“I have to talk to him,” I said.
“The press conference.” It was the first thing Bobby Grant had said all morning.
“No fucking way,” Captain Finch said.
“You’re not exactly in a position to insist, Captain,” Fred the lawyer said.
“Shut up,” I said. To my surprise, they did. “I need to think.
“I need a way to tell him,” I said, feeling my way, “that I had nothing to do with what happened last night. He has to believe that I’ve cut all ties with the police. At the same time, I need the police. I need them to watch the person I need them to watch. Hammond knows who she is. In fact,” I said, gaining a degree of confidence, “I need Hammond assigned to watch her. And he reports to no one. No one, is that clear? He knows her and likes her, and I won’t have him reporting to anyone who might decide to use the lady as bait the way I was used.” Hammond still hadn’t looked at me.
“It’s not usual,” Finch said lamely.
“Would you prefer the press conference?” Annabelle Winston asked.
“No press conference,” I said. Bobby Grant groaned. “The print media can get it wrong, and TV will give me a minute, maybe the wrong minute. Also, I don’t want him to know that I’m still working for you,” I said to Annabelle Winston. “I will be, but I don’t want him to know it. I want him to think that I’m out there on my own, solo, scared, sorry as hell, and waiting for him to talk to me.”
“You want to go one-on-one with him?” Schultz said. “He’ll burn you. Honest to God, he’ll burn you. As you said, I could be useful.” He spread his hands apologetically. “At least, that’s my opinion.”
“What’s the problem with one-on-one?” I asked. “It hasn’t been so great to be on the big team.”
“Like me or not,” Schultz said very quietly, “and I’ll understand if you hate my guts, I know him better than anyone else here.”
“And the cops buy your lunch.”
“Not necessarily,” Schultz said.
“He’s on our payroll,” Finch said promptly.
“I’ve got a practice, too,” Schultz said, bridling. “Mr. Grist could become a private patient.” Finch looked as if he wished the entire room were an antacid.
“Information privileged?” I asked.
“Absolutely.” Schultz avoided looking at Captain Finch.
“Maybe,” I said. “But Schultz, the first time I think you’re shucking me, I’ll kill you.”
“I’d almost deserve it,” Schultz said.
I held his gaze for what felt like an hour and then gave it up. “I’ll need everything your guys turn up,” I said to Finch, “either on the phone or by regular mail. Call me the day after you send me anything. If I haven’t got it by the following day, if I think it might have been snatched out of my mailbox, I’ll call. And no surveillance on my street.”
“That’s dumb,” Hammond said without glancing at me.
“He’ll spot it,” I said, “and then we’ll be back to nowhere.”
“How are you going to talk to him?” Annabelle Winston said.
“The press conference,” Bobby Grant said again, seeing his future written in the skies.
“No,” I said. “I need more control. Captain Finch,” I said, but Finch was looking up at the same uniformed patrolman. The patrolman looked nervous.
“Captain,” he said, “there’s this guy on the phone…”
“I said no calls,” Finch said curtly, “and I meant it. What do you think, my jaws need exercise?”
“He’s called five times this morning,” the uniform said, “and he’s threatening to call the chief. Needs to talk to someone on the Incinerator investigation. Says he knows the chief personally. Says he’s a-”
“Tell him to fold, spindle, and mutilate himself,” Finch interrupted.
“-television producer,” the uniform plowed along. “Norman something.”
I got up again. “I’ll talk to him,” I said.
PART THREE
12
This is what it said: You made me break a rule.
You don’t know how important the rules are.
If I have my way, I’d do five a night, every night of the week, every week of the year. The rules save lives. And you made me break one.
You’ll be sorry. When I kill the others, you’ll be sorry. When I liberate your phlogiston and leave nothing behind but calx, you’ll be sorry.
This one had been written in a hurry: same gold pen, same inexorably straight margins, but no picture at the bottom, no fancy first initial at the top. Like the dance card, it had been messengered. Same approach, different service, no lead. We could have been friends. I used to think we were friends. I hoped we could be friends again.
You didn’t recognize my voice. Well, keep an eye over your shoulder. If you don’t recognize me before I throw the match, you’ll be sorry. Of course, you’ll be sorry either way.
You saw what I did to your girlfriend. She made a lovely light.
Tell your other girlfriend to be careful too. And, by the way, I don’t think much of the guy she’s fooling around with. Real drop in quality there.
I’d attempted, but failed, to prevent them from showing that part. As it flashed onto the screen I wanted to perspire, but the makeup they’d caked on my face wouldn’t let me. I just tried to penetrate the glare of light pouring down on me to locate a friendly face. No deal there, either.
I tried, the note continued. I really tried. But you’re an *******, just like all the others. So you’ll burn.
The note hadn’t said******* of course. It had used a much more descriptive term, which had been covered, for today’s purposes only, with asterisks. This was, after all, family entertainment.
“That’s a letter from a man who has burned thirteen people to death in Los Angeles,” Velez Caputo said, bright as a silver quarter, into the nearest camera. “We’re coming to you live today to bring you this amazing story. The show that was scheduled for this hour, ‘Transvestites and the Women Who Love Them,’ will be shown tomorrow. And we’ll talk with the man the killer sent that letter to after this commercial message.”
The lights on the set went out, and the television monitors facing the set went dark. The sound track to a commercial for disposable diapers boomed through the speakers, preternaturally loud, as though mothers and babies were universally hard of hearing. “Relax for sixty seconds,” Velez Caputo said to me with a smile that had probably sent her dentist’s kids through college. “I love live TV.”
I smiled back, feeling the makeup stiff on my cheeks. I didn’t love live TV, but at least I could see again.
It was Tuesday afternoon. Two days had passed, and the Incinerator had burned three people, two of them out in the Valley, in Van Nuys. Another departure from established procedure. The one in Van Nuys and one of the L.A. victims had been women, which had the effect of making things more urgent. The media were howling.
Stillman had agreed to my insistence on the telephone that we do the show live rather than waiting the usual two weeks between taping and airing, and had even bought full-page ads in both the Times and the Daily News. Velez Caputo had come into the studio on Sunday afternoon to tape radio and television commercials, and they’d been on the air by Sunday night. Only in the L.A. market, of course. Norman wasn’t going to spend any money he didn’t absolutely have to spend.
So the Incinerator was probably watching. I’d guessed that he followed the media, if only to see what they were saying about him. Maybe I’d been wrong. Schultz, for whatever it was worth, was positive that he did. Now that he wasn’t Captain Omnipotent, Schultz and I were getting along better.
Schultz smiled at me.
He was sitting rigidly in what I’d been told was called the Number Two Seat. I was in the Hot Seat. A couple of people I didn’t know filled seats Three and Four. No one had rushed forward to tell me who they were, but Schultz had vouched for the one in Number Three. Behind the cameras and the lights a sort of Peanut Gallery rose in tiers, people packed shoulder to shoulder in narrow, uncomfortable-looking chairs. Their clothes marked most of them as out-of-towners, and the way they gaped at me-those of them who could tear their eyes off Velez Caputo-reminded me of the old adage about fools’ faces. Few places were as conspicuously public as this.