The Double Tap (Stephen Leather Thrillers) (60 page)

       
‘The doctor had prescribed her strong painkillers. Really strong. My father kept them hidden from her because of what she might do. She kept begging me to get the medicine for her.’ Cramer took a step forward. Jackman appeared not to notice. ‘I got the tablets for her, and I watched as she took them. I knew she was killing herself, but I didn’t try to stop her.’

       
‘And how did you feel?’

       
Cramer massaged his temples with his knuckles as if he had a headache. He wanted Jackman to get used to seeing his hands moving. ‘She was in a lot of pain. And she was dying anyway. All I was doing was helping the process along.’

       
‘A mercy killing?’

       
‘Yeah. You might call it that.’

The Colonel tapped the receiver against his ear as he waited for the doorman to answer the phone. It was at least twenty rings before the doorman came on the line. He was out of breath and apologetic, explaining that he’d been helping a resident carry his cases to the elevator. The Colonel asked him if there had been any visitors to the Vander Mayer apartment.

       
‘Mr Vander Mayer himself arrived half an hour ago. And I just showed another visitor up.’

       
‘Who was that?’ queried the Colonel.

       
‘Hang on while I check the book,’ said the doorman and put down the phone. The Colonel looked across at the tower block. The figure was still standing by the study window. ‘Here we are,’ said the doorman. ‘His name was Jackman. Bernard Jackman. He wasn’t expected but Mr  Vander Mayer said he’d see him. Is there a problem?’

       
‘No. Everything’s fine,’ said the Colonel. He replaced the receiver, frowning. Vander Mayer, Cramer, Su-ming and Jackman were apparently all in the apartment, so why didn’t they answer the phone? And what was Jackman doing up there?

Jackman kept the gun pointed at Cramer’s head, giving Cramer no chance of making any sort of threatening move. Cramer’s palms were sweating and he rubbed them on his trousers. His right hand was only inches away from the hilt of his stiletto. One movement and he’d have it in his hand, three paces forward and Jackman would be dead. All he needed was an opening. A distraction. Jackman moved away from the window, keeping his gun on Cramer. He went over to the mirrored wall and stood with his back to it. Now he was even further away from Cramer, well out of range. Cramer forced himself to relax, to conceal the signs that he was preparing to launch an attack.

       
‘What about you, Bernie?’ Cramer asked. ‘Why did you decide to leave the side of the angels?’ Cramer could see Su-ming reflected in the mirrored wall. She was sitting with her legs pressed together, her hands clasped in her lap.

       
‘For the kick. For the excitement.’

       
‘You gave up  . . .’

       
‘I gave up nothing, Mike. I was too good for the Bureau, I knew that within weeks of joining. Have you ever felt like that? Like Gulliver, surrounded by midgets? Intellectual midgets? It was like that for me at high school, and at college. I thought that when I joined the Bureau it’d be different, that I’d finally be among people like me. The G-men, the best and brightest of the country’s law enforcement officials. That’s what they like you to think, but it’s bullshit. They’re as dumb as the cops. Dumber sometimes.’

       
Jackman had begun waving his gun around again, but Cramer had a gut feeling that he wouldn’t shoot until he’d finished saying what he had to say. It was like a confession, thought Cramer. Except the confessor wasn’t planning to leave any witnesses. ‘If they were smart, they wouldn’t be cops,’ said Cramer.

       
‘Right,’ said Jackman eagerly. ‘The really bright people don’t go into law enforcement, or if they do, they leave pretty damn quickly. Like me.’

       
‘Better off working for yourself, right?’

       
Jackman narrowed his eyes as if he was wondering whether or not Cramer was humouring him. ‘It’s not about money, if that’s what you’re implying,’ Jackman said. ‘That’s not why I left. If I’d wanted money I’d have gone into business. I could have made a fortune, Mike. I could have been as rich as Vander Mayer. Richer. I’ve met a lot of rich people in my time, and most of them aren’t much brighter than cops. You don’t need brains to make money, you just have to work your balls off. Look at all the Vietnamese and Chinese who move to the States. They start with nothing, but they make fortunes. Fortunes. And they’re not all geniuses, I can tell you.’

       
Cramer nodded vaguely. Jackman was rambling. It was as if he didn’t often get the opportunity to explain himself, and now that he had a captive audience it was all tumbling out. ‘So why did you leave?’ Cramer asked.

       
‘I finally met a man who was my intellectual equal,’ said Jackman. ‘A man called Anton Madeley. He’s a genius, Mike. A true genius. It was like meeting a soulmate.’

       
Cramer glanced at Su-ming’s reflection in the mirrored wall but her attention was fixed on Jackman.

       
‘I was sent to interview Madeley to update our VICAP report. At first he wouldn’t open up to me, but even at our first meeting I knew that the guy was special. He knew stuff. He knew how people’s minds work, what made them tick. He could get inside your head and find out exactly what you wanted. What you needed.’

       
‘He was in prison?’ asked Cramer.

       
Jackman’s eyes flashed. ‘I know what you’re getting at,’ he snarled. ‘If he was so smart, how did he get caught? Right?’

       
Cramer shrugged uncertainly. He just wanted Jackman to keep talking.

       
‘I’ll tell you why he ended up in prison. Because he trusted someone. Someone he thought was a friend. He opened up to this person and this person betrayed him. That’s why. That’s the only reason he was caught. The FBI hadn’t a clue who he was, he’d never left any evidence, there were never any witnesses. He made one mistake, and that mistake was to trust. I’ve never trusted anyone, Mike. That’s why I’ll never be caught.’

       
Cramer nodded. ‘Madeley was a killer? Is that why he was in prison?’

       
‘Yeah, he killed. Killing is the ultimate power, Mike. That’s what he taught me. I hadn’t realised what killing really meant, not until I met Anton. I’d interviewed dozens of murderers, from wife-batterers who went further than they intended to serial killers, and they’d all had their own reasons for doing what they did. Anton was the first one to explain the psychology of it. The thrill of it. Not right away, of course. It took a long, long time before he opened up to me. And I had to pass a lot of tests along the way. I had to prove my worth, I had to show that I was a worthy disciple. But I did it, Mike. And then he let me inside his head.’

       
‘He seduced you, Bernie.’

       
‘Seduced? Maybe, but I was willing. More than willing. He explained things to me, things that I’d half known, half appreciated. It was like being short-sighted and getting glasses.’

       
‘Didn’t the Bureau realise what was happening?’

       
Jackman shook his head. ‘I told them I was building up a relationship with him with a view to expanding our profile and they took that at face value. The reports I turned in contained just enough new information to make them think I was making slow progress. They’re not too bright, Mike. Intelligent, yes. But not smart. There’s a difference. Anton taught me that. And stop calling me Bernie, will you. My name’s Bernard.’

       
‘Are you saying that you never thought about killing before you met Madeley?’

       
Jackman’s upper lip curled back in a sneer. ‘Don’t try to analyse me, Mike. You don’t have the mental capacity.’ He pointed the gun at Cramer’s face. His finger tightened on the trigger.

       
‘Answer me one thing, though,’ said Cramer. Jackman didn’t say anything, but Cramer saw his trigger finger relax. ‘Why the head-shot? Why did you shoot them in the head and then in the chest? It wasn’t just a signature, was it?’

       
Jackman grinned. ‘It was a tribute,’ he said. ‘That was how Anton killed his victims. It locked in their souls, he said.’ He saw the look of disbelief in Cramer’s eyes and his grin vanished. ‘That’s what he said. I’m not saying I believed him. It was just his theory, that’s all.’

       
‘So what was the real reason? You must have wondered.’

       
‘Of course I wondered.’ Jackman paced up and down, but he kept the gun aimed at Cramer.

       
‘So tell me.’

       
Jackman stopped pacing. He stared at Cramer. Cramer held the look. Jackman was three paces away. Within range. Cramer put his hands together. It was a non-threatening pose but his right hand was just inches away from the stiletto again. ‘He was abused by his father as a child,’ Jackman continued. ‘Physical abuse of a particularly vicious kind. His mother used to watch. She’d watch and she’d encourage her husband. Sometimes she’d hold Anton down so that her husband could do what he wanted. That’s what he remembered most. Not the buggery, not the pain, but her eyes. Watching him.’

       
‘So when he started killing, he shot them in the face?’

       
Jackman nodded. ‘You got it.’

       
‘And you decided to do it the same way  . . .’

       
‘So that he’d know,’ finished Jackman. ‘He’d know that I was as good as he was. Better even, because he was in prison and I was on the outside.’

       
Jackman stopped speaking as if realising that he’d already said too much. He stretched his arm out, the gun levelled at Cramer’s face. ‘Enough talking,’ he said. ‘Let’s get this over with.’

The Colonel screwed up his eyes and peered up at the windows of Vander Mayer’s flat. Whoever had been standing there had moved away. He turned and picked up the phone. He was about to tap out the number to Vander Mayer’s flat but he changed his mind and called the doorman again instead. ‘Do me a favour, will you?’ he said once the man answered. ‘I’m having trouble getting through to Mr  Vander Mayer’s apartment. Will you go up and see if there’s a problem with his telephone?’

       
‘Of course,’ said the doorman. ‘Though it was okay when I called up before.’

       
‘Well, try again. If you get through, ask him to call me at this number.’ The Colonel gave the doorman the number of the apartment he was using. ‘If you can’t get an answer, pop up and see if there’s something wrong with the phone.’

       
The Colonel replaced the receiver and sat down in front of the desk. He tapped his walking stick on the floor, deep in thought. Something was wrong. Very wrong.

‘Let the girl go,’ said Cramer. ‘This is between you and me.’

       
‘It’s nothing to do with you and me,’ said Jackman. ‘I’m taking care of business, that’s all.’ He started to squeeze the trigger. ‘You know what I like best of all?’ Jackman asked. Cramer said nothing. ‘The look in their eyes when they realise they’re going to die.’

       
Cramer stared back at Jackman. ‘Just do it, Bernie,’ he said quietly. ‘Pull the trigger and get it over with.’

       
Jackman frowned. ‘You’re not scared, are you?’

       
‘No.’

       
‘If you beg me for your life, I might not kill you.’

       
‘Yeah?’

       
‘Yeah,’ said Jackman, flatly.

       
‘I don’t think so,’ said Cramer.

       
‘Cramer, do as he says,’ said Su-ming.

       
Cramer turned to look at her. He’d almost forgotten that she was still in the room. ‘He’s going to kill me anyway, Su-ming.’

       
Jackman looked at Su-ming and smiled cruelly. ‘What about you, little lady? Why don’t you beg for his life?’

       
‘Su-ming, don’t,’ said Cramer. Jackman had switched his attention to Su-ming, though the gun was still pointing at Cramer’s face. Cramer moved his hand a fraction and the fingers of his right hand probed inside his left sleeve and found the hilt of the stiletto.

       
Jackman suddenly switched his attention back to Cramer. Cramer let his hands fall to his sides. ‘You think you’re better than me, don’t you?’

       
‘I don’t know what you mean.’

       
‘Yes, you do. They picked you to go up against me, and you figured you were good enough to take me on. That was the plan, wasn’t it?’

       
‘Are you going to talk me to death, Bernie? Or are you going to pull the trigger?’

       
Jackman’s eyes hardened. ‘That would be too easy, wouldn’t it? I’ve got the drop on you, shooting you cold wouldn’t prove anything, would it?’

       
‘Just do it, Bernie.’

       
Jackman studied him for several seconds. ‘Why?’ he said eventually. ‘Why are you doing this? No one wants to die.’

       
‘He does,’ said Su-ming quietly.

       
Cramer whirled around and glared at her. ‘Shut up!’ he hissed.

       
Su-ming wouldn’t look at him. She stood up and faced Jackman. ‘He’s dying. He’s got cancer. He wants to be killed, it’s an easy way out for him.’