Mr. Mercedes

by Stephen King

  "Like Dexter Morgan on that TV show."

  Hodges knows the one she's talking about and shakes his head emphatically. Not just because the show is fantasyland bullshit, either.

  "Dexter knows why he's doing what he's doing. Our guy doesn't. He's almost certainly unmarried. He doesn't date. He may be impotent. There's a good chance he's still living at home. If so, it's probably with a single parent. If it's Father, the relationship is cold and distant--ships passing in the night. If it's Mother, there's a good chance Mr. Mercedes is her surrogate husband." He sees her start to speak and raises his hand. "That doesn't mean they're having a sexual relationship."

  "Maybe not, but I'll tell you something, Bill. You don't have to sleep with a guy to be having a sexual relationship with him. Sometimes it's in the eye contact, or the clothes you wear when you know he's going to be around, or what you do with your hands--touching, patting, caressing, hugging. Sex has got to be in this somewhere. I mean, that letter he sent you . . . the stuff about wearing a condom while he did it . . ." She shivers in her white robe.

  "Ninety percent of that letter is white noise, but sure, sex is in it somewhere. Always is. Also anger, aggression, loneliness, feelings of inadequacy . . . but it doesn't do to get lost in stuff like that. It's not profiling, it's analysis. Which was way above my pay-grade even when I had a pay-grade."

  "Okay . . ."

  "He's broken," Hodges says simply. "And evil. Like an apple that looks okay on the outside, but when you cut it open, it's black and full of worms."

  "Evil," she says, almost sighing the word. Then, to herself rather than him: "Of course he is. He battened on my sister like a vampire."

  "He could have some kind of job where he meets the public, because he's got a fair amount of surface charm. If so, it's probably a low-paying job. He never advances because he's unable to combine his above-average intelligence with long-term concentration. His actions suggest he's a creature of impulse and opportunity. The City Center killings are a perfect example. I think he had his eye on your sister's Mercedes, but I don't think he knew what he was actually going to do with it until just a few days before the job fair. Maybe only a few hours. I just wish I could figure out how he stole it."

  He pauses, thinking that thanks to Jerome, he has a good idea about half of it: the spare key was very likely in the glove compartment all along.

  "I think ideas for murder flip through this guy's head as fast as cards in a good dealer's fast shuffle. He's probably thought of blowing up airliners, setting fires, shooting up schoolbuses, poisoning the water system, maybe assassinating the governor or the president."

  "Jesus, Bill!"

  "Right now he's fixated on me, and that's good. It will make him easier to catch. It's good for another reason, too."

  "Which is?"

  "I'd rather keep him thinking small. Keep him thinking one-on-one. The longer he keeps doing that, the longer it will be before he decides to try putting on another horror show like the one at City Center, maybe on an even grander scale. You know what creeps me out? He's probably already got a list of potential targets."

  "Didn't he say in his letter that he had no urge to do it again?"

  He grins. It lights up his whole face. "Yeah, he did. And you know how you tell when guys like this are lying? Their lips are moving. Only in the case of Mr. Mercedes, he's writing letters."

  "Or communicating with his targets on the Blue Umbrella site. Like he did with Ollie."

  "Yeah."

  "If we assume he succeeded with her because she was psychologically fragile . . . forgive me, Bill, but does he have reason to believe he can succeed with you for the same reason?"

  He looks at his glass of wine and sees it's empty. He starts to pour himself another half a glass, thinks what that might do to his chances of a successful return engagement in the bedroom, and settles for a small puddle in the bottom instead.

  "Bill?"

  "Maybe," he says. "Since my retirement, I've been drifting. But I'm not as lost as your sister . . ." Not anymore, at least. ". . . and that's not the important thing. It's not the take-away from the letters, and from the Blue Umbrella communications."

  "Then what is?"

  "He's been watching. That's the take-away. It makes him vulnerable. Unfortunately, it also makes him dangerous to my known associates. I don't think he knows I've been talking to you--"

  "Quite a bit more than talking," she says, giving her eyebrows a Groucho waggle.

  "--but he knows Olivia had a sister, and we have to assume he knows you're in the city. You need to start being super-careful. Make sure your door is locked when you're here--"

  "I always do."

  "--and don't believe what you hear on the lobby intercom. Anyone can say he's from a package service and needs a signature. Visually identify all comers before you open your door. Be aware of your surroundings when you go out." He leans forward, the splash of wine untouched. He doesn't want it anymore. "Big thing here, Janey. When you are out, keep an eye on traffic. Not just driving but when you're on foot. Do you know the term BOLO?"

  "Cop-speak for be on the lookout."

  "That's it. When you're out, you're going to BOLO any vehicles that seem to keep reappearing in your immediate vicinity."

  "Like that lady's black SUVs," she says, smiling. "Mrs. Whozewhatsit."

  Mrs. Melbourne. Thinking of her tickles some obscure associational switch in the back of Hodges's mind, but it's gone before he can track it down, let alone scratch it.

  Jerome's got to be on the lookout, too. If Mr. Mercedes is cruising Hodges's place, he'll have seen Jerome mowing the lawn, putting on the screens, cleaning out the gutters. Both Jerome and Janey are probably safe, but probably isn't good enough. Mr. Mercedes is a random bundle of homicide, and Hodges has set out on a course of deliberate provocation.

  Janey reads his mind. "And yet you're . . . what did you call it? Winding him up."

  "Yeah. And very shortly I'm going to steal some time on your computer and wind him up a little more. I had a message all worked out, but I'm thinking of adding something. My partner got a big solve today, and there's a way I can use that."

  "What was it?"

  There's no reason not to tell her; it will be in the papers tomorrow, Sunday at the latest. "Turnpike Joe."

  "The one who kills women at rest stops?" And when he nods: "Does he fit your profile of Mr. Mercedes?"

  "Not at all. But there's no reason for our guy to know that."

  "What do you mean to do?"

  Hodges tells her.

  14

  They don't have to wait for the morning paper; the news that Donald Davis, already under suspicion for the murder of his wife, has confessed to the Turnpike Joe killings leads the eleven P.M. news. Hodges and Janey watch it in bed. For Hodges, the return engagement has been strenuous but sublimely satisfactory. He's still out of breath, he's sweaty and in need of a shower, but it's been a long, long time since he felt this happy. This complete.

  When the newscaster moves on to a puppy stuck in a drainpipe, Janey uses the remote to kill the TV. "Okay. It could work. But God, is it risky."

  He shrugs. "With no police resources to call on, I see it as my best way forward." And it's fine with him, because it's the way he wants to go forward.

  He thinks briefly of the makeshift but very effective weapon he keeps in his dresser drawer, the argyle sock filled with ball bearings. He imagines how satisfying it would be to use the Happy Slapper on the sonofabitch who ran one of the world's heaviest passenger sedans into a crowd of defenseless people. That probably won't happen, but it's possible. In this best (and worst) of all worlds, most things are.

  "What did you make of what my mother said at the end? About Olivia hearing ghosts?"

  "I need to think about that a little more," Hodges says, but he's already thought about it, and if he's right, he might have another path to Mr. Mercedes. Given his druthers, he wouldn't involve Jerome Robinson any more than he already has, but if he'
s going to follow up on old Mrs. Wharton's parting shot, he may have to. He knows half a dozen cops with Jerome's computer savvy and can't call on a single one of them.

  Ghosts, he thinks. Ghosts in the machine.

  He sits up and swings his feet out onto the floor. "If I'm still invited to stay over, what I need right now is a shower."

  "You are." She leans over and sniffs at the side of his neck, her hand lightly clamped on his upper arm giving him a pleasurable shiver. "And you certainly do."

  When he's showered and back in his boxers, he asks her to power up her computer. Then, with her sitting beside him and looking on attentively, he slips under Debbie's Blue Umbrella and leaves a message for merckill. Fifteen minutes later, and with Janey Patterson nestled next to him, he sleeps . . . and never so well since childhood.

  15

  When Brady gets home after several hours of aimless cruising, it's late and there's a note on the back door: Where you been, honeyboy? There's homemade lasagna in the oven. He only has to look at the unsteady, downslanting script to know she was seriously loaded when she wrote it. He untacks the note and lets himself in.

  Usually he checks on her first thing, but he smells smoke and hustles to the kitchen, where a blue haze hangs in the air. Thank God the smoke detector in here is dead (he keeps meaning to replace it and keeps forgetting, too many other fish to fry). Thanks are also due for the powerful stove fan, which has sucked up just enough smoke to keep the rest of the detectors from going off, although they soon will if he can't air the place out. The oven is set at three-fifty. He turns it off. He opens the windows over the sink, then the back door. There's a floor fan in the utility closet where they keep the cleaning supplies. He sets it up facing the runaway stove, and turns it on at the highest setting.

  With that done he finally goes into the living room and checks on his mother. She's crashed out on the couch, wearing a housedress that's open up top and rucked to her thighs below, snoring so loudly and steadily she sounds like an idling chainsaw. He averts his eyes and goes back into the kitchen, muttering fuck-fuck-fuck-fuck under his breath.

  He sits at the table with his head bent, his palms cupping his temples, and his fingers plunged deep into his hair. Why is it that when things go wrong, they have to keep on going wrong? He finds himself thinking of the Morton Salt motto: "When it rains it pours."

  After five minutes of airing-out, he risks opening the oven. As he regards the black and smoking lump within, any faint hunger pangs he might have felt when he got home pass away. Washing will not clean that pan; an hour of scouring and a whole box of Brillo pads will not clean that pan; an industrial laser probably wouldn't clean that pan. That pan is a gone goose. It's only luck that he didn't get home to find the fucking fire department here and his mother offering them vodka collinses.

  He shuts the oven--he doesn't want to look at that nuclear meltdown--and goes back to look at his mother instead. Even as his eyes are running up and down her bare legs, he's thinking, It would be better if she did die. Better for her and better for me.

  He goes downstairs, using his voice commands to turn on the lights and his bank of computers. He goes to Number Three, centers the cursor on the Blue Umbrella icon . . . and hesitates. Not because he's afraid there won't be a message from the fat ex-cop but because he's afraid there will be. If so, it won't be anything he wants to read. Not the way things are going. His head is fucked up already, so why fuck it up more?

  Except there might be an answer to what the cop was doing at the Lake Avenue condo. Has he been questioning Olivia Trelawney's sister? Probably. At sixty-two, he's surely not boffing her.

  Brady clicks the mouse, and sure enough:

  kermitfrog19 wants to chat with you!

  Do you want to chat with kermitfrog19?

  Y N

  Brady settles the cursor on N and circles the curved back of his mouse with the pad of his index finger. Daring himself to push it and end this thing right here and right now. It's obvious he won't be able to nudge the fat ex-cop into suicide the way he did Mrs. Trelawney, so why not? Isn't that the smart thing?

  But he has to know.

  More importantly, the Det-Ret doesn't get to win.

  He moves the cursor to Y, clicks, and the message--quite a long one this time--flashes onto the screen.

  If it isn't my false-confessing friend again. I shouldn't even respond, guys like you are a dime a dozen, but as you point out, I'm retired and even talking to a nut is better than Dr. Phil and all those late-night infomercials. One more 30-minute OxiClean ad and I'll be as crazy as you are, HAHAHA. Also, I owe you thanks for introducing me to this site, which I otherwise would not have found. I have already made 3 new (and non-crazy) friends. One is a lady with a delightfully dirty mouth!!! So OK, my "friend," let me clue you in.

  First, anyone who watches CSI could figure out that the Mercedes Killer was wearing a hairnet and used bleach on the clown mask. I mean, DUH.

  Second, if you were really the guy who stole Mrs. Trelawney's Mercedes, you would have mentioned the valet key. That's something you couldn't have figured out from watching CSI. So, at the risk of repeating myself, DUH.

  Third (I hope you're taking notes), I got a call from my old partner today. He caught a bad guy, one who specializes in TRUE confessions. Check the news, my friend, and then guess what else this guy's going to confess to in the next week or so.

  Have a nice night and BTW, why don't you go bother someone else with your fantasies?

  Brady vaguely remembers some cartoon character--maybe it was Foghorn Leghorn, the big rooster with the southern accent--who would get so mad first his neck and then his head would turn into a thermometer with the temperature going up and up from BAKE to BROIL to NUKE. Brady can almost feel that happening to him as he reads this arrogant, insulting, infuriating post.

  Valet key?

  Valet key?

  "What are you talking about?" he says, his voice somewhere between a whisper and a growl. "What the fuck are you talking about?"

  He gets up and strides around in an unsteady circle on legs like stilts, yanking at his hair so hard his eyes water. His mother is forgotten. The blackened lasagna is forgotten. Everything is forgotten except for this hateful post.

  He has even had the nerve to put in a smiley-face!

  A smiley-face!

  Brady kicks his chair, hurting his toes and sending it rolling all the way across the room, where it bangs the wall. Then he turns and runs back to his Number Three computer, hunching over it like a vulture. His first impulse is to reply immediately, to call the fucking cop a liar, an idiot with fat-induced early-onset Alzheimer's, an anal ranger who sucks his nigger yardboy's cock. Then some semblance of rationality--fragile and wavering--reasserts itself. He retrieves his chair and goes to the city paper's website. He doesn't even have to click on BREAKING NEWS in order to see what Hodges has been raving about; it's right there on the front page of tomorrow's paper.

  Brady follows local crime news assiduously, and knows both Donald Davis's name and his handsomely chiseled features. He knows the cops have been chasing Davis for the murder of his wife, and Brady has no doubt the man did it. Now the idiot has confessed, but not just to her murder. According to the newspaper story, Davis has also confessed to the rape-murders of five more women. In short, he's claiming to be Turnpike Joe.

  At first Brady is unable to connect this with the fat ex-cop's hectoring message. Then it comes to him in a baleful burst of inspiration: while he's in a breast-baring mood, Donnie Davis also means to confess to the City Center Massacre. May have done so already.

  Brady whirls around like a dervish--once, twice, three times. His head is splitting. His pulse is thudding in his chest, his neck, his temples. He can even feel it in his gums and tongue.

  Did Davis say something about a valet key? Is that what brought this on?

  "There was no valet key," Brady says . . . only how can he be sure of that? What if there was? And if there was . . . if they hang this o
n Donald Davis and snatch away Brady Hartsfield's great triumph . . . after the risks he took . . .

  He can no longer hold back. He sits down at his Number Three again and writes a message to kermitfrog19. Just a short one, but his hands are shaking so badly it takes him almost five minutes. He sends it as soon as he's done, without bothering to read it over.

  YOU ARE FULL OF SHIT YOU ASSHOLE. OK the key wasn't in the ignition but it was no VALET KEY. It was a spare in the glove complartment and how I uynlocked the car IS FOR YOU TO FIGURE OUT FUCKFACE. Donald Davis did not do this crime. I repeat, DONALD DAVIUS DID NOT DO THIS CRIME. If you tell people he did I will kill you altho it wouldn'tr be killing much as washed up as you are.

  Signed,

  The REAL Mercedes Killer

  PS: Your mother was a whore, she took it up the ass & licked cum out of gutters.

  Brady shuts off his computer and goes upstairs, leaving his mother to snore on the couch instead of helping her to bed. He takes three aspirin, adds a fourth, and then lies in his own bed, wide-eyed and shaking, until the first streaks of dawn come up in the east. At last he drops off for two hours, sleep that is thin and dream-haunted and unrestful.

  16

  Hodges is making scrambled eggs when Janey comes into the kitchen on Saturday morning in her white robe, her hair wet from the shower. With it combed back from her face, she looks younger than ever. He thinks again, Forty-four?

  "I looked for bacon, but didn't see any. Of course it might still be there. My ex claims that the great majority of American men suffer from the disease of Refrigerator Blindness. I don't know if there's a help line for that."

  She points at his midsection.

  "Okay," he says. And then, because she seems to like it: "Yeah."

  "And by the way, how's your cholesterol?"

  He smiles and says, "Toast? It's whole grain. As you probably know, since you bought it."