When he pulled her works out of her purse, she was scared shitless. Relieved-grateful-when he didn't get angry.
Downright orgasmic when he said, "No sweat. I've been too uptight about your getting off, babe. You want to fix, go ahead."
"You're sure?" Already breathing hard.
"Sure, babe."
Before he finished talking, she'd jumped on the works, was panting, fixing, smiling, nodding off.
He waited. When she was totally out of it, he walked back to the car.
The morning after his last date with Nightwing, he woke up with a new sense of purpose, knowing he was ready for bigger and better things. After he'd touched himself to the accompaniment of new real science pictures, he went to work at the hospital, delivered the mail to the Surgery Department, and cornered Doctor in his office.
"What do you want?"
"Been a long time, stud. Cash-in time. I want to go to med school."
Kikefuck was blown away.
"That's crazy! You haven't even finished two years of junior college!"
Shrug.
"Have you taken any science courses?"
"Some."
"Are your grades any better?"
"I'm doing fine."
"Sure you are-oh, great. Terrific. Straight D's and you want to be a doctor."
"I'm going to be a doctor."
Fucker slammed his hand on the desk. His eyes were popping out of his ugly purple face. Mad because an Aryan warrior was breaking into the kike medico conspiracy.
"Now you listen-"
"I want an M.D. You're going to fix it for me."
'Jesus Christ! How the hell do you expect me to pull something like that off!"
"Your problem." Stare-down, melting the fucker by being totally cool.
He walked away with a spring in his step, ready for a bright new future.
Saturday, seven forty-three P.M. Daniel had just finished praying ma'ariv and havdalah, bidding farewell to a Sabbath that, for all practical purposes, had never existed. Talking to God with all the devotion of a nonbeliever, his mind on the case, chewing on the new information as if it were fine filet steak.
He put away his siddur and had started to assemble his notes for the staff meeting when the operator phoned and said a Mr. Vangidder was on the line.
Unfamiliar name. Foreign. "Did he say what it was about?"
"No."
Probably some foreign reporter. Despite Headquarters' blackout on Butcher information, journalists were being their usual persistent selves. "Take his number and tell him I'll call him back."
He hung up, made it to the door when the phone rang again. He considered ignoring it, let it ring, finally answered.
"Pakad?" said the same operator. "It's about this Vangidder. He says he's a policeman calling from the Netherlands, says you'll definitely want to speak to him. It has to be now-he's leaving tonight for a one-week holiday."
Dutch police? Had the Interpol man finally done his Job?
"Put him on."
"Okay."
He waited anxiously through a series of electronic bleeps, hoping he hadn't lost the call. In light of what Shmeltzer and Daoud had found at the Amelia Catherine, information from Europe could narrow the investigation.
The bleeps were followed by a serenade of static, a low, mechanical rumble, then a high-pitched, cheerful voice, speaking in flawless English.
"Chief Inspector Sharavi? This is Joop Van Gelder of the Amsterdam police."
"Hello is it Chief Inspector?"
"Commissaris," said Van Gelder. "It's similar to a chief inspector."
It was, Daniel knew, a rank above chief inspector. Joop Van Gelder was unassuming. Instinctively, from thousands of miles away, he liked the man.
"Hello, Commissaris. Thank you for calling and sorry for the delay in putting you through."
"My fault, really," said Van Gelder, still cheerful. "I ne-glected to identify myself as a police officer, was under the impression that your Interpol man had passed my name along."
Thank you, Friedman.
"No, I'm sorry, Commissaris, he didn't."
"No matter. We've got more important things to chat about, yes? This morning, your man passed along some homicide data that so clearly matched an unsolved murder in our city that I knew I had to get in touch with you. I'm off-duty, packing for a holiday to England. Mrs. Van Gelder won't tolerate any further postponements, but I did manage to find the file on the case and wished to pass the information along to you before I left."
Daniel thanked him, again, really meaning it. "When did your murder take place, Commissaris?"
"Fifteen months ago."
Fifteen months ago. Friedman had been right about the Interpol computer.
"Ugly affair," Van Gelder was saying. "Clearly a sex killing. We never cleared it up. Our consulting psychiatrist thought it had all the characteristics of the first in a series of psychopathic killings. We weren't certain-we don't often get that kind of thing."
"Neither do we." Or didn't.
"The Germans do," said Van Gelder. "And the Americans. One wonders why, yes? In any event, when no second murder occurred, we weighed two alternatives: that the psychiatrist had been mistaken - it does occur, yes?" He laughed. "Or that the murderer was someone passing through Amsterdam and had departed to do his killing elsewhere."
"Traveling psychopath," said Daniel, and told him about the FBI data.
"Horrifying," said Van Gelder. "I began an inquiry into the FBI files myself. However, the Americans were less than helpful. They put up bureaucratic barriers and when a second murder didn't occur, given our work load " The Dutchman's voice trailed off, guiltily.
Knowing it would be rude to brush off the lack of thoroughness, Daniel said nothing.
"We can check suitcases for bombs," said Van Gelder, "but this kind of terrorist is harder to spot, yes?"
"Yes," said Daniel. "A person can buy knives anywhere. Even if he uses the same ones over and over, there are ways to transport them that can be legitimately explained."
"A doctor."
"It's one of our hypotheses."
"It was one of ours too, Chief Inspector. And for a while I thought it would help solve the case. Our records check revealed no matching homicides in the rest of the Interpol countries, but an almost identical crime did take place in September of 1972 in Sumbok-it's a tiny island in the southern region of the Indonesian complex that used to be a Dutch colony. We still consult to the local police in many of the colonies-they send their records to us biannually. One of my clerks was sifting through the biannual reports and came across the case-an unsolved mutilation homicide of a sixteen-year-old girl.
"At first we thought there might be a tribal link-our Amsterdam victim was an Indonesian-half-Indonesian, really. Prostitute by the name of Anjanette Gaikeena. It seemed possible that her murder might have been related to some primitive rite or revenge plot-an old family score to settle. But her family turned out to have no connection whatsoever to Sumbok. The mother is from Northern Borneo; the father is Dutch-met the mother while serving in the army and brought the family back to Amsterdam eighteen years ago.