“Put it up to three hundred joules and hit him again.”
“That’s the way.”
“Try again at three-sixty.”
“Joules.” That was an electrical term. Someone had said to “put it at three hundred joules and hit him again.”
When it struck, the truth crashed into Glen’s consciousness like surf hurling against a rocky cliff. He hadn’t been awake at all.
He’d been dead. He’d been dead, and the paramedics had been fighting to make his heart begin beating again, to make him start breathing again.
Glen felt an icy sweat break out on his skin, and for a moment he was afraid he might have a second heart attack. He reached for the buzzer to summon the nurse, but the wave of terror eased, and he let his hand drop back onto the thin blanket that covered him.
He hadn’t died, and he wasn’t going to.
But it had been close. A lot closer than he’d realized until just that moment.
Was that why he’d felt different today? Disconnected? Was that why he’d had a hard time concentrating on what Anne and his children had been saying?
He lay back on the pillows and turned to gaze out the window as he thought about it. Of course he felt different now — how could he not? When you come that close to dying—
His thought broke off as he spotted someone on the street below, the shadowy figure of a man moving along the rain-slicked sidewalk across the street, and for a moment had the feeling he knew him. But then, when the man looked up — almost as if he’d felt Glen watching him — his face was briefly illuminated by the yellow glow of a streetlight and Glen realized he’d been wrong.
The man was a stranger, someone he was certain he’d never seen before.
A moment later the man looked away again and quickly disappeared into the shadows of the street.
CHAPTER 17
All day long the fantasy had been growing inside the man, and all day long the pressure to act on the fantasy had been building. When it got to the point where he was starting to feel like he might explode, the man decided to go for a walk. At least he could breathe some fresh air, and in the dark he’d be by himself.
No one would recognize him.
No one would ask him questions.
But even going outside didn’t work, for he wasn’t on the sidewalk more than thirty seconds before he felt someone watching him.
When he looked around, sure enough, someone was staring at him out of one of the windows of the hospital.
Maybe he ought to just go up there and pull the guy’s plug. Wouldn’t that be something? Just to walk into the room, tell the guy off, then jerk the plugs out of the wall and watch him die?
Yes, just watch him die!
In the cool damp of the evening the man felt a shiver go through him, a chill that wasn’t brought on by the weather at all.
It was brought on by the fantasy that had been growing in his mind until he finally knew he was going to act on it.
But not with the guy in the hospital room. Not where there would be lights, and people, and he would be caught so soon he wouldn’t even get to enjoy what he’d done.
The man walked on up the sidewalk, finally cutting over a block, then zigzagged north and west until he finally came to Broadway. A lot of lights there, and a lot of people, but it didn’t matter because he fit right in with the rest of the crowd. Broadway was humming with people tonight, but that was good, for it meant he would be only one more anonymous face in the crowd. He threaded his way along the sidewalk, ignoring the teenage panhandlers with their green hair, black lipstick, and pierced lips, brows, and ears.
When he saw the person he was looking for, he would know.
Two men holding hands came toward him. The man’s eyes fixed angrily on them, but at the last second he stepped aside to let them pass, only to turn and glower at them once again when he heard them laughing as they walked away.
Laughing at him?
His fingers clenched with sudden fury, but when they didn’t turn around to look back at him, he forced his anger down and continued on his way.
Covertly, his eyes searched the crowd.
He was almost up to the QFC supermarket when he saw her.
About thirty, with blond hair cut short, and a skirt that was even shorter than her hair.
She was on the other side of the street, going the same way he was, and it didn’t look like anyone was with her. In fact, it looked like maybe she was doing the same thing he was doing.
Looking for someone.
The man crossed the street, increasing his pace until he was only a few yards behind her, then slowed, keeping the distance between himself and the girl steady.
She kept heading north, finally turning in at the DeLuxe Bar & Grill.
The man slowed, then loitered outside until he saw her all but disappear into the darkness at the back of the café. Only when he was certain she hadn’t met anyone did he go inside himself.
She was sitting alone at one of the small tables for two.
The man, his heart suddenly pounding with anticipation, lowered himself into one of the chairs at the next table, choosing the one that would let him make eye contact with her.
His skin began to tingle and he felt a glowing ember of excitement ignite in his belly as he thought about what he was going to do.
His excitement growing, the man searched his memory, dredging up the minutiae of what the other victims had suffered, struggling to recapture all the details of what Richard Kraven had been accused of doing.…
An hour and a half later, when the woman finally got up to leave the DeLuxe, the man still hadn’t spoken to her.
He had contented himself with watching her, with imagining what would happen later, when they were together, when he’d finally made himself known to her.
Now, as she passed through the front door, he dropped some money on the table to cover the cost of the single beer he’d nursed through the ninety minutes, and followed her out into the night. For a moment it seemed as if the woman had vanished into the darkness, but then the man caught sight of her walking west toward the Harvard Exit theater. Following her as he had earlier, keeping several yards between her and himself, the man tracked her two blocks west, then turned south to follow her down Boylston. When she finally turned to go into one of the anonymous two-story buildings that lined the block, she paused, looked back, then cocked her head and smiled at him.
She’d known.
Known he was watching her, known he was following her.
But she didn’t know what he wanted, what he intended to do.
And when she spoke, the glowing ember of excitement in the man’s belly flared into burning anticipation. “It’s okay, fella. I’m kind of lonely, too.” The man said nothing, but moved slowly toward the girl, whose smile widened as she nodded toward the building. “Want to come up for a while?”
Inside the woman’s apartment, the man looked around to see a space not much different from the one he himself lived in a few blocks away. The once-white paint was dirty and starting to peel, and a few pieces of tired furniture stood on a worn carpet. The coffee table was piled with tabloid newspapers, and in the corner was a dying ficus tree, most of its leaves scattered on the floor around its pot.
“How come you didn’t say hi at the DeLuxe?” the woman asked, going into the kitchen, pulling open the refrigerator and holding up a beer. “Want one? No extra charge!”
For a brief moment the man wasn’t quite certain what she meant, but a second later she cleared up the confusion. “How’s fifty for two hours?” she asked. “I usually get a lot more, but it’s kinda slow tonight, and you seem like a nice guy.”