5
After cleansing the stubble on his skull and donning his new plain glass specs, Brady strolls down to the Motel 6 office and pays for another night. Then he returns to his room and unfolds the wheelchair he bought on Wednesday. It was pricey, but what the hell. Money is no longer an issue for him.
He puts the explosives-laden ASS PARKING cushion on the seat of the chair, then slits the lining of the pocket on the back and inserts several more blocks of his homemade plastic explosive. Each block has been fitted with a lead azide blasting plug. He gathers the connecting wires together with a metal clip. Their ends are stripped down to the bare copper, and this afternoon he’ll braid them into a single master wire.
The actual detonator will be Thing Two.
One by one, he tapes Baggies filled with ball bearings beneath the wheelchair’s seat, using crisscrossings of filament tape to hold them in place. When he’s done, he sits on the end of the bed, looking solemnly at his handiwork. He really has no idea if he’ll be able to get this rolling bomb into the Mingo Auditorium . . . but he had no idea if he’d be able to escape from City Center after the deed was done, either. That worked out; maybe this will, too. After all, this time he won’t have to escape, and that’s half the battle. Even if they get wise and try to grab him, the hallway will be crammed with concertgoers, and his score will be a lot higher than eight.
Out with a bang, Brady thinks. Out with a bang, and fuck you, Detective Hodges. Fuck you very much.
He lies down on the bed and thinks about masturbating. Probably he should while he’s still got a prick to masturbate with. But before he can even unsnap his Levi’s, he’s fallen asleep.
On the night table beside him stands a framed picture. Frankie smiles from it, holding Sammy the Fire Truck in his lap.
6
It’s nearly eleven A.M. when Hodges and Jerome arrive at Birch Hill Mall. There’s plenty of parking, and Jerome pulls his Wrangler into a spot directly in front of Discount Electronix, where all the windows are sporting big SALE signs. A teenage girl is sitting on the curb in front of the store, knees together and feet apart, bent studiously over an iPad. A cigarette smolders between the fingers of her left hand. It’s only as they approach that Hodges sees there’s gray in the teenager’s hair. His heart sinks.
“Holly?” Jerome says, at the same time Hodges says, “What in the hell are you doing here?”
“I was pretty sure you’d figure it out,” she says, butting her butt and standing up, “but I was starting to worry. I was going to call you if you weren’t here by eleven-thirty. I’m taking my Lexapro, Mr. Hodges.”
“So you said, and I’m glad to hear it. Now answer my question and tell me what you’re doing here.”
Her lips tremble, and although she managed eye contact to begin with, her gaze now sinks to her loafers. Hodges isn’t surprised he took her for a teenager at first, because in many ways she still is one, her growth stunted by insecurities and by the strain of keeping her balance on the emotional highwire she’s been walking all her life.
“Are you mad at me? Please don’t be mad at me.”
“We’re not mad,” Jerome says. “Just surprised.”
Shocked is more like it, Hodges thinks.
“I spent the morning in my room, browsing the local I-T community, but it’s like we thought, there are hundreds of them. Mom and Uncle Henry went out to talk to people. About Janey, I think. I guess there’ll have to be another funeral, but I hate to think about what will be in the coffin. It just makes me cry and cry.”
And yes, big tears are rolling down her cheeks. Jerome puts an arm around her. She gives him a shy grateful glance.
“Sometimes it’s hard for me to think when my mother is around. It’s like she puts interference in my head. I guess that makes me sound crazy.”
“Not to me,” Jerome says. “I feel the same way about my sister. Especially when she plays her damn boy-band CDs.”
“When they were gone and the house was quiet, I got an idea. I went back down to Olivia’s computer and looked at her email.”
Jerome slaps his forehead. “Shit! I never even thought of checking her mail.”
“Don’t worry, there wasn’t any. She had three accounts—Mac Mail, Gmail, and AO-Hell—but all three folders were empty. Maybe she deleted them herself, but I don’t think so because—”
“Because her desktop and hard drive were full of stuff,” Jerome says.
“That’s right. She has The Bridge on the River Kwai in her iTunes. I’ve never seen that. I might check it out if I get a chance.”
Hodges glances toward Discount Electronix. With the sun glaring on the windows it’s impossible to tell if anyone’s watching them. He feels exposed out here, like a bug on a rock. “Let’s take a little stroll,” he says, and leads them toward Savoy Shoes, Barnes & Noble, and Whitey’s Happy Frogurt Shoppe.
Jerome says, “Come on, Holly, give. You’re drivin me crazy here.”
That makes her smile, which makes her look older. More her age. And once they’re away from the big Discount Electronix show windows, Hodges feels better. It’s obvious to him that Jerome is delighted with her, and he feels the same (more or less in spite of himself), but it’s humbling to find he’s been scooped by a Lexapro-dependent neurotic.
“He forgot to take off his SPOOK program, so I thought maybe he forgot to empty her junk mail as well, and I was right. She had like four dozen emails from Discount Electronix. Some of them were sales notices—like the one they’re having now, although I bet the only DVDs they have left aren’t much good, they’re probably Korean or something—and some of them were coupons for twenty percent off. She also had coupons for thirty percent off. The thirty percent coupons were for her next Cyber Patrol out-call.” She shrugs. “And here I am.”
Jerome stares at her. “That’s all it took? Just a peek into her junk mail folder?”
“Don’t be so surprised,” Hodges says. “All it took to catch the Son of Sam was a parking ticket.”
“I walked around back while I was waiting for you,” Holly says. “Their Web page says there are only three I-Ts in the Cyber Patrol, and there are three of those green Beetles back there. So I guess the guy is working today. Are you going to arrest him, Mr. Hodges?” She’s biting her lips again. “What if he fights? I don’t want you to get hurt.”
Hodges is thinking hard. Three computer techs in the Cyber Patrol: Frobisher, Hartsfield, and Linklatter, the skinny blond woman. He’s almost positive it will turn out to be Frobisher or Hartsfield, and whichever one it is won’t be prepared to see kermitfrog19 walking through the door. Even if Mr. Mercedes doesn’t run, he won’t be able to hide the initial shock of recognition.
“I’m going in. You two are staying here.”
“Going in with no backup?” Jerome asks. “Gee, Bill, I don’t think that’s very sma—”
“I’ll be all right, I’ve got the element of surprise going for me, but if I’m not back out in ten minutes, call nine-one-one. Got it?”
“Yes.”
Hodges points at Holly. “You stay close to Jerome. No more lone-wolf investigations.” I should talk, he thinks.
She nods humbly, and Hodges walks away before they can engage him in further discussion. As he approaches the doors of Discount Electronix, he unbuttons his sportcoat. The weight of his father’s gun against his ribcage is comforting.
7
As they watch Hodges enter the electronics store, a question occurs to Jerome. “Holly, how did you get here? Taxi?”
She shakes her head and points into the parking lot. There, parked three rows back from Jerome’s Wrangler, is a gray Mercedes sedan. “It was in the garage.” She notes Jerome’s slack-jawed amazement and immediately becomes defensive. “I can drive, you know. I have a valid driver’s license. I’ve never had an accident, and I have Safe Driver’s Insurance. From Allstate. Do you know that the man who does the Allstate ads on TV used to be the president on 24?”
“That’s the car . . .”
She frowns, puzzled. “What’s the big deal, Jerome? It was in the garage and the keys were in a basket in the front hall. So what’s the big fat deal?”
The dents are gone, he notes. The headlights and windshield have been replaced. It looks as good as new. You’d never know it was used to kill people.
“Jerome? Do you think Olivia would mind?”
“No,” he says. “Probably not.” He is imagining that grille covered with blood. Pieces of shredded cloth dangling from it.
“It wouldn’t start at first, the battery was dead, but she had one of those portable jump-stations, and I knew how to use it because my father had one. Jerome, if Mr. Hodges doesn’t make an arrest, could we walk down to the frogurt place?”
He barely hears her. He’s still staring at the Mercedes. They returned it to her, he thinks. Well, of course they did. It was her property, after all. She even got the damage repaired. But he’d be willing to bet she never drove it again. If there were spooks—real ones—they’d be in there. Probably screaming.
“Jerome? Earth to Jerome.”
“Huh?”
“If everything turns out okay, let’s get frogurt. I was sitting in the sun and waiting for you guys and I’m awfully hot. I’ll treat. I’d really like ice cream, but . . .”
He doesn’t hear the rest. He’s thinking Ice cream.
The click in his head is so loud he actually winces, and all at once he knows why one of the Cyber Patrol faces on Hodges’s computer looked familiar to him. The strength goes out of his legs and he leans against one of the walkway support posts to keep from falling.
“Oh my God,” he says.
“What’s wrong?” She shakes his arm, chewing her lips frantically. “What’s wrong? Are you sick, Jerome?”
But at first he can only say it again: “Oh my God.”