The rooms were not much more than do-it-yourself partitions dividing what had once been somebody's grandmother's sewing room into two airless cubicles with built-in closets like up-ended coffins. The floors no longer lay as flat as might have been desired, and the faded wallpaper had not been an asset when new. There was a tiny bathroom between them with a rust-edged shower stall, a toilet with a cracked plastic seat, a sink big enough to wash out your socks in—just barely.
I took the cell nearest the stairs, just in case of funny noises during the night. It had a concave mattress on a steel frame, a chest of drawers with one drawer missing and a machine-knitted doily on top, a chair made of metal tubing with a red plastic seat with cigarette burns, a bedside table with a glass ashtray containing a cigar butt, and a Gideon Bible. There was an air conditioner unevenly mounted in the big double-hung window. I switched it on and it woke to life with a clatter like a broken fan belt.
"Luxury quarters," I told my lady friend. "And we seem to have the place to ourselves." I escorted her past the water closet into her chamber, appointed at least as handsomely as mine. She went to the bed, sat on it. Under the tan, her face looked greenish-pale. She was at the ragged edge of exhaustion.
"Here, get the wet coat off," I said. I took a stiff, yellowish towel from the bar in the bath, brought it over to her. She was sitting, watching me, fighting to hold her eyes open.
"Get out of the coat," I said. "You'll have a nice case of pneumonia in the morning." She did not lift a hand when I reached down, unbuttoned the collar that was turned up under her chin. I pulled her to her feet, undid the coat; she swayed against me.
"Another two minutes and you're tucked in," I soothed her. I flipped the coat back, hauled it free from her limp arms. It was an old trench coat, black with grease around the collar, torn and stained. She might have found it in a garbage can. I turned back to her with a snappy comment ready and found myself gaping at a skin-tight outfit of metallic blackish-green that reached from her neck to her feet, hugging a figure that would have graced a première danseuse at the Follies Bergere. She reached up, pulled the scarf off her head; coils of lustrous dark hair cascaded down. Then her knees let go and she folded onto the bed.
I straightened her out, used the towel to dry her face, then mopped my own. Looking down at her, I wondered if she were a Polynesian—or maybe a Mexican, or an Arab. None of them seemed to fit. She was a type I had never seen before. And she was young—not over twenty-five. Asleep, she looked helpless, innocent. But I remembered her in the dark alley where I had found her, battling the man who had sapped me, giving me time to get back on my feet. I had saved her neck—and she had saved mine. That was enough of a bond to keep me sleeping at her bedroom door for as long as she needed a watchdog.
I stumbled back into my own room, and do not even remember my face touching the pillow.
The rain was still coming down next morning. I lay for a few minutes, watching it drop from the eaves, feeling the ache along the side of my head beat at me as it had beat all night through exhausting dreams of running through knee-deep, blood-red water, with a pack of deadpan commuter types trailing me. My neck was stiff, the right eye was swollen and tender, and my upper lip felt as though I had a German sausage stuffed under it. I was not sure, but I thought I had a couple of loose teeth to complete the composition.
The bedsprings groaned when I sat up and swung my legs down, and I groaned right along with them. Now my hand was hurting; I looked at it. The knuckles were skinned raw. I had no idea where I had done that.
The connecting door to the bathroom swung back and I grabbed, came up with the .38 aimed at a slim female shape in lizard-skin tights. She did not jump; she gave me a hesitant smile, came on into the room, ignoring the gun. I had a strange feeling that she did not know what it was.
"Good morning." I put the pistol on the bed and stood. "Gamoning." She smiled a little wider. Her hair was pulled back, tied with a piece of string. The hunted expression was gone. She still looked like someone who had not eaten for three days, but in her own exotic way she was rather pretty.
Then what she had said registered. "You speak English after all!" The grin on my face made it ache in three new places. "Thank God for that. Now maybe we can get somewhere. I don't know what you did to get Sethys mad at you, but whatever it was, I'm on your side. Now tell me about it."
"Ot ottroc atahru," she said diffidently.
"Back to that, huh? What's the idea? I heard you say 'good morning' like a little lady—"
"Gamoning," she said. "Liddalady."
"Oh," I felt my smile go sour on my face. "Like a parrot."
"Likaparot," she mimicked.
"Maybe it's a start at that." I put a hand on her arm. "Listen, kid, I've never even taught a pup to fetch newspapers, but if we work at it, maybe you can learn enough American to shed a little light on this farce." I pointed to my chest. "Malcome Irish."
"Akmalcomiriss," she repeated.
"Leave off the akk part; it's Malcome—Mal, if you prefer."
"Akmal." She looked confused—or maybe stubborn.
"OK; have it your way." I pointed at her. "What's your name?"
"Akricia," she said promptly, and inclined her head in a sort of formal gesture.
"Akricia," I said, and her face lit up in a real smile. "Suppose I call you 'Ricia for short. Ricia—nice name."
She looked flustered; two or three expressions tried themselves out on her face. Then she ducked her head. "Ricia," she whispered. "Mal. . . ." She nibbled her lip, then slipped a silver ring from her finger, held it out to me shyly, like a child offering candy. I took it; it was thick, heavy. "Very pretty," I said.
She seemed to be expecting something to happen. I thought of handing the ring back, but that did not seem to be indicated. I put it on my little finger and held it up. She smiled, took my hand between hers, and said something. I had a feeling we were now officially friends.
"Thanks, kid," I said. "It's a very nice present. Now let's get on with the lesson." I patted her hand—and suddenly noticed the grimy knuckles, the broken nails.
"Ricia, you need a bath. You slept in that leotard; it's time you got out of it and cleaned yourself up." I went into the bathroom, found a bar of green soap with hair stuck to it glued to a soap dish in the shower stall.
"You go ahead and take a shower," I suggested. "I'll get you some clothes, and I could use a change of socks myself." I pointed. "Take a bath," I turned the water on, pantomimed scrubbing my neck. Ricia nodded, looking eager. As I closed the door she was reaching for some kind of invisible fastener on the front of her outfit.
Downstairs, I explained my needs to our host, gave him money and added a five-cee note, the sight of which seemed to delight him just as much as if the bottom had not dropped out of the fiscal system. He pulled on a jacket that looked like something salvaged from a drowned man, made a big thing of locking the sheet-metal safe, set off at a fast dodder.
In half an hour he was back, rapping at the door with an armload of groceries, toiletries, and drygoods. He gave the room a sharp once-over, checking for rumpled bedding or other signs of dissipation, hovered as though ready to start a long conversation. I eased him out, hinting at more heavy tips in the offing.
Small sounds were coming from next door. I tapped, pushed the door open six inches and reached in with a paper bag containing soap with pink perfume, a comb, a toothbrush, a fingernail kit, a washcloth, odds and ends of cosmetics.
"Hurry it up," I called. "My hide is beginning to crawl around me."
I set the food out on the lace doily: bread, bottled cheese, canned meat, some fruit, coffee, a fifth of brandy with a blurry label. Ten minutes crawled past. There was a creak from the connecting door; it swung back and Ricia stepped through, looking as fresh and scrubbed as a baby on its first birthday—and dressed about the same. Her hair was done up in a striking composition on top of her head, tied with a red plastic ribbon from one of the cosmetic boxes. Her nails that had been gray crescents were pink and shiny. She was wearing just enough cologne to give me a faint whiff of florist shop—nothing else.
"Nice," I commented, trying to look as calm as she did. "A little unconventional, but very nice. Still, I think you'd better slip into something before I come down with hot flashes." I fumbled packages, dug out a little nylon nothings I had gotten for her, added a one-piece thing with a tag on it that said it was a playsuit. She accepted them with a wondering expression. I went through some ludicrous antics intended to show her what to do with them. She laughed at me. I could see a bruise along the side of her throat now that the dirt was gone.
Then she saw the food, tossed the clothes on the end of my bed, and went past me with a glint in her eye. The closed containers seemed to puzzle her, she picked up an orange, sniffed it, took a bite. She seemed to like it, peel and all. I just stood, gazing at the orange juice running down that fine, olive-hued figure, wondering just who—and what—the little creature was I had taken under my wing.
Ricia had an amazing ability to remember the words I taught her—and an equally amazing ignorance of the customs and appurtenances of society. The coffee made her wrinkle her nose; the potted meat made her gag. She liked the bread—once she accepted the idea that it was something to eat. Only the fruit seemed in any measure familiar to her.
In an hour she was talking to me—using sentences like "Ricia eat, Mal eat, good, no. Today, tomorrow, walk."
"We have to stay where we are until dark," I told her. "It's known as waiting till the heat's off. I'm sorry about the food, but there's not much available in the neighborhood. Miami's beginning to feel the pinch now. Even with nine-tenths of the population gone, the town can't run forever on what was on the shelves when the storms hit."
She nodded as though she understood. Maybe she did, maybe she was picking up more than I thought, the same way a child does—by listening and watching. She was sitting in front of the oval mirror over her dresser now, trying out different elaborate hair-do's.
Meanwhile, I was thinking over my plan of action—what to do when the time came to venture out from our hole. Going to the police was out now; there were too many bodies lying around town—to say nothing of the shambles at Greenleaf, Georgia—to invite close inquiry. Martial law was no joke. The looters and ghouls had seen to it that old-fashioned ideas regarding the innocence of the accused did not get in the way of quick and final disposition—usually by a firing squad. There was no time or temper to bother pampering criminals—or suspects—in cozy jail cells. I paced up and down explaining it all to Ricia.
"There are plenty of boats here, it's not like the foothills of Georgia. I can get something—a thirty-foot cabin cruiser would be about right. This fellow Sethys plays for keeps. Well, he can keep it. Maybe the sailor was telling the truth: maybe there are trained elephants under the ice. OK, they can stay there. My curiosity isn't satisfied, I'll admit—but it's cured. We'll head north and find a nice town in high country and weather this out."
"Sethys, no. Mal and Ricia, walk, today." She looked scared—or maybe just concerned, trying to understand what I was talking about, not able to express her own ideas.
"I wish you could talk to me, Ricia," I told her. "Who is Sethys? Why did he send his boys out after you? How did you get into that part of town in the first place? Where you come from?"
She shook her head, gave me a stubborn look. She understood all right—she just was not talking. I let it go. Maybe I did not really want to hear the answers.
It was twilight now, an eerie red and green time when the glare of the dusty sun lit up the room like a stage light, casting shadows across the crimsoned floor.
"I'm going out to see about picking up a boat," I told Ricia. "Don't let anybody in until I get back. And don't forget the gun." I laid the .38 in her hand; I had shown her how to aim and pull the trigger.
"Don't hesitate to use it. Anybody who breaks through that door is asking for it."
She gave me her second-best game smile. She did not like my leaving her alone, did not like the sight of the gun, but she was game, whatever happened.
Downstairs, old Bob, our landlord watched me cross the ten-by-twelve lobby.
"I see you're growing a beard," he snapped, as if he had caught me sneaking something out in a paper bag.
"You're a very perceptive fellow, Bob," I conceded.
"That what you come here for, figgered it was a good place to grow a beard?"
"As good as any."
"A disguise, like hey?" He was squinting at me, his voice lowered to a confidential tone.
"No, it's so my old friends will know me, Bob. Used to have a beard and shaved it off. Tried to hit one of them up for a small loan a few days back and he cut me dead."
"Hah?" Bob snapped his gallus at me. "Meant to tell you, raising the rates first of the week." He pushed his lips in and out, estimating what the traffic would bear. "Cost you fifteen a day, starting Monday."
"Fifteen a day," I nodded.
"That's day after tomorrow," he clarified. "You can have one more day at the ten cees."
"Hey Bob"—I leaned on the counter— "I should have told you sooner, maybe, but I wasn't sure I could trust you not to panic." I looked carefully around the room, frowned at the old-fashioned breakfront with glass-doored shelves loaded with bundled papers, stepped back a pace to peer behind the rubber plant. Bob followed every move.
"I'm with Greater Miami Bomb Disposal," I told him in the tone of a turf accountant imparting a hot tip. "The little lady's a medium-psychic, you know. Great help in our work. Lots of nuts loose in the city these days—couldn't make the readjustment when their farms went under, mother-in-law drowned, the whole bit—you know how it is. Not tough like you and me."
"What's that about a bomb?" Bob's Adam's apple was vibrating like a cello string.
I nodded. "Figured you knew what was up. You don't miss much, Bob. You've got enemies. Comes of being sharp, successful—like you. The word is it's one of those Chinese jobs—no bigger than a one-shot VD capsule but power enough to lift the roof off this place and dump the contents all over Biscayne Bay. I think we've got it pinpointed in the third-floor john; don't pull any chains until you hear from me."
"Here, you mean—"
"Keep it under your hairpiece, Bob. We're with you all the way. Should be able to let you know something by sundown tomorrow."
"Tomorrow? Me sit here with a bomb ticking someplace—"
"You're a cool one, Bob. Nerve like cast iron." I looked rueful. "I have to admit sometimes I get a little peckish, myself."
"Here, where you going? You're not leaving here without finding the thing?"
"Just stepping out for another pound or two of Indian cheese wax and a spare framitizer. Won't take long." I pushed on out the door, feeling a little lightheaded, aware of the stink of death and ruin and decay as the world shook civilization to pieces—and still, among the ruins, the little green weed of avarice grew and flourished. The emperors of the world were all dead, but the Bobs we have with us always.
It was a street that had once—maybe twenty years before—been a moderately prosperous avenue of not quite fashionable shops of the kind that catered to the middle-class tourist trade, offering lines of shoddy goods with mass-produced Miami labels to impress the folks back home. Its hour of respectability had passed long ago. Even before the disasters the cheap, bright cardboard and plastic had disappeared from the shop windows, the false elegance of the shop fronts had faded into the cracked pastels of neglect. Now, with the unswept debris of wind and flood and the litter of hasty departure drifted at the curbs and around the broken sidewalk benches and the rusting light poles, the muddy light of late twilight showed a dreary parade of boarded windows, hand-lettered signs tacked furtively on door frames, tall weeds fighting their way up between the jumbled hexagonal tiles that had once seemed gay. It was a poor address, but Mr. Sethys could look a long time and not find us here—if he was looking.
The coast looked clear. I turned up the collar of Ricia's grimy coat and set off toward a cross street on which a little traffic was moving.
It was a ten-block walk to the waterfront. I moved along at a moderate shamble, keeping a weather eye out for ordinary-looking men in conservative suits. There was little traffic, few cars parked at the curb. Miami had had plenty of warning, plenty of time for the citizenry to pack and head north in time to meet disaster head-on in the floods and eruptions that had wiped out the upper half of the state.
Most of the marinas were dark, heavily fenced and padlocked. I walked north, toward the run-down portion of the bay shore that had had its flush of popularity fifty years ago. Here there were rotting board fences, rusted wire mesh, a jungle of abandoned hot-dog and beer stands, bait stalls, faded signs offering fresh fish and shrimp, plenty of tall weeds, and an astonishing abundance of lean, wary cats who looked as though they had run out of mice and were living off each other.
About every third polyarc was still burning along this stretch; in between, the shadows lay across the street as black as powdered coal. Off to the right a light surf slapped at the beach; there was a heavy odor of decaying sea things, salt water, and soot. I sniffed, caught the hot-iron odor of volcanic activity—even here, a thousand miles from the eruptions in Georgia.
A big concrete shed loomed up ahead; I made out the words north bay marine sales in flaked paint along the side. The big main doors were shut, locked tight. Beside them a small personnel entrance swung idly in the fitful wind. Inside, the office was a mess. Papers were scattered on the two desks, on the chairs, on the floor. The drawers of the filing cabinet hung open, empty. An ashtray on a stand lay on its side, its contents spilled. Even the girlie calendar on the wall hung crooked on its nail. The odor of rot and dead meat was strong here.
An unlocked glass door lead through into the back. My feet echoed on gritty concrete; the sound rang back from corrugated metal and oily water. Three boats were moored in the dock—a pair of bright-colored sixteen-footers with lots of shiny fittings, one sunk to the gunwales, and a big, sullen-looking catamaran-hulled job, use-scarred, built for blue-water cruising. Aboard, I found a pair of Rolls-Royce Arthurs, a megahorse each, shipshape and ready to turn. Half a dozen heavy cartons were stacked in the stern—Air Force field rations, type Y, enough to feed a battalion for a week. A long, canvas-wrapped bundle was shoved down behind the cartons. I hauled it out, found a leather gun case. Inside were a .375 Weatherby and an evil-looking automatic rifle, about .25 caliber, with a spare magazine. I had never seen one before, but I knew it by reputation. It was the latest military model, and it could empty its thousand-round drum in one two-second burst on full automatic—a hail of steel that would cut a rhino in two. Someone had made some careful preparations for a getaway.
The cabin door was locked tight. I used a rusted fish knife I found on deck to pry the latch open. The door swung in, and the odor hit me in the face like a shovel. On the floor between the bunks, what had been a man lay on his back, his face a fright mask of empty eye sockets and a ragged mouth hole with yellow teeth showing in a snarl, the claw hands outspread. He was not so much decomposed as mummified in the intense heat of the closed room. The lean, blackened neck disappeared into a shirt collar, neatly buttoned but badly discolored. His blazer was well cut, expensive-looking; his deck shoes new. There were two large black stains on his chest, on the left side, above and below the heart. The artillery stowed aft had not done him much good.
He was amazingly light; I hauled him up the three steps, tilted him sideways to get him through the hatch, put him over the side. He slid down smoothly, disappeared. Then I went back to the stern and lost my lunch.
His preparations had been complete: there was a compact sea-water converter, spare clothes, foul-weather gear, a well-stocked bar, even a rack filled with books. I had made a lucky find. Now to see if I could open the sea doors.
They were heavy metal panels, power-operated. I followed the leads, tried the switch. Nothing. There was a master switch below the junction box. I threw it, tried again. Still nothing.
Outside the water slammed and gurgled against the door, wanting in. I kept looking. It took me ten minutes to find the hand crank, folded back into a recess beside the left-hand door. I turned the crank; the doors groaned, started up. I cranked them back down, checked the boat's lines to be sure I could cast off in a hurry, then went back through the rifled office, stepped out into the dark street. There was an odd smell in the air—not just the stink of decay and volcanic dust, but a new scent—a choking odor like a pot boiled dry. Far away, thunder rolled and rumbled. There was a glow to the west, over beyond the city. I started walking.
A car came toward me, howling along at eighty or better, rocketed past, streaking north. Half a minute later another one shot by, then two more, neck and neck, like a chariot race. An instant later I felt the shock—a slow, inevitable sinking of the pavement under my feet, a pause, then a thrust upward. A ripple had passed over the city as if over a pond.
I broke into a run, fell flat when the next ripple hit, got up, ran on. Another car came into view, weaving across the road, turbos screaming. The next wave caught the car as it swerved wildly, going too fast for the narrow, rubble-strewn streets. The heaving pavement picked up the car as a breaker lifts a surfer, hurled it ahead in its long diagonal path. The car struck a brick warehouse, flipped on its back, hurtled along that way for fifty yards, then bounded high, exploded twenty feet above the street as I dived for a doorway. The shock brought bricks and shingles down in a long surf roar that seemed to echo long after the last shard of broken glass had tinkled from its frame. I stepped out, gave the boiling inferno one quick glance, ran on.
There were people in sight now, all running. Some ran toward me, others sprinted beside me. A wild-eyed woman darted aimlessly from one doorway to another. There were a lot of sounds: screams, yells, distant smashings and thumpings. The next tremor spilled people off their feet like a machine gun mowing down infantry. I rode it, jumped a drift of bricks that poured out across my path like a slot machine disgorging quarters.
A steady rain of debris was falling all around me. Ahead, a knot of half a dozen men darted toward me like comedians in a silent film, their footfalls and the yells from their open mouths lost in the background roar. I saw a man lying on his back in dusty rubble, the back of his head caved in, a woman tugging at his arm. A wrecked car lay on its side, its headlights still burning. Smoke churned from windows, backed by bright flames.
The next shock was worse. I went sprawling, came up to see building fronts toppling outward, crazily canted roofs sliding down into the street, truckloads of rubbish dropping like bombs among people—more and more of them running out now like excited ants, falling, jumping up and running, disappearing under clouds of brick and dust. There was a continuous crashing now like tanks battering through walls. A light pole ahead bounced twice, danced free of its mounting, hopped away ten feet before it fell with a back-breaking smash.
I saw my hotel ahead, a glimpse of dirty white stucco through wind-whipped dust and smoke, stained a dull orange by hundred-foot flames from a burning building across the street. Something blew up, and I felt the shock wave, the blast of heat against my face as small objects hissed past. Something ponderously heavy crashed down behind me close enough to send a hail of stinging concrete particles against the back of my neck. A length of wood, burning cheerfully, came arcing down, bounced away ahead of me.
The front door was gone. I took the broken steps in one jump, groped through dust past a tangle of fallen rafters. The breakfront lay across the counter, its papers spilled among broken glass. A thin arm poked out from under its edge; Bob had died at his post.
The stairs were gone, collapsed into shattered boards linked by a rope of worn carpet. Water was gushing down, staining bricks and plaster black in the gloom; pipes sagged in a graceless festoon. I went over a jumble of smashed furniture, pushed through the swinging door into a hall where the aroma of cabbage was still detectable through the smoke reek, went across a cramped, greasy kitchen full of broken crockery and dented pots. The service stair was there, at the back, almost hidden by the bulk of a toppled refrigerator. I climbed over it and went up.
On the second floor, things didn't look good: the passage was blocked by a jumble of two by fours and shattered plaster board. I pushed through a gap in the wall, ducked under cascading plaster dust, kicked the jammed door open, re-emerged into the hall ten feet from the open door to my room. Inside I found fallen plaster, toppled furniture, broken glass. A quarter-inch of water on the bathroom floor, trapped by the thresholds, danced with an intricate geometric pattern of ripples. I splashed through, calling Ricia's name.
She did not answer. The bed had collapsed; the mattress was spilled half off it, littered with plaster fragments. The chest of drawers still stood upright, its empty drawers pulled out. The patched Venetian blind at the window bulged with the weight of broken glass. The bottles and clothes that the late Bob had brought up a few hours earlier were scattered across the floor. I yelled for Ricia again over the roar of disintegration, jerked the closet door open, lifted the broken bed aside, found nothing but dust devils and worn linoleum.
Back in the other room, I shouted again, dug through the ruins of a fallen partition; nothing. Ricia was gone.
I stood in the middle of the room, trying to think in an orderly fashion, a neat trick in the best of times. I had told her to stay in the room; she had not done so. At least she had not died here. She was somewhere out in the street—and it was time for me to join her. I wove my way across the swaying floor, stepped into the hall and was looking down the barrel of a gun in the hand of the gray-haired man named Sethys.