Eric Lustbader - First Daughter

"Relax," a voice said. "I've been expecting you."

Jack found himself confronting a figure sitting at his ease in an upholstered chair that had been pulled so that it faced the front door. Only one lamp was on, so that he was cast in half light, enough so that Jack could see the handgun gripped in one hand. It was lying on his right thigh, the barrel aimed casually at Jack.

"Sit down, Jack," the figure said. "It's been a long run. You must be tired."

Jack could feel the power of the man as a fish is drawn to the baited hook. "I don't know whether to call you Myron, Charlie, Ronnie, or Ian."

The figure shrugged. "What's in a name?"

"Who are you?" Jack said. He was struggling against an unnamed fear that had spread its black wings inside him. "What's your real name?"

"I didn't invite you here to answer questions," the figure said.

Jack felt a laugh forced out of him, but it sounded brittle and shaky. "You invited me?"

Brady shrugged. "Leelee told me you were on your way."

Now the fear took flight; he was in its shadow. As if he'd received a blow, he took an involuntary step backwards.

Brady bared his teeth. "Where d'you think she got all her ideas?"

Feeling a chair behind his knees, Jack sat down dazedly.

"Truth to tell, I've run you like a rat in a maze." In a trick of the light, Brady seemed to have inflated, to be larger than life. "Every time you got to another point in the maze, I moved your cheese." He waved the hand with the gun. "For instance, Calla Myers called me the moment you left the FASR office. I knew it was only a matter of time before you followed the clues I left to the Marmoset's house. Oh yes, I'm familiar with Gus's nickname for him."

Jack felt poleaxed. All the hard work he'd done to get here, the arduous path he'd followed, had been created by this monster. "It was all to get me here?" he said like a pupil to his professor. "Why?"

"That question I'll answer. I'm as tired as you are, Jack. I've had a good run, but now, like the president, my term has come to an end. And like the president, it's time for me to look to my lasting legacy."

He shifted slightly, and Jack could see him better now. Chris Armitage had described him well. He was handsome, distinguished even, with the kind of sexual magnetism he imagined Leelee would go for. Jack found him as sinister-looking as his horned viper and twice as terrifying.

"Your term stretches back far longer than eight years."

"All the more reason for it to come to an end." Brady leaned over, reached for the neck of a bottle of liquor, which he lifted into the light so Jack would be reassured. "Polish vodka. The real thing, not the watered-down crap you get here. Care to join me?"

Jack shook his head.

Brady shrugged. "Your loss." Hoisting the bottle, he took a long swig, then smacked his lips.

"Okay." Jack rose, gestured with the Glock. "Time to go."

"And where would you be taking me? Not to the police and certainly not to the feds." He possessed a crooked grin that gave him the aspect of a crocodile. There was something primeval about him, immutable, like a force of nature. This elemental quality was the source of his power. "You're the one they'll lock up, Jack, not me."

Jack stood, the Glock pointing at the floor. "Why did you kill Gus?"

"No questions, remember? Not that it matters-you already know the answer to that one. Gus wasn't going to give up looking for me. That idiot detective, Stanz, would have finally let it go, but not Gus." Brady lazily tilted his head to one side. "But that isn't the question you really want to ask, is it?"

An icy ball formed in the pit of Jack's stomach. "What d'you mean?"

"C'mon, Jack. I killed Gus inside his house. You were asleep down the hall. You want to know why I left you alive."

Jack, realizing he was right, said nothing.

"It's a mystery, Jack, like many others in this life destined to remain unsolved."

Jack aimed the Glock at him. "You will tell me."

"Are you going to shoot me? That would be a blessing. My term would end in a blaze of glory because my bosses would lock you up and throw away the key. Lawyer, what lawyer? You wouldn't even get a phone call. No, they'll stick you in solitary in a federal high-security penitentiary." He gestured with his gun, careful not to point it at Jack. "So sit back down, have a drink."

Jack stood where he was.

"Suit yourself." Brady sighed deeply. "We're both orphans, in our own ways. I murdered my parents, as you should have."

"If you're trying to say we're alike-"

"I must say you made up for it, though, when you killed that street thug, Andre." Brady chuckled. "In a library yet. Brilliant." He took another hit of the Polish vodka. "I'm going to tell you a secret, Jack. I have not one grain of faith in me. Early in life I wanted to get past all of life's tricks, small and large, to get to the heart of things." His eyes lit up. They were the eyes of Ron Kray, Charles Whitman, Ian Brady. "Sounds familiar, doesn't it, Jack? That's your search, too." He nodded. "Instead, what have I become? Life's ultimate trickster. You see, there's nothing left of me but tricks. That's because I discovered that there is no heart of things. I think there used to be, but that was a long time ago. Life's hollow, like a tree full of burrowing insects. That's what humans are, Jack. They've burrowed into life with their frenzied civilization, their running after wealth and fame, their attempts to deny the body's decay. They're all insane. What else could they be, making such an unholy mess of things? They've hollowed life out, Jack, till there's nothing left but the shell, the illusion of happiness."

"I don't believe you."

"Ah, but it's true, and your daughter knew it. Emma heard what I had to say, and it drew her like a moth to a flame. Too bad she died so young-I had big plans for her. Aside from killing, mentoring's what I do best. Emma had real potential, Jack. She could have become my most ardent pupil."

With a savage cry, Jack launched himself at Brady, crashed into him with his leading shoulder. The chair tipped backwards, and they both tumbled head over heels in a tangle of arms and legs, fetched up against the wall under the rear window. Jack punched Brady in the nose, heard with satisfaction the cartilage fracture. Blood spouted out, covering them both. At almost the same time, Jack felt the Glock being ripped from his hand. He felt around blindly for the other gun, saw Brady raise the Glock. A moment more, he'd shoot Jack. But then Jack saw where the Glock was pointed and, in a flash of insight, knew that Brady meant to shoot himself in the head with Jack's gun. He meant what he said about going out in a blaze of glory. He was going to end his reign by ensuring that Jack would spend the rest of his life in prison.

With a desperate swing, Jack knocked the Glock from Brady's hand. It went skittering across the floor. He hauled Brady to his feet, but one foot trod on Brady's gun. It was, like everything else in the area, slippery with blood. Jack lurched forward, taking Brady with him as they pitched through the window in a blizzard of shattered glass. Brady teetered for a moment with Jack over him, the two of them in stunned equilibrium. Jack tried to pull back, to right himself, but Brady was too far. Without Jack's weight to hold him in place, he began to slide headfirst out the window. Jack made a grab for him, but Brady slapped his hands away.

Brady stared up into Jack's face without expression of any kind. "Makes no difference. You'll never stop it."

The next instant he plummeted down three stories to the concrete apron. Jack, covered in blood and shards of glass, scooped up his Glock, ran out of the apartment, along the catwalk. He clattered down the stairs three at a time, around the side of the building.