Mr. Mercedes (50 page)

“You can also use your MAC card to obtain a ten percent discount at selected fine restaurants and local retail businesses,” the fembot informs Hodges.

Then, at long last, she gets down to business.

“There is no one in the main office to take your call now. If you know the number of the extension you wish to reach, you may dial it at any time. If not, please listen carefully, because our menu options have changed. To call the Avery Johns Drama Office, dial one-oh. To call the Belinda Dean Box Office, dial one-one. To reach City Symphony—”

Oh dear Jesus, Hodges thinks, it's the fucking Sears catalogue. And in alphabetical order.

The Mercedes dips and swerves as Jerome takes the 4A exit and shoots down the curved ramp. The light is red at the bottom. “Holly. How is it your way?”

She checks with the phone still at her ear. “You're okay if you hurry. If you want to get us all killed, take your time.”

Jerome buries the accelerator. Olivia's Mercedes shoots across four lanes of traffic listing hard to port, the tires squalling. There's a thud as they bounce across the concrete divider. Horns blare a discordant flourish. From the corner of his eye, Hodges sees a panel truck climb the curb to avoid them.

“To reach Craft Service and Set Design, dial—”

Hodges punches the roof of the Mercedes. “What happened to
HUMAN FUCKING BEINGS
?”

Just as the Golden Arches of McDonald's appear ahead on the right, the fembot tells Hodges he can reach the MAC's Security Department by dialing three-two.

He does so. The phone rings four times, then is picked up. What he hears makes him wonder if he is losing his mind.

“Hello, and thank you for calling the Midwest Culture and Arts Complex,” the fembot says cordially. “Where we make life better and all things are possible.”

33

“Why isn't the show starting, Mrs. Robinson?” Dinah Scott asks. “It's already ten past seven.”

Tanya thinks of telling them about the Stevie Wonder concert she went to when she was in high school, the one that was scheduled to start at eight and finally got underway at nine-thirty, but decides it might be counterproductive.

Hilda's frowning at her phone. “I still can't get Gail,” she complains. “All the darn circuits are b—”

The lights begin to dim before she can finish. This provokes wild cheering and waves of applause.

“Oh God, Mommy, I'm so excited!” Barbara whispers, and Tanya is touched to see tears welling in her daughter's eyes. A guy in a BAM-100 Good Guys tee-shirt struts out. A spotlight tracks him to center stage.

“Hey, you guys!” he shouts. “Howya doin out there?”

A fresh wave of noise assures him that the sellout crowd is doing just fine. Tanya sees the two ranks of Wheelchair People are also applauding. Except for the bald man. He's just sitting there. Probably doesn't want to drop his picture, Tanya thinks.

“Are you ready for some Boyd, Steve, and Pete?” the DJ host inquires.

More cheers and screams.

“And are you ready for some CAM KNOWLES?”

The girls (most of whom would be struck utterly dumb in their idol's actual presence) shriek deliriously. They're ready, all right.
God
, are they ready. They could just die.

“In a few minutes you're going to see a set that'll knock your eyes out, but for now, ladies and gentlemen—and especially you girls—give it up for . . . '
ROUND . . . HEEERRRRE
!!!”

The audience surges to its feet, and as the lights on the stage go completely dark, Tanya understands why the girls just had to have their phones. In her day, everyone held up matches or Bic lighters. These kids hold up their cell phones, the combined light of all those little screens casting a pallid moonglow across the bowl of the auditorium.

How do they know to do these things? she wonders. Who tells them? For that matter, who told
us
?

She cannot remember.

The stage lights come up to bright furnace red. At that moment, a call finally slips through the clogged network and Barbara Robinson's cell vibrates in her hand. She ignores it. Answering a phone call is the last thing in the world she wants to do right now (a first in her young life), and she couldn't hear the person on the other end—probably her brother—even if she did. The racket inside the Mingo is deafening . . . and Barb loves it. She waves her vibrating phone back and forth above her head in big slow swoops. Everyone is doing the same, even her mom.

The lead singer of 'Round Here, dressed in the tightest jeans Tanya Robinson has ever seen, strides onstage. Cam Knowles throws back a tidal wave of blond hair and launches into “You Don't Have to Be Lonely Again.”

Most of the audience remains on its feet for the time being, holding up their phones. The concert has begun.

34

The Mercedes turns off Spicer Boulevard and onto a feeder road marked with signs reading MAC DELIVERIES and EMPLOYEES ONLY. A quarter of a mile up is a rolling gate. It's closed. Jerome pulls up next to a post with an intercom on it. The sign here reads CALL FOR ENTRY.

Hodges says, “Tell them you're the police.”

Jerome rolls down his window and pushes the button. Nothing happens. He pushes it again and this time holds it. Hodges has a nightmarish thought: When Jerome's buzz is finally answered, it will be the fembot, offering several dozen new options.

But this time it's an actual human, albeit not a friendly one. “Back's closed.”

“Police,” Jerome says. “Open the gate.”

“What do you want?”

“I just told you. Open the goddam gate. This is an emergency.”

The gate begins to trundle open, but instead of rolling forward, Jerome pushes the button again. “Are you security?”

“Head custodian,” the crackly voice returns. “If you want security, you gotta call the Security Department.”

“Nobody there,” Hodges tells Jerome. “They're in the auditorium, the whole bunch of them. Just
go
.”

Jerome does, even though the gate isn't fully open. He scrapes the side of the Mercedes's refurbished body. “Maybe they caught him,” he says. “They had his description, so maybe they already caught him.”

“They didn't,” Hodges says. “He's in.”

“How do you know?”

“Listen.”

They can't pick up actual music yet, but with the driver's window still down, they can hear a thudding bass progression.

“The concert's on. If Windom's men had collared a guy with explosives, they would have shut it down right away and they'd be evacuating the building.”

“How could he get in?” Jerome asks, and thumps the steering wheel.
“How?”
Hodges can hear the terror in the boy's voice. All because of him. Everything because of him.

“I have no idea. They had his photo.”

Ahead is a wide concrete ramp leading down to the loading area. Half a dozen roadies are sitting on amp crates and smoking, their work over for the time being. There's an open door leading to the rear of the auditorium, and through it Hodges can hear music coalescing around the bass progression. There's another sound, as well: thousands of happily screaming girls, all of them sitting on ground zero.

How Hartsfield got in no longer matters unless it helps to find him, and just how in God's name are they supposed to do that in a dark auditorium filled with thousands of people?

As Jerome parks at the bottom of the ramp, Holly says: “De Niro gave himself a Mohawk. That could be it.”

“What are you talking about?” Hodges asks as he heaves himself out of the back seat. A man in khaki Carhartts has come into the open door to meet them.

“In
Taxi Driver
, Robert De Niro played a crazy guy named Travis Bickle,” Holly explains as the three of them hurry toward the custodian. “When he decided to assassinate the politician, he shaved his head so he could get close without being recognized. Except for the middle, that is, which is called a Mohawk. Brady Hartsfield probably didn't do that, it'd make him look too weird.”

Hodges remembers the leftover hair in the bathroom sink. It was not the bright (and probably tinted) color of the dead woman's hair. Holly may be nuts, but he thinks she's right about this; Hartsfield has gone skinhead. Yet Hodges doesn't see how even that could have been enough, because—

The head custodian steps to meet them. “What's it about?”

Hodges takes out his ID and flashes it briefly, his thumb once more strategically placed. “Detective Bill Hodges. What's your name, sir?”

“Jamie Gallison.” His eyes flick to Jerome and Holly.

“I'm his partner,” Holly says.

“I'm his trainee,” Jerome says.

The roadies are watching. Some have hurriedly snuffed smokes that may contain something a bit stronger than tobacco. Through the open door, Hodges can see work-lights illuminating a storage area loaded with props and swatches of canvas scenery.

“Mr. Gallison, we've got a serious problem,” Hodges says. “I need you to get Larry Windom down here, right away.”

“Don't do that, Bill.” Even in his growing distress, he realizes it's the first time Holly has called him by his first name.

He ignores her. “Sir, I need you to call him on your cell.”

Gallison shakes his head. “The security guys don't carry cell phones when they're on duty, because every time we have one of these big shows—big
kid
shows, I mean, it's different with adults—the circuits jam up. The security guys carry—”

Holly is twitching Hodges's arm. “Don't do it. You'll spook him and he'll set it off. I know he will.”

“She could be right,” Jerome says, and then (perhaps recalling his trainee status) adds, “Sir.”

Gallison is looking at them with alarm. “Spook who? Set off what?”

Hodges remains fixed on the custodian. “They carry what? Walkies? Radios?”

“Radios, yuh. They have . . .” He pulls his earlobe. “You know, things that look like hearie-aids. Like the FBI and Secret Service wear. What's going on here? Tell me it's not a bomb.” And, not liking what he sees on Hodges's pale and sweating face: “Christ, is it?”

Hodges walks past him into the cavernous storage area. Beyond the attic-like profusion of props, flats, and music stands, there's a carpentry shop and a costume shop. The music is louder than ever, and he's started to have trouble breathing. The pain is creeping down his left arm, and his chest feels too heavy, but his head is clear.

Brady has either gone bald or mowed it short and dyed what's left. He may have added makeup to darken his skin, or colored contacts, or glasses. But even with all that, he'd still be a single man at a concert filled with young girls. After the heads-up he gave Windom, Hartsfield still would have attracted notice and suspicion. And there's the explosive. Holly and Jerome know about that, but Hodges knows more. There were also steel ball bearings, probably a shitload. Even if he wasn't collared at the door, how could Hartsfield have gotten all that inside? Is the security here really that bad?

Gallison grabs his left arm, and when he shakes it, Hodges feels the pain all the way up to his temples. “I'll go myself. Grab the first security guy I see and have him radio for Windom to come down here and talk to you.”

“No,” Hodges says. “You will not do that, sir.”

Holly Gibney is the only one of them seeing clearly. Mr. Mercedes is in. He's got a bomb, and it's only by the grace of God that he hasn't triggered it already. It's too late for the police and too late for MAC Security. It's also too late for him.

But.

Hodges sits down on an empty crate. “Jerome. Holly. Get with me.”

They do. Jerome is white-eyed, barely holding back panic. Holly is pale but outwardly calm.

“Going bald wouldn't have been enough. He had to make himself look harmless. I might know how he did that, and if I'm right, I know his location.”

“Where?” Jerome asks. “Tell us. We'll get him.
We
will.”

“It won't be easy. He's going to be on red alert right now, always checking his personal perimeter. And he knows you, Jerome. You've bought ice cream from that damn Mr. Tastey truck. You told me so.”

“Bill, he's sold ice cream to thousands of people.”

“Sure, but how many
black
people on the West Side?”

Jerome is silent, and now he's the one biting his lips.

“How big a bomb?” Gallison asks. “Maybe I should pull the fire alarm?”

“Only if you want to get a whole shitload of people killed,” Hodges says. It's becoming progressively difficult to talk. “The minute he senses danger, he'll blow whatever he's got. Do you want that?”

Gallison doesn't reply, and Hodges turns back to the two unlikely associates God—or some whimsical fate—has ordained should be with him tonight.

“We can't take a chance on you, Jerome, and we
certainly
can't take a chance on me. He was stalking me long before I even knew he was alive.”

“I'll come up from behind,” Jerome says. “Blindside him. In the dark, with nothing but the lights from the stage, he'll never see me.”

“If he's where I think he is, your chances of doing that would be fifty-fifty at best. That's not good enough.”

Hodges turns to the woman with the graying hair and the face of a neurotic teenager. “It's got to be you, Holly. By now he'll have his finger on the trigger, and you're the only one who can get close without being recognized.”

She covers her abused mouth with one hand, but that isn't enough and she adds the other. Her eyes are huge and wet. God help us, Hodges thinks. It isn't the first time he has had this thought in relation to Holly Gibney.

“Only if you come with me,” she says through her hands. “Maybe then—”