The Killing Man

'Try the bathroom. They told me it all works.'

I went to the kitchen and started the coffee going. There were eggs, bacon and precooked biscuits in the refrigerator, and I got them all out, cooked them up just as Eddie came out of the bathroom dressed, with damp hair, and still carrying the rifle. He ate, said thanks and went to the door. 'I'll send Tunney down,' he told me over his shoulder.

Tunney needed a shower too. He ate, had a second cup of coffee and said it had been a quiet night. During the day he and Eddie would each grab some sleep while the other stood guard. At suppertime they would come up one at a time, grab a bite before dark, refill their thermoses and canteens and get set for the night's watch.

The phone rang. I picked it up and Ferguson's voice said, 'Everything all right?'

I said, 'Great.'

He said, 'Fine,' and hung up.

From Velda's bedroom I heard the sound of a shower running. I went back to the stove again. This morning I had the feeling Velda was going to have her old appetite back. The bacon strips were almost done. I made a square of them in the pan and cracked two eggs into the opening. I basted the eggs the way she liked them and they were done just as she came to the table. I laid out the biscuits and poured us coffee.'

'Don't say it,' I told her.

'You'll make a great wife, Mike.'

'I told you not to say it.'

'So punch me in the mouth with your lips,' she told me.

'Wait till you swallow your egg,' I told her.

We sat through another day and watched a steady stream of television block out hours and half hours. The news had nothing at all. The weather channel said a cold front was moving into our area and we could expect an early frost this year.

At ten minutes to four the phone rang again. Pat said, 'The front car was confirmed.'

'How soon you going in?'

'On the way, pal.'

'Any problems?'

'Only political. B. B. will smooth things out.'

I heard a click and a small lessening in the volume of Pat's voice. 'Fine,' I said, 'see you,' and hung up. I wanted to say something else to the party on the line, but I didn't bother.

Velda was sitting on the edge of her chair. 'It's going down?'

'Bradley and Candace Amory have located the site. Pat said there's a political problem.'

'What kind?'

'He didn't say, but it sounds like an inter-agency squabble. Bennett Bradley is going to handle it, and he damn well better be a good diplomat on this one. A hit like this is so big everybody wants a cut of it.'

'Damn,' she said, 'can they mess it up?'

'They can mess up a headhunter's picnic.'

'What do we do?'

'Wait . . . and hope they can keep a lid on this.'

She looked at me very seriously, her lower lip clenched between her teeth. 'This isn't the way it's supposed to be, is it?'

'No.'

'There's trouble. You can feel it too, can't you?'

I nodded. It was like that first Saturday when it all started. It was the way the big city so far away was able to swallow its victims and make them disappear without anyone knowing or caring.

The mountain shadow was coming down again.

I fixed coffee and sandwiches for the guys outside, gave them a fast call and Eddie came in, picked up supper for them both and went back to his vigil. Velda and I had a snack and went back to TV, staying on the local New York channel. So far nothing had happened.

At nine o'clock the weather predictions came true. The cold front had come in on schedule and was making itself felt. Velda pulled the blanket up to her neck and shivered.

'Want me to make a fire?'

'That would be nice.'

I got the logs together and laid them up on the firedogs, stuffing some loose kindling under them, making a nice neat arrangement. 'This is stupid,' I said.

'Why?'

'Trying to keep comfortable while a damn killer's playing a game with us.'

'It was his game, Mike.'

'The slob didn't have to leave that note.'

'Yes, he did.'

'Why? Explain that. Why?'

'Mike . . . how did you kill him?'

I stood up and looked around the mantelpiece. 'You see a can of fire starter around?'

'No. You didn't answer me.'

'Screw it.' I looked on both sides of the fireplace.

'Use the newspapers,' she told me.

They were neatly stacked against the wall, about two weeks' worth of The New York Times. I grabbed a handful, squatted down and began stripping the pages out, twisting them into cylinders to go under the kindling.

I used up one day's edition and pulled the second one over and nearly ripped the front page off when the thing popped right off the page at me, a two-column photo of a face I hadn't seen in four years and an accompanying article headlined FRANCISCO DUVALLE DIES TONIGHT.

And now, Francisco DuValle was already dead.

'What is it, Mike?'

'They finally executed DuValle,' I said.

She took the paper from my hand and read the article. 'He had appealed the death sentence for four years. They just came to an end.'

'It was my testimony that decided the case. Remember?'

'The verdict was justified. He was a deliberate murderer.'

I took the page back and stared at the photo. The face seemed expressionless unless you knew him, because behind the black mask of a heavy, pointed Vandyke beard and an unruly mop of hair that swept forward across his forehead, there was anger and hatred that had erupted into fourteen murders. The eyes appeared flat, but in court they glistened and burned at anybody who had accused him.

When I was on the stand identifying him, they tried to eat me alive. He sat there, tight with controlled anger, not caring that what I said was true, but that his pleasure in the death act had been taken from him. I should have shot him instead of coldcocking him when he made that last attack on the girl, but I hadn't realized who I was taking out.

As I left the stand he said very softly, 'You'll die, Hammer. I'll kill you.' The guys in the press box heard it and a couple even reported it.

Velda was watching my face as I studied the picture. I could feel myself getting tight as DuValle's soft voice came back to me. My teeth were clenched so tight my jaws ached and she said, 'What is it, Mike?'

I turned the page toward her. 'Familiar?'

'Only from the court. I was there at the sentencing.'

I frowned and said, 'Of course . . . how could you see a connection? You only had a short contact and that under stress.'

She still didn't get it. 'With whom?'

'Have you got any of that makeup they use to cover up your black eye?'

'Erase? It's in my pocketbook.'

'Get it.'