Enough for now. The Carpenter headed for open water, set the Nancy Dee on a course to cruise south at a leisurely pace in the middle of the river. And went to check on his passenger.
The Carpenter seemed in an exalted state, as if the flames he’d created had borne him aloft. He didn’t seem to notice that the handcuff was loose on Buckram’s wrist, and so far he hadn’t noticed the gun.
Would the gun fire? According to the Carpenter, it had jammed. That was possible, automatics were notoriously subject to jamming, but it wasn’t the Carpenter’s gun and the Carpenter didn’t know a lot about guns. It was at least as possible that the gun had been loaded with a cartridge clip but, for safety’s sake, didn’t have a round in the chamber. The Carpenter, squeezing the trigger a single time, would have succeeded in chambering a round. If he’d pulled it a second time, he’d have put a bullet in Buckram.
Well, it was possible. And, unless he could come up with something better, any minute now he’d get to bet his life on it.
He had his right thigh over it, screening it as much as possible, but it was impossible to be sure it wasn’t partially visible. And what was unquestionably visible was its absence from its place on top of the chest of drawers. So far the Carpenter hadn’t glanced over there, and might not notice anything if he did, as transported as he appeared to be by the night’s events.
“The ship’s burning,” he announced.
“This one?”
“Of course not. And this is a boat, not a ship. Though it, too, will be burning soon enough.” He smiled, and it changed his mien curiously from exaltation to resigned sadness. “Soon it will all be over.”
“You said the ship was burning. What ship?”
“The Circle Line,” the Carpenter said. “They have different ships with different names. I didn’t notice the name of this one. Have you ever taken their cruise around Manhattan?”
He had, years ago. Someone had booked the ship on a weekday evening for a private party to which he’d been invited. He hadn’t had a chance to see much, had been stuck in one conversation after another, barely got out on deck.
He didn’t say any of this, though, because the Carpenter hadn’t waited for an answer. Instead he’d gone on to recount something of the history of the Circle Line, and some of the more impressive sights to be seen on that voyage. If the Carpenter had seemed sad a moment ago, now he spoke with the enthusiasm of a teacher lecturing on a favorite topic.
Buckram said, “You don’t hate the city, do you?”
“Hate it?”
“That’s what everyone thinks. That you blamed New York for the loss of your family, that everything you’re doing is an act of revenge. But when you talk about New York you sound like a lover.”
“Of course,” the Carpenter said. “I love New York.”
“There were all these books in your storage locker...”
“My library. I’ve missed my books.”
“You know a great deal about the city.”
“One always wants to know more.”
“Then why the hell are you trying to destroy it?”
“To destroy it?”
“With killing and burnings and explosions and...”
He stopped. The Carpenter was shaking his head. “Sacrifice,” he said.
“Sacrifice?”
“Trying to destroy the city. As if I would want to do that. Don’t you understand? I’m trying to save it.”
And he began to explain, spinning a complicated story full of local history, with the Draft Riots and the Police Riots and gang warfare and a maritime disaster, all the horrible things that had happened in the last couple of centuries, wrapped up in a theory of death and rebirth, suffering and renewal. Sacrifice.
“I wanted to die,” he was saying now. “I wanted to share in their sacrifice, to be a part of it. My wife took pills. I found her dead in our bed. Do you know what I did?”
Again the question was rhetorical, and the Carpenter didn’t wait for an answer. “I took pills,” he said, “and lay down beside her, intending to go where she had gone. And do you know what happened? I woke up, with nothing worse than a bad headache, and the deepest sorrow I have ever known. I thought of Cain, making an offering to God and having the smoke go off to the side. And then I came to realize that my sacrifice had not been rejected. It had been postponed, because I had work to do. I had to sacrifice others to the greater glory of the city.”
There was more, and Buckram listened, took it all in. The Carpenter was insane, which was hardly news, but insane in a surprising way. He’d killed all those people — and God only knew how many he’d added to the total tonight, at the Boat Basin and wherever else his bombs had landed. All those deaths, and he didn’t have anything against any of them, didn’t have the slightest wish to do them harm. Didn’t think he was harming them, thought he was ennobling them.
And what was he doing now? Walking over to the can of gas, twisting the top off...
“Chelsea Piers,” the Carpenter was saying. “It’s this great project at the water’s edge, with restaurants and sports facilities, even a driving range. Can you imagine that? A driving range in Manhattan?” He shook his head, awed by the wonder of it all. “We’ll be there soon. And this little boat of ours will be a bomb, filled with combustible fumes, and I’ll run it into the pier, and that will be the last sacrifice.” He beamed at Buckram. “And you’ll be a part of it.”
Buckram couldn’t wait any longer. Once the lunatic started sloshing the gas around, the cabin would be a bomb, and a gunshot would set it off. He said, “I don’t think so,” and wrenched his right hand free of the cuff, grabbing up the gun, hurling his body to the side and firing the gun as he moved.
The recoil wasn’t that massive, not from a .22, but it was enough to dislodge the grip of Buckram’s weakened right hand. But the shot was right on target. It took the Carpenter squarely in the center of the chest. His jaw dropped and he stared and took a step back, but he didn’t clutch his chest and his knees didn’t buckle and he didn’t fall down, the way a person generally does when you shoot him in the heart.
Oh, Jesus. The fucking Kevlar vest. It saved a life, but not the one it was supposed to.
And the Carpenter had his own gun drawn now, Buckram’s .38, and he pulled the trigger, and the sound was much louder in the little cabin. The bullet missed, and Buckram groped for the .22, grabbed it finally with his left hand. He raised it, and the Carpenter, his hand trembling, fired a second shot, and this one didn’t miss. Pain seared Buckram’s belly, pain almost too much to bear, and he remembered something Susan had said, something about pain being nothing but a sensation you make wrong, and he dismissed the pain and brought the gun to bear and made the Carpenter wrong instead, made him wrong forever, squeezing the trigger three times and hitting him three times in the face and throat.
And watched him fall, and lie still.
When the first bullet struck, smack in the center of his chest, the Carpenter felt a rush of joy. He was going to die. His sacrifice was complete, he could let go now, and in a moment he would be with Carole.
But he hadn’t died, he wasn’t even hurt. He’d felt the impact of the bullet but it didn’t seem to have injured him. So he’d been right after all, he thought sadly. He had to kill this man, and then he had to complete the sacrifice.
He fired and missed, fired again and hit the man. Not in the chest, where he’d aimed, but much lower. But he’d hit him, and now the man would die, and then—
Then three shots, and in a mere instant the Carpenter was hovering above the scene, looking down, seeing two bodies on the cabin deck. One was Buckram, the man whom he’d shot and by whom he’d been shot in return. And the other, of course, was his own.