“And with a telescope set up in the right place, he could watch most of what he’s sent me to do. He saw me plow into Wilma that first morning he contacted me. Wilma.” Paul fell silent.
“Is she a friend?” Keren laid her hand on Paul’s shoulder.
Paul shrugged. He rested his elbow on the open window and ran his hand over his face. “Kind of. I tried to be a friend. She had… has… mental problems, and she solves them by guzzling a bottle or two of mouthwash every day.”
“Mouthwash? She drinks Listerine?”
“Not Listerine. It costs too much. She buys generic. You can get a two-quart bottle for a dollar. It’s about 75 percent alcohol. They all drink that or plain-label cough syrup. Some even drink rubbing alcohol. It’ll all give you a buzz. They buy it at a discount store a couple of blocks over. I asked the store manager to quit stocking it, but he refused. He said they’d just walk until they found it. And I know he’s right.”
“So Wilma is really one of the hard-core homeless,” Keren said thoughtfully. “Not the type he’s been going after at all.”
“Do you think we could get some tracking devices and put them on some of the homeless people without their knowledge?” His knee started bouncing up and down. Keren could see his patience running out. “We could see if Caldwell grabs them and get to them before he hurts them.”
“We’re going to get him, Paul. We won’t have to track anyone.”
Paul grabbed for the door handle.
Keren clutched his collar.
Higgins pulled up beside them and rolled down his driver’s-side window. “I’ve got cars in place on all four sides of the building. We’ll secure the exits, double-check the basement for one of his bombs, then go in.”
A radio crackled in Higgins’s car. He lifted the handset and talked quietly; then he hung it up and said, “SWAT’s here. We’ve got to wait for the all clear before we can go in.”
A parade of black-clothed, heavily-armed SWAT team members stormed the building.
Keren thought she’d explode from the maddening wait. Finally Higgins got the go-ahead.
Higgins talked rapidly on his radio. “SWAT reported that the basement was clear of explosives. Let’s go.” Higgins reached the door, swung it open, and went in ahead of a dozen other men. Paul and Keren were left for last.
“I should have asked Higgins for a gun,” Paul said through his clenched teeth.
“Get a grip.” Keren didn’t like bringing up the rear either. But this was Higgins’s show. “He’d never give you one. And you don’t need it.”
“He might have.” Paul glanced at Keren. His eyes were as cold as his voice. “I can be pretty persuasive.”
They ran quickly and quietly up the five flights of stairs. The whole building was a slum. More apartments empty than lived in. Graffiti on the walls, broken light fixtures, and shattered glass littering the hallways. They got to Caldwell’s floor and it was no better, except the doors were all hung and closed.
Higgins went up to the first one and tried it. He whispered, “Locked.”
He turned to the dozen men who had accompanied him. “I want every door kicked open at the same time. Don’t go charging in without backup.”
“Ready?” There were five doors on both sides of the hallway. Two men stood at each door. Keren and Paul stood back, out of the way, near the door Higgins had chosen.
“Go!” Higgins’s voice exploded. Ten doors crashed open.
“FBI,” Higgins shouted. The same shout echoed down the hall. Higgins disappeared. Keren and Paul went in right behind him.
“This is it,” Paul said to Keren. “We’ve got him.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
They missed him.
Every room was wide open. There was no place to hide. There was no killer.
“He was here,” Higgins raged. He touched a coffee cup sitting on a counter. “It’s still warm. He can’t have been gone long.” He called into the hall, “Fan out. We’ve got the exits blocked. Check every apartment in this building.”
But Paul knew it was a waste of time. They all did. One clue said it all. A wooden sign, set neatly beside a shiny new telephone, that said, WELCOME, REVEREND.
“The hand of the Lord will bring a terrible plague on your livestock. “
EXODUS 9:3
Pravus was wise to the ways of police. They were right this minute kicking down the doors of that old building.
For one long beautiful moment, he imagined them finding his people. He imagined the awe. He’d done them a great honor to let them be the first to see his work. Would they be wise enough to cherish what he’d given them? Would they finally set his people free?
With a smile, he acknowledged that they probably would not.
He was as far above them as Michelangelo was from kindergarten finger painting. He hated to give up the little paradise he’d created, but it didn’t matter. He had a spare paradise.
Looking backward was a waste. He looked forward. He’d already done such powerful work here that what was left behind easily faded. But then he’d always had the skill of separating himself from little hurts.
When his father would enforce Francis’s studies with his hard hands, the poor little boy had needed escape and Pravus had taken him away, far away. Then the two of them would watch that pathetic Francis take the punishment while they’d sit back and laugh at the boy’s fears and tears and his father’s futile lessons.
As if Father’s blundering training could make Pravus’s genius better. It was already so staggering, it was nearly painful.
The beast offered to come inside him and protect him. Francis had jumped at the chance, thrilled with the offer of power.
And the two of them had set out to watch Francis, and laugh, and create.
The day had come finally when they’d tired of Father’s cruelty and put an end to it. And Pravus had finally known freedom. And the next person to harm him had earned wrath that couldn’t be satisfied through art. She had sneered at his work.
Oh she’d used polite words, but she’d been too blind to accept the blessing he tried to bestow upon her. And then the reverend had brought the law down on Pravus. The reverend had sealed his own fate.
From that moment, Pravus had plotted revenge. Pravus visited a plague on the reverend and anyone who got in his way. The whole city would suffer, too.
He turned back to Wilma… unworthy of his gift, but good enough because it hurt the reverend. Good enough.
The police were too stupid to find him. Simple call forwarding led them to his other building to discover the gifts he’d left. Television stations would send camera crews. Art galleries would take notice, and the power of the plagues would only enhance the stunning gift.
Pravus laughed to think the real shame was that the police would use force and ruin the only working doors in that tenement.
He went back to making Wilma into a creation of beauty.
Pestis ex bestia.
The plague of beasts.
This one he really liked.
“I thought I’d seen the worst that men could do on this job. But this tops it all.” Keren checked every room. He had covered the walls with paintings, carvings. Ten rooms, ten themes, ten plagues.
The room Higgins hit first was Francis’s tribute to the plague of blood. Red. Everywhere. The walls painted red, the paintings on the walls brutal works in red and black, the photos of Juanita enlarged to the size of posters. PESTIS EX SANGUIS was carved over the door, right into the woodwork.