Finally, when there were no more clothes, we looked at each other. Christine watched my eyes and I watched hers. Her eyes shamelessly traveled down my chest, past my waist. I was still highly aroused. I wanted to be inside her so much.
She took a half step back. I couldn’t breathe. I could hardly bear this. But I didn’t want to stop. I was feeling again, remembering how to feel, remembering how good it could be.
She pulled her hair to one side, behind one ear. Such a simple, graceful movement.
“Do that again.” I smiled.
She laughed and repeated the movement with her hair. “Anything that you want.”
“Stay there,” she whispered. “Don’t move, Alex. Don’t come closer—we might both catch fire. I mean it.”
“This could take the rest of the weekend,” I said and started to laugh.
“I hope it does.”
I heard the tiniest click.
Was that the door to our room?
Had I closed it?
Was someone out there?
Jesus, no.
Chapter 53
SUDDENLY NERVOUS and paranoid, I peered back at the door to the hotel room. It was closed and locked tight. Nobody there, nothing to worry about. Christine and I were safe here. Nothing bad was going to happen to either of us tonight.
Still, the moment of fear and doubt had raised the hairs on my neck. Soneji has a habit of doing that to me. Damn it, what did he want from me?
“What’s wrong, Alex? You just left me.” Christine touched me, brought me back. Her fingers were like feathers on the side of my cheek. “Just be here with me, Alex.”
“I’m here. I just thought I heard something.”
“I know you did. No one is there. You locked the door behind us. We’re fine. It’s okay, it’s okay.”
I pulled Christine close against my body again and she felt electric and incredibly warm. I drew her down onto the bed and rolled over her, holding my weight on the palms of my hands. I dipped and kissed her sweet face again, then each of her breasts; I pulled at the nipples with my lips, licked them with my tongue. I kissed between her legs, down her long legs, her slender ankles, her toes. Just be here with me, Alex.
She arched herself toward me and she gasped, but she was smiling radiantly. She was moving her body against me and we had already found a nice rhythm. We were both breathing faster and faster.
“Please, do it now,” she whispered, her teeth biting into my shoulder near the clavicle. “Please now, right now. I want you inside.” She rubbed my sides with the palms of her hands. She rubbed me like kindling sticks.
A fire ignited. I could feel it spreading through my body. I entered her for the first time. I slid inside slowly, but I went as deep as I could go. My heart was pounding, my legs felt weak. My stomach was taut and I was so hard it hurt.
I was all the way inside Christine. I knew I’d wanted to be here for a long time. I had the thought that I was made for this, for being in this bed with this woman.
Gracefully and athletically, she rolled on top of me and sat up proud and tall. We began to rock slowly like that. I felt our bodies surge and peak, surge and peak, surge.
I heard my own voice crying yes, yes, yes. Then I realized it was both our voices.
Then Christine said something so magical. She whispered, “You’re the one.”
Part Three
The Cellar of Cellars
Chapter 54
Paris, France
DR. ABEL Sante was thirty-five years old, with longish black hair, boyish good looks, and a beautiful girlfriend named Regina Becker, who was a painter, and a very good one, he thought. He had just left Regina’s apartment, and was winding his way home on the back streets of the sixth arrondissement at around midnight.
The narrow streets were quiet and empty and he loved this time of day for collecting his thoughts, or sometimes for not thinking at all. Abel Sante was musing on the death of a young woman earlier today, a patient of his, twenty-six years old. She had a loving husband and two beautiful daughters. He had a perspective about death that he thought was a good one: Why should leaving the world, and rejoining the cosmos, be any scarier than entering the world, which wasn’t very scary at all.
Dr. Sante didn’t know where the man, a street person in a soiled gray jacket and torn, baggy jeans had come from. Suddenly the man was at his side, nearly attached to his left elbow.
“Beautiful,” the man said.
“I’m sorry, excuse me?” Abel Sante said, startled, coming out of his inner thoughts in a hurry.
“It’s a beautiful night and our city is so perfect for a late walk.”
“Yes, well it’s been nice meeting you,” Sante said to the street person. He’d noticed that the man’s French was slightly accented. Perhaps he was English, or even American.
“You shouldn’t have left her apartment. Should have stayed the night. A gentleman always stays the night—unless of course he’s asked to leave.”
Dr. Abel Sante’s back and neck stiffened. He took his hands from his trouser pockets. Suddenly he was afraid, very much so.
He shoved the street person away with his left elbow.
“What are you talking about? Why don’t you just get out of here?”
“I’m talking about you and Regina. Regina Becker, the painter. Her work’s not bad, but not good enough, I’m afraid.”
“Get the hell away from me.”
Abel Sante quickened his pace. He was only a block from his home. The other man, the street person, kept up with him easily. He was larger, more athletic than Sante had noticed at first.
“You should have given her babies. That’s my opinion.”
“Get away. Go!”
Suddenly, Sante had both fists raised and clasped tightly. This was insane! He was ready to fight, if he had to. He hadn’t fought in twenty years, but he was strong and in good shape.
The street person swung out and knocked him down. He did it easily, as if it were nothing at all.
Dr. Sante’s pulse was racing rapidly. He couldn’t see very well out of his left eye, where he’d been struck.
“Are you a complete maniac? Are you out of your mind?” he screamed at the man, who suddenly looked powerful and impressive, even in the soiled clothes.
“Yes, of course,” the man answered, “Of course I’m out of my mind. I’m Mr. Smith—and you’re next.”
Chapter 55
GARY SONEJI hurried like a truly horrifying city rat through the low dark tunnels that wind like intestines beneath New York’s Bellevue Hospital. The fetid odor of dried blood and disinfectants made him feel sick. He didn’t like the reminders of sickness and death surrounding him.
No matter, though, he was properly revved for today. He was wired, flying high. He was Death. And Death was not taking a holiday in New York.
He had outfitted himself for his big morning: crisply pressed white pants, white lab coat, white sneakers; a laminated hospital photo ID around his neck on a beaded silver chain.
He was here on morning rounds. Bellevue. This was his idea of rounds anyway!
There was no way to stop any of this: his train from hell, his destiny, his last hurrah. No one could stop it because no one would ever figure out where the last train was headed. Only he knew that, only Soneji himself could call it off.
He wondered how much of the puzzle Cross had already pieced together. Cross wasn’t in his class as a thinker, but the psychologist and detective wasn’t without crude instincts in certain specialized areas. Maybe he was underestimating Dr. Cross, as he had once before. Could he be caught now? Perhaps, but it really didn’t matter. The game would continue to its end without him. That was the beauty of it, the evil of what he had done.
Gary Soneji stepped into a stainless-steel elevator in the basement of the well-known Manhattan hospital. A pair of porters shared the narrow car with him, and Soneji had a moment of paranoia. They might be New York cops working undercover.
The NYPD actually h
ad an office on the main floor of the hospital. It was there under “normal” circumstances. Bellevue. Jesus, what a sensational madhouse this was. A hospital with a police station inside.
He eyed the porters with a casual and disinterested city-cool look. They can’t be policemen, he thought, Nobody could look that dumb. They were what they looked like—slow-moving, slow-thinking hospital morons.
One of them was pushing around a stainless-steel cart with two bum wheels. It was a wonder that any patient ever made it out of a New York City hospital alive. Hospitals here were run with about the same personnel standards as a McDonald’s restaurant, probably less.
He knew one patient who wasn’t going to leave Bellevue alive. The news reports said that Shareef Thomas was being kept here by the police. Well, Thomas was going to suffer before he left this so-called “vale of tears.” Shareef was about to undergo a world of suffering.
Gary Soneji stepped out of the elevator onto the first floor. He sighed with relief. The two porters went about their business. They weren’t cops. No, they were dumber and dumbest.
Canes, wheelchairs, and metal walkers were everywhere. The hospital artifacts reminded him of his own mortality. The halls on the first floor were painted off-white, the doors and radiators were a shade of pink like “old gum.” Up ahead was a strange coffee shop, dimly lit like a subway passageway. If you ate in that place, he thought to himself, they ought to lock you up in Bellevue!
As he walked from the elevator, Soneji caught his own reflection in a stainless-steel pilar. The master of a thousand faces, he couldn’t help thinking. It was true. His own stepmother wouldn’t recognize him now, and if she did, she would scream her bloody lungs out. She’d know he’d come all the way to hell to get her.
He walked down the corridor, singing very softly in a reggae lilt, “I shot the Shareef, but I did not shoot the dep-u-tee.”
No one paid him any mind. Gary Soneji fit right in at Bellevue.
Chapter 56
SONEJI HAD a perfect memory, so he would recall everything about this morning. He would be able to play it back for himself with incredible detail. This was true for all of his murders. He scanned the narrow, high-ceilinged hallways as if he had a surveil-lance camera mounted where his head was. His powers of concentration gave him a huge advantage. He was almost supernaturally aware of everything going on around him.
A security guard was riffing with young black males outside the coffee shop. They were all mental defectives for sure, the toy cops especially.
No threat there.
Silly baseball caps were bobbing everywhere. New Jork Janquis. San Francisco Jints. San Jose Sharks. None of the ballcap wearers looked as if they could play ball worth spit. Or harm, or stop him.
The Hospital Police Office was up ahead. The lights were out, though. Nobody home right now. So where were the hospital patrol cops? Were they waiting for him someplace? Why didn’t he see any of them? Was that the first sign of trouble?
At the inpatient elevator, a sign read: ID REQUIRED. Soneji had his ready. For today’s masquerade, he was Francis Michael Nicolo, R.N.
A framed poster was on the wall: PATIENTS’ RIGHTS AND RESPONSIBILITIES. Signs started out from behind fuzzy Plexiglas everywhere he looked. It was worse than a New York highway: RADIOLOGY, UROLOGY, HEMATOLOGY. I’m sick, too, Soneji wanted to yell out to the powers that be. I’m as sick as anybody in here. I’m dying. Nobody cares. Nobody has ever cared.
He took the central elevator to four. No problems so far, no hassles. No police. He got off at his stop, pumped to see Shareef Thomas again, to see the look of shock and fear on his face.
The hallway on four had a hollowed-out basement feel to it. Nothing seemed to absorb sound. The whole building felt as if it were made entirely of concrete.
Soneji peered down the corridor to where he knew Shareef was being kept. His room was at the far end of the building. Isolated for safety, right? So this was the high-and-mighty NYPD in action. What a joke. Everything was a joke, if you thought about it long and hard enough.
Soneji lowered his head and started to walk toward Shareef Thomas’s hospital room.
Chapter 57
CARMINE GROZA and I were inside the private hospital room waiting for Soneji, hoping that he would show. We had been here for hours. How would I know what Soneji looked like now? That was a problem, but we would take them one at a time.
We never heard a noise at the door. Suddenly it was swinging open. Soneji exploded into the room, expecting to find Shareef Thomas. He stared at Groza and me.
His hair was dyed silver-gray and combed straight back. He looked like a man in his fifties or early sixties—but the height was about right. His light blue eyes widened as he looked at me. It was the eyes that I recognized first.
He smiled the same disdainful dismissive smirk I’d seen so many times, sometimes in my nightmares. He thought he was so damn superior to the rest of us. He knew it.
Soneji said only two words: “Even better.”
“New York Police! Freeze,” Groza barked a warning in an authoritative tone.
Soneji continued to smirk as if this surprise reception pleased him no end, as if he’d planned it himself. His confidence, his arrogance, was incredible to behold.
He’s wearing a bulletproof vest, my mind registered a bulge around his upper body. He’s protected. He’s ready for whatever we do.
There was something clasped tightly in his left hand. I couldn’t tell what. He’d entered the room with the arm half-raised.
He flipped a small green bottle in his hand toward Groza and me. Just the flip of his hand. The bottle clinked as it hit the wooden floor. It bounced a second time. Suddenly I understood… but too late, seconds too late.
“Bomb!” I yelled at Groza. “Hit the floor! Get down!”
Groza and I dove away from the bed and the caroming green bottle. We managed to put up sitting chairs as shields. The flash inside the room was incredibly bright, a splintered shock of white light with an afterglow of the brightest yellow. Then everything around us seemed to catch fire.
For a second or two. I was blinded. Then I felt as if I were burning up. My trousers and shoes were engulfed in flames. I covered my face, mouth, and eyes with my hands. “Jesus, God,” Groza screamed.
I could hear a sizzle, like bacon on a grill. I prayed it wasn’t me that was cooking. Then I was choking and gurgling and so was Groza. Flames burst and danced across my shirt, and through it all I could hear Soneji. He was laughing at us.
“Welcome to hell, Cross,” he said. “Burn, baby, burn.”
Chapter 58
GROZA AND I stripped the bed of blankets and sheets and beat out our burning trousers. We were lucky, at least I hoped we were. We smothered the flames. The ones on our legs and shoes.
“He wanted to burn Thomas alive,” I told Groza. “He’s got another firebomb. I saw another green bottle, at least one.”
We hobbled as best we could down the hospital corridor, chasing after Soneji. Two other detectives were already down outside, wounded. Soneji was a phantom.
We followed him down several twisting flights of back stairs. The sound of the footrace echoed loudly on the stairway. My eyes were watering, but I could see okay.
Groza alerted and clued in other detectives on his two-way. “Suspect has a firebomb! Soneji has a bomb. Use extreme care.”
“What the hell does he want?” the detective yelled at me as we kept moving. “What the hell’s he going to do now?”
“I think he wants to die,” I gasped. “And he wants to be famous. Go out with a bang. That’s his way. Maybe right here at Bellevue.”
Attention was what Gary Soneji had always craved. From his boyhood years, he’d been obsessed with stories of “crimes of the century.” I was sure that Soneji wanted to die now, but he had to do it with a huge noise. He wanted to control his own death.
I was wheezing and out of breath when we finally got to the lobby floor. Smoke had seared my throat, but ot
herwise I was doing okay. My brain was fuzzy and unclear about what to do next.
I saw a blur of hectic movement ahead, maybe thirty yards across the front lobby.
I pushed through the nervous crowd trying to exit the building. Word had spread about the fire upstairs. The flow of people in and out of Bellevue was always as steady as at a subway turnstile, and that was before a bomb went off inside.
I made it onto the stoop in front of the hospital. It was raining hard, gray and awful outside. I looked everywhere for Soneji.
A cluster of hospital staff and visitors were under the front awning, smoking cigarettes. They seemed unaware of the emergency situation, or maybe these workers were just used to them. The brick path leading away from the building was crowded with more pedestrians coming and going in the downpour. The umbrellas were blocking my vision.
Where the hell had Gary Soneji gone? Where could he have disappeared to? I had the sinking feeling that I’d lost him again. I couldn’t stand any more of this.
Out on First Avenue, food vendors under colorful umbrellas stained with dirt were peddling gyros, hot dogs, and New York-style pretzels.
No Soneji anywhere.
I kept searching, frantically looking up and down the busy, noisy street. I couldn’t let him get away. I would never get another chance as good as this. There was an opening in the crowd. I could see for maybe half a block.
There he was!
Soneji was moving with a small clique of pedestrians headed north on the sidewalk. I started to go after him. Groza was still with me. We both had our weapons out. We couldn’t risk a shot in the crowds, though. Lots of mothers and children and elderly people, patients coming and going from the hospital.
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