SEVENTEEN
Christian set the syringe aside. He'd only meant to distract her with it, not to use it. Not yet. It was just that she'd tried to manipulate him, to seduce him and pull him back under the umbrella of her own control. It had been working. Even as fear replaced the promises in her eyes, he felt the heat, the call of her flesh to his own.
No, he didn't want to use the poison yet. He had no one else to share the moment with, no one who would understand. What would be more fitting than to let her in on the secret, to tell her what her last moments on earth would produce? It was probably beyond the scope of her understanding. She was concerned only with survival at this point, but that was fine. Christian wanted to share his secrets, but not on a permanent basis.
He rose and walked back to the dresser, grabbed his makeup case and retrieved a small envelope from his satchel. The envelope was filled with small prints of his work, of the first three girls. He wanted her to know everything from the start. He wanted to show her the photos, tell her the secrets of each image, and then reveal them for the flawed failures that they were. He wanted her to see why things had to be this way, and why she would be transcendent.
If he had to know all of her, to know the form of her flesh, the rise and fall of her breast as she breathed, the touch of her, inside and out, then she should know him as well. It was a joining, after all. She was a part of it, even if the vision was not hers. She would be immortalized along with his talent.
Before he took her again, before he released her soul and made her into so much malleable clay she had to know all of him. In that way, she would know what reactions he craved and what end he sought. He would be hers, in a remote sort of way; she would own him as he owned her. It was the only way.
Christian brought the envelope to the bed and sat beside Madeline. He pressed his thigh hers. She was confused now, not knowing what his intentions were, no longer certain of the effect her body could have on him. He was glad that she hadn't flipped out completely. She still seemed to think it might prove part of some game, a new sexual encounter that would end and release her with a memory.
Christian pulled free a picture of Lindy and held it up so Madeline could see it. Her gaze tracked his finger as he traced the girl’s curves slowly. He knew she recognized Lindy from the other photo, but this time he was going to fill in the blanks, the questions that must have arisen over the perfection of the work.
"I want you to understand," he told her calmly. "This is my first. Her name was Lindy. She and her boyfriend, Tony was his name, used to make fun of me, to call names at me as I walked down my street. That isn't important, though.
"What is important," he explained, "is that I saw this inside her. She was a beautiful girl, much as you are a beautiful woman, but she did not realize her full potential. I don't mean this in the same way a counselor would mean it, or a parent. She didn't realize the potential her body could reach in these images because her form was tainted by other desires. She was impure.
“She knew her potential as a female, as a girl, and was on her way to realizing her potential as a woman, but she did not know her potential of beauty, or as art. It is a failing in all of us.
"That is my gift, to extract the images of that beauty before they disappear from the earth unheeded. It is my destiny. Her body was her own, but I stole her essence for my own.
"I watched her, day in, day out, and even suffered abuse from the boyfriend for staring too long, but I saw, and I created. These photos are her essence. I am an artistic alchemist, a seeker of truth in beauty."
Madeline squirmed against the bonds as he spoke, testing the limits of her confinement. She wasn't yet desperate, but she was pushing, pulling, twisting about with careful, guarded movements that she thought he wouldn't see. She kept her eyes on his, but her mind was bent on escape.
"You might as well not bother," he told her lightly, grabbing the scarf that held her left ankle and tugging on it firmly. "Silk is a very strong material, and I have tied you securely. I thought this was how you wanted it, how you dreamed of it. You wouldn't want to spoil the pose?"
She struggled harder, but he ignored her, going on. "You see the makeup?" he asked, returning his attention to the photograph with pride. "I did it myself. I did it from the image that popped into my brain one day as she stared at me from beneath a street-lamp.
"The skill, of course, I would have to attribute to the years I lived alone with my mother. I learned those lessons from her, but the use of the color, the subtleties of hue and dimension, those are mine.
"I saw it before it slipped away from her; her childhood was ripped half free, dangling in the breeze and wrapped up in her boyfriend’s greasy hair.”
Madeline’s arms and legs were taut with the strain of trying to free herself, and her eyes had teared up. Christian smiled at her.
“You should really listen more closely, Madeline. This is your story too, after all.
"She wouldn’t have been less beautiful without that innocence, that extra spark that drew me to her, not to other men, anyway," he went on, "but she would no longer have been worthy of art. There has to be something special to be drawn forth. I have made some mistakes, you see, Maddy, but I am learning. Every day, I'm learning more."
She no longer hid her fear. Her eyes brimmed with tears, and she writhed crazily, trying to slip one arm, or one leg, free, trying to win a bit of freedom, fighting room. Trying and failing.
The drugs and alcohol still held her, but not as strongly as before. The sex had burned some of it from her and sobered her enough to realize that the pleasure was gone. The reality of what she saw and felt was no nightmare or hallucination, and not a game.
"I see that spark in you, Maddy," he told her, reaching out and stroking the side of her head, running his hand down through the long auburn locks of her hair. "It’s different, though, and much brighter. You are the one destined to make me great, to set me apart as a genius. You should be honored.
"The first girl I photographed unconscious," he told her matter-of-factly. "She was drugged, not able to move and ruin the shot, or to rob me of the beauty I sought. That is what I thought at the time, anyway. As I said before, I have made some mistakes.
"Somehow, I was wrong. I regret that I had to kill her. She was truly special, and I would have liked a second chance."
Madeline's eyes shifted. She tried new tactics, pleading silently for mercy. She reached to him with her body again, tried to entice him away from his thoughts and distract him, buying time. He watched the play of her muscles, the silky sheen of sweat that had risen to coat her flesh, but he didn't let her interrupt.
He had regained the control that had fled him so easily earlier. She was going nowhere, and she was his now. He didn't have to move to her rhythm, didn't want to play her games. She would play his, or he would play them with her, soon enough.
"I had to go on, you see. That was where your Hiram came in. He does love you, you know. He's threatened me several times, made me promise to stay away from you. If you hadn't been so insistent, he might have kept you from me. What a shame that would have been. What a waste of art.
"He found me the other two models. I showed him these pictures," he gestured at the shot of Lindy, "and I saw a gleam in his eye, an appreciation that went further than the visual spectrum. They grabbed him and stole a part of him. Hiram is no art critic, let me tell you, but he surely knows what he likes.
“Do you know what that is, Maddy? With all your years together, with all your beauty, do you know what Hiram really likes now? He likes these photos. He likes captured, chiseled beauty. He likes pictures of dead women, Madeline. He's even envisioned you the same way. We've spoken of it. He cursed me, but he saw. I can always tell.
“At first he denied it all. He didn't want to help me, but he did. I showed him what I was able to do with Lindy, although the work was flawed, and it was enough. After that he brought me Cherie. You remember her? Blonde? Cocaine addict?"
The pleading faded to anger. Maddy shuddered violently as memories of the news reports she’d read returned to haunt her. Christian ignored her and let his hand rest lightly on her breast. He fondled her nipple idly. Her flesh was cool, coated with sweat and tiny bumps of fear. Christian twisted the nipple harder, making it spring to attention in his grasp, despite the hatred in her eyes, and he smiled.
"Cherie was like you in one sense, she wanted sex before photos. That was my second mistake. I let her seduce me, and then I killed her. I should have remembered what came of that. My mother was the same, you see. I let her seduce me, time and again, over and over. All I got for that was abandoned. I should have known.
“Cherie, though, she managed to soak into my vision and warp it to mesh with her own, even in death. The pictures, as you can see," he held up one of the photos of Cherie, and Madeline went white, shivering all over, "came out well." He turned the print to the left, then back to the right and ran his fingers over it and letting the light catch all the highlights.
"They are flawed, though. They are not the visions as I saw them. They are too much like pictures of a living Cherie, too much like memories of what was and too little like the visions I craved. Once again, I failed."
"So," he continued, "There was Veronica. I didn't want to shoot her next; I wanted you. Hiram wouldn't have it, and as it turns out, it was best that way. I still had things to learn, you see, still didn't have it quite right.
"Her I killed right away. I took no chances. She got no opportunity to cloud my vision or melt through my thoughts and twist the flow of my creativity. I took control immediately, and once again, I failed.
"It was no good. Without any of her in the mix, it was an empty vision of hollow loveliness. Again, the pictures were better than any that had come before, but not perfect.
"Even Hiram hasn't seen these," he told her, flashing the pictures of Veronica one after the other, "only you and I have witnessed their beauty. Not perfect, as I say, but very, very close.
"All that is left is perfection, and it was not for her. I was saving that for you."
He dropped the pictures and ran both hands over her flesh. Her nipples hardened and he thought he felt the fear tingling just above her skin – like an aura. Christian turned, grabbed his makeup case, and pulled out the foundation.
"I'm going to do this quickly, Maddy, so you can see. I could finish you first, but I want you to know the beauty I see inside. I want you to know the art that will make you immortal. You have that right. You are a partner in all this, my only collaborator."
As he spoke, he took hair firmly in one hand and dabbing at her cheeks softly with the makeup pad. She averted her face, but did not pull away. Perhaps she thought she was buying time. Perhaps she thought that by letting him continue doing what he wanted with her, humoring him, she could hold out until the cavalry arrived.
He smiled and worked carefully, quickly, and methodically. There would be no super heroes for her, not tonight, not ever. Only immortality.
Christian had mapped out the vision so carefully that it was imbedded in his soul. It didn't take long to bring it to the surface. He saw it floating in the air wherever he turned and felt it developing on the photo-plate of his mind. Even as he contemplated her death, she came to life in his hands.
Madeline’s tears threatened, at first, to smear the mascara, but he dried them patiently, again and again, touching up here, a flourish there. They didn't anger him, quite the contrary. They were another part of her, and he used them. He blended them with the mascara, using their salty touch to feather and highlight and to wash tiny flaws from the work as he went.
She was the loveliest thing he'd ever held, the most precious thing he'd touched. As the Madeline of an hour earlier disappeared and the Madeline of his mind emerged, he grew hard again, tense with desire. This was why his control had returned. The human Madeline was a pale flicker of this beauty. He'd looked ahead, and his body had been poised for true beauty.
It could not be much longer. He would have to finish soon. He needed to have her again, and she had to die first. She had to be gone when they came together for the last time, nothing but an empty shell, or it would be ruined. All his work, all he had lived and worked for, would be for nothing.
Christian set aside the case, examined what he'd done, and lifted the mirror up for her to see.
Madeline stared, morbidly fascinated. Even the yellow scarf that bound her lips fit into the design. The lines of her eyes were exquisite, the traceries of scarlet about her lips perfect and symmetrical. She moaned softly, and turned her head to the side, but her gaze never strayed from the mirror. She was perfect, and even through her fear and through the mortal terror that held her in its bonds, she was trapped in the vision.
Christian laid her head gently on the pillow, still holding the mirror, and reached for the needle on the nightstand. He moved slowly, not taking his eyes off her, and he had it in his hand before she could catch him and start struggling. If she whipped her head back and forth too rapidly she might smear or ruin the makeup. It was too perfect, he didn't want to have to try and rebuild it.
Christian grabbed her arm firmly, lifted the syringe, felt the tightening of her muscles, the spasm of fear that gripped her frame, and then he stopped. Cold.
Outside a horn blared – directly outside. Immediately after that, just down the street, he heard the wailing of a siren, of many sirens, and the scraping of tires on gravel. He spun his heartbeat thundering, and looked to the window.
Headlights turned into the lot and shadows moved beyond the curtains. Christian saw flashing lights, heard the scream of a siren. It was like the twisting, whirling end of a kaleidoscope, shadow and light and sound blending together to mesmerize him.
"No..." he moaned, rising and staggering backward, freeing himself from the spell. He released Madeline's arm and stared numbly at the window. He stood like a statue for a long moment, heard footsteps, curses, and then he moved.
Something deep inside him galvanized his legs and forced him through the door to the bathroom and up. He leaped without thought and hit the closed window with both his arms covering his eyes and a long, wailing scream on his lips. Glass shattered around him and sound filled his mind. Pain pounded in his elbows and his shoulders.
He tumbled through the air, dropped hard on one knee and rolled. He didn't know what kept him moving, but he never hesitated, never thought, even for an instant, of lying there, or of crying out.
He scrabbled scrambled? to his feet and never looked back. Christian lowered his head, clutched his sore and injured arms to his stomach, and ran. Behind him, the cursing was louder, but there were no immediate following footsteps.
He rounded the corner and saw a car in front of him, too late. He ran directly into the side of the taxi. Christian crashed against the window, hurting his already bruised arms. The world spun, then righted itself, and he screamed.
The driver screamed back at him, but Christian was beyond caring. He looked down and saw that the syringe was still in his hand. He had forgotten to throw it aside when he leaped through the window. He walked to the driver's side door, where the man was getting out with an angry look on his face, and he lunged. Christian imbedded the needle like a dagger in the man's throat and pressed the plunger hard.
The cabby staggered forward, reached for Christian weakly, and then fell face down in the street. Christian jumped into the cab and started it. He saw shadowy figures heading his way now, but he ignored them. He floored the gas, spun the vehicle in a U-turn, and headed into the streets, away from Broadway and downtown.
His mind whirled back toward sanity, toward the reality of the moment, and he began to think, or to try and think, to sort out what had happened and what he had to do. He had no idea where he would go, what he would do; he just knew he had to get away.
His fevered mind told him that the cab would have to go soon, that he would need to ditch it. He yearned for his car, his apartment, anything that could help him feel secure. There was nothing that could help. He roared through the night, ignoring stoplights and squealing around corners like a man possessed.
Eventually he noticed that the streets were silent and dark, that he had lost the sound of the sirens. He knew they would be back, knew they would find him if he didn't do something quick, but the freedom of the moment allowed him to get a coherent thought through the haze that clouded his brain.
He saw a street corner that looked familiar and he let out a sob. He pulled to the curb and leaped from the cab. He glanced up and down the street, orienting himself, and then disappeared down an alley, into the shadows. There was still one place he could go, one chance, and it wasn't that far. It wouldn't take long.
His vision was returning, and he knew what he had to do. There was still a way to achieve his dreams, but he had to be strong and clever. He had to get away. As he ran, he heard his mother's mocking laughter floating after him on the night air, felt the weight of her laughing eyes between his thin shoulders.
"You can't run away," she'd told him once, "you can't escape who you are, what you are. You are mine."
* * *
As Tommy and Mac stood frozen in the gravel drive, listening in numb frustration to the echoing sound of the sirens erupting through the silence behind them to scatter the ruined remnant of the silence of moments before, shadows moved inside the room.
Two squad cars whipped into the lot behind them, lights blazing, and Tommy's cursing became truly sincere.
"God damned rookies," he yelled, waving Mac forward. "They're gonna get us killed one of these days."
There was no more surprise. There was no more advantage. There was only forward, full-tilt, and prayer. It was too bad, Tommy reflected as he crashed shoulder-first into the door and splintered it, that he didn't believe in God. Sometimes he wondered what kind of comfort that would bring him. Not often, but sometimes.
The crashing of the door coincided with the smashing of the window in the next room, and it was a couple of moments before he'd taken in enough of the interior of the motel room to realize it. The two sounds had blended so perfectly that he missed the breaking glass completely.
On the bed the woman from Gate's office lay bound in silk scarves, her face made up with eerie cunning. He stopped cold for a moment and took it all in. She was beautiful, beyond beautiful, ethereal. But was she alive? Was he too late again; had he failed?
Then he saw that she was screaming. He couldn’t make out the words she hurled at him through the yellow scarf, but she caught the direction of her gaze. He shook his head to free himself of the image her prone form strobed through his mind, and cursed. He turned and leaped through the doorway to the next room. He took in the busted window at a glance and spun, shouldering the others out of his way as he raced out and around the building toward the street. Ahead, he saw the fleeing form of the killer, but there was a fence. It surrounded the back of the place, and Tommy realized with sick horror that there was no way over it. It was there for security, to keep people from breaking into the rooms from the street behind. Christ.
The freak had leaped through the window and cleared the fence, and there was no other way around there. It figured. It God damned figured.
With a scream that would have done a banshee proud, he leaped back through the doorway, crossed through the bedroom again, wild-eyed and crazed, and took the bathroom in two strides. He caught the windowsill with one foot and launching himself up and into the darkness beyond. He fell and rolled, letting his momentum carry him through, and was on his feet again, racing to make up the time that had been stolen from him.
A car engine roared to life. He ran toward the sound. He had his gun raised and trained, but he couldn't fire. It might not be him, or, if it was he might not be alone. He could have the driver at gunpoint, and any shot fired might hit either of them.
Tommy saw the cab spin and rush off into the distance, and he saw the body in the road at the same time. Too late. Too late to fire, too late to stop him. Damn.
He rushed forward, leaned down and felt the man's throat. No pulse. Cursing in a steady stream, he pulled the man over, checked again for a pulse, willing it to be there. It was. It was very weak, but the man wasn’t dead.
He began CPR, screaming for Mac, for backup, screaming to the shadows. Screaming in frustrated rage. He would not concede another life to this asshole, this fucking psycho. The freak had gotten away, for the moment, but this man would not. Not while there was a spark of hope that he could prevent it.
Tommy pumped, five to one, pump pump, breath pump, pump, pump, pump, pump, breathe. His mind blanked, and in seconds Mac was there, relieving him, joining him. They became a single unit, became the man's life-support system, joined in the shadows and the frustration.
They still had a pulse, but not much. In the distance he heard another siren. This time it was an ambulance, and he knew the medics were on the way. Now it was a race against death and time.
One of the blue-shirts, a young guy with blonde hair and too many freckles for him to be a cop, leaned over and whistled, holding up the syringe. It wasn't empty. It had broken off, releasing only a small dose of its contents into the cabby's system.
"Looks like we got here just in time, man," the kid said. "That freak was gonna kill her, sure as shit."
"You might not have noticed," Tommy grated between breaths, "But he may have killed this guy right in front of our noses. I'd suggest you get that syringe to the medics out front so they can figure out what the flying fuck it is. Tell them where we are and get their asses back here now! Hurry the FUCK UP, before he goes."
Without a word the boy did as he was told, and moments later the paramedics took over, pulling Tommy away and letting him fall to his knees, resting his head in his hands. Breathing heavily, he stumbled to his feet, looked around for Mac and found him off to one side, leaning on a post.
"He's in a fucking cab, Mac. We've got to get that asshole."
Mac only nodded, and they staggered off around the corner, leaving the ambulance and the two squad cars to handle the woman and the scene. Neither man glanced back. Neither wanted to know. If death found that man, so be it, but they needed their concentration for the chase. Mourning had its own place and time, and this wasn't it.
"We have to get back to the station," Tommy said, slipping behind the wheel and gunning the engine. "That fuck Gates should be there by now, he might know where the freak headed. How many places could there be for someone like that?"
Mac didn't answer right away. He stared at the doorway to the hotel room where the woman was being helped out to one of the squad cars. She was dressed, but her face was still made-up, still unearthly and strange. Still incredibly, undeniably erotic in the exotic play of color and design that covered it.
Her eyes were huge and stared like those of a jungle cat. Tommy remembered her smile, remembered how comfortable it had made him feel. He hoped that it would be back one day.
"What kind of a man can do that, Tommy?" Mac asked finally, as the cruiser pulled into traffic and roared off into town. "How can he do that, make her so, beautiful? How can he do that and be so . . ."
"Sick?" Tommy whispered. "I don't know, Mac, I just don't fucking know. I know this, though.” Tommy looked at his partner as they pulled to the light at Broadway, "I'll never forget that woman's face. The damned psycho has branded my brain with it. He's got to go down."
Mac didn't nod, but the determination in his eyes was fanatical. Tommy didn't know what had hit his partner this time. Maybe he'd seen his wife, or his daughter, hanging in a gallery in his mind, face painted like a geisha doll. It seemed like the makeup permeated his own thoughts now, insinuated itself over the features of every woman he saw, every potential victim he might not save.
Maybe his partner was at his limit and just plain wanted to pop the guy like a zit. It didn't matter. When the time came, Greve was going to pay. It really didn't matter which of them got him first; it would also be last.
They reached the station a few minutes ahead of the other cars, parked out front hurried inside. They found Gates in a holding cell and had him hauled to the interrogation room as quickly as possible.
"All right, you asshole," Tommy began, not beating around the bush at all, "You tell us where this freak might run to. He isn't at home, he can't get back there. Where else would he go?"
"Maddy," Gates stammered, his eyes wild and his hair matted over his eyes. He'd been crying, and his body was coated with a thick sheen of sweat. He was a pathetic, empty shell. Checked out. Nobody home. "Where is Maddy? Is she . . .?"
"She's okay," Mac cut in. "We stopped him."
This cut through the man's fog and brought him around a little. "Good," he said. "Good. Maddy is okay. Thank God."
Tommy lurched forward, losing control, and grabbed the man by his collar. "Where the fuck is he, Gates? Where? Didn't you fucking hear me? He's. Still. Out. There. We have to get him. Now you talk, or so help me God . . ."
"I don't know," the man sputtered, trying to back away. "I…”
His mouth dropped and his face went ashen. Tommy spun, cursing when he saw what the man had seen. They'd brought in the girl, Madeline. She stared at Gates, her eyes full of tears, and he stood as if caught in a trance. In that instant his nightmares came to life as if they had walked into the room, held out ghostly hands and said "Hiram, come out and pla-ay..."
"How could you do it, Hi?" she asked, her voice eerily calm. "How could you be involved in something like that, after all these years? Those girls, those poor girls."
Gates wasn't listening. His gaze was focused on Madeline’s face. He saw the images he'd built, the wrenching beauty of the photos facing him down, and it was too much. "I . . . I . . ." he never got any words out.
With a stricken gurgle, he rose from his seat, turned to stare right through Tommy, who reached out to steady him. Gates twisted away, took a half step forward and fell. He didn't trip, didn't stumble, he just fell. His hands did not break the fall, nor did he make a move to roll or lessen the impact.
Before anyone could move to catch him he crashed head first into the corner of the table. He bounced off with a wet, crunching smack and crashing to the floor.
The woman broke free of the two officers who held her then and rushed to his side. She knelt, grabbed his head and lifted it to her lap. She stayed that way, sobbing, shaking her head back and forth incoherently. Even after all this, even after what had nearly claimed her own life, she cared. It was crazy, and it was no use. He was gone. The blood seeped from the cut in his head, staining her dress, but Tommy knew it didn't matter.
The man had died when his heart stopped, probably before he even fell, probably without a second thought. The asshole had died, and he had taken the fucking freak with him, and it was more than Tommy could stand.
He staggered from the room and headed down the hall to his office. Officers and clerks bustled out of his path, clearing the way as he stumbled through, watching him as they might a crazed bear loose in a zoo. Mac followed, slowly, knowing nothing he could say would help, knowing better than to get too close.
Tommy made it to his desk and laid his head on it gently, feeling the throbbing pain that pulsed through it, the headache that threatened to blank his thoughts and remove him from the picture altogether. He fought it, gripped the edges of his desk with both fists and squeezed until his joints popped and the wood creaked, until the tendons in his arms stood out like taut wire.
It was probably no more than a couple of minutes that he sat there, but it flowed through his mind like an eternity. He saw his father's face, and his cousin, Patrick. There were so many of them, so many people, gone. He saw the women's photographs, one after the other; saw the perfection of the makeup, the dull, lifeless glint of their eyes. Each seemed different now, though, each accused him and called out to him for help, and for vengeance.
A hand fell gently on his shoulder, and he knew it was Mac. Raising his head slightly, he crashed it back down, slammed it into his blotter, then again. The pain helped. It focused him and shook away some of the clouds. It did nothing for the headache, but it was just a headache again. It could be dealt with.
Tommy sat up, opened his drawer calmly, and pulled out a bottle of Extra-Strength Tylenol. His thoughts were crystallizing, returning to coherency. Next he pulled out the roll of Rolaids and popped four.
Mac was already brewing the coffee, and Tommy almost smiled. They would get through this; they had to. Nobody else could pull it off. Nobody else understood. Besides, after that last escapade at the hotel, it was personal. After he'd seen the terror in that woman's eyes, the grateful tears as she was set free, and the taint of the psycho's creation on her features, there was no other way out but through.
"I know I'm going to regret this," he said at last, breaking the silence as Mac handed him a cup of strong, black coffee, "but let's try logic one more time. The freak went somewhere, and he went there quickly. Either he made one hell of a split second decision, or he'd still as crazy as a loony-bird, and he went where he knows. We need to know where that would be. Is there any word on that cab?"
"They found it," Mac said, motioning for one of the officers outside to come in.
The boy hesitated. It was the freckled kid, Alderson was his name; Tommy remembered that now. With an effort, the boy screwed up his courage, squared his shoulders and stepped into the office.
"The guy that got stabbed, sir?" he said quickly, lowering his head, "He's going to be okay. They had to pump out some poison. He almost didn't make it, but he's okay. You saved his life."
There was fear in the boy's eyes, but there was also admiration, and a determination to be helpful, to do something, that would one day blossom into the right attitude – the only attitude. Maybe he'd make a cop despite the freckles.
"You did okay yourself, kid," Tommy grumbled. "Now get me what they've found on this freak, files, anything. Where could he be?"
"I already went through them, sir," the boy said, again hesitant. "He had a studio further downtown. It's in the business district, just across the tracks. The place he left the cab? He could have made it from there on foot."
"Well, then what the hell are we doing here?" Tommy asked, rising. "Let's get the fuck down there!"
Mac followed, a slight shrug his only comment as Alderson raised his eyebrows questioningly. They were out the front door a few moments later, almost pulling away before the kid could rush out and hand Mac the address.
"We'll be right behind you, Detective," Alderson promised.
"Keep your fucking sirens off this time," Tommy answered, and he was gone, screeching away from the curb and into the night.
Officer Alderson stood and stared after them, shaking his head in admiration. Doyle had seemed half dead only moments before, and now he was off again, no sleep, no food. He was almost like a fucking psycho himself.
As Alderson turned back to the station house, quickening his steps, he reflected that maybe that was the reason Doyle was still alive. Maybe that was the key. If so, he hoped he never made homicide.