John Sandford - Rules of Prey

"She's gotta know," the surveillance cop said.

"I don't think so," Lucas said. "I think she's just so used to that gap in the curtains that she doesn't notice-"

"Bullshit. Look at that, when she stretches. She's showing it off. But she never shows all of it. She walks around without a bra, but you never catch her without her pants, even when she's been in taking a shower. She's teasing us. I say she knows…"

They were still arguing about it when the maddog did the cripple.

The maddog got a flier at the county clerk's office, a piece of pink paper handed to him as he walked out the door. He read it as he stood in front of the bank of elevators.

There was no attempt at a drawing and no real description. They said he was white-collar, possibly connected with the Hennepin County Government Center or Minneapolis City Hall. Fair-skinned. Southwestern accent, possibly Texas. Once seen dressed as farmer, but that was probably a disguise.

The maddog folded the paper and stood watching the lights on the elevator indicator. When it came, he stepped inside, nodded to the other two occupants, turned, and stared at the door. He hadn't thought that he might have an accent. Did he? In his own ears, he sounded like everybody else. He knew talking to Davenport would be a mistake. Now he might pay for it.

The maddog's mind slipped easily into the legal mode. What could they make of it? So he had an accent. Hundreds of people did. He was white-collar. So was most of Minneapolis. He frequently passed through the Government Center. So did ten thousand people a day, some with business in the Center, some passing through in the skyways. A conviction? No chance. Or little chance, anyway. Some leeway must be given for the vagaries of juries. But would he take a jury? That was something to be contemplated. If they got him, he could ask for a nonjury trial. No judge would convict him on what they had on the flier. But what else did they have? The maddog bit his lip.

What else?

As he worried, the need for another was growing. The law student's face floated before him, against the stainless-steel doors. He was so taken with the vision of her that when the doors opened, he started, and the woman standing beside him glanced at him curiously. The maddog hurried off the elevator, through the skyways, and back to his office. His secretary was out somewhere. As he passed her desk, he saw the corner of a pink slip of paper under a file folder. He paused, glanced around quickly, and pulled it out. A flier. He pushed it back in place. Where was she?

He went inside his office, dropped his briefcase beside the desk, sat down, and cupped his face in his hands. He was still sitting like that when there was a tentative knock at the door. He looked up and saw his secretary watching him through the vertical glass panel beside the door. He waved her in.

"Are you okay? I saw you sitting like that…"

"Bad day," the maddog said. "I'm just about done here. I'm going to head out home."

"Okay. Mr. Wexler sent around the file on the Carlson divorce, but it looks pretty routine," she said. "You won't have to do anything on it before the end of the week anyway."

"Thanks. If you don't have anything to do, you might as well take the rest of the day," he said.

"Oh. Okay," she said brightly.

On the way out to his car, he thought about the innocent conversation. He had said, "Bad day." He had said, "I'm just about done here, I'm going to head out home." That's what he thought he had said. Had his secretary heard, "Bay-ed day-ee"? Had she heard "Ah'm" instead of "I'm"? Was "head out" a Texas expression, or did they use that here?

Did he sound like Lyndon Johnson?

At his apartment, the maddog looked in the freezer, took out a microwave dinner, set the timer on the oven, and punched the Start button. His face was reflected in the window of the microwave. Lips like red worms. His hand slipped into his coat pocket and encountered the flier. He took it out and read through it again.

The victims, it said, were a type. Dark eyes, dark hair. Attractive. Young to middle-aged.

He thought about it. They were right, of course. Maybe he should take a blonde. But blondes didn't appeal. The pale skin, the pale hair. Cold-blooded people. And he didn't want anyone old. That was distasteful. Old women would know too much about their own deaths. His women should be confronting the prospect for the first time.

I won't change, he thought. No need to, really. There were better than a million women in the Twin Cities. Probably a quarter of a million fit his "type." A quarter-million prospective Chosen women. From that point of view, the description of a "type" was meaningless. The police wouldn't have a chance. He felt a surge of confidence: the whole thing was meaningless. Having been fought off by one woman, having been seen at the Brown killing by another witness, he realized the police had less than he had expected. If they were telling everything.

The microwave beeped at him and he took the dinner out and carried it to the table. If they catch me, he thought as he ate the lonely meal, I could use the microwave defense. Like the guy who claimed he was driven crazy by excess sugar from an overdose of Twinkies. The Twinkie defense; his would be the Tater-Tot defense. He speared one of the potato nubbins and peered at it, popped it in his mouth.

Tonight, he thought. I can't wait any longer.

He called the cripple's house a little after six but there was no answer. He called again at seven. No answer. At eight there was an answer.

"Phyllis?" he asked in his highest-pitched voice.

"You must have the wrong number." It was the first time he'd heard her voice. It was low and musical.

"Oh, dear," he said. He sounded dainty in his own ears; like anything but a killer. He gave her a number with one digit different from her own.

"That's the wrong number," she said. "I'm five- four- seven-six."

"Oh. I'm sorry," he said, and hung up. She was home.

He prepared carefully, the excitement growing but under control. A hunter's excitement, a hunter's joy. He would wear his best tweed sport coat, the black cashmere overcoat, with black loafers. Snap-brim felt hat.

The overcoat had big pockets. They would take the potato-the potato had worked so well last time. He went to the closet, took a Kotex pad out of the box he'd bought three months before. Tape. Latex gloves under his leather driver's gloves. A scarf would partially cover the bottom of his face, giving him more protection against recognition: this was new, after all, a collection in his own neighborhood. Had to be ready to abort, he thought. If anyone sees me outside her door, forget it.

Knife? No. She'd have one.

When he was ready, he went through the side door into the attached garage, got in the car, punched the button on the remote garage-door opener, backed into the street, closed the garage, drove two blocks, and parked the car. He reached into the back seat and got a brown business envelope, opened the flap, and looked inside. A half-dozen forms, procured from a bin on the first floor of the Government Center. Applications for employment.

As he walked down to the door, the excitement became almost unbearable. I am coming, he prayed, I am coming for the Chosen; the One is coming. He felt the cold wind on his face and exulted in it, the smell of the Northwest, the expectant winter.

He walked briskly to her house, a businessman on business, and without breaking step turned down her sidewalk. The door had four small panes set in the center, just at head height, partly covered by a small curtain. He looked into her kitchen. She was not in sight. The maddog rapped on the door.