Jericho Iteration

17

(Friday, 12:57 P.M.)

I caught up with Beryl Hinckley just outside the restaurant. The crowds were beginning to thin out on the sidewalk as office workers hurried back to their desks and cubicles, clutching half-read newspapers and foam cups of coffee. There was still plenty of traffic on the street, however, and the metered slots along Central Avenue were filled with parked cars.

“Walk fast,” I murmured as I took her right arm and began marching down the sidewalk. “Whatever you do, keep an eye on the cars. If you see anything-”

“I know,” she whispered back. “Run for it.”

I glanced at her; she nodded her head, her face grim. She knew the score: both John and Kim Po had been shot from a vehicle, and although a van had been spotted leaving Clancy’s, no one was certain if this was the automobile the killer was driving. The only thing we had going for us was that it was a blustery afternoon, and most drivers were keeping their windows up. According to what Cale McLaughlin had told me, the laser rifle the sniper was using was capable of firing through nonreflective glass, yet if the killer wanted to get an unimpaired shot, he might want to lower the window first.

We shied away from the street, but I walked next to the curb. Old-fashioned chivalry, just the way my dad taught me, but this time it was for more practical reasons than to keep the lady I was escorting from being splattered with mud from passing cars. If she was the killer’s primary target, then I would be shielding her a little more this way. Of course, if she was right, it didn’t really matter what I did, because the bastard might try to nail me first. It wasn’t a comforting thought.

“You have any idea which judge you’re going to find?” I asked as we walked. Only one city block left to go; I could already see the small plaza across the street from the intersection of Central and Carondelet. Directly beyond the plaza was the five-story white concrete box that was the county courthouse.

Hinckley hesitated, then shook her head. “I don’t keep up with the judges around here,” she replied, her eyes locked on the street. “I was just planning on going in there and finding someone’s name on a door.”

I sighed and shook my head. Glancing down at the sidewalk, I noticed for the first time that she wore knee-length calfskin boots; the laces on her right boot were loose and were beginning to drag the ground, but I wasn’t about to remind her to stop and retie them. “It’s a little harder than that,” I said. “They keep office hours like everyone else … and on a Friday afternoon, if they’re not in court, then they’re probably out on the golf links.”

I thought about it for another moment, trying to remember the names of judges whose cases I had covered in the past for the paper. “We might try Swenson … Edith Swenson,” I added. “She’s supposed to be pretty honest, at least. I don’t know if she’s in, but we could always …”

Her breath suddenly sucked in as I felt her arm go rigid in mine. I followed her gaze and saw a van turning the corner of Carondelet and heading our way. A white Ford Econovan, late eighties vintage-a rusted-out old gashog, pale gray fumes farting out of its exhaust pipe, probably on the last weeks of its expiration sticker-but what caught her attention was that it was moving very slowly toward us. I looked closer; I couldn’t see the driver, but the passenger window was lowered.

The doorway of another restaurant was just a few feet away, beneath an ornamental canvas awning. “In there!” I snapped.

Hinckley didn’t need any urging. We scurried under the awning and into the doorway. I grabbed the door handle and was about to pull it open when the Econovan rumbled past.

Both of us froze and stared at the van; an old black gentleman was behind the wheel, and he didn’t seem to be paying a bit of attention to us as he tooled down Central away from the courthouse. I caught a couple of bars from a vintage soul number blaring from the stereo as the clunker rumbled past: “Nutbush city limits! … wahwahwahwah-waaw-waaw … Nutbush city limits!”

False alarm.

Beryl sagged against the doorframe, her hand against her chest. “God,” she whispered as she let out a hoarse laugh. “I never thought I’d be so glad to hear Ike and Tina Turner.”

“I’ll find a copy for you when we get out of this.” I pulled her out of the doorway.

“Oh, hell …” She stopped suddenly and looked down at her feet. “My boot’s untied.”

I thought again about letting her take care of her laces, but I let it pass. The next vehicle to pass us might have more than classic Motown tunes blasting through its side windows. “Don’t worry about it now,” I said as I tugged at her arm. “Just keep going.”

We walked past an alley entrance and the last building on the block, a condemned midcentury office building with windows boarded up with plywood: another victim of the earthquake, whose owner had apparently decided that demolition was less expensive than renovation. By now we were almost directly across the corner from the courthouse, a block-size building nearly as homely and featureless as the adjacent county jail and the Government Center highrise. All three buildings suffered from that peculiar form of governmental architecture a friend of mine had once described as “Twentieth Century Post-Gothic Paranoid”: no windows in featureless walls on the ground floor, the narrow casement windows on the upper floors resembling the archer slots in medieval castles. Trust us, we’re the government …

“Fine with me,” I muttered, “so long as you can repel laser beams.”

“What?” Hinckley asked.

“Nothing. Just thinking aloud.” As I said this, another thought occurred to me. “What about the two other guys … um, Dick and Jeff? When do I get to meet them?”

She shot me a glance that spoke volumes. She was placing enough confidence in me to hear out her story and witness her surrender to a judge, but she wasn’t quite ready to entrust her friends’ lives to my hands. After all, I had already confessed to her that Barris was counting on me to track down Payson-Smith for him. Even though I had obviously been surprised by the cellular smartcard Barris had given me and I had willingly left it behind in the restaurant, there was still no guarantee that I wasn’t playing stool pigeon for ERA.

“I’ll let you know when the time’s right,” she said softly. “They already know about you, don’t worry … but we need to take this one step at a time. All right?”

“Yeah. Okay. Whatever.”

We arrived at the corner of Central and Carondelet. No other pedestrians were in sight; no cars violated the No Parking signs in front of the courthouse and the jail. So far, so good; all we had to do was cross the street, make it through the postage-stamp plaza with its rows of empty cement planters, and the side door of the courthouse was wide open to us. Walk-through metal detectors had been established in all the courthouse entrances some twenty years ago after some lunatic had opened fire in a courtroom and killed a few people, and there were always a couple of cops stationed at the checkpoints. Once we were through the side door, we were home free.

I gave the area a quick scan, then I grabbed her hand and pulled her off the sidewalk, leading her out into the street. “Okay,” I said, “let’s go.”

We jaywalked through the wide intersection, not running but not sightseeing either. Halfway through the intersection, she dropped my hand. We stepped onto the curb, walking beside each other, and began to stride into the plaza. I could see people walking or seated at desks behind the courthouse windows. The side door was only seventy feet away.

She made a slight grunt, as if she had tripped on her bootlaces, but I paid no attention. I was beginning to relax. You asshole, you’re running from shadows …

“I think I can find that Turner CD at a place down on Delmar,” I said. “You ever been to Vintage Vinyl? It’s got the best …”

No answer. She wasn’t walking beside me anymore. I turned around, half-expecting to see that she had finally stopped to lace up her boots.

Dr. Beryl Hinckley lay sprawled on her face across the concrete sidewalk just a few feet from the curb, her arms and legs still twitching slightly as what remained of her brain told her that it was time to run like hell.

Not that she had been given much chance to run; the silent beam that killed her had burned a thumbhole through the back of her skull.

The moment stretched, became surreal. Cars moved by on the street. Pigeons wandered around the edge of the plaza in search of infinitesimal scraps of food. A commuter ’copter moaned overhead, heading for the municipal heliport several blocks away. A dead woman lay at my feet, and all around me the world was going about its normal day-to-day business. One second you’re talking to someone about buying secondhand CDs; the next second, that person is cold meat on the street corner, shot down by a …

Laser beam.

I yanked myself out of my stupor, began looking around. No cars were in sight, but all around me were high-rise buildings. Countless windows in a half-dozen towers, and the sniper could be lurking behind any one of them, even now drawing a dead bead on me.

Move, stupid!

The nearest of the plaza’s tree-planters was directly behind me, a large round urn about three feet high and eight feet in diameter. I dove behind it, crouching in its shadow as my heart triphammered in my ears. There were seventeen more planters just like it behind me, artfully arranged in three rows of six each, leading down the plaza until they ended near the courthouse door. The planters were empty, but they might provide enough cover for me. If I could keep dodging behind them as I made a run for the side door …

Yeah, right. The next planter in the row was at least ten feet away; the sniper could pick me off easily as soon as I raised my head. I’d be dead before I knew what hit me.

I hugged the side of the planter, trying to remember what McLaughlin had told me about the nature of laser rifles. Silent. Invisible beam. Flat trajectory. Almost infinite range … but big and clumsy, about the size of a rocket launcher. That meant whoever was using it would have to remain fixed in one place. And there was something else …

A couple of well-dressed women, probably trial lawyers returning from lunch down the street, appeared from around the corner of the Government Center building. They were still chatting it up as they began to cross Carondelet, until they saw Beryl Hinckley’s body lying on the opposite sidewalk.

They froze in the middle of the street, gazing in confused shock at the corpse, then one of them looked around and spotted me. Before I could say anything, she screamed bloody murder, then turned and ran back the way she had come. The other one stared at me in gap-mouthed fear for another second, then she followed her friend as they fled back around the corner.

Great. Just what I needed right now: they’d call the police and report a homicidal maniac hanging around the courthouse plaza. I closed my eyes and knocked my head against the side of the urn. In another minute this place would be surrounded by cops who’d …

A minute.

That was it. McLaughlin had told me that it took sixty seconds for the laser to recharge itself. Assuming he hadn’t been lying to me, I had some lead time before the killer could squeeze the trigger again.

This was of little comfort to me. At least a minute had gone by already, between the instant Beryl had been shot and this moment in time. But if the killer still had me in his direct line of fire, then he should have picked me off by now. Sure, maybe he had seen where I had taken cover-but so long as I had the planter between us, then he couldn’t skrag me as well.

Not yet, at least. I couldn’t remain here much longer. Sooner or later, I’d have to get to my feet.

Forget about that, I told myself. Concentrate on what’s going on here …

Okay, okay. She couldn’t have been shot from a window in either the courthouse or Government Center; those buildings were on either side of me, and anyone standing in the windows would be able to see me. The jail had few windows of which to speak, and it was the most unlikely place for a sniper to be hiding. I ruled out the high-rise apartment complex behind the courthouse; the angle of fire was all wrong.

This still left at least another four or five buildings on the other side of Central Avenue. If I could only figure out which one was the-

There was a commotion from the courthouse entrance. I glanced over my shoulder to see a half-dozen people hesitantly emerging from the glass double doors: lawyers, clients, court witnesses, and clerks, all staring at me. A uniformed cop was right behind them; one of the onlookers pointed my way and the cop drew his gun, but instead of taking matters into his own hands he quickly urged the rubberneckers back into the building before he took cover within the entranceway. From what little I could make of him, I could see him pull out his beltphone, snap it open, and hold it close to his face.

The Clayton cop shop was located only a few blocks away. I now had the option of holding out until the law arrived. It was a tempting thought-surrender peacefully and allow myself to be taken into custody, then prove my innocence in my own sweet time-but that still meant I would have to emerge from hiding. The sniper could take me out while I was surrounded by a SWAT team. Even if they doped out how and why I had suddenly fallen down with a self-cauterized hole in my head, it wouldn’t mean shit so far as I was concerned.

Fuck it. I had to pinpoint the sniper myself … but now I had an idea.

Still crouching low behind the planter, I pulled Joker out of my jacket pocket, flipped it open, and switched to verbal mode. “Joker, log on,” I said.

“Good afternoon, Gerry. What can I do for you?”

“Gimme a street map of the Clayton district.” I glanced over my shoulder again at the courthouse cop; he was still laying low, waiting for his backup to arrive. “Display a three-block radius surrounding the intersection of South Central and Carondelet.”

“Working … just a moment, please.” There was silence while my PT modemed into a library neural-net. Two or three moments passed before the uplink was completed and the map was laid out on the PT’s clamshell screen. “Here is the map you requested.”

I could hear sirens approaching from the distance. I forced the sound from my mind. “Okay. Now … uh, overlay a 3-D graphic of all buildings within this perimeter, and make it snappy.”

“Snappy is not an available function. Please define.”

“Forget snappy,” I said impatiently. “Just do it.”

Computer-animated buildings sprang from the gridwork of streets. Now the map resembled an aerial photo of this part of Clayton, including the courthouse plaza itself. “Very good,” I said. “Logon graphics-edit. I’m giving you a new coordinate for the map. I want you to add it to your memory.”

“Certainly, Gerry.”

I touched the miniature trackball and gently moved the cursor across the screen until it was approximately above the spot in the courtyard where Hinckley’s body lay. When I removed my finger, the cursor vanished and a tiny X remained in its place.

So far, so good, but the sirens were getting closer now. I looked over my shoulder again but couldn’t see the cop who had been hiding in the doorway. I took a deep breath, then went on. “Okay … now display lines between this coordinate and … ah …”

Shit. All of a sudden, I was stumped by my own ingenuity. How could I ask Joker to show me the probable line-of-sight trajectory between Hinckley and the sniper? I already knew what would happen if I phrased the question the wrong way; lines would radiate in all directions from the coordinate I had registered on the map.

But how could I explain the problem to a literal-minded computer? Well, see, there’s someone lying on the ground nearby who’s just been shot by laser beam, and I’m the next target, so I want you to try to figure out which building on this grid the sniper was firing from … and, by the way, the cops are closing in, so make it snappy. That means quick, right away, pronto, haul ass …

Yeah. Fat chance … but it was better than nothing. I would have to dumb-fuck my way through this. “Given that the coordinate I just designated is five-point-five feet tall …” I said slowly.

“Pardon me, Gerry, but I have received an instant message for you.”

Joker’s voice was maddeningly calm. Here I was, trying to think through a complex problem to save my life, and it wanted to deliver e-mail to me. I winced and swore under my breath. “This is not a good time, Joker.”

“I’m sorry, Gerry, but the IM has a priority interrupt. The sender has identified itself as Ruby Fulcrum.”

What the …?

“Gimme the message!” I snapped.

The screen bisected into two parts; the map remained intact on the upper half, although reduced by fifty percent, while the lower half displayed a message bar:

›Laser beam fired from 1010 South Central Avenue, floor five‹

At the same moment, a red line traced itself from the coordinate I had registered on the map to the condemned five-story office building directly across the corner from the courthouse.

I stared at the screen. How the hell could …?

“Freeze, mister!” a voice yelled. “Get your hands in sight!”

The courthouse cop I had spotted earlier was standing directly behind me. His feet were spread wide apart, his service revolver clasped between both hands and pointed at the back of my head. He had snuck up on me while I was paying attention to Joker.

“Okay, okay,” I said, trying to calm him down. “I don’t have a gun, see?” I held up Joker in my right hand, keeping my left hand where he could see it. “Look, it’s not a gun, all right?”

The cop wasn’t impressed. “Yes sir, I can see what it is,” he said evenly. “I want you to put it down on the ground, stand up and put your hands behind your head. Now, sir.”

I carefully placed Joker on the concrete and wrapped my hands around the back of my head, but I didn’t stand up. “Officer,” I said as calmly as I could, “the woman over there was shot from the top floor of that building.” I nodded toward the condemned building across Central from Government Center. “I had nothing to do with it, but-”

The officer’s eyes darted once toward the building, then back to me. He wasn’t buying it. “Get on your feet, mister.”

“Look, I’m telling you, if I stand up now, he’s going to shoot-”

His attention was fixed solely upon me. “I’m not kidding, buddy!” he demanded. “Get up with your hands behind your head!”

The sirens were much louder now, probably only a block away, racing down Central Avenue toward the courthouse. The officer was waiting for his backup to arrive, and he wasn’t about to give me any slack. There was a dead woman on the sidewalk, and his suspect was giving him a song-and-dance routine. His right forefinger was wrapped around the trigger of his gun. This was a young rookie, still in his twenties and fresh out of the academy; he wanted to be a Good Cop, but I was only too aware of the fact that some members of the force had a bad rep for being trigger-happy under pressure.

As the first police cruiser howled into sight and screeched to a halt in front of the plaza, I took a deep breath. The cavalry had arrived; maybe they had scared off the sniper. “Okay,” I said, “just stay cool. I’m standing up.”

The second cruiser arrived, stopping behind the first one; two cops had already jumped out of the first car and were rushing over to check on Beryl Hinckley. I slowly began to rise out of my squat, but as I did I kept my eyes fixed on the empty windows of the building Ruby Fulcrum had pinpointed.

I had barely raised my head and shoulder above the height of the urn when I glimpsed vague movement in a corner window on the fifth floor: a brief, dull reflection, like sunlight reflecting off something metallic …

“Duck!” I yelled, then threw myself to the ground.

“Don’t … AWWWHHHH!”

A small black hole appeared in the cop’s chest, just below his neckline. He dropped his gun as he grabbed at his collarbone, screaming in agony, then his legs collapsed beneath him and he fell backward to hit the pavement. He was still alive, but the laser beam had cut straight though his body.

Two more cops from the second cruiser, who had been running over to assist him, stopped dead in their tracks. They had seen the whole thing; judging from the expressions on their faces, they couldn’t figure out what the hell had happened. They glanced first at their buddy, then at me, then back at him again.

“I didn’t do a thing!” I yelled as I lay flat on the ground, my arms spread out before me. “I’m just lying here … get him an ambulance!”

The cops unfroze. Instead of rushing me, they hurried to the rookie’s side. He was writhing in pain, his legs thrashing against the pavement. His colleagues kneeled beside him; one of them grabbed his beltphone and flipped it open. “Mobile Charlie-Five, answering call at the courthouse!” he snapped. “Code ten-three, officer down!”

The other two cops ran over to assist them. For the moment, they were entirely concerned with the injured officer. No one was paying attention to me. I rose to my hands and knees, carefully picked Joker up from the concrete and shoved it in my pocket …

And then I jumped to my feet and took off running.

Not away from the scene, though, but straight toward the abandoned building.