David ed. - Face Off (2014) Anthology

“Train might be less hassle,” Starr said. “Give me time to decide whether to spit in his face first or go straight for a punch.”

· · ·

Hospitals always made Roy Grace feel uncomfortable. Too many memories of visiting his dying father and, later, his dying mother. Late on Monday afternoon he followed Rebus and Clarke along the corridor of the Royal Infirmary. It looked new, no smells of boiled cabbage or disinfectant. Transport had been awaiting the group at Waverley Station, Clarke making sure the visitors glimpsed the famous castle before they headed to the outskirts of the city. As Rebus pushed open the doors to the ward, Grace glanced back in the direction of Potting and Starr. Neither man showed any emotion.

“Okay?” Grace checked, receiving two separate nods in reply.

Rebus, however, had come to a sudden stop, Grace almost colliding with him. The bed in the corner was empty, the table next to it bare.

“Shit,” Rebus muttered, eyes scanning the room. Plenty of patients, but no sign of the only one that mattered.

“Can I help?” a nurse asked, her face arranged into a professional smile.

“James King,” Rebus informed her. “Looks like we’re too late.”

“Oh dear, yes.”

“How long ago did he die?”

The smile was replaced with something more quizzical. “He’s not dead,” she explained. “He went into remission. It happens sometimes, and if I were the religious sort . . .” She shrugged. “Spontaneous and inexplicable, but there you are. Mr. King’s back home in the bosom of his family, happy as the proverbial Larry!”

TWENTY MINUTES LATER, REBUS KNOCKED on the door of the bungalow on Liberton Brae. Ella King answered, then stared stonily at the small entourage outside.

“My husband’s changed his mind,” she blurted out. “It was the drugs he was taking. They got him hallucinating.”

“Fine, then,” Rebus said, holding up his hands as if in surrender. “But could we come in a minute?”

She didn’t seem at all sure, but Rebus was already barging past her, stalking down the hall toward the living room, Grace and Clarke right behind him. James King was seated in a large armchair, horse-racing on the television. He was dressed in slacks and a polo shirt, a newspaper on his lap and a mug of tea by his side.

“You’ve heard the news?” he boomed. “They’re calling it a miracle, for want of any better explanation. And has Ella explained about the drugs? I must have been rambling, the time I talked to you.”

“Is that a fact, sir? Well, is there any chance you could ramble your way to the front door? There’s an old friend of yours waiting to see you.”

King’s face creased in confusion, but Rebus was gesturing for him to get up, and get up he did, shuffling toward the front door.

Norman Potting stood on the path outside, hands resting against the handles of Ollie Starr’s wheelchair.

“James King,” Rebus said, “meet Oliver Starr.”

“But we’ve never met. I . . . I don’t know him. What’s this all about?”

“You know me, all right,” Starr snarled, his whole body writhing as if a current were passing through it. “Your bread knife’s still in an evidence locker in Brighton. Did your mum never ask you what happened to it?”

Grace watched King’s face. It was as if the man had been slapped.

“What’s going on?” his wife asked, voice trembling.

“A man did die that day,” Clarke explained. “But not the man your husband attacked. When he saw it reported, he jumped to conclusions.”

“Is this the man who stabbed you, Mr. Starr?” Grace asked.

“I’d know him anywhere,” Ollie Starr replied, eyes burning into King’s.

“You old fool,” Ella King yelped at her husband. “I told you to leave it alone, take it to the grave with you. Why did you have to bring it all up?”

“James Ronald King,” Grace was intoning, “I have a warrant issued for your arrest. I’m arresting you on suspicion of the attempted murder of Oliver Starr. You do not have to say anything, but it may harm your defense if you do not mention when questioned something which you later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence. Is that clear?”

“I’m in remission,” King gasped. “The rest of my life ahead of me . . .”

“Had a good life so far, have you?” Starr snarled. “Better than mine, at any rate. All the years I’ve spent in a bloody wheelchair! No wife, no kids!”

“You can’t do this,” Ella King was pleading. “He’s a very sick man.” Her hand was gripping her husband’s arm.

Rebus shook his head. “He’s not ill, Mrs. King. We heard it from his own mouth.”

“But he is sick,” Potting interjected. “Takes a sick mind to shove a knife so deep into someone it breaks their spine.”

“So far in the past, though,” Ella King persisted. “Everything’s different now.”

“Not so different,” Rebus replied, looking toward Clarke and Grace. “Besides which, I’d say we got here just in the nick of time.”

Roy Grace nodded his agreement.

Different cities, different cultures, different generations, even, but he knew he shared one thing above all else with John Rebus—pleasure in each and every result.

R. L. STINE

VS. DOUGLAS PRESTON AND LINCOLN CHILD

Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child created their character, FBI agent A. X. L. Pendergast, almost by accident. Lincoln was an editor at St. Martin’s Press and had just edited Doug’s first nonfiction book, Dinosaurs in the Attic, a history of the American Museum of Natural History. After that experience, the two decided to write a thriller set in a museum. Doug wrote the first few chapters—involving the investigation of a double murder—and sent them to Lincoln for his opinion. Lincoln read the pages and had one objection. He felt the two cops on the investigation were essentially identical. So he suggested they fold both into the same character (who became Lieutenant Vincent D’Agosta). But then he added, “We need a new kind of detective for the second investigator. A person who’s unusual—and who’ll be like a fish out of water in New York City.”

Doug, already irritated at this criticism of his prose, responded sarcastically, “Yeah, right. You mean, like an albino FBI agent from New Orleans?”

Silence passed for a few moments between them.

Then Lincoln said, “I think that could work.”

Over the next fifteen minutes Special Agent Pendergast was formed, like Athena from the forehead of Zeus.

And the rest, they say, is history.

Over the course of many books Agent Pendergast has faced some unusual adversaries, including cannibalistic serial killers, arsonists, a murderous surgeon, a mutant assassin, and even his own mad-genius brother. But never has he confronted an adversary like Slappy the Ventriloquist Dummy.

Slappy is one of R. L. Stine’s creepiest creations. Bob is one of the best-selling authors of all time, with over 400 million books sold around the world. He is the creator of the amazing Goosebumps series of novels. Millions of kids began reading thanks to Bob’s imagination. Within the Goosebumps series Bob introduced Slappy, through such memorable tales as Night of the Living Dummy, Bride of the Living Dummy, and Son of Slappy. Carved from coffin wood, when brought to life by a certain spoken phrase, Slappy is sarcastic, rude, sadistic, and threatening, with a raspy voice and enormous physical strength. He usually seeks to enslave the luckless child who brought him back to life. He’s so popular that he’s the model for an actual ventriloquist’s dummy sold by many retailers to this day.