Tsar

man!”

“That’s my point exactly, Greg. Stumpy’s not guilty by reason of insanity. Can’t right-wing geniuses like you and Rush Limbaugh understand that!”

And on and on like that the calls went. The armies of bleeding hearts were out in force on the airwaves tonight. Apparently, in addition to the media forces gathered for the last two days, there were three or four hundred people standing in the freezing cold outside the prison gates at Little Miss. They were lighting candles, good luck in this weather, protesting the death penalty, et cetera, claiming Stumpy was emotionally distraught at the time of the murders, he’d been abused by his insane mother, blah-blah.

Like that made it okay, like Stumpy shouldn’t stretch hemp because he was a victim, too. Right. We’re all victims now. Hitler was a fricking victim. His mommy was mean to him when he pee-peed in his pants. Here you got a guy, at this moment probably the most despised human being on the planet, and still, the governor was, even at this late hour, considering a stay. A stay? Politics. Enough said. The trial jury, at least, had had the balls unanimously to put Stumpy down as a stone baby killer.

But Paddy Strelnikov knew that Stump’s train went a lot farther than that.

A whole lot farther.

Strelnikov had made Stumpy his personal hobby when the powers that be in Moscow had given him this current assignment a couple of months ago. Before writing up his report, he’d read all the trial transcripts, bought a few drinks for people here and there, interviewed nurses on duty that night, the K-9 guy who’d found the little bodies in their shallow graves, the arresting detectives, the ME, the whole nine yards.

Then he’d gone to have a little chitchat with Mrs. Stump in the Lorraine, Illinois, loony bin where she’d been doing crossword puzzles since 1993. Oh, the stories that little ninety-two-pound, white-haired, wack-job chick could tell.

According to Mom, who was wearing an attractive housecoat with sleeves that wrapped all the way around and fastened with heavy buckles at the small of her back, little Charlie, when he was just a tyke, had amused himself by putting insects, goldfish, rodents, and then abducted kitty cats inside an old microwave he kept in the basement. Zapped them at full power. Then he’d graduated to higher life forms.

Nurse Stumpy, her golden boy, had been abusing and killing infants and children for years, his mom told Paddy, with a gleam in those weirdly protruding blue eyes, and then, what he’d do, Stumpy began calling the victims’ families around Christmastime, taunting them by implying that their babies were still alive. And how did she know all this? Because she was upstairs, listening in on the other line, that’s how. This was the Stump family’s idea of holiday entertainment, their special holiday greeting card.

And that’s the final report he’d made, the report he’d sent to his boss, who’d told his boss, who’d told his boss, et cetera, and that’s how come he was out here in the middle of friggin’ nowheresville making sure everything was copacetic in connection with this particular execution. There were to be no loose ends, et cetera, in the case of Charles Edward Stump.

The Wiz, as he privately called his boss, didn’t like loose ends. And the Wiz ruled his world. Paddy, he was just muscle for hire. He knew that. Accepted it. He was a gun, that’s all. But by God, he was a good one. He was a fuckin’ Howitzer.

Strelnikov saw the fluorescent green exit sign for Medora coming up and moved over to the right lane. He’d take a little-used two-lane state road from here the rest of the way to Little Miss. He reached over and shut off the radio. He couldn’t stand to hear those people defend that moron anymore. Even now, just thinking about it, Paddy was shaking his head at the stupidity that seemed to run in the Stump family.

For instance, it takes a real numbskull to get the death penalty in a state that doesn’t even have the death penalty.

Charles Edward Stump had been convicted on eight counts of first-degree murder. Stumpy, who was twenty- seven years old at the time of the killings, had been a male nurse at the Fargo General Hospital, working in the maternity ward. Hello? Background check? So, one dark night three years ago, nobody knows why, Nurse Stump had gone into the incubation ward and suffocated all of the newbies, one after another, with a pillow.

Lights out, kiddies!

Then, according to the transcripts Strelnikov read, he had gathered up all of his little victims into a pair of pillowcases, walked out of the hospital, and got into his car. He drove south from Watford City, where the hospital was located, and transported the dead babies just across the Little Missouri River. He parked on a dirt road outside Grassy Butte and buried them in a mass grave in a deeply wooded area just inside Theodore Roosevelt National Park.

An autopsy later revealed two of the babies had been buried alive.

If Stumpy had had even half a brain in his head, he might have noticed the word national in Theodore Roosevelt National Park. National meant it was a federal crime. And now it was the feds who were going to tuck Stumpy onto his cozy little gurney and put him to sleep permanently tonight.

Blue lights flashing in Strelnikov’s rearview mirror snapped him back to reality.

“Great,” he muttered, slowing down and pulling over to stop on the shoulder. Hell, he was only doing a hundred. Somebody on Mars had a problem with that? He reached over and popped the glove compartment, his fingers closing around the little snub-nose. He shoved it under his right thigh, the grip sticking out where he could get it if it came to that.

A second later, the cop was standing outside his window, shining a flashlight in his face. He wound the window down, cold air and snow blowing in, and said, “How you doing, officer?”

The cop bent down, shining the light in Paddy’s eyes. Then he directed it into the backseat, where something shiny had caught his eye.

“What the hell is that?”

“An alligator case.”

“What’s in it?”

“What’s in it?”

“That’s what I said.”

“Hairbrushes. Soap. Perfume bottles, et cetera. For my lady’s bath. I’m a salesman. I sell these things.”

The cop looked at him a second. Paddy was used to it. He knew he didn’t look like a traveling salesman. He looked like a professional wrestler in a shiny navy-blue suit two sizes too small.

“Driver’s license and registration, sir.”

“Yeah, well, hold on a sec.” He reached inside his breast pocket and pulled out his driver’s license. The license wasn’t in his wallet, no, it was wrapped inside five crispy one-hundred-dollar bills with a rubber band around it, just in case of a situation like this one. He handed it to the cop, who played his flashlight on it.

“What’s this?”

“That would be my driver’s license, officer. Wrapped inside five hundred spanking-new U.S. dollars.”

“Sir, you-”

“Officer, look, I’m in kind of a hurry here, and I’d appreciate it if you’d just give me my license back and take the rest as a small token of my undying gratitude.”

“Look, pal, I-”

“Okay, okay, I gotcha.”

Strelnikov stuck his hand back inside his pocket and pulled out a neatly packed wad of cash.

“Five thousand dollars. That’s my final offer,” Paddy said, giving the guy his killer smile, the one he’d learned on the streets of Brighton Beach and Coney, use it just before you punch some scumbag’s lights out. “Christmas is right around the corner, you know, officer. Five large could come in very handy.”

He could tell from the look on the cop’s face which way this thing was going to go. Due south.

“Okay, sir, I’m going to ask you to step out of the vehicle. Now. Keep your hands up where I can see them.”

“Look, you’re making a fatal mistake here, officer.”

“Out of the car, sir,” the trooper said, backing away with his hand on his holster. “Now!”

The honest cop didn’t see the ugly little snub-nose appear just above the windowsill. Maybe he’d missed that word, fatal. Too bad, it was a key word.

Pop pop, went the.38. Two of the best, smack dab in the middle of the trooper’s