The Snake

Nineteen

Once, before he pulled so far ahead that Eastman had trouble seeing him, Converse turned and looked back. He wants to make sure he's losing me, Eastman thought, the treacherous bastard, so he can play Good Samaritan to that stinking snake. He tried to turn on an extra burst of speed, but just then a squad car pulled up onto the curb and cut him off. Both doors fanned open and two cops came running toward him.

One of them yelled, "Freeze!" and put his hand on the butt of his revolver.

"Freeze, you!"

For an instant, Eastman considered ramming into the cop and knocking him ass over teakettle. But the guy's partner was running up, and he already had his gun in his hand.

Panting, sucking air, Eastman yelled, "On the job," and started to reach for his I.D.

"Freeze," both cops yelled at once, and the second cop crouched and brought his piece to bear, holding it in that terrific two-handed grip he had picked up from television. "Don't make a move!"

"Shit," Eastman said.

There were so many police vehicles on the scene that they were forced to compete with each other for access to the park. Once inside, they streamed onto the main auto routes and walkways, searching for suspects.

The Puries, squads A to H, had left the areas of their fires once they were certain they were burning satisfactorily, but they did not flee. They walked through the park in formation, singing hymns. They offered no uniform resistance to being gathered in by the police, although there were a few minor clashes. The net also swept up a few innocent muggers.

All of the detainees were piled into squad cars and then transferred to patrol wagons with a capacity of twenty persons. They were taken to the Central Park Precinct, where they were booked, charged, investigated, and fingerprinted. Because the Central Park Precinct had no lodging facilities, the suspects were dispersed for the rest of the night to the Two-oh, the Two-three, and the Two-four. The females were sent to Midtown North.

As he rounded into the park, Converse saw flames and black smoke boiling upward almost directly to the east, and he knew that the Puries had ignited the snake's territory. Bastards, they would roast it! But he ran on, though he was certain there was no way he could save the snake now.

Even supposing it had not died in the flames, but had been driven out into the open, were the Puries going to stand by and allow him to bag it?

Still, the snake might foot them. In Africa, during the seasonal burning of the dried grass, black mambas frequently survived by remaining in a burrow under a dead tree or a disused ant heap. Since it was natural to the species and would help explain how it had escaped detection for so long, it was reasonable to suppose that the snake in the park had found such a burrow.

A few hundred yards short of the snake's territory, Converse heard excited voices. He stopped. The voices came closer, and then they came into view, black-clad Puries running, waving their improvised weapons.

He watched as they streamed past him in a loose formation that he remembered vaguely from his ROTC days as an infantryman's extended order drill. From their purposiveness, it seemed certain that they had flushed the snake and were on its trail. From the way they were running they seemed to think the snake would move ahead in a straight line. But, of course, it would zigzag to take advantage of natural concealment, and it might even double back, although the flames would prevent it from returning to its territory. On the other hand, the Puries might actually be on its trail.

Converse hesitated, indecisive, then, on instinct, ran after the Puries.

One of the cops handed Eastman's I.D. back to him and said, "Sorry, captain, but you know how it is."

"No," Eastman said. "Tell me how it is. And put that gun away."

Both cops returned their revolvers to their holsters. The second cop said, "Well, we sure are sorry, captain."

"Tell me how it is," Eastman said to the first cop. His voice was shaking with anger. "Go ahead, tell me how it is."

"Well, we see this guy running-"

"Which guy running are you talking about?" Eastman said. "Me?"

"Yeah. You're running, going like hell, and I spot you, and I says to Joe, my partner-"

"There were fifty goddamn people running," Eastman said. "Why me?"

The cops looked at each other, and after a moment the first one said, "Well, sure there was all these other people running, but we spotted you and we said, we both said, Hey, that big guy, he looks big and tough, you know, well, you know, captain, what I mean, you should of seen what you looked like, what you look like…"

"You dumb sonofabitch," Eastman said, "I know exactly what I look like. I look like a cop." He glared at the first cop. "Don't I"

"Yeah, come to think of it…"

"Don't I" Eastman said to the second cop.

"You sure do, captain."

"Now that we got that straightened out," Eastman said, "I'm commandeering your car. Let's get moving."

"I don't know, captain," the first cop said, "we got our orders from the sergeant, we gotta-

"Get in that car, you pair of shitheads," Eastman yelled, reaching under his shirt, "or I swear I'll shoot you both dead right in your fucking tracks."

Because the fires were dispersed over so wide an area, six fire companies were eventually brought into the park. By the time the firemen reached some of the fires the gasoline vapours had already burned off and the color of the flames had changed from black to a dirty brown.

The spread of the individual fires varied, depending on the contiguity of trees and bushes in the surrounding terrain, but none, fortunately, posed a threat to any of the park's structures. Since hydrants were unavailable in most of the affected areas (hydrants were emplaced only on the East and West Drives, in the transverses, and adjacent to buildings), the firemen were obliged to use pumpers for their source of water. In the case of the most difficult of the fires, the pumpers of two companies emptied booster tanks as well as their regular tanks, and were faced with the alternative of running a stretch to the nearest hydrant or using a hard-suction hose, a device which, dropped into a lake or pond, would suck up water rapidly and impel it at the nozzle with force.

In the event, pumpers from other companies responded to the emergency with untapped tanks. Presently, the smoke from even the most stubborn of the fires changed from brown to white, and at this indication of abatement, the firemen breathed easier.

But even after the fires were well under control, it would be a long night for the firemen. In most of the areas where the fires were ignited, the vegetation had been compacted and dried for years, and would continue to smoulder with the persistence of peat. For hours after the flames had died, the firemen would be overhauling the areas, raking and chopping until no spark remained.

"What do you think they put sirens in these things for?" Eastman yelled.

"Turn it on. Turn it on."

But the wailing of the siren was just another instrument in the orchestra of official noises, and progress was slow. Eastman knew he could make better time running, but he needed the respite for the sake of his thumping heart and heaving chest. Both sides of Central Park West were jammed with spectators. Through a gap in the crowd Eastman caught a glimpse of Holly Markham. She was sitting on a bench, her head slumped toward her breast, her fists pressed hard into her diaphragm. Stitch in the side, Eastman guessed, and thought, If that splendid girl was my girl, I'm damned if I'd let any lousy snake keep me from giving her comfort.

The squad car found an opening and ploughed ahead to the Boys Gate. Eastman directed the car to the West Drive, and then realized that he didn't know where to go. To the left, a group of Puries ran by, brandishing shovels and axes. A moment later he recognized Converse. Eastman screamed at the cop driving the squad car to stop, but the cop's reaction was slow. By the time he got out, the Puries and Converse were both out of sight. He took three deep breaths, slowly, and then ran after them.

The snake crawled into a thicket and rested, its eyes fixed on the bobbing lights that had been clinging to it in pursuit. Suddenly, a light shone directly into its eyes, and behind the light the snake could make out a shadowy figure.

Bill Hextall, at the extreme right Hank of squad S, saw the snake when his flashlight beam reflected in its eyes. The snake, except for its head and neck, was hidden in brush. Hextall stared at the snake in fascination, then, as its head withdrew, let out a hoarse shout.

He saw the other members of the squad stop. He continued to shout until they started to run back toward him. He pointed toward the thicket where he had seen the snake, and half a dozen of them began to beat the area with their weapons. Then someone spotted it, gliding across an open area, speeding westward, where it disappeared into brush. Shouting, squad S took up the pursuit.

They picked up its trail again as it was crawling through the children's playground near the Boys Gate. It fled before them and ran through the opening into Central Park West.

Afterwards, in gloriously embroidered detail, a dozen or more citizens were to claim the honour of having been the first to see the snake slither out of the park and onto the pavement of Central Park West. Several others pinpointed the real discoverer as a well-dressed man wearing a pinstriped seersucker suit with shirt and tie, and a cocoa straw hat.

This man, who shouted in a strangulated voice described predictably by those who heard it as sounding like "a man having his throat cut," saw the snake reverse itself and curve back toward the shelter of the park retaining wall.

The commingled voices of the crowd, including those who never actually saw the snake themselves, combined overtones of fear, horror, terror, revulsion, triumph, and pure excitement. The more prudent among them pushed backwards; others poised themselves in a balance that would allow them to retreat if the snake came toward them; still others pressed forward. From north and south along Central Park West, new crowds of people, hearing the screams and shouts and sensing a denouement, converged on the scene.

Given the stifling heat and the bodily reaction to the release of their emotions, it was little wonder that everyone in the crowd was pouring sweat. The mingled odour of burned foliage and petroleum was suffocating, and massive clouds of smoke were drifting murkily across the leaden sky.

Into this scene, a cop, who had been directing traffic at an inter section, arrived with drawn gun. He stood well back from the snake, which was crawling along the base of the retaining wall, aimed at its elevated head, and pulled the trigger. The shot struck the stone wall a full foot to the left of the snake, ricocheted, and tore a hole in the door of an unoccupied car parked at the curb.

The snake swerved outward from the wall, and, with the crowd retreating before it, crawled toward the curb and ran up into the open door of a taxi which had just pulled up, and which contained a man and two women in its back seat.

Squad S poured out of the park behind Buck Pell.

The snake panicked in the close confines of the taxi, It struck out at the flailing legs, bit once, twice, a third time, perhaps the same leg. Then it succeeded in turning around, and it dropped to the pavement, already squirming forward, its whiplike tail following. It ran toward the entrance to the park, but there were many figures blocking its path. It changed direction to its left and the figures moved with it; to the right, and the figures moved with it. It stopped, piled its length into a coil, lifted its head hi, — hissed dryly, opened its mouth wide, and swayed menacingly.

The sound of the crowd carried into the park, and Eastman knew that the snake had been found. He lowered his head and ran, making outrageous demands on his heavy, out-of-shape body, grunting and sobbing as he fought for breath.

And if I have a stinking heart attack, he thought, there will be no in spector's funeral, just the ordinary burial of a fat cop who died rather normally in line of duty, and thank God for the pension, though it won't be enough to see the boys through college and so they'll drift into the NYPD, and start accumulating pensions of their own, which, God willing, they'll collect before they get so fat that they die in the simple act of running.

He heard the sound of a shot.

Converse had lagged behind the Puries, poking in some underbrush, when he heard the shot from outside the park. He began to run. By the time he burst out of the park, hurdling the stone wall, only dimly aware that the plodding figure he had passed was Eastman's, the snake was in the center of a ring of black-clad Puries, which in its turn was surrounded by a massed, concentric ring of onlookers.

Holding the Pilstrom tongs over his head, he strained to break through the crowd to the inner ring. Pushing, pleading, using his shoulders and elbows, he tried to make a passage for himself. Once, when he raised his head to take a deep breath, he caught a glimpse of Holly, her face pale, her body cramped by the press of other bodies.

"Close on in," Buck Pell shouted, "but slow, careful."

With their weapons extended, the Puries shuffled forward, contracting their circle. The snake turned its head to follow their movements, hissing, it’s anterior rigid and swaying, mouth wide open. Suddenly, as the ring pressed in, it began to crawl forward. The crowd gasped and re coiled. A Purie leaped forward, and, half running to keep pace with the snake's movement, smashed the flat side of his shovel down on its curving posterior quarter.

"Death to the Devil," he screamed.

Ile snake rolled over completely, writhing, coiling over on itself. A ragged cry rose from the crowd, half horror, half exultation. Writhing, knotted, the snake moved forward again, its shattered rear dragging behind.

Buck Pell signalled, and the Puries of squad S closed in, flailing downward with their weapons. The snake's head rose, and it launched a strike at a Purie that fell short. A swinging blow from a rake knocked the snake flat.

Its body squirming, knotting, it tried to right itself. The head came up, but a second blow struck it to the ground, bleeding. It flopped over on its back, and its light underside was turned up before it succeeded in righting itself. As it started to crawl forward, Buck Pell went to meet it, an axe raised high over his head. He braced himself, and brought the bright axhead down in a gleaming arc. Sparks flew from the pavement, and a chip, white at its edges, flew off into the crowd. The snake's head was severed just behind the neck. Near it, the long body, oozing blood, pulsed and shuddered and writhed.

Converse was still struggling against the density of the crowd when he saw the axhead flash upward and then down. He heard the thud and ring of the axe, and, from the crowd, a concerted gasp like a sudden gust of wind. At the same time, whether in awe or revulsion or both, the crowd eddied back, flowed around him, and he stood at the forefront. The black mamba's head and writhing body lay on the blood smeared pavement, no more than six inches apart, but grotesquely out of line with each other.

The man who had wielded the axe, grinning triumphantly, bent over suddenly and reached downward.

Converse screamed, "No! Don't touch it! No!" But he was too late. The man had already picked up the severed head.

The snake's gaping mouth snapped shut over Buck Pell's hand; each of its fangs injected a minim of venom.

Buck Pell drew back his hand reflexively. The snake's recurved teeth held their grip. Buck Pell whipped his hand downward sharply, and the head fell free. It struck the pavement, bounced slightly with the force of its descent, and rolled a few inches before it subsided, mouth open, eyes staring.

A Purie stepped forward, lifted his leg, with the knee flexed, and brought his foot down squarely on the snake's head. The crowd screamed, surged forward, and, in a frenzy of competition, fought to reach the bloody pulp of the snake's head with their stamping feet. The Puries of squad S began to beat the snake's twisting body with their weapons.