Sidney Sheldon - " The Naked Face "

The Naked Face
Sidney Sheldon
To the Women in my life -
Jorja
Mary
-and-
Natalie

Chapter One

At ten minutes before eleven in the morning, the sky
exploded into a carnival of white confetti that instantly
blanketed the city. The soft snow turned the already frozen
streets of Manhattan to grey slush and the icy December wind
herded the Christmas shoppers towards the comfort of their
apartments and homes.
On Lexington Avenue the tall, thin man in the yellow rain
slicker moved along with the rushing Christmas crowd to a
rhythm of his own. He was walking rapidly, but it was not
with the frantic pace of the other pedestrians who were
trying to escape the cold. His head was lifted and he seemed
oblivious to the passers-by who bumped against him. He was
free after a lifetime of purgatory, and he was on his way
home to tell Mary that it was finished. The past was going to
bury its dead and the future was bright and golden. He was
thinking how her face would glow when he told her the news.
As he reached the corner of Fifty-ninth Street, the traffic
light ambered its way to red and he stopped with the
impatient crowd. A few feet away, a Salvation Army Santa
Claus stood over a large kettle. The man reached in his
pocket for some coins, an offering to the gods of fortune. At
that instant someone clapped him on the back, a sudden
stinging blow that rocked his whole body. Some overhearty
Christmas drunk trying to be friendly.
Or Bruce Boyd. Bruce, who had never known his own strength
and had a childish habit of hurting him physically. But he
had not seen Bruce in more than a year. The man started to
turn his head to see who had hit him, and to his surprise,
his knees began to buckle. In slow motion, watching himself
from a distance, he could see his body hit the sidewalk.
There was a dull pain in his back and it began to spread. It
became hard to breathe. He was aware of a parade of shoes
moving past his face as though animated with a life of their
own. His cheek began to feel numb from the freezing sidewalk
He knew he must not lie there. He opened his mouth to ask
someone to help him, and a warm, red river began to gush out
and flow into the melting snow. He watched in dazed
fascination as it moved across the sidewalk and ran down into
the gutter. The pain was worse now, but he didn't mind it so
much because he had suddenly remembered his good news. He was
free. He was going to tell Mary that he was free. He closed
his eyes to rest them from the blinding whiteness of the sky.
The snow began to turn to icy sleet, but he no longer felt
anything.

Chapter Two

Carol Roberts heard the sounds of the reception door
opening and closing and the men walking in, and before she
even looked up, she could smell what they were. There were
two of them. One was in his middle forties. He was a big
mother, about six foot three, and all muscle. He had a
massive head with deep-set steely blue eyes and a weary,
humourless mouth. The second man was younger. His features
were clean-cut, sensitive. His eyes were brown and alert. The
two men looked completely different and yet, as far as Carol
was concerned, they could have been identical.
They were fuzz. That was what she had smelled. As they
moved towards her desk she could feel the drops of
perspiration begin to trickle down her armpits through the
shield of anti-perspirant. Frantically her mind darted over
all the treacherous areas of vulnerability. Chick? Christ, he
had kept out of trouble for over six months. Since that night
in his apartment when he had asked her to marry him and had
promised to quit the gang.
Sammy? He was overseas in the Air Force, and if anything
had happened to her brother, they would not have sent these
two mothers to break the news. No, they were here to bust
her. She was carrying grass
in her purse, and some loudmouthed prick had rapped about
it. But why two of them? Carol tried to tell herself that
they could not touch her. She was no longer some dumb black
hooker from Harlem that they could push around. Not any more.
She was the receptionist for one of the biggest
psychoanalysts in the country. But as the two men moved
towards her, Carol's panic increased. There was the feral
memory of too many years of hiding in stinking, overcrowded
tenement apartments while the white Law broke down doors and
hauled away a father, or a sister, or a cousin.
But nothing of the turmoil in her mind showed on her face.
At first glance the two detectives saw only a young and
nubile, tawny-skinned Negress in a smartly tailored beige
dress. Her voice was cool and impersonal. 'May I help you?'
she asked.
Then Lt. Andrew McGreavy, the older detective, spotted the
spreading perspiration stain under the armpit of her dress.
He automatically filed it away as an interesting piece of
information for future use. The doctor's receptionist was
up-tight. McGreavy pulled out a wallet with a worn badge
pinned onto the cracked imitation leather, Lieutenant
McGreavy, Nineteenth Precinct.' He indicated his partner.
'Detective Angeli. We're from the Homicide Division.'
Homicide? A muscle in Carol's arm twitched involuntarily.
Chick! He had killed someone. He had broken his promise to
her and gone back to the gang. He had pulled a robbery and
had shot someone, or - was he shot? Dead? Is that what they
had come to tell her? She felt the perspiration stain begin
to widen. Carol suddenly became conscious of it. McGreavy was
looking at her face, but she knew that he had noticed it. She
and the McGreavys of the world needed no words. They
recognized each other on sight. They had known each other for
hundreds of years.
'We'd like to see Dr. Judd Stevens,' said the younger
detective. His voice was gentle and polite, and went with his
appearance. She noticed for the first time that he carried a
small parcel wrapped in brown paper and held together with
string.
It took an instant for his words to sink in. So it wasn't
Chick. Or Sammy. Or the grass.
'I'm sorry,' she said, barely hiding her relief. 'Dr.
Stevens is with a patient.'
This will only take a few minutes,' McGreavy said. 'We
want to ask him some questions.' He paused. 'We can either do
it here, or at Police Headquarters.'
She looked at the two of them a moment, puzzled. What the
hell could two Homicide detectives want with Dr. Stevens?
Whatever the police might think, the doctor had not done
anything wrong. She knew him too well. How long had it been?
Four years. It had started in night court...
It was three am and the overhead lights in the courtroom
bathed everyone in an unhealthy pallor. The room was old and
tired and uncaring, saturated with the stale smell of fear
that had accumulated over
the years like layers of flaked paint.
It was Carol's lousy luck that Judge Murphy was sitting on
the bench again. She had been up before him only two weeks
before and had got off with probation. First offence. Meaning
it was the first time the bastards had caught her. This time
she knew the judge was going to throw the book at her.
The case on the docket ahead of hers was almost over. A
tall, quiet-looking man standing before the judge was saying
something about his client, a fat man in handcuffs who
trembled all over. She figured the quiet-looking man must be
a mouthpiece. There was a look about him, an air of easy
confidence,
that made her feel the fat man was lucky to have him. She
didn't have anyone.
The men moved away from the bench and Carol heard her name
called. She stood up, pressing her
knees together to keep them from trembling. The bailiff
gave her a gentle push towards the bench. The court clerk
handed the charge sheet to the judge.
Judge Murphy looked at Carol, then at the sheet of paper
in front of him.
'Carol Roberts. Soliciting on the streets, vagrancy,
possession of marijuana, and resisting arrest.'
The last was a lot of shit. The policemen had shoved her
and she had kicked him in the balls. After all, she was an
American citizen.
'You were in here a few weeks ago, weren't you, Carol?'
She made her voice sound uncertain. 'I believe I was. Your
Honour.'
'And I gave you probation.'
'Yes, sir.'
'How old are you?'
She should have known they would ask. 'Sixteen. Today's my
sixteenth birthday. Happy birthday to me,' she said. And she
burst into tears, huge sobs that wracked her body.
The tall, quiet man had been standing at a table at the
side gathering up some papers and putting them in
a leather attache case. As Carol stood there sobbing, he
looked up and watched her for a moment. Then he spoke to
judge Murphy.
The judge called a recess and the two men disappeared into
the judge's chambers. Fifteen minutes later, the bailiff
escorted Carol into the judge's chambers, where the quiet man
was earnestly talking to the judge.
'You're a lucky girl, Carol,' Judge Murphy said. 'You're
going to get another chance. The Court is remanding you to
the personal custody of Dr. Stevens.'
So the tall mother wasn't a mouthpiece — he was a quack.
She wouldn't have cared if he was Jack the Ripper. All she
wanted was to get out of that stinking courtroom before they
found out it wasn't her birthday.
The doctor drove her to his apartment, making small talk
that did not require any answers, giving Carol
a chance to pull herself together and think things out He
stopped the car in front of a modern apartment building on
Seventy-first Street overlooking the East River. The building
had a doorman and an elevator operator, and from the calm way
they greeted him, you would think he came home every morning
at three am with a sixteen-year-old black hooker.
Carol had never seen an apartment like the doctor's. The
living-room was done in white with two long, low couches
covered in oatmeal tweed. Between the couches was an enormous
square coffee table with
a thick glass top. On it was a large chessboard with
carved Venetian figures. Modern paintings hung on the wall.
In the foyer was a closed-circuit television monitor that
showed the entrance to the lobby. In
one comer of the living-room was a smoked glass bar with
shelves of crystal glasses and decanters. Looking out the
window, Carol could see tiny boats, far below, tossing their
way along the East River.
'Courts always make me hungry,' Judd said. 'Why don't I
whip up a little birthday supper?' And he took her into the
kitchen where she watched him skilfully put together a
Mexican omelette, French-fried potatoes, toasted English
muffins, a salad, and coffee. That's one of the advantages of
being a bachelor,' he said. I can cook when I feel like it.'
So he was a bachelor without any home pussy. If she played
her cards right, this could turn out to be a bonanza. When
she had finished devouring the meal, he had taken her into
the guest bedroom. The bedroom was done in blue, dominated by
a large double bed with a blue checked bedspread. There was
a low Spanish dresser of dark wood with brass fittings.
'You can spend the night here,' he said. 'I'll rustle up a
pair of pyjamas for you.'
As Carol looked around the tastefully decorated room she
thought, Carol, baby! You've hit the jackpot! This mother's
looking for a piece of jailbait black ass. And you're the
baby who is gonna give it to him.
She undressed and spent the next half hour in the shower.
When she came out, a towel wrapped around her shining,
voluptuous body, she saw that the motherfucking ofay had
placed a pair of his pyjamas on the bed. She laughed
knowingly and left them there. She threw the towel down and
strolled into the living-room. He was not there. She looked
through the door leading into a den. He was sitting at a
large, comfortable desk with an old-fashioned desk lamp
hanging over it The den was crammed with books from floor to
ceiling. She walked up behind him and kissed him on the neck.
'Let's get started, baby' she whispered. 'You got me so horny
I can't stand it' She pressed closer to him.
'What are we waitin' for, big daddy? If you don't ball me
quick, I'll go out of my cotton-pickin' mind.'
He regarded her for a second with thoughtful dark grey
eyes. 'Haven't you got enough trouble?' he asked mildly. 'You
can't help being born a Negro, but who told you you had to be
a black dropout pot-smoking sixteen-year-old whore?'
She stared at him, baffled, wondering what she had said
wrong. Maybe he had to get himself worked up and whip her
first to get his kicks. Or maybe it was the Reverend Davidson
bit. He was going to pray over her black assf reform her, and
then lay her. She tried again. She reached between bis legs
and stroked him, whispering, 'Go, baby. Sock it to me.'
He gently disengaged himself and sat her in an armchair.
She had never been so puzzled. He didn't look like a fag, but
these days you never knew. 'What's your bag, baby? Tell me
how you like to freak out
and I'll give it to you.'
'All right,' he said. 'Let's rap.'
'You mean --talk?'
'That's right.'
And they talked. All night long. It was the strangest
night that Carol had ever spent. Dr Stevens kept leaping from
one subject to another, exploring, testing her. He asked her
opinion about Vietnam, ghettos, and college riots. Every time
Carol thought she had figured out what he was really after,
he switched to another subject. They talked of things she had
never heard of, and about subjects in which she considered
herself the world's greatest living expert. Months afterwards
she used to lie awake, trying to recall the word, the idea,
the magic phrase that had changed her. She had never been
able to because she finally realized that there had been no
magic word. What Dr. Stevens had done was simple. He had
talked to her. Really talked to her. No one had ever done
that before. He had treated her like a human being, an equal,
whose opinions and feelings he cared about.
Somewhere during the course of the night she suddenly
became aware of her nakedness and went in and put on his
pyjamas. He came in and sat on the edge of the bed and they
talked some more. They talked about Mao Tse-tung and hula
hoops and the Pill. And having a mother and father who had
never been married. Carol told him things she had never told
anybody in her life. Things that had been long buried deep in
her subconscious. And when she had finally fallen asleep, she
had felt totally empty. It was as though she had had a major
operation, and a river of poison had been drained out of
her.
In the morning, after breakfast, he handed her a hundred
dollars.
She hesitated, then finally said, 'I lied. It's not my
birthday.'
'I know.' He grinned. 'But we won't tell the judge.' His
tone changed. 'You can take the money and walk out of here
and no one will bother you until the next time you get caught
by the police.' He paused. 'I need a receptionist. I think
you'd be marvellous at the job.'
She looked at him unbelievingly. 'You're putting me on. I
can't take shorthand or type.' 'You could if you went back to
school' Carol looked at him a moment and then said
enthusiastically, 'I never thought of that. That sounds
groovy.' She couldn't wait to get the hell out of the
apartment with his hundred dollars and flash it at the boys
and girls at Fishman's Drug Store in Harlem, where the gang
hung out. She could buy enough kicks with this money to last
a week.
When she walked into Fishman's Drug Store, it was as
though she had never been away. She saw the same bitter faces
and heard the same hip, defeated chatter. She was home. She
kept thinking of the doctor's apartment. It wasn't the
furniture that made the big difference. It was so clean. And
quiet It was like a little island somewhere in another world.
And he had offered her a passport to it. What was there
to lose? She could try it for laughs, to show the doctor
that he was wrong, that she couldn't make it.
To her own great surprise, Carol enrolled in night school.
She left her furnished room with the rust-stained
washbasin and broken toilet and the torn green window shade
and the lumpy iron cot where she would turn tricks and act
out plays. She was a beautiful heiress in Paris or London or
Rome, and the man pumping away on top of her was a wealthy,
handsome prince, dying to marry her. And as each man had his
orgasm and crawled off her, her dream died. Until the next
time.
She left the room and all her princes without a backward
glance and moved back in with her parents.
Dr. Stevens gave allowance while she was studying. She
finished high school with top grades. The doctor was there on
graduation day, his grey eyes bright with pride. Someone
believed in her. She was somebody. She took a day job at
Nedick's and took a secretarial course at night. The day
after she finished, she went to work for Dr. Stevens and
could afford her own apartment
In the four years that had passed Dr Stevens had always
treated her with the same grave courtesy he had shown her the
first night At first she had waited for him to make some
reference to what she had been, and what she had become. But
she had finally come to the realization that he had always
seen her as what she was now. All he had done was to help her
fulfil herself. Whenever she had a problem, he always found
rime to discuss it with her. Recently she had been meaning to
tell him about what had happened with her and Chick and ask
him whether she should tell Chick, but she kept putting it
off. She wanted her Dr. Stevens to be proud of her. She would
have done anything for him. She would have slept with him,
killed for him...
And now here were these two mothers from the Homicide
Squad wanting to see him.
McGreavy was getting impatient 'How about it, miss?' he
asked.
'I have orders never to disturb him when he's with a
patient,' said Carol. She saw the expression that came into
McGreavy's eyes. 'I'll ring him.' She picked up the phone and
pressed the intercom buzzer. After thirty seconds of silence,
Dr. Stevens's voice came over the phone. 'Yes?'
'There are two detectives here to see you, Doctor. They're
from the Homicide Division.'
She listened for a change in his voice ... nervousness...
fear. There was nothing. 'They'll have to wait,'
he said. He went off the line.
A surge of pride flared through her. Maybe they could
panic her, but they could never get her doctor to lose his
cool. She looked up defiantly. "You heard him,' she said.
"How long will his patient be in there?' asked Angeli, the
younger man.
She glanced at the clock on the desk. 'Another twenty-five
minutes. It's his last patient for the day.'
The two men exchanged a look.
'Well wait.' sighed McGreavy.
They took chairs. McGreavy was studying her. 'You look
familiar,' he said.
She wasn't deceived. The mother was on a fishing
expedition. 'You know what they say,' replied Carol
'We all look alike.'
Exactly twenty-five minutes later, Carol heard the click
of the side door that led from the doctor's private office
directly to the corridor. A few minutes later, the door of
the doctor's office opened and Dr. Judd Stevens stepped out.
He hesitated as he saw McGreavy. 'We've met before,' he said.
He could not remember where.
McGreavy nodded impassively. "Yeah ... Lieutenant
McGreavy.' He indicated Angeli. 'Detective Frank Angeli.'
Judd and Angeli shook hands. 'Come in.'
The men walked into Judd's private office and the door
closed. Carol looked after them, trying to piece it together.
The big detective had seemed antagonistic towards Dr.
Stevens. But maybe that was just his natural charm. Carol was
sure of only one thing. Her dress would have to go to the
cleaner's.
Judd's office was furnished like a French country
living-room. There was no working desk. Instead, comfortable
easy chairs and end tables with authentic antique lamps were
scattered about the room. At the far end of the office a
private door led out to the corridor. On the floor was an
exquisitely patterned Edward Fields area rug, and in a corner
was a comfortable damask-covered contour couch. McGreavy
noted that there were no diplomas on the walls. But he had
checked before coming here. If Dr. Stevens had wanted to, he
could have covered his walls with diplomas and certificates.
This is the first psychiatrist's office I've ever been
in,' Angeli said, openly impressed. 'I wish my house looked
like this.'
'It relaxes my patients,' Judd said easily. 'And by the
way, I'm a psychoanalyst.'
'Sorry,' Angeli said. 'What's the difference?'
'About fifty dollars an hour,' McGreavy said. 'My partner
doesn't get around much.'
Partner. And Judd suddenly remembered. McGreavy's partner
had been shot and killed and McGreavy had been wounded during
the holdup of a liquor store four - or was it five? - years
ago. A petty hoodlum named Amos Ziffren had been arrested for
the crime. Ziffren's attorney had pleaded his client not
guilty by reason of insanity. Judd had been called in as an
expert for the defence and asked to examine Ziffren. He had
found that he was hopelessly insane with advanced paresis. On
Judd's testimony, Ziffren had escaped the death penalty and
had been sent to a mental institution.
'I remember you now,' Judd said. 'The Ziffren case. You
had three bullets in you; your partner was killed.'
'And I remember you,' McGreavy said. 'You got the killer
off.'
'What can I do for you?'
'We need some information, Doctor,' McGreavy said He
nodded to Angeli. Angeli began fumbling at
the string on the package he carried.
'We'd like you to identify something for us,' McGreavy
said. His voice was careful, giving nothing away.
Angeli had the package open. He held up a yellow oilskin
rain slicker. 'Have you ever seen this before?'
'It looks like mine,' Judd said in surprise,
'It is yours. At least your name is stencilled inside.'
'Where did you find it?'
'Where do you think we found it?' The two men were no
longer casual A subtle change had taken place
in their faces.
Judd studied McGreavy a moment, then picked up a pipe from
a rack on a long, low table and began to fill it with tobacco
from a jar. 'I think you'd better tell me what this is all
about,' he said quietly.
'It's about this raincoat, Dr. Stevens," said McGreavy.
'If it's yours, we want to know how it got out of your
possession.'
There's no mystery about it. It was drizzling when I came
in this morning. My raincoat was at the cleaners, so I wore
the yellow slicker. I keep it for fishing trips. One of my
patients hadn't brought a raincoat. It was beginning to snow
pretty heavily, so I let him borrow the slicker.' He stopped,
suddenly worried. 'What's happened to him?'
'Happened to who?' McGreavy asked.
'My patient - John Hanson.'
'Check,' Angeli said gently. 'You hit the bull's-eye. The
reason Mr. Hanson couldn't return the coat
himself is that he's dead.'
Judd felt a small shock go through him. 'Dead?'
'Someone stuck a knife in his back,' McGreavy said.
Judd stared at him increduously. McGreavy took the coat
from Angeli and turned it around so that Judd could see the
large, ugly slash in the material. The back of the coat was
covered with dull, henna-coloured stains. A feeling of nausea
swept over Judd. 'Who would want to kill him?'
'We were hoping that you could tell us, Dr. Stevens,' said
Angeli. 'Who'd know better than his psychoanalyst?'
Judd shook his head helplessly. 'When did it happen?'
McGreavy answered. 'Eleven o'clock this morning. On
Lexington Avenue, about a block from your office. A few dozen
people must have seen him fall, but they were busy going home
to get ready to celebrate the birth of Christ, so they let
him lie there bleeding to death in the snow.'
Judd squeezed the edge of the table, his knuckles white.
'What time was Hanson here this morning?' asked Angeli.
'Ten o'clock.'
'How long do your sessions last. Doctor?'
'Fifty minutes.'
'Did he leave as soon as it was over?'
'Yes. I had another patient waiting.'
'Did Hanson go out through the reception office?"
'No. My patients come in through the reception office and
leave by that door.' He indicated the private door leading to
the outside corridor. 'In that way they don't meet each
other.'
McGreavy nodded. 'So Hanson was killed within a few
minutes of the time he left here. Why was he coming to see
you?'
Judd hesitated. 'I'm sorry. I can't discuss a
doctor-patient relationship.'
'Someone murdered him.' McGreavy said. 'You might be able
to help us find his killer.'
Judd's pipe had gone out. He took his time lighting it
again.
"How long had he been coming to you?' This time it was
Angeli. Police teamwork.
"Three years.' Judd said.
'What was his problem?'
Judd hesitated. He saw John Hanson as he had looked that
morning; excited, smiling, eager to enjoy his new freedom.
'He was a homosexual.'
'This is going to be another one of those beauties.'
McGreavy said bitterly.
'Was a homosexual,' Judd said. 'Hanson was cured. I told
him this morning that he didn't have to see me any more. He
was ready to move back in with his family. He has - had — a
wife and two children.'
'A fag with a family?' asked McGreavy.
'It happens often.'
'Maybe one of his homo playmates didn't want to cut him
loose. They got in a fight. He lost his temper and slipped a
knife in his boyfriend's back'
Judd considered. 'It's possible,' he said thoughtfully,
"but I don't believe it.'
'Why not, Dr. Stevens?' asked Angeli.
'Because Hanson hadn't had any homosexual contacts in more
than a year. I think it's much more likely that someone tried
to mug him. Hanson was the kind of man who would have put up
a fight.'
'A brave married fag,' McGreavy said heavily. He took out
a cigar and lit it. There's only one thing wrong with the
mugger theory. His wallet hadn't been touched. There was over
a hundred dollars in it.' He watched Judd's reaction.
Angeli said, 'If we're looking for a nut, it might make it
easier.'
'Not necessarily,' Judd objected He walked over to the
window. 'Take a look at that crowd down there. One out of
twenty is, has been, or will be in a mental hospital.'
'But if a. man's crazy...?'
'He doesn't have to necessarily appear crazy,' Judd
explained. 'For every obvious case of insanity there are at
least ten cases undiagnosed.'
McGreavy was studying Judd with open interest. 'You know a
lot about human nature, don't you. Doctor?'
'There's no such thing as human nature,' Judd said. 'Any
more than there's such a thing as animal nature. Try to
average out a rabbit and a tiger. Or a squirrel and an
elephant.'
'How long you been practising psychoanalysis?' asked
McGreavy.
'Twelve years. Why?'
McGreavy shrugged. "You're a good-looking guy. I'll bet a
lot of your patients fall in love with you, huh?'
Judd's eyes chilled. 1 don't understand the point of the
question.'
'Oh, come on, Doc Sure you do. We're both men of the
world. A fag walks in here and finds himself a handsome young
doctor to tell bis troubles to.' His tone grew confidential.
'Now do you mean to say that in three years on your couch
Hanson didn't get a little hard-on for you?'
Judd looked at him without expression. 'Is that your idea
of being a man of the world, Lieutenant?'
McGreavy was unperturbed. 'It could have happened. And
I'll tell you what else could have happened. You said you
told Hanson you didn't want to see him again. Maybe he didn't
like that. He'd grown dependent on you in three years. The
two of you had a fight.'
Judd's face darkened with anger.
Angeli broke the tension. 'Can you think of anyone who had
reason to hate him, Doctor? Or someone
he might have hated?'
'If there were such a person,' Judd said, 'I would tell
you. I think I knew everything there was to know about John
Hanson. He was a happy man. He didn't hate anyone and I don't
know of anyone who hated him.'
'Good for him. You must be one helluva doctor,' McGreavy
said. 'Well take his file along with us.'
'No.'
'We can get a court order.'
'Get it. "There's nothing in that file that can help you.'
'Then what harm could it do if you gave it to us?' asked
Angeli.
'It could hurt Hanson's wife and children. You're on the
wrong track. You'll find that Hanson was killed by a
stranger.'
'I don't believe it.' McGreavy snapped.
Angeli rewrapped the raincoat and tied the string around
the bundle. 'We'll get this back to you when
we run some more tests on it,'
'Keep it,' Judd said.
McGreavy opened the private door leading to the corridor.
"We'll be in touch with you, Doctor.' He walked out. Angeli
nodded to Judd and followed McGreavy out.
Judd was still standing there, his mind churning, when
Carol walked in. 'Is everything all right?' she
asked hesitantly.
'Someone killed John Hanson.'
'Killed him?'
'He was stabbed,' Judd said.
'Oh my God! But why?'
The police don't know.'
'How terrible!' She saw his eyes and the pain in them Is
there anything I can do, Doctor?'
'Would you close up the office, Carol? I'm going over to
see Mrs. Hanson. I'd like to break the news to her myself.'
'Don't worry. Ill take care of everything,' said Carol.
Thanks.'
And Judd left.
Thirty minutes later Carol had finished putting the files
away and was locking her desk when the corridor door opened.
It was after six o'clock and the building was closed. Carol
looked up as the man smiled
and moved towards her.

Chapter Three

Mary Hanson was a doll of a woman; small, beautiful,
exquisitely made. On the outside, she was soft,
Southern-helpless-feminine, and on the inside, granite bitch.
Judd had met her a week after beginning her husband's
therapy. She had fought hysterically against it and Judd had
asked her to have a talk with him. 'Why are you so opposed to
your husband going through analysis?'
'I won't have my friends saying I married a crazy man,'
she had told Judd. Tell him to give me a divorce; then he can
do any damn thing he pleases.'
Judd had explained that a divorce at that point could
destroy John completely.
There's nothing left to destroy,' Mary had screamed. 'If
I'd known he was a fairy, do you think I would have married
him? He's a woman.'
There's some woman in every man,' Judd had said. 'Just as
there's some man in every woman. And in your husband's case,
there are some difficult psychological problems to overcome.
But he's trying, Mrs Hanson. I think you owe it to him and
his children to help him.'
He had reasoned with her for more than three hours, and in
the end she had reluctantly agreed to hold
off on the divorce. In the months that followed, she had
become interested and then involved in the
battle that John was waging.
Judd made it a rule never to treat married couples, but
Mary had asked him to let her become a patient, and he had
found it helpful As she had begun to understand herself and
where she had failed as a wife, John's progress had become
dramatically rapid.
And now Judd was here to tell her that her husband had
been senselessly murdered She looked up at him, unable to
believe what he had just said, sure that it was some kind of
macabre joke. And then realization set in. 'He's never coming
back to me!' she screamed. 'He's never coming back to mel'
She started tearing at her clothes in anguish, like a wounded
animal. The six-year-old twins walked in. And from that
moment on, there was bedlam. Judd managed to calm the
children down and take them to a neighbour's house. He gave
Mrs. Hanson a sedative and called the family doctor. When he
was sure there was nothing more he could do, he left. He got
into his car and drove aimlessly, lost in thought. Hanson had
fought his way through a hell, and at the moment of his
victory ... It was such a pointless death. Could it have been
some homosexual who had attacked him? Some former lover who
was frustrated because Hanson had left him? It was possible,
of course, but Judd did not believe it Lieutenant McGreavy
had said that Hanson was killed a block away from the office.
If the murderer bad been a homosexual, full of hatred, he
would have made a rendezvous with Hanson at some private
piace, either to try to persuade Hanson to come back to him
or to pour out his recriminations before he killed him. He
would not have 1 a knife into him on a crowded street and
then fled.
On the comer ahead he saw a phone booth and suddenly
remembered that he had promised to have dinner with Dr Peter
Hadley and his wife, Norah. They were his closest friends,
but he was in no mood to see anyone. He stopped the car at
the kerb, went into the phone booth and dialled the Hadleys'
number. Norah answered the phone. Tou're latel Where are
you?'
'Norah,' Judd said, 'I'm afraid I'm going to have to beg
off tonight.'
'You can't,' she wailed. 'I have a sexy blonde sitting
here dying to meet you.'
'Well do it another night.' Judd said. 'I'm really not up
to it. Please apologize for me.'
'Doctors!' snorted Norah. 'Just a minute and I'll put your
chum on.'
Peter got on the phone. 'Anything wrong, Judd?'
Judd hesitated. 'Just a hard day, Pete. I'll tell you
about it tomorrow."
'You're missing some delicious Scandinavian smorgasbord. I
mean beautiful.'
'I'llmeet her another time.' promised Judd. He heard a
hurried whisper, and then Norah got on the phone again.
'She'll be here for Christmas dinner, Judd. Will you
come?'
He hesitated. 'Well talk about it later, Norah. I'm sorry
about tonight.' He hung up. He wished he knew
of some tactful way to stop Norah's matchmaking.
Judd had got married in his senior year in college.
Elizabeth had been a social science major, warm and bright
and gay, and they had both been young and very much in love
and full of wonderful plans to remake the world for all the
children they were going to have. And on the first Christmas
of their marriage, Elizabeth and their unborn child had been
killed in a head-on automobile collision. Judd had plunged
himself totally into his work, and in time had become one of
the outstanding psychoanalysts in the country. But he was
still not able to bear being with other people celebrating
Christmas Day. Somehow, even though he told himself he was
wrong, that belonged to Elizabeth and their cluld.
He pushed open the door of the phone booth. He was aware
of a girl standing outside the booth waiting
to use the phone. She was young and pretty, dressed in a
tight-fitting sweater and a miniskirt, with a bright-coloured
raincoat. He stepped out of the booth. 'Sorry.' he
apologized.
She gave him a warm smile. 'That's all right.' There was a
wistful look on her face. He had seen that look before.
Loneliness seeking to break through the barrier that he
had unconsciously set up.
If Judd knew that he had a quality that was attractive to
women, it was deep in his subconscious. He had never analysed
why. It was more of a handicap than an asset to have his
female patients falling in love with him. It sometimes made
life very difficult.
He moved past the girl with a friendly nod. He sensed her1
standing there in the rain, watching as he got into his car
and drove away.
He turned the car onto the East River Drive and headed for
the Merritt Parkway. An hour and a half later he was on the
Connecticut Turnpike. The snow in New York was dirty and
slushy, but the same storm had magically transformed the
Connecticut landscape into a Currier and Ives picture
postcard.
He drove past Westport and Danbury, deliberately forcing
his mind to concentrate on the ribbon of road that flashed
beneath bis wheels and the wintry wonderland that surrounded
him. Each time his thoughts reached out to John Hanson, he
made himself think of other things. He drove on through the
darkness of the Connecticut countryside and hours later,
emotionally worn out, finally turned the car around and
headed for home.
Mike, the red-faced doorman who usually greeted him with a
smile, was preoccupied and distant Family difficulties, Judd
supposed. Usually Judd would chat with him about Mike's
teenage son and married daughters, but Judd did not feel like
talking this evening. He asked Mike to have the car sent down
to the garage.
'Right, Dr. Stevens.' Mike seemed about to add something,
then thought better of it
Judd walked into the building. Ben Katz, the manager, was
crossing the lobby. He saw Judd, gave a nervous wave, and
hurriedly disappeared into his apartment.
What's the matter with everyone tonight? thought Judd. Or
is it just my nerves? He stepped into the elevator.
Eddie, the elevator operator, nodded. 'Evening, Dr.
Stevens.'
'Good evening, Eddie.'
Eddie swallowed and looked away self-consciously.
'Is anything wrong?' Judd asked.
Eddie quickly shook his head and kept his eyes averted.
My God, thought Judd. Another candidate for my couch. The
building was suddenly full of them.
Eddie opened the elevator door and Judd got out. He
started towards his apartment. He didn't hear the elevator
door close, so he turned around. Eddie was staring at him. As
Judd started to speak, Eddie quickly closed the elevator
door. Judd went to his apartment, unlocked the door, and
entered.
Every light in the apartment was on. Lieutenant McGreavy
was opening a drawer in the living-room. Angeli was coming
out of the bedroom. Judd felt anger flare in him. 'What are
you doing in my apartment?'
'Waitin' for you, Dr Stevens,' McGreavy said.
Judd walked over and slammed the drawer shut, narrowly
missing McGreavy's fingers. 'How did you
get in here?'
'We have a search warrant,' said Angeli.
Judd stared at him incredulously. 'A search warrant? For
my apartment?'
'Suppose we ask the questions, Doctor,' McGreavy said
'You don't have to answer them,' interjected Angeli,
'without benefit of legal counsel Also, you should know that
anything you say can be used as evidence against you.'
'Do you want to call a lawyer?' McGreavy asked.
'I don't need a lawyer. I told you that I loaned the
raincoat to John Hanson this morning and I didn't see
it again until you brought it to my office this afternoon.
I couldn't have killed him. I was with patients all day. Miss
Roberts can verify that.'
McGreavy and Angeli exchanged a silent signal.
'Where did you go after you left your office this
afternoon?' Angeli asked.
'To see Mrs Hanson.'
'We know that,' McGreavy said. 'Afterwards.'
Judd hesitated. 'I drove around.'
'Where?'
'I drove up to Connecticut.'
'Where did you stop for dinner?' McGreavy asked.
'I didn't. I wasn't hungry.'
'So no one saw you?'
Judd thought for a moment. 'I suppose not.'
'Perhaps you stopped for gas somewhere,' suggested Angeli.
'No.' Judd said. 'I didn't. What difference does it make
where I went tonight? Hanson was killed this morning.'
"Did you go back to your office any time after you left it
this afternoon?' McGreavy's voice was casual
'No,' Judd said. 'Why?'
'It was broken into.'
'What? By whom?'
"We don't know,' said McGreavy. 'I want you to come down
and take a look around. You can tell us if anything is
missing.'
'Of course,' Judd replied. 'Who reported it?'
'The night watchman,' said Angeli. 'Do you keep anything
of value hi the office, Doctor? Gash? Drugs? Anything like
that?'
'Petty cash,' Judd said. 'No addictive drugs. There was
nothing there to steal. It doesn't make any sense.'
'Right,' McGreavy said. 'Let's go.'
In the elevator Eddie gave Judd an apologetic look. Judd
met his eyes and nodded that he understood.
Surely, Judd thought, the police couldn't suspect him of
breaking into his own office. It was as though McGreavy was
determined to pin something on him because of his dead
partner. But that had been five years ago. Could McGreavy
have been brooding all these years, blaming it on the doctor?
Waiting for a chance to get him?
There was an unmarked police car a few feet from the
entrance. They got in and rode to the office in silence.
When they reached the office building, Judd signed the
lobby register. Bigelow, the guard, looked at him strangely.
Or did he imagine it?
They took the elevator to the fifteenth floor and walked
down the corridor to Judd's office. A uniformed policeman was
standing in front of the door. He nodded to McGreavy and
stepped aside. Judd reached for his key.
'The door's unlocked,' Angeli said. He pushed the door
open and they went in, Judd leading the way.
The reception office was in chaos. All the drawers had
been pulled out of the desk and papers were strewn about the
floor. Judd stared unbelievingly, feeling a shock of personal
violation.
'What do you suppose they were looking for, Doctor?" asked
McGreavy.
'I have no idea,' Judd said. He walked to the inner door
and opened it, McGreavy close behind him.
In his office two end tables had been overturned, a
smashed lamp lay on the floor, and blood soaked
the Fields rug.
In the far corner of the room, grotesquely spread out, was
the body of Carol Roberts. She was nude.
Her hands were tied behind her back with piano wire, and
acid had been splashed on her face and
breasts and between her thighs. The fingers of her right
hand were broken. Her face was battered and swollen. A wadded
handkerchief was stuffed in her mouth.
The two detectives watched Judd as he stared at the body.
'You look pale,' Angeli said. 'Sit down.'
Judd shook his head and took several deep breaths. When he
spoke, his voice was shaking with rage. 'Who - who could have
done this?'
That's what you're going to tell us, Dr. Stevens,' said
McGreavy.
Judd looked up at him. "No one could have wanted to do
this to Carol. She never hurt anyone in her life'
'I think it's about time you started singing another
tune,' McGreavy said. 'No one wanted to hurt Hanson, but they
stuck a knife in his back. No one wanted to hurt Carol, but
they poured acid all over her and tortured her to death.' His
voice became hard. 'And you stand there and tell me no one
would want to hurt them. What the hell are you - deaf, dumb,
and blind? The girl worked for you for four years.
You're a psychoanalyst. Are you trying to tell me you
didn't know or care about her personal life?'
'Of course I cared,' Judd said tightly. "She had a
boyfriend she was going to marry—'
'Chick. We've talked to him.'
'But he could never have done this. He's a decent boy and
he loved Carol.'
'When was the last time you saw Carol alive?' asked
Angeli.
'I told you. When I left here to go to see Mrs. Hanson. I
asked Carol to close up the office.' His voice broke and he
swallowed and took a deep breath.
'Were you scheduled to see any more patients today?'
'No.'
'Do you think this could have been done by a maniac?'
Angeli asked.
'It must have been a maniac.' but — even a maniac has to
have some motivation.'
'That's what I think,' McGreavy said.
Judd looked over to where Carol's body lay. It had the sad
appearance o£ a disfigured rag doll, useless and discarded.
'How long are you going to leave her like this?' Judd asked
angrily.
'They'll take her away now,' said Angeli. The coroner and
the Homicide boys have already finished.'
Judd turned to McGreavy. 'You left her like this for me?'
Teah,' McGreavy said. 'I'm going to ask you again. Is
there anything in this office that someone could want badly
enough to' - he Indicated Carol - 'do that?'
'No.'
"What about the records of your patients?'
Judd shook his head. 'Nothing.'
'You're not being very cooperative, Doctor, are you?'
asked McGreavy.
'Don't you think I want to see you find whoever did this?'
Judd snapped. 'If there was anything in my files that would
help, I would tell you. I know my patients. There isn't any
one among them who could have killed her. This was done by an
outsider.'
'How do you know it wasn't someone after your files?'
'My files weren't touched.'
McGreavy looked at him with quickened interest. "How do
you know that?' he asked. 'You haven't even looked.'
Judd walked over to the far wall. As the two men watched,
he pressed the lower section of the panelling and the wall
slid open, revealing racks of built-in shelves. They were
filled with tapes. I record every session with my patients.'
Judd said. 'I keep the tapes here.'
'Couldn't they have tortured Carol to try to force her to
tell where those tapes were?'
There is nothing in any of these tapes worth anything to
anyone. There was some other motive for her murder.'
Judd looked at Carol's scarred body again, and he was
filled with helpless, blind rage. 'You've got to
find whoever did this!'
'I intend to," McGreavy said. He was looking at Judd.
On the windy, deserted street in front of Judd's office
building, McGreavy told Angeli to drive Judd home. Tve got an
errand to do,' McGreavy said. He turned to Judd. 'Goodnight,
Doctor'
Judd watched the huge, lumbering figure move down the
street.
'Let's go,' Angeli said. 'I'm freezing.'
Judd slid into the front seat beside Angeli, and the car
pulled away from the kerb.
'I've got to go tell Carol's family,' Judd said.
'We've already been over there.'
Judd nodded wearily. He still wanted to see them himself,
but it could wait.
There was a silence. Judd wondered what errand Lieutenant
McGreavy could have at this hour of the morning.
As though reading his thoughts, Angeli said, 'McGreavy's a
good cop. He thought Ziffren should have
got the electric chair for killing his partner,'
'Ziffren was insane.'
Angeli shrugged. 'I'll take your word for it, Doctor.'
But McGreavy hadn't, Judd thought He turned his mind to
Carol and remembered her brightness and
her affection and her deep pride in what she was doing,
and Angeli was speaking to him and he saw
that they had arrived at his apartment building.
Five minutes later Judd was in his apartment. There was no
question of sleep. He fixed himself a brandy and carried it
into the den. He remembered the night Carol had strolled in
here, naked and beautiful, rubbing her warm, lithe body
against his. He had acted cool and aloof because he had known
that that was the only chance he had of helping her. But she
had never known what willpower it had taken for
him to keep from making love to her. Or had she? He raised
his brandy glass and drained it.
The city morgue looked tike all city morgues at three
o'clock in the morning, except that someone had placed a
wreath of mistletoe over the door. Someone, thought McGreavy,
who had either an overabundance of holiday spirit or a
macabre sense o£ humour.
McGreavy had waited impatiently in the corridor until the
autopsy was completed. When the coroner waved to him, he
walked into the sickly-white autopsy room. The coroner was
scrubbing his hands at the large white sink. He was a small,
birdlike man with a high, chirping voice and quick, nervous
movements. He answered all of McGreavy's questions in a
rapid, staccato manner, then fled. McGreavy remained there a
few minutes, absorbed in what he had just learned. Then he
walked out into the freezing night air to find a taxi. There
was no sign of one. The sons of bitches were all vacationing
in Bermuda. He could stand out here until his ass froze off.
He spotted a police cruiser, flagged it down, showed his
identification to the young rookie behind the wheel, and
ordered him to drive him to the Nineteenth Precinct. It was
against regulations, but what the hell. It was going to be a
long night.
When McGreavy walked into the precinct, Angeli was waiting
for him. "They just finished the autopsy
on Carol Roberts,' McGreavy said.
'And?'
'She was pregnant,'
Angeli looked at him in surprise.
'She was three months gone. A little late to have a safe
abortion, and a little early to show.'
'Do you think that had anything to do with her murder?'
That's a good question,' McGreavy said 'If Carol's
boyfriend knocked her up and they were going to get married
anyway - what's the big deal? So they get married and have
the kid a few months later. It happens every day of the week.
On the other hand, if he knocked her up and he didn't want to
marry
her - that's no big deal, either. So she has the baby and
no husband. That happens twice every day of
the week.'
'We talked to Chick. He wanted to marry her.'
'I know,' replied McGreavy. 'So we have to ask ourselves
where that leaves us. It leaves us with a coloured girl who's
pregnant. She goes to the father and tells him about it, and
he murders her.'
'He'd have to be insane.'
'Or very foxy. I vote for foxy. Look at it this way:
supposing Carol went to the father and broke the bad news and
told him she wasn't going to have an abortion; she was going
to have his baby. Maybe she used it to try to blackmail him
into marrying her. But supposing he couldn't marry her
because he was married already. Or maybe he was a white man.
Let's say a well-known doctor with a fancy practice. H a
thing like this ever got out, it would ruin him. Who the hell
would go to a headshrinker who knocked up his coloured
receptionist and had to marry her?'
'Stevens is a doctor.' said Angeli. There are a dozen ways
he could have killed her without arousing suspicion.'
'Maybe,' McGreavy said. 'Maybe not If there was any
suspicion and it could be traced back to him, he'd have a
hard dme getting out of it. He buys poison - someone has a
record of it He buys a rope or a knife - they can be traced.
But look at this cute little setup. Some maniac comes in for
no reason and murders
his receptionist and he's the grief-stricken employer
demanding that the police find the killer.'
'It sounds like a pretty flimsy case.'
'I'm not finished Let's take bis patient, John Hanson.
Another senseless killing by this unknown maniac. I'll tell
you something, Angeli. I don't believe in coincidences. And
two coincidences like that in one day make me nervous. So I
asked myself what connection there could be between the death
of John Hanson and Carol Roberts, and suddenly it didn't seem
so coincidental, after all. Suppose Carol walked into his
office and broke the bad news that he was going to be a
daddy. They had a big fight and she tried to blackmail him.
She said he had to marry her, give her money - whatever. John
Hanson was waiting in
the outer office, listening. Maybe Stevens wasn't sure he
had heard anything until he got on the couch. Then Hanson
threatened him with exposure. Or tried to get him to sleep
with him.'
'That's a lot of guesswork.'
"But it fits. When Hanson left, the doctor slipped out and
fixed him so he couldn't talk. Then he had to come back and
get rid of Carol. He made it look like some maniac did the
job, then he stopped by to see Mrs. Hanson, and took a ride
to Connecticut. Now his problems are solved. He's sitting
pretty and the police are running their asses ofi searching
for some unknown nut.'
'I can't buy it,' Angeli said. 'You're trying to build a
murder case without a shred of concrete evidence.'
"What do you call "concrete"?' McGreavy asked. 'We've got
two corpses. One of them is a pregnant
lady who worked for Stevens. The other is one of his
patients, murdered a block from his office. He's coming to
him for treatment because he's a homosexual. When I asked to
listen to his tapes, he wouldn't let me. Why? Who is Dr.
Stevens protecting? I asked him if anyone could have broken
into his office looking for something. Then maybe we could
have cooked up a nice theory that Carol caught them and they
tortured her to try to find out where this mysterious
something was. But guess what? There is no mysterious
something. His tapes aren't worth a tinker's damn to anybody.
He had no drugs in the office. No money. So we're looking for
some goddamn maniac. Right? Except that I won't buy it. I
think we're looking for Dr. Judd Stevens.'
'I think you're out to nail him,' said Angeli quietly.
McGreavy's face flushed with anger. "Because he's as
guilty as hell.'
'Are you going to arrest him?'
'I'm going to give Dr. Stevens some rope,' McGreavy said.
'And while he's hanging himself, I'm going
to be digging into every little skeleton in his closet.
When I nail him, he's going to stay nailed.' McGreavy turned
and walked out.
Angeli looked after him thoughtfully. If he did nothing,
there was a good chance that McGreavy would
try to railroad Dr. Stevens. He could not let that happen.
He made a mental note to speak to Captain Bertelli in the
morning.

Chapter Four

The morning newspapers headlined the sensational torture
murder of Carol Roberts. Judd was tempted to have his
telephone exchange call his patients and cancel his
appointments for the day. He had not gone to bed, and his
eyes felt heavy and gritty. But when he reviewed the list of
patients, he decided that two of them would be desperate if
he cancelled; three of them would be badly upset; the others
could be handled. He decided it was better to continue with
his normal routine, partly for his patients' sake, and partly
because it was good therapy for him to try to keep his mind
off what had happened,
Judd arrived at his office early, but already the corridor
was crowded with newspaper and television reporters and
photographers. He refused to let them in or to make a
statement, and finally managed to
get rid of them. He opened the door to his inner office
slowly, filled with trepidation. But the blood-stained rug
had been removed and everything else had been put back in
place. The office looked normal. Except that Carol would
never walk in here again, smiling and full of life.
Judd heard the outer door open. His first patient had
arrived.
Harrison Burke was a distinguished-looking silver-haired
man who looked like the prototype of a big business
executive, which he was: a vice-president of the
International Steel Corporation. When Judd
had first seen Burke, he had wondered whether the
executive had created his stereotyped image, or whether the
image had created the executive. Some day he would write a
book on face values; a doctor's bedside manner, a lawyer's
flamboyance in a courtroom, an actress's face and figure —
these were the universal currencies of acceptance: the
surface image rather than the basic values.
Burke lay down on the couch, and Judd turned his attention
to him. Burke had been sent to Judd by
Dr. Peter Hadley two months ago. It had taken Judd ten
minutes to ascertain that Harrison Burke was a paranoiac with
tendencies towards homicide. The morning headlines had been
full of a murder that had taken place in this office the
night before, but Burke never mentioned it. That was typical
of his condition. He was totally immersed in himself.
'You didn't believe me before,' Burke said, 'but now I've
got proof that they're after me.'
'I thought we had decided to keep an open mind about that,
Harrison,' Judd replied carefully.
'Remember yesterday we agreed that the imagination could
play—'
'It isn't my imagination,' shouted Burke. He sat up, his
fists clenched. They're trying to kill me!'
'Why don't you lie down and try to relax?' Judd suggested
soothingly.
Buike got to his feet. 'Is that all you've got to say? You
don't even want to hear my proof!' His eyes narrowed. "How do
I know you're not one of them?'
"You know I'm not one of them,' Judd said. 'I'm your
friend. I'm trying to help you.' He felt a stab of
disappointment. The progress he had thought they were making
over the past month had completely eroded away. He was
looking now at the same terrified paranoiac who had first
walked into his office
two months ago.
<>Burke had started with International Steel as a mail
boy. In twenty-five years his distinguished good
looks and his affable personality had taken him almost to
the top of the corporate ladder. He had been next in line for
the presidency. Then, four years ago, his wife and three
children had perished in a fire at their summer home in
Southampton. Burke had been in the Bahamas with his mistress.
He had taken the tragedy harder than anyone realized. Reared
as a devout Catholic, he was unable to shake off his burden
of guilt He began to brood, and he saw less of his friends.
He stayed home evenings, reliving the agonies of his wife and
children burning to death while, in another part of his mind,
he lay in bed with his mistress. It was like a motion picture
that he ran over and over in his mind. He blamed himself
completely for the death of his family. If only he had been
there, he could have saved them. The thought became an
obsession. He was a monster. He knew it and God knew it
Surely others could see itl They must hate him as he hated
himself. People smiled at him and pretended sympathy, hut all
the while diey were waiting for him to expose himself,
waiting to trap him. But he was too cunning for them. He
stopped going to the executive dining-room and began to have
lunch in the privacy of his office. He avoided everyone as
much as possible.
Two years ago, when the company had needed a new
president, they had passed over Harrison Burke and had hired
an outsider. A year later the post of executive
vice-president had opened up, and a man
was given the job over Burke's head. Now he had all the
proof he needed that there was a conspiracy against him. He
began to spy on the people around him. At night he hid tape
recorders in the offices of other executives. Six months ago
he had been caught. It was only because of his long seniority
and position that he was not fired.
Trying to help him and relieve some of the pressure on
him, the president of the company began to cut down on
Burke's responsibilities. Instead of helping, it convinced
Burke more than ever that they were out to get him. They were
afraid of him because he was smarter than they were. H he
became president, they would all lose their jobs because tkey
were stupid fools. He began to make more and more mistakes.
When these errors were called to his attention, he
indignantly denied having made them. Someone was deliberately
changing his reports, altering the figures and statistics,
trying to discredit him. Soon he realized that it was not
only the people in the company who were after him. There were
spies outside. He was constantly followed in the streets.
They tapped his telephone line, read his mail. He was afraid
to eat, lest they poison his food. His weight began to drop
alarmingly. The worried president of the company arranged an
appointment for him with Dr. Peter Hadley and insisted that
Burke keep it. After spending half an hour with him, Dr.
Hadley had phoned Judd. Judd's appointment book was full, but
when Peter had told him how urgent it was, Judd reluctantly
agreed to take him on.
Now Harrison Burke lay supine on the damask-covered
contour couch, his fists clenched tighdy at his sides.
'Tell me about your proof.'
'They broke into my house last night They came to kill me.
But I was too clever for them. I sleep in my den now and I
have extra locks on all the doors so they can't get to me.'
'Did you report the break-in to the police?' Judd asked.
'Of course not! The police are in it with them. They have
orders to shoot me. But they wouldn't dare do
it while there are people around, so I stay in crowds.'
'I'm glad you gave me this information,' Judd said.
'What are you going to do with it?' Burke asked eagerly.
'I'm listening very carefully to everything you say,' Judd
said. He indicated the tape recorder. Tve got it
all down on tape so if they do kill you, we'll have a
record of the conspiracy.'
Burke's face lit up. 'By God, that's good! Tapel That'll
really fix them!'
'Why don't you lie down again?' Judd suggested.
Burke nodded and slid onto the couch. He closed his eyes.
'I'm tired. I haven't slept in months. I don't dare close my
eyes. You don't know what it's like, having everybody after
you.'
Don't I? He thought of McGreavy.
'Didn't your houseboy hear anyone break in?' Judd asked.
'Didn't I tell you?' Burke replied. 'I fired him two weeks
ago.'
Judd quickly went over in his mind his recent sessions
with Harrison Burke. Only three days ago Burke had described
a fight he had had that day with his houseboy. So his sense
of time had become disoriented. 'I don't believe you
mentioned it,' Judd said casually. 'Are you sure it was two
weeks ago
that you let him go?'
'I don't make mistakes,' snapped Burke. "How the hell do
you think I got to be vice-president of one of the biggest
corporations in the world? Because I've got a brilliant mind,
Doctor, and don't forget it.'
'Why did you fire him?'
'He tried to poison me.'
'How?'
'With a plate of ham and eggs. Loaded with arsenic*
'Did you taste it?' Judd asked.
'Of course not,' Burke snorted.
'How did you know it was poisoned?'
'I could smeli the poison.'
'What did you say to him?'
A look of satisfaction came over Burke's face. 'I didn't
say anything. I beat the shit out of him.'
A feeling of frustration swept over Judd. Given time, he
was sure he could have helped Harrison Burke. But time had
run out. There was always the danger in psychoanalysis that
under the venting of free-flow association, the thin veneer
of the it could blow wide open, letting escape all the
primitive passions and emotions that huddled together in the
mind like terrified wild beasts in the night. The free
verbalizing was the first step in treatment. In Burke's case,
it had boomeranged. These sessions had released all the
latent hostilities that had been locked in his mind. Burke
had seemed to improve with each session, agreeing with Judd
that there was no conspiracy, that he was only overworked and
emotionally exhausted. Judd had felt that he was guiding
Burke to a point where they could begin deep analysis and
start to attack the root of the problem. But Burke had been
cunningly lying all along. He had been testing Judd, leading
him on to try to trap him and find out whether he was one of
them. Harrison Burke was a walking time bomb that could
explode at any second There was no next of kin to notify.
Should Judd call the president of the company and tell him
what he felt? If he did, it would instantly destroy Burke's
future. He would have to be put away in an institution. Was
he right in his diagnosis that Burke was a potentially
homicidal paranoiac? He would like to get another opinion
before he called, but Burke would never consent. Judd knew he
would have to make the decision alone. 'Harrison, I want you
to make me a promise,' Judd said. "What kind of
promise?'Burke asked warily. 'If they are trying to trick
you, then they want you to do something violent so they can
have you locked up ... But you're too smart for that No
matter how they provoke you, I want you to promise me that
you won't do anything to them. That way, they can't touch
you.'
Burke's eyes lit up. 'By God, you're right,' he said. 'So
that's their plan! Well, we're too clever for them, aren't
we?'
Outside, Judd heard the sound of the reception room door
open and close. He looked at his watch.
His next patient was here.
Judd quietly snapped off the tape recorder. 'I think
that's enough for today,' he said.
'You got all this down on the tape recorder?' Burke asked
eagerly.
'Every word,' Judd said. 'No one's going to hurt you.' He
hesitated. 'I don't think you should go to the office today.
Why don't you go home and get some rest?'
'I can't,' Burke whispered, his voice filled with despair.
'If I'm not in my office, they'll take my name off the door
and put someone else's name on it.' He leaned towards Judd.
'Be careful. If they know you're my friend, they'll try to
get you, too.' Burke walked over to the door leading to the
corridor. He opened
it a crack and peered up and down the corridor. Then he
swiftly sidled out.
Judd looked after Mm, his mind filled with the pain of
what he would have to do to Harrison Burke's life. Perhaps if
Burke had come to him six months earlier... And then a sudden
thought sent a chill through him. Was Harrison Burke already
a murderer? Was it possible that he had been involved in the
deaths of John Hanson and Carol Roberts? Both Burke and
Hanson were patients. And they could have easily met. Several
times in the past few months Burke's appointments had
followed Hanson's. And Burke had been late more than once. He
could have run into Hanson in the corridor. And seeing him
several rimes could easily have triggered his paranoia, made
him feel that Hanson was following him, threatening him. As
for Carol, Burke had seen her every time he came to the
office. Had his sick mind conceived some menace from her that
could only be removed by her death? How long had Burke really
been mentally ill? His
wife and three children had died in an accidental fire.
Accidental? Somehow, he had to find out.
He went to the door leading to the reception office and
opened it. 'Come in,' he said.
Anne Blake rose gracefully to her feet and moved towards
him, a warm smile lighting her face. Judd felt again the same
heart-turning feeling that had hit him when he had first seen
her. It was the first time that he had felt any deep
emotional response towards any woman since Elizabeth.
In no way did they look alike. Elizabeth had been blonde
and small and blue-eyed. Anne Blake had black hah- and
unbelievable violet eyes framed by long, dark lashes. She was
tall, with a lovely, full-curved figure. She had an air of
lively intelligence and a classic, patrician beauty that
would have made her seem inaccessible, except for the warmth
in her eyes. Her voice was low and soft, with a faint, husky
quality.
Anne was in her middle twenties. She was, without
question, the most beautiful woman Judd had ever seen. But it
was something beyond her beauty that caught at Judd. There
was an almost palpable force that pulled him to her, some
unexplainable reaction that made him feel as though he had
known her for ever. Feelings that he had thought long since
dead had suddenly surfaced again, surprising him by their
intensity.
She had appeared in Judd's office three weeks earlier,
without an appointment. Carol had explained that his schedule
was full and he could not possibly take on any new patients.
But Anne had quietly asked if she could wait She had sat in
the outer office for two hours, and Carol had finally taken
pity on her and brought her in to Judd.
He had felt such an instant powerful emotional reaction to
Anne that he had no idea what she said during the first few
minutes. He remembered he had asked her to sit down and she
had told him her name, Anne Blake. She was a housewife. Judd
had asked her what her problem was. She had hesitated and
said that she was not certain. She was not even sure she had
a problem. A doctor friend of hers had mentioned that Judd
was one of the most brilliant analysts in the country, but
when Judd had asked who the doctor was, Anne had demurred.
For all Judd knew, she could have got his name out of the
telephone directory.
He had tried to explain to her how impossible his schedule
was, that he simply was unable to take on any new patients.
He offered to recommend half a dozen good analysts. But Anne
had quietly insisted that she wanted him to treat her. In the
end Judd had agreed. Outwardly, except for the fact that she
appeared to be under some stress, she seemed perfectly
normal, and he was certain that her problem would be a
relatively simple one, easily solved. He broke his rule about
not taking any patient without another doctor's
recommendation, and he gave up his lunch hour in order to
treat Anne. She had appeared twice
a week for the past three weeks, and Judd knew very little
more about her than he had known when she first came in. He
knew something more about himself. He was in love - for the
first time since Elizabeth.
At their first session, Judd had asked her if she loved
her husband, and hated himself for wanting to hear her say
that she did not. But she had said, 'Yes. He's a kind man,
and very strong.'
'Do you think he represents a father figure?' Judd had
asked.
Anne had turned her incredible violet eyes on him. 'No. I
wasn't looking for a father figure. I had a very happy home
life as a child.'
"Where were you born?'
'In Revere, a small town near Boston.'
'Are both your parents still alive?'
'Father is alive. Mother died of a stroke when I was
twelve.'
'Did your father and mother have a good relationship?'
'Yes. They were very much in love.'
It shows in you, thought Judd happily. With all the
sickness and aberration and misery that he had seen, having
Anne here was like a breath of April freshness.
'Any brothers or sisters?'
'No. I was an only child. A spoiled brat.' She smiled up
at him. It was an open, friendly smile without guile or
affectation.
She told him that she had lived abroad with her father,
who was serving in the State Department, and when he had
remarried and moved to California, she had gone to work at
the UN as an interpreter. She spoke fluent French, Italian,
and Spanish. She had met her future husband in the Bahamas
when she was on vacation. He owned a construction firm. Anne
had not been attracted to him at first, but he had been
a persistent and persuasive suitor. Two months after they
met, Anne had married him. She had now been married for six
months. They lived on an estate in New Jersey.
And that was all Judd had been able to find out about her
in half a dozen visits. He still had not the slightest clue
as to what her problem was. She had an emotional block about
discussing it He
remembered some of the questions be had asked her during
their first session.
'Does your problem involve your husband, Mrs. Blake?'
No answer.
'Are you and your husband compatible, physically?'
'Yes.' Embarrassed.
'Do you suspect him of having an affair with another
woman?'
'No.' Amused.
'Are you having an affair with another man?*
'No.' Angry.
He hesitated, trying to figure out the best approach to
take to break down the barrier. He decided on a buckshot
technique: he would touch on every major category until he
struck a nerve.
'Do you quarrel about money?'
'No. He's very generous.'
'Any in-law problems?'
'He's an orphan. My father lives in California.'
"Were you or your husband ever addicted to drugs?'
'No.'
'Do you suspect your husband of being homosexual?'
A low, warm laugh. 'No.'
He pressed on, because he had to. 'Have you ever had a
sexual relationship with a woman?'
'No.' Reproachful.
He had touched on alcoholism, frigidity, a pregnancy she
was afraid to face - everything he could think of. And each
time she had looked at him with her thoughtful, intelligent
eyes and had merely shaken her head. Whenever he tried to pin
her down, she would head him off with, 'Please be patient
with me. Let me do it my own way.'
With anyone else, he might have given up. But he knew that
he had to help her. And he had to keep seeing her.
He had let her talk about any subject she chose. She had
travelled to a dozen countries with her father and had met
fascinating people. She had a quick mind and an unexpected
humour. He found that diey liked the same books, the same
music, the same playwrights. She was warm and friendly, but
Judd could never detect the slightest sign that she reacted
to him as anything other than a doctor. It was bitter irony.
He had been subconsciously searching for someone like Anne
for years, and now that she had walked into his life, his job
was to help her solve whatever her problem was and send her
back to her husband.
Now, as Anne walked into the office, Judd moved to the
chair next to the couch and waited for her to lie down.
'Not today,' she said quietly. 'I just came to see if I
could help.'
He stared at her, speechless for a moment. His emotions
had been stretched so tight in the past two days that her
unexpected sympathy unnerved him. As he looked at her, he had
a wild impulse to pour out everything that was happening to
him. To tell her about the nightmare that was engulfing him,
about McGreavy and his idiotic suspicions. But he knew he
could not. He was the doctor and she was his patient Worse
than that. He was in love with her, and she was the
untouchable wife of a man he did not even know.
She was standing there, watching him. He nodded, not
trusting himself to speak.
'I liked Carol so much,' said Anne. 'Why would anyone kill
her?'
'I don't know,' said Judd.
'Don't the police have any idea who did it?'
Do they? Judd thought bitterly. If she only knew.
Anne was looking at him curiously.
'The police have some theories,' Judd said.
'I know how terrible you must feel. I just wanted to come
and tell you how very sorry I am. I wasn't
even sure you'd be in the office today.'
'I wasn't going to come in,' Judd said. 'But - well, here
I am. As long as we're both here, why don't we talk a little
about you?'
Anne hesitated. 'I'm not sure that there's anything to
talk about any more.'
Judd felt his heart jump. Please, God, don't let her say
that I'm not going to see her any more.
'I'm going to Europe with my husband next week.'
'That's wonderful,' he made himself say.
'I'm afraid I've wasted your time, Dr. Stevens, and I
apologize.'
'Please don't,' Judd said. He found that his voice was
husky. She was walking out on him. But of course she couldn't
know that He was being infantile. His mind told him this
clinically while his stomach ached with the physical hurt of
her going away. For ever.
She opened her purse and took out some money. She was in
the habit of paying in cash after each visit, unlike his
other patients, who sent him cheques.
'No,' said Judd quickly. "You came here as a friend. I'm -
grateful.'
Judd did something he had never done before with a
patient. 'I would like you to come back once more,' he said.
She looked up at him quietly. 'Why?'
Because I can't bear to let you go so soon, he thought.
Because I'll never meet anyone like you again. Because 1 wish
I had met you first. Because I love you. Aloud he said, 'I
thought we might - round
things out. Talk a little to make sure that you really are
over your problem.'
She smiled mischievously. 'You mean you want me to come
back for my graduation?'
'Something like that,' he said. "Will you do it?'
'If you want me to - of course.' She rose. 'I haven't
given you a chance with me. But I know you're a wonderful
doctor. If I should ever need help, I'd come to you.'
She held out her hand and he took it She had a warm, firm
handclasp. He felt again that compelling current that ran
between diem and marvelled that she felt nothing.
'I'll see you Friday,' she said.
'Friday.'
He watched her walk out the private door leading to the
corridor, then sank into a chair. He had never felt so
completely alone in his life. But he couldn't sit here and do
nothing. There had to be an answer, and if McGreavy wasn't
going to find it, he had to discover it before McGreavy
destroyed hint. On the dark side, Lieutenant McGreavy
suspected him of two murders that he couldn't prove he did
not commit. He might be arrested at any moment, which would
mean that his professional life would be destroyed. He was in
love with a married woman he would only see once more. He
forced himself to turn to the bright side. He couldn't think
of a single bloody thing,

Chapter Five

The rest of the day went by as though he were under water.
A few of the patients made reference to Carol's murder, but
the more disturbed ones were so self-absorbed that they could
only think of themselves and their problems. Judd tried to
concentrate, but bis thoughts kept drifting away, trying to
find answers to what had happened. He would go over the tapes
later to pick up what he had missed.
At seven o'clock, when Judd had ushered out the last
patient, he went over to the recessed liquor cabinet and
poured himself a stiff scotch. It hit him with a jolt, and he
suddenly remembered that he had not had any breakfast or
lunch. The thought of food made him ill. He sank into a chair
and thought about the two murders. There was nothing in the
case histories of any of his patients that would cause
someone to commit murder. A blackmailer might have tried to
steal them. But blackmailers were cowards, preying on the
weaknesses of others, and if Carol had caught one breaking hi
and he had killed her, it would have been done quickly, with
a single blow. He would not have tortured her. There had to
be some other explanation.
Judd sat there a long time, his mind slowly sifting the
events of the past two days. Finally he sighed and gave it
up. He looked at the clock and was startled to see how late
it was.
By the time he left Ms office, it was after nine o'clock.
As he stepped out of the lobby into the street, a blast of
icy wind hit him. It had started to snow again. The snow
swirled through the sky, gently blurring everything so that
it looked as though the city had been painted on a canvas
that had not dried and the paints were running, melting down
skyscrapers and streets into watery greys and whites. A large
red-and-white sign in a store window across the street on
Lexington Avenue warned:
ONLY 6 SHOPPING DAYS 'TIL CHRISTMAS
Christmas. He resolutely turned bis thoughts away from it
and started to walk.
The street was deserted except for a lone pedestrian in
the distance, hurrying home to his wife or sweetheart. Judd
found himself wondering what Anne was doing. She was probably
at home with her husband, discussing his day at the office,
interested, caring. Or they had gone to bed, and ... Stop
it!
he told himself.
There were no cars on the windswept street, so just before
he reached the corner, Judd began to cross at an angle,
heading towards the garage where he parked his car during the
day. As he reached the middle
of the street, he heard a noise behind him, and turned. A
large black limousine without lights was coming towards him,
its tyres fighting for traction in the light powder of snow.
It was less than ten feet away.
The drunken fool, thought Judd. He's in a skid and he's
going to kill himself. Judd turned and leaped back towards
die kerb and safety. The nose of the car swerved towards him,
the car accelerating. Too late Judd realized the car was
deliberately trying to run him down.
The last thing he remembered was something hard smashing
against his chest, and a loud crash that sounded like
thunder. The dark street suddenly lit up with bright Roman
candles that seemed to explode in his head. In that split
second of illumination, Judd suddenly knew the answer to
everything. He knew why John Hanson and Carol Roberts had
been murdered. He felt a sense of wild elation. He had to
tell McGreavy. Then the light faded, and there was only the
silence of the wet darkness.
From the outside, the Nineteenth Police Precinct looked
like an ancient, weatherbeaten four-storey
school building: brown brick, plaster fa£ade, and cornices
white with trie droppings of generations of pigeons. The
Nineteenth Precinct was responsible for the area of Manhattan
from Fifty-ninth Street to Eighty-sixth Street, from Fifth
Avenue to the East River.
The call from the hospital reporting the hit-and-run
accident came through the police switchboard a few minutes
after ten and was transferred to the Detective Bureau. The
Nineteenth Precinct was having a busy night. Because of the
weather, there had been a heavy increase in rapes and
muggings. The deserted streets had become a frozen wasteland
where marauders preyed on the hapless stragglers who wandered
into their territory.
Most of the detectives were out on squeals, and the
Detective Bureau was deserted except for Detective Frank
Angeli and a sergeant, who was interrogating an arson
suspect.
When the phone rang, Angeli answered. It was a nurse who
bad a hit-and-run patient at the city hospital. The patient
was asking for Lieutenant McGreavy. McGreavy had gone to the
Hall of Records. When she gave Angeli the name of the
patient, he told the nurse that be would be right over.
Angeli was hanging up the receiver as McGreavy walked in.
Angeli quickly told him about the call.
'We'd better get right over to the hospital,' Angeli said.
'He'll keep. First I want to talk to the captain of the
precinct where that accident occurred.'
Angeli watched as McGreavy dialled the number. He wondered
whether Captain Bertelli had told McGreavy about his
conversation with AngelL It had been short and to the point.
'Lieutenant McGreavy is a good cop,' Angeli had said, 'but
I think he's influenced by what happened five years ago.'
Captain Bertelli had given him a long, cold stare. 'Are
you accusing him of framing Dr. Stevens?'
'I'm not accusing him of anything. Captain. I just thought
you should be aware of the situation.'
'Okay, I'm aware of it.' And the meeting was over.
McGreavy's phone conversation took three minutes while
McGreavy grunted and made notes and Angeli impatiently paced
back and forth. Ten minutes later the two detectives were in
a squad car on the way to the hospital.
Judd's room was on the sixth floor at the end of a long,
dreary corridor that had the sickly-sweet smell of all
hospitals. The nurse who had phoned was escorting them to
Judd's room.
'What shape is he in, Nurse?' asked McGreavy.
'The doctor will have to tell you that,' she said primly.
And then continued, compulsively. 'It's a miracle the man
wasn't killed. He has a possible concussion, some bruised
ribs, and an injured left arm.'
'Is he conscious?' asked Angeli.
'Yes. We're having a terrible time keeping him in bed.'
She turned to McGreavy. 'He keeps saying he
has to see you.'
They walked into the room. There were six beds in the
room, all occupied. The nurse indicated a bed at the far
corner that was curtained off, and McGreavy and Angeli walked
over to it and stepped behind the curtain.
Judd was in bed, propped up. His face was pale and there
was a large adhesive plaster on his forehead. His left arm
was in a sling.
McGreavy spoke. 'I hear you had an accident.'
'It wasn't an accident,' said Judd. 'Someone tried to kill
me.' His voice was weak and shaky.
'Who?' asked Angeli.
'I don't know, but it all fits in.' He turned to McGreavy.
'The killers weren't after John Hanson or Carol. They were
after me.'
McGreavy looked at him in surprise. 'What makes you think
so?'
'Hanson was killed because he was wearing my yellow
slicker. They must have seen me go into my building wearing
that coat When Hanson came our of my office wearing it, they
mistook him for me.'
'That's possible,' said Angeli.
'Sure,' said McGreavy. He turned to Judd. 'And when they
learned that they had killed the wrong man, they came into
your office and tore your clothes off and found out you were
really a little coloured girl, and they got so mad they beat
you to death.'
'Carol was killed because they found her there when they
came to get me,' Judd said.
McGreavy reached in his overcoat pocket and took out some
notes. 'I just talked to the captain of the precinct where
the accident happened.'
'It was no accident.'
'According to the police report, you were jaywalking.'
Judd stared at him. 'Jaywalking?' he repeated weakly.
'You crossed in the middle of the street, Doctor.'
'There were no cars so I—'
'There was a car,' McGreavy corrected. "Only you didn't
see it. It was snowing and the visibility was lousy. You
stepped out of nowhere. The driver put on his brakes, went
into a skid, and bit you. Then
he panicked and drove away.'
'That's not the way it happened and his headlights were
off.'
'And you think that's evidence that he killed Hanson and
Carol Roberts?'
'Someone tried to kill me,' repeated Judd insistently.
McGreavy shook his head. 'It won't work, Doctor.'
'What won't work?' asked Judd.
'Did you really expect me to start heating the bushes for
some mythical killer while you take the heat
off yourself?' His voice was suddenly hard. 'Did you know
your receptionist was pregnant?'
Judd closed his eyes and let his head sink back on the
pillow. So that was what Carol had wanted to speak to him
about. He had half-guessed. And now McGreavy would think...
He opened his eyes.
'No,' he said wearily. 'I didn't.'
Judd's head began pounding again. The pain was returning.
He swallowed to fight off the nausea that engulfed him. He
wanted to ring for the nurse, but he was damned if he would
give McGreavy the satisfaction.
'I went through the records at City Hall,' said McGreavy.
'What would you say if I told you that your cute little
pregnant receptionist had. been a hooker before she went to
work for you?' The pounding in Judd's head was becoming
steadily worse. 'Were you aware of that, Dr. Stevens? You
don't have to answer. I'll answer for you. You knew it
because you picked her up in night court four years ago, when
sbe was arrested on a charge of soliciting. Now isn't it a
little far-out for a respectable doctor to hire a hooker as
a receptionist in a high-class office?'
'No one is born a hooker,' said Judd. 'I was trying to
help a sixteen-year-old child have a chance at life.'
'And get yourself a little free black tail on the side?'
'You dirty-minded bastard!'
McGreavy smiled without mirth. 'Where did you take Carol
after you found her in night court?*
"To my apartment.'
'And she slept there?'
'Yes.'
McGreavy grinned. "You're a beauty! You picked up a
good-looking young whore in night court and took her to your
apartment to spend the night. What were you looking for - a
chess partner? If you really didn't sleep with her, there's a
damn good chance you're a homosexual And guess who that ties
you in with? Right. John Hanson. If you did sleep with Carol,
then the chances are pretty good that you continued sleeping
with her until you finally got her knocked up. And you have
the gall to lie there and tell me some cock-and-bull story
about a hit-and-run maniac who's going around murdering
people?' McGreavy turned and strode out of the room, his face
red with anger.
The pounding in Judd's head had turned to a throbbing
agony.
Angeli was watching him, worried. 'You all right?'
'You've got to help me,' Judd said. 'Someone is trying to
kill me,' It sounded like a threnody in his ears.
'Who'd have a motive for killing you, Doctor?'
'I don't know.'
'Do you have any enemies?*
'No.'
'Have you been sleeping with anyone's wife or girl
friend?'
Judd shook his head and instantly regretted the motion.
"Is there any money in your family - relatives who might
want to get you out of the way?'
'No."
Angeli sighed 'OK. So there's no motive for anyone wanting
to murder you. What about your patients? I think you'd better
give us a list so we can check them out'
'I can't do that.'
'All I'm asking for is their names.'
'I'm sorry.' It was an effort to speak. 'If I were a
dentist or a chiropodist I'd give it to you. But don't you
see? These people have problems. Most of them serious
problems. If you started questioning them, you'd not only
shatter them; you'd destroy their confidence in me. I
wouldn't be able to treat them any more. I can't give you
that list.' He lay back on the pillow, exhausted.
Angeli looked at him quietly, then asked, "What do you
call a man who thinks that everyone's out to kill him?'
'A paranoiac,' said Judd. He saw the look on Angeli's
face. 'You don't think I'm... ?'
'Put yourself in my place,' Angeli said 'If I were in that
bed right now, talking like you, and you were my doctor, what
would you think?'
Judd dosed his eyes against the stabs of pain in his head.
He heard Angeli's voice continue.
'McGreavy's waiting for me.'
Judd opened his eyes. "Wait... Give me a chance to prove
that I'm telling the truth.'
'How?'
'Whoever's trying to kill me is going to try again. I want
someone with me. Next time they try, he can catch them.'
Angeli looked at Judd 'Dr. Stevens, if someone really
wants to kill you, all the policemen in the world can't stop
them. If they don't get you today, they'll get you tomorrow.
If they don't get you here, they'll get you somewhere else.
It doesn't matter whether you're a king or a president, or
just plain John Doe. life is a very thin thread. It only
takes a second to snap it.'
'There's nothing - nothing at all you can do?'
'I can give you some advice. Have new locks put on the
doors of your apartment, and check the
windows to make sure they're securely bolted. Don't let
anyone in the apartment unless you know them. No delivery
boys unless you've ordered the delivery yourself.'
Judd nodded, his throat dry and aching.
'Your building has a doorman and an elevator man,'
continued Angeli. 'Can you trust them?*
The doorman has worked there for ten years. The elevator
operator has been there eight years. I'd trust them with my
life.'
Angeli nodded approvingly. 'Good. Ask them to keep their
eyes open. If they're on the alert, it's going to be hard for
anyone to sneak up to your apartment. What about the office?
Are you going to hire a new receptionist?'
Judd thought of a stranger sitting at Carol's desk, in her
chair. A spasm o£ helpless anger wracked him. 'Not right
away.'
'You might think about hiring a man,' said Angeli.
'I'll think about it.'
Angeli turned to go, then stopped. 'I have an idea,' he
said hesitantly, 'but it's a long shot.'
'Yes?' He hated the eagerness in his voice.
This man who killed McGreavy's old partner...'
'Ziffren.'
'Was he really insane?'
"Yes. They sent him to the Matteawan State Hospital for
mentally ill criminals.*
'Maybe he blames you for having him put away. Ill check
him out. Just to make sure he hasn't escaped
or been released. Give me a call in the morning.'
Thanks,' Judd said gratefully.
'It's my job. If you're involved in any of this. I'm going
to help McGreavy nail you.' Angeli turned to go. He stopped
again. 'You don't have to mention to McGreavy that I'm
checking on Ziffren for you.'
'I won't.'
The two men smiled at each other. Angeli left. Judd was
alone again.
If the situation was bleak that morning it was even
bleaker now. Judd knew that he would already have been
arrested for murder except for one thing- McGreavy's
character. McGreavy wanted vengeance and he wanted it so
badly that he would make sure that every last bit of evidence
was in place. Could the hit-and-run have been an accident?
There had been snow on the street, and the limousine could
have accidentally skidded into him. But then, why had the
headlights been off? And where had the car come from so
suddenly?
He was convinced now that an assassin had struck - and
would strike again. With that thought, he fell asleep.
Early the next morning Peter and Norah Hadley came to the
hospital to see Judd. They had heard about the accident
Peter was Judd's age, smaller than Judd and painfully
thin. They had come from the same town in Nebraska and had
gone through medical school together.
Norah was English. She was blonde and chubby with a large,
soft bosom a bit too large for her five feet three inches.
She was vivacious and comfortable, and after five minutes'
conversation with her, people felt they had known her for
ever.
"You look lousy,' Peter said, studying Judd critically.
'That's what I like, Doctor. A bedside manner.' Judd's
headache was almost gone and the pain in his
body had been reduced to a dull, aching soreness.
Norah handed him a bouquet of carnations. "We brought you
some flowers, love,' she said. 'You poor
old darling.' She leaned over and kissed him on the cheek.
'How did it happen?' asked Peter.
Judd hesitated. 'It was a hit-and-run accident'
'Everything hit the fan at once, didn't it? I read about
poor Carol.'
'It's dreadful,' said Norah. 'I liked her so much.'
Judd felt a tightness in his throat. 'So did I.'
'Any chance of catching the bastard who did it?' Peter
asked.
'They're working on it'
'In this rooming's paper it said that a Lieutenant
McGreavy is close to making an arrest. Do you know anything
about it?'
'A little,' Judd said dryly. 'McGreavy likes to keep me up
to date.'
'You never know how wonderful the police are until you
really Deed them,' Norah said.
'Dr Harris let me take a look at your X-rays. Some nasty
bruises - no concussion. You'll be out of here
in a few days.'
But Judd knew he had no time to spare.
They spent the next half hour in small talk, carefully
avoiding the subject of Carol Roberts. Peter and Norah were
unaware that John Hanson had been a patient of Judd's. For
some reason of his own, McGreavy had kept that part of the
story out of the newspapers.
When they got up to leave, Judd asked to speak to Peter
alone. While Norah waited outside, Judd told Peter about
Harrison Burke.
'I'm sorry,' said Peter. 'When I sent him to you, I knew
he was in a bad way, but I was hoping there was still time
for you to help him. Of course you have to put him away. When
are you going to do it?'
'As soon as I get out of here,' Judd said. And he knew he
was lying. He didn't want Harrison Burke sent away. Not just
yet. He wanted to find out first whether Burke could have
committed the two murders.
'If there's anything I can do for you, old buddy - call.'
And Peter was gone.
Judd lay there, planning his next move. Since there was no
rational motive for anyone wanting to kill him, it stood to
reasoa that the murders had been committed by someone who was
mentally unbalanced, someone with an imagined grievance
against him. The only two people he could think of who might
fit into that category were Harrison Burke and Amos Ziffren,
the man who had killed McGreavy's partner.
If Burke had no alibi for the morning Hanson was killed,
then Judd would ask Detective Angeli to check him out
further. If Burke had an alibi, then he would concentrate on
Ziffren. The feeling of depression that had enveloped him
began to lift. He felt that at last he was doing something.
He was suddenly desperately impatient to get out of the
hospital.
He rang for the nurse and told her he wanted to see Dr.
Harris. Ten minutes later Seymour Harris walked into the
room. He was a little gnome of a man with bright blue eyes
and tufts of black hair sticking out of his cheeks. Judd had
known him a long time and had a great respect for him.
'Well! Sleeping Beauty's awake. You look terrible.'
Judd was getting tired of hearing it 'I feel fine,' he
lied. 'I want to get out of here'
'When?'
'Now.'
Dr. Harris looked at him reprovingly. 'You just got here.
Why don't you stick around a few days? I'll
send you in a tew nymphomaniac nurses to keep you
company.'
'Thanks, Seymour. I really do have to leave.'
Dr. Harris sighed 'OK. You're the doctor, Doctor.
Personally, I wouldn't let my cat walk around in your
condition.' He looked at Judd keenly. 'Anything I can do to
help?'
Judd shook his head.
'I'll have Miss Bedpan get your clothes.'
Thirty minutes later the girl at the reception desk called
a taxi for him. He was at his office at ten-fifteen.

Chapter Six

His first patient, Teri Washburn, was waiting in the
corridor. Twenty years earlier Teri had been one of the
biggest stars in the Hollywood firmament. Her career had
fizzled overnight, and she had married a lumberman from
Oregon and dropped out of sight. Teri had been married five
or six times since then and was now living in New York with
her latest husband, an importer. She looked up angrily as
Judd came down the corridor.
'Well . . .' she said. The speech of reproval she had
rehearsed died away as she saw his face. 'What happened to
you?' she asked. "You look like you got caught between two
horny mix-masters.'
'Just a little accident. Sorry I'm late.' He unlocked the
door and ushered Teri into the reception office. Carol's
empty desk and chair loomed in front of him.
'I read about Carol,' Teri said. There was an excited edge
to her voice. "Was it a sex murder?'
'No,' Judd said shortly. He opened the door to his inner
office. 'Give me ten minutes.'
He went into the office, consulted his calendar pad, and
began dialling the numbers of his patients, cancelling the
rest of his appointments for the day. He was able to reach
all but three patients. His chest and arm hurt every time he
moved, and his head was beginning to pound again. He took two
Darvan from a drawer and washed them down with a glass of
water. He walked over to the reception door and opened it for
Teri. He steeled himself to put everything out of his mind
for the next fifty minutes except the problems of his
patient. Teri lay down on the couch, her skirt hiked up, and
began talking.
Twenty years ago Teri Washburn had been a raving beauty,
and traces of it were still there. She had the largest,
softest, most innocent eyes that Judd had ever seen. The
sultry mouth had a few hard lines around it, but it was still
voluptuous, and her breasts were rounded and firm beneath a
close-fitting
Gucci print. Judd suspected that she had had a silicone
injection, but he was waiting for her to mention
it. The rest of her body was still good, and her legs were
great.
At one time or another, most of Judd's female patients
thought they were in love with him, the natural transference
from patient-doctor to patient-protector-lover. But Teri's
case was different. She had been trying to have an affair
with Judd from the first minute she had walked into his
office. She had tried to arouse him in every way she could
think of -and Teri was an expert. Judd had finally warned her
that unless she behaved herself, he would send her to another
doctor. Since then she had behaved reasonably well with him:
studying him, trying to find his Achilles heel. An eminent
English physician had sent Teri
to him after a nasty international scandal at Antibes. A
French gossip columnist had accused Teri of spending a
weekend on the yacht of a famous Greek shipping magnate to
whom she was engaged, and sleeping with his three brothers
while the ship's owner flew to Rome for a day on business.
The story
was quickly hushed up and the columnist printed a
retraction and was then quietly fired. In her first session
with Judd, Teri had boasted that the story was true.
'It's wild,' she had said. 'I need sex all the time. I
can't get enough of it' She had rubbed her hands against her
hips, sliding her skirt up, and looked at Judd innocently.
'Do you know what I mean, honey?' she had asked.
Since that first visit, Judd had found out a great deal
about Teri. She had come from a small coal-mining town in
Pennsylvania.
'My father was a dumb Polack. He got his kicks getting
drunk on boilermakers every Saturday night
and beating the shit out of my old lady.'
When she was thirteen, Teri had the body of a woman and
the face of an angel. She learned that she could earn nickels
by going to the back of the coal tips with the miners. The
day her father had found
out, he had come into their small cabin screaming
incoherently in Polish, and had thrown Teri's mother out. He
had locked the door, taken off his heavy belt, and begun
beating Teri. When he was through, he had raped her.
Judd had watched Teri as she lay there describing the
scene, her face empty of any emotion.
'That was the last time I saw my father or mother.'
"You ran away,' Judd said.
Teri twisted around on the couch in surprise. 'What?'
'After your father raped you—'
'Ran away?' Teri said. She threw back her head and let out
a whoop of laughter. 'I liked it. It was my bitch of a mother
who threw me out!'
Now Judd switched on the tape recorder. 'What would you
like to talk about?' he asked.
'Fucking,' she said. 'Why don't we psychoanalyse you and
find out why you're so straight?'
He ignored it "Why did you think Carol's death might have
something to do with a sexual attack?'
'Because everything reminds me of sex, honey.' She
squirmed and her skirt rode a little higher,
'Pull your skirt down, Teri.'
She gave him an innocent look. 'Sorry ... You missed a
great birthday party Saturday night, Doc.'
'Tell me about it.'
She hesitated, an unaccustomed note of concern in her
voice. 'You won't hate me?'
'I've told you that you don't need my approval. The only
one whose approval you need is you. Right and wrong are the
rules we make up ourselves so that we can play in the game
with other people. Without rules, there can't be a game. But
never forget — the rules are artificial.'
There was a silence. Then she spoke. 'It was a swinging
party. My husband hired a six-piece band.'
He waited.
She twisted around to look at him. 'Are you sure you won't
lose respect for me?'
'I want to help you. We've all done things we're ashamed
of, but that does not signify that we have to continue doing
them.'
She studied him a moment, then lay back on the couch. 'Did
I ever tell you I suspected my husband, Harry, is impotent?'
'Yes.' She talked of it constantly.
'He hasn't really done it to me since we've been married.
He always has some goddamn excuse . . .
Well . . .' Her mouth twisted bitterly. 'Well... Saturday
night I fucked the band while Harry watched.'
She began to cry.
Judd handed her some kleenex and sat there, watching her.
<>No one had ever given Teri Washburn anything in her life
that she had not been overcharged for. When she had first
gone to Hollywood, she had landed a job as a waitress in a
drive-in and used most of her wages to go to a third-rate
dramatic coach. Within a week the coach had her move in with
him, doing all his household chores and confining her
coaching to the bedroom. A few weeks later, when she realized
that he could not have got her an acting job even if he had
wanted to, she had waited out on him and taken a job as a
cashier in a Beverly Hills hotel drugstore. A movie executive
had appeared on Christmas Eve to buy a last-minute gift for
his wife. He had given Teri his card and told her to call
him. Teri had made a screen test a week later. She was
awkward and untrained, but she had three things going for
her. She had a sensational face and figure, the camera loved
her, and the studio executive was keeping her.
Teri Washburn appeared in bit parts in a dozen pictures
the first year. She began to get fan mail. Her
parts grew larger. At the end of a year her benefactor
died of a heart attack, and Teri was afraid the studio would
fire her. Instead, the new executive called her in and told
her that he had big plans for her. She got a new contract, a
raise, and a larger apartment with a mirrored bedroom. Teri's
roles gradually grew to leads in B pictures, and finally, as
the public showed their adoration by putting down their money
at the box office to see each new Teri Washburn picture, she
began to star in A pictures.
All that had been a long time ago, and Judd felt sorry for
her as she lay on his couch, trying to control
her sobs.
'Would you like some water?' he asked.
"N-no,' she said. 'I'm f-fine.' She took a handkerchief
out of her purse and blew her nose.
'I'm sorry,' she said, 'for behaving like a goddamn
idiot.' She sat tip.
Judd sat there quietly, waiting for her to get control of
herself.
"Why do I many men like Harry?'
That's an important question. Do you have any idea why?'
'How the hell should I know!' screamed Teri. 'You're the
psychiatrist. If I knew they were like that,
you don't think I'd marry those creeps, do you?'
'What do you think?'
She stared at him, shocked. "You mean you think I would?'
She got to her feet angrily. "Why, you
dirty sonofa-bitch! You think I liked fucking the band?'
'Did you?'
In a fury she picked up a vase and flung it at him. It
shattered against a table. 'Does that answer you?'
'No. That vase was two hundred dollars. 'I'll put it on
your bill.'
She stared at him helplessly. 'Did I really like it?' she
whispered.
'You tell me.'
Her voice dropped even lower. 'I must be sick,' she said.
'Oh, God, I'm sick. Please help me, Judd.
Help me!'
Judd walked over to her. "You've got to help me help you.'
She nodded her head, dumbly.
'I want you to go home and think about how you feel, Teri.
Not while you're doing these things, but before you do them.
Think about why you want to do them. When you know that,
you'll know a great deal about yourself.'
She looked at him a moment, then her face relaxed. She
took out her handkerchief and blew her nose again. Tou're a
helluva man, Charlie Brown,' she said. She picked up her
purse and gloves. 'See you
next week?'
'Yes,' he said. 'See you next week.' He opened the door to
the corridor, and Teri exited.
He knew the answer to Teri's problem, but she would have
to work it through for herself. She would have to leam that
she could not buy love, that it had to be given freely. And
she could not accept the fact that it could be given to her
freely until she learned to believe that she was worthy of
receiving love. Until that time, Teri would go on trying to
buy it, using the only currency she had: her body. He knew
the agony she was going through, the bottomless despair of
self-loathing, and his heart went out to her. But the only
way in which he could help her was to give the appearance of
being impersonal and detached. He knew that to his patients
he seemed remote and aloof from their problems, dispensing
wisdom from some Olympian height. But that was a vital part
of the facade of therapy. In reality he cared deeply about
the problems of his patients. They would have been amazed if
they had known how often the unspeakable demons that tried to
batter down the ramparts of their emotions appeared in Judd'a
own nightmares.
During the first six months of his practice as a
psychiatrist, when he was undergoing the required two years
of analysis necessary to become a psychoanalyst, Judd had
developed blinding headaches. He was emphatically taking on
the symptoms of all his patients, and it had taken him almost
a year to learn to channel and control his emotional
involvement
Now, as Judd locked Teri Washburn's tape away, his mind
came forcibly back to his own dilemma. He walked over to the
phone and dialled information for the number of the
Nineteenth Precinct.
The switchboard operator connected him with the Detective
Bureau. He heard McGreavy's deep bass voice over the phone,
'Lieutenant McGreavy.'
'Detective Angeli, please.'
'Hold on.'
Judd heard the clatter of the phone as McGreavy put the
receiver down. A moment later Angeli's voice came over the
wire. 'Detective Angeli.'
'Judd Stevens. I wondered whether you'd got that
information yet?*
There was an instant's hesitation. 'I checked into it,'
said Angeli carefully.
'All you have to do is say "yes" or "no".' Judd's heart
was pounding. It was an effort for him to ask the next
question. 'Is Ziffren still at Matteawan?'
It seemed an eternity before Angeli answered. "Yes. He's
still there.'
A wave of disappointment surged through Judd. 'Oh. I see.'
'I'm sorry.'
'Thanks,' Judd said. Slowly he hung up.
So that left Harrison Burke. Harrison Burke, a hopeless
paranoiac who was convinced that everyone
was out to kill him. Had Burke decided to strike first?
John Hanson had left Judd's office at ten-fifty on Monday and
had been killed a few minutes later. Judd had to find out
whether Harrison Burke was in
his office at that time. He looked up Burke's office
number and dialled it.
'International Steel.' The voice had the remote,
impersonal timbre of an automaton.
'Mr. Harrison Burke, please.'
'Mr. Harrison Burke . . . Thank you . . . One moment,
please...'
Judd was gambling on Burke's secretary answering the
phone. If she had stepped out for a moment and Burke answered
it himself . . . 'Mr Burke's office.' It was a girl's voice.
This is Dr Judd Stevens. I wonder if you could give me
some information?'
'Oh, yes, Dr. Stevens.' There was a note of relief in her
voice, mixed with apprehension. She must have known that Judd
was Burke's analyst. Was she counting on him for help? What
had Burke been doing
to upset her?
'It's about Mr. Burke's bill...' Judd began.
'His bill?' She made no effort to conceal her
disappointment.
Judd went on quickly. 'My receptionist is - is no longer
with me, and I'm trying to straighten out the books. I see
that she charged Mr Burke for a nine-thirty appointment this
past Monday, and I wonder
if you'd mind checking his calendar for that morning?'
'Just a moment,' she said. There was disapproval in her
voice now. He could read her mind. Her employer was cracking
up and his analyst was only concerned about getting his
money. She came back on the phone a few minutes later. 'I'm
afraid your receptionist made a mistake, Dr. Stevens,' she
said tartly. 'Mr. Burke couldn't have been at your office
Monday morning.'
'Are you sure?' persisted Judd. 'It's down in her book
-nine-thirty to—'
'I don't care what's down in her book, Doctor.' She was
angry now, upset by his callousness.
'Mr Burke was in a staff meeting all morning on Monday. It
began at eight o'clock.'
'Couldn't he have slipped out for an hour?'
'No, Doctor,' she said. 'Mr Burke never leaves his office
during the day.' There was an accusation in
her voice. Can't you see that he's ill? What are you doing
to help him? 'Shall I tell him you called?'
That won't be necessary,' Judd said. 'Thank you.' He
wanted to add a word of reassurance, of comfort, but there
was nothing he could say. He hung up.
So that was that. He had struck out If neither Ziffren nor
Harrison Burke had tried to kill him - then there could be no
one else with any motive. He was back where he had started.
Some person - or persons - had murdered his receptionist and
one of his patients. The hit-and-run incident could have been
deliberate or accidental. At the rime it happened, it seemed
to be deliberate. But looking at it dispassionately, Judd
admitted to himself that be had been wrought up by the events
of the last few days, to his highly emotional state he could
easily have turned an accident into something sinister. The
simple truth was that there was no one who could have any
possible motive for killing him. He had an excellent
relationship with all his patients, warm relationships with
his friends. He had never, to his knowledge, harmed anyone
The phone rang. He recognized Anne's low, throaty voice
instantly.
'Are you busy?'
'No. I can talk.'
There was concern in her voice. 'I read that you were hit
by a car. I wanted to call you sooner, but I didn't know
where to reach you.'
He made bis voice light. 'It was nothing serious. It will
teach me not to jaywalk'
'The papers said it was a hit-and-run accident.'
'Did they find the person who did it?'
'No. It was probably some kid out for a lark.' In a black
limousine without lights.
'Are you sure?' asked Anne.
The question caught him by surprise. 'What do you mean?'
'I don't really know.' Her voice was uncertain. 'It's just
that - Carol was murdered. And now - this.'
So she had put it together, too.
'It - it almost sounds as if there's a maniac running
around loose.'
'If there is,' Judd assured her, 'the police will catch
him.'
'Are you in any danger?'
His heart warmed. 'Of course not.' There was an awkward
silence. There was so much he wanted to
say, but he couldn't He must not mistake a friendly phone
call for anything more than the natural concern that a
patient would have for her doctor. Anne was the type who
would have called anyone who was in trouble. It meant no more
than that.
'I'll still see you on Friday?* he asked.
'Yes.' There was an odd note in her voice. Was she going
to change her mind?
'It's a date,' he said quickly. But of course it was not a
date. It was a business appointment.
"Yes. Goodbye, Dr. Stevens.'
'Goodbye, Mrs. Blake. Thanks for calling. Thanks very
much.' He hung up. And thought about Anne. And wondered if
her tiusband had any idea what an incredibly lucky man he
was.
What was her husband like? In the little Anne had said
about him, Judd had formed the image of an attractive and
thoughtful man. He was a sportsman, bright, was a successful
businessman, donated
money to the arts. He sounded like the kind of person Judd
would have liked for a friend- Under
different circumstances.
What could Anne's problem have been that she was afraid to
discuss with her husband? Or her analyst? With a person of
Anne's character, it was probably an overwhelming feeling of
guilt because of an affair she had had either before she was
married or after her marriage. He could not imagine her
having casual affairs. Perhaps she would tell him on Friday.
When he saw her for the last time.
The rest of the afternoon went by swiftly. Judd saw the
few patients he had not been able to cancel. When the last
one had departed, he took out the tape of Harrison Burke's
last session and played it, making occasional notes as he
listened.
When he had finished, he switched the tape recorder off.
There was no choice. He had to call Burke's employer hi the
morning and inform him of Burke's condition. He glanced out
of the window and was surprised to see that night had fallen.
It was almost eight o'clock. Now that he had finished
concentrating on his work, he suddenly felt stiff and tired.
His ribs were sore and his arm had begun to throb. He
would go home and soak in a nice hot bath.
He put away all the tapes except Burke's, which he locked
in a drawer of a side table. He would turn it over to a
court-appointed psychiatrist. He put on his overcoat and was
halfway out the door when the phone rang. He went to the
phone and picked it up. 'Dr. Stevens.'
There was no answer on the other end. He heard breathing,
heavy and nasal.
'Hello?'
There was no response. Judd hung up. He stood there a
moment, frowning. Wrong number, he decided. He turned out the
office lights, locked the doors, and moved towards the bank
of elevators. All the tenants were long since gone. It was
too early for the night shift of maintenance workers, and
except for Bigelow, the watchman, the building was deserted.
Judd walked over to the elevator and pressed the call
button. The signal indicator did not move. He pressed the
button again. Nothing happened.
And at that moment all the lights in the corridor blacked

Chapter Seven

Judd stood in front of the elevator, the wave of darkness
lapping at him like a physical force. He could feel his heart
slow and then begin to beat faster. A sudden, atavistic fear
flooded his body, and he
reached in his pockets for a book of matches. He had left
them in the office. Perhaps the lights were working on the
floors below. Moving slowly and cautiously, he groped his way
towards the door that led to the stairwell. He pushed the
door open. The stairwell was in darkness. Carefully holding
onto the railing, he started down into the blackness. In the
distance below, he saw the wavering beam of a flashlight
moving up the stairs. He was filled with sudden relief.
Bigelow, the watchman. 'Bigelow!' he yelled. 'Bigelow! It's
Dr. Stevens!' His voice bounced against the stone walls,
echoing eerily through the stairwell. The figure holding the
flashlight kept climbing silently, inexorably upward 'Who's
there?' Judd demanded. The only answer was the echo of his
words.
And Judd suddenly knew who was there. His assassins. There
had to be at least two of them. One bad cut off the power in
the basement while the other blocked the stairs to prevent
his escape.
The beam of the flashlight was coming closer, only two or
three floors below now, climbing rapidly. Judd's body went
cold with fear. His heart began to pound like a triphammer,
and his legs felt weak. He turned quickly and went back up
the stairs to bis floor. He opened the door and stood,
listening. What if someone were waiting up here in the dark
corridor for him?
The sounds of the footsteps advancing up the stairs were
louder now. His mouth dry, Judd turned and made his way along
the inky corridor. When he reached the elevators, he began
counting office doors.
As he reached his office, he heard the stairwell door
open. The keys slipped from his nervous fingers
and dropped to the floor. He fumbled for them frantically,
found them, opened the door to his reception room, and went
in, double-locking the door behind him. No one could open it
now without a special key.
From the corridor outside, he could hear the sound of
approaching footsteps. He went into his private office and
nicked the light switch. Nothing happened. There was no power
at all in the building. He locked die inner door, then moved
to the phone. He fumbled for the dial and dialled the
operator. There were three long, steady rings, and then the
operator's voice, Judd's only link to the outside world.
He spoke softly. 'Operator, this is an emergency. This is
Dr. Judd Stevens. I want to speak to Detective Frank Angeli
at the Nineteenth Precinct. Please hurry!'
'Thank you. Your number please?'
Judd gave it to her.
'One moment, please.'
He heard the sound of someone testing the corridor
entrance to his private office. They could not get
in that way because there was no outside knob on the door.
'Hurry, Operator!*
'One moment, please,' replied the cool, unhurried voice.
There was a buzz on the line and then the police
switchboard operator spoke. 'Nineteenth Precinct.'
Judd's heart leaped. 'Detective Angeli. he said. 'It's
urgent!'
'Detective Angeli... - just a moment, please.'
Outside in the corridor, something was happening. He could
hear the sound of muted voices. Someone had joined the first
man. What were they planning?
A familiar voice came on tlie phone. 'Detective Angeli's
not here. This is his partner, Lieutenant McGreavy. Can—'
'This is Judd Stevens. I'm in my office. The lights are
all out and someone's trying to break in and
kill me !'
There was a heavy silence on the other end. 'Look,
Doctor,' said McGreavy. 'Why don't you come
down here and we'll talk a--'
'I can't come down there.' Judd almost shouted. 'Someone's
trying to murder me!'
There was another silence at the other end of the line.
McGreavy did not believe him and was not going to help him.
Outside, Judd heard a door open, and then the sound of voices
in the recepdon office. They were in the reception office! It
was impossible for them to have got in without a key. But he
could hear them moving, coming towards the door to his
private office.
McGreavy's voice was coming over the phone, but Judd
didn't even listen. It was too late. He replaced the
receiver.
It would not have mattered even if McGreavy had agreed to
come. The assassins were here! Life is a very thin thread and
it only takes a second to snap it. The fear that gripped him
turned to a blind rage. He refused to be slaughtered like
Hanson and Carol. He was going to put up a fight. He felt
around in the dark for a possible weapon. An ashtray... a
letter opener ... useless. The assassins would have guns. It
was a Kafka nightmare. He was being condemned for no reason
by faceless executioners.
He heard them moving closer to the inner door and knew
that he only had a minute or two left to live. With a
strange, dispassionate calm, as though he were his own
patient, he examined bis final thoughts.
He thought of Anne, and a sense of aching loss filled him.
He thought of his patients, and of how much they needed him.
Harrison Burke. With a pang he remembered that he had not yet
told Burke's employer that Burke had to be committed. He
would put the tapes where they could be... His heart lurched.
Perhaps he did have a weapon to fight with!
He heard the doorknob turning. The door was locked, but it
was flimsy. It would be simple for them to break in. He
quickly groped his way in the dark to the table where he had
locked away Burke's tape. He heard a creak as pressure was
applied against the reception-room door. Then he heard
someone fumbling at the lock. Why don't they just break it
down? he thought. Somewhere, far back in his mind, he felt
the answer was important, but he had no time to think about
it now With trembling fingers he unlocked the drawer with the
tape in it. He ripped it out of its cardboard container, then
moved over to the tape player and started to thread it. It
was an outside chance, but it was the only one he had.
He stood there, concentrating, trying to recall his exact
conversation with Burke. The pressure on the door increased.
Judd gave a quick, silent prayer. 'I'm sorry about the power
going out,' he said aloud.
'But I'm sure they'll have it fixed in a few minutes,
Harrison. Why don't you lie down and relax?'
The noise at the door suddenly ceased. Judd had finished
threading the tape into the player. He pressed the 'on'
button. Nothing happened. Of course. All the power in the
building was off. He could hear them begin to work on die
lock again. A feeling of desperation seized him. 'That's
better,' he said loudly. 'Just make yourself comfortable.' He
fumbled for the packet of matches on the table, found it,
tore out a match and lit it. He held the name close to the
tape player. There was a switch marked 'battery'. He turned
the knob, then pressed the 'on' button again. At that moment,
there was a sudden click as the lock on the door sprung open.
His last defence was gone!
And then Burke's voice rang through the room. 'Is that all
you've got to say? You don't even want to
hear my proof. How do I know you're not one of them?'
Judd froze, not daring to move, bis heart roaring like
thunder.
"You know I'm not one of them,' said Judd's voice from the
tape. 'I'm your friend. I'm trying to help
you ... Tell me about your proof.'
'They broke into my house last night,' Burke's voice said.
They came to kill me, but I was too clever
for them. I sleep in my den now, and I have extra locks on
all the doors so they can't get to me.'
The sounds in the outer office had ceased.
Judd's voice again. 'Did you report the break-in to the
police?'
'Of course not! The police are in it with them. They have
orders to shoot me. But they wouldn't dare
do it while there are odier people around, so I stay in
crowds.'
'I'm glad you gave me this information.'
'What are you going to do with it?'
'I'm listening very carefully to everything you say,' said
Judd's voice. 'I've got it all down' — at that moment a
warning screamed in Judd's brain; the next words were - 'on
tape.'
He made a dive for the switch and pressed it. '—in my
mind,' Judd said loudly. 'And well work out the best way to
handle it.' He stopped. He could not play the tape again
because he had no way of telling where to pick it up. His
only hope was that the men outside were convinced that Judd
had a patient in
the office with him. Even if they believed it, would it
stop them?
'Cases like this,' Judd said, raising his voice, 'are
really more common than you'd believe, Harrison.' He gave an
impatient exclamation. 'I wish they'd get these lights back
on. I know your chauffeur's waiting
out in front for you. Hell probably wonder what's wrong
and come up.'
Judd stopped and listened. He could hear whispering from
the other side of the door. "What were they deciding? From
the distant street below, he suddenly heard the insistent
wail of an approaching siren.
The whispering stopped. He listened for the sound of the
outer door closing, but he could hear nothing. Were they
still out there, waiting? The scream of the siren grew
louder. It stopped in front of the building.
And suddenly all the lights went on.

Chapter Eight

'Drink?'
McGreavy shook his head moodily, studying Judd. Judd
poured himself his second stiff scotch while McGreavy watched
without comment. Judd's hands were still trembling. As the
warmth of the whisky floated through him, he felt himself
beginning to relax.
McGreavy had arrived at the office two minutes after the
lights had come on. With him was a stolid police sergeant who
now sat making notes in a shorthand notebook.
McGreavy was talking. 'Let's go over it once more, Dr.
Stevens.'
Judd toolt a deep breath and began again, deliberately
keeping his voice calm and low. 'I locked the
office and went to the elevator. The corridor lights
blacked out. I thought that the lights on the lower floors
might be working, and I started to walk down.' Judd
hesitated, reliving the fear. 'I saw someone coming up the
stairs with a flashlight. I called out I thought it was
Bigelow, the guard. It wasn't.'
'Who was it?'
'I've told you,' said Judd. 'I don't know. They didn't
answer.'
'What made you think they were coming to kill you?'
An angry retort came to Judd's lips, and he checked it. It
was essential to make McGreavy believe him. They followed me
back to my office.'
'You think there were two men trying to kill you?'
'At least two,' Judd said. 'I heard them whispering.'
'You said that when you entered your reception office, you
locked the outside door leading to the corridor. Is that
right?'
'Yes.'
'And that when you came into your inner office, you locked
the door leading to the reception office.'
'Yes.'
McGreavy walked over to the door leading from the
reception office to Judd's inner office. 'Did they
try to force this door?'
'No,' admitted Judd. He remembered how puzzled he had been
by that.
'Right,' said McGreavy. 'When you lock the
reception-office door that opens onto the corridor, it takes
a special key to open it from the outside.'
Judd hesitated. He knew what McGreavy was leading up to.
'Yes.'
'Who had the keys to that lock?*
Judd felt his face reddening. 'Carol and I.'
McGreavy's voice was bland. 'What about the cleaning
people? How did they get in?'
'We had a special arrangement with them. Carol came in
early three mornings a week and let them in. They were
finished before my first patient arrived.'
'That seems inconvenient. Why couldn't they get into these
offices when they cleaned all the other offices?'
'Because the files I keep in here are of a highly
confidential nature. I prefer the inconvenience to
having strangers in here when no one is around.'
McGreavy looked over at the sergeant to make sure he was
getting it all down. Satisfied, he turned back to Judd. 'When
we walked into the reception office, the door was unlocked.
Not forced-unlocked.'
Judd said nothing.
McGreavy went on. 'You just told us that the only ones who
had a key to that lock were you and
Carol. And we have Carol's key. Think again, Dr. Stevens.
Who else had a key to that door?'
'Then how do you suppose those men got in?'
And Judd suddenly knew. "They made a copy of Carol's key
when they killed her.'
'It's possible.' conceded McGreavy. A bleak smile touched
his lips. 'If they made a copy, we'll find paraffin traces on
her key. I'll have the lab run a test.'
Judd nodded. He felt as though he had scored a victory,
but his feeling of satisfaction was short-lived.
'So the way you see it,' McGreavy said, 'two men - well
assume for the moment there's no woman involved - had a key
copied so they could get into your office and kill you.
Right?'
'Right,' said Judd.
'Now you said that when you went into your office, you
locked the inner door. True?'
'Yes,' Judd said.
McGreavy's voice was almost mild. "But we found that door
unlocked, too,'
'They must have had a key to it'
'Then after they got it open, why didn't they kill you?'
'I told you. They heard the voices on the tape and—'
'These two desperate killers went to all the trouble to
knock out the lights, trap you up here, break into your
office - and then just vanished into thin air without harming
a hair of your head?' His voice was
filled with contempt.
Judd felt cold anger rising in him. "What are you
implying?'
'I'll spell it out for you. Doctor. I don't think anyone
was here and I don't believe anyone tried to kill you.'
'You don't have to take my word for it,' Judd said
angrily. 'What about the lights? What about the night
watchman, Bigelow?'
'He's in the lobby.'
Judd's heart missed a beat. 'Dead?'
'He wasn't when he let us in. There was a faulty wire in
the main power switch. Bigelow was down in
the basement trying to fix it. He got it working just as I
arrived.'
Judd looked at him numbly. 'Oh,' he said finally.
'I don't know what you're playing at, Dr. Stevens,'
McGreavy said, 'but from now on, count me out.'
He moved towards the door. 'And do me a favour. Don't call
me again. I'll call you.'
The sergeant snapped his notebook shut and followed
McGreavy out.
The effects of the whisky had evaporated. The euphoria had
gone, and he was left with a deep depression. He had no idea
what his next move should be. He was on the inside of a
puzzle that had no key. He felt like the boy who cried 'wolf,
except that the wolves were deadly, unseen phantoms, and
every time McGreavy came, they seemed to vanish. Phantoms or
... There was one other possibility. It was so horrifying
that he couldn't bring himself to even acknowledge it. But he
had to.
He had to face the possibility that he was a paranoiac.
A mind that was overstressed could give birth to delusions
that seemed totally real. He had been working too hard. He
had not had a vacation in years. It was conceivable that the
deaths of Hanson and Carol could have been the catalyst that
had sent his mind over some emotional precipice so that
events became enormously magnified and out of joint. People
suffering from paranoia lived in a land where everyday,
commonplace things represented nameless terrors. Take the car
accident. If it had been a deliberate attempt to kill him,
surely the driver would have got out and made sure that the
job was finished. And the two men who had come here tonight.
He did not know that they had guns. Would a paranoiac not
assume that they were there to kill him? It was more logical
to believe that they were sneak thieves. When they had heard
the voices in his inner office, they had fled. Surely, if
they were assassins, they would have opened the unlocked door
and killed him. How could he find out the truth? He knew it
would be useless to appeal to the police again. There was no
one to whom he could turn.
An idea began to form. It was born of desperation, but the
more he examined it. the more sense it made. He picked up the
telephone directory and began to rifle through the yellow
pages.

Chapter Nine

At four o'clock the following afternoon Judd left his
office and drove to an address on the lower West Side. It was
an ancient, run-down brownstone apartment house. As he pulled
up in front of the dilapidated building, Judd began to have
misgivings. Perhaps he had the wrong address. Then a sign in
a window of a first-floor apartment caught his eye:
Norman Z. Moody
Private Investigator
Satisfaction Guaranteed
Judd alighted from the car. It was a raw, windy day with a
forecast of laie snow. He moved gingerly across the icy
sidewalk and walked into the vestibule of the building.
The vestibule smelled of mingled odours of stale cooking
and urine. He pressed the burton marked 'Norman Z. Moody -
1', and a moment later a buzzer sounded. He stepped inside
and found
Apartment 1. A sign on the door read:
Norman Z. Moody
Private Investigator
RING BELL AND ENTER
He rang the bell and entered.
Moody was obviously not a man given to throwing his money
away on luxuries. The office looked as though it had been
furnished by a blind, hyperthyroid pack rat. Odds and ends
crammed every spare inch of the room. In one corner stood a
tattered Japanese screen. Next to it was an East Indian lamp,
and in front of the lamp a scarred Danish-modern table.
Newspapers and old magazines were piled everywhere.
A door to an inner room burst open and Norman Z. Moody
emerged. He was about five foot five and must have weighed
three hundred pounds. He rolled as he walked, reminding Judd
of an animated Buddha. He had a round, jovial face with wide,
guileless, pale blue eyes. He was totally bald and his
head was egg-shaped. It was impossible to guess his age.
'Mr. Stevenson?' Moody greeted him.
'Dr. Stevens,' Judd said.
'Sit down, sit down.' Buddha with a Southern drawl.
Judd looked around for a seat. He removed a pile of old
body-building and nudist magazines from a scrofulous-looking
leather armchair with strips torn out of it, and gingerly sat
down.
Moody was lowering his bulk into an oversized rocking
chair. 'Well, now! What can I do for you?'
Judd knew that he had made a mistake. Over the phone he
had carefully given Moody his full name. A name that had been
on the front page of every New York newspaper in the last few
days. And he had managed to pick the only private detective
in the whole city who had never even heard of him. He cast
about for some excuse to walk out.
'Who recommended me?'Moody prodded.
Judd hesitated, not wanting to offend him. 'I got your
name out of the yellow pages.'
Moody laughed 'I don't know what I'd do without the yellow
pages,' he said. 'Greatest invention since com liquor.' He
gave another little laugh.
Judd got to his feet He was dealing with a total idiot. Tm
sorry to have taken up your time, Mr. Moody,' he said.
'I'd like to think about this some more before I..."
'Sure, sure. I understand.' Moody said. 'You'll have to
pay me for the appointment, though.'
'Of course.' Judd said. He reached in his pocket and
pulled out some bills. 'How much is it?'
'Fifty dollars.'
'Fifty—?' Judd swallowed angrily, peeled off some bills
and thrust them in Moody's hand. Moody counted the money
carefully.
'Thanks a lot.' Moody said. Judd started towards the door,
feeling like a fool. 'Doctor...'
Judd turned. Moody was smiling at him benevolently,
tucking the money into the pocket of his waistcoat 'As long
as you're stuck for the fifty dollars.' he said mildly, 'you
might as well sit down and tell me what your problem is. I
always say that nothin' takes more weight off than gettin'
things of your chest.'
The irony of it, coming from this silly fat man, almost
made Judd laugh. Judd's whole life was devoted to listening
to people get things off their chests. He studied Moody a
moment. What could he lose? Perhaps talking it out with a
stranger would help. Slowly he went back to his chair and sat
down.
'You look like you're carryin* the weight of the world,
Doc. I always say that four shoulders are better than two.'
Judd was not certain how many of Moody's aphorisms he was
going to he able to stand.
Moody was watching him. 'What brought you here? Women, or
money? I always say if you took away women and money, you'd
solve most of the world's problems right there.' Moody was
eyeing him,
waiting for an answer.
'I -I think someone is trying to kill me.'
Blue eyes blinked. 'You think?'
Judd brushed the question aside. 'Perhaps you could give
me the name of someone who specializes in investigating that
kind of thing.'
'I certainly can.' Moody said. 'Norman Z. Moody. Best in
the country.'
Judd sighed in despair.
'Why don't you tell me about it, Doc?' Moody suggested.
"Let's see if the two of us can't sort it out a little.'
Judd had to smile in spite of himself. It sounded so much
like himself. Just lie down and say anything that comes into
your mind. Why not? He took a deep breath and, as concisely
as possible, told Moody the events of the past few days. As
he spoke, he forgot that Moody was there. He was really
speaking to himself, putting into words the baffling things
that had occurred. He carefully said nothing to Moody about
his fears for his own sanity. When Judd had finished, Moody
regarded him happily.
"You got yourself a dilly of a problem there. Either
somebody's out to murder you, or you're afraid that you're
becoming a schizophrenic paranoiac'
Judd looked up in surprise. Score one for Norman Z. Moody.
Moody went on. "You said there are two detectives on the
case. Do you remember their names?'
Judd hesitated. He was reluctant to get too deeply
committed to this man. All he really wanted to do was to get
out of there. 'Frank Angeli,' he answered, and 'and
Lieutenant McGreavy.'
There was an almost imperceptible change in Moody's
expression.
'What reason would anyone have to kill you. Doc?'
'I have no idea. As far as I know, I haven't any enemies.'
'Oh, come on. Everybody's got a few enemies layin' around.
I always say enemies give a little salt to
the bread of life.'
Judd tried not to wince.
'Married?'
'No,' Judd said.
'Are you a fairy?'
Judd sighed. 'Look, I've been through all this with the
police and—'
'Yeah, Only you're payin' me to help you,' Moody said,
unperturbed. 'Owe anybody any money?'
'Just the normal monthly bills.'
'What about your patients?'
'What about them?'
"Well, I always say if you're lookin' for seashells, go
down to the seashore. Your patients are a lot of loonies.
Right?"
'Wrong,' Judd said curdy. 'They're people with problems.'
'Emotional problems that they can't solve themselves.
Could one of them have it in for you? Oh, not
for any real reason, but maybe somebody with an imaginary
grievance against you.'
'It's possible. Except for one thing. Most of my patients
have been under my care for a year or more.
In that length of time I've got to know them as well as
one human being can know another.'
'Don't they never get mad at you?' Moody asked innocently.
'Sometimes. But we're not looking for someone who's angry.
We're looking for a homicidal paranoiac who has murdered at
least two people and has made several attempts to murder me.'
He hesitated, then made himself go on. 'If I have a patient
like that and don't know it, then you're looking at the most
incompetent psychoanalyst who ever lived'
He looked up and saw Moody studying him.
'I always say first things firs.' Moody said cheerfully.
'The first thing we've gotta do is find out whether someone's
trying to knock you off, or whether you're nuts. Right, Doc?'
He broke into a broad smile, taking the offence out of his
words.
'How?' Judd asked.
'Simple,' Moody said. 'Your problem is, you're standin' at
home plate strikin' at curve balls, an' you
don't know if anyone's pitchin'. First we're gonna find
out if there's a ball-game goin' on; then we're gonna find
out who the players are. You got a car?'
'Yes.'
Judd had forgotten about walking out and finding another
private detective. He sensed now behind Moody's bland,
innocent face and his homespun maxims a quiet, intelligent
capability.
'I think your nerves are shot,' Moody said. 'I want you to
take a little vacation.'
'When?'
'Tomorrow morning.'
'That's impossible,' Judd protested. 'I have patients
scheduled.. .'
Moody brushed it aside. 'Cancel them.'
'But what good—'
'Do I tell you how to run your business?' Moody asked.
'When you leave here, I want you to go straight to a travel
agency. Have them get you a reservation at" - he thought a
moment - 'Grossinger's. That's a pretty drive up through the
Catskills... Is there a garage in the apartment building
where you live?'
'OK. Tell them to service your car for the trip. You don't
want to have any breakdowns on the road'
'Couldn't I do this next week? Tomorrow is a full—'
'After you make your reservation, you're going back to
your office and call all your patients. Tell them you've had
an emergency and you'll be back in a week.'
'I really can't,' Judd said. If s out of the—'
'You'd better call Angeli, too.' Moody continued. 1 don't
want the police hunting for you while you're gone.'
'Why am I doing this?' Judd asked.
'To protect your fifty dollars. That reminds me. Fm gonna
need another two hundred for a retainer.
Plus fifty a day for expenses.'
Moody hauled his large bulk up out of the big rocker. 'I
can get up there before dark. Can you leave about seven in
the morning?'
'I... I suppose so. What will I find when I get up
there?'
'With a little luck, a scorecard.'
Five minutes later Judd was thoughtfully getting into his
car. He had told Moody that he could not go away and leave
his patients on such short notice. But he knew that he was
going to. He was literally putting his life into the hands of
the Falstaff of the private detective world. As he started
to drive away, his eye caught Moody's sign
in the window.
SATISFACTION GUARANTEED
He'd better be right, Judd thought grimly.
The plan for the trip went smoothly. Judd stopped at a
travel agency on Madison Avenue. They reserved a room for him
at Grossinger's and provided him with a road map and a
variety of colour brochures on the Catskills. Next he
telephoned his answering service and arranged for them to
call his patients and cancel all his appointments until
further notice. He phoned the Nineteenth Precinct and asked
for Detective Angeli.
'Angeli's home sick,' said an impersonal voice. 'Do you
want his home number?'
'Yes.'
A few moments later he was talking to Angeli. From the
sound of Angeli's voice, he had a heavy cold.
'I've decided I need to get out of town for a few days,'
Judd said. 'I'm leaving in the morning. I wanted
to check it with you.'
There was a silence while Angeli thought it over. 'It
might not be a bad idea. Where will you go?'
'I thought I'd drive up to Grossinger's.'
'All right,' Angeli said. 'Don't worry. I'll clear it with
McGreavy.' He hesitated. 'I heard what happened
at your office last night.'
'You mean you heard McGreavy's version,' Judd said.
'Did you get a look at the men who tried to kill you?'
So Angeli, at least, believed him.
'No.'
'Nothing at all that could help us find them? Colour, age,
height?'
'I'm sorry,' Judd said. 'It was dark.'
Angeli sniffed. 'OK. I'll keep looking. Maybe I'll have
some good news for you when you get back.
Be careful, Doctor.'
'I will,' Judd said gratefully. And he hung up.
Next he phoned Harrison Burke's employer and briefly
explained Burke's situation. There was no choice but to have
him committed as soon as possible. Judd then called Peter,
explained that he had to go out
of town for a week, and asked him to make the necessary
arrangements for Burke. Peter agreed.
The decks were clear.
The thing that disturbed Judd the most was that he would
be unable to see Anne on Friday. Perhaps he would never see
her again.
As he drove back towards his apartment, he thought about
Norman Z. Moody. He had an idea what Moody was up to. By
having Judd notify all his patients that he was going away,
Moody was making
sure that if one of Judd's patients was the killer - if
there was a killer - a trap, using Judd as the bait, would be
set for him.
Moody had instructed him to leave his forwarding address
with his telephone exchange and with the doorman at the
apartment building. He was making certain that everyone would
know where Judd
was going.
When Judd pulled up in front of the apartment house, Mike
was there to greet him.
'I'm leaving on a trip in the morning, Mike,' Judd
informed him. 'Will you make sure the garage
services my car and fills the tank?'
'I'll have it taken care of, Dr. Stevens. What time will
you be needing the car?'
'I'll be leaving at seven.' Judd sensed Mike watching him
as he walked into the apartment building.
When he entered his apartment, he locked the doors and
carefully checked the windows. Everything seemed to be in
order.
He took two codeine pills, got undressed, and ran a hot
bath, gingerly easing his aching body into it, feeling the
tensions soaking out of his back and neck. He lay in the
blessedly relaxing tub, thinking. Why had Moody warned him
not to let the car break down on the road? Because that was
the most likely
place for him to be attacked, somewhere on a lonely road
in the Catskills And what could Moody
do about it if Judd were attacked? Moody had refused to
tell him what his plan was - if there was a plan. The more
Judd examined it, the more convinced he became that he was
walking into a trap. Moody had said he was setting it up for
Judd's pursuers. But no matter how many times he went over
it, the answer always came out the same: the trap seemed
designed to catch Judd. But why? What interest could Moody
have in getting him killed? My God, thought Judd. I've picked
a name at random out of the yellow pages of the Manhattan
Telephone Directory and I believe he wants to have me
murdered! I am paranoiac!
He felt his eyes beginning to close. The pills and the hot
bath had done their work well. Wearily he pulled himself out
of the tub, carefully patted his bruised body dry with a
fluffy towel, and put on a pair of pyjamas. He got into bed
and set the electric alarm clock for six. The Catskills, he
thought. It was an appropriate name. And he fell into a deep,
exhausted sleep.
At six am, when the alarm went off, Judd was instantly
awake. As though there had been no time lapse
at all, his first thought was, I don't believe in a series
of coincidences and I don't believe that one of my patients
is a mass murderer. Ergo, I am either a paranoiac, or am
becoming one. What he needed was to consult another
psychoanalyst without delay. He would phone Dr. Robbie. He
knew that it would mean the end of his professional career,
but there was no help for it. If he were suffering from
paranoia, they would have to commit him. Did Moody suspect
that he was dealing with a mental case? Was that why he
suggested a vacation? Not because he believed anyone was
after Judd's life, but because he could see the signs of a
nervous breakdown? Perhaps the wisest course would be to
follow Moody's advice and go to the Catskills for a few days.
Alone, with all the pressures removed, he could calmly try to
evaluate himself, try to reason out when Ms mind had started
to trick him, when he had begun to lose touch with reality.
Then, when he returned, he would make an appointment with Dr.
Robbie and put himself under his care.
It was a painful decision to make, but having made it,
Judd felt better. He dressed, packed a small suitcase with
enough clothes for five days, and carried it out to the
elevator.
Eddie was not on duty yet, and the elevator was on
self-service. Judd rode down to the basement garage. He
looted round for Wilt, the attendant, but he was nowhere
around. The garage was deserted.
Judd sported his car parked in a corner against the cement
wall. He walked over to it, put his suitcase in the back
seat, opened the front door, and eased in behind the wheel.
As he reached for the ignition key,
a man loomed up at his side from nowhere. Judd's heart
skipped a beat.
'You're right on schedule.' It was Moody.
'I didn't know you were going to see me off.' Judd said.
Moody beamed at him, his cherubic face breaking into a
huge smile, 'I had nothing better to do and
I couldn't sleep.'
Judd was suddenly grateful for the tactful way Moody had
handled the situation. No reference to the
fact that Judd drive up to the country and take a rest
Well, the least Judd could do was to keep up the pretence
that everything was normal.
'I decided you were right. I'm going to drive up and see
if I can find a scorecard to the ball-game.'
"Oh, you don't have to go anywhere for that,' Moody said.
That's all taken care of.'
Judd looked at him blankly. 'I don't understand.'
'It's simple. I always say when you want to get to the
bottom of anything, you gotta start diggin'.'
'Mr. Moody...'
Moody leaned against the door of the car. 'You know what I
found intriguin' about your little problem, Doc? Seemed like
every five minutes somebody was tryin' to kill you -maybe.
Now that "maybe" fascinated me. There was nothin' for us to
bite into till we found out whether you were crackin' up, or
whether someone was really tryin' to turn you into a corpse.'
Judd looked at him. 'But the Catskills...' he said
weakly.
'Oh, you wasn't never goin' to the Catskilla, Doc.' He
opened the door of the car. 'Step out here.'
Bewildered, Judd stepped out of the car.
'You see, that was just advertising- I always say if you
wanta catch a shark, you've gotta bloody up
the water first.'
Judd was watching his facc.
'I'm afraid you never would have got to the Catskills,'
Moody said gently. He walked around to the hood of the cat,
fumbled with the catch, and raised the hood. Judd walked over
to his side. Taped to the distributor head were three sticks
of dynamite. Two thin wires were dangling loose from the
ignition.
'Booby-trapped,' Moody said.
Judd looked at him, baffled. 'But how did you...?'
Moody grinned. 'I told you, I'm a bad sleeper. I got here
around midnight. I paid the nightman to go
out and have some fun, an' I just kinda waited in the
shadows. The nightman'll cost another twenty dollars,' he
added. 'I didn't want you to look cheap.'
Judd felt a sudden wave of affection towards the little
fat man. Did you see who did it?'
'Nope. It was done before I got here. At six o'clock this
mornin* I figured no one was gonna show up
any more, so I took a look.' He pointed to the dangling
wires. Tfour friends are real cute. They rigged a second
booby-trap so if you lifted the hood all the way, this wire
would detonate the dynamite. The same thing would happen if
you turned on your ignition. There's enough stuff here to
wipe out half the garage.'
Judd felt suddenly sick to his stomach. Moody looked at
him sympathetically. 'Cheer up,' he said. 'Look at the
progress we've made. We know two things. First of all, we
know you're not nuts. And secondly" - the smile left his face
- 'we know that somebody is God Almighty anxious to murder
you, Dr Stevens.'

Chapter Ten

They were sitting in the living-room of Judd's apartment,
talking, Moody's enormous body spilling over the large couch.
Moody had carefully put the pieces of the already defused
bomb in the trunk of his
own car.
'Shouldn't you have left it there so the police could have
examined it?' Judd asked.
'I always say that the most confusin* thing in the world
is too much information.'
'But it would have proved to Lieutenant McGreavy that I've
been telling the truth.'
'Would it?'
Judd saw his point. As far as McGreavy was concerned, Judd
could have placed it there himself. Still, it seemed odd to
him that a private detective would withhold evidence from the
police. He had a feeling that Moody was like an enormous
iceberg. Most of the man was concealed under the surface,
under that facade of gentle, small-town humbler. But now, as
he listened to Moody talking, he was filled with elation. He
was not insane and the world had not suddenly become filled
with wild coincidences. There was an assassin on the loose. A
fiesh-and-blood assassin. And for some reason he had chosen
Judd as his target. My God, thought Judd, how easily out egos
are destroyed. A few minutes ago he had been ready to believe
that he was paranoiac. He owed Moody an incalculable debt.
'... You're the doctor,' Moody was saying. 'I'm just an
old gumshoe, I always say when you want
honey, go to a beehive.'
Judd was beginning to understand Moody's jargon. 'You want
my opinion about the kind of man, or
men, we're looking for.'
That's it,' beamed Moody. 'Are we dealin' with some
homicidal maniac who broke out of a loony bin' -
Mental institution, Judd thought automatically.
— 'or have we got somethin' deeper goin' here?'
'Something deeper,' said Judd instantly.
'What makes you think so, Doc?'
"First of all, two men broke into my office last night I
might swallow the theory of one lunatic, but two lunatics
working together is too much.'
Moody nodded approvingly. 'Gotcha. Go on.'
'Secondly, a deranged mind may have an obsession, but it
works in a definite pattern. I don't know why John Hanson and
Carol Roberts were killed, but unless I'm wrong, I'm
scheduled to be the third and last victim.'
'What makes you think you're the last?' asked Moody
curiously.
'Because,' replied Judd, 'if there were going to be other
murders, then the first time they failed to kill
me, they would have gone on to get whoever else was on
their list. But instead of that, they've been concentrating
on trying to kill me.'
'You know,' said Moody approvingly, 'you have the natural
born makin's of a detective.'
Judd was frowning. There are several things that make no
sense.'
'Such as?'
'First, the motive,' said Judd. 'I don't know anyone who—'
'We'll come back to that. What else?'
'If someone really was that anxious to kill me, when the
car knocked me down, all the driver had to do was to back up
and run over me. I was unconscious.'
'Ah! That's where Mr. Benson comes in.'
Judd looked at him blankly.
'Mr Benson is the witness to your accident," explained
Moody benevolently. 'I got his name from the police report
and went to see him after you left my office. That'll be
three-fifty for taxicabs. OK?'
Judd nodded, speechless.
<>'Mr. Benson - he's a furrier, by the way. Beautiful
stuff. If you ever want to buy anything for your sweetheart,
I can get you a discount Anyway, Tuesday, the night of the
accident, he was comin' out
of an office building where his sister-in-law works. He
dropped some pills off because his brother Matthew, who's a
Bible salesman, had the flu an' she was goin' to take the
pills home to him.'
Judd controlled his impatience. If Norman Z. Moody had
felt like sitting there and reciting the entire
Bill of Rights, he was going to listen.
'So Mr. Benson dropped off these pills an' was comin' out
of the building when he saw this limousine headin' towards
you. Of course, he didn't know it was you at the time.'
Judd nodded.
The car was kinda crabbin' sideways, an' from Benson's
angle, it looked like it was in a skid. When he saw it hit
you, he started runnin' over to see if he could help. The
limousine backed up to make another run at you. He saw Mr
Benson an* got out of there like a bat outta hell.'
Judd swallowed. 'So if Mr. Benson hadn't happened
along...'
'Yeah,' said Moody mildly. You might say you an' me
wouldn't have met. These boys ain't playin'
games. They're out to get you, Doc.'
'What about the attack in my office? Why didn't they break
the door down?'
Moody was silent for a moment, thinking. 'That's a
puzzler. They coulda broken in an' killed you an' whoever was
with you an' got away without anybody seein' them. But when
they thought you weren't alone, they left. It don't fit in
with the rest.' He sat there worrying his lower lip. 'Unless
...' he said.
'Unless what?'
A speculative look came over Moody's face. 'I wonder...'
he breathed.
'What?'
'It'll keep for the time bein'. I got me a little idea,
but it don't make sense until we find a motive.'
Judd shrugged helplessly. 'I don't know of anyone who has
a motive for killing me.'
Moody thought about this a moment. 'Doc, could you have
any secret that you shared with this patient
of yours, Hanson, an' Carol Roberts? Somethin' maybe only
the three of you knew about?'
Judd shook his head. "The only secrets I have are
professional secrets about my patients. And there's not one
single thing in any of their case histories that would
justify murder. None of my patients is a secret agent, or a
foreign spy, or an escaped convict. They're just ordinary
people - housewives, professional men, bank clerks — who have
problems they can't cope with.'
Moody looked at him guilelessly. 'An' you're sure that
you're not harbouring a homicidal maniac in your little
group?'
Judd's voice was firm. "Positive. Yesterday I might not
have been sure. To tell you the truth, I was beginning to
think that I was suffering from paranoia and that you were
humouring me.'
Moody smiled at him. The thought had crossed my mind,' he
said. 'After you phoned me for an appointment, I did some
checking up on you. I called a couple of pretty good doctor
friends of mine.
You got quite a reputation.'
So the 'Mr. Stevenson' had been part of£ Moody's country
bumpkin facade.
'If we go to the police now,' Judd said, 'with what we
know, we can at least get them to start looking
for whoever's behind all this.'
Moody looked at him in mild surprise. 'You think so? We
don't really have much to go on yet, do we, Doc?'
It was true.
'I wouldn't be discouraged,' Moody said. 'I think we're
maldn' real progress. We've narrowed it down nicely.'
A note of frustration crept into Judd's voice. 'Sure It
could be anyone in the Continental United States.'
Moody sat there a moment, contemplating the ceiling.
Finally he shook his head. 'Families,' he sighed.
'Families?'
"Doc -I believe you when you say you know your patients
inside out. If you tell me they couldn't do anything like
this, I have 10 go along with you. It's your beehive an'
you're th' keeper of the honey.'
He leaned forward on the couch. 'But tell me somethin'.
When you take on a patient, do you interview
his family?'
"No. Sometimes the family isn't even aware that the
patient is undergoing psychoanalysis.'
Moody leaned back, satisfied. 'There you are,' he said.
Judd looked at him. 'You think that some member of a
patient's family is trying to kill me?'
"Could be.'
'They'd have no more motive than the patient. Less,
probably.'
Moody painfully pushed himself to his feet. 'You never
know, do you, Doc? Tell you what I'd like you
to do. Get me a list of all the patients you've seen in
the last four or five weeks. Can you do that?'
Judd hesitated. 'No,' he said, finally.
That confidential patient-doctor business? I think maybe
it's time to bend that a little. Your life's at stake.'
'I think you're on the wrong track. What's been happening
has nothing to do with my patients or then- families. If
there had been any insanity in their families, it would have
come out in the psychoanalysis.
He shook his head. 'I'm sorry, Mr. Moody. I have to
protect my patients.'
'You said there was nothing in the files that was
important.'
'Nothing that's important to us.' He thought of some of
the material hi the files. John Hanson picking
up sailors in gay bars on Third Avenue. Teri Washburn
making love to the boys in the band. Fourteen-year-old Evelyn
Warshak, the resident prostitute in the ninth grade... Tm
sorry,' he said again.
'I can't show you the files.'
Moody shrugged. 'OK,' he said. 'OK. Then you're gonna have
to do part of my job for me.'
'What do you want me to do?'
'Take out the tapes on everybody you've had on your couch
for the last month. Listen real careful to
each one. Only this time don't listen like a doctor -
listen like a detective - look for anything the least
bit offbeat,'
'I do that anyway. That's my job.'
'Do it again. An' keep your eyes open. I don't want to
lose you till we solve this case.' He picked up
his overcoat and struggled into it, making it look like an
elephant ballet. Fat men were supposed to be graceful,
thought Judd, but that did not include Mr. Moody. 'Do you
know the most peculiar thing about this whole megillah?'
queried Moody thoughtfully.
'What?'
'You put your finger on it before, when you said there
were two men. Maybe one man might have a burning itch to
knock you off—but why two?'
'I don't know.'
Moody studied him a moment, specularively. "By God!' he
finally said.
'What is it?'
'I just might have a brainstorm. If Fm right, there could
be more than two men out to kill you.'
Judd stared at him incredulously. 'You mean there's a
whole group of maniacs after me? That doesn't make sense."
There was a look of growing excitement on Moody"s face.
'Doctor, I've got an idea who the umpire in this ballgame
might be.' He looked at Judd, his eyes bright. 'I don't know
how yet, or why - but it could be I know -who.'
'Who?'
Moody shook his head. TTou'd have me sent to a cracker
factory if I told you. I always say if you're gonna shoot off
your mouth, make sure it's loaded first Let me do a little
target practice. If I'm on the right track, I'll tell you.'
'I hope you are,' Judd said earnestly.
Moody looked at him a moment. 'No, Doc. If you value your
life worth a damn—pray I'm wrong.'
And Moody was gone.
He took a taxi to the office.
It was Friday noon, and with only three more shopping days
until Christmas, the streets were crowded with late shoppers,
bundled up against the raw wind sweeping in from the Hudson
River. The store windows were festive and bright, filled with
lighted Christmas trees and carved figures of the Nativity.
Peace on Earth. Christmas. And Elizabeth, and their unborn
baby. One day soon - if he survived - he would hare to make
his own peace, free himself from the dead past and let go. He
knew that with Anne he could have ... He firmly stopped
himself. What was the point in fantasizing about a married
woman about to go away with her husband, whom she loved?
The taxi pulled up in front of his office building and
Judd got out, nervously looking around. But what could he
look for? He had no idea what the murder weapon would be, or
who would wield it.
When he reached his office, he locked the outer door, went
to the panelling that concealed the tapes, and opened it. The
tapes were filed chronologically, under the name of each
patient. He selected the most recent ones and carried them
over to the tape recorder. With all his appointments
cancelled for the day, he would be able to concentrate on
trying to find some clue that might involve the friends or
families of his patients. He felt that Moody's suggestion was
farfetched, but he had too much respect for him to ignore it.
As he put on the first tape, he remembered the last time
he had used the machine. Was it only last night? The memory
filled him again with the sharp sense of nightmare. Someone
had planned to murder him here in this room, where they had
murdered Carol.
He suddenly realized that he had given no thought to his
patients at the free hospital clinic where he worked one
morning a week. It was probably because the murders had
revolved around this office rather than the hospital.
Still... He walked over to the section of the cabinets
labelled 'clinic', looked through some of the tapes, and
finally selected half a dozen. He put the first one on the
tape recorder.
Rose Graham.
'... an accident, Doctor. Nancy cries a lot She's always
been a whiny baby, so when I hit her, it's for
her own good, y'know?'
'Did you ever try to find out why Nancy cries a lot?'
Judd's voice asked.
<>'Cause she's spoiled. Her daddy spoiled her rotten and
then run off and left us. Nancy always thought
she was daddy's girl, but how much could Harry really have
loved her if he run off like that?'
'You and Harry were never married, were you?"
'Well... Common law, I guess you'd call it. We was goin'
to get married.'
'How long did you live together?'
'Four years.'
'How long was it after Harry left you that you broke
Nancy's arm?'
'Bout a week, I guess. I didn't mean to break it. It's
just that she wouldn't stop whining, so I finally
picked up this curtain, rod an' started beating on her.'
'Do you think Harry loved Nancy more than he loved you?'
'No. Harry was crazy about me.'
'Then why do you think he left you?'
'Because he was a man. An' y'know what men are? Animals!
All of you! You should all be slaughtered like pigs!'
Sobbing.
Judd switched off the tape and thought about Rose Graham.
She was a psychotic misanthrope, and she had nearly beaten
her six-year-old child to death on two separate occasions.
But the pattern of the murders did not fit Rose Graham's
psychosis.
He put on the next tape from the clinic.
Alexander Fallon.
The police say that you attacked Mr. Champion with a
knife, Mr. Fallon.'
'I only did what I was told.'
'Someone told you to kill Mr. Champion?'
'He told me to do it.'
'He?'
'God.'
'Why did God tell you to kill him?'
'Because Champion's an evil man. He's an actor. I saw him
on the stage. He kissed this woman. This actress. In front of
the whole audience. He kissed her and...'
Silence.
'Go on.'
'He touched her - her titty.'
"Did that upset you?'
'Of course! It upset me terribly. Don't you understand
what that meant? He had carnal knowledge of her. When I came
out of that theatre, I felt like I had just come from Sodom
and Gomorrah. They had
to be punished.'
'So you decided to kill him.'
'I didn't decide it. God decided. I just carried out His
orders.'
'Does God often talk to you?'
"Only when there's His work to be done He's chosen me as
His instrument, because I'm pure. Do you know what makes me
pure? Do you know what the most cleansing thing in the world
is? Slaying the wicked!'
Alexander Fallon. Thirty-five, a part-time baker's
assistant. He had been sent to a mental home for six months
and then released. Could God have told him to destroy Hanson,
a homosexual, and Carol, a former prostitute, and Judd, their
benefactor? Judd decided that it was unlikely. Fallon's
thought
processes took place in brief, painful spasms. Whoever had
planned the murders was highly organized.
He played several more of the tapes from the clinic, but
none of them fitted into the pattern he was searching for.
No. It wasn't any patient at the clinic.
He looked over the office files again and a name caught
his eye.
Skeet Gibson.
He put on the tape.
'Mornin', Dockie. How do you like this bee-u-ti-ful day I
cooked up for you?'
'You're feeling good today.'
'If I was feelin' any better, they'd have me locked up.
Did you catch my show last night?'
'No. I'm sorry, I wasn't able to.'
'I was only a smash. Jack Gould called me "the most
lovable comedian in the world". An' who am I to argue with a
genius like Jack Gould? You shoulda heard that audience! They
were applauding like it
was going out of style. Do ya know what that proves?'
That they can read "Applause" cards?"
'You're sharp, you devil, you. That's what I like - a
head-shrinker with a sense of humour. The last
one I had was a drag. Had a great big heard that really
bugged me,'
'Why?'
"Because it was a lady!'
Loud laughter.
'Gotcha that time, didn't I, old cock? Seriously, folks,
one of the reasons Fm feelin' so good is because
I just pledged a million dollars - count 'em: one million
bucks - to help the kids in Biafra.'
'No wonder you feel good.'
'You bet your sweet ass. That story bit the front pages
all over the world.'
Is that important?'
"What do you mean, "Is that important?" How many guys
pledge that kind of loot? You've gotta blow your own horn,
Peter Pan. I'm glad I can afford to pledge the money.'
'You keep saying "pledge". Do you mean "give"?'
'Pledge - give - what's the difference? You pledge a
million - give a few grand - an' they kiss your ass... Did I
tell you it's my anniversary today?'
'No. Congratulations.'
Thanks. Fifteen great years. You never met Sally. There's
the sweetest broad that ever walked God's earth. I really got
lucky with my marriage. You know what a pain in the keester
in-laws can be? Well, Sally's got these two brothers, Ben an'
Charley. I told you about them. Ben's head writer on my TV
show an' Charley's my producer. They're geniuses. I've
been on the air seven years now. An' we're
never outta the top ten in the Nielsen's. I was smart to
marry into a family like that, huh? Most women get fat an'
sloppy once they've hooked their husband. But Sally, bless
her, is slimmer now than the day
we were married. What a dame! ... Got a cigarette?'
'Here. I thought you quit smoking.'
'I just wanted to show myself I had the old willpower, so
I quit. Now I'm smoking because I want
to ... I made a new deal with the network yesterday. I
really shafted 'em. Is my time up yet?'
'No. Are you restless, Skeet?'
'To tell you the truth, sweetie, I'm in such great shape I
don't know what the hell I'm coining in here
any more for.'
'No more problems?'
'Me? The world's my oyster an' I'm Diamond Jim Brady. I've
gotta hand it to you. You've really helped me. You're my man.
With the kind of money you make, maybe I should go into
business and set up my own shingle, huh? ... That reminds me
of the great story of the guy who goes to a wig-picker, but
he's so nervous he just lays on tie couch and doesn't say
anything. At the end of the hour, the shrink says, "That'll
be fifty dollars." Well, that goes on for two whole years
without the schmuck saying one word. Finally the little guy
opens his mouth one day and says, "Doctor - could I ask you a
question?" "Sure," says the Doc. And the little guy says,
"Would you like a partner?"'
Loud laughter.
'You got a shot of aspirin or somethin'?'
'Certainly. Is it one of your bad headaches?'
'Nothin' I can't handle, old buddy ... Thanks. That'll do
the trick.'
'What do you think brings these headaches on?'
'Just normal showbiz tension... We have our script reading
this afternoon.
'Does that make you nervous?'
'Me? Hell, no! What have I got to be nervous about? If the
jokes are lousy, I make a face, wink
at the audience, an' they eat it up. No matter how bad the
show is, little old Skeet comes out smelling
like a rose.'
'Why do you think you have these headaches every week?'
'How the fuck do I know? You're supposed to be a doctor
You tell me. I don't pay you to sit on your fat ass for an
hour asking stupid questions. Jesus Christ, if an idiot like
you can't cure a simple headache, they shouldn't let you be
running around loose, messing up people's lives. Where'd you
get your medical certificate? From a veterinarian school? I
wouldn't trust my fuckin' cats with you. You're a goddamn
quack! The only reason I came to you in the first place was
because Sally shitted me into it It was the only way I could
get her off my back. Do ya know my definition of Hell? Bein'
married to an ugly,
skinny nag for fifteen years. If you're lookin' for some
more suckers to cheat, take on her two idiot brothers, Ben
an' Charley. Ben, my head writer, doesn't know which end of
the pencil has the lead in it, an' his brother's even
stupider. I wish they'd all drop dead. They're out to get me.
You think I like you? You stink! You're so goddamn smug,
sitting there looking down on everybody. You haven't got any
problems, have you? Do you know why? Because you're not for
real. You're out of it. All you do is sit
on your fat keester all day long an' steal money from sick
people. Well, I'm gonna get you, you sonofabitch. I'm gonna
report you to the AMA...'
'I wish I didn't have to go to that goddamn reading.'
Silence.
'Well - keep your pecker up. See ya next week, sweetie.'
Judd switched off the recorder. Skeet Gibson, America's
most beloved comedian, should have been institutionalized ten
years ago. His hobbies were beating up young, blonde
showgirls and getting into bar-room brawls. Skeet was a small
man, but he had started out as a prizefighter, and he knew
how to hurt. One o£ his favourite sports was going into a gay
bar, coaxing an unsuspecting homosexual into the men's room,
and beating him unconscious. Skeet had been picked up by the
police several times, but the incidents had always been
hushed up. After all, he was America's most lovable comic
Skeet was paranoid enough to want to kill, and he was capable
of killing in a fit of rage. But Judd did not think he was
cold-blooded enough to carry out this kind of planned
vendetta. And in that, Judd felt certain, lay the key to the
solution. Whoever was trying to murder him was doing it not
in the heat of any passion, but methodically and
cold-bloodedly. A madman.
Who was not mad.

Chapter Eleven

The phone rang. It was his answering service. They had
been able to reach all bis patients except Anne Blake. Judd
thanked the operator and hung up.
So Anne was coming here today. He was disturbed at how
unreasonably happy he was at the thought of seeing her. He
must remember that she was only coming by because he had
asked her to, as her doctor. He sat there thinking about
Anne. How much he knew about her... and how little.
He put Anne's tape on the tape recorder and listened to
it. It was one of her first visits.
'Comfortable, Mrs. Blake?'
'Yes, thank you.'
'Relaxed?'
'Yes.'
"You're clenching your fists.'
'Perhaps I am a little tense.'
'About what?'
A long silence.
Tell me about your home life. You've been married six
months.'
Yes.'
'Go on.'
'I'm married to a wonderful man. We live in a beautiful
house.'
'What kind of a house is it?'
'Country French... It's a lovely old place. There's a
long, winding driveway leading to it. High up on the roof
there's a funny old bronze rooster with its ail missing. I
think some hunter shot it off a long time
ago. We have about five acres, mostly wooded. I go for
long walks. It's like living in the country.'
'Do you like the country?'
'Very much.'
"Does your husband?'
'I think so.'
'A man doesn't usually buy five acres in the country
unless he loves it.'
'He loves me. He would have bought it for me. He's very
generous.'
'Let's talk about him.'
Silence.
'Is be good-looking?'
'Anthony's very handsome.'
Judd felt a pang of unreasonable, unprofessional jealousy.
'You're compatible physically?' It was like a tongue
probing at a sore tooth.
'Yes.'
He knew what she would be like in bed: exciting and
feminine and giving. Christ, he thought,
get off the subject.
'Do you want children?'
'Oh, yes.'
'Does your husband?'
'Yes, of course.'
A long silence except for the silky rustling of the tape.
Then:
'Mrs. Blake, you came to me because you said you had a
desperate problem. It concerns your husband, doesn't it?'
Silence.
'Well, I'm assuming it does. From what you told me
earlier, you love each other, you're both faithful, you both
want children, you live in a beautiful home, your husband is
successful, handsome, and he spoils you. And you've only been
married six months. I'm afraid it's a little like the old
joke: "What's my problem, Doctor?"'
There was silence again except for the impersonal whirring
o£ the tape. Finally she spoke. 'It's ... it's difficult for
me to talk about. I thought I could discuss it with a
stranger, but' - he remembered vividly how she had twisted
around on the couch to look up at him with those large,
enigmatic eyes - 'it's harder. You see' - she was speaking
more rapidly now, trying to overcome the barriers that had
kept her silent
- 'I overheard something and I -I could easily have jumped
to the wrong conclusion.'
'Something to do with your husband's personal life? Some
woman?'
'No.'
'His business?'
'Yes...'
'You thought he lied about something? Tried to get the
better of someone in a deal?'
'Something like that.'
Judd was on surer ground now. 'And it upset your
confidence in him. It showed you a side of him that you had
never seen before.'
'I -I can't discuss it. I feel disloyal to him even being
here. Please don't ask me anything more today,
Dr. Stevens.'
And that had ended that session. Judd switched off the
tape.
So Anne's husband had pulled a sharp business deal. He
could have cheated on his taxes. Or forced someone into
bankruptcy. Anne, naturally, would be upset. She was a
sensitive woman. Her faith in
her husband would be shaken.
He thought about Anne's husband as a possible suspect He
was in the construction business. Judd had never met him, but
whatever business problem he was involved in could not, by
any stretch of the imagination, have included John Hanson,
Carol Roberts, or Judd.
But what about Anne herself? Could she be a psychopath? A
homicidal maniac? Judd leaned back in his chair and tried to
think about her objectively.
He knew nothing about her except what she had told him.
Her background could have been fictitious,
she could have made it all up, but what would she have to
gain? If this was some elaborate charade as a cover to
murder, there had to be a motivation. The memory of her face
and her voice flooded his mind, and he knew that she could
have nothing to do with any of this. He would stake his life
on it. The irony of the phrase made him grin.
He went over to get the tapes of Teri Washburn. Perhaps
there was something there that he might have missed.
Teri had been having extra sessions lately at her own
request Was she under some new pressure that she had not yet
confided to him? Because of her incessant preoccupation with
sex, it was difficult to determine accurately her current
progress. Still - why had she suddenly, urgently asked for
more time with him?
Judd picked up one of her tapes at random and put it on.
'Let's talk about your marriages, Teri. You've been
married five times.'
'Six, but who's counting?'
'Were you faithful to your husbands?'
Laughter.
'You're putting toe on. There isn't a man in the world who
can satisfy me. If s a physical thing.'
'What do you mean by "a physical thing"?'
'I mean that's the way I'm built. I just got a hot hole
and it's gotta be kept filled all the time'
'Do you believe that?'
'That it's gotta be kept filled?'
'That you're different, physically, from any other woman.'
'Certainly. The studio doctor told me. It's a glandular
thing or something.' A pause. 'He was a lousy lay.'
'I've seen all your charts. Physiologically your body is
normal in every respect.'
'Fuck the charts, Charley. Why don't you find out for
yourself?'
'Have you ever been in love, Teri?'
'I could be in love with you.'
Silence.
'Get that look off your face. I can't help it I told you.
It's the way I'm built. I'm always hungry.'
'I believe you. But it's not your body that's hungry. It's
your emotions.'
'I've never been fucked in my emotions. Do you want to
give it a whirl?'
'No.'
'What do you want?'
'To help you.'
'Why don't you come over here and sit down next to me?'
'That will be all for today.'
Judd switched off the tape. He remembered a dialogue they
had had when Teri was talking about her career as a big star
and he had asked her why she had left Hollywood.
'I slapped some obnoxious jerk at a drunken party,' she
had said. 'And he turned out to be Mr Big.
He had me thrown out of Hollywood on my Polack ass.'
Judd had not probed any farther because at that time he
was more interested in her home background, and the subject
had never come up again. Now he felt a small nagging doubt He
should have explored it farther. He had never had any
interest in Hollywood except in the way Dr. Louis Leakey or
Margaret Mead might be interested in the natives of
Patagonia. Who would know about Teri Washburn, the glamour
star?
Norah Hadley was a movie buff. Judd had seen a collection
o£ movie magazines at their house and had kidded Peter about
them. Norah had spent the entire evening defending Hollywood.
He picked up the receiver and dialled.
Norah answered the phone.
'Hello,' said Judd.
'Judd!' Her voice was warm and friendly. 'You called to
tell me when you're coming to dinner.'
'We'll do it soon.'
'You'd better,' she said. 'I promised Ingrid. She's
beautiful.'
Judd was sure she was. But not in the way Anne was
beautiful.
'You break another date with her and we'll be at war with
Sweden.'
'It won't happen again.'
'Are you all over your accident?'
'Oh, yes.'
"What a horrible thing that was.'
There was a hesitant note in Norah'a voice. 'Judd... about
Christmas Day. Peter and I would like you
to share it with us. Please.'
He felt the old familiar tightening hi his chest. They
went through this every year. Peter and Norah
were his dearest friends, and they hated it that he spent
every Christmas alone, walking among strangers, losing
himself in alien crowds, driving his body to keep moving
until he was too exhausted to think. It was as though he were
celebrating some terrible black mass for the dead, letting
his grief take possession of him and tear him apart,
lacerating and shriving him in some ancient ritual over which
he had no control. You're dramatizing it, he told himself
wearily.
'Judd...'
He cleared his throat 'I'm sorry, Norah.' He knew how much
she cared. 'Perhaps next Christmas.'
She tried to keep the disappointment out of her voice.
'Sure. I'll tell Pete.'
Thanks.' He suddenly remembered why he had called. *Norah
- do you know who Teri Washburn is?'
'The Teri Washburn? The star? Why do you ask?'
'I -I saw her on Madison Avenue this morning.'
'In person? Honestly?' She was like an eager child. 'How
did she look? Old? Young? Thin? Fat?'
'She looked fine. She used to be a pretty big star, didn't
she?'
'Pretty big? Teri Washburn was the biggest - and in every
way, if you know what I mean.'
'Whatever made a girl like that leave Hollywood?'
'She didn't exactly leave. She was booted out.'
So Teri had told him the truth. Judd felt better.
'You doctors keep your heads buried In the sand, don't
you? Teri Washburn was involved in one
of the hottest scandals Hollywood ever had.'
'Really?' said Judd. "What happened?'
'She murdered her boyfriend.'

Chapter Twelve

It had started to snow again. From the street fifteen
floors below, the sounds of traffic floated up, muted by the
white, cottony flakes in the arctic wind. In a lighted office
across the street he saw the blurred
face of a secretary streaming down the window.
'Norah - are you certain?'
'When it comes to Hollywood, you're talking to a walking
encyclopaedia, love. Teri was living with the head of
Continental Studios but she was keeping an assistant director
on the side. She caught him
cheating on her one night and she stabbed him to death.
The head of the studio pulled a lot of strings
and paid off a lot of people and it was hushed up and
called an accident. Part of the arrangement was
that she get out of Hollywood and never come back And she
never has.'
Judd stared at the phone numbly.
'Judd, are you there?'
'I'm here,'
'You sound funny.'
'Where did you hear all this?'
'Hear it? It was in all the newspapers and fan magazines.
Everybody knew about it.'
Except him. 'Thanks, Norah,' he said. 'Say hello to
Peter.' He hung up.
So that was the 'casual incident'. Teri Washburn had
murdered a man and had never mentioned it to
him. And if she had murdered once...
Thoughtfully he picked up a pad and wrote down Teri
Washburn'.
The phone rang. Judd picked it up. 'Dr. Stevens...'
'Just checking to see if you're all right' It was
Detective Angeli. His voice was still hoarse with a cold.
A feeling of gratitude filled Judd. Someone was on his
side.
'Anything new?'
Judd hesitated. He could see no point in keeping quiet
about the bomb.
'They tried again.' Judd told Angeli about Moody and the
bomb that had been planted in his car. That should convince
McGreavy,' he concluded.
'Where's the bomb?' Angeli's voice was excited.
Judd hesitated. It's been dismantled.'
'It's been what?' Angeli asked incredulously. 'Who did
that?'
'Moody. He didn't think it mattered.'
'Didn't matter! What does he think the Police Department
is for? We might have been able to tell who planted that bomb
just by looking at it. We keep a file of MOs.'
'MOs?'
'Modus operandi. People fall into habit patterns. H they
do something one way the first time, chances
are they'll keep doing it the same - I don't have to tell
you.'
'No,' said Judd thoughtfully. Surely Moody had known that.
Had he some reason for not wanting to
show the bomb to McGreavy?
'Dr. Stevens - how did you hire Moody?'
'I found him in the yellow pages.' It sounded ridiculous
even as he said it
He could hear Angeli swallow. 'Oh. Then you really don't
know a damn thing about him.'
'I know I trust him. Why?'
'Right now,' Angeli said, 'I don't think you should trust
anybody.'
"But Moody couldn't possibly be connected with any of
this. My God! I picked him out of the phone book, at random.'
'I don't care where you got him. Something smells fishy.
Moody says he set a trap to catch whoever's after you, but he
doesn't close the trap until the bait's already been taken,
so we can't pin it on anyone Then he shows you a bomb in your
car that he could have put there himself. And wins your
confidence. Right?'
'I suppose you could look at it that way,' Judd said.
'But—'
'Maybe your friend Moody is cm the level, and maybe he's
setting you up. I want you to play it nice
and cool until we find out'
Moody against him? It was difficult to believe. And yet,
he remembered his earlier doubts when he
had thought Moody was sending him into an ambush.
'What do you want me to do?' asked Judd.
"How would you feel about leaving town? I mean really
leaving town.'
'I can't leave my patients.'
'Dr. Stevens—'
'Besides,' Judd added, 'it really wouldn't solve anything,
would it? I wouldn't even know what I'm running away from.
When I came back, it would just start all over again.'
There was a moment's silence. "You have a point.' Angeli
gave a sigh, and it turned into a wheeze. He sounded
terrible. "When do you expect to hear from Moody again?'
'I don't know. He thinks he has some idea of who's behind
all this.'
'Has it occurred to you that whoever's behind this can pay
Moody a lot more than you can?' There was an urgency in
Angeli's voice. 'If he asks you to meet him, call me. I'll be
home in bed for the next day
or two. Whatever you do, Doctor, don't meet him alone!'
"You're building up a case out of nothing,' countered
Judd. 'Just because Moody removed the bomb
from my car—'
There's more to it than that,' said Angeli 'I have a hunch
you picked the wrong man.'
'I'l call you if I hear from him,' promised Judd. He hung
up, shaken. Was Angeli being overly suspicious? It was true
that Moody could have been lying about the bomb in order to
win Judd's confidence. Then the next step would be easy. All
he would have to do would be to call Judd and ask him to meet
him in some deserted place on the pretext of having some
evidence for him. Then ... Judd shuddered. Could he have been
wrong about Moody's character? He remembered his reaction
when he had first met Moody. He had thought that the man was
ineffectual and not very bright. Then he had realized that
his homespun cover was a facade that concealed a quick, sharp
brain. But that didn't mean that Moody could be trusted. And
yet... He heard someone at the outer reception door and
looked at his watch. Anne! He quickly locked the tapes away,
walked over to the private corridor door, and opened it.
Anne was standing in the corridor. She was wearing a
smartly tailored navy blue suit and a small hat that framed
her face. She was dreamily lost in thought, unaware that Judd
was watching her. He studied her, filling himself with her
beauty, trying to find some imperfection, some reason for him
to tell himself that she would be wrong for him, that he
would one day find someone else better suited to him. The fox
and the grapes. Freud was not the father of psychiatry. Aesop
was.
'Hello,' he said.
She looked up, startled for an instant. Then she smiled.
Hello.'
'Come in, Mrs. Blake.'
She moved past him into the office, her firm body brushing
his. She turned and looked at him with
those incredible violet eyes. "Did they find the
hit-and-run driver?' There was concern on her face,
a worried, genuine interest.
He felt again the insane urge to tell her everything. But
he knew he could not At best, it would be a
cheap trick to win her sympathy. At worst, it might
involve her hi some unknown danger.
'Not yet.' He indicated a chair.
Anne was watching his face. *You look tired. Should you be
back at work so soon?'
Oh, God. He didn't think he could stand any sympathy. Not
just now. And not from her. He said,
'I'm fine. I cancelled my appointments for today. My
exchange wasn't able to reach you.'
An anxious expression crossed her face. She was afraid she
was intruding. Anne — intruding. I'm so sorry. If you'd
rather I left...'
'Please, no,' he said quickly. Tm glad they couldn't reach
you.' This would be the last time he saw her. 'How are you
feeling?' he asked.
She hesitated, started to say something, then changed her
mind. 'A little confused.'
She was looking at him oddly, and there was something in
her look that touched a faint, long-lost chord that he could
almost, but not quite, remember. He felt a warmth flowing
from her, an overpowering physical longing - and he suddenly
realized what he was doing. He was attributing his own
emotions to her. And for an instant he had been fooled, like
any first-year psychiatry student.
'When do you leave for Europe?' he asked.
'On Christmas morning.'
'Just you and your husband?' He felt like a gibbering
idiot, reduced to banalities. Babbitt, on an off day.
'Where will you go?'
'Stockholm - Paris - London - Rome.'
I'd lave to show you Rome, thought Judd. He had spent a
year there interning at the American hospital. There was a
fantastic old restaurant called Cybele near the Tivoli
Gardens, high on a mountaintop by an ancient pagan shrine,
where you could sit in die sun and watch the hundreds of wild
pigeons darken the sky over the dappled cliffs.
And Anne was on her way to Rome with her husband.
'It will be a second honeymoon,' she said. There was
strain in her voice, so faint that he might almost have
imagined it An untrained ear would not have caught it.
Judd looked at her more closely. On the surface she seemed
calm, normal, but underneath he sensed a tension. If this was
the picture of a young girl in love going to Europe on a
second honeymoon, then a piece of the picture was missing.
And he suddenly realized what it was.
There was no excitement in Anne. Or if there was, it was
overshadowed by a patina of some stronger emotion. Sadness?
Regret?
He realized that he was staring at her. 'How — how long
will you be away ?' Babbitt strikes again.
A small smile crossed her lips, as though she knew what he
was doing. Tm not certain,' she answered gravely. 'Anthony's
plans are indefinite.'
'I see.' He looked down at the rug, miserable. He had to
put an end to this. He couldn't let Anne leave, feeling that
he was a complete fool. Send her away now. 'Mrs Blake...' he
began.
"Yes''
He tried to keep his voice light. 'I really got you back
here under false pretences. It wasn't necessary
for you to see me again. I just wanted to - to say
goodbye.'
Oddly, puzzlingly, some of the tension seemed to drain out
of her. 'I know,' she said quietly. 'I wanted
to say goodbye, too.' There was something in her voice
that caught at him again.
She was getting to her feet. 'Judd ...' She looked up at
him, holding his eyes with hers, and he saw in her eyes what
she must have seen in his. It was a mirrored reflection of a
current so strong that it was almost physical. He started to
move towards her, then stopped. He could not let her become
involved in the danger that surrounded him.
When he finally spoke, his voice was almost under control.
'Drop me a card from Rome.'
She looked ac him for a long moment. 'Please take care of
yourself, Judd.'
He nodded, not trusting himself to speak.
And she was gone.
The phone rang three times before Judd heard it. He picked
it up.
"That you. Doc?' It was Moody. His voice practically
leaped out of the telephone, crackling with excitement. You
alone?'
There was an odd quality in Moody's excitement that Judd
could not quite identify. Caution? Fear?
'Doc - remember I told you I had a hunch who might be
behind this?'
'I was right.'
Judd felt a quick chill go through him. 'You know who
killed Hanson and Carol?'
'Yeah. I know who. And I know why. You're next, Doctor.'
'Tell me—'
'Not over the phone,' said Moody. 'We'd better meet
somewhere and talk about it. Come alone.'
Judd stared at the phone in his hand.
COME ALONE!
'Are you listening?' asked Moody's voice.
'Yes.' said Judd quickly. What had Angeli said? Whatever
you do, Doctor, don't meet him alone.
'Why can't we meet here?' he asked, stalling for time.
'I think I'm being followed. I managed to shake them off.
I'm calling from the Five Star Meat Packing Company. It's on
Twenty-third Street, west of Tenth Avenue, near the docks.'
Judd still found it impossible to believe that Moody was
setting a trap for him. He decided to test him.
'I'll bring Angeli.'
Moody's voice was sharp. "Don't bring anyone. Come by
yourself.'
And there it was.
Judd thought of the fat little Buddha at the other end of
the phone. His guileless friend who was
charging him fifty dollars a day and expenses to set him
up for his own murder.
Judd kept his voice controlled. 'Very well.' he said.
'I'll be right over.' He tried one parting shot.
'Are you sure you really know who's behind this, Moody?'
'Dead sure, Doc. Have you ever heard of Don Vinton?' And
Moody hung up.
Judd stood there, trying to sort out the storm of emotions
that raced through him, He looked up
Angeli's home number and dialled it. It rang five times,
and Judd was filled with a sudden panicky
fear that Angeli might not be at home. Dare he go meet
Moody alone?
Then he heard Angeli's nasal voice. 'Hello.'
'Judd Stevens. Moody just called.'
There was a quickening hi Angeli's voice. *What did he
say?'
Judd hesitated, feeling a last vestige of unreasonable
loyalty and - yes, affection - towards the bumbling little
fat man who was plotting to cold-bloodedly murder him. "He
asked me to meet him at the Five Star Meat Packing Company.
It's on Twenty-third Street near Tenth Avenue. He told me to
come alone.'
Angeli laughed mirthlessly. 'I'll bet he did. Don't budge
out of that office, Doctor. I'm going to call lieutenant
McGreavy. We'll both pick you up.'
'Right,' said Judd. He hung up slowly. Norman Z. Moody.
The jolly Buddha from the yellow pages. Judd felt a sudden,
inexplicable sadness. He had liked Moody. And trusted him.
And Moody was waiting to kill him.

Chapter Thirteen

Twenty minutes later Judd unlocked his office door to
admit Angeli and Lieutenant McGreavy. Angeli's eyes were red
and teary. His voice was hoarse. Judd had a momentary pang at
having dragged him out
of a sick-bed. McGreavy's greeting was a curt, unfriendly
nod.
'I told Lieutenant McGreavy about the phone call from
Norman Moody,' Angeli said.
'Yeah. Let's find out what the hell this is all about,'
McGreavy said sourly.
Five minutes later they were in an unmarked police car
speeding downtown on the West Side. Angeli
was at the wheel. The light snowfall had stopped and the
gruel-thin rays of the late afternoon sun had surrendered to
the oppressive cover of storm clouds sweeping across the
Manhattan sky. There was a loud clap of thunder in the
distance and then a bright, jagged sword of lightning. Drops
of rain began to spatter the windscreen. As the car continued
downtown, tall, soaring skyscrapers gave way to small, grimy
tenements huddled together as if for comfort against the
biting cold.
The car turned into Twenty-third Street, going west
towards the Hudson River. They moved into a
land of junkyards and fix-it shops and dingy bars, then
past that to blocks of garages, trucking yards
and freight companies. As the car neared the comer of
Tenth Avenue, McGreavy directed Angeli to
pull over to the kerb.
'Well get out here.' McGreavy turned to Judd. 'Did Moody
say whether anyone would be with him?'
'No.'
McGreavy unbuttoned his overcoat and transferred his
service revolver from his holster to his overcoat pocket.
Angeli followed suit. 'Stay in back of us,' McGreavy ordered
Judd.
The three men started walking, ducking their heads against
the wind-lashed rain. Halfway down the
block, they came to a dilapidated-looking building with a
faded sign above the door that read:
FIVE STAR MEAT PACKING COMPANY
There were no cars or trucks or lights, no sign of life.
The two detectives walked up to die door, one on either
side. McGreavy tested the door. It was locked. He looked
around, but could see no bell. They listened. Silence, except
for the sound of the rain.
'It looks closed,' Angeli said.
'It probably is,' McGreavy replied. 'The Friday before
Christmas - most companies are knocking off
at noon.'
'There must be a loading entrance.'
Judd followed the two detectives as they moved cautiously
towards the end of the building, trying to avoid the puddles
in their path. They came to a service alley, and looking down
it, they could discern a loading platform with deserted
trucks pulled up in front of it. There was no activity. They
moved
forward until they reached the platform.
'OK,' McGreavy said to Judd. 'Sing out.'
Judd hesitated, feeling unreasonably sad that he was
betraying Moody. Then he lifted his voice.
'Moody!' The only response was the yowling of an angry
tomcat disturbed in his search for dry shelter. 'Mr Moody!'
There was a large wooden sliding door on top of the
platform, used to move the deliveries from inside
the warehouse to the area where the trucks were loaded.
There were no steps leading onto the platform. McGreavy
hoisted himself up, moving with surprising agility for such a
large man.
Angeli followed, then Judd. Angeli waited over to the
sliding door and pushed against it. It was unlocked. The
great doot rolled open with a loud, high-pitched scream of
protest. The tomcat answered hopefully, forgetting about
shelter. Inside the warehouse it was pitch black.
'Did you bring a flashlight?' McGreavy asked Angeli.
'No.'
'Shit!'
Cautiously they inched their way into the gloom. Judd
called out again. 'Mr Moody! It's Judd Stevens.'
There was no sound except for the creaking of the boards
as the men moved across the room. McGreavy rummaged in his
pockets and pulled out a book of matches. He lit one and held
it up. Its feeble, sputtering light cast a wavering yellow
glow in what seemed to be an enormous empty cavern. The match
guttered out. "Find the goddamn light switch.' McGreavy said,
"That was my last match.'
Judd could hear Angeli groping along the walls looking for
the light switch. Judd kept moving forward.
He could not see the other two men. 'Moody!' he called.
He heard Angeli's voice from across the room. 'Here's a
switch.' There was a click. Nothing happened.
'The master switch must be off,' McGreavy said.
Judd bumped against a wall. As he put his hands out to
brace himself, his fingers closed over a doorlatch. He shoved
the latch up and pulled. A massive door swung open and a
blast of frigid air hit him. 'I've found a door,' he called
out. He stepped over a sill and cautiously moved forward. He
heard the door close behind him and his heart began to
hammer. Impossibly, it was darker here than in the other
room, as though he had stepped into a deeper blackness.
'Moody! Moody...'
A thick, heavy silence. Moody had to be here somewhere. If
he weren't, Judd knew what McGreavy would think. It would be
the boy who cried wolf again.
Judd took another step forward and suddenly felt cold
flesh lick against his face. He jerked away in
panic, feeling the short hairs on bis neck rise. He became
aware of the strong smell of blood and death surrounding him.
There was an evil in the darkness around him, waiting to
close in on him. His scalp tingled with fear and his heart
was beating so rapidly that it was difficult to breathe. With
trembling fingers he fumbled for a book of matches in his
overcoat, found one, and scraped a match against the cover.
In its light he saw a huge dead eye icon up in front of his
face, and it took a shocked second before he realized that he
was looking at a slaughtered cow dangling from a meat hook.
He had one brief glimpse of other animal carcasses hanging
from hooks, and the outline of a door in the far corner,
before the match went out. The door probably led to an
office. Moody could be in there, waiting for him.
Judd moved farther into the interior of the inky black
cavern towards the door. He felt the cold brush of dead
animal flesh again. He quickly stepped away and kept walking
cautiously towards the office door. 'Moody!'
He wondered what was detaining Angeli and McGreavy, He
moved past the slaughtered animals, feeling as though someone
with a macabre sense of humour was playing a horrible,
maniacal joke. But who and why were beyond his imagining. As
he neared the door, he collided with another hanging carcass.
Judd stopped to get his bearings. He lit his last
remaining match. In front of him, impaled on a meat hook and
grinning obscenely, was the body of Norman Z. Moody. The
match went out.

Chapter Fourteen

The Coroner's men had finished their work and gone.
Moody's body had been taken away and everyone had departed
except Judd, McGreavy, and Angeli. They were sitting in the
manager's small office, decorated with several impressive
calendar nudes, an old desk, a swivel chair, and two filing
cabinets.
The lights were on and an electric heater was going.
The manager of the plant, a Mr. Paul Moretti, had been
tracked down and pulled away from a pre-Christmas party to
answer some questions. He had explained that since it was a
holiday weekend,
he had let his employees off at noon. He had locked up at
twelve-thirty, and to the best of his knowledge, there had
been no one on the premises at that time. Mr. Moretti was
belligerently drunk, and when McGreavy saw that he was going
to be no further help, he had him driven home. Judd was
barely conscious of what was happening in the room. His
thoughts were on Moody, how cheerful and how
full of life he had been, and how cruelly he had died. And
Judd blamed himself. If he had not involved Moody, the little
detective would be alive today.
It was almost midnight. Judd had wearily reiterated the
story of Moody's phone call for the tenth time. McGreavy,
hunched up in his overcoat, sat there watching him, chewing
savagely on a cigar. Finally he spoke. 'Do you read detective
stories?'
Judd looked at him, surprised. 'No, why?'
'I'll tell you why. I think you're just too goddamn good
to be true, Dr. Stevens. From the very beginning I've thought
that you were in this thing up to your neck. And I told you
so. So what happens? Suddenly you turn into the target
instead of the killer. First you claim a car ran you down
and—'
'A car did run him down,' Angeli reminded him.
'A rookie could answer that one,' McGreavy snapped. 'It
could have been arranged by someone who's
in this with the doctor.' He turned back to Judd. "Next,
you call Detective Angeli with a wild-eyed yam about two men
breaking into your office and trying to kill you.'
'They did break in,' said Judd.
'No, they didn't,' snapped McGreavy. They used a special
key.' His voice hardened.
"You said there were only two of those keys to that office
- yours and Carol Roberts's.'
'That's right. I told you - they copied Carol's key.'
'I know what you told me. I had a paraffin test run.
Carol's key was never copied, Doctor.' He paused to let it
sink in. 'And since I have her key — that leaves yours,
doesn't it?'
Judd looked at him, speechless.
'When I didn't buy the loose maniac theory, you hire a
detective out of the yellow pages and he conveniently finds a
bomb planted in your car. Only I can't see it because it's
not -there any more. Then you decide ifs time to throw me
another body, so you go through that rigmarole with Angeli
about a phone call to meet Moody, who knows this mysterious
nut who's out to kill you. But guess what? We
get here and find him hanging on a meat hook.'
Judd flushed angrily. 'I'm not responsible for what
happened.'
McGreavy gave him a long, hard look. "Do you know the only
reason you're not under arrest? Because
I haven't found any motive to this Chinese puzzle yet. But
I will. Doctor. That's a promise.' He got to
his feet.
Judd suddenly remembered. "Wait a minute!' he said. 'What
about Don Vinton?'
'What about him?'
'Moody said he was the man behind all this.'
'Do you know anyone named Don Vinton?'
'No,' Judd said. 'I assumed he'd be known by the police.'
'I never heard of him.' McGreavy turned to Angeli Angeli
shook his head.
'OK. Send out a make on Don Vinton. FBI. Interpol. Police
chiefs in all major American cities.' He looked at Judd.
'Satisfied?'
Judd nodded. Whoever was behind all this must have some
kind of criminal record. It should not be difficult to
identify him.
He thought again of Moody, with his homely aphorisms and
his quick mind. He must have been followed here. It was
unlikely that he would have told anyone else about the
rendezvous, because he had stressed the need for secrecy. At
least they now knew the name of the man they were looking
for.
Praemonitus, praemunitas.
Forewarned, forearmed.
The murder of Norman Z. Moody was splashed all over the
front pages of the newspapers the next morning. Judd picked
up a paper on his way to the office. He was briefly mentioned
as being a witness who had come across the body with the
police, but McGreavy had managed to keep the full story out
of the papers. McGreavy was playing his cards close to his
chest. Judd wondered what Anne would think.
This was Saturday, when Judd made his morning rounds at
the clinic. He had arranged for someone else to fill in for
him there. He went to his office, travelling alone in the
elevator and making sure that no one was lurking in the
corridor. He wondered, even as he did so, how long anyone
could live like this, expecting an assassin to strike at any
moment.
Half a dozen times during the morning he started to pick
up the phone and call Detective Angeli to ask about Don
Vinton, but each time he controlled his impatience. Angeli
would surely call him as soon as he knew something. Judd
puzzled over what Don Vinton's motivation could be. He could
have been a patient whom Judd had treated years ago, perhaps
when he was an intern. Someone who felt that Judd had
slighted him or injured him in some way. But he could
remember no patient named Vinton.
At noon he heard someone try to open the corridor door to
the reception room. It was Angeli. Judd could tell nothing
from his expression except that he looked even more drawn and
haggard. His nose was red, and he was sniffling. He walked
into the inner office and wearily flopped into a chair.
"Have you got any answers yet on Don Vinton?' Judd asked
eagerly.
Angeli nodded. 'We got back teletypes from the FBI, the
police chiefs and every big city in the United States, and
Interpol.' Judd waited, afraid to breath. 'None of them ever
heard of Don Vinton.'
Judd looked at Angeli incredulously, a sudden sinking
sensation in his stomach. 'But that's impossible!
I mean -someone must know him. A man who could do all this
just didn't come out of nowhere!'
'That's what McGreavy said,' replied Angeli wearily.
'Doctor, my men and I spent the night checking out every
Don Vinton in Manhattan and all the other boroughs. We even
covered New Jersey and Connecticut.' He took a ruled sheet of
paper out of his pocket and showed it to Judd. 'We found
eleven Don Vintons in the phone book who spell their name
"ton" — four who spell it "ten" — and two who spell it "tin".
We even tried it as one name. We narrowed it down to five
possibles and checked out every one of them. One is a
paralytic. One of them is a priest. One is first
vice-president of a bank. One of them is a fireman who was on
duty when two of the murders occurred. It just left the last
one. He runs a pet shop and he must be damn near eighty years
old.'
Judd's throat was dry. He was suddenly aware of how much
he had counted on this. Surely Moody wouldn't have given him
the name unless he was certain. And he hadn't said that Don
Vinton was an accomplice; he had said he was behind the whole
thing. It was inconceivable that the police would have no
record of a man like that. Moody had been murdered because he
had got onto the truth. And now
that Moody was out of the way, Judd was completely alone.
The web was drawing tighter.
'I'm sorry,' Angeli said.
Judd looked at the detective and suddenly remembered that
Angeli had not been home all night.
'I appreciate your trying,' he said gratefully.
Angeli leaned forward- 'Are you positive you heard Moody
right?'
'Yes.' Judd closed his eyes in concentration. He had asked
Moody if he was sure who was really behind this. He heard
Moody"s voice again. Dead sure. Have you ever heard of Don
Vinton? Don Vinton. He opened his eyes. 'Yes,' he repeated.
Angeli sighed. 'Then we're at a dead end.' He laughed
mirthlessly. "No pun intended.' He sneezed.
'You'd better get to bed.'
Antgeli stood up. 'Yeah. I guess so.'
Judd hesitated. "How long have you been McGreavy's
partner?'
'This is our first case together. Why?'
'Do you think he's capable of framing me for murder?'
Angeli sneezed again. 'I think maybe you're right, doctor.
'I'd better get to bed.'
He walked over to the door.
'I may have a lead,' Judd said.
Angeli stopped and turned. 'Go on.'
Judd told him about Teri. He added that he was also going
to check out some of John Hanson's
former boyfriends.
'It doesn't sound like much,' Angeli said frankly, 'but I
guess it's better than nothing.'
'I'm sick and tired of being a target. I'm going to start
fighting back. I'm going after them.'
Angeli looked at him. 'With what? We're fighting shadows.'
'When witnesses describe a suspect, the police have an
artist draw up a composite picture of all the descriptions.
Right?'
Angeli nodded. 'An identikit.'
Judd began to pace in restless excitement. 'I'm going to
give you an identikit of the personality of the
man who's behind this.'
'How can you? You've never seen him. It could be anyone.'
"No it couldn't,' Judd corrected. 'We're looking for
someone very, very special.'
'Someone who's insane.'
'Insanity is a catchall phrase. It has no medical meaning.
Sanity is simply the ability of the mind to adjust to
reality. If we can't adjust, we either hide from reality, or
we put ourselves above life, where we're super-beings who
don't have to follow the rules.'
'Our man thinks he's a super-being.'
'Exactly. In a dangerous situation we have three choices,
Angeli. Flight, constructive compromise, or attack. Our man
attacks.'
'So he's a lunatic'
'No. Lunatics rarely kill. Their concentration span is
extremely short. We're dealing with someone more complicated.
He could be somatic, hypophrenic, schizoid, cycloid -or any
combination of these. We
could be dealing with a fugue — temporary amnesia preceded
by irrational acts. But the point is, his appearance and
behaviour will seem perfectly normal to everyone."
'So we have nothing to go on.'
"You're wrong. We have a good deal to go on. I can give
you a physical description of him,' said Judd. He narrowed
his eyes, concentrating. 'Don Vinton is above average height,
well proportioned, and has
the build of an athlete. He's neat in his appearance and
meticulous about everything he does. He has no artistic
talent. He doesn't paint or write or play the piano.'
Angeli was staring at him, open-mouthed.
Judd continued, speaking more quickly now, warming up. "He
doesn't belong to any social clubs or organizations. Not
unless he runs them. He's a man who has to be in charge. He's
ruthless, and he's impatient. He thinks big. For example,
he'd never get involved in petty thefts. If he had a record,
it would be for bank robbery, kidnapping, or murder.' Judd's
excitement was growing. The picture was growing sharper in
his mind. "When you catch him, you'll find that he was
probably rejected by one of his parents when he was a boy.'
Angeli interrupted. 'Doctor, I don't want to shoot down
your balloon, but it could be some crazy, hopped-up junkie
who—'
'No. The man we're looking for doesn't take drugs.' Judd's
voice was positive. 'I'll tell you something
else about him. He played contact sports in schooL
Football or hockey. He has no interest in chess,
word games, or puzzles.'
Angeli was watching him sceptically. 'There was more than
one man,' he objected. 'You said so yourself.'
'I'm giving you a description of Don Vinton,' said Judd.
The man who's masterminding this. I'll tell you something
more about him. He's a Latin type.'
'What makes you think so?'
'Because of the methods used in the murders. A knife -acid
- a bomb. He's South American, Italian, or Spanish.' He took
a breath. 'There's your identikit. That's the man who's
committed three murders and
is trying to kill me.'
Angeli swallowed. 'How the hell do you know all this?'
Judd sat down and leaned towards Angeli. 'It's my
profession.'
'The mental side, sure. But how can you give a physical
description of a man you've never seen?'
'I'm playing the odds. A doctor named Kreischmer found
that eighty-five per cent of people suffering from paranoia
have well-built, athletic bodies. Our man is an obvious
paranoiac He has delusions of grandeur. He's a megalomaniac
who thinks he's above the law.'
'Then why wasn't he locked up a long time ago?'
'Because he's wearing a mask.'
'He's what?'
'We all wear masks, Angeli' From the time we're past
infancy, we're taught to conceal our real feelings,
to cover up our hatreds and fears.' There was authority in
his voice. "But under stress, Don Vinton is going to drop his
mask and show his naked face.'
'I see.'
'His ego is his vulnerable point. If it's threatened -
really threatened - he'll crack. He's on the thin edge now.
It won't take much to send him completely over.' He
hesitated, then went on, speaking almost to himself. "He's a
man with — mana.'
'With what?'
'Mana. It's a term that the primitives use tor a roan who
exerts influence on others because of the
demons in him, a man with an overpowering personality.'
'You said he doesn't paint, write, or play the piano. How
do you know that?'
'The world is full of artists who are schizoids. Most of
them manage to get through life without any violence because
their work gives them an outlet in which to express
themselves. Our man doesn't have that outlet. So he's like a
volcano. The only way he can get rid of the pressure inside
him is to erupt: Hanson - Carol - Moody.'
'You mean these were just senseless crimes that he
committed to—'
'Not senseless to him. On the contrary...' His mind raced
ahead swiftly. Several more pieces of the
puzzle were beginning to fall into place. He cursed
himself for having been too blind, or frightened, to
see them. 'I'm the only one Don Vinton has been after —
the prime target. John Hanson was killed because he was
mistaken for me. When the killer found out his mistake, he
came to the office for
another try. I had gone, but he found Carol there.' His
voice was angry.
'He killed her so she couldn't identify him?'
'No. The man we're looking for isn't a sadist. Carol was
tortured because he wanted something. Say,
a piece of incriminating evidence. And she wouldn't — or
couldn't — give it to him.'
'What kind of evidence?' probed Angeli.
'I have no idea,' Judd said. 'But it's the key to this
whole thing. Moody found out the answer, and
that's why they killed him.'
'There's one thing that still doesn't make sense. If they
had killed you on the street, then they couldn't have got the
evidence. It doesn't fit with the rest of your theory,'
Angeli persisted.
'It could. Let's assume that the evidence is on one of my
tapes. It might be perfectly harmless by itself, but if I put
it together with other facts, it could threaten them. So they
have two choices. Either take it away from me, or eliminate
me so I can't reveal it to anyone. First they tried to
eliminate me. But they made a mistake and killed Hanson. Then
they went to the second alternative. They tried to get it
from Carol. When that failed, they decided to concentrate on
killing me. That was the car accident. I was probably
followed when I went to hire Moody, and he, in turn, was
followed. When he got onto the
truth, they murdered him.'
Angeli looked at Judd, a thoughtful frown on his face.
'That's why the killer is not going to stop until I'm
dead,' Judd concluded quietly. 'It's become a deadly game,
and the man I've described can't stand losing.'
Angeli was studying him, weighing what Judd had said. 'If
you're right,' he said finally, 'you're going to need
protection.' He took his service revolver out, flipped the
chamber open to make sure it was fully loaded.
'Thanks, Angeli, but I don't need a gun. I'm going to
fight them with my own weapons.'
There was the sharp click of the outer door opening. 'Were
you expecting anyone?'
Judd shook his head. 'Na I have no patients this
afternoon.'
Gun still in hand, Angeli moved quietly to the door
leading to the reception room. He stepped to
one side and yanked the door open. Peter Hadley stood
there, a bewildered expression on his face.
"Who are you?' Angeli snapped.
Judd moved over to the door. 'It's all right,' Judd said
quickly. 'He's a friend of mine.'
'Hey! What the hell goes?' asked Peter.
'Sorry,' Angeli apologized. He put his gun away.
'This is Dr. Peter Hadley - Detective Angeli.'
'What kind of nutty psychiatric clinic are you running
here?' Peter asked.
'There's been a little trouble,' Angeli explained. 'Dr.
Stevens's office has been .. . burgled, and
we thought whoever did it might be returning."
Judd picked up the cue. 'Yes. They didn't find what they
were looking for.'
'Does this have anything to do with Carol's murder?' Peter
asked.
Angeli spoke before Judd could answer. "We're aot sure,
Dr. Hadley. For the moment, the Department has asked Dr.
Stevens not to discuss the case.'
'I understand,' Peter said. He looked at Judd, 'Is our
luncheon date still on?'
Judd realized he had forgotten about it. 'Of course,' he
said quickly. He turned to Angeli. 'I think
we've covered everything.'
'And then some," Angeli agreed. "You're sure you don't
want...' He indicated his revolver.
Judd shook his head. Thanks.'
'OK. Be careful,' Angeli said.
'I will,' Judd promised. 'I will.'
Judd was preoccupied during luncheon, and Peter did not
press him. They talked o£ mutual friends, patients that they
had in common. Peter told Judd he had spoken to Harrison
Burke's employer and it had been quietly arranged for Burke
to have a mental examination. He was being sent to a private
institution.
Over coffee Peter said, 'I don't know what kind of trouble
you're having, Judd, but if I can be of any help...'
Judd shook his head. 'Thanks, Peter. This is something I
have to take care of myself. I'd tell you all
about it when it's over.'
"I hope that's soon,' Peter said lightly. He hesitated.
'Judd —are you in any danger?'
'Of course not,' replied Judd.
Unless you counted a homicidal maniac who had committed
three murders and was determined to
make Judd his fourth victim.
After lunch Judd returned to his office. He went through
the same careful routine, checking to make
sure that he exposed himself to minimum vulnerability.
For whatever that was worth.
He began going through the tapes again, listening for
anything that might provide some clue. It was like turning on
a torrent of verbal graffiti. The gusher of sounds that
spewed forth was filled with hatred ... perversion ... fear
... self-pity ... megalomania... loneliness... emptiness...
pain...
At the end of three hours he had found only one new name
to add to his list: Bruce Boyd, the man
with whom John Hanson had last lived. He put the Hanson
tape on the recorder again.
'... I suppose I fell in love with Bruce the first time I
saw him. He was the most beautiful man I had
ever seen.'
'Was he the passive or dominant partner, John?'
'Dominant. That's one of the things that attracted me to
him. He's very strong. In fact, later, when we became lovers,
we used to quarrel about that.'
'Why?'
'Bruce didn't realize how strong he really was. He used to
walk up behind me and hit me on the back.
He meant it as a loving gesture, but one day he almost
broke my spine. I wanted to kill him. When he shook hands, he
would crush your fingers. He always pretended to be sorry,
but Brace enjoys hurting people. He didn't need whips. He's
very strong...'
Judd stopped the tape and sat there, thinking. The
homosexual pattern did not fit into his concept of the
killer, but on the other hand, Boyd had been involved with
Hanson and was a sadist and an egotist.
He looked at the two names on his fist: Teri Washburn, who
had killed a man in Hollywood and had never mentioned it; and
Bruce Boyd, John Hanson's last lover. If it were one of them
- which one?
Teri Washburn lived in a penthouse suite on Sutton Place.
The entire apartment was decorated in shocking pink: walls,
furniture, drapes. There were expensive pieces scattered
around the room, and
the wall was covered with French impressionists. Judd
recognized two Manets, two Degas, a Monet,
and a Renoir before Teri walked into the room. He had
phoned her to tell her that he wanted to come
by. She had got ready for him. She was wearing a wispy
pink negligee with nothing on underneath it.
'You really came,' she exclaimed happily.
'I wanted to talk to you.'
'Sure. A little drinkie?'
'No, thanks.'
'Then I think I'll fix myself one to celebrate,' Teri
said. She moved towards tbe coral-shell bar in the corner of
the large living-room.
Judd watched her thoughtfully.
She returned with her drink and sat next to him on the
pink couch. 'So your cock finally got you up
here, honey,' she said- 'I knew you couldn't hold out on
little Teri. I'm nuts about you, Judd. I'd do anything for
you. You name it. You make all the crummy pricks I've known
in my life look like dirt.'
She put her drink down and put her hand on his trousers.
Judd took her hands in his. 'Teri,' he said. I need your
help.'
Her mind was travelling hi its own groove. 'I know, baby,'
she moaned. 'I'm going to fuck you like
you've never been fucked in your life.'
'Teri - listen to me! Someone is trying to murder me!'
Her eyes registered slow surprise. Acting — or real? He
remembered a performance he had seen her
give on one of the late late shows. Real. She was good,
but not that good an actress.
'For Christ sakel Who — who'd want to murder you?'
'It could be someone connected with one of my patients.'
'But - Jesus - why?'
'That's what I'm trying to find out, Teri. Have any of
your Mends ever talked about killing ...
or murder? Maybe as a party game, for laughs?'
Teri shook her head. 'No.'
'Do you know anyone named Don Vinton?' He watched her
closely.
'Don Vinton? Uhn-uhn. Should I?'
'Teri - how do you feel about murder?' A small shiver went
through her body. He was holding her
wrists and he could feel her pulse racing. 'Does murder
excite you?'
'I don't know.'
'Think about it,' Judd insisted. 'Does the thought of it
excite you?'
Her pulse was beginning to skip irregularly. 'No I Of
course not.'
"Why didn't you tell me about the man you killed in
Hollywood?'
Without warning she reached out to rake his face with her
long fingernails. He grabbed her wrists.
'You rotten sonofabitch! That was twenty years ago... So
that's why you came. Get out of here.
Get out!' She collapsed in sobbing hysteria.
Judd watched her a moment. Teri was capable of being
involved in a thrill murder. Her insecurity, her total lack
of self-esteem, would make her easy prey to anyone who wanted
to use her. She was like a piece of soft clay lying in the
gutter. The person who picked her up could mould her into a
beautiful statue - or into a deadly weapon. The question was,
who had picked her up last? Don Vinton?
Judd got to his feet. 'I'm sorry,' he said.
He walked out of the pink apartment.
Bruce Boyd occupied a house in a converted mews off the
park in Greenwich Village. The door was opened by a
white-jacketed Filipino butler. Judd gave his name and was
invited to wait in the foyer. The butler disappeared. Ten
minutes went by, then fifteen. Judd checked his irritation.
Perhaps he should have told Detective Angeli he was coming
here. If Judd's theory was right, the next attempt on his
life would take place very soon. And his attacker would try
to make certain of his success.
The butler reappeared. 'Mr Boyd will see you now,' he
said. He led Judd upstairs to a tastefully
decorated study, then discreetly withdrew.
Boyd was at a desk, writing. He was a beautiful man with
sharp, delicate features, an aquiline nose, and
a sensuous, full mouth. He had blond hair curled into
ringlets. He got to his feet as Judd entered. He was about
six foot three with the chest and shoulders of a football
player. Judd thought about his physical identikit of the
killer. Boyd matched it. Judd wished more than ever that he
had left some word with Angeli.
Boyd's voice was soft and cultured. 'Forgive me for
keeping you waiting, Dr. Stevens,' he said
pleasantly. 'I'm Bruce Boyd.' He held out his hand.
Judd reached out to take it and Boyd hit him in the mouth
with a granite fist. The blow was totally unexpected, and the
impact of it sent Judd crashing against a standing lamp,
knocking it over as his
body fell to the fioor.
'I'm sorry, Doctor,' said Boyd, looking down at him. "You
had that coming. You've been a naughty
boy, haven't you? Get up and I'll fix you a drink.'
Judd shook his head groggily. He started to push himself
up from the floor. When he got halfway up, Boyd kicked him in
the groin with the tip of his shoe and Judd fell writhing to
the floor in agony.
'I've been waiting for you to call,' Boyd said.
Judd looked up through the bunding waves of pain at the
figure that towered over him. He tried to
speak, but he couldn't get the words out.
'Don't try to talk,' Boyd said sympathetically. 'It must
hurt. I know why you're here. You want to
ask me about Johnny.'
Judd started to nod and Boyd kicked him in the head.
Through a red blur he heard Boyd's voice coming from some
distant place through a cottony filter, fading in and out.
'We loved each other until he went to you. You made him feel
like a freak. You made him feel our love was dirty. Do you
know who made it dirty, Dr. Stevens? You.'
Judd felt something hard smash into his ribs, sending an
exquisite river of pain through his veins. He was seeing
everything in beautiful colours now, as though his head were
filled with shimmering rainbows.
'Who gave you the right to tell people how to love,
Doctor? You sit there in your office like some kind
of god, condemning everyone who doesn't think like you.'
That's not true, Judd was answering somewhere in his mind.
Hanson had never had choices before.
I gave him choices. And he didn't choose you.
'Now Johnny's dead.' said the blond giant towering over
him. 'You killed my Johnny. And now I'm
going to kill you.'
He felt another kick behind his ear, and he began to slip
into unconsciousness. Some remote part of his mind watched
with a detached interest as the rest of him began to die.
That small isolated piece of intelligence in his cerebellum
continued to function, its impulses flashing out weakening
patterns of thought. He reproached himself for not having
come closer to the truth. He had expected the killer to
be a dark, Latin type, and he was blond. He had been sure
that the killer was not a homosexual, and
he had been wrong. He had found his homicidal maniac, and
now he was going to die for it. He lost consciousness.

Chapter Sixteen

Some distant, remote part of his mind was trying to send
him a message, trying to communicate something of cosmic
importance, but the hammering deep inside his skull was so
agonizing that he was unable to concentrate on anything else.
Somewhere nearby, he could hear a high-pitched keening, like
a wounded wild animal. Slowly, painfully, Judd opened his
eyes. He was lying in a bed in a strange room. In a corner of
the room, Bruce Boyd was weeping uncontrollably.
Judd started to sit up. The wracking pain in his body
flooded his memory with recollection of what had happened to
him, and he was suddenly filled with a wild, savage fury.
Boyd turned as he heard Judd stir. He walked over to the
bed. 'It's your fault,' he whimpered.
'If it hadn't been for you, Johnny would still be safe
with me.'
Without volition, propelled by some long-forgotten, deeply
buried instinct for vengeance, Judd reached
for Boyd's throat, his fingers closing around his
windpipe, squeezing with all their strength. Boyd made no
move to protect himself. He stood there, tears streaming down
his face. Judd looked into his eyes, and it was like looking
into a pool of hell. Slowly his hands dropped away. My God,
he thought, I'm a doctor.
A sick man attacks me and I want to kill him. He looked at
Boyd, and he was looking at a destroyed, bewildered child.
And suddenly he realized what his subconscious had been
trying to tell him: Bruce Boyd was not Don Vinton. If he had
been, Judd would not be alive now. Boyd was incapable of
committing murder. So
he had been right about him not fitting the identikit of
the killer. There was a certain ironic consolation
in that.
'If it weren't for you, Johnny would be alive.' Boyd
sobbed, 'He'd be here with me and I could have protected
him.'
'I didn't ask John Hanson to leave you,' Judd said
wearily. 'It was his idea.'
'You're a liar!'
'Things had been going wrong between you and John before
he came to see me.'
There was a long silence. Then Boyd nodded. 'Yes. We -we
were quarrelling all the time.'
'He was trying to find himself, and his instincts kept
telling him that he wanted to go back to his wife
and children. Deep down inside, John wanted to be
heterosexual.'
'Yes,' whispered Boyd. 'He used to talk about it all the
time, and I thought it was just to punish me.'
He looked up at Judd. 'But one day he left me. He just -
moved out. He stopped loving me.' There
was despair in his voice.
'He didn't stop loving you,' Judd said. 'Not as a friend.'
Boyd was looking at him now, his eyes riveted on Judd's
face. "Will you help me?' His eyes were filled with
desperation. "H-help me. You've got to help me!'
It was a cry of anguish. Judd looked at him a long moment.
'Yes,' Judd said. 'I'll help you.'
'Will I be normal?'
'There's no such thing as normal. Each person carries his
own normality within him, and no two people are alike."
'Can you make me heterosexual?'
'That depends on how much you really want to be. We can
give you psychoanalysis.'
'And if it fails?'
'If we find that you're meant to be homosexual, at least
you'll be better adjusted to it.'
"When can we start?' Boyd asked.
And Judd was jolted back to reality. He was sitting here
talking about treating a patient when, for all he knew, he
was going to be murdered within the next twenty-four hours.
And he was still no closer to finding out who Don Vinton was.
He had eliminated Teri and Boyd, the last suspects on his
list He knew no more now than when he had started. If his
analysis of the killer was correct, by now he would have
worked himself up to a murderous rage. The next attack would
come very, very soon.
'Call me Monday,' he said.
Aa the taxi took him towards his apartment building. Judd
tried to weigh his chances of survival. They looked bleak.
What could he have that Don Vinton wanted so desperately? And
who was Don Vinton? How could be have had no police record?
Could he be using some other name? No. Moody had clearly said
'Don Vinton'.
It was difficult to concentrate. Every movement of the
taxi sent spasms of excruciating pain through his bruised
body. Judd thought about the murders and attempted murders
that had been committed so far. looking for some kind of
pattern that made sense. A knifing, murder by torture, a
hit-and-run 'accident',
a bomb in his car, strangulation. There was no pattern
that he could discern. Only a ruthless, maniacal violence. He
had no way of knowing how the next attempt would be made. Or
by whom. His greatest vulnerability would be the office and
his apartment. He remembered Angeli's advice. He must have
stronger locks put on the doors of the apartment. He would
tell Mike, the doorman, and Eddie, the elevator operator, to
keep their eyes open. He could trust them.
The taxi pulled up in front of his apartment house. The
doorman opened the taxi door.
He was a total stranger.

Chapter Seventeen

He was a large, swarthy man with a pockmarked face and
deep-set black eyes. An old scar ran across
his throat. He was wearing Mike's uniform coat and it was
too tight for him.
The taxi pulled away and Judd was alone with the man. He
was struck by a sudden wave of pain. My God, not now. He
gritted his teeth. "Where's Mike?' he asked
'On vacation. Doctor.'
Doctor. So the man knew who he was. And Mike on vacation?
In December?
There was a small smile of satisfaction on the man's face.
Judd looked up and down the windswept
street, but it was completely deserted. He could try to
make a run for it, but in his condition be wouldn't stand a
chance. His body was beaten and sore, and it hurt every time
he took a breath.
"You look like you been in an accident.' The man's voice
was almost genial.
Judd turned without answering and walked into the lobby of
the apartment building. He could count
on Eddie to get help.
The doorman followed Judd into the lobby. Eddie was in the
elevator, his back turned. Judd started walking towards the
elevator, every step a separate agony. He knew he dared not
falter now. The important thing was not to let the man catch
him alone. He would be afraid of witnesses.
'Eddie!' Judd called.
The man in the elevator turned.
Judd had never seen him before. He was a smaller version
of the doorman, except that there was
no scar. It was obvious that the two men were brothers.
Judd stopped, trapped between the two of them. There was
no one else in the lobby.
'Goin' up,' said the man in the elevator. He had the same
satisfied smile as his brother.
So these, finally, were the faces of death. Judd was sure
that neither of them was the brain behind what was happening.
They were hired professional killers. Would they kill him in
the lobby, or would they prefer to do it in his apartment?
His apartment, he reasoned. That would give them more time to
make their escape before his body was found.
Judd took a step towards the manager's office. 'I have to
see Mr. Katz about—'
The larger man blocked his way. 'Mr. Katz is busy, Doc' he
said softly.
The man in the elevator spoke. 'I'l; take you upstairs.'
'No,' Judd said. 'I—'
'Do like he says.' There was no emotion in his voice.
There was a sudden blast of cold air as the lobby door
opened. Two men and two women hurried in, laughing and
chattering, huddled in their coats.
'It's worse than Siberia,' said one of the women.
The man holding her arm was pudgy-faced, with a Midwestern
accent. 'Tain't a fit night for man nor beast.'
The group was moving towards the elevator. The doorman and
elevator operator looked at each other silently.
The second woman spoke. She was a tiny, platinum blonde
with a heavy Southern accent. 'It's been a perfecdy dreamy
evening. Thank you all so much.' She was sending the men
away.
The second man gave a howl of protest "You're not going to
let us go without a little nightcap, are you?'
'It's awfully late, George,' simpered the first woman.
'But it's below zero outside. You've gotta give us a
little anti-freeze.'
The other man added his plea. 'Just one drink and then we
go.'
'Well...'
Judd was holding his breath. Please!
The platinum blonde relented. 'All right. But just one,
you-all hear?'
Laughing, the group stepped into the elevator. Judd
quickly moved in with them. The doorman stood there
uncertainly, looking at his brother. The one in the elevator
shrugged, closed the door, and started the elevator up.
Judd's apartment was on the fifth floor. If the group got out
before him, he was in trouble. If they got out after Hm, he
had a chance to get into his apartment, barricade himself,
and call for help.
'Floor?'
The little blonde giggled. 'I don't know what my husband
would say if he saw me inviting two strange men up to my
apartment' She turned to the elevator operator. Ten.'
Judd exhaled and realized that he had been holding his
breath. He spoke quickly. 'Five.'
The elevator operator gave him a patient, knowing look and
opened the door at Five. Judd got out.
The elevator door dosed.
Judd moved towards his apartment, stumbling with pain. He
took out his key, opened the door, and went In, his heart
pounding. He had five minutes at the most before they came to
kill him. He closed the door and started to put the chain
lock in the bolt. It came off in his hand. He looked at it
and saw that it had been cut through. He flung it down and
moved towards the phone. A wave of dizziness swept over him.
He stood there, fighting the pain, his eyes closed, while
precious time passed. With an effort, he started towards the
phone again, moving slowly. The only person he could think of
to call was Angeli, but Angeli was at home, ill. Besides
-what could he say? We have a new doorman and elevator
operator and I think they're going to kill me! He slowly
became aware that he was holding the receiver in his hand,
standing there numbly, too dazed to do anything. Concussion,
he thought. Boyd may have killed me, after all. They would
walk in and find him like this - helpless. He remembered the
look in the eyes of the big man. He had to outwit them, keep
them off balance. But good God - how?
He turned on the small TV set that monitored the lobby.
The lobby was deserted. The pain returned, washing over him
in waves, making him feel faint He forced his tired mind to
focus on the problem. He was in an emergency ... Yes ...
Emergency. He had to take emergency measures. Yes... His
vision was blurring again. His eyes focused on the phone.
Emergency ... He moved the dial close to his eyes so that he
could read the numbers. Slowly, painfully, he dialled. A
voice answered on the fifth ring. Judd spoke, His words
slurred and indistinct. His eye was caught by a flurry of
motion in the TV monitor. The two men, in street clothes,
were crossing the lobby and moving towards the elevator.
His time had run out.
The two men moved soundlessly towards Judd's, apartment
and took positions on either side of the
door. The larger of the men, Rocky, softly tried the door.
It was locked. He took out a celluloid card
and carefully inserted it over the lock. He nodded to his
brother, and both men took out revolvers with silencers on
them. Rocky slid the celluloid card against the lock and
pushed the unresisting door open, slowly. They walked into
the living-room, guns held out in front of them. They were
confronted by three closed doors. There was no sign of Judd.
The smaller brother, Nick, tried the first door. It was
locked.
He smiled at his brother, put the muzzle of his gun
against the lock, and pulled the trigger. The door
noiselessly swung open into a bedroom. The two men moved
inside, guns sweeping the room.
There was no one inside. Nick checked the closets while
Rocky returned to the living-room. They moved without haste,
knowing that Judd was in the apartment hiding, helpless.
There was almost deliberate enjoyment in their unhurried
movements, as though they were savouring the moments before
the kill.
Nick tried the second closed door. It was locked. He shot
the bolt out and moved into the room. It was the den. Empty.
They grinned at each other and walked towards the last closed
door. As they passed the TV monitor, Rocky caught his
brother's arm. On the set they could see three men hurrying
into the lobby. Two of them, wearing the white jackets of
interns, were pushing a wheeled stretcher. The third carried
a medical bag.
'What the hell!'"
"Keep your cool, Rocky. So someone's sick. There must be a
hundred apartments in this building.'
They watched the TV set in fascination as the two interns
wheeled the stretcher into the elevator. The group
disappeared inside it, and the elevator door dosed.
'Give them a couple of minutes.' It was Nick. 'It could be
some kind of accident. That means there
might be cops.'
'Of all the fuckin' luck!'
'Don't worry. Stevens ain't goin' nowhere.'
The door to the apartment burst open and the doctor and
the two interns entered, pushing the stretcher ahead of them.
Swiftly the two killers shoved their guns into their overcoat
pockets.
The doctor waited up to the brother. 'Is he dead?'
'Who?'
"The suicide victim. Is he dead or alive?'
The two killers looked at each other, bewildered. "You
guys got the wrong apartment.'
The doctor pushed past the two killers and tried the
bedroom door. 'It's locked. Help me break it down.'
The two brothers watched helplessly as the doctor and the
interns smashed the door open with their shoulders. The
doctor stepped into the bedroom. 'Bring the stretcher.' He
moved to the bedside where Judd lay on the bed. 'Are you all
right?'
Judd looked up, trying to make his eyes focus. 'Hospital,'
mumbled Judd.
"You're on your way.'
As the two killers watched in frustration, the interns
wheeled the stretcher into the bedroom, skilfully
slid Judd onto it, and wrapped him in blankets.
'Let's blow,' said Rocky.
The doctor watched the two men leave. Then he turned to
Judd, who lay on the stretcher, his face white and haggard.
'Are you all right, Judd?' His voice was filled with deep
concern.
Judd tried a smile that didn't come off. 'Great,' he said.
He could scarcely hear his own voice.
'Thanks, Pete.'
Peter looked down at his friend, then nodded to the two
interns. 'Let's go!'

Chapter Eighteen

The hospital room was different, but the nurse was the
same. A glaring bundle of disapproval. Seated
at his bedside, she was the first thing that Judd saw when
he opened his eyes.
'Well. We're up,' she said primly. 'Dr. Harris wants to
see you. I'll tell him we're awake.' She waited stiffly out
of the room.
Judd sat up, moving carefully. Arm and leg reflexes a bit
slow, but unimpaired. He tried focusing on a chair across the
room, one eye at a time. His vision was a little blurred.
"Want a consultation?'
He looked up. Dr. Seymour Harris had come into the room.
'Well,' Dr. Harris said cheerfully, 'you're turning out to
be one of our best customers. Do you know how much your
stitching bill alone is? We're going to have to give you
discount rates ... How did you sleep, Judd?' He sat down on
the edge of the bed.
'Like a baby. What did you give me?'
'A shot of sodium luminol.'
'What time is it?'
'Noon.'
'My God,' Judd said. 'I've got to get out of here.'
Dr. Harris removed the chart from the clipboard he
carried. 'What would you like to talk about first? Your
concussion? Lacerations? Contusions?'
'I feel fine.'
The doctor put the chart aside. His voice grew serious.
'Judd, your body's taken a lot of punishment. More than you
realize. If you're smart, you'll stay right in this bed for a
few days and rest. Then you'll take a vacation for a month.'
'Thanks, Seymour,' Judd said.
'You mean thanks, but - no, thanks.'
'There's something I have to take care of.'
Dr. Harris sighed. 'Do you know who make the worst
patients in the world? Doctors.' He changed the subject,
conceding defeat 'Peter was here all night. He's been calling
every hour. He's worried about you. He thinks someone tried
to kill you last night.'
'You know how doctors are — over-imaginative.'
Harris eyed him a moment, shrugged, then said, 'You're the
analyst. I'm only Ben Casey. Maybe you know what you're doing
- but I wouldn't bet a nickel on it. Are you sure you won't
stay in bed a few days?'
'I can't'
'OK, Tiger. I'll let you leave tomorrow.'
Judd started to protest, but Harris cut him off.
'Don't argue. Today's Sunday. The guys who beat you up
need a rest.'
'Seymour...'
'Another thing. I hate to sound like a Jewish mother, but
have you been eating lately?'
'Not much,' Judd said.
'OK. I'm giving Miss Bedpan twenty-four hours to fatten
you up. And Judd...'
'Yes?'
'Be careful. I hate to lose such a good customer.' And Dr.
Harris was gone.
Judd dosed his eyes to rest a moment. He heard the rattle
of dishes, and when he looked up, a beautiful Irish nurse was
wheeling in a dining tray.
'You're awake, Dr. Stevens.' She smiled.
'What time is it?'
'Six o'clock.'
He had slept the day away.
She was placing the food on his bed tray. "You're having a
treat tonight - turkey. Tomorrow's
Christmas Eve.'
'I know.' He had no appetite for dinner until he took the
first bite and suddenly discovered that he was ravenous. Dr
Harris had shut off all phone calls, so he lay in bed,
undisturbed, gathering his strength, marshalling the forces
within him. Tomorrow he would need all the energy he could
muster.
At ten o'clock the next morning Dr. Seymour Harris bustled
into Judd's room.
'How's my favourite patient?' he beamed. 'You look almost
human.'
'I feel almost human,' smiled Judd.
'Good. You're going to have a visitor. I wouldn't want you
to scare him.'
Peter. And probably Norah. They seemed to be spending most
of their time lately visiting him in hospitals.
Dr. Harris went on. 'It's a Lieutenant McGreavy.'
Judd's heart sank.
'He's very anxious to talk to you. He's on his way over
here. He wanted to be sure you were awake.'
So he could arrest him. With Angeli home sick, McGreavy
had been free to manufacture evidence that would convict
Judd. Once McGreavy got his hands on him, there was no hope.
He had to escape before McGreavy arrived.
'Would you ask the nurse to get the barber?' Judd said.
'I'd like a shave.' His voice must have sounded odd, because
Dr. Harris was looking at him strangely. Or was that because
of something McGreavy had told Dr. Harris about him?
'Certainly, Judd.' He left.
The moment the door closed, Judd got out of bed and stood
up. The two nights of sleep had done miracles for him. He was
a little unsteady on his feet, but that would pass. Now he
had to move
quickly. It took him three minutes to dress.
He opened the door a crack, made sure that no one was
around who would try to stop him, and headed for the service
stairs. As he started down the stairs, the elevator door
opened and he saw McGreavy get off and start towards the room
he had just left. He was moving swiftly, and behind him were
a uniformed policeman and two detectives. Quickly, Judd went
down the stairs and headed for the ambulance entrance. A
block away from the hospital he hailed a taxi.
McGreavy walked into the hospital room and took one look
at the unoccupied bed and the empty closet 'Fan out,' he said
to the others. 'You might still catch him.' He scooped up the
phone. The operator connected him with the police
switchboard. 'This is McGreavy,' he said rapidly. 'I want an
all-points bulletin put out. Urgent ... Dr. Stevens, Judd.
Male, Caucasian. Age...'
The taxi pulled up in front of Judd's office building.
From now on, there was no safety for him
anywhere. He could not go back to his apartment He would
have to check into some hotel.
Returning to his office was dangerous, but it had to be
done this once.
He needed a phone number.
He paid the driver and walked into the lobby. Every muscle
in his body ached He moved quickly. He knew he had very
little time. It was unlikely that they would be expecting him
to return to his office, but he must take no chances. It was
now a question of who got him first. The police or the
assassins.
When he reached his office, he opened the door and went
inside, locking the door after him. The inner office seemed
strange and hostile, and Judd knew that he could not treat
his patients here any longer. He would be subjecting them to
too much danger. He was filled with anger at what Don Vinton
was doing to his life. He could visualize the scene that must
have occurred when the two brothers went back and reported
that they had failed to kill him. If he had read Don Vinton's
character correctly, he would have been in a towering rage.
The next attack would come at any moment.
Judd went across the room to get Anne's phone number. For
he had remembered two things in. the hospital.
Some of Anne's appointments were scheduled just ahead of
John Hanson's.
And Anne and Carol had had several chats together; Carol
might have innocently confided some deadly information to
Anne. If so, she could be in danger.
He took his address book out of a locked drawer, looked up
Anne's phone number, and dialled. There were three rings, and
then a neutral voice came on.
This is a special operator. What number are you calling,
please?'
Judd gave her the number. A few moments later the operator
was back on the line. 'I am sorry. You
are calling a wrong number. Please check your directory or
consult Information.'
'Thank you,' Judd said. He hung up. He sat there a moment,
remembering what his answering service
had said a few days ago. They had been able to reach all
his patients except Anne. The numbers could have been
transposed when they were put in the book. He looked in the
telephone directory, but there was no listing under her
husband's name or her name. He suddenly felt that it was very
important that he talk to Anne. He copied down her address:
617 Woodside Avenue, Bayonne, New Jersey.
Fifteen minutes later, he was at an Avis counter, renting
a car. There was a sign behind the counter that read: 'We're
second, so we try harder.' We're in the same boat, thought
Judd.
A few minutes later, he drove out of the garage. He rode
around the block, satisfied himself that he was not being
followed, and headed over the George Washington Bridge for
New Jersey.
When he reached Bayonne, he stopped at a filling station
to ask directions. 'Next corner and make a
left - third street.'
Thanks.' Judd drove off. At the thought of seeing Anne
again, his heart began to quicken. What was he going to say
to her without alarming her? Would her husband be there?
Judd made a left turn onto Woodside Avenue. He looked at
the numbers. He was in the nine hundred block. The houses on
both sides of the street were small, old, and weatherbeaten.
He drove to the seven hundred block. The houses seemed to
become progressively older and smaller.
Anne lived on a beautiful wooded estate. There were
virtually no trees here. When Judd reached the address Anne
had given him, he was almost prepared for what he saw.
617 was a weed-covered vacant lot.

Chapter Nineteen

He sat in the car across from the vacant lot, trying to
put it all together. The wrong phone number could have been a
mistake. Or the address could have been a mistake. But not
both. Anne had deliberately lied to him. And if she had lied
about who she was and where she lived, what else had she lied
about? He forced himself to objectively examine everything he
really knew about her. It came to almost nothing.
She had walked into his office unannounced and insisted on
becoming a patient. In the four weeks that she had been
coming to him, she had carefully managed not to reveal what
her problem was, and then had suddenly announced that it was
solved and she was going away. After each visit she had paid
him in cash so that there would be no way of tracing her. But
what reason could she have had for posing as a patient and
then vanishing? There was only one answer. And as it hit
Judd, he became physically sick.
If someone wanted to set him up for murder - wanted to
know his routine at the office - wanted to know what the
inside of the office looked like - what better way than to
gain access as a patient? That was
what she was doing there. Don Vinton had sent her. She had
learned what she needed to know and then had disappeared
without a trace.
It had all been pretence, and how eager he had been to be
taken in by it How she must have laughed when she went back
to report to Don Vinton about the amorous idiot who called
himself an analyst and pretended to be an expert about
people. He was head over heels in love with a girl whose sole
interest in him was setting him up to be murdered. How was
that for a judge of character? What an amusing paper that
would make for the American Psychiatric Association.
But what if it were not true? Supposing Anne had come to
him with a legitimate problem, had used a fictitious name
because she was afraid of embarrassing someone? In lime the
problem had solved itself and she had decided that she no
longer needed the help of an analyst. But Judd knew that it
was too easy. There was an 'x' quantity about Anne that
needed to be discovered. He had a strong feeling that in that
unknown quantity could lie the answer to what was happening.
It was possible that she was being forced to act against her
will. But even as he thought it, he knew he was being
foolish. He was trying to cast her as a damsel in distress
with himself as a knight in shining armour. Had she set him
up for murder? Somehow, he had to find out.
An elderly woman in a tom housecoat had come out of a
house across the street and was staring at him. He turned the
car around and headed back for the George Washington Bridge.
There was a line of cars behind him. Any one of them could
be following him. But why would they
have to follow him? His enemies knew where to find him. He
couldn't sit and passively wait for them
to attack. He had to do the attacking himself, keep them
off guard, enrage Don Vinton into making a
blunder so that he could be checkmated And he had to do it
before McGreavy caught him and locked
him up.
Judd drove towards Manhattan. The only possible key to all
this was Anne - and she had disappeared without a trace. The
day after tomorrow she would be out of the country.
And Judd suddenly realized that he had one chance of
finding her.
It was Christmas Eve and the Pan-Am office was crowded
with travellers and would-be travellers on standby, fighting
to get space on planes flying all over the world.
Judd made his way to the counter through the waiting lines
and asked to see the manager. The
uniformed girl behind the counter gave him a
professionally coded smile and asked him to wait; the manager
was on the phone.
Judd stood there hearing a babel of phrases.
'I want to leave India on the fifth.'
'Will Paris be cold?'
'I want a car to meet me in Lisbon.'
He felt a desperate desire to get on a plane and run away.
He suddenly realized how exhausted he was, physically and
emotionally. Don Vinton seemed to have an army at his
disposal, but Judd was alone. What chance did he have against
him?
'Can I help you?'
Judd turned. A tall, cadaverous-looking man stood behind
the counter. 'I'm Friendly,' he said. He waited for Judd to
appreciate the joke. Judd smiled dutifully. 'Charles
Friendly. What can I do for you?'
'I'm Dr Stevens. I'm trying to locate a patient of mine.
She's booked on a flight leaving for Europe tomorrow.'
'The name?'
'Blake. Anne Blake.' He hesitated. 'Possibly it's under
Mr. and Mrs Anthony Blake.'
'What city is she flying to?'
'I-I'm not sure.'
'Are they hooked on one of our morning or afternoon
flights?'
'I'm not even certain if it's with your airline,' Judd
said.
The friendliness dropped out of Mr Friendly's eyes. 'Then
I'm afraid I can't help you.'
Judd felt a sudden feeling of panic. 'It's really urgent.
I must find her before she goes.'
'Doctor, Pan-American has one or more flights leaving
every day for Amsterdam, Barcelona, Berlin, Brussels,
Copenhagen, Dublin, Dusseldorf, Frankfurt, Hamburg, Lisbon,
London, Munich, Paris, Rome, Shannon, Stuttgart, and Vienna.
So have most of the other international airlines. You'll have
to contact each one individually. And I doubt if they can
help you unless you can give them the destination and time of
departure.' The expression on Mr Friendly's face was one of
impatience. 'If you'll excuse me ...' He turned to walk away.
'Wait!' said Judd How could he explain that this might be
his last chance to stay alive? His last link to finding out
who was attempting to kill him.
Friendly was regarding him with barely concealed
annoyance. 'Yes?'
Judd forced a smile on his face, hating himself for it,
'Don't you have some kind of central computing system/ he
asked, 'where you can get passengers' names by ... ?'
'Only if you know the flight number,' Mr Friendly said. He
turned and was gone.
Judd stood there at the counter, feeling sick. Check and
checkmate. He was defeated. There was nowhere else to move.
A group of Italian priests bustled in, dressed in long,
flapping black robes and wide black hats, looking like
something out of the Middle Ages. They were weighed down with
cheap cardboard suitcases, boxes and gift baskets of fruit.
They were speaking loudly in Italian and obviously teasing
the youngest member of their group, a boy who looked no more
than eighteen or nineteen. They were probably returning home
to Rome after a vacation, thought Judd, as he listened to
their babbling. Rome... where Anne would be.. Anne again.
The priests were moving towards the counter.
'E molto bene di ritornare a casa'
'Si. d'accordo.'
'Signore, per piacere, guardatemi'
'Tutto va bene?'
'Si, ma—'
'Dio mio, dove sono i mid biglietti?'
'Cretino, hai perduto i biglietti.'
'Ah, eccoli.'
The priests handed their airline tickets to the youngest
priest, who moved bashfully towards the girl at
the counter. Judd looked towards the exit. A large man in
a grey overcoat was lounging in the doorway.
The young priest was talking to the girl behind the
counter. 'Dieci. Dieci.'
The girl stared at him blankly. The priest summoned up his
knowledge of English and said very
carefully, 'Ten. Billetta. Teeket' He pushed the tickets
towards her.
The girl smiled happily and began to process the tickets.
The priests burst into delighted cries of approval at
their companion's linguistic abilities and clapped him on the
back. There was no point in staying here any longer. Sooner
or later he would have to face whatever was out there. Judd
slowly turned and started to move past the group of priests.
'Guarda te che ha fatto il Don Vinton.'
Judd stopped, the blood suddenly rushing to his face. He
turned to the tubby little priest who had spoken and took his
arm. 'Excuse me,' he said. His voice was hoarse and unsteady.
'Did you say "Don Vinton"?'
The priest looked up at him blankly, then patted him on
the arm and started to move away.
Judd tightened his grip. 'Wait!' he said.
The priest was looking at him nervously. Judd forced
himself to speak calmly. 'Don Vinton. Which
one is he? Show him to me,'
All the priests were now staring at Judd. The little
priest looked at his companions. 'E un americano matto.'
A babble of excited Italian rose from the group. Out of
the corner of his eye, Judd saw Friendly watching him from
behind the counter. Friendly opened the counter gate and
started to move towards him. Judd fought to control a rising
panic He let go of the priest's arm, leaned close to him, and
said slowly and distinctly, Don Vinton'.
The little priest looked into Judd's face for a moment and
then his own face splintered into merriment. 'Don Vinton?'
The manager was approaching rapidly, his manner hostile.
Judd nodded to the priest encouragingly.
The little priest pointed to the boy. "Don Vinton - big
man".'
And suddenly the puzzle fell into place.

Chapter Twenty

'Slow down, slow down,' Angeli said hoarsely. 'I can't
understand a word you're saying.'
'Sorry,' Judd said. He took a deep breath. 'I've got the
answer!' He was so relieved to hear Angeli's
voice over the phone that he was almost babbling. 'I know
who's trying to kill me. I know who Don Vinton is.'
There was a sceptical note in Angeli's voice. 'We couldn't
find any Don Vinton.'
"Do you know why? Because it isn't a him - it's a who.'
'Will you speak more slowly?'
Judd's voice was trembling with excitement. 'Don Vinton
isn't a name. It's an Italian expression. It
means "the big man". That's what Moody was trying to tell
me. That 'The Big Man' was after me.'
'You lost me. Doctor.'
'It doesn't mean anything in English,' said Judd, "but
when you say it in Italian - doesn't it suggest anything to
you? An organization of killers run by The Big Man?'
There was a long silence over the phone. 'La Cosa Nostra?'
'Who else could assemble a group of killers and weapons
like that? Acid, bombs - guns! Remember
I told you the man we're looking for would be a Southern
European? He's Italian.'
'It doesn't make sense. Why nould La Cosa Nostra want to
kill you?'
'I have absolutely no idea. But I'm right. I know I'm
right. And it fits in with something Moody said.
He said there was a group of men out to kill me.'
'It's the craziest theory I've ever heard,' Angeli said.
There was a pause, then he added, 'But I suppose
it could be possible.'
Judd was flooded with sudden relief. If Angeli had not
been willing to listen to him, he would have had
no one to turn to.
'Have you discussed this with anyone?'
'No,' Judd said.
'Don't!' Angeli's voice was urgent. 'If you're right, your
life depends on it. Don't go near your office or apartment.'
'I won't,' Judd promised. He suddenly remembered. 'Did you
know McGreavy has a warrant out for
my arrest?'
'Yes.' Angeli hesitated. 'If McGreavy picks you up, you'll
never get to the station alive.'
My God. So he had been right about McGreavy. But he could
not believe that McGreavy was the brain behind this. There
was someone directing him... Don Vinton. The Big Man.
'Can you hear me?'
Judd's mouth was suddenly dry. 'Yes.'
A man in a grey overcoat stood outside the phone booth
looking in at Judd. Was it the same man he
had seen before? 'Angeli...'
"Yes?"
'I don't know who the others are. I don't know what they
look like. How do I stay alive until they're caught?'
The man outside the booth was staring at him.
Angeli's voice came over the line. 'We're going straight
to the FBI. I have a friend who has connections. He'll see
that you're protected until you're safe. OK?' There was a
note of assurance in Angeli's voice.
'OK,' Judd said gratefully. His knees felt like jelly.
'Where are you?*
'In a phone booth in the lower lobby of the Pan-Am
Building.'
'Don't move. Keep plenty of people around you. I'm on ray
way.' There was a click at the other end
of the line as Angeli hung up.
He put the phone back on the squad-room desk, a sick
feeling deep inside him. Over the years he had become
accustomed to dealing with murderers, rapists, perverts of
every description, and somehow, in time, a protective shell
had formed, allowing him to go on believing in the basic
dignity and humanity
of man.
But a rogue cop was something different.
A rogue cop was a corruption that touched everyone on the
force, that violated everything that decent cops fought and
died for.
The squad room was filled with the passage of feet and the
murmur of voices, but he heard none of it. Two uniformed
patrolmen passed through the room with a giant drunk in
handcuffs. One of the officers had a black eye and the other
held a handkerchief to a bloody nose. The sleeve of his
uniform had been ripped half off. The patrolman would have to
pay for that himself. These men were ready to risk their
lives every day and night of the year. But that wasn't what
made headlines. A crooked cop made headlines. One crooked cop
tainted them all. His own partner.
Wearily he got up and walked down the ancient corridor to
the captain's office. He knocked once and went in.
Behind a battered desk pocked with the lighted cigar butts
of countless years sat Captain Bertelli. Two FBI men were in
the room, dressed in business suits. Captain Bertelli looked
up as the door opened. 'Well?'
The detective nodded. 'It checks out. The property
custodian said he came in and borrowed Carol Roberts's key
from the evidence locker Wednesday afternoon and returned it
late Wednesday night. That's why the paraffin test was
negative - he got into Dr. Stevens's office by using an
original key.
The custodian never questioned it because he knew he was
assigned to the case.'
'Do you know where he is now?' asked the younger of the
FBI men.
"No. We had a tail on him, but he lost him. He could be
anywhere.'
'He'll be hunting for Dr. Stevens,' said the second FBI
agent.
Captain Bertelli turned to the FBI men. "What are the
chances of Dr. Stevens staying alive?'
The man shook his head. 'If they find him before we do -
none.'
Captain Bertelli nodded. "We've got to find him first.'
His voice grew savage. 'I want Angeli brought
back, too. I don't care how you get him.' He turned to the
detective. 'Just get him, McGreavy.'
The police radio began to crackle out a staccato message:
'Code Ten ... Code Ten ... All cars...
pick up five ...'
Angeli switched the radio off. 'Anyone know I picked you
up?' he asked.
'No one,' Judd assured him.
'You haven't discussed La Cosa Nostra with anybody?'
'Only you.'
Angeli nodded, satisfied.
They had crossed the George Washington Bridge and were
headed for New Jersey. But everything had changed. Before, he
had been filled with apprehension. Now, with Angeli at his
side, he no longer felt
like the hunted. He was the hunter. And the thought filled
him with deep satisfaction.
At Angeli's suggestion, Judd had left his rented car in
Manhattan and he was riding in Angeli's unmarked police car.
Angeli had headed north on the Palisades Interstate Parkway
and exited at Orangeburg. They were approaching Old Tappan.
'It was smart of you to spot what was going on, Doctor,'
Angeli said.
Judd shook his head. 'I should have figured it out as soon
as I knew there was more than one man involved. It had to be
an organization using professional killers. I think Moody
suspected the truth when he saw the bomb in my car. They had
access to every kind of weapon.'
And Anne. She was part of the operation, setting him up so
that they could murder him. And yet - he couldn't hate her.
No matter what she had done, he could never hate her.
Angeli had turned off the main highway. He deftly tooled
the car onto a secondary road that led towards
a wooded area.
'Does your friend know we're coming?' Judd asked.
'I phoned him. He's all ready for you.'
A side road appeared abrupdy, and Angeli turned the car
into it. He drove for a mile, then braked to a stop in front
of an electric gate. Judd noticed a small television camera
mounted above the gate. There was a click and the gate swung
open, then closed solidly behind them. They began driving up
a long, curving driveway. Through the trees ahead, Judd
caught a glimpse of the sprawling roof of an enormous house.
High on top, flashing in the sun, was a bronze rooster.
Its tail was missing.

Chapter Twenty-one

In the soundproofed, neon-lit communications centre at
Police Headquarters, a dozen shirtsleeved police officers
manned the giant switchboard. Six operators sat of each side
of the board. In the middle of the board was a pneumatic
hute. As the calls came in, the operators wrote a message,
put it in the chute, and sent it upstairs to the dispatcher,
imediate relay to a sub-station or patrol car. The calls
never ceased. They poured in day and night, like a river of
tragedy flooding in from the citizens of the huge metropolis.
Men and women who were terrified... lonely ... desperate ...
drunk ... injured ... homicidal... It was a scene from
Hogarth, painted with vivid, anguished words instead of
colours.
On this Monday afternoon there was a feeling of added
tension in the air. Each telephone operator handled his job
with full concentration, and yet each was aware of the number
of detectives and FBI agents who kept moving in and out of
the room, receiving and giving orders, working efficiently
and quietly as they spread a vast electronic net for Dr. Judd
Stevens and Detective Frank Angeli. The atmosphere was
quickened, strangely staccato, as though the action were
being staged by some grim, nervous puppeteer.
Captain Bertelli was talking to Allen Sullivan, a member
of the Mayor's Crime Commission, when McGreavy walked in.
McGreavy had met Sullivan before. He was tough and honest.
Bertelli broke
off his conversation and turned to the detective, his face
a question mark.
'Things are moving,' McGreavy said. 'We found an
eyewitness, a night watchman who works in the building across
the street from Dr. Stevens's office building. On Wednesday
night, when someone
broke into Dr. Stevens's office, the watchman was just
going on duty. He saw two men go into the building. The
street door was locked and they opened it with a key. He
figured they worked there.'
'Did you get an ID?'
'He identified a picture of Angeli.'
'Wednesday night Angeli was supposed to have been home in
bed with the flu.'
'Right.'
'What about the second man?'
'The watchman didn't get a good look at him.'
An operator plugged in one of the innumerable red lights
blinking across the switchboard and turned to Captain
Bertelli. 'For you. Captain. New Jersey Highway Patrol.'
Bertefli snatched up an extension phone. 'Captain
Bertelli.' He listened a moment 'Are you sure?...
Good! Will you get every unit you can in there? Set up
roadblocks. I want that area covered lite a
blanket. Keep in close touch... Thanks.' He hung up and
turned to the two men. 'It looks like we got
a break. A rookie patrolman in New Jersey spotted Angeli's
car on a secondary road near Orangeburg. The Highway Patrol's
combing the area now.'
'Dr. Stevens?'
'He was in the car with Angeli. Alive. Don't worry.
They'll find them.'
McGreavy pulled out two cigars. He offered one to
Sullivan, who refused it, handed one to Bertelli, and put the
other one between his teeth. 'We've got one thing going for
us. Dr. Stevens leads a charmed life.' He struck a match and
lit the two cigars. 'I just talked to a friend of his - Dr.
Peter Hadley. Dr. Hadley told me he went to pick up Stevens
in his office a few days ago and found Angeli there with a
gun in his hand. Angeli told some cock-and-bull story about
expecting a burglar. My guess is that Dr. Hadley's arrival
saved Stevens's life.'
'How did you first get on to Angeli?' Sullivan asked.
'It started with a couple of tips that he was shaking down
some merchants,' McGreavy said. 'When I
went to check them out, the victims wouldn't talk. They
were scared, but I couldn't figure out why. I didn't say
anything to Angeli. I just started keeping a close watch on
him. When the Hanson murder broke, Angeli came and asked if
he could work on the case with me. He gave me some bullshit
about
how much he admired me and how he had always wanted to be
my partner. I knew he had to have an angle, so with Captain
Bertelh's permission, I played along with him. No wonder he
wanted to work on the case - he was in it up to his ass! At
that time I wasn't sure whether Dr. Stevens was involved in
the murders of Hanson and Carol Roberts, but I decided to use
him to set up Angeli. I built up a phoney
case against Stevens and told Angeli I was going to nail
the doctor for the murders. I figured that if
Angeli thought he was off the hook, he'd relax and get
careless.'
'Did it work?'
"No. Angeli surprised the hell out of me by putting up a
fight to keep Stevens out of jail.'
Sullivan looked up, puzzled. 'But why?'
"Because he was trying to knock him off and he couldn't
get to him if he were locked up.'
'When McGreavy began to put the pressure on,' Captain
Bertelli said, 'Angeli came to me hinting that McGreavy was
trying to frame Dr. Stevens.'
'We were sure then that we were on the right track,'
McGreavy said. 'Stevens hired a private detective named
Norman Moody. I checked Moody out and learned that he had
tangled with Angeli before when
a client of Moody's was picked up by Angeli on a drugs
rap. Moody said his client was framed. Knowing what I know
now, I'd say Moody was telling the truth.'
'So Moody lucked into the answer from the beginning.'
'It wasn't all luck. Moody was bright. He knew Angeli was
probably involved. When he found the bomb in Dr. Stevens's
car, he turned it over to the FBI and asked them to check it
out.'
'He was afraid if Angeli got hold of it, he'd find a way
to get rid of it?'
That's my guess. But someone slipped up and a copy of the
report was sent to Angeli. He knew then
that Moody was on to him. The real break we got was when
Moody came up with the name
"Don Vinton".'
'Cosa Nostra for The Big Man".'
'Yeah. For some reason, someone in La Cosa Nostra was out
to get Dr Stevens.'
'How did you tie up Angeli with La Cosa Nostra?'
'I went back to the merchants Angeli had been putting the
squeeze on. When I mentioned La Cosa Nostra, they panicked.
Angeli was working for one of the Cosa Nostra families, but
he got greedy and was doing a little shakedown business of
his own on the side.'
'Why would La Cosa Nostra want to kill Dr. Stevens?'
Sullivan asked.
'I don't know. We're working on several angles.' He sighed
wearily. "We got two lousy breaks. Angeli slipped the men we
had tailing him, and Dr. Stevens ran away from the hospital
before I could warn
him about Angeli and give him protection.'
The switchboard flashed. An operator plugged in the call
and listened a moment. 'Captain Bertelli.'
Bertelli grabbed the extension phone. 'Captain Bertelli.'
He listened, saying nothing, then slowly replaced the
receiver and turned to McGreavy. They lost them.'

Chapter Twenty-two

Anthony DeMarco had mana.
Judd could feel the burning power of his personality
across the room, coming in waves that struck like
a tangible force. When Anne had said her husband was
handsome, she had not exaggerated.
DeMarco had a classic Roman face with a perfectly
sculptured profile, coal black eyes, and attractive streaks
of grey in his dark hair. He was in his middle forties, tall
and athletic, and moved with a restless animal grace. His
voice was deep and magnetic 'Would you care for a drink,
Doctor?'
Judd shook his head, fascinated by the man before him.
Anyone would have sworn that DeMarco
was a perfectly normal, charming man, a perfect host
welcoming an honoured guest.
There were five of them in the richly panelled library.
Judd, DeMarco, Detective Angeli, and the two
men who had tried to kill Judd at his apartment building,
Rocky and Nick Vaccaro. They had formed a circle around Judd.
He was looking into the faces of the enemy, and there was a
grim satisfaction in it. Finally he knew who he was fighting.
If 'fighting' was the right word. He had walked into Angeli's
trap. Worse. He had phoned Angeli and invited him to come and
get him. Angeli, the Judas goat who had led him here to the
slaughter.
DeMarco was studying him with deep interest, his black
eyes probing. 'I've heard a great deal about
you,' he said.
Judd said nothing.
'Forgive me for having you brought here in this fashion,
but it is necessary to ask you a few questions.' He smiled
apologetically, radiating warmth.
Judd knew what was coming, and his mind moved swiftly
ahead.
"What did you and my wife talk about, Dr. Stevens?'
Judd put surprise into his voice. 'Your wife? I don't know
your wife.'
DeMarco shook his head reproachfully. 'She's been going to
your office twice a week for the last three weeks.'
Judd frowned thoughtfully. 'I have no patient named
DeMarco...'
DeMarco nodded understandingly. 'Perhaps she used another
name. Maybe her maiden name. Blake - Anne Blake.'
Judd carefully registered surprise. 'Anne Blake?'
The two Vaccaro brothers moved in closer.
'No,' DeMarco said sharply. He turned to Judd. His affable
manner was gone. 'Doctor, if you try to
play games with me, I'm going to do things to you that you
wouldn't believe.'
Judd looked into his eyes and believed him. He knew that
his life was hanging by a thread. He forced indignation into
his voice, "You can do what you please. Until this moment I
had no idea that Anne
Blake was your wife.'
'That could be true,' Angeli said. 'He—'
DeMarco ignored Angeli. 'What did you and my wife talk
about for three weeks?'
They had arrived at the moment of truth. From the instant
Judd had seen the bronze rooster on the roof, the final
pieces of the puzzle had fallen into place. Anne had not set
him up for murder. She had been a victim, like himself. She
had married Anthony DeMarco, successful owner of a large
construction firm, without any idea of who he really was.
Then something must have happened to make her suspect that
her husband was not what he had seemed to be, that he was
involved in something dark and terrible With no one to talk
to, she had turned for help to an analyst, a stranger, in
whom she could confide. But in Judd's office her basic
loyalty to her husband had kept her from discussing her
fears.
'We didn't talk about much of anything,' said Judd evenly.
'Your wife refused to tell me what her
problem was.'
DeMarco's black eyes were fixed on him, probing, weighing.
'You'll have to come up with something better than that.'
How DeMarco must have panicked when he learned that his
wife was going to a psychoanalyst - the
wife of a leader in La Cosa Nostra. No wonder DeMarco had
killed, trying to get hold of Anne's file.
'All she told me.' Judd said, 'was that she was unhappy
about something, but couldn't discuss it.'
'That took ten seconds,' DeMarco said. 'I've got a record
of every minute she spent in your office.
What did she talk about for the rest of the three weeks?
She must have told you who I am.'
'She said you owned a construction company.'
DeMarco was studying him coldly. Judd could feel beads of
perspiration forming on his forehead.
'I've been reading up on analysis, Doctor. The patient
talks about everything that's on his mind.'
That's part of the therapy.' Judd said matter-of-factly.
That's why I wasn't getting anywhere with
Mrs. Blake -with Mrs. DeMarco. I intended to dismiss her
as a patient.'
'But you didn't'
'I didn't have to. When she came to see me Friday, she
told me that she was leaving for Europe."
'Annie's changed her mind. She doesn't want to go to
Europe with me. Do you know why?'
Judd looked at him, genuinely puzzled. 'No.'
'Because of you, Doctor.'
Judd's heart gave a little leap. He carefully kept his
feelings out of his voice. 'I don't understand.'
'Sure you do, Annie and I had a long talk last night. She
thinks she made a mistake about our marriage. She's not happy
with me any more, because she thinks she goes for you! When
DeMarco spoke, it was almost in a hypnotic whisper. 'I want
you to tell me all about what happened when you two were
alone
in your office and she was on your couch.'
Judd steeled himself against the mixed emotions that were
coursing through him. She did care! But what good was it
going to do either of them? DeMarco was looking at him,
waiting for an answer. 'Nothing happened. If you read up on
analysis, you'll know that every female patient goes through
an emotional transference. At one time or another, they all
think they're in love with their doctor. It's just a passing
phase.'
DeMarco was watching him intently, his black eyes probing
into Judd's.
'How did you know she was coming to see me?' Judd asked,
making the question casual.
DeMarco looked at Judd a moment, then walked over to a
large desk and picked up a razor-sharp letter opener in the
shape of a dagger. 'One of my men saw her go into your
building. There are a lot of baby doctors there and they
figured maybe Annie was keeping back a little surprise from
me. They followed her up to your office.' He turned to Judd.
'It was a surprise, all right They found out she was going
to a psychiatrist. The wife of Anthony
DeMarco spilling my personal business to a headshrinker.'
'I told you she didn't—'
DeMarco's voice was soft 'The Commissione held a meeting.
They voted for me to kill her, like
we'd kill any traitor.'
He was pacing now, reminding Judd of a dangerous, caged
animal. 'But they can't give me orders like a peasant
soldier. I am Anthony DeMarco, a Capo. I promised them that
if she had discussed any of our business, I would kill the
man she talked to. With these two hands.' He held up his
fists, one of them holding the razor-edged dagger. That's
you, Doctor.'
DeMarco was circling him now as he talked, and each rime
that DeMarco walked in back of him,
Judd unconsciously braced himself.
'You're making a mistake if—' Judd started.
'No. You know who made the mistake?' Annie.' He looked
Judd up and down. He sounded genuinely puzzled. 'How could
she think you're a better man than I am?'
The Vaccaro brothers snickered.
'You're nothing. A patsy who goes to an office every day
and makes - what? Thirty grand a year? Fifty? A hundred? I
make more than that in a week.' DeMarco's mask was supping
away more quickly now, eroding under the pressure of his
emotions. He was beginning to speak in short, excited bursts,
a patina
of ugliness warping his handsome features. Anne had only
seen him behind his facade. Judd was looking into the naked
face of a homicidal paranoiac. "You and that little putana
pick each other!'
'We haven't picked each other,' Judd said.
DeMarco was watching him, his eyes blazing. 'She doesn't
mean anything to you?
'I told you. She's just another patient.'
'OK,' DeMarco said at last. 'You tell her.'
'Tell her what?'
'That you don't give a damn about her. I'm going to send
her down here. I want you to talk to her, alone.'
Judd's pulse began to race. He was going to be given a
chance to save himself and Anne.
DeMarco flicked his hand and the men moved out into the
hallway. DeMarco turned to Judd. His deep black eyes were
hooded. He smiled gently, the mask in place again. 'As long
as Annie doesn't know anything, she will live. You're going
to convince her that she should go to Europe with me.'
Judd felt his mouth go suddenly dry. There was a
triumphant glint in DeMarco's eyes. Judd knew why. He had
underestimated his opponent.
Fatally.
DeMarco was not a chess player, and yet he had been clever
enough to know that he held a pawn that made Judd helpless.
Anne. Whatever move Judd made, she was in danger. If he sent
her away to Europe with DeMarco, he was certain that her life
would be in jeopardy. He did not believe that DeMarco was
going to let her live. La Cosa Nostra would not allow it. In
Europe DeMarco would arrange an 'accident'. But if Judd told
Anne not to go, if she found out what was happening to him,
she would try to interfere, and that would mean instant death
for her. There was no escape: only a choice of two traps.
From the window of her bedroom on the second floor, Anne
had watched the arrival of Judd and Angeli. For one
exhilarating moment, she had believed that Judd was coming to
take her away, to rescue her from the terrifying situation
she was in. But then she had seen Angeli take out a gun and
force Judd into the house.
She had known the truth about her husband for the last
forty-eight hours. Before that, it had only been a dim,
glimmering suspicion, so incredible that she had tried to
brush it aside. It had begun a few months ago, when she bad
gone to a play in Manhattan and had come home unexpectedly
early because the star was drunk and the curtain had been
rung down in the middle of the second act. Anthony had told
her that he was having a business meeting at the house, but
that it would be over before she returned. When she had
arrived, the meeting was still going on. And before her
surprised husband had been able to close the library door,
she had heard someone angrily shouting, 'I vote that we hit
the factory tonight and take care of the bastards once and
for all!' The phrase, the ruthless appearance of the
strangers in the room, and Anthony's agitation at seeing her
had combined to unnerve Anne. She had let his glib
explanations convince her because she had wanted desperately
to be convinced. In the six months of their marriage,
he had been a tender, considerate husband. She had seen
occasional flashes of a violent temper, but he had always
quickly managed to gain control of himself.
A few weeks after the theatre incident, she had picked up
a telephone and had overheard Anthony's
voice on an extension phone. 'We're taking over a shipment
from Toronto tonight. You'll have to have someone handle the
guard. He's not with us.'
She had hung up, shaken. 'Take over a shipment' . . .
'handle the guard' . . . They sounded ominous, but they could
have been innocent business phrases. Carefully, casually, she
tried to question Anthony about his business activities. It
was as though a steel wall went up. She was confronted by an
angry stranger who told her to take care of his home and keep
out of his business. They had quarrelled bitterly, and the
next evening he had given her an outrageously expensive
necklace and tenderly apologized.
A month later, the third incident had occurred. Anne had
been awakened at four o'clock in the morning by the slamming
of a door. She had slipped into a negligee and gone
downstairs to investigate. She heard voices coming from the
library, raised in argument. She went towards the door, but
stopped as she saw Anthony in the room talking to half a
dozen strangers. Afraid that he would be angry if she
interrupted, she quietly went back upstairs and returned to
bed. At breakfast the next morning, she asked him how
he had slept.
'Great. I fell off at ten o'clock and never opened my eyes
once.'
And Anne knew that she was in trouble. She had no idea
what kind of trouble or how serious it was.
All she knew was that her husband had lied to her for
reasons that she could not fathom. What kind of business
could he be involved in that had to be conducted secretly in
the middle of the night with men who looked like hoodlums?
She was afraid to broach the subject again with Anthony. A
panic began to build in her. There was no one with whom she
could talk.
A few nights later, at a dinner party at the country club
to which they belonged, someone had mentioned a psychoanalyst
named Judd Stevens, and talked about how brilliant he was.
'He's a kind of analyst's analyst, if you know what I
mean. He's terribly attractive, but it's wasted.
- he's one of those dedicated types.'
Anne had carefully noted the name and the following week
had gone to see him.
The first meeting with Judd had turned her life
topsy-turvy. She had felt herself drawn into an emotional
vortex that had left her shaken. In her confusion, she had
been scarcely able to talk to him, and she had left feeling
like a schoolgirl, promising herself that she would not go
back. But she had gone back to
prove to herself that what had happened was a flute, an
accident. Her reaction the second time was
even stronger. She had always prided herself on being
sensible and realistic, and now she was acting like
a seventeen-year-old girl in love for the first time. She
found herself unable to discuss her husband with Judd, and so
they had talked about other things, and after each session
Anne found herself more in love with this warm, sensitive
stranger.
She knew it was hopeless because she would never divorce
Anthony. She felt there must be some
terrible flaw in her that would allow her to marry a man
and six months later fall in love with another man. She
decided that it would be better if she never saw Judd again.
And then a series of strange things had begun to happen.
Carol Roberts was killed, and Judd was
knocked down by a hit-and-run driver. She read in the
newspapers that Judd was there when Moody's body was found in
the Five Star Warehouse. She had seen the name of the
warehouse before.
On the letterhead of an invoice on Anthony's desk.
And a terrible suspicion began to form in her mind.
It seemed incredible that Anthony could be involved in any
of the awful things that had been happening, and yet... She
felt as though she was trapped in a terrifying nightmare, and
there was no way out. She could not discuss her fears with
Judd, and she was afraid to discuss them with Anthony. She
told herself that her suspicions were groundless: Anthony did
not even know of Judd's existence.
And then, forty-eight hours ago, Anthony had come into her
bedroom and started questioning her about her visits to Judd.
Her first reaction had been anger that he had been spying on
her, but that had quickly given way to all the fears that had
been preying upon her. As she looked into his twisted,
enraged face, she knew that her husband was capable of
anything.
Even murder.
During the questioning, she had made one terrible mistake.
She had let him know how she felt about Judd. Anthony's eyes
had turned deep black, and he had shaken his head as though
warding off a
physical blow.
It was not until she was alone again that she realized how
much danger Judd was in, and that she could not leave him.
She told Anthony that she would not go to Europe with him.
And now Judd was here, in this house. His life in peril,
because of her.
The bedroom door opened and Anthony walked in. He stood
watching her for a moment.
'You have a visitor,' he said.
She walked into the library wearing a yellow skirt and
blouse, her hair back loosely over her shoulders. Her face
was drawn and pale, but there was an air of quiet composure
about her. Judd was in the room, alone.
"Hello, Dr. Stevens. Anthony told me that you were here.'
Judd had the sensation that they were acting out a charade
for the benefit of an unseen, deadly audience. He intuitively
knew that Anne was aware of the situation and was placing
herself in his hands, waiting to follow whatever lead he
offered.
And there was nothing he could do except try to keep her
alive a little longer. If Anne refused to go to Europe,
DeMarco would certainly have her lulled here.
He hesitated, choosing his words carefully. Each word
could be as dangerous as the bomb planted in his car. 'Mrs.
DeMarco, your husband is upset because you changed your mind
about going to Europe with him'
Anne waited, listening, weighing.
'I'm sorry,' she said.
'So am I. I think you should go,' Judd said, raising his
voice.
Anne was studying his face, reading his eyes. 'What if I
refuse? What if I just walk out?'
Judd was filled with sudden alarm. 'You mustn't do that.'
She would never leave this house alive.
'Mrs. DeMarco,' he said deliberately, 'your husband is
under the mistaken impression that you're in
love with me.'
She opened her lips to speak and he quickly went on, 'I
explained to him that that's a normal part of analysis - an
emotional transference that all patients go through.'
She picked up his lead. 'I know. I'm afraid it was foolish
of me to go to you in the first place. I should have tried to
solve my problem myself.' Her eyes told him how much she
meant it, how much she regretted the danger she had placed
him in. 'I've been thinking it over. Perhaps a holiday in
Europe
would be good for me.'
He breathed a quick sigh of relief. She had understood.
But there was no way he could warn her of the real danger.
Or did she know? And even if she knew,
was there anything she could do about it? He looked past
Anne towards the library window framing the tall trees that
bordered the woods. She had told him that she took long walks
in them. It was possible
she might be familiar with a way out. If they could get to
the woods... He lowered his voice, urgently. 'Anne—'
'Finished your little chat?'
Judd spun around. DeMarco had quietly walked into the
room. Behind him came Angeli and the
Vaccaro brothers.
Anne turned to her husband. 'Yes,' she said, 'Dr. Stevens
thinks I should go to Europe with you. I'm going to take his
advice.'
DeMarco smiled and looked at Judd. 'I knew I could count
on you, Doctor.' He was radiating charm, beaming with the
expansive satisfaction of a man who has achieved total
victory. It was as though the incredible energy that flowed
through DeMarco could be converted at will, switched from a
dark evil to an overpowering, attractive warmth. No wonder
Anne had been taken in by him. Even Judd found it hard to
believe at this instant that this gracious, friendly Adonis
was a cold-blooded, psychopathic murderer.
DeMarco turned to Anne. 'We'll be leaving early in the
morning, darling. Why don't you go upstairs and start
packing?'
Anne hesitated She did not want to leave Judd alone with
these men. 'I..." She looked at Judd helplessly. He nodded
imperceptibly.
'All right.' Anne held out her hand. 'Goodbye, Dr.
Stevens.'
Judd took her hand. 'Goodbye.'
And this time it was goodbye. There was no way out Judd
watched as she turned, nodded at the others, and walked out
o£ the room.
DeMarco looked after her. 'Isn't she beautiful?' There
was a strange expression on his face. Love, possessiveness —
and something else. Regret? For what he was about to do to
Anne?
'She doesn't know anything about all this,' Judd said.
'Why don't you keep her out of it? Let her go away.'
He watched the switch turn in DeMarco, and it was almost
physical. The charm vanished, and hate
began to fill the room, a current flowing from DeMarco to
Judd, not touching anyone else. There was
an ecstatic, almost orgiastic expression on DeMarco's
face. "Let's go, Doctor.'
Judd looked around the room, measuring his chances of
escape. Surely DeMarco would prefer not to
kill him in his home. It had to be now or never. The
Vaccaro brothers were watching him hungrily,
hoping he would make a move. Angeli was standing near the
window, his hand near his gun holster.
'I wouldn't try it,' DeMarco said softly. 'You're a dead
man -- but we're going to do it my way,"
He gave Judd a push towards the door. The others closed in
on him, and they headed towards the entrance hall.
When Anne reached the upstairs hallway, she waited near
the landing, watching the hall below. She
drew back out of sight as she saw Judd and the others move
towards the front door. She hurried into
her bedroom and looked out the window. The men were
pushing Judd into Angeli's car.
Quickly Anne reached for the telephone and dialled
operator. It seemed an eternity before there was
an answer.
'Operator, I want the police! Hurry - it's an emergency!'
And a man's hand reached in front of her and pressed down
the receiver. Anne gave a little scream
and whirled around. Nick Vaccaro was standing over her,
grinning.

Chapter Twenty-three

Angeli switched on the headlights. It was four o'clock in
the afternoon, but the sun was buried
somewhere behind the mass of cumulus clouds that scudded
overhead, pushed by the icy winds.
They had been driving for over an hour.
Angeli was at the wheel. Rocky Vaccaro was seated next to
him. Judd was in the back seat with
Anthony DeMarco.
In the beginning Judd had kept an eye out for a passing
police car, hoping that he might somehow make
a desperate bid to attract attention, but Angeli was
driving through little-used side roads where there was almost
no traffic. They skirted the edges of Morristown, picked up
Route 206 and headed south towards the sparsely populated,
bleak plains of central New Jersey. The grey sky opened up
and it began to pour: a cold, icy sleet that beat against the
windscreen like tiny drums gone mad.
'Slow down,' DeMarco commanded. 'We don't want to have an
accident.'
Angeli obediently lightened his foot on the accelerator.
DeMarco turned to Judd. 'That's where most people make
their mistake. They don't plan things out
like me.'
Judd looked at DeMarco, studying him clinically. The man
was suffering from megalomania, beyond
the reach of reason or logic. There was no way to appeal
to him. There was some moral sense missing
in him that allowed him to kill without compunction. Judd
knew most of the answers now.
DeMarco had committed the murders with his own hand out of
a sense of honour - a Sicilian's revenge, to erase the stain
that he thought his wife had placed on him and his Cosa
Nostra family. He had killed John Hanson by mistake. When
Angeli had reported back to him and told him what had
happened, DeMarco had gone back to the office and found
Carol. Poor Carol. She could not give him the tapes of Mrs.
DeMarco because she did not know Anne by that name. If
DeMarco had kept his temper, he could have helped Carol
figure out whom he was talking about; but it was part of his
sickness that he had no tolerance for frustration and he had
gone into an insane rage, and Carol had died. Horribly. It
was DeMarco who had run Judd down, and later had come to kill
him at his office with Angeli. Judd had
been puzzled by the fact that they had not broken in and
shot him. But he realized now that since McGreavy was sure
Judd was guilty, they had decided to make his death look like
a suicide, committed
in remorse. That would stop any further police
investigation.
And Moody . . . poor Moody. When Judd had told him the
names of the detectives on the case, he had thought he was
reacting to McGreavy - when it was really Angeli Moody had
learned that Angeli was involved with the Cosa Nostra, and
when he followed up on it...
He looked over at DeMarco. 'What's going to happen to
Anne?'
'Don't worry. I'll take care of her,' DeMarco said.
Angeli smiled. 'Yeah.'
Judd felt a helpless rage sweep over him.
'I was wrong to marry someone outside the family,' brooded
DeMarco. 'Outsiders can never understand
it like it is. Never.'
They were travelling in an almost barren section of
fiat-lands. An occasional factory dotted the sleet-blurred
skyline in the distance.
"We're almost there,' Angeli announced.
'You've done a good job,' DeMarco said. 'We're going to
hide you away somewhere until the heat cools down. Where
would you like to go?'
'I like Florida.'
DeMarco nodded approvingly. 'No problem. You'll stay with
one of the family.'
'I know some great broads down there.' Angeli smiled.
DeMarco smiled back at him in the mirror. 'You'll come
back with a tanned ass.'
'I hope that's all I come back with.'
Rocky Vaccaro laughed.
In the distance, on the right, Judd saw the sprawled
buildings of a factory spuming smoke into the air. They
reached a small side road leading to the factory. Angeli
turned into it and drove until they came to a high wall. The
gate was closed. Angeli leaned on the horn and a man in a
raincoat and rain hat appeared behind the gate. When he saw
DeMarco, he nodded, unlocked the gate, and swung it open.
Angeli drove the car inside, and the gate closed behind them.
They had arrived.
At the Nineteenth Precinct, Lieutenant McGreavy was in his
office, going over a list of names with
three detectives, Captain Bertelli, and the two FBI men.
This is a list of the Cosa Nostra families in the East.
All the Sub-Capos and Capo Regimes. Our
problem is, we don't know which one Angeli is hooked up
with.'
'How long would it take to get a rundown on them?' asked
Bertelli.
One of the FBI men spoke. There are over sixty names here.
It would take at least twenty-four hours, but..." He stopped.
McGreavy finished the sentence for him. 'But Dr. Stevens
won't be alive twenty-four hours from now.'
A young uniformed policeman hurried up to the open door.
He hesitated as he saw the group of men.
'What is it?' McGreavy asked.
'New Jersey didn't know if it's important, Lieutenant, but
you asked them to report anything unusual.
An operator got a call from an adult female asking for
Police Headquarters. She said it was an
emergency, and then the line went dead. The operator
waited, but there was no call back.'
'Where did the call come from?'
'A town called Old Tappan.'
'Did she get the number?'
'No. The caller hung up too quickly.'
'Great.' McGreavy said bitterly.
'Forget it,' Bertelli said. 'It was probably some old lady
reporting a lost cat.'
McGreavy's phone rang, a long, insistent peal. He picked
up the phone, 'Lieutenant McGreavy.' The others in the room
watched his face draw tight with tension. 'Right! Tell them
not to make a move until
I get there. I'm on my way!' He slammed the receiver down.
'The Highway Patrol just spotted Angeli's car going south on
Route 206, just outside Millstone.'
'Are they tailing it?' It was one of the FBI men.
The patrol car was going in the opposite direction. By the
time they got turned around, it had disappeared. I know that
area. There's nothing out there but a few factories.' He
turned to one of the FBI men. 'Can you get me a fast rundown
on the names of the factories there and who owns them?*
'Will do.' The FBI man reached for the phone.
'I'm heading out there,' McGreavy said. 'Call me when you
get it.' He turned to the men. "Let's move!' He started out
the door, the three detectives and the second FBI man on his
heels.
Angeli drove past the watchman's shack near the gate and
continued towards a group of odd-looking structures that
reached into the sky. There were high brick chimneys and
giant flumes, their curved shapes rearing up out of the grey
drizzle like prehistoric monsters in an ancient, timeless
landscape.
The car rolled up to a complex of large pipes and conveyor
belts and braked to a stop. Angeli and Vaccaro got out of the
car and Vaccaro opened the rear door on Judd's side. He had a
gun in his hand. 'Out, Doctor.'
Slowly, Judd got out of the car, followed by DeMarco. A
tremendous din and wind hurded at them, in front of them,
about twenty-five feet away, was an enormous pipeline filled
with roaring, compressed
air, sucking in everything that came near its open, greedy
lip.
This is one of the biggest pipelines in the country,'
DeMarco boasted, raising his voice to make himself heard. 'Do
you want to see how it works?'
Judd looked at him incredulously. DeMarco was acting the
part of the perfect host again, entertaining
a guest. No — not acting. He meant it. That was what was
terrifying. DeMarco was about to murder Judd, and it would be
a routine business transaction, something that had to be
taken care of, like
disposing of a piece of useless equipment, but he wanted
to impress him first
'Come on, Doctor. It's interesting.'
They moved towards the pipeline, Angeli leading the way,
DeMarco at Judd's side and Rocky Vaccaro bringing up the
rear.
'This plant grosses over five million dollars a year,' De
Marco said proudly. The whole operation is automatic'
As they got closer to the pipeline, the roar increased,
the noise became almost intolerable. A hundred yards from the
entrance to the vacuum chamber, a large conveyor belt carried
giant logs to a planing machine twenty feet long and five
feet high, with half a dozen razor-sharp cutter heads. The
planed logs were then carried upwards to a hog, a fierce
porcupine-looking rotor bristling with knives. The air was
filled with flying sawdust mixed with rain, being sucked into
the pipeline.
'It doesn't matter how big the logs are,' DeMarco said
proudly. The machines cut them down to fit that
thirty-six-inch pipe.'
DeMarco took a snub-nosed .38 Colt out of bis pocket and
called out, 'Angeli.'
Angeli turned.
"Have a good trip to Florida.' DeMarco squeezed the
trigger, and a red hole exploded in Angeli's shirt front.
Angeli stared at DeMarco with a puzzled half-smile on his
face, as though waiting for the answer
to a riddle he had just heard. DeMarco pulled the trigger
again. Angeli crumpled to the ground. DeMarco nodded to Rocky
Vaccaro, and the big man picked up Angeli's body, slung it
over his shoulder, and moved towards the pipeline.
DeMarco turned to Judd. 'Angeli was stupid. Every cop in
the country's looking for him. If they found him, he'd lead
them to me.'
The cold-blooded murder of Angeli was shock enough, but
what followed was even worse. Judd watched, horrified, as
Vaccaro carried Angeli's body towards the lip of the giant
pipeline. The tremendous pressure caught at Angeli's body,
greedily sucking it in. Vaccaro had to grab a large metal
handle on the lip of the pipe to keep himself from being
pulled in by the deadly cyclone of air. Judd had one last
glimpse of Angeli's body whirling into the pipe through the
vortex of sawdust and logs, and it was gone. Vaccaro reached
for the valve next to the lip of the pipe and turned it. A
cover slid over the mouth of the pipe, shutting off the
cyclone of air. Then the sudden silence was deafening.
DeMarco turned to Judd and raised his gun. There was an
exalted, mystic expression on his face, and Judd realized
that murder was almost a religious experience for him. It was
a crucible that purified. Judd knew that his moment of death
had come. He felt no fear for himself, but he was consumed by
rage that this man would be allowed to live, to murder Anne,
to destroy other innocent, decent people. He heard a
growling, a moan of rage and frustration, and realized it was
coming from his own lips. He was like a trapped animal
obsessed with the desire to kill his captor.
DeMarco was smiling at him, reading his thoughts. 'I'm
going to give it to you in the gut, Doctor. It'll
take a little longer, but you'll have more time to worry
about what's going to happen to Annie.'
There was one hope. One slim hope.
'Someone should worry about her,' Judd said. 'She's never
had a man.'
DeMarco stared at him blankly.
Judd was yelling now, fighting to make DeMarco listen. 'Do
you know what your cock is? That gun
in your hand. Without a gun or a knife, you're a woman.'
He saw DeMarco's face fill with slow rage.
'You have no balls, DeMarco. Without that gun, you're a
joke.'
A red film was filling DeMarco's eyes, like a warning flag
of death. Vaccaro took a step forward. DeMarco waved him
back.
'I'll kill you with these bare hands,' DeMarco said as he
threw the gun to the ground. 'With these bare hands!' Slowly,
like a powerful animal, he started towards Judd.
Judd backed away, out of reach. He knew he stood no chance
against DeMarco physically. His only
hope was to work on DeMarco's sick mind, making it unable
to function. He had to keep striking at DeMarco's most
vulnerable area - his pride in his manhood. "You're a
homosexual, De Marco!'
DeMarco laughed and lunged at him. Judd moved out of
reach.
Vaccaro picked up the gun from the ground. 'Chief! Let me
finish him!'
'Keep out of this!' DeMarco roared.
The two men circled, feinting for position. Judd's foot
slipped on a pile of soggy sawdust, and DeMarco rushed at him
like a charging bull. His huge fist hit Judd on the side of
the mouth, knocking him back. Judd recovered and lashed out
at DeMarco, hitting him in the face. DeMarco rocked back,
then lunged forward and drove his fists into Judd's stomach.
Three smashing blows that knocked the breath out of Judd. He
tried to speak to taunt DeMarco, but he was gasping for air.
DeMarco was hovering over
him like a savage bird of prey.
'Getting winded, Doctor?' he laughed. 'I was a boxer. I'm
going to give you lessons. I'm going to work
on your kidneys and then your head and your eyes. I'm
gonna put your eyes out, Doctor. Before I'm through with you,
you're going to beg me to shoot you.'
Judd believed him. In the eerie light that spilled from
the clouded sky, DeMarco looked like an enraged animal. He
rushed at Judd again and caught him with his fist, splitting
his cheek open with a heavy cameo ring. Judd lashed out at
DeMarco, pounding at his face with both fists. DeMarco did
not even flinch.
DeMarco began hitting Judd's kidneys, his hands working
like pistons. Judd pulled away, his body a sea of pain.
'You're not getting tired, are you, Doctor?' He started to
close in again. Judd knew that his body could
not take much more punishment He had to keep talking. It
was his only chance.
'DeMarco...' He gasped.
DeMarco feinted and Judd swung at him. DeMarco ducked,
laughed, and slammed his fist squarely between Judd's legs.
Judd doubled over, filled with an unbelievable agony, and
fell to the ground. DeMarco was on top of him, his hands at
his throat.
'My bare hands,' DeMarco screamed, 'I'm going to tear your
eyes out with my bare hands.' He dug
his huge fists into Judd's eyes.
They were speeding past Bedminster heading south on Route
206, when the call cracked in over the radio. 'Code Three .
.. Code Three ... All cars stand by... New York Unit
Twenty-seven ... New York Unit Twenty-seven...'
McGreavy grabbed the radio microphone. 'New York
Twenty-seven... Come in!'
Captain Bertelli's excited voice came over the radio.
"We've got it pinned down, Mac. There's a New Jersey pipeline
company two miles south of Millstone. It's owned by the Five
Star Corporation - the
same company that owns the meat-packing plant. It's one of
the fronts Tony DeMarco uses.'
'Sounds right,' McGreavy said, "We're on our way.'
"How far are you from there?'
'Ten miles.'
'Good luck.'
'Yeah.'
McGreavy switched off the radio, hit the siren, and
slammed the accelerator to the floorboard.
The sky was spinning in wet circles overhead and something
was pounding at him, tearing his body
apart He tried to see, but bis eyes weie swollen shut. A
fist smashed into bis ribs, and he felt the
agonizing splinter of bones breaking. He could feel
DeMarco's hot breath on his face, coming in quick, excited
gasps. He tried to see him, but he was locked in darkness. He
opened his mouth and forced
words past his thick, swollen tongue.
"You s-see,' he gasped. 'I was r-right ... You can - you
can only hit a man - when he's down ...'
The breathing in his face stopped. He felt two hands grab
him and pull him to his feet.
"You're a dead man, Doctor. And I did it with my bare
hands.'
Judd backed away from the voice. 'You're an - an
a-animal,' he said, gasping for breath.
'A psychopath . . . You should be locked up... in an...
insane asylum.'
DeMarco's voice was thick with rage. "You're a liar!'
'It's the t-truth,' Judd said, moving back. 'Your ... your
brain is diseased . . . Your mind is going to ... snap and
you'll be ... like an idiot baby.' Judd backed away, unable
to see where he was going. Behind him he heard the faint hum
of the closed pipeline, waiting like a sleeping giant.
DeMarco lunged at Judd, his huge hands clutching his
throat. 'I'm going to break your neck!' His enormous fingers
closed on Judd's windpipe, squeezing.
Judd felt his head begin to swim. This was his last
chance. Every instinct in him screamed out to grab DeMarco's
hands and pull them away from his throat so that he could
breathe. Instead, with a final tremendous effort of will, he
put his hands in back of him, fumbling for the pipe valve. He
felt himself beginning to slide into unconsciousness, and in
that instant his hands closed on the valve. With a final,
desperate burst of energy, he turned the handle and swerved
his body around so that DeMarco was nearest the opening. A
tremendous vacuum of air suddenly blasted at them, trying to
pull them into the vortex of the pipe. Judd clung frantically
to the valve with both hands, fighting the cyclonic fury of
the wind. He felt DeMarco's fingers digging into his throat
as DeMarco was pulled towards the pipe. DeMarco could have
saved himself, but in his mindless insane fury, he refused to
let go. Judd could not see DeMarco's face, but the voice was
a demented animal cry, the words lost in the roar of the
wind.
Judd's fingers started to slip off the valve. He was going
to be pulled into the pipeline with DeMarco. He gave a quick,
last prayer, and in that instant he felt DeMarco's hands slip
away from his throat. There
was a loud, reverberating scream, and then only the roar
from the pipeline. DeMarco had vanished.
Judd stood there, bone weary, unable to move, waiting for
the shot from Vaccaro.
A moment later it rang out.
He stood there, wondering why Vaccaro had missed. Through
the dull haze of pain, he heard more
shots, and the sound of feet running, and then his name
being called. And then someone had an arm around him and
McGreavy's voice was saying, 'Mother of God! Look at his
face!'
Strong hands gripped his arm and pulled him away from the
awful roaring tug of the pipeline. Something wet was running
down his cheeks and he did not know whether it was blood or
rain or tears, and he did not care.
It was over.
He forced one puffed eye open and through a narrow,
blood-red slit, he could dimly see McGreavy. 'Anne's at the
house,' Judd said. "DeMarco's wife. We've got to go to her.'
McGreavy was looking at him strangely, not moving, and
Judd realized that no words had come out.
He lifted his mouth up to McGreavy's ear and spoke slowly,
in a hoarse, broken croak.
'Anne DeMarco... She's at the... house... help.'
McGreavy walked over to the police car, picked up the
radio transmitter, and issued instructions. Judd stood there,
unsteady, still rocking back and forth from DeMarco's blows,
letting the cold, biting wind wash over him. In front of him
he could see a body lying on the ground, and knew it was
Rocky Vaccaro.
We've won, he thought. We've won. He kept saying the
phrase over and over in his mind. And even as he said it, he
knew it was meaningless. What kind of victory was it? He had
thought of himself as a decent, civilized human being -a
doctor, a healer - and he had turned into a savage animal
filled with the lust to kill. He had sent a sick man over the
brink of insanity and then murdered him. It was a terrible
burden he would have to live with always. Because even though
he could tell himself it was in self-defence, he knew - God
help him - that he had enjoyed doing it. And for that he
could never forgive himself. He was no better than DeMarco,
or the Vaccaro brothers, or any of the others. Civilization
was a thin, dangerously fragile veneer, and when that veneer
cracked, man became one of the beasts again, falling back
into the slime of the primeval abyss he prided himself on
having climbed up from.
Judd was too weary to think about it any longer. Now he
wanted only to see diat Anne was safe.
McGreavy was standing there, his manner strangely gentle.
'There's a police car on the way to her house, Dr.
Stevens. OK?'
Judd nodded gratefully.
McGreavy took his arm and guided him towards a car. As he
moved slowly, painfully, across the courtyard, he realized
that it had stopped raining. On the far horizon the
thunder-heads had been swept away by the raw December wind,
and the sky was clearing. In the west a small ray of light
appeared as the sun began to fight its way through, growing
brighter and brighter.
It was going to be a beautiful Christmas.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
ABOUT THE AUTHOR

At the age of twenty-four, Sidney Sheldon had three hit
musicals playing simultaneously on Broadway.
A theatrical, motion picture, and television
producer-writer-director, Mr. Sheldon has been awarded an
Oscar for his original screenplay of The Bachelor and the
Bobby Soxer, Screen Writers Guild Awards for Annie Get Your
Gun and Easter Parade, and a Tony for his Broadway show
Redhead. His other novels are The Other Side of Midnight, A
Stranger in the Mirror, Bloodline and Rage of Angels. He
lives in Los Angeles with his wife, actress Jorja Curtright,
and their daughter Mary.