Nuclear war with Russia, their line of insane reasoning went, could well be the Armageddon referred to in the Bible. Consequently, not only would it be moral to start such a war, but the people launching it would be carrying out an act of Divine Providence. These chiliasts believed that it was God's will that millions should die in order to bring on Armageddon and the eventual Kingdom of God on earth. These people didn't fear nuclear holocaust; indeed, they couldn't wait for the bombs to start falling.
I could well be talking to such a man. Tanker Thompson, Craig Valley, Floyd and Baxter Small, William Kenecky, Peter Patton, and Henry Blaisdel-lovers of death, all of them, men who viewed their own and everyone else's extermination with what could only be described as a kind of sexual frenzy.
"Tanker," I said softly, "you people are doing more than just hanging around waiting for the Rapture and Tribulation to begin Thursday at midnight, aren't you? You've got something cooked up to start the ball rolling, right? That's why you're so certain Garth and I are going to die."
Tanker Thompson smiled, nodded. "It's God's will."
"It's the ultimate in necrophilia, is what it is," I said tersely, feeling my heart start to pound. "What's going to happen? How many other people are going to escape the Tribulation because they'll be dead, Tanker?"
"Many. It will be a blessing. What's necrophilia, dwarf?"
"You killed Peter Patton. Who's in charge now? Henry Blaisdel?"
Tanker Thompson laughed softly. "God is in charge. It can't be stopped now. Praise the Lord. Jesus is coming."
"If it can't be stopped, why hang on to Garth? If it's God's will that the Tribulation should come, then no human should be able to stop it."
"No human must be allowed to try. That's why I'm here."
"Then it can be stopped?"
"Not by you."
"Where's Garth, Tanker? Is he where Vicky Brown is?"
"No."
"Where is Vicky Brown?"
"She's safe, dwarf. I told you that."
"She's in a biosphere somewhere around here, isn't she? Nuvironment has actually built one of those things, right?"
There was a long pause. I didn't think Thompson was going to answer me, so his answer came as a surprise. "Not around here," he said at last.
"The letter she wrote to Santa Claus was mailed in New York."
"Patton told me about the letter. That was what started it all. It's how you and your brother found out about Vicky and Kenecky. . and other things."
"Yes."
Tanker Thompson made a low, guttural sound in his throat that could have been a curse. "The devil even uses children," he said. "I was a fool. I should have read it before I mailed it."
"You mailed the letter?"
The man absently nodded his shaved head, winced slightly when the motion pulled at his ears. "I didn't see how it could hurt. Vicky asked me to, and I wanted to make her happy. I was wrong; I should have been more vigilant. Satan was trying to trick both of us."
"So you brought the letter with you to New York City from someplace else?"
"It was in my pocket; I'd forgotten about it."
"Where, Tanker? Where did you bring it from?"
Thompson was silent, and I sensed that our conversation had come to an end. "Tanker," I continued quietly, "I don't like pain. I've experienced enough so that I know I certainly don't enjoy getting it, and I don't like giving it. You're not at all what I expected you to be; in some ways, I feel sorry for you, and I respect you for knowing that what Kenecky was doing to Vicky Brown was wrong. But I'm going to have to hurt you if you don't tell me where you're keeping Garth." I replaced the Beretta in my shoulder holster, leaned forward, and pushed in the cigarette lighter. I wasn't certain it would still be working, but a few seconds later it popped. I pulled the lighter out of the dashboard, looked at the glowing end.
The prospect of what I was preparing to do sickened me-but I was damn well going to do it. I didn't have any other choice.
"We've got as long as it takes, Tanker," I said, and swallowed hard. "Three men have killed themselves rather than tell tales out of school. Well, we know you're not going to kill yourself, because I'm not going to let you. But unless you want me to start burning off your skin piece by piece, you're going to tell me where Garth is. Then you're going to tell me what tribulations you loonies have cooked up for the rest of us, so we can put a stop to it."
"I'm certainly not going to kill myself, dwarf," Tanker Thompson said matter-of-factly. "I'm going to kill you."
And with that pronouncement, he yanked his right hand away from the side of his head. Blood spurted from the ragged flesh that had been his right ear. Stunned and horrified, I felt paralyzed as the huge hand, bloody flaps of tissue adhering to the palm, reached out and locked around my left wrist, began to twist. Instinctively, I stabbed at the back of his hand with the cigarette lighter. There was a sharp hissing sound, then the smell of singed flesh and hair. Thompson cried out, reflexively released his grip-at the same time as he pulled his other hand free, and ripped off his left ear with it. Screaming in rage and pain-but also with what sounded eerily like triumph and ecstasy-he reached for me with both his bloody hands.
Moaning with terror and revulsion, I scrambled back across the seat, fell out the door onto cold concrete that was slick with oil and antifreeze from the smashed radiator. A hulking Tanker Thompson, blood welling and rolling out of the wounds on the sides of his head, suddenly appeared above me on the seat, reached down for me with hands that still had the flaps of his ears attached to their palms. I screamed and rolled away from the horror of the grasping hands, jumped to my feet, and clawed for my Beretta. I got the gun out, backed away a few steps and aimed it at Tanker Thompson's massive chest as he climbed out of the car and started toward me.
"That's far enough. Tanker," I said in a voice that squeaked, holding the gun out in front of me with two trembling hands. "You stop right where you are, or I'm going to blow your head off."
"God will keep me alive long enough for me to kill you, dwarf," Thompson replied in an almost casual tone. "After that, it doesn't matter. In a few days, I'll be in Paradise."
Even as I aimed the gun at his chest, it occurred to me that the other man didn't even need God on his side in this face-off; I couldn't afford to kill him, since he was my only link to Garth. I lowered the gun slightly, took careful aim, and squeezed off a shot. The bullet hit Thompson in the left thigh, two or three inches above his knee. He cried out, grabbed his leg.
"The next one goes into the kneecap, Tanker," I said. "Now, you just sit down right there and we'll talk this over."
I should have shot him in the kneecap to begin with; the bullet in his leg only made him stop long enough to reconsider his strategy. He limped back to the car, grabbed hold of one of the Cadillac's hanging doors, and tore it the rest of the way off its hinges. Then he reached down and picked up the crowbar that had come flying out of Beloved's sprung trunk.
Holding the door in front of him as a shield, trailing blood from the wound in his thigh, Tanker Thompson started shuffling toward me.
It seemed like a good time to rethink my own strategy. I had myself a dilemma; I could, I thought, rather easily dart around the gimpy Thompson and get away-but I needed to get information out of the other man, not get away from him. On the other hand, the man with the torn-off ears was not a good candidate for cooperation. It was obvious that Tanker Thompson had a tremendously high tolerance for pain; and he didn't care if he died, as long as he could take me with him.
Not a good situation.
While I was doing all this heavy thinking, Thompson had continued to come forward, and I'd continued to back up-until now he'd cut off a good three-quarters of the concrete platform, and I was heading back onto a lip over the icy Hudson.