Slob

elsewhere or used it someway, like in a ritual thing—whatever. I just don't think we've got him at all.' But it wasn't the burns. It wasn't that at all.

'Jack. I think you're going to be very, very surprised with the lab work on this. That hunting knife has got a big blade. I think we'll make it for the others. You want to put a big steak dinner on it?'

'You got it.' Eichord laughed. 'And let's pray you're right.'

The cops are in a good mood in spite of Jack's dissenting opinions, and everybody is heading for the cop bar and a big celebration. Eichord is going too, never a wave maker, letting the comaraderie and self-congratulatory fever take him against his better judgment.

It is 222600 and against his better judgment Daniel Edward Flowers Bunkowski decides to ignore the woman who saw him and, tired and ravenous, has gone down into his nightworld. At 222600 he is nineteen feet south of Chicago Submain K-138C-10, in a tiny submerged room that hangs beneath the manhole next to K-138C-10's valve- box cover, where he sits quietly, staring into the shadows of a lantern, oblivious to the overpowering stench as he consumes forty-dollars' worth of cold egg rolls, and thinks about his dark future.

As his conscious mind thinks his horrifying and disgusting Chaingang thoughts of rape and murder and mutilation, on another level his subconscious registers the recent events in his computer and a tiny voice whispers to him, 'Well, you've done it again. You've made another mistake.' And subliminally he feels himself sinking deeper into the quicksand of retribution that continues to tug at his massive body so relentlessly.

He mashes another cold egg roll into the sweet-and-sour sauce and inhales it in a gulp, staring into the black shadows with tiny eyes like hard, dark marbles set in a face of dough. The coal-black pig eyes of sudden death. Evil . . . safe now, down in the sewers.

And Edie Emaline Lynch is rolling northbound. Her vector has crossed that of the monster. She is humming along with a love song on the radio, thinking about an almost-stranger she is nuts about, this Jack Eichord, who is at this moment laughing on the outside, gritting his teeth on the inside, and about to succumb to his personal demons.

Eichord in the spotlight

'What?'

W H A T ?

The word explodes into the stillness of the room, shocking him awake like a pitcher of ice water thrown on the naked body of a sleeping human. He is jarred awake physically but remains deep inside the clinging and impenetrable covers of one of those unbearably realistic-to-the-last-detail nightmares that some people seem to visit in lieu of confessionals.

Jack Eichord was an ardent and longtime fan of the movie genre known as film noir; dated, dark, night time guided tours of forties and fifties urban underworlds. He loved the old black-and-white late-show procedurals, full of seedy PIs in search of elusive Maltese falcons. One of the early ones was a thing with Victor Mature and Betty Grable called I Wake Up Screaming and he thought the title to himself as he woke up screaming the word what.

W H A T ?

He is screaming the world WHAT? at the top of his brain's lungs, just as the room explodes in noise and he penetrates the curtain of the bad dream enough to snatch the ringing telephone off the cradle and whisper through a sleep-parched mouth the hoarse, cracked greeting:

'Wha'?'

'Jack? Are you awake?' she asked.

'Huh?'

'Is this Jack?'

'Huh? Yeah. Yeah. Edie?'

'Were you still asleep? It's after ten. I'm sorry. You got in late, I shouldn't have called. I'm sorry.'

''S okay.'

'Jack! Congratulations!'

'Huh?' What, he thinks, I wonder what time it is? He is totally befuddled.

'It's all over the television and newspapers this morning. You're a celebrity. Except the one paper got your name as John Eichord instead of Jack, but on TV they didn't have your name on the one channel; they referred to you as 'the famous expert on serial murders' or something like that and— '

'What?'

'Huh? Pardon?'

'Edie, can you hear me all right?'

'Yes, honey. You sound like you've got a cold or something. Have you got a bad connection? Can you hear me?'

'Yes, I think so. Listen, what are you talking about? What's in the papers and on TV? What are you saying?'

'You, my darling. You're a big cop star now.' She laughed happily. 'Oh, Jack, was he the one,'—her voice took on a cold edge—'you know, responsible for Ed? Or is it too soon to know that yet?'

'Edie, I just don't have the faintest notion of what you're talking about. Start from the beginning.'

'Are you serious?'

'Yeah. What is it?'

'You solved the Lonely Hearts killings.'

'I'm not believing this. What in the hell are you talking about?'

'Well . . . didn't you?' She is confused now. 'They said the man you arrested last night was the one who did all those . . . crimes. The Lonely Hearts murders. What are you telling me? Are you saying you don't know what any of this is about?'

'Edie, listen, this is very important. Who, exactly now, who says I solved the murders?'

'Channel Four, the American, ABC-TV had it on their—uh—'

'No. I mean who—what official—name the names. What . . . Where did the TV and newspaper reporters get the story? Was it from Lieutenant Arlen or who?'

'The police commissioner, I don't know. It's all in the papers, Jack. Didn't you arrest someone last night in the killings?'

'Yes. A suspect. But he didn't do the other murders. This was an isolated homicide. Who said it was the Lonely Hearts? Did the commissioner actually say it? Can you find it there in a paper and read it to me?'

'Hold on.' He could hear the phone make a noise. ''The announcement of the arrest was made by Chicago Deputy Chief Samuel F. X. O'Herin, who attributued the quick capture of the killer to the fine police work of the Chicago police force and to the outstanding direction of Special Investigator John Eichord, a consultant from the national Major Crimes Task Force. Deputy Chief O'Herin announced the arrest at a special news conference during which— ' '

'Oh, those dumb bastards.'

'What is it, Jack?'

'Those stupid sonsofbitches. What in God's name do they think they're doing? They're not going to be able to put this over on the public. The next time he kills they'll know it was all so much bullshit.' But even as he said it he knew that wasn't necessarily true. No one had clout like law enforcement. And in certain localities—like Cook County, Illinois, Tarrant County, Texas, isolated pockets of California, Florida, Mississippi, Missouri—the clout was unreal. There was one notorious area of New Jersey where a badge was an absolute license to kill, and the truth was . . . Hell, the truth was he was beginning to wonder if he knew what the truth was. He finally got the squad room on his second attempt to dial, so sleep-befuddled he was.