Slob

Fort Meade, but there's nothing more I can do on it, pard.'

'Bullshit Sonny. I gotta have it. This guy is ripping the hearts outta people, goddammit, I need you on this, man. You have to fucking help me!' Eichord was yelling into the telephone.

'Well. Shit. What can I say, Jack?' A pause and he says, 'I know a guy. I can't promise anything.'

'That's not what I said to you, man, once upon a time. I don't like saying this, but dammit when you needed me, I was there for you and now I could have found out this much on my own, and I need to know who this fucker is, Sonny—and I need to know bad . . . please.'

'I'll call you back,' he replied, with an audible sigh.

'When?'

'As soon as I fucking can, all right?' Sonny promised, somewhat pissed, and hung up the phone—not too gently.

A minute became an hour. Eichord, way, way beyond having any reluctance to push this one regardless of how badly it maxed out the colonel, called Sonny. Colonel Schoenburgen was on another line and would Mr. Eichord like to wait? Why the hell not? Five minutes and he's getting really steamed and he hangs up. Nervously, he's trying to figure what to do next. Two minutes later his line rings.

'Eichord.'

'Okay,' Sonny told him, 'I had to call a big fucking favor for this, so don't do anything like this to me again, Ever, I mean this is Payback—in spades. You roger that?'

'Affirm. Whatcha got?' Eichord asked eagerly.

'I got a deletion for maximum national security reasons, which we knew. Military intelligence at the highest levels. It was part of a sanitization program that swept a lot of the dirty files clean at the time of the big shake-up over at the Company.

'From what I can gather this was a joint thing between Clandestine Services and the military people. Something that was in place right before the

Phoenix Program. Not domestic, best I can make out. I'm going to give you a telephone number to call. Now listen to me, Jack old buddy ole' palsy-walsy, man—no follow-ups. None. I had to pay some fucking long coin of my own to get this son of a buck to hold still for it. I explained the subject is some nut who committed every murder back to the Kennedy assassination, so it's up to you now.

'He'll give you about two minutes on the phone so don't expect more and don't call me back because I won't be here anymore for you. Understand? That's it for me—even steven, agreed?'

'Gotcha. What's the guy's name and who is he?'

'Negative. You just call the number and ask him what you want to know. Don't fuck around with him. He'll hang up and that'll be it. I've given it my best shot.' He told Eichord the number, which happened to be a Virginia pay phone, wished him a cool good luck, and clicked off.

'Yep,' a gruff voice barked on the first ring.

'My name is Ja—'

'I know who you are, Mr. Eichord, I ran my own check,' he said talking very fast, slurring his words slightly. 'And as it happens I also know about the Kasikoff case. The man you're looking for is—and get something to write with now, although I assume you have a tape rolling too, is—I'll spell this name, B-U-N-K-O-W-S-K-I. Bunkowski, Daniel Edward Flowers and he's killed a lot of people. I assume he's still at it, right?'

'Right. What's the story on him and why was his identity deleted?'

'Can't tell you that. He was part of a program that was run back when we were experimenting with the use of mercenaries and such over in Southeast Asia, and this the early sixties, back before we got completely involved in the war. Around sixty-four, something like that, he came into the program, which was disabled after a very brief period.

'Deleting his identity was the right thing to do, the mistake was to have those blood groups and prints in the computers, but those things sometimes happen. I'm telexing you his dossier as it applies in your case, and sending the official photograph of Bunkowski down the fine to you as well. Don't bother trying to reach me again here or through Sonny Schoenburgen because he will not be able to contact me again. This bridge is burned—no matter what.'

'Hold it, mister. This Bunkowski may have killed dozens of innocent people and the entire city is about to be thrown into a grab-ass panic the likes of which you've never seen. So let's cut out all the national security bullshit for a goddamn second and give me some real cooperation here. I need anything at all that might give us some perspective on the man. I mean . . . what makes him kill? How does he know to pick certain victims? Who taught him to kill so well? What are his weak points? How is he vulnerable? How can we catch him? I need to know how—'

'What makes him kill? He likes it. Who taught him to kill? We sure as hell didn't. He was self-taught. What are his weak points? Well, he weighs about 450 pounds, Mr. Eichord, so if you wait long enough he'll probably eat himself to death. Dossier's on the way. Good-bye, Mr. Eichord.'

The machine rumbled inside, printing hundreds of thousands of impulse dots, and he waited for it to give him an electronic facsimile of a face. And he took it from the machine when it was through and saw, for the first time, the face of the beast.

Below

The smell in the trap was the smell of excrement multiplied by what? A million? Ten thousand? Was there an olfactory scale for shit stink? Was this 147.2 on the shit scale, 139,000 stink power? It was almost more than he could take and he could take anything. And so he uncapped the quart of bourbon and took a mouthful and swallowed it, loathing the taste and gagging nausea as he swallowed but welcoming the deadening of the sensory organs and the blocking of the afferent nerve impulses.

A particular sound, look, or odor triggered the most intense memories from childhood, or from his institutionalized years of concentrated horror. What for you or me might be only unpleasant, a smell of cigar smoke, the feel of a chalky eraser, the aroma of sachet, the hospital smell of antiseptic, could goad him into a killing frenzy. And the waves of hate and madness would sweep over him in a blinding raging red tide, kill lust taking him, pouring down on him in a scorching effusion of liquid fire and it was then he would require all of his concentration and skill and control because it was then that he would do the bad things.

The smallest most inconsequential thing. Like a finger pointing on a direction sign. The sound of wind rustling through leaves or metal-cleated footfalls and distant voices on the landing and he was back in the closet huddled in icy fear waiting, praying to gods that only he could summon, promising begging them to hear him and spare him as the loud footsteps and the quarreling voices drew closer and he saw the snake man again and the little boy Danny peed himself knowing fearing that it would be him again and then and then oh oh aaaahhhhhhhh nnoooooooooooo not oh oh don't hurt me oh don't let him Mommy Mommmmmmmy urinating in little uncontrollable spasms wetting himself there in the foulness of the closet, daring only a brief peek through the crack, holding on to his little dog in the blackened space, hoping the snake man would not find him again.

And the memory does not come from that back center of the brain within the hippocampus, it comes down a toilet flushing in a high-rise, yes flushing out in an effulgence of liquid gold flushing and circumfusing, surrounding, enveloping his memories in the shit stink smell as it gushes, flushes, rushes down through tubes down to the sea in shits, down to timeless bowels down to Danny Boy oh Danny Boy the pipes the pipes are flushing down down down it comes flowing and circurmfluent down through the caverns measureless to man down to a sunless sewer and clay and concrete and chemicals and the pipes and tubes and tunnels and submains and declinations of defecations into the main flowing under him and he is back in the closet and the hate the putrid mean bitterness of it drowns his mind in the memories of the dreaded snake man.

And Danny is waiting in the closet as the snake man rages and he catches words and threats as the arms