24
Almost before Szell had slammed the door, they started bickering. “Unstrap him,” Janeway said.
Erhard limped to the chair and started to work, but Karl did not move. He stared at Janeway. “I have fold you already, I do not tell you a third time: Keep your orders.”
Janeway stared right back at the bigger man. “You pick him up, and don’t give me any goddamned static.”
“Oh come on, come on,” Erhard said, releasing the last of the straps. “Karl, you’re the strongest, you handle the boy; it would be no trouble for you, not with your power.” Karl liked to be reminded of his might; Erhard did it as often as necessary.
Karl grabbed one of Babe’s arms, pulled it around his thick neck, dragged Babe from the chair. Babe was dead weight. “Walk!” Karl said, and Babe tried to make his feet move. Karl was still doing the bulk of the work, but every so often Babe was able to take a half step on his own.
Janeway opened the door and Erhard hurried on ahead, limping along the corridor, holding the door that led down the stairs. As they approached it, Babe was able to walk a little on his own, but the stairs were too much for him; he stumbled, almost fell, surely would have if Karl had ever let him go. “Banister!” Karl said, and Babe reached out, took it with his free hand, and by the time they got to the bottom, he could almost keep his balance.
Erhard was the first to the street, Janeway following, Karl and Babe the last. “We’ll use my car,” Erhard said, and he gestured toward the corner. “Come on, come on,” and he limped ahead. He liked to do that, Janeway noted, take the lead. Whenever they were going anyplace and Erhard knew the destination, he was always first. “Come on, come on,” he liked to say, and Janeway never objected; let Erhard have his little triumphs, it hurt nothing.
Karl, though, was a different matter. Back upstairs when Erhard had said that Karl was the strongest, it had nettled Janeway. Not that in a pure weightlifting contest Karl wouldn’t have been victor, but put them in a darkened alleyway and Janeway knew Karl wouldn’t have survived half a minute. Probably that was ego talking—he hadn’t been an active Provider for several years now, and desk work took a certain amount away from you. Karl might have survived fifty seconds with him now, he had probably slowed that much. Why did he loathe Karl so? Probably a natural contempt any species has for a lower form, coupled with vast differences in tastes, entertainment, lusts.
They turned the corner and entered the dark side street. “Come on, come on,” Erhard said from up ahead.
“Did you park in Jersey, for Chrissakes?” Janeway said, angry at even having been ordered to go along. Surely these two failures could have finished the boy. Szell must have been particularly furious that his methods hadn’t worked; otherwise he would never have humiliated Janeway by forcing him to go along on something as trivial as this.
“It’s just a little more, come on, come on.”
“You take him now, your turn,” Karl said.
Janeway ignored him.
Karl muttered something then, probably “fag” in German.
Janeway decided not to hear that too.
Karl’s irritation was growing; he pushed Babe. “Walk —you can walk.”
Babe did his best. At first he slipped, but then he got the hang of it, managed tiny steps, didn’t fall again, as he had almost done coming down the stairs.
“Here we are,” Erhard said, “just one second more and we’ll be ready to go.” The car was an old Ford, and Erhard took a bunch of keys from his pocket, searched around in the darkness to find the right one.
“You locked this thing?” Janeway said incredulously.
“Here is a terrible neighborhood,” Erhard tried to explain. “Everyone always steals everything, and this is a wonderful car, never one moment’s trouble, not once in now twelve years.”
“If it’s so goddamn wonderful, why can’t you Jesus Christ get it open?” Not necessary. Nothing gained insulting a cretin like Erhard; if you must insult a cretin, insult Karl, who was standing stupidly watching by the hood of the car, which Babe lay silently sprawled across.
“Here, here, I’ve got it now, no need for trouble,” Erhard said, and he put the key into the lock, jiggled it “Don’t force it,” Karl said, “—last time you forced it it was the trunk key—don’t do that again—”
“Nothing is being forced,” Erhard said, and then, a second later, “Dammit,” and Janeway angrily moved to him, saying, “Give it to me, just let me have it, I’ll open the stupid thing,” but Karl said, “You don’t know this car, I’ve ridden in it, I’ve driven it, I know how to open it,” and he grabbed the keys from Erhard as Babe rolled off the car hood and tried to stagger away, but Janeway saw him immediately and said to Karl, “You were supposed to stay with the boy, go get him,” but Karl said, “I’m doing the keys and from you, no orders,” so Erhard said, “Oh I’ll do it, just get the door open,” and he went limping to retrieve Babe.
“Outrun by a cripple,” Babe thought, reeling like a Bowery drunk along the dark street; that’s some finish for a marathon man, all right, the perfect epitaph. “Here lies Thomas Babington Levy, 1948-1973, Caught by a Cripple.”
Well, of course, there were circumstances. Obviously Erhard wouldn’t have had a chance if he’d been in shape, but it had been a while since he’d slept, and what Szell had done to him didn’t help his cause any either, and now as he tried to make his inept way, the pain was with him, because every time he tried to inhale, the night air hit the holes in his teeth and attacked the open nerves, and, of course, the street was hard and filled with sharp dark things and he didn’t have shoes on to protect him, he was still in his pajamas, a helpless creep just like the stoop gang always said, staggering along with a cripple closing the gap behind him— something jammed into his foot then, something that hurt enough to penetrate into his brain deeper than the air against the nerves, and Babe hoped it wasn’t broken glass but only maybe a rock that would hurt like crazy but not lay his foot open to even more serious pain. He should stop, he knew, he really should, because then he could tell himself, “Hell, he never woulda caught me, I stopped, no cripple catches a marathon man,” but then he wasn’t a marathon man, what kind of a marathon man would go around barefoot?
Bikila!
Abebe Bikila, the great Ethiopian cop who ran the Olympics in Japan, and in the documentary of that Olympics Babe had cried, because the Russians were the favorites with all their power and their doctors and their special diets, and the Germans were right up there too, and everybody ignored the black Ethiopian, or if they didn’t, they laughed, because not only was he alone, he didn’t even have shoes, he was going to try to run the whole damn 26 miles 385 yards barefoot, barefoot in the twentieth century, for God’s sake, and the race started and the Russians were tough, but the Germans were no pushovers, and then after maybe ten miles they tried their moves, but the Russians weren’t just tough, they were too tough, and the Germans fell back, and now the Russians had it all and it was only a matter of jockeying it correctly so that the right man finished first and the right man finished second, because they were very big on that in sports, the Russians, if you put in your years, you got your victory, even if a younger man was better, because his time would come, and then from way back there was this little noise, this kind of murmur, no louder than that, because you didn’t have big crowds at marathon runs, at the start yes, at the end yes, because they were both in the stadium, but during the race there were always only just a few people standing around watching the nuts sweat, because you had to be a nut to flog your body into that kind of effort, and fifteen miles along the third Russian began to realize that something kind of odd was taking place and he glanced around and here came this skinny black guy with no shoes and moving up fast and the third Russian picked up his speed and then all three Russians were in this kind of conference as they ran along and the news was being passed, there was this thing back there, this really weird kind of happening was taking place back there, on account o
f this barefoot guy was gaining on them, so the Russians picked up the pace, made it matchless, they could do that, they had trained to do that, they had run right and eaten right and the right doctors had done the right things and when they had to crush you, you were crushed, and after twenty miles this barefoot guy passed the third Russian and now there were only two to go and the Russians had to do something, so they let it out full, six miles to go, and they turned it on, everything, and whoever was behind them had to fall back or burn himself out, and that’s what happened to all the runners except this black guy, who didn’t even have shoes, because what he did when the Russians turned it on full was something no one had ever done before, he turned it on fuller, and the Russians were standing still, they weren’t even snails as this barefoot guy they’d all been mocking two hours before went by, sailed by, zoomed by, jetted by, triumphed by, and when he hit the main stadium the crowd started screaming like they hadn’t screamed for a marathon man since Nurmi, and now there were two in the pantheon, two legends, Nurmi and the barefoot genius from Ethiopia, the great Bikila, and... and “Screw it,” Babe thought, “I’m not getting caught by no cripple.” So what if his foot hurt and his teeth caused constant pain? When you were a real marathon man, you did whatever needed doing.
At great cost, Babe picked up his pace just a little.
From behind him Erhard shouted, “I can’t catch him.”
Janeway glanced up from the car and saw the boy running perhaps half a block away, heading toward the river and the West Side Highway. “You!” he said to Karl. “You give me those goddamn keys and get him!”
Janeway’s words echoed along the dark street, and Babe knew it was the brute after him now, big Karl. Well, Karl was strong, strong like the Russians had been, but Bikila had beaten the Russians, and Babe knew that if just his teeth would stop destroying him, he could put Karl away easy, because Karl seemed like an arm man, big through the chest and shoulders, sure, but not in the legs, no power, no endurance, and Babe took his right hand and put it over his mouth, because if he could keep the night air from hitting the open nerves directly, he could cut the pain—
—bad idea—
—because it also threw him off balance, and he had run all these years to get that right, that was all running was really, proper balance so you didn’t tire, you learned to protect your body from fatigue by using it correctly, and the arms were the key to balance, and when he put his right hand over his mouth his balance went, his left arm had nothing on the other side to set up the countering rhythm, and Babe could hear Karl’s heavy footsteps gaining on him as he did his best to run with less pain, but no balance either.
Karl was closing.
Forget the pain, Babe thought, and he shoved his tongue up over his front teeth and that was some warmth, some protection, and pumping with his arms, he held Karl’s footsteps even.
Then he picked up the pace a little bit more, and Karl’s sounds grew softer.
“Help!” Karl called out, panting.
“Shit,” Janeway said, and then he left the car and started to run.
And could he move.
Babe could tell from the quickness of the footsteps that this was it. He had the lead, sure, but could he hold it, and for how long?
Ahead now was the Hudson, and Babe turned his corner and hesitated a moment, not sure at first whether to try to go uptown or down, where was salvation, and of course it wasn’t anyplace, but he chose uptown, because no more than a couple of blocks away in the dark night was an entrance to the West Side Highway, a steep incline, a hill, and Babe was always good at hills, if he could just beat Janeway to the incline he knew he could hold him off, because in college when he ran cross-country he did great on hills, not so sensational on the flat, because he didn’t have natural speed, but other guys panicked when they saw a rise coming.
Not Babe.
Janeway had already cut his lead deeply. He glanced back, and Karl had passed Erhard, but Janeway had already passed Karl, and there they all were, his three Fates. Babe ducked his head and started pumping his arms with all he had, because Janeway was just slaughtering him. Janeway was faster, no question about that, but there was one thing nobody knew, and that was could Janeway go the distance, could he take it when his lungs were burning? Probably not, Babe thought, he doesn’t look like a marathon man to me, he looks like a sprinter, a guy who’ll kill you for a while, but if you can just hold him off until it starts hurting, you got him, and Babe was only a block from the incline entrance now but Janeway was less than half that behind Babe, and gaining as Babe saw Nurmi up ahead shaking his head at him, and that wasn’i fair, Nurmi shouldn’t judge him off tonight’s performance, when he was in shape he could run with anybody, and Bikila was jogging barefooted alongside Nurmi and he was shaking his head too and starting to laugh and that really wasn’t fair, Bikila should know better than to humiliate a fellow marathon man because he had been mocked at Tokyo but he had shown them and all right you bastard, Babe thought, go on, laugh at me, I’ll show you, and he picked up the pace as much as he possibly could and then went a notch even over that.
But he couldn’t shake Janeway.
How far behind? Eighty feet? Sixty now? The incline too far ahead. He’s too fast for me, I can’t handle him, and then Bikila dropped back beside him, saying, “Of course you can,” and Babe said, “You shouldn’t have laughed at me,” and Bikila said, “I would never laugh at a marathon man, I was laughing at them, thinking they could beat one of us with a sprinter,” and Babe felt better when he heard that, but not enough to keep Jane way from sprinting closer still, and the test of the heart was coming now, and ordinarily Babe would have relished it, but not now, not in this pain, and he did what he could to hold Janeway even until Nurmi came alongside him, he and Bikila flanking Babe now, and Nurmi said, “In Finland once I broke a bone in my foot but I never let on, I would have died before I limped, no one knows what’s in j’our heart, only you, your heart and your brain, that’s all we have to battle Time,” and Babe said, “I can’t think, the air hurts so, I don’t know how to act, what to do,” so Nurmi said, “Slow down, begin to lose your rhythm, do that and do it now,” so Babe slowed for a few steps and then Nurmi said, “Fly,” and Babe took off for as long as he could and Bikila said, “He doesn’t know what you’re doing now, sprinters have no brains, God gave them speed but they cannot think, once you get them thinking they’re done,” and perhaps it was true, because now Janeway’s footsteps for the first time started to recede and Babe said, “I beat him, I did it,” but Nurmi said, “Not yet, he’ll try his burst, he’ll give whatever he has,” and Bikila said, “If you hold him off he’s done, but you must do that, we cannot do it for you,” and Babe said, “Will you at least stay with me?” and Bikila said, “Of course, we are all marathon men, only we understand pain,” and Nurmi said, “He’s coming!”
And he was.
With every step, Janeway closed, and Babe said, “I’m sorry, I can’t, but please, don’t leave me, I’m done,” and then Bikila was shouting at him, “He’s starting to wobble—listen—his rhythm is going—keep on, keep on,” but Babe repiled, “It hurts too much, I’m burning up inside,” and that made Nurmi angry, “Of course you’re burning up inside, you’re supposed to burn up inside, and you keep going, you burst through the pain barrier, I did it, that’s why I was the greatest runner,” and Babe said, “I would have beaten you, it’s true, if I’d had the chance to live long enough, I would have brought you down—”
—Janeway brought Babe down then.
With one final desperate dive at the start of the incline, he launched himself across the night and barely grazed Babe’s ankle, but it was enough to send them both sprawling groggily.
“Up, man!” Bikila cried. “Up and be quick about it, he’s a sprinter and that was all he had, he’s done, he’ll never catch you if you start to move,” and Babe was on all fours, dizzy, as Nurmi said, “I thought you were supposed to be so wonderful with inclines, well, here’
s an incline, ran it, or would you rather just stay here and listen to him gasp?”—
—it was true—Janeway was gasping, pulling the night air deep into his lungs as he tried to rise.
Babe hobbled to his feet. His ankle hurt like hell and his face had scraped along the pavement, but he knew the sound of a beaten runner when he heard it, and that was all Janeway was now, an also-ran, and so what if the incline was steep, Babe had beaten hills with twice the angle, and behind him he could hear Janeway calling, “Get the car—the car!” but by that time Babe was halfway up the incline and increasing his speed, something both Bikila and Nurmi noted, and don’t think that didn’t give Babe a shot in the arm; I’m a marathon man, he thought, a real one, and you better not mess with us because if you do you’ll get in nothing but big trouble.
Then Jesus, Babe thought suddenly—they’re coming for me in the car.
They’ll be roaring up the incline at ninety miles an hour and what the hell am I gonna do? He ran along the right edge of the West Side Highway going uptown, trying to think of some way to escape them, because once they got the car they had him, so do something, do something—but what?
In the end, what he did was altogether brilliant.
Oh, not brilliant like Einstein or Sir Isaac or Orville and Wilbur, but still, considering the fact that he didn’t have all year to noodle ideas around, he had no cause for taking a back seat to anybody.
What he did was, without warning, simply hurry across the elevated highway, step over the yard-high divider, and start running in just the opposite direction, downtown.
He had entered the highway uptown at 57th Street, and the first downtown exit was quite handy, 56th Street; actually, it couldn’t have been much handier.
It was three minutes before Janeway and the others drove onto the incline heading uptown. Babe watched them from the downtown incline, standing deep in shadow.
He wasn’t all that sure, but he thought the first exit they could possibly take if they figured out what he’d done was all the way up to either 72nd or 79th.
Marathon Man Page 18