ALIEN KILLER VISITS JERSEY SHORE…
FBI KILLER-DILLER IN ATLANTIC CITY…
MR. SMITH MANHUNT: Hundreds of Federal agents flock to New Jersey Shore…
MONSTER ON THE LOOSE IN NEW JERSEY!
Sampson came up to the beach from Washington. He wanted Pierce as badly as any of us. He, Kyle, and I worked together, brainstorming over what Pierce-Mr. Smith might do next. Sondra Greenberg from Interpol worked with us, too. She was seriously jet-lagged, and had deep circles under her eyes, but she knew Pierce and had been at most of the European murder sites.
“He’s not a goddamn split personality?” Sampson asked. “Smith and Pierce?”
I shook my head. “He seems to be in control of his faculties at all times. He created ‘Smith’ to serve some other purpose.”
“I agree with Alex,” Sondra Greenberg said from across the table, “but what is the sodding purpose?”
“Whatever it was, it worked,” Kyle joined in. “He had us chasing Mr. Smith halfway around the world. We’re still chasing. No one has ever jerked around the Bureau like this.”
“Not even the great J. Edgar Hoover?” Sondra said and winked.
“Well.” Kyle softened, “as a pure psychopath, Hoover was in a class by himself.”
I was up and pacing again. My side was hurting, but I didn’t want anyone to know about it. They would try to send me home, make me miss the fun. I let myself ramble-sometimes it works.
“He’s trying to tell us something. He’s communicating in some strange way. Inez? The name reminds us of Isabella. He’s obsessed with Isabella. You should see the apartment in Cambridge. Is Inez a substitute for Isabella? Is Atlantic City a substitute for Laguna Beach? Has he thought Isabella home? Why bring Isabella home?”
It went on and on like that: wild hunches, free association, insecurity, fear, unbearable frustration. As far as I could tell nothing worthwhile was said all day and late into the night, but who could really tell.
Pierce didn’t try to make further contact. There were no more voice-mail messages. That surprised us a little. Kyle was afraid he’d moved on, and that he would keep moving until he drove us completely insane. Six of us stayed in the field office throughout the night and into the early morning. We slept in our clothes, on chairs, tables, and the floor.
I paced inside the office, and occasionally outside on the glittery, fog-laden boardwalk. As a last desperate resort, I bought a bag of Fralinger’s salt water taffy and tried to get sick to my stomach.
What kind of logic system is he using? Mr. Smith is his creation, his Mr. Hyde. What is Smith’s mission? Why is he here? I wondered, occasionally talking to myself as I strolled the mostly deserted boardwalk.
Inez is Isabella?
It couldn’t be that simple. Pierce wouldn’t make it simple for us.
Inez is not Isabella. There was only one Isabella. So why does pierce keep killing again and again?
I found myself at the corner of Park Place and Boardwalk, and that finally brought a smile. Monopoly. Another kind of game? Is that it?
I wandered back to the FBI field office and got some sleep. But not nearly enough. A few hours at most.
Pierce was here.
So was Mr. Smith.
Chapter 117
A FLAT, still sandy, still meadowy region…a superb range of ocean beach-miles and miles of it. The bright sun, the sparkling waves, the foam, the view-a sail here and there in the distance. Walt Whitman had written that about Atlantic City a hundred years before. His words were inscribed on the wall of a pizza and hot-dog stand now. Whitman would have been stricken to see his words on such a backdrop.
I went by myself for another stroll on the Atlantic City boardwalk around ten o’clock. It was Saturday, and so hot and sunny that the eroding beach was already dotted with swimmers and sunbathers.
We still hadn’t found Inez. We didn’t have a single clue. We didn’t even know who she was.
I had the uncomfortable feeling that Thomas Pierce was watching us, or that I might suddenly come upon him in the dense, sweltering crowds. I had my pager just in case he tried to contact us at the field office.
There was nothing else to be done right now. Pierce-Mr. Smith was in control of the situation and our lives. A madman was in control of the planet. It seemed like it anyway.
I stopped near Steeplechase Pier and the Resorts Casino Hotel. People were playing under a hot sun in the high, rolling surf. They seemed to be enjoying themselves and didn’t appear to have a care in the world. How nice for them.
This was the way it should be, and it reminded me of Jannie and Damon, my own family, and of Christine. She desperately wanted me to leave this job and I couldn’t blame her. I didn’t know if I could walk away from police work, though. I wondered why that was so. Physician, heal thyself. Maybe I would someday soon.
As I continued my walk along the boardwalk, I tried to convince myself that everything that could be done to catch Pierce was being done. I passed a Fralinger’s, and a James Candy store. And the old Peanut Shoppe, where a costumed Mr. Peanut was stumbling about in the mid-ninety-degree heat.
I had to smile as I saw the Ripley’s Believe It or Not Museum up ahead, where you could see a lock of George Washington’s hair, and a roulette table made of jelly beans. No, I could not believe it. I didn’t think anyone on the crisis team could, but here we were.
I was jolted out of my thoughts by the beeper vibrating against my leg. I ran to a nearby phone and called in.
Pierce had left another message. Kyle and Sampson were already out on the boardwalk. Pierce was near the Steel Pier. He claimed that Inez was with him! He said we could still save them!
Pierce specifically said them.
I shouldn’t have been running around like this. My side began to throb and hurt like hell. I’d never been out of shape like this, not in my life, and I didn’t like the feeling. I hadn’t felt so vulnerable and relatively helpless before.
Finally, I realized: I’m actually afraid of Pierce, and of Mr. Smith.
By the time I got near the Steel Pier, my clothes were dripping wet and I was breathing hard. I pulled off my sport shirt and waded out into the crowd barechested. I pushed my way past old-style jitneys and newer step vans, past tandem bikes and joggers.
I was taped and bandage and I must have looked like an escapee from a local ER. Even so, it was hard to stand out on a beach like the one at Atlantic City. An ice-cream man hauling a box on his shoulder cried out, “Hitch your tongue to a sleigh ride! Get your Fudgie Wudgies here!”
Was Thomas Pierce watching us and laughing? He could be the ice-cream man, or anyone else in this frenetic mob scene.
I cupped my hands over my eyes and looked up and down the beach. I spotted policeman and FBI agents moving into the crowd. There must have been at least fifty thousand sunbathers on the beach. I could faintly hear electronic bells from the slot machines in one of the nearby hotels.
Inez. Atlantic City. Jesus!
A madman on the loose near the famous Steel Pier.
I looked for Sampson or Kyle, but I didn’t see either of them. I searched for pierce, and for Inez, and for Mr. Smith.
I heard a loud voice, and it stopped me in my tracks. “This is the FBI.”
Chapter 118
THE VOICE boomed over a loudspeaker. Probably from one of the hotels, or maybe a police hookup. “This is the FBI,” Kyle Craig announced.
“Some of our agents are on the beach now. Cooperate with them and also with the Atlantic City police. Do whatever they ask. There’s no reason for undue concern. Please cooperate with police officers.”