Red Dragon (40 page)

“What about the women?”

“He’s got a sweet touch with the sap. Younger one’s just at the hospital for observation. The older one had to have four stitches. Mild concussion.”

“Could they give a description?”

“The younger one did. Quiet, husky, dark mustache and hair—a wig, I think. The guard at the door said the same thing. The older woman—he could’ve been in a rabbit suit for all she saw.”

“But he didn’t kill anybody.”

“Odd,” Crawford said. “He’d have been better off to wax ’em both—he could have been sure of his lead time leaving and saved himself a description or two. Behavioral Science called Bloom in the hospital about it. You know what he said? Bloom said maybe he’s trying to stop.”

Dolarhyde heard the flaps moan down. The lights of St. Louis wheeled slowly beneath the black wing. Under his feet the landing gear rumbled into a rush of air and locked down with a thud.

He rolled his head on his shoulders to ease the stiffness in his powerful neck.

Coming home.

He had taken a great risk, and the prize he brought back was the power to choose. He could choose to have Reba McClane alive. He could have her to talk to, and he could have her startling and harmless mobility in his bed.

He did not have to dread his house. He had the Dragon in his belly now. He could go into his house, walk up to a copy Dragon on the wall and wad him up if he wanted to.

He did not have to worry about feeling Love for Reba. If he felt Love for her, he could toss the Shermans to the Dragon and ease it that way, go back to Reba calm and easy, and treat her well.

From the terminal Dolarhyde telephoned her apartment. Not home yet. He tried Baeder Chemical. The night line was busy. He thought of Reba walking toward the bus stop after work, tapping along with her cane, her raincoat over her shoulders.

He drove to the film laboratory through the light evening traffic in less than fifteen minutes.

She wasn’t at the bus stop. He parked on the street behind Baeder Chemical, near the entrance closest to the darkrooms. He’d tell her he was here, wait until she had finished working, and drive her home. He was proud of his new power to choose. He wanted to use it.

There were things he could catch up on in his office while he waited.

Only a few lights were on in Baeder Chemical.

Reba’s darkroom was locked. The light above the door was neither red nor green. It was off. He pressed the buzzer. No response.

Maybe she had left a message in his office.

He heard footsteps in the corridor.

The Baeder supervisor, Dandridge, passed the darkroom area and never looked up. He was walking fast and carrying a thick bundle of buff personnel files under his arm.

A small crease appeared in Dolarhyde’s forehead.

Dandridge was halfway across the parking lot, heading for the Gateway building, when Dolarhyde came out of Baeder behind him.

Two delivery vans and half a dozen cars were on the lot. That Buick belonged to Fisk, Gateway’s personnel director. What were they doing?

There was no night shift at Gateway. Much of the building was dark. Dolarhyde could see by the red exit signs in the corridor as he went toward his office. The lights were on behind the frosted glass door of the personnel department. Dolarhyde heard voices in there, Dandridge’s for one, and Fisk’s.

A woman’s footsteps coming. Fisk’s secretary turned the corner into the corridor ahead of Dolarhyde. She had a scarf tied over her curlers and she carried ledgers from Accounting. She was in a hurry. The ledgers were heavy, a big armload. She pecked on Fisk’s office door with her toe.

Will Graham opened it for her.

Dolarhyde froze in the dark hall. His gun was in his van.

The office door closed again.

Dolarhyde moved fast, his running shoes quiet on the smooth floor. He put his face close to the glass of the exit door and scanned the parking lot. Movement now under the floodlights. A man moving. He was beside one of the delivery vans and he had a flashlight. Flicking something. He was dusting the outside mirror for fingerprints.

Behind Dolarhyde, somewhere in the corridors, a man was walking. Get away from the door. He ducked around the corner and down the stairs to the basement and the furnace room on the opposite side of the building.

By standing on a workbench he could reach the high windows that opened at ground level behind the shrubbery. He rolled over the sill and came up on his hands and knees in the bushes, ready to run or fight.

Nothing moved on this side of the building. He stood up, put a hand in his pocket and strolled across the street. Running when the sidewalk was dark, walking as cars went by, he made a long loop around Gateway and Baeder Chemical.

His van stood at the curb behind Baeder. There was no place to hide close to it. All right. He sprinted across the street and leaped in, clawing at his valise.

Full clip in the automatic. He jacked a round into the chamber and laid the pistol on the console, covering it with a T-shirt.

Slowly he drove away—don’t catch the light red—slowly around the corner and into the scattered traffic.

He had to think now and it was hard to think.

It had to be the films. Graham knew about the films somehow. Graham knew
where.
He didn’t know
who.
If he knew who, he wouldn’t need personnel records. Why accounting records too? Absences, that’s why. Match absences against the dates when the Dragon struck. No, those were Saturdays, except for Lounds. Absences on the days before those Saturdays; he’d look for those. Fool him there—no workmen’s compensation slips were kept for management.

Dolarhyde drove slowly up Lindbergh Boulevard, gesturing with his free hand as he ticked off the points.

They were looking for fingerprints. He’d given them no chance for fingerprints—except maybe on the plastic pass at Brooklyn Museum. He’d picked it up in a hurry, mostly by the edges.

They must have a print. Why fingerprint if they didn’t have something to match it to?

They were checking that van for prints. No time to see if they were checking cars too.

Van. Carrying the wheelchair with Lounds in it—that tipped them. Or maybe somebody in Chicago saw the van. There were a lot of vans at Gateway, private vans, delivery vans.

No, Graham just knew he had a van. Graham knew because he knew. Graham knew. Graham knew. The son of a bitch was a monster.

They’d fingerprint everyone at Gateway and Baeder too. If they didn’t spot him tonight, they’d do it tomorrow. He had to run forever with his
face
on every bulletin board in every post office and police station. It was all coming to pieces. He was puny and small before them.

“Reba,” he said aloud. Reba couldn’t save him now. They were closing in on him, and he was nothing but a puny hareli—

“ARE YOU SORRY NOW THAT YOU BETRAYED ME?”

The Dragon’s voice rumbled from deep within him, deep as the shredded painting in his bowels.

“I didn’t. I just wanted to choose. You called me—”

“GIVE ME WHAT I WANT AND I’LL SAVE YOU.”

“No. I’ll run.”

“GIVE ME WHAT I WANT AND YOU’LL HEAR GRAHAM’S SPINE SNAP.”

“No.”

“I ADMIRE WHAT YOU DID TODAY. WE’RE CLOSE NOW. WE CAN BE ONE AGAIN. DO YOU FEEL ME INSIDE YOU? YOU DO, DON’T YOU?”

“Yes.”

“AND YOU KNOW I CAN SAVE YOU. YOU KNOW THEY’LL SEND YOU TO A PLACE WORSE THAN BROTHER BUDDY’S. GIVE ME WHAT I WANT AND YOU’LL BE FREE.”

“No.”

“THEY’LL KILL YOU. YOU’LL JERK ON THE GROUND.”

“No.”

“WHEN YOU’RE GONE SHE’LL FUCK OTHER PEOPLE, SHE’LL—”

“No! Shut up.”

“SHE’LL FUCK OTHER PEOPLE, PRETTY PEOPLE, SHE’LL PUT THEIR—”

“Stop it. Shut up.”

“SLOW DOWN AND I WON’T SAY IT.”

Dolarhyde’s foot lifted on the accelerator.

“THAT’S GOOD. GIVE ME WHAT I WANT AND IT CAN’T HAPPEN. GIVE IT TO ME AND THEN I’LL ALWAYS LET YOU CHOOSE, YOU CAN ALWAYS CHOOSE, AND YOU’LL SPEAK WELL, I WANT YOU TO SPEAK WELL, SLOW DOWN, THAT’S RIGHT, SEE THE SERVICE STATION? PULL OVER THERE AND LET ME TALK TO YOU. . . .”

Graham came out of the office suite and rested his eyes for a moment in the dim hallway. He was restive, uneasy. This was taking too long.

Crawford was sifting the 380 Gateway and Baeder employees as fast and well as it could be done—the man was a marvel at this kind of job—but time was passing and secrecy could be maintained only so long.

Crawford had kept the working group at Gateway to a minimum. (“We want to find him, not spook him,” Crawford had told them. “If we can spot him tonight, we can take him outside the plant, maybe at his house or on the lot.”)

The St. Louis police department was cooperating. Lieutenant Fogel of St. Louis homicide and one sergeant came quietly in an unmarked car, bringing a Datafax.

Wired to a Gateway telephone, in minutes the Datafax was transmitting the employment roll simultaneously to the FBI identification section in Washington and the Missouri Department of Motor Vehicles.

In Washington, the names would be checked against both the civil and criminal fingerprint records. Names of Baeder employees with security clearances were flagged for faster handling.

The Department of Motor Vehicles would check for ownership of vans.

Only four employees were brought in—the personnel manager, Fisk; Fisk’s secretary; Dandridge from Baeder Chemical; and Gateway’s chief accountant.

No telephones were used to summon the employees to this late-night meeting at the plant. Agents called at their houses and stated their business privately. (“Look’em over before you tell ’em why you want ’em,” Crawford said. “And don’t let them use the telephone after. This kind of news travels fast.”)

They had hoped for a quick identification from the teeth. None of the four employees recognized them.

Graham looked down the long corridors lit with red exit signs. Damn, it felt right.

What else could they do tonight?

Crawford had requested that the woman from the Brooklyn Museum—Miss Harper—be flown out as soon as she could travel. Probably that would be in the morning. The St. Louis police department had a good surveillance van. She could sit in it and watch the employees go in.

If they didn’t hit it tonight, all traces of the operation would be removed from Gateway before work started in the morning. Graham didn’t kid himself—they’d be lucky to have a whole day to work before the word got out at Gateway. The Dragon would be watching for anything suspicious. He would fly.

A late supper with Ralph Mandy had seemed all right. Reba McClane knew she had to tell him sometime, and she didn’t believe in leaving things hanging.

Actually, she thought Mandy knew what was coming when she insisted on going dutch.

She told him in the car as he took her home; that it was no big deal, she’d had a lot of fun with him and wanted to be his friend, but she was involved with somebody now.

Maybe he was hurt a little, but she knew he was relieved a little too. He was pretty good about it, she thought.

At her door he didn’t ask to come in. He did ask to kiss her good-bye, and she responded gladly. He opened her door and gave her the keys. He waited until she was inside and had closed the door and locked it.

When he turned around Dolarhyde shot him in the throat and twice in the chest. Three putts from the silenced pistol. A scooter is louder.

Dolarhyde lifted Mandy’s body easily, laid him between the shrubs and the house and left him there.

Seeing Reba kiss Mandy had stabbed Dolarhyde deep. Then the pain left him for good.

He still looked and sounded like Francis Dolarhyde—the Dragon was a very good actor; he played Dolarhyde well.

Reba was washing her face when she heard the door-bell. It rang four times before she got there. She touched the chain, but didn’t take it off.

“Who is it?”

“Francis Dolarhyde.”

She eased the door open, still on the chain. “Tell me again.”

“Dolarhyde. It’s me.”

She knew it was. She took off the chain.

Reba did not like surprises. “I thought you said you’d call me, D.”

“I would have. But this is an emergency, really,” he said, clapping the chloroformed cloth over her face as he stepped inside.

The street was empty. Most of the houses were dark. He carried her to the van. Ralph Mandy’s feet stuck out of the shrubbery into the yard. Dolarhyde didn’t bother with him anymore.

She woke on the ride. She was on her side, her cheek in the dusty carpet of the van, transmission whine loud in her ear.

She tried to bring her hands to her face. The movement mashed her bosom. Her forearms were stuck together.

She felt them with her face. They were bound together from her elbows to her wrists with what felt like soft strips of cloth. Her legs were tied the same way from knees to ankles. Something was across her mouth.

What . . . what . . . ? D. was at the door, and then . . . She remembered twisting her face away and the terrible strength of him. Oh Lord . . . what was it . . . ? D. was at the door and then she was choking something cold and she tried to twist her face away but there was a terrible grip on her head.

She was in D.’s van now. She recognized the resonances. The van was going. Fear ballooned in her. Her instinct said be quiet, but the fumes were in her throat, chloroform and gasoline. She retched against the gag.

D.’s voice. “It won’t be long now.”

She felt a turn and they were on gravel now, rocks pinging under the fenders and floorboard.

He’s crazy. All right. That’s it: Crazy.

“Crazy” is a fearsome word.

What was it? Ralph Mandy. He must have seen them at her house. It set him off.