I oughta get dressed and go out for a slice…
When the phone rang, he said, 'Pope,' and he Scrambled through the dark to the phone charger, fumbled with the phone, punched the talk button: 'Ignace.'
And it was: 'Hey, Ruffe. Thought I'd call you and say good-bye.'
'Good-bye? Where are you now?'
A rumbling, wheezing, whispery laugh, and then, 'If this phone is tapped, you'll find out soon enough. Anyway the police were getting too close: this Davenport guy is smarter than I expected.'
'I don't know anything about that-as far as I know, they've got no idea where you are, Charlie.'
Another whispery chuckle: 'That's another thing. My name isn't Charlie. Charlie, unfortunately for him, but not for the rest of us, is in a black bag somewhere. That's what caused the trouble-I threw his dead ass into the river. Life was sweet until he came floatin' up. Anyway, the cops found him, and they know.'
'They know they're not looking for Charlie Pope? Jesus Christ… who is this, anyway?'
'They don't know who I am yet, so I'm not going to tell you. In any case, I'm moving on. Maybe… New England. Manhattan. I've got to think, I've got to see what I'm becoming, the Gods Down the Hall…'
'They know you're not Charlie…?' Ignace was outraged: And they hadn't told me? 'I'll tell you something else: they might figure out who I was, but they don't know who I'm becoming. And they don't know who I've been, or how long I've been doing this…'
'Jesus, how many…'
'More'n you know, Roo-fay. The Gods Down the Hall told me I was growing. But they say that at some point, your control begins to fade, the appetite takes over. It's dangerous, but it feels so good. I can feel that, now. I didn't know what they were talking about, but now I do, and it feels wonderful. When it's time to go, I'll go, but I think… maybe I don't want to go just yet. I want some more.'
'What are you talking about?'
'Change, Ruffe. Appetite. Blood. Moving… well, because you're probably tapped, I'm going to go now. Got to keep moving. Keep moving…'
He was gone.
Ignace stared at the phone for a few seconds, then jumped up, turned on a light, found his Palm Pilot, and brought up Davenport's home number. Dialed.
LUCAS WAS STARTLED awake by the phone. His hardwired phone, not the cell phone. He glanced at the bedside clock, thought 'Ignace,' and picked up the phone.
'He just called to say good-bye,' Ignace said without preamble. 'He says he's running. He also says he's not Charlie Pope, that Charlie Pope is dead, and that you've known about that. That you've misled everyone…'
'Slow down, slow down…,' Lucas said. He swung his feet to the floor, hunched over the phone. 'We just found out about Pope. What'd he say? You say he's running?'
'Who is he?'
'We're not sure… this was on your cell phone?'
'Yeah. You should have it.'
'Listen, Ruffe, everybody I've talked to said you're an asshole, but you seem to do the work. Okay? That's what I think. Just don't give me any shit about misleading the press. We're trying to save some poor innocent fucker's life, and we don't even know who he or she is, yet. We've already failed to save three other innocent fuckers. Okay? So don't give me any shit, and when this is all done, I'll sit down and talk to you. I'll give you the whole thing. Not to TV, not to the Pioneer Press, not to anybody else there at the Strib. Just you.'
'You mean everything?' Ignace demanded. 'When you get him, I get it first? If you get him?'
'No, not that. That's going to be a breaking news story that we can't contain,' Lucas said. 'I mean an inside feature, a blow-by-blow of who said what and how we pushed this to where we are…'
A moment of silence, then: 'Deal. I think. I'm gonna have to talk to the boss about Pope.'
'Tell her to call me. Tell her to call. In the morning. I gotta hang up now and listen to the tape. I gotta find out where the call came from. I'll be in touch.'
O'DONNELL HAD CALLED from Chicago. Lucas called the Chicago cops, asked for help: a detective called back half an hour later and said, 'Not much we can do for you, pal. That number's a pay phone out at O'Hare. This guy going somewhere?'
'The phone's in the airport?' Lucas asked.
'No. A hotel just outside. A Hilton, with a phone in the lobby.'
'Could you check the register?'
'Nobody by that name,' the cop said. 'What is it with this guy?'
'I kinda hate to tell you this…'
The Chicago cops were not happy with the news. 'We got enough of this shit without importing yours.'
HE CALLED THE Minneapolis-St. Paul airport cops again, asked them to recheck airline tickets.
'We already did that,' an airport cop said.
'Yeah, but you did it in the afternoon. Now the guy shows up out by O'Hare at midnight. Maybe he was in the airport when you were looking for tickets. Maybe he didn't fly until two o'clock.'
'Listen, I don't mean to sound disrespectful, but we've got limited resources.'
'How about if the governor called you?'
WHEN HE WASN'T talking with cops, he listened to the recording of Ignace's phone call. In terms of factual information, there wasn't much, but there was that voice. He got Cale out of bed: 'Who socialized with O'Donnell?'
'The junior staff… Probably the most active social person is Dr. Beloit.'
'Got her number?'
Beloit's husband answered, got irate when Lucas asked for his wife, was skeptical when told it was a police emergency, and finally Lucas shouted at him: 'I'm a state BCA agent, and I need to talk to your wife. Now. Or should I have a cop come over there and take her downtown?'
Beloit was dazed, being awakened at two in the morning. When she finally understood who was calling, he said, 'I want you to call our headquarters in St. Paul. There's a guy there, his name is Ted. He'll play a tape of a call to a newspaper reporter earlier this evening. None of this is public: if you let this out, I'll come down and run over you with my truck, okay?'
'Okay, but what do you want me to hear?'
'I want to know if it might be Sam O'Donnell calling. It doesn't sound like him, but it does sound like somebody disguising his voice.'
'I heard people were looking for Sam… We were a little worried.'
'Who's we?'
'Everybody.'
Lucas thought: Ah, shit. Everybody in the state would know in a couple of days… He said, 'Just call Ted, okay? Here's the number…'
SHE CALLED BACK five minutes later. 'I hate to say this, but that could be Sam.'
'You think?'
'We have a Christinas play every year, and Bob Turner, I don't think you've met Bob…'
'No.'
'… Bob plays Santa, and Sam plays one of Santa's elves. Some of the patients have parts. You know. Anyway, Sam always plays the elf as a, mmm, pervert, for lack of a better word. He talks about going down chimneys and catching people making love. I mean, that's sort of the running gag. Every chimney he goes down seems to have something going on. The thing is, he's got this heavy-breathing thing going, that spit-in-the-back-of-the-throat whisper thing. This guy tonight… that sounds like Sam doing his act.'
Lucas couldn't think of anything to say for a moment, then blurted out, 'An elf?'
'Yeah, you know, everybody gets a little weird and we have a play…'
'But it could be him.'
