The Devil's Teardrop (31 page)

“I know, Len.”

He shook his head. “You can’t do it.”

“We don’t have a choice.”

The detective said, “You know what I do for a living—compile statistics. You want to know how many bystanders die in covert tactical operations? There’s probably an eighty percent chance of significant fatalities among innocents if you try to take him down in a situation like that.”

“What do
you
suggest?” she snapped back, letting him see a flash of temper.

“Keep your people plainclothes but get all the guests out. Leave the employees inside if you have to but move everybody else out.”

“The best we could do is get fifty or sixty agents inside the hotel,” she pointed out. “The Digger walks in the front door, expecting to see five hundred guests, and he finds that few? He’d take off. And he’d go shoot up someplace else.”

“For Christ sake, Margaret,” Hardy muttered, “at least get the kids out.”

Lukas fell silent, eyes on the note.

“Please,” the detective persisted.

She looked into his eyes. “No. If we tried to evacuate
anybody
word would spread and there’d be panic.”

“So you’re just going to hope for the best?”

She glanced at the extortion note.

The end is night . . .

It seemed to be sneering at her.

“No,” Lukas said. “We’re going to stop him.
That’s
what we’re going to do.” A glance at Evans: “Doctor, if you could stay here.” Then a glance at Hardy. “You handle communications.”

Hardy sighed angrily. He said nothing else.

“Let’s go,” Lukas said to Cage. “I’ve got to stop by my office.”

“For what?” Cage asked, nodding to her empty ankle holster. “Oh, another backup?”

“No, for some party clothes. We’ve got to blend.”

* * *

“He’s got something good for us.” Wendell Jefferies, the sleeves of his custom-made shirt rolled high, revealing health-club-toned arms.

By “he” the aide meant Slade Phillips, Mayor Kennedy knew.

The two men were in the City Hall office. The mayor had just given another embarrassing press conference, attended by only a dozen reporters, who, even as he spoke, took cell phone calls and checked pagers in hopes of getting better news from other sources. Who could blame them? Christ, he didn’t have anything to say. All he could report on was the morale of some of the victims he’d been to visit at hospitals.

“He’s going on the air at nine,” Jefferies now told the mayor. “A special report.”

“With what?”

“He won’t tell me,” Jefferies said. “Somehow he thinks
that
would be unethical.”

Kennedy stretched and leaned back in the couch—a fake Georgian settee his predecessor had bought. The finish was chipping off the arms. And the hassock on which his size 12 feet rested was cheap; a piece of folded cardboard was stuffed under one leg to keep it from rocking.

A glance at the brass clock.

Dear your honor, thank you very much for coming to speak with us today. It has been an honor to hear you. You are a very good person for us children and students and we would like to commem . . . commem . . . commemorate your visit with this gift, which we hope you will like . . .

The minute hand clicked forward one stoke. In an hour, he thought, how many more people would be dead?

The phone rang. Kennedy glanced at it lethargically and let Jefferies answer.

“Hello?”

A pause.

“Sure. Hold on.” He handed the receiver to Kennedy, saying, “This is interesting.”

The mayor took the receiver. “Yes?”

“Mayor Kennedy?”

“That’s right.”

“This is Len Hardy.”

“Detective Hardy?”

“That’s right. Is . . . Is anybody else listening?”

“No. It’s my private line.”

The detective hesitated then said, “I’ve been thinking . . . About what we were talking about.”

Kennedy sat up, took his feet off the couch.

“Go ahead, son. Where are you?”

“Ninth Street. FBI headquarters.”

There was silence. The mayor encouraged, “Go on.”

“I couldn’t just sit here anymore. I had to do something. I think she’s making a mistake.”

“Lukas?”

Hardy continued, “They found out where he’s going to hit tonight. The Digger, the shooter.”

“They did?” Kennedy’s strong hand gripped the phone hard. Gestured to Jefferies to hand him a pen and paper. “Where?”

“The Ritz-Carlton.”

“Which one?”

“They aren’t sure. Probably Pentagon City. . . . But, Mayor, she’s not evacuating them.”

“She’s
what?
” Kennedy snapped.

“Lukas isn’t evacuating the hotel. She’s—”

“Wait,” Kennedy said. “They know where he’s going to hit and she’s not telling anyone?”

“No, she’s going to use the guests for bait. I mean, that’s the only way to say it. Anyway, I thought about what you said. I decided I had to call you.”

“You did the right thing, Officer.”

“I hope so, I really hope that. I can’t talk any longer, Mayor. I just had to tell you.”

“Thank you.” Jerry Kennedy hung up and rose to his feet.

“What is it?” Jefferies asked.

“We know where he’s going to hit. The Ritz. Call Reggie, I want my car now. And a police escort.”

As he strode to the door Jefferies asked, “How ’bout a news crew?”

Kennedy glanced at his aide. The meaning of the look was unmistakable. It meant: Of
course
we want a news crew.

* * *

They’re both standing awkwardly, side by side, four arms crossed, in the Digger’s motel room.

They’re both watching TV.

Funny.

The pictures on the TV look familiar to the Digger.

The pictures are from the theater. The place where he was supposed to spin around like he did in the Connecticut forest and send bullets into a million leaves. The theater where he
wanted
to spin, where he was
supposed
to spin, but he couldn’t.

The theater where the . . .
click
 . . . where the scary man with the big jaws and tall hat came to kill him. No, that’s not right . . . Where the
police
came to kill him.

He watches the boy as the boy watches TV. The boy says, “Shit.” For no reason, it seems.

Just like Pamela.

The Digger calls his voice mail and hears the woman’s electronic voice say, “You have no new messages.”

He hangs up.

The Digger does not have much time. He looks at his watch. The boy looks at it too.

He is thin and frail. The area around his right eye is slightly darker than his dark skin and the Digger knows that the man he killed had hit the boy a lot. He thinks he’s happy he shot the man. Whatever happy is.

The Digger wonders what the man who tells him things would think about the boy. The man
did
tell him to kill anybody who got a look at his face. And the boy
has
gotten a look at his face. But it doesn’t . . .
click
 . . . it doesn’t seem . . .
click
 . . . seem right to kill him.

Why, it seems to me that every day,

I love you all the more.

He goes into the kitchenette and opens a can of soup. He spoons some into a bowl. Looks at the boy’s skinny arms and spoons some more in. Noodles. Mostly noodles.
He heats it in the microwave for exactly sixty seconds, which is what the instructions tell him to do to get the soup “piping hot.” He sets the bowl in front of the boy. Hands him a spoon.

The boy takes one bite. Then another. Then he stops eating. He’s looking at the TV screen. His small, bullet-shaped head lolls from one side to the other, his eyes droop, and the Digger realizes he’s tired. This is what the Digger’s head and eyes do when he’s tired.

He and the boy are a lot alike, he decides.

The Digger motions to the bed. But the boy looks at him fearfully and doesn’t give a response. The Digger motions to the couch and the boy gets up and goes to the couch. He lies down. Still staring at the TV. The Digger gets a blanket and drapes it over the boy.

The Digger looks at the TV. More news. He finds a channel that has commercials. Selling hamburgers and cars and beer.

Things like that.

He says to the boy, “What’s . . .”
Click
 . . . “What’s your name?”

The boy looks at him with half-closed lids. “Tye.”

“Tye.” The Digger repeats this several times to himself. “I’m going . . . I’m going out.”

“Butyoubeback?”

What does he mean? The Digger shakes his head—his head with the tiny indentation above the temple.

“You comin’ back?” the boy mutters again.

“I’m coming back.”

The boy closes his eyes.

He tries to think of something else to say to Tye. There’re some words he feels he wants to say but he doesn’t remember what they are. It doesn’t matter anyway because
the boy is asleep. The Digger pulls the blanket up higher.

He goes to the closet, unlocks it and takes out one of the boxes of ammunition. He pulls on the plastic gloves and reloads two clips for the Uzi and then he repacks the silencer. He locks up the closet again.

The boy remains asleep. The Digger can hear his breathing.

The Digger looks at the torn puppy bag. He is about to crumple it up and throw it out but he remembers that Tye looked at the bag and he seemed to like it. He liked the puppies. The Digger smooths it and puts it beside the boy so that if he wakes up while the Digger is gone he’ll see the puppies and he won’t be afraid.

The Digger doesn’t need the puppy bag anymore.

“Use a plain brown bag for the third time,” the man who tells him things told him.

So the Digger has a brown paper bag.

The boy turns over but is still asleep.

The Digger puts the Uzi into the brown bag, pulls his dark coat and gloves on and leaves the room.

Downstairs he gets into his car, a nice Toyota Corolla.

He loves those commercials.

Ohhhhh, everyday people . . .

He likes those better than
Oh, what a feeling . . .

The Digger knows how to drive. He’s a very good driver. He used to drive with Pamela. She’d drive fast when she drove and he’d drive slow. She got tickets and he never did.

He opens the glove compartment. There are several pistols inside. He takes one and puts it in his pocket. “After the theater,” warned the man who tells him things, “there’ll be more police looking for you. You’ll
have to be careful. Remember, if anybody sees your face . . .”

I remember.

* * *

Upstairs, in Robby’s room, Parker sat with his son. The boy was sitting in bed, Parker in the bentwood rocker he’d bought at Antiques ’n’ Things and tried unsuccessfully to refinish himself.

Two dozen toys were on the floor, a Nintendo 64 plugged into the old TV,
Star Wars
posters on the walls. Luke Skywalker. And Darth Vader . . .

Our mascot for the evening.

Cage had said that. But Parker was trying not to think about Cage. Or Margaret Lukas. Or the Digger. He was reading to his son. From
The Hobbit.

Robby was lost in the story even though he’d heard his father read it to him a number of times. They gravitated to this book when Robby was frightened—because of the scene of slaying a fierce dragon. That part of the book always gave the boy courage.

When he’d walked in the front door of his house not long ago the boy’s face had lit up. Parker had taken his son’s hand and they’d walked to the back porch. He’d patiently showed the boy once again that there were no intruders in the backyard or the garage. They decided that crazy old Mr. Johnson had let his dog out again without closing the fence.

Stephie had hugged her father too and asked how his friend was, the sick one.

“He’s fine,” Parker had said, looking for but finding not a bit of truth to hang the statement on. Oh, the guilt of parents . . . What a hot iron it is.

Stephie had watched sympathetically as Robby and Parker had gone upstairs to read a story. At another time she might have joined them but she instinctively knew now to leave them alone. This was something about his children that Parker had learned: They bickered like all healthy youngsters, tried to outshine each other, engaged in typical sibling sabotage. Yet when something affected the core of one child—like the Boatman—the other knew instinctively what was needed. The girl had vanished into the kitchen, saying, “I’m making Robby a surprise for dessert.”

As he read he would glance occasionally at his son’s face. The boy’s eyes were closed and he looked completely content. (From the
Handbook: “Sometimes your job isn’t to reason with your children or to teach them or even to offer a sterling example of maturity. You simply must
be
with them. That’s all it takes
.”)

“You want me to keep reading?” he whispered.

The boy didn’t respond.

Parker left the book on his lap and remained in the scabby rocking chair, easing back and forth. Watching his son.

Thomas Jefferson’s wife, Martha, had died not long after their third daughter was born (the girl herself died at age two). Jefferson, who never remarried, had struggled to raise his two other girls by himself. As a politician and statesman he was often forced to be an absent father, a situation he truly hated. It was letters that kept him in touch with his children. He wrote thousands of pages to the girls, offering support, advice, complaints, love. Parker knew Jefferson as well as he knew his own father and could recall some letters from memory. He thought of one of these now, written when Jefferson was vice
president and in the midst of fierce political battles between the rival parties of the day.

Your letter, my dear Maria, of Jan. 21 was received two days ago. It was like the bright beams of the moon on the desolate heath. Environed here in scenes of constant torment, malice and obloquy, worn down in a state where no effort to render service can aver any thing, I feel not that existence is a blessing but when something recalls my mind to my family.