books on anatomy. That, and the emptiness of the room, after the homey coziness of the adjacent living room, unnerved him.
But he stayed with it. He peeked into what he thought would be closets, but turned out to be cubicles with examining tables. The tiny rooms were clean but smelled musty; they didn't seem to have seen recent use.
He went back through the small living room and into the hall and walked down to the kitchen. It was white and clean, smelling of disinfectant. There was a kitchen table with a newspaper-Wilds paper, the Plain Dealer — folded open to the funnies. Otherwise, there was no sign of anyone's living here. No dishes in the sink or food out on the counter.
Years ago this place had been set up to be a residence in back and a doctor's office in front; so the bedroom and a small dining room were off the hall and the kitchen respectively. Those rooms remained to be inspected, but, for a moment, Wild thought he should just get the hell out. It wasn't that he was scared: the only thing thus far that really disconcerted him was that big, mostly empty office. And why shouldn't it be mostly empty? Lloyd wasn't a doctor; the only item of any use to him in that room was the desk, and his business ledgers had been on the desktop, just as they should be. Nothing suspicious.
No, Wild was thinking he'd made a mistake coming here. Lloyd was not a suspect. He was just somebody Viv knew who fit parts of the Butchers projected profile. And both Wild and Viv had axes to grind against Eliot, at the moment, impairing both their judgments.
He was trespassing for no good reason. He ought to just get the fuck out.
As he stood in the kitchen contemplating all this, he found himself facing the large Frigidaire refrigerator.
And now he felt a little nervous. Now his tongue felt thick and his hand trembled as he reached out for the door handle. This would be the test, he told himself. If Lloyds refrigerator shelves bore nothing more than common everyday groceries, Wild would hightail it out of here and write this one off to bad judgment and getting laid.
He cracked the Frigidaire door, then yanked it open all the way, and the cold air hit him in the face. He bent to look in.
And saw nothing more than common everyday groceries: some vegetables, milk, eggs, bottles of beer. No meat at all, human or otherwise. Wild felt relief, and chagrin, and a hand on his shoulder.
He wheeled and the hand fell away, and he looked up at Lloyd Watterson's smiling face. Wild was tall, but Lloyd was taller, a blond man about six three with a baby face and ice-blue eyes and shoulders nearly as wide as the Frigidaire. He wore a kid's grin, on one side of his face. He also wore a white polo shirt and short white pants; he seemed about to say, 'Tennis, anyone?'
But he said nothing, as a matter of fact; he just appraised Wild with ice-blue, somewhat vacant eyes. Wild now knew how it felt for a woman to be ogled-and it was not a good feeling.
Wild said, 'Look, I can explain,' knowing he couldn't, brain scrambling for some excuse, coming up with nothing, and Lloyd's hand reached out and grabbed the front of Wilds shirt and pitched the reporter like a horseshoe across the room.
Wild smacked into a white-tiled kitchen wall and slid down it like food flung there by a brat. His head, the back of his head, hit the tiled wall hard, and he blacked out.
When he woke up, he had no sense of how long he'd been out, and found himself tied in a chair in a blindingly white room.
He knew at once he was in the murder lab of the Mad Butcher of Kingsbury Run.
It was in the basement-the ceiling above showed the open beams and wiring of a basement, though painted out white, and a white-painted wooden stairway that rose to somewhere; the only window was painted out black. There was a white-enamel examining table and white metal medical storage cabinets and a counter with neatly arranged glass vials and tubes and beakers of substances of various colors. A large glass jug on the counter bore a label saying only: FORMALDEHYDE.
He felt his breath coming fast.
He turned his head and saw a large, stainless-steel refrigerator; it was humming. He saw his reflection in its door. Clutched by the horror of the moment, bound tightly to the chair, he looked at his own wide-eyed reflection, wondering what-who-was in cold storage, wondering if he would be there soon himself.
Then he shook his head, pulled himself together, telling himself, You're not dead yet, you asshole, and began straining at the ropes.
They were snug; not so snug as to cut off his circulation, but snug enough.
Feet came tramping down the wooden, white-painted stairs. He saw bare legs first, in tennis shorts; unlike the room, the legs weren't white. They were as suntanned as Viv's; and where the hell was Viv?
Wild hoped to Christ she wasn't in that goddamn refrigerator.
Lloyd Watterson was grinning. The white tennis outfit, with its short pants, was like some absurd doctor outfit made for a child. He walked over to the counter and opened a drawer and his hand rustled around amidst metal objects. Then he withdrew something. Held it up in his right hand, catching the electric light.
A cleaver.
He turned. Smiled pleasantly.
'I'm no butcher,' he said. His voice was soft, almost gentle. 'Don't believe what you've heard…'
'Do you want to die?' Wild asked.
Lloyd started. 'Of course not.'
'Well, then cut me loose. There's cops all over the place, and if you kill me, they'll shoot you down. Do you know who I am?'
'Certainly. You're a reporter. It said so in your wallet, and I recognize your name from the paper.'
'Then you know I work with Eliot Ness.'
He thought that over, nodded.
'If you touch me,' Wild said, 'Ness and his men will shoot you down like a fucking animal.'
Standing just to one side of Wild, holding up the cold polished steel of the cleaver, in which Wild's frantic reflection looked back at its source, Lloyd said, 'I'm no butcher. This is a surgical tool. This is used for amputation, not butchery.'
'I… I can see that.'
'Why did you insist on calling me a butcher, then? In your stories?'
'Do you want to be caught, Lloyd?'
'Of course not. I'm no different than you. I serve the public in my own way.'
'How… how do you figure that, Lloyd?' Wild's feet weren't tied to the chair; he could move his legs from the knees down… if Lloyd would just step around in front of him…
'I only dispose of the flotsam. Not to mention jetsam.'
'Not to mention that.'
'Tramps. Whores. Weeding out the stock. Survival of the fittest. Punishing the wicked. Experimentation. Does anyone mourn a guinea pig?'
'The guinea pig's mother?'
That stopped Lloyd short for a moment.
Wild filled the silence: 'You make a lot of sense there, Lloyd. I think I did misjudge you. But I'm not flotsam or jetsam. I'm a reporter. I'm like you-I serve the people, in my way.'
Lloyd thought about that.
'I could help you tell your story,' Wild said. 'So people would understand. So they'd know you aren't a-'
'I don't think so,' he said, shaking his head no. 'I don't think I have any choice in this.'
He moved around the chair, stood just to one side of Wild, his expression troubled, the cleaver gripped tight in his right hand, held about breastbone level. Then his mouth tightened and his eyes narrowed as he made his decision.
Lloyd leaned forward and put his hand on Wild's head, grabbed him by the hair.
'You shouldn't have called me a butcher.' he said.
'I'm sorry, Lloyd,' Wild said, and kicked him in the balls.
Wild was surprised how much power he could muster, tied in a chair like that; but people manage some amazing feats when circumstances are extreme. And circumstances rarely got more extreme than being tied to a chair with a guy with a cleaver coming at you.
