“The killer,” Bell said.
“How could we have been so stupid?” Walter said.
“You know what this means,” Bell said. “This means he’s probably following us. He may be watching us right now!”
“But if he’s been watching us all this time, why doesn’t he just kill us?”
“Look,” Nina said. “It’s obvious that he wants to toy with you—with us. That’s his thing, right? Psychological torture, mind games, taunting letters.”
“Okay,” Walter said. “I see your point.”
“But what do we do now?” Bell asked.
“We beat him at his own game,” Nina said.
“Beat him how?” Bell asked.
“We’re no good at hand-to-hand combat,” she said. “We know that. But mind-to-mind combat, that’s a whole different ball game. Our ball game.”
“In theory, yes,” Walter said. “That’s likely to be a superior strategy.”
“But how...” Bell said again.
“Will you let me finish?” Nina asked.
“Right, sorry,” they both said simultaneously
“We talked about needing to get him through the gate, right?” Nina continued. “But clearly, even the rehearsal space isn’t remote enough. We need some place even more remote. I have a good location in mind, but then the problem becomes how to get him to that remote location.”
“Kidnapping seems a little more physically demanding than any of us are capable of,” Walter said. “Plus, we don’t know where he is.”
“Yet he knows where we are,” Nina said. “If he’s following us, we need to use that to our advantage.”
“You’ve lost me again,” Bell said.
Nina sighed like a teacher dealing with a recalcitrant student. She went over to her desk and slipped a blank sheet into the typewriter.
“Dear Special Agent Iverson,” Nina read aloud as she typed. “We want to warn you that the Zodiac has been imitating you in order to trick us, so be suspicious of any communication that is delivered by any method other than this, our previously arranged drop spot.”
“Excellent,” Bell said, catching on immediately.
“Brilliant,” Walter said. “The bit about him tricking us adds an extra element of credibility.”
“At this point in time,” Nina continued, “the danger has become too great, and for our own safety, we feel that we have no other choice but to return to the east coast. However, we have an encrypted notebook in our possession which we feel would be invaluable to your case.
“We will hide the notebook under the third flagstone from the left in the fireplace of a cabin up in Fairfax, CA. There is no address, but it’s the second building on a private, unmarked, and unpaved driveway off Iron Springs Road about 100 yards east of the junction with Timber Canyon Road.
“Please see included map.”
“Map?” Walter said.
“Yes,” Nina said, opening a desk drawer and pulling out a neatly folded map. She opened it and drew a neat red X to mark the location. “We can’t take chances that he might not find the cabin.”
“You are amazing,” Bell said. “Will you marry me?”
“Marriage is an outdated relic of patriarchal oppression,” Nina replied, arching a russet brow. “But if you ever need someone to run your business affairs, you just let me know.”
“Not to spoil your special moment,” Walter said, “but what are we going to do with our friend the Zodiac once he arrives? Chase him through the gate with harsh language?”
Nina reached into the box of chemicals that Bell had scored to mix the acid blend, and pulled out a large brown glass bottle.
“Chloroform,” she said. “As soon as he comes through the cabin door, we chloroform him and then toss him through the gate.”
“We’d need to seriously sedate him,” Bell said. “I mean, chloroform is fine for the initial knockout, but we’ll need to keep him under while we open the gate, and that will take time. It’s not like we can just flick a switch.”
“Definitely,” Walter said. “It’s been made terrifyingly clear that there’s a direct link between pain or heightened emotion and his strange radioactivity. We don’t want him going off like an atom bomb while we’re trying to put him through.”
“Agreed,” Bell said. “You go and drop off the trick letter and I’ll work on formulating an appropriate anesthesia blend for our friend. Meanwhile, Nina, we need you to talk to the band, and see if you can get them to join us at the cabin for another epic acid trip.”
“Free acid in a beautiful pastoral setting?” Nina smiled. “Won’t be that hard to convince them.”
“But...” Walter stood, pacing. He pictured dumb, sweet Abby sleeping on the couch downstairs. “I mean... well, it’s not exactly ethical to experiment on human subjects without making them aware of the potential dangers inherent to their participation.”
“It’s even less ethical to let this monster continue to kill without restraint, just because we got squeamish about ethics,” Bell countered. “This isn’t just an ordinary experiment, Walter.
“Besides,” he continued, “you were the one who always used to say that free acid for everyone would make the world a better place.”
“Nevertheless,” Nina said, “we don’t want to plant the note for the killer to find until we’re absolutely sure the band will be willing to participate in setting up our chemical trap. They have a gig tonight night at a club called the Downward Dog. We can talk to them when they get off.”
“Yes,” Bell said. “Meeting them after the show would be the best way to gather them all in one place and, more than likely, in an inebriated and agreeable mood.”
Walter remained silent. In spite of everything, he couldn’t help but feel a twinge of excitement at the prospect of seeing his favorite band live. While it was true that it would have been ideal to see them at the height of their fame, back in ’66, and that their psychedelic folk style was considered by many to be passé, his own inner teenage self was doing a little happy dance.
He hoped that they would play “Hovercraft Mother.”
Yet that excitement was tinged with guilt. He still felt that it was wrong to involve the band members in something so dangerous, and he would feel absolutely awful if something were to happen to one of his musical idols.
It was like mentally weighing the value of the band members’ lives against the lives of Miranda and all the other Zodiac victims yet to come. Could there really be a lesser of these two evils?
Unfortunately there was.
There was every chance that the band would come out of the experiment unharmed. But there was no question what would happen to Miranda if they didn’t send the Zodiac back to his own world.
“I suppose we don’t have a choice, do we?” Walter said.
“No,” Nina said. “We don’t.”
26
Having come to that decision about what had to be done, they still had a whole day to kill before the show at the Downward Dog. They were getting more than a little bit ragged around the edges, and Nina didn’t have to ask Walter to leave her bedroom so she could get some rest.
He staggered down the stairs and found Abby awake and bustling in the kitchen. He waved to her in a haze and collapsed on the couch that she had recently vacated. It was still warm from her body. Cat-Mandu snuggled up to him, seeming unfazed by this personnel change.
Within seconds, he fell soundly asleep.
* * *
He didn’t budge until Nina shook him gently awake several hours later.
“Come on,” she said, “let’s get some lunch. A little fuel to stimulate proper brain function. What do you say?”
Walter stood slowly, brushing an avalanche of cat hair off his sweater and pants. His brain felt as fuzzy as his clothes. He realized that he had slept in his shoes.
Nina took them to a restaurant called the Swan Oyster Bar. It was a narrow, almost claustrophobic place with a long marble counter and some of the smallest stools Walter had ever seen. He perched reluctantly on the tiny round wooden seat, not entirely confident that it would hold his weight.