Mr. Mercedes (44 page)

But.

But but
but
.

All that changes nothing. He needs to call it in, even if it feels like dying. When you shove everything else aside, there's just one thing left: Kermit William Hodges is at a dead end. Brady Hartsfield is in the wind. There might be a lead in the computers—something to indicate where he is now, what his plans might be, or both—but Hodges can't access them. Nor can he justify continuing to withhold the name and description of the man who perpetrated the City Center Massacre. Maybe Holly's right, maybe Brady Hartsfield will elude capture and commit some new atrocity, but kermitfrog19 is out of options. The only thing left for him to do is to protect Jerome and Holly if he can. At this point, he may not even be able to manage that. The nosyparker across the street has seen them, after all.

He steps out on the stoop and opens his Nokia, which he has used more today than in all the time since he retired.

He thinks Doesn't this just suck, and speed-dials Pete Huntley.

16

Pete picks up on the second ring.
“Partner!”
he shouts exuberantly. There's a babble of voices in the background, and Hodges's first thought is that Pete's in a bar somewhere, half-shot and on his way to totally smashed.

“Pete, I need to talk to you about—”

“Yeah, yeah, I'll eat all the crow you want, just not right now. Who called you? Izzy?”

“Huntley!” someone shouts. “Chief's here in five! With press! Where's the goddam PIO?”

PIO, Public Information Officer. Pete's not in a bar and not drunk, Hodges thinks. He's just over-the-moon fucking happy.

“No one called me, Pete. What's going on?”

“You don't know?” Pete laughs. “Just the biggest armaments bust in this city's history. Maybe the biggest in the history of the USA. Hundreds of M2 and HK91 machine guns, rocket launchers, fucking
laser cannons
, crates of Lahti L-35s in mint condition, Russian AN-9s still in grease . . . there's enough stuff here to stock two dozen East European militias. And the ammo! Christ! It's stacked two stories high! If the fucking pawnshop had caught on fire, all of Lowtown would have gone up!”

Sirens. He hears sirens. More shouts. Someone is bawling for someone else to get those sawhorses up.

“What pawnshop?”

“King Virtue Pawn & Loan, south of MLK. You know the place?”

“Yeah . . .”

“And guess who owns it?” But Pete is far too excited to give him a chance to guess. “Alonzo Moretti! Get it?”

Hodges doesn't.

“Moretti is Fabrizio Abbascia's grandson, Bill! Fabby the Nose! Is it starting to come into focus now?”

At first it still doesn't, because when Pete and Isabelle questioned him, Hodges simply plucked Abbascia's name out of his mental file of old cases where someone might bear him animus . . . and there have been several hundred of those over the years.

“Pete, King Virtue's black-owned. All the businesses down there are.”

“The fuck it is. Bertonne Lawrence's name is on the sign, but the shop's a lease, Lawrence is a front, and he's spilling his guts. You know the best part? We own part of the bust, because a couple of patrol cops kicked it off a week or so before the ATF was gonna roll these guys up. Every detective in the department is down here. The Chief's on his way, and he's got a press caravan bigger than the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade with him. No way are the feds gonna hog this one! No
way
!” This time his laugh is positively loonlike.

Every detective in the department, Hodges thinks. Which leaves what for Mr. Mercedes? Bupkes is what.

“Bill, I gotta go. This . . . man, this is
amazing
.”

“Sure, but first tell me what it has to do with me.”

“What you said. The car-bomb was revenge. Moretti trying to pay off his grandfather's blood debt. In addition to the rifles, machine guns, grenades, pistols, and other assorted hardware, there's at least four dozen crates of Hendricks Chemicals Detasheet. Do you know what that is?”

“Rubberized explosive.”
Now
it's coming into focus.

“Yeah. You set it off with lead azide detonators, and we know already that was the kind that was used to blow the stuff in your car. We haven't got a chem analysis on the explosive itself, but when we do, it'll turn out to be Detasheet. You can count on it. You're one lucky old sonofabitch, Bill.”

“That's right,” Hodges says. “I am.”

He can picture the scene outside King Virtue: cops and ATF agents everywhere (probably arguing over jurisdiction already), and more coming all the time. Lowbriar closed off, probably MLK Avenue, too. Crowds of lookie-loos gathering. The Chief of Police and other assorted big boys on their way. The mayor won't miss the chance to make a speech. Plus all those reporters, TV crews, and live broadcast vans. Pete is bullshit with excitement, and is Hodges going to launch into a long and complicated story about the City Center Massacre, and a computer chat-room called Debbie's Blue Umbrella, and a dead mommy who probably drank herself to death, and a fugitive computer repairman?

No, he decides, I am not.

What he does is wish Pete good luck and push END.

17

When he comes back into the kitchen, Holly is no longer there, but he can hear her. Holly the Mumbler has turned into Holly the Revival Preacher, it seems. Certainly her voice has that special good-God-a'mighty cadence, at least for the moment.

“I'm with Mr.
Hodges
and his friend
Jerome
,” she's saying. “They're my
friends
, Momma. We had a nice
lunch
together. Now we're seeing some of the
sights
, and this
evening
we're going to have a nice
supper
together. We're talking about
Janey
. I can do that if I
want
.”

Even in his confusion over their current situation and his continuing sadness about Janey, Hodges is cheered by the sound of Holly standing up to Aunt Charlotte. He can't be sure it's for the first time, but by the living God, it might be.

“Who called who?” he asks Jerome, nodding toward her voice.

“Holly made the call, but it was my idea. She had her phone turned off so her mother couldn't call her. She wouldn't do it until I said her mother might call the cops.”

“So what if I
did
,” Holly is saying now. “It was
Olivia's
car and it's not like I
stole
it. I'll be back tonight, Momma. Until then,
leave me alone
!”

She comes back into the room looking flushed, defiant, years younger, and actually pretty.

“You rock, Holly,” Jerome says, and holds his hand up for a high-five.

She ignores this. Her eyes—still snapping—are fixed on Hodges. “If you call the police and I get in trouble, I don't care. But unless you already did, you
shouldn't
.
They
can't find him.
We
can. I
know
we can.”

Hodges realizes that if catching Mr. Mercedes is more important to anyone on earth than it is to him, that person is Holly Gibney. Maybe for the first time in her life she's doing something that matters. And doing it with others who like and respect her.

“I'm going to hold on to it a little longer. Mostly because the cops are otherwise occupied this afternoon. The funny part—or maybe I mean the ironic part—is that they think it has to do with me.”

“What are you talking about?” Jerome asks.

Hodges glances at his watch and sees it's twenty past two. They have been here long enough. “Let's go back to my place. I can tell you on the way, and then we can kick this around one more time. If we don't come up with anything, I'll have to call my partner back. I'm not risking another horror show.”

Although the risk is already there, and he can see by their faces that Jerome and Holly know it as well as he does.

“I went in that little study beside the living room to call my mother,” Holly says. “Mrs. Hartsfield's got a laptop. If we're going to your house, I want to bring it.”

“Why?”

“I may be able to find out how to get into his computers. She might have written down the keyboard prompts or voice-ac password.”

“Holly, that doesn't seem likely. Mentally ill guys like Brady go to great lengths to hide what they are from everyone.”

“I know that,” Holly says. “Of course I do. Because
I'm
mentally ill, and
I
try to hide it.”

“Hey, Hol, come on.” Jerome tries to take her hand. She won't let him. She takes her cigarettes from her pocket instead.

“I am and I know I am. My mother knows, too, and she keeps an
eye
on me. She
snoops
on me. Because she wants to
protect
me. Mrs. Hartsfield will have been the same. He was her
son
, after all.”

“If the Linklatter woman at Discount Electronix was right,” Hodges says, “Mrs. Hartsfield would have been drunk on her ass a good deal of the time.”

Holly replies, “She could have been a
high-functioning
drunk. Have you got a better idea?”

Hodges gives up. “Okay, take the laptop. What the hell.”

“Not yet,” she says. “In five minutes. I want to smoke a cigarette. I'll go out on the stoop.”

She goes out. She sits down. She lights up.

Through the screen door, Hodges calls: “When did you become so assertive, Holly?”

She doesn't turn around to answer. “I guess when I saw pieces of my cousin burning in the street.”

18

At quarter to three that afternoon, Brady leaves his Motel 6 room for a breath of fresh air and spies a Chicken Coop on the other side of the highway. He crosses and orders his last meal: a Clucker Delight with extra gravy and coleslaw. The restaurant section is almost deserted, and he takes his tray to a table by the windows so he can sit in the sunshine. Soon there will be no more of that for him, so he might as well enjoy a little while he still can.

He eats slowly, thinking of all the times he brought home takeout from the Chicken Coop, and how his mother always asked for a Clucker with double slaw. He has ordered her meal without even thinking about it. This brings tears, and he wipes them away with a paper napkin. Poor Mom!

Sunshine is nice, but its benefits are ephemeral. Brady considers the more lasting benefits darkness will provide. No more listening to Freddi Linklatter's lesbo-feminist rants. No more listening to Tones Frobisher explain why he can't go out on service calls because of his RESPONSIBILITY TO THE STORE, when it's really because he wouldn't know a hard drive crash if it bit him on the dick. No more feeling his kidneys turning to ice as he drives around in the Mr. Tastey truck in August with the freezers on high. No more whapping the Subaru's dashboard when the radio cuts out. No more thinking about his mother's lacy panties and long, long thighs. No more fury at being ignored and taken for granted. No more headaches. And no more sleepless nights, because after today it will be all sleep, all the time.

With no dreams.

When he's finished his meal (he eats every bite), Brady buses his table, wipes up a splatter of gravy with another napkin, and dumps his trash. The girl at the counter asks him if everything was all right. Brady says it was, wondering how much of the chicken and gravy and biscuits and coleslaw will have a chance to digest before the explosion rips his stomach open and sprays what's left everywhere.

They'll remember me, he thinks as he stands at the edge of the highway, waiting for a break in traffic so he can go back to the motel. Highest score ever. I'll go down in history. He's glad now that he didn't kill the fat ex-cop. Hodges should be alive for what's coming tonight. He should have to remember. He should have to live with it.

Back in the room, he looks at the wheelchair and the explosives-stuffed urine bag lying on the explosives-stuffed ASS PARKING cushion. He wants to get to the MAC early (but not
too
early; the last thing he wants is to stand out more than he will just by being male and older than thirteen), but there's still a little time. He's brought his laptop, not for any particular reason but just out of habit, and now he's glad. He opens it, connects to the motel's WiFi, and goes to Debbie's Blue Umbrella. There he leaves one final message—a kind of insurance policy.

With that attended to, he walks back to the airport's long-term parking lot and retrieves his Subaru.

19

Hodges and his two apprentice detectives arrive on Harper Road shortly before three-thirty. Holly shoots a cursory glance around, then totes the late Mrs. Hartsfield's laptop into the kitchen and powers it up. Jerome and Hodges stand by, both hoping there will be no password screen . . . but there is.

“Try her name,” Jerome says.

Holly does. The Mac shakes its screen:
no
.

“Okay, try Debbie,” Jerome says. “Both the –
ie
one and the one that ends with an
i
.”

Holly brushes a clump of mouse-brown hair out of her eyes so he can see her annoyance clearly. “Find something to do, Jerome, okay? I don't want you looking over my shoulder. I hate that.” She shifts her attention to Hodges. “Can I smoke in here? I hope I can. It helps me think. Cigarettes help me think.”

Hodges gets her a saucer. “Smoking lamp's lit. Jerome and I will be in my study. Give a holler if you find something.”

Small chance of that, he thinks. Small chance of
anything
, really.

Holly pays no attention. She's lighting up. She's left the revival-preacher voice behind and returned to mumbling. “Hope she left a hint. I have hint-hope. Hint-hope is what Holly has.”