of Whitmire’s trash still piled at the curb. It was the silencer he’d used when he’d shot the Elzners. He was sure it wasn’t traceable, but still the law had talked to Whitmire. They’d gotten that far. They were in the neighborhood.
Quinn again, getting closer, turning the screws.
He suddenly found himself yearning for an end, for green closure.
God! Not closure! How he hated that overused and abused word! When would people learn that closure was a temporary state? That people never “got on with their lives” except in the sense that they had no choice? Time would pass; they would grow old and overwhelmed and die along with their fears and dreams and become dust.
The Night Prowler wasn’t dust and didn’t intend to become it anytime soon. He knew what he had to do, what time and events demanded.
There were many ways to deal with pressure. He liked his way best.
Claire?
No, the time isn’t right; the fruit isn’t ripe. There’s a critical point in every marriage. A testing point. Time like a blade. Everything in the balance. Both parties know it. On the edge of the knife…
He reached for the folded cloth at his side, then held it expertly to his nose, little finger extended, and breathed in deeply.
White! White to the horizon…the narrow fine line of the horizon cleaving earth from sky, bone from flesh, present from past, one world from another…
The fire in the marrow, the edge of the knife.
50
Ready for the chess game.
Dr. Rita Maxwell was standing behind her desk as usual as David Blank entered her office. It was best to be standing, smiling, and putting the patient at his or her ease, yet still maintaining a position of authority.
“David, it’s good to see you again.”
He smiled back. “Same here, Dr. Maxwell.”
How amiable and cooperative we are this afternoon. “Why don’t you sit down, David, the clock is running.”
He grinned wider. “Isn’t that the truth, Doctor?”
She sat down on the sofa this time, very informal, as he lowered himself into the recliner he liked, tilting the backrest so he was lying almost horizontally. He watched her from that position from the corner of a narrowed eye, almost like someone feigning sleep.
“We’re in the truth business,” she said, keeping it conversational and meaningless for now. She was determined to make appreciable progress this session, to peel back another of the layers concealing the real David Blank. David Blank-who wasn’t in the phone directory, who didn’t appear on any of New York’s public records she could access on her computer. Who are you?
Again he nudged her off balance. “I’d like to apologize for being evasive,” he said, his eyes closed lightly. “I’ve been avoiding the truth, lying to you.”
“I suspected,” she said, keeping the irony from her voice.
“This is difficult for me,” Blank said without changing expression. His eyes were still closed, as if he were napping and talking at the same time.
“Like a confession?” Dr. Maxwell asked. She wondered if he might be playing her, setting her up for an even bigger lie than the ones he’d told earlier. If that were possible.
“Well, maybe…Why would you describe it as that? A confession?”
“To be honest, I interpreted some of what you’ve told me as a manifestation of guilt.”
“What kind of guilt?”
“There is only one kind.”
“Ah, that’s wonderful, Doctor! You know! Guilt is like every color always, a dreadful buzzing gray.”
“That’s very descriptive. Really. I do want to assure you that confession here will be confidential and liberating. And between us only, I promise you.”
“Liberating…” He seemed to taste the word as he said it. “Do you believe that?”
“Oh, yes. It’s why I’m here.”
Dr. Maxwell liked that answer. She glanced at the tiny recorder on the corner of her desk to make sure it was running. Though it was soundless, its red pinpoint of light glowed reassuringly.
“We might start,” Dr. Maxwell said, “with you telling me your real name.”
“ Your real name is Rita.”
Deflection. And unabashedly obvious. He wasn’t quite in a mood to relinquish control. “Yes, of course it is.” Keeping her tone neutral.
His eyes remained closed as he spoke. There was no sign that the pupils were moving beneath the thin flesh of his eyelids. “If a person did have something he wanted to confess, Rita…say, that he had to confess, if you know what I mean…”
“I know, David.” Keep talking, keep talking.
“Say, like a serial killer who secretly yearns to be stopped, to be caught; how would a serial killer deal with the sly pressure, the self-destructive danger of his increasing need for confession?”
Whoa! “That’s quite a question.”
“Do you have quite an answer?”
“I’m afraid I don’t. Not yet.”
“I do.”
Dr. Maxwell found herself glancing at the closed office door. It wasn’t often that she’d been frightened during her sessions. And she wasn’t ready to admit she was frightened now.
Uneasy, yes…
“What is your answer, David?” She felt a chill as she asked. She was playing his game, she knew, finding herself being led. To where? “What would such a person do?”
“Obviously, he’d find someone other than the police to confess to.”
“To what effect?”
“Why, then the buzzing would stop, the pressure would ease, and he’d be unburdened, liberated, and free to kill and kill and kill.”
My God, it made sense! A horrible kind of sense, but sense.
“Anyone he’d confess to would have to notify the police,” Dr. Maxwell said. “Even a priest. Even a psychoanalyst. Of course, we’re speaking hypothetically,” she added hopefully. Knowing on some level, beneath so many layers of her own, that she’d lost control of what was happening here.
His eyes were open now and he was looking directly at her. His right hand crept beneath his unbuttoned sport coat and emerged holding a long-bladed knife. The blade had obviously been wiped recently, but there was still a smear of what looked like blood on it. Dr. Maxwell’s mind darted to her receptionist in the outer office.
Hannah! If I can somehow alert Hannah!
If he hadn’t…
“Only one of us is speaking hypothetically, Doctor.” His voice was calm, and somehow different. This was the real David Blank, whatever his name, whatever his ancient name, and he terrified her.
“Hannah?”
“She’s in the closet, where no one coming into the office will notice her. The phone’s disconnected, but it doesn’t matter. She won’t be booking any more appointments.”
Dr. Maxwell heard herself swallow, a sound like tiny bones breaking beneath flesh. Words froze in her throat. She didn’t know what she was trying to say, anyway.
David Blank sat up and swiveled his body on the recliner so he was facing her, holding the knife up and out so she could see and appreciate the length of its gleaming blade.
