Mr. Murder (42 page)

Picking up the thermos-pot and pouring more coffee for all of them, Waxhill said, “Even if he was only going to movies, watching television—didn’t that worry you?”

“Look, he’s supposed to be the perfect assassin. Programmed. No remorse, no second thoughts. Hard to catch, harder to kill. And if something
does
go wrong, he can never be traced to his handlers. He doesn’t know who we are or why we want these people terminated, so he can’t turn state’s evidence. He’s nothing, a shell, a totally hollow man.
But
he’s got to function in society, be inconspicuous, act like an ordinary Joe,
do things real people do in their spare time.
If we had him sitting around hotel rooms staring at walls, maids would comment to one another, think he’s weird, remember him. Besides, what’s the harm in a movie, some television?”

“Cultural influences. They could change him somehow. ”

“It’s nature that matters, how he was engineered, not what he did with his Saturday afternoon.” Oslett leaned back in his chair, feeling guardedly better, having convinced himself to some degree, if not Waxhill. “Check into the past. But you won’t find anything.”

“Maybe we already have. A prostitute in Kansas City. Strangled in a cheap motel across the street from a bar called the Blue Life Lounge. Two different bartenders at the lounge gave the Kansas City Police a description of the man she left with. Sounds like Alfie.”

Oslett had perceived a bond of class and experience between himself and Peter Waxhill. He had even entertained the prospect of friendship. Now he had the uneasy feeling that Waxhill was taking pleasure from being the bearer of all this bad news.

Waxhill said, “One of our contacts managed to get us a sample of the sperm that the Kansas City Police Scientific Investigation Division recovered from the prostitute’s vagina. It’s being flown to our New York lab now. If it’s Alfie’s sperm, we’ll know.”

“He can’t produce sperm. He was engineered—”

“Well, if it’s his, we’ll know. We have his genetic structure mapped, we know it better than Rand McNally knows the world. And it’s unique. More individual than fingerprints.”

Yale men. They were all alike. Smug, self-satisfied bastards.

Clocker picked up a plump hot-house strawberry between thumb and forefinger. Examining it closely, as if he had excruciatingly high standards for comestibles and would not eat anything that failed to pass his demanding inspection, he said, “If Alfie’s drawn to Martin Stillwater, then what we need to know is where we can find Stillwater now.” He popped the entire berry, half as large as a lemon, onto his tongue and into his mouth, in the manner of a toad taking a fly.

“Last night we sent a man into their house for a look around,” Waxhill said. “Indications are, they packed in a hurry. Bureau drawers left open, clothes scattered around, a few empty suitcases left out after they decided not to use them. Judging by appearances, they don’t intend to return home within the next few days, but we’re having the place watched just in case.”

“And you have no idea in hell where to find them,” Oslett said, taking perverse pleasure in putting Waxhill on the defensive.

Unruffled, Waxhill said, “We can’t say where they are at this moment, no—”

“Ah.”

“—but we think we can predict one place we can get a lead on them. Stillwater’s parents live in Mammoth Lakes. He has no other relatives on the West Coast, and unless there’s a close friend we don’t know about, he’s almost certain to call his father and mother, if not go there.”

“What about the wife’s parents?”

“When she was sixteen, her father shot her mother in the face and then killed himself.”

“Interesting.” What Oslett meant was that the tawdriness of the average person’s life never ceased to amaze him.

“It is interesting, actually,” Waxhill said, perhaps meaning something different from what Oslett meant. “Paige came home from school and found their bodies. For a few months, she was under the guardianship of an aunt. But she didn’t like the woman, and she filed a petition with the court to have herself declared a legal adult.”

“At sixteen?”

“The judge was sufficiently impressed with her to rule in her favor. It’s rare but it does happen.”

“She must’ve had one hell of an attorney.”

“I suppose she did. She studied the applicable statutes and precedents, then represented herself.”

The situation was bleaker all the time. Even if he’d been lucky, Martin Stillwater had gotten the better of Alfie, which meant he was a more formidable man than the jerk in
People.
Now it was beginning to seem as if his wife had more than a common measure of fortitude, as well, and would make a worthy adversary.

Oslett said, “To push Stillwater to get in touch with his folks, we should use Network affiliates in the media to hype the incidents at his house last night onto the front page.”

“We are,” Peter Waxhill said infuriatingly. He framed imaginary headlines with his hands: “ ‘Bestselling Author Shoots Intruder. Hoax or Real Threat? Author and Family Missing. Hiding from Killer or Avoiding Police Scrutiny?’ That sort of thing. When Stillwater sees a newspaper or TV news program, he’s going to call his parents right then because he’ll know they’ve seen the news and they’re worried.”

“We’ve tapped their phone?”

“Yes. We have caller-ID equipment on the line. The moment the connection is made, we’ll have a number where Stillwater’s staying.”

“What do we do in the meantime?” Oslett asked. “Just sit around here having manicures, eating strawberries?”

At the rate Clocker was eating strawberries, the hotel supply would be gone shortly, and soon thereafter the entire hot-house crop in California and adjacent states would also be exhausted.

Waxhill looked at his gold Rolex.

Drew Oslett tried to detect some indication of ostentation in the way Waxhill consulted the expensive timepiece. He would have been pleased to note any revelatory action that might expose a gauche pretender under the veneer of grace and sophistication.

But Waxhill seemed to regard the wristwatch as Oslett did his own gold Rolex: as though it was no different from a Timex purchased at K-Mart. “In fact, you’ll be flying up to Mammoth Lakes later this morning.”

“But we can’t be certain Stillwater’s going to show up there.”

“It’s a reasonable expectation,” Waxhill said. “If he does, then there’s a good chance Alfie will follow. You’ll be in position to collect our boy. And if Stillwater doesn’t go there, just calls his dear
mater
and
pater,
you can fly out or drive out at once to wherever he called from.”

Reluctant to sit a moment longer, for fear that Waxhill would use the time to deliver more bad news, Oslett put his napkin on the table and pushed his chair back. “Then let’s get moving. The longer our boy’s on the loose, the greater the chance someone’s going to see him and Stillwater at the same time. When that happens, the police are going to start believing his story.”

Remaining in his chair, picking up his coffee cup, Waxhill said, “One more thing.”

Oslett had risen. He was loath to sit again because it would appear as if Waxhill controlled the moment. Waxhill
did
control the moment, in fact, but only because he possessed needed information, not because he was Oslett’s superior in rank or in any other sense. At worst, they held equal power in the organization; and more likely, Oslett was the heavyweight of the two. He remained standing beside the table, gazing down at the Yale man.

Although he was finally finished eating, Clocker stayed in his chair. Oslett didn’t know whether his partner’s behavior was a minor betrayal or only evidence that the Trekker’s mind was off with Spock and the gang in some distant corner of the universe.

After a sip of coffee, Waxhill said, “If you have to terminate our boy, that’s regrettable but acceptable. If you can bring him back into the fold, at least until he can be gotten into a secure facility and restrained, even better. However it goes . . . Stillwater, his wife, and his kids have to be eliminated.”

“No problem.”

The branch manager, Mrs. Takuda, visited Marty while he waited at the teller’s window, shortly after the dark wave slammed into him and washed away. If he had been confronted by his reflection, he would have expected to see that he was still tight-lipped and pale, with an animal wildness in his eyes; however, if Mrs. Takuda noticed anything strange in his appearance, she was too polite to mention it. Primarily she was concerned that he might be withdrawing the majority of his savings because something about the bank displeased him.

He was surprised he could summon a convincing smile and enough charm to assure her that he had no quarrel with the bank and to set her mind at rest. He was chilled and shaking deep inside, but none of the tremors reached the surface or affected his voice.

When Mrs. Takuda went to assist Elaine Higgens in the vault, Marty looked at Paige and the kids, the east door, the south door, and his Timex. The sight of the red sweep hand cleaning the seconds off the dial made sweat break out on his brow. The Other was coming. How long? Ten minutes, two minutes, five seconds?

Another wave hit him.

Cruising a wide boulevard. Morning sun flaring off the chrome of passing cars. Phil Collins on the radio, singing about betrayal.

Sympathizing with Collins, he again imagines magnetism. Click. Contact. He feels an irresistible pull farther east and south, so he is still heading in the right direction.

He breaks contact seconds after establishing it, hoping to get another fix on the false father without revealing himself. But even during that brief linkage, the enemy senses the intrusion.

Though the second wave was of shorter duration than the first, it was no less powerful. Marty felt as if he had been hit in the chest with a hammer.

With Mrs. Higgens, the teller returned to the window. She had loose cash and banded packets of both hundred- and twenty-dollar bills. It amounted to two stacks of approximately three inches each.

The teller started to count out the seventy thousand.

“That’s all right,” Marty said. “Just put it in a couple of manila envelopes.”

Surprised, Mrs. Higgens said, “Oh, but Mr. Stillwater, you’ve signed the withdrawal order, we ought to count it in front of you.”

“No, I’m sure you’ve already counted correctly.”

“But bank procedure—”

“I trust you, Mrs. Higgens.”

“Well, thank you, but I really think—”

Merely by remaining seated at the room-service table while Drew Oslett stood impatiently beside it, Waxhill exerted control. Oslett disliked him and grudgingly admired him simultaneously.

“It’s almost certain,” Waxhill said, “that the wife and children saw Alfie in that second incident last night. They know very little about what’s going on, but if they know Stillwater was telling the truth when he talked about a look-alike, then they know too much.”

“I said, no problem,” Oslett reminded him impatiently.

Waxhill nodded. “Yes, all right, but the home office wants it done in a certain way.”

Sighing, Oslett gave up and sat down. “Which is?”

“Make it look as if Stillwater went off the deep end.”

“Murder-suicide?”

“Yes, but not just any murder-suicide. The home office would be pleased if it could be made to appear as if Stillwater was acting out a particular psychopathic delusion. ”

“Whatever.”

“The wife must be shot in each breast and in the mouth.”

“And the daughters?”

“First, make them undress. Tie their wrists behind them. Tie their ankles together. Nice and tight. There’s a particular brand of braided wire we’d like you to use. It’ll be provided. Then shoot each girl twice. Once in her ... private parts, then between the eyes. Stillwater must appear to have shot himself once through the roof of his mouth. Will you remember all of that?”

“Of course.”

“It’s important that you do everything precisely that way, no deviations from the script.”

“What’s the story we’re trying to tell?” Oslett asked.

“Didn’t you read the article in
People?”

“Not all the way through,” Oslett admitted. “Stillwater seemed like such a jerk—and a boring jerk, at that.”

Waxhill said, “A few years ago, in Maryland, a man killed his wife and two daughters in exactly this fashion. He was a pillar of the community, so it shocked everybody. Tragic story. Everyone was left wondering why. It seemed so meaningless, so out of character. Stillwater was intrigued by the crime and considered writing a novel based on it, to explore the possible motivation behind it. But after he’d done a lot of research, he dropped the project. In
People,
he says it just depressed him too much. Says that fiction, his kind of fiction, needs to make sense of things, bring order to chaos, but he just couldn’t find any meaning in what happened in Maryland.”

Oslett sat in silence for a moment, trying to hate Waxhill but finding that his dislike for the man was fading rapidly. “I must say . . . this is very nice.”

Waxhill smiled almost shyly and shrugged.

“This was your idea?” Oslett asked.

“Mine, yes. I proposed it to the home office, and they went for it right away.”

“It’s ingenious,” Oslett said with genuine admiration.

“Thank you.”

“Very neat. Martin Stillwater kills his family the same way the guy did in Maryland, and it looks as if the
real
reason he couldn’t write a novel about the original case was because it struck too close to home, because it was what he secretly wanted to do to
his
family.”

“Exactly.”

“And it’s been preying on his mind ever since.”

“Haunts his dreams.”

“This psychotic urge to symbolically rape—”