Quarters’ bespectacled gaze grew concerned. “Urgent, I gather. Una?”
“Yes.” Tronen set down the stove, retained the canister, fiddled with the cap, unscrewing it beneath an appearance of nervousness. “She’s gone. I’m worried. That’s why I cut you off yesterday. Now I wonder if you have any notion where she might be.”
“Good heaven, no. What can have gone wrong? And, uh, why’re you lugging that stuff around?”
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“You don’t know where she is, lover boy?” Tronen purred.
Quarters flushed. “Huh? What do you mean? Are you, for God’s sake, are you implying”
“Yes.”
“No! Una? She’s the cleanest, most honorable person alive. Leo, are you crazy?”
The interior fire crowned and ran free through heaven. A part of Tronen remembered that only an idiot would waste time and give the foe opportunity in a confrontation scene. He had the cap off the can. He dashed gasoline across Quarters. The man yelled, staggered back, brushed the stinking reek from his face. Tronen dropped the can to pour out what remained of its contents. He must finish his justice and be away before noise drew neighbors. He pulled forth his cigarette lighter. “Burn, Harry,” he said. “Burn.” He snapped flame and advanced on Quarters. He was much the heavier and stronger male.
“No, please, no!” Quarters tried to scuttle aside. But the room wasn’t big. Tronen kept between him and the door. Soon he’d be boxed in a corner. Tronen moved forward, yowling.
Quarters grabbed an outsize ashtray off an end table by his armchair. Una had given him it for his pipes. He threw, as he would scorch a baseball across a sandlot.
Tronen saw amber-hued glass spin toward him, aglare like the eye of a cat. It struck. Fire exploded and went out.
As he fell, his lighter flame touched the gasoline spilled across the floor. Flame sprang aloft.
Quarters did the heroic thing. Although him—
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self drenched, he didn’t flee immediately. Instead he dragged Tronen along. When safe on the lawn, he secured limbs with belt and necktie before the maniac should regain consciousness. Then he phoned an alarm in from an adjacent house. The trucks arrived too late to save him.
The police chief’s office in a smallish town is rarely impressive. This held a battered desk, a couple of creaky chairs, a filing cabinet, and a coatrack on a threadbare carpet between dingy plaster walls. It smelled of cigar butts. The view in the window was glorious, though. A thaw had been followed by a freeze, and winter-brilliant sunlight from a sky like sapphire burst in the icicles hung on boughs in Riverside Park.
“appreciate your, uh, concern, Mr. Quarters,” he said into the telephone. “Can’t be sure yet, of course. But Dr. Mandelbaum, you know, big-name psychiatrist at the university, he’s already come down and examined Tronen. Says he’s never seen a case quite like it, but in his opinion the man’s hopelessly insane. Permanently, I mean. Homicidal, incapable of reason, will have to be kept confined for life like any dangerous animal.” The chief grimaced. “He keeps shouting about how he’s on fire and wants his kitten back andYou got any idea what this might mean, sir? … No?”
The chief paused. “Uh, Mr. Quarters, maybe you can help us in a couple of matters .. . First off, we found a piece of writing in Tronen’s
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pants pocket. Weird stuff, about a, uh, ka, whatever that is. I thought maybe a clue
“Oh, an article his wife was working on, hm? Well, look, if you could explainSomething must’ve sent Tronen off the deep end.”
He took notes as he listened. Finally: “Mm, yes, thanks. Let me see if I’ve got the idea straight. The Egyptians thought a man had several different souls. The ka was the one that could wander around independently, in the shape of an animal; it’d come back and talk with him in his grave, except he was actually in heaven . .. Aw, nuts, too complicated for me. The ka was his spirit of reason and lightness. Let’s leave it at that as far as this old woodenhead is concerned, okay? . .. No, I don’t see any help. Like you say, it’s only research Mrs. Tronen was doing.”