Oh yeah, MacAdams thought. He should have seen this one coming.
MacAdams crossed Torresdale and raced up Margaret, cherries flashing, no sound. He was at the El station in sixty seconds. Guy looked ordinary enough, except for the face full of Mace. Transit cop said he’d been raving but that he’d calmed down in the meantime. Even better. MacAdams read him Miranda, put him in the back of the squad car. Apologized for the lack of air-conditioning. That and the laptop had been down since start of shift.
“I don’t care about the air,” the guy said quietly. “Whatever you do, don’t leave me alone.”
Looked like he’d had quite a night.
“I’m just taking you in, okay? You won’t be alone.”
He escorted the guy, who said he was a Mr. Jack Eisley, up to the Fifteenth District building at Harbison and Levick. Walked him up to Northeast Detectives HQ on the second floor, which was done in navy blue with gold bands.
Then the guy started raving again, which surprised MacAdams. He’d been docile the whole ride up. Now he was screaming about not being left alone, needed to speak to someone right away, or else many people would die—all of the usual psycho crap. MacAdams was glad to step clear of that shit.
“All you guys,” he said, and went back downstairs. Only a half hour before he clocked out.
But something made him hang around. He put a few coins in the honor box, popped the lock, and took a Diet Coke from the squad fridge. Drank it and savored how cool the can felt against his hand. He’d been in a slow simmer all night. Listened to the usual banter in the squad room:
“You’ve got a cold.”
“Come over here, give me a hug.”
“You always have a cold.”
“And yet I love skiing.”
Beat as he was, MacAdams admitted it: He was curious. So he finished his Diet Coke, tossed the can, and popped back upstairs to see what was going on. Through the one-way glass, he saw the guy talking to Detective Sarkissian.
Howling Man was saying, “… tell you everything, but you have to promise one thing: You won’t leave me alone. I don’t care who you have in here with me. The chief of police, one of you guys, a secretary, anybody. Bring in a homeless guy.”
“I’m right here,” Sarkissian told him.
“I know this sounds crazy, but please believe me. You leave me alone in this room, you’ll come back and find me dead.”
“I don’t want you to hurt yourself, Jack. I want you to tell me what happened.”
“I want to, believe me. Maybe some of it will make sense to you. Maybe you’ll be able to help me figure it out. Because the way things are looking, a lot of people are going to die today.”
“Hey. Come on, now.”
“That is not a threat.”
“Calm down.”
“I’m perfectly calm.”
Sarkissian waited him out.
“Hey, could I have something for my eyes? A bottle of Visine or something? My contacts are shot to hell, but maybe I could see something if I wet them down.”
“Tell me a little first, and I’ll get somebody to get you Visine.”
“Okay. But…”
“Start from the beginning.”
“I don’t even know …”
“You said this started nine hours ago? Try there.”
“I was at a bar in the Philadelphia International Airport. That’s where I met the blonde. The first thing she said to me was …”
He told his story. Some really weird fucking shit. MacAdams didn’t follow all of it. Barely followed half of it, tell the truth. Apparently, the guy was afraid that if he was left alone, some killer satellite would send a death beam to particles in his blood—yeah, weird fucking shit, right?—which would make him die in ten seconds.
The detectives were split. Some of them wanted to let him sweat it out for twenty seconds, prove that he was batshit. Others thought that was asking for trouble. What if he got so afraid, he seized, died right there in the interrogation room? Then it’d be a world full of shit for everybody.
But Sarkissian was good at this stuff. He chipped away at him from the side.
“Mr. Eisley, you’ve got a wife and daughter. Were you thinking of them when you attacked that woman on the Frankford El?”
“I didn’t attack her,” Howling Man replied. “I was trying to talk to her.”
“Your wife and daughter know you’re talking to another woman?”
“They wouldn’t mind. Not if they knew what had happened to me.”
“And what’s that again?”
“I’ve told you. I’m infected with a tracking device that will kill me if I’m alone.”
“Why don’t you go home to your wife and daughter?”
“I can’t do that. I wish I could.”
Some key facts gathered with a few phone calls:
Eisley flies here last night, even though he seems to have no business in Philadelphia. He’s a reporter at a weekly newspaper in Chicago.
At about 1:57 A.M., a hotel resident hears fighting in his room. A male and a female. Hotel security officer Charles Lee Vincent investigates.
As he approaches the room, he’s knocked out by an unknown assailant. He remembers there being a woman in the room, but that’s about it. Vincent later escorts Eisley down to the lobby.
A little after 3:00 A.M., Eisley disappears.
At the same time, outside the hotel, according to two tourists, Christin Dubay and Sarah French, some “flaming asshole” stole their cab.
At approximately 5:16 A.M., Eisley attacks Angela Marchione, a waitress at Dominick’s Little Italy. She sprays him with Mace. He goes on a tear through the elevated car, passes through to an adjoining car, then exits at Margaret-Orthodox, where he is apprehended by SEPTA police.
Eisley has no ID, no wallet. Claims he lost it at a nightclub on Spring Garden.
Still, they have a photocopy of his forged driver’s license from the check-in desk at the Sheraton. They find his address and phone number on-line. Call his house. No answer.
However this story was going to shake out, MacAdams thought, it was sure as shit going to be interesting.
MacAdams watched them go back in the room and work with Eisley a little more, try to get him talking about his wife, his kid— what he’s doing in Philadelphia. But the guy was stubborn and more than a little crazy Kept clamoring for the FBI or someone from Homeland Security, yet begged not to be left alone.
Finally, Sarkissian made the call:
6:48 a.m.
Once you come to terms with the idea that you’re a monster, it’s easier to function. Your physical self is more forgiving of abuse, willing to strain against its own humanity. Because there is no humanity under all of that flesh, after all. Which was how Kowalski was able to drag himself up from the floor and try to piece
