Т Паркер - The Blue Hour

Colesceau settled deeper into the sofa, feeling like a cat. Soft and flexible. Boneless.

Fontana: “What we’re saying is you don’t need added stressors just when you’re concluding your parole term.”

“No shit,” Colesceau said quietly. Sometimes you had to be what Holtz called “candid.”

He looked over at Fontana, and knew she’d have him roasted in an American electric chair if she could. No, he corrected himself — she’d want lethal injection — it was neater and more modern and saved energy, which saved endangered species. And that was after she’d tried to ruin his manhood with her barbaric medications.

Fontana: “How is your libido, Moros?”

Colesceau saw the color rise in his own pale face. There would be no dignity in the coming minutes.

“It is still very removed by the medication—”

“—Removed or reduced?” she asked.

Colesceau looked at her again. “Reduced drastically.”

Holtz: “Carla, we know that the Depo-Provera has been tested effective in 92 percent of subjects, with a 90 percent reduction in sexual drive. Removal isn’t possible. Even with a full-on surgical castration the sex drive—”

“—I know,” Fontana interrupted again. “Even with physical castration sexual drive can’t be eliminated. Castrated men have raped.”

Holtz: “Right.”

Fontana: “Because rape isn’t about sex, it’s about anger.”

Colesceau: “This is hard to imagine.”

There was an odd silence, as if Colesceau had just shed unwanted light on their discussion of him.

“Why?” asked Dr. Fontana.

“Because of the reduction.”

“Mr. Colesceau, just how big is the reduction in your libido?”

He imagined holding his hands about six inches apart, then shrinking the distance to about a centimeter. But this wasn’t the kind of humor that went over with government people, even in a democracy.

“Reduced more than you can understand.”

Fontana: “How often do you experience physical sexual arousal, Moros?”

Colesceau looked down again. “Once at night I had dreams and it happened.”

“Erection and ejaculation?”

He nodded. He felt his face turn redder.

Holtz: “When was that?”

“Last year. February.”

Fontana: “And that’s the only time, in three years of the medication?”

“Correct.”

“That tracks with the better statistics,” said Holtz.

Fontana: “I know the statistics.”

Colesceau thought their rivalry was worse torture than their hormone treatment. Well, not exactly. You didn’t have to tape down your breasts because of their rivalry.

Then Fontana, of course: “But when’s the last time you saw an old lady and wanted to sexually assault her with a Coke bottle or your fist?”

He looked across at her. “I have no interest in that whatsoever.”

The silence was thorough and artificially long. Like if it went on long enough he’d change his mind. These people were blunt as tongue depressors.

“And your neighbors are supposed to be comforted by that?”

“I’ve never hurt them. I haven’t broken any law in seven years. I’m a good neighbor. A man with tits. Just like you wanted me to be.”

He saw his face again. It was red and heated and looked like shame and anger put together. Sometimes he just couldn’t fake it.

Holtz: “Does that piss you off, Moros? The breast enlargement?”

“Of course it does, Al.”

“Thank you for the brutal honesty.”

“How do you know how honest it is?” asked Fontana.

Hole shook his head sadly. “More pop, Moros?”

Colesceau unfurled from the chair, accepted Holtz’s glass and left the room. The sound of their lowered voices followed him into the kitchen. He thought of the fog along the Olt and how it hid your own thoughts and kept other voices from getting in. He poured Holtz some more root beer and went back to the living room. With an almost courtly movement he handed the PA the glass, then sat down again.

He could tell it was over.

Holtz: “That’s really all I have for Moros.”

Fontana: “I’m finished, too. Just one question, however. Mr. Colesceau, can you give me one good reason why the people who live around here shouldn’t know that you’re a twice-convicted sexual predator?”

He looked at her and brushed the curl of hair off his forehead. “I can give you two. Number one, I am sorry for the things of my past. And number two, I will never do anything wrong again. I am a different man now.”

By early morning the next day, both ATM searches had come up empty. Hess wasn’t surprised because this guy didn’t seem to have money on his mind. Other than the cash in the purses, which was gone of course. But even that could be used to establish special circumstances for the death penalty, if things got that far.

The soil percolation test wasn’t finished, so Hess helped Ike examine the antitheft systems of the Kane and Jillson cars. In Janet Kane’s car there was no alarm at all. A sticker on the inside of each rear window proclaimed the car was protected by “Electronic Engine Lock and Radio.” All it meant was you couldn’t drive the car away without the key, or if you pulled out the radio it wouldn’t work again without entering a code. You could smash out a window and climb in without setting anything off.

The Jillson Infiniti was another story. It had a keyless entry and a loud horn that went off if the door handles were pulled. The alarm worked well and hadn’t been physically tampered with, unless someone had taken the time to replace the cut wires, which would have to be replaced or repaired before the ignition would work again. There was no reason to do that, then abandon the car.

Ike held up a small component bristling with pins and connectors. He was bright eyed and his thin blond hair fell onto his forehead like a boy’s. Hess wished he was Ike’s age again.

“This is the wiring harness and the logic module from the Q, sir. There’s a deactivate switch right here — yellow wire to pin five. That’s the positive input disarm wire for the keyless entry. The brown pin is driver door, the gray is passenger doors, the black is ground.”

“And?”

“The unit is working perfectly. Relays, switches, resistors, perfect. Which means a couple of things. One, he could have gotten her key, opened the locks, then got it back to her before she got in her car. Easy enough for a parking valet to do — but he wouldn’t need a Slim Jim to get in, then, so why the scratches on the windows? Good call on that, by the way. It’s low tech, so no one thinks of it anymore.”

“I’m low tech, too.”

“I’m glad you are. So, easy for a valet, but not so easy for anybody else. Or, he could have bought a spare keyless unit to fit her car — but that means he’d have to have her picked out way in advance. See, this system is awfully hard to beat. It’s designed to defeat the old code grabbers, keep them from grinding their own keys from the vehicle identification or serial numbers. This has got rolling codes that change every time the key is used. If he had his own keyless unit, I don’t understand why he would deactivate the alarm but not open the doors. I don’t understand why one and not the other.”

Hess nodded and didn’t understand either. “Then he must not have had a keyless entry device. Not one that was working.”

Ike shrugged. “Well, he didn’t override the alarm mechanically — the good thieves can pop the hood and cut the system before it sounds more than once or twice. They usually work in pairs. But that’s messy and there’s no sign of forced entry at all, other than the Slim Jim abrasions. This guy beat the alarm system electronically, then used the Slim Jim. That would be his only chance, out in a mall parking lot. People around, security. Two things cancel all our bets, though: if she never turned on the security system. Or if she knew him.”