Jeffery Deaver - The Coffin Dancer

“Fred, wait… we need you.”

But the agent didn’t hear, or he ignored Rhyme if he did. He stalked out of the room.

A moment later the door downstairs closed with a sharp click.

Hour 24 of 45

“HOME, SWEET HOME,” JODIE SAID.

A mattress and two boxes of old clothes, canned food. Magazines – Playboy and Penthouse and some cheap hard-core porn, which Stephen glanced at distastefully. A book or two. The fetid subway station where Jodie lived, somewhere downtown, had been closed decades ago and replaced by one up the street.

A good place for worms, Stephen thought grimly, then pried the image from his mind.

They’d entered the small station from the platform below. They’d made their way here – probably two or three miles from the safe house – completely underground, moving through the basements of buildings, tunnels, huge sewer pipes, and small sewer pipes. Leaving a false lead – an open manhole cover. Finally they’d entered the subway tunnel and made good time, though Jodie was pathetically out of shape and gasped for breath trying to keep up with Stephen’s frantic pace.

There was a door leading out to the street, barred from the inside. Slanting lines of dusty light fell through the slats in the boards. Stephen peered outside into the grim spring overcast. It was a poor part of town. Derelicts sat on street corners, bottles of Thunderbird and Colt 44 were strewn on the sidewalk, and the polka dots of crack vial caps were everywhere. A huge rat chewed something gray in the alley.

Stephen heard a clatter behind him and turned to see Jodie dropping a handful of stolen pills into coffee cans. He was hunched over, carefully organizing them. Stephen dug through his book bag and found his cell phone. He made a call to Sheila’s apartment He was expecting to hear her answering machine but a recording came on that said the line was out of order.

Oh, no…

He was stunned.

It meant that the antipersonnel satchel had gone off in Sheila’s apartment. And that meant they’d found out he’d been there. How the hell had they done that?

“You all right?” Jodie asked.

How?

Lincoln, King of the Worms. That’s how!

Lincoln, the white, wormy face peering out the window…

Stephen’s palms began to sweat.

“Hey?”

Stephen looked up.

“You seem -”

“I’m fine,” Stephen answered shortly.

Stop worrying, he told himself. If it blew, the explosion was big enough to hose the apartment and destroy any trace of him. It’s all right. You’re safe. They’ll never find you, never tie you down. The worms won’t get you…

He looked at Jodie’s easy smile of curiosity. The cringe went away. “Nothing,” he said. “Just a change of plans.” He hung up.

Stephen opened his book bag again, counted out $5,000. “Here’s the money.”

Jodie was transfixed by the cash. His eyes flipped back and forth between the bills and Stephen’s face. The thin hand reached out, shaking, and took the five thousand carefully, as if it might crumble if he gripped it too hard.

As he took the bills Jodie’s hand touched Stephen’s. Even through the glove the killer felt a huge jolt – like the time he’d been stabbed in the gut with a razor knife – stunning but painless. Stephen let go of the money and, looking away, said, “If you’ll help me again I’ll pay you another ten.”

The man’s red, puffy face broke into a cautious smile. He took a deep breath and poked through one of his coffee cans. “I get… I don’t know… nervous, sort of.” He found a pill, swallowed it. “It’s a blue devil. Makes you feel nice. Makes you feel all comfy. Want one?”

“Uhm…”

Soldier, do men take a drink occasionally?

Sir, I don’t know, sir.

Well, they do. Here, have one.

I don’t think I -

Take a drink, Soldier. That’s an order.

Well, sir -

You’re not a pussy girl, are you, Soldier? You have titties?

I… Sir, I do not, sir.

Then drink, Soldier.

Sir, yes sir.

Jodie repeated, “You want one?”

“No,” Stephen whispered.

Jodie closed his eyes and lay back. “Ten… thousand…” After a moment he asked, “You killed him, didn’t you?”

“Who?” Stephen asked.

“Back there, that cop? Hey, you want some orange juice?”

“That agent in the basement? Maybe I killed him. I don’t know. That wasn’t the point.”

“Was it hard to do? Like, I don’t mean anything, I’m just curious. Orange juice? I drink a lot of it. Pills make you thirsty. Your mouth gets all dry.”

“No.” The can looked dirty. Maybe worms had crawled on it. Maybe crawled inside. You could drink a worm and never know it… He shivered. “Do you have running water here?”

“No. But I have some bottles. Poland Spring. I stole a case from A &P.”

Cringey.

“I need to wash my hands.”

“You do?”

“To get the blood off them. It soaked through the gloves.”

“Oh. It’s right there. Why do you wear gloves all the time? Fingerprints?”

“That’s right.”

“You were in the army, right? I knew it.”

Stephen was about to lie, changed his mind suddenly. He said, “No. I was almost in the army. Well, the marines. I was going to join. My stepfather was a marine and I was going in like him.”

“ Semper Fi .”

“Right.”

There was silence and Jodie was looking at him expectantly. “What happened?”

“I tried to enlist but they wouldn’t let me in.”

“That’s stupid. Wouldn’t let you? You’d make a great soldier.” Jodie was looking Stephen up and down, nodding. “You’re strong. Great muscles. I” – he laughed – “I don’t hardly get any exercise, ’cept running from niggers or kids want to mug me. And they always catch me anyway. You’re handsome too. Like soldiers ought to be. Like the soldiers in movies.”

Stephen felt the wormy feeling going away and, my God, he started blushing. He stared at the floor. “Well, I don’t know about that.”

“Come on. Your girlfriend thinks you’re handsome, bet.”

Little cringey here. Worms starting to move.

“Well, I -”

“Don’t you have a girlfriend?”

Stephen asked, “You got that water?”

Jodie pointed to the box of Poland Spring. Stephen opened two bottles and began washing his hands. Normally he hated people watching him do this. When people watched him wash he kept being cringey and the worms never went away. But for some reason he didn’t mind Jodie watching.

“No girlfriend, huh?”

“Not right now,” Stephen explained carefully. “It’s not like I’m a homo or anything, if you were wondering.”

“I wasn’t.”

“I don’t believe in that cult. Now, I don’t think my stepfather was right – that AIDS is God’s way of getting rid of homosexual people. Because if that’s what God wanted to do he’d be smart and just get rid of them, the faggots, I mean. Not make there be a risk that normal people might get sick too.”

“That makes sense,” Jodie said from his hazy plateau. “I don’t have one either, a girlfriend.” He laughed bitterly. “Well, how could I? Right? What’ve I got? I’m not good-looking like you, I don’t have any money… I’m just a fucking junkie is all.”

Stephen felt his face burn hot and he washed harder.

Scrub that skin, yes, yes, yes…

Worms, worms, go away…

Looking at his hands Stephen continued. “The fact is I’ve been in a situation lately where I haven’t really… where I haven’t been as interested in women as most men are. But it’s just a temporary condition.”