Effortlessly, Jonathan lifted Pribeaux and put him on the floor near the dinette set, out of the way.
He cleaned the blood from the white ceramic tiles. Fortunately, Pribeaux had sealed the grout so effectively that the blood did not penetrate.
When he was certain that not one drop or smear of blood remained and that no other evidence of violence could be found in the kitchen, he bagged the paper towels and other cleanup supplies in another garbage bag, knotted the neck of it, and secured it to his belt.
At the desk in the living room, he switched on the computer. He chose a program from the menu and typed a few lines that with great thought he had earlier composed.
Leaving the computer on, Jonathan went to the front door, opened it, and stepped onto the roomy landing at the head of the stairs that served Pribeaux's loft. He stood listening for a moment.
The businesses on the first floor had closed hours ago. Pribeaux didn't seem to have friends or visitors. Deep stillness pooled in the building.
In the apartment again, Jonathan lifted Pribeaux and carried him in his arms as though he were a child, out to the landing.
In addition to stairs, the apartment was served by the freight elevator that was original to the building. With an elbow, Jonathan pressed the call button.
Pribeaux's eyes searched Jonathan's face, desperately trying to read his intent.
Aboard the elevator, still carrying the paralyzed man, Jonathan pressed the number 3 on the control panel.
On the flat roof of the former warehouse were storage structures that required elevator service.
When Pribeaux realized they were going to the roof, his pale face paled further, and the terror in his eyes grew frenetic. He knew now that there would be no bargain made to save his life.
'You can still feel pain in your face, in your neck,' Jonathan warned him. 'I will cause you the most horrific pain you can imagine, in the process of blinding you. Do you understand?'
Pribeaux blinked rapidly, opened his mouth, but dared not speak a word even of submission.
'Excruciating pain,' Jonathan promised. 'But if you remain silent and cause me no problem, your death will be quick.'
The elevator arrived at the top of the building. Only orange light of an early moon illuminated the roof, but Jonathan could see well. He carried the killer to the three-foot-high safety parapet.
Pribeaux had begun to weep, but not so loud as to earn him the unendurable pain that he had been promised. He sounded like a small child, lost and full of misery.
The cobblestone alleyway behind the warehouse lay forty feet below, deserted at this hour.
Jonathan dropped Pribeaux off the roof. The killer screamed but not loud or long.
In desperate physical condition
Jonathan left the elevator at the roof and took the stairs to the ground floor. He walked to his car, which he had parked three blocks away.
En route, he tossed the garbage bag full of bloody paper towels in a convenient Dumpster.
In the car, he used a cell phone that just hours ago he had taken off a drug dealer whom he rousted near the Quarter. He called 911, disguised his voice, and pretended to be a junkie who, shooting up in an alley, saw a man jump from a warehouse roof.
Call completed, he tossed the phone out of the car window.
He was still wearing the latex gloves. He stripped them off as he drove.
CHAPTER 56
The elevator is like a three-dimensional crossword-puzzle box, descending to the basement of the Hands of Mercy.
Randal Six had turned
When the doors open, he says, 'Toward,' and steps
A life of greater mobility is proving easier to achieve than he had expected. He is not yet ready to drive a car in the Indianapolis 500, and he may not even be ready for a slow walk in the world beyond these walls, but he's making progress.
Years ago, Father had conducted some of his most revolutionary experiments on this lowest floor of the hospital. The rumors of what he created here, which Randal has overheard, are as numerous as they are disturbing.
A battle seems to have been fought on this level. A section of the corridor wall has been broken down, as if something smashed its way out of one of the rooms.
To the right of the elevator, half the width of the passageway is occupied by organized piles of rubble: broken concrete blocks, twisted rebar in mare's nests of rust, mounds of plaster, steel door frames wrenched into peculiar shapes, the formidable steel doors themselves bent in half
According to Hands of Mercy legend, something had gone so wrong down here that Father wished always to keep the memory of it clear in his mind and, therefore, made no repairs and left the rubble instead of having it hauled away Dozens of the New Race had perished here in an attempt to contain? something.
Because Father enters and exits Mercy every day on this level, he is regularly confronted with the evidence of the terrible crisis that apparently almost led to the destruction of his life's work. Some even dare to speculate that Father nearly died here, though to repeat this claim seems like blasphemy
Turning away from the rubble, Randal Six uses the last letter of
By a series of side steps that spell small words, alternating with forward steps that spell long words, he comes to a door at the end of the hallway. This is not locked.
Beyond is a storage room with rows of cabinets in which are kept hard-copy backup files of the project's computerized records.
Directly opposite the first door stands another. That one will be locked. Through it, Father comes and goes from Mercy.
Randal Six navigates the tile floor in this room by means of crosswords, at last settling in a hiding place between rows of file cabinets, near the second door but not within sight of it.
Now he must wait.
CHAPTER 57
From the Luxe, Carson went to Homicide, settled at the computer on her desk, and launched her web browser.
There was no graveyard shift in Homicide. Detectives worked when the investigation required, night or day, but they tended to be in-office less as the day waned, on call but not sitting desks in the wee hours. At the moment, though the night was not yet that late, she sat alone in the corpse-chasers' corner.
Reeling from what Deucalion had told her, Carson wasn't sure what to believe. She found it surprisingly difficult to disbelieve any of his story regardless of the fact that it was fantastic to the point of insanity.
She needed to get background on Victor Helios. With the World Wide Web, she was able to unwrap a fictitious biography more easily than in the days when a data chase had to be done on foot or through cooperating officers in other jurisdictions.
