Savant

23

One of the seminar subjects Lieutenant John Llewelyn had recently attentively studied was "How to RePrioritize for Personal Achievement." It was aimed at the kind of mid-echelon-level exec who found that much of his/her workday was occupied in the pursuit of goals and agendas imposed by superiors whose priorities were inevitably perceived as of greater importance than theirs. It was a valuable subset within a course aimed at busy department heads of metropolitan cop shops, but for the life of him he could not find an application to the dilemma that faced his metro squad, supposedly an elite unit within a major enforcement agency.

At 1125 Locust, there were many priorities, but for Llewelyn only one, and it had just been impaled by a rocket from high above in the brassy stratosphere. The goal had-until some twenty minutes before—been the apprehension of a serial killer.

Now…in reality he wasn't sure what the priorities were. Containment? Hardly—with the news of a mass murderer, also a serial killer in the bargain, on every channel and station and front page. Justice? He would have thought so, but twenty minutes ago, in the Homicide Division terminal on-line to D.C., that one had also run screaming into a brick wall.

He had the squad gathered around him, in their conference room, and he looked at the stack of reports in front of him.

"A dozen grenade kills. Thirteen in the shooting and firebombing. Three crucified, mutilated. Six more grenade kills with the long-range weapon. An attempt. A random kill—it looks like. Then Mr. Embry, in back of the parts department at Bonnarella's. Captain Jones, a twenty-nine-year-old guy just back from duty in Kuwait for crissakes. Rick Moore, a kid on the County Road Crew. Miss O'Connell—student. Mr. Beltronena, a forty-four-year-old pastry chef. The goddamn rifle grenades. Here. All in this area—" He pointed to a map sector with a horizontal line in yellow Hi-Liter reaching from the first to the last of the most recent homicides.

"This big son of a bitch is right under our noses here. This is the second fucking time—he's operating within twenty to thirty blocks of headquarters, He's rubbing our noses in it! I think he's trying to make us look like incompetent idiots-this asshole. Why doesn't anybody ever see him? He's big as a goddamn house."

"He gets into his positions at night," Shremp said. "That's the only way he could move around without anybody spotting him."

"So what are we supposed to do?" Hilliard asked. "Put every cop in the city on all-night watch looking for big fat guys with large gun cases?"

"Sure. If we had the manpower, that might be a start," Llewelyn said. "But we don't have the legs. So we'll all work a night tour within forty blocks. Everybody's in the same barrel on this one till he's stopped. We'll divide the city up and watch as much of each section as we can. Looking for big fat guys—or anybody who looks suspicious—and, of course, we can forget the low-lying areas. He needs elevation to use this thing—he can shoot a mile and three quarters and hit you with it, by the way. Let's keep that in mind, too. We all got radios. We'll check in constantly. Sixteen hours out of every twenty-four until we nail him. T.J.—you work something up. Couple hours on, couple off—six on, couple off—that type of staggered schedule. We'll all work a full double shift. Anybody got problems with this?"

"Hell, no," Hilliard said. "We gotta get this bastard."

"What about the bounceback?" Morris asked. He meant on the prints.

"Latent gave us a match-up from The Paseo thing. Shell case—real good partial. Kicked it around through all the usual channels—I get red-flagged." Llewelyn looked down at a piece of printout and licked his lips. Picked it up as if it were on fire and handed it to Morris. "Check that out, Marlin. Ever see that before?"

"Deleted? What the hell does that mean?"

"There it is."

"For what?"

"You tell me, ace. First time I ever ran into that one. I called around, screamed and yelled upstairs. They got on the horn for me and nobody knows jack flash, okay? The killer's I.D.—which somebody, the feds or whoever, has on file, was deleted. Ain't that a beaut?"

"I don't get it," Apodaca said.

"That's right," the lieutenant said.

"Has to be a computer error," Hilliard said.

Llewelyn kept silent.

Trask woke up on the outside of a dream envelope, the memory of the mental excursion already fading, something about calling his daughter, and Kit telling him everything he already knew, that he hadn't been worth a damned dime as a dad—things like that. It was the phone.

"Yes?" he said through cotton.

"Vic, I'm very sorry to disturb you but—uh, we've got a bit of a situation down here at the station. Would you be too ill to come in for a few minutes?" It was Metzger. "We need to talk." This last in Babaloo's sucky voice that he reserved for ultimatums and such. It gave Trask a chill for a second.

"Sure. Absolutely."

"I hate to ask, man. I know you're under the weather. But, you know, if you can…"

"Hey, no problem. What's it about, Babaloo? Can you give me a clue?"

"Huh-uh. Probably better talk in person. An hour be enough time? Two hours?"

"I can be there in an hour. Sure. I'll see you."

"Thanks, Vic. I won't keep you long." Yeah, Trask thought. He was sure of that.

He went into the bathroom, relieved himself, tried to clean up a bit, was too shaky to shave, and finally just said fuck it and pulled some clothes on.

The drive to KCM was a nightmare, because he happened to catch a half-hourly newscast. The serial-murder thing had busted wide open without him, and—so it seemed—was not race-related. There'd been a couple more random rifle grenade kills—as the radio story termed them—long-distance homicides in Penn Valley Park.

He started to wonder whether it might be something they were planning to do on the show. But he instantly realized Metzger would have handled that on the telephone and told him to bring his research in with him. They'd never so much as asked about the piles of shows he'd prepared on the theme of violence—the fact that he'd screwed up this one thing had been sufficient to put his ass in the doghouse forever. He sneezed and it felt as if his head might come off. How could everything be so groovy one minute and so grunty the next?

He paid for parking and schlepped to the station. He knew it was bad before he got off the elevator. As the doors opened, he saw Adam David's face. David happened to be looking in his direction and he saw the news director's grimace of anger and distaste as he quickly looked away.

He turned the corner by the music studio and felt the oppressive vibes hit him like a wall of bad news. The first person he saw was Jerri, typing something at her desk.

"Morning," he said, entering. She jumped as if she'd been shot.

"Oh! You scared me."

"Sorry. I have that effect sometimes," he said, while she smiled with that look one reserves for relatives of the departed. "The man in?" He leaned his head a fraction of an inch toward Sean's office.

"Hm-um, He's over at Five. They're taping something—a panel or some show—I dunno."

"That's okay. You wouldn't have an aspirin or something, would you?" She didn't but made a big production out of finding him some and bringing them to him. He thanked her and took them without looking, not caring if they were cyanide or what. She'd even brought him a little cup of water.

"Thanks," he said. Trying to recall the name of the Dylan tune about the Mystery Tramp.

"Sure!" she said, overly solicitous. He knew he'd been fuckin' cut off at the knees right then and there. Flynn gone—as he always was when there was a dirty job to be done—Babaloo's forte.

He gritted his teeth and headed around the bend. His office door was closed, as was Barb Rose's. Nobody home. Metzger looked up with a small, tainted smile, which was even gloomier than his usual expression of dour cynicism.

"Oy vey! What a thing to do to a guy when he's got the flu—" Metzger began, with a cloying civility that made Mask want to become ill on the desk.

"No big deal. What's cookin'?"

"I'm sorry, Vic. We gotta let you go." He shook his head several times as if this were the worst news he'd had to convey in his entire broadcasting and journalistic career. "It's out of my hands completely."

"You mean because I fucked up on one goddamn story?"

"Hear me, now. You could be in a great deal of trouble if it wasn't for the fact that you had some people here who were fond of you. I know you have had some problems on the job. But—wow! Two problems with the police in a matter of days—we have no choice. You know some little dweeb of a board man over at the Z—Doug Reid?"

"Yeah." Trask felt needles stick him in the kidneys. "Buzz Reid?"

"Vice-squad guy was by pure luck tight with Chase or you might be sitting in jail right now trying to line up a bail bondsman." Chase? Trask's mind wasn't working. He tried to swallow. His throat was raw. Metzger watched him try to breathe. "This cop calls Kincaid and says, 'Hey, I came on a conversation, with one of the KCM employees talking to this little pimp I'm busting about a plot to burgle the radio station."

"Aw, bullshit, man—it wasn't like that at all. I just—"

"He apparently overheard somebody who works at the station, thinks his office and phone are bugged, asking all this crap about how to break into Security?" He said it incredulously. "How to do illegal wiretaps? I mean, Chase said he couldn't believe it when he listened to the tape. You—"

"But I was right, wasn't I? You guys were taping me?" He was in a fog. His mind had become Gouda cheese. He couldn't even mix a metaphor.

"You're still missing the point. We weren't taping you-some vice-squad guy was taping the other guy. He was pimping his wife out of their home or whatever. You just got nailed on it. The point being—have you any idea what would have happened if the vice dude had gone to Higgins with this? You'd be locked up now, Vic. You're one lucky guy."

"Okay," he said in a quiet voice. "I just wanted to know—"

"Don't even bother, man. It doesn't matter that you weren't really going to try any of this stuff. Or even if you were just doing a piece of research, which, by the way, is what Chase, told his buddy. You were just researching 'Intrusions of Privacy'—so stick to that. Anyway, the point being—you've lost your judgment and your professionalism. We just can't have it.

"Kincaid had to tell New York about the two incidents and they said you're gone. That's it." Metzger got an envelope out of his desk and handed it over. Trask felt ill, sloppy, blank, and embarrassed, all at once—if that were possible. There was some panic as he peered inside and saw an absence of many numerals.

"What's this?" Trask snarled ungratefully.

"That's your severance pay and I had to argue with them downstairs to get you that," Metzger explained. Trask just nodded. "I need your keys. I'm to tell you that you're persona non grata at KCM. If you show up after this—and you're to take your stuff, which we have all in one box in your office—you'll be reported to the police immediately. I'm sorry, man, but they are not amused I'm sure you'll be pissed off, but all I can say is—count your blessings. As bad as this ending is, considering your lack of judgment, it could have been much worse."

"Okay." They stood up and Babaloo offered his hand. Trask shook it and walked out. Took his key off his ring and came back and put it on the desk and left again. Went in his office. Got the box. Walked down the long chilly corridor to the elevator, not seeing anybody.

The last face he saw was the gorgeous puss of Monica Heartbreak, just as the doors slid closed.

Metzger was right, he supposed. It could have been worse. They'd never learned that he'd bugged the office of a Homicide guy. Wouldn't that be fun—say the lieutenant would find a hidden microphone among the volumes in his bookcase. Trask could imagine him talking about it to other detectives, and the vice guy adds two and two. It could keep on snowballing. Maybe the cops would decide he was the mass murderer. What a fucking nightmare!

Yet, as Metzger had said, it could have been worse. Think of the bright side: they'd never learned about that time he'd parked in VIP Sales Parking. Also…he was still clean on the Lindbergh kidnapping case.

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