Stuart Kaminsky - Deluge

But it was going to change.

And it was going to change now.

The knock at the door was gentle. Two raps. Ellen stood.

Keith stood in the hall. He was ready. He was lucky. There was no cop in the hall. In a few seconds, this part would be over. The circle would be complete. The letters of his brother's name would be carved in bloody gashes. A-D-A-M. This time all four letters in her soft, white flesh. Their bodies, what he had left of them, would forever be the reminder of Adam's death and their own unclean actions.

The world was a shitty place. There were decent, innocent people born into it, people like Adam. They were defiled.

Keith's hand was in his pocket touching the cool metal handle of the knife. She would open the door. An instant of recognition on her pretty, vacant face and then click, jab under her arm, push her back, close the door, take his time, but not too much time.

He knocked again.

The door started to open.

Knife out. No one in the narrow corridor.

The door swung open.

Mac had heard the knocking at the door. He had sent the officer in street clothes guarding the corridor down to the lobby. Mac came out of the bathroom, moved past Ellen Janecek, who he motioned to back away. More knocking. Flack had called him less than half an hour ago. Mac had arrived at the hotel fifteen minutes later.

When he had quickly told Ellen what he planned to do, her only question was, "Is Jeffrey all right?"

Mac, gun in his right hand, reached out for the door with his left, and threw the door open.

Keith stood there, knife in hand.

"Drop the knife," Mac said gently, both hands on the gun now.

Keith looked over the shoulder of the man in front of him, the man with the gentle, firm voice and the gun. Keith could see Ellen Janecek's face across the room. He wanted to tell the man with the gun that he had to kill her, that he couldn't leave this unfinished. He had a feeling that the man with the gun would understand, but he also had the feeling that the man with the gun would shoot.

"You don't understand," Keith said calmly. "She killed my brother. They all killed or destroyed my brother and other brothers, sisters, children, grandchildren. You have to understand."

Keith took a step forward, knife still in his hand. Mac could feel the man's pain, a horrible frustration. Mac took a step back and said, "Put it down now. "

Keith tightened his grip on the knife. Maybe, just maybe he could surprise the man with the gun, make a move, stab him under the arm, make him drop that gun.

"Don't," said Mac.

"There are a lot of animals out there who don't deserve to live."

"Maybe," said Mac, taking a step forward. "I'm not one of them. I talked to your mother. She wants to hear from you."

Keith had few options left. He considered them.

"What's your name?" Keith asked.

"Taylor, Mac Taylor."

Keith looked at Ellen Janecek and tightened his grip on the knife. Before he had lost his leg he could have leapt across the room and gutted her before he was shot. That was before he lost his leg.

"Keith?"

Keith Yunkin nodded and dropped the knife.

The Hat walked under the elevated train tracks, clinging to the duffle bag that he had taken from the office building. He considered the theft of the bag a major triumph. The Hat had stood across the street from the office building, hidden in a doorway, until the cop came out with the kid.

Then he'd raced back into the office building and found the duffle bag in the room behind the one in which he'd found the kid. The bag had been tucked away under a sink. The Hat had grabbed the bag and fled the building.

Then, under the tracks and station above them, he had walked.

Now he stopped, looked around furtively, put the bag on the ground and leaned over to unzip it.

Knives. He could sell them somewhere. Clothes. Maybe they fit. An egg salad sandwich and bottles of water. He sat on a low block of concrete and ate.

The Hat reached into the bag and came up with one of the knives. He opened it easily and as he did the blade ran across his finger. He dropped his sandwich. The cut was deep, very deep, to the bone. The blade of the knife was bloody.

He'd have to find some bandages somewhere. A knife like this one could kill someone without a blink.

He let the knife tumble back into the bag, took out a shirt, wrapped it around his hand and gave serious thought to going to a drug store, but not for Band-Aids, for something much bigger than a Band-Aid. There was a clinic about six blocks away, but it was far and The Hat was bleeding. No, a drug store it would be. Maybe he could trade a knife for bandages.

It had begun as a very good day, The Hat thought. A good deed for a soft-brained boy had brought him a promising bag full of jangling goodies and a sandwich. It could turn into a bad day with a dark ending if the bleeding were not stopped. Oh well. The Hat knew people, lots of street people, who would be glad to buy these very sharp knives. But first, the bleeding had to stop.

Every drawer was occupied by a corpse. Nine of them. Sid Hammerbeck had been busy, nonstop for three days. Now he was home meditating in his state-of-the-art kitchen, amid shining pots, dark cast-iron pans, the smell of fresh vegetables and baking turbot. He took a spray of fresh chervil from a small paper bag in the refrigerator, placed it on a cutting board and expertly cut it into tiny, even pieces.

The timer was on. Sixteen minutes more.

It struck him that his life was one of smells, the smell of the dead, the smell of his own cooking. Sometimes he had guests over for dinner, but not tonight. Tonight he would dine alone. No conversation. No television. No book or newspaper on the table. He would eat slowly, close his eyes to savor the food without having someone across the table look at him as if he were doing something weird. His friends already thought his decision to leave the kitchen of one of the finest Continental restaurants in the city to go into the steel gray of the autopsy room was was weird enough.

Sid had explained that the room where he dissected the dead was cleaner than almost any four-star restaurant in the world. He could see disbelief, even when they said the obligatory and sophisticated "I know." Sid didn't explain much or often anymore.

Something itched, not physically, mentally. It was like trying to remember the name of a character in a favorite novel. There were several ways of dealing with it. Go back to the novel and find the name. Use some trick of the memory to locate the source of the itch and scratch it.

The microwave ticked behind him. Sid checked the oven timer. Perfect. Turbot in the oven. Chive and crushed cauliflower in the microwave. An inexpensive California white wine barely chilling in the refrigerator.

What was bothering him?

One of the bodies.

He stood over the sink holding the garlic press in his hand. Patricia Mycrant. It came to him suddenly. Not words, but a faint smell wafting in the alcoholic miasma of the autopsy room and then a vision.

Three minutes to go. He would wait, take the fish from the oven, put the chervil and garlic away, refrigerate the cauliflower and chives and have a late dinner, maybe a very late dinner.

The wine would be too cold. He removed it from the refrigerator and placed it on the counter.

Twenty minutes later he was back among the dead.

Flack knocked at her door.

Less than an hour ago he had been lying on his sofa, shoes off, fully clothed watching a Rockies/ Cubs game. He wasn't much interested in either team, but it was better than no game and it distracted him from the discomfort in his chest. He knew he couldn't concentrate on a movie or a series or read a book. He was hurting. He admitted it to himself, but no one else. He had come back from the trauma and surgery with rehab and rest, but on long days like this one, the aching, particularly in his chest, jarred him into memory.