Lisa Starling rubbed her wrists and sighed. It had been twenty minutes since Susana had left. She'd waited until she was absolutely sure the killers had departed the premises. Then she'd bent over the table until she could get the ice cube containing the key in her teeth. Professor Creed had thoughtfully given both of them a cup of coffee. She'd dropped the ice cube into the coffee and stared at it until it melted. Getting the key out had been a bit hot, but not too bad. A lot better than waiting.
Jason Sullivan shook with rage. Lisa was slightly nervous to see it. But it made sense; two killers had invaded his home, overcoming the defenses with ease. As soon as Lisa removed his handcuffs he got up and began to pace back and forth.
"Jay, calm down," Lisa said softly. "It's all right."
"All right?" His head whipped around and he fixed her. "Lis, are you crazy? Two killers off the FBI's Most-Wanted list were just here. They threatened both of us. Nobody does that to me and gets away with it."
"Maybe they can help," Lisa pointed out.
"Help my ass. We don't need her help anyway. I got her to cough up more than she expected. I asked her if the Bludgeon Man had raped her and she coughed up that she'd…well..," he paused. "Do you think she's telling to truth about making the Bludgeon Man the Bludgeon Woman?"
Lisa sighed. He had done exactly that. That had surprised her. Susana had indeed given them more than she had originally meant to. Enough to give them something to run down. Unless it was a wild goose chase.
"She could have done that," Lisa said. "But Jay, there are two problems with doing it ourselves."
"I don't work with cop-killers," he said, staring at her. "And frankly I don't even see why you're thinking of it. She killed people you work with."
"I want to catch the Bludgeon Man," Lisa pointed out. "Maybe she can do that."
Jason Sullivan folded his arms and stared at the woman in his life. When he spoke, his words were deliberate.
"She…is…a…cop…killer," he said slowly. "I got no truck with that. Creed either, he's a psycho killer who got the death penalty. I'll track them both down and I'll arrest them both."
Lisa thought of what would happen if Susana were arrested. She envisioned herself in chains being flown down to Argentina to spend the rest of her days in a prison cell. Would he come visit her?
She pushed it away. "Look, we can talk about that," she said, trying to avoid telling him. "Jay, what if she decides to compensate for that by helping the Bludgeon Man? She knows who he is. She may not like him, but if you try and pull something she might help him get away. What if she gives him a new identity and, say, fifty grand in cash? It's chickenfeed to her. She'd do it for spite."
Sullivan shrugged. "Get the Bludgeon Man first. Then her."
Then you lose me, Jason, Lisa Starling thought.
But she could convince him later. Explain to him the price she would be forced to pay if Susana was caught. Would it do? Perhaps it would. Once he was calmed down.
Would he approve or understand? Or was he simply going to cast her out, as a cop who had gone rogue?
She couldn't think about such things now. The Bludgeon Man might be near. And she knew if she lost him her heart would break.
…
The Bludgeon Man paced his small apartment nervously. He felt the way he did when he had too much coffee. He was full of nervous energy. He wanted to get out, run, beat someone, see them bleed. It was coming time for another victim anyway. Now this.
And to make it worse, what he'd always wanted was in his grasp. The bitch. Alina Lektor. Susana Alvarez Lecter. She was here again. The woman who had quite literally taken his manhood from him was back in Boston.
He'd read up on her in prison. She'd been caught and held in prison herself for a couple of months, but then escaped. Then she'd killed some FBI agents and disappeared. Nothing like what he had had to suffer through. The bitch had left him in the garage or whatever she'd done the operation on. She'd drugged him up as she left. The cops had shown up, and there had been his taped confession, blood samples, everything they needed. The bitch had left notes explaining that this would all incriminate him, Darryl Schantz, in the rapes that had so far gone unsolved.
The DA had offered him a deal. One count of rape, fifteen years. He'd pled. He had no choice. Otherwise they'd been planning to go after him for life without parole. Prison had been absolute hell. Somehow, forty of the biggest, meanest prisoners at the prison they'd sent him to had gotten letters telling them all about Darryl Schantz. What he had done…and what had been done to him.
He'd done three months in general population. And he had learned firsthand how his prior victims felt. Eight times. After that, half insane with shock and revulsion, he'd asked for protective custody and done his time there. It had been easier than facing the men who wanted to use his surgical alteration to their benefit.
Almost twelve years in solitary. Nothing to do but stare at the walls and wait for single-man rec or a shower. Occasionally, he would sit down to use the bathroom – now, he always had to – and what she had done to him would wash over him in a wave of fury. He'd become parole-eligible but gotten turned down by the parole board. They worried about his 'ability to adjust' on the outside. Fucking hot shit they thought they were. Finally, they'd gotten big-hearted and let him out.
He'd settled in much as he had been able to. A little bit of luck had been on his side. He was able to get another job in a hospital by purposely misspelling his name. Darryl Schantz would not have been able to get a job that required a background check. Daryl Shants could. His dumb-ass PO hadn't checked either. It hadn't been that hard.
And after that, he'd tried to put his life back together. For six months after his release he'd been pretty calm. But eventually it occurred to him that he was irrevocably, permanently un-manned. Susana Alvarez Lecter had taken his manhood as punishment for his attempting to rape her. Anytime he looked at his reflection in the mirror, he saw a sad, pathetic figure. A man who wasn't even a man. A man estranged from his nature. If he needed further proof of that, all he needed to do was look in his pants.
He rarely did. It hurt to look.
Eventually, Darryl Schantz had turned to killing. The horrible violence of the murders had given him an outlet for the rage and shame that boiled inside him. He was not intellectual or self-analytical in nature. It did not readily occur to him that he favored short brunettes who reminded him in some way of the bitch.
Now, he sat in his small, dingy apartment and paced. He glanced around the room as if waiting for something to appear. Nothing did. Only the tiny furnishings he'd been able to afford once he'd gotten out of the joint.
The telephone rang. The jangling tone irritated his nerves and he let out a hiss. He approached the phone and eyed it as if it was a threatening small animal that might bite him. Then he clenched his fist and picked up the phone.
"Yo," he said brusquely.
A woman's voice spoke. She sounded amused and quite satisfied with herself. "Is this Darryl? Well, hello, Darryl. It's been a while."
Darryl Schantz froze. The bitch. Even after twelve years, he knew her voice.
"What do you want?" he demanded.
"Oh," Susana Alvarez Lecter said, "just thought I'd check in and see how you were adjusting to life in the free world. How was prison, Darryl? I bet they just loved you."
"I got by fine," he said. "What's it to you, bitch?"
"Oh, I have my doubts on that," Susana said. "You see, Darryl, I was following your case all along. Once I finished my residency, I moved on to bigger and better things. But fortunately I had the resources to be able to keep an eye on you."
Darryl Schantz did not reply.
"Once I knew you were in prison, Darryl, I took a little bit of time and found out who were the biggest, meanest cons there with you," she said. "I wrote forty of them, actually. Really, all it took was taking a corrections officer out to lunch. I told them I was writing a book. Once I had the names, I got the addresses off the Internet. Forty big, mean cons, Darryl. All of them were in for life. I wrote them a nice form letter that told them all about your…surgery." She chuckled coldly. "You were their best playmate, weren't you, Darryl? I even managed to write your first cellmate. I knew if I told forty people it would be around the prison in a matter of hours. And that's how it was, wasn't it?"
Darryl felt rage course through him. The bitch had been responsible for the hell he'd been through. He would make her pay.
"I'll kill you," he snarled.
"I doubt that, Darryl," Susana said calmly. "But you're welcome to try, as I'm back in town. You know where my place is."
It occurred to Darryl Schantz that this might be a trap. But he had to try. He'd waited all these years for the opportunity to get even. After everything the bitch had done to him, everything she'd taken from him…she would pay.
"Come by around nine, Darryl," Susana said breezily. "I'll see you then."
"Don't you tell me what to do, you cunt," he said.
"Darryl, as I told you after I castrated you and made a woman out of you, that word doesn't make me cower in fear. Try again. But if you're too much of a coward to face me, so be it."
"I'll show you," he said bitterly.
"You do that," Susana said lightly, and hung up the phone. She took a moment to grin at Professor Creed. The professor watched her with some amusement.
"So you actually did…all that to him," he commented. "Remind me to be extremely careful what I say around you."
Susana grinned at him.
"So what happens now?" Professor Creed asked.
"We eat dinner," Susana said. "Darryl will show up at my old townhouse around…oh…eight-thirty or so. Maybe eight, if he really wants to try to surprise me. More than enough time to get something to eat. Then we call Lisa and her beau. That detective doesn't seem to like me; I guess it's that whole cop-killer reputation I've got. But I think he'll play along if she wants him to badly enough."
"That detective might backstab you," Professor Creed pointed out.
"Not unless he plans to be a good boyfriend and visit Lisa in prison," Susana said lightly. "Now be a dear and call room service so we can have a bite to eat. The sparks will be flying soon."