He huffed a laugh. “You can’t use anything you may have found. You work through an attorney, so you’d be violating the client confidentiality privilege.”
“Not at all. Oh, it’d be shaky ethically, I grant you... but you’re not my client, Vincent. Daddy is.”
His blank expression was all the response I got, or needed.
“Your first line of defense,” I said, “is not terribly impressive. You have alibis for the killings of Kraft, Jordan, and Mazzini. All performed over the span of a few days, by the way, and that is impressive. But back to your alibis. Your father? Your current squeeze? Weak, Vincent. Thin. Parents, wives, lovers, the most worthless alibis in the book. Now, you may be rich enough, successful enough, respectable enough, to make that play, just the same. I mean, I’ll bet your pater would hire one hell of an attorney. Gerry Spence, maybe. How about F. Lee Bailey? Dershowitz would be perfect!”
For the first time a frown had its way with that smooth skin. “Why would I need a defense lawyer? I didn’t do a damn thing.”
I raised a gently lecturing forefinger. “What’s interesting to me, Vincent, is that while you’re clearly deranged, your victims are never random, as is so often the case with someone who gets off on murder the way you do. No, you always pick out someone... deserving. Someone who’s done you dirty — like Sheila Ryan’s abusive ex, for instance. Or like the prostitute who blackmailed you... oh, I know, I know, not established, but that will come out. And I’m guessing Roger Kraft tried to squeeze more money out of you, too, although you may just have been tying off a loose end. And Shannon — a decent man, but he hounded you unmercifully even after he was no longer a cop. Why should you have to put up with that? By the way, did he have anything? On that floppy disk you stole, I mean... and after all the trouble I went to in finding it!”
He stood. “That’s enough of this bullshit. You don’t have anything to say that even vaguely interests me. There’s a coffee shop a few blocks from here. I’ll call for a ride from there. Goodbye, Hammer. I’ll tell my father to fire you first thing tomorrow.”
I raised a “stop” palm and smiled. “Sit down and I’ll tell you what does impress me. Not your pitiful line-up of alibis. No. I’m talking about your Plan B, Vinnie. You don’t mind if I call you Vinnie, do you? It’s a better name for a murderer than ‘Vincent’ — unless your last name is Price, maybe.”
He thought about it. Then he smoothed his jacket — Armani again, I’d wager — and sat. “Plan B...?”
“Yeah. That’s what the hit-and-run fakery was about. You really trained for that — getting into shape with a ten-degree black-belt sensei. Really going for it, learning techniques from an actual movie stunt man.”
“I don’t know any movie stunt man.”
“Sure you do. Oh, I admit I don’t have anything on those earlier kills — the secretary you undoubtedly raped and strangled, and the broker at your firm you ran down in that parking ramp. How many like them have happened over the years? Now, how you used the hit-and-run episode — that was cute.”
“Cute?”
I corrected myself: “Ingenious. You devised a Plan B that covers every murder since you had your personality-twisting concussion. You played it to the hilt, the whole Jekyll and Hyde bit — plenty of witnesses to your uncontrollable outbursts to contrast with your otherwise normal behavior. I saw it myself, more than once. All the time you logged with doctors, who assigned meds, which I bet you didn’t take, and constant psychiatrist visits... that’s the Plan B — the groundwork for the insanity plea from the best lawyers Daddy’s money can buy. Might take a year or two before convincing doctors you’re well. Maybe you’d stage another accident with a blow to the head that ‘cures’ you. Clever. Sicker than hell, but clever.”
Colby had started smiling halfway through my little speech. Then he stood and began to clap and laugh, the laughter sounding crazed to me, ringing off the brick walls.
He leaned toward me, hands on his thighs, his smile mocking. “I hear a bunch of theorizing, Hammer. I don’t see a scrap of evidence. And I haven’t confirmed a damn thing you’ve said, and why should I? You want a hundred k for that?”
“Well, I’ll tell you one thing I don’t want, and it’s a hug. I know how that kind of hug can end up. Of course, the last time you tried it on me didn’t work out for you. You got flipped on your ass.” I gave him a nasty smile. “Here’s a tip — don’t wear a distinctive cologne to a killing. Detectives pick up on subtle little clues like that.”
But for the tiniest curl of his upper lip, he was expressionless. “You have nothing.”
“No, I have something.” I was nodding. “I really do.”
“Is that right?”
“Yes. You see, we aren’t alone.” I gestured behind me. “I have a friend in the darkness who’s helping me. And making an audio recording of all this.”
His single “Ha!” rang off the rafters from where the light was coming. “What do you have... besides your raving, your ranting, and your stupid suppositions? I haven’t admitted to anything. And I’m not about to.”
I got out the .45. “Sure of that?”
His smile disappeared but he remained calm. “Quite sure, Hammer. You waving your phallic symbol around to make up for your shortcomings does not impress me.”
“Did you happen to read the papers yesterday? Catch the TV news, maybe?”
“What if I did?”
“It must have caught your attention. I’m referring to the coverage about your other accomplice — you remember, the one you haven’t killed yet?”
He reddened. About time. “You are out of your fucking mind, Hammer.”
“So some people say. Vinnie, I’m talking about Harry Strutt. Your stunt man instructor. You must have seen it — made page three of the News — four dead bodies in that farmhouse where Harry lives. I wonder who could have killed them?”
His eyes widened.
I went on: “They were a notorious bank robbery crew, you know. Some spirited citizen performed a public service, I’d say.”
“Yeah. Yeah, you would.”
“Funny, though — your buddy Strutt wasn’t one of the victims. He must have got away.”
“Good for him.”
Another spotlight came down from above and its glow fell on a new member of our little cast. Maybe ten feet from us — bound into a chair, legs tied to the rungs, hands behind him, in a gray sweatshirt and sweat pants — was a familiar figure, easily identified despite the duct tape gag over his mouth and his bloodied, battered face.
“Harry!” Colby blurted.
I walked casually over, perhaps five feet from the newcomer. “You won’t have to kill him, Vinnie. That wouldn’t be deserving. You see, he was true to you. Loyal as the day is long. No matter what I tried, he refused to talk. He just would not sell you out. Still, he is a loose end and that’s a problem. So I’ll take care of it for you.”
I fired at the bound man’s chest — two shots whose echoing roars rang in the vast space, as the impact shook him in the chair, blood exploding out of him, two red flowering bursts in front but, in back, twin geysers carrying globs of bone and gore into the darkness, making little thumps and thuds and splishes on the floor, tiny things not at all commensurate with the big damage done.
Colby was on his feet, his arms and hands outstretched, as if there was something to be done, but there wasn’t.