kitchen cutlery. But if he tried for it, she might panic and stab him.
Perry pushed up his sleeve.
The wave of overflow excitement hit him like a severe drug rush.
That’s her that’s her.
She’s going to hatch soon, that’s her.
“Oh my God.” Her voice was a hoarse whisper. “Oh my God, you’ve got them, too.” The knife fell to the carpet.
Perry closed the distance with one short hop. He caught her with a big overhand left that slammed her cheekbone. Her head snapped down and back. She cried out a little as she fell to the floor. She laid sobbing and motionless on the pale yellow carpet.
Stop it now stop it now Now NOW!
Perry winced at the pain from the mild mindscream. He had figured that would happen, but at least he’d gotten in a good lick first. You had to show women who was in charge, after all.
“Bitch, if you ever pull a knife on me again I’ll carve your fat ass up.” The woman sobbed with pain, terror and frustration.
Perry knelt next to her. “Do you understand me?”
She said nothing, her face hidden in her arms, fat shaking like a Jell-O mold.
Perry gently stroked her hair. She cringed at his touch. “I’ll only ask you one more time,” he said. “If you don’t answer, I’ll put my boot in your ribs, you fat fuck.”
She looked up suddenly, tears streaming down her face. “Yes!” she screamed. “Yes, I understand you!”
She was yelling. It was as if she wanted to piss him off, was trying to piss him off. Women. Give ’em an inch and they take a mile. Her tear-streaked face reminded him of a glazed doughnut. No room in life for tears, woman, no room at all.
He continued to stroke her hair, but his voice took on an icy-cold quality. “One more thing. If you raise your voice above conversational levels again, you’re dead. And I mean there’s no question about it. Cross the line with me again and I’ll fuck you with that butcher knife of yours. Do you understand?”
She just stared at him with a pathetic look of disbelief and utter helplessness. Perry held no sympathy for her. She was weak, after all, and in a violent world only the strong survive.
Perry’s voice bubbled with anger. He talked slowly, each word clearly defined. “Do. You. Under. Stand.”
“Yes,” she whispered. “I understand. Please don’t hit me again.”
She looked so pitiful-blood trickling from her cheek, fear in her eyes, her face lined with tears. She looked like an abused woman.
Like his mother looked, after his father had finished with a “lesson.”
Perry shook his head hard. What the hell was happening to him? What was he becoming? That answer was simple-he was becoming what he had to become to live. Only the strong survive. He stared at the woman, fighting to push his guilt down somewhere deep, somewhere he didn’t have to deal with it. The Perry that had controlled his aggression for ten years…there was no more room for that person.
He wiped the tears from her face with a gentle touch. “Now get your fat ass off the floor and make some food. Feed us, we’re hungry.”
He felt excitement well up fresh and strong. The Triangles knew food was on the way; it made them happy. Very happy. The emotion was powerful, so powerful that Perry couldn’t help but feel a little of their happiness himself.
66.
Dew stared out the Buick’s window, watching the flurry of police activity outside, the big cellular phone pressed to his ear. By the looks of things, he’d arrived maybe ten minutes too late. So close. The missed opportunity made him boil inside.
“It’s a really, really big SNAFU, Murray,” Dew said. “Fucking locals are everywhere, and more on the way.” He could almost see Murray’s face turning red.
“Did the rapid-response teams go in?” Murray asked. “Why don’t they just take over?”
“They didn’t go in at all,” Drew said. “They called me first and I waved them off. You think it’s a bad situation now, try bringing in eight P90-toting goons wearing biosuits and watch the press jizz all over themselves.”
“Oh for God’s sake,” Murray said, his voice tired and ragged. “The press is already there?”
“Yeah. The local cops were first on the scene. Press picked it up on a scanner, maybe. We didn’t have a chance at information control. The cops are keeping the media at a distance, but there’s no way we can go in without being seen by at least three network news teams.”
The radio and TV stations had already been buzzing with news of Kiet Nguyen’s murder spree and subsequent suicide. News didn’t get any bigger than that, unless, of course, the cops mounted a manhunt for a former University of Michigan linebacker who’d left a mutilated corpse in his apartment. With those two murder stories flying, coverage of a gas explosion that had killed a mother and son had disappeared completely.
“Remember, the Dawsey kid was a major celebrity in this town,” Dew said. “Bunch of fucking liberals here in the media, they’re giddy to see a football player live up to billing as a creature of violence. This isn’t D.C., Murray, this is Ann Arbor, Michigan. This is a long-haired, pot-smoking little college town. A fugitive killer football player is their story of the decade, and the guv-ment trying to cover it up is icing on their hippie cake.”
“Dew, considering the situation, do you see any way we can bring Dawsey in alive?”
“That’s your call, L.T.,” Dew said. “You have to appreciate just how many cops are looking for him. There’s a dead body in his apartment-they’re not just going to stop looking just because I tell them we’re on the case. They want Dawsey, and they want him bad. If he’s in any kind of advanced state of infection, the cops might see his growths. If they capture him, expect someone to get a camera on him and a boatload of reporters fighting to know why he killed a man. If he’s arrested, and we can’t get to him right away, the triangles might make national news before the night is out. If the reporters see triangles, that SARS bullshit won’t cut it. Cops take Dawsey alive it blows this whole thing wide open.”
“What do you suggest?”
“I recommend we take him out ASAP,” Dew said. “And we get the local cops in on the action. They’re just looking for an excuse to pull the trigger. Maybe we connect Dawsey to Nguyen. I’ll tell them Dawsey probably has an explosive vest, or a biowarfare agent, whatever. I’ll make sure there are clear orders to shoot Dawsey on sight, but to stay away from his body until our crews can remove him.”
“Margaret needs a living victim.”
“So we get the next one,” Dew said. “If you want to keep this secret, I told you what we need to do.”
Dew waited through a long pause. L.T. had a hell of a decision to make.
“No,” Murray said finally. “She needs that kid alive. It’s more important than secrecy. Whatever it takes, bring him in alive.”
“That’s not going to be easy,” Dew said. “The locals are really on edge.”
“Then we connect Dawsey to Nguyen. I’ll take care of it from our end. We’ll inform the local cops, you just validate the story.”
“What story?”
“That Dawsey has knowledge of a terrorist bomb, that he absolutely must be taken alive no matter what the cost. Bring him in alive, Top.”
Murray hung up. Dew ground his teeth. Murray’s plan would work, and Dew knew it. The cops would do whatever it took to get Dawsey alive.
Dew alternated his time between looking out the window at the army of police and looking at digital photos of Dawsey that Murray’s people had transferred to the big cell phone. One was Dawsey’s most recent driver’s- license photo. Another was a close-up from Nguyen’s painting of the human arch-where the other faces writhed in terror and agony, Perry’s scrunched in raw rage. Additional photos came from the kid’s college football days.
