red scream. But his eyes, his mind, were filled with that dazzling light coming up to meet him.
Then he hit the water and the light went out.
31.
Shit, thought the Shadowman.
He leapt to the window. He shoved the curtain aside as it fluttered back toward him. He looked down just in time to see Bishop plunge into the pool.
The solid sheet of light on the pool's surface splashed up in a fountain of beaded sparkles. The brilliant water at the fountain's center swallowed Bishop's dark form. Blood began to spread from the sinking body. It stained the blue pool with coils of black. Screaming swimmers streamed up over the concrete edges like insects streaming from the hole under a lifted rock. The killer saw two women wading with long strides through the shallow end to grab their startled children. He saw a man push past the fleeing swimmers to dive in and swim down after the sinking Bishop. Two other men were standing in front of their lounge chairs on the pool's far side. Their bellies hanging over their bathing suits, their hands held to their brows, they were peering straight up at the fourth-floor window, staring straight at him, pointing straight at him.
Shit, the killer thought again.
He drew back into the shadows of the room. A little tremor was in his throat, a threat of panic. He blinked against the images: Staring men. Pointed fingers. Police, police… He winced at the frantic whining voice in his head: Why did he keep making these goddamned mistakes? Why did they keep happening? It wasn't fair.
He put a hand to his temple, massaged the corner of his hurt eye. He wanted the images to stop, the voice to stop. He wanted to climb into his tower, into the blue calm at the top of his tower. No time. He had to move. He had to get out of here. Police…
He crossed the room in a few steps. As he went, he slipped the Saracen through the slit in his fat suit, fitted it back into the pocket under the silicone. He was panting now, feeling the fat suit's extra weight.
He pulled the door open. Already, as he stepped out into the hall, he heard the elevator bell ring around the corner. He heard stern voices growing louder. Men. They were coming, fast. They would rush into view any second now.
He seized the knob to the fire stairs door. It was the reason he chose this room, part of the plan. He was in the stairwell in a second. The heavy door swung shut behind him slowly. As he started down the concrete steps, he heard pounding above him. Fists on the hotel room door. A deep voice shouting, 'Hotel security! Open up!'
The voice grew dimmer as he hurried down and down.
He stepped out of the stairwell onto the mezzanine. He was sweating, gasping for breath. The fat suit felt heavier with every step. He walked as casually as he could past empty banquet halls and conference rooms. He came to the escalator. He rode down in plain sight of the crowd gathering below him in the atrium.
He left the lobby by a side door. The smothering heat closed over him. The silicone vest suddenly felt like an anvil tied to him. The silicone overlays he had used to fatten his face seemed to tighten and squeeze the fluid out of him. Working for every wheezing gulp of air, he dragged himself around the front of the hotel. He humped over the lawn, parallel to the palm trees.
Now police car after police car came pulling into the Saguaro cul-de-sac, their sirens howling like cats in heat. Their light racks threw glancing rays of red and blue into the desert afternoon. One cruiser stopped at the entrance to the driveway to keep anyone from driving out.
But by then the man who called himself John Foy had already reached the street. He crossed it in a stumbling jog, reached the shopping mall on the other side.
There was a concrete box of a parking structure on the mall's northern border. His car was parked there on the ground floor. It was a new car. A brown one. A Taurus, the same type Weiss had. The man who called himself John Foy slipped in behind the wheel.
He got the car started. A blast of steamy air rushed out of the air-conditioning vents, but in a moment it cooled and he leaned over to bathe his cheeks and forehead in it. It was good to feel the sweat drying on his face. His chest and armpits were still pouring. There were dark stains all over his Hawaiian shirt.
After a while he straightened. He glanced up into the rearview mirror. A stranger looked back at him. He had fattened his cheeks with the overlays and cut his hair to get the balding tourist effect. Simple changes, but they transformed the look of him completely. He hardly recognized himself.
He pulled out of the lot and drove back toward the city as police cars kept streaming past him to the hotel.
32.
The specialist had spent a lifetime killing other men. Women sometimes, a bunch of kids once, but mostly men, over a hundred of them. He had come to the job as easily as dozing in a chair. He had been in a Burger King in his home city, a stark gray city surrounded by flatlands. He was sixteen. He was with a guy he knew, a tough guy who had dropped out of school and was making a living jacking stuff off trucks. The tough guy noticed someone across the room. He lifted his chin and said, 'That fuck needs doing.' And right away Foy answered him, 'What'll you pay me?'
That was it. He went home and made a garrote out of a broomstick and a jump rope. He found the target a couple of nights later walking through a stand of trees in a small park. He didn't even look around to see if anyone was watching. He just walked up behind the fuck and strangled him with the homemade garrote. Left him lying right there in the grass in his own shit. Strolled over to the tough guy's place to pick up his pay.
It was strange to look back on it. It had been as simple as that. No plans, no worries. What did he know? He was a kid. He trusted his luck. He didn't think about the bad things that could happen if he got caught. He didn't think about anything. He just did it.
But then, later on, he did think. After all, he knew what it was like to get caught. He knew better than anyone what it was like to be punished and humiliated and hurt more than you thought you could stand while people looked on and laughed at you. He didn't want that ever to happen again.
So he learned to be more cautious. It was a gradual process. He learned to plan, to keep ahead of events. He learned to make allowances for the unexpected. After a while the planning was all he thought about. He was planning every moment right up until he did the job. It was almost a kind of ritual for him. It made him feel safe. It made him feel that nothing had been left to chance. He would never allow himself to be caught, punished, hurt, humiliated-never again.
He drove for the heart of the city. As he went, he reached down under the seat and pulled up his surveillance briefcase. He laid it on the seat beside him, worked it open with his free hand. He got the laptop going.
He picked up Weiss at once. The GPS tracker in the detective's car appeared as a green triangle blinking on a map of the city's south side. The killer was still too far away to pick up the bird-doggers woven into Weiss's clothing.
The killer headed for the green triangle. He was getting his breath back now. The runnels of sweat were slowing down on his body. The cry of the sirens was fading behind him. The tremor of panic and the panicky inner voice-they were fading too. Ahead, through the windshield, the sun was arcing toward the top of the skyline. Lights were coming on in the buildings. Windows stood out as yellow rectangles in large gray rectangles set against the rich blue sky. He gazed at them as he drove, but in his mind he was far away. In his mind, once again, he was in his own high tower. He was calmer there, calmer.
The city closed over him. He prowled down a dark broad avenue between skyscrapers. Only a strip of blue sky appeared at the top of his windshield here. He began to come back to himself. He was fine now. Everything was fine. Bishop had been a hard case. He'd fought a good fight. But he was dead, or he soon would be. And the man who called himself John Foy had gotten away. His luck was not running out. Everything was fine.
He crossed the city into the south, heading toward the low mountains. The skyscrapers fell behind him
