Waxman," said a man's voice, flat and unaccented. Kom thought he knew the voice, but he was not certain.
"He asked for you," he said, holding the phone to the woman who sat beside him on the bed, now replacing her bra. She said, "Yes?" then held the receiver to her ear for a long time, saying nothing, listening.
Kom watched her expression change from puzzlement to fear, and not fear of being discovered by her husband but something far deeper, something genuinely terrifying. When she hung up at last, she grabbed her blouse from the floor and started for the door.
"Who was it?" Kom asked. Without answering, without glancing back at Kom, she opened the door and hurried from the room, dressing as she went. By the time Kom had put on his shoes and hastened after her, Mrs.
Waxman was already pulling out of the parking lot in her Acura. Kom jogged a few paces after her, waving for her to stop. At the exit onto the street, Mrs. Waxman was forced by traffic to halt. She turned to see Kom approaching her, then accelerated dangerously into the stream of oncoming cars. Amid a chorus of angry horns, she fishtailed briefly until she regained control of her car, then raced away, her engine howling.
Kom stood by the exit, wondering what could possibly have happened on the phone. The look on her face just before she risked her life in traffic had been one of sheer terror, and it had come from seeing Kom approach. Becker, he thought again bitterly.
Two nights later, Kom paced his darkened house restlessly while his wife slept. For the first time in years, he had no woman to visit. Denise was dead, Doris Waxman would not speak to him even on the telephone, and Karen Crist, for whom Kom still had hopes, was a very dangerous choice with Becker on the prowl. Her time would come, he had not given up, and his victory over her would be all the sweeter because of Becker's petty vindictiveness-but her time was not yet. He was seized by a kind of desperation which he had been forestalling by making love to his wife, but there were limits to how much of that he was willing to do. The woman bored him; all women bored him after half a dozen times. Once he had mastered their needs, once he had laid waste to their defenses and learned how to reduce them to eager accomplices of their own seduction, there was little else to maintain his interest. It was not sex that he craved, he had realized that about himself long ago; it was mastery, and sex was his chosen vehicle for its display. An artist did not continue to paint the same work after he had completed it; he sought a new canvas, a new subject. There were variations he could ring on Tovah, more ways that he could reduce her to his will, different means of demonstrating his control, but there was no point in it other than as a bravura exercise. He had mastered her years ago and she served him now-sexually, that is-as no more than an escape valve, a convenient means of letting off some libidinous steam, but while a session with her left him physically relieved, at least for a short time, it did nothing for him mentally. His spirit did not soar, because he had conquered her.
He needed more conquests, he needed more victims, Captain Luv was not a homebody, he was a presence abroad in the world, a natural force that could not be confined for any length of time. Not only did he have no woman to visit, none to court or flirt with or scheme about, but since Becker had impounded the Caprice, he had no safe way to get around. That problem could be addressed in due course once the hysteria surrounding the Appleseed murders had abatedas it would do, as it must do if no more bodies were found, and Kom would see to it that no more were found-but in the meantime, he felt the pressure of his need build within him.
The telephone rang and Kom looked instinctively at the hour. It was past midnight. The call was on their private, unlisted line, the one Tovah gave out only to her close friends and the one Kom gave to no one.
Neither his office nor the hospital had this number at any time.
He picked up the phone on the second ring and said, "Hello?"
"You home, stud?" a voice demanded.
Kom paused, shocked. He hesitated to respond. Perhaps it was a trap of some sort. Or just a crank… But he knew it was not. "It's you, isn't it?" he said. The voice laughed. "No."
"What do you think you're proving by this?"
The line went dead in his ear and Kom hung up, disappointed. He wanted to talk about it, to debate the voice, to have a chance for his superior wit to come into play. If Becker wanted to play games, that was all right with Kom, as long as he was allowed to play too. What was this silly long-distance sniping supposed to do? Did Becker seriously think a few anonymous phone calls could bother Kom for long? It could only mean that the so-called special agent had given up on direct confrontation. He had had his chance in the elevator and Kom had emerged victorious. And Becker knew it. The call to Doris in the motel, the call now, were just the acts of a desperate man. He knew that Kom could not be harmed, he was unassailable.
On Tuesday afternoon Kom decided to remine some territory he had prospected years before. There was a victim named Rachel whom he had slept with just once before disappearing from her life. She had proven to be a voracious, aggressive lover, so wrapped up in her own selfish notions of what she wanted that she had overpowered him, dismissed his attempts at tenderness and subtlety, and brought him to a sour, grudging climax long before she was ready, then had continued on her own after her flagellant attempts to enlist his continued cooperation failed. The evening was a disaster for both of them and one of the few failures on his record. In lieu of new conquests, Kom decided to revive their relationships feat in itself, given his abrupt and unceremonious departure-and bring his now greater mastery to the task. He would conquer and control her this time, subject her to his will. It would be a sweet victory. It would not constitute a new entry in his journal, would not add to the length of the list of his victims, but he would know what he had accomplished.
He called the selfish bitch from the hospital and got her to agree to see him. She did not know his real name, of course-only those whom he met socially or professionally did-so he did not want to use his own car and risk having the license plate traced. He exited the hospital from the rear and walked toward the Pathmark Mall. Halfway there he was aware that he was being followed. A man was on foot some thirty yards behind and across the street. Whenever Kom looked back the man would turn his back or step behind a tree in a clumsy attempt to hide-or was it a clumsy attempt to be seen? The man wore a baseball cap pulled low over his eyes and looked like ten thousand others who followed the current fad in headwear, and he kept his face averted, but Kom knew who it was. Kom thought of crossing the street and confronting the man, but there was something in his lurking, furtive posture that suggested danger.
Oh, we'll meet, he thought, but on my terms, in a place of my choosing.
He remembered attacking Kiwasee with the shovel, felt again the thrilling shock of the blows running through his forearms. He was not afraid of anyoneif conditions were right. He would wait until they were.
He could not proceed to the pay phone now, he could not call a cab.
There was no point in giving anything away. The bitch Rachel would have to wait for her comeuppance.
He turned around casually, as if he had only been out for a stroll, and headed back to the hospital. The man fled before him, gripping the baseball cap even lower, hurrying away from Kom, back the way he had come. Kom grinned savagely. My enemies run before me, he thought gleefully.