The Cabinet of Curiosities

this radar fast, or you got your ass shot off and returned to you, gift-wrapped by St. Peter in a box with a nice pretty red ribbon. He’d almost forgotten he had the instinct. It had seen years of disuse, but such things died hard.

He continued walking until he reached the corner of Burling Slip. He turned the corner, stepping into the shadows, and quickly pressed himself against the wall, removing his Smith & Wesson at the same time. He waited, breathing shallowly. He could hear the faint sound of water lapping the piers, the distant sound of traffic, a barking dog. But there was nothing else.

He cast an eye around the corner. There was still enough light to see clearly. The tenements and dockside warehouses looked deserted.

He stepped out into the half-light, gun ready, waiting. If somebody was following, they’d see his gun. And they would go away.

He slowly reholstered the weapon, looked around again, then turned down Water Street. Why did he still feel he was being followed? Had his instincts rung a false alarm, after all?

As he approached the middle of the block, and Number 16, he thought he saw a dark shape disappear around the corner, thought he heard the scrape of a shoe on pavement. He sprang forward, thoughts of Mary Greene forgotten, and whipped around the corner, gun drawn once again.

Fletcher Street stretched ahead of him, dark and empty. But at the far corner a street lamp shone, and in its glow he could see a shadow quickly disappearing. It had been unmistakable.

He sprinted down the block, turned another corner. Then he stopped.

A black cat strolled across the empty street, tail held high, tip twitching with each step. He was a few blocks downwind of the Fulton Fish Market, and the stench of seafood wafted into his nostrils. A tugboat’s horn floated mournfully up from the harbor.

O’Shaughnessy laughed ruefully to himself. He was not normally predisposed to paranoia, but there was no other word for it. He had been chasing a cat. This case must be getting to him.

Hefting the journals, he continued south, toward Wall Street and the subway.

But this time, there was no doubt: footsteps, and close. A faint cough.

He turned, pulled his gun again. Now it was dark enough that the edges of the street, the old docks, the stone doorways, lay in deep shadow. Whoever was following him was both persistent and good. This was not some mugger. And the cough was bullshit. The man wanted him to know he was being followed. The man was trying to spook him, make him nervous, goad him into making a mistake.

O’Shaughnessy turned and ran. Not because of fear, really, but because he wanted to provoke the man into following. He ran to the end of the block, turned the corner, continuing halfway down the next block. Then he stopped, silently retraced his steps, and melted into the shadow of a doorway. He thought he heard footsteps running down the block. He braced himself against the door behind him, and waited, gun drawn, ready to spring.

Silence. It stretched on for a minute, then two, then five. A cab drove slowly by, twin headlights lancing through the fog and gloom. Cautiously, O’Shaughnessy eased his way out of the doorway, looked around. All was deserted once again. He began making his way back down the sidewalk in the direction from which he’d come, moving slowly, keeping close to the buildings. Maybe the man had taken a different turn. Or given up. Or maybe, after all, it was only his imagination.

And that was when the dark figure lanced out of an adjacent doorway—when something came down over his head and tightened around his neck—when the sickly sweet chemical odor abruptly invaded his nostrils. One of O’Shaughnessy’s hands reached for the hood, while the other convulsively squeezed off a shot. And then he was falling, falling without end . . .

The sound of the shot reverberated down the empty street, echoing and reechoing off the old buildings, until it died away. And silence once more settled over the docks and the now empty streets.

FIVE

PATRICK O’SHAUGHNESSY AWOKE very slowly. His head felt as if it had been split open with an axe, his knuckles throbbed, and his tongue was swollen and metallic in his mouth. He opened his eyes, but all was darkness. Fearing he’d gone blind, he instinctively drew his arms toward his face. He realized, with a kind of leaden numbness, that they were restrained. He tugged, and something rattled.

Chains. He was shackled with chains.

He moved his legs and found they were chained as well.

Almost instantly, the numbness fled, and cold reality flooded over him. The memory of the footsteps, the cat- and-mouse in the deserted streets, the smothering hood, returned with stark, pitiless clarity. For a moment, he struggled fiercely, a terrible panic bubbling up in his chest. Then he lay back, trying to master himself. Panic’s not going to solve anything. You have to think.

Where was he?

In a cell of some sort. He’d been taken prisoner. But by whom?

Almost as soon as he asked this question, the answer came: by the copycat killer. By the Surgeon.

The fresh wave of panic that greeted this realization was cut short by a sudden shaft of light—bright, even painful after the enveloping darkness.

He looked around quickly. He was in a small, bare room of rough-hewn stone, chained to a floor of cold, damp concrete. One wall held a door of rusted metal, and the light was streaming in through a small slot in its face. The light suddenly diminished, and a voice sounded in the slot. O’Shaughnessy could see wet red lips moving.

“Please do not discompose yourself,” the voice said soothingly. “All this will be over soon. Struggle is unnecessary.”

The slot rattled shut, and O’Shaughnessy was once again plunged into darkness.

He listened as the retreating steps rang against the stone floor. It was all too clear what was coming next. He’d seen the results at the medical examiner’s office. The Surgeon would come back; he’d come back, and . . .