Mr. Mercedes (Bill Hodges Trilogy, #1)(49)

His fear—unarticulated by his conscious mind but swimming around beneath—is that nothing would change.

He goes downstairs, voice-commanding the lights and computers. He sits in front of Number Three and goes on Debbie’s Blue Umbrella, sure that by now the fat ex-cop will have taken the bait.

There’s nothing.

He smacks his fist into his palm, feeling a dull throb at his temples that is the sure harbinger of a headache, a migraine that’s apt to keep him awake half the night. Aspirin doesn’t touch those headaches when they come. He calls them the Little Witches, only sometimes the Little Witches are big. He knows there are pills that are supposed to relieve headaches like that—he’s researched them on the Net—but you can’t get them without a prescription, and Brady is terrified of doctors. What if one of them discovered he was suffering from a brain tumor? A glioblastoma, which Wikipedia says is the worst? What if that’s why he killed the people at the job fair?

Don’t be stupid, a glio would have killed you months ago.

Okay, but suppose the doctor said his migraines were a sign of mental illness? Paranoid schizophrenia, something like that? Brady accepts that he is mentally ill, of course he is, normal people don’t drive into crowds of people or consider taking out the President of the United States in a suicide attack. Normal people don’t kill their little brothers. Normal men don’t pause outside their mothers’ doors, wondering if they’re naked.

But abnormal men don’t like other people to know they’re abnormal.

He shuts off his computer and wanders aimlessly around his control room. He picks up Thing Two, then puts it down again. Even this isn’t original, he’s discovered; car thieves have been using gadgets like this for years. He hasn’t dared to use it since the last time he used it on Mrs. Trelawney’s Mercedes, but maybe it’s time to bring good old Thing Two out of retirement—it’s amazing what people leave in their cars. Using Thing Two is a little dangerous, but not very. Not if he’s careful, and Brady can be very careful.

Fucking ex-cop, why hasn’t he taken the bait?

Brady rubs his temples.





18


Hodges hasn’t taken the bait because he understands the stakes: pot limit. If he writes the wrong message, he’ll never hear from Mr. Mercedes again. On the other hand, if he does what he’s sure Mr. Mercedes expects—coy and clumsy efforts to discover who the guy is—the conniving sonofabitch will run rings around him.

The question to be answered before he starts is simple: who is going to be the fish in this relationship, and who is going to be the fisherman?

He has to write something, because the Blue Umbrella is all he has. He can call on none of his old police resources. The letters Mr. Mercedes wrote to Olivia Trelawney and Hodges himself are worthless without a suspect. Besides, a letter is just a letter, while computer chat is . . .

“A dialogue,” he says.

Only he needs a lure. The tastiest lure imaginable. He can pretend he’s suicidal, it wouldn’t be hard, because until very recently he has been. He’s sure that meditations on the attractiveness of death would keep Mr. Mercedes talking for awhile, but for how long before the guy realized he was being played? This is no hopped-up moke who believes the police really are going to give him a million dollars and a 747 that will fly him to El Salvador. Mr. Mercedes is a very intelligent person who happens to be crazy.

Hodges draws his legal pad onto his lap and turns to a fresh page. Halfway down he writes half a dozen words in large capitals:


I HAVE TO WIND HIM UP.

He puts a box around this, places the legal pad in the case file he has started, and closes the thickening folder. He sits a moment longer, looking at the screensaver photo of his daughter, who is no longer five and no longer thinks he’s God.

“Good night, Allie.”

He turns off his computer and goes to bed. He doesn’t expect to sleep, but he does.





19


He wakes up at 2:19 A.M. by the bedside clock with the answer as bright in his mind as a neon bar sign. It’s risky but right, the kind of thing you do without hesitation or you don’t do at all. He goes into his office, a large pale ghost in boxer shorts. He powers up his computer. He goes to Debbie’s Blue Umbrella and clicks GET STARTED NOW!

A new image appears. This time the young couple is on what looks like a magic carpet floating over an endless sea. The silver rain is falling, but they are safe and dry beneath the blue umbrella. There are two buttons below the carpet, REGISTER NOW on the left and ENTER PASSWORD on the right. Hodges clicks ENTER PASSWORD, and in the box that appears he types kermitfrog19. He hits return and a new screen appears. On it is this message:


merckill wants to chat with you!

Do you want to chat with merckill?

Y N

He puts the cursor on Y and clicks his mouse. A box for his message appears. Hodges types quickly, without hesitation.





20


Three miles away, at 49 Elm Street in Northfield, Brady Hartsfield can’t sleep. His head thumps. He thinks: Frankie. My brother, who should have died when he choked on that apple slice. Life would have been so much simpler if things had happened that way.

He thinks of his mother, who sometimes forgets her nightgown and sleeps raw.

Most of all, he thinks of the fat ex-cop.