"He gets into his positions at night," Shremp said. "That's the only way he could move around without anybody spotting him."
"So what are we supposed to do?" Hilliard asked. "Put every cop in the city on all-night watch looking for big fat guys with large gun cases?"
"Sure. If we had the manpower, that might be a start," Llewelyn said. "But we don't have the legs. So we'll all work a night tour within forty blocks. Everybody's in the same barrel on this one till he's stopped. We'll divide the city up and watch as much of each section as we can. Looking for big fat guys—or anybody who looks suspicious—and, of course, we can forget the low-lying areas. He needs elevation to use this thing—he can shoot a mile and three quarters and hit you with it, by the way. Let's keep that in mind, too. We all got radios. We'll check in constantly. Sixteen hours out of every twenty-four until we nail him. T.J.—you work something up. Couple hours on, couple off—six on, couple off—that type of staggered schedule. We'll all work a full double shift. Anybody got problems with this?"
"Hell, no," Hilliard said. "We gotta get this bastard."
"What about the bounceback?" Morris asked. He meant on the prints.
"Latent gave us a match-up from The Paseo thing. Shell case—real good partial. Kicked it around through all the usual channels—I get red-flagged." Llewelyn looked down at a piece of printout and licked his lips. Picked it up as if it were on fire and handed it to Morris. "Check that out, Marlin. Ever see that before?"
"Deleted? What the hell does that mean?"
"There it is."
"For what?"
"You tell me, ace. First time I ever ran into that one. I called around, screamed and yelled upstairs. They got on the horn for me and nobody knows jack flash, okay? The killer's I.D.—which somebody, the feds or whoever, has on file, was deleted. Ain't that a beaut?"
"I don't get it," Apodaca said.
"That's right," the lieutenant said.
"Has to be a computer error," Hilliard said.
Llewelyn kept silent.
Trask woke up on the outside of a dream envelope, the memory of the mental excursion already fading, something about calling his daughter, and Kit telling him everything he already knew, that he hadn't been worth a damned dime as a dad—things like that. It was the phone.
"Yes?" he said through cotton.
"Vic, I'm very sorry to disturb you but—uh, we've got a bit of a situation down here at the station. Would you be too ill to come in for a few minutes?" It was Metzger. "We need to talk." This last in Babaloo's sucky voice that he reserved for ultimatums and such. It gave Trask a chill for a second.
"Sure. Absolutely."
"I hate to ask, man. I know you're under the weather. But, you know, if you can…"
"Hey, no problem. What's it about, Babaloo? Can you give me a clue?"
"Huh-uh. Probably better talk in person. An hour be enough time? Two hours?"
"I can be there in an hour. Sure. I'll see you."
"Thanks, Vic. I won't keep you long." Yeah, Trask thought. He was sure of that.
He went into the bathroom, relieved himself, tried to clean up a bit, was too shaky to shave, and finally just said fuck it and pulled some clothes on.
The drive to KCM was a nightmare, because he happened to catch a half-hourly newscast. The serial-murder thing had busted wide open without him, and—so it seemed—was not race-related. There'd been a couple more random rifle grenade kills—as the radio story termed them—long-distance homicides in Penn Valley Park.
He started to wonder whether it might be something they were planning to do on the show. But he instantly realized Metzger would have handled that on the telephone and told him to bring his research in with him. They'd never so much as asked about the piles of shows he'd prepared on the theme of violence—the fact that he'd screwed up this one thing had been sufficient to put his ass in the doghouse forever. He sneezed and it felt as if his head might come off. How could everything be so groovy one minute and so grunty the next?
He paid for parking and schlepped to the station. He knew it was bad before he got off the elevator. As the doors opened, he saw Adam David's face. David happened to be looking in his direction and he saw the news director's grimace of anger and distaste as he quickly looked away.
He turned the corner by the music studio and felt the oppressive vibes hit him like a wall of bad news. The first person he saw was Jerri, typing something at her desk.
"Morning," he said, entering. She jumped as if she'd been shot.
"Oh! You scared me."
"Sorry. I have that effect sometimes," he said, while she smiled with that look one reserves for relatives of the departed. "The man in?" He leaned his head a fraction of an inch toward Sean's office.
"Hm-um, He's over at Five. They're taping something—a panel or some show—I dunno."
"That's okay. You wouldn't have an aspirin or something, would you?" She didn't but made a big production out of finding him some and bringing them to him. He thanked her and took them without looking, not caring if they were cyanide or what. She'd even brought him a little cup of water.
"Thanks," he said. Trying to recall the name of the Dylan tune about the Mystery Tramp.
"Sure!" she said, overly solicitous. He knew he'd been fuckin' cut off at the knees right then and there. Flynn gone—as he always was when there was a dirty job to be done—Babaloo's forte.
He gritted his teeth and headed around the bend. His office door was closed, as was Barb Rose's. Nobody home. Metzger looked up with a small, tainted smile, which was even gloomier than his usual expression of dour cynicism.
"Oy vey! What a thing to do to a guy when he's got the flu—" Metzger began, with a cloying civility that made Mask want to become ill on the desk.
"No big deal. What's cookin'?"
"I'm sorry, Vic. We gotta let you go." He shook his head several times as if this were the worst news he'd had to convey in his entire broadcasting and journalistic career. "It's out of my hands completely."
"You mean because I fucked up on one goddamn story?"
"Hear me, now. You could be in a great deal of trouble if it wasn't for the fact that you had some people here who were fond of you. I know you have had some problems on the job. But—wow! Two problems with the police in a matter of days—we have no choice. You know some little dweeb of a board man over at the Z—Doug Reid?"
"Yeah." Trask felt needles stick him in the kidneys. "Buzz Reid?"
"Vice-squad guy was by pure luck tight with Chase or you might be sitting in jail right now trying to line up a bail bondsman." Chase? Trask's mind wasn't working. He tried to swallow. His throat was raw. Metzger watched him try to breathe. "This cop calls Kincaid and says, 'Hey, I came on a conversation, with one of the KCM employees talking to this little pimp I'm busting about a plot to burgle the radio station."
"Aw, bullshit, man—it wasn't like that at all. I just—"
"He apparently overheard somebody who works at the station, thinks his office and phone are bugged, asking all this crap about how to break into Security?" He said it incredulously. "How to do illegal wiretaps? I mean, Chase said he couldn't believe it when he listened to the tape. You—"
"But I was right, wasn't I? You guys were taping me?" He was in a fog. His mind had become Gouda cheese. He couldn't even mix a metaphor.
"You're still missing the point. We weren't taping you-some vice-squad guy was taping the other guy. He was pimping his wife out of their home or whatever. You just got nailed on it. The point being—have you any idea what would have happened if the vice dude had gone to Higgins with this? You'd be locked up now, Vic. You're one lucky guy."