With Jazz in the lead to scout out the cameras and guide Morales—now suited up and armed again—around them, they made their way to unit 83F. It was deep within a maze of tight, narrow corridors lit sporadically by overhead fluorescent tubes that seemed to spasm on and off of their own accord. The unit was on the second floor of what seemed to be a ten-story building, a concrete-and-metal bunker housing endless identical doors, differentiated only by the varying locks and the fading numbers etched onto their faces.
As they rounded a corner that would reveal 83F to them, Morales paused to draw her backup weapon. Her poise with the smaller Glock 26 was plenty intimidating—Jazz could only imagine how she would look with the bigger 22 in her grasp.
“What are you doing?” Jazz asked.
“You should have bought bolt-cutters at the damn hardware store. Now I’m gonna have to shoot off the lock,” she said. “This ought to do it.”
Jazz groaned. “Put that thing away,” he said. “I can pick the lock.”
“What if it’s a combination lock, smart-ass?”
“I’m not bad with them, either.”
Moot point.
As they came within sight, they saw that the lock was already unfastened, hanging loose in the open hasp of the door to unit 83F.
CHAPTER 54
Howie stood at the front door to the Dent house. The stars still hid beyond the blanket of clouds. He tried not to take that as an ill omen, but it wasn’t easy.
Just go on and do it, he told himself. And who knows? Maybe a hundred years from now, some dumb futuristic hemophiliac kid’s dumb futuristic parents will be all like, “Buck up! Did you know that the famous Howie Gersten also had hemophilia?” Beats the living hell out of Genghis Khan, right?
He had a key, of course, so he let himself in. The house was quiet. Too quiet, some idiot in a movie would say, then go in anyway.
Howie shrugged and went in anyway. He knew something that random movie idiots didn’t know—where the shotgun was. He recovered it from behind the big grandfather clock. The barrels were plugged and Jazz had removed the firing pins, but Sam and Gramma didn’t know that.
I’m going to cut the knot and figure this out one way or the other, he thought. And then, resolute, he stepped into the living room, where Sam lay on the sofa, watching TV.
“Howie?” she asked, startled. “What are you—” She broke off as she realized he was pointing the gun at her. “Howie!” Her voice cracked. “What the hell? Are you nuts?”
“That’s exactly what I was gonna ask you!” he said, astonished. “Wow. We’re totally on the same wavelength. Please don’t be a crazy serial-killer person.”
“What are you talking about?” She drew her legs up onto the sofa, hugging her knees as though she could shrink into a space where a shotgun blast couldn’t find her. “What are you doing? Point that thing somewhere else.”
“In a sec. I need to know if you’re a crazy serial killer like Billy. Are you Ugly J?”
“What’s Ugly J? Put that gun down!” Her voice went high and panicked. Too panicked to be fake, Howie thought. Would a serial killer be afraid of harmless Howie, even packing heat? He didn’t think so. The terror in Sam’s eyes seemed real. Howie didn’t think Billy had ever been afraid of anything in his life.
“Playtime!” a voice said from behind him. “Friends are here!” it singsonged, and Howie turned without thinking. Gramma had pranced in from the hallway, clapping her hands, but when she saw the shotgun pointed at her, she screamed.
“Whoa. Calm—”
“KILLER!” she yelled. “KILLER IN THE HOUSE!” So loud he thought her vocal cords would have to explode.
“It’s okay!” he told her, but she screamed again—this scream high and wordless, a nonsense syllable of terror—and clenched tight, old fists.
From behind him, he heard Sam cry out, and then she was on him from behind, tackling him, and he thought, That’s gonna leave a bruise, as he involuntarily pulled both triggers to the shotgun.
Boom. Not the sound of gunfire. No, the shotgun made only twin dry clicks as the hammers fell on empty space instead of firing pins. The boom rattled in Howie’s skull as he crashed to the floor, Sam on top of him, screaming, and then a new sound, a cry of fear, and Howie looked up in time to see Gramma, hands grasping at her own throat as she choked out a hollow gasp and collapsed to the floor, her head cracking solidly on the hardwood right in front of Howie.
“Oh, Jesus!” he blurted out, not sure if he meant for Mrs. Dent or for himself and the damage done to his body by his own fall. Maybe both.
Sam clambered off him, snatching the shotgun from his now-nerveless fingers. She tore skin away and Howie went swoony at the too-familiar sight of his own bright blood spurting onto the floor.
“Mom!” Sam was up, pushing past him, the shotgun cradled expertly in her arms. Howie tried to push off the floor; his palm slipped on his own blood. Sam caught his movement out of the corner of her eye and scowled murder at him, hoisting the gun threateningly. It couldn’t fire, but beating Howie to death would be the easiest thing in the world.
“I didn’t mean—” Howie started, and Sam dropped to her knees next to her mother.
She shook her.
Gramma Dent lay silent and loose, a skeleton in a bag of skin.
Sam spun around, now wielding the shotgun like a club, a crazed glint in her eye. And despite that, Howie suddenly was worried not for himself at all. He could only think:
Oh, no. Oh, God. I just killed Jazz’s grandmother.
CHAPTER 55
Jazz and Morales exchanged a quick look. And then Jazz knew the meaning of telepathy because in that instant, he knew exactly what Morales was thinking. She was thinking the exact same thing he was thinking, the thought stretched and shared between them like taffy:
Doggy needs a bone. But first, Doggy needs to play with his toys.
Belsamo. One half of the Hat-Dog Killer. He was in unit 83F right now. Gathering his tools for his next murder. They had thought they would beat him here, but he’d managed to get here first.
Before Jazz could say anything or signal, Morales single-handed her gun—good thing she was using the backup, Jazz thought—then grabbed the handle of the door down near the floor and flung it up. It rumbled and stuttered, but rolled almost entirely into the ceiling, revealing a ten-by-ten space within, lit by a portable battery-powered lantern.
Morales shifted her grip to two hands, her feet planted.
“Freeze!” she shouted. “Don’t even twitch!”
The room was divided into halves by a strip of bright tape that ran down the center of the floor. Both sides had what looked like a makeshift workbench, each piled high with tools and boxes. On the right-hand side, Jazz noticed a bottle of clear liquid with a pair of eyes floating in it.
On the other side, the workbench held multiple small jars, filled with cloudy liquid and tight, curled shadows that Jazz knew would turn out to be five excised penises.
Oliver Belsamo stood in front of the left-hand workbench, half-turned to Morales, his expression one of complete shock. He had a small laptop shoulder bag on the workbench before him, partly filled from the look of it.
In his hand, now frozen, he held a wicked-looking scalpel, halfway to the bag.
“Drop the knife,” Morales said, teeth clenched. “Drop it now or I drop you.”
Jazz wondered if she would actually shoot him. Dog was her best—only—pathway to Billy. Would she really kill him?
“You…” Belsamo’s voice. It was Jazz’s first time hearing it since the interrogation room, when he’d cawed and played madman. It still had that off-kilter timbre to it, that lunatic’s cadence. Belsamo was a man only marginally in control of himself.
His apartment. All the hoarding and OCD crap. That’s how he tries to stay in control of himself. By complete control of his environment.
“You went into my house!” Belsamo whined, gripping the scalpel more tightly. He didn’t even look at Morales—he seemed to have eyes only for Jazz. “You took my phone!” As if that crime somehow outweighed all his own.
“You do not want to mess with me!” Morales yelled. “Put! It! Down!”
She probably wouldn’t kill him. But he could easily see her shooting him in the leg.
“Better listen to her,” Jazz said. He took a step toward Belsamo. “Drop the scalpel and step away from the workbench and you’ll live, man. That’s what it’s all about, right?”