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With a loud bang Baker dropped the Yellow Pages on the table. "D.C. only?" He flipped them open. C. P. Ardell walked over to the table and began looking over the tactical agent's shoulder.
Parker considered the question. "It's the District he's extorting, not Virginia or Maryland. I'd stick to D.C."
"Agreed," Lukas said. "Also we should eliminate any place with 'Hotel' first in the name, like 'Hotel New York.' Because of the placement of the letters on the envelope. And no I
Cage and Hardy joined C. P. and Baker. They all bent over the phone book. They started circling possibilities, discussing whether this choice or that was logical.
After ten minutes they had a list of twenty-two hotels. Cage jotted them down in his own precise handwriting and handed the list to Jerry Baker.
Parker suggested, "Before you send anybody there, call and find out if any of the functions tonight are for diplomats or politicians. We can eliminate those."
"Why?" Baker asked.
Lukas responded, "Armed bodyguards, right?"
Parker nodded. "And Secret Service. The unsub would've avoided those."
"Right," Baker said and hurried out of the room, opening his cell phone.
But even eliminating those, how many locations would remain? Parker wondered.
A lot. Too many.
Too many possible solutions…
Three hawks have been killing a farmer's chickens…
7
My fellow citizens…
They powdered his forehead, they stuck a plug in his ear, they turned on the blinding lights.
Through the glare, Mayor Jerry Ke
There was his wife, Claire. There was his press secretary. There was Wendell Jefferies.
My fellow citizens, Ke
One of the station's senior producers, a thin man with a trim, white beard, came up to him and said, "I'll give you a seven-second countdown. I'll go silent after four and use my fingers. At one, look into the camera. You've done this before."
"I've done this before."
The producer glanced down and saw no papers in front of Ke
"It's in my head."
The producer gave a brief chuckle. "Nobody does that nowadays." Ke
… responsible for this terrible crime. And to that person out there, I am asking you please, please… no, just one please… I'm asking you please to reestablish contact so that we can continue our dialog. On this, the last day of a difficult year, let's put the violence behind us and work together so that there'll be no more deaths. Please contact me personally… no… Please call me personally or get a message to me…
"Five minutes," the producer called.
Ke
"Nothing. Not a word."
Ke
Ke
"It's a problem," Wendy Jefferies conceded. "I've called the press conference but half the stations and papers aren't sending anybody. They're camped out at Ninth Street, waiting for somebody at the Bureau to talk to them."
"It's like the city doesn't exist, it's like I'm sitting on my hands."
"That's sort of what it's looking like."
The producer started toward him but the mayor gave him a polite smile. "In a minute." The man veered back into the shadows.
"So?" Ke
"Time to call in some markers," Jefferies whispered. "I can do it. Surgically. I know how to handle it."
"I don't-"
"I don't want to do it this way either," Jefferies said fiercely, never one to glove his advice to his boss, "but we don't have any choice. You heard the commentary on WTGN."
Of course he had. The station, popular with about a half-million listeners in the metro area, had just aired an editorial about how, during his campaign, Ke
Jefferies repeated, "We really don't have any choice, Jerry."
The mayor pondered this for a minute. As usual, the aide was right. Ke
His aide said, "This is the time for hardball, Jerry. There's too much at stake."
"Okay, do what you have to." He didn't bother to add, Be careful. He knew Jefferies would.
"Two minutes," came a voice from above.
Ke
… in the spirit of peace, on this last day of the year, contact me so that we might come to some understanding… Please…
Jefferies bent close to the mayor's ear. "Remember," he whispered, waving his hand around the TV studio, "if he's listening, the killer, this might be the end of it. Maybe he'll go for the money and they'll get him."
Before Ke
The Digger's got a new shopping bag.
All glossy red and Christmasy, covered with pictures of puppies wearing ribbons 'round their necks. The Digger bought the bag at Hallmark. It's the sort of bag he might be proud of though he isn't sure what proud means. He hasn't been sure of a lot of things since the bullet careened through his skull, burning away some of his spongy gray cells and leaving others.
Fu
Fu
The Digger's sitting in a comfy chair in his lousy motel, with a glass of water and the empty bowl of soup at his side.
He's watching TV.
Something is on the screen. It's a commercial. Like a commercial he remembers watching after the bullet tapped a hole above his eye and did a scorchy little dance in his crane crane cranium. (Somebody described the bullet that way. He doesn't remember who. Maybe his friend, the man who tells him things. Probably was.)