Текст книги "Two Graves"

Автор книги: Lincoln Child

Соавторы: Douglas Preston
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Текущая страница: 18 (всего у книги 34 страниц)

40

THE ALARM BELLS HAD BEEN GOING OFF EVER SINCE D’Agosta got the message that Glen Singleton wanted to see him. And now, as he entered the captain’s outer office, the alarms rang even louder. Midge Rawley, Singleton’s secretary—normally so gossipy—barely looked up from her computer terminal as he approached. “Go right in, Lieutenant,” she said without making eye contact.

D’Agosta walked past her into Singleton’s private office. Immediately, his fears were confirmed. Sure enough—there was Singleton, behind his desk, nattily dressed as usual. But it was the expression on the captain’s face that made D’Agosta’s heart sink. Singleton was perhaps the most straightforward, honest man D’Agosta had ever met. He hadn’t the least hint of guile or duplicity—what you saw was what you got. And what D’Agosta saw was a man struggling with a very thorny problem.

“You wanted to see me, Captain?” D’Agosta asked.

“Yes.” Singleton glanced down at a document that lay on his desk. He scanned it, turned a page. “We’re in the midst of a situation, Lieutenant—or at least, you’rein the midst of it.”

D’Agosta raised his eyebrows.

“As squad commander for the Hotel Killer murders, you appear to be caught in a turf war. Between two FBI agents.” He glanced down again at the papers on his desk. “I’ve gotten my hands on a formal complaint Agent Gibbs has just made against Agent Pendergast. In it, he cites lack of cooperation, freelancing, failure to coordinate—among other grievances.” He paused. “Your name comes up in the complaint. Comes up more than once, in fact.”

D’Agosta did not reply.

“I called you in here, privately, for two reasons. First—to advise you to stay out of the crossfire. This is an FBI matter, and, believe me, we don’t want to get involved.”

D’Agosta felt himself stiffening, as if at a cadet review.

Singleton glanced back down at the document, turned yet another page. “The second reason I called you in was to learn anything special about this case that you might know. I need you to share with me the relevant information– allthe relevant information. You see, Lieutenant, if the shit hits the fan and this thing escalates into World War Three, I don’t want to be the one who gets blindsided.”

“It’s all in the report, sir,” D’Agosta said carefully.

“Is it? This is no time to take sides, Lieutenant.”

A silence settled over the office. At last, Singleton sighed. “Vincent, we haven’t always seen eye-to-eye. But I’ve always believed you were a good cop.”

“Thank you, Captain.”

“But this is not the first time your association with Pendergast has become a problem. And jeopardized my good opinion.”

“Sir?”

“Let me be frank. Based on his report, Agent Gibbs seems to believe Pendergast is withholding information. That he isn’t sharing everything he knows.” Singleton paused. “The fact is, Gibbs is deeply suspicious about Pendergast’s actions regarding this latest murder. And I don’t blame him. From what I’ve seen in this document, there’s not even a hint of standard law enforcement protocols being followed here. And there seems to be a lot of unexplained, ah, activitygoing on.”

D’Agosta couldn’t meet Singleton’s disappointed gaze. He looked down at his shoes.

“I know that you and Pendergast have a history. That you’re friends. But this is one of the biggest serial murder cases in years. You are the squad commander. This is yours to lose. So think a minute before you answer. Is there anythingelse I should know?”

D’Agosta remained silent.

“Look, Lieutenant. You went down in flames once before, almost destroyed your career, thanks to Pendergast. I don’t want to see that happen again. It’s obvious Gibbs is bound and determined to crucify Pendergast. He doesn’t care who gets caught up in the collateral damage.”

Still D’Agosta said nothing. He found himself recalling all the times he’d stood shoulder-to-shoulder with Pendergast: against that terrible creature in the natural history museum; against the Wrinklers, deep beneath the streets of Manhattan; against Count Fosco and that bastard Bullard in Italy; and, more recently, against Judson Esterhazy and the mysterious Bund. And yet, at the same time, he could not deny his own doubts over Pendergast’s recent behavior and motives, even his concern for the man’s sanity. And he couldn’t help but recall Laura Hayward’s words: It’s your duty to turn over all evidence, all information, even the crazy stuff. This isn’t about friendship. This is about catching a dangerous killer who’s likely to kill again. Youhave to do the right thing.

He took a deep breath, looked up. And then, as if from far away, he heard himself say: “Pendergast believes his son is the murderer.”

Singleton’s eyes widened. “Excuse me?”

“I know it sounds crazy. But Pendergast told me that he thinks his own son is responsible for these killings.”

“And… you believe this?”

“I don’t know what to believe. Pendergast’s wife just died under terrible circumstances. The man’s come as near to cracking up as anyone I’ve ever seen.”

Singleton shook his head. “Lieutenant, when I asked you for information about this case, I wanted realinformation.” He sat back. “I mean, this sounds ridiculous. I didn’t even know Agent Pendergast had a son.”

“Neither did I, sir.”

“There’s nothing else you want to tell me?”

“There isnothing else I can tell you. It’s like I said—everything else is in my report.”

Singleton looked at him. “So Pendergast withheld information. And you’ve known about this for how long?”

D’Agosta winced inwardly. “Long enough.”

Singleton sat back in his chair. For a moment, neither man spoke.

“Very well, Lieutenant,” Singleton said at last. “I’ll have to think about how best to address that.”

Miserably, D’Agosta nodded his understanding.

“Before you go, let me give you one last piece of advice. A minute ago, I told you not to get involved in this. Not to take sides. And that’s good advice. But the time may come—and, based on what you’ve just told me, it may come sooner than I expected—that all of us will be forced to take a side. If that happens, you willcome down on the side of Gibbs and the BSU. Not on the side of Pendergast. Frankly, I don’t like the man, I don’t like his methods—and this business about his son makes me think he’s finally gone off the deep end. Is that clear, Lieutenant?”

“Extremely clear, sir.”

“Good.” Singleton looked down and turned the report over on his desk, signaling that the meeting was at an end.

41

PROCTOR MOVED QUIETLY THROUGH THE LIBRARY, HIS eyes scanning the books. He was not a bookish person, and almost all the titles were unknown to him. Many were also written in foreign languages. He had no idea how to “educate” anyone, let alone a strange, weak boy the likes of Tristram. But an assignment was an assignment, and Proctor knew his duty. He had to admit the boy was easy to care for. His needs were modest, and he was grateful for every kindness, every meal, no matter how simple. At first—based on his broken speech and strange ways—Proctor assumed he was mentally defective, but that had clearly been a misjudgment; the boy was catching on very fast.

His eye stopped at a title he recognized: Rogue Male, by Geoffrey Household. A good book. A very good book.

Proctor placed his finger on the spine, slipped the book out, then paused to listen. The housekeeper had the night off. The mansion was silent.

… Or was it?

With an easy motion, he tucked the book under his arm and turned, his eye taking in the dim library. It was cold—Proctor did not bother with a fire when Pendergast wasn’t around—and most of the lights were off. It was nine o’clock in the evening, and a bitter winter night had settled in, the wind sweeping off the Hudson.

Proctor continued to listen. His ears could now pick up the sounds of the house, the deep, muffled moan of the wind, the faint ticks and creaks of the old mansion; the scent was as usual, beeswax polish, leather, and wood. And yet he thought he’d heard something. Something quiet, almost below audibility. Something from above.

Still moving casually, Proctor strolled to the far end of the library and slid open a small oak panel, exposing a computer security pad and LCD. It was green down the line, the alarms all set, doors and windows secure, motion sensors quiescent.

With the punch of a button, Proctor temporarily deactivated the motion sensors. Then he strolled out of the library into the reception hall, through a marble archway, and into the so-called cabinet—several rooms that had been arranged by Pendergast into a small museum, its displays taken from the seemingly endless collections of Pendergast’s great-grand-uncle, Enoch Leng. In the center of the first room stood a small but vicious-looking fossilized dinosaur, all teeth and claws, surrounded by case after case of bizarre and otherworldly specimens, from skulls to diamonds, meteorites to stuffed birds.

He moved easily, smoothly, but inside he felt anything but easy. Proctor had an internal radar, honed by years in the special forces, and at the moment that radar was going off. Why, he did not know—there was not one thing he could put his finger on. Everything seemed secure. It was instinct.

Proctor never ignored his instincts.

He climbed the stairs to the second floor. Skirting the moth-eaten, stuffed chimpanzee with no lips, he scanned the doors up and down the hall. All closed. His eyes rested momentarily on the painting of a deer being torn apart by wolves, then moved on.

All was well.

Returning to the first floor, he went back to the library, reactivated the motion sensors, picked up Rogue Male, sat down in a chair strategically positioned toward a mirror on a far wall that allowed him a view out of the library and across the entire reception area.

He opened the book and pretended to read.

As he did so, he maintained his senses on highest alert—especially his sense of smell. Proctor had a supernaturally keen sense of smell, almost as good as a deer’s. It was not something most humans anticipated, and it had saved his life more than once.

Half an hour passed without one thing to arouse his suspicions. He realized it must have been a false alarm. But—never one to make assumptions—he closed the book, yawned, and walked over to the secret bookcase entrance to the elevator that descended into the basement. He rode the elevator down and walked along the narrow basement corridor of undressed stone, the walls covered with niter, damp, and lime.

He turned a corner, pressed himself noiselessly into a recess, and waited.

Nothing.

Slowly, he inhaled, his nose testing the currents of air. But there was no human smell in it, no strange eddies or unexpected warmth; nothing but the chill damp.

Now Proctor began to feel a little foolish. His isolation, his unaccustomed role as protector and tutor, had put him on edge. Nobody could be following him. The bookcase entrance had closed behind him and had clearly not been reopened. The elevator he had taken remained in the basement; no one had called it back to the first floor. Even if someone were on the first floor, they could not possibly have followed him into the basement.

Gradually, under these thoughts, the feeling of alarm began to subside. It was safe to descend to the sub-basement.

Stepping down the corridor to the small stone room, he pressed on the Pendergastian crest. The hidden door opened. He stepped through and waited until it snugged back shut again. Then he descended the long curving staircase and began making his way through the many strange rooms that made up the sub-basement, full of glass bottles, rotting tapestries, dried insects, medicines, and other bizarre collections of Enoch Leng. He hurried to the heavy, iron-banded door that opened into Tristram’s quarters.

The boy was waiting for him patiently. Patience was one of his great virtues. He could sit still, unmoving, with nothing to do, for many hours. It was a quality Proctor admired.

“I brought you a book,” Proctor said.

“Thank you!” The boy rose and took it with eagerness, looking at it, turning it over. “What’s it about?”

Proctor suddenly had a twinge of doubt. Was this really the right book for someone whose brother was a serial killer? That hadn’t occurred to him before. He cleared his throat. “It’s about a man who stalks and tries to kill a dictator. He’s caught and escapes.” He paused. His description didn’t make it seem very interesting. “I’ll read you the first chapter.”

“Please!” Tristram sat down on the bed, waiting.

“Stop me if there are any words you don’t understand. And when I’m done, we’ll talk about the chapter. You’ll have questions—be sure to ask them.” Proctor settled into a chair, opened the book, cleared his throat, and started to read.

“I cannot blame them. After all, one doesn’t need a telescopic sight to shoot boar or bear…”

Suddenly, Proctor felt something behind him: a presence. He spun and leapt up, clapping his hand on his weapon, but the figure vanished back into the darkness of the corridor even before his hand had touched the gun. But the image of the face he’d seen was engraved on his mind. It was the face of Tristram—only keener and more blade-like.

Alban.

42

SUPERVISORY SPECIAL AGENT PETER S. JOYCE’S OFFICE WAS one of the more cluttered in the big building at 26 Federal Plaza. The shelves were filled with books about American history, the criminal justice system, and nautical lore; the walls were decorated with photos of his weather-beaten thirty-two-foot sloop, the Burden of Proof. Joyce’s desk, however, was completely bare, like the deck of a ship cleared for an approaching gale. The office’s lone window looked out into the Lower Manhattan night—Joyce was a confirmed night owl, and he always saved his most serious work of the day for the last.

There was a soft knock at the door.

“Enter,” Joyce said.

The door opened and Special Agent Aloysius Pendergast came in. He shut the door quietly behind him, then stepped forward and slipped into the single chair placed before Joyce’s desk.

Joyce felt a twinge of annoyance that the man had seated himself before being asked, but he covered it up. He had more important things to say.

“Agent Pendergast,” Joyce began. “In the three years since I was transferred to the New York field office, I’ve tolerated your, shall we say, unconventionalbehavior as an agent—often against the advice of others. I’ve run interference for you on more than one occasion, backed up your methods when others have wanted to call you on the carpet. I’ve done this for a variety of reasons. I’m not a stickler for protocol. I’m no lover of the FBI’s fondness for bureaucracy. I’m more interested in results—and you’ve rarely disappointed in that regard. You may be unconventional, but you’re damn effective. Your military experience is highly impressive—at least from what I’ve seen of the nonclassified reports in your folder. And there is an extremely complimentary appraisal in your folder, written by the late Michael Decker, one of the most decorated and honored agents in recent memory. I’ve frequently thought back to that appraisal when complaints of your behavior have crossed my desk.”

He sat forward, put his arms on the desk, and tented his fingers. “But now, Agent Pendergast, you’ve done something that I can’t ignore, and that I can’t tolerate. You have stepped way, wayover the line.”

“Are you referring to Agent Gibbs’s formal complaint?” Pendergast asked.

If Joyce was surprised by this, he didn’t show it. “Only in part.” He hesitated. “I’m no friend of Agent Gibbs or the BSU. His assertions about your freelancing, your failure to coordinate, deviating from standard procedure, not being a team player, don’t really concern me.” He made a dismissive motion. “But his other charges are more serious. Your involving yourself in this case without waiting for official authorization, for example. You of all people should know that Gibbs is only on the case because the New York City police specifically asked for help from the BSU. You’re not affiliated with Behavioral Sciences—your business with this case is obscure, and your efforts to have yourself assigned to it have seriously ruffled some feathers around here. Yet even that, I might have been able to overlook—but I can’t overlook your most egregious infraction.”

“Which is?” Pendergast repeated.

“Withholding information of critical relevance to the case.”

“And may I ask what that information is?”

“That the Hotel Killer is your own son.”

Pendergast went rigid.

“Gibbs suspected you were withholding information, Agent Pendergast. The NYPD confirmed it. When they first heard you suspected your son to be the killer, early this afternoon, they did not take it seriously. They thought you were… well, non compos mentis. But of course they were duty-bound to follow up. Comparison of the Hotel Killer’s DNA with yours—which we have on file, as you know—has verified it.” Joyce sighed. “This information—information of absolutely crucialimportance—you withheld from the investigation. There can be no possible justification. It not only looks bad, it isbad. This goes far beyond conflict of interest. It verges on a criminal charge of aiding and abetting.”

Pendergast did not reply. He looked back at Joyce, an unreadable expression on his face.

“Agent Pendergast, I have no idea how your son got involved in this, or why, or how you learned of it, or what you were planning to do about it. You’re clearly in an intolerable personal position, and for that you have my deepest sympathy. But let me be frank with you: your actions in this matter have been unethical at best and illegal at worst.”

Joyce let this hang in the air a long moment before continuing.

“As you know, when it comes to disciplinary action, we have a fixed bureaucracy in place. As a first-line supervisor, I can’t even give you a slap on the wrist. So I sent a report to the Office of the Special Agent in Charge–New York Division, detailing your offenses and recommending immediate termination.”

Another pause.

“The SAC’s office dropped it right back in my lap. They wouldn’t touch it. So this morning I resubmitted the report, this time to the Office of Professional Responsibility.”

Joyce sighed. He gave Pendergast a sidelong stare, as if trying to evaluate a Japanese puzzle box. “Ordinarily, the OPR boys would have been all over you like stink on shit. There would be interrogations, they’d be calling witnesses, a decision would be made, a punishment would come down. And you’d be put through the wringer while the process ground on. Instead, what happens? Within an hour, I get a response: ‘Thirty days off the street.’ ”

Joyce shook his head. “That’s it. Instead of five to ten in Leavenworth, you get thirty days off the street: a month without pay. And since your annual FBI salary is—what, a dollar-a-year honorarium?—I doubt that’s going to sting very much.” He raised a speculative eyebrow. “I don’t know who your guardian angel is, Special Agent Pendergast, but I’ll tell you this: you’re one charmed son of a bitch.”

The room fell into silence. At last, Joyce shifted in his chair. “Is there anything you’d like to add?”

Pendergast shook his head almost imperceptibly. “I would say you’ve articulated the situation admirably, Supervisory Special Agent Joyce.”

“In that case—take your thirty days. And stay far, faraway from this case.” Turning away from Pendergast, Joyce plucked Cruising Boats Within Your Budgetfrom a shelf behind him, placed it on his desk, and began to read.

43

PROCTOR WHEELED BACK TO TRISTRAM, WHO WAS SITTING on his bed, white-faced. “Stay here,” he said. “I’ll lock you in. You’ll be safe in this room.” He stepped out, locked the door securely, and then raced down the stone corridor, flattening himself against the wall just before the hallway opened on to the nearest sub-basement room.

He took out his .45, racked a round into the chamber, flicked on the laser sights. Then he took a moment to clear his head, get a feel for the tactical situation. He pushed away all surprise, all pain from his bruised ribs, all speculation about how the youth could have gotten in—and focused on the problem at hand.

The killer meant to lure him out into the sub-basement proper. Alban wanted him to follow. Just as clearly, that was the course of action he must take. There was no other. He could not allow the young man—now inside the security of the house—any freedom of action. He had to track him down. Alban meant to ambush him—he was sure of that. So he had to be unpredictable. He had to develop a strategy.

And he had to understand why Alban hadn’t killed him outright, when he’d clearly had the chance.

All these thoughts occurred in a split second.

Eyeing the ground, Proctor looked for traces of Alban’s passing, but was unable to tease out the youth’s marks from the welter of fresh footprints in the dust. He took a deep breath and, after a moment, spun around the corner and covered the room with his weapon. A single, naked lightbulb, hanging from a wire that ran the length of the sub-basement, illuminated the room, casting deep shadows. Cases along the walls displayed a motley collection of stuffed reptiles.

The room appeared to be empty.

With a quick movement he darted across the floor and took cover behind an old case that lay on its side, rusting halberds spilling out. From that vantage point he scoured the room as best he could. He did not need to hurry. The killer wasn’t trying to escape—the killer was stalking him just as surely as he was stalking the killer.

After ascertaining that the room was empty, Proctor darted to the far end and flattened himself against the archway that led into the next chamber, back in the direction of the staircase leading upward. This was filled with shelving, not just along the wall but also running across the middle, loaded with glass bottles in different colors, filled with strange and bizarre objects, dried insects, lizards, seeds, liquids and powders. There were many places to hide among those complicated rows of shelves, many places in which to set up an ambush.

A pity, what he would have to do.

Proctor carried a Beretta Px4 Storm with a 9 + 1 magazine, but he always carried two extra twenty-round magazines on his person: fifty rounds in all. He had a phobia of running out of ammunition. It had never happened to him, and it never would.

He slipped out the ten-round magazine, inserted one of the twenties. It significantly increased the weight of the weapon, but it was necessary for what he was about to do.

Unpredictable…

Suddenly Proctor surged under the archway, firing repeatedly into the rows of shelves as he sprinted down the length of the room, shooting ahead first to one side and then to the other. The result was a roar of sound and a chaotic storm of glass as the expanding rounds tore through multiple rows of shelves, fragmenting as they went, blowing the shelving to smithereens. The noise in the confined space was deafening. Anyone hiding among the shelves would be, at the very least, blinded by flying glass and quite possibly struck by fragmenting bullets. Such a person would be unable to return fire accurately.

Proctor continued running into the next chamber, maintaining a withering fire, blowing hundreds of glass bottles into glittering showers as he ran.

The twenty rounds carried him through to a third chamber, a smaller space filled with cases of stuffed birds. Here, the magazine empty, he took cover behind a heavy oaken case that projected from one wall. Crouching, he held his breath and listened with great intensity.

The residual sounds from the shoot-up echoed through the sub-basement: liquids draining, glass falling, an occasional crash. The stone floor behind him was now covered with thousands of glass shards. Nobody could walk over it—nobody—without making a sound. If the killer were behind him, he would not be able to follow without making his presence known.

Still he waited. Gradually the after-sounds of destruction died away, leaving the monotonous drip, dripof liquids and a foul compound odor of alcohol, formaldehyde, dead animals, and dried insects.

He knew that the next room was also stuffed with display cases, offering many hiding areas. The cases, he recalled, were loaded with ancient tools and antique devices. Proctor had no idea why Enoch Leng had assembled these bizarre collections, nor did he care. All he knew was that—most likely in one of the ancient rooms ahead—his adversary was also waiting.

Proctor waited a very long time. Often success came from simply outwaiting one’s adversary. Eventually they would move. And then, bang.

But this time, silence reigned. The adversary did not show himself.

While it was possible the killer was in one of the rooms he’d already passed through, dead or gravely wounded, Proctor somehow doubted it. His gut told him that Alban was in one of the rooms that lay ahead.

Waiting.

Proctor removed the empty magazine and inserted the second twenty-round box. In that moment he heard the crunch of a footfall on glass.

Spinning, astonished the killer was behind him, he quickly moved to a more defensible position in an alcove against the mortared wall.

He waited again, listening intently. The entire floor of the previous room was covered with shattered glass. It was not possible to move without making noise—or was it?

Ever so slowly, he crept up to the edge of the stone arch, listening. But there was no more sound. Could it have been something falling onto the glass?

The uncertainty began to eat away at Proctor. He had to see, to find out. In a burst of speed, he launched himself back through the archway, racing down the center of the room, again firing to the left and right. He saw a flash of movement to his far right, behind a row of shattered bottles, and he fired at it repeatedly through the shelves before taking cover in an alcove along the far wall.

Pressing himself into the space, he listened again. He must have hit the killer, or at least sprayed him with flying glass. He would be injured, perhaps blinded, frightened, disoriented.

… Or was this just wishful thinking?

Another loud crunch of glass, an unmistakable footfall.

Bursting from the alcove, Proctor ran, firing again in the direction of the sound, through the already-broken bottles, sending up a kaleidoscopic spray of glittering shards, additional shelves crashing down, beakers spraying their contents. But as he raked the area from where the sound had come, he realized there was nobody. Nothing. He kept running until he reached the far end of the chamber, taking cover in a corner, staring wildly about.

Abruptly, a pebble arced through the air, hit the lightbulb, and the room was plunged into darkness. Proctor immediately fired in the direction from which the pebble had been launched, the light from the adjacent room streaming in and providing a little illumination.

He lowered the gun, breathing hard. How many rounds did he have left? He normally kept count, but this time he had lost track. He’d fired twenty, plus at least fifteen more. Which left perhaps five in this magazine and ten in the final magazine.

His nightmare—running out of ammo—was starting to come true.

As he crouched in the black corner, he realized his strategy had been a failure. He was dealing with an adversary of tremendous foresight and skill.

He would need a new strategy. The killer probably expected him to continue on, to keep probing, searching, as he had been doing. So instead he would now turn around and retrace his steps. He would force the killer to come to him.

Creeping along the wall, he reached the doorway to the next room. Light streamed through from its single bulb. This room, too, had been full of bottles, and the floor was covered with glass. He now faced the same problem he had posed his adversary. He could not move without making noise.

Maybe. Crouching, he slipped off his shoes. Keeping low, he inched around the archway into the next room in his stockinged feet, keeping to the deep shadows behind the shattered cases. Slowly, slowly he moved, in complete silence, ignoring the broken glass that cut into the soles of his feet. Between each step he paused, listening.

He heard a brief intake of breath, to his right, behind a massive row of broken shelves. Unmistakable. The killer must also be moving in stockinged feet.

Did the killer see him? Impossible to know.

Unpredictable—that’s what he had to keep in mind.

He erupted into sudden, furious motion, running straight at the long, tall row of shelves, slamming into them and heaving them over, the shelving falling against the next row and the next, like dominoes, the already-broken and shot-up frames crashing down like a house of cards, trapping the person within in a storm of broken glass, chemicals, specimens, and twisted shelving.

As he stepped back, he felt a sudden blow to his arm and his .45 went flying. He spun, swinging his fist around, but the black figure had already flitted aside, slamming him in the ribs and sending him sprawling onto the glass.

Proctor rolled and was up in one swift motion, the jagged neck of a broken beaker in his hand. The killer jumped back, picking up his own piece of jagged glass. They circled each other warily.

Proctor, an expert with a knife, lunged, but the killer skipped aside and slashed at him, cutting his forearm. Proctor swept back and managed to rip the killer’s shirt, but the killer once again—with supernatural speed—turned and avoided the main thrust.

Never in his life had Proctor seen anyone move so fast or anticipate so well. He advanced on the killer, slashing again and again, forcing him to retreat but scoring no hits. The killer backed against a table, dropped his shard of glass, and picked up a heavy retort. Proctor pressed his advantage, advancing and slashing. But then suddenly, as if from nowhere, the killer—who feinted back again as if once again in retreat—twisted around in the most extraordinary movement and slammed the retort against the side of Proctor’s head, the heavy glass shattering and sending Proctor to the floor, dazed.