25
Brady arrives at the Midwest Culture and Arts Complex just before six P.M. Although the show isn’t scheduled to start for over an hour, the vast parking lot is already three-quarters full. Long lines have formed outside the doors that open on to the lobby, and they’re getting longer all the time. Little girls are screeching at the top of their lungs. Probably that means they’re happy, but to Brady they sound like ghosts in a deserted mansion. It’s impossible to look at the growing crowd and not recall that April morning at City Center. Brady thinks, If I had a Humvee instead of this Jap shitbox, I could drive into them at forty miles an hour, kill fifty or more that way, then hit the switch and blow the rest into the stratosphere.
But he doesn’t have a Humvee, and for a moment he’s not even sure what to do next—he can’t be seen while he makes his final preparations. Then, at the far end of the lot, he sees a tractor-trailer box. The cab is gone and it’s up on jacks. On the side is a Ferris wheel and a sign reading ’ROUND HERE SUPPORT TEAM. It’s one of the trucks he saw in the loading area during his reconnaissance. Later, after the show, the cab would be reconnected and driven around back for the load-out, but now it looks deserted.
He pulls in on the far side of the box, which is at least fifty feet long and hides the Subaru completely from the bustling parking lot. He takes his fake glasses from the glove compartment and puts them on. He gets out and does a quick walk-around to assure himself the trailer box is as deserted as it looks. When he’s satisfied on that score, he returns to the Subaru and works the wheelchair out of the back. It’s not easy. The Honda would have been better, but he doesn’t trust its unmaintained engine. He places the ASS PARKING cushion on the wheelchair’s seat, and connects the wire protruding from the center of the A in PARKING to the wires hanging from the side pockets, where there are more blocks of plastic explosive. Another wire, connected to a block of plastic in the rear pocket, dangles from a hole he has punched in the seatback.
Sweating profusely, Brady begins the final unification, braiding copper cores and wrapping exposed connection-points with pre-cut strips of masking tape he has stuck to the front of the oversized ’Round Here tee-shirt he bought that morning in the drugstore. The shirt features the same Ferris wheel logo as the one on the truck. Above it are the words KISSES ON THE MIDWAY. Below, it says I LUV CAM, BOYD, STEVE, AND PETE!
After ten minutes of work (with occasional breaks to peek around the edge of the box and make sure he still has this far edge of the parking lot to himself), a spiderweb of connected wires lies on the seat of the wheelchair. There’s no way to wire in the explosives-stuffed Urinesta peebag, at least not that he could figure out on short notice, but that’s okay; Brady has no doubt the other stuff will set it off.
Not that he’ll know for sure, one way or the other.
He returns to the Subaru one more time and takes out the eight-by-ten framed version of a picture Hodges has already seen: Frankie holding Sammy the Fire Truck and smiling his dopey where-the-fuck-am-I smile. Brady kisses the glass and says, “I love you, Frankie. Do you love me?”
He pretends Frankie says yes.
“Do you want to help me?”
He pretends Frankie says yes.
Brady goes back to the wheelchair and sits down on ASS PARKING. Now the only wire showing is the master wire, dangling over the front of the wheelchair seat between his spread thighs. He connects it to Thing Two and takes a deep breath before flicking the power switch. If the electricity from the double-A batteries leaks through . . . even a little . . .
But it doesn’t. The yellow ready-lamp goes on, and that’s all. Somewhere, not far away but in a different world, little girls are screaming happily. Soon many of them will be vaporized; many more will be missing arms and legs and screaming for real. Oh well, at least they’ll get to listen to some music by their favorite band before the big bang.
Or maybe not. He’s aware of what a crude and makeshift plan this is; the stupidest no-talent screenwriter in Hollywood could do better. Brady remembers the sign in the corridor leading to the auditorium: NO BAGS NO BOXES NO BACKPACKS. He has none of those things, but all it will take to blow the deal is one sharp-eyed security guard observing a single unconcealed wire. Even if that doesn’t happen, a cursory glance into the wheelchair’s storage pockets will reveal the fact that it’s a rolling bomb. Brady has stuck a ’Round Here pennant in one of those pockets, but otherwise made no effort at concealment.
It doesn’t faze him. He doesn’t know if that makes him confident or just fatalistic, and doesn’t think it matters. In the end, confidence and fatalism are pretty much the same, aren’t they? He got away with running those people over at City Center, and there was almost no planning involved with that, either—just a mask, a hairnet, and some DNA-killing bleach. In his heart, he never really expected to escape, and in this case his expectations are zero. In a don’t-give-a-fuck world, he is about to become the ultimate don’t-give-a-fucker.
He slips Thing Two beneath the oversized tee-shirt. There’s a slight bulge, and he can see a dim yellow glimmer from the ready-lamp through the thin cotton, but both the bulge and the glimmer disappear when he places Frankie’s picture in his lap. He’s pretty much ready to go.
His fake glasses slide down the bridge of his sweat-slippery nose. Brady pushes them back up. By craning his neck slightly, he can see himself in the Subaru’s passenger-side rearview mirror. Bald and bespectacled, he looks nothing like his former self. He looks sick, for one thing—pale and sweaty with dark circles under his eyes.
Brady runs his hand over the top of his head, feeling smooth skin where no stubble will ever have the chance to grow out. Then he backs the wheelchair out of the slot where he has parked his car and begins to roll himself slowly across the expanse of parking lot toward the growing crowd.
26
Hodges gets snared in rush-hour traffic and doesn’t arrive back on the North Side until shortly after six P.M. Jerome and Holly are still with him; they both want to see this through, regardless of the consequences, and since they seem to understand what those consequences may be, Hodges has decided he can’t refuse them. Not that he has much of a choice; Holly won’t divulge what she knows. Or thinks she knows.
Hank Beeson is out of his house and crossing the street before Hodges can bring Olivia Trelawney’s Mercedes to a stop in the Hartsfield driveway. Hodges sighs and powers down the driver’s-side window.
“I sure would like to know what’s going on,” Mr. Beeson says. “Does it have anything to do with all that mess down in Lowtown?”
“Mr. Beeson,” Hodges says, “I appreciate your concern, but you need to go back to your house and—”
“No, wait,” Holly says. She’s leaning across the center console of Olivia Trelawney’s Mercedes so she can look up at Beeson’s face. “Tell me how Mr. Hartsfield sounds. I need to know how his voice sounds.”
Beeson looks perplexed. “Like anyone, I guess. Why?”
“Is it low? You know, baritone?”
“You mean like one of those fat opera singers?” Beeson laughs. “Hell, no. What kind of question is that?”
“Not high and squeaky, either?”
To Hodges, Beeson says, “Is your partner crazy?”
Only a little, Hodges thinks. “Just answer the question, sir.”
“Not low, not high and squeaky. Regular! What’s going on?”
“No accent?” Holly persists. “Like . . . um . . . Southern? Or New England? Or Brooklyn, maybe?”
“No, I said. He sounds like anybody.”
Holly sits back, apparently satisfied.
Hodges says, “Go back inside, Mr. Beeson. Please.”
Beeson snorts but backs off. He pauses at the foot of his steps to cast a glare over his shoulder. It’s one Hodges has seen many times before, the I pay your salary, asshole glare. Then he goes inside, slamming the door behind him to make sure they get the point. Soon he appears once more at the window with his arms folded over his chest.
“What if he calls the cop shop to ask what we’re doing here?” Jerome asks from the back seat.
Hodges smiles. It’s wintry but genuine. “Good luck with that tonight. Come on.”
As he leads them single-file along the narrow path between the house and the garage, he checks his watch. Quarter past six. He thinks, How the time flies when you’re having fun.
They enter the kitchen. Hodges opens the basement door and reaches for the light switch.
“No,” Holly says. “Leave it off.”
He looks at her questioningly, but Holly has turned to Jerome.
“You have to do it. Mr. Hodges is too old and I’m a woman.”
For a moment Jerome doesn’t get it, then he does. “Control equals lights?”
She nods. Her face is tense and drawn. “It should work if your voice is anywhere close to his.”
Jerome steps into the doorway, clears his throat self-consciously, and says, “Control.”
The basement remains dark.
Hodges says, “You’ve got a naturally low voice. Not baritone, but low. It’s why you sound older than you really are when you’re on the phone. See if you can raise it up a little.”
Jerome repeats the word, and the lights in the basement come on. Holly Gibney, whose life has not exactly been a sitcom, laughs and claps her hands.