“No you don’t,” Isaiah said, determined not to let his humiliator escape. He pushed over a tower of fruit crates-baskets toppled and strewed their contents across Jerome’s path. Jerome hesitated, to take in the bouquet of bruised fruit. The indulgence almost killed him. Isaiah closed in, ready to take the man. Jerome, his system taxed to near eruption by the stimulus of pain, watched the blade come close to opening up his belly. His mind conjured the wound: the abdomen slit-the heat spilling out to join the blood of the strawberries in the gutter. The thought was so tempting. He almost wanted it.
Isaiah had killed before, twice. He knew the wordless vocabulary of the act, and he could see the invitation in his victim’s eyes. Happy to oblige, he came to meet it, knife at the ready. At the last possible moment Jerome recanted, and instead of presenting himself for slitting, threw a blow at the giant. Isaiah ducked to avoid it and his feet slid in the mush. The knife fled from his hand and fell among the debris of baskets and fruit. Jerome turned away as the hunter-the advantage lost-stooped to locate the knife. But his prey was gone before his ham-fisted grip had found it; lost again in the crowd-filled streets. He had no opportunity to pocket the knife before the uniform stepped out of the crowd and joined him in the hot passageway.
“What’s the story?” the policeman demanded, looking down at the knife. Isaiah followed his gaze. The bloodied blade was black with flies.
IN his office Inspector Carnegie sipped at his hot chocolate, his third in the past hour, and watched the processes of dusk. He had always wanted to be a detective, right from his earliest rememberings. And, in those rememberings, this had always been a charged and magical hour. Night descending on the city; myriad evils putting on their glad rags and coming out to play. A time for vigilance, for a new moral stringency.
But as a child he had failed to imagine the fatigue that twilight invariably brought. He was tired to his bones, and if he snatched any sleep in the next few hours he knew it would be here, in his chair, with his feet up on the desk amid a clutter of plastic cups.
The phone rang. It was Johannson.
“Still at work?” he said, impressed by Johannson’s dedication to the job. It was well after nine. Perhaps Johannson didn’t have a home worth calling such to go back to either.
“I heard our man had a busy day,” Johannson said.
“That’s right. A prostitute in Soho, then got himself stabbed.”
“He got through the cordon, I gather?”
“These things happen,” Carnegie replied, too tired to be testy. “What can I do for you?”
“I just thought you’d want to know: the monkeys have started to die.”
The words stirred Carnegie from his fatigue-stupor. “How many?” he asked.
“Three from fourteen so far. But the rest will be dead by dawn, I’d guess.”
“What’s killing them? Exhaustion?” Carnegie recalled the desperate saturnalia he’d seen in the cages. What animal-human or otherwise-could keep up such revelry without cracking up?
“It’s not physical,” Johannson said. “Or at least not in the way you’re implying. We’ll have to wait for the dissection results before we get any detailed explanations-”
“Your best guess?”
“For what it’s worth…” Johannson said, “… which is quite a lot: I think they’re going bang.”
“What?”
“Cerebral overload of some kind. Their brains are simply giving out. The agent doesn’t disperse you see. It feeds on itself The more fevered they get, the more of the drug is produced; the more of the drug there is, the more fevered they get. It’s a vicious circle. Hotter and hotter, wilder and wilder. Eventually the system can’t take it, and suddenly I’m up to my armpits in dead monkeys.” The smile came back into the voice again, cold and wry. ‘Not that the others let that spoil their fun. Necrophilia’s quite the fashion down here.”
Carnegie peered at his cooling hot chocolate. It had acquired a thin skin which puckered as he touched the cup. “So it’s just a matter of time?” he said.