Mr. Mercedes

‘And we’re going to have fun, right? Best time ever, right? Let me hear your okay.’

‘OKAAAYYYY!’

Satisfied, Tanya leads them toward the MAC. It’s a long walk across hot macadam, but none of them seems to mind. Tanya looks for the bald man in the wheelchair and spies him making his way toward the back of the handicapped line. That one is much shorter, but it still makes her sad to see all those broken folks. Then the wheelchairs start to move. They’re letting the handicapped people in first, and she thinks that’s a good idea. Let all or at least most of them get settled in their own section before the stampede begins.

As Tanya’s party reaches the end of the shortest line of abled people (which is still very long), she watches the ski

Poor man, she thinks again, and sends up a brief prayer to God, thanking Him that her own two kids are all right.

‘Mom?’ Barbara says.

‘Yes, honey?’

‘Best time ever, right?’

Tanya Robinson squeezes her daughter’s hand. ‘You bet.’

A girl starts singing ‘Kisses on the Midway’ in a clear, sweet voice. ‘The sun, baby, the sun shines when you look at me … The moon, baby, the moon glows when you’re next to me …’

More girls join in. ‘Your love, your touch, just a little is never enough … I want to love you my way …’

Soon the song is floating up into the warm evening air a thousand voices strong. Tanya is happy to add her voice, and after the CD-a-thon coming from Barbara’s room these last two weeks, she knows all the words.

Impulsively, she bends down and kisses the top of her daughter’s head.

Best time ever, she thinks.

28

Hodges and his junior Watsons stand in Brady’s basement control room, looking at the row of silent computers.

‘Chaos first,’ Jerome says. ‘Then darkness. Right?’

Hodges thinks, It sounds like something out of the Book of Revelation.

‘I think so,’ Holly says. ‘At least that’s the order she had them in.’ To Hodges, she says, ‘She was listening, see? I bet she was listening a lot more than he knew she was listening.’ She turns back to Jerome. ‘One thing. Very important. Don’t waste time if you get chaos to turn them on.’

‘Right. The suicide program. Only what if I get nervous and my voice goes all high and squeaky like Mickey Mouse?’

She starts to reply, then sees the look in his eye. ‘Hardy-har-har.’ But she smiles in spite of herself. ‘Go on, Jerome. Be Brady Hartsfield.’

He only has to say chaos once. The computers flash on, and the numbers start descending.

‘Darkness!’

The numbers continue to count down.

‘Don’t shout,’ Holly says. ‘Jeez.’

16. 15. 14.

‘Darkness.’

‘I think you’re too low again,’ Hodges says, trying not to sound as nervous as he feels.

12. 11.

Jerome wipes his mouth. ‘D-darkness.’

‘Mushmouth,’ Holly observes. Perhaps not helpfully.

8. 7. 6.

‘Darkness.’

5.

The countdown disappears. Jerome lets out a gusty sigh of relief. What replaces the numbers is a series of color photographs of men in old-timey Western clothes, shooting and being shot. One has been frozen as he and his horse crash through a plate glass window.

‘What kind of screensavers are those?’ Jerome asks.

Hodges points at Brady’s Number Five. ‘That’s William Holden, so I guess they must be scenes from a movie.’

‘The Wild Bunch,’ Holly says. ‘Directed by Sam Peckinpah. I only watched it once. It gave me nightmares.’

Scenes from a movie, Hodges thinks, looking at the grimaces and gunfire. Also scenes from inside Brady Hartsfield’s head. ‘Now what?’

Jerome says, ‘Holly, you start at the first one. I’ll start at the last one. We’ll meet in the middle.’

‘Sounds like a plan,’ Holly says. ‘Mr Hodges, can I smoke in here?’

‘Why the hell not?’ he says, and goes over to the cellar stairs to sit and watch them work. As he does, he rubs absently at the hollow just below his left collarbone. That a

29

The air conditioning in the MAC’s lobby strikes Brady like a slap, causing his sweaty neck and arms to break out in gooseflesh. The main part of the corridor is empty, because they haven’t let in the regular concertgoers yet, but the right side, where there are velvet ropes and a sign reading HANDICAPPED ACCESS, is lined with wheelchairs that are moving slowly toward the checkpoint and the auditorium beyond.

Brady doesn’t like how this is playing out.

He had assumed that everyone would smoosh in at the same time, as they had at the Cleveland Indians game he’d gone to when he was eighteen, and the security guys would be overwhelmed, just giving everyone a cursory look and then passing them on. The concert staff letting in the crips and gooniebirds first is something he should have foreseen, but didn’t.

There are at least a dozen men and women in blue uniforms with brown patches on their shoulders reading MAC SECURITY, and for the time being they have nothing to do but check out the handicapped folks rolling slowly past them. Brady notes with growing coldness that although they’re not checking the storage pockets on all the wheelchairs, they are indeed checking the pockets on some of them – every third or fourth, and sometimes two in a row. When the crips clear security, ushers dressed in ’Round Here tee-shirts are directing them toward the auditorium’s handicapped section.

He always knew he might be stopped at the security checkpoint, but had believed he could still take plenty of ’Round Here’s young fans with him if that happened. Another bad assumption. Flying glass might kill a few of those closest to the doors, but their bodies would also serve as a blast-shield.

Shit, he thinks. Still – I only got eight at City Center. I’m bound to do better than that.

He rolls forward, the picture of Frankie in his lap. The edge of the frame rests against the toggle-switch. The minute one of those security goons bends to look into the pockets on the sides of the wheelchair, Brady will press a hand down on the picture, the yellow lamp will turn green, and electricity will flow to the lead azide detonators nestled in the homemade explosive.

There are only a dozen wheelchairs ahead of him. Chilled air blows down on his hot skin. He thinks of City Center, and how the Trelawney bitch’s heavy car jounced and rocked as it ran over the people after he hit them and knocked them down. As if it were having an orgasm. He remembers the rubbery air inside the mask, and how he screamed with delight and triumph. Screamed until he was so hoarse he could hardly speak at all and had to tell his mother and Tones Frobisher at DE that he had come down with laryngitis.

Now there’s just ten wheelchairs between him and the checkpoint. One of the guards – probably the head honcho, since he’s the oldest and the only one wearing a hat – takes a backpack from a young girl who’s as bald as Brady himself. He explains something to her, and gives her a claim-check.

They’re going to catch me, Brady thinks coldly. They are, so get ready to die.

He is ready. Has been for some time now.

Eight wheelchairs between him and the checkpoint. Seven. Six. It’s like the countdown on his computers.

Then the singing starts outside, muffled at first.

‘The sun, baby, the sun shines when you look at me … The moon, baby …’

When they hit the chorus, the sound swells to that of a cathedral choir: girls singing at the top of their lungs.

‘I WANT TO LOVE YOU MY WAY … WE’LL DRIVE THE BEACHSIDE HIGHWAY …’