Page 148 of Never Flinch

Her bartender friend sees her and waves. “Holly! Did you see Jerome?”

“I did,” she says, not adding that she made sure Jerome didn’t see her.

“We’re escorting the star to the game. Well… Jerome is. I’m just following. Never mind that, is it him? Is Gibson the guy you’re looking for?” And before she can answer: “Iknowit’s him. I’d send his picture to Cathy 2-Tone to get a backup confirmation, but I don’t have her number.”

“It’s him.”

“Have you told the police?”

“No. And I don’t want you to, either, but keep your phone on. If you don’t hear from me by… say nine o’clock, call the cops and ask for either Isabelle Jaynes or Tom Atta. Tell them Trig is Donald Gibson, from the Mingo. Remind them he was on the Duffrey jury. If you can’t get either of them because the game is still going on, call Ralph Ganzinger of the State Police. Got it?”

“This sounds serious, Holly. Are you going to get in trouble? Some kind of jackpot?”

Come with me, John, Holly thinks. Then:My responsibility, my responsibility.

“Just keep your phone on. Wait for my call.”

“I will,” he says, but he won’t. John Ackerly is going to have his own problems not long hence.

He cocks a thumb at the T-Bird. “The mayor was going to come, but she canceled. Probably thought going to a softball game while a serial killer’s on the loose wouldn’t be a good look come election time.”

That the game is being played at all while a serial killer is on the loose is crazy, Holly thinks, but doesn’t say. What she says is, “Take care of yourself, John,” and sets out for Dingley Park, joining the throngs of people headed that way.

5

6 PM.

“Whoareyou?” Trig shouts at the dead man, and delivers a kick to the corpse’s midsection.

Of course he knows who the dead man is, knows perfectly well, and not just from Buckeye Brandon; the entire staff of the Mingohas this asshole’s picture. Other copies of the photo have been posted backstage, in the ticket booths, in the elevators for the staff and public, and on the bulletin boards in the men’s and women’s bathrooms. It’s the McKay woman’s stalker.

Still, he asks it again: “Who the fuckareyou?”

In his head an earworm awakes and he hears the song by The Who that serves asCSI’s theme. What he actually means—somewhere in the back of his mind he understands this—isWho are you to try and stop me from finishing my job?

He trussed McKay to one of the supporting bleacher stanchions near the other two women, then dropped Stewart’s gun into the inner pocket of his sportcoat. Now he kicks the body again and asks again who he is.

Don’t be a fool. You know who he is, Trigger.

Daddy’s right there, leaning in the doorway, wearing his lucky #19 Buckeye Bullets shirt.

“Shut up, Daddy. Shut your fucking trap.”

Never would have dared say something like that when I was alive.

“Well, I don’t have to worry about that, do I? You deserved that heart attack. I wish I could have donethisafter you had it.” He kicks Christopher Stewart’s body hard enough to lift it briefly from the dusty foyer floor. “Andthis. Andthis.”

The ghost standing in the doorway laughs.You worthless fucking flincher. Mr. Useless, that’s you.

“MOTHER-KILLER!” Trig shrieks.“YOU’RE A MOTHER-KILLER! ADMIT IT, ADMIT IT!”

In the old days before AA, there was a part of him—the barest kernel—that always stayed sober no matter how much he drank. That time the cop stopped him three blocks from his house, he had known to be polite. Polite and coherent. Dignified. No yelling. No slurring. While most of his mind was racing and raging and terrified of what a DUI arrest would mean to his job at the Mingo, a job that was essentially a mixture of public relations and keeping the celebs happy, that kernel of sobriety kept him courteous and reasonable and the cop had let him go with a warning. Nevertheless, he understood that driving while so drunk, and with an open handle of vodka close by, meant thatkernel of sobriety—ofsanity—was shrinking. His descent into chaos was close, and so he had sought help in the Program.

This was like that, only worse. With each murder he had grown bolder and less sane. Now he’s kicking a corpse and talking to his dead father.Seeinghis dead father. Crazy. On the other hand, so what? He has an hour before the Black singer shows up—assuming she is able to show up at all—and thisidiot, this surrogate for Duffrey’s lawyer, had actually tried tokillhim! Had just missed!

“Who ARE you?” he screams, and it is good to scream. It’sgreatto scream. He kicks the body again.

Stop it, you little idiot.The ghost leaning in the doorway is now munching popcorn.

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