by Stephen King
He jogs to Al's Malibu. Not much of a ride compared to the late Dr. Babineau's BMW, but it will get him where he needs to go. He starts it and frowns when classical shit comes pouring out of the dashboard speaker. He switches to BAM-100 and finds some Black Sabbath from back when Ozzy was still cool. He takes a final look at the Beemer parked askew on the lawn, then gets rolling.
Miles to go before he sleeps, and then the final touch, the cherry on top of the sundae. He won't need Freddi Linklatter for that, only Dr. B.'s MacBook. He's running without a leash now.
He's free.
11
Around the time Z-Boy is proving that he can still count to ten, Freddi Linklatter's blood-caked lashes come unstuck from her blood-caked cheeks. She finds herself looking into a gaping brown eye. It takes her several long moments to decide it isn't really an eye, only a swirl of woodgrain that looks like an eye. She is lying on the floor and suffering the worst hangover of her life, even worse than after that cataclysmic party to celebrate her twenty-first, when she mixed crystal meth with Ronrico. She thought later that she was lucky to have survived that little experiment. Now she almost wishes she hadn't, because this is worse. It's not only her head; her chest feels like Marshawn Lynch has been using her for a tackling dummy.
She tells her hands to move and they reluctantly answer the call. She places them in push-up position and shoves. She comes up, but her top shirt stays down, stuck to the floor in a pool of what looks like blood and smells suspiciously like Scotch. So that's what she was drinking, and fell over her own stupid feet. Smacked her head. But dear God, how much did she put away?
It wasn't like that, she thinks. Someone came, and you know who it was.
It's a simple process of deduction. Lately she's only had two visitors here, the Z-Dudes, and the one who wears the ratty parka hasn't been around for awhile.
She tries to get to her feet, and can't make it at first. Nor can she take more than shallow breaths. Deeper ones hurt her above her left breast. It feels like something is sticking in there.
My flask?
I was spinning it while I waited for him to show up. To give me the final payment and get out of my life.
"Shot me," she croaks. "Fucking Dr. Z shot me."
She staggers into the bathroom and is hardly able to believe the train wreck she sees in the mirror. The left side of her face is covered with blood, and there's a purple knob rising from a gash above her left temple, but that's not the worst. Her blue chambray shirt is also matted with blood--mostly from the head wound, she hopes, head wounds bleed like crazy--and there's a round black hole in the left breast pocket. He shot her, all right. Now she remembers the bang and the smell of gunsmoke just before she passed out.
She tweezes her shaking fingers into the breast pocket, still taking those shallow breaths, and pulls out her pack of Marlboro Lights. There's the bullet hole right through the middle of the M. She drops the cigarettes into the basin, works at the buttons of the shirt, and lets it fall to the floor. The smell of Scotch is stronger now. The shirt beneath is khaki, with big flap pockets. When she tries to pull the flask from the one on the left, she utters a low mewl of agony--all she can manage without taking a deeper breath--but when she gets it free, the pain in her chest lessens a little. The bullet also went through the flask, and the prongs on the side closest to her skin are bright with blood. She drops the ruined flask on top of the Marlboros, and goes to work on the khaki shirt's buttons. This takes longer, but eventually it also falls to the floor. Beneath it is an American Giant tee, the kind that also has a pocket. She reaches into it and takes out a tin of Altoids. There's a hole in this, too. The tee has no buttons, so she works her pinky finger into the bullet hole in the pocket and pulls. The shirt tears, and at last she's looking at her own skin, freckled with blood.
There's a hole just where the scant swell of her breast begins, and in it she can see a black thing. It looks like a dead bug. She tears the rip in the shirt wider, using three fingers now, then reaches in and grasps the bug. She wiggles it like a loose tooth.
"Oooo . . . ooooh . . . ooooh, FUCK . . . "
It comes free, not a bug but a slug. She looks at it, then drops it into the sink with the other stuff. In spite of her aching head and the throbbing in her chest, Freddi realizes how absurdly fortunate she has been. It was just a little gun, but at such close range, even a little gun should have done the job. It would have, too, if not for a one-in-a-thousand lucky break. First through the cigarettes, then through the flask--which had been the real stopper--then through the Altoids tin, then into her. How close to her heart? An inch? Less?
Her stomach clenches, wanting to puke. She won't let it, can't let it. The hole in her chest will start bleeding again, but that's not the main thing. Her head will explode. That's the main thing.
Her breathing is a little easier now that she's removed the flask with its nasty (but lifesaving) prongs of metal. She plods back into her living room and stares at the puddle of blood and Scotch on the floor. If he had bent over and put the muzzle of the gun to the back of her neck . . . just to make sure . . .
Freddi closes her eyes and fights to retain consciousness as waves of faintness and nausea float through her. When it's a little better, she goes to her chair and sits down very slowly. Like an old lady with a bad back, she thinks. She stares at the ceiling. What now?
Her first thought is to call 911, get an ambulance over here and go to the hospital, but what will she tell them? That a man claiming to be a Mormon or a Jehovah's Witness knocked on her door, and when she opened it, he shot her? Shot her why? For what? And why would she, a woman living alone, open her door to a stranger at ten thirty in the evening?
That isn't all. The police will come. In her bedroom is an ounce of pot and an eightball of coke. She could get rid of that shit, but what about the shit in her computer room? She's got half a dozen illegal hacks going on, plus a ton of expensive equipment that she didn't exactly buy. The cops will want to know if just perchance, Ms. Linklatter, the man who shot you had something to do with said electronic gear. Maybe you owed him money for it? Maybe you were working with him, stealing credit card numbers and other personal info? And they can hardly miss the repeater, blinking away like a Las Vegas slot machine as it sends out its endless signal via WiFi, delivering a customized malware worm every time it finds a live Zappit.
What's this, Ms. Linklatter? What exactly does it do?
And what will she tell them?
She looks around, hoping to see the envelope of cash lying on the floor or the couch, but of course he took it with him. If there was ever cash in there at all, and not just cut-up strips of newspaper. She's here, she's shot, she's had a concussion (please God not a fracture) and she's low on dough. What to do?
Turn off the repeater, that's the first thing. Dr. Z has got Brady Hartsfield inside him, and Brady is a bad motorcycle. Whatever the repeater's doing is nasty shit. She was going to turn it off anyway, wasn't she? It's all a little vague, but wasn't that the plan? To turn it off and exit stage left? She doesn't have that final payment to help finance her flight, but despite her loose habits with cash, there's still a few thousand in the bank, and Corn Trust opens at nine. Plus, there's her ATM card. So turn off the repeater, nip that creepy zeetheend site in the bud, wash the gore off her face, and get the fuck out of Dodge. Not by plane, these days airport security areas are like baited traps, but by any bus or train headed into the golden west. Isn't that the best idea?
She's up and shuffling toward the door of the computer room when the obvious reason why it is not the best idea hits her. Brady is gone, but he wouldn't leave if he couldn't monitor his projects from a distance, especially the repeater, and doing that is the easiest thing in the world. He's smart about computers--brilliant, actually, although it pisses her off to admit it--and he's almost certainly left himself a back door into her setup. If so, he can check in anytime he wants; all it will take is a laptop. If she shuts his shit down, he'll know, and he'll know
she's still alive.
He'll come back.
"So what do I do?" Freddi whispers. She trudges to her window, shivering--it's so fucking cold in this apartment once winter comes--and looks out into the dark. "What do I do now?"
12
Hodges is dreaming of Bowser, the feisty little mongrel he had when he was a kid. His father hauled Bowser to the vet and had him put down, over Hodges's weeping protests, after ole Bowse bit the newspaper boy badly enough to require stitches. In this dream Bowser is biting him, biting him in the side. He won't let go even when young Billy Hodges offers him the best treat in the treat bag, and the pain is excruciating. The doorbell is ringing and he thinks, That's the paperboy, go bite him, you're supposed to bite him.
Only as he swims up from this dream and back into the real world, he realizes it isn't the doorbell, it's the phone by his bed. The landline. He gropes for it, drops it, picks it up off the duvet, and manages a furry approximation of hello.
"Figured you'd have your cell on do not disturb," Pete Huntley says. He sounds wide awake and weirdly jovial. Hodges squints at the bedside clock but can't read it. His bottle of painkillers, already half empty, is blocking the digital readout. Jesus, how many did he take yesterday?
"I don't know how to do that, either." Hodges struggles to a sitting position. He can't believe the pain has gotten so bad so fast. It's as if it was just waiting to be identified before pouncing with all its claws out.
"You need to get a life, Kerm."
A little late for that, he thinks, swinging his legs out of bed.
"Why are you calling at . . ." He moves the bottle of pills. "At twenty to seven in the morning?"
"Couldn't wait to give you the good news," Pete says. "Brady Hartsfield is dead. A nurse discovered him on morning rounds."
Hodges shoots to his feet, producing a stab of pain he hardly feels. "What? How?"
"There'll be an autopsy later today, but the doctor who examined him is leaning toward suicide. There's a residue of something on his tongue and gums. The doc on call took a sample, and a guy from the ME's office is taking another as we speak. They're going to rush the analysis, Hartsfield being such a rock star and all."
"Suicide," Hodges says, running a hand through his already crazed hair. The news is simple enough, but he still can't seem to take it in. "Suicide?"
"He was always a fan," Pete says. "I believe you might have said that yourself, and more than once."
"Yeah, but . . ."
But what? Pete's right, Brady was a fan of suicide, and not just the other guy's. He had been ready to die at the City Center Job Fair in 2009, if things worked out that way, and a year later he rolled a wheelchair into Mingo Auditorium with three pounds of plastic explosive strapped to the seat. Which put his ass at ground zero. Only that was then, and things have changed. Haven't they?
"But what?"
"I don't know," Hodges says.
"I do. He finally found a way to do it. Simple as that. In any case, if you thought Hartsfield was somehow involved in the deaths of Ellerton, Stover, and Scapelli--and I have to tell you I had my own thoughts along that line--you can stop worrying. He's a gone goose, a toasty turkey, a baked buzzard, and we all say hooray."
"Pete, I need to process this a little."
"No doubt," Pete says. "You had quite the history with him. Meanwhile, I have to call Izzy. Get her day started on the good foot."
"Will you call me when you get back the analysis of whatever he swallowed?"
"Indeed I will. Meanwhile, sayonara Mr. Mercedes, right?"
"Right, right."
Hodges hangs up the phone, walks into the kitchen, and puts on a pot of coffee. He should have tea, coffee will burn the shit out of his poor struggling innards, but right now he doesn't care. And he won't take any pills, not for awhile. He needs to be as clearheaded about this as he possibly can.
He snatches his mobile off the charger and calls Holly. She answers at once, and he wonders briefly what time she gets up. Five? Even earlier? Maybe some questions are best left unanswered. He tells her what Pete just told him, and for once in her life, Holly Gibney does not gild her profanity.
"You've got to be fucking kidding me!"
"Not unless Pete was kidding, and I don't think he was. He doesn't try joking until mid-afternoon, and he's not very good at it then."
Silence for a moment, and then Holly asks, "Do you believe it?"
"That he's dead, yes. It could hardly be a case of mistaken identity. That he committed suicide? To me that seems . . ." He fishes for the right phrase, can't find it, and repeats what he said to his old partner not five minutes before. "I don't know."
"Is it over?"
"Maybe not."
"That's what I think, too. We have to find out what happened to the Zappits that were left over after the company went broke. I don't understand how Brady Hartsfield could have had anything to do with them, but so many of the connections go back to him. And to the concert he tried to blow up."
"I know." Hodges is again picturing a web with a big old spider at the center of it, one full of poison. Only the spider is dead.
And we all say hooray, he thinks.
"Holly, can you be at the hospital when the Robinsons come to pick up Barbara?"
"I can do that." After a pause she adds, "I'd like to do that. I'll call Tanya to make sure it's okay, but I'm sure it is. Why?"
"I want you to show Barb a six-pack. Five elderly white guys in suits, plus Dr. Felix Babineau."
"You think Myron Zakim was Hartsfield's doctor? That he was the one who gave Barbara and Hilda those Zappits?"
"At this point it's just a hunch."
But that's modest. It's actually a bit more. Babineau gave Hodges a cock-and-bull story to keep him out of Brady's room, then nearly blew a gasket when Hodges asked if he was all right. And Norma Wilmer claims he's been conducting unauthorized experiments on Brady. Investigate Babineau, she said in Bar Bar Black Sheep. Get him in trouble. I dare you. As a man who probably has only months to live, that doesn't seem like much of a dare.
"Okay. I respect your hunches, Bill. And I'm sure I can find a society-page picture of Dr. Babineau from one of those charity events they're always having for the hospital."
"Good. Now refresh me on the name of the bankruptcy trustee guy."
"Todd Schneider. You should call him at eight thirty. If I'm with the Robinsons, I won't be in until later. I'll bring Jerome with me."
"Yeah, good. Have you got Schneider's number?"
"I emailed it to you. You remember how to access your email, don't you?"
"It's cancer, Holly, not Alzheimer's."
"Today is your last day. Remember that, too."
How can he forget? They'll put him in the hospital where Brady died, and that will be that, Hodges's last case left hanging fire. He hates the idea, but there's no way around it. This is going fast.
"Eat some breakfast."
"I will."
He ends the call, and looks longingly at the fresh pot of coffee. The smell is wonderful. He turns it down the sink and gets dressed. He does not eat breakfast.
13
Finders Keepers seems very empty without Holly at her desk in the reception area, but at least the seventh floor of the Turner Building is quiet; the noisy crew from the travel agency down the hall won't start to arrive for at least another hour.
Hodges thinks best with a yellow pad in front of him, jotting down ideas as they come, trying to tease out the connections and form a coherent picture. It's the way he worked when he was on the cops, and he was capable of making those connections more often than not. He won a lot of citations over the years, but they're piled helter-skelter on a shelf in his closet instead of hanging on a wall. The citations never mattered to him. The reward was the flash of light that came with the connections. He found himself unable to give it up. Hence Finders Keepers instead of retirement.
This morning there are no notes, only doodles of stick men climbing a hill, and c
yclones, and flying saucers. He's pretty sure most of the pieces to this puzzle are now on the table and all he has to do is figure out how to put them together, but Brady Hartsfield's death is like a pileup on his personal information highway, blocking all traffic. Every time he glances at his watch, another five minutes have gone by. Soon enough he'll have to call Schneider. By the time he gets off the phone with him, the noisy travel agency crew will be arriving. After them, Barbara and Jerome. Any chance of quiet thought will be gone.
Think of the connections, Holly said. They all go back to him. And the concert he tried to blow up.
Yes; yes they do. Because the only ones eligible to receive free Zappits from that website were people--young girls then, for the most part, teenagers now--who could prove they were at the 'Round Here show, and the website is now defunct. Like Brady, badconcert.com is a gone goose, a toasty turkey, a baked buzzard, and we all say hooray.
At last he prints two words amid the doodles, and circles them. One is Concert. The other is Residue.
He calls Kiner Memorial, and is transferred to the Bucket. Yes, he's told, Norma Wilmer is in, but she's busy and can't come to the phone. Hodges guesses she's very busy this morning, and hopes her hangover isn't too bad. He leaves a message asking that she call him back as soon as she can, and emphasizes that it's urgent.
He continues doodling until eight twenty-five (now it's Zappits he's drawing, possibly because he's got Dinah Scott's in his coat pocket), then calls Todd Schneider, who answers the phone personally.
Hodges identifies himself as a volunteer consumer advocate working with the Better Business Bureau, and says he's been tasked with investigating some Zappit consoles that have shown up in the city. He keeps his tone easy, almost casual. "This is no big deal, especially since the Zappits were given away, but it seems that some of the recipients are downloading books from something called the Sunrise Readers Circle, and they're coming through garbled."
"Sunrise Readers Circle?" Schneider sounds bemused. No sign he's getting ready to put up a shield of legalese, and that's the way Hodges wants to keep it. "As in Sunrise Solutions?"
