most of us."
Preduski blinked his watery eyes in surprise. "Well, hell. He carves
up ten women and leaves them for garbage, and you don't think he's
crazy?"
"That's the same reaction I got from a lady friend when I told her."
"I don't wonder."
"But I'll stick by it. Maybe he is crazy. But not in any traditional,
recognizable way. He's something altogether new."
"You sense this?"
"Yes."
"Psychically?"
"Yes."
"Can you be more specific?"
"Sorry.
"Sense anything else?"
"Just what you heard on the Prine show."
"Nothing new since you came here?"
"Nothing.
"If he's not insane at all, then there's a reason behind the killings,"
Preduski said thoughtfully. "Somehow they're connected. Is that what
you're saying?"
"I'm not sure what I mean."
"I don't see how they could be connected."
"Neither do I."
"I've been looking for a connection, really looking. I was hoping you
could pick up something here. From the bloody bedclothes. Or from this
mess on the table - "
"I'm blank," Harris said. "That's why I'm positive that either he is
sane, or he is insane in some whole new fashion. Usually, when I study
or touch an item intimately connected with the murder, I can pick up on
the emotion, the mania, the passion behind the crime. It's like leaping
into a river of violent thoughts, sensations, images.... This time all I
get is a feeling of cool, implacable, evil logic. I've never had so
much trouble drawing a bead on this kind of killer."
"Me either," Preduski said. "I never claimed to be Sherlock Holmes. I'm
no genius. I work slow. Always have. And I've been lucky.
God knows. It's luck more than skill that's kept my arrest record high.
But this time I'm having no luck at all. None at all. Maybe it's time
for me to be put out to pasture."
On his way out of the apartment, having left Ira Preduski in the kitchen
to ponder the remnants of the Butcher's macabre meal, Graham passed
through the living room and saw Sarah Piper. The detective had not yet
dismissed her. She was sitting on the sofa, her feet propped on the
coffee table. She was smoking a cigarette and staring at the ceiling,
smoke spiraling like dreams from her head; her back was to Graham.
The instant he saw her, a brilliant image flashed behind his eyes,
intense, breathtaking: Sarah Piper with blood all over her.
He stopped. Shaking. Waiting for more.
Nothing.
He strained. Tried to pluck more pictures from the ether.
Nothing. Just her face. And the blood. Gone now as quickly as it had
come to him.
She became aware of him. She turned around and said, "Hi."
He licked his lips, forced a smile.
"You predicted this?" she asked, waving one hand toward the dead
woman's bedroom.
"I'm afraid so."
"That's spooky."
"I want to say .
"Yes?"
"It was nice meeting you."
She smiled too.
"I wish it could have been under other circumstances," he sad, stalling,
wondering how to tell her about the brief vision, wondering whether he
should tell her at all.
"Maybe we will," she said.
"What?"
"Meet under other circumstances."
"Miss Piper ... be careful.
"I'm always careful."
"For the next few days ... be especially careful."
"After what I've seen tonight," she said, no longer smiling, "you can
bet on it."
Frank Bollinger's apartment near the Metropolitan Museum of Art was
small and spartan. The bedroom walls were cocoa brown, the wooden floor
polished and bare. The only furniture in the room was a queen-size bed,
one nightstand and a portable television set. He had built shelves into
the closets to hold his clothes. The living room had white walls and
the same shining wood floor. The only furniture was a black leather
couch, a wicker chair with black cushions, a mirrored coffee table, and
shelves full of books. The kitchen held the usual appliances and a
small table with two straightbacked chairs. The windows were covered
with venetian blinds, no drapes. The apartment was more like a monk's
cell than a home, and that was how he liked it.
At nine o'clock Friday morning he got out of bed, showered, plugged in
the telephone, and brewed a pot of coffee.
He had come directly to his apartment from Edna Mowry's place and had
spent the early morning hours drinking Scotch and reading Blake's
poetry. Halfway through the bottle, still not drunk but so happy, very
happy, he went to bed and fell asleep reciting lines from The Four Zoas.
When he awoke five hours later, he felt new and fresh and pure, as if he
had been reborn.
He was pouring his first cup of coffee when the telephone rang.
"Hello? "
"Dwight? "Yeah."
"This is Billy."
"Of course."
Dwight was his middle name-Franklin Dwight Bollinger-and had been the
name of his maternal grandfather, who had died when Frank was less than
a year old. Until he met and came to know Billy, until he trusted
Billy, his grandmother had been the only one who ever used his middle
name. Shortly after his fourth birthday, his father abandoned the
family, and his mother discovered that a four-year-old interfered with
the hectic social life of a divorcee. Except for a few scattered and
agonizing months with his mother-who managed to provide occasional
bursts of affection only when her conscience began to bother her-he had
spent his childhood with his grandmother. She not only wanted him, she
cherished him. She treated him as if he were the focus not just of her
own life but of the very rotation of the earth.
"Franklin is such an ordinary name," his grandmother used to say. "But
Dwight ... well, now, that's special. It was your grandfather's name,
and he was a wonderful man, not at all like other people, one of a kind.
You're going to grow up to be just like him, set apart, set above, more
important than others. Let everyone call you Frank. To me you'll
always be Dwight."
His grandmother had died ten years ago. For nine and a half years no
one had called him Dwight; then, six months ago, he'd met Billy.
Billy understood what it was like to be one of the new breed, to have
been born superior to most men. Billy was superior too, and had a right
to call him Dwight. He liked hearing the name again after all this
time. It was a key to his psyche, a pleasure button that lifted his
spirits each time it was pushed, a reminder that he was destined for a
dizzyingly high station in life.
"I tried calling you several times last night," Billy said.
"I unplugged the phone so I could drink some Scotch and sleep in peace."
"Have you seen the papers this morning?"
"I just got UP."
"You haven't heard anything about Harris?"
"Who?"
"Graham Harris. The psychic."
"Oh. No. Nothing. What's to hear?"
"Get the papers, Dwight. And then we'd better have lunch. You are off
work today, aren't you?"
"I'm always off Thursdays and Fridays. But what's wrong?"
"The Daily News will tell you what's wrong. Be sure to get a copy.
We'll have lunch at The Leopard at eleven-thirty.
" Frowning, Bollinger said, "Look-"
"Eleven-thirty, Dwight."
Billy hung up.
The day was dreary and cold. Thick dark clouds scudded southward; they
were so low they seemed to skim the tops of the highest buildings.
Three blocks from the restaurant, Bollinger left his taxi and bought the
Daily News at a kiosk. In his bulky coat and sweaters and gloves and
scarves and wool toboggan cap, the vendor looked like a mummy.