“How many dead?” Vinson asked.
“We think it’s fifteen,” Harold said. “It’s still . . . hard to get an exact count.”
“Can I see my wife now?”
“We’re about done,” Sal said. “People on the scene downstairs said they and others realized what had happened and rushed to the elevator to see if they could help in rescue attempts.”
“That’s how I got here. I can’t believe I’m the only lucky one.”
You only hope you’re going to live, Harold thought, looking at the mass of taped gauze, stained here and there with blood. The doctors had told Harold and Sal that pressure was building in Vinson’s brain. They were going to operate within minutes. He had about a forty percent chance of survival. At least, Harold thought, he seems to be thinking okay for now.
What does his wife know?
“See anything we oughta know?” Sal asked.
“Not that I can—”
“Little guy in a gray or green outfit with a baseball cap?”
Light glimmered in Vinson’s sunken dark eyes. “Yeah, I did see a guy something like that. When they got the elevator doors open, lots of people had gone to the basement, rushed over to help. One of them looked like the guy you described. I saw him when we got on the elevator, too. He said he’d wait for the next one.”
“Were his ears pointed?” Harold asked.
Vinson said, “Who are we talking about here? Dr. Spock?”
“Maybe the maintenance guy. Somebody like that.”
“Might have been, for all I know. I never before laid eyes on the man except outside the elevator, and I don’t remember anything about his ears. Don’t recall much about him, actually. I remember a lot of people looking, leaning in for a closer look and then backing away. They must have seen what a mess the inside of the elevator was and it made them . . . Made them wanna be someplace else. Anyplace.”
“Little guy stay or leave?” Sal asked.
“I’m not sure. He seemed . . .”
“What?”
“Not like the others. I mean, he was concerned, but also looked calm and . . .” Vinson sought the desired word. Found it: “Curious.”
“Calm and curious.”
“Something like that. We’re talking about a four- or five-second look, more like a glance, then he was gone.”
“Gone where?”
“You’d have to ask him. If he works for maintenance in the building or someplace close, maybe you can find him.”
“Would you recognize him if you saw him again?” Harold asked.
“I think so. Yeah. I could. That’s because he was the only one who didn’t look as if he’d had a walk-on in a slasher movie.”
“We’ll put our sketch artist to work,” Sal said.
“Is that when I say to make the nose a little longer, and the eyes meaner and closer together?”
“Something like that,” Harold said.
The man behind the gauze might have smiled. “I always wanted to do that.”
The door to the hall opened and a uniformed nurse bustled in. Her name tag said she was Juanita. She was holding some rubber tubing and a small tray on which sat a surgical syringe, what looked like a stethoscope but probably wasn’t, some white pills, and half a glass of water on a white napkin. She was followed by a tall, handsome man in green scrubs.
“I’m Doctor Weiss,” the man in scrubs said. “How we feeling?”
“Are you hurt, too?” Vinson asked.
Weiss said, “Glad to see you’re well enough to be a smart ass.”
“I hope that doesn’t mean I’m going to get the dull needle.”
“Of course it does.”
“Can my wife come in?”
“Shortly.”
The nurse, smiling, made a motion with both hands as if scooping everyone other than herself and the doctor out of the room.
As Sal and Harold left, Juanita bent over Vinson and set to work. Dr. Weiss followed the two detectives out into the hall.
“How is he doing?” Sal asked, as they moved far enough away from the door to Vinson’s room not to be overheard.
“It’s still a forty percent chance that he’ll make it,” Dr. Weiss said.
“So nothing’s changed?”
“I’m afraid not. Have you learned anything from talking to him?”
“Maybe. We’re gonna have him work with a police sketch artist.”
“That can’t be until after the operation,” Dr. Weiss said.
Here was a complication. “Are you sure, Doctor? We can have a sketch artist here in fifteen minutes.”
“Absolutely not. The nurse is preparing him for surgery, and the OR is set up and ready.”
“What kind of operation?”
“An urgent one.”
“I mean, what kind of doctor are you?”
“I’m a neurosurgeon,” Dr. Weiss said.
A nurse Sal and Harold hadn’t seen before passed in the hall with Emma Vinson. Emma looked miserable and had obviously been crying.
“What’s all that about?” Harold asked.
Dr. Weiss said, “They’re going to say good-bye.”
“Christ!” Sal said.
Dr. Weiss looked thoughtful. “We could use His help.”
On the way down in the elevator, Harold kept softly repeating, “We’re hard-boiled cops, we’re hard-boiled cops . . .”
Sal said, “Keep telling yourself that, Harold.”
“What are you telling yourself, Sal?”
“Forty percent. How it’s so much better than nothing.”
“Especially if it’s your forty percent,” Harold said.
25
The killer slept late but still got up to sit in on the news on television. Some of the news, anyway. Most of it was just above the level of gossip related by beautiful blondes who for the most part were smarter than he was. Certainly more well-informed.
He had to admit he admired Minnie Miner ASAP. Minnie, a small and dynamic African American woman, was more interested in the story than the news. Not that she was the only journalist/entertainer who worked that way. But she was the best at fitting things together so everything seemed newsworthy. She skillfully blended mayhem and murder with fashion and gossip. She was obviously fascinated by the Gremlin. She’d heard the survivor of what she called “The Elevator Nightmare” mention on another talk/news show that a police sketch artist was going to use what evidence the law possessed to create the Gremlin’s likeness. Though small, he was also distinctive. If the sketch was close, chances are someone would recognize him.
If it wasn’t close enough, it might send the investigation off in the wrong direction.
The Gremlin laughed out loud. He was sure no one had gotten a good enough look at him—or indeed any look at all—so far in his New York adventures.
He didn’t think it unlikely that Minnie Miner would cooperate with the police in trying to manipulate the public, but she was in over her head with this one. He not only wasn’t worried, but he was anxious to see this “likeness” of him. It should help to put a picture in people’s minds that looked little like him. It should be a help to him, having all those wannabes swarming the police with their worthless confessions.
He settled back in his tan leather sofa to watch the rest of Minnie Miner ASAP. It was a phone-call or tweet-in program. Maybe someday he’d give Minnie a call or a tweet. Or maybe he’d even surprise her and meet her personally. People still did that, didn’t they?
When he tired of watching television, the killer removed robe and slippers and ran a hot bath. He shampooed his hair with a product that gave it body, then pleasured himself with images of Margaret Evans.
After a while, the images were replaced by mental snapshots of an elevator packed with dark blood, red meat, glistening white bone, and expressions of horror. It was something that the great painter of Hades, Hieronymus Bosch, would be proud of, and see as among his best work.