“You failed to grasp the inevitability of my ascension to stardom,” the now-familiar, processed, metallic voice said. “You insult me by suggesting this also-ran Shears is my equal. For this indignity, you must pay. How you will pay is my little secret — mine is a scenario with surprises yet to be revealed. Suffice to say my next lover will give you no alternative but to acknowledge that Don Juan is without question... the greatest lover of all.”
The video ended, the lights came up, and no one said anything for what seemed forever to Carmen. Thirty seconds.
Michael Pall said, “He’s devolving.”
No one disagreed.
Harrow asked, “What do we do about it?”
That the seasoned investigators around this table had no immediate response was almost as disturbing to Carmen as that video.
Choi said, “Yeah, I know the profiler lingo, too — he’s devolving, he’s accelerating. Well, we know he’s picking up speed. But we also know he’s playing us. That’s bullshit about us insulting him — he and Billie Shears are in it together.”
“But he doesn’t know we know that,” Harrow said.
Pall, brightening, said, “And that gives us a small advantage. He’s playing out a narrative, which would suggest an end goal — some spectacular surprise to really make him a ‘star.’ ”
“Maybe we already know that surprise,” Harrow said. “Maybe his big finish is to reveal that he and Billie are collaborators, or even lovers.”
“Maybe,” the profiler allowed. “But I would think not — this is building to a special kill... though what we do having going for us is, finally, we are a small step ahead. We know he and Shears are in cahoots. So do the LAPD and the FBI. We have to keep that knowledge out of the media.”
“We are the media,” Carmen said.
“No,” Harrow said. “Not anymore. We’re just a group of hard-ass investigators who are going to find and stop this bastard.”
That got a few smiles.
“You know,” Choi said, “I think I could stomach a doughnut about now. You know — like all hard-ass investigators.”
And that got a few laughs.
But Carmen neither smiled nor laughed.
She was seeing that blade arcing down...
Chapter Thirty-two
For the two days following the discovery of the victim in the Griffith Park Observatory parking lot, the media had exploded with coverage of both Don Juan and Billie Shears. This pleased Billie very much. But there was an unpleasing wrinkle.
Though the link between the killers had apparently not been discovered by the LAPD and FBI (or for that matter, the Crime Seen clowns), an unfortunate collective moniker had been given the two killers — “The Odd Couple.”
The L.A. Times and its satellites weren’t guilty of this offense — a local radio station started it, and the national media picked up on it, with several twenty-four-hour news services using the nickname freely. This tabloid approach did have its pleasing aspects, as when one wild-eyed Fox commentator spoke of the Odd Couple being responsible for “fear gripping Hollywood.”
She did not, however, follow the commentator’s logic that somehow the Don Juan and Billie Shears killings represented “the sins of show business coming home to roost,” nor did she think a reference to her and her brother as “sick fame-seekers hoping to suckle at the reality-show teat” was in the least bit fair.
Still, what was the old press agent’s axiom? It didn’t matter what they said, as long as they were talking about you. Or what they printed, as long as they were spelling your name right. And now they were spelling it B-i-l-l-i-e, weren’t they? Ha!
Her brother had the video camera set up now, with Billie Shears’s latest — and very special — victim-to-be spread-eagled on the bed, hands and feet lashed to the frame with heavy, hurting cord.
Now that they’d entered Act Three, brother and sister for the first time were deviating from their established pattern — their “M.O.” as Crime Seen would have it. This time their special guest star was not drugged, though he was indeed out cold, and naked, of course, and about to feel Billie’s shearing bite... but he had not been so fortunate as to enjoy the ego-boosting attentions of a beautiful young woman who had picked him up in a bar.
Maybe she could make that up to him.
Their special guest had been whisked on set from right outside his hotel room door. In fact his room became the set! Across the way, “Sam Wild” was registered — the Lawrence Tierney character in the classic Robert Wise film noir, Born to Kill. After all, hadn’t she and her brother been born to kill?
No, not born. Shaped. Molded. Created by the old man...
She took pride in this latest scenario, devised only yesterday, in a brother/sister brainstorming session, as they searched for a way to guarantee that Crime Seen would have to showcase them next Friday. This diverged from their original outline, but was a worthwhile, imaginative revision.
Tracking their guest performer to this hotel, this room, had been a breeze, given her brother’s computer skills. They had to forgo their usual in-depth “recon” (as her brother liked to put it). But risk carried a rush...
Not long ago, she had watched from the cracked door across the way as their guest approached his room and was digging for his key card. She waited till he had opened the door and was about to step in.
Then she stepped out — a blonde vision in spiked heels, a curvy female dream in a black mini with a sheer, black silk top with spaghetti straps, ideal for her creamy complexion.
He heard her, turned, and she smiled at him.
“Looks like you’re coming,” she said, “and I’m going.”
He gave her a goofy grin and seemed to be fishing for something clever to say in response to that loaded remark — men... give them a look and the blood runs from their big head to the little one and makes them stupid.
For all his supposed worldliness, their guest star had been no different.
Then his expression turned to a puzzled frown as she stepped aside and her brother emerged and brought up the Taser.
And fired.
The two darts struck the victim, dropping him mostly into his room, to flop and flap like a freshly landed carp.
Her brother dragged their catch by the arms inside and closed the door. She knelt and jerked the man’s handgun from its holster. When their guest began to come around and push up on his hands, she used the commandeered gun to club him.
He sagged back, unconscious.
From then on, it had been easy — strip him, get him onto the bed, tie him down. Duct-tape his mouth. Simple, straightforward, right to plan, but somehow exciting, exhilarating, since it varied from their established routine.
They had made sure the hallway was clear before moving the camera and their equipment in from across the way. While her brother set up, their guest star remained unconscious.
Or pretended to be.
Anyway, he was still breathing, with a strong, steady pulse. So if he wasn’t faking, and already conscious, he soon would be.
Finally, however, she became impatient, and cracked an amyl nitrate capsule under his nose. He shuddered awake, struggling with an invisible foe, then seemed to get a least a vague fix on the situation, trying to pull free.
Eventually he stopped struggling, apparently figuring out he had nowhere to go. Maybe the blood had moved back to the big head.
She smiled sweetly down at the naked man spread-eagled before her. He blinked rapidly, as if trying to wake from this bad dream, wild eyes swiftly scanning the room. Now and then he would struggle against his bonds — apparently more in anger and frustration than out of any sense of really escaping.