Samuel Pace looked slightly confused, not knowing if Jordan had just insulted his girlfriend. “Her name is Eleanor,” he said.
A tugboat chugged upriver, its air horn blasting a low, mournful note. Samuel Pace glanced at it with brief hope in his eyes. No one was on the boat’s deck. No one to look back at him.
Jordan said, “What size shoe do you wear?
Samuel blinked at him. “’Bout an eleven.”
Jordan shook his head in disappointment. The boots were too large for his feet, even if he stuffed something in the toes.
“I ain’t got any money in my boots,” Samuel said, getting the wrong idea.
Jordan smiled. “I’m gonna believe you.” He knew that he could, or Samuel wouldn’t have brought up the subject.
He handed the wallet back to the boy, keeping only the ten-dollar bill and the photograph, which he slid into his shirt pocket. He didn’t count the hotel key card as loot; plucking it out of its tiny envelope when the kid’s head was turned had been almost automatic. It was one of Jordan’s cardinal rules, not passing up a chance to use somebody else’s charge or key card.
“I know where you live,” Jordan said. “And I can find out about Eleanor. Neither of you know where I live.”
He took a careful up-and-down look at Samuel. He was skinny, but also tall. Probably close to six feet. Nothing he was wearing would fit Jordan. Everything would drape on him, making him look even smaller than he was. Lost in his clothes, as his mother used to tell him. His late mother. His father hadn’t minded his diminutive stature. It made Jordan easier to control.
“You seem not to believe I think of that ten dollars as a loan,” Jordan said.
Samuel stared at him, still afraid, but curious.
“You be here this time tomorrow and I’ll pay you back, with interest,” Jordan lied. “You believe me?”
“If you want me to.”
Jordan smiled. “I’m not sure I know exactly what that means, but yeah, I want you to. I told you it was a loan. I don’t lie.”
Samuel was in no position to contradict Jordan. He simply stood with a stupid half grin on his face.
Jordan stuck out his right hand. “I’ll bring the photograph, too. The one of Eleanor.”
Samuel thanked him because he couldn’t think to say or do anything else.
“See you tomorrow,” Jordan said. He shook Samuel’s sweaty, trembling hand with its slender fingers.
As an afterthought he added, “I know a famous glamour photographer who’d love to shoot Eleanor. Maybe I’ll bring her, too. He might wanna shoot both of you.”
Thinking, always leave them confused.
Jordan had noted on the Missouri driver’s license that Samuel’s address was here in the city, though he was staying at a hotel. He was most likely here for an assignation with Eleanor. One that he didn’t want anyone else to know about.
Or tell anyone else about.
Samuel was smart to be so suspicious, Jordan thought.
He walked off in the direction of Jasmine.
Later that day
Lying in the cool air-conditioning with his eyes closed, Jordan thought about his master plan. The plan that would play out as tragedy so vast it would be pondered and admired for generations.
The witnessing of what the famous architect and engineer Ethan Ellis had done to a ten-year-old boy ensured Ellis’s cooperation and his silence. He had understood immediately what Jordan wanted.
And why, like Jordan, he had long ago made his choice of evils, and it had enveloped him like a shroud.
PART FOUR
A righteous man regardeth the life of
his beast;
but the tender mercies of the wicked
are cruel.
—PROVERBS 12:10
67
New York, the present
Minnie Miner was not so much amenable as eager to be part of the plan. Quinn decided Helen the profiler would be best for the opening gambit, the softening up. Helen was skilled at turning unease into fear, fear into horror, horror into mindless panic.
“My vote for someone to explain these gruesome murders goes to a woman who knows all about the people who might perpetrate them,” Minnie said with all sincerity to camera 2’s red light. “I give you police profiler, psychologist, and author Helen Iman.”
Helen, all six feet plus of her, strolled out onto the set. Despite Helen’s towering height advantage, Minnie matched her presence with pure energy. Fireball meets lackadaisical.
Applause was enthusiastic. Minnie made a welcoming motion with her right arm, and Helen sat down in one of the wing chairs angled at forty-five degrees so they both faced the low coffee table. She was wearing a red dress with a low neckline, and a high hemline that showed off her almost impossibly long legs.
Minnie sat in the other chair, on the very edge of the seat cushion, and smiled while the audience applauded. She waited, waited . . .
When the applause began to flag, she heaped more praise on Helen: “This woman has a sixth sense when it comes to getting inside the heads of the bad guys.” Minnie laughed. “And she knows a lot more than anyone else I know about weaponry, villains, law enforcement, and serial killers.” She turned her attention away from the audience and faced Helen. “And one interesting thing I’ve heard you say in the past, Helen, is that such killers are like ticking time bombs. At a certain point they very much want to get caught and stopped. That happens when their murders make it begin to seem like they’re the ones dying a little at a time with each death they cause, each life they stop. Killing does that to the murderer, male or female.”
Helen looked beyond Minnie and spoke to the studio audience.
“Have you ever eaten something you thought was delicious, knowing it wasn’t good for you?”
She pretended to count members of the audience, observing the various heads nodding yes, yes, they knew the satisfaction of stuffing food into their mouths to the point of gluttony. And Helen knew it. They had that in common, being human beings. But Minnie wasn’t any kind of criminal. So how could she know the cost of disregarding the lengthening shadows? The ticking bomb? Her background surely precluded that.
“Helen?”
Minnie was looking at her expectantly.
“Sorry,” Helen said. “We push the food away. We’ve had enough. We can eat no more. Finally, it is time to stop.”
The audience applauded at the pause, without a cue. They liked this woman. Minnie decided to let it roll.
“Usually one person can understand another only up to a certain point,” Helen said. “Going beyond that point is what I do. That is what I’ve done. It’s my job, and it’s my calling.
“The Gremlin,” she continued, “is not a good person. Not in any way heroic or iconic. He has a curious mind. That we know. And he is sick. He might be clever. He might be deadly. He might be three moves ahead of his pursuers. But he is also sick. He can’t stop his increasing use of the knife. He can’t stop torturing before killing. He can’t help reverse engineering every interesting device he comes upon. He can’t help this; he can’t resist that; he can’t reverse this; he can’t change that. He is not the skilled genius who always must know more. He is simply a simple man with a simple problem. The solution is also simple. He wants to be caught now. Finally. Even more than he wants to kill. He wants to be locked up for life or die by needle. But not just that. He wants to chose the time and place of his death. He wants to be an observer as well as a participant. He needs to stop. On the other hand, he needs to continue.
“He needs to know how death works.”
68