“Let go of the door. Miss Wendy Alden,” a male voice whispered in her left ear, “and don’t make a sound.”
My name, she thought in cold shock. How does he know my name?
Slowly she released her grip on the doorknob. She let both hands fall to her sides, fingers splayed. She was unnaturally aware of the position of her body, her slippered feet planted wide apart on the floor, her back arched, her head leaning back under the pull of the sharp slender cord—a loop of wire, she realized—lashed around her throat.
The man was directly behind her. She could smell the stale greasy odor of his sweat, could feel his breath hot on her cheek. But she couldn’t see him. Couldn’t see anything except the black specks pinwheeling crazily before her eyes.
“If you cry for help,” he said softly, his voice so low she could barely hear it over the staccato beating of her heart, “if you try anything foolish, I’ll kill you.”
His last words echoed in her mind: I’ll kill you, kill you, kill you. No, he couldn’t have said that. But he had. She’d heard him. She was sure of it. He’d said he would kill her. But that was crazy. She couldn’t ... die. Could she?
“Your lovely neck,” he went on quietly, “is now encircled by a foot and a half of stainless-steel wire. A garrote, you see.”
Garrote. Like in The Godfather.
“Homemade,” the stranger whispered, “but most effective nonetheless. The wire is threaded through two wooden dowels, which serve as handles. Simply by twisting those handles, I can exert pressure”—the wire tautened slightly for emphasis—“as much pressure as I like. Steel wire is wickedly sharp; it can slice flesh like wax. Do you understand what I’m telling you? Say yes.”
“Yes.” The word a croak. It startled her. Someone else’s voice.
“Good. Very good. Are you afraid of me, Miss Wendy Alden?”
A choked sound was all she could utter.
“Are you?” he inquired more sharply, as once again the garrote tightened almost imperceptibly, but just enough.
“Yes. Oh, yes.”
“Of course you are. Do you know who I am?”
“No.”
“I am called the Gryphon.”
Dizzying fear. Waves of it. Her knees weakening. Feverish heat in her forehead. Vision doubling. Heart pounding. She fought to keep from passing out.
This wasn’t happening. Not to her. It couldn’t be. The Gryphon—why, that was something she heard about on the news, something that involved other people, something remote and distant, a headline or a few seconds of tape shot by a wobbly camera, scary but not immediate, not a threat, not part of her world.
“Oh. Oh. Oh.” Who was saying that? She was. Funny. Why was she repeating that one word, that empty sound, over and over? She wanted to stop, couldn’t. “Oh. Oh. Oh.” The sounds coming faster now, uncontrollable, like hiccups.
“Shut up.” His voice like a slap.
She shut up. She waited for him to kill her. He would, of course. He always killed his victims. Killed them and ... and cut off their heads.
“Now listen to me. Miss Alden. You’ve seen the stories in the news. You know what happened to the other women I’ve encountered. But for you I may make an exception. I may let you live ... if you’ll do what I say. Will you?”
An exception. Then there was a chance. A hope. If she would do what he said. Well, of course she would. She would do whatever he wanted. Even let him molest her, rape her. It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered except staying alive.
Everything was clear, vivid. Terror had sharpened her senses, heightened her awareness, slowed time to a spider crawl. The smallest details around her stood out sharply like photographic close-ups. She saw the light glinting on the brass doorknob a foot away, saw the blurred, contorted, upside-down images of herself and the man behind her cupped in the knob, two indistinct shadowy shapes backlit by the lamps on her end tables. She saw the white pile carpet, and the seam where the carpet met the molding of the wall, and the brownish dust that had collected there, where her vacuum cleaner hadn’t reached; she would have to use the Dustbuster on that mess, uh-huh. She heard the hum of the refrigerator and the buzz of the fluorescent lighting panel in the kitchen. Outside a car rattled past, engine noise fading with distance, leaving an impression of motion and freedom, cruelly tantalizing.
“Will you?” the Gryphon asked again.
She realized she hadn’t answered. Her voice was stuck in her throat. Her tongue was paste. She forced out sound.
“Yes.”
“You’re most cooperative. Miss Alden. I like that. Your chances of surviving this rendezvous are improving all the time.” His lips drifted closer to her ear. She felt the heat of his breath on her earlobe. “Of course, if you saw my face, then I would have no choice but to kill you. You didn’t see my face, did you?”
“I didn’t. I swear.” Oh, God, it was no use, he’d never believe her, even though it was true. “You’ve been behind me the whole time,” she said desperately, pleadingly, “and there was no way I could see you, really, I don’t have any idea—”
“Fine. I only wanted to be sure.”
Did he believe her? Did he really? There was no way she could know. She had to hope, that was all, just hope.
“Now,” he said softly, “here’s what I’d like you to do.”
She waited, praying it wouldn’t be too bad, whatever it was he wanted. Distantly she was aware of the searing pain in her throat where the wire had dug into her skin, and the warm trickle leaking from the wound. She could feel the strength of his arms in the pressure of the garrote around her neck. The garrote that, at any moment, could cinch tight, tear open her throat like a paper bag, slice arteries, stop breath.
“I want you to say some words for me,” he told her. “Some very special words. Words that please me and leave me satisfied. I’ll say them first, and you’ll repeat them for me. Do that, and I’ll release you unharmed. Fair enough?”
Fair enough? she thought. Oh, God, yes, more than fair enough. Just saying some words, why, that’s easy, that’s nothing.
“Yes,” she said. “It’s fair. Very fair. Thank you.” She felt ridiculously grateful to this faceless stranger who was giving her a chance, who wanted nothing more from her than a few words. “Thank you very much.”
“Why, you’re most welcome, my dear. And most charmingly polite. All right, repeat after me: Please don’t kill me.”
“Please ...” She stumbled. This was harder than she’d thought. Those words were difficult to say. They named her emotions too exactly. They made the danger facing her fully real. “Please don’t kill me,” she said with effort.
“I don’t want to die,” he said.
Suddenly her eyes were burning. Tears threatened. “I ... I don’t want to die.”
“I’ll do whatever you wish. Anything at all.”
“I’ll do anything ...” No, that was wrong. Dammit, Wendy, get the words right. “I’ll do whatever you want. Wish. Whatever you wish. Anything at all.”
She was messing up. She couldn’t concentrate. The wire testing her throat, it was tight, too tight. Hard to breathe.
“You are far greater and more powerful than I.” He spoke in a slow, measured, ritualistic cadence. “You frighten me. I’ve never been so terribly afraid. You’re the strongest, the most awe-inspiring being I’ve ever conceived of.” His voice was growing sluggish, torpid, the voice of a leech battening itself on blood. “I’m blinded by your radiance, prostrate before you. Overwhelmed, chastened, humbled. Say it.”
It was too much to absorb; she couldn’t retain it all. Her head was spinning.
“You ... you’re much greater than I am, much more, uh, powerful. You scare me. I’ve never felt so afraid. You’re the ... the strongest and most ... most ...”
“Awe-inspiring,” he prompted.
“Most awe-inspiring being I’ve ever imagined. I’m blinded by your ...” What was the word? “Radiance. Blinded by your radiance. Blinded and humbled ...” No,
there was something before that, something about kneeling, but not kneeling, some other word, what was it? She didn’t know, couldn’t think, she’d blown it, oh, God, what a jerk she was. “I’m sorry,” she said helplessly, “I’m all mixed up. Could you repeat the last part? Please?”
“Never mind.” An edge in his voice. A growl. Anger.
He would kill her now. She knew he would. She had to make him give her another chance.
“Oh, come on, tell me again,” she pleaded, hating the tremulous eagerness in her voice. “I’ll say it right this time, I’ll say all of it, I just couldn’t remember ...”
He made no reply. She waited for the sudden agonizing bite of the wire.
“Please,” she said again, hoping for some answer, any answer. “Oh, please, I promise I won’t disappoint you. Uh, let’s see. I’m blinded by your radiance, I’m, uh, overwhelmed and humbled …”
“There, there, my dear,” the voice behind her said with surprising kindliness. “It’s all right. No need to go on with this part of the program. You’ve recited enough borrowed words.”
She understood that he was not angry with her after all, that he was not going to tighten the garrote, not yet anyway. Relief weakened her.
“Now,” he said, “I wish to try something a little different. More creative. I want you to tell me exactly why you ought to live. Why your life matters. Why it’s important. I’m not talking about your value to society or to mankind; this isn’t the Miss America pageant we’re running here, in case you hadn’t noticed. Tell me why your life is important to you. What do you love? What are your aspirations? Your dreams? Your prayers? Tell me.”
Dreams? Prayers? She didn’t know. She hadn’t dared to dream in so long. Her mind was blank,
“I ... oh. Jeez, I ... I’m not sure what to say... .”
“Well, you’d better think of something. Miss Wendy Alden.” The garrote tightened again, the razor-keen steel burning. “And you’d better make it good.”
Even though she couldn’t see him, she knew he was smiling; she could feel the slow upward curve of his lips, the feral flash of teeth. She had no choice but to give him what he wanted, if she could find the words. And she had to find them. Just had to.
“Okay,” she said. “I’ll tell you. I ... I want to live, because ... because ...” No words would come. “Because ...”
Nothing. Nothing at all. Did she want to live? Did it matter? Did anything matter?
“I’m waiting. Miss Alden.”
Talk, she ordered herself. Say any goddamn thing, will you? Come on, dammit. Come on.
“Santa Barbara,” she said, then rushed on, afraid to stop. “I want to go there. Want to see Santa Barbara. Oh, God, that sounds stupid, doesn’t it? I mean, it’s not that far away, and why didn’t I ever go when I had the chance? But I didn’t. Because I was afraid. Afraid to live. I haven’t lived yet, not really, not ever. Haven’t done anything. And now I’m sorry, so sorry, for all the things I’ve missed.”
“What else?” the voice breathed.
“I want to do something with my life. Get a better job, challenge myself, I don’t know. I’m afraid to die not knowing what I could have done, what I could have been. And I ... I want to fall in love. I’ve never been in love, never even known what love is. This probably isn’t good enough, is it? What I’m saying, I mean. I know it’s not. I should have some big exciting plans, when all I’ve got are these stupid little things that don’t mean anything, except they’re what seem to matter most, the things I’ve never done ...”
She was crying. Crying for the first time in years, the first time since childhood, and perhaps for the last time ever. She was still afraid, yes, but underlying her fear was sadness, a profound and all-consuming sense of loss. She mourned for herself and for her life. She was an unborn child; she had never really lived; and now she never would. Her brief flame, never bright, would be snuffed out, leaving behind no memory of its burning. She’d spent twenty-nine years on earth, twenty-nine years of days and nights, but out of all those days, how many had she known when she truly felt alive? How many hours? Not enough, not nearly enough. Oh, but if he only would let her go, she would cherish every day, hour, minute, second, every breath of life; never again would she let time go by unappreciated and unused. And she would have time, so much time—years, decades—who ever said life was short?
Please, God, please make him let me go... .
“I want to live,” she said, her voice thick. “I do. Really. So much. I never knew before—how much. And if you ... kill me, I won’t get the chance to live, to change. If I can change. I don’t know if I can. Maybe I can’t. Maybe nobody can. Maybe we’re all victims, me and you, everyone. Maybe it’s too late ... for all of us. But I’m not sure. I have to find out. Please let me find out. I’m not making sense, am I? I know I’m not. I wish, I wish, I wish I knew what to say. ...”
“Hush now. You’ve done fine, Miss Alden. The Gryphon is well-pleased.”
She hitched in a breath. What did he mean by that? Would he let her go? He’d promised he would, if she satisfied him. She waited, tears standing in her eyes, feeling a desperate hope.
“You’re very innocent,” he breathed in a voice soft as velvet, “aren’t you, my dear? I like that. You’re not at all like the others in this polluted city. You’re so wonderfully untouched, uncorrupted. Your purity makes me ashamed of having lied to you.”
Her heart twisted. “Lied?”
“I do apologize.”
“What ... did you ... lie about?” But she knew. She knew already.
“Letting you go. Sparing your life. There never was any chance I would do that.”
Her last hope crumbled, crushed under heavy despair. She moaned. Her mind was a bruise slowly turning black-and-blue.
“You’re far too fine a specimen,” he whispered. “You’ll be such a wonderful addition to my collection.”
Specimen? she thought numbly. Collection?
Then she understood. Her head. That was what he meant. He collected heads. The heads he took from his victims. And now he would take hers.
She tried to speak, couldn’t. Her mouth worked, but no sound came. She closed her eyes, trying to shut out the world and flee this nightmare, then opened them immediately, afraid of the dark that had fallen behind her eyelids, the dark that was so much like death.
The steel wire was tightening slowly, slowly. She was going to die here, in this room, tonight—die before she’d lived—and there was nothing she could do.
“You’re mine now. Miss Wendy Alden,” the Gryphon breathed, his voice like dust, like death. “Mine forever.”
10
The Detective Unit office was a large windowless room partitioned into smaller sections by rows of shoulder-high filing cabinets, many of them topped with bound volumes of the Municipal Code and potted plants that did not require sunlight. Metal desks butted up against one another, sharing their clutter; swivel chairs that rolled on steel casters were scattered here and there like driftwood.
Delgado sat in one chair, turning slowly in his seat, back and forth, back and forth, while two of the task-force detectives. Donna Wildman and Tom Gardner, tossed ideas at him. It was a brainstorming session, the kind of thing cops did when they had run out of strategies. Phones rang in other parts of the room, and people hurried in and out of doors, trailing plumes of cigarette smoke and the odor of sweat.
“So how about working the statues harder?” Wildman said. She was eating a granola bar, and she spoke through a mouthful of molasses and nuts.
“Harder, how?” Delgado countered. “Torres and Blaise have visited every gallery and art school on the Westside.”
“But only looking for somebody who’s a sculptor. What about approaching it from another angle? Wait a minute. The lab report is here someplace.” She dug through a mound of papers on her desk, found a manila folder, scanned its contents. “It says the statues were made of a specific brand of modeling clay. Why don’t we go to art-supplies
stores and track down everybody who bought a box of that stuff?”
“I was told it’s a common brand, sold everywhere.”
“If he used a particular kind of sculpting tool to put in the details, we could look for purchases of that.”
“The experts say it was probably a pencil.”
“Maybe we should run in everyone who’s bought a pencil,” Tom Gardner cracked.
Wildman glared at him.
“Okay,” he added, “we’ll limit it to number-two pencils only.”
“Come on, you two,” Delgado said. “Give me some better ideas. Amaze me.”
“I say we post unmarked cars at all crime scenes, twenty-four hours a day,” Gardner said. “Just watching. He may show up again.”
“Why would he?” Wildman asked, sounding irritated at Gardner because he’d shot down her idea.
“These guys do that. Like Ted Bundy. He would go over to a crime scene and fantasize about the murder, relive it, get off on it.” He fingered the tape dispenser on his desk, removing bits of tape and sticking them on his blotter. “I think he brought little souvenirs with him, like the victim’s ballpoint pen, say, or a grocery list— something he’d taken that was never missed. He’d sit there in his car and fondle this thing and think about how good it had felt to kill that girl.”
“We’ve already got beat cars cruising past those buildings every fifteen minutes,” Delgado said.
“Suppose he’s there for only five minutes, and they miss him.”
“What are we going to do?” Wildman asked. “Arrest everybody who parks on the street?”
“Only the ones who look suspicious.”
“Whatever that means.”
Delgado cut off Gardner’s reply. “I don’t think we can spare the manpower right now. But I’ll keep it in mind.”
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