Show of Evil

'I am… Hydra.'

'Before that. You were Rebecca?'

Her voice faded to a whisper. 'Taught him every… thing he knows,' she said.

'Jesus, you're his teacher, ain't ya?'

She didn't answer.

'When did you first contact him, Rebecca?'

For just an instant her memory streaked back to the young boy with the brutal strap marks on his buttocks who sat in the corner of her living room, devouring her books and the passages she had marked for him; to a time when it had been just the two of them, alone in the sanctuary of her house, sheltered from the brutal world around them as they made love in front of the fire. Then, suddenly, the moment dissolved into a clear, hot, white light.

As St Claire stared at her, her eyes suddenly crossed slightly. Life blinked out of them and they turned to stone. St Claire held his fingers against her throat, but he knew there would be no pulse.

'She was Stampler's schoolteacher, Marty,' said St Claire. 'I remembered readin' the notes Goodman wrote when he came back from Kentucky. It's the last entry in the report. She told him, 'I taught Aaron everything he knows.' She was as crazy as he is.'

'He isn't crazy, Harve. He's a cold-blooded killer, that's all he ever was. Call Morris. Tell him to go across the street and take the son of a bitch down.'

 'My pleasure.'

The rookie staggered to the doorway of the bathroom, wiping his lips with a washcloth.

'Mr Vail, there's something in here for Major Stenner.' Vail went into the bathroom. There was a box addressed to Stenner sitting in the bathtub. Below the name was scrawled:

What are fears but voices airy, whispering harm where harm is not.

And deluding the unwary, until the fatal bolt is shot.

Vail opened the box and stared into the face of Harry Shoat.

Thirty-Six

Morris and Soloman banged on the door of the halfway house until a young man with long hair tied back in a ponytail stumbled down the stairs and cracked open the door.

'Huh?' he said.

Morris showed him his ID. 'Police, open up,' he said.

'Police!' the young man said in a panic.

'We're just checking on the new man,' Morris said as he and Solomon brushed past him and went up the stairs. Through the door, they heard Vulpes's raspy voice singing a duet with Durante.

'Make someone happy…'

'Open up, police!' Morris demanded. He tried the door. It was unlocked. The titles of the movie were rolling as they burst into the room. Morris froze when he saw the tape recorder.

'Make just someone happy…'

Solomon stared bleakly into the empty room. 'Shit, he bluffed us out, Bobby,' he moaned.

Vail was just leaving Rebecca Hutchinson's apartment when the phone rang. He listened while Morris babbled on the other end. His mind raced ahead of the conversation.

'Get the Chicago PD over there right now and give them a full report,' he said. 'I'll be back at the office.'

The question now: Where was Vulpes?

Shock Johnson answered that question with more bad news.

'Where are you?' the police lieutenant asked.

'In the car heading back to the office,' Vail answered.

'Go straight to the hospital, Marty. Stampler got Jane Venable and Abel. They're alive but just barely. Should be arriving in Emergency about now. He killed our house guard.'

'Goddamn! Goddamn him!' Vail cried. 'What happened?' he asked Johnson.

'He killed our man and jumped Abel and Jane when they arrived at her