'Hush, Jake. I have to think and type, and you're hovering over me like an Auntie Busybody.'
'Well, ex-cuse me. I'm just trying to catch a murderer, here. If he asks for your phone number, give it to him. If he wants to come over, invite him in for a drink. Hey, don't you owe him a reply?'
PRINCE, YOUR POETRY PUZZLES ME. WHY, PRINCESS?
'Holy shit!' I said. ' The Princess. '
Pam Maxson shot me a look over her shoulder. I paced behind her. 'On Priscilla Fox's computer. 'Man is the hunter; woman is his game.' It's from The Princess by Tennyson. You're talking to the murderer.'
'I'm quite aware of that,' she said dispassionately.
Suddenly I wanted to call somebody.
Who? Gerald Prince.
Why? To know if he was online.
I picked up the phone. Dead. Of course, dead, dummy. The computer modem was using the line. Frugal Cindy. A fortune on Japanese doodads, but only one telephone line. I am not one of those lawyers who carries a cute little phone in my briefcase. At traffic lights I listen to Peter, Paul and Mary on an oldies station or the surf report on the weather band. I can't return all the urgent calls until the next day, by which time hopefully the urgency has passed. But now, damn it, I needed a phone.
'Be right back!' I shouted as I raced for the door.
A sidewalk connected Cindy's townhouse with four others on a cul-de-sac. I didn't bother with my sneakers, which were still on the doorstep. Instead, in my sweat socks, I padded my two hundred twenty-five pounds to the next door and rang the bell. If eyes can frown, a blue-shadowed one frowned at me through the peephole. I gave my name and mission and the eye disappeared. The door didn't open. Instead, a double bolt clicked into place. A woman's voice from behind the door: 'I've got a shotgun and know how to use it.'
Now why would anyone do that? I looked at myself. Clean blue jeans, a T-shirt from my favorite oyster bar with the logo 'Eat it raw,' and a four-foot gaff in my right hand. Whoops. I tucked the gaff behind my back and hotfooted it to the next townhouse. Nobody home. At the third door I flashed my laminated, temporary, specially appointed assistant-state-attorney badge at a beefy man with a Doberman at his side. He let me in and seemed to hope I'd try something. While the man and the dog watched I stood in the kitchen and dialed Prince's number.
Busy.
That could mean he was online with Pamela Maxson at this very moment. Maybe he fooled me. But how did he fool the DNA test? Maybe someone else had sex with the women, and a crazed Prince waited for them to leave, then came to kill. It still didn't make sense.
I dialed again.
Still busy. The guy was getting bored watching me. The Doberman looked hungry, or do they always drool?
I dialed again.
It rang.
''Even-ing,' sang Prince's voice.
'Prince, it's Lassiter. What are you doing?'
'Doing? About world illiteracy or are you interested in more personal concerns?'
'Right now, what have you been doing the past half hour?'
'Ingesting the contents of a clear bottle with a brown liquid, why?'
'Have you been online with Compu-Mate?'
There was a pause. Then: 'As a matter of fact, I was just on with Eager Beaver.'
'Not Lady Chattery.'
'Check D. H. Lawrence's line.'
'Not Chatterly, Chattery.'
'Never heard of her. Now see here, Biff, you have no right to interfere with-'
But I hung up the phone. I was running back to Cindy's place, having sidestepped the big black dog.
Something was wrong.
People tell you they feel things, something that's going to happen, and you laugh. But there is a chill behind the laugh.
I felt something that made me hurry.
My old car was still in the space in front of Cindy's townhouse. Next to it was a mud-splattered jeep that wasn't there ten minutes ago.
The front door was cracked slightly open. Had I left it that way or did someone else? Why had I left? Because, smart guy that I am, I figured if the murderer was typing away, he couldn't be here. Now I fought the urge to burst through the door, gaff swinging. I entered without a sound and stepped into the small foyer. The paper walls of the Japanese den were in front of me.
From the living room I heard a man's voice. It was familiar but I could not place it.
I crept around one corner, holding the gaff at my side. I heard Pam. 'But why must you? It's so terribly cruel.'
Calm, collected Dr. Maxson. What a pro. Trying to talk her way out of it. Using her experience with rapists and killers. Buying time. Waiting to be rescued by the blockhead who left her alone.
The man's voice now clear: 'Once I got used to the blood, there was nothing to it.'
I turned the corner, and there he was, his back to me. He wore brown pants, black leather boots, and a buckskin shirt with fringes. The back of his neck was bronzed from the sun. In his right hand he held a knife with sawteeth that could chop down a redwood. The knife was pointed directly at Pamela Maxson's sternum.
Two steps and I could lunge at him, take him down with a shoulder in the small of the back. But if he turned, I'd catch a foot-long blade in the belly. So I bent at the waist, put a hand on a knee, carefully picked up my right leg, extra high, then gently placed my right foot down on the outside of the ball, rolled to the inside, and finally brought down the heel silent as a wish.
Then I did it again with the left foot. Why not? He's the one who taught me the Tom Cat Stalk.
CHAPTER 30
My second step was perfect. Even I didn't hear it.
Pam was facing him, the blade of the knife inches from her chest. 'Surely you can't go on with your bloodletting, oblivious to the consequences.'
Then she saw me. Her eyes widened.
No, Pam, no! Look away.
I hurried the next step. I didn't snap a twig or step on a squirrel's tail. But he heard me. It could have been his woodsman's ears. More likely it was the crash of ceramic bowl on tile. Moving too quickly, I had swung the gaff to one side where it clipped the bowl, sending it to the floor. So there I stood, one knee tucked under my chin, broken pottery covering my socks.
Tom Carruthers pivoted and glared at me. 'You!'
'Me.'
He smiled ruefully. 'Of course. I should have recognized those foolish sneakers out front.'
'Okay, Carruthers. It's all over. I'm going to take you in. Now either drop that knife, or I'm going to jam this-'
'Jake,' Pam interrupted. 'Perhaps-'
'Why not try it?' Carruthers offered, gesturing with the knife. In the light of a Japanese lantern, the blade shone red.
I circled to my right, keeping the knife in view. He circled to his right. He had the sharper weapon; I had the longer. I raised the gaff as if it were a foil. I got into the classic fencing position, feet at right angles, right foot and knee pointed at my enemy, and shouted, 'On guard,' as if I were Errol Flynn. Then I advanced, my feet skimming
