By Reason of Insanity (80 page)

Field apologized for the annoyance; they were seeking a possible prowler. The woman rolled her eyes in fright and Field hastily explained he hadn’t meant a male. They quickly left, one cop remarking that he wouldn’t mind coming back for a taste of that. Terrific legs she had, and a damn good body. Yeah, said the other, but no tits. The first one scowled. Tits ain’t everything, he said, getting into the elevator.

They checked out the thirteenth floor before leaving. When nothing turned up they told Field he probably just saw a hotel guest trying to borrow a belt from a neighbor. Either that or the suspect had been unable to gain entry and was already gone. Field glumly accepted the possibility.

IN THE corner room Bishop wiped the cold cream off his face. Luckily he had heard the police banging on a nearby door and so had been warned in time. But how did they know of a prowler? Was there another one, a woman after something at the same time and on the same floor? No, that was too much to believe. It had to be a woman at the elevator who had reported somebody in the hail apparently without a destination.

He wished people would mind their own business.

After removing all the cold cream he began putting on his makeup for the day. He had plenty of time and he wanted to look his very best for his public even though he would be seeing them one by one and they would be seeing him only the one time too.

IN HIS basement office Henry Field too stared at the TV screen, only his was closed-circuit television and instead of monster movies he was watching the fourteenth floor. He saw nothing out of the ordinary. The 8:30 to 9:30 rush was over and the hallway had been virtually deserted for many minutes. A look at other floors produced the same negative results. It was certainly possible, Field had to admit, that he made a mistake. A percentage player, he knew the odds were against it, but mistakes did happen. Even to him.

Still, the thought bothered him. He had been so sure of his judgment. Sure enough to call the police, which meant he was positive. Otherwise a professional would never call them. Now they’d begin to wonder about him. He knew all the brass in the precinct and he didn’t particularly like the idea of them laughing at him.

He went over the rooms again in his mind. First the empties, then the others. Everything was in order right down to the corner room with the bathing beauty wrapped in a towel.

What was there about—?

He stared at the mental image until he saw what was wrong. She was wearing earrings. In the shower? Some women do, if they have on the kind for pierced ears. But these didn’t look like that kind; they were large gold hoops. But who could really tell?

Field thought he might just go up there again on some pretense and make sure. Probably nothing to the idea but he owed himself another look. Wasn’t anything doing at the moment anyway, and he’d be right back.

Torolla was away from his desk as Field closed the office door and walked over to the bank of elevators.

BISHOP HEARD the knock just as he was adjusting the blond wig. He was still in his underwear so he slipped into a cotton nightgown hanging on the bathroom door, glancing at himself in the mirror on the way out. When the hotel security man said his name, Bishop’s eyes became diamond-hard before the mask quickly closed over them again.

Field saw the woman smile at him and he mumbled something about hotel security and how she could help. Just a few questions. He called her Miss Dunbar. Invited in, he sat on the couch and commented on her lovely earrings. For pierced ears, weren’t they? He chuckled. His own wife was afraid to have her ears pierced. Claimed they could become infected. Surely that wasn’t true, was it?

Bishop listened to him from the bathroom, as though getting dressed. Obviously the man suspected something. Through the crack of the slightly open door he watched Field look about the room until his gaze fell on the bed. He quietly walked over to it as Bishop’s hand reached into the bag he had brought with him into the bathroom. He turned on the water tap, then silently pushed the door back and stepped out on soft-slippered feet.

Field heard nothing. His back to Bishop, he was on his knees and reaching under the bed when his peripheral vision caught a glimpse of something moving behind him. He instinctively turned his head around and upward just as the great knife was arcing down into the top of his skull, at the very center of the bald spot. Grasped with both hands by Bishop and driven downward with terrible force, the knife tore through bone and cartilage, almost to the hilt. There was a flash of incredible light, beyond anything Field had ever seen. The light quickly turned to red. His eyes rolled inward, the jaws slackened. He had no time to react or to recall anything. As his body began to sag toward the floor Henry Field was already dead.

Bishop returned to his final facial preparations. His hands shook. He was angry at the man for trying to trap him, to stop him from his work. Why were they like that? He was not the enemy. In the long run he was helping all of them. They should be praising him but instead they sought to lock him away again. Or even destroy him.

He became so enraged by the thought that he rushed back in the room and plunged the knife again and again into the lifeless body. The rug was soon wet with blood. When his passion was finally spent he shoved the body under the bed, where it came to rest next to that of the slain woman.

After washing the blood off himself, Bishop dressed in a leisurely manner. Then it was time to go. The hail would be empty and some women would be home. With thirteen more floors below!

BY ELEVEN o’clock Bill Torolla was wondering what had happened to his senior partner. He had been gone over an hour, which was not like the man. As a security precaution they usually kept each other informed of their location if they expected to be gone for more than a half hour. Torolla thought he might be with the manager upstairs. Or maybe chasing his phantom prowler again.

HAD THE closed-circuit TV been switched to the fourteenth floor, and had anyone been watching at the time, a young woman might have been seen knocking on a door in the middle of the hail. A door that was soon opened and through which the young woman rather quickly entered.

BY NOON Torolla was concerned. He learned that Field had asked about the person in 1438, Miss Dunbar. One of the elevator operators had taken him to her floor. No one had brought him down. Torolia called upstairs but got no answer. He decided that his partner was spending an amorous few hours with the woman in 1438. It was against hotel regulations of course, but both men had done it on occasion.

Frustrated, he returned to his work and then went out to lunch at 12:30 with a friend and prompfly forgot all about it.

AT ABOUT the same time in Berkeley, California, two parcels were being delivered to the home of Amos Finch. They had been sent to him by Adam Kenton in New York City and contained all the final possessions of Sara Bishop and her boy that had been saved. Almost all. Kenton had kept a few things for himself to help him in the search. Things that made him feel a closeness to Bishop, such as several childish drawings of monsters and copies of Caryl Chessman’s books. And the worn leather strap—Kenton kept that too.

Finch was delighted with the new acquisitions. They would become part of the Thomas Bishop collection he was assembling. He had already acquired Bishop’s meager possessions at Willows State Hospital: a few clothes, some books, the lockbox from under his bed, a blanket and sheet from the bed itself, other odds and ends. More important to the collection were the items given him just recently by Lieutenant Spanner. A very distinctive harmonica and an alligator comb, a little wallet with a picture of Sara Bishop, and the uniform that Vincent Mungo had worn on the night of the escape. Inside each garment was sewn the name of Thomas Bishop. Spanner did not expect Bishop ever to stand trial in his jurisdiction for the killing of Vincent Mungo. He would never, the lieutenant knew, stay alive that long.

Finch naturally hoped to get whatever he could of Bishop’s things when he was finally killed. Like mostly everyone, Finch had no doubts that Bishop would die swiftly. Already having resigned himself to it, he considered the loss a staggering one for criminology but nonetheless as certain as the ending of an epic Greek tragedy, with which Bishop’s life had much in common.

Now, on this California Tuesday morning, Amos Finch dialed New York to thank Kenton, hoping the man would remember his promise to salvage everything he could that belonged to Bishop at the end.

IN SACRAMENTO, Roger Tompkins had just walked into Senator Stoner’s office and announëed his resignation. There were other offers, naturally. It had been a great time but it was just one of those things.

He returned several letters and copies taken earlier when he had feared he might become the victim of a forced resignation. That was in better times, of course. But no hard feelings. Politics is a rough game, as the senator well knew.

He smiled his warmest.

From behind his desk Stoner stared at the young man facing him. There was no doubt in his mind that Roger would go far in politics. He had the ruthlessness and hunger for power that were necessary, and he also had the insincerity and cynicism needed. He would make his mark.

Meanwhile he was making a mistake. A big one, but he was young and still had a lot to learn about politics. He was learning something right now, though he didn’t realize it yet. Nothing was as it seemed in politics. Like snakes, politicians should never be counted out until after the death rattle.

Over the weekend Stoner had met with the state party leaders. Because of his new prominence he was considered a big asset to state Republican hopes, so they had given his present troubles special handling. Meaning a deal had been made. His questionable business maneuvers were actually honest errors of judgment rather than of illegal intent and had been stopped immediately when called to his attention. California Democrats had one of their own caught in a similar mess so neither party would press the issue. Without a storm of publicity the public would not regard the matter as serious. Californians were notoriously easy on their own, anyway.

Of even greater significance to Stoner was the reaction of the big power blocs in the Midwest and East. At first blush they had been ready to write him off. He had committed the unpardonable political sin of being caught. Yet his burgeoning popularity, his increasing national recognition, gave them second thought. They needed some new faces to take people’s minds off some old ones. Even more, they needed some who could be shaped into winners in the coming dark season.

Stoner had captured the public’s fancy with his imaginative campaign for capital punishment. It was a big issue and would get bigger as things like crime and urban terrorism got worse in the country. And the senator had capital punishment by the throat. As one New York Republican bigwig put it, “Stoner found it, he built it, and he’s going to keep it.”

The consensus was to back him, after a brief period to let the public forget the
Newstime
revelations. Much as an airline stops all newspaper advertising for several days following a crash.

None of this did Stoner mention to Roger Tompkins. Instead he accepted the young man’s resignation with “profound regret” and wished him well. Fuck him! Let the little bastard learn on his own.

At noon he would call Tom Donaldson in Chicago. From now on he wanted big-time support in everything from press agents to fund raising.

He thought of the evening ahead, when he would be with his new mistress. She was big-time support too.

Senator Jonathan Stoner was not only a survivor, he was a winner. He would beat them all yet.

THE OTHER survivor sat in his New York hotel room and wondered if he would ever win again. He had been writing about the man for nearly four months and tracking him for almost two and still had not seen him or even come close. But at least he had heard the voice. Twice. For a few seconds.

It just wasn’t enough.

Adam Kenton suddenly felt discouraged. He had spent the morning in his hotel thinking Bishop might call again. Here it was 1:30 in the afternoon and he had heard nothing. Nor would he again, he was sure of that now. And of something else too. Bishop was busy at that very moment, involved in an utterly mad grand design only he knew about. The man was capable of anything but pity. Kenton swore softly, fearful in spite of himself.

There had been some rings: from Fred Grimes, reporting his mob contacts had no leads on the target; from John Perrone, who still had his premonition of disaster; from Inspector Dimitri, up all night waiting for the inevitable news; from George Homer, wondering if Bishop might be seeking to invade some unprotected preserve of women in the city, such as a nunnery or health club. Kenton passed the idea on to Dimitri, who ordered increased surveillance of those places.

At noontime Doris rang up to apologize. It wasn’t easy to become physically involved and yet not be involved emotionally. Maybe she wasn’t as grown up as she’d thought. Maybe she’d never be that grown up. But she hadn’t meant to treat him unkindly or shout at him.

Kenton understood. It was as much his fault. They’d get together again, he told her. Until the next time anyway, or the time after that. What he didn’t tell her was that he had been through it all before. More than once.

Amos Finch’s call an hour later depressed Kenton further, reminding him that Thomas Bishop was not some evil monster from another world but a child who had been tortured so viciously that his mind finally took refuge in hopeless insanity.

There were thousands of adult children like him in mental hospitals all over the country, lost forever in the abyss of madness, the bottomless pit of hell. But not entirely like him. Thomas Bishop’s torture had been so horrendous that he had touched bottom. He had turned on his own kind, seeing them as the enemy. In turning homicidal he had become a cancer.

Kenton couldn’t even conceive of the incalculable suffering that could have done such a thing to another human being. His heart broke at the thought. He wanted to cry out for vengeance, but there was no one on whom to take revenge. No one was there. Except an army of police with infinite weapons trained on a single target, like a radiation machine focused on a malignant growth. When the moment came, the button would be pressed.