I read the final note.
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Jack and Jill came to The Hill Where Jill did what she must.
Her reason drove her The game is over Though dead Jill's cause was just.
"F*ck you Jill," I whispered over the dead body "I hope you burn in hell for what you've done today I hope there's a hell just for you and Jack."
NOWHERE was the news of the shooting taken any harder than in Washington. Thomas Byrnes was loved and he was hated, but he was one of the city's own, especially now.
Christine Johnson was in shock, as were her closest friends and most everyone that she knew. The teachers at Sojourner Truth and the children were completely destroyed by what had happened to the President in New York City. It was so horrifying and stark, but also so unbearably sad and unreal.
Because of the shooting, all D.C. schools had canceled classes for the afternoon. She had been watching the nightmarish TV coverage of the assassination attempt from the first moment she got home from school. She still couldn't believe what had happened.
No one could believe it. The President was still alive. No other bulletins were being released.
Christine didn't know whether Alex Cross had been at Madison Square Garden, but she imagined that he had been there. She worried about Alex, too. She liked the detective's sincerity and his tuner strength, but especially his compassion and his vulnerability She liked the way he looked, talked, acted. She also liked the way Alex was bringing up his son, Damon. It made her want children even more herself. She and George had to talk about that. She and George had to talk.
He arrived home before seven that night, which was an hour or two early for him. George Johnson was a hard worker in his corporate law job. He was thirty-seven years old and had a smooth, attractive baby face. He was a good man, although way too self-centered and, truthfully, a little bit of a buppie at times.
Christine loved him, though; she accepted the good and the bad. She was thinking that as she fiercely hugged him at the front door. There was no doubt of it in her mind. She and George had met at Howard University and been together ever since. That was the way she believed it ought to be, and would be as far as she was concerned.
"People are still out there crying in the streets," George said.
After the hug, he shucked off his wool Brooks Brothers suit jacket and loosened his tie, but he didn't go upstairs to change. He was breaking all his usual patterns tonight. Well, good for George.
"I didn't vote for President Byrnes, but this has really gotten to me anyway, Chris. What a damn shame."
There were tears in his eyes, and that started her up again, too.
George usually kept his feelings to himself, everything all bottled up. Christine was touched by her husband's emotion.
She was touched a great deal.
"I've cried a couple of times," she confided to George. "You know me. I did vote for the President, but that's not it. It just seems as though we're losing respect for every institution, everything permanent. We're losing respect for human life at a very fast rate. I even see it in the eyes of six-year-old schoolchildren.
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I see it every day at the Truth School."
George Johnson held his wife again, held her tight. At five eleven, he was exactly her height. Christine rested her head softly against the side of his. She smelled of light citrus fragrance. She'd worn it to school.
He loved her so much. She was like no other woman, no other person he'd ever met. He felt incredibly lucky to have her, to be loved by her, to hold her like this.
"Do you know what I'm saying?" she asked, wanting to talk with George tonight, not willing to let him disappear on her, as he so often did.
"Sure I do," he said. "Everybody feels it, Chrissie. Nobody knows how to begin to make it stop, though."
"I'll fix us something to eat. We can watch the dregs on CNN," she finally said. "Part of me doesn't want to watch the news, but part of me has to watch this."
"I'll help with the grub," George offered, which was rare. She wished that he could be like this more often and that it didn't take a national tragedy to get him in touch with his emotions. Well, a lot of men were like that, she knew. There were worse things in a marriage.
They made a vegetarian gumbo together and opened a bottle of Chardonnay. They had barely finished supper in front of the TV when the front doorbell rang. It was a little before nine, and they weren't expecting anyone, but sometimes neighbors dropped in.
CNN was covering the scene at New York University Hospital, where the President had been rushed after the shooting.
Alex Cross had appeared with various other officers who had been at the scene of the shooting, but he wouldn't say much to the media. Alex looked upset, spent, but also, well-noble.
Christine didn't mention to George that she knew him.
She wondered why. She hadn't told George about Alex's visit to their house late one night. He had slept right through it; but that was George.
Before he could get up off the couch, the doorbell rang a second time. Then, a third ring. Whoever it was wouldn't go away.
"I'll get it, Chrissie," he said. "Don't know who in hell that could be, this time of night. Do you?"
"I don't, either."
"All right, already," he snapped. Christine found herself smiling.
George the Impatient was back.
"I'm coming for Christmas' sake. I'm coming, I'm coming.
Hold your water, I'm coming," he said as he hobbled toward the door in his stockinged feet.
He peered through the peephole, then turned to look at Christine with a questioning scowl on his face.
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"It's some white kid."
DANNY BOUDREAUX stood on the shiny, white-painted porch of the schoolteacher's house. He was dressed in an oversized army-green rain poncho that made him look bigger than he actually was, somewhat more impressive. The Sojourner Truth School killer in the flesh! He was in his glory now. But even in his megahyper mood, he sensed that something was wrong with him now.
He didn't feel good, and he was getting sad- kind of depressed as hell, actually. The machine was breaking down. The doctors couldn't figure whether he was a bipolar disorder or conduct disorder. If they couldn't, how the hell was he supposed to?
So what if he was a little impulsive, had huge mood swings, was a social misfit? The fuse was litHe was ready to blow. kike, who cared?
He had stopped his dosages ofDepakote. Just say no, right? He was humming the "Mmm mm mm" song over and over. Crash Test Dummies. Sad, angry music that just wouldn't stop playing in his head like MTV Muzak.
His "mad button" seemed to be stuck -- permanently.
He was mad at Jack and Jill. Real mad at Alex Cross. Mad at the principal of the Truth School. Mad at just about everybody on the planet. He was even mad at himself now. He was such a goddamn screwup.
Always had been, always would be.
I'm a loser, baby.
So why don't you kill me?
He snapped back to semireality when a black f*cker wearing a blue pinstriped shirt, suit trousers, and mellow-yellow suspenders answered the door. Hey, welcome to the Cyburbs!
At first, Danny Boudreaux didn't understand who the hell the round-faced black dude was. He'd been expecting the big-deal school principal Mrs. Johnson, or maybe even Alex Cross, if Cross hadn't gone to New York. He had seen Cross and the principal together on three different occasions. He guessed they were getting it on.
He didn't know why that made him mad, but it did. Cross was just like his goddamn father, his real father. Another f*ck-up cop who had deserted him, who didn't think he was worth dogshit.
And now Cross was humping this teacher on the side.
Wait, wait, hold on, Danny Boudreaux suddenly got something clear. A flash. This self-righteous Kunta Kinte dude has to be her husband, right ? Of course he was.
"Yes? Can I help you with something?" George Johnson asked the strange-looking and disheveled young man on the porch.
He didn't know the paper-delivery boy in the neighborhood, but maybe this was he. For some strange reason, the white boy reminded him of a disturbing movie called Kids that he'd watched with Christine.
The boy looked as if he had some trouble in his life right now.
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In Danny Boudreaux's humble opinion, the black guy seemed real unfriendly and uppity as hell. Especially for the nobody husband of some nobody schoolteacher. That pissed him off even more. Made him see about twelve different shades of red. Put him over the edge.
He felt one of the worst rages coming on. Hurricane Daniel was about to strike in Mitchellville.
"Noooooo!" he nearly yelled at the man. "You can't even help yourself. You sure as shit can't help me!"
Danny Boudreaux suddenly yanked out his semiautomatic.
George Johnson looked at the gun in disbelief. He stepped back quickly from the door. He threw up both his arms in self-defense.
"Without any hesitation, Boudreaux fired twice. "Take that, you silly black rabbit!" he yelled, letting the voices come as they may The two bullets hit George Johnson 4n the chest.
He flew back through the open door as if he'd been struck with a sledgehammer. He bounced once off the cream marble floor.
The cat was DOA for sure. Blood was surging from the two holes in his chest.
The Sojourner Truth School killer then walked right into the teacher's house. He stepped over the fallen body as if it were worth nothing. He was feeling nothing.
"I'll just go ahead in, thanks," he said to the dead man on the floor. "You've been most helpful."
Christine Johnson had risen from the couch in the living room when she heard the shots. He had forgotten how goddamn tall she was. Danny Boudreaux could see her from the front hallway She could see him and her husband's body as well.
She didn't look so almighty-in-charge anymore. He had knocked her ass down a peg real quick. She deserved it, too. She'd hurt his feelings the first time they met. She probably didn't even remember the incident.
"Remember me?" he called to her. "Remember hassling me, bitch? At the Truth School? You remember me, don't you?"
"Oh, my God. Oh, George. Oh, God, George," she moaned the words. A dry sob was shaking her body She looked as if she might collapse. He saw that f*cking Jack and Jill was on the tube.
Goddamnit. They were always trying to one-up him. Even here, even now Danny Boudreaux could tell that the schoolteacher wanted to run real bad. There was nowhere to go, though. Not unless she went right through the picture window and out onto her lawn.
She had her hand up to her mouth. Her hand looked as if it were stuck there with Velcro. Probably in shock.
"Don't yell anymore," he warned her in a high-pitched scream of his own. "Don't scream again or I'll shoot you, too. I can and I will. I'll shoot you dead as the doorman."
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He closed in on her now. He kept the Smith & Wesson pointed out in front of him. He wanted her to see that he was very comfortable with the weapon, very expert with firearms -- which he was, thanks to the Teddy Roosevelt School His hand was shaking some, but so what? He wouldn't miss her at this distance.
"Hi there, Mrs. Johnson," he said and gave her his best spooky-guy grin. "I'm the one who killed Shanelie Green and Vernon Wheatley. Everybody's been looking all over for me.
Well, I guess you found me," he told her. "Congratulations, babe.
Nice work."
Danny Boudreaux was crying now, and he couldn't remember why he was so sad. All he knew for sure was that he was furiously angry. With everybody. Everybody had f*cked up real bad this time. This was about the worst so far.
No happy, happy. No joy, joy.
"I'm the Truth School killer," he repeated. "You believe that?
You got it? It's a true tale. Tale of heartbreak and woe. Don't you even remember me? Am I that forgettable? I sure remember you."
I RUSHED BACK to the Washington, D.C., area that night about eleven o'clock. The Sojourner Truth School killer was rampaging. I had predicted he was going to go off, but being right held no rewards for me. Stopping the explosion might.
Maybe it was no accident that he was blowing the same night as Jack and Jill. He wanted to be better than them, didn't he? He wanted to be important, famous, in the brightest spotlight. He couldn't bear being Nobody.
I tried to put my mind somewhere else for the short time I was on the military jet. I was feeling so low, I could have jumped off a dime. I scanned the late papers, which carried front-page stories about President Byrnes and the shooting in New York. The President was in extremely critical condition at New York University Hospital on East Thirty-third Street in Manhattan. Jack and Jill were both reported dead. Doctors at University Hospital didn't know if the President would survive the night.
I was numb, disoriented, overloaded, on the slippery borderline of shock trauma myself. Now it was getting worse. I didn't know for certain if I could handle this, but I hadn't been given a choice.
The killer had demanded to see me. He claimed that I was his detective and that he'd been calling my house for the past few days.
A police cruiser was scheduled to meet me at Andrews Air Force Base. From there I'd be taken to nearby Mitchellville, where Danny Boudreaux was holding Christine Johnson hostage. So far, Boudreaux had murdered two small children, a classmate of his named Sumner Moore, and his own foster parents.
It was an extraordinary rampage, and the case deserved more resources than it had received from the Metro police.
A police cruiser was waiting at Andrews as promised. Somebody had put together material for me on Daniel Boudreaux. The boy had been under a psychiatrist's care since he was seven. He had been severely depressed. He'd apparently committed bizarre acts of animal torture as early as seven. Daniel Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/ab*.html
Boudreaux's real mother had died during his infancy, and he blamed himself. His real father had committed suicide. The father had been a state trooper in Virginia. Another cop, I noted. Probably some kind of transference going on inside the boy's head.
I recognized Summer Street as soon as we branched off the John Hanson Highway. A detective from Prince Georges County sat with me in the backseat of the cruiser. His name was Henry Fornier. He tried to brief me on the hostage situation as best he could under the bizarre circumstances.
"As we understand it, Dr. Cross, George Johnson has been shot, and he may be dead in the house. The boy won't allow the body to be removed or to receive any medical attention," Officer Fornier told me.
"He's a nasty bastard, I'll tell you. A real little prick."
"Boudreaux was being treated for his anger, his depression and rage cycles, with Depakote. I'll bet anything that he's off it now," I said. I was thinking out loud, trying to prepare myself for whatever was coming just a few blocks up this peaceful-looking street.
It didn't matter that the Boudreaux boy was thirteen years old. He had already killed five times. That's what he did: he killed.
Another monster. A very young, horrifying monster.
I spotted Sampson, who was half a head taller than the other policemen stationed outside the Johnson house. I tried to take in everything. There were scores of police, but also soldiers in riot gear with military camouflage at the scene. Cars and trucks with government license plates were parked all over the street.
I walked right over to Sampson. He knew the things I needed to hear, and he would know how to-talk to me. "Hey there, Sugar," he greeted me with a hint of his usual ironic smile. "Glad you could make it to the party."
"Yeah, nice to see you, too," I said.
"Friend of yours wants to see you. Wants to talk the talk with Dr. Cross. You've got the damnedest friends."
"Yeah. I sure do," I said to Sampson. He was one of them.
"They're holding back firepower because he's a kid? Is that what's going on so far?"
Sampson nodded. I had it right. "He's just another stone killer, Alex," he said. "You remember that. He's just another killer."
A THIRTEEN-YEAR-OLD MURDERER.
I began to pay very close attention to the staging area that had been set up around the perimeter of the Johnson house. Even relatively small, local police forces were getting good at this sort of thing. Terror was invading towns with names like Ruby Ridge and Waco, and now, Mitchellville.
A late-model, dark blue van with its back doors open held TV monitors, state-of-the-art sound equipment, phones, a desktop workstation. A techie was crouched near a windblown willow tree listening to the house with a microphone gun. The gun could pick up voices from well over a hundred yards.
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Surveillance shots and also assorted photos of the boy were tacked to a board propped against a squad car. A helicopter was spraying high-intensity beams on the rooftops and trees. Here the hostage drama was unfolding as we know and love it.
In suburbia this time.
A thirteen-year-old boy named Daniel Boudreaux.
Just another stone killer.
"Who do they have talking to him?" I asked Sampson as we wandered closer to the house. I spotted a black Lexus parked in the driveway George Johnson's car? "Who's the negotiator on this?"
"They got Paul Losi down here as soon as they found out about the hostage situation, and how goddamn bad it was."
I nodded and felt a little relief at the choice of a negotiator.
"That's good. Losi is tough. He's good under pressure, too. How is the boy communicating from the house?"
"At first, over the phone lines. Then he demanded a megaphone.
Threw a real tantrum. Threatened to shoot the teacher and himself on the spot. So the bad boy got his own blowhorn.
He uses that now. He and Paul Losi are not exactly what you call 'hitting it off.""
"How about Christine Johnson? She still okay? What do you hear?"
"Appears to be all right, so far. She's been cool under fire. We think she's holding the bad boy in control somehow, but just barely She's tough."
That much I knew already She's even tougher than you are, Daddy. I hoped Damon was one hundred percent right. I hoped she was tougher than all of us.
George Pittman wandered up beside Sampson and me while we were talking. The chief of detectives was the last person I wanted to see then, absolutely the last. I still suspected he was the one who had
"volunteered" me to the White House. I swallowed any anger I was feeling; swallowed my pride, too.
"FBI has sharpshooters in place," Pittman informed us.
"Trouble is, the powers won't let us use them. The little bastard's been out in the open a couple of times."
I stayed even and calm with Pittman. He still had a gun to my head. We both knew it. "Trouble is, the killer is thirteen years old.
He's probably suicidal," I said. I was making an educated guess, but I was almost certain it was the right one. He had cornered himself in the Johnson house, then started screaming come and get me.
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Pittman's face became a dark scowl. His face was tinged with red down to his bull neck. "He thinks the five murders he's committed are funny Little f*cker told the negotiator that already He laughs about the murders. He's asking for you specifically Now how do you feel about the sharpshooters?" Pittman came back at me before he walked away.
Sampson shook his head. "Don't even think about going in there to play games with Dennis the Menace,"
he said.
"I need to understand him better. I have to talk to him to do that," I muttered and looked at the Johnson house. There were plenty of lights on downstairs. None up on the second floor.
"You understand him too goddamn much already, though you'd deny it. You understand so much about the crazies, you're going over the edge yourself. You hear me? You understand that?"
I did understand. I had a fair idea of my own strengths and weaknesses. Most of the time, anyway.
Maybe not on a night like this one, though.
A voice on a megaphone interrupted us. The Sojourner Truth School killer had decided to speak.
"Hey! Hey, out there! Hey, you dumb bastards! Did you forget something? Remember me?"
I got to hear Danny Boudreaux for the first time. He sounded like a boy. Nasal, high-pitched, ordinary as hell. Thirteen years old.
"You sons of bitches are screwing with my head, aren't you?"
he screeched. "I'll answer my ownquestion. Yeah, you are! You're f*cking with the wrong falcon."
Paul Losi blew once on his bullhorn. "Hold on. That's really not the case, Danny. You've been in control all the way so far. You know that, Danny Let's be fair about this."
"Bullshit!" Danny Boudreaux answered back angrily. "That's so much bullshit, it makes me sick to the gills just to hear it.
You make me sick, Losi. You also make me super pissed-off, you know that, Losi?"
"Tell me what the problem is." The negotiator maintained a cool head under fire. "Talk to me, Danny. I want to talk to you.
I know you might not believe that, but I do."
"I know you do, a*shole. It's your job to keep me on the line.
Trouble is, you cheated, you lied, you said you loved me. You lied! So nowyou're off my team. Not one more word from you, or I'll murder Mrs. Johnson. It'll be your fault.
"I'll kill her now. I swear to God, I will. Even though she was nice enough to make me a fried egg sandwich before. BANG!...
BANG!... SHE'S DEAD!"
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The police were everywhere outside the Johnson house. They began to lower their dark Plexiglas face masks. Riot shields were slowly raised. The forces were getting ready to rush the house. If they did, Christine Johnson would very likely die.
"What is your problem?" the negotiator cautiously asked the boy "Talk to me. We'll work it out, Danny.
We can come to a solution that works for you. What's the problem?"
For a while it was eerily quiet on the front lawn and on the street. I could hear the wind rush through willow and evergreen trees.
Then Danny Boudreaux screamed out.
"What's my problem? What's my problem? You're such aphony a*shole, is part of my problem.... The other part is that the man is here. Alex Cross is here, and you didn't tell me. I had to find out on the TV
news]
"You have exactly thirty seconds, Detective Cross. Make that twenty-nine. Twenty-eight. I can't wait to meet you, sucker. I can't wait for this. Twenty-seven. Twenty-six. Twenty-five..."
The Sojourner Truth School killer was calling the shots. A thirteen-year-old boy A command performance.
"THIS IS ALEX CROSS," I called out to the teenage murderer. I was standing on the outer edge of the Johnson's frostbitten lawn.
I didn't need a megaphone for Danny Boudreaux to hear me. Your detective is here. Everything is going just the way you want it to go.
"This is Detective Cross," I called out again. "You're right, I'm here. I just arrived, though. I came because you asked for me.
We're taking this seriously Nobody's messing around with you.
Nobody would do that."
Not yet, anyway, Give me half a chance, though, and I'll mess with you good. I remembered poor little Shanelle Green. I remembered seven-year-old Vernon Wheatley, I thought about Christine Johnson trapped inside with the young killer who had shot her husband before her eyes. I wanted the chance to mess with Daniel Boudreaux.
Boudreaux suddenly laughed into his megaphone -- a high-pitched girlish giggle. Spooky as hell. A few people in the crowd of onlookers and ambulance-chasers laughed along with the boy, Nice to know you have friends out there.
"Well, it's about time, Detective Alex Cross. It's so nice that you can fit me into your busy schedule. Mrs.
Johnson thinks so, too.
We're here waiting, waiting, waiting for you... so c'mon in the house. Let's have a party"
The boy was openly challenging me and my authority, He needed to be the one in charge. I was charting everything in my head, keeping track of his every move, but also the sequence.
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Paranoid schizophrenic was a possible diagnosis. Bipolar or conduct disorder was a better guess. I needed to talk to him to find out the rest.
Danny Boudreaux seemed coherent, anyway, He appeared to be following actions in real time. I wondered if he might be taking his Depakote again.
A voice close behind me said, "Alex, come over here, goddammit. I want to talk to you. Alex, come here."
I turned around and faced the music. Sampson was scowling from ear to ear. "We don't need another hostage in there," he said in no uncertain terms. He was angry with me already His eyes were dark beads, his brow deeply furrowed. "You didn't hear him raving before, through most of last night. The bad boy is real crazy, The boy is crazy as shit, Alex. All he wants to do is kill somebody else."
"I think I'll be all right with him," I said. "He's my type of boy, Gary Soneji, Casanova, Danny Boudreaux.
Besides, I don't have a choice."
"You have a choice, Sugar. You just don't have any good sense."
I looked back at the house. Christine Johnson was in there with the killer. If I didn't go in, he'd kill her.
He'd said so, and I believed him. What choice did that leave me? Besides, no good deed goes unpunished, right?
Chief Pittman signaled that I had the go-ahead from him. It was up to me. Doctor-Detective Cross.
I sucked in a deep breath and began to walk across the wet, springy front lawn to the house. The news photographers took a flurry of flashshots in the few seconds it took me to move to the front door.
Suddenly, all the TV cameras were aimed at me.
I was definitely concerned about Danny Boudreaux. He was incredibly dangerous right now. He'd been on a killing spree.
Five indiscriminate murders within the last few weeks. Now he was cornered. Even worse, he had cornered himself.
My hand reached out for the front doorknob. I was feeling numb and a little out of it. My vision was tunneled. I focused on the whitewashed door and nothing else.
"It's open." A voice came from behind the door.
A boy's voice. A little raspy. Small and fragile without the megaphone to amplify it.
I pushed open the front door and finally saw the Truth School killer in all of his insane glory.
Danny Boudreaux wasn't much more than five three or four.
He had thin, squinty eyes like a rodent's, large ears, a bad buzz haircut. He was an odd-looking boy, clearly an outcast, a freak.
I sensed that other kids wouldn't like him much, that he was a loner, and had been for all of his life.
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He had a Smith & Wesson semiautomatic aimed chest-high at me.
"Military school," he reminded me. "I'm an expert marksman, Detective Cross. I have no difficulty with human targets."
MY HEART was clanging around inside the tight metal cage that was supposed to be my chest. The loud buzzing sound in my head was still there, like irritating static on a radio. I didn't feel much like a police hero. I felt scared. It was worse than usual. Maybe because the killer was thirteen years old.
Danny Boudreaux knew how to use the semiautomatic clenched in his hand, and sooner or later, he would. The only thing in the universe that mattered to me right then was to get that Smith & Wesson away from him.
The image before me commanded all my attention: a thin, pimply thirteen-year-old boy with a powerful, deadly handgun.
A semiautomatic was pointed at my heart. Although Boudreaux's hand was steady enough, he appeared to be more mentally and physically out of it than I had thought. He was probably decompensating. His behavior was likely to become increasingly more bizarre. His instability was obvious and scary to confront.
It was in his eyes. His eyes darted about like birds caught in a glass bubble.
He was weaving slightly as he stood in the foyer of the Johnson house. He waved the gun in small circles at me. He was wearing a strange sweatshirt with the printed message HAppy, HAPPY. JOY, JOY.
His short hair was dripping wet with perspiration. His glasses were slightly fogged around the edges.
Behind the glasses, his eyes were glazed and shiny-wet. He looked the part of the Truth School killer. I doubted that anyone had ever liked Danny Boudreaux too much. I didn't.
His wiry body suddenly snapped rigidly to attention. "Welcome on board, Detective Cross, sir!"
"Hello, Danny," I spoke to him in as low-key and nonthreatening a way as I could. "You called, and now I'm here." I'm the one who is going to take your ass down.
He kept his distance. He was a jangle of raw nerves and incredible, pent-up anger. He was a puppet without a puppeteer.
There was no way to predict how this was going to go from here.
He was almost definitely suffering a withdrawal from his prescription drugs. Danny Boudreaux had the whole package of symptoms: aggression, depression, psychosis, hyperactivity, behavioral deterioration.
A thirteen-year-old, stone-cold killer. How do I get the gun away from him?
Christine Johnson was standing in the darkened living room behind him. She didn't move. She looked very distant in the background and small, in spite of her height. She looked frightened, sad, tired.
To her right was an exquisitely carved fireplace that looked as if it had been scavenged from some big-city brownstone. I hadn't seen much of the living room before. I studied it closely now. I was looking Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/ab*.html
for some kind of weapon. Anything to help us.
George Johnson lay on the off-white marble floor in the foyer.
Christine or the boy had placed a red plaid blanket over the body The slain lawyer looked as if he'd lain down to take a nap.
"Christine, are you okay?" I called across the room. She started to speak, then stopped herself.
"She's fine, man. She's mighty fine pudding. She's all right,"
Boudreaux snapped at me. He slurred his words, so that they sounded like "cheese alriii."
"She's a-okay, all right. I'm the one who's losing it here. This is about me."
"I can understand how tired you are, Danny," I said to him.
I suspected that he would be experiencing dizziness, impaired concentration, cottonmouth.
"Yeah. You got that right. What else do you have to say for yourself? Any more nuggets of wisdom about my delusional behavior?"
Wham! He suddenly kicked shut the front door behind us.
More impulsive behavior. I had definitely joined the party. He was still very careful to keep his distance
-- he kept the semi-automatic always pointed at me.
"I can shoot this son of a bitch real well," he said,just in case I'd missed the point before. It reinforced my notion of his extreme paranoia, his agitation and nervousness.
He was overly concerned about how I viewed him, how competent I judged him to be. He had me confused with his real father.
The policeman father who had deserted him and his mother.
I'd just learned about the connection on the ride over, but it made sense. It tracked perfectly, actually I reminded myself that this nervous, skinny, pathetic boy was a murderer. It wasn't hard for me to hate such a fiend. Still, there was also something tragically sad about the boy There was something so lonely and freakish about Daniel Boudreaux.
"I believe that you can shoot extremely well," I told him quietly I knew it was what he wanted to hear.
I believe you.
I believe you are a stone-cold killer. I believe you are a young monster, and probably unredeemable.
How do I get your gun?
I believe I may have to kill you before you kill me or Christine Johnson.
I LOOKED at the words Happy, Happy. JOY, JOY. I knew exactly where the saying on his sweatshirt Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/ab*.html
came from.
Nickelodeon. Childrenk TV. Damon and Jannie loved it. In a way, so did I. Nickelodeon was about families, and it probably infuriated Danny Boudreaux.
He grinned at me! He had such a fiendish, madhouse look.
Then he spoke quietly, as I just had. He expertly mimicked my concern for him. His instincts were sharp and cruel. It scared me again. It also made me want to rush him and punch his lights out.
"You don't have to whisper. Nobody's sleeping in here. Well, nobody except George the Doorman."
He laughed, reveling in his crazy, creepy inappropriateness.
Here was the real psychopathic deal. Danny was a thrill killer in the flesh, even at thirteen.
"Are you all right?" I asked Christine again.
"No. Not really," she whispered.
"Shut the hell up!" Boudreaux yelled at both of us. He pointed his gun at Christine, then back at me.
"When I say something, I mean it."
I realized I wasn't going to get the gun away from the boy. I had to try something else. He looked close to the breaking point, way too close.
I decided to make a move immediately.
I concentrated on the boy, trying to gauge his weaknesses. I watched him without seeming to watch.
I took a couple of slow, deliberate steps toward the living room window. An ancient African milking stool sat there. I glanced outside at the police lines staggered across the front lawn, keeping their distance. I could see riot shields and Plexiglas masks, battle dress uniforms, flak vests, guns everywhere.
Jesus, what a scene. This mad boy had caused all this.
"Don't get any funny ideas," he told me from across the room.
I already had afunny idea, Dannyboy. I already made my move.
It done! Can you figure it out? Are you as smart as you think you are, creep?
"Why not?" I asked him. He didn't answer me. He was going to kill us. What more could he do?
There was a real good reason for me to be near the window. I was going to position myself and Christine Johnson on opposite sides of the living room.
I'd done it. I had already made the move.
Boudreaux didn't seem to notice.
"What do you think of me now?" he snarled. "How do I stack up against those a*sholes Jack and Jill?
Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/ab*.html
How about against the great Gary Soneji? You can tell me the truth. Won't hurt my feelings. Because I don't have any feelings."
"I'm going to tell you the truth," I said to him, "since that's what you want to hear. I haven't been impressed by any killers and I'm not impressed by you, either. Not in that way."
His mouth twisted and he snarled, "Yeah? Well, I'm not impressed by you, either, Dr. Hotshit Cross.
Who's got the gun, though?"
Danny Boudreaux stared at me for a long, intense moment.
His eyes looked crossed behind the lenses of his glasses. The pupils were pinpointed. He looked as if he were going to shoot me right then. My heart was racing. I looked across the room at Christine Johnson.
"I have to kill you. You know that," he said as if it made all the sense in the world. Suddenly, he was speaking in a bored voice. It was disconcerting as hell. "You and Christine have to go down."
He glanced around at her. His eyes were dark holes. "Black bitch! Sneaky, manipulative bitch, too. You dissed me bad at that stupid school of yours. How dare you disrespect me!" he flared again.
"That's not true," Christine Johnson said. She spoke right up. "I was trying to protect those kids out in the yard. It had nothing to do with you. I had no idea who you were. How could I?"
He stamped one black-booted foot hard. He was petulant, impatient, unforgiving. He was a mean little prick in every way, "Don't tell me what the hell I know! You can't tell what I'm thinking! You can't get inside my head! Nobody can."
' "Why do you think you have to kill anybody else?" I asked Boudreaux.