Hush (34 page)

He asked Ethan what he was looking for. Side
by side, they began walking through the crowd, past tables, as
Ethan ran through his list, expecting the geek's eyes to glaze over
the way everyone else's did whenever he talked about his
obsession.

But they didn't. He jumped right in and kept
up. He knew all about Portishead, and Stereolab. He knew that Doug
Yule sang vocals on "New Age," not Lou Reed. He knew about the
history of groups and artists. He knew how Morrissey used to be in
the Smiths, and how he was a strict vegan, and how he wouldn't let
anybody eat pork rinds at his concerts.

"Are you hungry?" the guy asked. "I am. Wanna
grab a piece of pizza at one of these places?"

In front of them were the food vendors. Ethan
said, "Sure."

Ruby offered to pay for Ethan's, but Ethan
wouldn't let him. They found a table that was away from the main
traffic flow and sat down across from each other.

"That just blows me away that you know so
much about music," Ethan said, picking up his slice of pizza.

"I majored in music theory," Ruby said.

"Cool. What do you do now?"

"A lot of self-taught musicians can't read
music. So they record something, then send it to me to
transcribe."

"Then how do you know my dad? I figured you
worked with him."

"We're practically neighbors. I live on
Davern Circle and I've run into your dad a few times. I used to
have a nephew who played hockey. He graduated a few years ago, so
you wouldn't know him. But I kept going to the games. I dig hockey
almost as much as music."

When they were done eating, they sat there,
continuing to talk. They talked about record labels, about how the
majority of labels didn't care anything about the music, they just
wanted a pretty face they could saturate the media with. The people
who were doing the good stuff weren't being signed.

"Same with radio," Ruby said. "It has nothing
to do with music. For the station, music is just the noise in
between the ads."

"No shit. It's even hard to tell the songs
from the ads."

"I know. It's like solid ads."

"And nobody cares. Nobody cares that they're
being spoon-fed shit. They just think, I like this shit because
everybody else likes this shit."

"I know, I know!"

They both laughed.

And Ethan suddenly began telling Ruby
everything, about how Max had adopted him, and about how Ethan had
tried to find his birth father, only to find out that the woman
he'd always thought of as his birth mother had actually adopted
him. It all came pouring out. It was because of the music. That's
why it happened. It had unlocked a door, and left Ethan thinking
that here, finally, was somebody who understood him, somebody he
could talk to.

They wandered around some more, Ruby saying
that he'd better not spend any more money.

Ethan wondered if he should get the My Bloody
Valentine album. "The guy said there were only a couple thousand
pressed, but I don't know if I believe him."

"It's true," Ruby said. "You'd better get
it."

So Ethan bought the album for twelve bucks,
and walked around with it under his arm, the blood red cover
protected with a plastic sleeve. He bought a couple of other CDs
that he'd been looking for, then decided he'd try to come back
tomorrow. The vendors always dropped their prices as the days
progressed.

"How you getting home?" Ruby asked.

"I don't know. I thought I'd stop by my dad's
office, see if he's around."

"I can give you a ride. I only live a couple
of streets away."

"You wouldn't care?"

"I'd like the company. And we can listen to
the Cocteau Twins on the way."

"Cool."

Ten minutes later, they were in Ruby's
car.

One of the things that was so great about the
Cocteau Twins was the way the vocals sounded like another
instrument, not like words at all but sounds, melody. There was a
part in "Iceblink Luck," from Heaven or Las Vegas, where you could
actually make out a few words—something about burning a madhouse
down.

Around there was when Ethan began to wonder
about Ruby. That was when everything his dad had drilled into him
from the time he was little came rushing back. Stuff about never
getting into a car with a stranger. But Ruby wasn't a stranger. Was
he?

Maybe he lied. Maybe he doesn't really even
know my dad.

But Ethan had seen him wave to his dad at the
hockey game, the one he'd brought Ivy to.

But had his dad waved back?

As far as Ethan could tell, they were heading
in the right direction, northwest out of metro Chicago.

It was late, after nine o'clock, and it was
dark.

His new buddy's car was one of those big jobs
that old lady losers or rich people drove. The bigger the better,
they must think. But Ruby's was old, and the shocks weren't good,
because whenever they hit a bump, the front end would start to bob,
bob, bob, gradually stopping, only to start again as soon as they
hit another bump.

Ethan wanted him to shut off the music. This
kind of music, the kind that should be worshipped, didn't belong in
a crappy, creepy car like this, coming out of little speakers. The
music didn't go with a man who, when you took away his interest in
music, was just a little weird. He didn't actually look weird, but
now that they were together in his claustrophobic car, Ethan was
picking up an uncomfortable vibe.

"This your car?" Ethan asked.

You'd think somebody who liked music so much
would have a good stereo. This one sounded like shit.

"It belongs to my mother," Ruby said.

No explanation of where his car might be. In
the shop, probably, Ethan told himself. People were always getting
into fender benders in Chicago, that's one of the reasons his old
man refused to get a new car. He said it would just get run into,
so why bother? And some people had crappy cars they kept just to
drive downtown. Maybe that was the deal with Ruby.

If Ruby was his real name.

Where had that come from? Why wouldn't Ruby
be his real name?

"Do you mind if we shut this off?" he asked,
motioning toward the CD player even though the interior of the car
was dark and Ruby couldn't see him.

"I thought you wanted to hear it."

"Not through those crappy speakers. There's
no high or low end. Can't you tell?"

"I know this car's a piece of junk. I'm going
to trade it in for something else."

"I thought it was your mother's."

"It is, but she can't drive anymore."

"Why? Too old?"

"I don't want to talk about her," he said,
his voice rising in obvious irritation. "Let's talk about you. What
would you say if I told you I could hook you up with your real
mother?"

Leeriness briefly forgotten, Ethan twisted in
the seat so he could get a better look at Ruby's silhouette. "You
could do that? How?"

"I know some people."

"Wow. That would be great. More than
great."

Ruby cut across two lanes to the exit
ramp.

"Wrong exit," Ethan said.

"I know, but my oil light's on, see?"

Ethan leaned over and saw that, indeed, the
red light was on. "Oh, man." Why'd he ever get in the car with this
loser?

Ruby pulled off onto a dark side street. "Got
extra oil in the back."

He got out and went around to the trunk.
Ethan heard him banging things together that sounded like tire
irons or something. Then he lost track of him until he knocked on
the passenger window, almost sending Ethan through the roof.

"You scared the crap out of me," Ethan
complained.

Ruby shouted through the rolled-up window.
"Come out and hold the flashlight for me, will you?"

What a joke.

Ethan had one foot on the ground when
something unseen, something powerful, hit him full on top of the
head, the force bringing him to his knees. Pain radiated through
his skull, all the way to his teeth. Behind his eyelids, starbursts
flashed, then the world turned black.

"Her condition is critical," the doctor told
Max, Ivy, and Ronny Ramirez as they stood in the hallway outside
Intensive Care.

"How can she even be alive?" Ivy asked. "How
could anyone survive that long locked in a trunk?"

"She couldn't have been there over eight to
twelve hours—and only if most of those hours were overnight," Dr.
Montoya said.

"You're sure?" Max asked.

"The temperature inside the trunk would have
steadily increased throughout the morning," the doctor explained.
"An uninjured person wouldn't have been able to withstand more than
a few hours in the heat of the day."

"I'm putting a twenty-four-hour guard on
her," Max said. "She's the only one who can identify the person who
did this to her. And it's extremely important that we catch him,
because if we don't, more lives are in danger."

"Well, you'd better hope to find another
eyewitness, because Regina Hastings is a long shot. If she does
come around she'll most likely be brain damaged."

Ramirez made an anguished sound, and Ivy
squeezed his arm in sympathy.

Max's mobile phone rang. The doctor took the
opportunity to excuse himself to speak to Regina's family.

The call was from Harold Doyle of Documents.
"You know those faxes you sent down?" he asked. "Half of them were
written by someone other than Regina Hastings."

"You sure?"

"Positive."

"Do any of them match the letters written to
the paper?"

"Haven't gotten that far, but I'm working on
it."

"Call me when you have something."

Max disconnected, then dialed home. Nobody
answered, but that didn't surprise him. Ethan had gone to a music
show and was staying the night at Ryan's.

"He must have gone to her apartment and faxed
the questionnaires," Ivy said as soon as Max hung up. "Then, after
putting her body in the trunk of her own car, he went back in the
middle of the night to leave her in the parking area."

"You're probably right."

"I wonder if he thought she was dead, or if
he put her there to finish her off."

"He's playing with us again, that's what he's
doing," Max said.

"I had the feeling something was wrong that
first night," Ronny said. "Why didn't I go by her place then?"

"You couldn't have been sure," Ivy said,
trying to reassure him. "Regina's independent."

"Yeah, but she takes her job seriously. I
should have known. I should have known."

Max's phone rang again.

The call was from Raymond Lira, Vice Squad.
"We just arrested a guy for dealing acepromazine," he told Max.
"Offered him a break if he worked with us, told us who he sold to.
One of his clients sounds like it might be our man."

"Get a sketch artist down there."

"Now? It's late."

"I don't care. Get someone down there."

"Should they use the Identi-Kit?" he asked,
referring to a kit that contained interchangeable paper
features.

"No, get Barbara Ainsworth if you can—she's
the best. If we're lucky, we might be able to make tomorrow's
paper."

He contacted the task-force office. "Call the
papers," Max said. "Tell them to save us a spot. Find out how long
they can wait to go to press. And get in touch with taxi companies
and metro transit to see if anybody recently picked up a male
passenger near the Spring Green Apartment Complex."

Using the right bait was everything.

The Manipulator was cruising down Interstate
90, heading in the direction of his house, feeling calm, feeling in
control. Everything was falling into place. Everything would be all
right.

The streets of Chicago were spread out before
him—strings of twinkling lights. Beautiful. Really beautiful.

He'd agonized over how he was going to get
the kid to come with him. But in the end, it had been so easy. He'd
been following him off and on for a couple of weeks. He knew the
way he hung out at music stores. He'd even taken note of his
purchases. That was all it took. The record and CD show—that was a
gift. The perfect gift.

And now little Adrian was in the trunk of his
car, waiting to be reunited with his mother.

They were still alive. Both of them. Their
deaths had been faked in order to trick him. That's what had
screwed everything up. They were supposed to have been the
thirteenth victims. But because neither of them had really died,
everything was wrong. That's why he'd always felt there was
something missing. Some big hole that was always there, in the back
of his brain. And whenever he turned his thoughts toward it, trying
to look at it, trying to see what was whispering to him, annoying
him, he could never turn his head fast enough. He could never see
it.

But now everything made sense.

He wasn't crazy.

"He was more like ... I don't know . . .
skinny. He was one of those skinny white guys."

"So, he had a thin face?" asked the sketch
artist.

"Yeah."

"How about the forehead?"

"Big. He had a big forehead."

"Eyes? Were they big, small, average?"

"Average."

"Facial hair?"

"Did he have any? No, but he had these little
dark lines above his mouth that he needed to shave."

"Mouth. Big? Little? Average?"

"Big."

They went on and on.

The sketch artist deftly filled in short dark
hair. She changed the shape of the jaw a couple of times until the
drug dealer was finally satisfied. "Yeah, that's the guy."

Max, who'd been sitting quietly at a desk in
the corner of the room, now came forward. "Was there anything else
about him that stood out? The way he talked? The way he dressed?
Mannerisms?"

"He had no sense of style."

"What do you mean?"