The Animal Hour (50 page)

“Zach?” Oliver whispered. He held his brother on his feet for another moment, but Zach seemed drawn down by an irresistible force. Oliver wrapped an arm around him. He sank down with him. He sank down to his knees beside him. He held Zachary in his arms, pressed him against his chest. He stared at his brightly colored shirt for a long moment before he found the black hole in it. He saw the flesh of Zach's chest through the hole, and a red-black hole in the flesh. Frightened, he looked quickly at Zach's face. The large eyes gazed up at him, still alive. Zachary's lips moved. He licked them. They were white. He whispered something. Oliver leaned down close to listen.

“… remember …?” Zach said.

Oliver leaned closer, pressed his ear to Zach's lips. He thought Zach was going to ask him if he remembered sledding down the snowy hill behind their house. And he did remember. Yes.

But Zach did not go on.

Oliver looked at him again. Zach was still gazing up at him. The light of life was still in his eyes.

And then the light went out. Perkins lowered his head. He held his little brother close to him and patted his cheek, his hair. He rocked him back and forth, thinking:
Don't worry, Zach. Don't worry anymore.
His tears fell on Zach's face and rolled down his cheeks, as if it were the dead man who was crying.

Eesh
, thought the woman in the domino mask. She dropped to one knee at the edge of the stairs. Her hand went lifeless. The revolver slipped from it, fell to the floor.
Eesh, eesh, eesh
, she thought. A wave of nausea rose up from her belly. She blacked out for a second. And then she was tilting over the side of the top step. She was falling. A long, dizzying fall, it seemed. And then her head cracked against the stair. She felt a jolt, no pain. Her body tumbled to the side, and she went down another stair, and then another, her head thudding against the steps, thud, thud, thud.

She came to rest finally with her feet sprawled on the steps above her. Her arms flung out at either side. Her head thrown back. Her eyes staring up through the mask into a shifting blur.

Did I do it right?
she wondered vaguely.
In the end, did I even do it right?

The first agony burst all through her. She gasped. Her whole body went taut. She saw red. Then the pain subsided to a low throb. She lay on her back on the stairs, staring upward. She knew she had a bullet in her, somewhere high on her left side, somewhere around her collarbone. Her left arm was entirely numb. The rest of her was pulsing with that dull ache. She knew the real agony would flare again. Soon.

A lousy day
, she thought, her eyes rolling.
A truly, truly bad day.

She cried out in pain a second time before Perkins could let his brother go. He heard it and looked over his shoulder, and saw her foot sticking up above the top of the stairs.

Reluctantly, he lowered Zachary's head to the floor. Zach's eyes stared up like marbles. Perkins closed them with his hand.

The woman on the stairs was moaning steadily now. Perkins heard her babbling, a low rush of words. He stood away from Zach's body and took a deep breath to steady himself. He wiped the tears off his cheeks with his hand.

The sirens stopped. It was the first time he was aware of them. They had hit a squealing peak on the street outside and then gone off suddenly. That would be Mulligan, Perkins thought. Mrs. Wallabee had called him like he'd asked. That reminded him of Avis, lying in her apartment with her throat cut. He did not look down at Zach, but felt him there, lying at his feet. And Nana … He would have to break the news to Nana …

The woman on the stairs moaned again. Perkins turned to her.

Alone, he thought. Now he was going to be alone.

He moved heavily across the room to the top of the stairs. He saw the small figure sprawled there upside down. The lights that dotted her mask like jewels flashed ridiculously, dim now under the bright fluorescents.

The woman stirred. She moaned, mumbled. She was trying to get up.

Perkins moved around her, down the stairs. He crouched down next to her.

“Hold on there, kid. I got you,” he said. “Just lie still.”

The woman rolled her head back and forth. “Don't know …,” she mumbled. “Scared … scared … shoulda been me … so scared … please …”

“Ssh,” said Perkins. He had to wipe his cheek again. He saw the woman try to open her eyes behind the mask. But the eyes fell shut heavily. Perkins reached down and pulled the mask up. Gently, he worked it up over her hair and tossed it aside where it blinked against the wall.

The woman's pile of reddish brown curls spilled out around her face. Perkins recognized her right away. The broad cheeks, the strong jaw. Mulligan had shown him a picture of her. She was the FBI agent they had sent after Zach. What was her name again? Stallone. Gus Stallone.

Her head thrashed back and forth on the stairs. She would not stop moving her legs. “Scared … Oliver … Oliver,” she whispered. He stroked her forehead, brushing back the curls. She opened her eyes wide. She stared up at him. She lifted her hand weakly to his mouth. She pressed her fingertips against his lips. “You … Ol …” she muttered. “Know you. I know who you are.”

She tried to turn to him.

“All right, all right,” Perkins said. “You're gonna fall. You're gonna hurt yourself.”

“Lousy … lousy day,” she muttered.

He laughed mirthlessly. “Yeah. Me too. Come on, I better take you down.”

He got her to hold her wounded arm close to her side. He coaxed her right arm around his neck. He knelt and worked one of his arms around her back, the other beneath her knees. He stood up, hoisting her into the air, holding her against his torn sweater, her hair warm against his bare chest. He began to carry her down the stairs. Around the curve of the wall. Under the watchful windows shimmering in their fissures. Below him, beyond the darkness on the ground floor, there appeared a large rectangle of white-gray light. The library's front doors had been pushed open. A man was standing in the doorway, silhouetted against the streetlights' glow. Behind the man, there were crowds of people. Some were staring through the doors—eyes behind contorted masks, burning white in made-up faces, peering in at them. Most of the others were still gathered by the barricades. Perkins could see them pumping up and down, their hands upraised. He could hear the music still playing, the racy jangling brass from the parade. He saw some clowns still capering in the street, though they had to dance around the police cars. The police cars blocked the avenue, their white and red flashers whirling.

Perkins carried the woman down the stairs, holding her against him. Her head shifted and he glanced at her. He saw the purple bruises on her forehead. Streaks of dirt and scratches on her cheeks. He noticed that the bullet wound up by her neck was bleeding. The blood had soaked the upper left side of her shirt.

“Oliver,” she muttered, turning in his arms. “Alive … Stay alive … Oliver …”

Perkins shook his head down at her.
Gus Stallone
, he thought.
Dumb name for a babe. Augusta. It must really be Augusta.

“Do you … do you know …?” she murmured. She turned her face to him, opened her eyes again. “Do you know the magic word?” Her eyes fell shut. Her head lolled to the side. He felt her cheek against his chest, her lips moving. He heard her babbling softly.

He turned away. He carried her down the stairs. Toward the masks. Toward the music. Toward the flashing lights.

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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

copyright © 1993 by Andrew Klavan

cover design by Jason Gabbert

This edition published in 2011 by
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