A black-and-white slowed as it passed Clyde, and he propped his cheek casually on his fist to block his face. His hands, slick with sweat, slid on the steering wheel until he tightened them. He drove up and down Le Conte under the glare of the morning sun, but there were no parking spaces open, so he pulled into the lot by the deserted Macy's building and parked in the far corner behind a Dumpster. He sat, his mouth pressed against the plush top of the steering wheel, one hand hanging limply over the gearshift that protruded from the steering column.
His car, a '92 Ford Crown Victoria, was brown, though the paint had chipped on the hood and trunk, revealing the dull, oxidizing metal beneath. Rust had eaten through the wheel wells, and the tires were worn nearly smooth in the middles. Carl's Jr. Superstar wrappers, Barq's root beer cans, and other pieces of trash littered the backseat and rear shelf. The beige upholstered interior reeked of smoke and ketchup. Cigarette burns had left holes in the seat cushions, the fringes black and hard.
Clyde pulled a packet of Noblemen's Zinc Lozenges from the glove box. The orange suckers were individually sealed into a foil sheet in rows of three. He dug with his nail a few times to catch and lift the corner of the foil backside from the thin plastic covering, then peeled back the foil and popped a lozenge in his mouth. Then he tore free a square containing another lozenge, careful to bend the sheet first along the perforations, and held it in a sweaty hand.
He pulled his navy corduroy hat low over his eyes, then removed a pair of latex gloves from his pocket and put them on. Beneath his sweatshirt, his scrub top, moist with sweat, clung to his body. He hid his ball-chain necklace with its dangling key in the dirty ashtray on the passenger door.
After a moment, he pulled the gearshift down into DRIVE and sat perfectly still, his foot on the brake. His lips, fleshy and moist, moved slightly. He murmured to himself as if debating whether he should drive away.
He shoved the shift lever back up to P and got out. Leaving his keys hidden atop the left rear tire, he headed for the hospital.
The second morning of the stakeout had been nearly as uneventful as the first. Dalton leaned against the tint-windowed doors of the ambulance, gazing longingly up the ramp to the rectangle of blue sky. About every twenty minutes, Yale flicked a bit of lint from his pants or shirt; aside from that, he was still.
Garcia and the other gardener had been back on their shift since five in the morning. Dalton and Yale had remained holed up in the ambulance overnight. Neither noticed the medicinal scent of the vehicle's interior anymore. It smelled of sweat, a browning apple core from Yale's lunch the previous day, mothballs from Dalton's shirt.
'If nothing happens by noon, I'm gonna take a break,' Dalton said. 'Go home and check up on the kids and the sitter.'
'If nothing happens by noon, we're up a creek,' Yale said.
Day Three since the last attack. Assuming their guy, like most violent offenders who select random victims, was working on some kind of internal clock, their window was closing. There had only been a two-day gap between the first victims.
'Maybe he retired,' Dalton joked.
Yale had a habit of sitting still when he spoke, keeping his hands at rest on his knees or the seat. 'He's got a taste of it now. The power, the control.' He moistened his lips with his tongue. 'I'm worried he wised up and moved on. Switched locations on us. Two attacks establishes a pattern, maybe he knows we're waiting.'
'We can't wait much longer,' Dalton said. 'Only have overtime clearance for the weekend.' He muttered something under his breath. 'I wish we had the manpower to stake out the other ERs in the area.'
'They're on alert. That'll have to be good enough.'
Dalton gripped the stool and leaned back. 'It's never good enough. Every one of these attacks we miss, it's a lifetime of-'
Yale held up his hand and reached for his portable. 'Yale, Yale, Garcia,' crackled through. 'Eyes up. Eyes up. Suspicious guy on the PCHS lot periphery, southeast corner. Keeping one hand under his sweatshirt. Looks like he's wearing scrub bottoms.'
'What's going on?'
There was a full minute of silence, which neither Yale nor Dalton interrupted.
Blake finally cut in, announcing himself over the radio. 'He's sort of lurking in the bushes over there. Got one eye on Garcia.'
'Did he make him?'
'Don't think so, but I'm not sure he's gonna risk an assault with two gardeners right there. Guy looks fifty- one, fifty. Eyes all bugged out, talking to himself. If he is our guy, we got a real Kooky Lucy on our hands.'
Dalton had one hand on the door handle, but Yale tapped it and waved a slender finger. 'Don't jump him. Could be a diversionary tactic. Grover, are you there?'
They heard the rattle of the shopping cart when Grover broke in. 'In the lot right above your heads. I'm on my way. Hard to move fast in these old motherfucking shoes.'
'Don't move too fast,' Dalton growled.
'Suspect is moving in, taking a closer look,' Blake said.
A vein throbbed in Yale's temple when he spoke. 'Can you see what he has beneath his sweatshirt?'
Dalton turned to Yale with pleading eyes. 'Let's go, let's go,' he hissed.
'Blake, call Jenkins and Bronner, tell them to move into position behind him on Le Conte in case he bolts,' Yale said into the radio. He swung open the back door and stepped out into the fresh air, inhaling deeply. 'Let's go take a look.'
The two gardeners continued to work the ditch, removing a pipe of some kind, and Clyde waited in the shade of the trees, his cheeks puckering as he sucked on a lozenge. One of them glanced up briefly in his direction, then bent back down and adjusted something with a wrench.
Clyde gazed back toward Le Conte and took a few steps in that direction before a woman pushing a stroller came into view on the sidewalk ahead. Backing up until his shoulders pressed against the concrete wall of the PCHS structure, he watched her. His gloved hand fondled the Pyrex beaker, making masturbatory bulges beneath his sweatshirt, until she disappeared from view. He turned back to the hospital, his wide jaw set, and took a few tentative steps toward the ambulance bay, his hands shaking.
When he stepped from the cover of the bushes, he froze, his eyes tracking the homeless man pushing a shopping cart along the far edge of the drive-through. The man crossed behind the kiosks, heading his way. One of the gardeners spoke down into his chest, and then two men in shirts and ties broke from the shadows of the ambulance bay, one of them wearing dark sunglasses.
Emitting a stifled yelp, Clyde scurried back toward Le Conte just as a patrol car pulled up to the curb. A tall, lean officer jumped out, one hand reaching for his pistol.
When Clyde turned back to the hospital, the men in ties and the homeless man were heading for him in a dead sprint, and he shrieked and stumbled through the bushes along the side of the parking structure, losing his hat.
Shouts filled the air and a police badge caught the sun and gleamed, and he ran, leaves whipping against his face, heading for the car ramp that led up onto one of the exposed lots. His jarring footsteps caused the alkali to lap up the sides of the Pyrex beaker, and then his sweatshirt spotted in the front and he screamed, his foot catching a tree root. He pitched forward and couldn't get his hand untangled from his sweatshirt to break his fall, so he struck the ground forcefully with his chest and cheek, the Pyrex beaker shattering beneath him.
Wailing, hands scrabbling over his sweatshirt, he curled and writhed on the dirt at the base of a pine tree, and then they were there, tall discordant figures blocking out the sun and pointing guns-men in suits, a parking attendant, police officers, a homeless man. The sweatshirt pulled tight across his fat stomach, and every time it shifted, shards of Pyrex dug into his flesh, the alkali eating into healthy skin and open wounds alike.
Hands reached out at him, but he fought them, clawing, and then a policeman's boot came hard in his side and he was screaming and jerking on the ground, yanking in vain at the sweatshirt.
Loud, stabbing voices.
'Don't touch him!'
'He's got lye all over himself!'
'Gloves! Gloves!'
'Frisk him.'
