The Killing Jar

15

NICK OPENED THE hatch of the water tower.

The smell that drifted out of the dark interior was cool and damp, refreshing in the heat of the day. Nothing buzzed or chittered at him. He pulled the Maglite from his belt and clicked it on, then shone it inside. The tank was about half-full; the water fractured the flashlight’s beam, throwing it up on the walls in wavery shimmers. Enough penetrated the surface that Nick had a pretty good view of what was beneath it.

Nothing.

“Doesn’t look promising,” he called down to Riley. “I’m going to take a sample for testing, though.”

“Be careful,” she called back. “If Grissom’s right about L W combining those two chemicals-”

“I know, I know. Any exposure to bare skin would be fatal. But I highly doubt this is where the Bug Killer decided to stash his cache of poison-the hatch didn’t even have a lock on it.”

“Who needs a lock,” she pointed out, “when touching a single drop will make an intruder drop dead?”

Nick hesitated. “Good point.”

It wasn’t until after he’d taken the sample, closed the hatch, and started back down the ladder that Nick noticed it. He stopped, put a hand over his eyes, and squinted. “Hey, Riley? I think I just spotted something weird. Take a look on the ground, just on the other side of that sage. No, to the left, about five feet away.”

She found what he was pointing at and crouched to get a closer view. “That’s… not the kind of track you expect to see in the middle of a desert,” she said.

Nick jumped the last few feet and trotted over. “Maybe not. But I think it explains the dolly trac k s leading up to the ladder.” He pulled out his cell phone. “Grissom is go

When Nick told Grissom what they’d found and where, he understood the significance of his mental image of ants building a bridge across water-and knew what the Bug Killer’s plan had to be. He talked to Nick very briefly, then hung up and made another call.

“Brass.”

“Nick just found a flipper print outside a water tower at the greenhouse site.”

“A flipper? As in snorkel-and-skin-diving, scuba-gear-type flipper?”

“Yes. I think LW was using the water tower to test his gear-and I know what he needed it for.”

“Well, Lake Mead is the nearest large body of water-”

“His target is still the Embassy Gold. Specifically, the fountains right outside.”

Brass understood immediately. “The pumps-they’re all located under the water itself, just like the Bellagio’s . They have to use scuba equipment any time they do maintenance.”

“Extremely powerful pumps,” said Grissom. “Capable of expelling a thick stream of water a hundred feet straight up. But if someone were to change the orientation of one so it was aimed at the crowd instead-”

“You’ve got the world’s largest squirt gun. Except this one’s going to be loaded with more than just water, isn’t it?”

“Jim, the emergency doors for the Canyon Amphitheatre empty directly onto the plaza facing those fountains. And on a Friday night-even without a panicked group of Athena Jordanson fans pouring from the exits-it’ll be full of tourists.”

“I’ll call the Grand right away. They only do fountain shows in the evenings-in fact, I think they time them to entertain people leaving the theater. We can get a diver down there to disco

“Don’t send a diver yet.”

“Why not?”

“Because it’ll tip him off. There’s still an hour before Athena Jordanson’s concert starts, and if he isn’t in place to watch the chaos, he will be soon.”

“Grissom, where are you?”

“In the field,” said Grissom, staring up at the sinuous bulk of the Embassy Gold.

He won’t be in the crowd after all, Grissom thought. He won’t risk exposure to the toxin. But he will be nearby. Behind glass, where he’ll be safe. Studying the results of his experiment like a child with an ant farm.

There were numerous hotels with views of the plaza, but Grissom didn’t think LW would be in any of them. Too far away, too removed. He wouldn’t want to be any farther than the other side of the street.

Grissom used the pedway to cross over. He thought again about water, how it was the dominant metaphor in Vegas for wealth. He thought about the bombardier beetle and how it combined two different chemicals into a spraying attack so hot it actually boiled. He thought about Argyroneta aquatica, a spider that spent its entire life underwater, emerging only to replenish its air supply and feed. Waiting patiently in a webbed diving bell for prey to brush up against it…

He thought he knew why the body of one of the greenhouse vics had such a high oxygen level. LW had used the water tower to practice with the scuba equipment, but one of his workers hadn’t been satisfied with his daily allotment of nectar; he’d supplemented the drugs LW had fed him with stolen hits of pure oxygen from one of the tanks, adding an O2 high to the one he was already experiencing.

Grissom stopped at the end of the pedway before descending the stairs. He was almost certain LW would already be in place, and he didn’t want to alert the killer to his presence. The high walls of the pedway shielded Grissom from casual view, but once he reached street level he’d be much more exposed.

LW himself wouldn’t be at street level, though. Grissom could already tell that the constant traffic on Las Vegas Boulevard would block too much of the view. LW would want to be at least one floor up.

There was a restaurant on the second floor of the hotel directly across from the Grand. Instead of taking the stairs down, Grissom continued straight ahead-the pedway co

The man staring intently through the plate glass at the street outside hardly seemed to notice when Grissom sat down at his table. It took him a second to realize he wasn’t alone, and when he turned to stare at his visitor, Grissom saw that he was sweating profusely and seemed to be having trouble focusing.

“Hello, LW,” said Grissom.

The man Grissom had known as Roberto Quadros smiled. He’d shaved off his white beard and gotten rid of t he heavy-framed glasses; his hair was now a glossy black. He wore shorts and a T-shirt with the name of a casino on it. “Excuse me?” he said. His Brazilian accent was completely gone. “I think you have me confused with-”

“Stop. It’s over,” said Grissom. “The anisomorphal has been removed from the ventilation ducts. The fountain has been deactivated. No one else is going to die.”

LW met Grissom’s eyes. “Are you so sure?” he asked softly. “This isn’t like you, Grissom. Confronting the accused in a noncontrolled situation… Aren’t you afraid I might pull out a gun and shoot you?”

“I considered that,” Grissom admitted. “But I thought it highly unlikely; it just doesn’t fit your profile. Also, I didn’t come alone-there are police stationed at the exits.”

“And a sniper, no doubt. In case I make any sudden movements.”

Grissom shrugged. “I asked to be able to talk to you first.”

LW chuckled, which turned into a wheeze. “Why?”

“Because no matter how careful a scientist is, there’s always a difference between observing a specimen in captivity and one in the wild.”

LW nodded and took a sip of his glass of water, his hand trembling. “Ah. Very good, Dr. Grissom, very good. I can respect that. You think you can get answers now that later will be unavailable. Perhaps so. You may try, in any case. The longer our conversation, th e greater the delay in my incarceration, after all.”

“You don’t seem well.”

“A touch of food poisoning, I suspect. This damn town and its unsanitary troughs… I despise this place, Dr. Grissom. Bread and circuses covered in sparkles and doused with alcohol. The masses herded from one glittering spectacle to another, all of it as devoid of meaning or substance as a swarm of locusts mindlessly devouring a field of wheat. Ants who play at being grasshoppers for a weekend, then return to their little cubicles in their concrete anthills.”