"The Reader's Digest version."
"It's like he was newly delivered."
"With a cannon like that, it was lucky that the slug didn't go right through the bodyguard and take out Proverb, as well."
"He had the right piece."
Reeves suddenly grinned. "There was one thing that wasn't perfect."
"Yeah, that's true. He didn't get his man."
On the other side of the one-way glass, Wallace Jay Burns faced the wall with a Norman Bates stare. When he had first been brought in, he had been howling and screaming, holy-rolling stuff about how Proverb was the Antichrist and how killing him would break the Master Lock and free the Motion of the Universe so the Rapture could begin. He had been yelling over and over.
"I am the designated of the Lord, the slayer of the Antichrist. I come with vengeance and a sword."
"Can somebody shut him up before we all go nuts?" someone had asked.
After the serious questioning had started, however, he not only shut up but suddenly came to a cosmic full stop. His eyeballs rolled up, and the lights went out. From that point on, no one was home in the mind of Wallace Jay Burns.
Reeves peered through the glass at Burns. There were blackening bruises down one side of the assassin's face, and his right eye was closing up. The men who had disarmed him had not been particularly gentle.
"Maybe we should play the tapes of him raving again."
"We've heard it all," Carlisle said. "That Damien stuff gives me the creeps."
"We could get Dr. Feelgood down here to try to wake him up chemically."
Carlisle shook his head. "I don't want to load any drugs into him yet. It could well be drugs that put him where he is now."
"Nothing showed on the bloodscan."
"Microdelics wouldn't show on a bloodscan. They could have used a binary or maybe some three-tier, precision time-release deal. First layer makes him calm and lucid so he can make the hit. The second, maybe triggered by his own natural adrenaline, starts him raving."
"And the third turns him into an eggplant."
"Can you think of a better scenario?"
Reeves shook his head. "I think you'd be better off if you stopped thinking of a mysterious 'them.' "
Carlisle rubbed his eyes. "Maybe. It just bugs me. It's too pat."
He knew that he was approaching exhaustion. He needed food, coffee, cigarettes, and most of all sleep. He stood up and stretched. "I don't know. Maybe I'm not thinking straight. Did we get anything on the gun yet?"
"It's clean as a whistle. It was part of a batch shipped to a Dallas gun store eighteen months ago. There's no record of the purchase."
"There wouldn't be in Texas. Guns come from God down there."
"So where do we go from here? We can't keep the deacons at bay forever."
"I suppose we can run some routine stuff on him. Hook him up to a polygraph and run the Schultz-Dixon Image Test on him, see if we get a response. After that, there's nothing left but to start with the drugs."
Reeves picked up the phone. "Get an S-D kit down here, will you?" He glanced at Carlisle. "I gotta tell you, Lieutenant, I think we've lost this one."
Carlisle leaned against the one-way glass. "I hate to admit it, but you're probably right."
The door opened and a technician wheeled in a steel trolley with the Schultz-Dixon polygraph kit on it.
"You want me to wire him?" the technician asked.
Reeves opened the connecting door that led to Burns' observation cell. "Yeah, go right ahead."
The technician went to work on Burns while Reeves and Carlisle watched from behind the glass. Burns did not react in any way as his shirt was pulled off and contact points stuck to his torso.
Carlisle turned away as if not expecting to get any results. Suddenly he clapped a hand to his forehead. "Goddamn it, I'm getting stupid."
"You thought of something."
"Not exactly. I've just been forgetting one of the first things I was taught. Deal with reality, not supposition."
Reeves blinked. "Say what?"
"So far we've been treating this as an attempted hit on Arlen Proverb."
"What else could it be? You're not saying that Burns had a beef with the bodyguard?"
"No, I'm not. I'm just saying that we ought to look at what we have. First question in any crime. Has anyone benefited by what happened?"
Reeves was starting to look concerned, as if he were worried that Carlisle was finally losing it.
"The bodyguard's dead and the shooter's a veggie. What benefit?"
The tech stuck his head around the connecting door. "I've run the preliminary. This Burns is a full-scale what-me-worry. It's just like something wiped his synapses. I ran the first set of shock images, sex, violence, religious symbols. Nothing but background motor functions. No response to concept that I can find. Do you want me to go on?"
Carlisle looked down at Burns. The man was festooned with wires attached to his head and body by contact clamps.
"Yeah, run the whole deal, if only for the record." He turned back to Reeves. "Did it occur to you that, as things stand, Arlen Proverb has had a very good day? Most of the TV images from today will get through, and he looks like the man they couldn't silence. Now he's the center of attention again."
Reeves put a hand on Carlisle's shoulder. "Listen to me, Lieutenant. If you're thinking in the deeply weird direction I think you're thinking, they are going to kill you. This is now, boss. They're not going to let you crack the world open with this case. They're just going to take you out and hang you."
NINE
Winters
WInters was coming back from the showers. the marks on his body had not completely faded, but after being buffeted around in front of the building all day, he needed to wash the smell of the mob off him. He had decided to drape a towel over himself and take the chance that no one would notice the welts. The new prudery had dictated individual shower stalls when the center had been designed, but a lot of the men were inclined to share a naked, towel-snapping camaraderie. Winters had never appreciated that kind of horseplay and tended to keep to himself. If anyone had noticed, they had not reacted. He had washed quickly, dried himself and dressed in his sweat suit with the logo of the Twenty-first Street Gun Club on the back and his English Reeboks and started out for a cup of coffee and something to eat. After his shower, he was in a considerably better mood and he was even looking forward to checking out the C As in the commissary.
The particular section of corridor was deserted. It was still as brightly lit as any other part of the complex, but the emptiness was eerie. So when the figure came around the corner like something supernatural, Winters was startled. For a fleeting instant, he thought he was confronting the Black Knight. The man was built like a defensive end and wore full assault armor and a command helmet with the neck ring computer. His visor was down, and not a single insignia or identifying symbol could be seen anywhere on his uniform or equipment. He was carrying a large and very elaborate hand weapon down by his side. As he came closer, Winters saw that it was one of the legendary, state-of-the-art Taidos, calibrated for heatseekers. Its plastic shielding gleamed as the figure walked by. It was in mint condition. Winter had not thought there was a piece like that outside the Japanese military.
He had walked about three paces when a voice called out from behind him.
"Hey, you!"
Winters froze. The voice was coming through one of the same distortion devices that had been used in the basement of the whorehouse. Winters slowly turned.