Mr. Mercedes (Bill Hodges Trilogy, #1)(110)

“I’m going in. You two are staying here.”

“Going in with no backup?” Jerome asks. “Gee, Bill, I don’t think that’s very sma—”

“I’ll be all right, I’ve got the element of surprise going for me, but if I’m not back out in ten minutes, call nine-one-one. Got it?”

“Yes.”

Hodges points at Holly. “You stay close to Jerome. No more lone-wolf investigations.” I should talk, he thinks.

She nods humbly, and Hodges walks away before they can engage him in further discussion. As he approaches the doors of Discount Electronix, he unbuttons his sportcoat. The weight of his father’s gun against his ribcage is comforting.





7


As they watch Hodges enter the electronics store, a question occurs to Jerome. “Holly, how did you get here? Taxi?”

She shakes her head and points into the parking lot. There, parked three rows back from Jerome’s Wrangler, is a gray Mercedes sedan. “It was in the garage.” She notes Jerome’s slack-jawed amazement and immediately becomes defensive. “I can drive, you know. I have a valid driver’s license. I’ve never had an accident, and I have Safe Driver’s Insurance. From Allstate. Do you know that the man who does the Allstate ads on TV used to be the president on 24?”

“That’s the car . . .”

She frowns, puzzled. “What’s the big deal, Jerome? It was in the garage and the keys were in a basket in the front hall. So what’s the big fat deal?”

The dents are gone, he notes. The headlights and windshield have been replaced. It looks as good as new. You’d never know it was used to kill people.

“Jerome? Do you think Olivia would mind?”

“No,” he says. “Probably not.” He is imagining that grille covered with blood. Pieces of shredded cloth dangling from it.

“It wouldn’t start at first, the battery was dead, but she had one of those portable jump-stations, and I knew how to use it because my father had one. Jerome, if Mr. Hodges doesn’t make an arrest, could we walk down to the frogurt place?”

He barely hears her. He’s still staring at the Mercedes. They returned it to her, he thinks. Well, of course they did. It was her property, after all. She even got the damage repaired. But he’d be willing to bet she never drove it again. If there were spooks—real ones—they’d be in there. Probably screaming.

“Jerome? Earth to Jerome.”

“Huh?”

“If everything turns out okay, let’s get frogurt. I was sitting in the sun and waiting for you guys and I’m awfully hot. I’ll treat. I’d really like ice cream, but . . .”

He doesn’t hear the rest. He’s thinking Ice cream.

The click in his head is so loud he actually winces, and all at once he knows why one of the Cyber Patrol faces on Hodges’s computer looked familiar to him. The strength goes out of his legs and he leans against one of the walkway support posts to keep from falling.

“Oh my God,” he says.

“What’s wrong?” She shakes his arm, chewing her lips frantically. “What’s wrong? Are you sick, Jerome?”

But at first he can only say it again: “Oh my God.”





8


Hodges thinks that the Birch Hill Mall Discount Electronix looks like an enterprise with about three months to live. Many of the shelves are empty, and the stock that’s left has a disconsolate, neglected look. Almost all of the browsers are in the Home Entertainment department, where fluorescent pink signs proclaim WOW! DVD BLOWOUT! ALL DISCS 50% OFF! EVEN BLU-RAY! Although there are ten checkout lines, only three are open, staffed by women in blue dusters with the yellow DE logo on them. Two of these women are looking out the window; the third is reading Twilight. A couple of other employees are wandering the aisles, doing a lot of nothing much.

Hodges doesn’t want any of them, but he sees two of the three he does want. Anthony Frobisher, he of the John Lennon specs, is talking to a customer who has a shopping basket full of discounted DVDs in one hand and a clutch of coupons in the other. Frobisher’s tie suggests that he might be the store manager as well as a Cyber Patrolman. The narrow-faced girl with the dirty-blond hair is at the back of the store, seated at a computer. There’s a cigarette parked behind one ear.

Hodges strolls up the center aisle of the DVD BLOWOUT. Frobisher looks at him and raises a finger to say Be with you soon. Hodges smiles and gives him a little I’m okay wave. Frobisher returns to the customer with the coupons. No recognition there. Hodges walks on to the back of the store.

The dirty blond looks up at him, then back at the screen of the computer she’s using. No recognition from her, either. She’s not wearing a Discount Electronix shirt; hers says WHEN I WANT MY OPINION, I’LL GIVE IT TO YOU. He sees she’s playing an updated version of Pitfall!, a cruder version of which fascinated his daughter Alison a quarter of a century before. Everything that goes around comes around, Hodges thinks. A Zen concept for sure.

“Unless you’ve got a computer question, talk to Tones,” she says. “I only do crunchers.”

“Tones would be Anthony Frobisher?”

“Yeah. Mr. Spiffy in the tie.”

“You’d be Freddi Linklatter. Of the Cyber Patrol.”