“It is done,” he said, moving toward the children.
Keller’s expression changed. Raphael and Gabriel werebefore them. He saw their auras.
The light of one million suns shone upon him.
His rage was replaced by rapture. Like a victoriousbattle-weary soldier, he laid his foe at the throne. The bloodied, pulpycarcass, fur and mangled intestines, lay inches from Gabrielle and Danny.Gabrielle stifled her sobs, trying not to look.
“W-We want to go home, now. Please Mr. Jenkins,” shepleaded.
Keller did not hear her.
“You have come, Gabriel. God’s emissary. You have cometo me!”
“Please, Mr. Jenkins! Let me phone my mommy anddaddy!”
Remembering the bat, Keller lifted it to his face,examining the blood with fascination.
“I am cleaned in the light of the Lord. I have tastedthe blood of my enemies. None shall defeat me, for my mission is divine and Iam truly invincible.” He moved his fingers over the blood-slicked club. “I amcleansed in the light-I have tasted the blood of my enemies.”
“My mission is divine. I am truly invincible.”
Gabrielle pulled Danny tight to her.
Keller went upstairs to the bathroom and ran the bathwater.
God had answered his prayers.
One more angel and the choir would be complete.
Then the transfiguration would begin.
Wiping the tears from his face, he stood and kissedhis crucifix.
It was time for the second baptism.
FORTY-THREE
If Virgil Shook worshiped anything in this world beyond himself it was the Zodiac,the personification of power.
The Zodiac was the hooded executioner who had murderedfive people in the Bay Area during the late 1960’s and mocked police in thecryptic letters he wrote to newspapers. His cunning eclipsed the best minds ofthe SFPD and the FBI. He owned the city, mastered its fear, yanking it by aleash at his leisure. The Zodiac was a visionary, a seer who knew that when hedied, his victims would be his slaves and he would be a king in paradise.
They had never captured him. Shook signed.
For a time last year, like the Zodiac, he had sippedfrom the cup of power. He had enjoyed Tanita, the little prostitute. Loved herto death and forced the city to tremble in the wake of his omnipotence. He hadmanipulated Franklin Wallace, outsmarted police, and taunted the priest withhis confessions, spitting in the face of his God, compelling him to genuflectto the power of The One.
That was then. Now the city was under the spell ofanother. A new player was reaping the harvest of Shook’s work and Shook wasenraged.
Who did this new fuck think he was?
Shook snapped off the late-night TV news afterabsorbing the reports of Gabrielle Nunn’s abduction in Golden Gate Park. Thehorror in Nancy Nunn’s face had seared him. Her pain should have been his torelish. Yet he watched mournfully from afar, like a starving wolf contendingwith the mark of a new predator.
Shook paced his dirty flophouse room, oblivious to theopera of sirens piercing the foul of night air of the Tenderloin. If he wasgoing to be immortalized like the Zodiac, it was time to up the ante. Time toteach the challenger a lesson in a way even more thrilling than it had beenwith poor little Franklin Wallace, when he plucked him like a harp, savoringthe danger of it to the point of arousal.
Franklin? It’s me.
Oh Lord, don’t call me at home like this. Lorddon’t!
They know, Franklin, he lied. They know aboutTanita. Me. You.
NO!
They know everything. And the press knows, too.
No!
They found the pictures of you with her in DoloresPark. They are coming for you soon. You know what that means.
No!
Remember our pact, Wallace. We must pay for oursins. We both know that.
But, Virgil, I-
Think of your family, the insurance. They won’tpay if you’re connected to anything criminal, Franklin. They are coming foryou.
Wallace was sobbing, a sickly, man-child kind ofweeping.
Virgil, please! I don’t know what to do.
You do know. We both know. Good-bye, Franklin.
Virgil-No, wait.
May God have mercy on you, Wallace.
Shook fired the blank from the.22, dropping itwith the phone on the floor. Wallace screamed through the earpiece, his voicetiny, distant. An hour later, Shook stood safely out of sight near Franklin’shouse, smiling to himself when that fool he called at the Star appeared onFranklin’s doorstep, like an obedient lapdog.
Everything flowed. Beautifully. The Zodiac wouldapplaud him.
Time to move on. Time to teach a new, painful lesson,one that would transcend his work with Franklin, one tempered with rage for thenew fuck.
Shook pulled on a pair of gloves and went to thecorner newspaper box, returning with two fresh editions of the Star.
He went to his bed, a huge steel-framed monstrosityfrom a St. Louis hospital that had burned down. He unscrewed the middle hollowbar from the head and carefully tapped out several rolled-up Polaroidssnapshots of himself with Tanita Donner. None one had seen these pictures. Andno one knew of the tantalizing clue he had left police before he dispatched thelittle prostitute to paradise.
Shook traced gloved fingers tenderly over the photosbefore selecting two. He ripped the Nunn abduction story from the firstnewspaper and scrawled a note over the text, using a blue felt-tip pen like theZodiac. He folded the clipping, put it in a plain, brown envelope, scanned thephone book, then addressed the envelope to Paul Nunn.
He made an identical envelope and addressed it toDanny Becker’s family. Then Shook left his room, taking the subway to Oakland,where he would drop the two letters in a mailbox.
Another yank on the leash.
FORTY-FOUR
The Ayatollah Komeini glowered at Reed.
EYE OF THE HURRICANE. AMERICANS HELD HOSTAGE AT THEU.S. EMBASSY IN TEHRAN. EL SAVADOR TEETERING, MOUNT ST. HELENS SPEWING ASH ANDROCK. SOVIET INTERVENTION IN AFGHANISTAN. All there in black-and-white,bleeding on the front page.
1980.
All there except for Keller’s tragedy. Wrong page?Reed checked the skyline. Wrong date. He hit the advance button on the Minoltaand whisked through time along a microfilm torrent of photographs, headlines,and advertisements. The take-up reel buzzed. It was late.
He stayed at the paper after reading the old Starclip on Edward Keller’s boating tragedy. Alone in the news library searchingthe past. Reels of microfilm newspapers and opened news indices were piled nextto him, signposts to Keller’s case. The Star’s clippings were a start.He was also going through the Chronicle and the Examiner fortheir takes, looking for something extra, any vital piece of information thatwould…what? Connect Keller to the kidnappings?
He had a beard and looked like the guy in the fuzzyhome video footage. And there was something strange about Keller, somethingthat just didn’t sit right.
Be careful, Reed. This ain’t no movie. Hunches aremean, wild horses. You rode one last year and ended up with your ass gettingstomped. The memory of Wallace’s widow slapping his face still stung. Wallace’slittle girl clinging to her father’s leg hours before his put his mouth arounda double-barreled 12-gauge.
“Leave my daddy alone!”