Predator

63

Bentonfinds it a little curious that a taxicab is parked outside the neuroimaging lab. It is a blue SUV taxi, and no one is inside it. Maybe it is the taxi that was supposed to pick up Kenny Jumper at the Alpha amp; Omega Funeral Home, but why is the taxi parked here, and where is the driver? Near the taxi is the white prison van that transported Basil here for hisfive o’clockinterview. He’s not doing well. He says he’s feeling very suicidal and wants to quit the study.

“We have so much invested in him,”Bentonsays to Scarpetta as they walk inside the lab. “You have no idea how bad it is when these people drop out. Especially him. Dammit. Maybe you can be a good influence on him.”

“I’m not even going to comment,” she says.

Two prison guards stand outside the small room whereBentonwill talk to Basil, try to talk him out of quitting PREDATOR, talk him out of killing himself. The room is part of the MRI suite, the same roomBentonhas used before when he talks to Basil. Scarpetta is reminded that the guards aren’t armed.

She and Benton walk into the interview room. Basil is sitting at the small table. He isn’t restrained, not even with plastic flex-cuffs. She likes PREDATOR even less and she didn’t think that was possible.

“This is Dr. Scarpetta,”Bentonsays to Basil. “She’s part of the research study team. Do you mind if she sits in?”

“That would be nice,” Basil says.

His eyes seem to spin. They are eerie. They seem to spin as they look at her.

“So tell me what’s going on with you,”Bentonsays as he and Scarpetta sit down at the table.

“You two are close,” Basil says, looking at her. “I don’t blame you,” he says toBenton. “I tried to drown myself in the toilet and you know what’s funny about that? They didn’t even notice. Isn’t that something. They have this camera spying on me all the time and when I try to kill myself no one sees it.”

He is wearing jeans, tennis shoes and a white shirt. He doesn’t have a belt. He has no jewelry. He isn’t at all what Scarpetta imagined. She thought he would be bigger. He is small and insignificant-looking, slightly built, thinning blond hair, not ugly, just insignificant. She supposes that when he approached his victims, they probably felt the way she does, at least at first. He was nothing, just some nobody with a bland smile. The only thing about him that stands out are his eyes. Right now, they are strange and unsettling.

“Might I ask you a question?” Basil says to her.

“Go ahead.” She isn’t particularly nice to him.

“If I met you on the street and told you to get into my car or I would shoot you, what would you do?”

“Let you shoot me,” she says. “I wouldn’t get into your car.”

Basil looks atBentonand shoots his finger at him as if it’s a gun. “Bingo,” he says. “She’s a keeper. What time is it?”

There is no clock in the room.

“Eleven minutes after five,”Bentonsays. “We need to talk about why you feel like killing yourself, Basil.”

Two minutes later, Dr. Lane has the Surface Shading Display of Helen Quincy on the computer screen. Next to it is the Surface Shading Display of the so-called normal who is in the magnet.

Kenny Jumper.

Not a minute ago, he asked over the intercom what time it was. Then, not a minute later, he started getting restless, complaining.

BWONK-BWONK-BWONK… in the MRI suite as Josh rotates Kenny Jumper’s pale, hairless, eyeless head. It ends raggedly just below the jaw, as if he has been decapitated, because of the signal ending, because of the coil. Josh rotates the image some more on one screen, tries to duplicate the exact position of Helen Quincy’s hairless, eyeless, decapitated-looking image on another screen.

“Oh boy,” he says.

“I think I need to get out,” Kenny’s voice sounds over the intercom. “What time is it now?”

“Oh boy,” Josh says to Dr. Lane as he rotates the image some more, looking from one screen to the other.

“I have to get out.”

“A little more that way,” Dr. Lane is saying, looking from one screen to the other, back and forth between the pale, eyeless, hairless heads.

“I need to get out!”

“That’s it,” Dr. Lane says. “Oh, my.”

“Whoa!” Josh says.

Basil is getting increasingly restless, glancing at the closed door. Again, he asks what time it is.

“Five seventeen,”Bentonsays. “You supposed to be somewhere?” he adds ironically.

Where would Basil be? In his cell, no place good. He’s lucky to be here. He doesn’t deserve it.

Basil pulls something out of his sleeve. At first Scarpetta can’t tell what it is and doesn’t understand what is happening, but then he is out of his chair and around to her side of the table and the thing is around her neck. Long and white and thin and around her neck.

“You try one fucking thing and I tighten it like this!” Basil says.

She is aware ofBentonstanding up and yelling at him. She feels her pulse pounding. Then the door opens. Then Basil is pulling her outside the room and her pulse is pounding and she has her hands around her neck and he has the long, white thing tight around her neck and is pulling her andBentonis shouting and the guards are shouting.