He turned his head on one side and looked across the roof. A small projection above the level rooftop caught his eye and he crawled toward it.
Down in the alley the shouting was louder now and added to it was the distant howling of the rescue wagon's siren. Right on time, thought Frost, but little good it would do the man lying in the alley. The bullet must have caught him squarely in the brain. He reached the projection and saw that it was a square cap, made of wood and covered by metal, apparently covering a hatch.
His fingers worked at the edge of it, seeking for a hold, but the cap was fitted tight. With a hand on each side of it, he twisted and it seemed to give. He twisted again and it seemed to lift. He put more power into the twist and suddenly the cap was free and lifting. And even as he lifted it, he wondered what he would find on that floor below.
Slowly he tilted the cap up and the area under it was dark. He breathed a little easier, although he knew that he was not entirely in the clear. There might be someone down there. It could be merely the top floor of a store or it could be living quarters.
He lifted the cap entirely off and set it to one side, then lowered himself into the hatch. He hung by his arms for a moment, his body extended. The place was dark, although a little light seemed to come from somewhere. Reason said there must be a floor beneath him, but he felt, as he hung there, that he was poised above a pit.
He let loose and dropped. He fell two feet or so. Something that he bumped into went over with a crash. The wind half knocked out of him, Frost crouched on the floor, ears strained for any sound.
Outside, the siren of the rescue wagon ground to a shuddering silence. Someone, bull-throated, was shouting, but the muffled words were lost. Within the room itself there was no sound at all.
Darker shapes became evident as his eyes became accustomed to the gloom. Faint light seeped into the area, which he now saw was no partitioned room, but the entire space of the second floor, from the tall, narrow windows that fronted on the street.
He saw the shapes were furniture, crouching chairs, embattled chests, squat tables. The display floor of a small and dingy furniture establishment.
He should replace the cap, he thought, for searchers, finding it, would guess where he had gone. But it might be hard to do and would take more time than he coulc afford. He'd have to find something to stand on to reach the hatch, would have to wrestle the cap into position, with the good possibility that it would fail, despite all that he could do, to fall into full position.
He couldn't take the time, he told himself. He must be out of here before the hunt shifted from the alley to spread, perhaps, to the street outside.
He stumbled about the area, finally found the stairs, and went down them to the lower floor.
Here the light filtering through the display windows in the front was stronger than it had been upstairs.
At the door he turned back the knob of the night lock, released the regular latch, and pulled the door partway open, staring through the grimy glass at the street outside. The street seemed to be empty.
He opened the door and slid outside, pulling it to, but not latching it. He might need to get back through that door and thus under cover very quickly. Squeezing tight against the front of the building, he glanced quickly up and down the street.
There was no one.
Sprinting, he crossed the street, reached the corner, went around it, slowed to a rapid walk. Two blocks away he met another walker, but the man went past with barely a glance. There were a few cars and he slid into shadowed doorways until they'd gone past.
Half an hour later he began to feel he'd made it, that for the moment he was safe.
Safe, but running once again.
He could not, he knew, go back to the basement. For Appleton and his men would know about that hideout, must have watched him while they fabricated their conspiracy against him, the masterstroke that was intended to erase forever whatever threat he might represent to Appleton and Lane.
And what was that threat? he wondered. What did the paper mean? And had the paper actually been among the papers he'd put in the envelope for Ann?
Thinking about the envelope and Ann, he felt a pang of panic. If Appleton knew she had that paper, or suspected that she had it, she was in deadly danger. As everyone whose life touched his seemed in deadly danger. The man at the restaurant had done no more than a compassionate act for an unknown fellowman and now, because of this, lay dead, shot down with no other thought than how his death might contribute to the entrapment and the death of the man he had befriended.
Appleton must know that Ann had talked with him. More than likely it had been her appearance on the scene (signaling the belief that he was about to make some move?) which had triggered his seizure and his condemnation.
Perhaps, he thought, he should somehow warn her. But how was he to warn her? A phone call, but he had no money for a call. And a phone call, in any case, would be a stupid move, for in all probability her phone would be tapped. And she, herself, watched.
Or contact Chapman? But that, as well, was dangerous—not only to himself but to Chapman and to Ann. For it was likely that Appleton knew Chapman had come to see him and it would need no great imagination to connect Chapman with Ann.
The best thing he could do, Frost told himself, was to stay away from both of them. They should be warned, both of them, but in the warning he'd likely do more harm than if they never knew.
He settled down to a steady, dogged trudging, keeping to the shadows as much as possible. It was essential, he knew, to put as much distance between himself and the alley where the man had died as he could. But well before dawn he must find a place to hide, a den where he could crouch through the daylight hours. And when night came he must push on again to build an even greater distance between himself and the wrath that trailed him.
25
Two old men met in a park for a game of checkers.
"You hear the latest," asked one old codger, "about this Forever business?"
"You hear so much," said the other one, setting up the pieces, "that you hardly know what story to believe. They say now that if they get this immortality business worked out, you won't have to die at all. They'll just line everybody up, every blessed one of us, and jab us in the arm and then we'll get young again and we'll live forever. Won't that be something, now?"
The old codger shook his head. "That ain't what I had in mind. Got this direct. My nephew has a brother-in-law who works in one of them Forever labs and it was him that told it. I can tell you there are a lot of people who'll be in for a big surprise."
"What surprise?" the second asked, impatiently.
"Well, maybe that's not the word exactly. Maybe they won't be surprised. Hard to be surprised, I suppose, when you go on being dead."
"You're rambling on again," complained his partner. "Why can't you ever come right out and say what is on your mind?"
"I was just laying the foundation. Giving you the background."
"Well, get on with it so we can start this game."
"It seems," the old codger told him, "that they've found there is some sort of bacteria—I think that's what he said—some sort of bacteria that lives inside the brain and that this bacteria can go right on living when the body's frozen. The brain is frozen solid, but this bacteria isn't bothered whatsoever. It goes right on living, multiplying all the time, and eating at the brain." "I don't believe it," said the other. "You hear such stories all the time and I tell you, John, there ain't a lick of truth in any one of them. I wouldn't be surprised if them Holies don't start them stories just to befuddle us. If we got this bacteria in the brain, how come it don't eat up the brain while we are still alive?" "Well, that's just it," said John. "When we are alive, there's something in the brain—antibodies, would they be? — that hold them bacteria in check. But when the brain is frozen it can't make them antibodies and the bacteria run wild. I tell you, there are a lot of people in those vaults who have no brain at all, just an empty skull crammed full of bacteria."