Iceman

Rex Miller

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Copyright ©Rex Miller, 1990

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"Wouldn't it be nice to be the iceman and never make a mistake?"

—Vice President George Bush

"Here are the rules:

there are no rules."

—EICHORD

1. Buckhead Springs

2. Buckhead Medical Park

3. New Mexico

4. Amarillo, 1948

5. Blytheville, Arkansas

6. Buckhead Station

7. Vega, 1955

8. South Blytheville, Arkansas

9. North Buckhead

10. Vega, 1961

11. South Blytheville, Arkansas

12. Buckhead

13. Vega, 1964

14. Buckhead Springs

15. Vega, 1965

16. Buckhead

17. Buckhead Station

18. Las Vegas, 1985

19. Buckhead Station

20. North Buckhead

21. Buckhead Station

22. Moss Grove

23. Buckhead Station

24. North Buckhead

25. Buckhead Springs

26. Texas

27. Amarillo

28. Las Vegas

29. Metro

30. Television Park

31. Las Vegas

32. Buckhead Station

33. North Buckhead

34. Buckhead Springs

35. Buckhead Station

36. North Buckhead

37. Buckhead Station

38. Buckhead Springs

39. Buckhead Station

40. Buckhead

41. Mission

42. Buckhead Station

43. North Buckhead

44. Buckhead Medical Park

45. Buckhead Station

46. North Buckhead

47. Buckhead Springs

48. 9 Days Later

49. 16 Days Later

50. 27 DAYS LATER...Mount Olive

51. Buckhead Station

52. Buckhead Medical Park

53. North Buckhead

54. Buckhead Springs

Buckhead Springs

He suffers from disjunction of the function. A monstrous thing from his past nightmares materializes and smiles hello.

“I've got a secret,” the thing oozes teasingly. Teases oozingly.

“What?” he tries to say, but only dead grotto air exhales and there is no discernible sound. The monster's face is barklike, the tree-trunk neck sprouting from a foliose torso that parts and a second head pops out of the leaves saying, “Hello, bitch."

It is the face of a woman he has known. The turmoil and dust of an ancient investigation paralyzes his heart momentarily. Supine, in more ways than one, he spasms erect, his body caught in a paroxysm like a sneeze. But instead of achoo. Jack Eichord goes, “Say what?"

“You fucking bitch,” she says, and he recognizes the puffy bloat that is the monster's lower head.

“Huh,” he says in a weak stall for time. She was named Myrtle or Mildred or Minnie, one of the old-time names, and her last name was a state. Myrtle California. Myrtle Iowa. Minnie Minnesota. Myrtle Beach Florida. Mildred, that was it—her name was Mildred Florida, pronounced Mildred Flo-REE-duh.

“Fucking cunt,” the face in the leaves says with a puffy snarl. Reverse-angle shot. Mildred Florida pokes her fat face out of the foliage and sees that banana-skin twat who won't leave her live-in boyfriend alone, and she decides to get the thing right and do it right then and she steps out on hard, sunny pavement. Intercut sequence. Eichord is taking the story at the crime scene. A man is describing what he saw out in front of the Silver Dollar Saloon.

“Mildred Florida come out an’ she was drunker'n a fuckin’ bag of skunks and she seen Lola and says, ‘you fucking bitch fucking cunt I'll keep your eyes off him,'” and the hard, bright thing in her hand slashes and silver takes red and steel slices yellow, the high yellow flesh of Lola Somebody, and whatever Lola wants, but not this not a slash that takes the eye and leaves it hanging by an obscene thing, hanging out of the socket for all to see for the eye to see, keep an eye out and all those old lines, but signals zap out of the brain and a hand reaches into the purse for hardware.

The hot sunlight is real as summer noon, baking the cracked gray sidewalk. Mildred FlorEEEEEEda, heavy but still womanly, shapely gone to pork in a bright-red dress, banana-skin Lola dark Peach Blossom King Kink Straightener slick, smelling of creams and lotions, lipstick red down the front of the off-the-shoulder dress and coagulating in ugly streaks across the gray concrete.

“—an’ she cuts Lola with a straight edge,” that's straight razor to you, my man. Cheap, sharp blade in a little plastic handle, flip, slap, slash. Fast. The eye is out. Good moves, just right up to the bitch and a hard cut, aiming for her eyes and getting one in fact. Now cut the cunt's lying throat and shut her bitch mouth up once and for all. But before the puffy-faced woman in the red dress and breathe-easies can get her drunken ass together and swing that old, doughy fat-muscled arm out again for another cut Lola makes a noise sort of like, “Waaaaaaaaaugh!” and her purse hardware goes off, shooting her assailant right dead-center in her bulge of a gut, the brass kicking back against the window of the bar and rolling into the gutter as Lola steps up bleeding red onto red and shoves the little chrome SNS into the bloated face and fires a round right between the teeth—teach you to cut ME you ugly old mound of dogshit. BOOM. More brass and gunsmoke and blood all over the fucking place. Entrance hole inside Mildred Florida's mouth about the size of a big chigger bite. Exit wound a different story.

“Old douchebag CUT me I'm BLINDED,” Banana Skin says.

Eichord, troubled, has that sensation of discomfort that comes from a nudging and nameless dread. A beckoning thing that hides behind a corner of his sleeping mind calls in a mean whisper.

“Say what?” he says. Speak up, goddammit.

“'Ole douchebag CUT me I'm BLINDED,’ the girl Lola says and sits down in the pool of blood holding her bloody eye socket, an’ she's cussin’ and cryin’ an’ she's still got that little pistol inner hand when you guys get here.” You guys are the constabulary. The beckoning whisper again.

“Huh?"

“Your turn next time,” the voice says.

Jack Eichord's soul fills with fear now. “'Zat right?” he says in a cracked growl. But he understands. The bad one is out there in the dark somewhere hiding in the shadows. In Tulsa, or Terre Haute, or Tampa. Urban ghetto blaster. Hardrock boonies ridge-runner. City sidewinder. Outlaw night-rider in a desolate line shack. Heart of the city player waiting for him in the glare of the nightlife. A crazy waiting to put an end to it with a twenty-five-dollar loan-shop pipe.

“Hello, bitch,” she may say, quiet, seething anger coming to a boil. And Calvin Colorado or Ella Mae Maine will pull out some awful little pain-producer and put his lights out. Eichord hopes to spare himself the description of the sound of the gunshot, or the fearsome pain of the lead projectile, the terrorizing moments when you look down and go, “Oh, shit, I'm shot.” The moments when the blood that belongs to you geysers out in a hot, stinking, frightening gush of coppery anguish and you pray to your God the hospital is close at hand and God let me live don't do this I'm not ready to say good-bye yet and somehow he wrenches his mind away from the Silver Dollar Saloon and the blood-flecked sign out in front selling Buffalo Lager—50 cents. And he's escaped her one more time.

He flails his way out of the hot covers and sits on the edge of the bed and looks over at Donna and coughs into a tissue and goes into the bathroom and runs cold water and washes his sweat-covered face and neck and hopes, as he always hopes for the first few seconds upon awakening, that none of it will have happened. That the Arkansas horror story was only a nightmare. That if it wasn't a bad dream, then Eichord hooked him in tune. That he, Jack Eichord, is everything his bosses claim he is, and that he strutted into Blytheville, wrapped it in eight seconds, and that—just like in the movies—the good guys always win.

But it wasn't a nightmare. It really happened and he remembers it all and he sees the eye. Watching him like the eye atop the pyramid on the back of the dollar bill. And that brings him back to the other case, the icepick murders—the latest unsolvable horror in a life that has become a veritable smorgasbord of awful terrors Eichord must confront; a buffet of foulness and nasty surprises, and the moment the image registers he jerks his mind fully awake before the silver tray of shit canapés and penis sausages intrudes to paralyze him yet again.

He hurries to little Jonathan's room to make sure the boy has not suffocated in his sleep. To make certain no other nameless terrors have befallen the child, sensing the chill of some envenoming presence even as he quietly turns the doorknob. And Eichord opens the door, taking his first deep, normal breath since waking as he stares into the darkness.

Buckhead Medical Park

The glass of the doctor's window was a barrier between his spotless office and the clutter and stink of what lay beyond. It sealed out the breeze carrying a mixed scent of urban fumes and country smoke, as transportation stench and burnt fields commingled and stirred together. It had not rained for a long time and the roadside foliage had turned a dry, parched, brittle brown where the ground had gone too long without moisture. Tap roots strained down, probing the earth for life-giving water. The once-rich farmland was beginning to crack open. Things were still alive and from the distance there was the appearance of normalcy, but up close you could see they were dying.

The man looking out the window turned from the depressingly barren landscape, speaking to his patient seated on the other side of the immense, hand-carved desk.

“The mind is the most powerful medicine there is. It can heal. It can cure."

There was a pause and the man in the chair said, very seriously, “Would you like to know what I believe, Doctor? What I REALLY believe?"

“Certainly,” the doctor said with sincerity.

“I believe that one day a hole will open in the sky and that somehow, miraculously, Shirley MacLaine shall be revealed to me. I believe that I never, to paraphrase Will Rogers, met a woman named Shirley I didn't like. I believe in the mystical significance of names. Think how many funny comedians are named Richard: Pryor, Belzer, Lewis, just to name three. I believe that the names Shirley and Richard each contain seven letters as do Lincoln and Kennedy. I believe that John Wilkes Booth and Lee Harvey Oswald each contain—"

“Please,” the doctor said gently, “I'm only trying to—"

“i wasn't fucking through goddamn you NEVER fucking interrupt me,” and then laughing to show he was just kidding, realizing that he had alarmed the good doctor and adjusting his face to its least frightening clown mask and becoming in that next quarter-second a scowling, jowly, pouting Nixon, saying, “Just as I told Kissinger at one of our prayer breakfasts, the mind is powerful medicine. It CAN heal. It CAN cure. Say, Henry, do you think I should burn the tapes?"

The doctor laughed heartily in appreciation and the evil and dangerous man across the desk mugged, rolled his eyes, and waved victory signs with each hand. Quite the court jester, this killer.

New Mexico

The day was picture-perfect and cottony billows made fanciful shapes against the blue sky. The sun shone down on the cliffs, warming the rocks underfoot, and the old man smiled, looking down at his brethren gathered before him.

“I am eager to preach gospel to you,” he said to them in his loud, pulpit voice. “For I am not ashamed of the gospel. The righteous shall live by faith.” Some of them clearly understood. Others would not immediately meet his eyes. But he knew this was always the way.

“For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes. His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse.” He stepped down onto the next plateau of huge, flat rocks, where a few of them watched him. His fierce eyes probed his congregation for backsliders and heathens.

“For even though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God, or give thanks; but they became futile in their speculations, and their foolish heart was darkened.” He moved down among them, gingerly stepping down onto the next slab of rock. It was a fine turnout today. He supposed fifty to sixty of them had showed up.

“Professing to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the form of corruptible man and of birds and four-footed animals and crawling creatures.” He walked among the congregation without fear. A righteous man of the gospel.

“Therefore God gave them over in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, that their bodies might be dishonored among them.” His voice grew louder.

“For they exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen.

“For this reason God gave them over to degrading passions, for their women exchanged the natural function for that which is unnatural.

“And in the same way,” he said, his voice hard with unshaking conviction, “also the men abandoned the natural function of the woman and burned in their desire toward one another, men with men committing indecent acts and receiving in their own persons the due penalty of their error. Well, my children, we all know what that is now, don't we?” He was very close to them. Close to their faces.

“The Epistle of Paul to the Romans! Yes. The gospel spells out this thing that the sinners call AIDS. And just as they did not see fit to acknowledge God any longer. God gave them over to a depraved mind to do those things which are not proper.

“You know,” he said, feeling himself radiating the power of the Holy Spirit, “just a hundred years ago, a mere heartbeat of history, the big cities of the world were bastions of Christianity. New York. London. Paris. But in the year 2000, the largest cities of the world will be seething hotbeds of the anti-Christ.

“And in cities like Beijing, Shanghai, and Bombay, millions of sinners will be born, live, and die without ever hearing the word of the gospel. Unrighteousness wickedness, greed, malice, envy, murder, strife, and deceit are a way of life to these heathen. Poverty and prostitution, immorality and malnutrition, these things corrupt and degrade the peoples of the vast, anti-Christian nations.” He had them now. He could sense his congregation inching closer to him, and it filled his heart with courage.

“And they're moving to the west. These haters of God and inventors of evil. Foreign anti-Christs buying up our property, spoiling our culture, slithering into the foundations of our morality with their depraved ways.” One of his congregation touched him as he started walking again. He felt the touch against his boot as he stepped down onto the next massive slab of rock.

“We must CRUSH these nonbelievers,” he shouted, reaching for a member of his congregation.

They called him The Baptist, some of the ones who churched with him. He was something of a legend among them, but those who practiced the forbidden ways kept to themselves. They were not talkers.

He was an old man with an ordinary appearance, wearing faded blue coveralls, tan work shirt, and scuffed boots. Standing alone on the side of a sunny cliff, holding a large, writhing rattler a few inches from his face, as if daring it to strike him.

The slabs and buttresses around him were covered with coiled snakes. The Baptist and his congregation.

Amarillo, 1948

Daddy hated the sound of baby crying, so he began punishing baby in unusual ways. He liked using the youngster's bottom as an ashtray, for example.

The sadism would have accelerated and the boy would have been a poor candidate for survival, but fate intervened. A kindly neighbor called the police one time too often and investigating officers found the little boy alone, in a shit-filled cage, and he was rescued from Dad's loving care in time.

His foster mommy, on the other hand, adored her new baby boy. It was her habit to cover the child's rear, a scarred lunar landscape of cicatrices from cigarette burns, with loving kisses.

Soon the kisses took another turn and she found other ways of showing this strange child her deep adoration in these frequent moments of intimacy. But if the only parental contact you have known was a Camel to the buttocks, you can put these things in perspective.

So, baby boy was content, and inside the scarred and twisted soul of the child a dark, bitter seed of evil took root, and was nurtured by Mommy's attentions, and by the cruel pinpricks of his flowering destiny. And puberty came early, and found the boy waiting.

Blytheville, Arkansas

“Special Agent Eichord?"

“Yes, sir."

“Bob Mott. I'm the chief of police."

The men shook hands.

“Good to meet you. Chief Mott. Appreciate this, and very sorry I had to drag you back to work."

“No problem, Jack—if you don't mind first names? Call me Bob, please."

“Thanks.” Eichord knew Chief Robert Mott's background from the task-force file. A top drawer career man with an ultra-clean professional history, running a big-city-style police department in a relatively small town. out the ears. Enviable arrest record. He'd cleared some bad homicides.

“Just for the record, I was very relieved when I got the Fax from the Major Crimes Task Force replying to my rocket. And when I heard you were coming, I started counting the hours.” He was nodding as he spoke in a soft and serious voice. Eichord could tell the man was sincere.

“That's very kind of you. But—"

“No stroke job. Jack. I've followed your work since you cleared the ‘Doctor Demented’ thing, and your track record is incredible. I need somebody with your kind of experience on this one."

“Well.” Eichord never knew what to say when they were serious about it and not just shining him on. “Hope I don't disappoint. I notice in the files—I was reading about your fine work here on the way—you had fifteen years in CID before you took this job?"

“Yeah. I made chief in ‘eighty-six. I have a little over nineteen and a half years on the job. Less than a year to go and I pull the pin.” Eichord was confused. Mott wasn't old enough to have put in fifteen years as a CID guy and nearly twenty here. The jet lag cleared a bit and he patted his pockets like somebody looking for cigarettes.

“Was that CID in the military here?"

“No. We've got our own CID as part of the force here, and Oseola's set up the same way. You know, within the departments?” Eichord had that feeling you sometimes get when you can't remember what state you're in.

“Oh. Gotcha.” He pulled out a folded sheaf of notes, doodles, afterthoughts, sketches, and assorted airplane graffiti.

“Both Blytheville and Oseola have CIDs running their homicide investigations when they take place within corporate limits, but we work closely with county when we..."

Eichord was nodding, fighting to concentrate, but he felt awful. His head was stuffy, like he was coming down with a cold or about to get a severe sinus headache. His mouth was killing him. His gums were swollen and he needed to get to a dentist. A tooth with a bad cavity was starting to pound away. His sinus cavities hurt. He could feel himself draining as they stood there. A couple of years back and he would have been reaching for the sauce. But that was then. There were no more quick fixes. He pulled his mind back to the jurisdictional intricacies.

“...pretty much had the ball in our court the whole time. And it didn't do a bit of good."

“Yeah. Okay. How's about just running down the whole thing again for me—from when you got the word on the kids being missing? That was the mother, right?"

“Yeah. Juanita Alvarez. Forty-three. Divorced. Model citizen. Hard worker. Bringing up two little girls. Lived here all her life. Father lives up north. Been divorced six years. No boyfriends. Good kids. One day they go out on their bikes. Come back. She's doing housework. Comes out, finds the bikes back in the yard. Kids have left again. She figures they went to the store. Hours go by. She panics. Runs all over the neighborhood. Zip. She calls us.

“Twenty-four hours later it's a missing-persons case going. Angela and Maria Alvarez. Best guess: they were on the bike and the perp sees ‘em—maybe somebody they know. Perpetrator gets ‘em to leave the bikes and get in the car or van or whatever, and"—the chief shook his head—"nobody sees a thing.

“Two days later we got officers cruising the projects in a scout car: Larry Phillips and B.J. Bahn. Four-to-midnight tour. We get the anonymous phone tip. On the tape if you wanna hear it. Dead body in a field off Clearlake.

“Officers respond. Not one d.b. but two. The most awful sight anybody ever saw. Two mutilated torsos. Females. A pair of little headless girls.” Bob Mott took a deep breath.

Eichord's bad tooth throbbed.

“Again. Nobody saw shit. We never nailed down the caller. Probably just a kid going through the field. Next day we found the kill site. An abandoned two-story house near the projects on Clearlake Avenue. Blood like a slaughterhouse, but none of the missing parts of the cadavers."

“No heads?"

“Not so far. So, Juanita Alvarez has to ID the bodies. What a thing that was! We go over the killing room and the dump ground and get all the stuff for the lab, dust and all that, and really do a scavenger hunt for the burial spots.” He shook his head again, squinting like his eyes were tired from looking. “Whatever he did with the missing parts of the kids, we haven't turned anything.

“Way we dope it out is this—he, she, they—pick up the kids on South Utica or nearby. They get in a vehicle. Perp moves them somehow to the old house on Clearlake. They're probably already bound and gagged by the time they're moved inside the abandoned house. We got line. Tape. Blood and gore.

“Inside the old house he has a go at the girls. Sex and torture. Everything you can think of this guy or these guys do to the kids. Then kills ‘em. Cuts off their heads. Drains the torsos, washes them, and takes them out in the field. Why? Nobody can figure that one."

“And not a single witness sees or hears any of this?"

“Not a peep."

“Take me through the gathering of the evidence. Securing the crime scene. The whole schmear."

The chief ran it all down for Eichord. Half an hour later he had five pages of notes. He knew where they kept the barrier tape, who dusts for prints, how the photographs got developed, where the interrogation “routes” were for the nonwitnesses that failed to materialize, what they did with the orifice swabs, hair and fiber samples, nail scrapings, dirt tests, autopsy prep sheets—everything.

The State Crime Lab in Little Rock performed the autopsies on the torsos. The swabs, H & F, scrapings, and all the rest of it went to the lab in D.C.

Eichord had maps, more doodles, and the keys to an unmarked BPD leaner.

Mott drove over to the abandoned house near the projects, Eichord following him, and broke the seal on the crime scene. Electricity had been temporarily restored to the house's interior, and police floodlight illuminating the killing site, they spent an hour or so going over the place again. It was pretty much what Eichord expected, and he told the chief as much.

“I'll poke around here a little more,” he said, “but it's just the way you painted it.” He meant both figuratively, alluding to the written and narrative précis, and literally, since much of the blood-stained crime scene wore a coat of the red dye the techs had used in their search for latent prints.

“Jack, I hope you will find something we've missed. It feels like a bloody hopeless mess so far."

“I know the feeling. And I promise you I've seen too many just like it."

“Like I said,” Bob Mott replied, “I just want to hang in a few more months and—ping! I'm letting the spoon fly."

“You got something lined up or are you just gonna kick back?"

“I got a buddy saving something for me at Fed-Ex. Nice money. Great benefits. And the customers never shoot at you."

“I'll admit, that doesn't sound too bad."

“We'll have the girl for you in the morning. Nine o'clock?” He referred to the fourteen-year-old girl who was the closest thing they had to a live lead.

“That's fine."

“Like I told ya, she's got an ax to grind against their neighbor there in the mobile-home park. We checked it all out and he's clean as a whistle—but at least you'll have a starting point."

“Right. And I'll call Mrs. Alvarez and see if I can catch her on the way to work. In fact, if you don't mind, you might give her a call and let her know I'll be around in the morning?"

“No problem. I'll go set it up. Tell her you'll give her a ring or you just want to drop by?"

“Tell her I'll drop by early. I'll phone first and see what time's good. Seven, seven-thirty."

“I'll do ‘er."

“And then I'll go see the girl and our friend, the neighbor who doesn't like dogs. Probably drop in and see you around midmorning if that's all right?"

“That'll be great. We'll sit down and see if we can brainstorm something new. Right now it's a dead end."

“Oh. You mentioned the fourteen-year-old—were you going to bring her in or what?"

“Either way. Whichever. You wanna just have her brought to the station early?"

“Yeah, I think so. I mean since the man"—he glanced at his scrawls—"Mr. Hillman or whatever his name is, lives next door to her. Let's see if we can get her in without any fuss, either have her folks drive her or pick her up in an unmarked car. I'll be there by nine or so."

“Sounds good, and thanks again, Jack.” They shook hands. “See you in the morning."

“See you then."

“Okay. Bob, appreciate all your help. Catch you in the morning.” The door closed and Eichord was left alone with emptiness, distant traffic noise, night sounds, and silent screams.

He tried to put himself in the killer's mind and walked through “scenario number one,” with the children bound and gagged and in a vehicle parked as close to the back door as it could get.

Carrying them in. Dragging the bodies. Rolling them. Trying to transport the kids’ weight every way he could think of. Looking for sign and finding none.

Thinking about the torture that had come before the killing and the mutilation. Letting himself sink down into it. Watching the agony in their eyes. Hearing their muffled screams as the blood flew. This part would be very close to the way it went down up until the end: the autopsies and the kill site yielded up most of that gruesome story.

Now the killer or killers have had their fun. The kids are corpses. Eichord stood, mentally covered in the children's blood. These sickos wanted more. Something takes place. A ritual, let's assume. The heads come off. Why? To impede identification of the victims? If that was the case, why not bury the torsos? And then, why wash off the parts? And the biggest why of all, why move the bodies?

That was the craziest part. The fun and games were over. But these maniacs took another big chance—loading the headless cadavers, the severed parts, unloading the bodies in a field where the vehicle or the perps might be spotted by an unseen watcher—and then go do whatever with the heads? Madness!

Buckhead Station

When the drought finally broke, it did so with a vengeance. It was one of those drippy-looking Mondays that all but the incurably cheerful abominate, and the two huge salt-and-pepper cops were decidedly not of such temperament. Fat Dana Tuny and his new partner, tough, ace-black Monroe Tucker, stood at the top of the steps leading to the squad bay arguing about whose turn it was to drive the Dodge, bickering like two little boys choosing up to see who gets the bat.

“I'll drive,” Dana insisted. The massive black detective just stared at him like he'd enjoy throwing him down the stairs.

“Whatever, just do it.” Dumb fuck, they each thought simultaneously. And just as they started out the side door to the parking lot, the clouds unzipped a dark fly and relieved themselves in a sudden, wet, splashing pisser of a rainstorm.

“Fuckin’ great,” Tucker mumbled with disgust.

“You won't melt,” Tuny said, flinging open the door and breaking for the unmarked Dodge in a fast, waddling run. The two huge men flung themselves into the rump-sprung bench seat, the springs moaning in protest at the hundreds of pounds of abuse, and Dana Tuny ground the ignition and they wheeled out into traffic.

“What's invisible ... and stinks like CARROTS?” the fat, white cop asked in a sneering voice, switching on the wipers.

“How the fuck would I know?"

“Bunny farts,” he said, loosing a loud and vile explosion of flatulence into the car's already malodorous interior.

“OH, JEEZUS! YOU FUCKIN’ MORON!” Tucker fought to get the window down, fat Dana giggling like a schoolgirl.

“Sorry about that,” he said, “I hadda make poo-poo in my pants."

Monroe thought how he'd like to smash a big fist into this giggling blubbergut and watch him fold up like a goddamned accordion. Water streamed onto the arm of his new sportscoat.

“Hey, you know,” he said, his voice taking on a cold and dangerous edge, “I wanna ax you something.” He was trying not to inhale any of the poisonous air in the car, and rain was hitting him in the face. “How the hell you ever get hold of a detective's shield?"

“Just lucky,” the incredible, corpulent hulk riding beside him said. “I was the fourth caller on Name It and Claim It."

“Uh huh. But for real, man. How the fuck did you get a detective's shield, as fuckin’ STUPID as you are?"

“I'm glad you axed me that, Monroe. I stole it off a dead nigger."

Vega, 1955

The boy-child was slipping off the mountain. Even though he was still a child in years, with a child's absence of morality, he was already possessed of a burning intelligence that told him how different he was.

And inside his mind he could see himself going off the deep end, over the high side, down the cliff. See himself caught in the throes of something dark and tenacious and deliciously forbidden and all-consuming. But the human mind is such that it will attempt to block out the imputations of anything remotely resembling encroaching insanity.

So he went with it. Gave himself over to its pull. And in that mind he created fantasy hideouts and magical escape routes. Great, safe havens in which he could hide from the laughter and cruelty downstairs. Safe hideouts from the overpowering urges that came and held lit matches to his groin and then made him do the bad things to his sister, to the child down the block, to himself.

And the boy-man constructed wonderful secret rooms inside his strange and frightening mind where he could go, always late at night, tuning in the faint signals of security as you tune in the sound of a distant station over late-evening radio. And in fact he would huddle into a fetal ball with total concentration, straining to hear the voices of escapism from the old Fada's tinny speaker.

Late in the night, when the last mysteries and horror tales were over, he'd switch from the network stations to the local stations in nearby Amarillo. And he'd lie there for hours with the midnight dance bands soothing him, playing lullabies in the darkness, as his imagination would concoct complex fantasies of revenge, release, and escape. And they nurtured and comforted him, these evil and dark thoughts, rendering him invisible and all-powerful, a man-child going all the way over the edge into a kind of controlled madness.

South Blytheville, Arkansas

Mrs. Alvarez, distraught and shaking, proved to be totally worthless. They had ended up meeting at the cop shop at eight a.m., and she sat in a small interview room, hugging herself and always appearing to be on the verge of shivering, as she numbly took Eichord over the ground she'd trod a dozen times in the past seventy-two hours. She was not going to go back to work until she found the kids.

Angela and María were, by all evidence, sweet, adorable kids without enemies. She never let either of them go out alone on the streets, even in the neighborhood, “so they'd never get into trouble.” Why couldn't the police find them? Juanita Alvarez kept asking. It was a question nobody could answer.

He tried to take her down fresh avenues, doing what he always did, watching as much as listening. Because this was not about the kids, this interview. It was about Juanita Alvarez. And as he probed about school, church, and other affiliations, subtly moving the questions into more intimate areas, Eichord's sensors were picking up the mother's vibes. Unless she was one of those rare types of total sociopaths, or an extremely capable actress, this was a worried mother who didn't know where her missing children were.

An hour and a half later he'd also had just about all he could take of one Pam Bailey, the fourteen-year-old who'd popped off to a pair of investigating officers about “that mean old coot who lives next door, bragging about getting even with rowdy brats.” She was a sullen, olive-skinned couch potato of a kid in an Elvis Is Still Alive sweatshirt. The neighbor, Mr. Hillfloen, had apparently complained to the manager about her dog, which they let run, and this was the girl's idea of payback.

It turned out that the Bailey girl hadn't really seen anything—it was clearly a kid trying to run a shuck on the cops. By nine-thirty Eichord had cut her loose, and was going through the motions of finding 1458 1/2 South Utica.

Eichord found the trailer court with some difficulty, tucked away off a low-rent side street in South Blytheville. It would be a long time before he ceased to be haunted by the image of his first impression, each time he saw a yellow dead end sign peppered with good ole country-boy buckshot.

Each yard was filled with cultural castaways: cars on blocks; a three-wheeler with For Sale sign; a trio of plaster leprechauns, one headless, peering out over a domain of plastic herbicide buckets and empty milk jugs strung together with wire; a rusting import towed into someone's yard, now put to work as a rubiginous garbage can.

The last driveway on the left of the field with its ventilated Dead End sign, a gravel slope running up between two rows of sad tin boxes, announced the presence of The Sunshine Trailer Court.

Eichord was reminded of the obligatory trailer-park TV-news shot, the one you saw after every major tornado, cyclone, hurricane, or earthquake. He doubted if even acts of God could tip these rustbuckets over. Rip the roofs off? Sure. But the aged, rectangular, and bullet-shaped living quarters that squatted here appeared to be growing out of the earth. Surely not even a force majeure could make these mobile homes.

He got out of the car and was moving toward what appeared to be the manager's office, according to a mailbox adorned with the peeling decal OFFI E, but he saw the old man and changed direction.

“How-doo,” the man said, his voice loud and startling.

“Howdy,” Eichord said. “Would you know where I might find Mr. Hillfloen?"

“If you're seeking Owen Hillfloen, I might."

“He's the one.” Eichord smiled.

“I be he.” The old guy smiled back, friendly as all get-out. He could have been anywhere from forty-eight to seventy-eight, with one of those weather-whipped, windburnt country faces you can never picture in your mind when they're out of sight.

When Eichord thought of the man's image, later, his memory would conjure up the sign, then the head first, as he scanned—top to bottom—for something that set him apart.

The hair: wind-touseled, midlength. Mr. Hillfloen looked like the kind of man who awoke, plunged his face under icy water, pushed his wet hair back with his hands in a single push, and left it that way. No brush or comb had touched it. He would not indulge his vanities in a mirror.

The face: wrinkle city. But the hard work and toughness wasn't all that was there. Something else showed. A gaunt, indefinable harshness that one could see on the faces of derelicts, on some of the elderly forgotten in nursing homes, and—sometimes—in the faces of the insane. Eyes deep-set in the outdoor face. A couple of teeth missing in the easy smile. The look all the more unsettling for its inexplicability.

The body: slim and sinewy in an old-fashioned barber's work shirt buttoned at the throat.

“And I know you."

“Is that so?” Eichord had his ID case in hand but hadn't flashed it yet.

“Dollars to donuts."

“Hmm?” The oddity of his words, the loud, booming voice, and his appearance gave off disconcerting vibes, and it was this image that would stay with him. That was the instant Eichord thought the man Owen Hillfloen might not be sane.

“Dollars to donuts either you are the tax man or you are the law. Which is it, pray tell?"

“Yes, sir,” Eichord said, showing his identification. “We're investigating the death of two children.” He pulled the police circular out and handed it to the man. “Do you recognize them?"

“Lordy. Well...” He took the photo circular and made a show of getting glasses out of his shirt pocket and putting them on the tip of his nose, holding his head back a little and studying the pictures and descriptions. “Mmmm."

“These are the Alvarez girls. They were killed sometime in the last seventy-two hours. Killed and raped. Do you recognize them?” He watched the old man carefully.

“Lordy, Lordy. I don't know as I can say for sure. These foreigners"—he shrugged and looked up at Eichord—"they're so hard to tell apart. Are these the ones that lived down the block here?"

Eichord nodded. “Yeah. Did you know them?"

“No, sir. I can't say as I did."

“How did you know who they were?"

“It says the names on there."

“I mean, how did you know they lived down the block?"

“Oh, we been seeing the story on the television and in the papers over the weekend. Tragic thing."

“Um hmm."

“Kids running around unsupervised and all."

“How do you mean unsupervised?"

“Why, I hear tell their mother never knew where they were after school and so forth. Just let them run loose, you see? Unsupervised. That's the way these third-worlders are. They don't have the same values as we do.” He shook his head.

“Third-worlders,” Eichord repeated easily, drawing the old guy out.

“Hispanics, La-TEE-nos, Chicanos, I don't know all the different names they go by now. Your Latin types from down under. Your drug-country people. Brown-skin types. Your Mexes and your boat people. LORdeeee!"

“You realize we're talking about mutilated children, Mr. Hillfloen?"

“That's what I'm talking about.” He shook his head. “Unstructured, unsupervised third-worlders. Running loose. Mother and father Lord knows where. THAT'S how they get into trouble."

“Some sicko grabbed these girls in front of their home and tortured and killed them. Mutilated the bodies. Decapitated the kids. We're talking about somebody who REALLY had it in for these little girls. Do you hate people of color that much, Mr. Hillfloen?” Eichord's eyes bored into the old man.

“ME?” He laughed mirthlessly, drawing himself up and returning Eichord's glare. “'Suffer little children, and forbid them not, to come unto me: for such is the kingdom of Heaven ...’ Matthew nineteen:fourteen."

But you do not lock a man up for giving off bad vibes, looking vaguely strange, or for having a voice like a loudspeaker. Nor is it against the law to be a bigot, so long as you keep your feelings to yourself. And that was the thing about Owen Hillfloen: whatever else he might have been, he was a private man.

North Buckhead

The ego is an amazing thing, Tina Hoyt thought as she watched the woman confide in her. Telling her that her speech had been so EXCITING and MEANINGFUL. Tina had already formed a poor first impression of her as she chattered on, trying to impress Tina with her intellect and misusing the words “comprise” and “hopefully” in a single utterance, thus losing Tina Hoyt's full attention.

Yet the ego is such a phenomenal animal that you will stand there and smile and soak it all up as if it had some meaning as a critique, because it flatters you to do so, she thought. Because it is exciting and meaningful. Tina allowed her smile muscles to go slack and took a deep breath.

“Just so incisive and brilliantly handled, and I—” The smile flashed back on in automatic response, but it was getting late and she had worked her butt off this week, and now this nothing lecture in North Buckhead, and she had to drive all the way crosstown to Buckhead Christian Church, and—she stole a look at her watch—it would be ten-forty-five, eleven o'clock before she got home.

The woman paused, an anxious look on her face, and Tina snapped out of it long enough to nod.

She'd already forgotten this person's name. White, was it? Janet WRIGHT—that was it, Wright. She was proud of her ability to retain name/face association. It was a vital skill to anyone who had the slightest glimmer of interest in a possible political future, which Tina Hoyt most assuredly did.

“Awfully nice of you.” She hurried on, starting to move. “I hate to rush off but I have another engagement clear across town,” she said moving, the smaller woman following her.

“I understand,” the Wright woman said, shaking her head no furiously. “It's wonderful how much in demand you are. And the consciousness-raising you...” jabbering on a mile a minute as she followed Tina outside to the glass doors. Tina felt a hand on her arm and turned. The woman with her fingertips resting on Tina's sleeve. Standing a little close. Not wanting her to get away now and telling her of her great interest. One of those moments when it could go either way. Tina speculating idly for just that instant as to motive. Wondering if Janet Wright was gay. Not particularly caring, but mildly surprised at the thought. She patted the fingers and said sweetly, “I DO appreciate it,” pushing on the heavy doors and striding out into the parking lot.

The woman was staying with her. “I wish you knew just how much it meant to hear you tonight. Such a remarkable experience for me...” Fine, but let it go. The persistent woman gushed on as Tina Hoyt stopped at her car, fishing keys out of a bag, “...feminist movement and the separatist...” the flexuous critique winding on.

Enough. She cut the woman off with a crisp and airy “Thanks again. Goodnight!” Slamming the door on Janet Wright's parting words, waving good-bye, and smiling automatically as she started the car and began backing out. She hitched her skirt up to get comfortable, exposing a pair of slim, shapely legs. She felt as if she'd been wearing her pantyhose for three days. She'd have to work to keep her concentration buckled down when she spoke to the church women. Tina was tired and she felt herself getting a little bitchy over nothing, and she cracked the window and breathed deeply.

The rural traffic was backed up behind big John Deeres and massive combines and cotton trailers, rolling their wide loads down the road to waiting fields. Tina braked, flipping her interior light on to check her wristwatch against the car clock. That was her first mistake. The woman driving the van coming from the opposite direction saw her lit up like an omen, an attractive young (?) woman alone in an ‘86 Toyota Corolla DLX 4-door, and she braked, making a neat, slow U in the next road, and easing up behind the cars waiting for the farmers to clear the way. The driver of the van appeared to be talking to herself in the rearview mirror, the way people sometimes do.

Tina tried to relax, remembering some of the things the talkative Janet Wright had said about how important she was to the movement, and she breathed in the smell of woodsmoke as she drove. The thought of fires in some adjacent field reminded her of zoning laws, and she rolled her window up and zoomed around the slow-moving farm machinery.

The woman pulled the van up a couple of car lengths behind the Toyota as Tina Hoyt found a parking spot near the basement entrance of Buckhead Christian.

Tina was moving in the direction of the church door, heading for the thickly carpeted stairway that led to the church basement, when she heard a voice behind her call, “Hey! Excuse me?” And she turned and saw the beautiful woman click-clacking across the street toward her on extremely high heels.

“Yes?"

“Could you spare me just a few seconds?"

“Gee. I'm sorry. I really can't. I'm running late as it is. If you can wait till after I finish, I'll be glad to speak with you then."

“Please,” the woman said in a strange, hoarse whisper. “You'd better come hear this.” The beautiful woman conveyed an urgency and Tina turned back. “Just a few seconds."

“All right.” Sigh. “But hurry, please."

“Get in with me for a second.” She opened the door on the driver's side and gave Tina a big flash of long legs.

“I don't have time to get in. Speak your piece."

“I've got something you need to hear—and see.” She held up an envelope and some papers. “Thirty seconds, I promise. You won't regret it. It's extremely important to YOU."

“Tell me out here.” Tina shook her head. She'd had every manner of woman put the make on her or try to. Something in a certain-type woman, she suspected, gave off a feral scent. She'd been cruised in the most surprising ways and by the most unlikely persons.

“Please,” breathy and hoarse in that sexy, somewhat kittenish whisper.

“Okay, but HURRY,” leaving the door open on the passenger side as she slid in, checking out the woman. She was gorgeous, but with more makeup than Tina liked, and she'd piqued her curiosity.

“Read this.” She handed a thick folder to Tina. “Pull the door to. You're not going to want anybody to see this."

Tina ignored her. “Who are you, by the way?” Tina asked, looking at what appeared to be a bill of sale for an automobile. She didn't recognize any of the names. She was starting to look up at the woman and forming the words “What's this got to do with me?” when she heard a metallic noise there in the van behind her and sensed someone's presence. Someone sitting back in the darkness had moved behind her and she was turning to look when she was penetrated.

She did not feel much pain at first, only her hair being pulled and twisted and the needlelike thing going in, and as soon as she felt something stabbing into her ear, she screamed but it was too late for screaming then as the awful sharp thing plunged all the way in and the blinding red-hot agonizing pain hammered her under without warning or preamble.

Vega, 1961

The first time they made it together was really not the first time at all. It was the first time in bed, together, both of them totally nude, nobody else in the house, a slow seduction-cum-rape scene. The first time had been years before. The first time he made her climb a tree with all the boys from the neighborhood standing underneath, the kids having coughed up a silver nickel each to “see London.” And she climbed innocently, sans underpants, showing the boys how well she could climb, but all of them laughing for reasons she would never fathom.

The first time, then, had been a series of firsts. First the tree-climbing exhibition. The second first was Playing Doctor and Nurse, as he called some young interns in to lecture them on the finer points of female anatomy. This time it was necessary for him to have her hold the full skirt “over her head” as he gingerly probed and pushed and prodded the mysterious folds and lumps and oddities around and in “the hole."

The next first time had been some sort of prepubescent folie a deux in which the two of them sprawled together in the deep weeds in back of the overgrown Colman place down the street, rubbings and gigglings and “messings,” as they called it.

So this first time was the first SERIOUS time, and with their advanced ages being what they were, the traumatic event took on the ritualized trappings of an initiation. It would be the first of many such couplings through the years. Years of crushing abuse and punishment.

It began innocently enough, with her slamming the front door downstairs and shouting “Mom?” as was her usual custom. “MOM?” No answer. “MOM? Hey. Mom? You home?” The sounds of the house. She throws her books onto the rump-sprung sofa. “Anybody home?"

She runs up the stairs, taking the stairs two at a time until she reaches the first landing, and shooting up to the second floor without touching the banister, past the wainscoting and ornate carvings, and the hallway full of family paintings of dead strangers, and she opens her stepbrother's bedroom door and he is there in the bed, rubbing on himself.

“Sorry,” she says, flinching, waiting for the shout, the blow, the stinging slap, waiting for him to come after her in his rage. “I didn't know you were home. I called out and I didn't think—"

“That's okay,” he says in his most frighteningly quiet voice. “Uh, come here I wanna show you something."

“Huh?” she says.

“Come ‘ere.” A quiet voice. His dangerous tone. She is instantly wary, but he is not mad. No anger this time. He does not stop rubbing. On his back in the center of his bed. Wearing only a pair of white Jockey shorts, rubbing away at his crotch, which is bulging as he touches it.

“Huh."

“Yeah. Come over here.” She walks over by him. Stands beside the bed. He reaches out for her and she jerks away. “I want to ... Come here, goddammit. I won't hurt you.” His hand is out like he wants to grab her. She does not move closer.

“I wouldn't hurt my sweet sister,” he purrs quietly. She is not used to him like this, but he stops rubbing himself and only looks at her so she shrugs and moves over and stands beside the bed. He does not grab her. He cups the back of her bare leg with his hand and just sort of pats her leg as he says, “I want to show you something I have,” but he makes no effort to move.

“What?"

“Something you'll like."

“What is it?"

“Say, Pretty please show me."

“Pretty please show me."

“Pretty please I'll suck your peter show me."

“NO."

“Come on. Say it and I show you. Pretty please I'll suck your peter."

“Huh uh.” She shakes her head. She is plain. Made more so by the awful clothes she wears and the cruelly severe haircut that has left her head a homely cap of ragged bangs. Everything about her is out of step. Out of style. Wrong. The girls at school even tease her about her socks. All the girls in her class wear white socks, but somehow hers are the wrong type and this social gaffe renders her hopelessly and embarassingly declassé.

“Just say it. I won't tell on you. Just say it real fast. Pretty please I'll suck your peter,” this said in a rushed whisper.

She relents and says without feeling, “Pretty please suck your peter,” and to her amazement he pulls back the fly of the tight shorts and the bulge is his penis, which is thick and veined and rudely awake, standing straight up in the air proudly, and he says, unnecessarily, “Now watch,” and he does something with his stomach muscles and the penis waves like a flag and he laughs.

She laughs and says, “God."

And he says, “Ask it a question,"

“What?” She can't believe this is happening.

“Ask it something. Say, Do you want me to suck you? Say it."

“No."

“Come on."

“I—"

“Ask it."

“I don't wanna."

“ASK IT,” he says with some exasperation.

“Huh uh."

“I won't HURT you, stupid. Look. I'll do it. Do you want her to suck you. Mister Dick?” And he makes the penis wave back and forth like it is shaking its head yes and she laughs again.

“I bet you never saw that before, did you?"

“I gotta go,” she says, but before she can turn he is up out of the bed and he has her and he pulls her back over to the bed. “Come on, don't. That hurts,” she tells him.

He pulls her hair and makes her sit down on the bed with a thump and then he pushes her over on her back and sprawls across her and tries to kiss her.

“DON'T!” She tries to fight him. “I'll tell Mom,” she says, and he pinches her and makes her scream.

“Don't scream again or I'll punch you in the breadbasket,” he tells her, and he is doing something to himself with his hand as he wiggles around on top of her.

“You're gonna get in TROUBLE,” she threatens him, and he hits her in one of her flat breasts with his fist. Not real hard, but it hurts a lot and she begins crying, which eggs him on.

“Fucking crybaby girl. Now let's see how tight that little cunt is.” And she feels him stab into her with a finger and she cries louder, so he slaps her lightly. She is quite afraid of him when he is like this.

“Fucking crybaby,” he pants. He wets his hand over and over and then rubs himself with it. Why is he doing this? she wonders. And suddenly his stiffened part is ramming in between her legs.

“Please,” she begs him. “Don't. Come on, that HURTS.” And her tears flow down her cheeks and he tries to kiss her, a mashing of the faces and mouths together, but she is crying and forces her head to the side and he cannot kiss her, and he cups her mouth with his hand and begins to knead her breasts as he rocks back and forth in her and almost as soon as the pain begins it ends and he is spent and breathing hard and moaning and he has released her mouth and she waits patiently for him to get off her. And this time he tries to kiss her again and she does not move her mouth so that it is a kiss of sorts, at least the mouths mash into each other, but she remains motionless and awaits the next loathsome development.

“Open your mouth and stick your tongue out,” he commands, “or I'll whip the living shit out of you, you fucking crybaby bitch."

She complies and it inflames him more than he had ever imagined. The POWER. The sexual kick of that awesome power when you control another person. And this was only the beginning.

South Blytheville, Arkansas

There is a single eye. An eye alone. This eye watches from the darkness, seeing nothing yet seeing much. If, indeed, it IS an eye, what does it see? From its vantage point it sees shapes, strange outlines, large, shadowy forms, the familiar look of a room. An eye. One eye by itself. Cyclops.

Darkness in the room. The eye has no ears, so it cannot hear the detective on the wooden stairs, wire-cutting tool snapping the wire, breaking the police seal of a crime scene, fumbling for a set of keys. Inserting one. Clicks. Pause. Inserting another. Metal pressure. Movement.

Cyclops sees a frightening sight. A blinding rectangle of the brightest light smashes into view. A bright, dazzling opening of light in the dark outlines of what the eye sees.

A man's fearsome silhouette is framed in the brightness. He is only a large, looming black form in the center of the light. He enters, stumbling. Hand slapping the wall. Fumbling for something. Pause. Another stab into Cyclops's field of vision.

The unseeing eye, if indeed it IS an eye, might see the stabbing brightness of a flashlight beam shooting into the black, sweeping across the long expanse of rooms, illuminating a spot on the wall as the detective finds the light switch.

The flashlight blinks off and the room is bathed in electric light. The interior of a mobile home. Yet not ordinary at first glance. The initial impression of something extraordinary is enhanced by the smell. The stench of the abbatoir. The hideous, nauseating stink of the killing fields. The foul and lingering odor of the hasty burial ground. It attacks the nostrils in a merciless wave of stinging horror that hammers the olfactory sense.

Cyclops watches over this hellish place. 1458-1/2 (Space G) South Utica.

The first thing Jack Eichord sees are the serving trays, but for that first moment the monumental horror of it seizes his thought processes and he cannot focus in on any of it. He looks but he does not see.

Then the wave of shock recedes enough that his mind begins to register.

Cyclops is the first thing he will see and perhaps the last thing he will remember in his nightmares.

Atop a pile of bloody human intestine is perched a single eyeball.

And then he sees the rest of it and his heart cries.

Buckhead

Long before Tina Hoyt had been abducted and killed, there'd been another sensational case. A much-publicized pair of mutilation sex-murders with clues leading nowhere, apparently. Eichord flown in by the Major Crimes Task Force, MCTF—pronounced MacTuff—and inserted into a confusing jurisdictional labyrinth. Horror of Blytheville was the headline, and that didn't begin to cover it.

He'd gone in. Done his thing. Looked over the cold killing ground. Sniffed around the suspects. Sifted through the mountains of strange paperwork. And the thing was, he always knew the old guy was right for it, but there was no motive. No proof. Nothing a self-respecting judge or prosecutor would hold still for. Not even the Arkansas people had strong feelings about it.

Eichord backed off the case eventually. Returned to Buckhead and filed the thing as an open investigation under Headless Girls.

A couple of months later the locals nailed the old man. An eight-year-old boy. A nine-year-old girl. An eleven-year-old boy. Poor Pam Bailey, the sullen kid who tried to tell everybody this was going to happen. A girl who had done everything but scream at the top of her lungs and gone ignored. A twenty-two-year-old man. All dead. Mutilated. Tortured first in the most unspeakable ways, then used and dismembered in one of the most hideous, bizarre, inhuman, mass-mutilation-slayings that any law-enforcement officer could remember.

Eichord was back on the night plane and into the bloody jaws of a crime scene that made Hieronymus Bosch's hellscapes look like Bugs Bunny cels.

The bodies SERVED UP on various tables and sideboards inside this mobile home. The parts ARRANGED ... Jesus! God! He couldn't let it destroy his mind, but for days every time he'd begun to relive it, to think about it again, he had the sensation of not being able to breathe. The weight of guilt that he'd let this thing happen by not being competent enough came crushing down on him.

His every movement had become languorous in the grip of a debilitating lethargy that appeared to possess him. A long lingering malaise had induced an unconquerable lassitude, which had been followed by deep depression, crushing despair, abject defeat, and a suicidal self-pity that eventually numbed him out completely. The body chemistry took over then and a state of paralyzed senses had evolved into immobility as stupor became torpor. He'd managed to shake loose from that, but the days and weeks of lethargic inactivity had left him sluggish, adrift in the wake of the emotional doldrums.

He'd gone to the dentist to get a wisdom tooth filled, but when the doc had gone in for a look-see, he'd found a pocket of trouble.

“Phew! There's no mistaking THAT smell,” he said to his dental hygienist.

“Hmm umm. Sure isn't,” she said. The two of them had a total of four hands in his mouth. “Doin’ okay, Jack?” she said and he replied, “nnnnn,” as best he could. He could feel his tongue flopping around inside his deadened mouth and he closed his eyes as he heard the whine of a drill.

“I COULD put a filling over that. But what the hell's the point?” The dentist shook his head. “First time that infection builds up in that pocket...” he trailed off. “I HATE to pull ‘er,” he said.

“Yank it,” Jack said bravely. “Might as well.” It was just a shell, and the shell had broken. When the dentist was sectioning it to get it out, he saw he'd have to dig on Eichord for another hour to get the roots out and so he left the spurs in.

“They'll work their way out in a year or so,” he said. “You'll come back. I'll take ‘em out. Bim, bam, boom. Nothin’ to it."

The pain had been bad. About the second night his jaw felt like he'd been struck in the face with a leaded Louisville slugger. A stab of pain would hit him every ten minutes or so in between bouts of tolerable agony. He'd be suffering along, hoping his medication would kick in, and suddenly pain would stab through the jaw like a B-40 stabbing through a foot of solid, tempered steel. The kind of hot, awful, lethal pain that made grown men scream, or double over like they'd been shot in the gut. Bim bam boom.

“I'm going to the drugstore to get something for this jaw,” he said to Donna. She was afraid he was going to start drinking, he imagined, and he listened for her reply as it came in a tiny, faint voice.

“Okay.” Oooooh-Kaaaaaaaay.

Vega, 1964

He was draft-exempt, he felt sure, but he was reaching that age when you started worrying about the future. He could make a lot of money. He didn't need some bullshit Uncle Sam coming along and pissing all over his plans. Ruining his career before he got started. He had learned from another boy how you could fuck with the draft-board jerks. He could show them his scars and tell how he'd been hurt when he was a little kid and how it made him crazy so he had to quit school and that. He laughed to think about it.

He had his stepsister facedown in the sweet-smelling grass in back of the old Colman house. Nobody could hear her if she decided to let out a scream before he could clamp a hand over her mouth. He could never understand why she got him so excited. She was ugly in the face and her body wasn't anything too great. Hell, he'd had her a hundred times. Yet every time was a turn-on.

“I love to fuck you, you ugly cunt,” he told her. She was motionless under him. Trying to freeze her mind until the ordeal was over. “I'm talking to you, bitch,” he said, yanking her short hair and twisting her head cruelly. “Answer me, goddamn you."

“Ouch,” she said in reply when he pulled her head back. “Please—"

“Yeah, beg me real good. I'll show you some mercy.” But she said nothing more. He had her milk bottle from school and shook out some milk on his hand, rubbing the warm milk on his erect penis. Then he poured some over her rectum and pushed against her until he could enter. “Howzzat feel, cunt?” He rammed it in his stepsister's butt, but he was so excited he couldn't hold back and shot his wad after what seemed like only a couple of minutes. He rolled off her and lay back in the grass, spent, and she pulled her clothes up silently and walked away, like always, head down, saying nothing.

He loved being mean to her as much as the actual sex. Fucking with her mind. Teasing and bullying and torturing her, making her life a nightmare with no escape. He laughed to himself as he dropped off the stone wall in back of the Colman place, moving through the overgrown weeds running as fast as his strong legs would take him, running down Fifteenth and cutting up Pierce, four blocks out of the way, running at breakneck speed so that he could be hiding in wait for his unwary stepsister as she neared the house.

He was out of breath, gulping for oxygen, as he ran up the front steps of their home and hid behind a large bush. Just in time as she turned the corner, moping along, her head down, walking slowly toward the house. Just as she came up the steps, he lunged at her from behind the bush screaming at the top of his lungs and pushing her into the grass again, “GOTCHA!” He screamed, mauling her, but his screamed word and laughter were drowned out by her ear-splitting screams of terror as something snapped inside the girl.

Buckhead Springs

A few years ago Eichord had become embroiled in “the worst mass-murder case in history,” as the, papers called it, and a newborn baby boy had been the survivor of a horrible confrontation. The child was the result of a mating between a human monster and a young woman he'd then murdered. Jack had felt an intense desire to shelter and care for this abandoned infant, and Donna Eichord, unable to bear a child herself, had encouraged their working to adopt this little boy.

But there had been signs of problems from the very first. The harder he tried not to think in clichés, the more he'd find himself embarrassed by phrases like “spawn of evil” that would irritatingly sneak in and out of his subconscious thoughts. Eichord realized he was overreacting to a healthy child's tantrums, but the darker thoughts continued to intrude.

There was always a real truth, wasn't there? And the REAL truth, as opposed to the superficial one, was that deep inside he was constantly watching their adopted son to show any sign of genetic influence, watching him “like a cop instead of a father,” according to Donna in an argument they'd had on the subject. She had her opinion and Jack had his. He saw her as far too lenient with the child.

Jonathan had hit the “Terrible Twos” with a vengeance. He had learned his first word: NO! A word to be screamed over and over and over at the top of his little lungs. It worried Jack that his wife could let the kid throw a tantrum for half an hour and never even so much as threaten him with a paddling.

“If you don't stand on his head now...” Eichord told her, but he let it trail off unsaid. It was one of those things you didn't want to have to verbalize.

It had worried him to the extent he'd actually spoken to a cop shrink he knew, and come away with some psychobabble and conflicting mumbo-jumbo about how it was perfectly natural for a two-year-old to throw tantrums.

He'd been regaled with “Terrible Twos” stories. Told how the first sign of separation from the maternal figure evoked this sort of classic misbehavior. How the reaction to the tantrums and bad behavior depended on how secure the parent was and lots of other shrinkese that left Eichord uptight, confused, and still wanting to sit on this kid when he screamed for ten minutes.

He understood about the Terrible Twos. But this wasn't just whining, or mere misbehavior, or even screaming tantrums. There was something bad here. And cop or not, Jack was sure he could read something there in the little boy's eyes—a coldness, a thing he'd glimpse at certain moments when the child would appear to recoil and withdraw from him, and the one time he'd tried to talk about it seriously to Donna she'd looked at him like he was nuts.

This time when he walked in the front door of their home he heard not a sound. Donna, sitting in an old wooden rocker beside the sofa, greeted him and got up for a hug and kiss.

“Um,” he said. “Hi."

“Um hi yourself."

“Have a good day?"

“I had a day."

“Oh-oh. One of those."

“Not really. Not so bad.” He put his piece in the closet and divested himself of holster, shield, and ID case, attaché case, billfold, keys, pens, pocket litter. “I've had worse."

“Good.” She handed him a cold glass of something red.

“Umm. Looks good. What is it?” He sipped carefully.

“Veggie juice."

“Not bad.” He was a hair away from making a joke about putting some vodka in it but had the sense to let it drop. He downed the vegetable juice in a gulp and set the chilled glass down on a coaster, flopping down in his favorite armchair.

“Tired?” Donna had on ragged cutoffs and one of his old shirts tied at the midriff and she still looked sexy to him.

“Not that tired,” he said as suggestively as he could, drawing a slight chuckle. “After all, Mrs. Eichord, I feel sure you are pretty much what God had in mind when he designed cutoff jeans.” She turned for him fetchingly. “Oh, yes."

“That's good to hear. I needed that.” She plopped back in the wooden rocking chair.

“'Jew have one of those days, too?"

“Oh, no,” she said, a bit too quickly. “Just a little weirded out, is all."

“Umm. Weirded out."

“Jonathan has been adopted by the black dog out in back. You know that one you fed scraps to that time?"

“Jesus. I hope you didn't let him play with that dog. It could have anything.” He watched her swallow before she spoke.

“Well. Yeah."

“Huh?"

“It's worse than that. It's been, uh, sleeping with him.” She fought back a nervous giggle.

“Donna, are you having me on?"

“No. I'm not having you on. I think I'm having us both on.” She crossed a shapely leg.

“We're talking about that mangy-looking black mongrel covered in fleas and sandburrs—that IS the dog, right?"

“The very same."

“Whatdya mean SLEEPING with him?"

“It's been, you know, in bed with him. He won't let me put it outside. He throws such a fit. You know how he gets. And...” She trailed off sheepishly.

“Are you saying that damn fleabag has been in the HOUSE?"

“In a word,” she said, laughing, “yes."

“My God, woman.” He got up, listening to the quiet. “You mean he has that dog in here?"

“Yeah.” She stood up. “I didn't have the heart to make him get out. Jonathan got so PEACEFUL and so contented-looking—"

“It isn't a question of heart. It's a question of disease. That kid'll have fleas if not worse.” He was walking back toward the bedroom. Still not sure if she was joking with him.

“Well—"

“You're not kidding, are you?"

“No,” she said, smiling. Both of them at the door to the boy's room. Donna quietly turned the knob and opened the door a crack. Eichord peered into the darkness.

He saw the boy and the dog. Jonathan asleep, the dog on top of the covers, cuddled in his arms. He just shook his head and pulled the door shut. It was worth it, he thought, to have the silence. The lovely quiet.

“I just hope he doesn't have mange,” Donna whispered.

“Yeah,” Jack stage-whispered back to her, “'cause if he does, he'll give it to the dog."

Inside the darkened room the child opened his eyes as the door closed and petted the dog reassuringly. It thumped the bedspread gratefully in response, not believing its luck, the little boy willing the dog to be still, reaching out for him with his mind.

Vega, 1965

He'd already begun to tire of his retard of a stepsister by the time Darryl Haynes moved into the neighborhood. She was too slack, now, too pliant, too easily obtainable, and he lusted for a fresh conquest. Darryl was sissified, and very slim, with long hair like a girl. A play-hippie.

“How'd you like to play some cards?” he asked the newcomer to the block.

“Sure. You know how to play rummy?"

“Uh—yeah. But I've got something even better. Ever play high card?"

“Huh uh."

“Look. It's easy.” He fanned the deck. “Pick a card.” The boy picked one. “Now turn it over.” It was a nine of diamonds. He flipped a card over beside it. The two of hearts.

“See! You won. If we'd been playing for pennies, you would have won 1 cent just then."

“Yeah?"

“Sure. High card always wins. Let's try it."

“I don't have any money."

“Oh, that's okay. If you lose, you can owe me and pay me some other time. Okay?” Darryl shrugged. “Okay. Let's try it. Go ahead.” He let the boy beat him several times. “Boy! You're good at this. Hey, I'll tell you what, here's the money I owe you.” He forked over a shiny dime. “Let's play slave. We'll cut to see who is high card. Whoever loses has to be the other guy's slave the rest of the day. You know, do anything he wants him to do and that...” He trailed off vaguely.

“Yeah. Okay,” Darryl said, anxious to please his new friend. They cut the cards.

“Wow! An ace! Too bad, Darryl. I beatcha this time. I'll tell you what. Let's go two out of three, okay?” The other boy looked relieved as they cut the cards again. Darryl lost all three times. “A run of bad luck. Tough luck.” He had Darryl perform a few menial tasks and then he loaned him some of his comic books and they said good-bye. He was already learning how to build that initial foundation of trust.

Eventually he would get Darryl's mom and dad to let the boy go with him on a fishing trip. They would be gone overnight. He would play cards with the boy again. Another game of slave. He already had sent away for some high-heeled shoes he had seen in a magazine, even before he'd met Darryl. He had swiped some lipstick and a pair of old nylons. He fantasized how Darryl would look from behind in the women's hosiery and high-heeled shoes. How he would look naked from the rear. Long hair and a small butt like a girl's. He would make this sissy be his sister for the night. It filled him with a hot surge of desire that he couldn't explain, and he began to masturbate uncontrollably at the thought of such an experience. This sick, twisted child on his way to manhood.

Buckhead

The woman was hardly recognizable. As a woman, that is. She was bruised playdough. A lumpy, bloody, badly formed and grossly misshapen caricature of a human being. The face distorted, cruelly out of sync, as if an uncoordinated child had taken clay and tried to approximate the shape of a human head. Her name appeared below her face and it said, simply, VICTIM.

“Another victim of violent crime,” a woman's professional voice spoke from the speakers, “and the men who did this never served a night in jail."

The unrecognizable face dissolved with the audience reaction and a poorly lit sound bite of what appeared to be a group of paramedics and police carrying something into a waiting ambulance. Freeze frame on a cluster of hands shoving the body bag in.

“Another gangbanger rape-murder in the ghetto. The victim was a thirteen-year-old girl."

The next footage was familiar to everyone within a hundred-mile radius of Buckhead who owned a television set: the steep hillside at Buckhead Park in the early dawn. The place where some boys passing by on their bicycles had spotted the body of Tina Hoyt. The shot was too far away to show anything, even though the crew had tried for bloodstains. The Hoyt woman had already been moved by the time the Channel 4 people came on the scene, unfortunately. But in some ways it was even spookier NOT to have the shot of the body being carried off.

“The grisly scene of the park in early morning. The place where children discovered a woman's body and it proved to be that of Buckhead political activist Tina Hoyt. Abducted, Murdered. Stabbed with an icepick ... and then raped."

A switcher, two women, one of whom was the director, and an engineer all looked up at the on-air monitor as the graphic came up. It said sexual Attacks Continue, and the words moved on a crawl as Ginger narrated the voiceover, “Sexual attacks continue. Following an ongoing investigation by Detectives Marv Peletier and T.J. Fay of the Sex-Crimes Section of the Buckhead Police Department."

“That's wrong,” somebody said as they watched the blow-up of the news clipping from the Gazette.

“Three additional felony charges including one count of rape, one count of felonious restraint, and one count of sodomy have been issued against Wade Weiss of South Buckhead. The new charges involve sexual assault against a twenty-two-year-old Madison-burg woman in the four hundred block of Tower Lane.

“Weiss had been arrested last month following the sexual assault of a woman and her infant daughter, who were forced behind a building in South Buckhead. Weiss had been charged with rape, molestation, sodomy, and kidnapping in connection with the original case, but due to improper arrest procedures was able to obtain release by posting a reduced bail, police said."

The small studio audience made noises of disapproval.

“Wait. Wait. Listen."

The people in the booth watched the screen wipe the graphic bringing Ginger Stone's face to the screen in a medium close-up.

“Move in, two,” the woman's voice said into the floor headsets. “And three,” the switcher beside her.

“We've got lots more.” Ginger Stone said, continuing to read as the next graphic filled the screen.

“Vaughan Andrews, thirty-one, told investigating police that he tried to kill his wife, LaDonna, by putting infected specimens of diseased cadavers into her food and drink. Andrews admitted he had been attempting to murder his wife for the last six months, during which time he obtained serum with hepatitis virus, AIDS virus, and other toxic substances, which he used to infect his wife. Mrs. Andrews was subsequently hospitalized with a severe case of serum hepatitis, authorities said. Vaughan Andrews told investigators he had heard about copy-cat killers and it had given him the idea of using specimens he stole from the Buckhead Morgue, where he had been employed since last February. Andrews admitted that he was attempting to copy serial killer Donald Harvey, who was convicted of killing twenty-five persons in Ohio."

Murmurs from the studio audience.

“Well, we have one of the leading experts on serial murder in the United States right here in Buckhead, the famous Jack Eichord of Buckhead Station, who single-handedly solved the Dr. Demented, Lonely Hearts, and Gravedigger cases, among other infamous crimes. And perhaps he'll be able to help us understand this rash of violent crime,” Ginger said, shaking her head.

“Look at this,” she continued as the screen flashed a graphic. “Here's a nice little item for every Buckhead motorist. If somebody tailgates you or cuts in front of you, or you just don't like the color of their car, and you're driving down the boulevard, you just push this and strafe their car with simulated machine-gun fire.” Laughter. “Nice healthy way to get rid of those mounting hostilities."

The audience hooted as the noise of the toy machine gun punctuated her comments.

For more times than he cared to admit to himself Jack Eichord was being manipulated. By his fearless leader at Buckhead Station, that bastion of law enforcement the captain, by MacTuff and all who sailed aboard, and by the fickle middle finger of unruly fate.

Channel 4 and the taping of one of “those” talk shows. Ginger Stone all coiffed and propped and prompted, ready for the winking red-eyed monster that bestows fame, fortune, or any number of negatives from calumniation to sudden death. Fucking TV. McLuhan's cool medium of the eyeball massage. The tribal communicator.

Somebody high up in the task force had fixed it in their head that Jack was a perfect buffer between The Press and the blues. On too many occasions he'd found himself gliding across the screen in his television tapdance. A circumlocution of bullshit designed to keep the lid on potentially volatile situations.

But the lid was off. Violence was a bloodthreat that had finally pounded on the door of even the swankiest suburban homes. People were scared. Gangs from the eastern and western inner cities, fueled by dope and hyped by the promise of virgin sales markets, had pushed inward toward the soft American heartland and its vulnerable underbelly.

Somebody, to top it all off, had abducted the famous feminist Tina Hoyt right out in front of Buckhead Christian. Taken her out to the park, maybe played with her awhile, then shoved an icepick through her ear and into her brain. He'd then submitted her lifeless body to one final degradation, according to the sperm traces in the victim's mouth.

“We had to promise Mr. Eichord we wouldn't ask about any ongoing investigations,” the attractive redhead said with a flashing smile, “so we can't ask you about progress in the so-called Icepick Murder can we?"

“'Fraid not,” he said, his mouth tightening.

“That's a shame, you know. Because the subject is the one thing that's on everybody's mind right now, and all of us feel so helpless in the grip of the violence we see around us more and more. I mean, we can't understand how a respected civic leader like Tina Hoyt could be abducted right there in front of a crowded CHURCH and the police not have a single clue.” He didn't respond. “I mean that's what we're all thinking. We don't feel safe anymore."

The small studio audience clapped loudly.

“I can sympathize with that feeling."

“You can sympathize with it, you can empathize with it, you just can't do much about it. Can't you even comment to say whether or not you've made any progress in the Hoyt slaying, or if you even have a suspect.” After a moment's pause an abrasive voice spoke off to Eichord's left.

“Let ME answer that one for you.” It was Councilman Bissell, the bitter enemy of the Police Department. “I think we know how much progress the cops are making in the Hoyt killing. And for that matter, how much progress they're making in stopping the flood of violent crime. ZERO is the answer. They've failed miserably in their sworn duty to serve and protect the honest, law-abiding public paying their salaries. The man on the street is no longer safe from the animals."

More applause.

“Jack ... is what Mr. Bissell says true? Are we no longer safe?"

“How do I answer that? Are we safe? The police do everything humanly possible to protect law-abiding citizens. But we aren't a fascist state. We cannot arrest a person whom we suspect MIGHT commit a crime. We can only be a presence until a crime is committed, and because that's the nature of our function in society, when crime increases the ball gets dropped in our court. Councilman Bissell's comment that we have failed in our responsibility to the public is inaccurate."

“Isn't it true that we have more violent crime now than at any point in our history, even with respect to the population explosion?"

“In some geographical communities there is a higher crime incidence, in some it's lower. Nobody denies there is violent crime."

“But are the measures the police take sufficient to match the higher crime rate? It would seem not."

“We sometimes succeed. We sometimes fail. Overall the police do a good job, in my opinion. Everything's relative. We're in a society where a few underpaid, overworked law-enforcement officers stand between the good guys and the bad guys. As the population increases and the criminal population increases with it, the job becomes more difficult to do. Sometimes the law itself is on the side of the criminal."

“How do you mean?"

“Violent, repetitive offenders need to be imprisoned. Often that doesn't happen. Judges are too lenient. Turnstile justice and plea-bargaining and overcrowded prisons all contribute to this atmosphere. It's an atmosphere that lets dangerous offenders back on the street too soon, it contributes to premature paroles, it contributes to suspended sentences that should never—"

“The prison system is worthless as it is right now.” Bissell again. “Do you know my wife and I can go stay at the fanciest hotel in Buckhead and order three meals a day from room service and we STILL can't run up a bill of eighty-four dollars a day, which is what it costs to house one of these felons. See, that's the cops’ answer to crime. Build more prisons. Like the taxpayer has a bottomless pocketbook. Prisons are no answer."

Eichord just looked at him. He realized the camera was back on him, so he spoke.

“It's true enough that prisons aren't an answer in themselves, but what are the alternatives? Work programs? Mental institutions? Psychiatric counseling? Violent, dangerous offenders must be put in prisons. We need more prison space to house these criminals. Right now we have severe problems in allocating the finite source of prison space. Only so many beds, so many cells. When we—the penal system—are forced to make decisions about confinement based on available space we're in a very dangerous area. Antisocial individuals are going to be back out on the street in that sort of environment. So the reality is, we need more places to lock offenders up. But nobody wants to build more prisons and nobody wants to spend more tax dollars on them, yet everybody wants a better criminal justice system, better police protection, and a better correctional system. But we want it without a price tag. It's sort of like all of us here in this studio, Ginger.” He looked at the interviewer.

“How so?” she said.

“Well, we all want to go to heaven, right? But nobody wants to die."

Buckhead Station

“You need to talk to the special counsel over there,” Eichord told the person on the other end of the telephone. “Huh-uh. No, I don't,” he said, after a pause. “Okay. Will do. Talk to you later.” And he hung up just in time, just as the booming tones of fat Dana rang down the stairs.

“Fuckin’ dumb shit,” Monroe Tucker muttered to no one in particular at the sound of his partner's loud voice.

“They were outta that other crap so I got a bear-claw.” He started passing foul coffee around. The coffee from across the street was hideous, and the cardboard cups made it worse, but it was still better than the poisonous slime they brewed in the squad bay.

“What's that 202 number I gave ya yesterday?” Eichord said to Dana's back as he handed out goodies from the sack.

“Black through and through,” he told his partner as he handed him the cardboard cup.

Tucker nodded and said, “So is this,” cupping his load.

“Dana?"

“Say what?"

“Gimme the Privacy Act Unit number already."

“What do I look like, a fuckin phone book?"

“You look like the Macy's Dumbo float but gimme the 202 number I gave you yesterday."

“Okay. Hang on.” He ignored Eichord and sat down at his desk with a thump, his broken chair tilting dangerously to one side as he unwrapped food.

“Sometime this year if possible,” Eichord said patiently.

“Shit, gimme a fuckin second,” he whined, stuffing a huge sugary donut into his face.

Buckhead Station was a workplace in transit. It seemed to be going downhill, like The Job itself, and Eichord felt powerless to do anything about it. Chink and Chunk, James Lee and Dana Tuny, had been partners for about a century, Eichord's friends, guys who'd stayed with him through his booze years, and both Dana and Jack had been devastated by Jimmie's death.

Fat Dana had become absurdly protective of Jack in the ensuing months. Additionally, his rotund pal seemed to feel that he had failed his buddies in some way. His detective work grew sloppy, and when he'd been assigned a new partner, he had started doing everything he could to get kicked off the force. Eichord had traveled that road, too.

Monroe Tucker, a massive, two-fisted black man, had not been the ideal choice for a partner to Dana. The captain couldn't seem to grasp the fact that just because Tuny had partnered with an Oriental for years did not make him an expert in biracial relations. In fact, both Tucker and Tuny were bigoted, hard-nosed guys used to doing it their own way. The partnership had been a volatile one, but at least Dana was more or less back to his old self, and doing some semblance of competent police work. Yet the overall efficiency of the unit had continued to decline.

“Unnnnng,” Dana said through a mouthful of food, handing a sticky piece of paper to Eichord.

“Thanks,” Jack said, making a show of holding it by the tip and shaking off the residue.

“I'm the only one in this whole fuckin place knows what he's about,” Dana said, taking a noisy sip of coffee and wiping at the front of his shirt absent-mindedly, like somebody who was used to having crumbs all over him.

Eichord remembered the time it had all come to a head. The first homicide they'd been on after Tucker had been transferred from Metro. Woman and a dude both dead of gunshot wounds. One of the scenes that was so unreal everybody figures it has to be apocraphyl when the coppers trade stories later.

Jack could see the building as if it was yesterday, a run-down duplex with the orange tape around the exterior. A crime scene sealed off by the upside-down legend DO NOT CROSS POLICE LINE DO NOT CROSS. And if you kind of squinted and let it run together it said CROSS POLICE LINE DONUT. And he can see them all going in and the blood and the bodies there.

Each man was a different-style detective. Eichord into vibes, the feel of a scene, the aura. Dana, when he wasn't being sloppy, was a plodder. Meticulous. A detail man as good as any evidence tech. Tucker was a steamroller type. His method of getting from point A to point B was to run full speed until he crashed into a wall.

“In here,” Dana had said, and Eichord had gone in the room where the man was.

“That the shotgun?” It was rhetorical. It looked like a murder/suicide. One of the bad domestic things you'll catch when the moon is right. For the first few minutes everybody was conducting the business at hand. So far so good. It appeared the man had killed his woman, blowing her apart with three or maybe four up-close blasts. You had to be sorely steamed at somebody to keep shooting them like that. Racking those spent shells out and letting another hot load of lead pellets perforate what had been a human being. Then, with the last shell up the spout and ready, the man had apparently killed himself.

“He did her in there. Then he comes in and sits down on the bed and gets all comfy and puts the gun up to the side of his head and pulls the trigger. BANG!"

“Yeah."

“And he's all over the walls."

The gun had pulled slightly and the scatter of shot had completely blown off the front of the man's face. Until you've seen a person with their face shot off, you can't imagine what it looks like.

They were in the bedroom, with Tucker and Brown in the room with the woman and the other cops, and Tuny whispered to Eichord, “Look,” in his most frightening, hushed tone of voice.

And Jack came over and saw what it was. It was plastered to the mirror like it had been glued there. The man's mustache, complete with a flap from his upper lip, perfectly peeled as if it had been shaved off with a knife, and Tuny got behind Jack and moved him over slightly and it looked like Jack was wearing the man's mustache in the mirror, and in spite of all the blood and the smell and the awful horror, the two of them giggled and it was all Dana needed to do something that you just didn't do on murder investigation—you don't touch the evidence.

He reached over and peeled the mustache and lip off the mirror and held it at his side, an evil glare in his eyes.

“Hey, Mon-ROOOOOE, come ‘ere, man."

“—tryin’ to burn some coffee grounds but we couldn't find any, so we found some cloves out there in the kitchen and put ‘em in a pan—"

“Somethin’ I, er, uh, want to ax you,” Dana said, “Monnnnn—roooe,” exaggerating the accent. “How come you don't have no mustache?"

“Say WHAT?"

“You know, all you black dudes got them little pussy ticklers. Little pencil-line jobs. How come you don't have one?"

“Bullshit,” he said, turning to Eichord, “this fat boy here gone gunny-fruit or what?” One thing Monroe Tucker didn't like was fat, white, bigoted, honkie chuck wise-ass jokers. And one thing he especially didn't like was practical jokes played on him. Which is when and why and how and who and what and where fat Dana slapped something up on the black cop's face saying, “Well, NOW you got one. Check it out,” holding the cop's arms as he spun him toward the blood-flecked mirror so that he could see himself wearing the man's mustache, surgically removed by double-O buck, complete with lip remnant, and Eichord could still hear his howl of rage, his scream of grossed-out horror, his primal yell of shock and anger, and his frantic slapping at himself, and then his attack, which nearly put Dana in the hospital, Eichord pulling them apart, gentling Tucker down, all the while laughing to himself at the unbelievable madness of the work he did.

Even now he could hear the echo of fat Dana's one-liner that would live on at Buckhead Station as a kind of mini-legend.

“Well, there's one dude who won't shoot his mouth off again."

Las Vegas, 1985

The handsome man with the strikingly beautiful woman walked around the corner of the hotel corridor—that is she walked around the corner—as they moved through a pocket of tourists standing at some sort of information counter. He was what you saw first, but she was what you speculated about, whispering of her beauty, wondering if she was a showgirl or perhaps a high-priced courtesan.

She walked behind him, a comforting presence, and he had a fixed smile on his face as they moved through the hayseeds. She knew how he liked to be treated and it relaxed him a bit. He was always somewhat on edge right before heavy play, and one less thing to concern himself with was a definite plus. He could count on her.

She was a knockout, and it never failed to amuse and please him the way not just men but women too stared when she—when THEY—came into a room. He liked her best in low-cut necklines when they went shopping to those carefully selected stores that he considered accessible, to clubs, bars, restaurants, but not to the casinos.

When he gambled he wanted her decorous. Sexy but decorous. So he kept her in tailored suits. Sweater ensembles. High-necked cocktail dresses. It mattered not. They, the pair of them, still drew an instant crowd, but with the low tops guys would hover like buzzards, pressing around them at the tables for a closer look at those perfect breasts, the finest that money could buy. And it made nun uncomfortable and fucked his concentration over, so that's why he had her dress up her act a little for the tables.

The casino was buzzing tonight. Heavy play in the neon beehive. A swirl of activity, a cloud of smoke, a circumambience of continuous movement inside a vast and noisy arena. They were moving in the direction of the roulette table with the least action. Like most of the plush joints on the strip, this one only had two wheel tables and this was his action. Red and black. He was like the good-looking masthead on a ship's prow, cutting through the waves of moving jerks, slicing purposely through the congestion with his beautiful Nicki behind him, leaving the small fish gasping in their wake.

They reached the table and he beckoned her to him with a hand.

“I love your ass,” he whispered to her possessively as she smiled at him. A beautiful, dazzling, perfect smile. “You gorgeous bitch."

She smiled and kissed him very lightly, saying, “I love you, too,” saying something else endearing, whispering so softly he couldn't hear over the din.

He loved that soft, feminine voice. Jeezus. Who'd ever guess? In a million fucking years you'd never know that Nicki was a guy.

Of course she WASN'T. He never thought of her as a young man or a transvestite or anything like that. Even the first time they'd made love, when he'd drawn her on that weird outcall thing, back when she was tricking. He smiled. “Tricking.” What a word. Perfect for Nicki. She was a trick, all right. Even then, first time he'd found out about the “plumbing” problem, he'd accepted it as just one more terrific joke by the cosmic stand-up comic. Nothing about her was a turn-off. Least of all what she really was, clinically and legally.

She loved the way he treated it as nothing. Joking with her about it. Something something cock-and-bull story changing to a cock-and-balls story. He'd shrugged it off. Getting a smile out of her, then a guilty pleasure laugh or two, and then out of nowhere Nicki felt herself drawn into his life, falling head over heels in love with her handsome John.

He'd changed her life overnight. Immediately convinced her to give up tricking. He'd give her the operation money. Fine. The next thing she knew he was also talking her out of the operation. Not permanently, just as a holding action.

“I don't want to be apart right now. Not just when we're beginning our life together,” he'd reasoned. It made sense. She had to have the surgery, and he understood that, he said. Just not quite yet. But in truth he saw no reason for her to go under the knife. She was perfect as is. Beautiful. Docile. Obedient. Kee-rist—the perfect woman.

He wasn't all that crazy about the look of a female snatch anyway. Oral sex was fine. The best. He'd always had to fight back the revulsion when he'd had intercourse with a woman, especially older women. It wasn't so bad when he'd been poking his sister: she was so ... vulnerable or something. So nonthreatening. But older broads, they seemed to snap at him with those gaping pussies. Wanting to capture his male pride down there and squeeze the masculinity out of him. No, the plumbing was no big deal.

He thought of Nicki as a beautiful woman with one small physical flaw. So what? She had perfect breasts—tit jobs that had set her back a fortune. Her Beverly Hills he called them. That cute clipped nose like some fucking movie star. Skinny. Terrific tush. Great legs! An added bonus, as that was one of the things the sawbones couldn't redesign. Most of the guys who changed over just didn't have the legs for it. She was nothing short of a hundred percent sensational. And she gave head that was to die for.

“Not YOU again,” the croupier joked. One of his favorite dealers, Alberta, was working. Good. He pulled out a precounted ten and fanned it out across the blue felt.

“No.” He smiled at her and offered the bucks. “It's somebody else this time."

The other dealer laughed.

“I told you it wasn't him this time,” the other girl said.

“Nine thousand dollar chips, nine hundreds, four quarters,” he told Alberta.

“Yes, sir,” she said, stacking up the chips next to the toke glass. A pit boss whom he didn't recognize was right on top of it telling them to examine the money carefully, but obviously speaking to the new girl, clearly just starting on the job, without a name tag on her pocket.

“Always look at the back of the bills,” he said in a loud voice, oblivious to the man in the wheelchair.

Satisfied, the pit boss backed off and noted something on a pad of paper. The man in the chair was already rated so he'd be in the hotel's computer. Come on, he thought, but he only held the fixed smile as they put the money down the table slot into the cashbox.

He was pushed up against the table, Nicki behind him with a slim hand resting lightly on his left shoulder so the guys would know she was his property. He was in the first position next to the wheel, first base, and the chair put him slightly below the level of the other players seated on stools around the side and end of the roulette layout.

Alberta slid the tall pyramid of stacked chips across to him. Actually twenty-two chips was not a tall stack—only if you knew there was ten thousand dollars there. The pit boss glowered at him as he slid his first chip out. A crowd had already begun to gather, guys moving in for a closer look at Nicki, and then the yahoos and hayseeds gathering to see the man stacking thousand-dollar chips. He was always conscious of the eyes of the watchers, self-conscious of the jerks who would whisper about the man in the chair.

He had pushed a twenty-five-dollar chip onto the black, and he moved his head from side to side, head going back as he smiled up at the one-way mirrors of the eye-in-the-sky surveillance, feeling his beautiful bitch lightly massage his neck. It was so tiring when you had to sit all the time. Normal movement was something people took for granted, but how lucky they were. These lucky, hayseed schmucks with legs that worked.

He'd show them luck. It was red, and Alberta took his chip, raking it with the others. He pushed another quarter out as soon as she cleared the table of losing bets. Nobody won. He put fifty dollars on black and went down. A heavy man with gold chains and an immense diamond ring won a big combination bet on the bottom dozen. The man in the chair never bet anything but straight-up bets. He shoved three hundred dollars onto the black, and the wheel spun.

“I gave you a second chance,” Alberta teased the players as it hit red again, his bet swept away. He pursed his lips up in a silent kiss to her and she gave him a big smile. She wondered what sex would be like with a guy in a wheelchair. Could he have sex at all? The beautiful woman who usually accompanied him was obviously very devoted. No gorgeous woman would love a man like that unless the sex was okay. He had a great mouth, maybe he gave dynamite head. She had to jerk her mind back on the job. She loved dealing roulette because you didn't have to think. Mindlessly she watched the good-looking guy shove seven hundred dollars in hundred-dollar chips out. He'll hit this one, she thought, and when he missed again, she raised her eyebrows and shrugged as she raked the chips. The fat guy had hit the lower twelve again—what a chump bet.

The man in the wheelchair slid a thousand-dollar chip toward Alberta and caught her attention. “Give me hundreds, babe,” he said, and then slid another one over. She gave him twenty hundred-dollar chips and he kept the stack where it was. “Put ‘em down for me, doll. Please cover all the blacks.” She supposed it was hard for him to reach all the numbers on the layout.

“Yes, sir,” she said as she quickly dropped a chip onto each of the eighteen black squares. She knew as she did it he was hitting this time for sure. Smart gambler, she thought. She started to hand him the two hundred dollars back and he said, “Cover the zeroes please,” and she did. She didn't mind helping him. He always toked her at least a hundred.

“Way to go, sir,” she told him when black hit. She payed him $3,500 on the number, and saw he'd covered black with a thousand-dollar chip.

“Cash me out, hon,” he said. He'd been at the table maybe five minutes and hit the casino for fifteen hundred. True to form he toked her a hundred. Then he changed his mind and dropped four hundred dollars back down on black and hit again, and the “model” wheeled the gambler away with an easy nineteen hundred dollars. Chicken feed on his way to dinner.

Buckhead Station

“Enemies,” Eichord told the men in the squad room, “we have to take a look at every possibility."

“I don't much like it,” Brown said, his gaze wandering with unconcealed desultoriness and boredom, “but, um, hell, uh, I dunno. I don't see it. Not with an icepick."

“Suppose somebody had her at the top of their shit list and they paid somebody. Somebody with an icepick."

“Unnnnn,” Brown groaned, “you know what I mean?” As if that was a logical response.

“We got an eyeball on her leaving the speaking engagement and we got driving time. We got her pulling up in front of the church. We got an ETA. Now. Something happens to Tina Hoyt. She gets out. The killer who her political enemy has paid the money to is surveilling her. He grabs her as she gets out of her car, throws her into his vehicle, does her with the icepick. Drives out to the park and dumps her. Huh?"

“Nah. It's somebody knows her. He's waiting for her and she parks, gets in with him, he drives to the river and whacks her inna ear."

“Dana? You agree?"

“Hey, I can suddenly answer riddles now?” Dana whined. “Whatta hell do I look like, a fuckin’ contestant on Wheel of Fortune?"

“No, you look like a contestant on Dialing for Hippopotami. But what do you think—if anything?"

“You really wanna know what I think?"

“No. But tell us anyway."

“I think somebody did her because she was a diesel dyke. Some ole man finds out his missus was gettin’ the double-dildo put to her by this bull dagger, see. And he makes her get inna car like you said. Takes her down to the park and reams her ears out real good, pushes her out the door, and roars off into the night. Or jacks off into the night."

“What a load of shit,” Monroe Tucker said. “This is a definite political assassination."

“Wait a minute. I got it. Dig this, Monroe, Martians beam the bitch up into a flying saucer and—"

“You give me d’ porker-dorkers,” the huge black detective told his partner.

“Yeah? You give me the jungle jitters, Rastus."

“We assume a feminist with a high profile and with political aspirations as well could easily have crossed paths with somebody who wanted her hit.” Eichord continued as if uninterrupted. “So we'll start with that. Who stood to gain a political advantage by her death?"

“Yeah,” Dana mumbled, “we'll round up all the known heterosexuals."

“That'll leave YOU out."

North Buckhead

“Gosh,” the small woman said, her face scrunched up at Eichord's. “This makes the third time I've had to go through all this. The fourth, if you count the press. No! Five times is how many times, counting television. You know they came out from Chan—"

“I understand, Mizz Wright. Just a couple more questions and I won't bother you anymore.” He spoke soothingly, a look of genuine concern on his face. He knew what it was to go over the same ground endlessly.

“It's not that you're bothering me, but, you know, I've just told it so many times I don't have anything to add."

“Sure.” He shook his head sympathetically. “I understand. But if you could just make a couple of comments, maybe you'll hit on some seemingly insignificant fact you haven't remembered before."

“Okay. Sure.” She had a face like a tiny bird. Just on the borderline from being one of the little people. Very tiny bones. The features chiseled like a sculpture's face. She wasn't pretty but she made him think of movie stars and a case he'd worked on in Southern California. He'd seen some of the familiar faces from the silver screen. Tiny people with little shrunken images made well known by the celluloid pictures. Some of them disappointing up close. Smaller than life, as it were.

“You're sure of the time."

“I really am. She'd just ... Ms Hoyt had just given her talk and we were standing right there"—she pointed—"and I was telling her how effective she'd been. And she thanked me. And she walked over there and got into her car and pulled out."

“Did you happen to notice if anyone had pulled out after she did. Somebody else leaving or pulling out of the parking lot about that same time?"

“No. And I would have seen them. I was standing right over there by her car with her and I stood there a while watching her car pull out. And then I went back inside. Nobody else pulled out of the lot during that time."

“If you were to describe her mood, what was her mood when she was leaving?"

“Her mood?” She acted as if the word was one she'd never heard before.

“Was she frightened? Anxious? Relaxed? Worried? You know. How did she seem to be when she left.” The man talking to her softly. Drawing her out.

“Hurried. I would have to say she seemed businesslike. Pleasant. In a hurry."

“Mizz Wright, I know you're active in the women's movement. How was Tina Hoyt regarded within the movement?"

“Highly. That much I can tell you. Everybody thought highly of her. She was vitally important to the movement."

“Might someone have conceivably reasoned that they could strike a serious blow at the movement by hurting Tina Hoyt?"

“Sure. I suppose that's possible."

“Did she ever speak of having any threats? Or any enemies or someone who had expressed animosity toward her?"

“Not that I ever heard of, huh-uh. No. I'm sure she hadn't. I think she was well liked by everyone and respected even by most of the people whose opinions differed from hers. I never heard of anyone expressing any sort of serious hostility. The reverse, in fact: her adversaries admired her, um, strong, iconoclastic positions."

Eichord nodded but automatically saw the Greek word derivation: one who breaks images. What a name for a Greek gasoline. Ikonoclas, the Gas with Class. He was trying to read Ms. Wright as she responded to his questions. Something a hair off-center.

“Did she comment on why she was so hurried when she left here?"

“Yes. I believe she made some comment about running late. Or she had to give a speech at this church, which was quite a long drive from here—maybe forty-five minutes away. And I know I felt guilty talking to her, taking so much of her time, but I wanted to tell her how important her speech was, you know?"

I know. He nodded slowly tilting his head back another eighth of an inch.

“Important to all of us. How much we appreciated her. But I could sense she was in a hurry and I tried to be succinct."

“Okay. Do you have any idea who might have wanted to do her harm? Any speculation at all?"

“None whatsoever.” The small woman shook her head at Eichord. “It was a total shock to all of us."

It was a total shock to Tina too, baby, he thought. He thanked her and got back in the car. Turned the key and headed back toward the station.

He thought about the place she'd been found in. The look of her with the dress in a small pool of muddy water. Dirt on her shapely, pantyhosed legs. The hair and the skin-fiber reports. The extra time they'd taken with this one: the fingernails, rectum, under the eyelids, the soil-deposit trace, the forensic analysis, the whole fine nine that Earl Rich at the police lab had summed up in two syllables: “Nada."

MacTuff's guys in the white coats hadn't been able to add a shred of anything to what Earl's boys and the old redneck Buckhead M.E. had handed him. They did have some lab work on the possible weapon.

Not necessarily an icepick. PROBABLY an icepick. Could be one of the old, long, wooden-handled type. Could be a sharpened awl or a homemade job: any steel weapon ground down to that particular configuration. A group of examples included various antique and contemporary sword canes and umbrellas. Jack remembered his grandmother had still used an icebox in the late 50s. They'd had to come in and replace it with a fridge while she was asleep. She never did get use to that “'Frigerator” but at least she wouldn't be stabbing herself to death with the mean, needle-sharp pick that she kept stabbed into the butcher's block beside the door.

Back at the station he picked up the phone, twirling his Rolodex until he saw the number he wanted and began dialing.

“Yes. Is Letty there, please?” He waited, tapping a felt-tipped pen on the desk.

“HI! Letty, it's Jack Eichord.” She said something friendly. He smiled, responding, “Do you recall a serial killer you ran a story on some years back? This must date back close to fourteen, fifteen years or more. The Icepick Killer?"

“My God,” she said, “you sure have some memory there, Jack.” She paused for a second. “No. Not offhand. I don't."

“It's important, hon. Guy was killing women, and I don't think they ever caught him. The Icepick Murders? Something like that?"

“Oh, hell. Sure! The Iceman."

“Yeah."

“Yeah. That's it, eh? The Iceman. Yeah. Um hmm. I remember the stories vaguely. Whatcha need?"

“I need every scrap, kid. I would be very grateful if you can dig it all out for me. Every bit you have on it."

“Okay. We can do."

“And I need it last week. But if you can't get it here that soon, yesterday will do."

Buckhead Station

Eichord was reading one thing, hearing another, thinking about yet another. No. That's not quite right. He was hearing one thing, reading another thing, and thinking about two different things—two things, that is to say, that were different than the things he was hearing and more or less reading.

“In circuit court,” he heard Marv Peletier say. “Yeah. He's a complete and total anus.” As he heard the word “anus,” he READ the word “Venus.” Weird.

“VENUS WITH THE NAKED EYE,” he read. “According to the United States Naval Observatory, Buckhead residents will see the planet Venus appear to kiss the earth's moon today, in a spectacular astronomical show that should take place shortly before sunset.” It was the third or fourth time he had read the sentence.

“Yeah. He gave him an affidavit for a wiretap—"

“With a good pair of binoculars, the planet that appears as a mere white speck to the naked eye will take on a crescent shape.” He thought about the boy. Then about a homicide. And he read “expansion of the nascent cosmos” and realized he had no idea what the hell he was reading and closed the paper.

Dana lumbered by. “Drunk again,” the fat detective mumbled.

“You know it."

“Sit there like that staring off into space or jacking off into space nobody will know it's Fill-’ em-up Marlowe, Supercop."

“Speaking of jacking off into space, did you know that the surface temperature on Venus is 830 degrees Fahrenheit?"

“Shit. That ain't nothin',” Tuny said, sorting through a pile of papers strewn across the slum area he called a desk, but his mind wandered before he could finish whatever Danaism he'd been about to impart.

It had been several days since Eichord had seen the old crime file on the Iceman Murders and reached out for everything MacTuff had. The task force was a high-tech miracle worker, but as the saying went, it couldn't take shit and give you apple sauce.

MCTF was a storehouse, a main-frame computer center, a decoder, a think tank, a search-and-transfer giant linked on-line to your data base. And it could make a machine, a snitch package, and that made it a copper's dream. But Eichord, tapped into all the stored data on the planet, didn't have J. Walter Diddley Zip.

The Iceman had been partial to women of a type: average in appearance. Mid-to-low-income demographics common to five dead women killed over a period of seven months, back in the 1960s. Mean age: 39.6, the five of them ranging from 36 to 43. One with money, but all of them living what might be described as a downscale middle-income life-style. Average middle-aged, middle-income, mid-Americans shaded to the low-rent side. Zero commonalities besides that and the age/wage demographics. The unsolved killings had occurred within a fifty-mile radius of Amarillo, Texas.

A teenage suspect had been identified in the ancient lineup and then the eyewitness had caved in on them. Turned out to be an airhead and the kid, a nineteen-year-old white boy, had walked. Eichord had poured over the old files and the related printout. Reading and sifting through the old homicides. Read a rocket from a dude in Amarillo Sex Crimes. Done a good bit of thinking about a thrill killer who liked to have middle-aged women give him head and then he'd take them down permanently.

Two strangulations, and then he'd found an icepick somewhere and used that on the other three. Quite a thumbprint, what they called a “try-and-catch-me” M.O. An icepick shoved into the victim's ear at the moment of discharge. His steel ejaculate. So the M.O. didn't fit Tina Hoyt.

Tina Hoyt was younger. Prettier. Upscale. But Eichord never threw any babies out with the bath-water. Could it be that some nutbasket found an old newspaper account of the killings, or an old detective magazine, or saw a TV documentary, and decided to do a copy-cat kill twenty years after the fact? Or was a serial killer alive and well and living in Buckhead? And if so, why stop for twenty years?

He reached out for all the recent parolees, all the cons released in recent months, anybody who'd been doing a long bit in the system, then went through the mental-health facilities and similar institutions. Who was suddenly back out after two decades? Cross-referencing with Amarillo arrest records and with other MCTF subscribers, he compiled a list of institutionalized individuals who'd been put away in the same time frame.

Something nudged him and he realized the night guys had been on duty for half an hour. He dialed his house and Donna answered.

“It's me."

“Hi."

“Just wanted to let you know I'm runnin’ a tad late."

“Hey. Guess what?"

“What?"

“Guess what our son just did today?"

“No telling."

“He said your name."

“What?"

“He said DADDY."

“Aw. Come on."

“I promise.” She was excited. “Clear as a BELL. He was sitting on the floor of the living room with Blackie, and he said DADDY just as clear. I almost fell over."

“You're sure about that.” He had a smile on his face. “Maybe he said Blackie, and it sounded like Daddy.” Blackie was what they were calling the stray mongrel.

“Jonathan,” her voice was suddenly hollow and off-mike, away from the phone mouthpiece, “come here to Mommy, honey. Come here. Listen sweetcheeks. Guess who's on the telephone. Come over here. That's a fine boy. Listen. Put this—here. Say DADDY. Can you say it for me. Say DAH-DEE."

“Garbage,” it sounded like.

“What?” he said, his ear pressing hard against the phone.

“Gargah."

“See! SEE!” Donna was ecstatic. “Daddy—his first two-syllable word."

“God! Amazing. The kid's talking at two! Say it again, son. Say daddy. Daaaaaaah-deeeee."

“Gaah."

“Wow! The kid talks!"

“It sounded just like Daddy a while ago.” Donna was laughing.

“It talks."

“Yeah, it talks. It likes Daddy. He said it about four hundred times. Say, Good-bye, Daddy.” She made a noise with the phone. But no more gargah noises.

“Oh, well. He has a few years to practice."

“Still. It's great. I can't wait to get home."

She could read the joy and humor and excitement in his voice, and they both whispered a couple of quick love-yous and hung up.

He couldn't wait to get home to his family. Eichord drove all the way with a fatuous smile plastered to his face, already thinking about teaching the kid how to pitch a slider. What a guy. Things were going to work out.

Donna still did it to him the same as she always had. He thought about how lucky he was to come home to her, and the thought warmed him. He remembered the way she'd looked that morning and he wondered if she'd still have on that thin, summery dress she'd had on when he'd left for work. He could never look at her in it without thinking of the two people under the marquee of Creature from the Black Lagoon. The scene where the blonde in the white dress stands over the air blowing up from below the grate and she says with that hot, red, kissably voluptuous Marilyn mouth of hers, “Isn't it delicious?"

Moss Grove

Pouring tea over ice cubes, the attractive woman glanced in at her friend seated in the small dining alcove. The white shades had been rolled down to keep out the blistering sun, a curse that came blasting out of the sky in the midafternoon, baking the flatland, cooking brains, making everybody tired and a little silly.

First the drought, then the rains, then the heat.

“Every year is supposed to get worse from now on,” her friend was telling her, and she detuned. Somebody had told her at the bank, “It's hot enough to fry an egg on the—” and she had finished the sentence snappishly, “hood of a car, I know. Yes!” Smiling, but saying it in a wise, tough voice that wasn't her at all.

It wasn't Diane talking, it was the heat talking. But you didn't deal with people that way in a small community like Moss Grove, and she softened it even as she smarted off to the nice lady, giving her a warm, sort of loopy smile and asking her, “So, why don't you make it rain?” A full shot of her best cutes on this last part of the exchange, hoping to take the sting out of her wise-ass lip. Remembering this, she bit her tongue this time, not telling Bonnie what she wanted to say, which was ... Talking about heat is boring.

“I wonder if it's something we're doing to the atmosphere? You know, hurting the environment?” And Bonnie began one of her long and laborious explanations, a rehash of a half-recalled newspaper story. But it gave her time to breathe. Make the other glass of iced tea. Calm herself down a little. Cool off.

It was just the heat ... No, it wasn't. She knew that would be the next thing. It isn't the heat, it's the HUMIDITY. The fucking humidity. She was so bored.

The day had been a cliché day of nonconversations, little nondialogue with semistrangers, snatches of mouthings and empty phrases spoken a hundred times a day as one went around doing crappy little errands. Moving without thought or concentration, sliding in and out of hot car seats, walking across hard, baking parking lots, moving down the long walkways of malls. Nothing tough or physically demanding, but on a hot day like today you could do five things like run to the grocer's or to the post office, and you'd be wringing wet. Cranky. Starting to feel the edges of a headache starting back there in your neck, working its way north.

The phone jangled, snapping her out of it and she said, “'Scuse me, Bon.” Hand-picked up the receiver. “Hello?"

“Is this my princess?"

“Hi,” she said, softening instantly.

“Whatcha doon?"

“Melting,” she breathed.

“It's so good to know I have that effect on you,” he said to her in a deep, sexy voice, whispering into the mouthpiece miles away in Buckhead.

“Well, see. You do.” She smiled as she pulled an earring off. “Are you hot too?” She played with him.

“Is this what they mean by phone sex?"

“I guess so,” she said, still smiling. “I was thinking about you."

“Something we can talk about?"

“Not just this second,” she said, lowering her voice to a faint whisper.

“Oh,” he snarled on the other end, but didn't let the menace and disappointment creep into his voice. Kept his tone pleasant as he said, “Your friend Bonnie must be there."

“Yeah. We're having a glass of cold iced tea. Wanna come?” she teased him.

“Listen, Princess Di"—she loved the way he called her that—"you are my princess, aren't you, baby?"

“You better believe it."

“Well, Princess, you know how the song goes: ‘Someday your Prince will come.’”

“You're my Prince Charming,” she said huskily—stupidly, he thought, obviously missing his double entendre.

“I'm lonesome for you."

“Umm. Me too."

“Are you gonna make me come?” He quickly changed his direction. “Are you going to come over here and see me tonight?"

“Sure,” she said, “if you want me too."

“Absolutely. What would you say if I asked you to clear the decks so you could spend the night at my country place? And, you know, no strings or anything. You'd have your own room. We'd have some fun. Have some laughs. Spend the weekend with me. Catch some rays.” Go muff diving, he thought to himself. “Whatdya say? Sound good?"

“It sounds great,” she said after a beat. “Sounds fun.” Fun. She wondered about doing it with him. Wondered what he'd be like—that way. She couldn't help but think about it. She knew what he wanted her to do.

As if he could read her thoughts, he turned on his perfect Bela Lugosi voice and said, “Fun? Boodle-doodledah! You make me vant to suck your neck!"

She laughed with surprise. “You should be on TV. You missed your calling."

“I need some fresh blood,” Dracula said, but he wasn't kidding at all. It stiffened him to think about what he would do to Princess Di tonight. He said in his own voice, “Darlin', one thing, and don't say anything about this, you know, to your friend Bonnie, I want to send my secretary over to pick you up tonight, do you mind?"

“No,” she said quickly, but irritated at the thought. Still, she understood the reason why. She realized how difficult it must be for him. “But why don't I just hop in the car? I'd really rather."

“No, dear,” he said, back in control. “When she gets there, she'll explain what you need to bring. I want you to bring a couple of things. I'll explain later. Just go along this time—okay? Nicki's okay. You just let her help you, okay?” Selling it and closing the deal.

“Sure. Fine. No problem.” Her name was Diane Taluvera. Thirty. She'd been with First Bank of Moss Grove since she quit at Buckhead Middle School four years ago. Wasting an MA at the bank. Worrying her mother, who thought she was going to end up a spinster. Worrying Bonnie.

“Don't melt before you get here, Princess,” he said, and they agreed on a time and he rang off.

“I don't have to guess who that was, do I,” Bonnie said with a sneer. “Mister Wonderful."

“You'd like him if you knew him,” Diane said defensively.

“I want to know how come he's such a mystery man I can't even know his name, Mister Wonderful and all. I mean, if he's married I don't care. I'm not going to call his wife and tell her, Hey, your no-good husband is fooling around with my best friend.” She was laughing, but Diane knew she wasn't kidding completely. He'd been adamant about her not saying anything.

“His divorce is about to go through, Bon, I told you. And he's a prosperous guy, has his own company, and I guess there's a lot of money at stake. I promise I'll introduce you to him soon and you'll change your tune. You wait and see."

“I don't like the SOUND of him. If he's on the level how come it's so hush-hush?"

Diane slumped into a chair and sipped her iced tea. Trying to sort it all out. All she knew was that Al made her feel so good. She wondered what Bonnie would say if she told her the rest of it. What he was. And how they'd met. The man with the beautiful secretary who had come in the bank. The flirtation and what it had led up to. She stared at her friend over the rim of the glass and decided to keep her mouth shut. It was too good a thing to take a chance on blowing it, and she wanted to be able to tell him she hadn't told anybody about them if he asked her later.

The man pulled the tip off an expensive pen and carefully printed the words: enter. di, postcards, suitcase, makeup, note to bank, bonnie, and replaced the cap. He'd go over the notes with Nicki tonight. He pushed the bitch out of his thoughts. He was in his special place now, his secret sanctuary.

The room at first appears stark, severe, the absence of color unsettling, and then the eye perceives the color of the line. This is where he comes in the fierce hours when he lets himself become the other thing—the thing that his newly regained power now allows him. And this is the room that nurtures and prepares and decompresses and decelerates him when he returns from his sojourns into the lonely, dark places. He thinks of it as his safe house.

In the white room he folds the note, slipping it into a pocket, allowing himself to backslide for just the time it takes to think about what the cunt will look like tonight. A low-cut dress over unspecial breasts. Everything cut just a little too low. Even the bitch's SHOES too tight, cut too low. He hated the way he could see the beginnings of her little toes squeezed together above the pointed toes of her high-heeled shoes. He let the room wash her from his mind.

It is white. Bone. Off-white. Cream. Lines and shadows and angles the only coloration against the textures of wood and wall and countertop and ceiling and floor, all unsullied by marquetry or faience. Unaccessorized and denuded of what we think of as the human touch, the furnishings and bric-a-brac and gee-gaws and gimcracks one associates with a room one lives in. This is not a room you associate with the presence of an occupying humanity.

The color of the line has been carefully chosen, sculpted to reflect the essence and purity of 1915's L'Ex-position Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes. And the absence of color is but illusion, to soften the screaming angles and wildly, sweeping planes and dizzyingly perfect curves that are at once deco and post-modern, simplistic and complex, pure, white, and cold.

He keeps the austere room very cold. Icy in fact. Throbbing, dripping, central air capable of British Thermal Units that will lower this baby to a meat locker hums away unseen. And he breathes deeply of this chilling purity, here in the room that is his shrine, this hidden sanctuary where no outside influence can intrude.

Buckhead Station

The Major Crimes Task Force normally reached out for Eichord only when there were four or more related murders, their yardstick for serial killings, or when the attendant publicity on a homicide reached a certain noisy level. In another city the Hoyt murder might not have reached Jack's desk, but here on his home turf, Buckhead Station, it was a major homicide case, and he was asked to focus all his energies to solving it.

“Operator,” he said, “I'm on long-distance calling for Doug Geary, please.” A woman's voice, presumably the local operator's, had suddenly asked if anyone was waiting on this line. Someone was.

“One moment.” The long lines to Arizona buzzed, hard plastic nestled against Eichord's left ear.

“Dr. Geary's office."

“Yes. This is Jack Eichord calling long-distance for Doctor Geary, please."

There was another wait.

“Jack?” the doctor's voice crackled down the line.

“Doc?"

“Can this be the legendary Jack Eichord?” The man's high, squeaky voice made Jack smile. He considered Doug Geary a good friend.

“'Fraid so, old pal. Me again.” He laughed into the phone. “I didn't know if you'd remember me after all this time."

“Sure. How are ya? What's up?"

“Fine. Doug, I'm on a case, of course. In Buckhead. But it goes back a number of years to a series of killings that took place in Texas.” Jack told the doctor about the homicides from the crime reports he'd obtained after his reporter friend had sent him the old news clippings. Between MCTF and Amarillo he'd amassed quite a file. “They were called the Iceman Murders by media. Do you recall ever hearing about them?"

“Ummm.” The doctor thought for a moment. “Nope. I don't remember hearing about them."

“These are homicides from roughly twenty years ago. But I think the recent killing here in Buckhead is the same M.O. I just need a few minutes to get some basics from you. Do you have the time?"

“I'll make time, Jack. Sure. Go ahead."

“Just the basic stuff. I have so much trouble retaining the psych stuff. Okay. I'm trying to get some background that will help me understand what I'm dealing with.” And he began telling him what little he knew about the Tina Hoyt killing. The oral penetration. Semen trace in the decedent's mouth. The icepicklike weapon—how it had been used. The medical examiner's hypotheses.

“Go over those penetrations again, Jack,” the doctor said. “The old homicides. You said strangulations and then the icepick killings?"

“Right."

“Precisely where were the entrance wounds made? You said something about the one being stabbed in the eye?"

“Yeah. Right. One in the temple. One in the ear. One in the eye."

“Have you considered that maybe this perpetrator has bad aim. What if he had been aiming to get the eyes each time, and the victims move or his aim is bad? You see, when you talk about an icepick into the eyeball, you're painting the classic M.O. of somebody who has low self-esteem—such as a badly disfigured person. Somebody who sees himself as ugly to women for whatever reason."

Dr. Geary began speaking very rapidly without seeming to choose his words. “The personality distortions that all of us have inside are potential explosions and the stress of daily life is the catalyst. Three types of unacceptable social behavior can take place as a result of these explosions: happenstance misbehavior, fleeting or chronic. Let's say you act from the stress of severe economic pressures—what we might categorize as a normal reaction. Or from accidental happenings that place you under unusual momentary stress. These types of reactions differ from the reaction of the chronic misbehaver. This category includes the so-called hair-trigger temper, the individual who has no feeling of belonging to the society with which he must compete, a society that frightens him."

“Why does such a chronic misbehaver kill? Because he's afraid of those around him and wants to get rid of them?"

“No. It's more complex than that. There are all types of chronic offenders whose distorted personalities lead them to kill, as you're well aware. Hysteroids and epileptoids and schizoids who may kill out of hostility, or fear, or frustration, or disorientation. But the kind of chronic killer you have to deal with as a serial murderer is making statements. He's saying to that frightening society, You don't scare me; I scare YOU. I am more frightening than you are. This is the extreme of disturbed behavior, and obviously that sort of killer can think he has a million different reasons for that action."

“Can you draw any kind of a general profile of him with respect to the rest of his personality?"

“It's too general a category of disturbance. For instance, that same guy who kills in that reaction mode may only be galvanized to murder when a given stress factor is present and motivates him to reach such a state of emotional duress and psyche distortion. He might, in a very general sense, be the sort of character who normally—at least for him—gets through life by ‘getting over’ on his fellow man. Stealing from him, perhaps by some clever and sophisticated scheming that is acting as his substitutive ego-satisfier. Again, another statement: I am more clever than you, so I do not have to compete within the ordinary social structure."

“Is this guy, this general-profile fellow, is he going to tend to be very smart or very stupid?"

“No way to say. He could be a genius, although that would be rare indeed. He could certainly be cunning. He could have extremely developed superficial social skills—be an actor, in other words. Or be in between, somebody whose situational awareness is sufficiently acute that they appear normal. They get by and do not appear to become unduly imbalanced by the stress triggers. Or at the other end of the continuum, you could have a mentally deficient, low-IQ offender who is so aggressively hostile, or afraid, or ego-sick that he could fit the same profile. Your classic sadist, for example."

“He could be anything,” Eichord whispered.

“Absolutely. Schizzy, paranoid, sex psycho, cyclothymic, phobic, an—"

“Whoa. Speak English, Doc."

“Yeah, okay. Schizoid—remember—the guys who know they're inadequate. They can't cut the mustard physically or mentally or emotionally so they tune out. Become reclusive, turn inward, and build whatever peculiar set of defenses they need to protect themselves from the pain of being self-consciously inadequate. The aggressive ones become paranoid—get the superego working for them. Create a psychotic make-believe world to explain their frustrations or failures or fears. The cyclothymic, he is in perpetual unbalance. Gigantic mood swings. Loves his mother one minute and kills her the next. Ecstatic today, suicidal tomorrow."

“You said sex psycho. What about the violent sex crime? Where does he fit into the scheme of things?"

“He's usually a guy who's afraid of women for whatever reason and expresses this in sadism, or hostility, or in the most violent psychos—murder. Typically he's schizzy or immature or homosexual, or in the exceptional cases such as you have to deal with, a total psychotic personality. The most dangerous breed: the paranoid-schizophrenic."

“But if your schizzy dude is a passive-type offender, what pushes him to the point of violence? Any sort of stress?"

“You can't generalize. Too many possibilities. But it might be his inadequacy is manifested in some kind of unacceptable sexual misbehavior—he's a deviate. Or maybe he's simply malicious. He wants to strike out, and when the opportunity and the feeling of inadequacy occur at the same moment, that in itself could precipitate a violent act."

“All right. Now try this one. A guy is killing women in some psychotic fashion. He forces them to go down on him, and when he ejaculates, WHAM, he stabs them. He leaves his calling card. The old iceman strikes again—"

“And that factor is in fact his signature. He's telling you something about himself. That's why I first asked about the icepick to the eyeball M.O.—it's the classic retaliation of a disfigured man. He's striking out at women who attract him, but whom he knows he repulses—so he'll fix that, he'll put their eyes out. That's a simplification but—"

“You mean I might look for a disfigured killer?"

“Well,” Dr. Geary said in his high screech, “FIGURATIVELY disfigured has a lot of definitions. The disfigurement can be both literal or figurative. Emotional disfigurement, say. He could think he repulsed women, for example, by his infantile penis, or by a SENSE of ugliness, or by an awareness of a sexual equilibrium so out of balance that IT was revolting to the fair sex. You see? Anything that might make him want to symbolically keep them from seeing his true self. In fact, the punishing aspects of this M.O. are so strong. I don't think you can make any definite...” Geary trailed off into space.

Jack thought he sounded older, tireder than he remembered him. We're all older and tireder, he thought.

“So this guy could be ugly, like scarred or deformed, or just emotionally unbalanced and be physically Robert Redford?"

“Of course. You know what mass murderers look like, they're as likely to be movie-actor handsome as hideously ugly. It could be anything. He could be a cripple, or he has an underdeveloped penis, or he's out of whack in some manner, his sexual dysfunction is so severe he must strike out at these women he wants, punish them or blind them. He could be very good-looking in the conventional sense, but he sees himself as inadequate or repulsive by his own standards."

“And let's say he's the most dangerous type ... I always get this confused, is he the sociopathic type or the schizzy type?"

“Jack, that's the paranoid-schizophrenic. You need to look at your DSM-III. It's got all that broken down for you."

“Your what?"

“Oh, your Diagnostical Statistical Manual, roman numeral three. And if you can get a three-slash-R. Revised update. Give you the definitions for all the terms."

“All right. Okay. Now. We're back in Texas or wherever, and we're ugly or we have an infant-sized penis or whatever. When the moon is full we go out and get a woman, force them to go down on us, then we strangle them or stab them with an icepick. Let's say we symbolically blind them or punish them. Right so far?"

“Right—defacing, Jack. Think DEFACING. That one shot with the icepick to the eye—that's the textbook classic. Keeps them from seeing him, you understand, and he's defacing THEM, too, as well. Get it?"

“Yeah. All right. Now suddenly we stop. For twenty years we don't kill again. Then, suddenly, another killing. Why do we stop? Why didn't we keep killing? Why did we start up again? Give me some scenarios, can you?"

“First off, he's not your same killer. He didn't stop. The first factor you can take to the bank is this: NOBODY stops. Serial killers don't stop. Not ever. You're the expert. You tell me. When did you ever hear of a serial killer who stopped?"

“Zodiac."

“Hmm?"

“Zodiac. Dude out in California? We never caught Zodiac. He stopped."

“No, Jack. He was caught. Or he was killed or he died or was imprisoned. By caught I mean for something completely unrelated. For a theft, let's say, and he goes to jail. He's imprisoned. Well, there would be one scenario. Your man is imprisoned for twenty years. He got out and resumed? Huh?"

“I wish thieves DID go to jail for twenty years, but that's another story. Yeah, I've been over that ground a little. The mental institutions and all."

“Sure, could be institutionalized for twenty years. That's one scenario. But you take my meaning. Unless something like that happens, nobody stops. They like to kill too well. Unless they mess up, get too cocksure of their own invincibility, and the coppers take them out of the game, they keep on going. But twenty years, Jack? No, a more likely scenario is that he died, or what might be is he got murdered himself. Violence begets violence. Make your own scenario but keep one factor in mind. Nobody ever stops. You can't count on that happening. These persons are deeply deranged and they kill till they get caught.

“He's also telling something about himself in the demographic profile of the victims. Look at the age group of the women you just read off to me. Now a younger woman. But that could be so consistent, you see, because HE'S older, so he relates to the victim in a different way. There might be a clue in the victims’ profiles. That's where to begin."

“Yeah. Listen, Doc, while I've got you. On another subject. I just wanted to get your thinking. I realize this isn't your line, but let's say you got a murderous psycho and he has a child. Genetically, is there any way of determining whether, you know, the kid is going to have any inherited traits, er, ah—"

Geary took over and lost Jack after the “DNA stepping stones,” and when he paused, Jack said “Okay,” and thanked him.

But there weren't no okay to it this time.

North Buckhead

“You smell delicious,” he told her, his arm pulling her close.

“Oh!” Thunder struck again and she shivered. Diane was sitting on his bed beside him. She felt small and she was glad she wasn't spending the night alone.

“Are you afraid of a little thunderstorm?” he whispered softly, cuddling her.

“Uh huh,” she said, like a little girl. It had been a weird night with Nicki, the secretary calling for her. All businesslike and somewhat brusque. Making her bring a suitcase, of all things, helping her pack, which she kind of fought until it was explained that he was planning some kind of nutty surprise. He was going to take her somewhere ... But what about the bank? All taken care of, they assured her. Something very weird going on here. A surprise vacation? She had put in for three long weekends and a week in the spring. But he was being groomed for the board at the bank and was on a first-name basis with her boss. He played golf with her boss, he assured her, which she didn't believe at first. HOW? she wondered.

“You don't have to worry about a little thunder, baby. You're safe and cozy,” he purred to her. He had given Nicki instructions. Bring this. Bring that. She was packed for a longer stay than a weekend. He promised he'd tell her later. Then there were the crazy notes. He made her write this nonsense note to Bonnie, and a note to somebody without a salutation much less an address. Notes on postcards. A gag, he said. Some sort of practical joke.

The thunderclap made her jump again and he chuckled.

“Don't be scared. You're so beautiful,” he told her, kissing her on the hair.

“No. I'm not."

“You know what you really are?"

“Huh?"

“I tell you no lie, Princess Di. You're fucking drop-dead beautiful!” And that broke him up and he laughed with joy. “That's it, darling. Drop-dead beautiful!” He kissed her through the giggle and she snuggled close. And then she started to ask him about all the mystery.

“What's all this with the suitcase and the cards, honey? Please. Tell me what's going on?"

But just then Nicki came in the room, saying, “Excuse me, hope I'm not interrupting,” talking to him about something she couldn't follow, sitting on the bed beside her quite naturally as she spoke, her long, slim legs stretched out in front of her, the three of them together on the bed.

“Hey, Princess, I've got a neat idea,” he said to her softly. “Why don't the three of us kind of cuddle together? Would you like that, baby? You and me and Nicki?"

She thought he was joking. “Oh, sure."

“Hear that, Nicki, she likes the idea."

“So do I,” Nicki said.

“Hey! What the hell? I was just kidding.” She moved Nicki's thin fingers from her arm. “What the hell is this?"

“Just a little lovin'? Don't you like Nicki?"

“I like guys, if you haven't noticed. I don't happen to go for other girls.” She was irritated now. Diane was rather homophobic, for one thing.

“Well, that's no big deal,” her strange boyfriend told her. “Nicki ain't a girl, she's a guy."

She knew as he spoke that it was true. “Oh, sure,” she said again. The damn thunder was making her jumpy. And now THIS dumb scene. “Listen, I think I wanna go home. Would you mind?” She thought of the woman's face. The jawline. Mannish in profile.

“I don't think she believes us, Nick. Are you gaffed?” The slim woman beside her shook her head. “Pull up your skirt, doll. Show Princess Di what you have between those lovely legs."

“Come on,” she told him. “This isn't funny ... JESUS!” She jumped out of bed. Nauseated. Shocked. Nicki's long, dark penis lay across her thigh. Diane was horrified. “GOD!"

“See?"

“Get away from me."

“Okay. Okay.” He got her gentled down after Nicki left the room.

“He's a MORPHIDITE!” She was in a chair across the room looking at the bed where the man still lay, his paralyzed legs stretched out in front of him.

“Noooo. I believe the correct phrase is preoperative transvestite, but, you know, if she makes you nervous—"

“SHE. She has a big COCK. She's a MAN."

“Um,” his Reagan voice kicked in, “well—technically—yes.” Eventually he got her calmed down.

“Come over beside me. Nicki won't be back. I promise.” And she sat beside him and he told her all about Nicki and he tried to kiss her and she resisted at first, but he kept it up. Eventually he calmed her down and she slid back over beside him.

“How could you...” But he'd had enough questions and he overpowered her with his handsome face and his open smile, selling her again with all his charm, pulling her over so she'd be safe from the storm, promising her, inviting her, baiting her in his soft, romantic tones, and she let him start kissing her again.

“Drop-dead gorgeous, that's what you are, all right,” he said, and then he had HIS penis out and she let him guide her face down and he gently moved her closer and then he was in her mouth, hard and hot, and moving her head back and forth on him, almost choking her, telling her she was “drop-dead gorgeous,” over and over, filling her throat with him, and it seemed like a minute or less he was making a loud, fast-breathing gasping noise and she knew that he was climaxing, and he was exploding inside her mouth and she tried to pull back then, but he had hold of her hair and then he was pulling her mouth off him and the right hand did something and there was a flash of metal and she screamed as the sudden unbearable stab of pain penetrated her screaming unendurable agony as something struck deep into her mind with deadly force and Diane Taluvera was dying even as he penetrated her again.

Buckhead Springs

Donna had packed most of his wardrobe, it appeared, and he joked with her about it as he unpacked slacks, hanging them back in the master closet in their bedroom, “You tryin’ to get rid of me or what? I'm only goin’ for a couple of days. I got enough clothes in here to stay a month. You guys tryin’ to get rid of me?"

“That's it. We're trying to get rid of you,” she said, coming up behind him, encircling his waist with her arms, and resting her head and upper torso on his back. He managed to get the hook of the hanger back over the rod and turned into her hug, lifting her face up to his.

“Mmwa,” she said, kissing him wetly.

“Those are my sentiments exactly,” he told her, kissing her again. Slowly and gently. It had been a perfect evening. Jonathan had been so docile Jack had decided not to chance telling her about some information he'd picked up about possible allergy therapy. Grains. Fiber. Dairy products. He'd forgotten the other things. Warning signs. He'd seen a video of kids whose behavior was similar to the little boy's. But it had been a quiet night and he wanted to keep it this way. They put their son to bed and finished packing for his trip to Texas in the morning.

“Do you really HAVE to go?” she finally said.

“I dunno,” he sighed. “I suppose not. But it'll cut us a little temporary slack. Media's not going to let Tina Hoyt go down as long as it'll get numbers. We're probably in a ratings sweep or whatever,” he said, his cynicism borne of long experience with the dauntless crusaders of electronic journalism and print.

“How'd you like to cut ME some slack,” she whispered into his ear.

Their mouths mashed hotly together. He could never get enough of her.

Big, beautiful breasts that curved slightly upward like the surreal cartoon boobs in the men's mags, the bazooms of a busty, firm young girl, still nice and high, each crowned with a full, inviting cherry. Long, silky hair, and—most of all, best of all—that attitude of delicious sensuality that was so natural and sweet. He'd come to love Donna so much.

Eichord was still awed and pleased by his wife. By the elegance of her movements. He'd seldom known anyone so totally natural, and he liked to watch the sexy way her femininity asserted itself, the feral way she held herself, her openness as they made love. She was a joy to watch at any time, but especially in their intimate times together. Yet he even liked to watch Donna run, or walk, or just curl up on the sofa. He enjoyed her awake, asleep, animated, or in repose. He thought of his lady as a mysteriously female person who was absolutely open in her ways. An eternal mystery that could still take his breath away.

“What?” she asked him.

“I said there's no bloom off these roses, honey,” Jack muttered.

“I love you,” she told him.

“Hmmmm.” He smiled, moving back a little so he could look at her. He could not say what was in his heart at that moment. Speechless, he wanted to tell her as he looked at one of the most beautiful shapes in nature. Right up there with the rainbows and sunsets and oceans and snowy meadows. Exquisite perfection, beautiful as innocents. Pure and purely feminine.

What was it that old Spanish painter had said about the most beautiful shape—was it an egg? Or the eliptical figure 8 recumbent—the infinity sign? The Greek letter? Or was it the breath-catching sight of the female S-curve, the most perfect line in nature? The glorious S of the breast and buttocks.

Jack Eichord traced a gentle, surprisingly warm line under his wife's loose clothing. “You got a great S, you know that?” he said.

“Your S ain't bad either,” Donna said, each of them beginning to satisfy the other's hungry needs.

Texas

The Amarillo cop shop was superclean. Efficient and professional to a fault. Hardly what the records of twenty years ago would have suggested. The cop work on the Iceman kills had been spectacularly shoddy, Eichord thought, and the more he looked into the crime reports, the worse it appeared. Sloppy investigation techniques. Sloppy paper work. And one of the sloppiest mishandlings of a prime suspect he'd ever seen. At least that was his strong impression two decades after the facts.

With predictability the detectives involved in the investigation were all either deceased or seemingly scattered to the four winds. Nobody in the Amarillo shop had first-person or hands-on memories of the investigation. The most glaring omission in the records—the fact that neither the NCIC computers nor MCTF stored photo or prints of the suspect, a teenager named Arthur Spoda—proved to date back to a fire in which the suspect's records were destroyed. Then even THAT proved false.

“Bullshit,” the man in the sheriffs office told him. “I remember an ole boy in Homicide tellin’ me how they lost a whole buncha stuff in the flood they had over there. Water pipe busted, is what happened. Ruined a file cabinet fulla stuff. Ah think they just had it all hauled off to the dump."

“So you're saying nobody in law enforcement down here has got a picture or fingerprints on the primary suspect in a multiple-homicide headline case?"

“Just one of them things,” the man said. Eichord thanked him and talked again to the guy in Sex Crimes who put him on the Spoda trail as best he could.

Eichord was still driving, thirty minutes later, when he saw the VEGA sign on the outskirts of town. It reminded him of the deep South, where you can drive through residential neighborhoods and tall, centuries-old magnolias spread out over the traffic like the elm-shaded side streets of the 40s, before the national Dutch elm blight hit southern and mid-America. It was like that here. Big, unkempt trees drooping out over the highway.

A sign assured motorists Jesus Loves YOU and then another that Jesus Died for YOUR sins. Somebody had painted on the side of an underpass: Trust Jesus. Eichord passed an elderly gentleman in a slow-moving station wagon sporting a bumper sticker telling you to Honk if You Love Jesus. The phrase “Bible Belt” came to mind.

But this wasn't the Bible Belt. Perhaps it was below the belt, he thought as he drove by large stone abutments that looked like a mini-acropolis, once the supports for a massive loading dock. The compress for the cotton bales was long gone, and so in fact was the railroad that once hauled the cotton away. The gin was vanished. He passed shacks for migrant workers and signs advertising Rummy Cola, Brad's Truck Brokerage, and Velma's Salon. All rust-covered. Green frog-colored lily pads floated in stagnant roadside water. Joe's garage and muffler shop. Closed. Ivy's Café. Empty. no tresspassing.

A creek runs along beside a wooded area. The creek is banked by low-hanging willows, water lilies, thousands of cattails, goldenrod, water weeds of every description. An underground cable sign has all but rusted away, so that the only thing you see is the bold word W A R N I N G.

The vestiges of a ghost town without optimism or hope. A forgotten chunk of America not even the most hypo realtor could get excited about. A storm had flung mighty oak limbs into the two lane and nobody cared. He could tell they'd been in the way of traffic for a while as he slowed and navigated his way around the partial roadblock.

Prosperity had fled. Storefronts were clogged with broken roll-top desks, legless or seatless chairs, boarded-up buildings like Lou's Tack and Saddle Repair, Bud's, Vega Boot & Shoe Shop. On the side of what had been a diner somebody had painted bypass city. Buy Bond's Bread for extra nutrition. Memories of the 7th War Loan. The city Meat Market was empty. Keerist, what a ghost town.

The entire downtown area resembled one huge and sprawling thrift shop. The Main Street Bank Building was straight out of the Northfield, Minnesota, Raid, and appropriately it was now a historical museum. Eichord stopped and asked for the directions to the Spoda house. The man had never heard of it. He asked if the guy remembered the Iceman murders back in the 60s. Nope. Where was the local police station or sheriffs office? Weren't none. Was there anybody who had lived here a long time? Sure. Plenty of folks. Name one? Freda over at the gas station. Freda and her husband been here since the war. Eichord didn't ask which war. How do I get there? elicited the following direction:

“Go yonder to the Picken's sign and turn around an’ go back a block.” Jack digested this while he drove. He kept thinking of the James gang as he drove past crumbling brick edifices that triggered movie memories of the Daltons and Youngers. Pioneer Seeds. Wilson Grain still hawked their wares from ply-boarded hulks of weed-covered, vanished commerce. The town belonged, at the very least, to a world of cars with running boards, obsolete fireplugs, and five-cents phone booths.

A sign said Motel—Right, and his word-puzzle brain automatically substituted Motel-Blight, passing the once-pink motel with its totally redundant vacancy sign. One more tiny business clinging by its fingernails to the slippery precipice of the mercantile exchange. How many eternities since the NO vacancy neon had blinked on?

Eichord pulled up next to a gas station that sold eats, worms, and de xe coolers & vented heaters—not an appetizing combination. He thought the missing lu in De Luxe to be the final indignity. A person of indeterminate sex and age appeared, materialized really, from the shadows.

“Howdy,” Eichord said, and the person nodded. “I was looking for somebody who knew this town back in the old days, and the feller down at the bank said you might be the right person to come to.” Nothing by way of response, so Jack plunged ahead, wondering whether to flash his shield or not. “I was trying to find out a little something about a family who used to live here back in the 60s. The Spodas. Can you help me?"

“Depends."

Jack realized then that it was a woman. “You Freda?” He smiled pleasantly.

“Yep,” she said.

“Boy,” he said, looking around as if he'd just seen the town for the first time. “What happened here anyway?"

She shrugged and waited.

“Looks like a kind of a ghost town. What happened to all the businesses?"

“Ever'body left.” She spoke slowly. “It was the oil boom."

“The oil boom."

“Yep. An’ then it just died out and, uh, they lost the bank and a bunch of businesses and stuff, uh, you know, just died out."

“When was that?"

“Huh?"

“When did the business die out?"

“Oh, few years back. I forgit rightly."

“When was the oil boom? I mean, could you put a year on it when the town was prosperous?"

“Nnn.” She made a noise as she shrugged. “There's always been wells n’ stuff. An’ people around here was, uh, you know, leasing their land for high prices. Specially up north a ways. An’ they had a lot of workers come in here and then the highway went around us and it really died then."

“When was that? When did the highway go around you?"

“The highway bypassed us in ‘76."

“You mean the town was prosperous until 1976, then?"

“Yeah.” He felt her unfreezing as he eased her into the details. “See, this was ole Highway 66."

“This was Route 66?” he said incredulously.

“Yeah. Was back then."

“Listen. I'm looking into a family that was here back before that. You ever hear of the Spodas?"

“Yep. I heard the name.” He saw something change in her weather-beaten, deeply tanned face.

“Can you tell me about them? Where they are now?"

“You a cop,” she said in a hard voice without the question mark on the end.

“Matter of fact, I am.” He nodded, again pleasantly, speaking in a soft, soothing voice and not whipping his gold out.

“No-goods."

He nodded. Tell me more. She didn't. So he said, “Tell me about them, please."

“I didn't know the woman. You hear things in a small town. I didn't really know her."

“You heard what sort of things?"

“There was all kinds of rumors about that family. It was the talk of this town for years. Sex things. They was supposed to be perverts."

“In what way?"

“She slept with everybody in town. Supposed to have slept with her own son. What was made him touched when he was little. He was off,” she said, tapping her head.

“Off. How?"

“I don't know what you call it. Touched in the head. They always said it was because o’ her. Somebody, a social worker or somethin', they found out about her and the boy. And then the half-sister too. He'd been messin’ with his own half-sister. She was off too. The whole family was off.” She shook her head.

“What happened to them?"

“She's been dead for years. The sister's in the looney bin. I heard the boy got into some trouble."

“The Iceman murders?” She nodded. “What do you recall about those murders?"

“Nothin'."

“But you just said you remembered he'd got in some trouble,” he said gently.

“That's all I ever heard. Somebody said he got into some trouble with the law. But I don't ever remember hearin’ anything about him goin’ to prison. I think somebody said they seen him in Las Vegas some years back. I don't rightly remember."

“In Las Vegas? Who saw him?"

“Oh, my stars, that's too long back. I don't recall. You just hear rumors in a small town.” She looked around like she wished a car would pull up wanting gas, oil, eats, worms, and a de xe cooler—something to get her away from the interrogation. But up and down the highway as far as you could see, Eichord and the woman were the only living souls.

“It's very important, Freda. Who told you he was in Las Vegas? Try to remember if you can."

“I told her,” a scratchy voice said, and Eichord jumped a little as he turned and saw the man who had come up silently behind him. He reminded Jack of the farmer with the pitchfork on the famous painting.

“Yes sir.” Eichord smiled. “Can you tell me a little more about the Spodas?"

“Just that the one they called Arthur never spent a day in jail. I seen him myself big as life at the California Club in downtown Las Vegas, Nevada, wheeled right to the table like he owned the place."

“Pardon me? You say wheeled?"

“Yeah. He was in a wheelchair. Still is, I imagine."

“I didn't know he was handicapped."

“Heard his mama caught him an’ his sister together and took a ball bat to him, is what put him in a wheelchair. ‘Course that was just the stories at the time."

“When was this?"

“'bout the late 1960s sometime, I reckon. Probably a good thing too. He wasn't nothing but trouble."

“Do you know where I could find a picture of Arthur Spoda?"

“Nope. Sure don't."

“You remember what he looked like, though, right?"

The man breathed a tired sigh. “I ain't seen him for a long time. I think I'd know him but I can't swear I'd even know him if he stopped me onna street."

“If I'd get a police artist in here, would you be so kind as to help us get a composite drawing made of the way he looked—the way you remember him—the last time you saw him?"

“Sure. I reckon I'd be willing to try. He was a handsome rascal in the face. If you didn't know what the boy was like. He was a real fox in the henhouse, if you catch my meaning."

Eichord nodded, wondering who to call first, thinking about how they'd nail down the dates. The all-important dates. Did the Iceman killings stop consistent with the time when Arthur Spoda ended up in a wheelchair? A hundred questions screamed at him. How soon could he get Weyland down there? What should he do first? Who was Spoda's physician and were there records? Where is Arthur now? How who what where? WHY? That was the first question.

“Why didn't you give this information to the police?” Eichord asked the man.

“They never asked me.” Wonderful.

But he'd worked in enough provincial backwaters that he knew what the realities were. You don't just waltz in and get arrest warrants, pal. One learns early on that there are states with statues a hundred times more quirky and restrictive than any Supreme Court decision you ever hitched about.

Amarillo

Eichord was driving a loaner, an old car with the windows rolled down to try to cool himself off after a heated conversation with the locals. He told them that it looked like they'd run an investigation to its conclusion twenty years ago, they'd solved the Iceman murders, then turned around and walked away from it. Why hadn't they arrested Arthur Spoda? They had. Then why had they turned him loose? They had to. A witness “zoned out.” But why not press for a murder charge? They hadn't even tried for a conviction. On what grounds? On any grounds. He'd boiled as the rules of circumstantial evidence had been taught him for maybe the hundredth time.

I grow old, I grow mold, I shall drive with the windows of my loaner rolled, he thought. In the headlights the lumps of dead things come and go, and the yellow line rests its blacktop upon the dead possums. He drove past such enticements as rattlesnake buckles, velvet paintings, pecan log rolls, Indian Jewelry Made by Real Indians, a chance to See Bigfoot, and then the snake-oil hucksters thinned and he found the road sign he'd been watching for and within minutes he was going up the front steps of the asylum where he'd learned the Spoda woman was an inmate.

“I'm here to see the director, please,” he said to the woman at the front desk, telling her his name.

Five minutes later he was greeted by a heavyset woman who smiled and introduced herself, “I'm Claire Imus. How can I help you?"

“Hello,” he said, showing her his shield and ID. “We spoke briefly on the telephone about Miss Spoda. Can you tell me some background on her?"

“Let's go in here, shall we?” She closed the inner office door and invited him to take a seat. “Precisely what do you want to know about Ellie Spoda, Mr. Eichord?"

“Were you here when she was institutionalized?"

“No. But I've been here over eight years. I'm quite familiar with her case history."

Eichord summarized what he'd learned about the family, asking if that much was accurate.

“The abuse by the stepbrother and by other males went back to her early childhood. Sexual abuse as you know, but a campaign of terror that her older stepbrother waged, from what we know about the family background, pretty much relentlessly. The incest would have been bad enough, but he apparently was a sadistic so-and-so who never missed an opportunity to frighten, hurt, or intimidate Elite. The ‘mother’ didn't offer much protection. Finally there was a series of sexual attacks that left her totally disoriented and so terrified of her environment—and her stepbrother in particular—that she became quite insane. Not long after that she was institutionalized."

“Can she carry on a conversation? I need to ask her some questions about those events,” he said quietly.

“I'm afraid not.” She smiled again. “Unfortunately Ellie Spoda hasn't said a word to anyone in years. Would you like to see her anyway?” The woman seemed open and helpful.

Eichord was always as interested in HOW something was said as much as what the words were, and his impression was that Claire Imus was being as helpful as the situation allowed.

“Sure—if it won't upset her."

The woman shook her head. “She's playing Bingo. I'll take you,” she said, and Eichord got up and followed as she walked heavily down the clean hallway.

They entered a room where an attendant was announcing a Bingo game to a room of perhaps thirty persons, many of them patients. A brunette woman in sweater and slacks was helping the Spoda woman with her card.

“B-five,” the attendant called out. “B-five."

“Hello, Ellie. This is Mr. Eichord, who has come a long way to talk to you."

Flat black eyes looked up at him from under an unruly shock of white hair. Ellie Spoda appeared to be a woman of about sixty-five years old.

“Ellie,” Jack whispered, “could we go talk about your stepbrother, Arthur?"

She tuned out on him immediately, her eyes looking down at the Bingo card in front of her.

“I-seventeen,” the attendant called, and there was a murmur of excitement.

Outside, Eichord asked Claire Imus how old Ellie was.

“She was born in 1950, Mr. Eichord."

Las Vegas

Eichord deplaned at McCarron International and managed to find both his luggage and a cab, and within minutes he was bound for Las Vegas Boulevard. He chose the option of coming in “unofficially,” at least for the moment. He planned to sniff around some on his own first.

Vegas was a nighttime town. No clocks. City of the perennial weekend. And the Strip had been designed for darkness—all light show and bright dazzle. But, God, it was a depressing vista in the daytime.

The gray smog layer clung to the skyline like dirty smoke and it was all you could see from the Tropicana clear over to the Hilton ... dirty gray sky and garish hotel architecture. Check-in was a nightmare of tourists logjammed through a maze of brass-tipped, velvet rope. Eichord found himself caught in a giggling, whispering hubbub of Japanese with cameras. The slow-moving line inched forward as he listened to the Japanese talk about going to Anaheim and Disneyland, and which shows to see first. Where did all these people COME from?

Finally Jack reached the front desk, checked in, and was whisked through the casino to an elevator, and before long was unpacking his rumpled clothing. His room had a sliding glass door and he walked out on a small balcony about the size of a coffee table. Everywhere he looked fabulous, fabled neon icons lit up the Nevada smog with promises of easy money and good times and no tomorrow.

But down on the rooftop adjoining the hotel's parking garage he spotted the yellow pages and a pair of white, high-heeled pumps. What scenario of anger, frustration, rage, and sad despair might account for such an irrational act? Did a drunken woman throw them herself? More likely it was a man's work. The Vegas phone directory is not an easy toss. An event for the Las Vegas Decathalon, the hundred-meter telephone book and high-heel throw.

He changed clothes and made his way back downstairs, taking a cab downtown to the California Club, as good a starting place as any. He was armed with a police sketch he didn't have much faith in, and less sense of purpose than he could remember.

The first thing he spotted in the casino was obvious giggle of three hookers. If it is a coven of witches, a pride of lions, a gaggle of geese, an army of caterpillars, a school of fish, a pod of seals, and a flock of sheep, what do you call a trio of hookers? Oh, about $250, he imagined.

His cop eyes saw them the way he always saw people, registering overly tight maroon corduroy slacks and a bulge of green sweater with an invitation to all monied males, the middle one with a too-dressy black cocktail dress, the third with lots of poundage packed into another pair of tight slacks. All of them with high wedgies, frizzes, tons of makeup. The only obvious flaw other than a possible lack of scruples the set of the shoulders. They strode through the casino like jocks. In fact, when Eichord looked at the big one, he thought of Alex Karras reincarnated as a woman. Just your average middle linebacker working girls—what could be more inviting? Jeezus.

But in the same breath he saw something fantastic. A woman in the shortest, blackest, tightest clinging top of a material that revealed every outline and curve. Perfect, movie-starlet mammaries, nipples thrusting like hard fingertips, gorgeous blond hair, and a face without a hint of makeup—stunning, spectacular, smashing. But, of course, he told himself, I have something better at home.

But this WAS Vegas, after all, and Eichord spent the first ten minutes just checking out the chicks. With that important detective work done, he called a pit boss aside and asked to see the shift manager, waiting by the side of a 21 layout. An old man wandered over and tried to make some pitiful, erratic bet of some kind. It took the dealer three or four minutes to explain to him why he couldn't place the wager.

A hard-eyed, suspicious-looking man in a silk suit introduced himself and Eichord showed his tin and explained what it was he wanted and was told how totally impossible that would be. Nobody employed here at the club would have any way of identifying somebody from that long ago—not even from five WEEKS ago—in a wheelchair?—no big deal. We have handicapped in here all the time, the man informed him, looking around and seeing in fact a wheelchair rolled up to the craps table where a group of fifteen men were screaming at the moment.

Eichord showed the drawing to some people anyway and watched various pairs of bored Las Vegas eyes glaze over. After all this WAS Vegas, pal. These people have seen it all. They've seen all the cops. All the wise guys. All the hookers. All the stars. What's one more serial killer in a wheelchair—right?

The old man was still farting away his Social Security leftovers when Eichord decided he was spinning his wheels. The man's sweet wife had joined her hubby and stood beside him, this strange old dude in a ragged undershirt, as he had his moment of fun, escaping momentarily out of whatever drabness, escaping into the bright flash for a second—one turn of a card or spin of a wheel and a thirty-second promise of easy dough that had led so many of us down the wrong pathway. A cocktail waitress in a push-up bra and stiletto heels whispered at him and by reflex he showed her the picture.

They talked briefly. Her name was Stephanie or Kim or Lisa, she was twenty-one, or twenty-two, or twenty-three, she was married to a struggling lounge performer, or she was a would-be student or a part-time nurse working cocktails to support a child, and he'd known a thousand girls just like her. On his way back out of the club he tried to remember all the name tags that went with the glazed eyes: Lethea, Nadja—from Iran, Gerry, Nassia. A dealer named Takio, Sam. A lady pit boss with an American first name he couldn't remember—last name Wong. Eduarda, whom they called Fast Eddy. Stephanie. Kim. Lisa.

A maid said, “How ya doin'” to him as he smiled at her in the hallway, back in the hotel.

“No good,” he said, meaning it.

“I know what you mean. I live here."

Metro

Jack spent all of the next morning getting the official glad hand from the guys at Metro headquarters. MLVPD was one of the top cop shops in the country for a Homicide detective. The action of a high-crime-incidence beat without the hazards of some shithole like East L.A. or Bed-Sty. It tended to draw slick sleuths with a taste for gold and rich, Corinthian leather.

Eichord was accorded full VIP status whether he wanted it or not, which automatically made any good copper just a tad suspicious of this big-media mocker, this ink-happy fed from some mystical task force dropping by to snoop around.

He eventually got shoved off onto a liaison type named A.W. “Augie” Stiverson.

“Sorry you got saddled with me, Augie,” Eichord said with a smile.

“It's a dirty job"—Stiverson smiled back—"but...” He left it go unsaid.

Eichord had to spend twice as much time getting duked back in while he went around listening, being a good dude, being Eichord, acting like he was just one more flat-footed copper who didn't think his shit smelled like Chanel.

“Let me know what we can do for you and we'll give it our best shot."

“This one's a bitch kitty, so far,” Eichord said, handing a stack of the police drawings to Stiverson. “Got this dude who looks real good for about five serial homicides back in the 1960s. Spoda, Arthur. It's all on the other sheet. We're talking about a male Cauc maybe forty-one, forty-two years old now. Likely he could have been a resident here for years, possibly. I believe he may have killed again recently, the first kill after twenty years, back on my home turf. Just a hunch from the M.O. Nothing solid. But the more I looked at these old files, he was doing the victims in and around Amarillo, Texas, I think they had him."

“What happened?"

“I never got a real handle on that. I think it may have just been a combination of things. Their so-called eyeball witness fell apart on them. Violated some Texas statute when they put him into a lineup, best I can judge. He was nineteen, this Spoda, and all of that and some sloppy paperwork and he just ended up walking. Like a dude there said to me, You know how it is, it happens."

“Yeah.” Siverson nodded. “I know. Sometimes the scumbags walk. I know how it happens. Can you put something together on this individual if you can find him again?"

“I dunno.” Eichord scratched his head. “Beats me,” he said quietly. “I know the Iceman killings stopped as soon as the suspect became hurt. He apparently was crippled to the point where he was in a wheelchair.” Eichord told him about the mother and the man in Vega, Texas, who had supposedly seen Spoda in Vegas.

“Shit. I think you could send these around to all the big hospitals, clinics, therapy centers, and what not. Real needle in a haystack without a mug shot or prints.” He read the short information sheet Eichord had handed him with the stack of drawings.

“Well, for starters, I'd like all the guys to get one of these. I'll also get them run through all the casinos just on the odd chance it might shake something loose."

“Sure. What else?"

Eichord gave him a couple more requests, including the standard desk-directories-telephone requirements, and Stiverson eventually left him to his own devices while he sat there in busy MLVPD Homicide dialing and smiling, finding out in the course of one afternoon that Las Vegas, Nevada, had about all the health care anybody could handle.

By late afternoon he was getting punchy. The day had not been a total loss, however. He had learned about how the coloration of a victim's fingernails and the consistency of the vomit will help determine if they have ingested a slow-acting, nonvolatile poison. That a shotgun leaves pellets, wadding, markings, ejected shell casings, and that people who do police work send these things to laboratories for analysis. He learned they found a homosexual with over a hundred stabbing wounds in the body, of which a detective observed “Boy! Somebody was sure pissed."

He learned more about the Vegas sports books than he had ever wanted to know, including the line on three important games. He learned that in Vegas they use the transitive verb “shake” the way they use the word “smoke” in Buckhead. That most homicides are solved by witnesses or informants. That most Vegas crimes are solved in the first twenty-four hours or they tend to go unsolved. That a three-day-old killing was “getting there ‘cause this guy in the joint told me this hump he knows said he was gonna shake him.” He learned that a stringer for Channel 11 was a turd. And the guy on the early-morning assignments desk was cool. And that a guy in the News Cruiser eats shit. And that somebady “got their ten-thirty-one stepped on” and all of this was profoundly more interesting than the sheet of doodles in front of Eichord. A list that said: 5 x 39 .6 = 198

Gloria (39) Strangulation

Darleen (37) Strangulation

Ann (38) Bludgeoning/Stabbing

Elnora (41) Stabbing

May (43) Stabbing.

The doodles were average. Nothing great. He was proud of the numbers, though. They were nicely rendered. Why would a nineteen-year-old boy want to “shake” 39.6 year old women? Because he could? Because they were vulnerable? Because they were surrogate mommy targets? Forcing Mom to give him head and then going to work with his hands or his sharpened icepick? I am twisted. So here's some steel, Lucile. NOW you can't see my perversions and abnormalities. My half-inch Vienna sausage of a cock. My twisted soul. Here's not looking at you, kid. Kiss THIS, Sis!

It bored him so badly, this doodle, that he concentrated on the more accessible Homicide work at hand. And by the time he packed it in for his last overnight in Vegas, he knew exactly how the three-county-level special unit worked Homicide calls, suspicious deaths, and officer-related shootings. He knew that the officer, or pair, depending on the beat, calls in the “criminalistic” officers, the HDs and the ID techs. He learned how to write up an incident report, how to get hold of a path, the pathologist, the way photographs are made, the manner in which diagrams are drawn. The place the autopsy is performed. All sorts of useful stuff in case he ever decided to do any Homicide work.

You had to walk right through the casino to get to the elevators. What made him think it was planned that way? He put a ten-dollar bet on ODD and lost. Put a two-dollar bet on 39 and lost. Put two five-dollar chips on ODD and won. Put ten dollars on EVEN and won. He was eight dollars ahead, and he quit. There was a slot machine near the bank of elevators and he fed five dollars in while waiting for his elevator. Still, he was quitting three bucks ahead. Another Vegas winner.

The noise and the smoke and the lights and the sleaze factor were almost overpowering. He couldn't wait to have Las Vegas become a memory. One more piece of business in the morning and he was gone.

Television Park

“Pull your coat down a little,” a metallic voice commanded over the intercom, and the good-looking man seated beside the car mouthed a silent okay and leaned forward as far as he could, pulling his coat down under him as well as he was able, smoothing his lapels.

“Okay now?” he asked aloud.

The intercom did not choose to reply and a boy with a rattail haircut clicked a marking slate clapper and said, “Fourteen,” looking at the man in the chair saying, “Stand by."

The seated man held his smile into the bright lights, and when the rattail boy pointed at him, he smiled widely and said, “Luxury in a beautiful car you CAN afford. Because nobody beats our deal.” He let the smile relax a little and took a breath.

The intercom squawked, “Let's do it again."

“Sure."

“Take Fifteen."

“Luxury in a beautiful car you CAN afford. Because nobody beats our deal.” He was very tired. “Was that better?"

“Let's wild-track it again, please,” she answered in her grating, metallic squawk.

“Sixteen,” the boy said, and marked it.

“Luxury in a beautiful car you CAN afford. Because nobody—"

“Hold it."

He breathed again. Fucking imbeciles.

“Wha hoppen?” He beamed in the direction of the control booth.

“You're saying Lug-sury. It's LUCKS-U-REE. Make it a real hard X sound, okay?"

“LUXury in a beautiful car. Like so?"

“Better. Do it again. Here we go."

“Seventeen."

“Nobody ... Shit, I'm sorry. I forgot the line.” He kept his smile as the rattail boy giggled and said, “That's a take.” Wise little fuck. “Okay. I'll get it right this time, folks. I promise."

“Okay,” over the intercom. He could feel himself reddening a little. Fuck it.

“Eighteen,” the kid said in a tone of unmasked contempt.

“LUXury in a beautiful car you CAN afford. Because nobody beats our deal.” The eyes boring in under the red light. His hundredth spot maybe. An old pro.

“I think that one got it, but give me a safety,” she said, and he tilted his head back and said, “Sure,” ever the gentleman.

“Nineteen, safety,” the wise-ass kid said, and the man in the chair smiled brightly, gestured to the new car parked in the production studio, and gave her another perfect one. Smiling into the camera with his handsome public face.

Las Vegas

He was up, dressed, and checking out half an hour before dawn and the casino looked like nine p.m. on a Friday night. An incessant blur of movement and a ceaseless roar of voices and noise. He walked past a blackjack layout and a woman dealer whose tag said adele—nevada. A Yugoslavian crackpot was babbling something to her about how GM was going to pay him a billion dollars in “reparations” for patent infringement.

“Don't bet until I've cleared the table, sir,” he could hear another dealer scolding someone as he walked by the early-morning crew. You can have it all, Adele Nevada. Every last dirty dollar. Just lemme outta here.

Heading north out of Las Vegas on I-15 past the Moapa Reservation, he drove into the Valley of Fire, and the sun came up over the mountains like a blazing red H-bomb, lasering the eyeballs as it mushroomed out into billowy fallout over the rocky canyons and the bust-out, degenerate gamblers, and the poor, ordinary folks, and the pathetic detectives, and whoever else.

Even with his shades on and the visor of the rental flipped down the blindingly bright sun gave him a massive headache, smashing into his eyes and into the brain like the needle-sharp Icepick of the Gods. He remembered the mirrored reflections from the eye-in-the-sky back in the casino. He knew the day was going to suck and it hadn't even started yet.

Far out in the sky over the Valley of Fire some movement caught his eye. He had to shield his eyes to squint, looking through dark lenses and tinted glass at buzzards circling something dead or dying out there. Eichord hoped it wasn't a sign.

Buckhead Station

The one flimsy semilead he'd turned up out west had flattened out on him. A former Vice guy, three years retired, had vague memories of this “spectacular pony” who lived with this wheelchair-bound gambler in one of the old plush joints—the Flamingo, he thought. The guy turned out to be hazy on the whole thing—some fuzzy recollection of the guy and his show-bizzy broad. He couldn't be sure of the drawing, he said. Bottom line: el zero.

Eichord heard a radio or television blaring as he descended into the sublevel of Buckhead Homicide. One of the guys had brought a TV set to work. Not a portable, but a twenty-one-inch set purloined from God-knows-where and squeezed into the back seat of an unmarked ride.

“Couldn't you get a big screen?"

“It's Dana's tummy tee vee,” Peletier said, and brought forth some snickers.

The detectives were watching a dog show for some reason.

“Peletier,” fat Dana Tuny growled, “you'd hafta pick up forty more IQ points to qualify as a fuckin moron, ya know that."

“I'm gonna be fuckin a moron inna minute. Jumbo, so gitcher pants down and reach for your ankles."

“This ain't mine,” Tuny said to Eichord, ignoring Marv Peletier, “the schvatza boosted it in Watts."

“Welcome back, Jack. Have a nice trip,” Eichord said to himself out loud. “Yes, thanks. A real bummer. Glad you missed me,” he told himself.

Peletier turned up the volume as the announcer's voice intoned out of the speaker “Ah! Here comes the giant schnauzer. What a gorgeous bitch.” And the entire squad room hooted with catcalls, a room full of twelve-year-olds.

“I was out wit’ a gorgeous bitch the other night had a giant schnauzer on her,” Tuny said.

“Ummmm,” Monroe Tucker hummed, walking into the room. Stomping, more than walking. The grunted, monosyllabic humming was a noise he would sometimes make when Dana Tuny did something he found particularly moronic. It meant “fuckin retards.” Monroe was the sort of two-fisted, bad-looking dude if you saw him coming toward you in a wild Afro and a dashiki you'd have to fight the impulse to cross the street.

Eichord got up and went into the john, regretting it immediately. Some visiting class act had penciled a bit of graffiti on the wall: nightcrawler was here. It set his teeth on edge. There was a night-crawler out there, to be sure.

Washing his hands and face, he looked up at the aging cop in the mirror and wondered why in the hell he felt so frightened or whatever it was all the time. Frightened wasn't it. Apprehensive?

When he came back into the squad room, the retards had grown tired of laughing at the dog show and the set was off.

“Hey,” one of the detectives said to Eichord, “you're the big sleuth around here"—winking as he said it—"so let's see how you do. Ready?"

Eichord smiled in response.

“I'll read about him and you tell me who it sounds like. Ready?"

“Okay.” It was a psychiatric manual.

“Listen—who am I describing? Bed-wetting, stammering, chronic masturbation, and thumb-sucking all typify immature personality disorders."

“Christ, that's fat Dana to a damn tee."

“Sheeeeit! Thass got him down cold, man. Bed-wetting, chronic masturbation, uh, immature cocksucker. Fuckin’ Tuny, man."

“Come on, gotta bad one,” Brown said, snatching his jacket off a hook, giving them an address as everybody got up in a screech of chairs, telling them the sketchy details as they took the stairs two at a time, all five men hurrying to the parking lot. Two persons down. Gunshot wounds.

“No big fuckin’ hurry,” Dana wheezed. “They'll stay dead, f'r crissakes."

Halfway to South Buckhead the call changed from a double homicide to a single homicide and then to a “man believed shot” in the clear.

“Is this gonna be a cluster fuck?” Dana whined as he drove, Eichord riding in the back seat with Tuny and Tucker. Tuny ‘n Tucker—TNT.

“Do flies like barbecue?"

They got on the scene, a fleabag in what was left of Buckhead's old Skid Row, and found a rookie uniform cop getting his ass chewed out by a couple of grizzled old bluebags out of Metro.

“Shit, I'm sorry.” He was just a kid. “I don't know—"

“Yeah. Tha's right. You don't know,” the older of the officers said sarcastically as he walked away in disgust.

“Shit—this is just some old wino,” one of the Buckhead guys said.

“No shit. Brilliant deduction."

“It was just ... I saw all the blood ... an’ I—” The kid looked like he was about to lose it. The Buckhead detectives were ragging him mercilessly.

“Hey, boy, if you feel like you're gonna faint, put your head down between your legs and breathe deeply."

“Yeah. If you feel faint, put your head down between my legs and suck deeply, okay."

“What happened?” Eichord said to the young cop as he moved away from the body. The ambulance guys were already bagging him.

“I fucked up,” he said, with a bad redness to his face. “Dude downstairs came runnin’ up an’ ... and shit, I couldn't make sense out of ... And then he says there was a shooting. He thought some ole dude didn't like this old boy got into it with him. Hell, I never even looked for the gunshot wounds ... He said shotgun, and I saw the one body and ... and the blood all over the walls an’ ... and I—"

“Let's go outside.” Eichord took the young guy out into the open air. “Hell, you'll get used to it. First time is a bitch,” he spoke softly to the rattled cop. “These winos take that last big swig and aspirate blood all over the walls. It looks like a gunshot death, all right. They drink themselves to death down here with depressing regularity,” Eichord said, with grim knowledge of his subject matter. These winos? We winos. Get it right.

In the car the three cops got trading horror stories. Eichord told them about the crime photos they'd showed him in Vegas. A homosexual murdered his lover. Took a week disposing of the body each time he left the house. Used chain saws, hacksaws, an ax, knives, everything but a damn blender. There wasn't a piece of the victim bigger than a breadbox.

Tucker spoke up, “You shoulda tole me you was goin to Vegas, man. I coulda got yo white ass STRAIGHT."

“I didn't know I was goin myself, Monroe."

“Shit. I RULED that town, bro. Vegas is my kinda town."

“Yeah?"

“I got so much white pussy las’ time I was in Vegas—and this ain't no jive—I hadda finally put a whatdya call them things in the store windows?"

“Vibrators?” Dana said, but they ignored him.

“MANNEQUINS,” Tucker said after a beat. “Yeah. What I finally did was I got this fuckin MANNEQUIN and put it in the car with me. You know, with a wig and shit on it, to keep them little horny white broads from hasslin’ me every time I pulled up to a stop sign.” He shook his fierce head. “I never saw anything like it."

“Hmm,” Eichord said, smiling as he watched Dana struggle. It was more than he could stand. He looked at his partner and said, “If you hadda mannequin in the car with you, that'd make TWO dummies in there."

North Buckhead

As he knelt at the altar in his sacred sanctuary, the soreness and bitter hate and towering fears have drained from his body. Revenge, so hot and sweet as to coat his tongue at the thought, will cleanse his physical being from the aching, hideous years of immobility. Punishment—swift and violent—the stiffening joy of instant retribution, will purge his soul of the evil thing, and once purged, bankrupt of emotion, he will allow himself to be renewed.

He breathes in the purity of this room where he so loves to sequester himself. His strength builds here and soon he will move out into the gathering dusk, hard and unstoppable. Burning with desire and the intoxicating knowledge of invulnerability.

He stares at the object in the golden glow of the portrait light, focused in the center of the wall, nestled in its special alcove, his favorite deco icon. Exhaling, he allows himself another deep, shuddering breath of anticipation, and then, with the grace of purity, he stands and moves from this room. Moving with the odd, sliding steps that are just another part of his uniqueness. Totally the master of anything that may cross his deadly path, exuding confidence and the sort of bonhomie you apply like cologne to your persona. Superficial but overpowering.

In his dark heart he is ten feet tall and fearless, and now he knows that he possesses the magic of the ancients. He has conjured up the force of darkness and it is so remarkably easy: no incantations or amulets or forbidden books are required. The only requisite is that you must immerse yourself in his mandate ... only then, as you carry out the punishment of human scum, will the evil be purged from your soul.

In a car he uses only for these moments he headed without conscious direction toward a run-down suburb of Buckhead, listening to the obsolete voicing of an antique dance band playing from his tape deck. Strange music that he thinks of as reflecting the deco sensibilities; orchestral horn voicings at once hypnotic and soothing, the reed section of long-dead musicians standing behind a tuxedoed maestro as the saxes take him back to another half-century with their ligatures and embouchures and the syncopation of the aggregation tick-tocking back into time. Nicki liked to tease him about his music.

He could feel her imprint next to him, sense her fragrances in the vehicle, imagine her so slight and womanly, curled up into him as he drove, pressing against him everywhere she could fit her slim body, the beautiful, hot, anorexic bitch, caressing him with thin fingers, whispering heatedly into his ear in her woman's voice.

He'd told one person about her, long ago. Once. Once, in Nevada, he'd talked to a man about her. Some idiot. Tried to tell this obtuse imbecile how good such a woman could be, how inflaming she was, how beautiful.

The man had said to him, “That's bullshit! Have you ever SEEN a fucking transvestite? Even these female impersonators in the shows out here—you look at ‘em in the daylight and they look like what they are, men in drag. They don't have a woman's face, for one thing, too much chin ... No, bullshit, there's no such thing as a perfect woman in a transvestite.” But he'd never seen Nicki. She was flawless. Gorgeous. He was reminded of a brunette version of that one in the Warhol movies, and women just don't GET any more beautiful than that. He knew that Nicki took shots, but so what? He loved her exciting looks.

Nicki would have come with him tonight, but this wasn't her thing. She liked it when they could isolate one like the dumb bitch with the squeezed toes, he'd already forgotten her stupid name, Princess fucking Di, she was in little pieces of worm food now. Long gone. They'd NEVER find that slime.

She didn't like it when he whacked ‘em and left ‘em, but he'd be goddamned if he'd be bothered with all that nonsense every time he took one down. He was going to slaughter a ton of these cunts, slay a BUNCH of these vile bitches, and leave ‘em lay where they fell. Jeezus, it made him hot to think about sticking them. He flexed his black-gloved fingers on the wheel, feeling the awesome power of his grip.

How easy it would be for him to fuck a bitch in the mouth and slowly, just as he came, close those steel fingers around her scrawny neck, shut off her air, close down her lifeline, watch her change before his eyes, redden, whiten, blue in patriotic death colors in his mighty, crushing vise, and one of his hands left the wheel as he touched himself.

The signs he sees now, with what survives of his normality, they remind him of the Dead World. tippet's trading post—1/2 mile, the sign says. Then he sees that tippet's trading post and flea market has gone to seed like the crabgrass that chokes it. The porch is covered with broken air-conditioners, discarded refrigerator parts, empty paint cans. Tricky Nicki would look at a scene like this and tell him to create the covering scenario first—and she'd be right, of course. Some complex, intricate deal that she'd create like she had for Princess Di and that other long-forgotten slime. A thing with letters and postcards handwritten in the slut's goofy, curling scrawl. To be sent to them long after bye-bye time. Little details that could make the difference later in the heat of too close scrutiny. Dolores Detail, he called her. She even packed the cunt's BAG—what a sweet touch that was.

It was Nicki, he thought, who'd nixed his sending a fake-out letter to the papers, trying to make that slut Gina or Tina or whatever her name was look like a political murder. She'd been wrong on that one, but he'd taken care of it. Fuck with their minds, he would.

He breathes in the sweet feel of his Dead World. The contents of a long-abandoned apothecary litter the front of the building with pieces of marble facing and remnants of showcases, and even the rusting old-timey malted-milk machines are strewn about. Pieces of disreputable Americana. Bedsprings and headboards. Tabletops. Chair legs. Artifacts of the low-rent dream. Filth-covered impedimenta of his world long gone. The Dead World.

Part of an amusement park ride says ride sandy for 10 cents, but Sandy is dead and gone. Sandy wore out aeons ago. The gelding had gone for one ride too many. All of this mess is fenced in, inexplicably, and covered in hubcaps.

His killer's eyes see a carousel horse on the other side of the porch. It has faded paint and a frozen expression of “let me out of here.” Whoa, Trigger, he whispers. He checks out all the neighbors. Barbara's Putt-Putt is closed for repairs. Del-Ray's Ceramics. His kind of place.

Next door he sees a sign that proclaims antiques and below that cut glass on peeling white wood. Discards and junk everywhere. Part of a gas globe and a forty-year-old Pepsi machine that would be worth a few dollars if it wasn't already a solid lump of crudencrusted rust. All of it the same all-pervasive, isochronous reddish-brown.

He is drawn toward the door. Leaving the vehicle on auto-pilot, manipulating himself into the chair for the benefit of passersby. Cheating a little, though, from the car to the chair, and at the small step up to the porch that led to her inviting establishment. Smiling now as he sees the woman alone, tending her lonesome domain there in the light of 30s chandeliers. A cat scurries away.

“Howdy,” she calls out. Bright, too red hair from the “beauty parlor"—what a fucking misnomer THAT is. A pleasant face smiling through crow's feet. An attractive woman, he thinks. He likes the way she holds herself, the look of her shoulders and chest.

“Hi. Beautiful night!” He smiles his magical smile. He could almost read the sound of MMM that some of them make when he smiles at them. Many women were struck by his handsomeness and, for wont of a better word, his unusual dash. He had that thing some men have. Verve. Elan. A thing of style, he supposed. It just HOSED the bitches.

Then there was the business with the chair. They wondered when they saw this great-looking guy—what he would be like as a lover. It intrigued them. Challenged the bitches. Brought out their maternal instincts, he supposed. He knew how to use this. Play to it from the second eye contact was established. Manipulate them from jump street.

“You have a great place,” he said, smiling, staring at her chest, his eyes sparkling with instant desire, moving forward in the chair.

She smiled back. “Thank you. Can I help you with anything in particular?” She thought she recognized the man in the wheelchair, but she couldn't place him.

“I collect everything, honey,” he said with familiarity. “Absolutely everything."

“Well, we've got a lot of that,” she said expansively, gesturing around the cluttered shop.

“You sure do.” He stared at her, moving closer.

“Do you collect glass?"

“I collect everything imaginable. Deco, Greco, baroque, rococo, neoclassical, renaissance, post-modernist, Pre-Columbian, Mayan, Aztec, Peruvian, Schmucker's—"

She laughed. “Well, just look around...” She was forty-something.

“Thanks. I'm lookin'.” He thought of his Mommy. spotting her old oily, black-bladed fan. She had a rotating fan like that, which blew dusty curtains over a silver, pressed-wood nouveau frame of deceased Texas relatives. It sat beside their peach-colored Fada that once played the Pillsbury White Crust Dough Boys and the Cliquot Club eskimos, and the late-night dance remotes from Amarillo. A crackling Fada sitting on a white wooden shelf beside a sink, where a perennial drip had worn a Rorschach into the porcelain. Was this too red redhead somebody's mommy, too?

“Just beautiful,” he purred from the chair.

“Thank you.” She thought he was so good-looking.

“I could just look around here all night,” he said, still staring at her, speaking so intimately to this middle-aged, suspicious stranger.

She blushed prettily and touched some stray orange-red strands, and a giggle escaped. “Oh,” she began to say, something something.

He neither knew nor cared. If someone came in the door behind him now, he would take them too. Ace them right out. Adrenals on Overdrive, wanting to make it with her, hot in his wanting, longing to show this cunt what he had in his pants, coming on now in a blindingly fast rush of cum-heat and death wish, flying out of the chair at her suddenly, smashing the awful thing across her field of vision and into her left temple, driving a steel needle-sharp spike deep into her ear, penetrating her with his heat and his power as she dropped in her tracks, a scream caught in her throat as he struck once more, her brain winking out as she caught something that sounded like “you fucking cunts” in a flaming red blur of pain and sudden death, hearing only the crash of agony as she dropped where she stood, struck by his lightning.

Unmindful of door locks or passersby or anything beyond the all-consuming urgency, the gush of his rage shooting through his loins as he emptied himself in a violent tremble of ecstasy and madness and bitter hatred and remembered pleasures, made all the sweeter by his taste for vengeance and the rush of his newly regained power.

“Ahhhhhh,” surged out of him in an audible gush as he hammered the red-haired slut down. “Ahhhhhhhhhh, fuck fuck fucking CUNTSMMMMMMMMMMM,” pulled from him in the postmortem, post-coital orgasmic tremble. And, shaking and breathing hard, he pulls the penetrator loose from the disgusting heap on the floor and wheels himself back to the waiting vehicle, removing his gloves now. Nuttin’ to it.

Buckhead Springs

If ever there'd been a day when Eichord didn't need to come home to noise and aggravation, it was today, so perhaps that's why the little guy was on his mind so much as he threaded his way through the drive time outbound to Buckhead Springs. He decided he would will the night to be a good one. He wanted a little quiet time, and then dinner, and then some TL & C and early to bed.

When he'd interviewed the old couple in Vega, and the Amarillo people, he'd reached out for all the Spoda trails, paper and otherwise. Between MCTF and the locals it was all starting to funnel down his way now. Massive, useless, time-wasting printouts from the tangled tentacles of law enforcement. Man-hour-eating wild-goose chases that were endearing him to his colleagues in Buckhead not at all. All the wheelchair possibilities. All the institutional possibilities. Identikit feedback. Just the hospital records alone were impenetrable, it seemed, even with the computerized brain of the task-force sorting chaff.

Around a quarter to four he tried for the second time to pick up the gist of some material Doug Geary had sent him. A weighty thesis with the lighthearted title Proximal Root-causes of Homicidal Violence, jointly published by a think tank of clinicians. For the second time he read, “frustration, threat, or jealousy, for example, which can be subdivided into responsive and/or reactive aggression, sexual/social aggression, predatory/destructive,” he rubbed his eyes. All the slashes were making him constantly reassess and redefine each phrase. What the hell was wrong with these academicians? Couldn't they write a simple fucking sentence? This/slash/that—the mad slasher strikes again. I am tired/slash/bored, he thought.

“The proximal causes are multidisciplinary,” he read, “societal, political, environmental, military, industrial/technological, religiostic, economic, organizational...” He skipped a paragraph, stifling a yawn. “...intellectualized value-judgments reached within the scholarly/academic communities and practical-solution-related theory generated experientially within...” Boring boring fucking boring. He closed his eyes and rubbed, yawning until his jaw cracked.

It wasn't even four and he felt guilty, so he picked up some of the reports and started wading through them, reading and making notes with his felt-tipped pen as he read, and by four-thirty he had completed an ornate set of printed notes that surrounded a huge legal-pad-size doodle of a stick figure in a wheelchair, titled in big printed cartoon letters ARTHUR SPODA? A stick figure of a man in a chair holding an icepick over the question mark. Enough, he said, round-filing it and getting up with a sigh. Nothing was more tiring than nothing.

Jonathan, as if he'd read Jack's mind somehow, was again on his all-time best behavior. He'd become particularly docile in Donna's hands, or so Jack thought, when she'd started using their videocassette recorder to tape an afternoon cartoon show that was a great fascination of the boy's. Two shows really, a kid-participation show of a man dressed as a fat clown, and a cartoon show of the most violent hero-villain antics imaginable. Eichord was especially grateful for it tonight, guaranteeing as it did a still and blissful after-dinner hour with their son hypnotized by his electronic baby-sitter.

Jack truly felt love for the boy even in the worst, most anxious moments. He'd never regretted their decision for a heartbeat. He adored the Foster Services people for having cut through the antediluvian codes and usual incogitant coldness of the faceless bureaucracy to make it possible for the Eichords to become instant parents. There'd never been a moment when he'd felt less than complete paternal love for the child—but in quiet moments he realized how much MORE he cherished what he thought of as a more or less normal domesticized home life.

“I love this time of the night,” she told him from across the room.

“Yeah.” What's not to love? The cartoons had the boy frozen, his arm around a flea-free Blackie. All was right in God's world.

“He loves this show,” she whispered reverently.

“Unn.” He smiled. Trying not to be too analytical about the business he'd seen a few moments ago. He came from the era of funny animal cartoons. The Fleischers’ Popeye and Terrytoons’ Mighty Mouse. They'd come a long way, baby, he thought, when the head of a barbarian was sliced off before wee Jack Eichord's rapt gaze.

He would no more let such thoughts intrude on their heavenly peace than he could run out screaming into the night. Goodwill to men. May the canoes of your people forever glide across still and tranquil seas, Jack Eichord. When the taped show ended, it would be nighty-night time and then we'd move right along to the touchy-feely portion of the evening's activities.

He looked over at Donna, turning the pages of a magazine, and he was struck by the innocence in her face. The skin he loved to touch, smooth as silk and baby soft.

Smooth as silk was, in fact, precisely Eichord's thought as he and Donna stretched out side by side, she reading, Jack noodling and schmoodling, the look of her in that lace-covered teddy, propped on a pillow, her back to him, suggesting the feel of just that fabric. So maybe it was machine-washable, tumble-dry nylon, or Lycra Spandex, or nylon tricot, or...

“You know,” she purred, “this looks like a great lawn mower for us. It's one hundred and twenty-five dollars. On sale.” She was reading hardware ads in the Buckhead paper. She turned slightly and the teddy tightened over a delightful-looking swell of beautiful breast.

“I like the way it's cut,” he said, admiring the way her recently bathed skin glistened in the high-cut leg opening.

“Um hmm. I think it would do a good job."

“It certainly would,” he said. Her legs looked so long and smooth and there was a little opening that beckoned and he snuggled up beside her.

“Why do I get the feeling you're not really into lawn mowers at the moment?” She moved back against him.

“I can't imagine.” He sniffed her. Essence of Donna. She smelled of woman. “You sniff good."

“Bet I sniff like soap."

“Ah. Sorry. A wrong answer. You folks playing the game at home, you know that means, Mrs. Eichord must lose another piece of clothing. So...” He began helping her.

“Hey,” she protested.

“Sorry again, but rules are rules."

They made tender, romantic love together and Donna fell asleep immediately. They slept on their own sides of the big bed, but tonight Jack had stayed close to his wife. As close to her as he could without touching, letting himself slowly wind down as he listened to her breathing change and then deepen into sleep, and he felt like he might have been asleep for about five minutes when the phone made its jarring noise.

“Yaaaa,” he groaned into the telephone, nerves jangled by the rude awakening.

“What?” Donna said just as a Metro detective told him he was needed on the scene of a homicide.

“Huh? What time is it?” It was after five a.m., he was told. Woman in an antique shop. Custodial-service dude found the body. Bad jazz, the detective told him.

“What is it?” Donna said.

“Okay,” Eichord said, writing down the address. “Hold it. Shit.” He couldn't read what he'd just printed, still squinting through half-shut eyes.

“Wha—” Donna turned, waking up, seeing he was on the phone. Her head fell back into the soft pillow.

Eichord sat on the edge of the bed and took several deep breaths and then pretended that an electric charge was going to be sent through the bed and if he didn't stand up in three seconds he'd be electrocuted. An old technique from his hangover days. He lurched to his feet and stumbled into the bathroom, forcing himself to splash water onto his neck and face. He emptied his bladder and started throwing clothes on.

A few minutes later he was passing the early-risers, red ball on, shooting over a bridge that led to an impoverished Buckhead suburb he always thought of as Hubcap City. It reminded him instantly of Vega, Texas, this time.

Eichord's car clicked over the metal expansion covers that drew lines across the bridge in a percussive, foot-tapping metallic rhythm of fast rim shots. His mouth, bereft of toothpaste or even coffee, tasted foul.

“Tunk-ka-tunk-ka-tunk-ka-tunk-ka-tunk-ka-tunk,” paradiddle Joe, “ka-tunk-ka-tunk,” to-kill it suggested, “to-kill, to-kill, to-kill, to-kill, to-kill.” And the metronomic metal rim shots echoed the steady staccato of the drummers paradidles and “to-kill-to-kill-to-kill” played counterpoint to the ensemble as it swung into the reprise of an old dance number, “tunk-ka-tunk-ka-tunk-ka” hypnotic and unrelenting, and Eichord would be so glad when it stopped. He needed coffee. Badly.

A rickety, endangered lion glared at him from a pedestal as he pulled up by the Day-Glo crime-scene tape. A wobbly Lion gas pump on its last legs, and he eased on across the crunching gravel and parked.

It was next door to a strange-looking building surrounded by a pair of fences. First, inexplicably, wood, and then a chain link, and each fence embraced some junker's wet dream. A junk collector's paradise. El Paradiso of el Junko. Each fence was a silver blight and it had been the first thing he'd seen long before he spotted the crime tape. He had been mesmerized by it, in fact, miles back down the highway, and this happened to him every time he'd driven this way, but now it took on a frightening, paradoxical aspect that jabbed him like a shiny knife blade. Hubcaps. Every fence for miles had been covered in bright, shiny chrome hubcaps.

Without the Day-Glo tape this was just another yard full of junk. Some of it small, back-porch-size, yard-sale junk. Garage-sale junk. And more of it massive orange boxcars, great, rusting mastodons of junk, wholesale junk tonnage that stretched from one hubcapped fence to the next, and from one property line to the next. Junk of every imaginable description and origin as far as the eye cared to see. What statement were they making? he always wondered as he drove quickly through Hubcap City. What were they saying about themselves or about our car culture here? All these hubcaps. Were these the collectibles of the future? The Coke signs of the twenty-second century? Were they saving these errant hubcaps for the Big Hubcap Shortage of 2099? Waiting for hubcaps to become rarities like the deco hood ornaments of the 1920s? Waiting for somebody who just had their hubcaps stolen?

Surely not. Every vehicle owner in New York City could park in the worst block of the South Bronx or wherever, come back in an hour to find it stripped down to the frame, and they could all get their hubcaps replaced here. There were enough hubcaps to cover the world's cars here. Mind-boggling walls of hubcaps shining in the hot sun. An endless row of chrome glinting like strange omens to ward off evil, and obviously, here at least, failing.

Hubcapville. Relics, perhaps, of the wheel-cover wars of the Frightening Nineties. What were these people doing with all these artifacts of Detroit mediocrity? Where did they come from? They came, probably, from all the vehicles parked in all these yards and fields. Millions of cars—junkers of every model and make. Some on blocks. Some on stilts. Some alone. Some in flattened stacks of hundreds. Some in pyramids of wrecks. The tomb of the modern Tutankhamen—a General Motors emblem the Michigan counterpart of a hieroglyphic—the last thing to rust away. Even down the side roads that were but a single mudded-out rut when the rains came, every dilapidated sharecropper's house had thirteen vehicles in the yard. Some unfit to run, some mere shells (bought for all one knew from the South Bronx—ten for a penny—a bargain?), and some without configuration. A truck cab without front or back, as if a mighty knife had sliced across the center third.

Eichord took a deep breath and went inside. There was a metal soft-drink sign out on the porch, but on the door itself the building's original name could be seen in faded letters. At one time this had been the Possum Grape General Store. Eichord tried to remember what possum grapes were. Had he ever eaten possum grapes, poke salad, collard greens, country soul food? Poke Salad Annie, he recalled from years back. But the only music he could hear inside his head was the ka-tunk-ka-tunk-to-kill-to-kill rhythm.

Poke Salad Annie was a woman of forty-two years. He tried to remember the way she would be described on the autopsy report later. What was that hideous phrase they always used in the beginning of the report? Poke Salad Annie is a well-developed female Caucasian. Something like that. He had autopsy videos where other people his age had X-rated porn hidden away in a special drawer. He had seen all the autopsy surgery he cared to see—enough to hold any man, he thought—and he imagined his own report. Jack Eichord would be a well-developed male Caucasian.

Good evening, friends and neighbors. I'm glad to be able to speak to you on this auspicious occasion on this suspicious Caucasian why do they always look so terrible when you find them dead the legs out like a discarded rag doll the head turned wrong the skin discolored the blood if there is blood the eyes the sexual the lacerations the penetration the asphyxiation the oh Christ the death of a red-haired fortyish Poke Salad Annie in the Possum Grape General Store, Hubcap City, he could feel the bile rising in his throat and he looked around and mentally noted that the woman sold cut glass for a living and then even that phrase had a frightening ring...

Cut glass.

But this rag doll's head was not turned wrong and her eyes still stared, unseeing, with that peculiar rigor-mortis hollowness. The woman was flat on her back, a pair of wounds to the left side of the skull like the incisor bite of a giant vampire bat, gray matter, coagulating blood, and God-knows-what-else circling her head like a grisly halo. And now Eichord felt certain that Arthur Spoda was alive and well and living very near.

Outside the door Eichord saw something in the dirt and said to the man making plaster casts of vehicle treads, “You get this?"

“Huh?"

“This one here.” He pointed to a small track beside the walkway.

“Yeah. I got it. In the van.” He gestured. “Lot of fucking good THIS is gonna do. Shit, they been walkin’ around all over this shit...” He mumbled off, cursing to himself in disgust.

It was the track of something small. It could have been the imprint of one of the wheels of a wheelchair.

Buckhead Station

Three hours later, the body tagged, flagged, and bagged, the scene peeled and sealed, Eichord sat reading the distillation of the initial footwork on Spoda:

AmeriMed Corporation

Browar's Pharmaceutical

Buckhead General

Buckhead Medical Park

Buckhead Memorial

Buckhead Surgical Supplies

Buckhead Therapy Center

Childs Institute

Everest & Jennings Wheelchairs

Fierstone-Laverty

Killian, Merriam and O'donnell Clinic

Moore Health Care

Palmer Medical Institute

Sears (health care department)

Eichord continued to scan the three-page list of possibilities. Where somebody might go locally to have a wheelchair maintained or repaired, where they might seek therapy, where a copper could look for a blood trail. Still cross-checking the voluminous printouts from the institutional records feeding Buckhead Station and the task-force computers. Less than a starting place so far. Not even a hunch. Just some makework while he sifted possibilities. No fingerprints, witnesses, clues, footprints, unless you count the vague wheel track outside the cut-glass emporium.

What he had was the bizarre M.O. that could indeed reflect a copy-cat killer who had read some twenty-year-old newspaper or magazine pieces, or seen ancient film footage in an obscure local documentary, or heard about a kill mode from a fellow con or patient, or, of course, it could be a man who had picked up his icepick after two decades.

What did he know? He now knew that Tina Hoyt and ... He glanced down at Poke Salad Annie's real name—June Graham. Two women had been taken down by the iceman. The labwork made them identical kills. Funny how fast the lab was when it was easy.

If it was Arthur Spoda—and Jack's vibes said yes—why had he not killed again for twenty years? If the man in Vega had been right, it was because Arthur had been confined to a chair. Now, suddenly, the murders begin anew. Did this mean Spoda was no longer wheelchair bound? Or had he figured a way to cause these victims to die from his chair, such as a surrogate killer whom he might manipulate. Eichord printed another word on his legal pad. The list now read:

Spoda.

Copycat.

Surrogate.

To which he added a fourth word:

Con.

And then he changed all the periods to question marks. By CON he meant as in confidence man, for it occurred to him this would be a hell of a clever setup that could theoretically be used as a smoke screen to cover up a killing with a far different motive. And he added the word:

Tontine.

Some insurance policy, he thought. But being an aficionado of ancient, creaking, sliding-bookcase-in-the-dark-house movies, he had seen his share of tontines, both real and imaginary. One of the most important cases of his career had been a tontine-related kill—a woman he'd finally tracked down in the Orient, thanks to his dear and now departed pal, Jimmie Lee.

How to cover up a killing with motive: somebody extremely clever might be willing to do a lot of homework and take some absurdly unnecessary chances, all in the hopes of constructing such a seamless homicide that the real motivation would never show through. The tontine had been a natural progression of the thought pattern. First he thought of the old movie plot where Joe and Tom each agree to kill the other's spouse, leaving both of them an air-tight alibi. They were STILL making that one! And then the tontine—the now-illegal pact where Tom and Dick and Harry agree that the last surviving signatory gets the bag of emeralds—a nice invitation to murder. Con or tontine?

I want to murder Joe. I wait until the Holmby Hills Strangle? strikes for the third time, killing his victim with a pair of knotted pantyhose. Thuggee-style. I do my homework. Then I invite Joe to Holmby Hills and strangle him with knotted pantyhose. It needs a little work, but still...

I'm Arthur Spoda. I move to Buckhead from Las Vegas, and after twenty years they find a cure for polio. I regain the use of my legs. After twenty years I get up and walk again! Eichord wrote, Scenario?

But who says Arthur WAS in a chair for all that time. He's injured in Vega. Moves to Las Vegas, Nevada. Eventually his beautiful pony of a girlfriend nurses him back to health. He moves to Cleveland. He moves to Muncie. Fargo. Buckhead. Drives to the nearest metropolitan area where he wants to kill. What if the killer had been killing all along but not with an icepick? Bludgeonings. Strangulations.

Missing persons? What if he'd been killing with an icepick all along, sure enough, but he'd found a way to dispose of the bodies. He's in the construction business now. He pours concrete footings for parking garages. Acme Parking in Fargo is a mausoleum for 132 dead women. Maybe he just doesn't sign his name to the artwork.

“What are you doin’ here?” Brown's voice cuts through Jack's thoughts as the detective hangs up his coat, obviously a rhetorical question.

“Precisely my sentiments."

“That's a good question,” somebody said behind him. The guys on the eight-to-four tour were coming into the squad bay.

“Read it and weep, baby,” he said, pointing vaguely in the direction of the crime report on the morning's homicide.

“Jane Graham,” Eichord says aloud, the first time he'd spoken Poke Salad Annie's real name, “Iceman Murder Number Two.” He read his list to them. “Other possibilities?"

“What about that note?” Brown asked. Meaning the thing the paper had received. “What if it wasn't just a crank note? Suppose that's the killer. How do we know Jane Graham wasn't a feminist deal, a what-yacallem women's libber, or a dyke or whatever? Might be worth looking at?"

“Bullshit,” somebody said.

“We'll look. Sure. But, no, I don't think so. The women's movement in Buckhead, and in fact nationally, is anything but militant. All that remains of the cutting edge of it is a relatively small core of political activists who've paid their dues in the trenches. Only the fringe people still come on with the radical rhetoric—and where is there any evidence of serious hostility? No pattern of threats. No zoned-out cranks wanting to off the political piggies. None of that, man. What's the note say?” He glanced over at a dossier and opened it and thumbed through to find a photocopy.

“Women's lib whores must die,” Brown said.

“Here you go: dyke whores must die. women's lib cunts have destroyed the family and they will pay! i strike with the hand of christ.” He laid the dossier down and picked up a stack of Xeroxes. “I think it's garbage. Sorry. No way. Some dude wanted to get us a little crazy, some cop-hater, and fortunately he or she isn't hip enough to couch the thing in post-feminist phraseology. He probably saw ‘women's movement’ in a news story and decided to pull our bell rope a little. Maybe Tina Hoyt was a women's libber five or six years ago but she was too political to let herself aim that narrowly now. I've looked over a couple of her speeches and they're broad-based. Not the sort of thing to enrage anybody in the audience. No ‘chauvinist pig'-type vocabulary. Also, the note came a day late and a dollar short. On the other hand, we'll take it seriously. We're still working on the typewriter, and one thing and another. Read the operational memo. And speaking of which...” He started passing out pages. “June Graham we gotta keep buttoned down tight. Man, we let the press in on this baby, we'll never hear the end of it. We've got to stay chilly with it. No icepick stuff. No ‘Iceman Murder Victim,’ and I don't want anybody talking or writing about any ‘puncture wounds.’ Let's play this one real close. June Graham is a STABBING until you hear differently. Keep it all in-house with regard to Graham. Do we have a suspect? Yes. Is it related to the Hoyt homicide? No. What do WE know, right? We don't know nuttin'."

“You got that right."

“Um hmm. So much for media. The perpetrator: we'll call him Arthur Spoda Junior. The Iceman from Texas. Amarillo screws the pooch and Artie baby-walks. Or rolls, I should say, Mommy having caught him with Sis and done a J.O.B. on his spine. He rolls to Vegas."

“He's a high-roller,” somebody says.

“Yeah. Blends in with all the other nutbaskets out there. Gets a couple dollahs. Goes to Dallas. Des Moines. Dubuque, Paducah, whatever. Then he comes here. He's born again. Something something something. Lightning strikes his wheelchair and he gets up and walks after twenty years. Mad as hell, and he's right back where he left off. Whacking out middle-aged women."

“Tina Hoyt wasn't that old."

“So maybe he got lucky. What can I tell ya? Hoyt pisses him off and-bang! Down she goes. How do we find him?” Eichord push-pins one of the drawings to the wood frame around the cork bulletin board.

“We go all the places somebody might have had therapy in recent years, chair-bound PROBABLY—maybe not. Forty—forty-two-year-old white male who looks anything remotely like the composite. This guy got better in the LAST YEAR OR SO. No longer handicapped. That's one.

“Two is our copy-cat. Three, remember the surrogate. Our man is still in the chair but he's got a friend or lover who will do the deed for him. He's the doc. He plans ‘em, his buddy does ‘em. Or it's all a scam. Somebody tied to Hoyt or Graham looking for camouflage. Don't dismiss anything. Even if he just...” Eichord trailed off into space. “You know. Looks weird."

He could hear Brown giggle and say a rude word.

“Whatever."

North Buckhead

“You know what, love?” he told the beautiful woman who was facedown on the king-size bed beside him, her head down at the foot of the bed, thinking that lots of “real” women in their twenties would love to look like Nicki did.

“What?"

“Hmm,” he told her in reply, rubbing the back of her slick right thigh. Taking hold of the leg high up, his huge hand spanning the slim leg and squeezing, not trying to hurt her but not being particularly gentle either as he squeezed and slid his hand up a little higher, cupping her upper thigh right under the cheek of her buttocks.

“Hmm?” She was working a puzzle and a little preoccupied, and he let the hand pinch her a little as it moved up.

“Mmm.” She had on a string bikini and gold-colored sandals with extremely high heels. A tiny gold leg chain on her right ankle said Daddy, and the gold waist chain said Nicki.

“What?” she said again.

“Pay attention to me, bitch,” he joked with her, but cruelly taking hold of her long hair and pulling it back like a handle.

“Don't, Daddy,” she whispered sexily, “don't hurt your baby. What are the names of three actresses with five-letter first names who've been nominated for Academy ?"

“Susan Saranwrap, Molly Ringworm, and Merry Steamengine,” he offered, without a beat.

“Mary is four letters."

“Yeah,” he grunted as he ripped the top of her bikini off, pulling her up to him. He was naked, propped up in the big bed on a mound of pillows, his hairy, muscular upper torso encircling her as he fed on her hungrily for a few moments.

“Hey,” he said, pushing her away and looking at her in a serious manner, “I just thought of something."

“What?"

“Bonnie."

“Who?"

“You know. Your friend Princess Di of the wrinkled toes. Her buddy Bonnie she was always blabbering about."

“So?"

“So she's a kind of loose end, ya know?"

“Huh uh. She's covered. Remember—I got that postcard. It already went out to the nigger girl I told you about in California,"—she shook her head—"so, like no problemo. In a couple of weeks she gets the first card from sunny Cal. Remember?"

“I know. That was soooooooo clever. I do like it. In fact, I love it.” He kissed her. “But she's a loose end. I think we should handle her."

“What do you mean ‘handle'?"

“Okay. If I was legitimately Funny Toes’ heartthrob, I'd be sick about Princess Di being gone. And ole Bonnie is going to think that her idiot bitch friend ran off with me to California. Who the fuck knows if she might get crazy and put the cops on me? True, she probably doesn't know much. But it seems to me the smartest thing we could do is eliminate the possibility of a problem. Go ahead and send the card blah-blah, and so on and so forth, and then I get in touch with Bonnie. I wonder whatever happened to Diane. We get together and I dispose of this little loose end."

“No fucking way. No, Daddy. That's a serious mistake. You should never have any contact with Bonnie at all. She doesn't know you. You're clear of it."

“Yeah. But dig it, YOU could get her for us."

“No, don't make me do it. I don't like it. It's risky."

“There, there, now,” he said, a hand closing on one of her breasts, “we'll work it out all neat. Don't worry your sweet tits about it.” He pulled her to him.

Buckhead Station

The morning was another pisser. The rain stopped around ten a.m. and Eichord didn't see anybody scrambling for their cars. The sky was slate-colored, with swollen, gunmetal clouds looking ready to open up again any minute. Everybody in the squad room was knee-deep in paperwork, and in truth, by the end of the second day Hoyt-Graham, the Iceman dossier, was citywide, then countrywide, and had mushroomed from three to some eighteen pages.

Eichord had the Ps. Palmer Med, Peek Equipment, Inc., Pioneer Home Care, Poole-Weintraub Associates, Puritan Hospital Consultants, Inc., and he added a possible from his homemade list, Parker's Pharmacy. It was times like this detectives felt the sting of cutbacks in the force, and what the reality of limited budgets meant when you had to hit the streets.

Hoyt-Graham was becoming a massive compilation of possibles, data-processors spewing out guys in their early forties, with some record of wheelchair usage, living within a 50 mile radius of the area served by the greater Buckhead Cross Index. The drawing had been a total strikeout. Eichord slid his chair back with a screech, murmured good-bye forever, and forced himself out into the wet streets.

Ten days later it had all added up to a mountain of maybes and nothing much solid. A week and a half of pounding pavement and making phone calls. Jack Eichord had learned more about wheelchair life than he'd really wanted to know: from the chair models that had the best riggings to the problems of decubitus to the unique environment of the chairbound individual; a world of disabled parking spaces and shopping-mall ramps and extrawide, elongated commode stalls that your average shuffler took for granted.

“Whatta we got, guys?"

“I got a woody,” Dana offered.

“Another first. What we got is about twenty-two men who look if not good at least possible."

“Bullshit,” fat Dana whined.

“Nu? Speak?"

“We got Jumping Jack shit and you know it."

“Possibles, he said, Moby, clean out cher blowhole,” Monroe Tucker suggested halfheartedly.

“Blow this."

“But there's a solid and I think rich area,” Eichord went on, unperturbed. “And that's in the parallel search. Let's keep combing the pawn shops, office-supply companies, schools who purchased new or used equipment recently, the local buy-sell-rent-trade ads for typewriters, newspaper classifieds, radio/bulletin-board sales, neighborhood word-of-mouth among the garage-sale addicts—let's see who our friend with the ‘hand of Christ’ turns out to be."

“You said it was garbage. You didn't like the one who typed the letter. How come you like it now?"

“Can't a girl change her mind, fer crissakes? Anyway, let's find the sucker. See who typed it. I mean, at least it would be a positive lead. Let him prove to us he or she IS a crank."

But what Jack believed in his secret heart was that the more he looked at the list of impossible-possibles, the three-foot-tall bilateral amputees and embittered (rightfully) Nam vets who couldn't get the government to pay for a chair it had caused them to be put into, the less faith he had in the Hoyt-Graham data.

The work was piling up in an intimidating paper mountain, and the more Jack looked at it, the more he liked the concept of an extremely intelligent killer who could set up a carefully concocted series of crimes that would APPEAR to look like copy-cat kills. And then, when the cops looked at the murders, the case would peel away like an onion, layer after layer, and suddenly the inside would be hollow. Hello? Surprise—nobody home.

Two weeks and change. The twenty-two name list had yielded little gold. Eichord hadn't a vibe worth reflecting on. He'd just finished with Sam Nagel, a pitiful old gent who broke his heart for half an hour, the oldest forty-two-year-old he'd ever met.

“Thanks again,” Jack said, trying to take his leave.

“It wasn't any bother. I was glad to talk to you."

“Okay. Well, take care” Eichord said, starting to turn.

“I don't mind helping out the police. You know, you all is about all there is that stands between us and the bad people. And we should support our law-enforcement officers."

“Right. Appreciate it."

“I see it all around. The collapse of the old moral codes. The old values are gone. The respect for law and order. Take your kids today: some of them don't seem to have any respect for anybody else's rights. And you know what I say? I say if you don't respect yourself first, you aren't going to be able to respect anybody else either."

“That's right,” Jack said.

The man was so lonely for somebody to talk to. They made some more conversation and finally Eichord was able to make a friendly, graceful exit and wave farewell to the oldest forty-two-year-old man on Planet Earth, and he had to fight not to cross his name off. There were three names that he'd made check marks by:

ADAMS, Hayden

BOLEN, Willard (check)

BRITTEN, Morris

CARTER, Jerry

CUNNINGHAM, Harold

DENNENMUELLER, Mike (check)

FREIDRICHS, Keith (check)

GIBBAR, Robert

GILLESPIE, Jeff

HOWARD, Edwin

JAMES, Felix

JONES, Mark

MULLINS, Craig

NAGEL, Sam

ROSE, Louis

SCHUMWAY, Alan

SCHWAB, David

SMITH, Rick

TREPASSO, Phil

WHITE, Blake

WISEMAN, Eben

ZOFUTTO, Mario

Willard Bolen was a veteran who had an ax to grind against the United States government, Society in General, and the World. He had become embroiled in a wheelchair dispute that had never been totally resolved, beginning when he attempted to get Uncle Sam to pay for a fancier-model chair than was permitted, and snowballing into other areas. The odds that he was Spoda were so great as to be astronomical, but he got a check mark for murderous rage.

Mike Dennenmueller had records to prove he was a diabetic, and the fact that he was an amputee would have made him an impossible but there was no paper trail on him for fifteen of the last eighteen years. You could follow him back in time about three years and then he appeared to go up in smoke. If Dennenmueller was Spoda, was it possible he'd figured out a way to kill from the chair? Eichord filed it under science fiction, but he kept the check mark by his name. He also had mannerisms that bothered Jack. He wore his hostility carefully disguised under a mask of banter, but there was a lot more to him than met the eye.

If Eichord had to say, One guy looks good if not to be Spoda, then to be capable of homicide, he would have said Freidrichs was the man. He had total paralysis of his lower body and as vicious a personality as Jack could remember having encountered. The man was a seething, boiling volcano of potential violence. An attractive man of forty-one, Keith Freidrichs had a badly retarded brother and he ran a downtown arcade from his chair. It struck Eichord that if someone could manage to get hold of a badly retarded individual who could not be easily traced, they might make an impenetrable cover.

Freidrichs was supposedly paralyzed from a car wreck of long ago, but the records were sufficiently hazy. Eichord was continuing to look at the man very hard. One thing was certain: this individual appeared, at least, to be capable of all the things attributed to Arthur Spoda, and until the background checks proved otherwise, he was a prime suspect.

Louis Rose didn't remain on the list for long. “Sorry,” Eichord was told when he called to set up an appointment, “Louis passed away last August.” There were twenty-one names now. Alan Schumway. Jeezus! Talk about an unlikely candidate to be a suspect in a homicide investigation. Schumway, the well-known automobile dealer, an irritating fixture on local TV, was probably the third most famous person in a wheelchair living in the Buckhead area. Beat out only by a poster kid for a major charity and the Buckhead County tax collector. Eichord suspected he'd allowed Schumway's name to make the final cut only because he disliked the man so intensely.

That, and the fact that Schumway's initials were the same as Arthur Spoda's, and Eichord probably succumbed to the perverse temptation of keeping him on the list in the hopes of proving that not EVERY human being with an IQ of 70 or more knew that when you change your name, you first must change your initials.

Nobody would argue that Schumway was weird enough and misanthropic enough to be a murderer, but he'd have some trouble in the anonymity department. Buckhead's Cal Worthless, somebody had called him, with the added visibility of being in a chair. Schumway Buick commercials were, inarguably, the most abrasive and loathed, and—unfortunately—successful, on local television. Grudgingly, Eichord admitted he felt a good measure of respect for the man; like the aforesaid county politician, he had proved that what one might regard as a disabling handicap another might use for great personal advantage.

The first time, the only time, Eichord had actually met the man in the flesh had been on a rainy summer morning a year or so ago. Eichord had been coerced into taking up golf after many years’ hiatus and had forced himself out on the course for therapeutic reasons. His “rabbi” on the task force had browbeat him about his all-work-no-play dullness and he'd soon found himself chasing the stupid white ball all over Buckhead Springs, or Brook Haven, or Willowcrest—the public course and cheaper golf clubs.

That particular rainy morning he'd been invited to play on someone's membership in the toney Buckhead Country Club, and out of curiosity had gone out early to get nine in before work on a Friday morning.

The fairways looked like the greens where he'd become used to playing. He had no idea where the pins were, and when no one had materialized near the first tee, he smacked one out optimistically into the expanse of bright green and set off to find it.

He was on the fourth hole, a long, intimidating dogleg leading away from the clubhouse, when the summer sky turned menacingly dark and one of those sudden rainstorms began pelting him as he grabbed his clubs and ran in the direction of two other golfers playing an adjacent hole. Their destination appeared to be a small caddy shack behind one of the beautifully manicured greens. The two men, Eichord hot in pursuit, splashed into the confines of the dark shack to find it full of wet guys listening to a man in a wheelchair who greeted them with,

“New arrivals. More idiots!” Laughter. Eichord saw the car dealer from TV sitting in his wheelchair, totally out of place here. “I know full well you're wondering why I called this meeting and brought you together this morning,” he boomed in that voice so familiar from the television spots. There were a couple of damp snickers as the words “FULL WELL” boomed through the small dark shack.

“I'm going to take this opportunity,” Alan Schumway said, rolling his eyes skyward and wiping water from his dark head of hair, “to share some important secrets of life with you.” One of the strangers dripping water in the darkened and somewhat chilly shack pulled a half-pint from his golf bag, and a murmur of approval welled up among the impromptu audience. Nothing except the presence of a woman being as welcome in a tightly confined group of men as a bottle of booze.

“The smoking lamp is not lit, but feel free to imbibe.” The men just looked at him sitting there. Someone standing beside the wheelchair let out a nervous laugh. “Gentlemen and ladies—if any are secretly present, and you know who you are—I'm Al Schumway, your temporary host.” He gestured. “My home is your home. Please don't treat it like a pigsty."

Eichord declined the whiskey with thanks and passed it back to the owner, who killed it.

“I'm going to share some secrets with you that will change your barren and obviously drab lives,” the crippled man boomed, cheerfully putting everybody on. Eichord suddenly realized what had made the deep ruts leading into the shack. He'd assumed them to be from a golf cart of some type but now realized this man had made them from his chair. What the hell was a man in a WHEELCHAIR doing playing golf—in the rain? For that matter, what were any of them doing playing golf in the rain?

“I'm a closet Democrat. I pull off those little tags that say do not remove under penalty of law.” He stared at Eichord with hard, unblinking eyes. “Are there any pigs here? Any flatfoots? Narcs? Stoolies? Rats? Food-mooching, donut-sucking cops?” Eichord smiled by way of response. “Well, not to worry. This cowering toadie,"—he gestured at the sheepish man beside him—"is my attorney, and he will remain present during any interrogation.

“As well as having dubious political affiliations and a marked disregard for tags on furniture, I confess to other sins of the flesh. I have never paid for a book-club offer. I send for the books, you know. Where you get five great new books for a dollar? And then you're supposed to send them $3 .99 for your next selection? I keep the books and never send them shit. Also I once lived for two years by putting signs saying this machine is out of order & owes me 50 cents on vending machines all over the Atlantic seaboard. I lived quite handsomely. As you can see I'm quite handsome, so I always live that way, but my vending-machine scam was extremely successful.” The deep voice and the tone of the jivey conversation was just like he favored in his obnoxious TV spots.

“But before I continue, lest someone of a thin-skinned ethnic persuasion be offended, are there any non-Aryans present? Any Rosicrucians or members of any other off-the-wall or what we might consider freak-o religious orders such as Scientologists, Holy Rollers, Jehova's Witlesses, Baptists, Cat-lickers, Masons, Jews, Protestants, Lutherans? Epissypalians? Demonologists? Press-butt-terians? Reptile-kissers? Mackerel-snappers? Knights of Columbus? Campfire Girls? Lesbian Save-the-Whalers? Speak right up. I wouldn't want to offend any persons of, shall we say, suspect lineage? Are there any Negroid or mulah-toe types among us? Spies? Micks? Pollocks? Slopes? Dinks? Gooks? Fruits? Fags? Queens? Messicans? Beaners? Greasers? Wops? Guineas? Dagos? Shines? Spades? Jungle Bunnies? Krauts? Huns? Darkies? Shanties? Couch-'tators? Rednecks? Crackers? Greco-Romans? Serbo-Croats? Sheenies? Moravians? Frogs? Wogs? Kikes? Hebes? Bagel Beaks? Muff-divers? Beaver Cleavers? Poontang punishers? Snatch Gobblers...?"

He took a breath and somebody went “Jeezus,” and he said, “Jesus! Wonderful! Brethern, HE is with us today. So we will ask him for divine guidance before I continue. Let us bow our heads in a moment of silent prayer.” It was an uncomfortable moment. The mocking voice had turned serious, and nobody knew quite what to make of this nut. Was he for real? Nobody bowed their heads and he looked up at the men and said in a quiet but authoritarian whisper, “I'm not kidding now, guys. Let's do bow our heads just for a second and give thanks for our blessings—okay?” So sincere, this crazy guy in the wheelchair. And everybody bowed their heads like idiots and he shouted, “AMEN, brothers and sisters."

The men looked up. One or two nervous guffaaws. “I never said nothin’ about no LONG prayer.” They laughed in spite of themselves. “Now, dearly beloved, let us, and tomato, but first, consider the odds of us being thrown together like this, drawn by the weather's ferocity, granted that there are worse things than wind and rain, namely thunder, lightning, cyclone, hurricane, tornado, tidal wave, cataclysm, mushroom cloud, a fart after a large Hungarian dinner. Surely some higher BEING, some greater FORCE, some guiding DESTINY, a God or gods above, or below, has preordained this moment. How many of you really BELIEVE?” he boomed in his preacher's oratorical resonance.

And one of the men had just about had his fill of it and said, “I don't hold with joking about a man's religion,” spoken in a very quiet voice.

And, not missing a beat, Schumway turned his eyes on the man standing about three feet above him in stature and cut him down to size in a deadly, perfect, withering, incredible Gunsmoke voice, “How djew lak to step outside and take your shirt off, big boy?"

Everybody broke up, and he turned to the lawyer, unsmiling, and said, “Go over to the Long Branch and fetch Doc and Fester and all the boys. Tell ‘em this here GALOOT has gone and called ole Matt a dirty name an’ we're fixin to step outside and SETTLE THIS.” Turning back to the man who'd spoken, he said in his best James Arness, “I don't HOLD with hittin’ cripples, mister, now go for your HOGLEG."

Everybody roared, including the man who'd been so offended a moment ago. He smiled and said, “No offense, man. I just don't like to joke about some things, ya know?"

“Hey"—the man in the chair was so immediately and genuinely sincere, so apologetic, in a soft voice full of gentleness and caring—"I know. I'm the one who should apologize to YOU, friend. After all, consider what the good Lord above has equipped you with: your level of intellect is such that knowing to come in out of the rain may well be your high-water mark, so to speak. Let me ask you, my religiostic, do you comprehend the true implications of what these other heathen might erroneously delineate as theopneustic inspiration? Ahhhh, I see your eyes glazing over. Who's handicapped here, anyway? But never mind. Ignore my persiflage.” He waved an arm dramatically.

“I was only trying to lighten the tension and make us all forget that there's a flash flood taking our cars down Country Club boulevard right now ... that we're trapped in here together, sans electroluminescence and maid service, that Miss Kitty here is the only female and SHE has an unmentionable sex-related virus, that the bank foreclosed on the ranch, that the IRS is tapping our phones and the feds have a snitch among us"—he glanced over at Eichord—"that a madman in a daggone WHEELCHAIR is monopolizin the conversation and jes ruinin ever't-hang, Matthew.” This last sentence in a dead-bang perfect Dennis Weaver. The laughter was so gleefully surprised it almost sounded like theater applause.

Not long after that, mercifully, the rain abated and the golfers dispersed. Eichord's one chance meeting with the commercial Cosell of Buckhead had nonetheless remained vivid in memory. He had always realized that among his own faults was an excessively low tolerance for the pseudo-elitist who looked down on others, one who used his or her intelligence to skewer those considered to be inferior, and the fact that Schumway was in a chair did nothing to make him less contemptible. This was the emotion Jack identified as predominant in the thoroughness behind his background check on the controversial star of the commercials that invariably ended, “NOBODY beats a Schumway Buick deal! NO ... BOD ... EEEEEEE."

Eichord gave his name to a girl in a punky do who told him to have a seat, and he looked at the Schumway file as bored but hungry car salesmen milled around the showroom of Schumway Buick.

Soon the man himself rolled out of his office, a professional greeter's smile in place as he boomed across the showroom at Eichord, “it's Fearless Fuzzdick, the famous flatfoot. As they said when the first black astronaut left the launching pad at Cape, the jig is up!"

Eichord smiled and flashed some shield surreptitiously.

The man in the chair said, “Hold it now, let's get a look-see. That thing could have chicken inspector on it, for all I know.” Eichord, the smile still firmly on his face, opened the ID case and held it as Schumway read in a booming voice, “Jack Eichord, Secret Agent."

Everybody in the showroom was staring at them.

“Mr. Schumway.” He held out his hand, forcing the man to touch him, watching the eyes very closely to see how much of the animosity was real and how much was an act. “Appreciate you seeing me."

“Come on, hoss. When the Major Crimes Task Force's headhunter calls. Big Al listens. What can I do ya out of? Wanna deal on a used Fiero?"

“We're working on an investigation of the recent homicides and—"

“Well, I can account for my actions every minute of the time between the end of the Korean conflict and now. I have the perfect alibi. I was at a poker game the whole time. Ask any of these men. They're the finest witnesses money can buy. They all saw me. Right, boys?"

“Maybe we can talk in private?"

“Sure, Jack. My pleasure.” He spun the chair and rolled off toward his office, saying over his shoulder, “Sorta makes you feel like R2D2, doesn't it?"

Eichord looked back over at the car parked across the width of the showroom and motioned, turning after he saw Monroe Tucker get out of the vehicle.

“Have a seat. Inspector,” Schumway said. “Now, you want to know where I was on February the thirty-first?"

“Something like that,” Eichord said patiently. “We're checking on individuals in wheelchairs. Persons about your age—"

“Ahh-hah! Now, that is a serious crime. I thought you guys were nothing but donut-scarfing, do-nothing, chicken-coopers, but here you spring serious police work on me. Jayzus! I'd forgotten that it's a federal crime to be a middle-aged motha in a chair. Punishable by whipping, isn't it? Tongue-whipping by a young girl? All right. I surrender, Officer. Send her in and give me a couple dozen lashes. Tell her to lay it on. Show no mercy. Give me a real licking."

Eichord went on as if he'd been uninterrupted. “—and there was some relation to another investigation some years back"—he threw this part away—"and we had noticed some small discrepancies in your background. I was wondering if you could fill me in on where you were before"—he glanced at the dossier—"Atlantic City?"

“Norway,” he said, looking up as a huge black man's shadow filled the doorway. “You know what Mayor Dorf said when he introduced the then-presidential contender, Jesse Jackson?” Monroe stared at him like he was something he'd stepped into in a cow pasture. “What this country needs is a spear-chucker.” Schumway laughed as if Tucker wasn't there.

“Mr. Schumway, my partner—Detective Tucker."

“Lo.” The huge man nodded.

“Could you get my ball off the roof?” Nothing in Monroe's face changed.

Eichord began questioning Schumway about the past, watching the way he responded as much as he digested the man's words. There was no hesitation. No unnaturalness in his responses. Schumway was the anglicization of a name filled with umlauts and diacritical marks. He was, in fact, from Norway's “biggest fjord” and spelled the name for Eichord. His family was all deceased; however, the last he'd heard he had cousins still living in Oslo. His records had been lost when they were transferred from Atlantic City to Buckhead. He told the detectives the details of the auto accident that had put him in a wheelchair. He did an awful joke about opening up a Fjord-Buick dealership. An absolutely hideous wheelchair joke.

And Jack thanked him for his time. Getting into the car he said to Monroe, “What did you think about him?” He'd brought Tucker along to see if Schumway would overreact to him. He was curious if he was all the bigot he appeared to be or if it was some kind of pretense. He remembered thinking the day of the meeting on the course that the man's facade appeared to be calculated. Theatrical in an odd way.

“Say what?"

“How did you read him?"

“Sheeeeit."

“Meaning?"

“Just one mo’ fucked-up whitey."

Buckhead Springs

The cumulative effect of the day was like a nice, refreshing double back-flip into the cesspool. A day of noxious smells and deleterious people and nastiness that left you washing your hands until you felt like Lady Macbeth. Schumway was one of those people who gave off a particularly strong aura of unpleasantness. And the whole day had been like that.

Eichord walked in the door and started catching flak from Donna about some bills, not like her at all, and he made some remark about when dinner was going to be ready and she told him off and he snarled, “I love this warm welcome tonight. I worked my butt off, and instead of my nice, sexy wife I come home to the Wicked Witch of Buckhead Springs. How's about giving me a break, eh?"

“Oh, excuse me, dear. I'm so very sorry. But would you believe the CHILD has run me ragged today, I've got to balance our checkbook AND pay all the bills or I'll catch hell about it. I have to clean the house, I'm beat, I'm tired, I don't feel good, I'm getting my period, I'm goddamned bitchy and don't have your dinner ready on time and just can't be real soft and cuddly and coltish for you tonight? Okay?"

“Fine.” He sat down with a sigh and opened his mail. There was this awful packet of material on a case study being done on some weirded-out, misogynic asshole and his nitwit girlfriend who had a record of priors for going into public places and slashing each other on the ankles with razor blades, giggling like fools, and the cops would come and there'd be these two nuts sitting in a restaurant over two pools of blood. That's what got them off. One day the guy got bored and reached out and cashed in her chips right there over the seafood platter. All of this was illustrated, yet. The perfect cap on the day.

He was getting up to flick on the news channel and there was a loud crash at the other end of the house and he was up and out of the chair and moving before he heard her scream behind him, “Jonathan!"

“Honey,” he said, and reached out to rescue the little boy, who was seated in a shower of sharp glass shards. Eichord stepped forward without caution, he just wanted to make sure Jonathan didn't cut himself, and as he moved, the child gritted his teeth and ripped the thing he was holding, plucked from the wreckage of the broken picture frame, tearing in half Jack Eichord's favorite photograph of his long-deceased mother.

“You mean shit,” he said, the little child glaring up at him defiantly with eyes as hard and cold as small black marbles, Eichord swooping him up out of the glass and paddling his butt as hard as he could, thinking to himself, I could kill you, wanting to hit the child so hard, leaving purple fingermarks on the kid's bottom even through the layers of diapers and clothing.

“Jack,” was all she said, one word and a look. But Donna and Jack were close. She said a bookful with that look of reproach.

Eichord said, “He's not hurt,” over the screams of their son, “he's crying from humiliation more than pain."

“Come on, Jonathan.” She carried the kid off while Eichord swept up glass and tried to calm himself down. He looked up at her in the doorway as he was finishing and said, “I don't have a negative, of course.” The kid had ripped her head right off. Broken the glass to get to it. That said everything right there. Jesus.

“I know, hon, but your anger, my God!"

“Excessive. I know. I—” He couldn't think of what to say and just shook his head. He could hear the boy crying at the top of his lungs down at the other end of their home. Jack thought to himself, He had wanted to kill the kid when he saw him ripping the old photograph in two. It wasn't just the meanness of the act or the fact the picture was damaged. He could probably tape that back together.

Eichord wondered what else had just been torn beyond repair. Christ in heaven, he'd seen a look in the kid's eyes he'd seen before. A look he seemed to reserve for Eichord. It was a look of the purest, coldest hatred, and the whole idea was so absurd and crazy that he rejected it immediately. Just the product of a genuinely awful day. Nothing more.

He went back in and took off his sock and picked a splinter of glass out of his right foot, got up, and turned the TV on. The idea of watching the news now was so thoroughly depressing he got the remote-control unit and sat there popping from one channel to another.

“—score four to two, Jim. And you know what that means for the—” He switched from the hockey game to PBS.

“—documentation of the Heracletian canonical labors. Studying the fascinating iconography in the—” Click.

“—would go into the office and take my clothes off. But he wouldn't ask me to take my clothes off because he's not that kind of doctor and I'm not that kind of a girl. He's a veterinarian—” He switched from the channel as a 1950s laugh track roared in response to the 1980s writing. Another sit-com from hell.

“—gold and zircon with the flaming mist center. The regular price is 199.95. But you won't believe our special, low, low sale price for our telephone shoppers. Only—” Click.

“They can't find enough World War Two tanks. Also, it may seem a bit odd to hear a World War Two American soldier with a thick German accent, but Arnold—” Click.

“—say to the Lord that you're willing to make a financial sacrifice—” Click.

Click. Click. Click. Clickclickclickclickclick.

Buckhead Station

The next morning Eichord did paperwork and made phone calls. He stared at the bulletin board notes, out of boredom. Looked at a photograph of a notorious fruit hustler and a missing teenager. An interdepartmental memorandum on subject matter his eyes refused to focus on. His list:

ADAMS, Hayden

BOLEN, Willard (check)

BRITTEN, Morris

CARTER, Jerry (struck out)

CUNNINGHAM, Harold

DENNENMUELLER, Mike (check)

FREIDRICHS, Keith (check)

GIBBAR, Robert

GILLESPIE, Jeff

HOWARD, Edwin

JAMES, Felix

JONES, Mark

MULLINS, Craig

NAGEL, Sam (struck out)

ROSE, Louis (struck out)

SCHUMWAY, Alan (check)

SCHWAB, David

SMITH, Rick

TREPASSO,Phil

WHITE. Blake (struck out)

WISEMAN, Eben

ZOFUTTO, Mario

Schumway's name, minus diacritics, with a recently added check mark, gave Eichord four semisuspects. Four impossible-possibles whom he'd drawn lines through. And while he was looking at the semiprobables he decided. No way, Bolen was out. Good on motive, opportunity, and personality assessment, but too far afield from the physical parameters. He whited out his check mark by BOLEN, Willard.

Chuckling with disdain at any inference of such a thing as incipient farsightedness, but pushing his legal pad away from him a few inches so he could see better, he began working on a tantalizingly insoluble premise—solution by doodle.

By the time he quit for the day, he'd filed away, in his special round file, crumpled balls of pale-yellow lined paper that carried such slam-dunked declarations as i roamed under it as a tired, nude maori.

name no one man. i maim nine moro men in miami. name no one man.

draw putrid dirt upward.

mirror, mirror on the wall. who's the weirdest cop of all?

But on the drive through afternoon traffic to Buckhead Springs a few loose thoughts rattled around in his noggin like pebbles in a pan. And as Eichord looked back on his face-to-face conversations with Messrs. Dennenmueller, Freidrichs, and Schumway, there was a curiosity that bugged him anew, each time he recalled their respective reactions.

None of the three seemed surprised or even mildly alarmed, hell, even QUESTIONING that he was suddenly talking to a cop about a homicide. Like this was the most normal thing in the world to happen in the course of their daily routine. Wouldn't any normal person, that word again, register a degree of consternation, confusion, something, at being involved in a murder case, however peripherally? The usual reaction was, Why me?

But these jokers had hardened facades, almost like the wise guys, shells that let the questions bounce off. Yet another bothersome detail in the daily grind, a homicide copper sniffing around. No sense of outrage, or irritation, or of being taken aback a bit. Just a shrug and Ask me whatever you wanna and then get outta my face. Strange, it was. But when Eichord tried to mine the pebbles for gold, all he got was a panful of dust.

Buckhead

Betty Baylos, Keith Freidrich's girlfriend of the moment, had agreed to meet Eichord, and she had been ten times more curious about the investigation than had any of the men he'd questioned. Freidrich's, along with his other primary suspects—such as they were—had been surreptitiously voice and-fingerprinted, and a special sheet with their recent photographs had been circulated among Nevada and Texas law enforcement.

The Baylos woman was a sexy, animated woman in her early thirties who dressed and acted like a teenybopper. “How come you're wanting to know all this stuff?” she asked Eichord about fifteen times as he did variations on the routine-investigation standard response. The area that he thought he'd have lots of trouble with, that of Freidrich's sexual orientation, had been dismissed with a curt “God! That's none of your BUSINESS!"

But when Jack gently prodded, saying that it might help Keith, blah blah, apologizing for asking such personal questions about any area of intimacy between them, she simply shrugged and preceded to regale him with an ultra-explicit, blow-by-blow (literally), unashamed recounting of their amorous couplings. After ten minutes of this Eichord had truly learned everything he had ever wanted to know but was reluctant to ask, and then some.

In the voyeuristic eavesdropping he did acquire a bit of insight into the area of a disabled person's sexual magnetism. From what Betty Baylos said, if she was typical in her reactions, a good-looking guy in a wheelchair was or could be extremely attractive to a woman, piquing her curiosity as to what intimacy would be like, how that person might seek satisfaction, the things we always wonder about a person to whom we're drawn, but amplified by that element of curiosity, especially when underscored by the instincts of a woman in that situation. The urge to mother was strong.

His brief Q and A session with Jeanette Hohner was also interesting. She was a registered nurse who had been involved with Alan Schumway.

“I appreciate your willingness to be candid with me, Jeanette,” he said, “if I may be on a first-name basis with you?” Smiling, speaking softly. Not carrying a big stick. “Can you tell me a little about your relationship with Mr. Schumway?"

“Which one?” she asked. “Personal or professional?"

“Both."

“I was his physical therapist for a couple of months. And I went out a couple of times, too.” She was an interesting-looking woman. Not pretty in the face, and with a complexion that could be described as a kind of sandblasted look, but she had nice eyes and a naturalness that Eichord found very appealing. “Is Alan in some sort of trouble?” she asked quietly.

“No. Not at all,” Eichord said, and did his short routine-query tap dance. She had a look about her that made a healthy guy aware of his own maleness. The sort of figure that told you what was under the clothing was mostly Jeanette and not the by-products of clever designers of undergarments. Her curves had the look that said. These are my own. Take me or leave me. “What was your regimen in terms of the physical therapy? What kind of things would be involved in the work?"

“Mostly just his legs. He has no use of his legs, as you probably know. So we did whirlpool baths, massages, various excercizing, and that sort of thing.” Keith Freidrich's girlfriend had said her boyfriend's legs were “real thin,” in answer to a question, and Eichord used those words in his conversation with Jeanette Hohner.

“Would you describe his legs as real thin, emaciated, withered? How would you describe them?"

“Sure. They're pretty thin. But considering how long he's been in a chair, they've got pretty good tone."

“Is it possible he could ever walk again?"

“I doubt it, from what I've seen of his medical records. I couldn't say for sure, but complete paralysis like that—I doubt it."

“You know that he can't walk now, though? No way he could be faking?"

“Of course,” she said, looking at Eichord like, Are you nuts?

“Why do some patients of therapists in this sort of a profile have good tone, as you put it, and some are extremely withered in the lower limbs?"

“I don't know.” She tilted a shoulder. “Nobody really knows how much a person's muscles will atrophy. Almost all people in chairs atrophy a lot, whether they have therapy or not."

“Then why do they go through the motions if they're going to atrophy anyway?"

“Because. Some people are fighters and some aren't. And some of them have had different kinds of diagnoses. Maybe the prognosis for recovery is there. Or maybe they don't believe they'll be paralyzed forever. Or maybe they think they can regain some usage. Or perhaps they feel like they MIGHT not atrophy as much with some therapy. All kinds of reasons."

“And you can say for certain that Alan Schumway, the last time you worked with him, was atrophied consistent with an individual who couldn't move his legs and hadn't for years?"

“Sure. He had good muscle tone to begin with, so he still has some tone, like I told you, but his legs are atrophied. They're pretty thin."

“I have to ask you this, Jeanette. I'm not just being nosy, but I apologize for the intrusion on your privacy in advance. I need to know what sort of sexual relations you might have had with Mr. Schumway. If you would categorize him as normal in that way,” he kept his voice soft, speaking as softly and respectfully as he could.

“Normal. Yes. I, uh, we had normal relations."

“Intercourse?"

“No,” she said, plainly irritated, giving the word a couple of extra syllables.

“This is a murder case of some complexity.” He breathed deeply. “I need you to be specific, please.” Ever so gently.

“I gave him head. Okay?” Just like that.

Okay. It's okay with me, Jeanette. He nodded, eyes cast down by way of looking official. There was a time in his life he would have pursued that line, but he got off it now. “And when—"

“I mean, that's normal enough. Lots of couples, you know. But there were other things he wanted to do and I don't go for anything freaky. Like with another girl or anything. Forget it."

“That's what he wanted you to do?” She nodded. “When was the last time you saw him?"

“Couple months ago, I guess."

“Does he have a therapist now? Somebody else?"

“I think he goes to a doctor regularly, but I'm not sure who it is. I don't think he got another physical therapist."

“Was the personal thing between you why he stopped using you as a therapist?"

“I guess.” She shrugged with all of her upper body. “We just got into it. You know. He's got personality problems. He...” She ran down.

“What's your opinion of him, Jeanette?"

“Have you ever seen him on TV?"

“Sure."

“Well. That's Alan. You know what he's like if you've seen the TV commercials. He's a real horse's butt."

He smiled at her answer and thanked her.

Mission

He loved the feeling. Not just the power of his physical body again, but the power of his mind. The raw, rippling, totally controlled, awesome power of his restored being. He had come out of his special room smiling with joy at the promise of the night and the unexpected sensuality of being in command again. This time he would take a bitch down in the way he liked the best.

He'd been saving Heather for this. The fucking tramp. Oh, sweet Jeezus, it felt good, thinking about what he'd do to the cunt. How he'd pay them all back again. They'd fucking NEVER catch him. He WAS invulnerable. And he came out of his special place gloating, laughing with pure pleasure, slick and powerful as he slid into his car and inserted a cassette labeled Deco Echo into the unit, turning the volume up as the garage door lifted and the big car purred out into the night.

He'd met Heather in the basement of an apartment complex, oddly enough, and seduced her from the first second, using his wheels to create the atmosphere most conducive to his style of the moment, and Heather had fallen like a tree. He had convinced her into moving to Mission, to a recently vacated, small home he'd found out about. Isolated and perfect for what he wanted. In fact, he'd loaned her the first month's rent. Brought her along carefully. Slowly. Saving her for the right moment.

It was over twenty miles to Mission, but to him it felt like a five-minute drive, and he turned the ancient tape up even higher, basking in the glow of the old-time musical memories and the images of his childhood, driving through the early night, a bright moon lighting up patchwork squares and earthtone rectangles that stretched to the horizon. Past “Sand drags,” which he knew all too well, Fred's Package Store & Live Bait, grungy abandoned trailers, just like home.

The car was a work of art. Dude who ran a local chop shop owed him one from way back and he'd got him something untraceable and squeaky clean which, by the time he'd further customized it, was a perfect war wagon. Also, it was sanitized to a fault, in case he was ever spotted or had to dump it. Similarly, his special place was untraceable, and he entered and left it unseen, through the garage. Perfect. He'd thought of everything.

Thirties music thumped from the speakers as he drove past a battery of large silos that a sign advertised to be the property of the Newhope Grain Company. That was it, all right. New hope. But the welded bar gate stood open and the darkened Quonset buildings, two obviously unused tin sheds with open doors, and a bulldozer beside a mound of excavated dirt in an adjacent field, all these were the signposts that brought it all together for him, helped to nurture his core, and took him back home. Because Spoda only saw these things with a killer's eyes.

Later, as his circle of death widened, he would come back this way again. Two extremely interesting expanses of cotton fields caught his eye. A well-tended private road cut back through the field leading to a spacious, expensive residence. It was always surprising to see a beautiful home tucked back in some low-rent corner of rural America. An eight-hundred-thousand-dollar spread replete with the trimmings from parabolic dish to rv to fenced-in Olympic pool, out back of beyond. So invitingly isolated.

Right by the road, alongside the highway, dilapidated frame homes squatted like aging spinsters, old schoolhouses gone to seed, white paint chipped and faded, cracked, peeling, vestiges of long-absent sharecroppers, and they were what you expected to see out here. Then you looked past them into the field and Tara sat waiting to be plucked. Sitting out there like a queen, rich and bitchy, where not even the loudest screams could carry to the road.

Near the turn to Heather's he passed an apparently deserted warehouse that looked precisely like the proverbial warehouse-on-the-edge-of-town from all the old B movies and serials. Three boarded-up doors out front. Back windows barred with rusting iron bars. Insides covered in plywood sheets. Brick columns standing out front, supporting nothing. Loading bay filled in with blocks cemented into place. Discs, trailers, a combine, and an International 510 sat nearby, each turning slowly to scrap metal. He cast a longing glance back at the padlocked building and the fancy home in the distance as he rolled past.

Heather Lennon was so perfect for this night. He'd wheeled out of the elevator at Town Plaza, a business deal had brought him to one of the penthouse apartments, and literally run into Heather as she carried a basketful of laundry from the basement laundry room. She lived there with a pair of stewardesses who were usually out of town, and he'd been able to either sequester her or otherwise remain anonymous by arranging her to come to his home. A pretended legal problem with a soon-to-be ex-wife was his excuse.

He sensed that if he wanted to isolate her for a future target, he must cut her out of the pack. In no time at all she was in the rented home in Mission. Its automatic garage a requisite feature. Isolation was the key. That, and silence on her part.

In that respect she filled the bill admirably. Unattractive by some standards, she had always been the fifth wheel who sat home alone on those occasions when the popular and gregarious stews partied. It was not difficult to persuade her to leave Town Plaza.

As soon as he found out the things she liked, he played to her every desire, making himself over in her favorite images wherever possible. This great-looking guy who shared all her interests, it was an irresistible package for her, and if he was a bit idiosyncratic in the area of compulsive secrecy, she could meet his needs. Heather was a somewhat secretive person herself, used to keeping her own counsel and not garrulous by nature, and his reasons for wanting to keep their relationship quiet seemed perfectly understandable.

She was not unintelligent. But neither was she particularly intuitive by nature. To him, however, she was that perfect blend of smart-stupid that he gravitated toward: not smart enough to question, but not some vapid, gum-popping idiot who would pose a threat.

He pulled up in front of the house and pressed the garage-door opener, noting that she had parked her car in the driveway as he had asked, and as the overhead door slid up, he turned off the cassette player and drove into the garage, lowering the door before he shut off the motor, removing his wig and dropping it out of sight beneath the collapsible chair. In thirty seconds, right on cue, the garage lights came on and Heather appeared, smiling, in the doorway.

“Come here,” he said, motioning with his finger.

“Hi,” she shouted, scampering around the car as he pushed the door open. The ugly bitch reminded him vaguely of his sister. It amused him to consider he could still fantasize about the cunt, even though he hadn't had her in over twenty years.

“Hello, baby. Miss me?” He pulled her head in and they kissed for a long time. He could already feel himself stiffening, growing hot. Wanting her. He could barely swallow he was so excited, and his words came out raspy “I want you so much. Heather.” And she misread his urgency for pure lust and it inflamed her, too, but there was nothing pure about his wanting. “Honey, I've got great news. The therapy worked."

“You're kidding."

“No. It's working."

“Oh! Wow! My God! That's wonderful."

“Yeah. It really is. I'm actually able to stand and walk a few steps before I get tired."

“Oh, darling, I'm so happy for you.” She gently leaned into him and hugged him. “I just can't believe it."

“I was thinking that if you don't mind supporting my weight a bit, I would try to get in there without the chair this time."

“Really? Do you think you should? Is that wise—you know, so soon?"

“I think it might be okay.” I just said so, you dumb cunt, he thought. “C'mon. Let's give it a try. I have to walk as much as I can to build my muscles back. Lean in a little,” he said, putting an arm around her and sliding out from under the wheel with a big show of effort. He loved the playacting stuff. What a turn-on. Fucking with the whores’ minds was the best part, after all.

“Honey, I'm afraid I might drop you or—"

“Don't worry,” he cut her off. “I've got a lot of my strength back.” He pulled himself erect and she laughed with pleasure as he stood in front of her for the first time.

“You're so TALL,” she said.

“I apologize for the gloves, but the salve I've been rubbing on my legs has had a little adverse reaction there—sort of a rash thing, uh—” He wasn't even watching what he said to her now. Just playing with her as he hobbled over to the steps with her, pushing on her as hard as he could without crumpling her down to the concrete. Laughing inside as he put his weight on her.

“We'll kind of have to take it slow up this step here,” he said, mashing her into the wall as he did so, hurting her as much as he could. He was getting bored with it and quickened his pace as he hobbled with her across the room and flopped down heavily into an armchair.

“Shouldn't you get crutches or something?” She rubbed her shoulder, trying to get some feeling back in it.

“Did I hurt you, baby?” he asked solicitously, rubbing her shoulder a little harder than he should, seeing her wince.

“No. I was just thinking—"

“Don't think.” He pulled her down to him. They kissed again. “Angel, you haven't been a bad little girl and mentioned me to anybody like one of your relatives or a best girlfriend, have you?"

“No, hon. Of course not."

“Think real carefully, babe. I mean, if you ever said my name to ANYBODY—like the lady when you rented this place, or when you left your apartment, anybody at work. Think real hard now. Could you have ever said my name? The ex has got her attorneys breathing hot and heavy. I want us to have some money left for when WE get married, ya know?"

“I swear. I never said your name to anybody. Deirdre and Sandra were both real curious about who I was seeing, but I did just like you said. Nobody knows anything about my, you know, seeing you."

He kissed her gratefully. “You're a good girl,” he told her, thinking. You stupid cunt, as he unzipped his fly.

“I try to be good for you,” she said coyly.

“I know how good you can be,” he said hotly, pushing her down. “Take it in your mouth, lover,” he told her as he pulled and pushed and twisted, his gloved fingers in her hair.

“You're so big,” she said, and he pushed her back down. Oh my God oh if only I could believe in Satan, he thought, if only I could speak your name, invoke your name now, praise you, Satan. But he had not believed in a heaven or a hell since he was a small child. Often he had taunted them, standing outside in thunderstorms daring the fake God to strike him down, taunting the devil when he was alone—promising him his immortal soul if His Satannic Majesty would give him what he wanted. Neither of these fictitious nothings existed. He was the higher power. He was the force of evil that came in the night to dispose of such trash. And with every blow he struck, it cleansed his spirit of the dark thing inside.

And finally he exploded in her mouth and the gloved fingers closed around her throat as he ejaculated, squeezing the foul life from this dirty, impure, undeserving slut, mashing the air out of her, cutting off her oxygen with those all-powerful fingers, wrists, forearms, biceps, neck, shoulders, pecs, back muscles that had hoisted his weight, lifeless legs dangling, twenty thousand times, hardening into steel bands of power. These muscles silenced this cunt now, choking the life out of the bitch as she fought in vain to break away, and he shuddered again, thrilled, chilled, and fulfilled, and the last thing she heard before her brain shut down was the sound of steel plunging into her skull.

Buckhead Station

Eichord pushed rewind and nothing happened. He was all the way to the front. He pushed play. Nothing happened. He checked the remote jack and he had pulled it out as he was supposed to. He pulled the mike jack out as well and hit play again. Nothing. He let some air out and puffed his cheeks out like a fat man, decided he would try the batteries. Unplugged the squad room's glowing adapter and fished a couple of recharged Enercells out, popping them into the little machine. It started immediately. What did the world do before Radio Shack? He wondered if they ever considered manufacturing a car.

“—home for that long a time,” a woman's voice was saying off microphone. The crash-bam clutter clump of movement. A man's flat voice, “One, two, three four, five.” A pause and a click. Harry Wallace was a good ole boy over at the Moss Grove County Sheriff's Office. He had a voice like a mower with the blades set a little low.

“Would you state your full name?"

“Bonnie Louise Johnson."

“Address."

“1622 East Magnolia.” Harry Wallace asked her other questions that appeared on the report be was looking at. Buckhead County, like Moss Grove County, had no Missing Persons. He listened to the woman talk about her friend, Diane Taluvera, the thirty-year-old white female working for the Moss Grove Bank, who'd suddenly decided one day she'd run away from home.

Bonnie Louise had moved to Moss Grove from Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, four years ago when her ex-husband—they'd been married at the time—had transferred. She'd been lucky, she had worked for the Lauderdale Phone Company ever since she'd graduated high school, at seventeen, and they'd made her a supervisor. They found a spot for her in the Buckhead office on the four-to-midnight. Her first week in town she'd met Diane Taluvera, who was in HER first week on the job at the bank, and they liked each other immediately and shared a lunch in the park, Bonnie crying about the IBM DASCs and Diane bitching about the fact she'd spit on her MA, and both of them laughing about it and becoming very close.

They were best friends. She'd tried to tell Diane about this strange boyfriend she met recently, somebody she'd met in the bank. This weirdo Prince Charming who was too good to ever be seen with her in public, which of course told Bonnie that he was married. He had a wife and six kids for sure. But Al the Mystery Man was slick. He had her eating out of his hand. He and his so-called “personal secretary.” Some funny stuff going on.

He'd taken her to California. She'd had a postcard from Los Angeles a week ago and it was Diane's handwriting but Bonnie said it “looked very suspicious.” Eichord listened to the tape as he looked at the photocopy of the message on the back of the card.

“Dear Bonnie"—the dot over the I in Bonnie a heart, like a college roomie with a neat hand. “It finally happened! Prince Charming is taking me away from all this. We're running away together, Bon. I'm so excited I'm only going to throw some things in a bag and we'll leave for the Coast tonight. I'll mail this card when we get to L.A. I'm going to start a whole new life, Bonnie, so don't be surprised if I don't write for a long time!” Love, Diane, had the O and the dotted I heart-shaped. Small, neat, looping letters.

The business about Al the Mystery Man and the “so-called personal secretary” kept leaping off the tape into Eichord's ear. He played the cassette through to the end. Rewound it and played it again as he reread the small file:

—The NCIC Alert, —The “missing” report,

—The flyer with Diane Taluvera's photograph that was circulating through metro PDS from California to New York.

—The handwriting report.

—The interview/interrogation with her superior at the bank.

—The copy of the scenic card mailed to the bank from California. Her resignation in four succinct lines. Finally, in the space on the form where Harry Wallace had printed “missing by choice,” Eichord circled the words “by choice” and printed the word “INVESTIGATE."

He phoned the bank. Got the party he wanted after a few moments. Normally he would have read the suspect list first, but this was a financial institution and they were as bad as hospitals and law firms about dispensing confidential data, even to coppers. He IDd himself and told the party, “How concerned are you about Diane Taluvera being missing for this length of time?"

“We're concerned about the possibility that she's missing—sure—but we can only go by the postcard she sent us. We have to take it at face value.” He could see the shrug in her voice.

“Did you know Ms Taluvera the entire period of time she worked there at the bank?"

“No, I've only been here about a year myself. Officer. Would you prefer to speak with someone who knew Diane longer?"

“No, ma'am. In the year you knew her, which is obviously ample time to size up an employee, would you say that the manner in which she quit her job was consistent with the rest of her personality?"

“Not at all. Not in the least. But, on the other hand, she indicated she was getting married, and people tend to get a little whacko sometimes.” She chuckled. “I'm pretty sure of Di's writing and some of the others saw the postcard and I think she wrote it, all right."

“Do you know if one of the customer's of the bank was Alan Schumway, the car dealer?"

“Well, we do have a business relationship with Mr. Schumway, yes. I'm not quite sure just what banking business he does here, but you could ask Mr. Ashton,” she said, naming the president of the bank.

“Did Diane Taluvera have a personal relationship with Mr. Schumway, do you know?"

“Not to my knowledge. I just don't know too much about the employees’ personal lives. The unmarried women don't ... You know, there isn't that much talk inside the bank. So I couldn't say."

“But she did know Mr. Schumway?"

“Oh, yes. He came in the bank often. He comes in frequently. As I say, Mr. Ashton could fill you in on the nature of his dealings better than I could."

“Well, I'll certainly be speaking with him about it. Meanwhile, I don't have much more, just a couple of things. Would any of the women at the bank there, or men for that matter, have any idea who Diane was seeing?"

“No. I don't think so. We've talked about her a lot since she quit like that, you know. I think she pretty much kept her personal life to herself."

“Okay."

“She has a close friend, Bonnie Johnson, I believe her name is. Some of the girls have seen them talking here in the bank together, so you might talk with her.” It was like pulling teeth.

“If you should think of anything that might give us an idea who Miss Taluvera was going with, or if you should hear from her again, would you be sure to give me a call?” She assured him she would and he gave her his number with thanks.

Eichord hung up the phone. Later he'd run the whole list of suspects by all the bank people. He started in on his OTHER list.

Eichord had stared at the list until it had begun to lose all meaning and then he began to doodle on it. The list of names read:

Gloria

Darleen

Ann

Elnora

May and out to the side: 39.6 followed by

Tina

June

Heather and out to the side of that: Diane? and the word “sperm,” but when he looked down, he noticed he had written spermwhale and then he caught the drift of the conversation around him and shook his head as he blacked it out.

“—see him in his goddamn trunks."

“Yeah.” Another voice, laughing. “I'll never forget the time we got invited over there and I told him I didn't think the ole lady would wanna go, ya know, on her period an’ that. I says. She's got a friend in town right now. And Dana goes. Oh, that's okay. Bring her along too."

Jack smiled. Laughing on the outside. Weirded out on the inside. He reached for the nasty plastic thing and dialed.

“Hello, beautiful,” he said when Donna answered. “Know who this is?"

“Sam, is this you?” she said urgently. “My husband's not here so you can say anything you like. Wanna talk dirty?"

“You're taking the words right out of my mouth."

“Oh, nifty! We can discuss what I'm not wearing. Would you like that?"

“Uh huh."

“Okay. What I'm not wearing is my clothes, Sam. How soon can you be here? I mean, I was going to take a little quickie shower. But if you can get here before What's-his-name gets home, we can take a little quickie instead. Sound good, Sam?"

“Unbearably good."

“And another thing. I thought we were going to talk dirty. I haven't heard a salacious remark out of your sexy mouth, mister."

“There's five guys sitting next to me who would love it, but let's wait till later. Speaking of later, it's going to be later than that. Which is to say about eight or nine.” He heard an audible groan. “I'm sorry. Duty calls. But never fear. Old hubby'll drag in the door in a few hours for his leftovers."

“Hubby? Hubby who-hubby. I thought this was my BOYFRIEND.” They agreed Donna would heat up something for Jack when he came in. And maybe save him some dinner, too. And they hung up.

Eichord left the squad room and went upstairs. He asked the girl on the board to call Schumway's, and she did so, finding out they closed at five. He got in his unmarked car and headed for North Buckhead.

Alan Schumway lived in a home that reflected the oddness of the man himself. Set back on an acre of expensive, well-tended lawn, a strange, two-story oddity sat like a stucco monument to an architectural experiment gone awry. Eichord sat a half-block down the street, trying to figure out what the house was saying. He decided it was saying, “I'd rather be at sea,” and surely the home did in fact resemble the prow of an ocean liner with its steeply jutting, angled front and the windows that almost suggested portholes. Eichord had been there for an hour and ten minutes when Alan Schumway pulled up. A new Buick with handicapped plates instead of the expected dealer tags.

“Mr. Schumway,” Eichord said as the man swung his chair out and began locking it into place beside him, “can I give you a hand?"

“No, Tracy, but you can give me a leg or two if you have some to spare. Hands I got. What the hell are you doing out here at this time of night? Did you lose Junior again?"

“Not this time,” Eichord said as he watched the man's powerful upper body wrestle with the chair. Schumway got into the device and slammed the door. “Well, come on, Double-oh-seven, let's go catch a buzz.” And he went off rolling toward the ramp to his front door. “Come along now. Just shuffle along. Try to keep up."

The house was very cool. Almost cold. Beautifully decorated in a chilly, sparse way, as if nobody lived there.

“Let's go upstairs,” he said after checking his mail.

“I won't take up much of your time,” Jack told him as they entered a large service elevator.

“Like what the hell do you WANT, copper?” he snarled in an old-movie gangster voice Eichord knew but couldn't place.

Jack laughed and did his tap dance about Norway. He'd lost the spelling of the fjord. This and that. Schumway didn't seem at all perturbed at the second intrusion, though he was overtly more curious than the first time. Eichord could sense animosity, but that in itself was nothing. Lots of people didn't like police much.

Eichord declined a drink with thanks, and while Schumway poured, he looked around.

“How much do you know about deco?"

“Mm.” Eichord shrugged. “I like it."

“You don't know art, in other words, but you know what you like."

“Right.” No hint of a pun in the man's tone. Could he be that calculating?

“Deco is mid-twenties. Parisian. The ladies’ compacts and the mirrors and the fringed Mondrianesque handbags and the pottery and the architectural moldings and the bronzes and the jewelry and the lighting fixtures.” The man's face glowed with enthusiasm and adoration. “The deco look. The look of the Paris Expo. Lalique and Mallet-Stevens and Desny and Bonet and all those dudes. This is a Desny right here,” he said lovingly, showing Eichord a piece of silver. “Ain't it a gas?"

“Yeah."

“You feel the power of it?” The mocking tone momentarily gone from the man's voice.

“Like a little Chrysler Building or Radio City Music Hall."

“Precisely so."

“Great."

“It all came out of cubism, see. Out of those marvelous Braque things, and the old man, of course, Pablo's seminal goodies. The cubists were the fathers of it, but then it got all hard and cold, streamlined. The prismatic geometric look. All suggestion. All line and sweep and rectilinear exaggeration and classical form and super-stylized angles and planes. Lightning bolts, ovals, repetition of rectangles and octagons, pyramids, silver and bright color and sun splash. The cubist prism, the Aztec temple look, the Egyptian pyramid, the mystic Secret Scarab, the mythical sunburst shapes of the Sun Gods.” He turned to a lit glass showcase. “My babies,” he whispered.

“Wow.” Eichord whispered back, caught up in it now. “Beautiful."

“My Roseville Futura.” He said it the way you point at a beautiful woman out by the pool or the tennis court as you tell your new business acquaintance, “That's my wife."

“Huh?"

“Futura.” His voice was barely audible. Reverence. “Roseville Pottery. The Smith'd fucking KILL to get one of these. These are the top three vases. The black is believed to be one of a kind. The most phallic fucking piece of Futura ever made."

“Yeah."

“I traded a priceless collection of Mayan and Peruvian terra-cotta phallics for that one piece. I would have given anything for it."

“What's that?” Eichord said, looking over at a table.

“Hmm?” The man in the chair had to look away from his precious showcase and glanced in the direction Jack was looking. “Oh, that goddamn thing. It's junk. I gave one of those assholes on Melrose out in L.A. a grand for it—just as a hoot."

“Is it a metal sculpture piece?"

“No.” The man laughed. He wheeled over to the round chrome object and did something to it and music squawked out of it. “It's a RADIO!” He laughed again.

“Wild."

“It's fucking outrageous. Art dreck-o. I love it all."

Eichord was hammered by the man's intensity and the feel of implicit latent power. The thought that kept nagging was, Could Alan Schumway get up from that wheelchair and walk? Do I yell fire? Or do I back off and stir the ashes a little and hope that when I move in to get him he hasn't packed up his wheelchair in his old kit bag and run away to Norway.

“Listen, one more thing, if I may. Somebody mentioned you have a, uh, personal secretary?” He looked down, not wanting to watch Schumway raise his eyebrows and do shtick while he tried to embarrass Eichord. “Does she live in? I was wondering if I might ask her a couple of brief questions while I'm here."

“Does she LIVE IN,” Schumway mocked. “Holy JEEZUS, Feste, you silver-tongued bastard.” Eichord smiled pleasantly while Schumway roared with laughter, then screamed at the top of his lungs, “NICKI!” And saying to Jack as he turned away, “I don't think she's here."

“Does she live here?"

“We hang out,” Schumway said. “Anything else you need right now?” Schumway stared into the glossy depths of the black deco vase.

Eichord doodled with the surface of his mind and had to fight from asking big Al from Norway, “Hey, Alan—is there a fjord in your Futura?"

North Buckhead

In the living room, Daddy was drunk and disorderly, and very much on. He was unpredictable when he drank too much. Sometimes he would get horny and want her, and the sex might be rough or it might be sweet and tender and remarkably gentle. Or he would fall asleep and snore like a dockhand and he would not want her. Or he would become jolly and gregarious and want to take her out and show her off. Drink with the guys. Party. He could be very funny. Or he might become brooding. Moody. Mean. He could turn ice-cold and very dangerous.

She was nude and stood looking at herself, shoeless and wet, toweling off after a delightful bubble bath. She loved her body. She was a very beautiful woman, even now. One of the uniquely lucky ones. She had the small bones that had made her so womanly. The Beverly Hills were perfect, neither too large nor too small, her ass high and firm. Very female in every sense. The hormones, both the IVs and the regimen of oral drugs, had helped her voice, which was already a sexy huskiness, and her skin, which was her worst feature.

Nicki wasn't perfect. Her hair was too coarse, but she could afford the best wigs money could buy. Her jawline was a bit wider than she liked, but Daddy said it made her more interesting-looking and he looked at her with a critical eye. He loved the look of her long, slim legs in high heels. She had starved herself for so long—through her teens, in fact—that she no longer thought of food as she once had. She would subsist on bits of fruit, vitamins, the bare minimum. She went up on her toes and posed, then stood hipshot, but she could catch a glimpse of those ugly things a mocking God had placed between her legs, and she quickly changed position. She would tuck tonight, tuck them back out of sight.

Nicki Dodd, nee Nicholas Dodstardt, was a freak. She was neither female impersonator, nor transvestite, nor transsexual, nor any of the other categories that run the gamut from cross-dressing straights to drag-queen homosexuals. She was a woman with a penis and testicles. Not a play woman. Not a make-believe, Halloween, limp-wristed, flaming, swishing, lisping, pretend-time closet-faggot woman, but a REAL woman, through and through. Biologically, psychologically, every other way a woman. Just not physiologically. She was a beautiful, soft, slim, sexy, dynamite show-stopper of a freak of nature. A woman with a dick.

It still bothered her. She wondered how enraged her daddy would have become if he'd heard the conversation she'd had a few weeks ago. He thought she was totally comfortable with her plumbing. Depressed after one of his rough numbers, paranoid from his growing carelessness, and maddened by the frustrations of his goddamned fucking therapy, she had called Baltimore. Just for information. Nothing more. Dialing a toll-free hotline so it wouldn't show up on their bill.

“Nurse Recruitment?” a pleasant voice said into her ear.

“Hi. I'm calling long-distance to inquire about your program. What are the prerequisites for working in the—I'm not sure what you call it—your gender surgery clinic?"

“The general surgery clinic? Just a second please.” No, you idiot, she said as the woman clicked off to take another call. An eternity later the woman returned. “I just have the regular university number. I don't have anything called General Surgery Clinic."

“GENDER surgery."

“Oh. Gender surgery.” A long pause. “Is that like, you know, sexual?"

“Yes.” Another long pause.

“I'm trying to figure out how to look that up."

The line made noises while the woman did things to a computer far away in Maryland. The obtuse woman came back. Made her wait again because someone had just come into view whom she thought might know these answers. Her voice was rather patronizing, or so Nicki imagined, when she returned to say, “The university no longer does them.” THEM. She couldn't bring herself to enunciate such a word. “So that's why I couldn't find it under Gender or Sex, you know, in the listings."

“Do you know why they no longer ... Oh, never mind.” She hung up. So Johns Hopkins was no longer part of the scene. It took her another half-hour on the phone to learn that Barnes in St. Louis did them. Two other hospitals. Just making random calls to whatever toll-free numbers she could think of to try. She wondered if there had been malpractice suits. If the surgery had proven unsafe. Or was it public relations—that kind of thing? Probably none of the above.

Would getting her outside plumbing whacked off make her feel more womanly? Would trading a cock and balls for a vagina—complete with ersatz clit, no doubt—make her able to satisfy her man better. Hell, no. It would be an unnecessary and stupid risk. Just something she toyed with—her little ace in the hole, so to speak. An option. She was still in love with him. He was everything. Her life. Without his desire she would be dead. He wanted her this way.

“From-a Lick Pier, Sanna Monnica Bitch Californium, Itsa Larry Welg anna Champagna Muzik Makers,” she could hear him screaming over some taped dance band. “An now hereza Norma-um Enema to singa an play the accordiona-enema, Lady of Spain-enema!” Crazy fool, she smiled.

She would keep him with her hot mouth and kinky mind and beautiful eyes and long legs and great ass and Beverly Hills and cosmetic trickery. He liked it when she'd savaged the one with the low-cut blouses, Princess Di with her smug-ass mouth, telling her, “I'll do it,” when Nicki started packing her things. Saying to her later, “No, I need all of these,” when they packed her cosmetics. “I have to keep my peaches-and-cream complexion, you know.” Yeah. Nicki knew. She had sliced off the bitch's fat tits the moment Daddy had finished with her. The knife blade was sharp and she felt surprisingly good about it, not squeamish in the least, and Daddy really got off watching her work out. She could remember how he laughed like a little kid when Nicki had sliced the toes off, “This little piggie went to market,” slicing her fucking toes off like little white stubs. Blood all over everything. Daddy turning on and them playing in the blood.

She went into him naked but for a pair of heels, standing and posing for him naturally, a beautiful woman in profile, as he played his ricky-tick music, “Thang hugh Norma-enema. Anna loog whoze here now, itsa Myron Florn-enema, to play his latest tits for us. Let it all hang out, Myron-enema."

“Every chance I get, baby."

“Did you call Bonnie like I wanted you to do, enema?"

“I will. Promise,” she said sweetly, still coming to him, but he turned away from her and said in a cold icebox voice, “Go do it."

Buckhead Medical Park

“Doctor Lishness, I don't understand why you're being so unresponsive to me,” Eichord said, working to keep control of his temper. They had finally located Schumway's psychotherapist.

“I'm not being unresponsive."

“What would you call it, then?"

“What?” Unruffled. One of those icicle types. A face that reminded you of the younger Teddy in his senatorial bifocals. Was it a poseur's face?

“What would you call failing to respond to an official inquiry in a Homicide investigation?"

“I would call your manner irresponsible, for starters."

“Irresponsible. Do you realize this crazy son of a bitch has killed eight or ten victims—just that we KNOW about? Driven his own sister insane? Do you—"

“I've just told you that I cannot violate my code of ethics. The relationship one has with one's patients—and you should certainly be aware of this—is a highly confidential and privileged one. Unless people can rely on that total confidentiality, the system of health care collapses. Trust is an inviolable aspect of our ethical standards,” the psychotherapist said imperiously.

Eichord wanted to throttle him.

It had been a long day for Eichord. Yesterday's rocket from the deputy director of MCTF's crime lab on the DNA-matchup with the sperm traces from Heather Lennon had, in effect, cleared both Dennen-mueller and Freidrichs.

Jack was crushed by the circuit attorney's reluctance to immediately indict Alan Schumway, but the man had told him, “You don't understand the law, here. Look: the complexities of our statutes are unique to the state and, in fact, are in the process of being revised as we speak. But this is a new technology, and until it has survived some court battles, somebody's refusal to comply with a test doesn't begin to provide us with sufficient grounds to indict."

“So we'll trick our suspect. There are a dozen ways we could get blood, saliva, tissue—"

“Jesus! Jack, that's the last thing you want to do. Hey. Put a solid, concrete case against the scumwad together and lock down all the edges. That's what you need to do. Don't be counting on some lab magic to nail him. Not under these circumstances, with the current statutes and a relatively revolutionary—for us—technological breakthrough."

“The data I've seen on it is rock-solid. It's widely accepted by people in law enforcement, MIT, the—"

“You're in Buckhead County, Jack. Forget about what some egghead at the Massachussetts Institute of Technology says. Make a solid case against your man. You get some iffy DNA shit to go to trial with and the case stands a real fat chance of getting thrown out of court. Then you really will have messed in your mess kit, eh?"

Keeeerist, Eichord thought, forcing himself to breathe deeply. “Iffy DNA shit?” He thanked the C.A., por nada, and put his nose back to the grindstone.

The following day started out even worse. The composite of the suspects’ mug shots had drawn a total blank in Nevada. And Eichord had his morning ruined by a call from the Amarillo PD. They'd run the sheet by the old gentleman in Vega, and “he just couldn't be sure.” Did he even seem halfway about it? “Waffled” was the word they used in response. He waffled.

It was one of those times when as a law-enforcement peon you felt so much frustration. Schumway looked so good for it. Any why was he having so much trouble getting this Nicki Dodd interviewed? He had full-time surveillance on the house in North Buckhead and she hadn't come in or out for three days, for sure. Unless that prick Schumway had him some kind of secret tunnel. He wouldn't discount anything. One of the guys thought they might have seen a shadow at the window. Not sure.

If the woman was hiding in there, he had to find out. First—why? He could eliminate a lot of possibles with a face-to-face. He had to interview her and get it done NOW. Probable cause was the first thing. He didn't really have much, but he could throw something together, put her in a lineup, jack her around a little. See what fell into place. Main thing—he needed the house empty. He wanted in there when the place was empty. He'd get a search warrant first. No. He'd, uh, wing it.

Schumway as Spoda. It sure looked good. Especially the tie-in to Diane Taluvera in the Moss Grove bank. To reach out for somebody on probable cause was one thing; to apply for an arrest warrant from the circuit attorney's office, and to be able to give them an indictable package for trial—that was another smoke. This legal genius, Eichord, he knew all about such shit. He fumed, driving back to the station.

He'd go home and read his old depositions. Listen to the kid scream—the cartoons had stopped working, for no apparent reason. Just so he didn't dream about the trailer in Blytheville, Arkansas, and the silver platter of mean cuisine.

The night went just about the same way the day had. He went home and tried to work, trying to decide what to do, wondering which was the angle he'd missed, which was the one that was going to come back to haunt him, and all of this in one of Jonathan's loudest, ongoing tantrums. Then he and Donna got pissed with each other and he went to bed with that terrible sinking feeling in his chest, that sinking feeling that something was going to fuck him up once again, and then he'd see another page of The Journal of Retribution.

It was the one thing he never let himself think about. He wouldn't even admit it existed. It was too painful to remember the call from the nice chief down in Blytheville, telling him about the “scrapbook” they'd found when the particle-board flooring rotted out.

Hidden down under the flooring of the unmobile home was Mr. Owen Hillfloen's diary of blood. Explaining the crimes in twisted, meticulously printed phrases taken from the Scriptures.

Try as he might, he could not jerk his thoughts from the page where the old man detailed his punishment of the children, and Eichord visualized their last hours of torture. It was the page that explained why he'd taken their heads. What he'd done to them with the snakes before he killed and dismembered them.

Then he fell asleep. And in his dream he touches the filthy doorknob, turns, pushes, flashes the light around, finds the switch, hits it, sees the eyeball first as the stench overpowers him.

Some things never go away.

Buckhead Station

Jack Eichord woke up hurting all over. He felt as if he might have had 3 1/2 hours’ sleep, and his neck hurt the way he imagined it would if someone had taken a ball bat to him. He'd awoken scrunched up against the headboard, head at an impossibly weird angle, and he tried unsuccessfully to pop his second vertebra. Two aspirin hadn't helped. His throat, and nose, and sinus cavities felt the way they use to feel after fourteen hours behind the wheel of a car, back in the days when he still boozed and set fire to three packs of Winstons a day. His tongue was thick and coated with something that proved impervious to toothpaste, mouthwash, and coffee. He went in and found Donna's Darvon and popped one, and stood still and rotated his head back and forth.

They'd violated one of their own iron-clad rules. They'd gone to bed mad. Always before, when there was a problem between them, they'd talk it out, but they'd got into it over the boy again last night and each had said things they shouldn't have said, the way you sometimes will in a fight. Jack was downright mean to Jonathan. Donna was unwilling to sit on the kid. Each agreed the other was a shitty parent. Nobody won, and this morning it was still a draw. Nobody felt like hugging and kissing and Eichord ended up leaving the house in a silent, sullen cloud of frustration and fear and anger. Another first.

It had started when he came home and she hit him with the housework bit again; she had busted her back all day, she was through with the kid, “it's your turn."

He'd gone in to a screaming, defiant Jonathan and worked to calm him down. Let's play blocks, he said. They played blocks. Jack took a block just slightly below his left eye, thrown hard. For a two-year-old, he had to give him credit. The kid had an arm on him. Now if he could work on a slider and his change-up...

Did she fully realize the implications, he wondered, of a child like this, who felt such bitter hatred at two? The corny phrase “SPAWN OF EVIL” always managed to type itself on his mind screen when he had such thoughts. Jesus Christ! The child's murdered father had BLINDED A MAN when he was—what?—eight or nine years old! Again he allowed himself the guilty quasi-pleasure of regretting having fought for the kid's survival. Maybe it would be better for all concerned if he would ... And he let the thought die out. That kind of thinking was just jacking yourself off. It might feel good for the moment, but it's better when you grow out of it.

By the time he got to work he could feel his paranoia quotient building like Dana's high blood pressure, and the morning had barely started.

“Eichord,” he grumbled into the telephone mouthpiece.

“Jack?” It was the C.A.

“Listen,” the man said, and Jack duly listened, the phone cradled between his sore shoulder and neck and his throbbing head, words crackling meaninglessly as he jotted notes on legal pad paper. The call ended and another phone rang beside him, and he listened to Peletier get invited to a customs seminar in New Orleans, or so it sounded from his eavesdropped side of the call. What the fuck would a Homicide copper be doing at a ... Ah, fuck it. Little did he realize the telephone was about to strike him like a lightning bolt.

He shuffled papers and tried to attack his mountain of paperwork with little success. He read a memo rerouted to him via MacTuff, from a weapons consultant who suggested a new slant on the Tina Hoyt case. His thesis was that the killings were acts of political terrorism, and he had some fifty-six pages of documentation available on the use of a sharpened bicycle spoke as an assassination weapon. The killer, he proposed, was a hit man for the Ton Ton Macoute. Eichord, who never ruled anything out at first glance, filed the memo in the Graham file and flashed on the tire track cast. Shit, why not? But it didn't help his neck or headache any.

Now he'd misplaced the notes from the C.A.'s call, and as he shuffled papers, he found a crude drawing of three stick figures beside a doctor's name.

This was Jack's doodled shorthand reminder to buy dolls. The bottom line from a phone call to a woman psychologist recommended to him by Doug Geary. She'd offered a pleasant and logically reasoned suggestion about Jonathan.

Jack had told her he understood about the Terrible Twos, but this wasn't just a kid slamming doors, or breaking something, or throwing a tantrum. He was extremely concerned about the boy. He told her about the biological father—a monstrous mass murderer, the incarnation of evil. A tortured child who had grown up to become a cold killer, who had later acted as midwife to the birth of the infant son, literally ripping the child from his mother's womb at the moment of birth. Could such a thing have caused some kind of awful traumatic damage to Jonathan? When the Twos become SO terrible that it might be beyond the stage of such a child's expected development, how much more is okay before it's abnormal? How much of this was Jack overreacting?

She told him about dolls. Buy this little house. Dolls. Play a game with the child. It was all about association and role models and things that Eichord thought made perfect sense, and he vowed to buy them today. Tonight he would show Jonathan that he, Daddy, and Mommy loved their son. And that son would love Daddy and Mommy in return. And they'd all live happily forever after. Unless something else happened and one of them slipped and fell in the shark tank, eh?

He found the notes he was looking for. They read, burden of proof ... beyond reasonable doubt ... prosecutorial stance ... a lot of bullshit, he thought, and round-filed it.

The telephone on his desk rang and he picked it up. “Homicide. Eichord."

“This is Bonnie Johnson. I had a message you tried to get in touch with me."

“Hi, Bonnie. Thanks for returning my call. I had some information here on Mizz—” He fumbled around on his desk, turning pages, trying to find the dossier.

“Diane Taluvera. Yes, sir?"

“You still haven't heard from her?"

“No, sir. Just that postcard."

“Has anybody received any sort of direct communication from Ms Taluvera? A phone call—something like that?"

“Not a word."

“Do you think something has happened to her, Bonnie?” He tried to use an individual's first name whenever he could, but he had caught himself saying Mister Schumway a whole lot.

“Yes.” He could hear the catch in her voice. “I'm afraid for her. It's not like her to run away like that."

“You think this person that she was seeing, the man she referred to as Al, might have abducted her?"

“I did until last night, but now I don't know what to think. His secretary called me and they all want to come talk with me about Diane. He is as worried as I am. It's the car dealer Al Schumway. And he said he got a postcard from Diane too. He wanted to know what was going on. If I had got a call from her. He can't understand why she hasn't phoned him."

“Alan Schumway called YOU?"

“Well, no. Yeah. His secretary did. And then he got on the line for a minute. We talked. He seemed real concerned. I don't know."

“When was this?"

“Last night. About ten o'clock. He wanted to know if we all could meet and I told him I was too tired last night. And I really was. I was just exhausted. I hadn't slept for the last two days. So I guess I'll get together with them tonight. She's coming over to pick me up after work. I never realized, you know, Diane never said anything about him being in a wheelchair and I—"

“Listen, Bonnie—” He had a shortness of breath. “I, uh, want you to forget we had this conversation. Temporarily, please don't say anything about this call. Be sure not to mention it to anybody. Now, what I want you to do is this...” He was having a hard time swallowing. “I want to make sure you are safe for the next day or so. I will clear all this with your employers, but I want you to take sick leave this afternoon. You feel awful and you have to go home. I don't care what you use as your health excuse. Dizziness. Whatever. Just don't come back after your lunch period. When is your lunch hour?"

“It's at eleven-thirty. I don't understand. How come you want me to—"

“Bonnie, I don't want to take time to explain right now, but make sure you don't go home. Not for any reason. Do you have a cat or dog that has to be fed? Anything like that?"

“No."

“I want you to go to a hotel or motel. Don't tell any of your friends where you are. Don't tell the bank. I'll take full responsibility. How about relatives, Bonnie—anybody who might worry if you couldn't be reached for twenty-four hours or so?"

“They're all in Florida."

He ended up explaining to her what he wanted. Took her parents’ phone number in Ft. Lauderdale. Had her vow she'd call and leave word in a certain way as soon as she checked in. If he should be away from his desk, she was to leave word with anyone there in Homicide that Mrs. Lauder was in such-and-such a room at this number. It wasn't particularly clever, but his brain had vapor locked and it was the best he could improvise. He hung up and was out of the squad bay all in one motion.

He drove to Buckhead Springs first. Trying to decide which way to go on it. The search warrant, that was the biggie. Should he get the goddamn thing or not? Which way to go? Finally, he decided what he'd do. It scared him a lot to think about the plan. It made him want to pee, and he was glad the traffic wasn't too bad. He didn't want to red-ball it. In a few minutes he was parking in their garage. Donna was gone. This was her shopping morning. She had Jonathan with her. He checked the house to make sure nobody was home, then went in and took a leak, came back out to the garage, and took a deep lung full of gas fumes. Oi veh.

His heavy toolbox was under the bench, coated in oily grime and spider webs. He removed the hammer, drill, files, pliers; it was full of hand tools. His whetstone box was wrapped in an oil-soaked rag. He unwrapped it. The box carried the legend dont let the bastards grind you down in Latin, with the cardboard gone at the end so it read non carborund. He took the silver thing out and slipped it in a Baggie. Four rounds followed. Carefully wiped. The surgical gloves went in one pocket, pick gun in the other.

Back in the plain Jane and moving toward North Buckhead.

Would Bonnie go along with what he wanted? There were a couple of weak holes in his plan. He'd made enough Homicide cases he had some idea of the number of ways he could fuck up right now, and it just didn't matter. He knew what it was now. Very clear. And when Bonnie Johnson had phoned, he had this nudge from the corner of his mind about the lady in the women's group who had told a detective she THOUGHT she might have seen Tina Hoyt leaving the church with a young woman.

So this was how Spoda or Schumway did it. He had a surrogate all along. After twenty years he somehow talked his sexy, live-in secretary girlfriend into setting ‘em up for him. But the thing was, Eichord couldn't make a fucking case without a d.b. If he was willing to put Bonnie Johnson's life in peril, no sweat. Maybe they could stake her out like a fucking goat and let Nicki move in, and ... Shit, it wasn't working for him. Postulates bled like wounds. Fuck the circuit attorney's office with his aloof “iffy DNA shit."

If Eichord was right, Spoda, Schumway, was chair-bound. Without Nicki for legs, he'd have a helluva time doing his thing. He might be able to off somebody, but dispose of the victim? That could be a bit tougher. If Nicki baby was out of the game, Arthur Spoda could still be a player, but it was going to slow him down something fierce.

He stopped and called Dana on a pay phone, and by the time he pulled down the block from Schumway's house the surveillance car was gone. Eichord had roughly a quarter-hour before the surveillance van man rolled by. He'd be a memory by then.

Moving toward the house at a brisk pace. Just short of a jog. The pick gun out. No problem. Easing in nice and quiet. Standing dead-still. Breathing in the sounds of the house. Strange feeling. Nicki. She could be asleep in a bedroom. Or waiting. He stood there for a long two minutes. Slipped his shoes off and moved up the stairs. The elevator was a closed door he wouldn't investigate.

Did the whole house fast, Where the fuck WAS she? Took a couple of things out of his pockets. Put a couple of things back in. Time was ticking. He got paper out of Scumwad's desk and wiped it, even though he was using gloves, then decided that was wrong and opted for the top sheet on a notepad. Then changed his mind back again and took a full-size sheet.

The typewriter was a fancy electric with the guts in one tiny, self-contained compartment. The cartridge would have whatever he typed on it now, but he would gamble on that. He typed the brief note, then some other extraneous information to move the cartridge along. Had an inspiration and typed another. Enough. Every key sounded like a gunshot.

The penetration of the cabinet was a snap. He opened up the clay box and did a nice careful casting of both sides. The latex mold could work wonders, but you had to have a smooth matrix to work from.

He thought about checking for a catalog of mail-drop companies, matching company names with canceled checks, that kind of thing. Looking for the Polaroid collections these jokers sometimes like to keep. The nasty little scrapbooks. If he'd had three more hours instead of three minutes, he might have done that very thing. What he did do was ... he left. Why spoil a good thing? He didn't even check for hidden security systems, although he wanted to know more. Was the joint miked to a sound-activated recorder, for example? Later for you, house, he thought, and he was outta there.

By the time Bonnie was leaving for lunch, and not coming back, so was he. Back in the squad room listening to Tuny's rasp cut through the fog, “You wanna eat Spic?"

“Shit, no,” Tucker told his partner. “I don't wanna eat that shit."

“Why the fuck not?” fat Dana whined. “Get some of that hot babyfinger chile.” Dana claimed he'd once found a tiny fingernail in his favorite Mex-Tex restaurant, hence Babyfinger Chile con Carne.

“Less eat honky. Go over to that shithole on Central and get some nice, rare greaseburgers."

Eichord felt his stomach turning and he had to pee again. He went into the men's room and NIGHT-CRAWLER was waiting for him on the wall above the urinal. He felt alone. It was a feeling like being lost at the heart of a dark and foreboding maze. He zipped his pants, washed his hands, went back into the squad room, and sat down at his desk. He noticed Dana had put the surveillance back on the house like he'd told him to. Eichord felt a surge of affection for his old pal and glanced over at the two massive detectives.

“Hey. Ya know what? You guys do good work, didja know that?"

“Does the pope wear a hat?"

“C'mon, man,” Monroe Tucker said, looming over him momentarily, “we gonna go scarf up some nice, bloody greaseburgers. Sound good?"

“Gee, Monroe. That does sound tempting. Wish I could."

“Oh, Jackie, PLEASE change your mind,” Dana simpered, half-swishing, half-waddling past.

“Pass,” Eichord told him, blowing a kiss.

North Buckhead

You see, what happened was he woke up thinking he had done it and it set his teeth on edge worse than a spur working its way out bim-bam-boom. Bim—in the car listening to kids laughing as they wait for a school bus, Schumway leaves and Eichord thinks it's empty so he B & Es it and ... Whoaaaaa, hello dere! It's Nicki waiting for him. With a gun.

“Who the fuck are YOU?” she says, the gun too close. He does his Quantico Armed Suspect #6 and then puts his piece in her mouth find BAAMMO—gyuk and splattergore all over everybody.

“That's who the fuck I are,” he says. That's one. Then there's the one where he's in the car and the kids are laughing and Schumway leaves and Eichord knocks.

“Hello,” very ladylike.

“Hi, I'm Jack Eichord.” The badge just a little flash, like an open trenchcoat. He's a closet shield-wagger. “Could I have just a moment of your time?” Soft and gentle.

“Certainly, Officer. Glad to cooperate with the police."

“Miss, we know you and Mr. Schumway are responsible for the murder of Tina Hoyt and Diane Taluvera, not to mention others. Do you want to talk about it? This is the time to think of yourself."

“But, sir, I'm completely innocent.” Demure. Soft.

“I see,” he says, placing the silver thing between her teeth, jamming it in and firing as she brings her arms up. BBOOOOOOOMMMMM! He'd killed her over and over all night long. But it was morning and the dangerous, deadly lady was still alive and he couldn't make it go away this time. Not with the sun coming up.

It was cool this morning and Eichord had a thermos in the car with him, and he unscrewed the cap and poured half a cup of black coffee. Steam swirled out of the cup when he sat it on the dashboard, and the front windshield fogged up across the lower part of the glass. He took a sip of the steaming coffee and wrote something beside one of his notes. The legal pad was beside him in the seat. It said: Timing? Arrest Warrant. And there were numbers beside that. Beneath that was printed a long list of things like, Gloves, Take bullet from bag, 2nd round goes, with the word “brass” printed beside that. Nineteen things to remember in all.

The newspaper was propped up in the space between him and the wheel, a guy killing some time drinking coffee and reading the paper while he waited for someone. The window cracked a little, the cool air helping him. There was still time to get real and forget this altogether.

He'd never done anything like this. Ever. A couple of times there'd been things happening on the job. He'd seen others go nuts, get carried away. Seen somebody shot once when it didn't have to be. Eichord had killed three men in his lifetime and had hated it each time. He wondered as he sat there if he had the balls for this, this morning, and oddly enough he decided that balls would be the least of his worries.

He ran it through his mental fixative one more time. The aftermath of what he was about to do had an unknown black hole in the middle. An area where it could all come tumbling down around his ears. The maid who comes in to clean, the neighbor who hears something, the witness who sees the remembered face, the forensics that everybody forgets, the package of money left on the closet shelf to take you down later.

There's always a bottom line. The bottom line here was more innocent women. He tried to recall all of their names to give him some poison to work with, starting with Diane Question-mark and working his way backward. Diane Taluvera. Poke Salad Annie. Shit, all of a sudden they were a nameless, faceless blur of cadavers.

People! The front door. Scumwad and his bitch. A black car he hadn't seen before in the drive and big Al wheels over, gets in while she helps him, collapses the chair, packs it all away nice and neat. Doors slam. She leans in and they kiss for a long time. Lovers. Isn't that sweet?

He planned to wait five minutes, but three is all he can stand. If the man returns ... Fuck it. Ad-lib, we will. Eichord has to piss, of course, and fuck that too. It's too late for piss. He's in the driveway. Out. Forgot the fucking box. Back in. Gets the box and stuff in the sack. Up to the door. Rings. Doesn't wait to find out if she'll answer, but starts pounding, really hammering on the fucker, and Eichord has a fist like a college shotput, hard and heavy.

It opens and a woman snarls, “Keep your goddamn shirt on, for crissakes, you don't have to beat the goddamn door down—"

“Nicki Dodd?” he says with the shield case open in one hand, the sack heavy and down beside him in the other.

“Yeah?"

“Ma'am, you are a material witness in a Homicide investigation...” A barrage of double-talk that he'd learned from a New York City Vice cop years back, starting to Mirandize her as he invited himself in, pushing by her in the doorway, the ID and shield long gone now, a given, pushing his way in with all the authority of all the Homicide dicks in the history of the world, shoving his way in in the time honored manner, shouldering past with bad vibes and ugly warnings, muscling into the darkened early-morning house with copper eyes and gunmetal words: “—anything you say can and will be used against you.” Nothing makes ‘em drop their drawers like Miranda. It's television that does it. All those bad movies. Everybody knows when they hear that bullshit about how you have the right to remain silent. Sure, bitch. Take the fifth.

“Am I under arrest?” The tone saying. What the fuck is THIS shit? Not a worried bone in her thin body. Think gas chamber, he tells himself.

“Ma'am, do you know what this is?” His hand is going out to her and he makes her take something, dropping it before the fingers touch so she won't feel the pliofilm.

“What the—” She looks like she never saw such an object before.

“Do you own a gun, ma'am?” He takes the bullet from her quickly.

“No."

“I have a couple of questions, ma'am. Let's sit here, shall we? This won't take a second.” He watches as she writes her scrawl across the Miranda form.

“I don't say shit without an attorney.” She's moving back.

“Huh uh.” He takes hold of her in his strong hands, pushing her down in the nearest chair. “It doesn't work that way. I ask questions. If you answer them, THEN you call the lawyer. If I don't get answers...” He trailed off, walking behind her. “We have lots of problems. First, we know you and Mr. Schumway killed Diane Taluvera and others. You wanna talk about it or what?” Moving around behind her.

“This is bullshit. I'm—"

“NO. Sit."

“Hey! You can't do this. There are rules. I know my rights and—"

Would he ever forget the sneer in that voice? “You don't know sweet shit, lady. Here are the rules: there are no rules. Okay? Now. You get one chance.” He did something quietly, soundlessly, but then there was a metal noise again, he restrained her back in the chair. “Will you admit you helped kill Diane Taluvera and others? No time. Talk. Yes or no?"

“You're crazy. You're fucking NUTS. I never killed anybody, you stupid son of—” The silver thing went off up close against her right temple. She had reached for the bullet with her right hand. There was some blood. Some noise. He looked around and picked up the brass.

Don't bog down. Keep moving. Don't worry about anything now, you've either got it covered or fuck it, you know? Everything gets dumped out of the sack and onto the sofa. Long white sofa, and godDAMN it get control of your hands, asshole. Get control of your asshole hands.

A Baggie inside the evidence bag. Three rounds. U.S..25 Colt Auto. Oldies but goodies. The silver thing a Frommer Lilliput. Exposed hammer. Not like the locked-breech weapons of the larger Frommers. Little Hungarian pocket guns that had some fuckup features like a hammer to catch on the way out and an exterior barrel casing that had a way of getting dented and totally screwing the weapon over. Some kind of crazy Rube Goldberg locking system. All in all, a piece of shit, but this little sweetheart was clean and cold. Freezer-cool and sheep-dipped as a piece can get. Never saw a cop's drop-gun case, never saw the inside of a Confiscated Property room. Right off a wise-guy stiff some five years back. Even the ammo was old, but it still made a bang. Bim-bam-boom.

And he finally fumbles the rounds out on the table beside Nicki's chair. Drops them and the spent casing into one of her pockets. Picks up a little lint on the oil. Does some things to the Lilliput. Runs an oily rag through a few times afterward. Puts a couple rounds in the mag. Takes the decedent's right hand and closes it around the grip. Mother-of-pearl. The left hand over the slide. Lets that hand drop. Cocked and unlocked. Stuffs it into the ballistics box and fires a second round. Picks up the brass and drops it into the sack. The noise is not a factor.

Rearranges the hands and feet. Nicki Dodd is looking good. Keep moving. No sweat. Looking real fine. Okay. We either got some time or we don't. He sees the legal pad in his head. Nicki had shown up with Schumway to the surveillance team working the four-to-twelve trick last night. He'd taken a chance and had Dana lift surveillance at midnight. The graveyard tour was thrilled, of course. Fucking house plants.

Prints. Powder—for the shooting team. Lint on the rounds. Nothing worse than rounds in a magazine somebody has wiped off. Angle of the dangle to match the heat of the meat. All by the numbers now. A weapon that's gonna look like it was fired once, and by the decedent, lead in the head, spent brass by her ass. Double-check—you got the second round in the box, the casing in the sack. So far so good.

There is no sense of being executioner or any of that superior, lofty, silly shit. No sense of right or wrong. We can sit down and worry later if this has bought us a ticket into hell, right? There's time or there isn't—so go to it. Eichord starts in the master bedroom and takes his time, working his way back downstairs to Nicki. She'll wait for him now. Yes, sir.

The only time problem is the timing problem. And that's no problem at all. Everything is under control. The arrest warrant gets served. The search warrant covers the entry. He'll be right there with the shooting team. What's not to love about it? Hell, there's a whole fucking WORLD not to love about this cluster fuck. But not now. Now is for looking. Prying into Mr. Spoda's dark world. Looking for icepicks and blood trails and creepy-crawlies.

The other box, in with the ballistics box in the sack, comes out, penetration of the cabinet again. Shit, I oughta get a key made, he thinks. He takes a better, moh puhfeck casting, brudder. This baby has to be el perfecto.

Finally, forty minutes later, he has run the whole nine yards. It's either done or it ain't. He opens his notebook and removes the paper. It appears to be a mimeographed or poorly photocopied “Miranda Versus” form. Two thick rubber bands hold it in place. But the Miranda ends under the second rubber band. He carefully unfolds what Nicki Dodd has signed and reads her brief suicide note. So-so.

Back at the typewriter, being extremely careful, hitting the keys slowly, one at a time, he types an identical note, leaving the message on the typewriter. He has debated putting a couple of neat, clear prints on the keys, but he has used an object that probably won't smear everything. Be funny if Schumway's prints would be clear and we can make HIM a suspect. Eichord smiles, but this isn't him smiling. Not now.

This is some other cat. Some rogue cop who is capable of taking the law into his own hands. This is a smiling murderer, baby. And fuck THAT, too. Sometimes the system fails.

Funny. He'd had an image register when they moved from the door. The rolling swagger so incongruous in a good-looking woman's walk. A tight end in drag. That Vegas hooker look, that's what she reminded him of. A Vegas casino hooker.

Think electric chair. Jack the Ripper Eichord, one-man firing squad. Jesus in heaven! At that second he felt as mad Saucy Jack must have felt, knowing your single contribution had been that of the razor's red kiss.

Buckhead Springs

Donna was talking about some pamphlets she wanted Jack to read about how to discipline a two-year-old, and he was not trying to tune her out, it was just that he couldn't shake the images from the day. Going back to the house with the evidence guys and the M.E. and the shooting team from Buckhead North had been as bad or worse than the awful scene this morning. Every step, every word of dialogue, was a land mine.

Somehow he'd gotten through it, but he couldn't shrug it all off. He kept worrying it like a cat with an addled mouse, shaking it, letting go for a moment, then jumping on it again. All things being equal, it fell together well. The surveillance team last night hadn't been yanked into thin air, they'd planted ‘em over at the Starlight Motor Inn, watching Mrs. Lauder. Then, with a dozen people still at the crime scene, working the house, Alan Schumway picked up for questioning, a totally bizarre thing happened.

The medical examiner had phoned the cop shop, who radioed the people on the scene. Eichord was told by one of the guys from North that the decedent was a man. He couldn't fucking believe it. Nobody could. It was going to cut their possible murder one suspect a hell of a lot of slack. Suddenly Nicki/Nicholas had begun to look like a sure-enough suicide. He/ she popped a cap into her head, with a note that said, “I'm sorry. I just can't take it anymore.” Signed, sealed, and delivered. A fucking transvestite blew his/ her brains out all over the living-room shag.

“She said they had a residual, no? I can't read my own notes, residential treatment center. And the funny thing was that a lot of these girls that come in there, you know, as battered wives, and it's incredible, a lot of them end up battering their own kids because—"

“Hey, Eichord,” fat Dana with the all-time grossest joke of the day.

“What?"

“You know why Alan and Nicki lived together?"

“Why?"

“Well, he couldn't walk, man. So he had to get a TV for his bedroom.” Screaming laughter. Fucking peabrain.

“—in the emergency foster home. So I told her about Jonathan and she said that it was perfectly natural for—"

What happens when he gets a card in the mail from Diane Taluvera. “Gee—sorry I didn't get back to you, but Bonnie said you were trying to get in touch...” Christ. A million things could collapse on him. He fought to lock in on what his wife was saying to him. She was looking at him intently so he nodded sagely.

“On the other hand,” he said, trying to look like a normal human being and not a fucking murdering FREAK, “you know the old saying."

“What's that?"

“Spare the rod and spoil the child."

9 Days Later

It was Sunday and Donna had taken Jonathan to church with her. She tried to get Jack to go and he begged off. Work.

“It's Sunday, honey,” she said.

“I know."

“Do you have to work on Sunday?"

“No choice, Donna. Sorry,” he lied.

“We'll miss you. Won't we, my big boy?” He said nothing, dressed in his finery. Clean. “Won't we miss Daddy?"

“No,” the boy said loudly.

“There you are,” Eichord said.

“NO."

“Say YES. Jonathan. Say YES. Can you say YES?"

"NO!"

“Please?"

“No,” the child cooed pleasantly.

“Okay.” Donna turned to Jack. “Come with us?"

“Can't do it, babe.” He was afraid that everything showed in his voice. He had the doll house and the three dolls waiting for them for after church. He'd had them for days, but couldn't bring himself to do it. He couldn't wait any longer. They had to start trying to pull the little boy out of whatever darkness had hold of him.

Church had been a disaster for Donna. Jonathan had misbehaved, she told him, and she'd finally been forced to take him to the cry room, off the nursery, where a woman had entertained him until the services were over and Donna could reclaim him.

“Were you a bad boy in church?” Jack asked.

"NO! NO! NO! NO!" Screaming at the top of his voice.

After he'd had some time to calm down, the three of them had a light lunch, and then Jack and Donna sat down on the floor with Jonathan and played dolls. This is Mommy and Daddy. They love each other very much. God gave them a little son. This is Jonathan. They loved Jonathan with all their hearts. They lived together in a house by the side of the road. And so on...

About five-forty-five Donna walked in front of the TV set in the family room where Jack sat vegetating in front of a football game. She was sobbing.

“What is it, angel?” He leaned forward, starting to stand up, and froze at the look of horror on her face as she showed him what she had in her hands.

“He-he brought them to me.” It was the Mommy and Daddy dolls. They were headless. Hey, things take time. No big deal. He's just a little boy.

He waited until about eight that night, and on the pretense of going out to pick up a magazine, he left the house and called Doug Geary long-distance from a payphone. He took him through the recent chain of events.

Dr. Geary said, “Jack, my friend, isn't it possible you've blown these things out of proportion? Two-year-olds don't take photographs out of picture frames. Their hand-to-eye coordination wouldn't allow it. Don't you think you may be reading into the—"

“Doc, it wasn't like that. He pulled that picture down and the glass broke. It never did fit in the frame right anyway, and when it hit the floor, the picture fell out. But he reached a little hand into that pile of glass and got the photograph. I saw him tear it. I saw his eyes."

“He'll grow out of it. Jack. They all do."

“He tore the HEADS off the dolls that represented us. He HATES us."

“Listen, it's perfectly natural.” He spent ten more minutes doing his best to reassure Jack Eichord that two-year-old Jonathan was going to be all right. It would work out. The kid wasn't a latent psycopath, after all. Everything would work out.

Finally Jack rang off with self-deprecating apologies, some laughter, and profuse thanks. But he wasn't smiling when the line went dead. Inside him there was something worse than any horror he'd ever known. A gnawing thing that he was afraid was chewing out a permanent place in his guts. He had lived to see one of his worst fears realized: finding himself having to constantly fight his own thought processes, the one horror you can never escape. Thought cancer.

Driving back home under the painful weight of it, he could understand that he was working overtime to throw off verboten thoughts, fighting to shake loose of them like someone throwing off piles of extra covers on a hot summer night, only to awake the next morning drenched in sweat and covered in the same blankets.

And in the morning Eichord woke up petrified with the fearful leftover vision from his night dreams: the official form with the space marked accident—suicide-homicide. The one he'd dreamed was marked cause of death—deferred.

16 Days Later

One thing about fighting—you could make up. They were on the bed.

“You're a good chick,” he told her, sitting beside her and patting her leg, “you know that?"

The kid was asleep, temporarily forgotten.

“Aww. How sweet.” She took his big hand and kissed the hairy, thick fingers and the large knuckles.

“That's me."

“You sure have been down in the dumps lately."

“Nawww. Not really."

“Urn hmmm."

“Nah. Just moody—I dunno. Quiet, I guess."

“I know you too well, sweetie. You'll eventually tell me what's buggin’ you. When you get good and ready."

“Don't worry about me. I'm cool."

“I guess it's second nature to worry about you,” she said, “considering the nature of your job. I'll probably always worry about you. But I'm not worried now. You just seem preoccupied. Kind of blue or bugged or something. I don't have anything to worry about, do I?"

“Nope.” He leaned over and kissed her softly.

“You haven't been foolhardy, have you. Officer? Haven't done something else real heroic, have you? Don't scare me now."

“Never fear, babe. Or, as Stan Laurel used to say, I'm no fool. Hardy."

“I see."

“Sounds like a Mel Brooks line."

“Yeah, but Mel Brooks can't do this,” she said, and she pulled him down to her and started doing a truly miraculous thing to his mouth and his eyes and his ears and his face, doing something with her tongue that felt so hot, and the silk robe was coming open and he saw what she was wearing under it.

A flimsy little thing he'd seen in one of the lingerie catalogs she'd heard him remark about. Oh, my sakes alive. Heavens to Betsy. Yes. He touched her and she pulled back a little and let him look at those perfectly shaped expialadocious breasts of hers, which were threatening to rip through the wispy top. Oh, yeah. And he was on top of her in all her titillating erect-nippled tongue-salivating schlong-hardening gorgeous get-inside-of-me-and-do-it perfection.

Afterward Donna wouldn't leave him alone. She started playing with him. Teasing him very gently with her hand, barely touching him with her fingers. Letting her fingertips flutter over him intimately, and there was some response and she said, in her sexiest whisper, “I want more,” and he told her, “You expect a lot of a dead man,” but she knew how to inflame him and he rose to the occasion.

He was very relaxed, nude under a sheet listening to Donna shower, and two words forced their way in before he could slam his brain shut and block them out. Two ugly, bloodred words that had no business here on this nice day, intruding on their playtime, forcing their way into his bedroom:

E N T R A N C E W O U N D

is what he saw with his mind's eye. Then, instantly visualizing his mental checklist, which he reconstructed anew each time a memory assailed his waking thoughts.

E N T R A N C E W O U N D / E X I T

L A T E N T P R I N T S

B A L L I S T I C S

H A I R & F I B E R S

E V I D E N C E / D O C U M E N T S

M O T I V E

and on down through the two dozen awful wet and slippery places where a man could step and suddenly his feet were out from under him and he was flying through the air and heading for the open window and it was such a long fall to the bottom...

How many times would he have to run through that horror of a day? Sit in that car again watching Scum-wad leave. Knock at that big, ornate door and hear the thing inside screech. Muscle in and get the name on the suicide note folded under a fake Miranda. Obtain a print on the bullet, and later the rounds for the magazine. Load that first one surreptitiously. Get the angle just so. Pressure on the trigger. Note the position of the brass. Check for blood and gore on the clothing. The ballistics box is in the sack with the other stuff. Put the clip back in, force the skinny fingers around the drop-gun, push it into the hole in the box and fire. Spent brass in the sack. Prints on the note. Note nearby. Type the note again and the paper goes in the sack. Did he remember to put some of the pocket lint on the shells that went in the magazine? Did he remember not to forget to remember what it was he wasn't supposed to forget?

Witnesses. Time disparities. Surveillance logs. Cutouts. Warrant timing. What a fucking land mine this was becoming inside his head.

On the other hand, it had been more than three weeks since the last Iceman murder, assuming Diane Taluvera had been a victim. Each day he nagged the C.A.'s office about Schumway, just to keep his hand in.

“Penny for your thoughts?” Donna came in, wrapping a towel around her head, another bath towel bulging with woman.

“You'd lose money,” he said. Oh, I was just thinking about a transvestite I shot dead a couple of weeks ago.

Squinting his eyes, he saw the open bedroom door as the balcony of the lonely Vegas hotel room, and there in the imagined darkness he could imagine that the thrum of the house was the noisy air-conditioning, and the sounds of the outdoors and the screaming from the patio were the constant noise level that is Lost Wages after dark. Nicki, the man, had lived there with Arthur Spoda as lovers of a kind. A pair of killers. Both crippled in their own way. And he flashed on the white high heels and forlorn phone directory on a rooftop far below.

Some woman had once told him she had, as one of her duties for a Nevada hotel, the job of removing all the church listings from the directory's Yellow Pages. Presumably if you were in the house of worship of your preference, you couldn't be in the casino spending. Spoda/Schumway and his mutation of a lover would have been right at home there. Drawing power from the sickness that would cling to them like smoke.

Before he could block it he saw the words DREW POWER FROM materialize on the material from Arkansas, and the details from the Journal of Retribution homicides coursed through him in a shivery gush of blood. His own words still haunted him, and in that heartbeat of horrified weltanschauung he saw his own description of the maniac in South Blytheville.

“—other New Mexico aliases included J. Baptiste, The Baptist, a/k/a Snakebite. He believed that he drew power from consuming the breasts, penises, and testes of his victims, especially of children. Part of the rituals involved the ingestion of eyeballs, excrement, and—"

Penny for your thoughts. I dream of entrance wounds and torn babies, and I wonder if this thing I have done has made me one of THEM. Have I drawn too much power?

27 DAYS LATER...Mount Olive

“Jinx, I never saw such a fucking rat's nest,” the whore with the crooked teeth said, smiling. “Find it for me,” she whined.

“Will you give me a goddamn break for five fucking seconds?” the other whore said, her hand over the phone mouthpiece. “Look for it yourself, you're in such a hurry."

“Eyeglasses case, wallet, pen, notebook, lipstick, knife, Jesus Aitch! Hair spray, compact, Esgic, deodorant tampons for a sweet-smelling pussy, powder blush, makeup bag, more lipstick, what a fuckin’ RAT'S NEST.” The whore named Jinx slammed the door—that is, she reached for the handle to slam the door but there wasn't any handle because there wasn't any door.

“This is Jinx.” She smiled into the phone. “Hidee. Any calls?” She waited. “Okay.” She said over her shoulder, “Brandi! Bring me my purse. Come on. Hurry.” The whore with the crooked fangs got up on her high-heeled boots and clacked over with the outstretched purse. The woman on the phone rummaged for her datebook. “Did you take my pen ou—"

She saw the pen. “Oh.” She handed the purse back. “Go ahead,” she said, speaking into the phone.

“Breath mints, Trojans, coin purse, rain scarf, hand lotion, gum, keys, a fucking rat's nest in here, I tell you. Aspirin, Kleenex, FINALLY the fucking Tums.” She popped a couple and removed something else from the depths of the purse with a smile.

When the whore named Jinx came back over to the table, she said, “Hidee, Heidie, any calls?” She stuck the beat-up joint in her mouth and posed.

“You dumb bitch, get that outta your mouth.” They both laughed. “You crazy fool."

The sleek car cruised the streets of Mount Olive's Strip, a notoriously high-crime-rate area populated by people who had almost anything that discretionary income could buy—the sort of goods not offered in your normal in-store product-and-service operations. But if it was a bit warm, chances are it would find its way to the Strip: dope, stolen merchandise, illicit flesh. These were the staples.

In this eight-block section of urban decadence you could seek out a variety of ways to rid yourself of surplus disposable income. As long as you were willing to pay for your thrills, there was very little that you couldn't buy—or at least order. Purloined laser discs. China white. Night people for sale in the full range of makes and models.

By the time the car pulled slowly past Cup's Bar, Jinx and Brandi were out in front, gossiping, giggling, and shaking tail for the cruising johns. He saw the one he liked and hung a right, quickly circling and making another pass. Stopping this time. He lowered the window and slid over where they could see his face.

“Hey, pretty girl,” he called, and they both came over anxiously.

“Hi. Wanna go out on a date?” the crooked teeth said. He ignored her and said to the girl beside her. “Hey, Blondie. How much to get down?"

“Wanna party?” the other girl said, sticking her face in the window suspiciously. Smile, you stupid cunt, he thought as he said, “Yeah, baby. How much?"

“What chew got in mind?"

“Let me think about it some and I'll let you know,” he said, quickly pulling back out as he changed his mind.

The other woman had been too interested in him. She'd seen his face. Even with the wig and the poor light he wasn't taking any chances. Too many people knew his face.

“Think about this, too,” the one named Jinx said, pulling up her short skirt and brazenly mooning him as he drove off. “Fucking cheesedick fag."

He liked the next one he saw alone. Walking fairly fast and young enough, but it was hard to tell. Very short and with the heels he figured yes but you got everything around here. Housewives tricking on weekends with hubby gone. College girls. One-night stands of any possible combination. Undercover cops. You name it. It was all out here. Even a boy or two.

“Hi,” he said.

“Hi.” She had a nice smile with her mouth closed and from a distance.

“Listen. I'm kind of alone and ... you know."

“You want a date?"

He breathed a small sigh of relief. “Sure. How much?"

“What do you want to do?"

“We could go look at my stamp collection. But I think I'd rather go get between some clean sheets and do the horizontal mambo. You know, fuck, and suck, and do the hucklebuck."

The girl laughed and opened the door, looking him over in the car light.

He smiled warmly. “Get in."

She did, but left the door open.

“Sixty—for you to suck it?” He pulled out a roll and she shook her head.

“A hundred for that.” He didn't speak right away. “I'm worth it."

“Sure, beautiful. I don't doubt it.” He peeled the money off. When she spoke, he had seen her teeth and she'd reminded him of Fang a minute ago. Did all these cunts have fucked-up teeth?

“What's your name, darlin'? Mine's Tanya.” He thought of an outcall ad. Tanya is young, long-legged, and busty. Dominant Wendi is slim and very pretty. We will fulfill your fantasies.

“Tanya. What a sexy name,” he said. “Mine's R.G."

“Hi, R.G."

Hi, you stupid bitch. The mouth. He finally realized who all these whores were reminding him of, these cunts with the fucked-up teeth, these fang-mouthed sluts—they were reminding him of Nicki when he'd first met her. I'll make em PAY for what they did to you, baby, he thought.

“You look like somebody I used to know."

“God. Really? A lot of people tell me I look like—you know—the one on that TV show. Donna Mills?"

“Yeah. You look exactly like Donna Mills. She's the one I was thinking of.” You look like GENERAL Mills, maybe. Stupid cunt.

“There's a nice place just a couple blocks from here,” Tanya said. She had a slight malocclusion that actually enhanced her smile, made it sexier, like Cher's before she had her teeth fixed. As if the woman's mouth was sexier for being flawed, figuratively or metaphorically more open, penetrable, accessible. More vulnerable.

“Negative.” He peeled off another twenty. Her whore eyes fastened on the roll of greenery. “I live six blocks away. Let's go there. We can shower or whatever—get nice and clean, you know?” She shook her head. She didn't think much of the idea.

“I know a nice dark street. Pull around the corner up there.” She reached for the money. He let her take it and she reached over and pulled the car door shut. He started the car and moved out.

“My place, babe."

“I don't go to private houses, R.G. Come on, hon, you just pull around the corner and I'll show you a great time. Okay, handsome?"

He kept driving straight ahead, talking to her gently, smiling his good-looking salesman's smile. She had a very short micro of a denim mini and a low, scoop-neck T-shirt. He reached his right hand over and put his fingers on the inside of her left thigh.

“Hey!” Her voice was grating when it was loud in his ear like that. “I toldja pull around the corner. Come on, now. Pull up there in the shadows and I'll really make you feel good, lover.” Without asking him, she pushed the power button on the radio/tape deck and one of his tapes began to play as the antenna slid up.

“Fuck THAT,” she said, punching the music off and twisting the dial to rock radio. “Lemme hear some JAM!” Loud formula rock blasted from the speakers and she immediately started moving in the seat. “Pull over up there."

He was so enraged he didn't even wait. He just turned in the seat and hammered her with his fist. A fast reflexive blow to the head. Hammered her again. POW. Reached over and pulled her closer, the powerful muscles of his upper body rippling as he took the metal object from its case and stabbed it down into her skull, rubbing himself with his other hand, mashing down on the brake light—having forgotten he hadn't even turned the engine off—ejaculating over Tanya's dying form.

“—fucking slut CUNT WHORE BITCH FUCKING SHIT—” Coming, the front of his trousers soaked, his hot splatter of ejaculate all over the car interior. He was still hot. He would take this one home and improvise with her for a long time before he threw her away.

Buckhead Station

Eichord's round-the-clock on Schumway had been smothered in the crush of the numbers—man-hours, pounds of computer printout, phone logs, faxes, real time, cop time, time since the last Iceman murder. Also, the joker had a way of getting out of Schumway Buick without being seen. Closed maintenance bays, a constant flow of traffic onto the big lot, two large entrance/exit ramps on either side of the vast Parts Department, which ran the full length of the dealership, which was housed on four and a half acres of Buckhead business district.

He had access to too many cars, trucks, and rvs, not to mention the possibility of disguises, and ruses no more complex than lying down in the back of somebody else's car when they left. He would do that for spite first time he spotted police watchers. They were his employees, too, and the likelihood of complete cooperation, considering the weight of a paycheck in the balance, was less than slim. Schumway was now in the habit of routinely disappearing two or three times a week, sometime between the early afternoon and closing. So, by the end of the fourth week when nobody else had turned up dead or missing, spoda-schumway was just a grimy box full of paper in the still-open investigation on which Jack Eichord spent his working days.

When he got the telephone call that morning, he'd been across the street. He still felt numbness in his left arm and shoulder from what he believed was something that had been sent down the phone cord to get him. A guy on the duty desk in Mt. Olive on the other end, pouring poisons into the phone, the stuff burning down the line somehow, pouring through AT&T and working its way into his fingertips, the hand touching the phone, a foul, smoking thing that shot up his hand and arm and into his shoulder like a hundred icepicks.

“Some boys found a box in Mt. Olive Park,” the man told him. “Just a head in it. Female Cauc with multiple wounds. Looks like an icepick again."

He'd had plenty of time to go look at it. Come back. He was waiting for Dana and Monroe to return to the station. Sitting at his desk going through options. Don't go off half-cocked, he told himself. Go slow. He'd had plenty of slow.

His desk was the physical center of hoyt-graham-lennon, which was now a major-crimes priority case. To the left of his desk rested the main body of hoyt-graham-lennon, which was a well-developed female file standing 34 1/2 inches, weighing thirty-nine pounds, brown boxes in configuration, ruddy complexion labeled TDK T-120HS, running from Amarillo through Nicki Dodd ("a well developed male ... “), the suicide, now there would be more.

The rest of the regional investigation that “Special Agent Jack Eichord was coordinating” for the task force covered the walls of the Homicide squad bay and the surface of Jack's desk, overflowing into a chair. Brown-skinned accordion-fold expanding files held secondary suspects and spoda, norway and nevada, las vegas metro and diane taluvera, primary suspects, and hand of christ.

On top of all this was his beat-up attaché case, open, crammed with papers, and the base for his tangibles/intangibles. This was a display he'd pasted to white shirt cardboard and it sat there taunting him, unfolded like a diorama of man complete with geneological chart. Some of the headings were:

sensory alive/motor dead? (see nerves)

bicycle? (Wheelchair lab check track at Graham crime scene made by tread of a foreign bicycle.)

hazy records (ancient car wreck, Norway cover, move to UK, no Inland Revenue trace, no Interpol, no Scotland Yard, see voiceprinting/fingerprinting)

betty baylos (32—dresses like child—sexually? See KSP file)

retarded-brother ploy (relatives, medical)

Another note simply said:

could anybody be that clever? (sperm)

He vaguely remembered the day he'd got off the phone with the circuit attorney's guy, realizing now on the supraliminal level what he'd been going for as he tried to force through his wild and crazy fake-DNA-trace hypothesis.

“If they can trace blood, sperm, tissue—okay, you got the AIDS thing—we pay a prostitute to obtain a sample of this guy's sperm, or we—” He remembered the scenario. What if he found out that Betty Baylos, this thirty-two-year-old sexpot who dressed like somebody's teenybopper sister, had just happened to work at the place where—say—Freidrichs just happened to give blood? Wouldn't that be an interesting coincidence?

“Get what I'm saying?” Wink wink, nudge nudge, he'd tried to bait the guy.

“No. I don't understand where you're going at all.” He was going back to Keith Freidrich's mean stare. A good-looking cripple. A real hater. New City Arcade would be the kind of business a gambler might invest in. And the retarded brother ... Oh, baby, what a sweet touch for somebody cunning enough to plan a scene that was seamless, airtight, waterproof, and cop-proof. What if he was smart enough to move to a city where a wheelchair-bound guy with Arthur Spoda's initials was living with a beautiful woman? Oh, man. You could get so lost in these.

A woman in the church saw a tall woman “leaving with Tina Hoyt.” Nicki had set up Diane Taluvera and Nicki was Schumway's private stock, but the wheelchair was a bicycle, so how much wood could a woodchuck chuck? And why was Elvis’ name misspelled on his tombstone, and when alien spacecraft land on the planet, why do they only allow imbeciles to see them? You know how it is with inquiring minds, baby.

All of that by the wayside as the other calls came into his ear, the telephone ringing and Eichord assuming it was Dana telling him they got tied up or whatever, or maybe the doc from St. Louis returning his call, and he picks it up and hears only a buzz. Then, faintly, “Jack? Can you hear me?"

“Doc?” Eichord called all doctors Doc if he liked them.

“Wally Tulare in St. Louis. Can you hear me?” always with the fucking phones. And for five minutes Jack lets more poisons seep into his hand and arm and this time into the ear. Tulare told him more about Spoda than he wanted to know, but by the time they hung up, he was more convinced than ever that Al Schumway and Arthur Spoda were the same man. He just couldn't fucking PROVE it.

Shortly after that another call—somebody motioned at a winking hold line, and he picked it up and a woman said, “Jack Eichord?"

“Speaking?"

“Jack, this is Amy (mumble) in Las Vegas.” Was this a lady pit boss he'd interviewed?

“Sorry. I didn't catch your name.” She repeated it, but he still couldn't understand and he just said, “Oh, yes?"

“Jack, can you hold on for just a second? I'm trying to reach your party for you and they are prepaid. Can you hold?"

“Sure.” Click. Whirring noise. Click. Touch tones. Cross talk. “Jack? Still there?"

“Yes."

“One moment.” Could be anybody. Something on the Vegas sheets. He had his fingers crossed.

“Hello. Is this Jack Eichord speaking?"

“Yes."

“Good day, Jack. I'm calling for Super Tech Industries in Las Vegas. Congratulations! You've just won a prize that could be worth thousands of dollars. I need to validate your prize number, Jack. Could you read me the expiration date on your credit card, please?"

“You've called a police officer. I'm not interested in any boiler-room scams."

“But this promotion is—” He hung up. If he hadn't been so busy, he would have traced it and given it to the MLVPD guys. Not that there was much anybody could do with the annoying things. It was all getting too big. Too insulated. You could never do anything about anything. What a melluva hess.

“Another call,” somebody said, “on three."

“Eichord.” Bring me the head of Alexander Graham Bell.

“I'm at X-L Office Equipment.” It was Dana. “I think I got something. The sheet with the primary-suspect mug shots—guy owns the arcade, the VA dude, the Schumway Buick guy. He says Schumway came in and priced typewriters. Was considering replacing all the office machines and what not. He typed on a machine that he liked. This guy remembers him in the wheelchair and all. He said it's fairly normal that people type samples and take them home for consideration of what to buy. Okay. So I ask him, Did Schumway take his sample home? Yeah, he says. He typed on a piece of paper and he thinks he put it back in his pocket. What he remembered about the deal was he thinks Schumway made some remark about the typeface on the machine. Could it do this or that? Could you put in a certain element that would give you another option or whatever? Guy goes, Yeah. He puts another paper back in and types some more. The man remembers thinking it was odd that he didn't type on the same piece of paper. He thinks it was an envelope. He isn't sure. He THINKS the second time it was an envelope and it stayed in his head. Anyway, I ask him. Have you changed the ribbon or the cartridge since the machine has been on display? No, he says. I got it as is. Didn't take it off the machine. Nothing. So I go to the lab with it?"

“Bet your ass, Dana. You done great, man. Stay with it."

“You got it.” It was 11:10 a.m. At thirteen hundred hours Jack Eichord knew where the Hand of Christ letter had been typed. It appeared on the used section of the X-L Office Equipment's machine's one-time cartridge. Cheek by jowl in between quickbrownfox and nowisthetimeforallgoodmen. Right there in Executive Bold: Dyke Whores Must Die...

He fumed as he imagined what the circuit attorney would tell him.

“Lock that case down tight. Jack. Don't bring me this iffy typewriter shit.” The fucker left him a head.

He took it personally. Enough with the typewriters and the fags dressed up like women and the rest of the fucking BULLSHIT. That's it. You play, you pay, asshole.

Buckhead Medical Park

Threatening was not Eichord's style. He was a firm believer in the soft sell, but this case had turned Eichord into something else—something he wasn't meant to be. He had killed to stop the killings. And he'd failed. So a little push and shove scarcely caused him a second's hesitation. Another woman was dead. Beheaded by a madman who had put himself beyond anyone's touch.

As they rolled toward Medical Park, Jack Eichord thought that at that moment he loathed Dr. Niles Lishness almost as much as the hated killer Schumway/Spoda. As he tried to visualize them together, doctor and patient, he had no trouble visualizing Schumway holding court, the wimpy, pedantic shrink in rapt, scholarly attention.

Lishness the man was almost a caricature or parody of a psychiatrist. He had a fastidiously sculpted Vandyke, granny glasses balanced on the end of his nose, an imperial air, arch mannerisms, prissy speech pattern, and he lacked only a Viennese accent from completing the comedic portrait. For now, however, he was a dangerous threat, and he would be so treated.

It was easy to imagine him seated behind the grand desk, his glasses on the tip of his aristocratic nose, nodding as he listened to the boasting of a killer. He had treated Spoda's utterances with the inviolable confidence of a priest's confessional, all right. But the stonewalling was over.

After determining when the doctor would be closing shop for the day Jack and Monroe sat in the front seat of an unmarked car, fat Dana in the back, raffishly running his mouth in a clinical running commentary on the physical attributes of every woman who walked past their vehicle. In truth, Jack thought, there seemed to be an endless stream of delectable-looking morsels parading by them.

“Ooh, shit. Look at THAT,” Dana said. “Damn! These doctors have it made. Man, I could go for some of that. Be that little honey's gynecologist. Put your feet up in them stirrups, darlin', I got to check out your plumbing."

“Thass what you oughta be—checkin’ out folks plumbing."

“Well, another five minutes,” Eichord said as he glanced at the dashboard clock, “and we'll go catch Sigmund Freud's act."

“Hey, Eichord. When you was in Vegas, did you see them?"

“Who?"

“The goddamn lion-tamers. Sigmund and Freud?"

“Jeezus,” Monroe said in disgust.

“Come on. I can't stand it. Let's go."

They went in the front door just as a young receptionist was locking the door.

“Doctor Lishness still in there?"

“Yes,” she replied as they flashed shields, “but he's with a patient and he has to leave right afterward so—"

“That's okay. We're not going to keep him for longer than thirty seconds, but we do have to ask him one question. Listen, hon, just let us in and lock it back up. We'll ask him what we need on his way out the door."

“Well—” She raised her eyebrows, glancing at her watch. Eichord smiled and she shrugged and let them in, locking the door from the outside. After all, they WERE the police. Surely it would be all right.

They tossed the outer office expertly and silently in a matter of two minutes. Found nothing. There was a large file cabinet that held some promise and Eichord popped the lock on it, but the files inside were ledgers, payment records, statements, old appointment books, nothing on the names “Schumway” or “Spoda.” The old ledger cards and correspondence placed a date on the material. From the looks of the office, what Eichord wanted was either going to be under lock and key inside Lishness's private office, or on computer.

There was a large, unlocked bin of patient X rays, and Eichord found a large envelope labeled schumway, alan, with the name of another doctor and a date. He transferred the data to a pocket notebook and they sat back down.

Eichord picked up an interesting-looking publication on legal medicine and read that a latent schizz must surround himself with bizarre protective devices. That they suffer from eccentricities, have weird notions about the significance of societal values, can be dangerously aggressive. And he was just getting hooked on the reading matter when they heard the door open and a woman patient, followed by an obviously perplexed Dr. Lishness, who was surprised to find about 750 pounds of police detectives waiting in the outer office.

When the lady had gone out the door and Lishness asked them what they were doing there, Eichord locked the outer door and the three men herded the doctor back inside his private office.

“I don't much like this,” Lishness said officiously. “I don't approve of your manner. I have a—"

“Listen to me. Listen good. Innocent women have been killed. The odds are it's one of your patients. I want to know everything you can tell me about Alan Schumway, and I want it now."

“Well, you can just drop that threatening tone with me. Matter of fact,” the doctor said, reaching for his telephone, “let's just see what your—” But Eichord pulled the plug out of the phone and threw the phone across the room, where it landed on a leather couch.

“I'll have your badge,” Dr. Lishness was saying as Monroe Tucker took him by the lapels, lifting him up off the floor, and slammed him up against a silk-covered wall. His glasses fell off and he began crying and cursing the detectives. Eichord nodded slightly to Monroe, who picked the man up as Jack retrieved his glasses.

“You won't have shit, Niles. Now hear what I'm saying. When I leave this office, I'll have everything on Schumway. I'll have it either way. But if we have to shake it out of you, it's going to be very unpleasant."

He could read the words right there on the doctor's lips, the threat to sue, the threat to expose, the threat to—to what?

“Monroe,” Eichord said to the huge, menacing black figure, “if he so much as says one more word about what he'll do to us—okay?—if he says he'll call his lawyer, call the cops, call his mommy, the AMA, whatever, I want you to hurt him. Just a little. Then we'll toss the office. Later, after he does whatever—files his lawsuit and all—I want you guys to take this wimpy little douchebag out and DROWN HIM IN THE FUCKING LAKE."

“My fucking pleasure.” He grabbed the doctor by the flab of his chest.

“TALK, GODDAMMIT,” Eichord shouted at him.

“What do you want to know? Don't hurt me anymore, please."

Eichord nodded at Tucker again, and he released the pressure. Nothing hurts like a nipple come-a-long.

“Where's Schumway's file?"

The doctor pointed at a file.

“Get it,” Eichord said, and he immediately produced a thick folder bearing a number and Schumway's name.

“Are there tapes?” He acted like he'd gone numb and Eichord repeated it as he skimmed through the file. “Recordings?"

“No."

“Don't you automatically tape your sessions with your patients?"

“I've been Alan's doctor for a long time,” he said, as if that explained it.

Eichord read silently. Then he hit the last two pages, which were on a form marked SUMMARY. It began with a brief description of the patient, his vital statistics, Intelligence Quotient, other salient facts known about the individual called Schumway, Alan. Then came the good doctor's assessments.

OFFENSE RECORD: No offense recorded.

AGGRESSIVENESS: Uniformly belligerent and arrogant.

FREE ANXIETY AWARENESS: Uneasy. Fearful apprehensive. Paranoid.

FLIGHT IMPULSES: Escapist. Lives in make-believe world of contrived values. Artificially bolstered by indulgences. Alleges inability to use legs. Refuses to accept fact there is no medical reason for him to be confined to wheelchair.

CONVERSION TENDENCIES: Incapacitating conversion hysteria.

EMOTIONAL VOLATILITY: Manic.

OBSESSIVE/COMPULSIVE TENDENCIES: Obsession with visual stimuli (art-deco-style graphics), aural stimuli (dance band music of the 1930s—see Mother Fixation).

SCHIZOID CHARACTERISTICS: No friends. Calculated arrogance to counter sense of inability to achieve a heterosexual relationship under what he perceives to be “normal” conditions. (Hallucinated?)

PARANOID CHARACTERISTICS: Suspicious.

SEX VARIANCE: Reliance on oral sex, and insistence on sexual intercourse only with females exhibiting emphasized degree of what he perceives to be “vulnerability.” (Possible history of child molestation? Preoccupation with sex with the dead. Mother Fixation.) Strong latent homosexuality. Predisposition to sexual objects he perceives as “inferior” (transvestites, fetishists). Reliance on masturbatory fantasies and voyeurism.

ANTISOCIAL TENDENCIES: Violently critical. Openly supercilious.

EPILEPTOID CHARACTERISTICS: Rigidity. Explosive temperament.

MANIC TENDENCIES: Loathing. Destructive desires. Punishment fantasies.

SCHIZOPHRENIC TENDENCIES: Paranoia.

PHYSICAL DIAGNOSIS: Old spinal injury long-since healed and paralysis of legs psychosomatic (see Conversion Hysteria.) Subject could be ambulatory after sufficient (1 year-2 years?) rehabilitative therapy for atrophied musculature.

PSYCHIATRIC DIAGNOSIS: Undifferentiated psychosis.

ACTION POTENTIAL: Extremely dangerous.

Aggressive, antisocial, with alarmingly high violence capability. Should seek institutionalization.

Eichord's hands were shaking.

“You fucking idiot. Why didn't you come forward with this?” The man just looked at him. “Don't you realize you're playing with a killer? You could be an accessory to multiple homicides? What the hell is the matter with you?"

“But I—I cured him,” the doctor said meekly.

“You WHAT?"

“Yes. Look at the damn dates.” He drew himself back up, regaining some of his bluster. “I cured him. I was finally able to bring him around. Make him realize that he could WALK. With time, he'll be out of that wheelchair and he'll have regained full use of his legs. Then, with continued therapy, I can restore his mental and emotional balance. Make him a full person again. He's a wonderful success story, don't you see?” The doctor rubbed his chest. “This man hurt me,” he said accusingly, but in a softer tone.

“Jeezus.” Eichord was fumbling with the calculator on the doctor's desk. Suddenly he realized the significance of the man's words, of what he was reading what he was HEARING.

“My God! 292 days. You fucking IDIOT. Don't you see what you did? All you did was help a killer get back up and walk again. He hadn't killed for over twenty years. You cured him all right. Maybe you can figure a way to bring Hitler back to life. I can't believe it. You've put a homicidal maniac back on the streets. Given him legs and the will to kill again. Nice going, asshole.” He detuned on the doctor's response saying, “Where's a DSM-II?” He turned pages. Asked questions. Began reading. Forgot to sit down. Forgot to breathe. Forgot Dana and Monroe were standing there. Forgot Dr. Lishness.

The words came in alien phrases. So many questions. So much information to digest so quickly. Trying to sift through the conversion symptoms of Schumway's disorder. The words like “pseudoneurological” and “hypochondriasis” accessible to a word buff like Eichord, but the clinical jargon insulating the facts under a thick coating of astasia-abasia and akinesia-dyskinesia, pathophysiological and psychogenic conceptualization. Even the academic usage of such words as “temporal” or “etiological” pushed him further away from a clear understanding.

With a final round of warnings to the psychotherapist, the men returned to the car and headed back to the station house.

“Shit. Wasn't nothing to that, was there?” Monroe said. “That white boy sure didn't take much leanin', did he?” He laughed softly.

“I think what did it was that hair,” Dana said, “all those little patches of baaaaad, black Rastafarian hair clumps stickin outta Monroe's cheeks. Very scary to your basic white person. We don't HAVE that shit."

“Yo gonna have a bad, black Rastafarian FOOT stickin’ outta the cheeks of yo fat ASS in a goddamn minute, blubber tub."

“Mon-roe,” fat Dana said. “Can I AX you som'-pin?” But the big detective ignored him.

“Smart ass car dealer lookin’ pretty good, eh?” he said to Eichord.

“Yep."

“Need to knock his fuckin’ dick inna dirt."

Eichord said nothing. His mind was ice-cold, like a meat locker, and he drove silently, framing the proper response inside his head.

North Buckhead

Around 1400 he confirmed that he was going to be late and made certain Donna had arranged to take the boy to a girlfriend's house, where she planned to have their evening meal. By 1430 he was in the Buckhead Public Library making a nuisance of himself on the third floor, then vanishing into the bowels of the reference room on the second floor, where he reached over behind a spine-worn Psycopathia Sexualis feeling in between the solid rows of old books on the top shelf. The library books he'd dropped were still there. He pulled them out.

These were the books that had been used as cross references in the report he'd had Doc Tulare lash together for him, but it was the sort of report a layman could research if he wanted to spend three or four hours in the dusty bookshelves. All the titles were appropriately dog-eared and he had a nice checkable bibliography. Unlike prints, which generally paid off only in the movies, the first step was still Alibi Ike. It helped if in backtracking your trail the other guy found you were otherwise occupied at the time of a crime, especially if you could arrange it so he thought it was HIS idea.

The beautiful thing about the multilayered library was all the nooks, crannies, spiraling stairs, alcoves, hidden recesses where you could sit quietly at an out-of-the-way desk. Eichord still loved the library just as he had as a kid. But he needed it another way this one time, and he had the books in his jacket and was out through the basement without being seen and on his way to Schumway's house.

By 1500 a rather ordinary-looking middle-aged man in dark, thrift-shop coveralls and workman's cap, carrying something, was climbing the hill in back of Alan Schumway's. He looked like a repairman of some kind with his toolbox, an ordinary-people guy walking down the street. Unexceptional.

It was the end of the line, at last. Had to be. And Eichord hoped it would be resolved now. Too many things could collapse for him to try to wrap this up with good, solid police work. Too many lives hung in the balance to play with it. The system could no longer be trusted, in this instance. A killer had proved himself, or rather they had proven THEMselves, to be too clever. Then there was the matter of the typewriter with the Hand of Christ. Pure Jell-O. The circuit attorney wouldn't even go through the motions. Lishness, for crissakes, he'd have a fucking FIELD DAY if this went in front of a jury.

These were the thoughts in his meat locker as he penetrated the residence yet a final time. (surreptitious entry—possible occupancy by armed suspect #11—quantico training program for major crimes task force agents.)

B & E dialogue: “What are you in?"

A: “Tool and die."

Q: “Oh, well, we all gotta go sometime."

(surreptitious entry—countersurveillance checklist) pins, hair, matchsticks, tape, doorwedges, sensors, sound wave generators, autographed picture of Sean Connery. Inside now and listening to the strange and quiet home again. There's no place like home. GOT to get my own key—eh?—he thinks, light in heart and pure in spirit.

1600. 1630. 1655. 1700. Will it be a big production? Scumwad will come in and Eichord will see him get up out of the wheelchair and cross the foyer to the elevator. Freeze, he imagines he'll say. Up with your hands, mother sticker, this is a fuck-up. 1705. 1710. Wet palms now. Upstairs and in the first bedroom to the left of the office with the hallway a clear shot in the reflection of a picture frame. He can move back an inch or two and he's out of the picture both ways. Waiting. 1711. 171130 171135 171136, when you start clockwatching you take some deep breaths and clear your mind. Change positions. Sit if you're standing. Stand if you're sitting. Don't get spooked. There's nothing quite like the sounds of a darkening house as you wait hidden in the gathering shadows. The house comes alive in a way you would never dream and you can begin to believe in all kinds of things like ghosts and poltergeists and spirits as the house begins to breathe around you. She takes on sex, like an old ship will, and she sighs, moans, stretches, cries out, creaking and coughing and snarling with all manner of noises real and imagined. Motors hum and joists contract with the pitch and yaw of her decks. She is coming alive in the darkness, and your skin chills as she whispers her warning.

1738 vehicle noise, exterior, wait, then sounds on eggshell gravel rolling crunching daddy coming home wheelchair on the ramp, key noises at door and a last deep, shaky breath and the palms are dry now like the throat and someone is in down there and then the elevator purrs as he comes for you now. The doors are very quiet, like the stroking of a blade against oiled whetstone only a light vip-vip you have to listen for, feather edge steel in warm oil noise, and then nothing. Long pause. No—nothing—dead S I L E N C E—Eichord is frozen in position. Wanting to tilt forward another two inches to see in the frame reflection and finally paper sounds the son of a gun was reading his mail and he loudly rolls by in the chair. He is not walking. He is N O T repeat NOT AMBULATORY he is a cripple in a wheelchair the man is in a fucking chair and then he speaks and his voice in the dead quiet house where Nicki and Alan lived is louder than a shotgun.

“Companeeeeeeeee. Oh, lucky me. It's Dickless Tracy again."

Eichord says nothing. Motionless.

“Come on, man. You are fucking PATHETIC! I mean, is this how you shot Nicki, you came in and waited for her to come back from getting groceries. You cocksucker."

“Talking to me?” Eichord said as he watched the man seated in the chair. He was not holding a weapon.

“Well, eat my grits and get the shits if it ain't my fav-o-rite flatfoot. Sher-luck Homo, of the Major Task Force."

“That's me. Just out of professional curiosity—how-djew make me?"

“Jeezus, fucking pathetic.” He was already rolling down the hall. “Come on, you might as well come in and have a buzz or whatever. Take the load off your brain. You do drink, don't you? I hear you almost qualify for silent-partner status down there at Jack Daniel's distillery—izzat true? Like the old demon rum, do you, Jackson?"

“I've tossed back some."

“Uh huh."

“So how did you know? I thought the door looked clean."

“It's that pathetic stuff you splash all over yourself, Dickless. What is that crap—Three Nights in a Garbage Can? WHEW! I just about died of cologne poisoning when I walked in the door.” He laughed loudly.

“I'm not wearing any cologne, Alan. Or should I say Arthur?"

“Hey, booby, you can say Myron Lipshitz if it'll get you off."

“You think you smell cologne on me? I'm serious."

“I'm Roebuck, how do you do?” He reached for a bottle and Eichord tensed a little. “I went to perfume U when I was in Paris. The Sorbonne it ain't, but you learn to identify about five hundred different fragrances by memorized olfactory response. Everything from essence of cat shit to the most expensive scents on earth. Eau d'Eichord is down there at the low end of the odor spectrum, Dickless."

“Is that Paris, TEXAS, you're talking about? Did you kill some woman there, too?"

“Killing women is what you're hung up on, Dickie bird. You murdered my lady, you slimy nothing no-dick shit-for-brains cop."

“Your LADY?” Eichord allowed himself a slight smile, keeping his voice as soft as he could. “You mean Nicki? I don't know anything about her suicide, except—wouldn't you agree he's better-off? Oh, sorry. I mean, I don't know anything about HIS suicide. Wouldn't you agree IT'S better off."

“Good try, asshole. You'd like to get me provoked. You want to blow me away too—right? No witnesses. Do you have MY suicide note all typed?"

“Let's see if I have all this right before I take you in, Arthur. You repeatedly rape your stepsister in the foster home. The rapes and abuse leave her insane.

“You're killing surrogate mommies. I guess you and your mommy have something going. But she catches you with Sis and beats you so badly you end up a cripple—in a wheelchair for the rest of your life. We cut to Nevada. You make enough money gambling to start your own business. You and your, uh, boyfriend move to Buckhead. You're in therapy. Your doctor convinces you that you suffered from conversion hysteria all these years—the only thing that kept you in this chair for twenty years is your own sick mind. You and your LADY start killing again. Eh?"

“What bullshit.” He wheels around as if Eichord has ceased to exist in the room.

“You would probably have been able to get away with it for a long time if it hadn't been for the degree of mental illness you suffer from. One of the side effects of your therapy is that you sometimes get a sense of total invincibility. Is that medication or do you generate it in your system? Oh, well, no matter. So you got reckless. Started taking down women you knew, victims who knew YOU. Heather Lennon? Was she the first—so many I forget offhand. Then your big mistake. You got REAL sloppy with Diane Taluvera. You and your lady did."

Schumway snorted, turning a page of the newspaper be was glancing at.

“We got your mail drop, you know?” Eichord started ad-libbing. “Then we put you all together at the bank. You three, I should say. Later we got real lucky with an eyewitness. Then we got a witness to the typing scam on the Hand of Christ letter. The guy at X-L remembers you."

“Wow! REALLY?” Schumway laughed wildly. “You're too fucking much, man. That's just frightening."

“How about the DNA? You didn't count on that one, huh? We got a positive trace on your sperm. Nailed you for two of the killings on that alone."

“SPERM!” Schumway laughed. “I love it! Oh, stop."

“I'm taking you in, Arthur. It's all over."

“Jezus. Do you know what my lawyer will do to this crap in a court of law? He'll eat your fucking LUNCH, Dickless. You and I both know you is tryin’ to pull ole Alan's pud and guess what?” Over his shoulder. “It SUCKS."

“Speaking of your lawyer. You know something I always wanted to ask you. Out on the golf course that time. How did you get out of there? In a wheelchair. Through all that mud. Hmm?"

“Better still, I didn't leave when you did, asshole, I finished up three.” He bragged. “They're STILL trying to fix that green."

“Yeah?"

“You have to WANT it real bad. Coach. What can I tell you?"

“I still don't see how—"

“There's a fucking lot you people don't see.” Schumway wheeled halfway around. “Thirty-eight million goddamn people in chairs and we can't get in the goddamn door of the fucking Buckhead post office. You wonder how I can play golf from a wheelchair, in the mud yet? Because I'm nothing but a poor CRIPPLE. You sell us short."

“I wasn't being patronizing. I just wondered how you could keep from getting stuck."

“Shucks, Matthew.” Suddenly the exact voice of Dennis Weaver. “You kin jess plain charm the maggots offen a daid BUFFALO when youuns wants to, caincha?” Schumway wheeled over and opened the door that overlooked his garden. “Do you know why there are no thirteenth floors in hotels?"

“Superstition, I suppose."

“Wrong, Dickie-doo-doo. There ARE thirteenth floors in hotels, ya fucking dummy. They're just CALLED the fourteenth floors.” Chester of Gunsmoke again: “If they wuzn't no thirteenth floors, them fuckin’ buildin's would jess cave rat in, now, wouldn't they, Mister Dillon?” The front of the house and the back both jutted like the exaggerated profile of a concrete ocean liner. There were no balcony railings or protective barriers to spoil the lines. But Schumway rolled out on the concrete expanse like it was a foot off the ground. Eichord didn't even want to walk out there, much less roll out in a wheelchair.

“You know how I built this house?” Eichord followed him out, thinking this wasn't the scene I was going to play, but if it's ever going to work it'll work here.

“Nope."

“The same way I beat my lawyer out of three hundred dollars on the third hole that day. The same way I wheeled out of the mud. The same way I sold more cars than any other Buckhead County Buick dealer last year. The same way I do whatever I want to do.” He spun around in the chair again, facing Eichord.

“You stab women with an icepick because you're very sick, Arthur. You're twisted inside. You're afraid they can see inside you. See that evil soul of yours. The evil that others put there when you were a little boy. You know it doesn't matter about the nice-looking outside. You're rotten inside. You're a nice red apple with a worm in the center."

“Oh, Christ in heaven.” He put a hand over his stomach like he was in terrible pain. “Don't. Don't make me laugh anymore, man, I really can't stand it.” He giggled. “With a WORM in the center.” He laughed again and Eichord had to smile. “You're fucking unreal. Where do you GET your material?"

“I know you must hurt inside, Arthur,” still smiling. “But I can't let you hurt any more innocent women.” Eichord turned with his back to him for an instant and took something from his jacket, turning back quickly as Schumway said, “You're a pissant joke, cop. The world is made up of two kinds of people. You've seen the signs. Either lead, follow, or get the fuck out of the way."

Eichord saw how muscular the man was and he was controlled. Unafraid. Jack felt the weight of the Smith & Wesson in the oiled leather rig and automatically free-associated Smith & Wesson Oil in his mind. He felt perspiration on him under his clothing. Somebody had turned the heat up in the meat locker.

Schumway was about to make a move, he sensed. Tensing his hand, wondering if the man would spring out at him when he saw the thing behind Eichord's legs. Would he come out at him fast and hard? And he was notoriously bad with a piece. The slowest draw in the West. Wet-palmed. But he made himself move near, closer to Schumway. He dried his palm against his trouser leg, watching the man's muscles tense up. Eichord inching to the right, now, moving off the straight line he had drawn inside his head.

“Remember the movie Knock on any Door,” Schumway said, “it was ‘live fast, and die young?’ Well, my motto is. Party till you puke, take whatever you want, and never die. NEVER FUCKIN’ DIE.” He gritted his white teeth and Jack knew it would be now and he said look and Schumway looked—

“YOU DUMB CRAZY STUPID BASTARD!” The phallic black object sat perched very close to the edge.

“That's the original, by the way. A good, stiff wind will take it right on down. I'm going to destroy them all if I don't have your signed confession. Even if your lawyer beats the charges, you won't have your pretty babies anymore, eh?"

Schumway had to fight not to spring out of the chair and Eichord saw him put weight on his legs for that first instant before he could catch himself and just as he started rolling to save that precious black beauty Eichord felt a cold, hard pain in his chest as he forced himself to step forward shoving against the top of a wheel with his foot, all of his weight behind the leg, and Arthur Spoda was fast, springing out of the chair but too late because everything was in the air, Spoda and the wheelchair and the unbreakable casting of the deco treasure, falling through space and in a quarter-second the chair was going over and half a beat later it was all over and the hard concrete below was rushing up to meet Spoda and trapping the scream in his throat as unyielding concrete broke his fall and his neck.

Jack turned and went back in, heading downstairs to remove the copy of the black Futura from the scene of the accident. Again, there was neither guilt nor sense of relief. No tragic loss, certainly. Just nothing.

Nothing even to the extent that as he tied loose ends, tidying up doing the things that had to be done at the scene of this crime, he could feel a little hollow laugh building in there. Dark humor is, after all, the refuge of people in Homicide. You betchum.

Buckhead Springs

Driving home that night, he felt his mind sinking down into a slimy pit where he'd never allowed his thoughts to take him. Shit. He'd done everything else. He thought about the child. The child of evil. He wondered it ... Good CHRIST but he hated to let himself think it. But it might be better for everybody if he'd find a way to do away with the kid. There.

A blast of static over the radio made him almost jump out of his skin.

“Kay double A-Three.” Eichord's call sign to go over to the tac channel for a personal.

He switched the radio control and picked up the handset, keying the mike.

“Kay double A-Three."

“Call Mrs. Severn, please.” The dispatcher's voice.

“Ten-four. Thank you. Kay double A-Three out.” He pulled over to a bank of phones in front of a grocery store and dialed the number of a telephone in a 7-11 near Dana's house, as per their private code.

“Yeah,” his friend answered.

“Nu?"

“Yeah, okay. Listen. Just, uh, don't say shit. Just listen to me. Don't say anything more. I mean, just be real quiet and listen. I know how you must feel, if I'm right. If I'm wrong—fuck it, but don't say a word. Just hear me out and don't make any comment. Don't say zip. I'll say my piece, and when I'm done with it, I'll hang up and you hang up and we'll fuckin forget about it. Forever, man. I wanna tell you somethin. I know you know how much I love you, man."

Fat Dana was choking up, about to start bawling. The sentimental putz. “Fuck you. What I want to say is. I know YOU, too, asshole. And I know how something like what you done can eat at you. NO, DON'T TALK. DON'T SAY SHIT. If I'm wrong, fine. I think you offed those fuckers. I know you like a fuckin’ book. And if you did, you'll put yourself through seven kinds of hell over it. I have this to say to you—DON'T.

“We both know it's sometimes necessary to take a life in cold blood. We know sometimes there ain't no other way, Daddio. And we know that the end DOES justify the means. That's why there's wars and laws and cops and all that shit. I don't have the words to give you any comfort about it. It takes some big balls, and I just want you to know—right or wrong, I love you, and I'm always with you. Now fuck off,” he said, slamming the phone down as he often did to Eichord.

Jack got back in the car and turned his radio off. He smiled at the thought of Dana. I love you too, Fatso, he thought to himself. But he still had the bad feeling inside.

He got home and closed the garage door, went in and kissed his wife, and walked back to the room where Jonathan was playing. He looked in at the child, who immediately flashed small, bright black eyes in his direction, held for just a fraction of a second, then looked away with disinterest. Eichord stood there looking at the kid, thinking. Should I or shouldn't I? Knowing, sadly, that it would be a no-win deal either way.

The cold, hard pain in his chest was still there, but Jack Eichord knew all too well what it was. So it was hardly an unexpected discomfort. After all, nothing sits quite as heavily in the chest cavity as a heart of stone.

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Table of Contents

Buckhead Springs

Buckhead Medical Park

New Mexico

Amarillo, 1948

Blytheville, Arkansas

Buckhead Station

Vega, 1955

South Blytheville, Arkansas

North Buckhead

Vega, 1961

South Blytheville, Arkansas

Buckhead

Vega, 1964

Buckhead Springs

Vega, 1965

Buckhead

Buckhead Station

Las Vegas, 1985

Buckhead Station

North Buckhead

Buckhead Station

Moss Grove

Buckhead Station

North Buckhead

Buckhead Springs

Texas

Amarillo

Las Vegas

Metro

Television Park

Las Vegas

Buckhead Station

North Buckhead

Buckhead Springs

Buckhead Station

North Buckhead

Buckhead Station

Buckhead Springs

Buckhead Station

Buckhead

Mission

Buckhead Station

North Buckhead

Buckhead Medical Park

Buckhead Station

North Buckhead

Buckhead Springs

9 Days Later

16 Days Later

27 DAYS LATER...Mount Olive

Buckhead Station

Buckhead Medical Park

North Buckhead

Buckhead Springs