Mr. Murder

4

The scrambled eggs on Oslett’s abandoned plate acquired a faint grayish cast as they cooled and congealed. The salty aroma of bacon, previously so appealing, induced in him a vague nausea.

Stunned by the consideration that Alfie might have developed into a creature with sexual urges and with the ability to satisfy them, Oslett was nonetheless determined not to appear concerned, at least not in front of Peter Waxhill. “Well, all of this still amounts to nothing but conjecture.”

“Yes,” said Waxhill, “but we’re checking the past to see if the theory holds water.”

“What past?”

“Police records in every city where Alfie has been on assignment in the past fourteen months. Rapes and rape-murders during the hours he wasn’t actually working.”

Oslett’s mouth was dry. His heart was thudding.

He didn’t care what happened to the Stillwater family. Hell, they were only Klingons.

He didn’t care, either, if the Network collapsed and all of its grand ambitions went unfulfilled. Eventually an organization similar to it would be formed, and the dream would be renewed.

But if their bad boy proved impossible to recapture or stop, the potential was here for a stain to spread deep into the Oslett family, jeopardizing its wealth and seriously diminishing its political power for decades to come. Above all, Drew Oslett demanded respect. The ultimate guarantor of respect had always been family, bloodline. The prospect of the Oslett name becoming an object of ridicule and scorn, target of public outrage, brunt of every TV comedian’s puerile jokes, and the subject of embarrassing stories in papers as diverse as the New York Times and the National Enquirer was soul-shaking.

“Didn’t you ever wonder,” Waxhill asked, “what your boy did with his free time, between assignments?”

“We monitored him closely, of course, for the first six weeks. He went to movies, restaurants, parks, watched television, did all the things that people do to kill time—just as we wanted him to act outside a controlled environment. Nothing strange. Nothing at all out of the ordinary. Certainly nothing to do with women.”

“He would have been on his best behavior, naturally, if he was aware that he was being watched.”

“He wasn’t aware. Couldn’t be. He never made our surveillance men. No way. They’re the best.” Oslett realized he was protesting too much. Nevertheless, he couldn’t keep from adding, “No way.”

“Maybe he was aware of them the same way he became aware of this Martin Stillwater. Some low-key psychic perception.”

Oslett was beginning to dislike Waxhill. The man was a hopeless pessimist.

Picking up the thermos-pot and pouring more coffee for all of them, Waxhill said, “Even if he was only going to movies, watching television—didn’t that worry you?”

“Look, he’s supposed to be the perfect assassin. Programmed. No remorse, no second thoughts. Hard to catch, harder to kill. And if something does go wrong, he can never be traced to his handlers. He doesn’t know who we are or why we want these people terminated, so he can’t turn state’s evidence. He’s nothing, a shell, a totally hollow man. But he’s got to function in society, be inconspicuous, act like an ordinary Joe, do things real people do in their spare time. If we had him sitting around hotel rooms staring at walls, maids would comment to one another, think he’s weird, remember him. Besides, what’s the harm in a movie, some television?”

“Cultural influences. They could change him somehow. ”

“It’s nature that matters, how he was engineered, not what he did with his Saturday afternoon.” Oslett leaned back in his chair, feeling guardedly better, having convinced himself to some degree, if not Waxhill. “Check into the past. But you won’t find anything.”

“Maybe we already have. A prostitute in Kansas City. Strangled in a cheap motel across the street from a bar called the Blue Life Lounge. Two different bartenders at the lounge gave the Kansas City Police a description of the man she left with. Sounds like Alfie.”

Oslett had perceived a bond of class and experience between himself and Peter Waxhill. He had even entertained the prospect of friendship. Now he had the uneasy feeling that Waxhill was taking pleasure from being the bearer of all this bad news.

Waxhill said, “One of our contacts managed to get us a sample of the sperm that the Kansas City Police Scientific Investigation Division recovered from the prostitute’s vagina. It’s being flown to our New York lab now. If it’s Alfie’s sperm, we’ll know.”

“He can’t produce sperm. He was engineered—”

“Well, if it’s his, we’ll know. We have his genetic structure mapped, we know it better than Rand McNally knows the world. And it’s unique. More individual than fingerprints.”

Yale men. They were all alike. Smug, self-satisfied bastards.

Clocker picked up a plump hot-house strawberry between thumb and forefinger. Examining it closely, as if he had excruciatingly high standards for comestibles and would not eat anything that failed to pass his demanding inspection, he said, “If Alfie’s drawn to Martin Stillwater, then what we need to know is where we can find Stillwater now.” He popped the entire berry, half as large as a lemon, onto his tongue and into his mouth, in the manner of a toad taking a fly.

“Last night we sent a man into their house for a look around,” Waxhill said. “Indications are, they packed in a hurry. Bureau drawers left open, clothes scattered around, a few empty suitcases left out after they decided not to use them. Judging by appearances, they don’t intend to return home within the next few days, but we’re having the place watched just in case.”

“And you have no idea in hell where to find them,” Oslett said, taking perverse pleasure in putting Waxhill on the defensive.

Unruffled, Waxhill said, “We can’t say where they are at this moment, no—”

“Ah.”

“—but we think we can predict one place we can get a lead on them. Stillwater’s parents live in Mammoth Lakes. He has no other relatives on the West Coast, and unless there’s a close friend we don’t know about, he’s almost certain to call his father and mother, if not go there.”

“What about the wife’s parents?”

“When she was sixteen, her father shot her mother in the face and then killed himself.”

“Interesting.” What Oslett meant was that the tawdriness of the average person’s life never ceased to amaze him.

“It is interesting, actually,” Waxhill said, perhaps meaning something different from what Oslett meant. “Paige came home from school and found their bodies. For a few months, she was under the guardianship of an aunt. But she didn’t like the woman, and she filed a petition with the court to have herself declared a legal adult.”

“At sixteen?”

“The judge was sufficiently impressed with her to rule in her favor. It’s rare but it does happen.”

“She must’ve had one hell of an attorney.”

“I suppose she did. She studied the applicable statutes and precedents, then represented herself.”

The situation was bleaker all the time. Even if he’d been lucky, Martin Stillwater had gotten the better of Alfie, which meant he was a more formidable man than the jerk in People. Now it was beginning to seem as if his wife had more than a common measure of fortitude, as well, and would make a worthy adversary.

Oslett said, “To push Stillwater to get in touch with his folks, we should use Network affiliates in the media to hype the incidents at his house last night onto the front page.”

“We are,” Peter Waxhill said infuriatingly. He framed imaginary headlines with his hands: “ ‘Bestselling Author Shoots Intruder. Hoax or Real Threat? Author and Family Missing. Hiding from Killer or Avoiding Police Scrutiny?’ That sort of thing. When Stillwater sees a newspaper or TV news program, he’s going to call his parents right then because he’ll know they’ve seen the news and they’re worried.”

“We’ve tapped their phone?”

“Yes. We have caller-ID equipment on the line. The moment the connection is made, we’ll have a number where Stillwater’s staying.”

“What do we do in the meantime?” Oslett asked. “Just sit around here having manicures, eating strawberries?”