Mr. Mercedes (Bill Hodges Trilogy, #1)(17)

“You’re putting out decoys, right? Because he likes the warm weather.”

“We are, and we’ll get him.”

“It would be nice if you got him before he rapes another fiftysomething on her way home from work.”

“We’re doing our best.” Pete looks slightly annoyed, and when their waiter appears to ask if everything’s all right, Pete waves the guy away.

“I know,” Hodges says. Soothingly. “Pawnshop guy?”

Pete breaks into a broad grin. “Young Aaron Jefferson.”

“Huh?”

“That’s his actual name, although when he played football for City High, he called himself YA. You know, like YA Tittle. Although his girlfriend—also the mother of his three-year-old—tells us he calls the guy YA Titties. When I asked her if he was joking or serious, she said she didn’t have any idea.”

Here is another story Hodges knows, another so old it could have come from the Bible . . . and there’s probably a version of it in there someplace. “Let me guess. He racks up a dozen jobs—”

“It’s fourteen now. Waving that sawed-off around like Omar on The Wire.”

“—and keeps getting away with it because he has the luck of the devil. Then he cheats on baby mama. She gets pissed and rats him out.”

Pete points a finger-gun at his old partner. “Hole in one. And the next time Young Aaron walks into a pawnshop or a check-cashing emporium with his bellygun, we’ll know ahead of time, and it’s angel, angel, down we go.”

“Why wait?”

“DA again,” Pete says. “You bring Diana the Dope a steak, she says cook it for me, and if it isn’t medium-rare, I’ll send it back.”

“But you’ve got him.”

“I’ll bet you a new set of whitewalls that YA Titties is in County by the Fourth of July and in State by Christmas. Davis and the Park Rapist may take a little longer, but we’ll get them. You want dessert?”

“No. Yes.” To the waiter he says, “You still have that rum cake? The dark chocolate one?”

The waiter looks insulted. “Yes, sir. Always.”

“I’ll have a piece of that. And coffee. Pete?”

“I’ll settle for the last of the beer.” So saying, he pours it out of the pitcher. “You sure about that cake, Billy? You look like you’ve put on a few pounds since I saw you last.”

It’s true. Hodges eats heartily in retirement, but only for the last couple of days has food tasted good to him. “I’m thinking about Weight Watchers.”

Pete nods. “Yeah? I’m thinking about the priesthood.”

“Fuck you. What about the Mercedes Killer?”

“We’re still canvassing the Trelawney neighborhood—in fact, that’s where Isabelle is right now—but I’d be shocked if she or anyone else comes up with a live lead. Izzy’s not knocking on any doors that haven’t been knocked on half a dozen times before. The guy stole Trelawney’s luxury sled, drove out of the fog, did his thing, drove back into the fog, dumped it, and . . . nothing. Never mind Monsewer YA Titties, it’s the Mercedes guy who really had the luck of the devil. If he’d tried that stunt even an hour later, there would have been cops there. For crowd control.”

“I know.”

“Do you think he knew, Billy?”

Hodges tilts a hand back and forth to indicate it’s hard to say. Maybe, if he and Mr. Mercedes should strike up a conversation on that Blue Umbrella website, he’ll ask.

“The murdering prick could have lost control when he started hitting people and crashed, but he didn’t. German engineering, best in the world, that’s what Isabelle says. Someone could have jumped on the hood and blocked his vision, but no one did. One of the posts holding up the DO NOT CROSS tape could have bounced under the car and gotten hung up there, but that didn’t happen, either. And someone could have seen him when he parked behind that warehouse and got out with his mask off, but no one did.”

“It was five-twenty in the morning,” Hodges points out, “and even at noon that area would have been almost as deserted.”

“Because of the recession,” Pete Huntley says moodily. “Yeah, yeah. Probably half the people who used to work in those warehouses were at City Center, waiting for the frigging job fair to start. Have some irony, it’s good for your blood.”

“So you’ve got nothing.”

“Dead in the water.”

Hodges’s cake comes. It smells good and tastes better.

When the waiter’s gone, Pete leans across the table. “My nightmare is that he’ll do it again. That another fog will come rolling in off the lake and he’ll do it again.”

He says he won’t, Hodges thinks, conveying another forkload of the delicious cake into his mouth. He says he has absolutely no urge. He says once was enough.

“That or something else,” Hodges says.

“I got into a big fight with my daughter back in March,” Pete says. “Monster fight. I didn’t see her once in April. She skipped all her weekends.”

“Yeah?”

“Uh-huh. She wanted to go see a cheerleading competition. Bring the Funk, I think it was called. Practically every school in the state was in it. You remember how crazy Candy always was about cheerleaders?”