by John Lutz
When Harper explained that his knowledge of bomb-making had led him to link the murders of Sothern, Wylie, and Buckner, Markman listened with mixed emotions. He was badly frightened that he’d been detected, of course. That wasn’t in the plan. No one was supposed to know until May 15, when the pattern would be complete. But the odd thing was that he also felt a strange affinity for Harper. It was almost like gratitude. Here at last was someone who understood his handiwork. Who appreciated it.
He and Harper spoke the same language.
What Harper had to say in the rest of the press conference was reassuring to Markman. He didn’t know that much. What had led him to guess that Rogers was the next target was only a lucky guess—some nonsense about how the talk-show host’s abrasive manner might affect an unbalanced criminal personality. The usual pop-psych nonsense that had nothing to do with Markman. Harper didn’t know about the Aquila pattern.
Still, after viewing the tape, Markman was convinced that his first instinct about Harper had been right. The ex-cop was potential trouble. He had to be discouraged from interfering any further.
So before going to Washington to visit the Constant Light Hospital, Markman had stopped off in New York. It had taken two full days of surveillance and research before he decided how he would convey his warning to Harper. After that, gaining entry to the house and rewiring the drill had been easy enough.
Markman had to assume that Harper had understood the message. There’d been no mention of him in the media at all, except for a few stale background stories about his career in the NYPD. Having seen what the bomber could do to him, Harper was lying low.
Or was he?
It was always the unknown factor that made Markman nervous. And it was always his work that calmed him. Time to go to work now, he thought.
He switched off the TV and went into the kitchen, where he paused to drink a glass of tap water before going out the back door. It was his seventh, and there would be one more at bedtime. Markman drank eight glasses of water at regular intervals every day, just as the health experts advised.
The night was warm and clear, and the stars seemed as bright and huge as in the Van Gogh paintings Markman had always admired. Insects droned in the nearby shrubbery, signaling that the world was turning in unison with the rest of the universe, and the natural laws of motion and fate were as intact and inevitable as always. Markman had always admired the perfect timeliness and definitiveness of the heavens and was something of an expert amateur in the science of astronomy. The stars and planets in their arrangement and movement were to him like cosmic clockwork, something that could be counted on for eternity. He knew that as long as he acted with the same mathematical precision and certainty as the heavenly bodies in their irresistible, predestined courses, all would be well for him. The result of his intent would be as inevitable as fate. Science as destiny.
The science of explosives.
As he walked along the driveway toward the garage, he fished in his hip pocket for his key ring.
Markman’s car was parked in a widened gravel area off to the side of the driveway. He never parked in the garage. In fact, the garage’s thick overhead door was bolted and locked permanently on the inside, disconnected from the automatic opener. On the side of the garage was a door whose small framed windows had been painted the same white as the wood. The door was firmly secured with a dead bolt lock, as well as with a thick hasp and large padlock.
After working both locks with the same key, Markman opened the door and stepped into the garage, hitting the light switch.
Bright overhead fluorescent fixtures flickered on. The garage’s single window had been painted over like those in the door, and Markman knew that no light escaped. From outside, the garage seemed unoccupied.
Markman relocked the dead bolt and smiled, breathing in deeply, comforted by his secret place, where he used to come to escape from the pressures inflicted on him by the world. Where he could be himself.
Along one wall of the garage was a long wooden workbench equipped with a series of vises and clamps. On the wall itself was a Peg-Board on which hung gleaming precision hand tools. On another wall hung power tools. A second workbench supported an electric band saw with a small lathe attachment, a press drill, a set of steel miter boxes. Both workbenches were equipped with powerful work lights on flexible steel elbows. The lamp on the bench near the hand tools had a built-in magnifier with a universal swivel. There were drawers in the bench containing electricians’ tools and supplies and an engraver for doing delicate close work beneath the magnifier. On shelves beneath the bench were calipers, grinders, soldering guns, and a small welding torch. On the third wall, near the main workbench, was a table on which sat a computer with software programmed by Markman to calculate blast force and angle to a remarkably accurate degree, and to project damage. Markman could direct blast force to ricochet and focus almost with the narrow efficacy of a bullet. At show business he was a failure, but at bomb-making he’d become more than a success—he was an artist.
In the garage that had been converted into a high-tech bomb factory, Markman switched on a small radio, tuned it to a station that played hits from the eighties, and sat down at the main workbench. He felt an irrational reluctance to begin work on this project, because it was the last. He would soon be finished with this room, in which he’d spent so many contented hours. He opened a drawer and riffled through some papers, then got out and studied the schematic he’d carefully drafted.
This will do, he told himself. This will more than do.
Planning was of course only the initial stage. But it was the most important. If he planned assiduously, he would always succeed. The confluence of time and effort and desire and destiny would always be more than a match for anyone trying to prevent him from making his kill.
He decided to work late tonight. It was time to begin construction of the final bomb. For this one he’d use all the remaining C-4. Just as well for his stolid South St. Louis neighbors, he thought, that they didn’t know that for the last few weeks there had been enough plastic explosive stored in this garage to level the entire block.
He lost himself in his work, as always, ceasing even to be conscious of the music playing on the radio. It was only the voice announcing the midnight newsbreak that got his attention. He got up and went to the other end of the workbench, where his calendar rested. He crossed off today’s date, April 30.
At last it was May.
26
Harper spent the morning in his hotel room, watching television. He was waiting for a callback from the Crazy Bone Comedy Club. He’d called them earlier and found out the club had gone through several changes of ownership. The woman who answered the phone said that she didn’t know who had been managing the club fifteen years ago, but she’d try to find out and call him back. Harper believed her. On previous visits to Chicago he’d found people to be generally pleasant and helpful. The Second City was a lot friendlier than the First.
While he waited, he called Laura, catching her just as she was coming in from another night shift at the hospital. They didn’t talk for long. After he hung up there was nothing to do but sit in the armchair facing the big color television and channel-surf.
He flicked aimlessly until the familiar face of Special Agent Frances Wilson appeared on the screen. She was being interviewed at her desk in the Bureau’s Indianapolis Field Office. The reporter was pointing out that she’d closed down virtually the entire town of Elmhart for several days and mobilized the National Guard to collect debris from the explosion. He wanted to know if she’d found out anything to justify the expense and inconvenience.
Frances handled the sharp questioning well. It didn’t surprise Harper to see that she was good with the media. When she said she wasn’t going to comment—which she did several times—her tone implied that she knew a lot more than she was telling.
But did she?
That was what Harper wondered. Addleman thought the investigation was getting nowhere
, but he still had bitter feelings about the Bureau. Harper thought that with all the resources Frances Wilson was able to deploy, she must be making progress. He hoped so, anyway. Because all he was doing was chasing a theory.
The phone rang. It was the cooperative woman at the Crazy Bone. She’d made some calls and found out that the manager in the early nineties had been a man named Bill Oates. He hadn’t gone far. Oates was currently managing another nightclub in the River North area, within walking distance of Harper’s hotel.
After the heat out west, Harper was glad to get back to a part of the country where the beginning of May was still early spring. The sun was shining, but it was chilly in the shadows of the skyscrapers. A strong, gritty wind was blowing in off the lake.
It also felt good—at least to a New York native like Harper—to be walking busy sidewalks again after driving around the barren suburbs of the west. He took Wacker Drive to the Chicago River, a narrow stream that hardly seemed to justify the labor of constructing so many handsome and solid bridges across it. Harper went over one of these and was in River North.
The buildings were older and smaller here. It was an agreeable mix of shops and offices with restaurants and nightclubs. The windows of Bill Oates’s club were dark, as was its neon sign, and Harper almost walked right by it. A sign said the club didn’t open until six, but the door was unlocked. He went in.
The sun pouring through the windows did a good job of stripping the room of every vestige of showbiz glamour. The chairs had been stacked on the tables, and an elderly black man in overalls, who moved as if he had a sore back, was running a vacuum cleaner over the carpet. The stale smell of last night’s spilled beer and cigarette smoke still hung in the air. Without lights, the stage at the far end of the room looked like the mouth of a pit.
The man noticed Harper and switched off his machine. “Help you?”
“Looking for Bill Oates?”
“Upstairs, last door on the right. I wouldn’t go up there ’less you really need to see him. Mr. Oates doesn’t want to be disturbed today.”
“I’ll have to fight my way past a secretary to see him, you mean?”
“Mr. Oates don’t need a secretary. He can be plenty rude all by himself.”
“Thanks for the warning.”
As Harper mounted the stairs, the sound of the vacuum cleaner resumed. He saw that the door at the end of the hall was standing open.
Bill Oates had a small, cluttered office. His desk was turned toward the window, probably so he could enjoy the view of Marina Towers. He was sitting with his back to the door, so all Harper could see of him was a head of tousled light-brown hair, broad shoulders in a red golf shirt, and hairy, muscular forearms. He was flipping through a stack of papers and muttering to himself.
“Excuse me, Mr. Oates?”
Oates swiveled the chair around. His face looked twenty years older than his hair, seamed and pouched, with long grooves running from the nostrils to the corners of his mouth. His eyes were cold.
“What is it? Who’re you?”
“My name’s Will Harper. I just want to ask you a few questions—”
“No time today. One of my acts for tonight just canceled.” He turned away, reaching for his phone.
Harper rounded the desk to stand in his line of vision. “This won’t take long. I’d appreciate—”
“Son of a bitch cancels eight hours before he’s supposed to go on,” Oates grumbled as he stabbed at the phone’s keypad with his forefinger. “Says his mother’s dying. But I know comics. What that really means is he’s lined up a better booking.”
“How do you know?”
“You kidding? A comic turns down a booking just because his mother’s dying? Forget it!” Oates must have gotten a busy signal, because he grimaced and slammed the phone down. “So what do you want?”
“I’m interested in some performers who appeared at the Crazy Bone in the early nineties—”
“The Crazy Bone. The early nineties.” Oates rolled his eyes. “I’ll save us some time, pal. I don’t remember anything about the early nineties, except for my divorce. That I’ll never forget. Sorry I can’t help you.
“The name Jake Blake doesn’t ring a bell? He was a comedian who—”
“Comedians come and go, pal. Only their jokes remain the same.”
“Amy Arthur?”
Oates shook his head. He had the receiver in hand and was pecking out another number.
“Sylvester Simms? Silky Simms, he’s sometimes called.”
Oates started to shake his head, then stopped. He looked up at Harper. “Silky?”
“You remember him?”
“Sure. Crazy son of a bitch writes to me when he’s in prison. Asks for stamps. Cigarette money. It builds from there. Some people you can never shake loose. Like parasites, you know?”
“He’s out of prison now.”
“Good. He doesn’t call me when he’s out. Too busy doing crimes, I guess. He should stay occupied, leave me alone.” Oates’s call went through this time. He asked for somebody named Irv, but Irv wasn’t there. Oates seemed to take this as a personal affront. He slammed the phone down again, hard enough to make it bounce in its plastic cradle.
Harper said, “Blake and the others were a group of friends from the St. Louis area who often performed together. While they were at the Crazy Bone, Blake got his big break. Went straight out to L.A. to do a TV show.”
“How many times do I have to tell you, I don’t remember and I don’t care. It’s history, like the Civil War. Why do you want to know, anyway?”
“In L.A., Blake was injured by a mail bomb. Lost a hand. I’m looking into the case.”
“Yeah? And who are you?” Oates looked at Harper’s right band and grinned. “The Avenger from the International Society of Cripples?”
Harper took a step closer to the desk. He stared down at Oates, who stopped smiling. Nothing was said for the next half minute, but Oates turned several shades paler and his Adam’s apple bobbed visibly in his throat.
Finally Oates leaned forward in his chair, which gave him an excuse to break eye contact. Harper was left looking down at his luxuriant hair. “So—uh—you think it was one of the people Blake left behind in the Midwest who sent him the mail bomb?”
“I’m investigating the possibility. You don’t recall if Simms was envious of Blake’s success?”
“Not specifically, but it’s a good bet. This business is awash in envy. What do you expect, when a tiny minority gets fame and fortune while the rest get humiliation and poverty? And they’re not the most stable personalities to begin with. Lots of performers crash and burn. Turn to booze. Drugs. End up on the street or in jail, like Simms.”
“It’s a rough business,” Harper said. “It breaks people.”
“Don’t waste any tears on ’em,” Oates replied. “Comics are like nasty children. They’ll do anything to get your attention. Work a job like mine long enough, you get real tired of comics and their problems.”
Harper figured that Bill Oates probably wasn’t interested in the problems of anyone but Bill Oates. He didn’t much like this man, with his young hair and old face, his eyes that had no light in them. He thought he wasn’t going to get any information out of him, either.
“So you don’t remember anything specific about Jake Blake or any of the others?”
“Too long ago, pal, sorry.”
Harper nodded. He was just about to thank Oates and leave when it occurred to him that there was a name he hadn’t mentioned.
“Darren Snow?—that ring a bell?”
To Harper’s surprise, the question caught Oates’s attention. The lines in his face deepened as he frowned with the effort to remember. After a moment he said, “Yeah, I remember Darren Snow.”
Harper wondered what it had taken to make a dent in Oates’s indifference. “Talented guy?”
“Nah. Just average. If they’re really bad they’re kind of fun. But Darren Snow got good writers, worked hard on
his routine, imitated all the best people, and it came out dull as dishwater.” Oates smiled and shook his head. “He was like Bob Newhart without the laughs—button-down collar, high forehead, worried eyes.”
“I’ve heard him described as secretive. And I’ve had a hard time finding out anything about him.”
“Yeah, he was secretive. Darren Snow was a stage name. He wouldn’t tell me his real name till I had to fill out a tax form.”
“What was his real name?”
“Anthony Markman.”
“Anthony Markman,” Harper repeated, to set the name in his memory.
“I perked my ears up when I heard that was his name, I can tell you.
“Why?” Harper asked.
“Well, there’s a good reason why most comics are trying to earn a living off their hostilities and insecurities—because they haven’t got anything else. But the Markmans are a rich old St. Louis family. Own some company. I don’t know what they do—some kind of engineering, I think.”
“And Anthony Markman used the name Snow because—”
“Maybe he didn’t want to embarrass the family. Or he didn’t want any special favors because he was rich. I could’ve told him, Tony, baby, you need all the help you can get.”
“So he wasn’t getting anywhere in his career, then. Do you happen to remember his reaction when Blake got the call from Hollywood?”
“No. But it wasn’t him who sent the mail bomb.”
“How can you be sure?”
“Because I know his type. I’ve had a few others like him working for me over the years. Kids from rich families, with dads offering to pay their way through law school or med school. Or dads who have a job waiting for them in the family business. And they think, oh, it’s too safe, too dull. So they go in for standup, or singing, or juggling, or some goddamn thing.”
“And they don’t last long?”
Oates shook his head. “After a few months in show business, safe and dull starts to look like a real attractive combination. So they go back to school or into the family business.”