Goodbye Sister Disco (15 page)

Jeffrey Rook raised his hand. He gave his face a bored look, like this was all old hat to him.

“Yes,” Gabler said. Like Hastings, he was wondering who had let the man into the room.

“Am I correct,” Jeffrey Rook said, “in assuming that you're going to leave Gene on his own?” There was insolence in his tone. Suggesting that the feds were fucking things up.

“No,” Gabler said. “We will be as close to him as we can without getting the girl killed. It's the best we can do.”

“Hmmm,” Rook said, his voice a snort. He didn't lack for shame, this one. He said, “Then I'd like to ride with Gene.”

There were a few muffled groans and sighs in the room.

“Negative,” Gabler said. “You are a private citizen and you will stay out of it.”

“I was a special agent with the Bureau for twenty-two years. Longer than you, Agent Gabler. And I'm working for Mr. Penmark now.”

Hastings said, “Mr. Penmark is not running this, Mr. Rook. We respect your experience, but this is not your show.”

Rook turned around and looked at Hastings. He said, “Who the hell are you?”

Hastings acknowledged him with a blank expression and turned back to Gabler. As if to say,
Anything else?
The man wasn't worth the drama. This, of course, irritated Rook further. He said, “Wait a minute, I asked you—”

Hastings said, “St. Louis PD, and if you interfere with this drop, I'll have you arrested.”

“Is that right?”

“You can count on it.”

Hastings had given this a modicum of thought. Rook had pulled FBI on them. Retired, but maybe a guy who had some stroke with the local FBI field supervisors. Which may or may not have made the FBI agents in the room reluctant to put him in his place. But it meant nothing to Hastings.

Rook was getting the hard-on now, giving Hastings a look like he was insubordinate or something. But to Hastings, there were few things sadder than seeing a man with lost power trying to recapture it.

Rook said, “Are you threatening me?”

“Yeah,” Hastings said, his voice conversational. The man deserved nothing more than that.

Rook made something of a show of getting on his feet. He walked to the back door. Before he went out, he pointed a finger at Hastings and said, “You'll regret this.”

Whatever, Hastings thought, deciding the man wasn't worth a smile either.

When he was gone, Gabler said, “Who let that fucking guy in here?”

*   *   *

Outside, Agent Kubiak had a few words with Gene Penmark. Penmark was sitting in a white Ford Taurus, while Kubiak stood at the window. Kubiak seemed in a hurry to get him out of there, partly because of the kidnapper's request, partly because he didn't want Penmark having any more consultations with his wife or Jeffrey Rook.

Then he stepped back and Penmark drove away. Kubiak trotted to a Dodge Ram pickup with Gabler behind the wheel. They went after Penmark's Ford and Hastings followed in his Jaguar.

They spread out when they reached I-64, going east to the city. Several car lengths separated the hunters and the quarry and the Jag alternated with the Dodge pickup for first tail.

Penmark passed the towering Amoco gas station sign at the Clayton exit and then his cell phone rang.

Penmark said, “Hello?”

Terrill said, “Hello, Gene. Well, we're off to a late start. But at least you're moving, huh?”

“Yes.”

“Gene, have you been to the President Casino?”

“No, I haven't. I don't gamble.”

“Good man. Well, it's on the Admiral, which is on the river. At Laclede's Landing. Okay?”

“Okay.”

“Drive there right away. Park the car at the Riverfront Garage. Then go into the casino. Once inside, go to the blackjack tables. Table nine. Have you got that?”

“Yes. Table nine.”

“Play a couple of hands there. Relax. We'll talk again soon.”

Terrill clicked off.

*   *   *

They had Penmark's cell phone bugged and Terrill knew it. The agents and Hastings knew that the kidnapper knew it too. He would presume it, they thought, because nothing so far had given them any indication that he was stupid. It was common in their business, stupid behavior. People using their own cars to rob banks, leaving their driver's licenses at crime scenes, etc. Successful kidnapping could not be pulled off by someone who was dumb.

Hastings felt like he was on one side of a wall and the kidnappers were on the other. He couldn't see their faces, couldn't see where they were operating from. He'd heard a voice—one voice—and that was it. Yet he was trying to form an identity to this voice.

A young man, probably. White. Sure of himself, smooth, and clever. Hastings could figure out that much. He didn't want to waste too much time trying to form a profile beyond that. Hastings had never been a big fan of profiling. It had been a fad started by the FBI Behavioral Science Unit and strengthened by Jodie Foster and Scott Glenn in
The Silence of the Lambs.
Hastings, like other detectives, had attended the two-week course on profiling at the FBI school in Quantico, Virginia. But he had come away skeptical. First of all, it became apparent that most of the police officers had come to study the cult of the serial killer more than anything else. So right off, he suspected the course had more to do with satisfying the vanity of those teaching it than it did with an actual serial killer “epidemic.” Yet a study of the statistics demonstrated that serial killers were responsible for about two hundred murders a year. A relatively low number on a national scale and a drop in the bucket compared to the old-fashioned occurrences of murders committed during robberies, over television sets, spree killing, petty disputes, dissing, turf wars and other gang-related mayhem, all of which was monstrous enough in Hastings's view. But then the commonplace killing didn't involve cannibalism or sexual deviance. Rank-and-file homicide cases didn't make national headlines. Hastings believed he had approached it with an open mind, but at the end of the course, he considered his years of experience in law enforcement and concluded that profiling was, at best, a pseudoscience. It could never serve as a substitute for evidence. The theory that one could study personality traits and habits and “see” a serial killer didn't quite hold up to scrutiny. You might find a Jeffrey Dahmer among the millions of Cliff Clavens, but it would more likely be luck than anything else. Besides, the only reason they caught the serial killer Dahmer was because one of his intended victims was lucky enough to escape and contact the police. That is, they had a witness. Profiling had nothing to do with Dahmer's capture. Plenty of people who claimed to be experts had profiled Dahmer
after
he had been arrested. But that was hardly a difficult thing to do after they'd found all the photos of corpses and body parts stored in the man's fridge.

After that, it became accepted theory in the law enforcement community that all serial killers were white males. And the law enforcement community—which was as susceptible to herd mentality as any other group—clung to that theory even after they found out that the Washington, D.C., serial killers who shot all those people at various gas stations were black.

Klosterman was a man of religious faith, unlike Hastings. Klosterman had said, “We all want simple answers and explanations for things. Cause and effect. But it's not always like that. Who knows what makes any of us tick?”

Still … Hastings would have liked to know who the man on the phone was. What made him tick was of less concern to Hastings than who he was and where he was hiding.

After Penmark pulled the Ford into the Riverfront Garage on Sullivan Boulevard, Agent Gabler squawked Hastings on the walkie-talkie. They were using the walkie-talkies because they had decided to presume that the kidnappers had a police scanner and would be listening for them. Hastings picked up the communicator.

“Yeah?”

“George,” Gabler said, “Penmark is going into the Riverfront Garage. Drive by. Go north a block and park and tail him into the casino. Don't get too close to him.”

“Okay.”

Hastings drove down the steep slope. The Eads Bridge loomed up to his right, the Mississippi River in front of him. He turned left on Sullivan and sped past the garage. The Jag passed under the Martin Luther King Bridge and he made a left on Biddle Street and parked the car there. He got out and ran until he got back to Sullivan Boulevard. He slowed when he was near the casino, not wanting to look like a cop tailing a man carrying two million dollars.

Hastings saw Penmark buy some chips and move over to a blackjack table. He seemed out of place there, with his glasses and ball cap. Gambling was obviously not his thing. But the dealer helped him out with the rules of betting and the first hand managed to get finished and his chips were swept off the table.

Hastings saw Penmark change his expression and reach into his pocket for his cell phone. Hastings could make out the dealer telling him something … telling him he couldn't use a cell phone in here. Penmark held up an irritated hand and moved back. She was telling him again, her voice raised slightly, “Sir—”

Penmark stood up. He grabbed the pack and strapped it to his back and walked away.

He walked across the casino floor, the sounds of the crowds, sighs, wins, losses, tinkling of ice in glasses, the dreary vibe of what they called gaming, legal as it was on the river and not on dry land. Penmark kept walking and then he was trotting toward the gift shop. Like he was in a hurry.

And they were away from the gaming tables and Hastings saw what it was that Penmark was rushing to.

The pay phones. One of the pay phones was ringing.

Penmark picked it up.

*   *   *

Terrill said, “Are you being tailed?”

“No,” Gene said. “Not to my knowledge.”

“Go to the men's room. The one about twenty yards behind you. In the second stall under the plumbing cover is a Nextel two-way phone. It's wrapped in plastic. That's the phone you're going to use from now on. Your regular cell phone, you're going to throw in the trash can in the bathroom. Do you understand that?”

“Yes.”

“I'm going to call you on the new phone in three minutes. If you don't answer it, Cordelia will die. Do you understand that?”

“Yes.”

Terrill hung up.

By this time, Hastings had walked past Penmark into the gift shop. He picked up a
USA Today
and was standing in line to pay for it. He looked at the front cover as he did so. The line moved forward and Hastings saw Penmark move away from the pay phone.

Hastings put the newspaper on the counter, cutting in front of a woman who was ahead of him. She said, “Excuse me,” pissed, but Hastings left the newspaper there and walked out.

He rounded the corner and looked for Penmark. He didn't see him. Christ, there were too many people there. Where was Penmark? He scanned the crowd, men, women, white, black, Asian … there. Shit, it was Kubiak sitting at the bar, looking over his shoulder at Hastings, and Hastings decided that Kubiak didn't know either.

Then Hastings saw Penmark. On the other side of the place, moving into the men's room.

*   *   *

The door to the second stall was closed. Gene Penmark stood in front of it. He said, “Excuse me.”

No answer.

Penmark raised a fist and rapped on the door.

The man inside said, “Just a minute.”

I've only got three, Penmark thought.

“Hurry up. Please.”

The man on the other side grunted.

Gene Penmark looked at his watch.

About fifty seconds later, he heard a flush of water. He expelled breath and the door opened and a man stepped out. Penmark stepped in and shut the door behind him.

He lifted the plumbing cover off and saw a Ziploc bag taped to the side. Water droplets on it, and something yellow inside. For Gene Penmark, it seemed to become more real then, for some reason. It could have been a bomb for all he knew. But it wasn't. It was a two-way phone and it validated the truth of what was happening and the seriousness of the people he was dealing with.

He took the phone out of the bag and put it in his coat pocket. Before he walked out of the bathroom, he dropped his personal cell phone into the trash receptacle.

When he was out of the washroom, he didn't quite know what to do. So he thought of what was familiar to him. An instinct told him to retreat to something he knew. The car. It was rented but it was his, temporarily at least.

When he got to the casino exit, the Nextel phone rang.

He answered it.

“Leaving already, Gene?”

God, they could see him. They knew he was walking out of the casino. How? Which one of these mass of people could see him? Where was the man on the other phone?

Penmark said, “You didn't tell me where to go. I got the phone, obviously.”

“Good,” Terrill said. “Now we don't have to worry about spies. Gene, walk out of the casino and go down to the MetroLink train depot. It's a short walk. Get on the train going west. Get on the second car from the front. Now get going.”

*   *   *

Hastings heard his two-way squawk. He checked to see if anyone was looking before he answered it.

Gabler said, “Where is he?”

“He's walking out.”

“He dumped his cell phone,” Gabler said. “We don't have any audio on him.”

“What?”

“He dumped the fucking cell phone. You got him?”

“Yeah, he's about forty yards out.”

“Keep with him,” Gabler said. “But not too close.”

Hastings was about to move, but Gabler said, “
Wait.
Craig's got him. Stay there.”

And there was Kubiak, moving out of the casino at a good pace, falling into line behind Penmark, who by this time had walked almost two blocks away.