Frenzy

There was an interesting man in the background of one of the photographs, wearing an apron and wielding what looked like a large spatula.

“That fella,” he said, to Ida Tucker, who had just entered the living room with glasses of lemonade on a tray. “He looks familiar.”

“That handsome man in the background by the lake? That’s my nephew on my mother’s side, Rubin Hasabedo. He was one of the most famous bullfighters in Spain.”

And my nephew on my father’s side invented the thing that is better than sliced bread. “Not him,” Qui

“Oh, him.” A glass rattled faintly against the metal tray, and Ida Tucker seemed to miss a beat. Like a tightrope walker shifting weight slightly the wrong way, then immediately regaining balance and resuming the seemingly casual stroll along the wire.

She began to circulate with the tray, passing out the frosted glasses. “That’s Robert Kingdom, Jr.,” she said, knowing he’d already identified the man.

“You mean Winston Castle,” Qui

“That’s what he’s calling himself now, I suppose. He loves medieval things. Mostly anything British.” She helped herself to the remaining glass, sipped from it, and laid the tray aside on a folded newspaper on the coffee table. “In fact, anything British. Heaven knows why.”

“He has a mustache now. And he’s put on a little weight.”

“He was always robust.”

“You say he’s a family member?”

“Oh, I think we both know the answer to that one. It’s yes and no. Winston was taken in as a ward of the state. He didn’t stay long. He was a restless boy, living in a make-believe world of his own. Kingdom was a good name for him. Castle is, too, I suppose. Doesn’t his restaurant in New York resemble a medieval castle?”

“Very much so.”

“So vedy, vedy British.”

“I’m surprised you didn’t drop in and see him while you were in town.”

“Well, I wasn’t exactly there for a happy occasion,” Ida said. “I didn’t have time for social calls.”

“Too bad you didn’t have a fortnight.”

“We were never all that close, really. Not bad blood, though. Just distance. People do grow apart for no reason other than geographical distance.”

“It can make the heart grow fonder, too,” Qui

“I suppose. But I often suspect those noxious little homilies. May I offer you more lemonade?”

Qui

“If anything of interest occurs, we’ll keep you apprised,” Joel Price said, struggling to his feet with an old man’s hesitancy and obviously sore lower back.

Qui

Qui

On the drive back to Columbus, Qui

The Band-Aid disguise. Where did he learn that?

Winston Castle and Ida Tucker were playing in a dream game that had become deadly. A game that had been joined by a serial killer who murdered for more than mere profit.

Not that the killer wouldn’t pursue potential profit if it passed before his eyes. It was valuable to him in the way of monopoly money. A prize and a leg up in the game. But nothing more.

Qui

“I hope yon Far Castle knight’s face has healed,” she said as they took the cutoff to the airport.

“Not me,” Qui

Jerry Lido had some information for Qui

There had never been a Spanish bullfighter named Rubin Hasabedo, famous or otherwise.

Possibly, Qui

Along with a lot of other inventions. Handsome Rubin Hasabedo probably had never been within ten feet of a bull. He might have been Photoshopped from an old menswear catalog into the group photo. Nicely done. Until you thought about it, very convincing.

Olé! Qui

50

Prentis, 1995

Dwayne waited for a proper time, then he determined to get out of town when few people noticed him leaving. It was spring break. Honey wasn’t mentioned much in the news these days. Especially with the college kids rolling in and partying all over Florida. Already, an Illinois sophomore in Clearwater had fallen to his death from a third-floor balcony while drunk and convinced he could leap to the next balcony. He had boldly a

Nobody had seemed able or willing to talk him out of it. As the photos showed, he only missed by a few feet, which made for even more public interest and tons of news coverage for a subject other than Honey.

For someone so financially secure, Dwayne didn’t have a lot of worldly goods that weren’t in real estate or in trust. So it was easy to pack some large suitcases, a few cardboard boxes, and drive to the opposite coast, and then north.

It occurred to him one su

Under the fold, as they say in newspaper biz. Dwayne’s women wouldn’t give him any trouble once they were under the fold.

Just outside St. Augustine, he stayed in a motel with a red tile roof. It was designed to look old but was actually built only a few years ago. Its king-sized bed was amazingly comfortable and conducive to dreams. He thought he heard the sea whispering to him that night, but couldn’t be sure. In the morning, he drove into town and located the main library.

It was easy to research New York City, and easy to understand how people could lose themselves in such a place.

Or find themselves.

He took the next several days driving to the City, skirting the East Coast and taking his time. For an hour in the Carolinas the killer drove through heavy rain, and occasional hail the size of peas. During a break in the downpour, he stopped for gas and was told there were hurricane warnings beyond Cape Fear. He ignored the warnings. He was from Florida and gave not a damn for hurricanes.

During the next half hour, trees bent with the wind and shed some of their leaves and small branches, but there was no hurricane. A man’s voice on the car radio said the weather on that part of the coast had been downgraded to a tropical storm. He sounded disappointed.

When the killer arrived, he was amazed. Every direction he looked was sensory overload. Was that a celebrity he’d just walked past on the sidewalk, or was he simply someone who resembled a person Dwayne had met along the road? Faces seemed to glide past him. There were celebrities on signs, billboards, and almost certainly in the throngs of people on the wide sidewalks. Odd that in the city of anonymity, a person could become famous overnight.

There was media of every kind here, all over the place. It struck Dwayne that this was the ideal city in which to practice and perfect his craft. There was an endless supply of potential victims.