Back in the driver's seat, he used his screwdriver to pry off the plastic cowling around the ignition keyhole. Inside the exposed hole were a half dozen multicolored wires. He pressed them together at random. The battery and ignition feeds connected, turning on the dashboard ignition lights. He touched the remaining wires to the two feeds until the engine turned over, then put the Firebird in gear and rolled.
In the glove compartment he found the parking stub. Nice of the dude to leave it for him. Gray paid the fee on his way out. The attendant never even looked at him. Real good security they had here.
The car had 92,000 miles on the odometer, but it handled fine, and nobody would be looking for him behind the wheel of a Firebird. There was only a tape player, not a CD deck, but the owner's taste in tunes was a lot better than Dr. Robin's. The cassette in the slot was Eminem. Gray cranked the volume.
He motored aimlessly, favoring side streets, watching the parked cars. On the outskirts of Inglewood he caught sight of another Firebird, blue like the one he'd boosted. The car sat at a curb in a neighborhood so empty of life that it might have been the set of one of those post-Armageddon movies where people were always getting into brawls over the last drum of gasoline or the last tin of pork 'n' beans. Gray parked behind the other car and got out. Using the screwdriver, he quickly swapped plates, then drove off, whistling.
Now even if the stolen Firebird was linked to him, the cops would be on the lookout for a car with a different license number. And if some patrol faggots happened to give the car he was driving the evil eye, the plates would run clean.
He'd got his swerve on, all right. He was staying cool, handling everything nice and smooth.
Now he needed to quarterback his next moves.
First things first. He needed more benjamins. There wasn't much cash in the doc's wallet, and he'd already spent some of it. He couldn't use her plastictoo easy to trace-so he'd have to jack some asshole at an ATM. Once he got paid, find a crib.
After that amp; well, shit, he'd been in stir a year. Had himself a major love jones. It was time to knock off a piece of ass. Find himself a booty house or some boulevard gash and do some serious pipe cleaning.
Wouldn't hurt to change his appearance, too. Dye his hair or shave himself bald or maybe grow one of those pussy goatees. Wear long-sleeved shirts to cover the tats on his arms.
Then lay low for a few days before beating feet out of town and starting over again in Seattle or Las Vegassomeplace big and growing, where a new arrival wouldn't stand out.
One thing was for goddamned certain: He wasn't going back to the joint. He was out, and he would stay out. Play it right, and he could keep going for years, moving from town to town, state to state. Before he was through, this whole country was gonna bow down to him.
By now it was nearly six o'clock. His escape must be all over the news. He ejected the Eminem cassette and dialed the radio to KFWB.
He was the top story. "I'm the man!" he yelled.
And they used his whole name, Justin Hanover Gray. He loved that. Three names, like fucking royalty. That was how the news reports always referred to him. He wished they'd given him a nickname, some kick-ass moniker like they gave that Ramirez guythe Night Stalker, they called him. But he guessed they didn't do that shit no more. There'd been so goddamn many serial killers, all the good names had been taken. Maybe if he'd done something more creative with his girlscarved them up or somethinghe might've gotten a nickname. The LA Butcher. The Death Dealer. The Bitch Snuffer.
"Bitch Snuffer." He laughed aloud at that one. He was feeling very damn good.
Then he heard the details of the report, and his warm glow faded.
They were saying he'd attacked a psychiatrist who was working with him. That he'd killed a deputy. And that he had kidnapped the psychiatrist's teenage daughter.
Meg? They thought he had Meg?
Even the boys in blue couldn't get their facts that fucked up. It had to be some kind of game they were playing, some way to mess with his head. He couldn't see the point, but one thing was for surethe doc was part of it. Her and the cops were spreading a bunch of bullshit about him, making him out to be a cop killer, which he wasn't, and a kidnapper, which he also wasn'tat least, not this time.
"Doc Robin's lying," he whispered. "Fuckin' lying about me."
The report was rebroadcast as he kept driving. He flipped to other stations, but the story never varied.
He was majorly vexed. Here he'd been feeling so fine, and then this shit had to come on the radio and harsh his mellow. Now he really wished he'd sliced her when he had the opportunity.
Here he'd gone out of his way to be civilized, to be a fucking gentleman, and she goes and starts screwing with him, making up shit. He didn't mind sucking heat for stuff he'd done, but he'd be goddamned if he had to take the rap for stuff he had nothing to do with.
"Motherfucker," he said. He repeated the word every few seconds, feeling angrier each time.
What he needed was a drink. He stopped at a liquor store and bought a six-pack of Coronas, cracked a brew, and drove on, thinking about Dr. Robin Cameron and her bitch daughter and what he'd like to do to them both.
Chapter Thirty-two
Two hours.
Robin sat in an interview room at Parker Center, the LAPD downtown headquarters, checking her watch and trying to understand how two hours could have passed since she'd ridden here in the backseat of a patrol car.
Time seemed to have become disjointed in some unaccountable way. At some moments she felt she'd been sitting for a lifetime in this uncomfortable straight-back chair, facing the mirror that obviously served as the window of an observation room next door. At other moments she had the impression that she'd just taken her seat, and no time whatsoever had passed.
The ticking hand of her wristwatch was her only contact with objective reality, and it told her that the time was seven-fifteen. She'd left her office 120 minutes ago. And Meg had been missing for roughly an hour before that.
One thought sustained her: Gray didn't kill them right away. He let his victims live for a whilea few hoursbefore he took their lives. And in all the previous cases there had never been any indication of rape or torture. That was something, anyway. Something to hold on to.
She wasn't sure how long she had sat unmoving on the sofa in her office, after learning that Meg was gone. What she remembered was Lieutenant Wolper's voice finally reaching her after what must have been many attempts.
"Dr. Cameron?"
"Yes," she'd said. "Yes, I understand."
She wasn't sure what she understood. Her own name, maybe.
"Doctor, we're going to need a detailed statement."
"I've already gone over what happened."
"We'll need you to go over it again."
"Why? How does that accomplish anything? How does it help Meg?"
"Any little fact or observation might be significant. Do you feel up to going to Parker Center?"
"I can go there." She could do whatever she had to do.
"Okay, I'll arrange it."
She stopped him as he started to walk away. "If your son were missing, you'd do everything to find him, wouldn't you? Everything possible."
"Of course."
"That's how I want you to treat this case. As if it were your son."
"I will. We all will."
Leaving the office building had been a nightmaremore accurately, a fragment of the ongoing nightmare her life had become. A crowd of TV and radio people had gathered in the parking lot. She kept her face down as Wolper and two uniformed officers escorted her past cameras and microphones. Questions were shouted. People were asking, How did she feel? She wanted to scream at them to shut up. She wanted to smash the camera lenses that were making her private tragedy into a show.