With some sixth sense, Frank was suddenly aware of a murderous, descending weight. He rolled to his right, flat up against the same wall of crates atop which Skagg stood. Behind him, a second huge box crashed to the warehouse floor.
"You alive?" Skagg called.
Frank did not respond.
"Yeah, you must be down there, because I didn't hear you scream. You're a quick bastard, aren't you?"
That laugh again. It was like atonal music played on an out-of-tune flute: a cold, metallic sound. Inhuman. Frank Shaw shivered.
Surprise was Frank's favorite strategy. During a pursuit, he tried to do what his prey would least expect. Now, taking advantage of the masking roar of the rain on the corrugated steel roof, he stood up in the darkness beside the wall of crates, holstered his revolver, blinked tears of pain out of his eyes, and began to climb.
"Don't cower in the shadows like a rat," Skagg shouted. "Come out and try to take a shot at me. You've got a gun. I don't. It'll be your bullets against whatever I can throw at you. What better odds do you want, you chickenshit cop?"
Twenty feet up the thirty-foot-high wall of wooden boxes, with his chilled fingers hooked into meager niches, with the toes of his shoes pressed hard against narrow ledges, Frank paused. The pain in his right side tightened as if it were a lasso, and it threatened to pull him backward into the aisle almost two stories below. He clung to his precarious position and squeezed his eyes tightly shut, willing the pain to go away.
"Hey, asshole," Skagg shouted.
Yeah?
"You know who I am?"
Big man on the psycho circuit, aren't you?
"I'm the one the newspapers call the Night Slasher."
Yeah, I know, I know, you drooling degenerate.
"This whole damn city lays awake at night, worrying about me, wondering where I am," Skagg shouted.
Not the whole city, man. Personally, I haven't lost any sleep over you.
Gradually the hot, grinding pain in his ribs subsided. It did not disappear altogether, but now it was a dull throb.
Among friends in the marines and on the police force, Frank had a reputation for persevering and triumphing in spite of wounds that would have incapacitated anyone else. In Nam he had taken two bullets from a Vietcong machine gun, one in the left shoulder and one through his left side directly above the kidney, but he had kept on going and had wasted the gunner with a grenade. Bleeding profusely, he had nevertheless used his good arm to drag his badly wounded buddy three hundred yards to a place of concealment, where they were safe from enemy snipers while the medevac chopper had sought and found them. As the medics loaded him into the helicopter, he had said, "War is hell, all right, but it's also sure exhilarating!"
His friends said he was iron hard, nail tough. But that was only part of what they said about him.
Overhead, Karl Skagg hurried along the tops of the boxes. Frank was close enough to hear the heavy footsteps above the ceaseless rumble of the rain.
Even if he had heard nothing, he would have known that Skagg was on the move. The two-crate-thick wall trembled with the killer's passage — though not violently enough to shake Frank off his perch.
He started to climb again, feeling cautiously for handholds in the darkness, inching along the pile of plumbing supplies. He got a few splinters in his fingers, but it was easy to screen out those small, stabbing pains.
From his new position atop the wall, Skagg shouted into another shadowy section of the warehouse to which he apparently thought Frank had moved, "Hey, chickenshit!"
You called?
"I have something for you, chickenshit."
I didn't know we were exchanging gifts.
"I got something sharp for you."
I'd prefer a TV set.
"I got the same thing for you that I used on all the others."
Forget the TV. I'll settle for a nice bottle of cologne.
"Come and get your guts ripped out, you chickenshit!"
I'm coming, I'm coming.
Frank reached the top, raised his head above the edge of the wall, looked left, then right, and saw Skagg about thirty feet away. The killer had his back to Frank and was peering intently down into another aisle.
"Hey, cop, look at me, standing right up here in the light. You can hit me with no trouble. All you have to do is step out and line up a shot. What's the matter? Don't you even have the nerve for that, you yellow bastard?"
Frank waited for a peal of thunder. When it came, he levered himself over the edge, on top of the stack of crates, where he rose to a crouch. The pounding rain was even louder up here, and combined with the thunder it was enough to cover any noise he made.
"Hey, down there! You know who I am, cop?"
You're repeating yourself. Boring, boring.
"I'm a real prize, the kind of trophy a cop dreams of!"
Yeah, your head would look good on my den wall.
"Big career boost if you brought me down, promotions and medals, you chickenshit."
The ceiling lights were only ten feet above their heads, and at such short range even the dim bulbs in the security lamps cast enough of a glow to illuminate half the crates on which they stood. Skagg was in the brightest spot, posturing for the one-man audience that he believed was below him.
Drawing his.38, Frank stepped forward, out of a shadowy area into a fall of amber light.
Skagg shouted, "If you won't come for me, you chickenshit, I'll come for you."
"Who're you calling chickenshit?" Frank asked.
Startled, Skagg spun toward him and, for an instant, teetered on the edge of the boxes. He windmilled his arms to keep from falling backward into the aisle below.
Holding his revolver in both hands, Frank said, "Spread your arms, drop to your knees, then lay flat on your belly."
Karl Skagg had none of that heavy-browed, slab-jawed, cement-faced look that most people associated with homicidal maniacs. He was handsome. Movie-star handsome. His was a broad, well-sculpted face with masculine yet sensitive features. His eyes were not like the eyes of a snake or a lizard or some other wild thing; they were brown, clear, and appealing.
"Flat on your belly," Frank repeated.
Skagg did not move. But he grinned. The grin ruined his moviestar looks because it had no charm. It was the humorless leer of a crocodile.
The guy was big, even bigger than Frank. He was six five, maybe even six and a half feet. Judging by the solid look of him, he was a dedicated, lifelong weight lifter. In spite of the chilly November night, he wore only running shoes, jeans, and a blue cotton shirt. Damp with rain and sweat, the shirt molded to his muscular chest and arms.
He said, "So how're you going to get me down from here, cop? Do you think I'll let you cuff me and then just lay up here while you go for backup? No way, pig face."
"Listen and believe me: I'll blow you away without the slightest hesitation."
"Yeah? Well, I'll take that gun off you quicker than you think. Then I'll rip your head off and shove it up your ass."
With unconcealed distaste, Frank said, "Is it really necessary to be so vulgar?"
Grinning more broadly, Skagg moved toward him.
Frank shot him pointblank in the chest.
The hard report echoed off the metal walls, and Skagg was thrown backward. Screaming, he pitched off the crates and plummeted into the aisle below. He landed with a thunk that cut off his scream.
Skagg's violent departure caused the crates to rock, and for a moment the unmortared wall of boxes swayed dangerously, creaking and grinding. Frank fell to his hands and knees.