'I don't think they'll let us do that, not until they catch Mr. Torture Guy.'
Hart actually leaned against the security glass with one hand. Lucas ran the tape back: Hart had done that several times, at the different cells. Could he have written something on the palm of his hand? That seemed far- fetched; but Lucas made a note.
He didn't find much in the personnel files: he'd give them to the co-ordination center in the morning, have them run them.
That night, trying to sleep, he kept coming back to the tapes. Something went into the cells, right under his eyes. How had they done it?
Or maybe the killing had been planned in the smallest of details beforehand, and Sloan had been right in talking about a code. All it would take would be something like… he tried to think of something.
Like Grant taking off his sport coat.
Like Hart leaning against a window.
Like Sennet or O'Donnell using some kind of key word or perhaps something as simple as eye contact, with a nod and a smile.
Something, and it was right there, and he couldn't see it.
19
THE MAN WITH THE whispery voice was worried now. He'd thought to easily take ten, or fifteen, or twenty… and then maybe drift away, and start again somewhere. He'd toyed with the idea of faking his own death in the style of himself, just for the implicit humor of the situation… Set it up by killing a couple of people and never revealing where he left them…
Now, that'd be tough. The cops were nipping at his heels-that god-damn Pope was the one who did it to him. He'd come back like the ghost of Christmas. If he hadn't…
Without that accident, without those fuckin' fishermen, they would have been looking for Pope for another year. He'd seen the activity down by the bridge, the divers, the cops, and as soon as he'd seen it, he'd known that Charlie had come back.
The Gods Down the Hall had said that this might happen; that some weird happenstance would trip him. They'd told him in detail how they'd been caught, how small slips led to bigger ones, until finally they stepped on the fatal banana peel. To prevent that, to prevent the cops from isolating one man, they had to be fed options until they choked on them, Biggie said. Feed them leads that point away, he said.
If all else failed, they said, it was better to go out in a blaze than in a cage.
Biggie Lighter had grinned at him and said softly, 'They got a name for it, the good Christians do.'
'Yes?'
'Armageddon. The final battle. If it comes to it, think how good that would feel…'
IF THE FINAL BATTLE was coming, the man with the whispery voice wouldn't leave Millie behind. Couldn't do that-he'd waited so long to take her…
THE NIGHT THAT the killer came to visit, Charlie Pope had been dozing on a broken-back couch in front of the TV. The killer, who'd scouted the trailer park the night before, nosed the state car past Charlie's back door, then reversed and snugged up to the trailer. He sat for a moment, watching and listening, then took the book-sized medical kit off the front seat, climbed out, and knocked on Charlie's back door.
The killer was a slender man, dead white and muscular in a knotty, workman's way, with a barbed-wire tattoo on his left biceps and a German art-deco eagle on his back, just above his buttocks. He had three black dots in a triangle on the web of skin between his right thumb and forefinger, and he told people-mysteriously reticent about the details-that he'd gotten them in the army. Everyone in the unit had one, he said. He couldn't say what unit that was. Always the wisecrack,delivered with the well-practiced, engaging grin: 'I could tell you, but then I'd have to kill you.'
Charlie took a minute to answer the knock. He was burly-gone-to-fat, hairy still half asleep, dressed in jeans and a yellow smiley-face T-shirt, his gut pushing out in the gap between shirt and pants; he stood blinking in the porch light. 'Hey, man. What are you doin' here?'
'Drop-in drug check, Charlie. Required by law,' the killer said. 'I need a blood sample.'
'Ah, shit. This time of night?' But Charlie stepped back so the killer could step inside with him. 'I didn't even know you could do that…'
'Required by law-and I've got some questions to ask,' the killer said. There was steel in his voice now. Never let an inmate get on top of you, even after they stopped being inmates. 'Take fifteen minutes. How've you been feeling?'
'Not too bad-I hate the fuckin' job, though. Get up at five o'clock, lift them fuckin' cans all fuckin' day. Hurts my fuckin' back. Better'n that fuckin' hospital, though.'
The door opened into the tiny travel-trailer kitchen. The killer held up the kit and said, 'Let's get the blood test out of the way. Give me your left arm.'
The syringe was already loaded, lying there in the case, along with the Ziploc bag, vinyl gloves, the scalpel, and the six-foot coil of nylon rope. He had an alcohol wipe in a single-sized paper pack; unnecessary, but it added a subtle hint of innocence. If you were going to murder somebody, why would you swab his arm with alcohol?
So Charlie turned, and the killer ripped open the swab packet, wiped Charlie's triceps, picked up the needle, and gave him the injection.
'Feels more like it's going in than coming out,' Charlie said over his shoulder.
'Mmm. You haven't been messing with any drugs, have you, Charlie? Cocaine, meth, even grass-that wouldn't be good.'
'Honest to God, I don't got money for fuckin' cigarettes.'
The killer pulled the needle out, dropped it in his kit, then pointed Charlie to the couch. 'Why don't you sit down, we'll fill out this questionnaire, and then I can get out of your hair. Let you sleep,' he said.
Charlie obediently plopped down on the couch. The killer took a slip of paper from his shirt pocket, looked at it, and then said, 'Have you been dating?'
Charlie goggled at him. 'Dating? You gotta be fuckin' kidding. Everybody in town knows what I was arrested for…' His eyes drooped, and he yawned, and he mumbled, 'I couldn't get a fuckin' date… Jesus, I'm sleepy. Must've been the blood you took out.'
Either that or the overload of phenobarbital that he'd just put in, the killer thought, amused. Enough to kill a horse. Charlie tried to get up, struggled, then fell back on the couch… 'I don't… I don't…''
He was out. The killer's heart was beating a little faster now. He was insane, but not immune to fear; in fact, his whole life had been lived in fear. At this point, he could bullshit his way out, he thought. In five minutes, if he went ahead, he couldn't. He leaned forward from the kitchen chair, examining Charlie's slack face. Well…
He had vinyl gloves and a scalpel in his medical kit, and a Ziploc bag. He pulled on the vinyl gloves, knelt next to Charlie's body, turned his arm, and cut off Charlie's little finger. Charlie twitched once, then went still again. The killer wrapped the bag around the stump of Charlie's finger, watched until it contained an ounce or so of blood, dropped the finger inside, then got the rope.
He murdered Charlie with the rope. The drug would have done it, in time, but he didn't want to waste that time-didn't want to be inside Charlie's place any longer than he had to be. So he stood behind the other man, put the rope around Charlie's neck, and pulled hard. Held it; held it; held it. In a minute or a little more, Charlie began to shake. That went on for a short time, less than a minute, the killer thought, and still he pulled on the rope. Held it.
Sweaty work, killing somebody with a rope. Like hanging on to a rope tow up a ski slope. He was tough, but his arms were shaking by the time Charlie was dead. It took much longer than in the movies. As a psychotherapist, he thought, a medical professional, he should have known that; he giggled a little at the thought.
When he was sure that Charlie was dead, he looked at the hand with the amputated finger. The flow of blood
