Creepers

46

Chilled, Balenger came slowly to his feet, fixated on what Amanda showed him. In the black-and-white photograph, an elderly man wearing a suit stood next to a young man wearing a sweater. The old man's broad shoulders would once have looked strong. His large chest would once have been solid. Despite deep wrinkles, his square-jawed face retained a suggestion of his youthful handsomeness. His full head of white hair reminded Balenger of Billy Graham in his later years. Indeed, everything about the old man, especially his piercing eyes, reminded Balenger of an evangelist.

"Morgan Carlisle," he whispered. "This is how Bob described him. Those hypnotic eyes."

In the photograph, Carlisle smiled, as did the young man next to him, who seemed barely out of his teens. A thin face, a thin body. Even his hair, which was trimmed closely at the sides and was thick on top, emphasized his thinness. Unlike Carlisle's eyes, the young man's were not expressive. Nor was his smile, which seemed entirely on the surface.

"Ronnie," Amanda said in disgust. Balenger studied the photograph more intensely. A dark, "wood-paneled wall in the background matched walls in the hotel. Despite the pleasure in Carlisle's smile, the elderly man kept a slight distance from the young man, his arms at his sides. The young man's sweater was a crew neck, a shirt collar tucked under it in a style Balenger remembered seeing in movies from the sixties. He had a plain face, soft at the cheekbones and the chin.

Amanda pointed. "This other man was Ronnie's father."

"Carlisle? No. He couldn't have been."

"Ronnie insisted that this man was his father."

"There's no record that Carlisle married."

"Which means nothing," Vinnie said from the doorway to the surveillance room. He and Cora had finished disarming the explosives. "The child could have been the result of an affair."

"But Carlisle was a watcher. A romantic fling doesn't seem in his nature."

"Unless one of the women he spied on gave him inspiration." Cora came into the room and looked at the photo. "Carlisle. So finally we get to see him. The monster responsible for the Paragon Hotel. How can anybody so twisted look so attractive? I bet this S.O.B. was irresistible in his prime. Those eyes. Finding a willing partner wouldn't have been difficult."

"Or maybe the partner wasn't willing," Vinnie said.

Balenger shook his head from side to side. "Rape doesn't match his profile. Even drugged, the victim might have fought back. Carlisle would have been terrified of cuts and scratches and not being able to stop his bleeding."

"But if Carlisle had a son, he'd have mentioned it in his diary," Cora insisted.

"Not if the boy was illegitimate," Vinnie said. "He might have wanted to keep the child a secret."

Balenger sounded doubtful. "It still doesn't fit his profile. From what I've read about hemophiliacs, I gather many choose not to have children for fear of passing the disease on."

Amanda pointed emphatically at the photograph. "Ronnie told me this was his father."

"How old is the photograph?" Cora asked.

Balenger freed catches at the back of the frame, pulled off the back, and studied the rear of the photograph. "There's a developer's date: July 31, 1968."

"Carlisle would have been eighty-eight."

Balenger heard the crack of nearby lightning. "Amanda, you said Ronnie's in his fifties. That means…"

Vinnie did the math faster. "Thirty-seven years ago. I'm guessing he's in his late teens or early twenties in this picture. Let's say twenty. So that makes him around fifty-seven. Surely to God, five of us can take him."

"He's strong," Amanda said flatly. *

"Tod, anything on the surveillance monitors?"

"Just more rats."

"I'm watching the elevator." Vinnie peered through the medical room toward the exercise room.

"Amanda, what else did Ronnie tell you?" Balenger asked.

"He bragged he never had any trouble getting girlfriends. He often recited their names."

"Names?" Balenger's hands felt cold.

"Iris, Alice, Vivian, Joan, Rebecca, Michelle. A lot more. Always in the same order. The list never varied. He repeated it enough for me to remember the names."

Balenger felt pressure building inside him. He worked to control his emotions, his rapid breathing and heartbeat almost overwhelming him. "I want you to think carefully. When he went through the names, did he ever mention someone called Diane?"

"Diane?" Vinnie frowned. "Who is-"

"Did he, Amanda?" Balenger put a hand on her shoulder. "Did he ever mention a woman called Diane?"

Amanda didn't answer for a moment. "Near the end of the list."

"Who's Diane?" Cora asked, mystified.

Now it was Balenger's turn to pause. He could barely get out the words. "My wife."

3 a.m.