Джеймс Паттерсон - 14th Deadly Sin:

“Could you identify that tattoo?” Yuki asked.

Tears spontaneously sprang from Mendez’s eyes.

He said, “You gotta move me to another state, no lie. When I was coming into the building just now, I think I see that cop with a tattoo on his neck. He mighta seen me, too.”

CHAPTER 84

WHEN JOE WASN’T telling himself he was an asshole, he tried to figure out how he was going to get out of this crypt alive. He sat in the lower bunk of the double-decker bed, his cuffed hands hanging loosely between his knees, the chain trailing under the bed. Off to his left, and way out of range, Clement Hubbell tapped the keys on his laptop.

Hubbell said, “There’s a whole lot of Joe Hogans in San Fran. Some’s retired. One of them has a deli and one is in auto parts. Here’s one who works in an insurance company. He’s closest to your age. Several Joe Hogans are dead. Which one are you?”

“Clem. May I call you Clem?”

“That’s my name,” said Hubbell. He closed out the search engine and scooted his wheeled chair so that he was opposite Joe. A stale smell of sweat and garlic came off him.

“Clem,” Joe said. “What’s going on here?”

On the wall behind Hubbell was a map of San Francisco. Five points had been starred on the map with a marking pen. Were these the locations of the five dead women, including the latest, Tina Strichler?

“What’s going on? This is what I call my life. Imagine how surprised I was to find you coming into my cell,” Hubbell said. “This is the first time that’s ever happened, and you know what? It’s kind of an invasion of privacy.”

“Open the cuffs and I’ll get out of here. I’ll pretend I never met you,” Joe said.

“Where’s the fun in that?” Hubbell said. “I haven’t had a chance to get to know you. And you know, I’d really like to.”

Hubbell opened and closed his Buck knife as he swiveled in his chair. The hunting knife had a bone handle and a six-inch blade. From where Joe sat, the blade looked as sharp as a razor.

Joe said, “You said you felt like you were waiting for me. What did you mean?”

“I like solitary. But every now and then, a man likes to have someone to talk to.”

As Hubbell bent his head to his knife, Joe saw the tattoo on the top of his head, just visible under a quarter-inch carpet of hair. It was a vulture with its bill open, talons outstretched.

Joe said, “What do you want to tell me?”

Hubbell grinned. “I’m going to tell you about murders I’ve committed in, like, the middle of the day,” he said. “And I got away with every one of them. They’re right here on my map of the stars.” He half turned, pointing to the map on the wall behind him. “This has been my get-out-of-jail celebration, right?”

Joe flicked his eyes to the map, this time picking out the star on the corner of Balmy Alley and Twenty-Fourth, where Tina Strichler had been gored within a crowd of tourists.

The man wanted a response. And Joe wanted him to keep talking.

“Oh. You were in jail.”

“Oh, yes. You could even say I grew up there. I’m going to tell you things I’ve never told anyone, Joe,” Hubbell said, flicking his eyes from the map to where Joe sat cuffed and chained and stooped on the lower bunk. “But you have to promise to take what I tell you to your grave. Promise? Say you promise.”

“I promise,” said Joe.

“Shake?” said Hubbell.

It was an opportunity Joe couldn’t pass up.

“Shake,” he said. He put out his linked hands, and Hubbell reached out his right one—then, before he touched Joe’s hands, he pulled his away.

“Hah! Got you.”

Hubbell laughed and walked a few steps to the little refrigerator near the toilet. He took out a gallon jug of water. He guzzled some down, then offered the jug to Joe, who said, “No, thanks.”

The twelve-by-eight cell was soundproof at thirty feet underground. Joe was thinking he was never going to leave this place on his own two feet. After Hubbell finished telling him in loving detail about his life of crime, he would slice and dice him and take his body up the ladder one piece at a time.

CHAPTER 85

JOE KNEW THAT serial killers fell into two broad categories. Those in the first category were psychotic killers, criminally insane. They heard voices. They had visions. They didn’t know right from wrong.

And then there were the pathological killers, who were not insane. They were conscienceless. They killed because they liked to do it. Murder gave them an incredible high, and the only way to stop them was to kill them. Or lock them up.

Clement Hubbell was in the latter category.

Joe blocked the wave of fearful thoughts pouring into his mind, images of the people he loved and would never see again, things he would never get to do, pictures of his body hacked into bloody chunks. He took a breath, then looked up at his captor.

Hubbell was younger and stronger than Joe. He was armed, and he got off on playing cat and mouse. The smart money was on the cat.

Joe had one iffy idea on how to get out of this box. But there would be no do-over if he got it wrong.

“I want to hear all about the people you killed,” Joe said. “I want to hear it all. I’m a student of murder. I was never a profiler. Just your paper-pushing variety of Fed. So I feel lucky to have met you, Clem. I can’t wait for you to tell me your stories.”

“Oh, I will,” said Hubbell. “We have all the time in the world. Maybe you noticed. I don’t have clocks down here. It’s what we call long time.”

Joe said, “You mind if I take a leak before you begin? I had to go before I even got here.”

“Be my guest,” Hubbell said.

Joe got to his feet. Hubbell was still in the swivel chair opposite the bed. The toilet was just to Joe’s right. He unzipped his fly and took a step toward the stainless steel can.

As soon as he cleared the end of the bed, Joe whipped around and, using his foot as a fulcrum, jammed it against the bed leg closest to him. At the same time, he gripped one of the bed’s upright supports with his cuffed hands and pulled down on it, hard.

Hubbell jumped to his feet and yelled, “Hey!”

But he had nowhere to go. The desk was to his right, Joe was to his left, and as Joe kept up the pressure, the bed began teetering, then falling toward Hubbell.

Hubbell put up his hands, but the weight of the iron-framed bed had passed the tipping point. The top mattress slid, getting in Hubbell’s way, and the crashing bed pinned him.

Joe was still cuffed, but the chain that had been looped around the rear leg of the bed was now free. He stepped over and around the bed frame, wrapped the chain around Hubbell’s neck, and, grabbing him by the shoulders, slammed the man’s ugly head against the concrete floor.

Hubbell screamed, “ Stop that! Noooo! Stop!”

Joe let up and said, “Where’s the key?”

Hubbell said, “Key to what?”

Joe slammed Hubbell’s head against the floor again. He didn’t want to kill him.

But he wanted to hurt him, badly.

CHAPTER 86

JOE SHOUTED DIRECTLY into Hubbell’s grinning face.

“Where is the key ? Where is the fucking key?”

“It’s up my ass. ”

Joe grabbed the knife off the floor and said, “Have it your way. You’ve got a nice edge on this thing.”

Hubbell said, “No, no. It’s in the ice cube tray. ”

Keeping the chain pulled tightly around Hubbell’s neck, Joe could just reach the fridge. He snagged the small ice cube tray with the ends of his fingers. He dumped the tray on the floor, identified the cube with the key inside it, and crushed the ice with his heel.