destroy it, planning its revenge with the acute foresight of a presentient being, killing for pleasure as always. Killing for the basic love of taking human life, guided by the unerring premonitions and previsions that were the gifts to be enjoyed by this rare subspecies of humanity.
He looked at the drawing of the gun beside the number one and his mind slipped back into gear. He got up from the desk and started up the stairs. His chances were marginal. He smiled to think of it. At the moment he didn't care. Later he could think about it to his heart's content and pee his pants in mortal terror.
He went out of the building and drove to a pawn shop nearby run by the cop's unofficial gunsmith, Shorty Wallhausen.
“Hey.'
“Yo.'
“Can't change y'r mind?'
“Nope.'
“Okay. I still say if it was me I'd take and get me something like this.” He was holding a .45 Colt in his big fist. It was pointing at the ceiling and it had jumped into his hand from out of nowhere.
“If I could handle one the way you can, I would. But I'm dirt worthless with one of those.'
“You don't have to be Wild Bill fucking Hickock, baby. Just blow about seven dollars’ worth of Teflon-coated KTW power load in his general direction. WAX that mother-flogger.'
“I trust this,” Jack said, lifting his heavy fourteen-inch cardboard box of steel and grip. Shorty held out his hand and Eichord relinquished it. He always enjoyed watching somebody like Wallhausen when he examined a weapon. Any kind of weapon. It was watching a master craftsman with a fine, precision tool. He showed so much respect for the ability of the thing, such a great affinity for it. It was just a kind of awe for the purity of the professionalism. Now he felt nothing.
“Well,” Shorty said, taking one of the thick red shells by its brass base and holding it up in the light, “you got your basic death hurricane here.” He wiped off the brass as he checked the sides of the waxy container, shoving the two shells into place, wiping the exterior of the amputated shotgun as he returned it to its innocuous resting place in the box. “The master blaster.'
“Let's hope,” Eichord said quietly.
“Remember our deal. You have to use this on our boy, you doctored the loads yourself.'
“That's right, I did.'
“Now let's see how you did it,” he said, as he handed Jack a hunting knife. “Open the crimp.'
“Like this.'
“No.” Shorty showed him, making it look easy.
“Okay.'
“Shake everything out.'
He did so, and the little lethal pellets rattled into the metal pan.
“Now watch how I load the crystals.” Shorty stuffed the crystalline poison in, repacking the pellets at the same time. “I'm not doing it right, but just so you know how to, if you have to prove you done it. Okay? Now you take an’ give this a shot, and a little epoxy'—add a teaspoon of nitro, a pinch of oregano—'and crimp ‘er back ‘n wipe all the excess. That's an easy way to do it,” he told him, making it look easy again.
“Gotcha. I ‘preciate it a lot. Shorty.'
“Nothin’ to it. Jus’ do it.'
“Long as it gets the job done.'
“Put ‘er this way, pohdna'. You hit a rhinoceros in the big TOE with this load an’ that sucker's dead ‘fore he can FALL.'
“That MIGHT do it,” Eichord said, meaning it. “Thanks.” He had little faith in guns, and for damn good reason as he looked at his own sorry track record. He had little faith in his own judgment, seeing as how it had caused his pal Jimmie Lee to die a horrendous and sudden death. He had, when you get right down to it, very little faith in anything right at this moment. He went out and started his car and to his relief it didn't explode.
Jack missed the hell out of his wife. He thought of her more than he'd planned since the bit of hopeful misdirection at the airport. He wished he could talk to her right now. Just hear that sweet voice over the phone. To be able to whisper love talk. To tell her the honeymoon WASN'T over, that there'd be better days. To tell her that nobody said “commence” anymore.
He thought of a bad joke one of the guys had told him about hazard pay, danger pay, something like that. He suddenly felt very cold at the thought of flying solo on this one, but he knew the MO of Daniel Bunkowski. To insulate himself and hide behind a shield of cops would achieve nothing. It would only delay the inevitable confrontation. It would mean more uncertainty for everyone, more innocent victims would surely die. It was better to let this thing come to a head. Easy to say, but when the bull's-eye is painted on your back it's another matter.
He ached so bad with the loss of Jimmie he could put himself at risk again in the hopes of drawing the killer out in the open. This time Eichord wasn't going to miss. No matter what. The man they called Chaingang would die.
For all the pissing and moaning about his status as a media darling there was an up side to it. He could manipulate the ink. His tendency to be nonconfrontational with the brass, somewhere between iconoclast and ass- kisser, had a curious side effect. The powers had now begun to believe the press THEY had created as a buffer between the police and the public. To them Jack had in fact become a supersleuth. It was the way they looked at things. You said something enough times with a perfectly straight face and it came to pass. A nutty sort of egoistic self-confidence bred of supreme power of authority.
But their attitude resulted in Eichord having autonomy now when it came to this sort of situation. And since he was the one who would pay in spades for having allowed Bunkowski to come back, as it were, from the grave— he was going to go for broke. Make himself as vulnerable and unprotected as he could and let the monster come for him. He wanted it one-to-one now. But most of all he just wanted it to be done with.
For a second he could visualize Lee watching him and he said softly, “We'll get him. Chink.” And for a second he was the Eichord of old and he looked in the rearview mirror and intoned, “Or my name isn't Michael Lanyard.'
On Tuesday evening, Daniel Bunkowski, in his neatly pressed suit, with infant safely nested beside him, was driving out of the crowded Buckhead Highway Mall and turning at the third light, a now-familiar interchange to him as he drives a route leading to money. He will check a rental property tomorrow morning, and if it seems adequate inside, having already cased the lay of the land and assessed its isolation factor, he will rent the base for his next operation.
The immense killer is not the same anthropophagous wild man who devoured the heart of a fresh kill only a few weeks ago. In fact, he can still feel himself changing. That
All because of the little baby son. It was, indeed, a miracle. Bunkowski for the first time was acting out of regard for someone or something beyond his own survival. Above all else it was now crucial to him that the newborn be protected. His long-range plan, the creation of a self-sustaining safe environment for his pet monkey— involved the acquisition of money. To even make the move involving the computer hacker he needed lots of working cash. One more score on top of the recent windfall. Just a thousand, twelve hundred, would do it. Walking-around money.
“That be all tonight, hon?” the bored lady at the cash register said as he slid a quart of Wild Turkey along the
