Forgive Me, Alex (31 page)

That's it then. This is different from '78. He's going into the second house.

My God, that's Ethel Simmons' place!

"So act that your principle of action might safely be made a law for the whole world." – Immanuel Kant

~~~~~

The second stone had banged off Norton's truck, and he'd reacted, but then it grew suddenly quiet inside the shed.

I clung to the hope that he'd come out to investigate, but if he made a move to hurt Diana, all bets were off. I'd charge in and hope for the best.

He called from inside the shed. "Is someone out there?"

Why don't you find out? Come out and play.

My hand instinctively slipped to the hilt of my
katana
. I assumed he carried at least a knife, based on his threats to Diana, and knowing what he'd done to Alex. He might have an axe, or more. If he had a gun.... I could only pray he didn't. I'd be little help to Diana dead.

He yelled again. "Hello."

Come on, Norton, walk outside.

"It must be nothing. Shit, I'm getting downright jumpy."

Damn it!
What would it take to get that asshole out of the shed?

I couldn't yell out since it would take him only a second to put a knife to Diana's throat. I must separate the two of them; I had an idea, but would need his incessant talking to stop first.

"Why don't we get things ready, what do you say? Do you want a little hoochy-coochy, baby? Let me clear the bench to make some room for us."

He shuffled around again but finally shut up. This was my chance.

"What's that? Did you hear that? Hey bitch, are you awake? Did you hear that? Shit!"

A brief pause. I continued scratching the base of the shed.

"Fuck! You know, it's probably some little vermin drawn by the smell of your piss. Or it could be all the blood that, despite my best efforts, is awful-fuckin'-hard to clean up."

Another pause.

"Maybe I'll feed it a little piece of
you
when I'm done. How does that sound? Hey bitch, are you listening?"

Damn it, shut the fuck up and come out here, you asshole!
I scratch some more.

"Well shit, I have just the thing for that little vermin. Here, kitty-kitty-kitty, come and get yourself a nice big piece of my knife right down your fuckin' throat."

He stormed out and stalked around the side of the shed. As he did so, I slipped around the other side.

"Come and get it, kitty," he said.

He reached the rear of the shed, and I stepped lightly to the front and entered through the door. A woman lay crumpled on the floor to my left, bound and gagged, naked with her legs tied apart.

Sonuvabitch!

A bloody rag tied around her arm appeared to cover some kind of wound. She remained still and unresponsive, oblivious to my entry.

Dear God, help her.

I could barely tell, given her filthy state and matted hair, but it was definitely my Diana. Dried blood splatter covered much of the shed, and the smell of urine nearly made me gag.

You're a fucking dead man, Norton!

I heard him approach, and slid silently behind the door.

"Jesus-H.-fucking-Christ-on-a-raft," he yelled, "there's nothin' out there that I can see. Wake up! Hey, bitch, let's have some fun, you fuckin'—"

I eased a blade against his throat. "If you so much as breathe too hard, I'll cut you from one ear to the other, you rat fucker."

"Well now," he said calmly, "but ain't that a big-ass knife. Where can I get me one of those?"

"That," I said, pressing it to his throat, "is called a
ninjaken
, and it will end you with the slightest movement."

"Shit, I'd better be still."

His laugh gnawed at me.

"By the by," he said. "Your voice sounds awfully familiar."

I stood behind him with one hand on his left shoulder, my other hand draped over his right shoulder and holding the
ninjaken
. He hadn't seen my face yet, and would only see my eyes through the
sanjaku-tenugui
. Of course, he knew who I was—no hiding that—yet instinct told me that he should not see my face.

"Carefully," I said, "and real slow, drop the knife."

He hesitated, and his shoulders tensed up.

"Are you that stupid, Norton? It will take me about one second to kill you and.... You know what? I'll enjoy it immensely."

"Fuck a rubber duck, Hooper. Looks like you got me dead-to-rights. Here you go."

He dropped the knife. Still Diana hadn't moved. I'd thought she'd respond to my voice, but she'd given no indication that she'd recognized it.

I pushed him against the corner. "What have you done to her?"

"Shit, I didn't do
anything
—yet. You sort of interrupted things, if you must know. Too bad, because I had a hard-on to make a porn star blush. I think she wigged-out or something."

I found a pressure point midway between his arm and neck, and burrowed my thumb deep.

"Ahhhhh!" His knees buckled and he dropped to the floor.

"Any more shit out of you and it will get much worse. You hear me?"

He snickered. "Fine!"

I leaned in and in a near-whisper said, "Put your hands behind your head and lock your fingers. You've seen the
ninjaken
. Pray you don't see the
katana
. If that happens, your head goes bye-bye. Got it?"

"Roger and out, general!" He did as instructed, and his laughter grated at my soul.

Why is he still alive? You need to kill him.
I looked at Diana, and back to Norton.
Damn it!

I jumped over to Diana, and reached down to pull her tangled, dirty hair away from her face. A dark bruise the size of a tennis ball marred one side. I raised the edge of the rag to examine the deep, filthy cut on her arm. She stared at me without blinking or any sign of comprehension.

"Diana, do you hear me? Sweetie, I'm here to rescue you. Everything will be okay."

She remained perfectly still.

I cut the ties from her hands and legs, but they flopped back to the floor.

Norton snickered from the corner. "It's the brave boyfriend to the rescue, huh? Well la-di-fucking-da! What do you think of that? How the fuck did you find me?"

"Shut up, asshole!"

I grabbed what looked like a reasonably clean rag off the bench, and replaced the filthy one on Diana's arm. The bleeding had stopped, but the swelling and discoloration were like something out of a war movie. "I'm just going to clean this up a bit," I said, "and then I'll get you to a hospital. Okay?"

She was conscious, her eyes open and her breathing light but steady, yet she responded to nothing.

I turned my head toward Norton. "What did you do to her? Tell me the truth."

He twisted until he could see me. "What the fuck are you supposed to be, some kind of bad-ass ninja motherfucker?"

I gently laid Diana's arm down and brushed some dirt from her face.

Then, in a series of swift motions, I leapt up, pulled both
ninjaken
, spun and launched a kick over Norton's head, and brought the
ninjaken
to bear against his throat in a crossed pattern, poised as scissors to slice off his head.

I didn't know why I'd felt the need for this display, but it pleased me to see his eyes wide with terror. Still, for some reason I couldn't quite understand, I didn't kill him.

"Perhaps it's time to show you," I said.

"Whoa, no need for that! You made a believer out of me."

I pressed the blades deeper. I needed to find out what the sonuvabitch did to Diana before putting him out of his misery. And fast! "Last time I'm gonna ask, rat fucker. What did you do to Diana?"

"I told you the truth. Nothing. She wigged-out."

"Why did she wig-out? What caused her to do that?"

"Let's see, I did promise that I would do to her what I did to Danny-Boy and Jacque-Baby. She saw my work in those cases. I
was
spectacular, if I do say so myself."

I kept the questions going in rapid-fire succession. "Jacque Fuller?"

"You knew her?"

"Knew? You killed her?"

"Oh yeah, baby, but I did much more than that. I'm an artist, you see, and—"

"What does that have to do with Diana?"

"I made her watch it all, and I was magnificent!"

"You sick sonuvabitch! Where's Bobby Keller, Jacque's boyfriend?"

"Bobby-the-Stud? You know I caught him fingering Jacque?"

"Where is he?"

He laughed. "He's in his car."

"And where's his car?"

"At the bottom of the lake, in the gravel pit." He laughed again.

"And where's Jacque? And that other guy, Dan?"

"They're in a place where they'll
never
be found. I cut them up nice and tiny and fed them to the Beast. I'm pretty sure he was hungry."

Oh God.
"What's the beast?"

He shook his head and broke into uproarious laughter again, and I'd had quite enough. The rest would wait for the authorities.

"Don't move or I'll cut your damned head off."

"Yes sir, General Ninja, sir!" The certifiable sonuvabitch saluted the corner.

I returned to Diana, suddenly aware that I'd allowed Norton to distract me from her for precious moments. "I'm so sorry, Sweetie."

I raised her into my arms, and checked her pulse. Norton might have told the truth; I had no way of knowing. With a raging fever, she might have suffered from dehydration and an infected arm. I needed to get her to a hospital immediately. Then I'd hand the crazier-than-batshit Norton to the police.

I wrapped her in one of the blankets, the cleaner and drier of the two, but before lifting her up, I needed to do something about Norton.

The bastard still knelt in the corner, bent upon himself like a warped little doll, giggling and swaying.

I stood, thought about it a moment, and stepped behind him.

"Goodnight, Norton."

"Yes sir, General Ninja, si—"

I struck him on the back of the neck, the
shobo
ring digging deep into a pressure point. He dropped like the sack of shit he was, which didn't bother me in the least, except that I must now carry
him
as well. I grabbed some rope from the bench and cut off two lengths to tie his hands and feet.

Diana remained perfectly still.

I left them both for a couple minutes to run back and get the car. Frank's Caddy managed the rough terrain without too much difficulty, and I parked close to the shed.

I carried Diana to the car, laid her gently in the back seat, and kissed her lightly.

That didn't leave much room for Norton.

***

Having a change of clothes at the ready had been one of Master Komura's first lessons, and a valuable one. I couldn't enter the hospital or deal with the police looking like a ninja movie reject.

I stashed my equipment in what I assumed would be a safe place, inside a duffel bag and under a shrub in a field off Highway 31. I'd pick them up tomorrow night. In my blue jeans and tennis shoes and with my hair straightened out, I looked almost presentable again.

I then broke every speed limit between Crystal Lake and the McHenry County Hospital in Woodstock.

The next half-hour was a mad blur. I rushed Diana into the emergency room, asked the doctor to check her for dehydration first, then the cut on her arm and a possible infection, before a more thorough examination. He asked several questions as he began working on her, but I had to leave most of them unanswered, and he eventually booted me out so he could tend to Diana.

Almost an hour later, I slumped in a chair in the waiting room, about to face another barrage of questions.

A tired, unhappy face burst through the doors of the ER and strode directly toward me. His disheveled hair, wrinkled uniform and dark circles under his eyes made him the perfect new actor in this sad, sick play.

I'd hated like hell to call him at home at two o'clock in the morning, especially after learning that he'd been asleep for only an hour after working late on the case. No choice, really. "Good morning, Chief."

"Tony, what have you done now, for God's sake?"

"Diana is in with the doctors."

His jaw relaxed and he stared at me for a few seconds. "Are you serious?"

I nodded.

"Tell me."

"I know I was supposed to stay out of it, Chief. Special Agent Jackson said some things last night that made real sense, and I was happy about it. Mostly."

"And yet you still managed to interfere with a police investigation."

"That's right. I had to do it. I saw a surveillance car, I think, and I would have let it be if they'd seen Norton when he left his house, but they didn't."