Paul Johnston - Maps of Hell

“He must have seen you on the TV.”

“Yeah, that press conference after Monsieur Hexie was found.” Simmons looked back at his notes. “So, the floater is Richard Bonhoff, a forty-three-year-old farmer from Iowa. He came to D.C. a week ago to find Gwen and Randy, his twenty-one-year-old twin children.”

Pinker sat up straight. “Who won a competition in the Star Reporter last December that brought them here, and they were looked after by our friend Gordy Lister. No wonder that fucker looked shifty yesterday.”

“According to the dead man, Lister tried to scare him off with a couple of heavies and Bonhoff, ex-marine that he was, dealt with them as only marines can. Then Lister took him to see his kids. They’ve apparently become junkies. When he went back to find them later, there was no one around.”

Pinker stared at his partner. “What do you reckon? Gordy Lister’s into dope? Or maybe he’s running some kind of white slave ring.”

“You reckon Lister’s up to that, Vers?”

“Hell, yeah. That little prick would sell his mother if the price was right.”

Simmons nodded. “Yeah, he probably would. But I think there’s more to it than Gordy running a solo scam. I think there might be something in what Bonhoff says about Woodbridge Holdings being involved.”

“Could be. They own the Star Reporter, so they aren’t exactly scoring high in the ethical business chart. What else are they into?”

“I’m about to start working on that.”

Pinker stood up. “So what do we do? Haul in Lister?”

“We could do.” Simmons smiled wickedly.

“Oh-oh,” his partner said, suddenly the apprehensive one for a change. “What have you got in mind, Clem?”

The big man stood up and moved close to Pinker. “Well, I was just thinking, we’re off the case anyway, so why don’t we keep this unofficial.”

“This being?”

“We tail Gordy Lister.”

The small man raised an eyebrow. “You forgetting what happened to this Bonhoff guy when he did that?”

“Um, we’re cops, remember?” Clem Simmons took the pages back from Pinker. “By the way, there’s something else I’ve got to tell you.”

His partner’s face went white as his partner described his meeting with Joe Greenbaum and Matt Wells. And Clem thought Pinker’s eyes bulged like an impaled octopus’s when he heard that the official prime suspect had been handed copies of the killer’s diagrams.

Joe had made a prepaid Internet reservation for me in a cheap hotel on the other side of the Potomac. We reckoned that would keep me away from prying eyes, not that I was planning on doing anything except sleeping there. Joe also gave me five hundred dollars. I used a couple of hundred to buy some jeans, shirts and a thick jacket. No doubt the New York State police would have circulated a description detailing the clothes that Mary Upson had given me.

I took a shower and changed into my new outfit. The hotel was near the Rosslyn Metro station, within walking distance of Georgetown. I was about to set off when I felt a sudden pulse of pain in my head and staggered to the bed. Images flashed before me in rapid succession-a wire between the camp and the pine trees; a flat machine covered in wires and flashing lights lowering over me like the lid of a coffin; an explosion of sound from the line of soldiers with rifles to their shoulders…

I shook my head, trying to rid myself of the visions. I was sweating heavily and my hands shook. Then everything went blank and I felt the rough bedcover against my cheek. I gradually got my breathing under control and opened my eyes. The roar of the traffic on the freeways filled my ears and I sat up. What was going on? I had thought that as time passed the effect of whatever was done to me would wear off. My memory was getting better, even though there were still plenty of gaps. But I wasn’t free of the place-there were still invisible chains tying me to it. That machine, its lights and the hum of sophisticated electronics, the things I’d been forced to see and hear-I couldn’t recall them in detail, but I felt their weight. It was like a worm with sharp teeth wriggled in my brain, endowed with the power to extinguish my thoughts and personality at any time. I was going to have to be very careful when it came to making important decisions.

I stuck one of the Glocks out of sight under my belt, leaving the other one in the wardrobe safe. Worried about my erratic memory, I wrote the code on my forearm. In my pocket, I had a piece of paper with the address of the house in Georgetown that Gavin Burdett stayed in when he was in D.C. Although I’d remembered it once, I wasn’t sure I’d be able to do so again.

It was a clear autumn day, the colors of the trees in the distance and the gray-blue water beneath the sky making the place feel more like a sparsely populated rural town than a great city. As I crossed the bridge, I looked at the gray walls and slate roofs of the university. When I’d attended the crime-writing conference in D.C., a seriously dull criminologist had given a lecture there. The only laugh was provided by a local detective who said that criminology was as much use in law enforcement as a liquorice night stick. I wondered if Clem Simmons knew him. What were his motives in sharing information with Joe and me? He must have been desperate to solve the cases he’d been taken off-or maybe he just hated the FBI. The latter wasn’t exactly my favorite organization right now, either.

The diagrams-if that was what they were-flashed into my mind. I’d left the hard copies I’d made in the safe. There was something about them, something hovering on the margins of my consciousness. They had some esoteric meaning, even though they remained nothing more than collections of squares and rectangles. Random was the one thing they weren’t-I was sure of that. But their significance continued to elude me. Could there be something mathematical about them, a code in the lengths and angles?

The bridge crossed a busy freeway and led down to M Street. The address I wanted was a few streets to the north. I found it easily-a well-maintained row house with a heavy black door and solid-looking windows. Even under cover of darkness, it would be hard to break in unnoticed. On the other hand, standing on the street for any length of time would attract attention, too. I was going to have to come up with a plan pretty soon-and I wasn’t even sure that Gavin Burdett was on this side of the Atlantic. I walked back to Wisconsin Avenue, then went down to M Street and found a cell-phone shop. With a prepaid phone I went back outside and called Joe.

“Yeah, it’s me,” I said. “Any news?”

“Not much. I’m still looking at that Antichurch, but no hot leads yet. Oh, and the FBI’s violent-crimes unit’s giving a press conference about the murders at three o’clock. I’ll be there. What about you?”

“I’ve located the house. No sign of G.B. I’m going to check the back.”

“All right, man. Make sure your phone’s on vibrate.”

I heard a guffaw as I ended the call.

Walking farther down the street, I found a hardware store. I bought a collection of basic tools and a plastic safety helmet, so now I looked reasonably official. I headed back to the house, this time turning onto the street behind. I had counted my steps so that I ended up behind the right place. There was a large tree between two houses, its leaves an iridescent blend of red, yellow and green. More to the point, there was a narrow driveway leading inward. I walked confidently down it.

There were a couple of garages on the right and a high stone wall blocking my way ahead. I looked around. There were trees behind me, so I was pretty well obscured from the houses I’d passed. I considered the situation. If I was challenged, I would say I was a contractor. If the worse came to the worst, I had the Glock. I was thinking about Karen. Even if Burdett wasn’t staying in the house, I might find evidence tying him or the owners to her-even to her disappearance, if I was really lucky. Maybe she was even in there. I had to go for it, but first I would check the front again. It would be dumb to break in from the back and find someone had recently arrived.