Death Instinct - Jed Rubenfeld [164]
Younger looked at Littlemore a long time. “Give me those,” he said, referring to the glass vials in the detective’s hands. Soon the entire perimeter of the manhole cover was seething with corrosion. “Now we wait.”
A few minutes later, Younger rose and took up a crowbar, offering the other to Littlemore. They strained to wrench loose the manhole cover, but with no success. “Maybe the acid’s not strong enough,” said Littlemore.
The two men stood over the manhole cover. Littlemore gave it a stomp with one foot. As he was about to administer another, Younger said, too late, “I wouldn’t do—”
Littlemore’s shoe punched loose the acid-cut manhole cover. They could hear it rushing away from them, as if sucked down into a vacuum. For an instant Littlemore remained poised over the now-open manhole, one foot already inside it, body twisting and wavering, struggling for balance. Then he said, “Shoot”—and fell in.
As Littlemore disappeared down the hole, his flailing arms grabbed Younger’s ankle. Younger was almost able to arrest their fall, but he couldn’t hold on, and a moment later he too vanished down into the earth, leaving only a crowbar lying across the manhole.
Younger found himself sliding down a chute at an alarming speed. There was no light at all. There was, however, sound: that of his own body smashing into curved walls, and that of Littlemore yelling in front of him. They flew around hairpin bends and sailed over bumps, plummeting downward in the sightless black.
Mr. Brighton kept them in suspense all day about his plans for the Radium Fund. Every time Mrs. Meloney veered round to the subject, he deflected it—whether artfully or absent-mindedly, Colette couldn’t tell.
They dined in the Garret Restaurant, high over the southern tip of Manhattan, overlooking a sanguine sunset on the Hudson. On their way down the elevator, Mrs. Meloney declared herself a nervous wreck from eating in so lofty a perch and insisted she must go home. Colette said that she would go as well.
“Don’t be silly, dear,” said Mrs. Meloney. “You must visit Mr. Brighton’s dial factory. He is especially proud of it—and justly so.”
“Please say you will,” said Brighton.
“Is there time?” asked Colette. “Dr. Younger will be waiting for me at Trinity Church at nine-thirty.”
“Waiting at the church?” asked Brighton. “Why—are you—you’re not getting married, are you, Miss Rousseau?”
“Getting married tonight?” laughed Mrs. Meloney. “Mr. Brighton, girls do not marry at night. And if they did, they would not spend the day of their wedding visiting paint factories. Not to mention the fact that Trinity Church will be good and locked up at this hour.”
“Oh, dear,” said Brighton. “There’s so much I don’t know. But I do have keys to Trinity Church. I’m on the board of directors. Would you like to see the interior, Miss Rousseau? It’s very fine.”
“I’ve seen it, Mr. Brighton,” said Colette, who had spent several hours inside the church on September sixteenth.
“Miss Rousseau doesn’t want to see the church, Mr. Brighton. She wants to see your factory.” Mrs. Meloney turned to Colette: “There’s plenty of time, my dear. The factory is quite close by. And from the factory, the church is only round the corner. Now don’t disappoint him—or me. Please.”
Mrs. Meloney left in a taxi. “Do you like to walk, Miss Rousseau?” asked Brighton.
Colette was suddenly tongue-tied. So long as Mrs. Meloney had been there, Colette had not quite understood herself to be spending time with a man solely in pursuit of his money. Now she did feel that way, and it seemed to infect everything she said or didn’t say with a false and hypocritical tinge. “I like walking very much,” she replied.
Brighton offered her his arm. Colette pretended not to see it, but Brighton didn’t see her not seeing it, and left his elbow suspended so long that Colette was obliged finally to take it. Brighton seemed strangely tall walking next to Colette; their gait never managed to synchronize. Samuels maintained a respectful distance behind them.
“We’ll be right