Gamble led the way. It took them between two apartment buildings through a gangway with an overhead tunnel that was dark. A perfect ambush, she thought. But they arrived on the other side, staring out on a backyard with a walk and a little garden patch, a fence and a dilapidated old garage which belonged to the place next door.
It was dark and a strange wind that seemed to come from nowhere swirled in spiraling eddies about her legs. She felt the cold metal of her gun at her ankle, wondering if it was not time to yank it out, but so far there was nothing that called for a lethal weapon or a show of force. Thus far, Hillary had also managed to keep his robe on as well.
“ Come on,” he whispered.
“ Where is the van?”
“ The-the other s-s-side of the garage.”
“ Are you sure he's not home?”
“ Y-yes. Follow m-m-me.”
The only light here came from a distant streetlamp, the closest one having been broken by some child's rock.
Jessica stopped Gamble with a tug at his robe, which he seemed to be pleased with, and then she whispered back to the stubby, Truman Capote look-alike, repeating herself. “Are you absolutely certain that he is away from his place?”
“ My b-b-b-bedroom w-w-window overlooks his place.” His raspy voice was filled with annoyance now. “I dunno w-w-why y-y-you don't b-believe m-m-me.” How long does he usually stay out?”
“ W-w-w-weeks at a t-t-t-time.”
“ But that's got to be only when he has his van with him, right?”
“ I… y-y-y-yes… I g-g-g-guess you're r-r-right.”
“ Then you'll have to watch out for me.”
He nodded in the dark, standing before her in the robe, looking like Yoda of Star Wars fame. “He has a-a-a Hun-Honda Civic… for-for just a-a-around.”
They'd gone to the corner of the garage that abutted Gamble's fence and there it was, a light gray van with the Balue-Stork insignia so aged and peeled as to be nearly unreadable. The gray looked white to silver in the night. She recalled Candy Copeland's pimp, Scarborough, in Wekosha and sensed that he, too, had once seen this very van. She sucked in a deep breath of the warm night air, feeling her heart panting wildly beneath her blouse.
Could it be this easy? Had she finally narrowed the field down to one suspect, finding him amid the millions of people in Chicago, amid all the wackos and sickos that had confused the issues of the case? She thought of the many thousands of so-called leads that hundreds of law enforcement officials had followed, of the thousands of telephone calls and tips that had had to be checked out. Could it possibly be that she had gotten luckier than anyone had a right to be?
Or was it all just too bloody neat?
She again considered the possibility that Gamble had called her in order to lure her here, and that Teach was close enough to hear them breathing; that Teach was at this moment watching her every move. The thought sent a chill through her spine. Where was he, if he was here? In the garage? In the house, staring out from a window? In Gamble's house, waiting for them to return, waiting for her to begin to let her guard down, thinking she was safe enough with Gamble? Or was the bastard in the van that Gamble had led her to? Was the van the trap that would snap on her neck? She could be at her gun in an instant, but for now she merely checked over her shoulder to locate Gamble. He was still in the shadow of the garage.
“ He unloads from here?” she asked.
“ Yes.”
“ Why doesn't he use the garage?”
“ Too-too clut-t-t-tered.”
“ I'm going to inspect the van.”
“ I–I-I'd be very k-k-k-careful.”
“ You just stay here, Mr. Gamble.”
“ D-d-don't worry 'b-bout that.”
Jessica found the driver's side door locked, and so she inched her way toward the rear of the van. She had a sensation she was being watched and that Gamble had not stayed put. Glancing back, however, she found the strange, little pervert picking his ear where he stood just below the canopy of the alleyway. She watched his hand go across his mouth to cover an anxious burp, or was he trying to hide his jagged, stained teeth in an unconscious gesture? Or was he covering a leering grin? Impossible to tell, but if it was a grin, she might be in for a surprise. She readied herself for any eventuality.
She cursed when she found the rear door to the van also locked. She'd like to examine the interior, but without a warrant, what purpose would it serve? Still, if she could see inside… With the weak light of the streetlamp halfway down the alley, she might just see something useful. She stepped up onto the bumper and stared into the dark hole of the interior, her eyes widening, straining, when she saw a large, square, metal container, a cooler or freezer which looked very expensive, the kind seen in ambulances, used to transport donor organs and blood. Her heart skipped like a stone over frigid water. It could be the very container used to transport Candy Copeland's blood from Wekosha to Chicago.
She was without a warrant. Smashing the glass with a brick to get to the contents could only lead to problems with the evidence down the road, if this were indeed the killer's van. She tried to make out other strange objects in the van: ropes coiled like so many snakes lying in wait; a tool box and several objects that might or might not be power tools. It had to be him, or it was all very innocent and Gamble was the idiot that he appeared to be.
She got down from the bumper and rounded the truck, suddenly startled by Gamble, who was standing there, a sneer curling his fetid lips, saying in a whisper, “I t-t-t-toF you s-s-so! It's him, ain't it?”
She caught her breath, having been frightened by the little runt. “Gamble, I told you to stay where you were.”
“ I–I-I am where I–I-I wa-was.”
“ I've got to use your phone. Now!”
“ No problem. I–I-I'11 s-sh-sh-sh-show y-you w-where it is.”
His stutter seemed to be getting worse with time. Her mind was on getting a message through to Boutine and Brewer if it meant getting the entire CPD off their asses, but far to the rear of her thoughts she seemed to recall a bit of psychology that said a stutterer's stutter grew worse with stress and anxiety. Was Gamble stressed over the fact that they were so near to entrapping his neighbor? Or was he anxious about her entering his home?
She was anxious about closing a door behind them as she entered, so she asked that the front door be left ajar. He complied with a nod and a smile, pointing in the direction of the phone, which sat on a small table in the hallway. The place was darkened and she asked that he turn on some lights as she passed from the foyer to the telephone, picking it up and dialing 911.
But before the connection was made, the phone went dead and she saw the little dwarf in front of her, grinning insanely. She was grabbed suddenly from behind, her arm twisted, her neck in a chokehold and no way to get at the gun strapped to her leg. Her eyes grew wild with fear when she saw the small ugly man in front of her amble toward her with a hypodermic needle held prominently before him. The strength of the man who had her in his grasp was unbeatable, but she used this against Gamble when he got within reach, kicking out with her feet and sending Gamble tumbling toward the half-open door where a crack of light from outside revealed Gamble's bloody nose.
“ Goddammit, Gamble, get it done!” cried out the man who struggled to keep hold of her. She recognized the voice as that of the man who had telephoned from a booth earlier, claiming to be Teach. She fought as best she could, at one point grabbing the phone and sending it colliding into the skull over her shoulder, bruising herself as well in the bargain. But the little one scrambled to his feet, scurried ratlike to the syringe which had cascaded into a corner and now rushed around to her and her assailant's side. The other man shouted, “You stick me with that damned thing and I'll kill you, Gamble!”
She felt the needle plunge into her thigh and she screamed, but her scream was stifled by a thick hand with a surgical glove over it. Her eyes went to the cracked door with what little light was streaming through before she was forced into the adjoining room, where only darkness reigned.
“ She wanted a little light, Gamble, so give her a little light-
She somehow sensed that there was something or someone other than her two assailants in the room with them, as if the presence of evil were palpable and breathing. The drug was taking rapid effect and she wasn't sure what was real and what was imaginary any longer, but she smelled death in the darkness; she smelled an odor like that in the cabin in Wekosha and wherever else she had found the drained bodies of this madman's appetite.
Gamble was laughing, taunting her in the darkness from some distance measured in either feet or the miles created by the drug that'd made her malleable and easy to conduct. Her brain tried to fight the conductors, knowing where she was being transported to. “A little light… a little light…” Gamble was chanting without a stutter, as if he now were calmed and relaxed, now that he had his prize within his grasp.
A pair of candles or a kerosene lamp, she could not be sure, cast shadows like demons all around her. Her own shadow melded with Gamble's stubby form against one wall, and towering behind her was that of a thing that seemed for all the world to be a giant vampire bat, the man who still held her in his grasp. But there was another black shadow also, a strange, upset shadow, the shadow of a dangling body, upside down, at the center of the room.
Her face was forced suddenly into the dead face of Lyle Kaseem's, a strange, tubular object jutting from his throat.
Gamble had not lied. It was him. It was the man she had searched for since Wekosha. It was Candy Copeland's vicious, sadistic killer; Janel McDonell's torturer; the bloodsucker who had taken the lives of so many others.
As if reading her mind, Teach said in a raspy voice, his rubber-gloved hands feeling like the touch of an alien, “And you're next, Doctor…”
She felt a numbness grip her body and her mind, the powerful grip of the sedative doing its work; likely the way that Kaseem had been rendered helpless. She only half heard Gamble stutter the name of the other. “M-m-mad… Mad M-m-mat… M-m-meet Mad Matt Matisak.” His keening, sickening giggle followed.
“ Just a little of her blood, Hillary, and you can have the body, just like I promised you.”
More digusting laughter erupted from Hillary Gamble moments before she lost all sensory perception. She found herself in a dark place, somewhat shattering in its complete blackness, and yet somewhat comforting. She didn't feel anything… and yet the darkness into which she was thrust was surrounded by fear all about the periphery, like demons waiting to come get her…
Boutine and Brewer remained at Matisak's house and each moment they stayed revealed something further about the madman. Brewer, after Boutine had gone to the car to radio for assistance and news of Jessica, had inched closer and closer to the bathroom, smelling a heady, pungent odor as he did so; it was the metallic smell of blood. He had drawn his own weapon more for something to hold onto than anything else. As he neared the bathroom, he extended a hand to a hallway light, but it didn't extend into the little room at the end of the hall to do much good. Brewer felt as if he were in the haunted house at Disneyland. A chill feeling of creepiness extended along his spine to the hairs on his neck.
At the door. Brewer wheeled, but there was no one there.
He saw that the bathtub was filled with a dark, soupy mixture which looked purple. He feared the worst, got a grip on his senses and called for Boutine several times. But Boutine was still out at the car.
He gritted his teeth, placed his fingers on the light switch and closed his eyes for a moment.
He hit the switch and the room was bathed in a soft red glow, just as the living room had been. The bathwater was also a deep crimson color, almost matching the shower curtain.
“ Sick bastard,” muttered Brewer, who went to the sink and turned on the tap, half expecting blood to flow from it. He repeatedly threw cold water into his face, trying desperately to accept what his eyes had presented to him.
Boutine reentered with no further news on Jessica, except that she was still not answering at the hotel. Boutine's agitation was near crippling. Brewer stumbled from the bathroom, visibly quaking.
“ I know how you feel about her. Otto, but we've got to believe she's okay.” Brewer's voice was shaking unevenly.
“ What'd you see back there?” he asked. “You're white as a ghost.”
“ Fucking bathtub is filled with blood.”
“ Christ.” Otto stepped around Brewer to see for himself.
“ We've got to do a top-to-bottom of this place. Find every scrap of evidence so the break-in won't be held against us. We'll need to take samples of the bath”-Joe Brewer was about to say water, then blood, but he was unable to know what to call it-”the stuff in the bathtub.”
Brewer had been transfixed. Now Otto came back ashen as well. “Just imagine how many people have provided this bastard with his kicks. Imagine him using your blood for his bloody bath.”
“ The kitchen, Otto. Let's check the fridge.”
“ Be my guest.”
They toured the kitchen and found the refrigerator near empty, with no jars filled with blood.
“ Not much of an eater, is he?” said Brewer.
“ What's down here?” asked Boutine, locating a door to a basement area. It was dark and dirty below, and once more the bulb light that flickered on did so beneath a curtain of streaked-on blood. The basement floor was dirt, the shelving laced here and there with cobwebs, but the shelves clear of dust. There were no power tools to be found, and the centerpiece of the room was a large, floor-model freezer, quite old, with the word Philco nearly invisible on its front.
“ Must've taken the tools with him,” Brewer was saying when Boutine, ahead of him, said, “The freezer.”
Boutine pulled the top back and stared down at a handful of blood packs and a few jars of frozen blood. “He's cleaned out his stock. This tears it. He knows we're on to him, and he's cleared out.”
“ But how? How'd he know?”
“ Earlier conclusion. From the papers, from something Jess said to the press, who knows? Overplayed his hand killing Lowenthal, knew we were close on his ass, panicked, rushed outta here in one hell of a hurry.”
“ Yeah, left his tub full of blood, left his cat, too, all locked up. I don't know. Seems to me he plans to come back.”
“ Should've listened to Jess. Should've known better,” Otto lamented.
“ Hey, the bastard had us all fooled with Lowenthal's suicide.”
“ Not Jess. She knew. She knew it was phony, and she tried to tell me so. And somehow he knows that she knew, that she is a threat to him.”
“ You're jumping to wild conclusions, Otto.”
“ Am I? Christ, I wish I were.”
More cars arrived outside, both police and FBI, strobe lights alerting the entire neighborhood to their presence. Boutine turned to Brewer and sadly said, “If I only knew where she was.”
“ Sit this one out, Otto. Take my car. Get out to Lincolnshire and find her. You'll see, she'll be fine.”
“ I've already sent cars out there, dammit. No one can locate her.”
In Matisak's den, where he had written his letter to Jessica Coran, there were blood splotches on the pad over the huge oaken desk, and a pen like the one found at Lowenthal's.”
“ Don't touch anything,” said Otto. “Bag it all. It'll prove to be the same blood used in the letter to Jess.”
“ The inkwell,” said Brewer, recalling the story of the blood letter. They had found the same paraphernalia at Lowenthal's.
Boutine used a handkerchief to lift it and sniff. “Blood, all right.”
“ Real raving maniac, this guy.”
“ Able to work a nine-to-five when he wasn't bloodletting.” Boutine had had enough. He replaced the inkwell on the blotter and said, “Be sure our guys get it all and take complete care with everything. Get the usual-”
“ We'll take care of it, Otto.”
“ And the telephone records. They might tell us a lot.”
“ Will do.”
Boutine, his shoulders slumped, feeling defeated by the vampire once more, went through the house the way he had come and out into the air where he could breathe. The house had been warm, like a Turkish bath, Matisak's disease-as Jess had said-requiring warmth. Well, now things were going to be really hot for the bastard, he thought. But the fear and worry for Jessica beat back all other thoughts, and so he found Brewer's car and called once again into central to learn if anyone anywhere in the city had heard word one from Jessica Coran.