Shiver

17

“Still can’t figure how she did it. Just an itty-bitty little thing.”

“Must be a scrapper, though.”

“Damn straight. She stabbed him, she said. Little street fighter. Amazing.”

“Hope she got him good.”

“Hell, maybe he’s dead right now. Maybe he only lived long enough to get out of the building, into some alley, and he croaked there like a damn stray dog.”

“You better believe Delgado checked all the alleys.”

“Yeah. Well, maybe he’s dead anyway. Dead in his goddamn house. Maybe he offed his pretty self.”

“Hey, man, we can dream.”

Rood smiled. Yes, they could dream. Soon they would dream forevermore.

Officers Sanchez and Porter were so pathetically impressed with Miss Wendy Alden’s survival skills. Mr. Porter, especially. “An itty-bitty little thing,” he’d just called her, and earlier he’d remarked admiringly on her “Kewpie-doll face and bad-ass attitude,” while insisting in a humorous way that “she’s got to have some Zulu blood in her, man, plain got to.” He and his partner had spoken of little else during the past hour, while Rood lay on his belly at the rear of the squad car.

He’d crawled there unobserved, the knife damped in his teeth, his eyes fixed on his prey, a guerrilla warrior weaving through jungle brush. His progress was slow, every inch a trembling effort to maintain absolute silence; his enemies were the rustling of his coat, the brittle weeds that crackled under him like twigs, and the gusts of wind that threatened to carry such telltale sounds to the open windows of the patrol car. Although the night was cool and dry, not much time passed before jewels of sweat were tracking down Rood’s temples, his cheeks, his neck. Periodically he paused to snug the black stems of his glasses behind his ears.

Finally he reached the rear bumper, where he could lie unseen, eavesdropping on the two cops’ witless conversation and awaiting his opportunity to strike. As he waited, he removed his blood-spotted leather gloves from the pockets of his coat and slipped them on.

From his hiding place he could still see Mr. Pellman’s house across the street. Shortly before two A.M. the lights in the front windows snapped off. The two lovers had gone to bed, it appeared. Rood could picture them locked in grunting passion, their bodies striped with sweat.

He wondered how it felt to make love with a living woman. A woman who would whisper his name as tenderly as he whispered hers. A woman who would say she loved him, gazing on him with adoring eyes. The eyes of the dead held no adoration. They were glass marbles, nothing more.

For the first time in many years he remembered how much he’d wanted Miss Kathy Lutton, the waitress in Twin Falls. Wanted her not as a victim but as a lover. How good that would have been. Not as great, as noble, as the work he was doing now, of course. But even so

… how nice to have someone he could love. Just once.

“Hold the fort, will you?” Officer Porter said suddenly. “I’ve got to make some rain in this desert.”

Rood tensed, pushing away those unfamiliar thoughts. The passenger-side door swung open. The car rocked lightly on its springs as Officer Porter got out. He took a few steps into the brush. Rood heard him unzip his fly.

Raising himself to a half-crouch. Rood peered cautiously inside the car through the rear window. Officer Sanchez was looking away from his partner, toward the dark, silent house. Rood swiveled his head to study Officer Porter. The man’s broad back was turned, his hands planted on his hips; falling water sizzled on the dry brush.

Vulnerable. Both of them. As vulnerable as they would ever be.

Still, two armed men… two men trained in self-defense…

Rood had never killed a man before. Many women, but never a man, any man, let alone a cop.

For a moment he nearly lost his nerve. He told himself he could sink back into the brush unnoticed and try to come up with another, better plan. Or he could forget Miss Alden entirely. Or…

He gritted his teeth. Fear was unworthy of him. An ordinary man would feel fear. Not Franklin Rood. Franklin Rood would do what had to be done.

So do it, he ordered himself. First one, then the other. Both kills quick and silent. Now.

Doubled over, staying low. Rood covered the two yards that separated him from Officer Porter. The cop was fumbling with his zipper, his head down, when Rood rose up behind him. Rood was close, inches away; even in the chancy starlight he could see individual kinks of hair curling over the nape of the man’s thick muscular neck.

His right hand tightened its grip on the knife. The stainless-steel handle was stiff and hard like an erection. Rood felt good. There was no more fear. There had never been fear. Voltage crackled behind his eardrums. Invisible power lines hummed and sparked. Electric currents passed over him and through him. He was pure energy. He could not be defeated, could never be denied.

Rood seized Officer Porter from behind, cupping his mouth with one hand, while with the other he jammed the knife blade into the cop’s neck and yanked it sideways, ripping open his throat in a spurt of blood.

Easy. So easy.

Officer Porter, who had such high praise for Miss Wendy Alden and who hoped the Gryphon lay dead in an alley like a mongrel dog, spasmed and twitched and danced. No doubt he was trying to scream, but with his throat cut no sound came except a series of low choking gasps muffled by Rood’s hand. Blood spattered on the ground, sounding very much like the sprinkle of urine a moment ago.

Another universe, erased. Another private cosmos, canceled. Another taste of omnipotence.

The carcass in his arms stopped writhing within seconds, its feeble energies exhausted. Rood lowered the body gently to the ground, then moved immediately toward the open door of the squad car.

He slid into the passenger seat. Officer Sanchez sat at the wheel, still looking at the house.

“Guess when you’ve got to go,” the cop said without turning, “you’ve got to go. Right?”

“Right,” Rood answered.

Officer Sanchez heard the unfamiliar voice and swung around in his seat, his hand scrabbling at his holster.

“And you,” Rood said, “have got to go.”

He thrust the knife into the cop’s left eye. There was a small pop as the eyeball burst. Rood leaned on the knife, driving the blade in deep. He felt a momentary obstruction, then a sudden release as the stainless-steel tip punched through the thin shell of bone at the back of the eye socket, into the brain.

Officer Sanchez surrendered his grip on the butt of his gun. He stared at Rood with his one remaining eye, his face a silent shock mask. He was still staring when Rood withdrew the knife by slow degrees, twisting the handle to wrench it free. He was staring even when he slumped in his seat, listing forward in comical slow motion till his forehead banged the dashboard with a hollow thump.

Rood held up the knife. The serrated blade was smeared with blood and pus. He wiped it clean, then let his head fall back against the headrest as he expelled a shaky breath. He was trembling.

After a few minutes he was calm again. Calm and vastly pleased with himself. He’d carried out his mission with remarkable expertise. There were not ten men in the world who could have accomplished what he’d done. When his story was told by future generations, as it would be, the execution of Officers Porter and Sanchez would occupy a prominent place in the myth. And the two cops themselves would achieve a kind of immortality, a place in history they had not earned, but which Rood, in his magnanimity, would not begrudge them.

With effort he roused himself. He could hardly afford to slow down now.

He left the car and retrieved the drawstring bag. He needed the bag, which contained his tools for entering the house, as well as the hacksaw with which he would take his grandest trophy.

Crossing the street, he approached the house and circled it. Although he would have liked to break in through a window, as he’d done at Miss Osborn’s place, he found he couldn’t; all the windows on the ground floor were protected by the iron security bars he’d noticed earlier. Well, the locks on a house so old and poorly maintained should give him no trouble.

They didn’t. Within two minutes he’d defeated the rusty latch bolt and dead bolt on the front door. Cautiously he entered the dark living room, then stopped, his attention caught by the low burr of a snore. The noise came from the sofa, where Mr. Jeffrey Pellman lay fast asleep. Alone.

So Miss Alden wasn’t sleeping with him, after all. For some reason Rood was relieved. He wasn’t sure why. He supposed he wanted the woman all for himself. Yes. That must be it.

Well, he would have her soon enough.