K Jeter - Noir

This time, McNihil aimed. Above the heads of the crowd, toward one specific target-not from any hopes of improving the present situation, but just from the personal conviction that people shouldn’t be given extra chances to make trouble. He pulled the trigger and saw, through the smoke filling the lobby, a bright red flower substitute itself for the bearded face. The gantry operator’s body rolled shuddering onto its side.

Won’t hold ’em , figured McNihil. He’d been in crowd situations before; he knew that it would only be a few seconds before whatever panic and good sense that the tannhäuser’s shot had instilled would be overcome by the mob’s bloodlust. Seeing two of their number blown away was like gasoline thrown on the already-existing flames. Tucking the elongated trophy container tighter under his arm, McNihil turned and sprinted down the corridor, away from the stairs and the shouting below.

A well-placed kick broke open one of the room doors. Any occupants of the hotel had either fled or joined the mob below. The tiny space’s window, bright and hot with the flames in the street, was jammed tight. McNihil shattered the glass with the butt of the tannhäuser, then used its muzzle to knock away the remaining shards. He climbed out with the trophy container, onto the rusting metal grid of the fire escape.

The irony of the term wasn’t lost on him, as McNihil scanned the scene beneath. Enough of the surrounding buildings’ contents had been dragged out and thrown onto the fire for it to have spilled from the central open space-the downed and uprooted 747 was by now a twisted, blackened skeleton-and across the streets. One major branch of the fire had rolled right up against the walls of the hotel; the bottom section of the rickety framework on which McNihil stood was engulfed in flames. The heat traveled up the metal and scorched the palm of his hand, as he tried to look past the roiling smoke.

No way down, at least not that he could see here; at the same time, McNihil could hear the sound of the mob, their adrenaline courage revved up again, filling the End Zone Hotel’s darkened interior.

The rusting iron creaked and swayed, bolts pulling loose from the building’s side, as McNihil reached and drew down the narrow ladder above his head. Climbing one-handed, with the gun tucked against the trophy container, he headed toward the roof.

A DAMP CARNIVAL OF BILLOWING FOAM AND SLIPPERY HUMAN SKIN

T oo fucked-up to stay out of trouble , thought November. Too valuable to let suffer the consequences . From an alley tucked safely away from the flames, but close enough to feel the heat rolling in waves across her breast and face, she watched the action over at the End Zone Hotel. She wondered what would be the best moment to go over and save that poor bastard McNihil’s ass.

The mob rampaging around in the open space had made it easier for her to tail him and his incapacitated business, from the movie theater over to where McNihil would complete the job. All the excitement, the crowds and shouts and mounting flames, had obviously distracted McNihil, kept him from doing even the most cursory scan to see who might be following him. She’d watched him dragging along the skinny kid that he’d come up here to meet, the contact’s face swallowed by that hydro-gel glop asp-heads were always so fond of-November admitted it had its uses, but she preferred more direct and obviously violent methods. What was going to happen next to the kid, she’d already known; asp-heads weren’t exactly reticent about publicizing the consequences for copyright infringement. Too bad for the kid trying to peddle those old books-but that was what you got for being a wiseass.

For McNihil as well, it was going to be too bad; he didn’t know what he was getting into. November shifted her position in the alley, going a little closer to its mouth in order to peer toward the lobby of the hotel. The bottom floor of the hotel building was engulfed in flame by now; the crowd with the torches, who’d been so hot for McNihil’s blood, had streamed back outside, leaving their dead and wounded to cook. Maybe I’ve waited a little too long , thought November. She’d been pretty sure that McNihil would be able to take care of himself, but that might have been an overly optimistic prediction, given the present situation. The windows of the hotel’s next floor up had blown out from the heat, raining glass shards on the people below. It wouldn’t be long before the whole building was on fire, from top to bottom. If McNihil was still in there when that happened, her own scheming would take a considerable setback.

November stepped out of the alley, easing her way through the crowd. The mass adrenaline peak had been a few minutes ago; the smell of that hormone-laden sweat hung in the air as an invisible stratum just below the smoke. A certain fatigue level had set in, the result of all the incendiary excitement. The central fire, with the skeleton of the ancient airliner warping and blackening, had begun to die down into ashes and smoldering embers. Most of the crowd had gone into spectator mode, the upraised torches either nothing but charred wood or a few red tongues and brighter sparks, drawn horizontal by the night wind that had sprung up. Necks craned, faces turned in all directions around the totem 747; the gazes took in the surrounding wreckage with pleased smiles, the hard satisfaction of vandalism taken to its limits.

Keeping silent, November rapidly worked her way closer to the burning hotel, shoving her way past the crowd’s backs, knocking away without difficulty the hands of either sex that tried to clutch at her. She lost sight of the hotel until she had reached the curb right in front of it. The rest of the onlookers, pushed away by the heat of the flames, were watching with varying degrees of amusement what was happening in the building’s lobby. The ceiling had started to break up, raining plaster fragments and chunks of wooden beams onto the space below. A few human remnants, dark scarecrow figures, were visible in a semicircle of blazing furniture; it was hard to tell if they had been asphyxiated or were just narcotized to their own ongoing deaths. One, wrapped in flames, had dropped forward onto his hands and knees; under the rolling smoke and sparks, he crawled laboriously, dragging a melting black hose and a toppled-over I.V.-drip device along with him. The burning man’s progress was the main topic of discussion in the crowd; November heard bets being placed behind her. Before the figure reached the hotel’s hinge-smashed door, he fell over onto his side, curling into a fetal position, hissing bones revealed beneath his cracked flesh. When the figure had been still a few seconds, November heard the various wagers being collected.

By then, she had already started to move away from the front of the End Zone Hotel. She had spotted what she was looking for, what she had hoped she would see. What the others in the crowd hadn’t noticed: another figure, above their heads and closer to the building’s corner, climbing up the rickety fire escape. McNihil had completed his business, obviously; she could see that he had an asp-head’s trophy container-a thick, roundheaded tube-clutched tight by one arm against his ribs. With his free hand, he was pulling himself up the creaking, snapping iron construction, the smoke from the flames below obscuring him in its heavy coils. As November watched, head tilted back, a section of the fire escape pulled loose from the building’s exterior wall; loose bricks and bits of rusted metal tumbled into the fire at the hotel’s base, sending up a flurry of sparks that surrounded McNihil like luminous wasps. McNihil’s distant figure hooked one arm into the nearest strut as the grid beneath his feet gave way, dangling as though it were a slotted trapdoor; McNihil clung to the swaying metal, still grasping hard the elongated container.