The Dead Reckoner : Volume Two: Urban Underworld

history. You're an easy man to blame.”

  “Is there really bomb?” said Rosalind.

  Reggie shrugged. He turned his attention back to Jason and inched closer. Meanwhile, John came closer to him.

  Binder said, “You're going to attack me with a screwdriver?”

  “You're going to shoot a kid?” said John.

  “I already shot one.” said Reggie. “He was a little older, but still a kid.”

  Rosalind said, “Why a bomb?”

  “It's the Senate vote.” said Marianne, who had been hanging back. “You all know.”

  “You leaked it to the press, didn't you?” said Rosalind. “You told them this would happen.”

  “Yes.”

  John said, “They'll figure out that you ordered that box here. You set it up.”

  “The only one who can confirm that is a professor at MIT.” said Reggie. “And he has a dying child whose medical care depends on the good graces of an anonymous donor.”

  “So.” said John, coming closer. “What happens now?”

  Reggie said, “You were supposed to be the one with his hand on the switch.”

  “And you were supposed to shoot me?”

  “I clean up after myself.” He tipped his head, letting a bit of George's flesh fall off. “Usually.”

  Rosalind said, “Are you going to shoot this kid, just for this media stunt?”

  “It's not a stunt!” said Reggie. “Do you ever listen to me? What's the life on one child compared to what the Sorter can do?”

  “Then shoot him.” said John. “Or don't, but whatever you're going to do, do it.”

  Reggie lifted his weapon up to Jason. John lunged. For the second time in a few minutes, Reggie had to fight off an attacker. He thrust at John with the same moved he'd tried on George, but John was much better in a fight. John wrapped his hands around the pistol. He pushed his finger nails into Reggie's arm and dug in. He squeezed hard enough to draw blood and the gun fell on the floor. John jumped off and put his foot on the pistol. He slid that foot backwards, sending the weapon across the floor.

  Reggie was crouched on the floor, disarmed. John rushed at him. The old man cowered and John drove the screwdriver into him. It was the best thing John had ever felt. His anger had always filled him with guilt. He'd felt guilty because it felt so good to let the rage loose. His temper wasn't the problem. Pleasure was his enemy. When the gutters guy showed up at his door step, the voice inside John was saying come on, come on, come on, give me a reason. It doesn't have to be a good one. That day inside the Tomb, that moment when he slipped the steel into Reggie's side, was the second best of his life, because it was the second time he'd been able to gorge on his anger without any of the guilt. You branded me a criminal, you took my sister, you murdered one person and tried to kill a child... If had to eat you alive I wouldn't feel the slightest bit of guilt.

  John felt it building with each little blow. The blood flew from Reggie's screaming form and pooled on the server room floor. No one shouted stop. No one said it was enough. Then John felt something he'd never felt before. The anger flowed away and he found himself satiated. He stood up and surveyed his work. Reggie was torn, but breathing. John turned to the door and spoke to Dale and Rosalind.

  “If there's a first aid kit, get it.” When there was no movement, he said. “If you want this man to bleed to death here, then you're worse than I am.”

  Rosalind departed and returned a few seconds later with a kit. John fixed up Reggie and asked for help moving the man. Dale and came over and Reggie didn't fight the two men as they carted him off to a closet. Along the way, John saw the body of George Simon laying in the hallway. He didn't flinch at it. He knew to expect something like that. The two men dumped Reggie in the closet and John reached down to pull a key chain from Reggie's pants. He slammed the door and, after a few tries, found the right key to lock it. Reggie pounded on the door with his foot while John and Dale walked away. John put Binder's keys in his pocket. Jason came running out of the Tomb, still in his underwear. He ran up to John and hugged him around the legs.

  Jason said, “She said you would.”

  “Your angel?” said John.

  “She said you'd save me.” Jason looked up. “She said you'd put that man away.”

  “Well I've got some questions for her.”

  John went into the Tomb and looked for Reggie's gun.

  THIRTY THREE

  At last, Ruth had a lead that Keller didn't. At the very least, it was a lead that would take him some time to uncover. She looked up George Simon and found his likely address in Somerville, near the a neighborhood dominated by Tufts University students. She couldn't be certain that she'd found the right George Simon, but it was the best match.

  Ruth turned off her cell phone, fearing that her lieutenant would attempt to track her movements. Ruth drove to George's address. It was an old five story building that looked as though it had a couple dozen apartments. She walked into tiny vestibule and saw a row of buzzers above a block of mailboxes. The inner door was locked.

  One of the buzzers was marked for George Simon and another for the superintendent. Figuring that George was probably inside Polymath right now, she pressed the latter and there was no answer. She wasn't exactly sure what she'd say to the person if she'd wrung him up anyway. This wasn't a door Christine Kerr was likely to open. Ruth went back to her car and popped the trunk. She kept a cardboard box with ice melt and a shovel. She pulled that out and placed her laptop bag on the top. Ruth went back to the vestibule until she saw someone descend the stairs, looking at though he might exit. When he did, Ruth tried her best to mimic a woman about to loose control of her box. The man helped her right it and held the door as she entered. Ruth thanked him and asked about George.

  “He lives in 311?” she said. “A young guy, with long red hair?”

  In all her searching, Ruth had found only one picture of George. It had been a head shot on a sparse Facebook page. It wasn't much to go on, but it was enough.

  The man shrugged and said, “I think I've seen him. I didn't know his name though.”

  Ruth walked up two flights of stairs and put her box down on a landing. She hadn't wanted to leave her laptop on the ground floor, but she didn't want to approach George's apartment with her hands full. Ruth stared at the ceiling and took a deep breath. She noticed how seeping water made bulging, discolored veins in the plaster underneath the next flight of stairs. Her attention always wandered to little details when the times were tough.

  Detective Holland reloaded her Beretta and climbed the final landing to the third floor. A long hallway stretched before her. It was empty except for a figure near the end. As Ruth drew closer, pistol perched in front of her, she realized that she was looking at a woman sitting against a door with her knees pulled up to her chest. The door was marked 311, George Simon's apartment, and the woman was crying. Ruth stopped dead when she recognized who it was.

  “Alice?” she said.

  Alice Smith, John's sister, stood when she saw Ruth. Alice was shorter than Jason and heavier too, with thickened skin and sleepy eyelids. John had once explained that she suffered from some kind of a thyroid disease contracted from an infantile bout of whooping cough. It was a strange fact considering that children started receiving vaccines against whooping cough decades ago. This was yet another legacy of John and Alice's father. According to John, his was a monster and a half wit with more than a little sympathy for Christianity’s more isolationist factions. It was no wonder that John hated him so, if he was all that stood between Alice and a disease that ought not to exist anywhere.

  “No.” said Alice. “If your here than he's dead. I knew it.”

  Alice looked at her feet, which were too large for her shoes and squeeze out the tops.

  “How did you get here?” said Ruth. “What are you doing?”

  “Dr. Lane called me. She's taking m
e away?”

  “Um... I still don't understand.” Ruth held her hand up. “Wait, forget it. I'm calling John.”

  She turned on the phone and saw that there was a message from that very person.

  “Ruth, Reginald Binder killed a guy. The rest of us are okay. Jason's fine, not a scratch on him. He's a bit shook up though. The problem is Binder. The guy he killed was George Simon, one of the lead programmers here. I don't know why he did it, but this George guy jumped on Binder and may have saved another man's life before Binder he killed him. Like I said I don't know why, but Ruth you should look into it maybe. There's another thing, which is that Binder set this all up. He said so himself. He ordered that chamber and made the bomb threat and brought me here to pin it on me. Ruth...”

  The message ended there. Holland tried calling John but the phone rang out and went to voicemail.

  To herself she said, “You better be getting out there now.”

  She put the phone away and looked at the door behind Alice's back. She was certain now that what she needed to do was get behind that door. She'd either find the answers she was looking for or a thousand more questions. Either way, there was no other way to go but through it.

  To Alice she said, “How do you know George and what makes you think he's dead?”

  “Is he?”

  Ruth sighed and placed her palm against her forehead. “Yeah, Alice.”

  The other woman bit her lip and mumbled something to herself. Ruth was