and shock, and they wanted a resolution right now, right here, as their kind always did, because they had no appreciation for long-term strategy. They were unable to reconcile their desperate need for immediate emotional catharsis with the cold fact of their powerless position.
“Go,” Ahriman said, gesturing to the door with the Beretta.
They went, because they had no other options.
Through the security-camera display on the computer screen, the doctor watched them cross the reception lounge and leave by the door to the public corridor.
Putting the Beretta on the desk rather than returning it to his shoulder holster, keeping it within easy reach, he sat down to brood over this latest development.
The doctor needed to know much more about how this pair of rubes discovered they were programmed and how they deprogrammed themselves. Their astounding self-liberation seemed to be less of an achievement than a flat-out miracle.
Unfortunately, he wasn’t likely to learn anything further unless he could drug them again, rebuild their mind chapels, and reload the program, which meant taking them through the tedious three-session process that he had gone through with each of them before. They were too wary now, alert to the thin line between reality and fantasy in the modern world, and unlikely to give him that chance, no matter how clever he was.
He would have to live with this mystery.
Stopping them from doing further damage was more important than learning the truth of how they had rescued themselves.
He had no great respect for truth, anyway. Truth was a squishy thing, amorphous, changing shape before your eyes. Ahriman had spent his entire life shaping truth as easily as a potter shapes a wad of clay into a vase of any desired form.
Power trumped truth any day. He couldn’t kill these people with the truth, but power properly applied could crush them and sweep them from the game board forever.
From his briefcase, he extracted the blue bag. He placed it in the center of his desk and stared at it for a minute or two.
The game could be played to its end within the next few hours. He knew where Martie and Dusty would go from here. All the principal figures would be in the same place, vulnerable to a strategist as nimble as the doctor.
What hopeless naifs they were. After all that they had endured, they still believed in a world as ordered as any in a mystery novel. Clues, evidence, proof, and truth wouldn’t avail them in this matter. This game was driven by more fundamental powers.
Hoping the Keanuphobe wouldn’t call during his brief absence, the doctor holstered the.380 Beretta, took the elevator down to the ground floor, left the building, crossed Newport Center Drive to one of the restaurants in the nearby shopping-and-entertainment complex, and used a public telephone to place a call to the same number that he had used on Wednesday night, when he’d needed to arrange a fire.
The number was busy. He had to try it four times before at last it rang.
“Hello?”
“Ed Mavole,” said the doctor.
“I’m listening.”
After proceeding through the lines of the enabling haiku, the doctor said, “Tell me whether or not you’re alone.”
“I’m alone.”
“Leave home. Take plenty of pocket change with you. Go directly to a pay phone where you’ll have at least a little privacy. Fifteen minutes from now, call this number.” He recited the direct line in his office, which didn’t go through Jennifer. “Tell me whether or not you understand.”
“I understand.”
Ahriman conveyed the subject from the mind chapel up to full consciousness on the count of ten, whereupon he said, “Sorry, wrong number,” and hung up.
Returning directly to his fourteenth-floor suite, the doctor was circumspect upon entering the reception lounge, lest the Keanuphobe be waiting there with a spike-heeled shoe in each hand.
Jennifer looked up from her desk, beyond the reception window, and waved perkily.
He waved but hurried to his office before she could launch into an enthusiastic harangue about the health benefits of eating five ounces of liquefied pine bark every day.
At his desk once more, he slipped the Beretta out of his holster and put it within easy reach.
He plucked a fresh bottle of black cherry soda from the office refrigerator and used it to wash down another cookie. He needed a blast of sugar.
He was in action again. He had gotten through a rocky moment or two, but the crisis had only invigorated him. Ever the optimist, he knew that another spectacular win was only hours away, and he was excited.
Now and then, people asked the doctor how he managed to keep his youthful looks, his youthful figure, and such a high energy level day after day, through a busy life. His answer was always the same: What kept him young was his sense of
When the phone rang, it was necessary to activate and access the subject once more: “Ed Mavole.”
“I’m listening.”
Following the haiku, Dr. Ahriman said, “You will go directly to a self-storage yard in Anaheim.” He provided the address of the facility, the number of the unit that he had rented with false ID, and the combination of the lock on the door. “Among other things in the storage unit, you will find two Glock 18 machine pistols and several spare thirty-three-round magazines. Take one of the pistols and…four magazines ought to be enough.”
Regrettably, with five rather than three people to subdue at the house in Malibu, and with only one person to subdue them instead of two, it would not be possible to take control of the residence quietly enough to be able, thereafter, to dismember all the victims and compose ironic tableaux according to the original game plan. So much gunfire would be required that police would arrive quickly and interrupt the work: Cops had a notoriously poor sense of both fun and irony.
Perhaps, however, there would be enough time to transform Derek Lampton Sr. into the object of ridicule that he deserved to be.
“Other than the pistol and the four magazines, the only items you’ll take from the storage unit are an autopsy saw and a cranial blade. No, better take two blades, in case one snaps.”
Attention to detail.
He described these tools to be sure no mistakes were made, and then he gave directions to Derek Lampton’s place in Malibu.
“Kill everyone you find at the house.” He listed the people he expected to be present. “But if there are others — visiting neighbors, a meter reader, whoever — kill them, too. Enter forcefully, moving quickly from room to room, chasing them down if they flee, and waste no time. Then before the police arrive, you will remove the top of Dr. Derek Lampton’s skull with the cranial saw.” He described the technique by which this could be best accomplished. “Now tell me whether or not you understand.”
“I understand.”
“You will remove the brain and set it aside. Repeat, please.”
“Remove the brain and set it aside.”
The doctor gazed wistfully at the blue bag on his desk. There was no way, on a timely basis and beyond the eyes of witnesses, to rendezvous with this programmed killer and pass along Valet’s useful product. “There is something you must put in the empty skull. If the Lamptons have a dog, you might find what you need, but if not, you’ll have to produce it yourself.” He gave his final instructions, including a suicide directive.
“I understand.”
“I’ve given you very important work, and I’m convinced you will perform it impeccably.”
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
When he hung up the phone, Ahriman wished that he had been able to program the pustulant Lampton family
