I hoped, the spot where they put the condemned to hear sentence.