Lawrence Block: A Long Line of Dead Men

"A loser."

"A nobody, a nebbish. A guy who wasn't going to make the cut. You're right, he wasn't in our league. He didn't belong at the same table with the rest of us."

"Maybe he realized that himself," I said. "Maybe it pissed him off."

He wanted to speculate on Severance's motives, and what might have gone through his mind. Earlier, he said, before he had any idea who the killer was or what might be motivating him, it had struck him that the whole affair was a sort of collective form of erotomania, where a disturbed individual becomes fixated on someone, often a celebrity. "Like that woman who kept breaking into David Letterman's house," he said. "Or the lunatic who killed John Lennon."

"Afterward," I said, "there will be plenty of time to figure out what makes him tick."

"Afterward?"

"After he's locked up," I said. "And I think it's time to make sure that happens as soon as possible. I'm afraid I've gone about as far as I can go with this, Ray. I'm ready to turn it over to the professionals."

"I never thought of you as an amateur."

"I am when it comes to mounting an all-out manhunt. That's the way to catch him fast. Between the cops and the tabloids and America's Most Wanted, there's no way he'll be able to stay hidden."

He looked at me. "And what about us?"

"The club's story will come out," I said. "If that's what you mean. But there's no way to avoid that."

"No?"

"I don't see how."

He cupped his chin in his hand. "Let's assume he's in New York," he said. "Do you think you could find him?"

"Without the police?"

"Without the police or the press."

"I don't have their resources."

"No, but you have other resources at your disposal. We could give you a substantial operating budget. And you could offer a reward."

"It's not impossible," I said. "But you'd just be postponing the inevitable. The story would have to come out when he went to trial, and it would be every bit as sensational and get just as much of a play."

"When he went to trial."

"That's right."

"And what do you suppose would happen at that trial? And afterward?"

"I'm not sure I follow you."

"What would happen? What would be the outcome of the trial?"

"I suppose he'd get convicted of murder," I said. "Unless he had Hard-Way Ray for a lawyer."

He laughed. "No, I'm afraid he'd have to get along without my services. But are you all that certain he'd be found guilty? Which killing do you suppose he'd stand trial for?"

"Billings is the most recent one."

"And what's the evidence? Can you put him on the scene? Can you tie him to the car? Can you produce a murder weapon, let alone prove it was in his hand?"

"Once the police go to work on it-"

"They might have an eyewitness or two who can pick him out of a lineup," he said, "but I wouldn't count on it, and I don't have to tell you how little most eyewitness testimony is worth in a courtroom. Who else has he killed? Watson's widow? Watson himself? Can you prove any of that? We know he was on the scene, he discovered Alan's body, but where's your evidence?"

"What's your point?"

"My point is that a conviction is by no means a foregone conclusion. You can throw out the early cases entirely. He killed Boyd and Diana Shipton, he went down to Atlanta and shot Ned Bayliss, he hanged Hal Gabriel with his belt, God knows what else he did, and you can forget all of that because there's not going to be any way to prove it. And I seriously doubt you can convince a jury he killed anybody else, either."

I recalled something Joe Durkin had said. "It's a wonder anybody ever goes to jail for anything," I said.

"I don't know about that," he said. "I think the system is generally pretty good at locking people up. Too good, sometimes. But that doesn't mean you can make a tight enough case against Severance to put him away. Hell, if you had the goods on him, he could probably plead insanity and make it stand up. He's devoted his life to a career of senseless systematic serial murder. You want to try to sell him to a jury as a model of mental health?"

"I can't even buy that myself."

"Neither can I. I figure the bastard's nuts. I also figure he's done enough harm for one lifetime."

I had an idea where this was going. I didn't much want to go there. I got the waiter's attention and had him refill my coffee cup.

Gruliow said, "Say I'm wrong. He stands trial, they find him guilty on all counts, and he goes to prison."

"Sounds good to me."

"Does it? Obviously, it makes the club and all of its members the focus of a lot of unwelcomed publicity, but there's no avoiding that, is there? Maybe we'd survive as an institution. For my own part, I can't imagine ceasing to get together every May. But I hate to think how all that media attention would change things."

"That's unfortunate, but-"

"But we're talking life and death here, and our desire to stay out of the spotlight is comparatively inconsequential. I can't argue with that. But let's take this a little further. What happens to Severance?"

"He stays in some maximum-security joint upstate for the rest of his life."

"Think so?"

"I thought we were supposing he'd be found guilty. I don't think the court's going to slap his wrist and let him off with time served and five years' probation."

"Let's assume he gets a life sentence. How much time would he serve?"

"That depends."

"Seven years?"

"It could be a lot more than that."

"Don't you think he could behave himself in prison? Don't you think he could convince the parole board that he's a changed man? Matt, the man's the most patient son of a bitch on God's earth. He's spent thirty years killing us and he's only a little more than halfway through. You think he won't be content to bide his time? They'll have him stamping out license plates and it'll just be another menial job, like working as a rent-a-cop in Queens. They'll stick him in a cell and it'll just be another in a long string of furnished rooms. What does he care how long he has to sit on his ass? He's been sitting on his ass for thirty years. Sooner or later they'll have to let him out, and do you think for one moment that he'll be magically rehabilitated?"

I looked at him.

"Well? Do you?"

"No, of course not."

"He'll start in where he left off. By the time he gets out, Mother Nature will have done some of his work for him. There'll have been some thinning of the ranks. But some of us will be left, and what do you bet he comes after us? What do you bet he tries to pick us off one by one?"

I opened my mouth, then closed it without saying anything.

"You know I'm right," he said.

"I know you've always opposed capital punishment."

"Absolutely," he said. "Unequivocally."

"That's not how you sound this morning."

"I think it's regrettable that a man like Severance could ever be released from prison. That doesn't mean I think the state should go into the business of official murder."

"I didn't think we were talking about the state."

"Oh?"

"You want to apprehend him without involving the media or the police. I get the feeling you'd like to see sentence passed and carried out in much the same manner."

"In other words?"

"You want me to find him and kill him for you," I said. "I won't do it."

"I wouldn't ask you to."

"I don't want to find him so you can kill him yourself, either. How would you do it? Draw straws to see who pulls the duty? Or string him up and have everybody pull on the rope?"

"What would you do?"

"Me?"

"In our position."

"I was in your position once," I said. "There was a man named… well, never mind what his name was. The point is that he had sworn to kill me. He'd already killed a lot of other people. I don't know if I could have got him sent to prison, but I know they wouldn't have kept him there forever. Sooner or later they'd have had to let him out."