'Mr. Gaines,' he said, 'you're crazy. If you go out there, you won't last two minutes. Those rats are fierce and they're hungry. I've come up against them before, when I was a kid, and I've seen a man have half his nose bitten off. That was just one. There must be hundreds out there.'
Dr. Petrie looked at the old actor and said, 'It's no use, you know, Mr. Gaines. You might as well admit it.'
Herbert Gaines looked up at the ceiling. Just a few storeys above him, perched impatiently on the roof, was his means of escape, his way to a glittering political destiny.
Kenneth Garunisch said, 'Power's an attractive thing, Mr. Gaines, ain't it? You've tasted it now, haven't you, and wasn't that taste good?'
Herbert Gaines stared at him. 'I don't know what you mean. I have to go, that's all. They sent the helicopter and I have to go.'
He paced urgently across the room. Then he said, 'Fire! That's it! They don't like fire!'
'Mr. Gaines,' said Garunisch, 'what the hell are you talking about?'
'It's true!' said Gaines. 'You can always fight them with fire! It's in that movie — River Boat! Now, where's that Variety we brought down with us? Nicky — where is it?'
Nicholas, sulking, didn't even answer. Herbert Gaines fumbled around in his touzled bed until he found the paper. He rolled it up, and brandished it around. 'This, my friends, will be my salvation!' He picked up the table lighter that Garunisch had used to kill the rat, and he flicked it. Then he carefully applied the flame to the edge of Variety, until the paper was burning like a torch.
Dr. Petrie stepped forward, but Kenneth Garunisch reached out and held his arm.
'Let him go, doctor. Just help me make sure that no more rats get into the place. You can't stand between a man and his destiny, even if you think he's a shit.'
Dr. Petrie said, 'But it's insane! He won't last a minute out there!'
'That's his problem. He wants to go.' Nicholas, standing next to them, nodded his head. 'You're right, Mr. Garunisch. Herbert's a born martyr. You'd have to kill him to stop him killing himself.'
Herbert Gaines was making sure that the copy of Variety was well alight. Then he went to the door, and held it in front of him.
'You wait till they see this!' he said triumphantly. 'This'll sort them out!'
Dr. Petrie and Kenneth Garunisch positioned themselves behind the door so that they could slam it shut the second that Herbert Gaines had gone through. The room was already smokey and filled with black wisps of ash, but Herbert had his paper burning well now, and was ready to go.
He opened the door, waving the blazing Variety in a wide fluttering arc. The rats went for his legs like gray greasy torpedoes, but the flames were enough to keep them from jumping at his face and throat.
Kicking three or four rats away, Dr. Petrie shut the door again, and locked it.
Herbert had three flights of stairs to go to reach the roof. The first flight wasn't too bad, because he managed to knock most of the rats away from his legs, and his paper was still burning. Halfway up the second flight, with his heart pounding and his sixty-year-old lungs beginning to feel the strain, he started to falter. The flames abruptly went out, and he was left with nothing but a half-burned Variety to beat off the most vicious animals he had ever seen.
The third flight was the beginning of his Calvary. The rats were hanging on to his arms now, and biting into his back arid his sides. His legs were thick with them, and he could feel their teeth in his thighs. He kept his hands over his face and stumbled up blindly, but they still leaped up at him and bit into his fingers, until his hands were gloved in rats.
The agony of it was enormous. He couldn't even cry out, unless they bit into his mouth, and there was already a huge brown sewer rat dangling from the soft flesh under his chin. He tried to keep his mind above the pain, above this dreadful cloak of biting, squeaking creatures, and firmly concentrated on the roof — the roof — and his wonderful helicopter.
He had to take one hand away from his face to open the door to the roof. His arm seemed to weigh hundreds of pounds, and it was swinging with rats like the fence round a trapper's cabin. One of the beasts launched itself at his cheek, and he lost precious seconds hitting it away.
The helicopter pilot was a 36-year-old veteran called Andy Folger. He was checking his watch impatiently when the roof door opened, and the first thing he did was start up his engine and get his rotors turning. He cast a quick eye over the fuel reading, and then reached over to open the opposite door of the cockpit. The quicker he got this mission over, the better he was going to like it.
He heard a muffled screaming noise, and he turned. He had a feeling in his stomach like an elevator dropping thirty floors in ten seconds. Folger stared at the hunched heap of wriggling gray fur that was moving towards him. He couldn't understand what he was seeing at first, and when he did, his mind almost blanked out.
He didn't see the rats that ran out of the open door to the stairs, and scuttled across to his helicopter. He reached over to close the cockpit door again, and one of them leaped up and bit his hand. He banged the rat against the side of the cockpit, but it clung on, and while it clung on, another rat jumped into the helicopter, and another.
He beat the animal away from his hand, revved the engine, and pulled back the stick. The helicopter's rotors whistled faster and faster, and the Bell lifted off from the rooftop and circled away towards the north.
Three rats scurried around the cockpit, and one of them jumped at Folger's face. He tried to smack it away, but then another rat nipped at his arm.
The helicopter went out of control. Wrestling against twisting rats and a bucking control stick, Andy Folger saw the horizon turn upside down, and the buildings of First Avenue swivel all around him. He saw streets — sky — buildings — streets — and then the helicopter fluttered and twisted and plummeted eighteen storeys. It fell on to the glass roof of a supermarket and exploded in a hot spray of fire that rolled upwards and burned itself out.
On the top of Concorde Tower, Herbert Gaines neither saw nor heard. His mind was still somewhere inside that costume of rats, but it was dwindling very quickly, and was soon to be gone.
Sometime during the afternoon, the power from their generator died. They were sitting quietly around the apartment, and the lights suddenly dimmed and went out. They heard the freezer motor in the kitchen shudder and stop.
Dr. Petrie, who had been sitting on the settee with Prickles, reading her a story, looked up.
'Daddy,' said Prickles, wide-eyed, 'it's gone dark.'
Kenneth Garunisch got out of his armchair and went to try the lights. There was no doubt that they were dead.
He shrugged and said, 'It's the generator. The goddamned thing's probably clogged up with rats.'
Esmeralda, sitting cross-legged on the floor, said, 'What are we going to do now? All our food's going to spoil. I doubt if we've got enough canned stuff to last us a week. There are six of us, right? — seven including Prickles — and I don't think we've got more than nine or ten cans of meat, and a few dozen cans of fruit. Maybe I should check.'
'Jesus,' said Nicholas. 'That's all we need.'
Kenneth Garunisch lit a cigarette. 'I thought you'd be pleased. Now you won't have to force yourself to eat Herbert's goulasch.'
'Ken — I don't think you ought to speak ill of the dead,' said his wife worriedly.
'Why not?' said Garunisch, blowing smoke. 'That was what he wanted, wasn't it? A glorious fiery plunge from the top of the city's ritziest apartment.'
Nicholas lowered his head and sighed. 'I don't know what he wanted, Mr. Garunisch. He was actually very kind. Except to himself, that is.'