Death Instinct - Jed Rubenfeld [22]
The first woman reached for the handle of Colette’s door. Betty saw her, cried out, then looked in front of the car and pointed. Colette, startled by the alarm in Betty’s voice, tried to lock her door, but was too late. The catch gave way; the door cracked open. At the same moment, the woman in the headlights finished unwinding her scarf and exposed what lay beneath.
Betty screamed in terror.
Littlemore called out; he and Younger ran down the steps. The red-haired women saw them coming, turned, and disappeared into the darkness. Littlemore gave chase. So did the officer who had asked Littlemore for instructions, and so did a half-dozen other officers, who came rushing from various directions at the sound of Betty’s scream. They fanned out, went up and down the block, banged on doors, shined flashlights into parked cars, but found no trace of either woman.
When Littlemore returned to the squad car, Betty’s hands were still covering her mouth. “You saw it?” Betty asked Colette.
“Saw what?” said Colette.
Betty looked stricken, aghast. “She was a monster, Jimmy.”
“Easy,” said Littlemore.
“It was—growing.”
“What was?” asked Littlemore.
“I don’t know,” said Betty. “It was alive. Like a head, like a baby’s head.”
“She was carrying a baby?”
“She wasn’t carrying anything!” exclaimed Betty. “It was attached to her. Like a baby’s head, but growing out of her neck.”
A silence followed.
“Let’s get out of here,” said Littlemore, helping Betty into the car. He threw the keys to Younger. “You drive, Doc.”
At two that morning, Younger and Littlemore were drinking bourbon at the detective’s kitchen table, a half-empty bottle between them. Everyone else in the apartment was fast asleep.
Littlemore appeared to be counting in his head. “When you shipped out,” he asked, “how many kids did Betty and I have?”
Younger didn’t reply.
“Whatever it was, it’s three more now,”added Littlemore.
“That would make seventy-two.”
“Okay, I’m going to sum up what we’ve got. We got a tooth, we got a bomb, we got a kidnapping, and we got two women outside my squad car, one of them with a spare head growing out of her neck. You’re wondering how it’s all connected, right?”
“Maybe.”
“Well, don’t think of it like that. Never assume connections. Take things one at a time. So let me sum up what we got again, one thing at a time: a bunch of crazy stuff that doesn’t make any kind of sense.” Littlemore cocked his head. “You knew that bomb was about to go off. How’d you know that?”
Younger shook his head.
Littlemore swirled the whiskey in his glass. “A baby can’t grow out of a woman’s neck, can it?”
Younger shook his head again.
“You don’t say much anymore, do you?” asked Littlemore.
Younger considered shaking his head, but decided against it.
“So let me get this straight,” replied Littlemore. “You haven’t asked for your professor job back. You’re not doing your scientist thing. You haven’t started doctoring again. What are you doing?”
“Tempting fate.”
“Not much of a job.”
“I just got back.”
“Yeah, but the war ended two years ago. Where have you been?”
Several minutes went by. The men drank.
“Nobody I know’s so willing to die,” said Littlemore.
“What’s that?”
“This morning you said it didn’t make sense that men are so willing to die.”
Younger knew Littlemore was trying to draw him out; that was all right with him. “You should have seen France in 1918,” said Younger. He got up and lit a cigarette with one of the Littlemores’ long stove matches. “The Brits, the French—they were sick of it by then. Just wanted to survive. Couldn’t believe their eyes when the Americans came. Like we’d lived our whole lives starved of the chance to die.”
“I would’ve been there,” said Littlemore. “If not for Betty and the kids.”
“It’s not just war either,” said Younger. “Give people a taste of terror, and they lap it up. Why are there roller coasters on Coney Island?”
“Not so people can die,