by John Lutz
The days slipped by, fine spring days of gentle showers and warm breezes. It was the last week of April.
Harper’s toolbox wasn’t where he’d left it.
If he’d been on his guard, he would have wondered about that, because Laura was always careful to put the box back where he liked to keep it, under his workbench in the basement. But when he found it at the foot of the steps, he merely assumed that she’d been forgetful.
Carrying the heavy metal box, he climbed the steps and went into the front parlor. Laura had painted the room while he’d been away, and she wanted him to hang the mirror they had bought at a country auction last summer.
The mirror, a large, oval glass in an ornate gilt frame, was propped against the wall. Harper hefted it, put its weight at about thirty pounds. He’d want to use a molly bolt to hang it.
In the corner of the room, a small, portable TV was playing. He’d turned it on to drown out the incessant ringing of the telephone. Each night before bed he sat down at the answering machine and played back the messages. It could take as much as an hour to get through them, and so far he’d always ended up disappointed. The message he was waiting for wasn’t on the tape.
The one from Addleman.
Harper figured it was safe to leave the set on, as long as be remembered to turn it off before the noon newscasts and the latest round of frustrating nonstories about the bomber. Right now he was half-listening to an inane talk show, with a host he didn’t recognize. She was a tremendously energetic young woman who dashed from one audience member to another, trying to elicit controversial questions or comments about her guests, two women and a man. The three had apparently done something the audience regarded as shameful and bizarre, but Harper hadn’t yet made out what it was. Whatever their transgression, all three seemed proud of it.
Now for the delicate task of positioning the mirror and making the mark where he’d want the hole to be. Harper should have been concentrating on his work. But he couldn’t shut out the talk show.
“. . . told her she shouldn’t come around no more,” one of the women said.
“So while she was talking to your husband, you blew up her car?” said the host incredulously.
“Didn’t blow it up,” the woman said, grinning. “Didn’t have no dynamite. I poured gas all over it and lit it afire. Went up in a big whoosh.” The audience tittered.
“Same thing as blown up!” said the second woman on stage. She was wearing an angry look, but didn’t really seem angry. After all, her car had probably been insured, and its destruction meant she was on national television.
“How do you feel about what happened, Paul?” the host asked the young man seated between the two women. Paul shrugged, obviously flattered at being such an object of desire that a car had been set afire on his behalf.
“Did you do that to her car because of the Celebrity Bomber?” asked a woman in the audience. “And are you at all sorry now?”
Harper put down the mirror and gave the TV his full attention.
Both women were grinning. Paul shrugged again and looked smugly from one to the other. He was skinny and had bad teeth and didn’t look like a man two women would battle to possess.
“Wish’d I woulda had some dynamite,” said the car arsonist, and the audience laughed.
Harper reached over to where the remote lay on a chair arm and switched the channel. A man standing on a sunny beach somewhere was explaining in painstaking detail how a fortune could be obtained dealing in real estate.
Better, Harper thought. He called Laura, who was stripping woodwork in the library. She stood in the doorway and directed him to move the mirror up a bit, then down a bit. When she was satisfied, she went back to her own work. Harper made a pencil mark on the wall and put the mirror aside.
Now to drill the bole. He walked over to his tool kit.
Loud, driving music announced the beginning of the twelve o’ clock news. He picked up the remote and pointed it at the television to turn it off. But they were talking about the Celebrity Bomber, and he hesitated with his thumb on the power switch.
David Wickerwaith, the new heartthrob who was the star of the TV series Coastal, had canceled an interview with network news anchor Brad Philip. Laryngitis had been the official excuse, but Philip let it be known that Wickerwaith, and many other stars, had declined to be interviewed regarding the Celebrity Bomber for fear of drawing his attention to them. Harper thought that was sensible.
Not as sensible was fading star Modessa Swann, who was still attractive after countless birthdays and facial surgeries, and who smiled as the camera moved away from her close-up to reveal her sitting next to Philip behind the news desk. A vulpine blond woman who was probably sixty but looked forty, she was wearing pieces of her personal line of jewelry that she sold regularly on a home shopping network. A gold necklace gleamed above generous cleavage revealed by her low-cut blouse.
“Every star I know, all of us,” she said to Philip, “is simply terrified about what’s happening. Why, none of us knows if we’re going to be here tomorrow or if we’re going to be blown up by that madman!”
“You don’t seem afraid,” Philip observed.
Modessa smiled. “Well, I am, Brad. Only a fool wouldn’t be. Even the big brave male action stars are frightened. Some of them won’t even leave their estates.”
“Rumor has it that many have left the country,” Philip said.
“Rumor’s correct, Brad.” She giggled, reminding Harper of seeing her portraying ingenues in the early films that had made her a star. “I guess they’ve left it up to us gals to defend show business.”
Philip smiled reservedly. “If that’s the case, show business is in capable hands. We all applaud your fearlessness.”
“If you can’t tell I’m afraid, then it’s a tribute to my acting ability. But I’m here, even though I know it’s dangerous. To some of us, this is part of the show-must-go-on tradition. We can’t let anyone scare us away from our first love and livelihoods. This reminds me of my first audition, with all the butterflies in my stomach. It’s the very same feeling.”
It astounded Harper that she wouldn’t know the essential difference. Being ripped limb from limb by an explosion wasn’t quite the same thing as failing to land a juicy part in a play or film. Don’t call us, we’ll call you meant that at least there was a future.
“When the time comes to die,” Modessa said with practiced flipness, “I’m sure the director will call for my stuntwoman.”
Harper knew then that she really was terrified, because she was acting. Her lines had obviously been written and rehearsed. This was publicity for her. Opportunity. In a way, he had to admire her, and marvel at her enduring appetite for fame. If he was watching, what would the Celebrity Bomber think of her?
Turning off the television, he bent over the toolbox and opened it. Laura might have forgotten to put it back in the right place, but she had left its contents in good order. His electric drill was in its usual drawer. He selected and inserted a bit, then straightened up.
There was an outlet in the baseboard just a few feet from where he wanted the hole. Convenient; he wouldn’t need an extension cord. Cradling the drill comfortably in his good hand, he placed the bit against the pencil mark on the wall and pressed the trigger.
It felt as if a bolt of lightning shot through him. The drill seemed to jump from his hand. Gasping with surprise and pain, he staggered back. He looked at his hand to see how badly it was burned.
The drill lay on the floor, sparking and smoking.
Harper sat on the edge of the tub in the downstairs bathroom while Laura applied ointments and Band-Aids to his hand.
“There,” she said. “Feel any better?”
“A little. Still pretty tender.”
“It will be for a while. The burns aren’t serious. But I’m afraid you’re finished with carpentry for the day.”
Harper raised his left hand and looked at it. The skin was still red, under a glistening coat o
f burn cream. In the last couple of years, he had learned how to manage with one good hand. For the next few hours he’d have to manage with none. It was an experience that would make a man think. Be grateful for what he had. And what he could still lose.
Which was just the way it was intended to work.
He said quietly, “That was a brand-new drill. Last time I used it, it was fine. There was no reason for it to short out.”
“Well, these things happen.”
“Laura, did you use my toolbox recently?”
“Recently? I can’t exactly remember.”
“Yesterday, I mean.”
“Oh. No, I didn’t. Why?
“The bomber did this. He rewired the drill.”
Laura was packing away her first aid kit. She swung around to stare wide-eyed at him. “What are you saying? The drill just shorted out.”
“No.”
“Oh God. You mean he was trying to kill—”
“If he’d intended to kill me, I’d be dead. He was just demonstrating how vulnerable I am. Sending me a message, warning me that I’d made enough trouble for him already and I’d better not make any more.”
She sat down on the windowsill. For a moment she was silent. Then she said, “Will, if you’re sure, we’d better call the police right away.”
He shook his head. “I’m willing to bet that it won’t be possible now to tell that the drill was tampered with. So it’ll be just my story, and they probably won’t take it seriously. They might think it’s some kind of post-traumatic reaction to the bombing at Elmhart. Or they might think I’m lying outright—trying to get some attention because I’m pissed off at the way I’ve been left out of the investigation.”
Laura took a deep breath, trying to maintain her composure. “Why did you ask if I’d moved your toolbox?”
“Because it wasn’t exactly where I’d left it.”
She stood up, raising one hand to her mouth. “You mean he’s been—here? In our house? Will, no.”
“He’s been here.”
“But we’ve got dead bolts on both doors. We’ve got an alarm system that your friend on the Burglary Squad said was state of the art.”
Harper shrugged. “Not a problem for this guy.”
Laura walked quickly out of the room. “I left the window open in the back room just now. Oh Lord, of all the stupid—”
“He’s long gone,” Harper called after her.
She pivoted in the corridor and looked back at him. “But can we be sure he’s finished with us? Can we ever feel safe here?”
He shook his head sadly. “No. We can’t.”
“But where can we go on such short notice? There’s—there’s my friend Anita. She lives near the hospital. But I don’t think she’d have room for you. Maybe we should just go to a hotel.”
“Yes, a hotel.” Harper looked at his hand. Already the soothing effect of the ointment was wearing off and he could feel the heat. “Look, I’d better tell Addleman what’s happened.”
While Laura packed their bags, Harper placed the call. Holding the receiver with his fingertips, he explained what the bomber had done.
“Unexpected,” said Addleman. “Fascinating. I wouldn’t think the bomber would react in such a personal way.”
“Do you think we should inform Frances?”
“Assuming we could get through to her? She’s a busy woman these days. Anyway, she’d only say you’re imagining things. If the bomber was going to take this much trouble, he’d have killed you.”
“She’d be wrong,” Harper said. “At this stage of the game killing me would serve no purpose.”
“No. You’re out of the action. The bomber’s telling you to stay out. He’s extending a sort of professional courtesy to you. Saying you’re a pro too, but of course you’re not in his league, so steer clear. But I gather his warning isn’t having the desired effect?”
“No,” said Harper coldly. “Just the opposite effect.”
“Well, as long as you have to leave home anyway, you’d better come down here. I was about to send you an e-mail. I’ve been working on something.”
Harper straightened up. Eagerness made him tighten his grip on the receiver and he winced. “What is it? Something the Bureau doesn’t have?”
Addleman hesitated. “Come on down, Harper, and we’ll talk.”
“See you this evening,” Harper said. Putting down the phone, he went to break the news to Laura.
21
It was drizzling that evening when Harper climbed out of a cab in front of Addleman’s apartment building and stood on the rain-slick sidewalk. A couple of young men with tattooed arms and bizarre hairdos, lounging across the street and sharing a bottle, eyed him speculatively in the dusk, then turned back to their conversation as they saw something in him that prompted caution.
A few seconds after Harper knocked, locks snicked, chains rattled, and Addleman opened the door and nodded a somber hello. He stood back to let Harper enter the dim apartment. Stale tobacco smoke mingled with the spicy cooking scent that had followed Harper upstairs. He could see down the short hall to the open door to the computer room, where somewhat brighter light spilled out onto the cheap and frayed carpet runner.
Addleman snuffed out his cigarette in an ashtray, then led Harper down the hall and into the room. An elbowed desk lamp was on, but much of the light came from the glow of three computer monitors.
“I’ve got a crawler working on that one,” Addleman explained, motioning with his head toward the computer in the corner. He was wearing dark, wrinkled slacks, and his usual white shirt, with the sleeves rolled to above his elbows. He looked exhausted.
“Crawler?”
“Piece of search software that makes its way through the ’net, seeking out areas that might give up the information I need. Saves me hours in front of the computer, and it works while I sleep.”
“You look as if you should lie down and get some sleep now.”
“I should,” Addleman said. “I’ll lie down when I’m dead.”
“While you’re alive and it’s convenient to ask,” Harper said, “why did you have me take the train here from New York?”
Addleman shook a cigarette from the pack. He put it in his mouth, then took it out again without lighting it. “The Bureau’s blowing this investigation, Harper.”
“How do you know that? They may be making a lot of progress they’re not telling the media about.”
“I’m not relying on the media for my information. I worked at the Bureau for sixteen years. I still have contacts there. And what they tell me has me worried.”
“How so?”
Addleman began to shake his head slowly. A look of deep disgust contorted his features. “Behavioral Sciences—my old department—is working on the significance of the Aquila pattern. They’re sure it’s astrology.”
“I remember you thought the bomber wasn’t the type to be interested in astrology.”
“Exactly. This guy is a technocrat. Hyperrational. He wouldn’t get near astrology. And right now the Bureau has its best brains tied up studying the significance of the Aquila constellation in Greek astrology. Not to mention Arabic, Chinese, and Indian astrology. They’re writing horoscopes on this son of a bitch when they ought to be out there trying to catch him.”
Addleman was getting himself worked up, emphasizing his points by waving his unlit cigarette around. Harper said, “Easy, Harold. Maybe the astrology thing is a blind alley, but they’re chasing a lot of other leads. Something will work out.”
But Addleman only began to wag his head more quickly and wave his cigarette in broader arcs. “No! You don’t understand. It’s the whole bureaucratic mind-set that’s the problem. Frances and the others have gotten fixated on the Aquila pattern. They’re putting plenty of agents into the investigation of the Rogers bombing and the seven previous strikes we gave them. But as to finding any earlier strikes by the bomber, that’s low priority. They haven’t committed enough people to it and they’r
e not doing it right.”
“But I’ve heard that they’re checking out every unsolved bombing case of the last twenty years.”
“That’s not enough! Sometimes the Bureau isn’t the kind of organization that can think about playing the game off the board.”
“Meaning?”
“They’re not investigating solved bombings.”
Harper was having trouble keeping up with the enigmatic Addleman. “Why should they?”
“My crawler came up with something on the ’net yesterday. A blog that might lead us to the bomber’s first job. Does the name Sam Sugar mean anything to you?”
Harper shook his head no.
“He’s trying to get the media interested in righting what he says is a miscarriage of justice. Fifteen years ago he was convicted of sending a mail bomb to a man he owed money to, a rising comedian named Jake Blake.”
“Blake was killed?”
“No. That’s another reason why this case didn’t attract the notice of the Bureau. It’s not a homicide, only an attempted murder. Jake Blake lived.” Addleman looked down. Suddenly and uncharacteristically, he seemed embarrassed. “His right hand was blown off.”
Harper felt an impulse to look down at his own right hand. He resisted it.
Addleman went on. “Sugar served his sentence and was released from prison, but he continues to maintain his innocence.”
“That doesn’t necessarily mean he’s innocent.”
Addleman ignored the comment. Putting down his cigarette, he turned to the nearest computer and began to tap keys. His lined, strained features were intent in the soft glow of the monitor. “What Sugar’s trying to do now is get the media interested in the crime, get them asking questions that could lead to the reversal of his conviction. He isn’t having much success. He’s the only one interested in an old, minor crime. And even if he’s telling the truth, he wouldn’t be the first or last innocent man to do the time without the crime.”