Blake thought mankind had a bright future.
Nietzsche thought mankind should have a bright future, but he believed
that it would destroy itself before the Supermen ever evolved from it.
Blake apparently liked women. Nietzsche despised them. In fact, he
thought women constituted one of the greatest obstacles standing between
man and his climb to godhood. You see what I'm getting at?"
"You're saying that if the Butcher subscribes to both Blake and
Nietzsche's philosophies, then he's a schizophrenic."
"Yet you say he's not even crazy."
"Wait a minute."
"Last night-"
"All I said was that if he's a maniac, he's a new kind of maniac. I
said he wasn't crazy in any traditional sense."
"Which rules out schizophrenia?"
"I guess it does, Ira."
"But I think it's a good bet . . . maybe I'm wrong ...
God knows ... but maybe he looks at himself as one of Nietzsche's
Supermen. A psychiatrist would call that delusions of grandeur. And
delusions of grandeur characterize schizophrenia and paranoia. Do you
still think the Butcher could pass any psychiatric test we could give
him?"
"Yes."
"You sense this psychically?"
"That's right."
"Have you ever sensed something and been wrong?"
"Not seriously wrong. No worse than thinking Edna Mowry's name was Edna
Dancer."
"Of course. I know your reputation. I know you're good. I didn't mean
to imply anything. You understand? But still-now where do I stand?"
"I don't know."
"Graham ... if you were to sit down with a book of Blake's poems, if you
were to spend an hour or so reading them, would that maybe put you in
tune with the Butcher? Would it spark something-if not a vision, at
least a hunch?"
"It might."
"Would you do me a favor then?"
"Name it."
"If I send a messenger right over with an edition of Blake's work, will
you sit down with it for an hour and see what happens?"
"You can send it over today if you want, but I won't get to it until
tomorrow."
"Maybe just half an hour."
"Not even that. I've got to finish working on one of my magazines and
get it off to the printer tomorrow morning. I'm already three days late
with the issue. I'll be working most of tonight. But tomorrow
afternoon or evening, I'll make time for Blake."
"Thank you. I appreciate it. I really do. I'm counting on you.
You're my only hope. This Butcher is too much for me, too sharp for me.
I'm getting nowhere. Absolutely nowhere. If we don't get a solid lead
soon, I don't know what's going to happen."
Paul Stevenson was wearing a hand-sewn blue shirt, a
blue-and-black-striped silk tie, an expensive black suit, black socks,
and light brown shoes with white stitching. When he came into Anthony
Prine's office at two o'clock Friday afternoon, unaware that Prine
winced when he saw the shoes, he was upset. Because he was incapable of
shouting and screaming at Prine, he pouted. "Tony, why are you keeping
secrets from me?"
Prine was stretched out on the couch, his head propped on a holster
pillow. He was reading The New York Times. "Secrets?"
"I just found out that at your direction the company has hired a private
detective agency to snoop on Graham Harris' "
"They're not snooping. All I've asked them to do is establish Harris's.
whereabouts at certain hours on certain days.
"You asked the detectives not to approach Harris or his girlfriend
directly. That's snooping. And you asked them for a forty-eight-hour
rush job, which triples the cost. If you want to know where he was, why
don't you ask him yourself?"
"I think he'd lie to me."
"Why should he lie? What certain hours? What certain dates?"
Prine put down the paper, sat up, stood up, stretched. "I want to know
where he was when each of those ten women was killed."
Perplexed, blinking somewhat stupidly, Stevenson said, "Why?"
"If on all ten occasions he was alone-working alone, seeing a movie
alone, walking alone-then maybe he could have killed them."
"Harris? You think Harris is the Butcher?"
"Maybe."
"You hire detectives on a maybe?"
"I told you, I've distrusted that man from the start. And if I'm right
about this, what a scoop we'll have!"
"But Harris isn't a killer. He catches killers."
Prine went to the bar. "If a doctor treats fifty patients for influenza
one week and fifty more the next, would it surprise you if he -got
influenza himself during the third week? "
"I'm not sure I get your point."
Prine filled his glass with bourbon. "For years Harris has been tuning
in to murder with the deepest levels of his mind, exposing himself to
trauma as few of us ever do. He has been literally delving into the
minds Of wife killers, child killers, mass murderers.... He's probably
seen more blood and violence than most career cops. Isn't it
conceivable that a man, unstable to begin with, could crack from all the
violent input? Isn't it conceivable that he could become the kind of
maniac he's worked so hard to catch?"
"Unstable?" Stevenson frowned. "Graham Harris is as stable as you or
me."
"How well do you know him?"
"I saw him on the show."
"There's a bit more you should know." Prine caught sight of himself in
the mirror behind the bar cabinet; he smoothed his lustrous white hair
with one hand.
"For example?"
"I'll indulge myself in amateur psychoanalysis-amateur but probably
accurate. First of all, Graham Harris was born into borderline poverty
and-"
"Hold on. His old man was Evan Harris, the publisher.
"
"His stepfather. His real father died when Graham was a year old. His
mother was a cocktail waitress. She had trouble keeping a roof over
their heads because she had to pay off her husband's medical bills. For
years they lived day to day, on the edge of disaster. That would leave
marks on a child."
"How did she meet Evan Harris?" Stevenson asked.
"I don't know. But after they were married, Graham took his
stepfather's name. He spent the latter part of his childhood in a
mansion. After he got his university degree, he had enough time and
money to become one of the world's leading climbers. Old man Harris
encouraged him. In some circles, Graham was famous, a star.
Do you realize how many beautiful women are drawn to the sport of
climbing?"
Stevenson shrugged.
"Not as participants," Prine said. "As companions to the participants,
as bedmates. More women than you'd think. I guess it's the nearness of
death that attracts them. For more than a decade, Graham was adored,
made over. Then he took a bad fall. When he recovered, he was
terrified of climbing." Prine was listening to his own voice,
fascinated by the theory he had developed. "Do you understand, Paul? He
was born a nobody, lived the first six years of his life as a
nobody-then overnight he became a somebody when his mother married Evan
Harris. Now is it any wonder that he's afraid of being a nobody again?
" Stevenson went to the bar and poured himself some bourbon. "It's not
likely he'll be a nobody again. He did inherit his stepfather's money."
"Money isn't the same as fame. Once he'd been a celebrity, even within
the tight circle of climbing enthusiasts, maybe he developed a habit for
it. Maybe he became a fame junkie. It can happen to the best. I've
seen it."
"So have I."
"if that's what he is ... well, maybe he's decided that being infamous
is as good as being famous. As the Butcher, he's grabbing headlines;
he's infamous, even if only under a nora de guerre- "
"But he was with you in the studio last night when the Mowry girl was