Along Came a Spider - James Patterson [61]
A phrase drifted through my head. Don’t start anything you can’t finish
“Well, Alex?” Jezzie said, and she raised an eyebrow. “This is a knotty problem, isn’t it?”
“Not for two smart cops like us,” I said to her.
We took the soft left turn down the hotel hallway—and headed toward room 311.
“Maybe we should think twice about this,” I said as we walked.
“Maybe I already have,” Jezzie whispered back.
CHAPTER 41
AT ONE-THIRTY in the morning, Gary Soneji/Murphy walked out of a Motel 6 in Reston, Virginia. He caught his reflection in a glass door.
The new Gary—the Gary du jour—looked back at him. Black pompadour and a grungy beard; dusty shit-kicker’s clothes. He knew he could play this part. Put on an Old Dixie drawl. For as long as he needed to, anyway. Not too long. Don’t anybody blink.
Gary got into the battered VW and started to drive. He was completely wired. He loved this part of the plan more than he loved his life. He couldn’t separate the two anymore. This was the most daring part of the entire adventure. Real high-wire stuff.
Why was he so revved? he wondered as his mind drifted. Just because half the police and FBI bastards in the continental U.S.A. were out looking for him?
Because he’d kidnapped two rich brats and one had died? And the other—Maggie Rose? He didn’t even want to think about that—what had really happened to her.
Darkness slowly changed to a soft gray velvet. He fought the urge to step on the gas and keep it floored. An orangish tinge of morning finally arrived as he drove through Johnstown, Pennsylvania.
He stopped at a 7-Eleven in Johnstown. He got out and stretched his legs. Checked how he looked in the VW Bug’s dangling sideview mirror.
A scraggly country laborer looked back at him from the mirror. Another Gary, completely. He had all the country-hick mannerisms down cold; modified cowboy walk as if he’d been kicked by a horse; hands in pockets, or thumbs in belt loops. Finger-comb your hair all the time. Spit whenever you get the chance.
He took a jolt of high-octane coffee in the convenience store, which was a questionable move. Hard poppy-seed roll with extra butter. No morning newspapers were out yet.
A dumb-shit, stuck-up female clerk in the store waited on him. He wanted to punch her lights out. He spent five minutes fantasizing about taking her out right in the middle of the podunk 7-Eleven.
Take off the little schoolgirl white blouse, honey. Roll it down to your waist. Okay, now I’m probably going to have to kill you. But maybe not. Talk to me nice and beg me not to. What are you—twenty-one, twenty? Use that as your emotional argument. You’re too young to die, unfulfilled, in a 7-Eleven.
Gary finally decided to let her live. The amazing thing was that she had no idea how close she’d come to being killed.
“You have a nice day. Come back soon,” she said.
“You pray I don’t.”
As Soneji/Murphy drove along Route 22, he let himself get angrier than he had been in a long time. Enough of this sentimentality crap. No one was paying attention to him—not the attention he deserved.
Did the major fools and incompetents out there think they had any chance of stopping him? Of capturing him on their own? Of trying him on national TV? It was time to teach them a lesson; it was time for true greatness. Zig when the world expects you to zag.
Gary Soneji/Murphy pulled into a McDonald’s in Wilkinsburg, Pennsylvania. Children of all ages loved McDonald’s, right? Food, folks, and fun. He was still pretty much on schedule. The “Bad Boy” was dependable in that regard—you could set your watch by him.
There was the usual meandering lunchtime crowd of dopes and mopes moving in and out of Mickey D’s. All of them were stuck in their daily ruts and daily rutting. Shoveling down those Quarter Pounders and greasy string fries.
What was that old Hooters song—about all the zombies out there in Amerika?