"I beg your pardon?"
"The true believer should recognize the body as a temple of the Holy Spirit and, therefore, should clothe the body in modest and dignified apparel." He said it singsongy, the way he had been taught… the way Shirley made him say it.
"Get out of here or I'm calling Security." She moved quickly into the office, closed the heavy glass door, and bolted it. They were looking at each other now through the thick glass wall, as he got up and moved slowly into the elevator. When he stood, she could see that he was huge.
He got in and pushed the Down button. The elevator descended; after a moment, he pulled the maintenance panel open and pushed Stop, holding the car between floors. He reached for the emergency panel and removed the red telephone.
He opened the cardboard box he had brought with him and pulled out his laptop computer, connecting its modem to the elevator phone. He knew the phone was linked directly to the building security system. The elevator was stuffy from the heat of his own body. His sensitive skin stung; his nipples burned. The sweat made it worse, turning him red with an ugly rash. His cracking program began attacking the building's central computer, looking for a "hole" in the security system, firing multiple passwords he had pre-programmed into the "Crackerjack" software on his laptop. He was sure the building computer would not present much of a problem. There was nothing on that computer except programs designed to run and keep logs on the ten-story structure, so it would not be a serious security problem. Besides, The Rat was the best. Nobody could crack a computer as well as he could. At quarter past nine, his software broke through and downloaded the computer's supervr password; then The Rat gathered all the information he would need.
By eleven o'clock, he was back in his room at the Marriott.
It took him an hour to get everything ready. He washed himself first, using a soft sponge on his sore skin. He rubbed Vaseline on until it was deep in his pores. Then, wearing a silk kimono that stuck slightly to his back, he sat on the edge of the faded bedspread. The only light was from one standing lamp, which he had draped with a bathroom towel to cut the painful glare. He put on his headset and turned on his CD player. The shrill, harsh lyrics of the Death Metal band Baby Killer wailed in his ear like the hounds of helclass="underline"
I must breed-I have deadly needs.
Within the corpse I plant my seed.
Bitch, you are worthless, I feast on your snot, Suck your goo, smell your rot.
He began to unpack his saw. In the center of the bed, he placed the Ten Thousand Series fixed-arbor autopsy blades. First, the round 10004 blade with the crosscut teeth. Next to it, the smaller sectioned blade. They gleamed in the low light. He unpacked the stainless-steel surgical knife handles. There were seven of them. Last was the box of carbon-steel surgical blades in their individually sealed foil packets. The glistening scalpels reflected the light and shot pain into his head, but The Rat endured it because he knew it was a sign that he was almost transformed. Soon he would be The Wind Minstrel, and The Wind Minstrel was God. The last instrument he removed was the Stryker high-speed-oscillation autopsy saw. Once a blade was selected and attached, it oscillated, cutting not by rotation but by rapid forward and backward strokes. He worked diligently until all the instruments were arranged on his bed in a pattern he liked. He studied them, and his huge body shook with agony and expectation. He pulled the kimono up with his left hand, and with his right he grabbed his evil appendage. He attempted to masturbate but was unable to obtain an erection. He was not yet transformed. Tomorrow he could swell and spew his holy seed. Tomorrow his coming would be as powerful as the resurrection of the dead. It would celebrate the destruction of the self-righteous. It would establish The Wind Minstrel's everlasting glory.
Chapter 2
"You don't like being here, do you, John?" Dr. Donald Smythe said, digging with his little finger for another yellow nugget of earwax.
"I like it fine," Lockwood lied. His sinuses were killing him. He was allergic to something that was blooming in the Washington, D. C., swamp. The room was too cold; the doctor was fat. John Lockwood was being forced to submit to a second psychiatric reevaluation in a year, as part of the U. S. Customs Service's most recent Internal Affairs investigation of him, and he couldn't help himself-he resented it. Lockwood was an Assistant U. S. Customs Special Agent in Charge for the Southern District. He was also something of a legend in the Service. He made spectacular arrests which always got Federal indictments, but he had been investigated five times in the last eighteen months for various forms of improper conduct. He had yet to be found guilty of anything, but the intensity of the assault from IA was growing. Each failed attempt to discipline him had made the investigators more vindictive.
They had insisted he go "stress related" until this psychological exam was complete. He suspected he might have another beef coming, because two days before, in a frustrated moment, he had slugged an Internal Affairs SAC named Victor "Brute" Kulack in South Beach, Miami. It had been a stupid thing to do and Lockwood regretted it immediately, but the argument and a seething anger had escalated so fast he couldn't control it. He was becoming more and more puzzled by his own behavior. It was undermining him with his superiors. But more important, it was altering his opinion of himself. He was no longer certain of what he stood for.
"You say you don't resent these sessions, but your body language says otherwise," Dr. Smythe said, retrieving another yellow ball and rolling it between his thumb and forefinger, before ditching it surreptitiously on the carpet beneath his chair.
"If my body is talking to you, Doctor, maybe we need to change places." Lockwood smiled.
"Evasive response," Smythe said into his tape recorder. They sat in silence and regarded each other like enemy generals staring across the desolate battleground of Lockwood's career in law enforcement.
"Are you angry because you're a child of three institutions?" Smythe pushed on.
"Depends on which institutions you're talking about."
"I was referring to the Materwood Home for Boys and then the St. Charles Academy and, to a lesser degree, the Marine Corps."
"Oh…" Lockwood said noncommittally.
"There were others?"
"I was briefly in the institution of marriage, but I got kicked out," he said, remembering Claire with a sharp pang of anxious desperation. Claire had been his life's most damaging failure. She had been the only one to bring him softness, and he had wasted that valuable warmth, squandered it, wounding both of them with his selfishness.
"We'll get to that," Smythe said. "Could it be because you were raised by institutions, you have a latent hostility toward them, and that's what is causing this self-destructive behavior?"
Lockwood leaned back on the couch and laced his fingers behind his head.*
"Well, lemme give that some thought…" He closed his eyes and let some time pass. He'd learned that during an IA head test, you had to say as little as possible. Information was power. This wasn't about Lockwood's mental health; it was about getting him suspended. The less they had, the less they could use. At the same time, he had to capture Smythe and try to get him to sign the FFD slip, stipulating he was fit for duty. He listened to the desk clock ticking and kept his eyes closed. It was a humid April, Washington, D. C., day, but the building was freezing cold. An unrelenting air conditioner hissed at them. In truth, he had hated the Materwood Home for Boys. The fathers had been strict and the food stringy. He'd been small for his age and had been picked on, but he had learned to fight at Materwood-something that came in very handy at St. Charles a few years later.