Eric took a deep breath and stepped into the tiny room. It stank of shit and fear. The chair was a tangle of tape and broken wood. The prisoner had Edie from behind, a wooden bar- a piece of the chair- pressed against her throat.
'Lie down on the floor.'
'No. Let her go.'
'Lie down on the floor, or I'll break her neck.'
He won't kill anyone, Eric thought. If he was strong enough to kill, he would have forced Edie to the top of the stairs. Edie was looking frightened and ugly, her skin glistening where the eczema cracked and wept, her whimpering muffled by duct tape. The wooden bar pressed tighter against her throat, and her face purpled.
'Lie down on the fucking floor! I'll kill her, you creep, I don't give a fuck.'
Remain calm, Eric told himself. The prisoner is half-starved, he's terrified, and he's still wounded- how strong can he be? If we fight, I will win. Remain calm. Think. 'The problem, Keith, is that once I lie down, there's nothing to stop you killing us.'
'I'll kill her right now, if you don't.'
'Calm down, Keith. You're choking her.'
'Damn right I am.' His words were tough, but tears were streaming down the prisoner's face; he was sobbing so hard he could hardly speak. A weird reaction, Eric thought. Was it nerves? Was it self-pity? Whatever the prisoner's emotional state, the wooden bar was biting cruelly into Edie's throat. Oh, prisoner, you are making such a mistake, you will die so badly for this.
'You've got a knife in your front pocket. I can see the handle. Take it out slowly and toss it over here.'
Eric did as he was told, bringing the knife out, sheath and all, and tossing it past the prisoner where he could not reach it.
'Now get the fuck down on the floor.' Eric hesitated, and the prisoner started shrieking, 'Do it now!' over and over again until Eric started to lower himself toward the floor.
Behind him, the crowbar hung heavily from his belt. The problem was, he couldn't swing it at the prisoner without bashing Edie. 'I'm getting down, Keith. Just don't hurt anyone, all right? I'm getting down.' He sank slowly toward his knees.
What happened next took only a moment to unfold. Eric reached behind for the crowbar. Keith screamed something at the top of his lungs and pulled back on Edie's throat, trying to shield himself with her. But Eric didn't swing for the prisoner, he swung for Edie.
The iron bar caught her a solid blow to the side of the head. Her knees buckled, and she sank toward the floor. The prisoner staggered and lost his grip. He launched himself toward the door, but by then Eric had flipped the crowbar so that he was holding it by the straight end. The prisoner was not even halfway out when the crowbar hit him- a terrible blow to the back of his neck just below the skull- and he crumpled like a poleaxed cow.
51
THE address, according to Troy's records, was 675 Pratt Street East; they were heading there now, without sirens. The radio had been predicting a snowstorm, but the warm patch had held and rain hammered on the roof of the car. The wipers squawked on the windshield. Cardinal had already called for backup, plain dress, but there were no cars in sight when they got to the corner of Pratt and MacPherson.
'I didn't know there was anything after the five hundred block,' said Delorme. At the end of the five hundred block, the ONR tracks crossed Pratt Street, and after that the road wasn't even paved, and the small ratty houses on the far side were hidden behind a rock cut.
The radio sprayed static, and Mary Flower's voice filled the car. 'Could be a wait for backup. Jackknifed tractor- trailer on the overpass's got traffic backed up for two miles.'
'Acknowledged,' Cardinal said into the mike. 'What's the computer say about Eric Fraser?'
'Nada. Zero locally on Eric Fraser. Nada.'
'Doesn't surprise me,' Cardinal said. 'Troy says he can't be more than twenty-seven, twenty-eight.'
'Also zero for nationwide,' Flower said. 'Clean as a whistle.'
'What about Juvie? That's where we'll find him, if he has a record.'
'Hold on. Juvie's coming.' They heard Flower scream to someone to bring her the printout sometime before next Christmas. 'Bingo on Juvie. You ready?'
'Cruelty to animals,' Cardinal said to Delorme. 'Bet you anything. Go ahead, Mary.'
'Age of thirteen, break and enter. Age of fourteen, break and enter. Age of fifteen, cruelty to animals.'
'That's our boy,' Delorme said.
A faint electrical charge tingled along Cardinal's fingertips. If he had to resign, this was the way to go: stop a serial killer in mid-career- you couldn't ask for a better exit.
McLeod pulled up at the corner by MacPherson, wipers flapping. Cardinal had warned everyone to stay away from the house till he got there. When McLeod saw them he got out of the car and came sprinting across the intersection, holding his hood up with one hand against the rain. He climbed in the back with Collingwood, cursing. 'Fucking February, I ask you. Who ever heard of a fucking monsoon in February? It's the fucking pollution from Sudbury doing it. Whole fucking town's melted.'
Flower said, 'Fraser also did a stint at St. Bartholomew's Training School. Two years less a day.'
'Assault, I bet,' Cardinal said into the mike.
From the radio, 'Aggravated assault. Had a disagreement with his shop teacher concerning the whereabouts of certain equipment.'
'And he did some carving on him, right?'
'Nope. Right there in class. Went after him with a blowtorch.'
52
KEITH London dreamed he was swimming in a bright green pool, deep in a jungle, where monkeys sat in a row upon a low-hanging branch and drank thirstily with cupped hands. Except for the ripples that spread outward from the monkeys' hands, the surface was tranquil as jade. The smell of water was strong.
He opened his eyes. That smell of water. Was it from rain? He could hear the sound of rain pelting against wood.
His head felt as if it had been split open from crown to nape; the pain made him nauseous. He turned his head slightly and nearly vomited. Wherever he was, the place was very dark, very damp, and very cold. He was dressed, now, in clothes he did not remember putting on- a torn sweater and jeans- and they were not enough to keep out the cold. Off to one side, a space heater glowed a fierce scarlet, but its heat did not reach him. Eric Fraser was about ten feet away, setting a camera on a tripod.
I'm on a table. They have me on a table in a basement somewhere. That damp smell. I'm near a lake. The damp has a definite, full-time smell. And yes, that is rain- rain blowing against boarded-up windows. Huge pipes crisscrossed the ceiling overhead, disappearing into darkness. Of course. The pump house.
He tried to move, but his arms were strapped tightly to his sides and to the table. The only thing he could move was his head. Eric was concentrating on leveling the camera, bending down to adjust first one leg of the tripod, then another. Try to reason with him, reach him before he goes into a frenzy like he did on that videotape. 'Listen, Eric,' Keith said quietly. 'My girlfriend will be missing me by now. I told her where I am, who I was staying with. It was in the letter I wrote.'
This was ignored. Eric Fraser adjusted yet another leg of the tripod, humming to himself, and then, apparently satisfied, began pulling objects out of a duffel bag- Keith's duffel bag- and laying them out on a wooden counter.
Keith tried not to look. He concentrated on controlling his voice. 'Eric, I could get you money. I'm not rich, but I could get you money from somewhere. My family is quite well off. So is my girlfriend's. They would pay you
