Текст книги "The Butcher's Theatre"

Автор книги: Jonathan Kellerman

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Текущая страница: 33 (всего у книги 41 страниц)

If they knew who he was, they'd probably tear him apart. The Beretta would pick off a few, but not enough. Not that they'd ever find out. He'd looked in the mirror after putting on the outfit, surprised himself with what a good Arab he made. Ahmed Ibn Shmeltzer

Someone lit a cigarette. A couple of others followed suit. A guy next to him nudged him and asked if he had a smoke. All that despite the fact that the American nurse, Cassidy, had come out twice and announced No Smoking in loud, lousy Arabic.

The Arabs ignored her; a woman talking, she might just as well have been a donkey braying.

"Smoke?" repeated the guy, nudging again.

"Don't have any," Shmeltzer said in Arabic.

The Cassidy girl was out in the hall again, calling out a name. A beggar on crutches grunted and bumped his way toward her.

Shmeltzer looked at the nurse as she escorted the cripple to an examining room. Plain as black bread, no breasts, no hips, the type of dry cunt always exploited by greasy sheikhs like Al Biyadi.

A few minutes later, the sheikh himself stepped out of another examining room, all pressed and immaculate in his long doctor's coat. He glanced at the mob of patients with disdain, shot his cuffs, and exposed a flash of gold watch.

A white swan among mud ducks, thought Shmeltzer, and he knows it. He followed Al Biyadi's path across the hall and into the Records Room. Daoud had moved away from the door, sat down, and was feigning sleep.

Al Biyadi used a key to open the door. Arrogant young snot -what the hell was he doing working here instead of renting a suite of offices in Ramallah or on a good street in East Jerusalem? Why lower himself to stitching up paupers when he could be raking in his big money attending to landowner's families or rich tourists at the Intercontinental Hotel?

The initial research had shown him to be a playboy with expensive tastes. Hardly the type to go in for do-gooding. Unless there was an ulterior motive.

Like access to victims.

Dani's theory was that the Butcher was a psycho with something extra-a racist out to cause trouble between Jews and Arabs. Shmeltzer wasn't sure he bought that, but if it was true, it only strengthened his own theory: Al Biyadi was a closet radical and best bet for the Butcher. He'd said as much at the emergency staff meeting last night. No one had agreed or disagreed.

But he fit, the snot, including the fact that he'd lived in America.

Ten years ago, Nahum, Dani had objected. Their typical debate.

How do you know?

Our passport records confirmed it during the initial research.

Ten years. Four years too late to match two of the murders from the FBI computer.

But Shmeltzer wasn't ready to let go of the bastard that easily. Before settling in Detroit, Michigan, for college, Al Biyadi had lived in Amman, attending a high-priced boarding school, the same one Hussein's kids went to. Rich kid like that, he could have easily gone back and forth between Jordan and America as a tourist, using a Jordanian passport. Any trips taking place before his return to Israel wouldn't show up in their files.

American Immigration would have records of them, though. Dani had agreed to get in touch with them, though if past history was any indicator, getting the information would take weeks, maybe months.

Meanwhile, as far as Nahum Shmeltzer was concerned, the book was still open on Dr. Hassan Al Biyadi. Wide open.

Anyway, there was no reason to be wedded to the American murders. Maybe the similarity was just a coincidence-a strong one, granted, what with the caves and the heroin. But maybe certain types of sex maniacs operated in patterns, some common psychological thread that made them carve up women in similar ways, dump them in caves. Dani's black friend had said the match was too close for coincidence. An American detective would know plenty about that, but even he was theorizing. There was no hard evidence

Al Biyadi came out of the Records Room bearing several charts, locked it, stepped over Daoud, and pursed his lips in distaste.

Prissy, thought Shmeltzer. Maybe a latent homosexual– the head-doctor had said serial killers often were.

Look at the woman he chose: The Cassidy girl had no meat on her-not much of a woman at all, especially for a hotshot rich kid like Al Biyadi.

A strange pairing. Maybe the two of them were in it together. Closet radicals intent on fomenting violent revolution-a killing team. He'd always liked the idea of more than one murderer. Multiple kill spots, a partner to help carry stuff to and from the cave, serve as lookout, do a nice thorough washing of the bodies-nursie serving doctor.

And a female partner, to make it easier to snag victims. A woman would trust another woman, especially a do-gooder in a white uniform. Believe her when when she said Relax. This little shot is to make you feel better.

Trust… Maybe Cassidy had done the first two American ones by herself-a female sex maniac. Why not? Then, four years later, Al Biyadi comes to America, meets her at Harper Hospital, the two of them find they have a common interest and start a killing club.

It sounded far-fetched, but you never knew. Anyway, enough speculating. It was giving him a headache. What was needed was good old-fashioned evidence.

The old Swiss nurse, Catherine Hauser, walked out into the center of the corridor and called out a name. Her voice was too soft amid the white noise of small talk, and no one heard her.

"Quiet," ordered Al Biyadi, just about to enter an examining room. "Quiet immediately."

The men in the hall obeyed.

Al Biyadi glowered at them, nodded like a little prince granting favors. "You may read that name again, Nurse Hauser."

The old one repeated it. A patient said, "Me" and got up to follow her. Al Biyadi pushed the door open and disappeared inside.

Shmeltzer leaned his elbows against the wall and waited. The man next to him had managed to get a cigarette from someone else and was blowing thick plumes of smoke that swirled in the hot air and took a long time to die. Across the hall Daoud was talking to a guy with a patch over his eye. Ahmed Ibn Dayan

The two other doctors-the older Arab, Darousha, and the Canadian, Carter, came out of a room with an Arab between them. The Arab had one foot in a cast and was stumbling along as they propped him up, his arms on their shoulders.

How sweet.

Do-gooders. As suspects, Shmeltzer thought they were weak. True, a Canadian was almost like an American. Carter would certainly have had easy access to a big open border. But if the American murders cleared anyone, it was him: The initial research placed him in South America during four of the killings, A hitch in the Peace Corps in Ecuador during the last year in medical school, a return trip years later, as a doctor. Real do-gooder, the soft, hippie type, but probably an anti-Semite down deep-anyone who worked for UNRWA had to be. But his references from the Peace Corps were all glowing: devoted physician, saved lives, prevented outbreaks of cholera, helped build villages, dam streams, blah blah blah. To believe it, Dr. Richard Carter pissed champagne.

Darousha also shaped up as one hell of a tzadik: reputation for kindness, no political interests, got along with Jewish doctors-took courses at Hadassah and received high marks. So clean he'd never even had a traffic ticket. Everyone said he really liked making people feel better, was especially good with children.

Only mark against him was the fact that he was queer– and a real Romeo. Shin Bet had just firmed up some rumors connecting him with a series of male lovers, including a married Jewish doctor three years ago. The latest boyfriend was the moronic watchman out in front. What a pair they'd make-two pudgy guys bouncing around in bed.

But being homosexual meant nothing in terms of this case, decided Shmeltzer. According to the head-docs, the magic word was latent. The theory was that the violence came about because the killer was repressing his homosexual impulses, trying to overcompensate by being supermasculine and taking control of women by destroying them.

If Darousha was already overtly queer, didn't it mean he'd stopped repressing? Had nothing to hide, nothing to be upset about? Unless he thought no one knew about him

All bullshit, anyway, the psychology stuff. Including the bullshit profiles Dani's black friend had quoted from the FBI: Men who cut up women are usually sadistic psychopaths. Which was like saying you could make something smaller by reducing it in size. Nice guy, the black-no doubt he had more experience than any of them, and Nahum Shmeitzer was the last person to refuse help from outsiders. But only if they had something solid. Like evidence.

Which was what they were after this morning, stuck here in the midst of all this stink and pestilence. He looked over at Daoud, hoped the chance came soon. Goddamned robes itched like crazy.

At one in the afternoon the doctors took a lunch break. Free coffee and pastries were offered to the patients, who went after the food like starving animals, rushing out to the front courtyard of the hospital where folding tables had been set up.

Moving damned fast, noticed Shmeltzer, for guys on crutches and canes. He signaled for Daoud to make his move.

Shielded by the commotion, the Arab detective sidled up to the Records Room door again, worked the pick out from inside his sleeve, and played with the lock.

Slow, thought Shmeltzer, keeping one eye on the hallway. One minute more, he'd have a try at it himself.

Finally the lock yielded. Daoud turned and looked at Shmeltzer, who looked up and down the corridor.

Coast was clear, but the hallway was emptying, their cover was dissipating.

Go, Shmeltzer signaled.

Daoud opened the door, slipped inside, and closed it after him.

The corridor grew silent. Shmeltzer waited for the Arab to do his work, standing watch five meters to the east of the door. Then footsteps sounded from the around the corner. A man appeared, a Westerner, walking quickly and purposefully.

Baldwin, the administrator-now there was an American. Real uncooperative bastard, according to Dani. And the shmuck had been out of America only for the last two murders in the FBI file, which were dismemberments anyway, no ID on the victims-far from clear that they belonged with the first ones.

A pencil-pushing bastard. Shmeltzer would have liked to see him as the killer. No doctor, but he'd hung around hospitals along enough to learn about drugs, surgical procedures.

Look at him, wearing a Great White Father safari suit and shiny black boots with hard leather heels that played a clackety drumbeat on the tile floor. Gestapo boots.

Shmuck was walking fast but his eyes were buried in a magazine-Time. A large ring of keys dangled from one hand as he approached.

Heading straight for the Records Room, realized Shmeltzer. Hell of a disaster if Daoud stepped out right now and came face to face with the bastard.

Shmeltzer backed up so that he stood in front of the door. Heard rustling inside and knocked a signal to the Arab, who locked the door and stopped moving.

Baldwin came closer, looked up from his magazine and saw him.

"Yes?" he said. "Can I help you?" Heavily accented Arabic.

Shmeltzer leaned against the door, clutched his chest, and moaned.

"What's the matter?" said Baldwin, looking down on him.

"Hurts," said Shmeltzer in a whisper, trying to look and sound feeble.

"What's that?"

"Hurts."

"What hurts?"

"Chest." A louder moan. Shmeltzer fluttered his eyelids, made as if his knees were giving way.

Baldwin grabbed his elbow, dropping his Time magazine in the process. Shmeltzer went semi-limp, let the bastard support his weight, smiling to himself and thinking: Probably the first real work he's done in years.

The American grunted, fumbled with his key ring until he'd attached it to his belt, freed his other hand to prop up Shmeltzer's steadily sagging body.

"Have you seen the doctor yet?"

Shmeltzer gave a miserable look and shook his head. "Waiting. Waiting all day… oh!" Letting out a wheezing breath.

Baldwin's pale eyebrows rose in alarm.

"Your heart? Is it your heart?"

"Oh! Ohhh!"

"Do you have a heart problem, sir?"

"Oh! Hurts!"

"All right. Listen," said Baldwin. "I'm going to lower you down. Just wait here and I'll go get one of the doctors."

He let Shmeltzer slide to the floor, propped him against the wall, and jogged off back toward the east wing. The moment he rounded the corner, Shmeltzer got to his feet, rapped on the Records Room door, and said, "Get the hell out!"

The door opened, Daoud emerged, eyes alive with excitement. Success.

"This way," said Shmeltzer, pointing west.

The two of them ran.

As they put space between them and the Records Room, Shmeltzer asked, "Get anything?"

"Everything. Under my robes.".

"Mazel tov."

Daoud looked at the older man quizzically, kept running. They passed the examining rooms and the X-ray lab. The hallway terminated at a high wall of windowless plaster marked only by a bulletin board.

"Wait," said Shmeltzer. He stopped, scanned the board, pulled off a clinic schedule, and stashed it in his pocket before resuining his run.

A right turn took them into a smaller corridor lined by a series of paneled wood doors. Recalling the Mandate-era blueprints they'd examined last night, Shmeltzer identified their former function: servants' quarters, storage rooms. The Brits had pampered themselves during their reign: The entire west wing had been devoted to keeping them well clothed and well fed-quarters for an army of butlers, maids, cooks, laundry room, linen closets, silver storage, auxiliary kitchen, auxiliary wine cellar.

Now those rooms had been turned into flats for the do-gooders, doctors' and nurses' names typed on cards affixed to each door. Al Biyadi's room was next to Cassidy's, Shmeltzer noticed. He took in the names on the other cards too. Committing all of it to memory-automatically-as he continued to run.

Behind them, from behind the corner, came the sound of distant voices-echoing voices full of worry, then surprise.

The voices grew louder. As did the footsteps. Hard Gestapo heels.

At the end of the smaller corridor were French doors that yielded to the turn of a brass handle. Shmeltzer and Daoud ran out onto a stone landing guarded on both sides by reclining statuary lions, leaped down half a dozen steps, and found themselves facing the rear grounds of the hospital-neglected estate grounds, once elaborately landscaped, now just an expanse of red dirt bordered by the ragged remains of privet hedges and walled by tall old pines. Empty flower beds and patches of rusty earth interrupted by seemingly random copses of younger trees. To the far west of the ground was an enclosed pen for animals; all else was open space.

But the entire property was enclosed by three meters of chain link.

Trapped.

"Where now?" said Daoud, running in place.

Shmeltzer stopped, felt his knees aching, his heart pumping furiously. Thinking: Funny if I got a real heart attack.

He surveyed the grounds, looked back at the hospital. Much of the rear of the huge pink building's ground floor consisted of glass panels-more French doors leading out to a canopied sun porch. A solarium back in Mandate days-goddamned Brits sunning themselves while their empire rotted out from under them. Now the dining room.

The sun porch was unoccupied, but if anyone was inside the dining room looking out, he and the Arab would be easy to spot. A real mess.

Still, what was the alternative?

"Keep going," he said, pointing to the north end of the property.

What had once been a rolling lawn was now dirt coated with stones and pine needles. They ran for the shelter of a copse of pines, ran through several meters of shade before exiting the trees and finding themselves on steeply sloping barren ground leading directly to the northern perimeter of the property-a cliff edge. A hinged rectangle had been cut out of the chain link, framing blue sky. A door to the heavens.

Hell of a view, thought Shmeltzer, taking in the distant cream-and-purple contours of the desert, the terraced hills of Judea, still coated with greenery.

Sapphire sky above; big dry blanket below. Hills for folds. Caves for moth holes.

Caves.

He looked back through the trees, saw two figures on the sun porch, one of them in khaki, the other in white. They stood there for a while, went back inside.

Who the hell cared about one sick old Arab?

Daoud had opened the chain-link door. Was gazing out at the wilderness.

"What's it look like over the side?" Shmeltzer asked him.

The Arab dropped to the ground, crawled to the edge, and peered down.

"Small drop, easy," he said, surprised. "Looks like a hiking trail."

They lowered themselves over the side, Daoud first, Shmeltzer following. Landed on flat, soft earth, a wide terrace-three meters by two. The first of several oversized steps notched into the hillside.

"Like stairs," said Daoud.

Shmeltzer nodded. Below the steps was a thick, coarse growth of water-spurning shrubbery. Ugly stuff, green-gray spikes and coils, some of it browning in the heat.

He noticed a split in the brush, a parting like the Red Sea. The two detectives climbed down the steps and entered it, edging through a narrow pathway, barely one person wide. Beneath their feet, flat surface rounded to a concave ditch; they sank suddenly and had to use their arms for balance. But soon they grew used to the concavity, were walking steadily and rapidly down the side of the hill. Bent at the waist to avoid being snagged by the thorny branches overhead.

Shmeltzer slowed and looked up at the branches. An arch of greenery-the classic Jerusalem arch, this one fashioned by nature. Opaque as a roof except for frayed spots where the sun shone through, letting in shards of light that cast brilliant white geometric patterns upon the hard-packed earth.

A tunnel, he thought. Leading straight down to the desert, but from the air or below you'd see only brush, a serpentine line of gray-green. Probably fashioned years ago by the Brits, or maybe the Jordanians after them or the Turks before them. An escape route.

"How you doing?" he asked Daoud. "Still got the stuff?"

The Arab patted his middle. "Still got it."

"Okay, let's follow this. See where it leads."

After a while, Nightwing got more open about herself, lying in his arms in the backseat of the Plymouth after she did him.

and talking about her childhood-growing up fat and pimply and unpopular, terrorized by an asshole father who crawled into her bed every night and raped her. The next morning he'd always feel guilty and take it out on her by slapping her around and calling her a whore. The rest of the family going along with it, treating her like scum.

Once he saw tears in her eyes, which nauseated him; hearing about her personal shit made him sick. But he didn't stop her from spilling it out, sat back and pretended he was listening, sympathetic. Meanwhile he was filling his mind with pictures: real science experiments on whimpering mutts, touching the stiffs in the path lab, memory slides of what he'd done to Fields, how the slimeball's head had looked all bashed to trash. Thinking: It's easy to be a shrink.

One night they were driving on Nasty, headed for a parking spot, and she said, "That's him-that's BoJo!"

He slowed the car to get a good look at the pimp, saw a short, skinny nigger in a purple suit with red fake-fur lapels and a red hat with fake leopardskin band and peacock feathers. Little slime was standing on a corner talking to two fat blond whores, his arms around them, showing lots of gold tooth.

Nightwing slumped low on the seat and prodded his arm. "Speed up. I don't want him to see me!"

He slowed the Plymouth, smiled. "What, you're scared of a little shit like that?"

"He may be little, but he's bad."

"Yeah, right."

"Believe it, Doctor T. C'mon, let's get out of here!"

"Yeah, right."

After that, he started watching the nigger.

BoJo was a creature of habit, showed up on the boulevard Wednesdays, Fridays, and Sundays, always around eleven P.M. Always driving from the south side of town in a five-year-old lacquer-flake purple Pontiac Grand Prix with gangster whitewall tires wrapped around chrome reversed mag wheels, silver sparkle vinyl top, etched opera windows, fake ermine tuck-and-roll interior with purple piping, "BJ" mono-grammed in gold on the doors, and blackened windows with stickers on them warning that the entire shitty mess was protected by a supersensitive motion-detector alarm system.

The pimpmobile was always left in the same no-parking zone on the south side of Nasty. Cops never checked; Grand Prix never got ticketed. When BoJo got out of the car, he always stretched, then lit an extra-large gold-tipped purple Sherman's with a gold lighter shaped like a Playboy rabbit, before setting the alarm with a little handpiece. Repeated the same song-and-dance on his way back to the car.

The little shit's evenings were just as predictable: a westward stroll on Nasty, collecting from his whores until midnight, then the rest of the night spent drinking at a puke-stinking pimp bar called Ivan's Pistol Dawn on Wednesdays and Fridays. Ogling the dancers at a strip joint called the Lube Job on Sundays.

Dr. Terrific followed him. No one noticed the clean-cut guy in the windbreaker, T-shirt, freshly laundered jeans, and blue tennies. Just another soldier on leave, looking for action.

Soldier of destiny.

Once in a while BoJo left with one of the Lube Job strippers or a whore. Once in a while another nigger, a big, light-skinned, muscle-bound type, hung around him playing bodyguard. But usually he did his thing alone, swaggering along the boulevard as if he owned it. Probably feeling confident because of the nickel-plated pistol he carried-big.45-caliber cowboy job with a white fake-pearl handle. Sometimes he took it out of the glove compartment and waved it around like some kind of toy before sticking it back in his waistband.

Fucker certainly seemed confident, dancing and prancing, laughing all the time, his mouth a fucking gold mine. He wore tight, satin-seamed pants that made his legs look even skinnier than they were, custom-made ticky-tacky wide-shouldered jackets, and patent-leather shoes with high stacked heels. Even with the heels he was short. Black dwarfshit.

Easy to spot.

He watched the scuzz for weeks, was there one warm Friday night, waiting, when BoJo returned from his prowl/party at three-thirteen A.M. Had been waiting in the shit-stinking alley for four hours, standing next to a shit-stinking dumpster, but not the least bit tired. Letting the garbage smells pass right through him, floating above it like some angel, his mind pure and free of thoughts.

Seeing only Fields's face, then BoJo's, then the two of them merging into a white/nigger slime mask.

Pow. His hands itched.

BoJo turned off Nasty and onto the side street, snapping his fingers and staggering-probably stoned out of his gourd from too much juice or weed or whatever. He paused a block away from the Pontiac, the way he always did, hitched up his pants, and lit his Sherman's. The flame from the rabbit lighter illuminated his monkey face for one brief, ugly moment.

Soon as the flame died, Dr. Terrific came running silently out of the alley, all superhero clean-cut and full of destiny.

Sliding a crowbar out from under the windbreaker, he jogged over to the Grand Prix on bouncy tennie feet, raised the crowbar over his head, and brought it down as hard as he could, pulverizing the windshield. The sound of shattering glass still sweet in his ears, he zipped around to the passenger side, squatted low on the sidewalk.

The supersensitive motion-detector alarm started screaming.

BoJo had been dragging on his cigarette. It took a second for the pimp to realize what was happening. Another second before he started screaming too. In harmony with the alarm.

Soul music.

Fucker pulled out his gun, ran/staggered to the Grand Prix as fast as those faggy high heels could take him. Tripping and cursing, finally getting there and staring open-mouthed at the rape of the windshield. Meanwhile, the alarm was still screaming out its mechanical painsong.

BoJo jumped up and down, swung the.45 in a arc, and looked from side to side, spitting and cursing, saying "Come here, mothahfuckahs, goddam fuckin' mothahfuckahs!"

The alarm continued pouring its little electronic heart out.

Meanwhile, he was staying still as a dead man, crouching with the crowbar in his hand. Ready. Stupid nigger never saw him, never thought of checking the passenger side of the car. Just kept jumping and spitting and cursing, leaning over to finger what was left of the windshield, staring at whole chunks of safety glass that had come loose, hundreds of bubbles of glass all over the fake-ermine tuck-and-roll dashboard, stuck in the high-pile fake-ermine bucket seats.

Repeating "Mothahfuckah, fuckin' mothahfuckah" like some spear-chucker chant, stomping his little high-heeled foot, waving the gun around, then finally putting it away, taking the handset out of his pocket and turning off the alarm.

The screaming died; the silence seemed even louder.

Dr. T. held his breath.

"Shit," said BoJo, removing his hat and rubbing a balding head. "Oh, fuck, mothahfuckin' shee-it."

Nigger opened the driver's door with a gold-plated key, brushed glass from the seat and the dashboard, listened to the sad-song tinkle as it fell to the curb, said "Shee-it" again, then got out to reexamine the windshield, as if it had all been a bad dream, next time he looked everything would be okay.

It wasn't.

"Mercy fuck. Shee-it"

Famous last words, because when the fucker straightened up, he was staring into a clean-cut superhero face, hearing:

"Hi, I'm Doctor Terrific. What seems to be the problem?"

"Say wha-" Feeling without really comprehending, the stunning pain as the crowbar smashed him square across his nose, pulverizing his face, driving bone slivers into whatever poor excuse for cerebral tissue he carried in that ugly black' monkey skull.

So easy, just like Fields.

So easy, it made him hard.

Blackberry jelly, he thought, as he hit the nigger slime again and again, stepping back and wiping himself with tissues each time, so that the blood wouldn't spatter his clothes. Wiping the crowbar clean, and leaving it next to the body. Using the tissues to extract the.45 from the slime's waistband and laying the gun on top of the pimp's crotch.

"Umgawa, umgawa. Suck this, coonshit."

Then heading back to the alley, where he retrieved his Polaroid camera, returned to the heap of wet blacktrash, and snapped a flash picture before sauntering " off, soooo casual.

He stopped under a streetlight three blocks away, found a few riny blood freckles on his shoes and T-shirt. The shoes he wiped. The shirt was quickly concealed by zipping up the windbreaker. Then he walked on. Two blocks farther was the Plymouth, nice and comfy. He got in it, drove a mile to another alley with dumpsters. Opened the trunk of the car and wet some rags with alcohol and water from plastic hospital bottles he'd stored there. Pulled the camera apart with his hands, enjoying the cracking sound and imagining it was the nigger's body he was breaking. Wiping each piece, then throwing them into three separate dumpsters.

Riding on and tossing the tissues in four separate sewer drains, tearing off the corner of the one with the most blood and eating it.

He rewarded himself by getting a beer out of the ice chest in the trunk. Drinking it slowly, so casual.

Twenty minutes later he was back on the boulevard, foot-cruising among the geeks and creeps and night-crawling slimeballs, knowing they were his, knowing he could have any of them any time he wanted.

He found a twenty-four-hour fast-food stand-greasy, run-down joint with a pockmarked slant behind the counter. After staring the slant into giving him the key to the men's room, he washed up, examined his face, touched himself, not quite believing he was real.

Then he went back to the counter, ordered a double cheeseburger and vanilla shake from the slant, sat on a cracked plastic stool, eating. Really enjoying his dinner.

The only other customers were a pair of stinking biker faggot types in black leather, stuffing their faces with teriyaki dogs and onion rings. They noticed him, nudged each other, tried to stare him down, tried to give him the evil eye.

His grin changed their minds.

He thought Nightwing would be impressed by the snapshot of all that dead black jelly, overcome with My Hero! gratitude. Instead she gave him a weird look like he was dirty. It made him feel bad for a moment, kind of nauseous and scared, like when he'd been a kid sitting tight-sphinctered on step number six, terrified of being caught.

He stared back at her stare, heard the bad-machine noise get louder, and thought: Stupid ungrateful cunt. Hot rage-pain clawed at the roof of his mouth; he felt the cold rolled steel of the crowbar in his hands. Cooled it with a chest-ballooning deep breath and mind-pictures of the nigger as he'd gone down. Patent shoes black with nightblood.

Be casual. Patient.

But he knew she was hopeless. The romance was over.

He tore the picture in little pieces, ate them, and grinned. Stretched and yawned. "I did it for you. Now you're safe, babe."

"Yeah." Forced smile. "G-great. Thanks-you're terrific!"

"My pleasure, babe." A command.

A minute later: "Do me again, babe."

She hesitated, saw the look on his face, then said, "Yeah, sure, my pleasure, gratis," and lowered her head.

After that their relationship changed. They continued to date, she took his money, did what he wanted, but held back. Emotionally. He could tell.

No more boyfriend/girlfriend, this was heavy duty love/ respect, like a kid for a parent.

Which was okay. He was sick of hearing her sob stories, mean old daddy, all the johns who couldn't get it up, dribbled on her legs, the ones who liked to hurt her.

Fuck that noise. Power was better than closeness any day of the week. Far as he was concerned, they could have continued that way for a while.