‘I better never hurt you,’ she said.
‘I know you never would.’
‘Never,’ she said, and looked into his face, his eyes, studied his mouth, touched his cheek. ‘So now we better get out of here, right? Cause you’re a wanted desperado here, right?’
‘There isn’t much time,’ he said.
‘Come on, there’s
‘Mexico would be nice,’ he said.
She nodded into his shoulder. She was silent for a while. He held her close.
‘So maybe we could go to Mexico,’ she said.
‘Wherever you like.’
‘Does it bother you I’m a hooker?’
‘You’re not a hooker, Reg.’
She nodded again.
‘Maybe I’m not,’ she said.
There was some sort of commotion in the main room outside. They both sat up in bed just as six detectives in Kevlar vests burst into the bedroom, guns drawn. Some guy in tails and striped trousers stood behind them, a passkey in his hand, looking very frightened. Charles reached at once for the Glock on the bedside table.
‘Don’t touch it, Baldy!’ Meyer yelled.
Talk about the pot calling the kettle.
10.
SEEMED LIKE OLD TIMES.
The good old days, y’know?
Back when strangers were killing strangers for no reason at all.
In recent years, the murder rate in this city had dropped to less than two a day. That was progress. Last year by this time, 307 people had been killed; since January of this year, the total was only 273. But that didn’t count the eleven people - including Benjamin Bugliosi - who’d been killed last night in what the early editions of the tabloids were already calling MONDAY, BLOODY MONDAY!
Since six thirty last night, when Bugliosi was shot and killed outside 753 North Hastings, there had been six killings in Calm’s Point, one in Majesta, and three in the Laurelwood section of Riverhead. One of the Riverhead victims had been stabbed in the chest while struggling to prevent the theft of a white-gold chain and cross he wore around his neck. The victim in Majesta had been shot in the stomach. His seventeen-year-old assailant had fled into a subway station, and, when pursued from there by police, had run into an alley off Dunready Street, where he’d shot himself in the head.
Except for the arrest in the Bugliosi case, there’d been no others. But the DA’s Office was on high alert, and any one of half a dozen assistant DAs could have answered the Q&A call from the Eight-Seven. It was sheer luck of the draw that caused Nellie Brand to trot all the way uptown at four A.M. that Tuesday morning.
* * * *
‘Thing is,’ Carella was telling her, ‘he doesn’t seem to give a damn. That we caught him.’
‘Has he admitted killing all six of them?’ Nellie asked.
She’d been on rotation since midnight, but she looked fresh and alert in a beige linen suit and lime-colored blouse. Blonde hair trimmed close. Lipstick, no other makeup.
‘All six,’ Carella said. ‘But he says the last one was self-defense. Says he was defending his fiancee.’
‘His fiancee, huh? What about her?’ Nellie said.
‘We’re not looking for a 230 bust,’ Carella said. ‘We’re letting her go.’
‘So when do we talk to him?’
‘Soon as the video guy gets here.’
It was now ten minutes past four.
The Q&A started at 4:32 A.M.
By that time, the technician had set up his video equipment and was ready to tape the proceedings. The technician had taped hundreds of these Q&As before, and was frankly bored to tears by most of them. Every now and then you got something juicy like a guy drooling to tell you how he’d enjoyed stabbing a woman fifteen times in her left breast and then drinking blood from her nipple afterward, which to tell the truth the video guy had found sort of exciting, too. But most of the time, you got mundane motives for murder, which was alliterative but not too terribly thrilling. The video guy could barely stifle a yawn as Charles Purcell was sworn in, was read his rights yet another time, and was then asked for the record to tell his name and current address, which he gave as 410 Graham Lane in Oatesville. Nellie stepped in.
Q: Mr. Purcell, as I understand this, you have refused counsel, is that correct?
A: I don’t need a lawyer.
Q: You realize, do you not
A: I don’t need a lawyer.
Q: Will you please confirm for the record that you have been advised of your rights to counsel, and have refused it, and are now willing to answer my questions
A: Yes. All of that. Let’s get on with it.
Q: Mr. Purcell, where were you last night at about six thirty P.M.?
A: I was picking up my fiancee. We were…
Q: By your fiancee…
A: Regina Marshall. She lives at 753 North Hastings. We were supposed to go to dinner together. She had gone home to change her clothes. She was waiting downstairs for me when she was attacked by the man I shot in self-defense.
Q: Benjamin Bugliosi?
A: I was later told his name, yes. I had no idea who he was when I shot him. All I knew was that he was hurting Reggie.
Q: Does the name Michael Hopwell mean anything to you?
A: Yes, he’s the priest I killed.
Q: Christine Langston?
A: Yes, I killed her, too.
Q: Alicia Hendricks?
A: Yes.
Q: Max Sobolov?
A: Yes, I killed him.
Q: Helen Reilly? Did you kill her as well?
A: I killed them all.
Q: Why did you kill these people?
A: They fiddled with my life.
Q: I’m sorry, they… ?
A: They fucked up my life.
* * * *
It was 4:39 A.M. when he started telling them. The sun was just coming up. A golden light splashed through the barred squadroom windows, but it did not reach the windowless interrogation room where Charles Purcell was telling them why he’d killed the five people he felt had ruined his life. His recitation did not end until 5:32 A.M., when he finished telling them he’d killed Max Sobolov because his wartime sergeant had been responsible for his OTH discharge from the Army.
‘I couldn’t go to college because of him,’ he said.
The room went still except for the almost soundless whir of the camera.
