He went to the desk sergeant and asked if Thinnes was around. The man shook his head and shrugged.
“You’d better talk to Lieutenant Evanger,” he said, pointing to Evanger’s office.
“Thank you.” As soon as he turned his back, Caleb could hear the sergeant pushing the buttons on his phone. The ordinarily innocuous sound made his hair stand up.
He knocked on Evanger’s door. The lieutenant invited him in and offered him a seat. “Thinnes won’t be in until Monday,” he said. “Is there something I can help you with?”
He remembered seeing Evanger at the zoo, shaking hands with the politicians. And in Chicago, that meant with people in business and real estate. Finley would have opened the door to a cop as readily as to a friend.
Caleb didn’t sit. “It’s something of a personal nature. I think I’d better wait and speak to Thinnes.”
Evanger shrugged and said, “Suit yourself. He’ll be on night watch Monday.” He escorted Caleb to the door.
As Evanger saw him out of the office, Caleb noted that Swann, Ferris, Viernes, and Karsch were all watching with catlike curiosity.
Downstairs, he turned the visitor’s ID in and found a pay phone. Thinnes’s line was busy. Caleb decided another house call was in order.
Sixty-Seven
The front door was unlocked though, Caleb knew, the house was empty. He rang the bell anyway. And knocked. And waited a decent interval before entering. He called out, “Thinnes? John?” from time to time as he looked around.
He finished his tour of the house in the kitchen. The room was clean, orderly, and empty. There was a blank notepad like those he’d just seen in the Area Six squad room on the counter. A Post-it stuck to the refrigerator read Dad, Gone to the game with Greg. Home late. Love, Rob. P.S. Mom’s working late.
The phone was off the hook; the receiver dangling on its cord. He hung it up.
He picked up the notepad, not really looking at it as he tried to decide what to do next. Then he realized that an imprint of the previous message had been left on the top sheet by the ball-point used to write the message. With the retractable pencil he carried in his inner jacket pocket, he covered the paper with a film of lead. The message appeared—an address: 1287 W. Argyle—in Thinnes’s hand.
Sixty-Eight
The office contained a chair, a metal desk and metal pail, a car battery, and assorted debris in cartons. And Thinnes, half conscious, occupying the chair with his arms lashed to its arms and his ankles loosely tethered to its legs. Adhesive tape covered the lower half of his face, which was scraped and bruised. Apart from the tape, he was completely naked.
They’d flushed the rogue tiger, he thought, but how had he ended up as bait? He felt very, very tired.
Water trickled onto his head, rousing him. He heard a familiar voice say, “Wake up, Thinnes. You wouldn’t want to miss the denouement.” He knew instantly then who had killed Finley. Who would shortly kill him.
The how wasn’t difficult to guess. A phone call to Wilson, Reynolds and Close: This is Margolis Enterprises. The young man who was in earlier—I forget his name…Even if someone remembered the call, they’d be honest—and convincing—in their denials. They wouldn’t know who’d called. But as it happened, no one remembered. And Finley was in the book. All he’d needed was Finley’s name. Finley would’ve cooperated with the cops. With someone identifying himself as a cop. He’d have opened the door…The how was easy enough to figure. That left the why.
Caleb had said it: power. Money was power. Absolutely corrupting. He must’ve been bleeding Margolis, and the other victims he’d had Berringer set up, for plenty. But it was probably more than money. There was probably a lot of pleasure pushing rich assholes like Margolis around and fooling the cops. As to why he thought he could get away with it, Karsch had laid it all out: once some people realize God isn’t going to strike them dead, they begin to see murder—or any other atrocity—as no big thing. But it was just speculation about the why. The tape prevented him from asking.
Sixty-Nine
Thinnes’s Chevy was parked in the deep shadows of the alley that ran behind the businesses on Broadway and the low warehouse at 1287 West Argyle. Caleb parked his car behind the Chevy and set the alarm.
The new hasp on the door had been pried loose; it hung from the doorframe by one screw. The police seal had been broken. The door was slightly ajar. Another clue in a bizarre scavenger hunt. Another invitation. A challenge.
Caleb accepted.
He pushed the door open. Listening carefully for sounds of life, he prowled quietly through an interior lit only by burglar lights. There were advantages to being a cat, small, inconspicuous, and able to see in the dark. A bar of light glowed from under the first of two doors in a dimly lit hall. He paused in front of it to listen, turned the doorknob, and pushed. The door opened silently. Caleb entered the room and froze. He had found Thinnes.
He felt a chill of dismay, then a hot flood of outrage. If he had been a cat, every hair would have stood upright. He started toward Thinnes before the invisible dimensions of the trap materialized in his mind’s eye. Fear of the malignity who’d engineered Thinnes’s predicament whirled him around. Too late. He froze again.
Jeffrey Karsch was pointing a revolver at him. Caleb didn’t know much about handguns, but he was sure the one Karsch held was no .22. Too big. Too ugly. It would leave a hole far beyond his capacity to make repairs. He willed all of his muscles still.
Karsch said, “Good evening, Dr. Caleb. I’m glad you found my invitation. I was beginning to think I’d have to phone. Did you bring a gun?”
Caleb shook his head.
“You won’t mind if I check? Keep your hands where I can see them.” Caleb held his hands carefully away from his sides, “Now, walk over to the chair and put your hands on Thinnes’s shoulders.”
Caleb wasn’t able to tell from Thinnes’s face what he was feeling, but the detective shook as Caleb grasped his bare shoulders. Cold or anger, Caleb decided. Not fear. Rage. Caleb looked purposefully at the wall above his head. He could feel the detective’s eyes boring into his fly. He could feel the blood rising in his own face as he blushed.
“Spread your feet apart more,” Karsch continued. He rammed the gun against Caleb’s right kidney as he patted down Caleb’s left side, then he reversed the procedure, groping around Caleb’s belt line and pawing at his socks. “That you’re here is a tribute to your intelligence. Too bad.” He took a step back. “At ease.”
Caleb took a deep breath as he let go of Thinnes, and stepped quickly backward. There was a loud, startling click as Karsch cocked the gun.
“Don’t make any more fast moves!”
Caleb let his breath out slowly and heard Thinnes do the same.
Karsch said, “Right now, you’re wondering if you can somehow manage to jump me. Don’t try it.” He waved the gun at Thinnes. “He might be able to do it—that’s why he’s tied up. But you couldn’t, Doctor. You’re not sufficiently violent. Or suicidal.”
Caleb didn’t reply. Karsch went on. “I won’t insult you by telling you fairy tales, but whether you die by a gut shot or a bullet through the head is entirely up to you. Take off your coat.”
Caleb removed his suit coat with exaggerated care and draped it over Thinnes’s naked lap. He thought Thinnes looked grateful. Karsch laughed. Caleb half turned, so that Karsch could see what he was doing, and very deliberately reached for the tape on Thinnes’s face.
Karsch said, “Be my guest. Then grab your head.”
Caleb put his palm on Thinnes’s forehead and pulled the tape off quickly as Thinnes braced himself. Thinnes made no sound, though the tape tore abraded skin from his face and started it bleeding. His attention was fixed like a cat’s. Caleb dropped the tape and laced his fingers together, resting his hands on his head.
Karsch eased the hammer back into place but kept the gun pointed at Caleb.
“I need to know from Thinnes what he did with the papers you sent h
im today.” Karsch spoke as if Thinnes was absent or unconscious.
Or already dead, Caleb thought. And I’ll be next.
“Go fuck yourself,” Thinnes said.
“I didn’t expect you to cooperate,” Karsch told him. He looked at Caleb. “You’re going to have to help me persuade him.”
“And if I won’t?”
Karsch went over to where the car battery and bucket sat on the floor and tapped the latter with his toe. “Then you’ll have to watch me do it.”
He kept the gun pointed at Caleb while he tipped the contents of one of the cartons on the floor. There was a pair of latex gloves, a jumper cable, and a car wash mop with a metal shaft. Karsch dropped the mop into the pail; water splashed out onto the floor. He gestured with the gun to indicate that Caleb should move toward the door, and when he obeyed, Karsch picked the pail up and sloshed water onto Thinnes. He slammed the pail down on the desk. Water splashed out. He put the battery on a dry corner of the desktop, keeping the gun pointed at Caleb even as he used his gun hand to lift the battery.
“It’s crude and painful, but effective. ECT without the anesthetic. I got the idea from a movie.”
Caleb looked at Thinnes and shuddered.
The detective showed no sign of fear—though he surely understood Karsch’s intent—or of the anger that must be nearly overwhelming him; he was as alert as a cat poised over a mousehole with every nerve cell focused. He said, “ECT?”
“Electroconvulsive therapy,” Caleb said. “A remedy for depression from the stone age of psychiatry. Without muscle relaxants, it can break bones.”
Switching the gun to his left hand and using his teeth, Karsch pulled a latex glove onto his right hand and used it to connect the black jaws of the cable to the negative pole of the battery and the edge of the desktop. After connecting the positive pole to the mop with the red jaws of the jumper cable, he dabbed at the desktop. The short he created sizzled ominously. “Of course, you could choose to help me, Doctor.”
Thinnes said, “No!” To Caleb he said, “Jack, he killed Finley on the outside chance he’d’ve doped out what that paper meant. And he’s gonna kill us next.”
Caleb remembered seeing an epileptic’s seizure once. The man’s convulsed muscles had torn his tendons loose from the bones. And that was one of the least painful things you could do to a naked human with electricity. A wet, naked human. He asked Karsch, “How?”
Karsch took a paper bag from the floor beside the desk and put it on the desktop in front of Caleb. “Go ahead. Look.”
Caleb walked to the desk and extracted a fifteen cc syringe, cotton balls, and a small bottle of alcohol from the bag, along with a black Velcro tourniquet and a vial labeled PENTOTHAL. His fingers left damp impressions on the label, and he found himself breathing faster. A sort of light-headedness was setting in. Hyperventilation.
“I’m sure you’ve used it in your work,” Karsch said.
Caleb said nothing.
“Sorry I couldn’t manage an anticholinergic,” Karsch added, “but considering the circumstances…” He shook his head. “I think you ought to relax a bit, Doctor. You wouldn’t want that vial to break in your hand.”
Caleb willed his hand to relax. He reached for the tourniquet. When he brought it to Thinnes’s arm, Thinnes lost control for the first time.
“Jack, you’re gonna help him kill me?”
Caleb met Thinnes’s incredulity with his own dismay. “I’m sorry. He’s right about electricity being effective. But that’s Pentothal—‘truth serum.’ It won’t hurt you, and he’ll believe what you say.”
“It’s on its way to the state’s attorney. He’s racking up two more murders for nothing,” Thinnes said.
“And I’m the King of Siam! Doctor, you’ve got fifteen seconds.”
Caleb looked at Thinnes. “I’m sorry, I can’t watch…”
Karsch made a sound that was almost a laugh and said to Thinnes, “And you thought he killed Crowne and Finley!”
Thinnes didn’t reply. He stared at Karsch while Caleb fastened the tourniquet above his right elbow, and filled the syringe from the vial. “My fault,” Thinnes told him as Caleb swabbed his forearm with alcohol.
Caleb felt the sweat trickle down his neck. He noticed he was breathing as hard as if he’d just climbed eight stories. His hands shook. He said, “What is?”
“I put him on to you. When I found out Ray’d been murdered, I told him everything I knew about the case.”
Caleb shook his head. He didn’t look at Karsch. “He’d have come after me anyway, because he’s smart enough to know I wouldn’t believe it was an accident or suicide if you turned up dead. Any more than you would if I disappeared.”
A little shock of discovery seemed to illuminate Thinnes’s face. “If we killed each other, the department has a dead suspect and a dead hero, and there’s nobody left who gives a damn about Finley. And Karsch is left to redirect any investigation.”
Karsch said, “Congratulations. Get on with it, Doctor.”
“One question, Karsch,” Thinnes said.
Karsch didn’t answer. It wasn’t going to be like in the movies, Caleb decided, where the protagonist baits his opponent into blurting out the whole scheme, giving the protagonist the opportunity to escape. Karsch wasn’t going to explain.
Thinnes asked anyway. “Was Evanger in on this?”
“That horse’s ass?”
Thinnes looked relieved. Caleb dropped his gaze to Thinnes’s forearm, to the engorged veins crawling beneath the skin like stylized serpents. He put his thumb over the radial vein, raising it even further. He’d started to thread the needle into the vein when its reptilian likeness evoked a line from the Aeneid about the snakes that swallowed Laocoön to keep him from telling the truth! The image jarred him.
“You see,” Karsch was saying, “Skinner was right. All you have to do is find the right stimulus.”
Caleb withdrew the needle with a quaking hand. He’d come so close! He shifted the syringe in his hand until he held it, needle outward, in his upturned palm. He began to shake.
“What is it?” Thinnes demanded.
Trembling violently, Caleb said, “It’s not Pentothal.” He took a deep breath and let it out slowly, controlling his rage. “My guess is that it’s a highly concentrated barbiturate.” Turning to look at Karsch, he told Thinnes, “After you’re dead, he’ll strip and shoot me, make it look as though I drugged you so I could sodomize you, and you died trying to defend yourself.”
There seemed to be nothing to say. Thinnes closed his eyes and let his head fall back.
Caleb said softly to Karsch, “I won’t kill him for you.”
His eyes widened as he stared at Karsch. His breaths came faster and closer together, and a violent trembling caused him to sway slightly from side to side. His hand fisted around the syringe until he was holding it like a street knife, point up.
Karsch said, “Pity.”
Suddenly, Caleb lunged, stabbing at Karsch with the syringe and grabbing for the gun. Karsch fired, but Caleb kept moving. The side of his shirt puffed out and darkened as the bullet barely missed him.
Thinnes jerked spasmodically as he felt a blow like a fist striking his abdomen. A small, dark spot appeared to the right of his navel. He looked down and was mesmerized by the blood beginning to trickle onto Caleb’s jacket. Probably won’t kill me, he thought. Probably just means several weeks of nonfood in recovery and another reason for Ronnie to call it quits. And Caleb will have to get a new jacket. Funny the way your mind works in shock.
Karsch tried to aim the gun again as he put his free hand out to stay the approaching syringe, but Caleb jammed the needle beneath it and rammed it in just above Karsch’s groin with all his strength. Karsch went crazy, kicking and thrashing around. His right hand convulsed. The gun discharged three times.
Three bullets struck the wall behind Thinnes. Karsch grabbed at Caleb’s left hand with his own, and Caleb let go of the syringe to grab for the gun
with his right. The wrestlers balanced, deadlocked, for a heartbeat.
Then gravity took over. The locked bodies struck the floor with a double thud and rolled across the claustrophobic space until they hit the metal desk with a tinny bang. They rolled back toward Thinnes, and the battery toppled floorward from the desktop, splatting onto the wet floor with an electric sizzle and a crackling of plastic shell. Searing steam wafted outward as acid seeped from the case.
The gun discharged again.
Thinnes groaned.
And Karsch took leave of life with an obscenity.
His body fell away from Caleb’s with a sound like a sigh. Caleb pushed himself up from the floor, pale, chest heaving. He dragged the corpse clear of the acid and crawled over to Thinnes on his hands and knees stopping with his eyes fixed on Thinnes’s naked shins.
Thinnes recognized the slack-jawed glaze of shock on his friend’s face. “Jack!” he said desperately, “Don’t piss out on me now!”
Caleb seemed to come back into focus.
“Jack, did he shoot you?”
Caleb sat down and felt his sides absently, as if forgetting—halfway through—what he was feeling for. “I think I killed him.”
“Christ! I hope so!” Caleb started to fumble with the rope holding Thinnes’s feet. “Jack! Did he shoot you?”
Caleb shook his head, a gesture that made his body sway slightly from side to side. He said, “Where’re your clothes?”
“I don’t know. Look in those cartons.”
Caleb grabbed the desk to pull himself upright and lurched forward over Thinnes to work on the ropes binding his arms. He looked at Thinnes’s wound. The blood flow had slowed to a drip. “That hurt much?”
“I’ll live.”
“Good. Just sit here a minute.”
The Man Who Understood Cats Page 22