Headhunter

Ambush

6:15 p.m.

"They're gone! My God, they're gone!"

"Easy, Sparky. Easy."

"Somebody knows! Can't you see I'm fucked?"

"And I said take it easy. Panic never helps."

"Ah God, Mommy. This is it. I'm finished!"

"Cut the bullshit, Sparky. Let's think this through."

"Daddy, where are you? Help me, Daddy! Please!"

Back and forth, back and forth, Sparky paced the room. Leaning against one concrete wall was an antique full-length mirror. Candlelit, the mirror reflected Sparky pacing in distortion. The figure that appeared, then disappeared, then reappeared on the glass surface was wearing the tattered Scarlet Tunic of an RCMP Corporal.

Crunchh! There was the sound of plastic cracking underfoot.

"What was that?"

"I've no idea."

'"Well, go on. Take a look."

Sparky picked up the candlestick and bent down toward the floor. Broken plastic shards winked back at the flame.

In ever wider arcs, Sparky swept the candlestick back and forth across the concrete.

Then something blinked. Another reflection, over against the wall.

Extending the light in that direction Sparky saw the broken flashlight lying in the comer. Sparky set down the candlestick and picked up the electric torch.

"Well, what is it?"

"A flashlight. I guess I stepped on it and broke it."

"But we don't use a flashlight. You stroke my hair by candlelight. That's what we've always done."

"I know."

"Whoever took my heads away also dropped that thing".

"I know."

"Cut the bullshit babble, Sparky. Think, Sparky. Who?"

"I don't have to think, Mother. I already know!"

It had been a sudden thought, an off-the-wall connection, but now the tension screwed up another notch. Sparky looked at the words stamped into the plastic handle: VANCOUVER POLICE DEPARTMENT.

"Oh, God," Sparky whimpered, slumping down to the floor. "Now I'm really fucked. Everyone will know."

"So that's our thief? That city bull? The one asking all the questions?''

"Yes," Sparky nodded. "It's all gone down the drain."

"Maybe. Maybe not. Just do what must be done."

'Mother, don't you see, there's nothing we can do. They're gone!"

"Oh shut up, child. What the hell do you mean, nothing we can do? My heads are out there somewhere in some stranger's filthy hands. My hair, my beautiful long black hair is under some alien touch. I want my heads back. And I want them back tonight!"

"But how. Mother? How?"

"Our cop will have a list of all the bulls on the Headhunter Squad. Names, addresses, telephone numbers: our cop will still have that. The city bull was part of the Squad — VPD liaison. Now take that bloody rag off and put on your own red serge. We've got work to do. I don't know why you insist on wearing your father's uniform. It makes me seething mad. He's dead, Sparky. He's gone."

"No, you're wrong. He's not dead. He's hiding here inside."

"He's dead, fool. We killed him. You saw him die out in the Arctic snow."

"I didn't kill him! You did. God, I was only two years old!"

"You were there, Sparky. You're a witness and a party. You saw him puke his guts out when the poison got him. You saw me chop a hole in the ice and push his body through. You saw it all and you didn't stop it. That makes you guilty too.''

"But I was only two!"

""SHUT UP, you sniveling piece of shit! You sound more like your father every frigging day. Is that what you want? To be just like him?"

Sparky began to cry, great body-racking sobs and tears that fell like West Coast rain. "You can't talk like that! My Daddy's still alive!"

"Look at you. You're just like him. Quivering mush inside. He was hung up on his old man, just the way that you are. Wanted to he just like him and carry on tradition. Thin red line and 'get your man' and all that Mountie crap. Do you think his father, if alive, would have given a fuck? The old man cared so much for him he refused to pass on his name. Is your last name Blake? So don't make me laugh. Your father was a bastard in every sense of the word.''

"Mommy, why do you hate me? I was only two."

"Look at yourself in the mirror, Sparky. Can't you see the reason? How much you look like him? I never wanted you, you were his idea. All you mean to me is a link to get back at him!

"Do you know what he made me do? Each night up in the Arctic? He made me dress up like a whore and traipse around before him. I'd stand there in the freezing cold while he looked me over like some piece of meat. I like to sec you cold,' he'd say. It makes your nipples hard. Now turn around Bend over. And roll your panties down That's the way Suzannah, get your husband hard. The bigger and harder Alfred gets, the more you're going to like it.'

"God, I hated him. He was like my father. 'Shhh, Suzannah Come in here, cherie. Don't let your mother know. That's my girl. Now take off your pants. Let Pappa see what you've got.' "

"Ah, go away. Mother! Leave me alone!"

"You'll never get rid of me, Sparky. I'm inside your head. You think that rag of a uniform gives you some protection. You think you want to be Alfred's child? You want to worship him? Go fuck yourself, Sparky. You know I always win. You were trained forever down in that dungeon in New Orleans. And you'll pay for what your father did anytime I want."

Suddenly Sparky's lips wrenched back in a grimace of teeth-clenching agony. Pain like splintering shards of shrapnel ripped through Sparky's head. Sparky's mind screamed but not an utterance came out.

Sparky leaped up off the floor and with stunning force heaved the candlestick at the image in the mirror. The glass shattered and a shower of fragments rained down. The room went dark as Sparky fell among the pieces.

Pain settled in. Then after a moment's silence Susnnah's voice came again."Stand up, Sparky. You're going to do as I say?"

"Yes."

''I killed your father, but you have harbored his murderess for all these years in your mind?"

"Yes."

"So you are as guilty as I?"

"Yes."

"And you're going to follow orders?"

"Yes."

"Like all the other times?"

"Yes."

"I want our cop to find that prick and get back my heads."

"Yes."

' 'Find that city bull.''

"Yes."

"Kill, Sparky, kill."

7:19 p.m.

It had all been rather easy, really.

Sparky had gone upstairs to the Quonset hut, unlocking the door at the top of the steps that led up from the bomb shelter. Removing the tattered uniform with its streaks of dried blood, its tarnished buttons, its torn red fabric now more than fifty years old, the killer had quickly redressed in modem red serge. An odor of rotten fish and cooked meat from the upper room clung to the material, but once outside, the wind blowing in from the mouth of the river would soon dissipate any lingering smell. It was the second time within an hour that Sparky had put on the uniform. The uniform was The Royal Canadian Mounted Police Full Review Order of Dress. Now to go find Flood.

The cocaine was only an afterthought.

There were two plastic bags, a half pound each, still sitting up on the highest shelf in the boathouse. The bags were buried back behind several cans of CIL Paint where they had been hidden the night that John Lincoln Hardy had died. The coke had gone missing when Sparky had B & E'd that shack on the mountainside in order to make the plant. That was half an hour before the flying patrol had gone in.

Originally Sparky had taken the coke as a source of ready cash. In Vancouver, should things ever get too hot, the wheels of the underground railway out are best greased with drugs. In Vancouver, if you have contacts and coke, you can get to Timbuktu with no questions asked. The drugs had seemed like a good idea — insurance, so to speak. But depending how things turned out tonight, there might be another use.

Sparky had taken down one of the bags and then had left the Quonset hut, locking it up tight.

Outside the wind had been freezing and it felt like it would snow. Winter had come at last.

The patrol car had been parked several blocks away, secreted in an old abandoned rundown garage used for camouflage. It was dangerous to bring the car out here in the first place, dangerous to walk the roads dressed up for the Red Serge Ball, but Mother had wanted her hair stroked so there was nothing else to do. Besides, it would be two hours before the Ball was well under way.

Sparky had found the Headhunter Squad list in the glove compartment of the car. On that list were Al Flood's name, address and phone number. That's how easy it was.

Thirty minutes later, it had started to snow. The wind was roaring through the apartment canyons of the city's West End, freezing the marrow and freezing the heart of anyone out on the street. White spilled from the sky. The faces of the buildings glowed with wary wakeful eyes. Sparky checked the apartment block numbers against the address on the list.

Al Flood's apartment was only a block away.

7:23 p.m.

"How do they do it?" Genevieve asked. "Shrink down a head like this?" She was holding one of the tzantzas in her hand.

"You mean, 'What do I know about death?' " Flood said, putting down his drink.

"Sort of," the woman replied, and she looked once more at the tzantza.

"The technique of shrinking heads was developed in Ecuador by the Jivaro Indians. Though it's now against the law, the practice still continues."

Genevieve DeClercq said: "There's a shrunken head in the Vancouver City Museum. I remember seeing it once."

Flood replied: "As a psychologist, don't you deal with 'headshrinkers' every day at work?" He cast her a watered-down smile.

"You mean: When you've got a problem with your head it's best to see a shrink! That's just gallows humor. I'm not always this macabre."

"Lucky you," Flood said. "I am. All the time. Anyway, once a Jivaro cuts off a head he puts it in a wicker basket and allows the blood to drain. The Indian then spreads banana leaves out in a small clearing and builds a fire over which a large clay pot is suspended. The pot is filled with water. Once the head is white from loss of blood it is removed from the basket and, held by the hair, immersed in the bubbling liquid for from fifteen to thirty minutes. When it's finally taken out, the skin is white as paper and it smells like cooked human flesh. The pot is then filled with sand and cooked up once more.

"Next a machete is used to make an incision from the top of the head vertically down to the base of the skull, ending at the neck. The skin and hair are carefully peeled back to expose the skull, which is skillfully removed.

"First the opening in the back of the head and both eyelids are sewn shut. Using an instrument shaped like a trowel, the shrinker begins to fill the hollow skin with hot sand from the pot. feeding it in through the open neck. After three or four minutes the skin is emptied and the process is repeated. Eventually the head is reduced to the size of an orange — except for the hair which doesn't shrink. The process therefore seems to accentuate its length."

Genevieve DeClercq slowly turned the miniature head around in her hand. "It's horrible, isn't it," she said, "to imagine who this woman was, and who she might have been? She could have been any woman in this city setting out on a normal day, going about her business just as she always had before. Then she gets picked at random — to end up like this!"

Al Flood walked over to stand at her side. "If you want to free her spirit, you unlace the mouth." He placed his left index finger on the tzantza's lips.

"By Jivaro tradition that's the last act they perform. Sewing the mouth shut brings the shrinking process to a close. The Indian takes a needle made from bone and stitches the lips together with a leather thong. He leaves several strips of fine cord dangling from the mouth. The Jivaro say this last act traps the victim's spirit. If the mouth were to remain open, the soul could slip away. It would then be free and would have a choice to make. Either haunt the shrinker. Or dissolve and rest in peace."

Genevieve looked once more at the head held in her palm. The Headhunter had pierced the lips with several small gold rings, and used a leather thong to connect the rings together. "I wonder why the killer went to all the extra trouble to do that with the mouth?" she asked. "That head I saw in the City Museum was finished just like you say, with the lips stitched together."

"Good question," Flood said. "I have no idea."

7:24 p.m.

Shrouded by the falling snow and keeping close to the building so as not to be seen. Sparky reached the front door of Al Flood's apartment. The patrol car was parked half a block away at the end of Lagoon Drive. It couldn't be seen from Flood's apartment. The front door was locked. An A. Flood was listed in Suite 404 on the face of the intercom.

Furtively,' Sparky ran around to the alley behind.

Al Flood's apartment block was divided into eight suites, two on each of four floors, each apartment fronting on Lagoon Drive with a view of Lost Lagoon and Stanley Park beyond. On a clear day, beyond that you could see the North Shore Mountains. Right now, with the snow, you couldn't see the park.

The building was much older than most of the high-rises that now cramp the West End of Vancouver. A zigzag iron lire escape snaked up the rear of Flood's apartment block connecting all four floors. Off the alley beneath the building was an underground parking lot. A concrete ramp sloped down to several parking stalls, each one lettered in white. A blue 1971 Volvo sedan with a dent in its right front fender stood in space number 404.

Sparky recorded the license number, then returned to the patrol car parked down the street.

Some 2,500 police units are linked to the Force computer system. Each police unit has a computer terminal attached to the dashboard of the car. The central computer holds every query for up to seventy-two hours.

Tonight it took the cruiser computer less than two minutes to check the vehicle registration for the license plate number, on the blue Volvo car. Sparky used the time to flip open the chamber of the RCMP standard issue Smith and Wesson.38 Social and check the mechanism. All six chambers were loaded. The gun was ready to fire

In answer to the query the screen above the computer terminal keyboard lit up with green letters: Query vehicle registered MVB Victoria: Almore Flood, 307 Lagoon Drive, Apt. 404, Vancouver.

Below this there was a postscript note: A. Flood is detective. Vancouver Police Department. Major Crimes squad.

You're kidding! Sparky's fingers typed into the computer.

Then snapping the.38 cylinder shut. Sparky removed the half pound bag of cocaine and a screwdriver from under the passenger's seat and climbed out of the car.

7:31 p.m.

"Where do we go from here?"

"I think you should phone your husband and tell him we're on our way. He can take it from there," Al Flood said.

"Have you told anyone else about all this?"

"No. You're the only one. It's a tricky situation. A Vancouver Police Detective can't just march into the RCMP Red Serge Ball and arrest one of the dancers. Not for a crime which is closed and already filed away. Besides, your husband was head of the Headhunter Squad and I was working under him. He should know first."

"God, there's going to be hell to pay somewhere down the line. Not only does the Force have a multiple killer in its midst, but it also shot down the wrong man."

Al Flood nodded. "The shooting of Hardy itself won't hurt. He was going for a knife and had lit a cop on fire. He was also involved in cocaine trafficking. But as for the Head-hunter case, the shit will hit the fan."

Genevieve sighed heavily. "Poor Robert," she said.

Al Flood reached out and put his arm around her. "Let's make the best," he said, "of a dirty situation. The killer will be there tonight at the Red Serge Ball. Am I correct that this particular celebration is to honor the members of the Head-hunter Squad?"

"Yes. In fact both the Commissioner and the Governor General of Canada will be attending. Robert is to receive the Commissioner's Commendation. That's the highest honor that the Force can bestow."

"Then let's you and I go to the Ball and take the evidence with us. We'll get your husband aside and tell him what I found. I'll keep out of sight just to stay on the safe side, and you bring him to me.All three of us can then decide what to do and how best to protect the Superintendent. If he makes the arrest personally it might help salvage something from the wreckage. The phone's in the kitchen."

They were still standing in the bedroom at the rear of the apartment. For a moment Genevieve DeClercq glanced out through the window that faced on the alley and noticed for the first time that it had begun to snow. Then she turned from the window, from the heads on the bed, and went out to the kitchen in order to make the call.

Not until the ninth ring was the phone at the Seaforth Armouries answered. Whoever it was who picked it up, he was very, very excited.

"Armouries," the man said. "Daykin speaking."

"Hello. My name is Genevieve. Superintendent Robert DeClercq is my husband. May I please speak to him?"

"Sorry, Ma'am. Don't know him. I'm just a caterer. If you'll hold on a second I'll get a Mountie for you."

"Thanks," Genevieve said.

As she waited the woman could hear pandemonium in the background. It seemed to her as if a hundred voices were all talking at once. There was no music. Her eyebrows knitted in wonder.

"Mrs. DeClercq?" a voice asked through the telephone receiver.

"Yes."

"Jim Rodale here."

"Sergeant, I've got to talk to Robert. It's imperative."

"He's not here yet. We expect the G-G, the Commissioner and the Superintendent any moment. They went for a drink at the Governor General's club."

"What's going on in the background? It sounds like a drunk."

"Do you know Bill Tipple?"

"Yes, I've heard of him."

"We think he just got killed. Not minutes ago a bomb blew one of the cars in his garage apart. We fear he was in it."

"Good God!" Genevieve exclaimed.

"I just sent Rabidowski out to join the VPD who are already at the scene. Jack MacDougall is also on the way. I'm waiting for Robert, to tell him, then I'm going too."

"How, Jim? Why? What could be the reason?"

"Bill had just started an investigation into West Coast organized crime. He might be on to something. It might be a hit. We think he was leaving his home for the Ball and had just got into his car. Bomb probably worked off the ignition. We'll know more shortly."

"My God!" Genevieve said. "Will the horror ever stop?"

"The party here is over. That's one thing for sure."

"Jim, if you're waiting for Robert, you must give him a message. Tell him that I'm on my way and to please wait for me. Tell him that it's urgent. I'm with one of my students and he has a very serious problem. Tell Robert that he's a policeman, that it's a matter of life and death."

"I'll make sure he gets it," Rodale said.

"Good, I'm on my way."

They both hung up.

By the time Genevieve returned to the bedroom Al Flood was packing up. He had wrapped each one of the shrunken heads in a piece of tissue paper, and after placing his diary in the bottom of an Adidas athletic bag, had packed them in on top. As she came into the room he was placing the dull black object into the towel pouch at the side.

"There's a modern theory," the woman said, "that the strong compulsions of many sex offenders have more of a biological origin than previously believed."

"Why's that?" Flood asked, zipping up the bag and crossing to his dresser where he pulled out a drawer. He removed a holstered gun from inside and clipped the Smith and Wesson.38 snubnose to his belt.

"At Johns Hopkins Medical Institute in Baltimore they've been studying sex hormone levels, brain metabolism and brain structure in deviant offenders. The results indicate that psychological problems may not be the dominant cause of perversion. They've also found that a chromosomal abnormality called Klinefelter's syndrome offers a clue linking deviant behavior and gender identity. Children born with the disorder have an unusual arrangement of chromosomes in their cells. This syndrome appears a lot among sex offenders."

"Do you think the same sort of thing is going on here? I think this one's psychological." Flood picked up the Adidas bag and moved toward the door. "My Volvo's parked down stairs. We'll take it and talk on the way."

He reached for the light switch. The last thing that Genevieve saw in the room were all the magnificent photographs of planets, of stars, of asteroids and nebulae tacked up on the walls.

This time she did not look out the window at the snow falling in the alley beyond the zigzag fire escape attached to the rear of the building. Nor did she see the pair of eyes peering in at them.

7:42 p.m.

So, Sparky thought, descending the fire-escape steps three at a time, no one else knows. Unless she yakked on the phone. The parking lot was deserted.

It was, dark down there with only the occasional naked light bulb protected by a wire cage throwing off a dim light. Concrete support pillars cast great shafts of shadow. From far off, somewhere hidden, came the throb of a boiler. There were no people. Just cars. Parked between white lines.

Sparky went straight to the Volvo and, using the screwdriver, pried off the left front hubcap. The space inside the disc was small but it would hold the cocaine. Working the plastic bag in around the wheel nuts, Sparky replaced the cap and hammered it back on with the handle of the screwdriver.

Suddenly there was a sharp sound, a scraping off to the left.

Then there was laughter.

Sparky drew the Smith and Wesson from its Sam Browne holster, ducking at the same time in behind the car. "Bet you can't do this!" a young voice yelled. As the killer peeked over the hood, two boys, aged seven or eight, came down the concrete ramp into the parking lot. One of the youngsters was balancing with one foot on a skateboard. The other ran beside. "Come on! Gimme a try!"

Out in the alley behind the boys the world was turning red. Night had come down and the snow was falling thickly, collecting on the ground. Across the lane a burning tin was spewing forth red sparks that lit up the snow. Damn, Sparky thought, crouching by the car. There was nothing to do but wait. Then kill the two boys as well.

7:46 p.m.

"I spend half my life in this elevator. It's the slowest one in town." Al Flood punched the button a third and fourth time, finally the doors closed and the elevator jerked. It took its time going down.

"Donny! Kevin!" a voice called from the alley. The two boys in the parking lot turned to look up the ramp. "Where the hell are you two? I said to watch this fire. Burning's against the law."

"Oh!" one lad said. "Now we're in for it!" "Down here. Mom!" yelled the other boy. The woman who appeared at the top of the ramp was heavy set and angry. Her hair was up in curlers and she was wrapped in a fake-fur coat.

"I thought I told you two to watch the tin till the fire died. Can't you do anything right? The house could have burned down while you were having fun."

"Ah, Mom," one boy said. "We can see it from here." "That's not the point, Kevin. If your father were alive you wouldn't act like this."

The taller boy bent down to pick up the skateboard. Single file they marched up the ramp and out into the snow.

"Leave the embers," the woman said. "Let's go inside." The three of them disappeared just as another noise filled the parking lot. It was the sound of muffled voices from beyond the elevator door. Pistol in hand. Sparky left the Volvo and moved into the shadow of a pillar fifteen feet away.

The elevator opened.

"This snow will slow us down," Genevieve DeClercq said. She stepped out in the open, followed by Al Flood.

7:48 p.m.

The passenger side of the Volvo was no more than eight inches away from one of the concrete pillars supporting the roof. A person would have to be Plastic Man to enter the car from that side. "A tight squeeze," Genevieve said as they approached the vehicle.

"You'll have to wait till I pull out or get in by the driver's side."

"I'll get in your side," she said as they reached the left front door.

Flood was unlocking the door when he noticed the marks and glove smudges on the hubcap of his car.

Vandals? he wondered, stepping forward toward the left front wheel.

"What's wrong?" Genevieve asked. "Is some — "

Fifteen feet away there was a flash of brilliant yellow from within the shadow cast by one of the pillars. Then a shocking explosion. Echoing wildly the sound of the blast boomed around the cavern. The bullet hit Flood in the side of the chest, spinning him back along the driver's door of the car. Blood spattered the roof of the Volvo as his left lung collapsed.

But wounded though he was, the cop reacted fast.

With his left arm extended, he pushed away from the side of the car with his right hand and gave Genevieve a hard shove to clear her out of the way. Then the muzzle flared yellow again. This time the thunderclap seemed even louder. It boomed in Al Flood's ears like a nuclear explosion. His head was going light.

Veering insanely off the chrome, the slug whacked home against the metal rim of the driver's door and ricocheted. Had Flood not moved a second earlier it would have ripped through his heart. Instead it struck Genevieve in the eye. The velocity of the shot slammed the lead through her brain. It bounced off the inside of her skull and blew out through the top of her head, opening her cranium in a shower of blood and bone.

Genevieve DeClercq was dead before she hit the ground.

Then the muzzle flared again. But by the time the third shot came, Al Flood was on his belly with the.38 in his fist. He was rolling underneath the Volvo when the bullet hit the concrete floor and deflected up under the car. A moment later crankcase oil spewed from the oil pan. Flood felt sick to his stomach, for out of the corner of his eye he saw Genevieve in her death throes. He knew that she was gone.

With his heart now beating frantically and pumping his blood away, he scanned the parking lot floor for any sign of the killer. Pinned beneath his car he was like a fish in a barrel; if the assassin bent down and saw him that would be it: a spray of shots along the floor and he would be gone too.

Gritting his teeth against the pain, he rolled out on the other side. He staggered to his feet. And then he began to run.

The fourth shot, triggered off in haste, missed him. He was still on his feet and moving as the bullet hit the concrete at the mouth of the ramp to his right. Flying pieces of soot-stained gray burst out into the snow.

When the fifth shot missed, Flood felt an adrenaline pump of hope that he'd get clean away.

Then the sixth shot hit him high in the back and knocked him to the ground. The slug tore through his shoulder in a line of searing pain. The force of the shot, like a sledgehammer, had knocked him face down in the snow that was blowing along the ramp.

Flood heard movement behind him. Footsteps light and swift across the concrete floor. A whisper in the cavern. The click of an empty pistol. A second click as the hammer once more hit a fired chamber. Then he rolled on his side, screaming out in agony, and pulled off three quick shots in succession.

As the slugs careened around in the lot, Al Flood struggled to his feet and stumbled out into the alley. Here the ground was now white with a thick blanket of snow.

Still on his feet, still moving, Flood staggered off into the storm, leaving a trail of blood behind.

7:51 p.m.

Damn! Sparky thought as the pistol clicked again. Then the lot was filled with roaring noise, explosion on explosion, and a slug whizzed by to the right. Ducking behind the Volvo, the killer tripped over the bag. The Adidas bag was on the ground beside the driver's door.

Sparky crouched low until the booming faded and died.

Reload first. Destroy the heads. Then blow that fucker away. No room for an error at this stage of the game.

Flipping open the cylinder and emptying the casings, Sparky fed the.38 six new cartridges. That's it. All right. Fingers steady. Don't shake. Flick the weapon shut. Now you're ready to go.

At this very moment half the West End of Vancouver was probably phoning the VPD to say that World War III was on. Magnified by the cavern, the shots would travel far and wide. By now the VPD would be dispatching patrol cars and calling out the SWAT squad. There was not a second to lose: the heads had to go.

As luck would have it all eight heads were in the Adidas bag. So was Al Flood's diary. Sparky glanced quickly at one page."Why do human beings so fear a severed head?" Sparky read. "If this is everyman's general fear, why must I he plagued with it multiplied a thousand times?" A flick through a couple more pages brought home to Sparky the diary's chilling implications, and what must be done.

Someone had left an oily rag on the floor after working on a car. Grabbing it quickly. Sparky soaked the cloth in crank-case oil now spreading out across the concrete from beneath the Volvo. Then grasping the Adidas bag, gun still in hand, the murderer ran up the ramp and out into the snow.

Flood was not around, neither right nor left.

Across the lane, embers glowed in the burning can.

Half expecting a.38 shot and still clutching the Adidas bag, Sparky skirted the alley and tossed the oil-soaked rag into the tin. It ignited at once. With a whoosh the flames shot up, dyeing the snowflakes orange. Holding the gym bag open with both hands Sparky shook the contents into the burning tin. The shrunken heads caught fire immediately amid the stench of burning hair. The skin ignited like paper. The lip rings turned red and glowed. And then the heads were gone. When the diary burst into flame, its pages curled like fingers as each sheet charred black and then crumbled, sifting down as ash.

Fuck you, Mother, Sparky thought. Burn, witch, burn.

Then with an intense feeling of satisfaction and newfound freedom, Sparky lifted the lid of a nearby garbage can and stuffed the Adidas bag inside. As soon as the lid was replaced it began to recollect snow.

Turning out into the alley, Sparky surveyed the ground. A second later, gun in hand, the killer set off to follow the trail of blood that the detective had left in the snow.

Okay, Mr. City Bull, now it's you and me.

Shootout

7:56 p.m.

Al Flood had never been shot before so he didn't know what to expect. It was true that he had heard from cops on the Squad who had received gunshot wounds and survived, and had also spoken to a few who had later died. One and all, they had informed him that you could tell if you would live or die from the thoughts that ran through your head. But that did not mean much. For as the man says: you had to have been there, right?

Al Flood was there now — and he knew he was going to die.

So go on and die!he thought. What's so wrong with that? We all have to face this fear one day or another. Are you so afraid to die if your time has come?

No, Al Flood thought. I'm not afraid to die.

There, he felt better for that. After all there are many more things in life far worse than death. Things like loneliness and not being loved, and he'd had his share of them. Yes, when you got right down to it death could be a blessing. A good, clean release. Perhaps his own salvation. Death was only bad when it hurt so much or took so long that it humiliated you.

Well, it sure the hell hurts, Flood thought, and his head began to spin.

It had been a mistake — Flood knew that now — to have made for the loading bay. At the time he had made the decision, however, all that seemed important was to escape from the line of fire, to get away from the killer as quickly as possible. Turning into the loading bay off the alley had accomplished that. But it was a mistake all the same. For now Flood found himself trapped on his hands and knees in a dead-end alcove. He was cornered in a three-sided box no more than twelve feet wide, and for anyone looking in from the alley he was an open target. He was totally unprotected, with only three shots left. Once those rounds were gone he had no extra shells.

To make matters more precarious, dizziness was coming at him in nauseating waves. Here one moment… gone the next… then surging back again. At certain times he thought that he could hear the wail of police sirens through the wall of snow, rising and falling, rising and falling, very far away. It's foolish, his mind told him, to place any hope in that. Far, far better than most you know that this is a crime-plagued town. They're not even heading this way

Al Flood had collapsed on his stomach and was facing into the alcove with his back to the alley. He had not the energy to turn himself around, to at least face the direction from which an attack would come. Instead he let his head drop and his face fall into the snow.

Al Flood allowed his thoughts to lightly drift away.

The visions began with a man, an old man with a wrinkled face wearing wire-rim glasses, a man whose hair was sparse and swept back and graying at the temples, a man who smoked a cigarette below a thin moustache. The old man was sitting in the back of a sleigh, wrapped in a warm fur blanket. He was reading a newspaper. The paper was yellow and dog-eared, covered by snow. Al Flood recognized the man: he'd once read one of his books.

The man in the sleigh turned toward him and held out the yellow paper. In a voice thick with smoke he said: "It says here this snow is general throughout the entire province. It's falling further westward into the dark Pacific Ocean. It's falling on every peak and summit in the Rocky Mountains. It is falling also on that lonely mountain graveyard… lonely mountain graveyard… lonely, lonely graveyard…"

And then the man was suddenly gone, obliterated completely by a rage of swirling snowflakes, disappearing beyond ii curtain of white that parted several seconds later to reveal a precipitous slope with banks of snow that lay thickly about a shattered fuselage and plane cockpit. This vision. Flood knew, was his father's grave.

Off in the distance beyond the slope he could also discern the angry black waves of an ocean pounding against a shore, throwing out spray to mix with the snow that tumbled down upon crooked crosses and headstones in a deserted, abandoned churchyard.

"What you see — " it was the old man's voice again " — is a Christian Indian graveyard, the West Coast of Vancouver Island. One of the graves has been redug and your brother is buried there."

Then once more Flood could just make out the sleigh within the blinding storm, only this time there was another figure standing behind the old man wrapped in the blanket. This second figure was a much larger individual, full-faced with a bushy beard and one hand on the shoulder of the older one in the sled. They're friends, Flood thought, comparing them. An incongruity.

"Can you hear the snow," the old man asked, "falling, faintly falling through the Universe? The snow is falling, my son, on all the living and dead."

"She's dead," the big man stated, "but you are still alive. If you can do nothing for yourself, then do something for her. Each one does what he can. Take another look."

Then Al Flood saw the alley all white with its sheet of snow. He could see himself in the alcove, face down as flake by flake enveloped his prostrate form and buried him in a shroud. And he could watch as that same snow blew into the parking lot, its whiteness stained red in the pool of blood that spread out from Genevieve.

"Die for a reason," Hemingway said. "Don't throw your life away."

"Die for a cause," Joyce added. "Let's have one last fight for the dead."

And then they were gone, both of them, leaving nothing behind but the snow. Al Flood heard his breath come in gasps as phlegm caught in his throat. Death rattle,the man thought. I guess my time is near."One more fight," he said: then slowly he found himself coming around and moving across the ground.

Now he was turning, cutting a ragged circle in the snow, endeavoring to gain a position from which he could make a stand. Inch by inch, like the hands of a clock, he rotated around.

Eight o'clock… nine o'clock… you're halfway there, he thought. Think of her… don't pass out.. do what must be done…

And then he saw the window.

The window was set in the alcove wall now in front of him. It was long and narrow and two feet high, eight inches up from the ground. Though Flood had passed here countless times he had never seen it before. Whatever its use — perhaps as a light source for a building basement — it had not been opened in years. The windowpane was grimy and caked with layers of soot.

Flood used the butt of his.38 to smash through the glass and clear away the shards.

The pain was fierce, but he crawled in and fell eight feet down to the floor.

8:00 p.m.

Sparky heard the crash of glass and moved toward the alcove.

Easy. Take it very easy. Don't expose yourself.

Gun in hand, crouching low, Sparky peered around the corner just in time to see Al Flood's legs disappear in through the window.

The killer moved into the alcove, closing the gap between them.

8:01 p.m.

It was strange down here.

It was so eerie, so weird, so surreal, that at first Flood thought he had passed out again and that this was another vision. Who were all these people and what were they doing? Living in a madhouse?

For a moment the cop was certain that he had stepped back in time, that now he was a younger man lost on a carnival midway.

Was this some sort of nightmare? Was this what you saw when you died?

Mickey Mouse and Mortimer Snerd and the Count of Monte Cristo? The Connecticut Yankee, Marie Antoinette, the Last of the Mohicans? Alonzo from The Tempest leaning against the wall?

For there were costumes on tables and draped on the floor and hanging from the ceiling. Lurking in shadows about the room were men in uniform: a Russian Cossack of the Guard, a Sepoy of the Second Gurkhas, a Hussar, a Roman Centurion.

Between two tables and blocking the end of one aisle were a French Poilu in his horizon bleu greatcoat from the trenches of Verdun and a red-coated Scottish Highlander of the Ross shire Buffs, ostrich feathers in his bonnet and a goatskin sporran at his groin.

There were clowns with red noses, and Hamlet. There was the Scarlet Pimpernel.

There were Yoda and Punch and Judy and Azuncena from II Trovatore.

Off in one corner by herself was Lady Livia from Women Beware Women.

And everywhere that Al Flood looked there were Monster masks.

Each head was stuck on a hat hook that angled out from one of the walls. In his fall from the window Flood had knocked two of these masks to the ground. They now lay beside him: the face of Fu Manchu to his left, and to his right, Fredric March as Stevenson's Mr. Hyde. When Flood glanced up, the other heads still on the hooks were beginning to come alive.

That's it, he thought. You're going. Then his mind was in a whirl.

"I'm Count Orlock," Max Schreck said, "from Murnau's Nosferatu."

"And I'm the Frankenstein Monster," whispered Boris Karloff. Then the walls were rife with laughter.

Al Flood felt sick. Bile rose to his throat.

Think of her… forget them… just keep moving…

"He's moving," hissed Vincent Price with his face from House of Wax.

"Out of sight, out of mind," screamed the Phantom of the Opera.

The Mummy did not say a thing.

Flood felt empty, drained, exhausted, as he crawled beneath the table spread with props. He could hear the sirens drawing near, close now, closer, but he was aware that they would never arrive in time. His chest was leaking blood in a trail smeared across the floor. "He's hiding in here," the blood mark said, pointing in his direction.

Flood put down his head. Too late,he thought as tears came welling to his eyes. Sorry, Genny. I should have stayed back there in the alley. Should have given it all I had…

Have, you mean.

All right, have. What's the difference now?

Think of her.

I can't.

Fight for her.

I can't.

Die for her.

I can't.

Then die.

Yes. that I can do.

He hit the leg of another table with his shoulder and the table began to rock. Something above him was moving, rolling, now falling over the edge. Each time he took a breath there was a wheeze from his punctured lung. He felt himself slipping away — like snow must slip in the springtime from the slope of his father's grave — and he knew that whatever he had to do was never going to get done.

Something hit the floor to his left and rolled in his direction.

His eyes took a look.

And then he wanted to laugh.

God, how he wished he had the strength to laugh as loud as he could, just to go out laughing at this Joke we know as life.

Is this it! Flood thought. Is this my final vision!

Then the pod that looked like it belonged to Invasion of the Body Snatchers bumped against his gun and came rolling to a halt'.

Flood opened his mouth, thinking, I'll damn well laugh if I want! Here's one for you, life! Here's how I go —

But he didn't laugh after all: his muscles froze instead.

For now there was another sound with him in this room. The sound of someone at the window through which he had come.

The sound of someone falling, feet on the floor, a body rolling, feet on the floor again.

Then came the sound of a.38, the unmistakable click as its hammer cocked.

8:03 p.m.

Sparky crouched among the theater costumes, taking in every sound.

The whistle of the wind blowing in through the shattered window. The rap of a pipe as it rattled deep within one of the walls. The wail of the police sirens less than a block away.

The hiss of Al Flood's wheezing lung near the center of the storage room.

Then like a cat ready to pounce. Sparky began to move. Circle the room, he killer thought, and keep yourself down low. Use the figures for camouflage and come up from behind. Take him from the rear.

Furtively Sparky moved past the wrinkled, waited faces of a Witches' Sabbath, past an orange orangutang, past the Mummy of Kharis with its rotting bandages, its cracked and withered and dry facial skin, its one remaining eye.

Keep low. Keep listening. Keep moving. Keep circling behind.

Then suddenly both eyes of the Mummy snapped open, the bad one dripping blood.

Involuntarily, Sparky gasped.

"Did you really think you could kill me?" a voice from the Mummy asked.

"Mommy?" Sparky whispered.

"Yes, child. I've come back."

8:04 p.m.

The mummy is hanging suspended from a meat hook in the ceiling. At least it looks like a mummy, this trussed up thing — except that both its arms are stretched out as if in crucifixion.

But for a number of holes the man inside is completely encased in bandages and plaster of Paris. There are four holes in the face-casting for his eyes, his nose and his mouth. There are two large holes in the body casing: one for the man's genitals and the other for his anus. The mummy is now swinging slightly to and fro in chains. An enamel tray sits on the floor below his dangling feet. This drip tray is filled with colors: yellow, white, red and brown. The mummy is screaming in terror as shrieks bounce wildly off the stone walls.

"Oh God! Woman,please! No! I'm so afraid of neeeeeedles!"

The scream, however, ends in a choke as the man's voice breaks and degenerates into gibberish. The man is blubbering now through the mouth hole in the plaster. His lips are moving continually, beseeching, yammering, but only whines come out. The man is also grinding his tongue between his teeth.

"There, there," Suzannah says. "Just two more." And she steps forward to shove another silver needle through the head of his penis.

The mummy man shrieks once more as a part of his throat tears. Suzannah steps away and turns toward Sparky. "If only I'd had your father in a similar position."

Crystal is standing next to the child, crying in pain for there are welts on both her back and buttocks.

"Just one more," Suzannah says, moving toward the mummy. She stabs the final needle through his scrotum between his testicles.

"NOOOOOO!" the man screams and his muscles form a rictus of terror about his mouth.

The room is a large gray stone vault with an arched ceiling. There are several flambeaux burning in brackets on the walls. Crystal and Sparky are standing in front of the bloodstained rack. They are both naked now and they are both weeping silently. Their bodies are streaked with the sweat of fear for they are both afraid, very much afraid of this man who hangs from the ceiling. The axe which the man has brought with him tonight is leaning against one wall.

Wildly, screeching insanely, the mummy now begins to thrash and spin suspended from that meat hook in the ceiling. The man's penis is erect as white liquid squirts from the end. Then…craccck… craccck… craccck… the plaster of Paris starts to fall away. Chunks of it come raining down upon the flagstone floor. A choking mist of white powder now floats about the room. Then the man releases himself from the hook and tumbles to the floor, his penis still erect though pierced with fifteen shiny needles. As he reaches for the hatchet. Crystal begins to scream.

"You killed my mother," the man accuses, raising the axe in the air.

Terrified, Sparky is frantically looking around for a place to hide. Finally the child scrambles underneath the rack, crawling back as far as possible against the dungeon wall. Crystal is yelling in horror and now running around the room. From under here you can only see her shadow on the floor. The shadow is shaking violently. Then it stops. Then it's missing an arm.

The blade of the axe comes clanging down, striking one of the stones set into the floor. A chunk of rock goes spinning off trailing sparks behind.

"ARGH!" Crystal chokes out, more a gargle than a shriek. Then the severed arm hits the dungeon floor. It continues to quiver spasmodically for the nerves are not yet dead. The fingers close in a fist. From above a gout of arterial blood splashes down upon the stones.

Suzannah laughs suddenly. From this side of the room.

Crystal's shadow jumps once more and convulses about on the floor.

"You killed my mother, bitch!" the man snarls in a hiss.

Again the shadow of the axe strikes the image of Crystal. Then again. And again. In a steady rain of blows.

Amid the waterfall of blood there is the sound of bones cracking. Scattered chunks of flesh are plopping down on the stones. A wave of red washes in under the rack to inundate Sparky. Then the man falls down on his hands and knees, chopping in a frenzy at what remains of the girl. "Bitch!" he spits in counterpoint to each blow from the hatchet. "Bitch! Bitch! Bitch! Bitch! Bitch! Bitch! Bitch!"

By now Sparky is shaking totally out of control. Boots — black boots with red laces and six-inch spiked heels — come slowly across the floor to stand beside the rack. The tongue of a whip hangs down like a snake to curl in the pools of blood.

"Will you come out. Sparky my love? Or does Mama come in and get you?"

Sparky knows already the price of disobeying Mother. So slowly the child crawls out and looks up at Suzannah.

The woman now stands in her black leather corset cut low to show her breasts. Suzannah wears a garterbelt and blood-spattered nylons. A collar of leather and iron studs encircles her neck, while straps run down from the collar to where her nipples are rouged and exposed. Suzannah is dressed so that her crotch is bare, the light of the torches now glittering from the golden rings which pierce her labia, a thong of black leather criss-crossing the gold and lacing up her sex. Her head is bald.

"Sparky, are you your father's child? Or do you belong to me?" The voice of the woman is no more than a hoarse, throaty whisper.

Behind Suzannah, the girl once known as Crystal has now ceased to exist. Crystal is nothing more than very small pieces on the floor. The man with the axe begins to move the first piece toward his mouth.

"Show me you're mine," Suzannah says. "And no one's going to hurt you. Unlace me gently, Sparky. Then kiss your Mother's lips."

Abruptly Sparky starts to scream and weep out of control.

"DADDY. WHERE ARE YOU. DADDY! HELP ME, DADDY! PLEASE!

("i'm here, Sparky, i am you.")

8:05 p.m.

Al Flood heard the gasp of shock and the single word "Mommv?" but he could not place the direction. His head was spinning; his mind was growing darker by the second; the sound was no more than an echo. He dragged himself halfway out from under the table and part way into the aisle, but that was as far as he got. His strength had ebbed completely. He couldn't go on any further. Not one single inch.

End of the line, Al Flood thought. All aboard for the everafter.

Now suddenly a flash of red burst through the broken window. Then there was another and he knew the police had arrived. He heard footsteps running through the snow, but what did all this matter? Help had come too late. Al Flood was going to die.

One last look… at life, he thought…it's time to say… goodbye…

Then unable to raise his head from the floor, the dying man turned it sideways. All he could see was a costumed figure blocking the end of the aisle — that red-coated Scottish Highlander late of the Ross-shire Buffs.

So long, buddy, Al Flood thought, au revoir to the French Poilu…

Then in dull shock he realized that the Poilu wasn't there. Now what in hell could that mean, unless…

… unless the red-coated figure is not the Highlander!

Two feet were planted firmly upon the concrete floor. Blue showed below the waist, scarlet at the chest. Several buttons shone. Both arms were outstretched, steadying the pistol. The head was thrown back, the eyes gone dull, the brain running on instinct alone.

Then there was a whisper escaping from the mouth: "Daddy, where are you. Daddy! Help me, Daddy! Please!"

Somehow, from somewhere deep inside, Al Rood tapped a well of strength he never knew he had. With a push of effort, he raised the Smith and Wesson.

"For her," Flood said. And then he pulled the trigger.

Four shots rang out.

Ricochet

Christmas Day, 7:00 p.m.

He stood at the window, staring out, and watched the snow come down. Six floors below, the traffic along Burrard Street was almost at a standstill as cars skidded and lurched and struggled to move inches along the road. Across the way a snowplow was working the thoroughfare, piling up mounds of whiteness as its flashing amber light cut like staccato notes through the monochromatic hush. From far away came the sound of bells calling the faithful to worship, but the man who stood at the window did not feel a thing.

Robert DeClercq loathed hospitals and the memories they held.

Behind him, from the corridor beyond the open door, the newly-appointed Chief Superintendent could hear the hum of rubber wheels rolling across a tile floor, the vibration of metal on stainless steel, and — from somewhere off in some far room — a moan of forlorn resignation. The voices of nurses echoed down the hall just above a whisper.

Inside this room the only sound was the steady blip… blip… blip of an electronic heart monitor.

DeClercq turned from the window and walked over to the bed. There he turned a chair around and sat down with his arms and chin resting on its back. The person lying on the bed was now sound asleep. The smell of antiseptic agents crept up the policeman's nose. Audibly, he sighed.

"Can you hear me?" DeClercq asked, his voice no more than a whisper. "You're going to make it through," he said. "I want you to live. Strange, but somehow I feel that you're my only hope."

There was no movement from the bed, and for several long minutes the man did not say a word.

Eventually, however, he began to speak again.

"The shot that killed Genevieve was a ricochet. I feel this need to talk to you… this need to let you know that I don't hold you to blame. I… I know her death wasn't your fault and… and I admire what you did. I do hope you can hear me… Do you mind if I speak to you?"

From the corridor outside came the sound of gasps, of choking, then the sound of running feet. Crepe soles squeaking swiftly across tile. Then there followed the closing of a door.

"I… I almost killed myself once. That I want you to know. I actually had the gun in my mouth and was going to pull the trigger, but I didn't. Two friends saved me… and one was Genevieve. She made me promise after that… promise that no matter what happened to me again, I'd never take my life. Yet when they told me she was dead I almost broke that promise. I still wish I could do it… but I can't… for the sake of her. God knows I love her still.

"It's ironic, don't you think, how the line between life and death is always in shifting motion? We never seem to know where it is at any given time. Any act at any moment might be the little shove that pushes us across. You see she was trying to help him!"

There was the wail of an ambulance outside, the eerie Doppler effect of its siren closing on the Emergency arcade below.

From the corridor, the same door opened as had closed a minute before. Now there was no gasping. There was no sound at all.

"This fellow Flood never should have been allowed to be a cop. Do you want to hear about him, this man who you brought down? We're slowly getting the facts.

"Flood has a background connected to drugs. He came from the East End. His father was an alcoholic and his brother was a junkie. His brother was evidently murdered because of his drug connections. The man was recruited into the Police Academy under serious reservations. I wish he'd never got in.

"For the past few months Flood had been seeing Dr. George Ruryk, a psychiatrist I know. Ruryk says the man had problems and that he had been depressed. Doubted himself as a man, doubted himself as a cop. I suppose he had the cocaine as his ticket out. Stole it from some busted pusher's stash to traffic it himself and retire on the profit. Is that how you got onto him? An underworld tip?"

Out in the corridor, a hospital morgue bed was being rolled into the room from which had come the gasps.

"Ruryk suggested that Flood attend a seminar at UBC. Genevieve taught the class. I guess he fell in love with her, perhaps it was obsession. Avacomovitch saw them once having lunch together. Genny was always doing that, reaching out to help anyone who had a problem and who was struggling to cope.

"He must have called her on that night and begged her to come over.

"I guess she realized when she got there that matters were out of control. Maybe he told her about the drugs, the money they were worth, and asked her to run away with him. Who knows? Maybe he was just acting out his dead brother's trip.

"Anyway, she called me at the Armouries the night of the Red Serge Ball and told Jim Rodale that the guy had a problem. I must have received the message just about the time she died. Just about the time that you closed in to make the arrest and Flood pulled the gun.

"You know, I wonder if the guy would ever have let Genevieve bring the problem to me? Perhaps he had snapped and was going to take her hostage 'cause she wouldn't go along. Or maybe she succeeded in convincing him that it was wrong. What does it matter now?

"In a way I'm glad you killed him. The man was a disgrace."

Out beyond the window a car was stuck in the snow in the hospital quiet zone. Its speakers were blaring rock and roll, the electric scream of Led Zeppelin's Whole Lotta Love.

DeClercq, in a whisper, leaned closer to the bed. "I had a child once, I want you to know, and I loved her very much. She was stolen from me and I never got to watch her grow up. I want you to understand that your father felt the same way about you. If he were alive today, he'd be very proud.

"When I was your age, your father was my mentor: Alfred taught me most of what I know today. He was then even older than I am now, but there was this bond between us. I met your mother only once, just after you were born and shortly before the three of you went North. She was a very beautiful woman and I wish we'd kept in touch. I was very surprised to find that you had grown up to join the Force. When I saw your name on that list of members as I was drawing up the Squad, I was stunned. I'd only seen you once before, that time in Montreal, but I remember clearly to this he watched you trying to learn how to crawl across the floor. He was a very good man.

"Before your father went missing in that blizzard on the Arctic Patrol I saw him one more time. He came to see me in Quebec City and asked me for two favors. One was to keep something safe for him, that he would pick up later. The other was to ask me — should anything ever happen to him — if I would see to it that you were taken care of.

"It was shortly after that he disappeared and your mother took you away."

Outside in the street some carolers were singing Come All Ye Faithful. Robert DeClercq reached for his coat and removed something from the pocket.

"Soon you're going to be better, and I hope we will be friends. It may be late, but I'd like to keep that promise to your father. Just as he was to me, I'd like to be your mentor. I'd like to think that in a way you are the replacement for my stolen child.

"Here… I have something for you."

Slowly DeClercq reached out and placed the Enfield revolver on the bedside table.

"This belonged to your grandfather. To Inspector Wilfred Blake. Your father left it with me, the last time we met in Quebec. I want it to be yours.

"But there's something else I have to say, and I hope I say it right.

"That time in Montreal when you were just a baby crawling on the floor, your father turned to me and said: 'Robert, do you see it? There's something in those eyes. Have you ever seen a child's eyes sparkle quite that way?' And then he turned to you and said: 'Sparky, come to Daddy,' and you began to crawl.

"Even then it showed, though you were just a child. That determination in your eyes. That will to be somebody."

Abruptly there was a jerk, and then a movement on the bed. DeClercq leaned even closer, emotion in his voice.

"I know you're going to do it. That you'll carry on the legend. Just keep on going like you are and you might — just might — outdo even Wilfred Blake."

Slowly, the eyes opened and looked up at him.

Then from the bed, ever so faintly, Katherine Spann smiled.