'I don't give a shit. It can be in the damn police station for all I care. Remember — my legacy of death depends on your giving me what I want. You take me out and you've removed the key to keeping lots of people alive. The, uh, legacy is such that even if you had the locations you couldn't, let's say, disarm the items.'
'Where do I call you when I find out if we can do the trade?'
'Pathetic!' Spain laughed again. His laugh was not a thing of humor but of madness and rage. 'I'll call you, Mr. Eichord. And tell your bosses, don't forget, if you screw with me I'll also be forced to deal with Miss Russo in the harshest and most permanent manner — she'll be one more death you've caused.'
'I'm sure we'll go the trade. The bosses won't like it but you haven't left them much choice.'
'Whichever. I'll be phoning back soon so you don't have much time. Don't be stupid.' He saw the auto-stop kick the tape off as the telephone receiver clicked.
'Well,' Springer said, 'how about them apples?'
'Yeah. Well. I read it as pure bullshit.'
'Jack, you think he's bluffing about the bombs?'
'I think we'll find the grenades. But no. It's bullshit. He's a sicko. And he's good. A pro. He thinks he's invulnerable now. He didn't even bother to lie convincingly. That was all bullshit about him writing letters to the papers.'
'Yeah? You think?'
'Sure. The implied contradictions. One second he shows he knows how we work, implies we respond to media pressure, then he runs the letter thing by us forgetting that if such letters were sent, they'd also tell the press we gave a mad killer a human sacrifice. He's just jerking himself off now. I think he knows we're going to take him down but the desire to smash out at Ciprioni, coupled with his guilt and mental illness, probably have brought him to this point.'
'I hope you're right.'
'He's crazy as a fucking loon, of course.' Eichord wiped perspiration from his forehead. He moved his head from side to side and heard bones pop. 'Hey, look at me — he's saying.' Springer nodded glumly. ' 'Course . . . ' Jack added with a sly half-smile, 'on the other hand I could be wrong.'
'Wonderful. Fuckin' voon-der-bar.'
Suddenly Eichord thought of eighteen things that could and probably would go wrong, ranging from the weather to Jeeter Oliver. He looked at a yellow legal pad in front of him and couldn't read anything he'd written. He wanted to take his notes and hand them to somebody and say, 'Run these down to the lab.'
He picked up the phone and put it down again. Went in and peed and sat back down at his desk. He thought of all the things that could go wrong that he HADN'T thought of before. He hoped the fault lines wouldn't crack apart and swallow him as the terra unfirma had threatened to do before. He hoped that it would rain on Spain and he'd fall mainly on the plain. He hoped that Jeeter would not get the jitters.
What could go wrong? EVERY fucking thing, that's all. Everything could go wrong. Eichord thought to himself, I can have a heart attack and bite it right now. That's what can go wrong. And he felt his palms turn damp, and he had a hot and unpleasant feeling inside his head, and out of nowhere he thought of Rita and realized that it was true what the sages wrote, that abstinence made the fond grow harder.
Time compressed like a drunk's afternoon and early evening, swirling fuzzily, and it was all gone and he could feel how cold he was and how hot his forehead felt as the time slogged on. The phone ringing stabbed like a knife wound. He had heard the phrase triple-take before but never seen one much less done one. He did a triple-take. He was starting to walk into the next office and his phone rang and his head came back then returned in the direction of the body movement, then corrected, then recorrected, then changed its mind — a little St. Vitus dance here on American Band-stand.
'Hello.' His throat sounded like he'd been gargling Drano.
'Well?'
'Okay. They say you can have Ciprioni but they want assurances from you. What's to stop you from leaving time bombs anyway once you have what you want?'
'Nothing. If I was out to destroy the city. But if I was out to destroy the city the fucking city would be GONE, wouldn't it?'
'Uh, yeah.'
'Brilliant. I've told you I won't kill anymore if you give me my dear friend for disposition. A deal's a deal. I can't bring my daughter back. I will have reached them all and dealt out the appropriate punishment.' Eichord hoped that in the throes of his insanity he'd have forgotten that the police were holding Rikla under guard.
'Fine. I made a list of meeting places, do you want —'
'You want me to come there? I don't care. I've warned you what will happen if you try to take me down.'
'Um. How about that theater where you were. The EGA they call it. I'll bring Tony Cypriot there at midnight if you'll assure me Angelina Russo will be there alive.'
'Forget snipers and all that crap too, friend. Remember my precautions are no joke. I fall down go boom, EVERYBODY goes boom —' He chuckled mirthlessly. 'You read me?'
'Right. I don't see a problem. Frankly, Mr. Ciprioni has no value to us. But Miss Russo is a civilian. She's no more tied to the family business than your daughter was tied to your work. We don't want to see another innocent hurt and I don't think you do either.' He wondered if he'd gone too far. A pause and the voice had turned to stone. Cold and hard like a tombstone.
'You bring the scumbag. You personally.'
'Okay.'
'I see anybody else. First thing I do is I drop this Russo bitch like a real bad habit.'
'All right. I'll be alone and I will have Mr. Ciprioni. See you inside the theater at midnight.' The line went dead. First question he could decipher from the legal pad was, what if he's waiting outside? What if I can't get him inside? Hey, no fair, these are too tough for this late in the day. Also, that's two questions. But on another level he knew that Spain would go inside, or anywhere else. Confidence was in his tone of voice. And insanity.
Victor Springer looked like someone who'd just seen the
'I'm not liking this much,' he told Eichord.
'Umm.'
'In fact, I don't like any part of it.'
'I hear you. What he is about is punishment. He wants revenge. He's several bricks short of a load.'
'He's also an expert, highly professional hit man, booby. He KILLS people. THAT'S what he's about.' It was another negotiation. The lieutenant agreed to lose the tac unit, Eichord conceded to the backup and trace vans. Whatever other high-tech bullshit — just let him go in there and get it done.
The bomb squad had sent Leroys, which was what they called their expendable technicians — a bit of tongue-in-cheek cop wit — to find and secure the grenades in the two stores. They had been there as advertised.
McTuff had factored the probabilities and rated the situation as an assessed threat that was high but acceptable — to whom? Eichord was where the buck stopped, and he tried to think of an appropriate cliche.
'Sometimes you have to fish or cut bait,' he said to nobody. He was going in. He'd been adamant about the loner thing. He told Springer, 'You mount people on the rooftops, Spain eyeballs 'em, not only will we lose him he'll probably scope off the coppers too — just out of meanness. We gotta try to get in and play our hole card.'
Gaetano Cipriano was not thrilled. And the less thrilled he got the closer the hour drew near. It looked for a bit like Eichord was going to have to cuff him to drag him into the EGA, but in the last minutes the man fell into a becalmed state.
Oddly enough, Eichord was quite unafraid. Relaxed. Getting out of the marked vehicle and stepping over the bright-orange tape, going into the EGA, where the police seal had been broken, the chain cut, walking in and around the box-office area, then stumbling with Ciprioni and both of them tripping over some-thing and a hoarse 'SONOFABITCH!' escaping in-vol-untarily as they found themselves staring down the center aisle into the blinding flashlight of the killer Spain.
'You scumwad,' Spain said,
'Hold it, Frank, at least listen to my side,' The Man began pleading.
